Chapter 45.—Answer to This Argument: The Apostle Says We All Sinned in One.

Now, there is an answer for him to all these questions given by the apostle, who censures neither the infant’s will, which is not yet matured in him for sinning, nor marriage, which, as such, has not only its institution, but its blessing also, from God; nor parents, so far as they are parents, who are united together properly and lawfully for the procreation of children; but he says, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for in him all have sinned.”230    Rom. v. 12. Now, if these persons would only receive this statement with catholic hearts and ears, they would not have rebellious feelings against the grace and faith of Christ, nor would they vainly endeavour to convert to their own particular and heretical sense these very clear and manifest words of the apostle, when they assert that the purport of the passage is to this effect: that Adam was the first to sin, and that any one who wished afterwards to commit sin found an example for sinning in him; so that sin, you must know, did not pass from this one upon all men by birth, but by the imitation of this one. Whereas it is certain that if the apostle meant this imitation to be here understood, he would have said that sin had entered into the world and passed upon all men, not by one man, but rather by the devil. For of the devil it is written: “They that are on his side do imitate him.”231    Wisd. ii. 24. He used the phrase “by one man,” from whom the generation of men, of course, had its beginning, in order to show us that original sin had passed upon all men by generation.

45. Ad omnia ista huic respondet Apostolus, qui neque voluntatem arguit parvuli, quae propria in illo nondum est ad peccandum; neque nuptias in quantum nuptiae sunt, quae habent a Deo non solum institutionem, verum etiam benedictionem; neque parentes, in quantum parentes sunt, invicem licite atque legitime ad procreandos filios conjugati : sed, Per unum, inquit, hominem peccatum in hunc mundum intravit, et per peccatum mors; et ita in omnes homines pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt. Quod isti si catholicis auribus mentibusque perciperent, adversus fidem gratiamque Christi rebelles animos non haberent, neque conarentur inaniter, ad suum proprium et haereticum sensum haec apostolica verba tam dilucida et tam manifesta convertere, asserentes hoc ideo dictum esse, quod Adam peccaverit primum, in quo de caetero quisquis peccare voluit, peccandi invenit exemplum; ut peccatum scilicet non generatione ab illo uno in omnes homines, sed illius unius imitatione transiret. Cum profecto, si Apostolus imitationem hic intelligi voluisset, non per unum hominem, sed per diabolum potius in hunc mundum peccatum intrasse, et per omnes homines pertransisse dixisset. De diabolo quippe scriptum est, Imitantur autem eum, qui sunt ex parte ipsius (Sap. II, 25). Sed ideo per unum hominem dixit, a quo generatio utique, hominum coepit, ut per generationem doceret isse per omnes originale peccatum.