Chapter 50.—The Rise and Origin of Evil. The Exorcism and Exsufflation of Infants, a Primitive Christian Rite.

As to the passage, which he seemed to himself to indite in a pious vein, as it were, “If nature is of God, there cannot be original sin in it,” would not another person seem even to him to give a still more pious turn to it, thus: “If nature is of God, there cannot arise any sin in it?” And yet this is not true. The Manicheans, indeed, meant to assert this, and they endeavoured to steep in all sorts of evil the very nature of God itself, and not His creature, made out of nothing. For evil arose in nothing else than what was good—not, however, the supreme and unchangeable good which is God’s nature, but that which was made out of nothing by the wisdom of God. This, then, is the reason why man is claimed for a divine work; for he would not be man unless he were made by the operation of God. But evil would not exist in infants, if evil had not been committed by the wilfulness of the first man, and original sin derived from a nature thus corrupted. It is not true, then, as he puts it, “He is completely a Manichean who maintains original sin;” but rather, he is completely a Pelagian who does not believe in original sin. For it is not simply from the time when the pestilent opinions of Manichæus began to grow that in the Church of God infants about to be baptized were for the first time exorcised with exsufflation,—which ceremonial was intended to show that they were not removed into the kingdom of Christ without first being delivered from the power of darkness;245    Col. i. 13. nor is it in the books of Manichæus that we read how “the Son of man come to seek and to save that which was lost,”246    Luke xix. 10. or how “by one man sin entered into the world,”247    Rom. v. 12. with those other similar passages which we have quoted above; or how God “visits the sins of the fathers upon the children;”248    Ex. xx. 5. or how it is written in the Psalm, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;”249    Ps. li. 5. or again, how “man was made like unto vanity: his days pass away like a shadow;”250    Ps. cxliv. 4. or again, “behold, Thou hast made my days old, and my existence as nothing before Thee; nay, every man living is altogether vanity;”251    Ps. xxxix. 5. or how the apostle says, “every creature was made subject to vanity;”252    Rom. viii. 20. or how it is written in the book of Ecclesiastes, “vanity of vanities; all is vanity: what profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?”253    Eccles. i. 2, 3. and in the book of Ecclesiasticus, “a heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam from the day that they go out of their mother’s womb to the day that they return to the mother of all things;”254    Ecclus. xl. 1. or how again the apostle writes, “in Adam all die;”255    1 Cor. xv. 22. or how holy Job says, when speaking about his own sins, “for man that is born of a woman is short-lived and full of wrath: as the flower of grass, so does he fall; and he departs like a shadow, nor shall he stay. Hast Thou not taken account even of him, and caused him to enter into judgment in Thy sight? For who shall be pure from uncleanness? Not even one, even if his life should be but of one day upon the earth.”256    Job xiv. 1–5. Now when he speaks of uncleanness here, the mere perusal of the passage is enough to show that he meant sin to be understood. It is plain from the words, of what he is speaking. The same phrase and sense occur in the prophet Zechariah, in the place where “the filthy garments” are removed from off the high priest, and it is said to him, “I have taken away thy sins.”257    Zech. iii. 4. Well now, I rather think that all these passages, and others of like import, which point to the fact that man is born in sin and under the curse, are not to be read among the dark recesses of the Manicheans, but in the sunshine of catholic truth.

50. Quod autem iste sibi quasi religiose dicere visus est, «Si natura per Deum est, non potest in ea esse originale malum:» nonne religiosius sibi alius videtur dicere, Si natura per Deum est, non potest in ea oriri ullum malum? Et tamen falsum est: hoc enim Manichaei asserere voluerunt, et non creaturam Dei factam de nihilo, sed ipsam naturam Dei malis omnibus implere conati sunt. Non enim ortum est malum nisi in bono, nec tamen summo et immutabili, quod est natura Dei, sed facto de nihilo per sapientiam Dei. Est itaque per quod homo divino operi vindicetur; quia non esset homo, nisi divino opere crearetur: malum autem non esset in parvulis, nisi voluntate primi hominis peccaretur, et origine vitiata peccatum originale traheretur. Non ergo sicut iste ait, «perfecte Manichaeus est, qui malum originale defendit:» sed perfecte Pelagianus est, qui malum originale non credit. Neque enim ex quo esse coepit Manichaei pestilentiosa doctrina, ex illo coeperunt in Ecclesia Dei parvuli baptizandi exorcizari et exsufflari, ut ipsis mysteriis ostenderetur non eos in regnum Christi, nisi erutos a tenebrarum potestate, transferri (Coloss. I, 13): aut in libris Manichaei legitur, quod venerit Filius hominis quaerere et salvare quod perierat (Luc. XIX, 10): aut quod per unum hominem peccatum in hunc mundum intravit (Rom. V, 12); et caetera ad eamdem sententiam pertinentia, quae supra commemoravimus: aut quod reddit Deus peccata patrum in filios (Exod. XX, 5): aut quod in Psalmo 0466 scriptum est, Ego in iniquitatibus conceptus sum, et in peccatis mater mea in utero me aluit (Psal. L, 7): aut, Homo vanitati similis factus est, dies ejus velut umbra praetereunt (Psal. CXLIII, 4): aut, Ecce veteres posuisti dies meos, et substantia mea quasi nihilum ante te; verumtamen universa vanitas, omnis homo vivens (Psal. XXXVIII, 6): aut quod Apostolus dicit, Omnis creatura vanitati subjecta est (Rom. VIII, 20): aut in libro Ecclesiastae, Vanitas vanitatum , et omnia vanitas: quae abundantia est homini in omni labore suo quem ipse laborat sub sole (Eccle. I, 2, 3)? aut in libro Ecclesiastico, Jugum grave super filios Adam a die exitus de ventre matris eorum, usque in diem sepulturae in matrem omnium (Eccli. XL, 1): aut quod dicit Apostolus, In Adam omnes moriuntur (I Cor. XV, 22): aut quod dicit sanctus Job, ubi de peccatis suis loquitur, Homo enim natus ex muliere, brevis vitae et plenus iracundiae, sicut flos feni decidit; fugit autem sicut umbra, et non stabit: nonne et hujus curam fecisti, et hunc fecisti intrare in conspectu tuo in judicium? Quis enim erit mundus a sordibus? Ne unus quidem, etiam si unius diei fuerit vita ejus super terram (Job. XIV, 1-5, sec LXX). Quas enim dixerit sordes, quia peccata intelligi voluit, ipsa lectio indicat, ubi prorsus unde loquatur apparet: unde est et illud apud prophetam Zachariam, ubi aufertur a sacerdote vestis sordida, et dicitur ei, Ecce abstuli peccata tua (Zach. III, 4). Puto quod ista omnia, et caetera hujusmodi, quae indicant omnem hominem sub peccato et maledicto nasci, non leguntur in tenebris Manichaeorum, sed in luce Catholicorum.