Chapter 57 [XXXIV.]—The Great Sin of the First Man.

Now observe what follows, as he goes on to say: “If, before sin, God created a source from which men should be born, but the devil a source from which parents were disturbed, then beyond a doubt holiness must be ascribed to those that are born, and guilt to those that produce. Since, however, this would be a most manifest condemnation of marriage; remove, I pray you, this view from the midst of the churches, and really believe that all things were made by Jesus Christ, and that without Him nothing was made.”277    John i. 3. He so speaks here, as if he would make us say, that there is a something in man’s substance which was created by the devil. The devil persuaded evil as a sin; he did not create it as a nature. No doubt he persuaded nature for man is nature; and therefore by his persuasion he corrupted it. He who wounds a limb does not, of course, create it, but he injures it.278    Vexat. Another reading has vitiat, “corrupts.” Those wounds, indeed, which are inflicted on the body produce lameness in a limb, or difficulty of motion; but they do not affect the virtue whereby a man becomes righteous: that wound, however, which has the name of sin, wounds the very life, which was being righteously lived. This wound was at that fatal moment of the fall inflicted by the devil to a vastly wider and deeper extent than are the sins which are known amongst men. Whence it came to pass, that our nature having then and there been deteriorated by that great sin of the first man, not only was made a sinner, but also generates sinners; and yet the very weakness, under which the virtue of a holy life has drooped and died, is not really nature, but corruption; precisely as a bad state of health is not a bodily substance or nature, but disorder; very often, indeed, if not always, the ailing character of parents is in a certain way implanted, and reappears in the bodies of their children.

CAPUT XXXIV.

57. Jam quod sequitur et adjungit, attende. Si ante peccatum, inquit, per Deum creatum est unde homines nascerentur, per diabolum autem unde parentes commoverentur, adscribetur sine dubio sanctitas nascentibus et culpa generantibus. Quod quia manifestissime nuptias damnat, amoveto hunc sensum, precor, de Ecclesiarum medio, et vere credito quia per Jesum Christum facta sunt omnia, et sine ipso factum est nihil (Joan. I, 3). Ita hoc dicit, quasi nos dicamus, per diabolum aliquid substantiae creatum in hominibus. Persuasit malum diabolus tanquam peccatum, non creavit tanquam naturam. Sed plane naturae persuasit, quia homo natura est, et ideo eam persuadendo vitiavit. Qui enim vulnerat, non creat membra, sed vexat . Sed vulnera quae corporibus infliguntur 0471 , membra faciunt claudicare, vel aegre moveri, non eam virtutem qua justus est homo: vulnus autem, quod peccatum vocatur, ipsam vitam vulnerat, qua recte vivebatur. Hoc autem valde tunc majus atque altius diabolus inflixit, quam sunt ista hominibus nota peccata. Unde illo magno primi hominis peccato, natura ibi nostra in deterius commutata, non solum facta est peccatrix, verum etiam generat peccatores; et tamen ipse languor quo bene vivendi virtus periit, non est utique natura, sed vitium: sicut certe mala in corpore valetudo, non est ulla substantia vel natura, sed vitium; et licet non semper, tamen plerumque malae valetudines parentum ingenerantur quodammodo, et apparent in corporibus filiorum.