A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants

 Chapter 1 [I.]—Introductory, in the Shape of an Inscription to His Friend Marcellinus.

 Chapter 2 [II.]—If Adam Had Not Sinned, He Would Never Have Died.

 Chapter 3 [III.]—It is One Thing to Be Mortal, Another Thing to Be Subject to Death.

 Chapter 4 [IV.]—Even Bodily Death is from Sin.

 Now previous to the change into the incorruptible state which is promised in the resurrection of the saints, the body could be mortal (capable of dyin

 Chapter 6 [VI.]—How It is that the Body Dead Because of Sin.

 Chapter 7 [VII.]—The Life of the Body the Object of Hope, the Life of the Spirit Being a Prelude to It.

 Chapter 8 [VIII.]—Bodily Death from Adam’s Sin.

 Chapter 9 [IX.]—Sin Passes on to All Men by Natural Descent, and Not Merely by Imitation.

 Chapter 10.—The Analogy of Grace.

 Again, in the clause which follows, “In which all have sinned,” how cautiously, rightly, and unambiguously is the statement expressed! For if you unde

 Chapter 12.—The Law Could Not Take Away Sin.

 Chapter 13 [XI.]—Meaning of the Apostle’s Phrase “The Reign of Death.”

 Chapter 14.—Superabundance of Grace.

 Chapter 15 [XII.]—The One Sin Common to All Men.

 Chapter 16 [XIII.]—How Death is by One and Life by One.

 Chapter 17.—Whom Sinners Imitate.

 Chapter 18.—Only Christ Justifies.

 [XIV.] Now when he says in reference to Christ, “By the justification of one,” he has more expressly stated our doctrine than if he were to say, “By t

 Chapter 19 [XV.]—Sin is from Natural Descent, as Righteousness is from Regeneration How “All” Are Sinners Through Adam, and “All” Are Just Through Ch

 Chapter 20.—Original Sin Alone is Contracted by Natural Birth.

 It may therefore be correctly affirmed, that such infants as quit the body without being baptized will be involved in the mildest condemnation of all.

 Chapter 22 [XVII.]—To Infants Personal Sin is Not to Be Attributed.

 But those persons raise a question, and appear to adduce an argument deserving of consideration and discussion, who say that new-born infants receive

 Chapter 24 [XIX.]—Infants Saved as Sinners.

 Chapter 25.—Infants are Described as Believers and as Penitents. Sins Alone Separate Between God and Men.

 Chapter 26 [XX.]—No One, Except He Be Baptized, Rightly Comes to the Table of the Lord.

 Chapter 27.—Infants Must Feed on Christ.

 Chapter 28.—Baptized Infants, of the Faithful Unbaptized, of the Lost.

 Chapter 29 [XXI.]—It is an Inscrutable Mystery Why Some are Saved, and Others Not.

 Chapter 30.—Why One is Baptized and Another Not, Not Otherwise Inscrutable.

 Chapter 31 [XXII.]—He Refutes Those Who Suppose that Souls, on Account of Sins Committed in Another State, are Thrust into Bodies Suited to Their Meri

 Chapter 32.—The Case of Certain Idiots and Simpletons.

 Chapter 33.—Christ is the Saviour and Redeemer Even of Infants.

 [XXIII.] His remedial advent is needed by those that are sick, not by the whole: for He came not to call the righteous, but sinners and into His king

 Chapter 34 [XXIV.]—Baptism is Called Salvation, and the Eucharist, Life, by the Christians of Carthage.

 Chapter 35.—Unless Infants are Baptized, They Remain in Darkness.

 [XXV.] So that infants, unless they pass into the number of believers through the sacrament which was divinely instituted for this purpose, will undou

 Chapter 36.—Infants Not Enlightened as Soon as They are Born.

 Chapter 37.—How God Enlightens Every Person.

 Chapter 38.—What “Lighteth” Means.

 Chapter 39 [XXVI.]—The Conclusion Drawn, that All are Involved in Original Sin.

 Chapter 40 [XXVII.]—A Collection of Scripture Testimonies. From the Gospels.

 Chapter 41.—From the First Epistle of Peter.

 Chapter 42.—From the First Epistle of John.

 Chapter 43.—From the Epistle to the Romans.

 Chapter 44.—From the Epistles to the Corinthians.

 Chapter 45.—From the Epistle to the Galatians.

 Chapter 46.—From the Epistle to the Ephesians.

 Chapter 47.—From the Epistle to the Colossians.

 Chapter 48.—From the Epistles to Timothy.

 Chapter 49.—From the Epistle to Titus.

 Chapter 50.—From the Epistle to the Hebrews.

 Chapter 51.—From the Apocalypse.

 Chapter 52.—From the Acts of the Apostles.

 Chapter 53.—The Utility of the Books of the Old Testament.

 Chapter 54.—By the Sacrifices of the Old Testament, Men Were Convinced of Sins and Led to the Saviour.

 Chapter 55 [XXVIII.]—He Concludes that All Men Need the Death of Christ, that They May Be Saved. Unbaptized Infants Will Be Involved in the Condemnati

 Chapter 56.—No One is Reconciled to God Except Through Christ.

 Chapter 57 [XXIX.]—The Good of Marriage Four Different Cases of the Good and the Evil Use of Matrimony.

 Chapter 58 [XXX.]—In What Respect the Pelagians Regarded Baptism as Necessary for Infants.

 Chapter 59.—The Context of Their Chief Text.

 Chapter 60 [XXXI.]—Christ, the Head and the Body Owing to the Union of the Natures in the Person of Christ, He Both Remained in Heaven, and Walked Ab

 Chapter 61 [XXXII.]—The Serpent Lifted Up in the Wilderness Prefigured Christ Suspended on the Cross Even Infants Themselves Poisoned by the Serpent’

 Chapter 62 [XXXIII.]—No One Can Be Reconciled to God, Except by Christ.

 Chapter 63 [XXXIV.]—The Form, or Rite, of Baptism. Exorcism.

 Chapter 64.—A Twofold Mistake Respecting Infants.

 Chapter 65 [XXXV.]—In Infants There is No Sin of Their Own Commission.

 Chapter 66.—Infants’ Faults Spring from Their Sheer Ignorance.

 Chapter 67 [XXXVI.]—On the Ignorance of Infants, and Whence It Arises.

 Chapter 68 [XXXVII.]—If Adam Was Not Created of Such a Character as that in Which We are Born, How is It that Christ, Although Free from Sin, Was Born

 Chapter 69 [XXXVIII.]—The Ignorance and the Infirmity of an Infant.

 Chapter 70 [XXXIX.]—How Far Sin is Done Away in Infants by Baptism, Also in Adults, and What Advantage Results Therefrom.

 Book II.

 Chapter 1 [I.]—What Has Thus Far Been Dwelt On And What is to Be Treated in This Book.

 Chapter 2 [II.]—Some Persons Attribute Too Much to the Freedom of Man’s Will Ignorance and Infirmity.

 Chapter 3 [III.]—In What Way God Commands Nothing Impossible. Works of Mercy, Means of Wiping Out Sins.

 Chapter 4 [IV.]—Concupiscence, How Far in Us The Baptized are Not Injured by Concupiscence, But Only by Consent Therewith.

 Chapter 5 [V.]—The Will of Man Requires the Help of God.

 Chapter 6.—Wherein the Pharisee Sinned When He Thanked God To God’s Grace Must Be Added the Exertion of Our Own Will.

 Chapter 7 [VI.]—Four Questions on the Perfection of Righteousness: (1.) Whether a Man Can Be Without Sin in This Life.

 Chapter 8 [VII.]—(2) Whether There is in This World a Man Without Sin.

 Chapter 9.—The Beginning of Renewal Resurrection Called Regeneration They are the Sons of God Who Lead Lives Suitable to Newness of Life.

 Chapter 10 [VIII.]—Perfection, When to Be Realized.

 In vain, then, do some of them argue: “If a sinner begets a sinner, so that the guilt of original sin must be done away in his infant son by his recei

 Chapter 12 [X.]—He Reconciles Some Passages of Scripture.

 Chapter 13.—A Subterfuge of the Pelagians.

 Chapter 14. —Job Was Not Without Sin.

 Chapter 15.—Carnal Generation Condemned on Account of Original Sin.

 Chapter 16—Job Foresaw that Christ Would Come to Suffer The Way of Humility in Those that are Perfect.

 [XI.] And what sort of rebuke is this,—which, moreover, is understood to proceed from the person of Christ our Lord? He re-counts to him all the divin

 That illustrious testimony of God, therefore, in which Job is commended, is not contrary to the passage in which it is said, “In Thy sight shall no ma

 Chapter 18 [XIII.]—Perfect Human Righteousness is Imperfect.

 Chapter 19.—Zacharias and Elisabeth, Sinners.

 Chapter 20.—Paul Worthy to Be the Prince of the Apostles, and Yet a Sinner.

 Chapter 21 [XIV.]—All Righteous Men Sinners.

 Chapter 22 [XV.]—An Objection of the Pelagians Perfection is Relative He is Rightly Said to Be Perfect in Righteousness Who Has Made Much Progress T

 Chapter 23 [XXI.]—Why God Prescribes What He Knows Cannot Be Observed.

 Chapter 24.—An Objection of the Pelagians. The Apostle Paul Was Not Free From Sin So Long as He Lived.

 Chapter 25.—God Punishes Both in Wrath and in Mercy.

 [ 3d. ]

 You cannot therefore attribute to God the cause of any human fault. For of all human offences, the cause is pride. For the conviction and removal of t

 Chapter 28 [XVIII.]—A Good Will Comes from God.

 Chapter 29.—A Subterfuge of the Pelagians.

 Chapter 30.—All Will is Either Good, and Then It Loves Righteousness, or Evil, When It Does Not Love Righteousness.

 Chapter 31.—Grace is Given to Some Men in Mercy Is Withheld from Others in Justice and Truth.

 Chapter 32.—God’s Sovereignity in His Grace.

 [XIX.] So far as it has been given us, let us have wisdom, and let us understand that the good Lord God sometimes withholds even from His saints eithe

 Chapter 33.—Through Grace We Have Both the Knowledge of Good, and the Delight Which It Affords.

 [ 4th. ] There now remains our fourth point, after the explanation of which, as God shall help us, this lengthened treatise of ours may at last be bro

 Chapter 35 [XXI.]—Adam and Eve Obedience Most Strongly Enjoined by God on Man.

 Chapter 36 [XXII.]—Man’s State Before the Fall.

 Chapter 37 [XXIII.]—The Corruption of Nature is by Sin, Its Renovation is by Christ.

 Chapter 38 [XXIV.]—What Benefit Has Been Conferred on Us by the Incarnation of the Word Christ’s Birth in the Flesh, Wherein It is Like and Wherein U

 Chapter 39 [XXV.]—An Objection of Pelagians.

 Chapter 40.—An Argument Anticipated.

 The apostle indeed says, “ Else were your children unclean now holy

 Chapter 42.—Sanctification Manifold Sacrament of Catechumens.

 [XXVI.] Sanctification is not of merely one measure for even catechumens, I take it, are sanctified in their own measure by the sign of Christ, and t

 Chapter 43 [XXVII.]—Why the Children of the Baptized Should Be Baptized.

 Chapter 44.—An Objection of the Pelagians.

 Chapter 45 [XXVIII.]—The Law of Sin is Called Sin How Concupiscence Still Remains After Its Evil Has Been Removed in the Baptized.

 You must not be surprised at what I have said, that although the law of sin remains with its concupiscence, the guilt thereof is done away through the

 Chapter 47 [XXIX.]—All the Predestinated are Saved Through the One Mediator Christ, and by One and the Same Faith.

 Chapter 48.—Christ the Saviour Even of Infants Christ, When an Infant, Was Free from Ignorance and Mental Weakness.

 Chapter 49 [XXX.]—An Objection of the Pelagians.

 Chapter 50 [XXXI.]—Why It is that Death Itself is Not Abolished, Along with Sin, by Baptism.

 Chapter 51.—Why the Devil is Said to Hold the Power and Dominion of Death.

 Chapter 52 [XXXII.]—Why Christ, After His Resurrection, Withdrew His Presence from the World.

 Chapter 53 [XXXIII.]—An Objection of the Pelagians.

 Chapter 54 [XXXIV.]—Why Punishment is Still Inflicted, After Sin Has Been Forgiven.

 Chapter 55.—To Recover the Righteousness Which Had Been Lost by Sin, Man Has to Struggle, with Abundant Labour and Sorrow.

 Chapter 56.—The Case of David, in Illustration.

 Chapter 57 [XXXV.]—Turn to Neither Hand.

 Chapter 58 [XXXVI.]—“Likeness of Sinful Flesh” Implies the Reality.

 Chapter 59.—Whether the Soul is Propagated On Obscure Points, Concerning Which the Scriptures Give Us No Assistance, We Must Be on Our Guard Against

 Book III.

 Chapter 1 [I.]—Pelagius Esteemed a Holy Man His Expositions on Saint Paul.

 Chapter 2 [II.]—Pelagius’ Objection Infants Reckoned Among the Number of Believers and the Faithful.

 Chapter 3.—Pelagius Makes God Unjust.

 Chapter 4.

 Chapter 5 [III.]—Pelagius Praised by Some Arguments Against Original Sin Proposed by Pelagius in His Commentary.

 Chapter 6.—Why Pelagius Does Not Speak in His Own Person.

 Chapter 7 [IV.]—Proof of Original Sin in Infants.

 Chapter 8.—Jesus is the Saviour Even of Infants.

 Chapter 9.—The Ambiguity of “Adam is the Figure of Him to Come.”

 Chapter 10 [V.]—He Shows that Cyprian Had Not Doubted the Original Sin of Infants.

 Chapter 11.—The Ancients Assumed Original Sin.

 Chapter 12 [VI.]—The Universal Consensus Respecting Original Sin.

 Chapter 13 [VII.]—The Error of Jovinianus Did Not Extend So Far.

 Chapter 14.—The Opinions of All Controversialists Whatever are Not, However, Canonical Authority Original Sin, How Another’s We Were All One Man in

 Chapter 15 [VIII.]—We All Sinned Adam’s Sin.

 Chapter 16.—Origin of Errors A Simile Sought from the Foreskin of the Circumcised, and from the Chaff of Wheat.

 Chapter 17 [IX.]—Christians Do Not Always Beget Christian, Nor the Pure, Pure Children.

 Chapter 18 [X.]—Is the Soul Derived by Natural Propagation?

 Chapter 19 [XI.]—Sin and Death in Adam, Righteousness and Life in Christ.

 Chapter 20.—The Sting of Death, What?

 Chapter 21 [XII.]—The Precept About Touching the Menstruous Woman Not to Be Figuratively Understood The Necessity of the Sacraments.

 Chapter 22 [XIII.]—We Ought to Be Anxious to Secure the Baptism of Infants.

 Chapter 23.—Epilogue.

Chapter 57 [XXXV.]—Turn to Neither Hand.

Let us hold fast, then, the confession of this faith, without faltering or failure. One alone is there who was born without sin, in the likeness of sinful flesh, who lived without sin amid the sins of others, and who died without sin on account of our sins. “Let us turn neither to the right hand nor to the left.”432    Prov. iv. 27. For to turn to the right hand is to deceive oneself, by saying that we are without sin; and to turn to the left is to surrender oneself to one’s sins with a sort of impunity, in I know not how perverse and depraved a recklessness. “God indeed knoweth the ways on the right hand,”433    Same verse [in the Latin and Septuagint; the clause does not occur in the Hebrew]. even He who alone is without sin, and is able to blot out our sins; “but the ways on the left hand are perverse,”434    [See the last note.] in friendship with sins. Of such inflexibility were those youths of twenty years,435    Num. xiv. 29, 31. who foretokened in figure God’s new people; they entered the land of promise; they, it is said, turned neither to the right hand nor to the left.436    Josh. xxiii. 6, 8. Now this age of twenty is not to be compared with the age of children’s innocence, but if I mistake not, this number is the shadow and echo of a mystery. For the Old Testament has its excellence in the five books of Moses, while the New Testament is most refulgent in the authority of the four Gospels. These numbers, when multiplied together, reach to the number twenty: four times five, or five times four, are twenty. Such a people (as I have already said), instructed in the kingdom of heaven by the two Testaments—the Old and the New—turning neither to the right hand, in a proud assumption of righteousness, nor to the left hand, in a reckless delight in sin, shall enter into the land of promise, where we shall have no longer either to pray that sins may be forgiven to us, or to fear that they may be punished in us, having been freed from them all by that Redeemer, who, not being “sold under sin,”437    Rom. vii. 14. “hath redeemed Israel out of all his iniquities,”438    Ps. xxv. 22. whether committed in the actual life, or derived from the original transgression.

CAPUT XXXV.

57. Non declinandum in dextram aut in sinistram. Teneamus ergo indeclinabilem fidei confessionem. Solus unus est qui sine peccato natus est in similitudine carnis peccati, sine peccato vixit inter aliena peccata, sine peccato mortuus est propter nostra peccata. Non declinemus in dextram aut in sinistram. In dexteram enim declinare, est se ipsum decipere dicendo se esse sine peccato: in sinistram autem, per nescio quam perversam et pravam securitatem se tanquam impune dare peccatis. Vias enim quae a dextris sunt novit Dominus, qui solus sine peccato est, et nostra potest delere peccata; perversae autem sunt quae a sinistris (Prov. IV, 27), amicitiae cum peccatis. Tales etiam illi viginti annorum adolescentuli figuram novi populi praemiserunt, qui in terram promissionis intrarunt, qui nec in dexteram nec in sinistram dicti sunt declinasse . Non enim viginti annorum aetas comparanda est innocentiae parvulorum: sed, ni fallor, hic numerus mysticum aliquid adumbrat et resonat. Vetus enim Testamentum in quinque Moysi libris excellit, Novum autem quatuor Evangeliorum auctoritate praefulget; qui numeri per se multiplicati ad vicenum perveniunt: quater enim quini, vel quinquies quaterni, viginti sunt. Talis populus, ut praedixi, eruditus in regno coelorum per duo Testamenta, Vetus et Novum, non declinans in dexteram superba praesumptione justitiae, neque in sinistram secura delectatione peccati , in terram promissionis intrabit: ubi jam peccata ulterius nec nobis donanda optemus, nec in nobis punienda timeamus, ab illo Redemptore liberati, qui non venumdatus sub peccato, redemit Israel ab omnibus iniquitatibus ejus, sive propria cujusquam vita commissis, sive originaliter tractis.