Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1 (221).

1. Whether infants originally draw the sins of all their preceding fathers as they draw Adam’s sin. It seems that what was said above should be supplemented by asking whether the sins of preceding fathers pass over to infants, just as we said that the offense of the first human being overflowed into all who are carnally born; and, if the sins of parents pass over to infants, whether those of all who lived from Adam down to them do so, or those of some and not all.

1 Solution omitted in NRVW. || that] because, BCLMRTW. 2 he made it good is transposed in NRV. || it] to be, BC; omitted, L. 4 Creator] creator, CL; creation, PX. 8 by God it is is transposed in NRV. 24 all is transposed; fathers, OP.

1 In Dist. 34, chap. 4 (p. 526ff.). 2 As was shown above, Dist. 3, chap. 2 (p. 342ff.).

Distinction XXXIII. Cf. A. M. Landgraf, The Hereditary Transmission of the Sins of Parents to Their Children, in History of Dogma, IV-2, 155–192. — Chapter 1, no. 1. The question is drawn from Hugh, On the Sacraments, I, 7, 38 (PL 176, 304 D). For this chapter and the following one, cf. also the Summa of Sentences, III, 13 (PL 171, 1138ff.; 176, 110); Peter Abelard, On the Epistle to the Romans, 5:19 (PL 178, 872 D–873 C), and Yes and No, chap. 116 (PL 178, 1516ff.).

2. What Augustine seems to say about this in the Enchiridion. Augustine discusses this ambiguously in the Enchiridion¹. For he seems to approve the view that the sins of preceding parents are imputed to infants—not those of all who lived from Adam, lest infants be burdened with an unbearable and excessive load in eternal punishment, but only those of the parents who preceded them as far as the fourth generation. He confirms this with the words by which the Lord says in Exodus²: “I am God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the third and fourth generation,” as though only the sins of the nearest parents were imputed to infants, and not other sins; this is by the moderation of divine mercy.

3. He gives the arguments of those who say that the sins of parents pass to infants. That infants are held not only by the offense of the first human being but also by other offenses is confirmed by those who think this³ from the fact that infants as well as adults are said to be baptized “for the remission of sins,” in the plural, rather than “for the remission of sin,” in the singular. David, born of a lawful marriage, also says⁴: “In iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother conceived me”; he does not say “in iniquity” or “in sin.” Hence they think that not only that one original sin, but also the several sins found in Adam’s sin and the other sins of parents, are imputed to infants.

Chapter 2 (222).

1. That several sins are found in that one first sin. Augustine intimates in the Enchiridion⁵ that several sins can be noted in Adam’s one sin: “Several sins,” he says, “can be understood in Adam’s one transgression if it is divided, as it were, into its members. For there is pride in it, because the human being loved being under his own power rather than God’s; sacrilege, because he did not believe God; homicide, because he cast himself into death; spiritual fornication, because the integrity of the human mind was corrupted by the serpent’s persuasion; theft, because the forbidden food was taken; avarice, because he desired more than ought to have sufficed for him; and whatever else can be found in this one sin.”

1 Chap. 47 (PL 40, 255; CCL 46, 75). 2 Exod. 20:5. 3 Thus Augustine himself, Enchiridion, chaps. 44 and 46 (PL 40, 254; CCL 46, 74). 4 Ps. 50:7. 5 Chap. 45 (PL 40, 253ff.; CCL 46, 73ff.).

Chapter 1, nos. 2–3 are composed from Augustine’s statements in the following chapter.

2. On the sins of parents, whether they hold infants *. — Augustine *. Next he discusses the question whether the sins of preceding parents are imputed to infants more as an opinion than as an assertion, saying¹: “It is not improbably said that infants are bound by the sins of their parents—not only of the first human beings, but also of their own parents, from whom they themselves were born. For that divine sentence²—‘I will repay the sins of the fathers upon the children’—holds them before regeneration, to such an extent that even one born of a lawful marriage says³: ‘In iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother conceived me.’ He did not say ‘in iniquity’ or ‘in sin,’ although that too could rightly be said; but he preferred to say ‘iniquities’ and ‘sins,’ because in that one sin which passed into all human beings and is so great that human nature was changed by it, there are, as I discussed above⁴, several sins; and the other sins of parents, which cannot change nature in the same way, bind children by guilt unless God’s grace comes to their aid.”

3. He sets out various opinions *. “But concerning the sins of other parents, by whom each person succeeds his father through the generations from Adam himself onward, it can reasonably be debated whether the one who is born is implicated in the evil acts and multiplied original offenses of all of them, so that each person is born worse the later he is born; or whether God threatens the descendants with the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generation because, in his merciful moderation, he does not extend his anger concerning the faults of progenitors further, lest those to whom the grace of regeneration is not granted be oppressed by too great a burden in eternal damnation itself if they were compelled from the beginning of the human race to contract originally the sins of all their preceding parents and pay the punishments due for them; or whether something else can or cannot be found concerning so great a matter after the Holy Scriptures have been more diligently examined and treated—I dare not rashly affirm.” Here it becomes clear to the reader that Augustine said the foregoing not by asserting it, but by reporting the opinions of different people.

1 Ibid., chap. 46 (PL 40, 254ff.; CCL 46, 74ff.). 2 Num. 14:18; Deut. 5:9. 3 Ps. 50:7. 4 Augustine, that is, in no. 1. 5 Augustine, ibid., chap. 47 (PL 40, 255; CCL 46, 75).

4. He shows that Augustine would contradict himself if he held that view. Otherwise he would be shown to contradict himself, since in the same book¹ he says that the punishment of infants who are held only by original sin is the mildest of all, in these words: “Certainly the mildest punishment will be theirs who, besides the sin they drew originally, added no other; and among the others who added sins, each will have damnation there that is more tolerable in proportion as here he had less iniquity.” Here he clearly says that the punishment of infants is the lightest of all punishments.

5. If that is so, they are not bound by the sins of preceding parents except Adam’s. For if they were eternally punished for the actual sins of their parents and for their own original sin, they would no longer be punished less than their parents, but perhaps more. Infants are therefore condemned neither for the actual sins of their parents nor for the actual sins of the first parent, but for the original sin drawn from their parents. For this they will feel no other punishment of material fire or of the worm of conscience, except that they will be deprived forever of the vision of God. Infants are therefore bound by one sin, not by several.

6. He determines the points they offered in support of their opinion *. Augustine therefore determines in the same book² even those points by which they seem to support their opinion—namely, that Scripture sometimes signifies that sins and iniquities are in infants by using the plural number—in this way: Since in Scripture the plural number is often signified by the singular, as there³: “Pray to God that he take away the serpent from us”; it does not say “serpents,” though the people were suffering from them. Conversely, the singular number is signified by the plural, as in the Gospel⁴: “For those who sought the child’s life are dead”; it does not say “he is dead,” although he was speaking about Herod. And in Exodus⁵: “They made golden gods,” although they made one calf, about which they said⁶: “These are your gods, Israel.” So that one original sin is also signified by the plural number when we say that infants are baptized for the remission of sins and conceived in sins or iniquities.

1 Enchiridion, chap. 93 (PL 40, 275; CCL 46, 99). 2 Enchiridion, chap. 44 (PL 40, 253ff.; CCL 46, 73ff.). 3 Num. 21:7, according to the Septuagint. 4 Matt. 2:20. 5 Exod. 32:31. 6 Exod. 32:4. 7 had] will have, MNTVW. 18 Rubric omitted in RVW. 29 for the remission of sins is transposed in BCPRWX. 30 in omitted in MRVW.

Chapter 3 (223).

1. Whether Adam’s actual sin was more serious than others. It is commonly asked here whether Adam’s sin of transgression, from which original sin proceeded and in which several sins were noted above¹, was more serious than other sins.

2. Why it seems greater than others to some *. It seems so to some because that sin changed the whole of human nature, as Augustine says in the Enchiridion²: “That one sin, committed in a place and condition of such great happiness, is so great that in one human being it condemned the whole human race originally and, so to speak, at its root.” — The same author in the book City of God³: “That commandment was violated with so much greater injustice the more easily it could have been kept by obedience. For desire did not yet resist the will; this followed later as the punishment of the transgression.” Those who say that sin was more serious than the sins of other human beings rely on these and other authorities.

3. After the authorities he gives their reasoning *. They also try to show this by reasoning in the following way: That sin did more harm than any other, because it corrupted the whole human race and subjected it to both deaths—something no other sin did. That sin therefore had a greater effect of evil than any other.

4. Response against them, where other sins are shown to be greater than that one. To this it can be said that, although that sin changed human nature into the necessity of death and spread guilt through the whole human race⁴, it must not nevertheless be thought more serious than the sin against the Holy Spirit, which, as the Truth says⁵, is forgiven neither in this age nor in the age to come. — But as for what corrupted the whole of human nature, this is not because it was more serious than all other sins, but because it was committed by a human being when the whole of human nature existed in one human being, and therefore the whole of it was corrupted in him.

1 Chapter 2, no. 1 (p. 518ff.). 2 Chap. 48 (PL 40, 255; CCL 46, 75). 3 Book XIV, chap. 12 (PL 41, 420; CSEL 40-II, 30; CCL 48, 434). 4 Cf. Augustine, Enchiridion, chap. 46 (PL 40, 254ff.; CCL 46, 75). 5 Matt. 12:32.

Chapter 3, nos. 1–2. Summa of Sentences, III, 10 (PL 171, 1133 C; 176, 105 C); Summa “God, supremely and ineffably good”; Augustine, City of God, XIV (apud O. Lottin, Psychology and Morality, IV, 43); Anselm’s Sentences, ed. F. Bliemetzrieder, 71.

5. In what respect it had a greater effect of evil than others, and in what respect not, but a lesser one *. It produced a greater effect of evil with respect to the multiple defects that flowed from it, but not with respect to eternal punishment. It did not deserve a more serious punishment than many later people deserved through other sins; indeed, we believe that others earned greater wrath than Adam earned.

Chapter 4 (224).

Whether that sin was remitted to the first parents. If it is asked whether that sin was remitted to the first parents, we say that they obtained forgiveness through repentance. Hence Augustine, in the book On the Baptism of Infants¹: “Just as those first parents are believed, by living righteously afterward, to have been freed through the Lord’s blood from the ultimate punishment, yet in that life they did not merit to be recalled to paradise, so also sinful flesh, even when sins have been remitted, if a human being lives righteously in it, does not immediately merit not to undergo the death it drew from the propagation of sin.”

Chapter 5 (225).

1. That the sins of parents are visited upon children, and that what God says in Exodus and Ezekiel is not contradictory. Although infants are not bound by the sins of parents other than Adam, one must not therefore doubt that the sins of parents overflow upon their children, just as the Lord says to Moses in Exodus²: “I am the Lord your God, strong and jealous, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation, among those who hate me.” These words clearly intimate that God repays the sins of fathers upon third and fourth descendants.

1 Book II, chap. 34, no. 55 (PL 44, 183; CSEL 60, 125). 2 Exod. 20:5.

Chapter 4: Summa of Sentences, III, 10 (PL 171, 1134 A; 176, 105 D). — Chapter 5, no. 1: Summa of Sentences, III, 13 (PL 171, 1138 C–D; 176, 110 A–B); Sentences of the School of Anselm, no. 3 (in O. Lottin, Psychology and Morality, V, 257); Peter Abelard, Yes and No, chap. 116 (PL 178, 1516ff.).

2. Ezekiel’s authority, which seems to oppose the Law *. This seems to be opposed by what the Lord says in Ezekiel¹: “Why do you turn this proverb among yourselves into a parable, saying: ‘The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live, says the Lord, this proverb shall no longer be a proverb for you. All souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine. And the soul that sins shall itself die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the impiety of the impious shall be upon him.” — Jerome *. By these words God seems “through the Prophet to correct what he said wrongly” in the Law: “If⁴ he repays the sins of fathers to the third and fourth generation, God seems unjust, so that one sins and another is punished. For how is it just for one to sin and another to mourn the sins?”

3. Determination showing the harmony of the authorities cited above. But, as Jerome says⁵, lest “the Law and the Prophets—that is, Exodus and Ezekiel, indeed God himself, who spoke both here and there—seem to disagree in their judgments,” let us attend to the end of that authority from Exodus. For after saying, I repay the iniquities of fathers upon children, he adds, among those who hate me. By this he clearly shows that “children are not punished because their fathers sinned, but because, through an inherited evil, they hate God in the same way.” — What the Lord says in Exodus therefore, as Jerome reports⁷, does not mean what many think, nor is it like this proverb: The fathers have eaten a sour grape, etc. Jerome on Ezekiel and Augustine on the Psalm⁸ Do not be silent, O God, my praise judge that the passage in Exodus should be understood of children who imitate their fathers’ sins: God is said to repay the sins of fathers upon them because he punishes them for imitating their fathers’ sins, not because their fathers sinned. The Lord therefore does not correct in the Prophet what he had said earlier in the Law, but makes clear how it should be understood. Hence he also reproves those who understood it wrongly, who said⁹: The fathers have eaten, etc.

1 Ezek. 18:2–4. 2 Ezek. 18:20. 3 Jerome, Commentary on Ezekiel 18:2 (PL 25 [1845], 169 C; CCL 75, 229). 4 Ibid. (PL 25, 167 D–168 A; CCL 75, 226). 5 Ibid. (169 C; 229). 6 Ibid. (168 A; 227). 7 Ibid. (167 B–D; 225ff.). 8 Expositions on the Psalms 108:14, no. 15 (PL 37, 1437; CCL 40, 1591). 9 See Ezek. 18:2, as above in no. 2.

No. 2. Ordinary Gloss on Ezek. 18:1 (apud Lyranum, IV, 236a and c). — No. 3. Lombard’s Gloss on Ps. 108:14 (PL 191, 991 D–992 A).

4. Why he said “to the third and fourth generation,” and why he mentioned only fathers. Nevertheless, if this is understood of imitators of evil, why did he mention only the third and fourth generations, since in every generation those who imitate the sins of their fathers are held guilty? And why did he mention fathers, since all who in any way imitate the sins of evil people are evil? — He solves this *. He therefore named fathers specifically because children are accustomed to imitate their fathers most of all, since they love them especially. And he mentioned the third and fourth generations because parents sometimes live long enough to have third- and fourth-generation descendants; seeing their fathers’ iniquities, these become heirs of their impiety through imitation. In this way what is said in Exodus is rightly understood according to the letter.

5. How what is said in Exodus should be understood according to the mystery. — Jerome *. It is also shown that this should be understood mystically by the fact that it is called a parable. “For if it is a parable,” as Jerome says¹, “it sounds one way in words and contains another meaning.” Hence some “explain it in this way²: they say that the father in us is a slight point of sensation,” namely the first movement of suggestion or thought; “the son, if thought conceives sin,” in which the consent and delight of the woman are noted; “the grandson, if you complete in action what you have thought and conceived,” or decide to complete it, in which the consent of the man or the perpetration of sin is noted; “but the great-grandson, if you not only do it but glory in it; and this is the fourth generation”—not because three preceded it, but because it is called the fourth as it is counted fourth from the first movement, which is like a father. “God therefore will not punish eternally the first and second impulses of thoughts, which the Greeks call propatheiai, without which no human being can exist; but if someone decides to do what he has thought and refuses to correct what he has done”—these are mortal sins, the third and fourth generation.

6. By this it is proved that the first movement is not punished eternally. To prove, as Jerome says³, that the first impulse of thought is not eternally punished by God, what is said in Genesis⁴ should be brought forward: Ham sinned by mocking his father’s nakedness, and not he himself but his son Canaan received the sentence: “Cursed be Canaan; he shall be the servant of his brothers.” What justice is it for the father to have sinned and the son to have been punished? But this was said in the mystical sense.

1 Commentary on Ezekiel 18:2 (PL 25 [1845], 167 C; CCL 75, 226). 2 Ibid. (168 C–169 A; 228). 3 Ibid. (169 B; 228ff.). 4 See Gen. 9:22–25.

No. 4. Summa of Sentences, III, 13 (PL 171, 1139 A; 176, 110 B). — No. 5. Summa of Sentences, ibid. (1139 B–C; 110 C–D); Ordinary Gloss on Ezek. 18:1 (apud Lyranum, IV, 236a).