nourishment to every class of heretics,* and in all his discussions assumes the acquiescence of all Christians. Proposing to prove the generative origin of the soul, he says that it is immaterial from what quarter the question arises, "whether from philosophers, heretics, or the ignorant populace. It is of no importance, to the professors of the truth, who its enemies are, especially since, with such audacity, they deny the soul to be conceived in the womb, and assert it to be inserted from without into the body at the instant of birth." Entering upon the argument,—after a few sentences addressed to the Platonic philosophers, he turns to his brethren :-"I will pause in the argument, that what I answer to philosophers and naturalists I may prove to the Christian. For yourself, my brother, build your faith upon the foundation," &c. He sketches a rapid argument from the Scriptures, from which he derives the result that "from one man have flowed the souls of all, nature obeying the original decree, 'Be fruitful, and multiply;' for, in the very preface to the creation of the first man, his entire posterity is spoken of in the plural:-'Let us make man, and let them have dominion.'" He then returns to the doctrines of the various schools of Greek philosophy, and engages in an extended discussion, at the close of which he concludes, that, "in view of the ambitious theories of philosophers and heretics, and the stupid doctrine of Plato, we have proved the soul to be generated in and of man himself, and that there was, from the beginning, one seed of it, as also of the flesh of the whole race." There seems to be no reason to doubt that this was the common doctrine of the church in that age. Of the depravity resulting from the apostasy, Tertullian says that "evil has possession of the soul, from the vice of origin, derived by nature, beside that which results from the entrance of the spirit of evil. For, as we may say, corruption of nature is another nature, having its own god and father, the author of the corruption himself; yet so that there still remains good in the soul,-that original, divine and legitimate good which belongs to its very nature. For that which is from God is not so much extinguished as obscured; for it can be obscured, since it is not God, but it cannot be extinguished, because it is from God. Hence, as light, intercepted by any obstacle, remains, although invisible, if the intervening substance be sufficiently dense, so also the good which is in the soul, overborne by evil, by virtue of its nature, is either wholly inactive, its light being hidden, or, finding liberty, shines where it may. Thus, there are the vile and the holy; but yet the souls are all of one race. So, too, in the worst there is some good, and in the best some evil; for God only is without sin, and Christ is the only sinless man, because he is also God. . . . Therefore, when a renewed soul acquires faith, by the new birth of water and the power of God, the veil of his former corruption being removed, he sheds abroad all his light. He is also per† Ibid. 25-27. * De Anima, 23, 25. Ibid. 36. vaded by the Holy Spirit, as, from his former nativity, by a profane spirit."* 3. Hilary of Poictiers, and Ambrose of Milan. Hilary became bishop of Poictiers, in France, about the year 350. He was one of the most eminent men of the age, and stood conspicuous in his labours against Arian heresy. In his works the doctrine of the apostasy is identical with that of Tertullian. In his commentary upon Matthew xviii. 12 he says, "By the one sheep, man is to be understood, and (sub homine uno, universitas sentienda est) under the figure of one man is to be recognised the whole human species; for in the apostasy of the one Adam the entire race of man apostatized." Allegorizing our Saviour's parable of the divided house, (Matt. x. 34 and Luke xii. 52,) he says, "Here, therefore, are five dwelling in one house, divided three against two and two against three. But we only find in man three; that is, body, soul and will. For as the soul is given to the body, so also the power is given to each of employing itself as it will. . . . But, from the sin and unbelief of our first parents to subsequent generations, sin began to be the father of our bodies, and unbelief the mother of our souls; for from these, through the transgression of our first parents, we receive our origin. But the will is present to all. Therefore, now in one house there are five: sin, the father of the body, unbelief, the mother of the soul, and the authority of the will, which binds the whole man to itself by a kind of conjugal right." Similar is the doctrine of Ambrose, bishop of Milan from 374 to 397:— "He, the first sinner of our race, (and, oh that he had been the only one!) before he had sinned, did not perceive himself to be naked, but after he had sinned he saw himself to be so; and therefore thought to cover himself with fig-leaves, because he found himself to be naked. He therefore made himself naked when he made himself guilty of crime. In him the whole human condition (omnis humana conditio). was made bare,— obnoxious, by succession of nature, not only to crime, but also to misery." Again,-"Our David confesses himself to have sinned, not in himself alone, but in the first man, when the divine command was transgressed. . . . Truly, we all have sinned in the first man, and, through the succession of nature, the succession of crime also is transfused from the one into all. Against whom, then, have I sinned? Against the Father, or the Son? Truly, against him to whom I was under obligation for that which I sinned in not fulfilling. The command is given to man that he should eat of all that was in the garden, but should not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam ... De Anima, 41. † S. Hil. Opera. Commentarius in Matt. Can. xviii. ed. Parisii 1631, fol. 554. Ibid. Can. x. fol. 513. Apologia David, posterior, cap. viii. Op. Amb. Lut. Par., 1661, tom. i. fol. 512. is in each of us. In him the human condition fell, because sin has passed through the one into all. I see the sum of my debt. I see what an amount of crime I have contracted, whilst I taste the forbidden and interdicted fruit. I owe compensation for the crime which I have done, since the obligation due to heavenly authority could not preserve an untarnished faith."* Again, in his commentary on Romans v. 12, Ambrose says, "It is manifest that in Adam, as in mass, all sinned. For he, being corrupt through sin, begat all his offspring under sin. By him, therefore, we all are sinners, because we all are of him.”† 4. Doctrine of Pelagius and his associates. The Platonic theory of Origen, as to the pre-existence of the souls of men, and their several apostasy and fall in that pre-existent state, constituted a signal departure from the accepted doctrine of the church on the subject of original sin, and prepared the way for subsequent errors. But it was not until a century and a half after his death that the opinions adopted by Pelagius and his associates, Celestius and Julian, and disseminated by them with great zeal, gave occasion to that controversy which resulted in the more full exposition and defence of the scriptural doctrine on the subject. The Pelagian system is stated, with sufficient accuracy for our purpose, by Dr. Wiggers, himself an apologist for those whose doctrine he exhibits, in the following propositions: "1. A propagation of sin by generation is by no means to be admitted. This physical propagation of sin can be admitted only when we grant the propagation of the soul by generation. But this is a heretical error. Consequently, there is no original sin; and nothing in the moral nature of man has been corrupted by Adam's sin. "Besides the passages already quoted, the following may suffice as proof that this was a Pelagian tenet. In his commentary on Romans vii. 8, Pelagius remarks:-They are insane who teach that the sin of Adam comes to us (per traducem) by propagation.' In another passage, (which, indeed, is not now to be found in that very interpolated work, -but which Augustine quotes from it, verbatim,-De Pec. Mer. iii. 3,) Pelagius says, 'The soul does not come by propagation, but only the flesh; and so, this only has the propagated sin, and this only deserves punishment. But it is unjust that the soul born to-day, that has not come from the substance of Adam, should bear so old and extrinsic a sin.' And the Pelagians discarded the propagation of souls by generation,which seemed to lead to materialism,-and assumed that every soul is created immediately by God. In Pelagius' confession of faith, it is said, 'We believe that souls are given by God; and say that they are made by himself.' . . . Apologia David, posterior. cap. xii. fol. 519. † Opera. tom. iii. fol. 269. "2. Adam's transgression was imputed to himself, but not to his posterity. A reckoning of Adam's sin as that of his posterity would conflict with the divine rectitude. Hence, bodily death is no punishment of Adam's imputed sin, but a necessity of nature. "From the commentary of Pelagius on Romans, Augustine quotes his words thus, (De Pec. Mer. iii. 3,) It can in no way be conceded that God, who pardons a man's own sins, may impute to him the sins of another.' In his book 'On Nature,' Pelagius says, 'How can the sin be imputed, by God, to the man, which he has not known as his own?'-De Nat. et Gr. 30. If God is just, he can attribute no foreign blame to infants. Children, so long as they are children, that is, before they do any thing by their own will, cannot be punishable (rei).'—Op. Imp. ii. 42. According to the apostle, by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin: because the world has regarded him as a criminal, and as one condemned to perpetual death. But death has come upon all men because the same sentence reaches all transgressors of the succeeding period; yet neither holy men nor the innocent have had to endure this death, but only such as have imitated him by transgression.'—ii. 66. . . . "3. Now, as sin itself has no more passed over to Adam's posterity than has the punishment of sin, so every man, in respect to his moral nature, is born in just the same state in which Adam was created. "Augustine quotes (De Nat. et Gr. 21) from Pelagius' book, a passage in which it is said, 'What do you seek? They [infants] are well for whom you seek a physician. Not only are Adam's descendants no weaker than he, but they have even fulfilled more commands, since he neglected to fulfil so much as one.' In the letter to Demetrius, Pelagius depicts the prerogatives of human nature, without making any distinction between Adam's state before the fall and after it. Take only the description of conscience in the fourth chapter. A good conscience itself decides respecting the goodness of human nature. Is it not a testimony, which nature herself gives of her goodness, when she shows her displeasure at evil? There is in our heart, so to express myself, a certain natural holiness, which keeps watch, as it were, in the castle of the soul, and judges of good and evil.' . . . "But with this Pelagian view of the uncorrupted state of man's nature, the admission of a moral corruption of men, in their present condition, by the continued habit of sinning, stood in no contradiction. This Pelagius taught expressly. According to the eighth chapter of his letter to Demetrius, he explicitly admits, that, by the protracted habit of sinning, sin appears in a measure to have gained a dominion over human nature, and, consequently, renders the practice of virtue difficult. While nature was yet new, and a long-continued habit of sinning had not spread, as it were, a mist over human reason, nature was left without a [written] law; to which the Lord, when it was oppressed by too many vices, and stained with the mist of ignorance, applied the file of the law, in order that, by its frequent admonitions, nature might be cleansed again and return to its lustre. And there is no other difficulty of doing well but the long-continued habit of vice, which has contaminated us from youth up, and corrupted us for many years, and holds us afterwards so bound and subjugated to herself that she seems, in a measure, to have the force of nature.' Here Pelagius also mentions the bad education by which we are led to evil. But this habit of sinning, however, affects only adults, and that by their own fault. According to the Pelagian theory, man is born in the same state, in respect to his moral nature, in which Adam was created by God."* 5. Doctrine of Augustine. The great antagonist of Pelagius was Augustine. In respect to the fundamental doctrine of the Pelagian system,-on the origin of the soul, he seems never to have assumed a decided position. He, however, constantly leaned to the doctrine of its generative origin. Writing to Jerome, who very strongly assailed that view, the bishop of Hippo declares that, "neque orando, neque legendo, neque meditando, neque ratiocinando," neither by prayer, by reading, by meditation, nor by reasoning, was he able, upon the assumption of the immediate creation of souls, to obviate the difficulty concerning the propagation of sin. In his first book, De Anima et ejus Origine, after a review of the arguments upon which reliance was placed to establish the immediate-creation theory, he exclaims, "Let no one, therefore, imagine that, if the doctrine of the propagation of souls be false, it is to be refuted by such arguments; or, if the position that they are breathed into the bodies immediately by God, be true, that it is to be maintained by such reasoning." In reference to his correspondence with Jerome on this subject, Augustine says, "I wrote two books to Jerome, a presbyter of Bethlehem,—one of them concerning the origin of the soul of man. . . . In this I do not solve the question which I propose. He responded, commending (consultationem meam) my spirit of investigation, but declaring himself unable immediately to reply to my inquiries. So long as he was in the body I refrained from publishing this book, lest he might yet answer, and it would be better that it be published with his reply. But after his death I published it, so that he who reads it may be admonished either to abstain altogether from inquiry as to the mode in which souls are given to the offspring, or, on a subject certainly very obscure, to admit that solution of the question which is consistent with the most evident facts * An Historical Presentation of Augustinism and Pelagianism. By G. F. Wiggers, D.D. Translated by Rev. R. Emerson: Andover, 1840, p. 84. † Aug. Epist. xxviii. ad Hieron. Aug. De Anima et ejus Orig. lib. i. c. 19. |