{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>But a question not to be shirked arises: Whether in very\r\ntruth death, which separates soul and body, is good to the<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_523\">[Pg 523]</a></span>\r\ngood?<a id=\"FNanchor_574_574\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_574_574\">[574]</a> For if it be, how has it come to pass that such a\r\nthing should be the punishment of sin? For the first men\r\nwould not have suffered death had they not sinned. How,\r\nthen, can that be good to the good, which could not have\r\nhappened except to the evil? Then, again, if it could only\r\nhappen to the evil, to the good it ought not to be good, but\r\nnon-existent. For why should there be any punishment where\r\nthere is nothing to punish? Wherefore we must say that the\r\nfirst men were indeed so created, that if they had not sinned,\r\nthey would not have experienced any kind of death; but that,\r\nhaving become sinners, they were so punished with death, that\r\nwhatsoever sprang from their stock should also be punished\r\nwith the same death. For nothing else could be born of them\r\nthan that which they themselves had been. Their nature was\r\ndeteriorated in proportion to the greatness of the condemnation\r\nof their sin, so that what existed as punishment in those\r\nwho first sinned, became a natural consequence in their children.\r\nFor man is not produced by man, as he was from the\r\ndust. For dust was the material out of which man was\r\nmade: man is the parent by whom man is begotten. Wherefore\r\nearth and flesh are not the same thing, though flesh be\r\nmade of earth. But as man the parent is, such is man the\r\noffspring. In the first man, therefore, there existed the whole\r\nhuman nature, which was to be transmitted by the woman\r\nto posterity, when that conjugal union received the divine\r\nsentence of its own condemnation; and what man was made,\r\nnot when created, but when he sinned and was punished, this\r\nhe propagated, so far as the origin of sin and death are concerned.\r\nFor neither by sin nor its punishment was he himself\r\nreduced to that infantine and helpless infirmity of body\r\nand mind which we see in children. For God ordained that\r\ninfants should begin the world as the young of beasts begin\r\nit, since their parents had fallen to the level of the beasts in\r\nthe fashion of their life and of their death; as it is written,\r\n\"Man when he was in honour understood not; he became\r\nlike the beasts that have no understanding.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_575_575\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_575_575\">[575]</a> Nay more,<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_524\">[Pg 524]</a></span>\r\ninfants, we see, are even feebler in the use and movement of\r\ntheir limbs, and more infirm to choose and refuse, than the\r\nmost tender offspring of other animals; as if the force that\r\ndwells in human nature were destined to surpass all other\r\nliving things so much the more eminently, as its energy has\r\nbeen longer restrained, and the time of its exercise delayed,\r\njust as an arrow flies the higher the further back it has been\r\ndrawn. To this infantine imbecility<a id=\"FNanchor_576_576\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_576_576\">[576]</a> the first man did not\r\nfall by his lawless presumption and just sentence; but human\r\nnature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an\r\nextent, that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient\r\nlust, and became subject to the necessity of dying.\r\nAnd what he himself had become by sin and punishment,\r\nsuch he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject\r\nto sin and death. And if infants are delivered from this\r\nbondage of sin by the Redeemer's grace, they can suffer only\r\nthis death which separates soul and body; but being redeemed\r\nfrom the obligation of sin, they do not pass to that second\r\nendless and penal death.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK THIRTEENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-898"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"76e893e6d5c08934cc502f7cc7908033c5e00e00e67d6aa79f332b7b2e4d9a36","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_576_576","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_576_576","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_576_576\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_576_576\"><span class=\"label\">[576]</span></a> On which see further in <i>de Peccat. Mer.</i> i. 67 et seq.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_576_576","text_sha256":"c0601bc07e30abe7fdd511f829c11c0fd48863fafd33bdd76bd7b9d6e3890063","verified":false,"work_id":null}