§ ld5. DOCTRINE OF OEIGINAL SIN AND HEEEDITAitY GUILT. 833
The three theories of the origin of the soul, we may remark by way of conehiding criticism, admit of a reconciliation. Each of them contains an element of tiiith, and is wrong only when exclusively held. Every human soul has an ideal preexistence in the divine mind, the divine will, and we may add^ in the divine life ; and every human soul as well as every human body is the product of the united agency of God and the parents. Pre-existentianism errs in confounding an ideal with a concrete, self-conscious, individual pre-existence ; traducianism, in ignoring the creative divine agency without which no being, least of all an immortal mind, can come into existence, and in favoring a materialistic conception of the soul ; creatianism, in denying the human agency, and thus placing the soul in a merely accidental relation to the body.
§ 155. Arguments for the Doctrine of OHginal Sin and Hereditary Guilt.
We now pass to the proofs by which Augustine established his doctrine of original sin and guilt, and to the objections urged by his opponents.
1. For Scriptural authority he appealed chiefly and repeatedly to the words in Eom. v. 12, e'^' & 7rdvr€<i rj/jbaprov, which
like hira, to affirm the corporeality of the soul. He perceives, however, that thia theory explains the transmission of original sin, and propounds the inquiry, whether perchance one soul may not spring from another, as one light is kindled from ancther without diminution of its flame (Ep. 190 ad Optatum, 4, 14-15). But for creationism the chief difficulty lies in this very doctrine of original sin. If the soul 13 created directly by God, it is pure and sinless, and the question arises, how it has deserved to be clothed with corrupt flesh and brought into the succession of original sin. God Himself appears there to be the cause of its sinfulness, inasmuch Hi he caused it to become guilty by uniting it with the body (De an. et ejus orig. u 8, 9 ; ii. 9, 13). All the passages of Scripture relevant to this point agree only in tiiL?, that God is the Giver, Author, and Former of souls ; but how he forms them — • whether he creates them out of nothing or derives them from the parents, they do not deciare (lb. iv. 11, 15). — His doctrine, that God created everything together aa to the germ, might naturally have inclined him rather to generationism, yet he does not get over his indecision, and declares even in his Retractations (i. ], 3), that he ceitber know previously nor knows now, whether succeeding souls were descended >om the first one or newly created as individuals.
834- THIED TERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
are erroneously translated by the Yulgate: in quo^ omiies pec caverunt. As Augustine had but sli_i;'lit knowledge of Greek, he commonly confined himself to the Latin Bible, and here he referred the in quo to Adam (the " one man " in the beginning of the verse, which is far too remote) ; but the Greek e<^ at must be taken as neuter and as a conjunction in the sense: on the ground that^ or hecause^ all have sinned." The exegesis of Augnstine, and his doctrine of a personal fall, as it were, of all men in Adam, are therefore doubtless untenable. On the other hand, Paul unquestionably teaches in this passage a causal connection between sin and death, and also a causal connection between the sin of Adam and the sinfulness of his ])osterity, therefore original sin. The proof of this is found in the whole parallel between Adam and Christ, and their rejiresentative relation to mankind (comp. 1 Cor. xv. 45 ff.), and especially in the iravre^ ■fjfxaprov, but not in the e'^' o5 as translated by the Vulgate and Augustine. Other passages of Scripture to which Augustine appealed, as teaching original sin, were such as Gen. viii. 21; Ps. li. 7; John iii. 6; 1 Cor. vii. 1-1; Eph. ii. 3.
2. The i)ractice of infant baptism in the church, with the customary formula, " for remission of sins," and such accompanying ceremonies as exorcism, presupposes the dominion of^^ sin and of demoniacal powers even in infancy. Since the child, before tlie awakening of self-consciousness, has committed no actual sin, the effect of baptism must relate to the forgive-
' Which presupposes eV S. The whole verse rends in the Vulgate : " Propicrea, Bicut per uiium hominem poccatura in hune munduin iiitravit, et per pcccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines mors pertransiit, in quo onmcs peceaverunt." Comp. Augustine, De peccat. merit, et remissione, i. 8, 10; Op. imperf. ii. 63; Contra duaa ep Pel. iv. 4; De mipt. et concup. ii. 5. Pelagius explained the passage (ad Rom. V. 12): "In eo, quod omnes peceaverunt, exemplo Adae peccant," or per imitationem in contrast with per propagationcm. Julian translated i(p' ^ propter quod. Comp. Contra Jui. vi. 75 ; Op. imperf. ii. 6o.
' 'E^' S> (= f<^' oh) is equivalent to f-ir\ toutoj oti, on the ground that, presupposing tliat, propterea quod. So Meyer, in loco, and others. R. Rothe (in an extremely acute excgclicil monograph upon Rom. v. 12-21, Wittenberg, 1836) and Cbr. Fr. Schmid (Hibl Thcol. ii. p. 126) explain i<p' S by eVi Tovrqi SxTre, i. &, tmder the more part'cular speclGcation that, inasmuch as. Comp. the CommeD tariea.