Fragments Against Jerome on Original Sin

But none of these things could that wondrous assertor of original sin foresee, since he was in no way practiced in the divine Scriptures, nor had he, from infancy, according to the word of blessed Paul, learned the sacred letters. But whether declaiming often about the meanings of Scripture, or about doctrine, he shamelessly poured forth many things that were often inept, both individually and generally, concerning the Scriptures themselves and many doctrines. For by the power of fear he allowed no one to speak against him, but only in silence did those who had knowledge of the divine Scriptures find fault with him. But at last he fell into this novelty of doctrine, that he said that God, in wrath and fury, commanded Adam to be mortal, and, on account of his one transgression, punished with death even all men not yet born. Speaking thus, he is not ashamed nor confounded to hold such opinions about God as no one of sound mind among men, having any regard for justice, would ever have attempted to entertain even about men.

Nor did he remember that divine word, that this proverb should no longer be spoken in Israel: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge, for thus says Adonai the Lord: The teeth of those who have eaten sour grapes shall be set on edge”, showing by this that God by no means punishes one for another, as certain in their error suppose, but each one shall render account for his own sins. To these things blessed Paul also adds words in harmony. “God,” he says, “who will render to every man according to his works”; and: “Each of us shall bear his own burden”; and: “Who are you to judge your brother? Or why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ”.

But this wondrous man thought God to have been moved by so great a fury on account of one sin, that he subjected him to the most atrocious punishment, and promulgated the same sentence against all his posterity, among whom no one could easily number how many were righteous. From which considerations it especially behooved him to notice how very incongruous it would seem that Noah, Abraham, David, Moses, and countless other righteous men should be rendered liable to punishment on account of the one and single sin of Adam, proven merely by the tasting of a tree, and that God should so extend his wrath beyond measure as to cast aside all the virtues of so many righteous men, and subject them to so great a punishment on account of the one sin of Adam. “For even if nothing else, at least by reflecting on Abel he ought to have judged fittingly; who, being the first righteous man, was the first to die.

And if indeed God had appointed death as the punishment of men, how was it not an extreme impiety that he who was the cause of sin should live, and should live also together with Eve, the discoverer of wickedness (I pass over the devil, who continued thus far in immortality), while the first righteous man, the discoverer of virtue, and the one who, before nearly all others who sinned, took care for the worship of God, should have been struck down? But it behooved this most wise man also to consider carefully the case of Enoch, who did not die. For he was not endowed with such virtue or piety as to be better than all others—Moses, I mean, and the Prophets, and Apostles, or all the rest of whom the most blessed Paul says that the world was not worthy—so that, when they died, he alone should continue without experiencing death.

But God had this already determined with himself from the beginning, that men should first become mortal, and afterward should rejoice in immortality: thus disposing all things for our benefit.” And a little further on: “God shows this same thing more clearly,” he says, “when he translates Enoch, and makes him immortal.

For if it was through sin, as the cause of punishment, that God brought in death, and he had not determined this beforehand with himself, disposing all things ineffably for us according to his own wisdom, then Enoch would by no means be immortal, while the Lord Christ would come to the experience of death.” And a little further on: “Therefore,” he says, “the Lord, the author of all good things, became man for men, so that just as Adam was the initiator of the first and mortal state, so he also, being the initiator of the second and immortal state, first observed the natural conditions of the former Adam, being born of a woman, being wrapped in swaddling clothes, and by degrees receiving the increase of age (for Jesus,” he says, “advanced in age and wisdom and grace before God and men), undergoing circumcision, standing before God in the temple according to the legal custom, being subject to his parents, and given over to a lawful manner of life.

Thus also, for the fulfillment of the rest, he finally undertook death also, as something owed to nature, so that, dying according to the law of human nature, and rising from the dead by divine power, he might become for all men, who undergo death according to their own nature, the beginning by which they should rise from the dead and be changed into an immortal substance. For just as we have all been made conformable to Adam according to our present state, so we shall hereafter be made conformable to Christ the Lord according to the flesh.

For ‘he transfigured the body of our lowliness, that we might be made conformable to the body of his glory’, and ‘as is the earthy, such also are they that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly’, showing that, having become partakers of the first state of Adam, we necessarily also obtain a share in the future state of the second Adam, Christ the Lord, according to the flesh, inasmuch as he arose from this same nature, and took on all that belonged to nature, and therefore underwent death, so that, by undergoing the death of nature, and rising from the dead, he might set nature free from death in its fullness. And death indeed he thus took on, but sin by no means, but remained wholly immune from it.

For what belonged to nature, that is, death, he undoubtedly assumed: but sin, which did not belong to nature but to the will, he in no way took on. But if sin had been in nature, according to the assertion of this most wise man, sin being altogether present in nature, he would necessarily have taken it on as well.”

“If,” he says, “God did not know that Adam would sin, let this too be a response worthy of the wisdom of these most wise men—though it is madness even to entertain such a thought. It is manifest that he both knew that he would sin, and, on account of this, without doubt that he would die. How then is it not the extreme of madness to believe that he first made him mortal within six hours (for that was the interval from his formation to the commission of the sin, since, having been made from the earth on the sixth day, and eating contrary to the divine command, he was driven out of paradise), and that afterward he showed him to be mortal because of sin? For it is certain that if he had wished him to be immortal, the intervening sin would not have changed God’s decree: for neither did he make the devil, from immortal, mortal, though he was indeed the origin of all evils.”

“For,” he says, “to those who, from Adam even to the coming of Christ the Lord, were involved in such great impieties and iniquities as blessed Paul described in his own words, as has already been shown above from his statements, he is not going to confer, as some great reward, the resurrection, if he delivers them over to certain punishments without end and without correction. For how shall the resurrection be reckoned as a gift, if punishment without correction is inflicted on those who rise? And a little further on: “Who,” he says, “is so mad as to believe it a great good that the resurrection should become for those who rise the occasion of an infinite punishment, for whom it would have been more advantageous not to rise at all, than to endure, after the resurrection, the experience of such and so great evils under infinite punishments?”

« For it is not so, he says, that if we say there are two natures in Christ, it will necessarily follow that we must assert two sons or two lords, since this is proved to be the mark of the utmost madness to suppose. For all things which are two in some respect, are one in some other respect, and do not by the unity of both destroy the division of each. I and the Father are one. But it is not because they are one that the property of each must be denied. And elsewhere, speaking of husband and wife, he says: They are no longer two, but one flesh. But it is not because husband and wife are one flesh that they are therefore no longer two, but one flesh; for they remain two according as they are two, and one according as they are one.

In this same manner here also there are two according to nature, but one by conjunction: two by nature, because there is a great diversity of natures; but one by conjunction, because that which was assumed shares undivided veneration with him who assumed it, remaining as it were his indivisible temple. For all things which are called two, then contain the use of two, when the one is believed to be no different from the other, according as it obtains the name and enumeration of two. For example, divine Scripture recalls Four beasts, a bear, a leopard, a lion, and another that surpasses these in savagery, and they are therefore four, because each beast is proved to be, according to substance, nothing less than the rest of the beasts.

The testimony of two men, he says, is true, because each is by nature what the other is. So too that saying, No one can serve two masters, because to one who renders service as to a lord, each is no less a lord; so also here, if each were, according to substance, both son and lord, they could in some way be called two sons and two lords according to the number of persons. But since the one is indeed, according to substance, son and lord, while the other is proved to be neither son nor lord according to essence, but is known to have shared in these same titles through the conjunction that was made between him and the other, therefore we say one son and lord, understanding principally him as son and lord who is believed and called both truly according to substance: but embracing also in thought him who is inseparably joined to him, and who through the ineffable union with him is reckoned a partaker of the title of son and of lord.

And so wherever divine Scripture mentions this son who was assumed, we say that he is called son by relation to the one assuming him, according to unity. For when it says, concerning his Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, it does not yet speak of the Word, but of the form of a servant that was assumed. For God is not according to the flesh, nor was God made of the seed of David—he whom blessed Paul plainly calls Son. But we understand him as Son, not because he is called Son in himself, but because by that conjunction which he has with him who is truly Son, he is thus named.

The Creator took pity on his ruined creature, and without commixture forms an infant, brings him on to manhood, in the very progress of his growth intimating, according to the measure of faith, a likeness of nature, yet remaining secretly joined to the same: he was not absent when he was being formed, he was not divided when he was born, joined and present to him who spoke, persevering in his acts, and there guarding his own connection without sin. »

« Nor therefore did he bring death upon men unwillingly and against his own judgment, nor did he give sin an entry to no purpose; for it was not that, being unwilling for this to happen, he was unable to prevent it: but because he knew that it was profitable for us, or rather for all rational beings, that first there should be an entry of evils and worse things, and afterward that these should be destroyed, and better things introduced: therefore God divided the present creation into two states, the present and the future: in the one, he will bring all things to immortality and immutability, but in the present he for a time consigns creation to death and mutability: for if he had made us immortal and immutable from the very beginning, we would have no distinction from irrational creatures, being ignorant of our own proper good.

For not knowing mutability, we would not know the good of immutability; not knowing death, we would not know the gain of immortality; not knowing corruption, we would not praise incorruption; not knowing the burden of the passions, we would not marvel at impassibility. To speak concisely, lest I make a long discourse: not knowing the experience of evils, we could not attain the knowledge of those good things. »