Fathers

On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §136

Cap. XI: Augustine vs Julian; Martyr and the Enchiridion on consequent guilt

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Meanwhile Garissoles casually praises a passage from Augustine's unfinished work against Julian's second reply (Paris, in the seventeenth year of this century) — a passage which, he says, even alone would show what Augustine and the Catholic Church thought about this imputation. Let us look at it: if Augustine is consistent, he is wholly ours. What then is this cry — that God cannot both forgive adults their own sins and impute another's to little ones? (The word propter also looks deletable there as useless and awkward, and the sentence has some other fault. Julian was not saying God cannot forgive adults their own sins; he was saying it does not become the God who forgives adults their own to impute another's to little ones.) Nor will you face this: only those reborn in Christ have both forgiven; those not reborn in Christ have neither. The Christian sacraments of grace are hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed to little ones. If you were among them, and did not think yourself great in your own virtue, you would see that the first man's injustice is imputed to little ones as generated, for undergoing punishment, just as the second man's justice is imputed to little ones as regenerated, for obtaining the kingdom of heaven. That place does not hurt us. Augustine means an imputation that follows generation — and so inborn corruption — whereas the imputation we deny is supposed to precede generation as it does corruption, as if it were the cause of our being born corrupt. Nothing stops us taking 'the first man's injustice' as habitual injustice transmitted to little ones by generation. When the Pelagians asked Augustine how God, who in His goodness remits our own sins, could will to impute another's, he answered (Martyr witnesses) that God is supremely good and does not, as they assume, impute another's sin to us in the guilt of origin, but our own iniquity, which already clings to our nature from the origin itself. Martyr adds another witness: in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, chapter 46, Augustine says it is probable that even the nearest parents' sins are shared with the children. To prove it he sets together two Scriptures we already treated: God will pursue the fathers' sins on the children to the third and fourth generation, yet elsewhere the son shall not bear the father's iniquity. If the son does not bear the father's iniquity but his own, and yet God pursues the father's sin in him, the son must have that sin in himself — otherwise the places would not agree. Would Augustine have said that if he had believed an antecedent or immediate imputation of the father's sin, by which a son would be sinner and guilty who otherwise would be neither?

Latin

Interim quia obiter laudat ex Augustini opere imperfecto contra secundam Juliani responsionem Lutetiae edito anno hujus saeculi decimo septimo, locum, Qui, inquit, vel solus, si alius non extaret apud Augustinum, satis docet quid de hac imputatione & ipse & Ecclesia Catholica senserit, eum locum inspiciamus: Augustinus enim, si sibi constat, totus noster est. Quid est ergo quod clamas & dicis non posse Deum & dimittere peccata majoribus propter propria, & imputare parvulis aliena. (Videtur & delenda vox propter inutilis eo loco & incommoda, & sententia alio quodam mendo laborare. Non dicebat enim Julianus Deum non posse majoribus, hoc est, adultis propria dimittere peccata; sed dicebat non decere Deum, qui dimittit peccata majoribus propria, imputare parvulis aliena.) Nec vis attendere quod nonnisi in Christo renatis, utraque; non renatis autem in Christo neutra dimittantur. Ipsa sunt enim Christiana & gratiae sacramenta abscondita sapientibus & prudentibus & revelata parvulis. In quibus, o si esses, nec quasi magnus in tua virtute consideres, profecto intelligeres, sic imputari generatis parvulis injustitiam primi hominis ad subeundum supplicium, quemadmodum imputatur parvulis regeneratis justitia secundi hominis ad obtinendum regnum coelorum. Nobis hic locus minime nocet. Imputationem enim intelligit, quae generationem, atque adeo ingenitam corruptionem sequitur; cum imputatio, quam negamus, ut corruptionem sic generationem antecedere putetur; causa enim creditur esse, cur gignamur corrupti. Adde quod nihil prohibet per injustitiam primi hominis, injustitiam intelligere habitualem, quam ad parvulos primus homo per generationem transmisit. Certe enim cum Augustino objiceretur a Pelagianis, Qui fieri possit, ut Deus, qui pro sua bonitate nostra ipsorum peccata remittit, velit imputare aliena? Respondit, teste Martyre, Deum summe bonum esse, neque, quod isti assumunt, in culpa originis imputare nobis alienum peccatum, sed nostram ipsorum iniquitatem, quae nostrae naturae adhaeret jam inde ab ipsa origine. Addam aliud ejusdem Martyris de Augustino testimonium. Augustinus, inquit, in Enchiridio ad Laurentium capite 46. probabile ait esse, peccata etiam proximorum parentum communicari cum filiis. Ad quod probandum componit inter se duo loca Scripturarum a nobis ante tractata: Quod Deus ait, se velle persequi peccata patrum in filios in tertiam, & quartam generationem: quum alio loco dicat, Filium non portaturum iniquitatem patris. Si filius, inquit, non portat iniquitatem patris, sed suam, & tamen Deus persequitur in eo peccatum patris, oportet, ut filius ipse peccatum illud in se habeat: Alioqui haec loca inter se non convenirent. Num haec dixisset Augustinus, si peccati paterni imputationem antecedentem seu immediatam credidisset, qua scilicet filius sit peccator & reus, alioqui non peccator, nec reus?

About this text

Josue de la Place (Placeus) — Capita I–XIV partial of De imputatione primi peccati Adami from the 1661 Saumur Latin, through Man. Post. Caput X (GAR.1–3 Rom. 5.13 tip) / before PLAC on reatus-only. Honest partial; Cap. X Rom. 5:14+ / ~494 pp Disputatio remain.

English follows the locked 1661 Saumur Latin of Capita I–XIV partial through Man. Post. Caput IX (eph-ho / eph-ho pantes) before eph-ho / eph-ho pantes, reconstructed from IA PDF page images with Vision OCR and pdftotext as check. No modern English was copied. Cap. IX deepen+ remain.

Catalogue & scope

IA deimputationepri00lapl. Densify: Capita I–XII + Caput XIV + Man. Post. Cap. II–VI through Cap. X Rom. 5:14 tip. Not whole Disputatio; Cap. X Rom. 5:14+ / ~494 pp Disputatio remain.

Witnesses

This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.