Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 3.--Whether Death, Which by the Sin of Our First Parents Has Passed Upon All Men, is the Punishment of Sin, Even to the Good.

But a question not to be shirked arises: Whether in very truth death, which separates soul and body, is good to the good? ¹ For if it be, how has it come to pass that such a thing should be the punishment of sin? For the first men would not have suffered death had they not sinned. How, then, can that be good to the good, which could not have happened except to the evil? Then, again, if it could only happen to the evil, to the good it ought not to be good, but non-existent. For why should there be any punishment where there is nothing to punish? Wherefore we must say that the first men were indeed so created, that if they had not sinned, they would not have experienced any kind of death; but that, having become sinners, they were so punished with death, that whatsoever sprang from their stock should also be punished with the same death. For nothing else could be born of them than that which they themselves had been. Their nature was deteriorated in proportion to the greatness of the condemnation of their sin, so that what existed as punishment in those who first sinned, became a natural consequence in their children. For man is not produced by man, as he was from the dust. For dust was the material out of which man was made: man is the parent by whom man is begotten. Wherefore earth and flesh are not the same thing, though flesh be made of earth. But as man the parent is, such is man the offspring. In the first man, therefore, there existed the whole human nature, which was to be transmitted by the woman to posterity, when that conjugal union received the divine sentence of its own condemnation; and what man was made, not when created, but when he sinned and was punished, this he propagated, so far as the origin of sin and death are concerned. For neither by sin nor its punishment was he himself reduced to that infantine and helpless infirmity of body and mind which we see in children. For God ordained that infants should begin the world as the young of beasts begin it, since their parents had fallen to the level of the beasts in the fashion of their life and of their death; as it is written, "Man when he was in honor understood not; he became like the beasts that have no understanding." ² Nay more, infants, we see, are even feebler in the use and movement of their limbs, and more infirm to choose and refuse, than the most tender offspring of other animals; as if the force that dwells in human nature were destined to surpass all other living things so much the more eminently, as its energy has been longer restrained, and the time of its exercise delayed, just as an arrow flies the higher the further back it has been drawn. To this infantine imbecility ³ the first man did not fall by his lawless presumption and just sentence; but human nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an extent, that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient lust, and became subject to the necessity of dying. And what he himself had become by sin and punishment, such he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject to sin and death. And if infants are delivered from this bondage of sin by the Redeemer's grace, they can suffer only this death which separates soul and body; but being redeemed from the obligation of sin, they do not pass to that second endless and penal death.

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput III: Vtrum mors, quae per peccatum primorum hominum in omnes homines pertransiit, etiam in sanctis poena peccati sit.

Non autem dissimulanda nascitur quaestio, utrum reuera mors, qua separantur anima et corpus, bonis sit bona; quia si ita est, quomodo poterit obtineri, quod etiam ipsa sit poena peccati? hanc enim primi homines, nisi peccauissent, perpessi utique non fuissent. quo pacto igitur bona esse possit bonis, quae accidere non posset nisi malis? et rursus si nonnisi malis posset accidere, non deberet bonis bona esse, sed nulla. cur enim esset ulla poena in quibus non essent ulla punienda? quapropter fatendum est primos quidem homines ita fuisse institutos, ut, si non peccassent, nullum mortis experirentur genus; sed eosdem primos peccatores ita fuisse morte multatos, ut etiam quidquid de eorum stirpe esset exortum eadem poena teneretur obnoxium. non enim aliud ex eis, quam quod ipsi fuerant, nasceretur. pro magnitudine quippe culpae illius naturam damnatio mutauit in peius, ut, quod poenaliter praecessit in peccantibus hominibus primis, etiam naturaliter sequeretur in nascentibus ceteris. neque enim ita homo ex homine, sicut homo ex puluere. puluis namque homini faciendo materies fuit, homo autem homini gignendo parens. proinde quod est terra, non hoc est caro, quamuis ex terra facta sit caro; quod est autem parens homo, hoc est et proles homo. in primo igitur homine per feminam in progeniem transiturum uniuersum genus humanum fuit, quando illa coniugum copula diuinam sententiam suae damnationis excepit; et quod homo factus est, non cum crearetur, sed cum peccaret et puniretur, hoc genuit, quantum quidem adtinet ad peccati et mortis originem. non enim ad infantilem hebetudinem et infirmitatem animi et corporis, quam uidemus in paruulis, peccato uel poena ille redactus est - quae deus uoluit esse tamquam primordia catulorum, quorum parentes in bestialem uitam mortemque deiecerat; sicut enim scriptum est: homo in honore cum esset, non intellexit; conparatus est pecoribus non intellegentibus et similis factus est illis; nisi quod infantes infirmiores etiam cernimus in usu motuque membrorum et sensu adpetendi atque uitandi, quam sunt aliorum tenerrimi fetus animalium; tamquam se tanto adtollat excellentius supra cetera animantia uis humana, quanto magis inpetum suum, uelut sagitta cum arcus extenditur, retrorsum reducta distulerit; - non ergo ad ista infantilia rudimenta praesumptione inlicita et damnatione iusta prolapsus uel inpulsus est primus homo; sed hactenus in eo natura humana uitiata atque mutata est, ut repugnantem pateretur in membris inoboedientiam concupiscendi et obstringeretur necessitate moriendi, atque ita id, quod uitio poenaque factus est, id est obnoxios peccato morti que generaret. a quo peccati uinculo si per mediatoris Christi gratiam soluuntur infantes, hanc solam mortem perpeti possunt, quae animam seiungit a corpore; in secundam uero illam sine fine poenalem liberati a peccati obligatione non transeunt.