Baptism and Original Sin

Baptism and Original Sin

Since he was begotten and conceived in no pleasure of carnal appetite – and therefore bore no trace of original sin – he was, by the grace of God (operating in a marvelous and an ineffable manner), joined and united in a personal unity with the only-begotten Word of the Father, a Son not by grace but by nature. And although he himself committed no sin, yet because of “the likeness of sinful flesh” in which he came, he was himself called sin and was made a sacrifice for the washing away of sins.

Indeed, under the old law, sacrifices for sins were often called sins. Yet he of whom those sacrifices were mere shadows was himself actually made sin. Thus, when the apostle said, “For Christ’s sake, we beseech you to be reconciled to God,” he straightway added, “Him, who knew no sin, he made to be sin for us that we might be made to be the righteousness of God in him.” He does not say, as we read in some defective copies, “He who knew no sin did sin for us,” as if Christ himself committed sin for our sake. Rather, he says, “He [Christ] who knew no sin, he [God] made to be sin for us.” The God to whom we are to be reconciled hath thus made him the sacrifice for sin by which we may be reconciled.

He himself is therefore sin as we ourselves are righteousness – not our own but God’s, not in ourselves but in him. Just as he was sin – not his own but ours, rooted not in himself but in us – so he showed forth through the likeness of sinful flesh, in which he was crucified, that since sin was not in him he could then, so to say, die to sin by dying in the flesh, which was “the likeness of sin.” And since he had never lived in the old manner of sinning, he might, in his resurrection, signify the new life which is ours, which is springing to life anew from the old death in which we had been dead to sin.

This is the meaning of the great sacrament of baptism, which is celebrated among us. All who attain to this grace die thereby to sin – as he himself is said to have died to sin because he died in the flesh, that is, “in the likeness of sin” – and they are thereby alive by being reborn in the baptismal font, just as he rose again from the sepulcher. This is the case no matter what the age of the body.

For whether it be a newborn infant or a decrepit old man – since no one should be barred from baptism – just so, there is no one who does not die to sin in baptism. Infants die to original sin only; adults, to all those sins which they have added, through their evil living, to the burden they brought with them at birth.

But even these are frequently said to die to sin, when without doubt they die not to one but to many sins, and to all the sins which they have themselves already committed by thought, word, and deed. Actually, by the use of the singular number the plural number is often signified, as the poet said, “And they fill the belly with the armed warrior,” 

although they did this with many warriors. And in our own Scriptures we read: “Pray therefore to the Lord that he may take from us the serpent.” It does not say “serpents,” as it might, for they were suffering from many serpents. There are, moreover, innumerable other such examples.

Yet, when the original sin is signified by the use of the plural number, as we say when infants are baptized “unto the remission of sins,” instead of saying “unto the remission of sin,” then we have the converse expression in which the singular is expressed by the plural number. Thus in the Gospel, it is said of Herod’s death, “For they are dead who sought the child’s life” ; it does not say, “He is dead.” And in Exodus: “They made,” [Moses] says, “to themselves gods of gold,” when they had made one calf. And of this calf, they said: “These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought you out of the land of Egypt,”  here also putting the plural for the singular.

Still, even in that one sin – which “entered into the world by one man and so spread to all men,” and on account of which infants are baptized – one can recognize a plurality of sins, if that single sin is divided, so to say, into its separate elements. For there is pride in it, since man preferred to be under his own rule rather than the rule of God; and sacrilege too, for man did not acknowledge God; and murder, since he cast himself down to death; and spiritual fornication, for the integrity of the human mind was corrupted by the seduction of the serpent; and theft, since the forbidden fruit was snatched; and avarice, since he hungered for more than should have sufficed for him – and whatever other sins that could be discovered in the diligent analysis of that one sin.

It is also said – and not without support – that infants are involved in the sins of their parents, not only of the first pair, but even of their own, of whom they were born. Indeed, that divine judgment, “I shall visit the sins of the fathers on their children,”  definitely applies to them before they come into the New Covenant by regeneration. This Covenant was foretold by Ezekiel when he said that the sons should not bear their fathers’ sins, nor the proverb any longer apply in Israel, “Our fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” 

This is why each one of them must be born again, so that he may thereby be absolved of whatever sin was in him at the time of birth. For the sins committed by evil-doing after birth can be healed by repentance – as, indeed, we see it happen even after baptism. For the new birth [regeneratio] would not have been instituted except for the fact that the first birth [generatio] was tainted – and to such a degree that one born of even a lawful wedlock said, “I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother nourish me in her womb.” Nor did he say “in iniquity” or “in sin,” as he might have quite correctly; rather, he preferred to say “iniquities” and “sins,” because, as I explained above, there are so many sins in that one sin – which has passed into all men, and which was so great that human nature was changed and by it brought under the necessity of death – and also because there are other sins, such as those of parents, which, even if they cannot change our nature in the same way, still involve the children in guilt, unless the gracious grace and mercy of God interpose.

But, in the matter of the sins of one’s other parents, those who stand as one’s forebears from Adam down to one’s own parents, a question might well be raised: whether a man at birth is involved in the evil deeds of all his forebears, and their multiplied original sins, so that the later in time he is born, the worse estate he is born in; or whether, on this very account, God threatens to visit the sins of the parents as far as – but no farther than – the third and fourth generations, because in his mercy he will not continue his wrath beyond that. It is not his purpose that those not given the grace of regeneration be crushed under too heavy a burden in their eternal damnation, as they would be if they were bound to bear, as original guilt, all the sins of their ancestors from the beginning of the human race, and to pay the due penalty for them. Whether yet another solution to so difficult a problem might or might not be found by a more diligent search and interpretation of Holy Scripture, I dare not rashly affirm.

By Saint Augustine, from Handbook of Faith, Hope and Love

Photo taken from Wikimedia Commons
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