Chapter 30.—Augustin Claims the Right to Grow in Knowledge.

Therefore it is in vain that it is prescribed to me from that old book of mine, that I may not argue the case as I ought to argue it in respect of infants; and that thence I may not persuade my opponents by the light of a manifest truth, that God’s grace is not given according to men’s merits. For if, when I began my books concerning Free Will as a layman, and finished them as a presbyter, I still doubted of the condemnation of infants not born again, and of the deliverance of infants that were born again, no one, as I think, would be so unfair and envious as to hinder my progress, and judge that I must continue in that uncertainty. But it can more correctly be understood that it ought to be believed that I did not doubt in that matter, for the reason that they against whom my purpose was directed seemed to me in such wise to be rebutted, as that whether there was a punishment of original sin in infants, according to the truth, or whether there was not, as some mistaken people think, yet in no degree should such a confusion of the two natures be believed in, to wit, of good and evil, as the error of the Manicheans introduces. Be it therefore far from us so to forsake the case of infants as to say to ourselves that it is uncertain whether, being regenerated in Christ, if they die in infancy they pass into eternal salvation; but that, not being regenerated, they pass into the second death. Because that which is written, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men,”61    Rom. v. 12. cannot be rightly understood in any other manner; nor from that eternal death which is most righteously repaid to sin does any deliver any one, small or great, save He who, for the sake of remitting our sins, both original and personal, died without any sin of His own, either original or personal. But why some rather than others? Again and again we say, and do not shrink from it, “O man, who art thou that repliest against God?”62    Rom. ix. 20. “His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out.”63    Rom. xi. 33. And let us add this, “Seek not out the things that are too high for thee, and search not the things that are above thy strength.”64    Ecclus. iii. 21.

30. Frustra itaque mihi de illius libri mei vetustate praescribitur, ne agam causam sicut debeo agere parvulorum, et inde gratiam Dei non secundum me rita hominum dari, perspicuae veritatis luce convincam. Si enim quando libros de Libero Arbitrio laicus coepi, presbyter explicavi , adhuc de damnatione infantium non renascentium et de renascentium liberatione dubitarem; nemo, ut opinor, esset tam injustus atque invidus, qui me proficere prohiberet, atque in hac dubitatione remanendum mihi esse judicaret. Cum vero rectius possit intelligi, non me propterea de hac re dubitasse credi oportere, quia contra quos mea dirigebatur intentio, sic mihi visi sunt refellendi, ut sive poena esset peccati originalis in parvulis, quod veritas habet; sive non esset, quod nonnulli errantes opinantur; nullo modo tamen quam Manichaeorum 1011 error inducit, duarum naturarum, boni scilicet et mali, permixtio crederetur: absit ut causam parvulorum sic relinquamus, ut esse nobis dicamus incertum, utrum in Christo regenerati, si moriantur parvuli, transeant in aeternam salutem; non regenerati autem transeant in mortem secundam: quoniam quod scriptum est, Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per peccatum mors; et ita in omnes homines pertransiit (Rom. V, 12,); aliter recte intelligi non potest: nec a morte perpetua, quae justissime est retributa peccato, liberat quemquam pusillorum atque magnorum, nisi ille qui propter remittenda et originalia et propria nostra peccata mortuus est sine ullo suo originali propriove peccato. Sed quare illos potius quam illos? Iterum atque iterum dicimus, nec nos piget, O homo, tu quis es qui respondeas Deo (Rom. IX, 20)? Inscrutabilia sunt judicia ejus, et investigabiles viae ejus (Id. XI, 33). Et hoc adjiciamus: Altiora te ne quaesieris, et fortiora te ne scrutatus fueris (Eccli. III, 22).