The shameful death and the new tomb
Augustine has just argued that the Word could not be stained by a human body, and now turns to the humility of Christ's death and burial under Pontius Pilate.
But if they wanted to avoid stains on the soul, they should rather have dreaded these lies and sacrileges.
Yet our Lord's humility in being born was a small thing for our sake; he also deigned to die for mortals. For he humbled himself, made subject all the way to death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8), so that none of us—even if we could manage not to fear death—would shudder at some kind of death that people consider most disgraceful.
We believe therefore in him who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried. The judge's name had to be added for the sake of knowledge of the times. And when that burial is believed, it calls to mind the new tomb, which would bear witness to the one about to rise to newness of life, just as the virgin's womb bore witness to the one about to be born. For just as no other dead person was buried in that tomb, neither before nor after, so in that womb nothing mortal was conceived, neither before nor after.
Latin
quodsi animae maculas illi uitare uellent, haec mendacia potius et sacrilegia formidarent.,
Sed parua erat pro nobis domini nostri humilitas in nascendo; accessit etiam, ut mori pro mortalibus dignaretur. humiliauit enim se, factus subditus usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis, ne quisquam nostrum. etiamsi mortem posset non timere, aliquod genus mortis, quod homines ignominiosissimum arbitrantur, horreret. credimus itaque in eum, qui sub Pontio Pilato crucifixus est et sepultus. addendum enim erat iudicis nomen propter temporum cognitionem. sepultura uero illa cum creditur, fit recordatio noui monumenti, quod resurrecturo ad uitae nouitatem praeberet testimonium, sicut nascituro uterus uirginalis. nam sicut in illo monumento nullus alius mortuus sepultus est nec ante nec postea, sic in illo utero nec ante nec postea quidquam mortale conceptum est.