Cap. X: Garissoles (2–3) souls/moral quality; Gualther; Confession Art. 10; Martyr modus

For he adds: 2. Nor is it enough if you say that Adam could not communicate what he had lost, because no one gives what he does not have — because here a reason must be given why Adam's soul was adorned with the ornaments of original justice; and why the souls of his posterity, which are not traduced by natural propagation but are created by God in infusion and infused in creation, lack those same ornaments from their very creation, and so are brought by God into the body destitute of that first perfection of father Adam — which would nevertheless have been otherwise if Adam had persisted in his integrity. For here one must not simply recur to propagation, since souls are not propagated or traduced; nor to the law of nature by which the diseased generate the diseased, because the soul is not generated, and yet from the beginning of its being it is deprived of those first benefits. 3. Because a physical quality inhering in flesh alone, such as disease or leprosy, is not well compared with a moral quality such as corruption or original sin. Nor does it follow that if it is truly natural for a leper to generate a leper, or an elephantiac an elephantiac, one should think it is from the nature of propagation alone, apart from every respect to imputation, that from morally corrupt Adam morally corrupt people likewise are generated. First, as for what he says — that a reason must be given why Adam's soul was adorned with the ornaments of original justice — that reason is ready to hand: for since it was rational and capable of justice, it could not be created by the best God without justice and holiness — that is, unjust and unclean. But why are the souls of his posterity not adorned with the same justice when they are produced? The answer is ready too: because unclean Adam could not generate a clean one; for he begot like himself. What need is there for me to give you a reason why a wolf begets a wolf? For as Gualther says, as wolves generate wolves, so Adam the sinner generated sinners; and as wolf cubs show wolfish greed by no obscure proofs, so in infants also sin then exerts its forces when by age they can yet perform no work. But you say: here one must not simply recur to propagation, since souls are not propagated or traduced. I for my part am not forgetful of our public confession of faith. Article 10: Nor do we think it necessary to inquire how sin can be propagated from one to another. Peter Martyr's words too are excellent, to omit others: The matter, he says, is obscure and very hard; and for that reason I think less labor should be spent on it. For since the word of God most clearly teaches that original sin itself exists and is transmitted to posterity, although we do not understand the mode and reason by which it is transferred, still we must yield to the truth; but on a mode that can be known only with difficulty and ignored without loss, one should not dispute too anxiously. In truth it is clear that there are many things whose manner of production we do not know. Modest ignorance is better than bold and uncertain knowledge. But since the learned man's reasoning will not let us be so sober, I ask: is hereditary sin propagated naturally, or not? It is propagated, he says, because no one can draw what is clean from what is unclean, because corrupt Adam begot corrupt people, because God permitted that blot contracted by the first parents' sin to cling in the seed and flow out to posterity. So it is; and there will be none of us who will not grant all that at great length. That is most true, and constantly asserted by all the orthodox against the Pelagians.