where the final condemnation of the semi-Pelagian heresy took place at the Council of Orange in
529.
Saint Augustine taught that Adam, before the Fall, had had free will, and could have abstained
from sin. But as he and Eve ate the apple, corruption entered into them, and descended to all their
posterity, none of whom can, of their own power, abstain from sin. Only God's grace enables men
to be virtuous. Since we all inherit Adam's sin, we all deserve eternal damnation. All who die
unbaptized, even infants, will go to hell and suffer unending torment. We have no reason to
complain of this, since we are all wicked. (In the Confessions, the Saint enumerates the crimes of
which he was guilty in the cradle.) But by God's free grace certain people, among those who have
been baptized, are chosen to go to heaven; these are the elect. They do not go to heaven because
they are good; we are all totally depraved, except in so far as God's grace, which is only bestowed
on the elect, enables us to be otherwise. No reason can be given why some are saved and the rest
damned; this is due to God's unmotived choice. Damnation proves God's justice; salvation His
mercy. Both equally display His goodness.
The arguments in favour of this ferocious doctrine--which was revived by Calvin, and has since
then not been held by the Catholic Church--are to be found in the writings of Saint Paul,
particularly the Epistle to the Romans. These are treated by Augustine as a lawyer treats the law:
the interpretation is able, and the texts are made to yield their utmost meaning. One is persuaded,
at the end, not that Saint Paul believed what Augustine deduces, but that, taking certain texts in
isolation, they do imply just what he says they do. It may seem odd that the damnation of
unbaptized infants should not have been thought shocking, but should have been attributed to a
good God. The conviction of sin, however, so dominated him that he really believed new-born
children to be limbs of Satan. A great deal of what is most ferocious in the medieval Church is
traceable to his gloomy sense of universal guilt.
There is only one intellectual difficulty that really troubles Saint Augustine. This is not that it
seems a pity to have created Man, since the immense majority of the human race are predestined
to eternal torment. What troubles him is that, if original sin is inherited from Adam, as Saint Paul
teaches, the soul, as well as the body, must be