Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants/Book II/Chapter 58

Chapter 58 [XXXVI.]—“Likeness of Sinful Flesh” Implies the Reality.

It is no small concession to the authority and truthfulness of the inspired pages which those persons have made, who, although unwilling to admit openly in their writings that remission of sins is necessary for infants, have yet confessed that they need redemption. Nothing that they have said differs indeed from another word, even that which is derived from Christian instruction. Whilst by those who faithfully read, faithfully hear, and faithfully hold fast the Holy Scriptures, it cannot be doubted that from that flesh, which first became sinful flesh by the choice of sin, and which has been subsequently transmitted to all through successive generations, there has been propagated a sinful flesh, with the single exception of that “likeness of sinful flesh,” —which  likeness, however, there could not have been, had there not been also the reality of sinful flesh.