Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/240

 the church, who lived before the appearance of the Pelagian heresy, such as (a) Justin: ‘It has pleased Christ to be born and to suffer death, not because he himself had any need of it, but on account of the human race, which through Adam (ἀπὸ τοῦ ᾿Αδάμ) was subject to death and the temptation of the serpent.’ (6) Irenæus: ‘In the first Adam we offended God, by not fulfilling his command; in the second Adam we made peace with him, becoming submissive even unto death; we were under obligation not to any one else, but to him whose command we had violated from the beginning.’ (c) Tertullian: ‘Man was from the start seduced by the devil to violate the command of God, and so is subject to death; after that the whole human race was made by him a participant (traducem) in his judgment,’” and so forth. (p. 500.)

“We do not quote similar utterances of many other teachers of the church, who lived at that period, as what we have adduced is sufficient to show the whole senselessness of the Pelagians, both the ancient and the modern, who assert that St. Augustine invented the doctrine of original sin, and, on the other hand, to cause the recognition of the whole justice of the words of the blessed St. Augustine to one of the Pelagians: ‘I have not invented original sin, in which the Catholic Church has believed since olden times; but you, who reject this dogma, are no doubt a new heretic.’ Finally, of the actuality of original sin, which has come down to us from our first ancestors, we may convince ourselves in the light of sound reason, on the basis of incontestable experience.” (p. 502.)

What convinces us of it is the fact “(a) that within us there exists a constant struggle between the spirit and the flesh, between the reason and the passions, between the striving after the good and the attraction of the evil; (b) in this struggle the victory is nearly always on the