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| He Shows by Example that Even Infancy is Prone to Sin.
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Chapter VII.—He Shows by Example
that Even Infancy is Prone to Sin.
11. Hearken, O God! Alas for the sins of men!
Man saith this, and Thou dost compassionate him; for Thou didst
create him, but didst not create the sin that is in him. Who
bringeth to my remembrance the sin of my infancy? For before Thee
none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a
day upon the earth. Who bringeth this to my remembrance? Doth not
each little one, in whom I behold that which I do not remember of
myself? In what, then, did I sin? Is it that I cried for the
breast? If I should now so cry,—not indeed for the breast, but
for the food suitable to my years,—I should be most justly
laughed at and rebuked. What I then did deserved rebuke; but as I
could not understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor
reason suffered me to be rebuked. For as we grow we root out and
cast from us such habits. I have not seen any one who is wise, when
“purging”155
anything
cast away the good. Or was it good, even for a time, to strive to
get by crying that which, if given, would be hurtful—to be
bitterly indignant that those who were free and its elders, and
those to whom it owed its being, besides many others wiser than it,
who would not give way to the nod of its good pleasure, were not
subject unto it—to endeavour to harm, by struggling as much as it
could, because those commands were not obeyed which only could have
been obeyed to its hurt? Then, in the weakness of the infant’s
limbs, and not in its will, lies its innocency. I myself have seen
and known an infant to be jealous though it could not speak. It
became pale, and cast bitter looks on its foster-brother. Who is
ignorant of this? Mothers and nurses tell us that they appease
these things by I know not what remedies; and may this be taken for
innocence, that when the fountain of milk is flowing fresh and
abundant, one who has need should not be allowed to share it,
though needing that nourishment to sustain life? Yet we look
leniently on these things, not because they are not faults, nor
because the faults are small, but because they will vanish as age
increases. For although you may allow these things now, you could
not bear them with equanimity if found in an older
person.
12. Thou, therefore, O Lord my God, who gavest
life to the infant, and a frame which, as we see, Thou hast endowed
with senses, compacted with limbs, beautified with form, and, for
its general good and safety, hast introduced all vital
energies—Thou commandest me to praise Thee for these things,
“to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praise unto Thy name,
O Most High;”156
for Thou art
a God omnipotent and good, though Thou hadst done nought but these
things, which none other can do but Thou, who alone madest all
things, O Thou most fair, who madest all things fair, and orderest
all according to Thy law. This period, then, of my life, O Lord, of
which I have no remembrance, which I believe on the word of others,
and which I guess from other infants, it chagrins me—true though
the guess be—to reckon in this life of mine which I lead in this
world; inasmuch as, in the darkness of my forgetfulness, it is like
to that which I passed in my mother’s womb. But if “I was
shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,”157
where, I pray thee, O my God,
where, Lord, or when was I, Thy servant, innocent? But behold, I
pass by that time, for what have I to do with that, the memories of
which I cannot recall?
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