Anf-03 v.iv.iii.ii Pg 23
Luke viii. 18; comp. Matt. xiii. 12.
—such as the grace of paradise and the friendship of God, by means of which he might have known all things of God, if he had continued in his obedience—what wonder is it, if he,2721 2721 That is, the natural man, the ψυχικός.
reduced to his material nature, and banished to the toil of tilling the ground, has in his very labour, downcast and earth-gravitating as it was, handed on that earth-derived spirit of the world to his entire race, wholly natural2722 2722 Animali = ψυχικῷ.
and heretical as it is, and not receiving the things which belong to God? Or who will hesitate to declare the great sin of Adam to have been heresy, when he committed it by the choice2723 2723 Electionem. By this word our author translates the Greek αἵρεσις. Comp. De Præscr. Her. 6, p. 245, supra.
of his own will rather than of God’s? Except that Adam never said to his fig-tree, Why hast thou made me thus? He confessed that he was led astray; and he did not conceal the seducer. He was a very rude heretic. He was disobedient; but yet he did not blaspheme his Creator, nor blame that Author of his being, Whom from the beginning of his life he had found to be so good and excellent, and Whom he had perhaps2724 2724 Si forte.
made his own judge from the very first.
