The Origin of Sin

Contents

Reading pages: 0.1–1.571 · 1.601–1.931

1. 0.1The preface retells Cain and Abel’s offerings and the first murder, and reads Abel’s death as a figure of Christ’s, by which death itself was ended.
2. 0.31Cain is a figure of Marcion, who divides the one God into a good and an evil god and so murders the unity of the faith.
3. 1.1Against Cain’s heir Marcion, the poet argues that the world’s mixture of good and evil does not imply two gods, since a divided supreme power cannot be supreme; the faith confesses one full God, in whom Christ is.
4. 1.31God the Father is the one source of all things and of number itself; the Son, begotten one from one before all time and not adopted, is the true form of the Father, so that the Godhead is one, which Marcion’s two lords deny.
5. 1.61God has set the one sun before human eyes as a sign: though it has three powers, light, heat and motion, it is one substance, so no one should believe in two gods; seeing double is a disease of the eye and of the mind.
6. 1.91If there are two gods, why not thousands, as the pagans hold? The poet challenges Marcion to divide their realms, and begins to state his view that an evil god made the world and man.
7. 1.121Marcion assigns the Old Testament to a harsh god and the New to a good one; the poet answers that the father of crimes exists but is no God, and portrays this devil as a monstrous hunter, a Nimrod snaring souls.
8. 1.151Those who call the author of evil God are as mad as the worshippers of Fever; evil was invented not by God, who alone is uncreated, but by a created angel who in pride persuaded himself that he was self-begotten.
9. 1.181Against the view that an eternal evil god rose from darkness, Scripture says that all things were made through the Word; the devil was made good and fell of his own will through envy of man, made from clay and set as lord over creation, and became the serpent, the source of evil.
10. 1.211Through the devil man fell, and with its lord the whole world fell into ruin: weeds, beasts of prey, poisonous plants, and the warring elements all date from the fall.
11. 1.241The disorder of nature comes not from the Creator but from the license of things after the fall; human life sets the example of sin in war, lust and avarice, the root of all evils, and in women’s adornment with gold and jewels.
12. 1.271Women paint their faces and load themselves with jewels, and men, the head of the woman, also grow soft in silks, feathers and perfumes, so that luxury corrupts every sense.
13. 1.301The senses God gave for good uses are turned to the theatre, perfumes, banquet songs, gluttony and soft beds; happy is the one who uses God’s gifts in moderation.
14. 1.331The world was created good, as Moses testifies, by the one Creator, Father and Son being one in nature and will; created things such as iron or horses are not evil in themselves, but their misuse is.
15. 1.361The fault lies in the crowd’s mind, not in things: oil, ropes and beasts are turned to deadly shows; no one lifts his mind to God, but all serve the devil, whose army besieges the soul.
16. 1.391The devil’s army of vices, among them pride of learning, eloquence and idolatry, is pictured as the seven nations of Canaan arrayed for war against the human race.
17. 1.421The devil enslaves weak and simple minds, the greedy and the ambitious magistrate alike; the soul’s captivity to sin is the true Babylonian exile that Jeremiah lamented.
18. 1.451Israel in exile forgets Zion; the poet asks what good the exodus, the Red Sea crossing and the conquest were, if the people lose the promised land again, as the soul does when it falls back into sin.
19. 1.481Whoever has Christ, the cornerstone, built into his walls is safe from every enemy, even from Marcion’s god, the ruler of this vain world; as Paul says, creation is subjected to vanity, and our struggle is not against flesh and blood.
20. 1.511Our struggle is with the evil powers of the air under Belial, as Paul says; the body is easily ruled by the mind, but the devil’s arrows are swifter than a Parthian’s, though the soul is able to guard against them.
21. 1.541The soul is given keen powers to resist the devil, who can harm us only as far as we allow; our sins are our own offspring, like Absalom who rose against his father David.
22. 1.571David’s house held both good and wicked sons, but in us only Absalom reigns; the poet then tells the ancient tale of the viper, which conceives by killing her mate and dies when her young eat their way out of her womb.
23. 1.601The soul likewise conceives from the devil’s poisoned kiss and gives birth to sins that destroy her, as Christ said, “your father the devil”; though betrothed to Christ the King, she prefers adultery with the devil.
24. 1.631The objector argues that if God permits evil when he could prevent it, he is its author; the poet refuses to hear such slander, for God raises the dead and saves sinners, which the author of evil would never do.
25. 1.661Against the objection that God could force everyone to be good, the poet answers that God gave man lordship over the world and over himself, with free will, since goodness without the freedom to choose otherwise would be neither virtue nor merit.
26. 1.691God made Adam free and urged him to choose life; Adam chose death, persuaded but not compelled by the serpent, and man now stands between God and the devil; the story of Lot begins.
27. 1.721Lot and his family are told not to look back at burning Sodom, a figure of the world doomed to fire; Lot’s wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt, which herds lick but never wear away, a lasting monument of her sin.
28. 1.751Lot keeps on his way without looking back at the burning city, a figure of the world under judgment, while his wife turns back; Ruth and Orpah likewise, equally free, choose differently, one following Naomi, the other returning to her gods.
29. 1.781Ruth became an ancestress of Christ; the poet then illustrates free choice by twin brothers at a fork in the road, one taking the steep thorny path to heaven, the other the pleasant path to the swamp, and by doves, some caught by the fowler’s bait, others avoiding it.
30. 1.811Souls come pure from heaven, but most are snared by earthly pleasures; for them God has prepared an everlasting hell of fire and worms, since the soul made from his breath cannot die, while for pure souls who did not look back he has prepared the rewards of Paradise.
31. 1.841The pure soul rises to heaven, where Faith welcomes it to the delights of Paradise; like Lazarus, it may see the rich man in the flames across the great gulf, for the sight of souls is not limited like bodily eyes.
32. 1.871Souls see through every obstacle and their state is fixed for ever according to their deserts; even in this life the mind in sleep sees distant places without leaving the body.
33. 1.901John in his vision saw the end of the world while still in the body; much more will the soul, freed from the body, see; the damned and the righteous see each other across the gulf, as did Lazarus and the rich man; the poet’s closing prayer to God begins.
34. 1.931The poet confesses his sins and asks Christ that at death no demon may drag his soul into hell; he does not ask for the heavenly mansions of the chaste and the virgins, but only that, if he must suffer fire, his punishment may be light.