To Florus 3.85

When we came to the apostle Paul’s statement that the advocate of inherited sin used to peddle to people unfamiliar with Scripture—‘Through one man sin entered the world’ (Romans 5:12; see this work 2.56–57)—I first showed that the wording itself excluded the advocates of inherited sin from the inner meaning of that passage. When the Teacher of the Gentiles traced sin’s antiquity, he placed a definite number as a powerful guard protecting generation. By saying sin entered the world through one man, he expressly indicated that he meant nothing about generation, which cannot occur except through two. I showed that a distinction had been made between parents’ sexual union and their sin: sin was indeed said to have entered the world, but through a number that could not apply to offspring. Throughout the book we argued sufficiently that the passage identifies not sin’s nature but its pattern, adopted by later transgressors through imitation, not generation.

Yet in the Letter to the Hebrews we read concerning the Jews: ‘They sprang from one, and him as good as dead’ (Hebrews 11:12)—that is, from Abraham. Earlier in the same letter, too, we read of Christ: ‘The one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one’ (Hebrews 2:11). The advocate of inherited sin might seize on one of these texts, or similar ones if any can be found, and argue that it weakens our answer. We said that ‘one’ was used for the person through whom sin passed so as to exclude generation from the meaning, yet in this letter generation is indicated by the mention of ‘one.’ For this reason, I thought the matter should be reconsidered. I urge the reader to pay attention: this objection will be destroyed in several ways.

Where Abraham is mentioned, his wife Sarah is included too. Here is the sequence of the words: ‘By faith the one called Abraham obeyed the call to go out to a place he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out without knowing where he was going. By faith he lived in the land of promise as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, co-heirs of the same promise. For he was waiting for the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself, though barren, received power to conceive seed even beyond the usual age, because she believed the one who promised was faithful. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, there sprang descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and as countless as the sand along the seashore’ (Hebrews 11:8–12).

After mentioning both Abraham and Sarah, and saying that she was past childbearing through old age but received the power to conceive seed by faith, he could confidently add that from one arose so many people, comparable in number to the stars. Both praise of the faithful and the truth of the event required the parents’ union to be described. But the art of praise prompted him, in commending the multitude descended from those two, to name one rather than both. He wanted to show how much steadfast faith had gained. Saying that God’s power had produced a multitude beyond counting, he judged it more fitting to praise God’s work by calling them descendants of one rather than two. This was especially so because the added praise in the final expression caused no loss to historical accuracy: he had already supplied that accuracy by mentioning both persons.