Annotatio CLXXVII

”For behold, in iniquities [was I conceived].” — Psalm 50:7

Arnobius, in the commentaries on the Psalms, opening the sense of this little verse, seems to signify that Adam, by sinning, transmitted to his heirs only the punishment of bodily death, but not the sin and the vice of origin.¹ For he speaks in these words: “David did not say, ‘With iniquities,’ or ‘With sins did my mother beget me’: but, ‘In iniquities was I conceived, and in sins did my mother beget me.’ For by saying [this] he signified that his mother bore him amid the sins of the world, because every sin is conceived in the heart and consummated by the mouth. But this [child] who is born has the sentence [condemnation] of Adam — yet Adam’s sin itself he has not.” Read Annotation 236 of the sixth book.