{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050898.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050898.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050898.htm","text":"Chapter 5.\u2014What is the Special Advantage in the Pelagian Opinions?\nWhat advantage, then, is it to them that they say \u201cthat all sin descends not from nature, but from the will,\u201d and resist by the truth of this judgment the Manicheans, who say that evil nature is the cause of sin; when by being unwilling to admit original sin although itself also descends from the will of the first man, they make infants to depart in guilt from the body? What advantage is it to them \u201cthat they confess p. 419 that baptism is necessary for all ages,\u201d while the Manicheans say that it is superfluous for every age, while they say that in infants it is false so far as it pertains to the forgiveness of sins? What advantage is it to them that they maintain \u201cthe flesh of Christ\u201d (which the Manicheans contend was either no flesh at all, or a feigned flesh) to have been not only the true flesh, but also \u201cthat the soul itself was stained by no spot of sin,\u201d when other infants are by them so put on the same level with His infancy, with not unequal purity, as that both that flesh does not appear to keep its own holiness in comparison with these, and these obtain no salvation from that?","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise Agains...","type":"page"}