Apology of the Augsburg Confession | Page 4

the chief faults of human nature, conflicting
especially with the first table of the Decalog.
Neither have we said anything new. The ancient definition understood
aright expresses precisely the same thing when it says: "Original sin is
the absence of original righteousness" [a lack of the first purity and
righteousness in Paradise]. But what is righteousness? Here the
scholastics wrangle about dialectic questions, they do not explain what
original righteousness is. Now, in the Scriptures, righteousness
comprises not only the second table of the Decalog [regarding good
works in serving our fellow-man], but the first also, which teaches
concerning the fear of God, concerning faith, concerning the love of
God. Therefore original righteousness was to embrace not only an even
temperament of the bodily qualities [perfect health and, in all respects,
pure blood, unimpaired powers of the body, as they contend], but also
these gifts, namely, a quite certain knowledge of God, fear of God,
confidence in God, or certainly the rectitude and power to yield these
affections [but the greatest feature in that noble first creature was a
bright light in the heart to know God and His work, etc.]. And Scripture
testifies to this, when it says, Gen. 1, 27, that man was fashioned in the
image and likeness of God. What else is this than that there were
embodied in man such wisdom and righteousness as apprehended God,
and in which God was reflected, i.e., to man there were given the gifts
of the knowledge of God, the fear of God, confidence in God, and the
like? For thus Irenaeus and Ambrose interpret the likeness to God, the
latter of whom not only says many things to this effect, but especially
declares: That soul is not, therefore, in the image of God, in which God
is not at all times. And Paul shows in the Epistles to the Ephesians, 5, 9,
and Colossians, 3,10, that the image of God is the knowledge of God,
righteousness, and truth. Nor does Longobard fear to say that original
righteousness is the very likeness to God which God implanted in man.
We recount the opinions of the ancients, which in no way interfere with
Augustine's interpretation of the image.
Therefore the ancient definition, when it says that sin is the lack of
righteousness, not only denies obedience with respect to man's lower
powers [that man is not only corrupt in his body and its meanest and
lowest faculties], but also denies the knowledge of God, confidence in
God, the fear and love of God, or certainly the power to produce these

affections [the light in the heart which creates a love and desire for
these matters]. For even the theologians themselves teach in their
schools that these are not produced without certain gifts and the aid of
grace. In order that the matter may be understood, we term these very
gifts the knowledge of God, and fear and confidence in God. From
these facts it appears that the ancient definition says precisely the same
thing that we say, denying fear and confidence toward God, to wit, not
only the acts, but also the gifts and power to produce these acts [that we
have no good heart toward God, which truly loves God, not only that
we are unable to do or achieve any perfectly good work].
Of the same import is the definition which occurs in the writings of
Augustine, who is accustomed to define original sin as concupiscence
[wicked desire]. For he means that when righteousness had been lost,
concupiscence came in its place. For inasmuch as diseased nature
cannot fear and love God and believe God, it seeks and loves carnal
things. God's judgment it either contemns when at ease, or hates, when
thoroughly terrified. Thus Augustine includes both the defect and the
vicious habit which has come in its place. Nor indeed is concupiscence
only a corruption of the qualities of the body, but also, in the higher
powers, a vicious turning to carnal things. Nor do those persons see
what they say who ascribe to man at the same time concupiscence that
is not entirely destroyed by the Holy Ghost, and love to God above all
things.
We, therefore, have been right in expressing, in our description of
original sin, both namely, these defects: the not being able to believe
God, the not being able to fear and love God; and, likewise: the having
concupiscence, which seeks carnal things contrary to God's Word, i.e.,
seeks not only the pleasure of the body, but also carnal wisdom and
righteousness, and, contemning God, trusts in these as god things. Nor
only the ancients [like Augustine and others], but also the more recent
[teachers and scholastics], at least the wiser ones among them, teach
that original sin is at the same