Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

380
Note XVI.
and are quite consistent with belief in the other truth.
But Clement, though he asserts sin to be natural, TO
yap s^a/jLapTavsiv TTCLGIV s/jt,(f)VTOv KOI K.OLVOV (Peed. 1. 3. c.
1 2), (his language, however, seeming to express here uni
versal rather than original sin), certainly seems to explain
away the passage in the Psalms, 4 in sin hath my mother
conceived me, interpreting it to refer to sinful custom or
habit, not to sinful nature 1. (Strom. 3. c.
the same time it must be remarked,
16.), though at
that he is relieving
the passage of a Gnostic meaning, according to which sin
was inherent in natural generation as such, and not
opposing the Catholic. Jeremy Taylor gives a somewhat
similar explanation with less excuse. The words are a
Hebraism, and signify nothing but an aggrandation of his
sinfulness, and are intended for a high expression, mean
ing that I am wholly and entirely wicked. Vol. ix.
p. 27. On the whole, though Clement, in common with
all the early fathers, is a lenient interpreter of the doc
trine of original sin, and though such passages as these
have not such counterbalancing ones in his writings as
they have in those of other fathers, these passages are no
test of his belief on the subject.
NOTE XVI. p. 114.
Tous- Bs (unbaptised infants, or those who by accident
died without baptism) fjuijrs Sogao-OrjcrsvOai,, /JLTJTS tcoXa-
crQr)<jaQai Trspl rov Si/calov Kpt-rov, a>s
dor<ppafylcrrovs [isv
dTrovijpovs BE, d\\d iraQovras (jiaXkov TTJV ty/jblav rj opdo-avras.
ov yap OCTTLS ov tco\do~sw$ aio$ 77877 KOI TifMfjs*
wcrTrsp OCTTIS ov Tt/jLTjs ?j$7} KOI Ko\dascos. Gregory Naz.
Orat. 40. v. i. p. 653. Gregory of Nyssa formally dis
cusses the question of the future condition of those who
die as infants, without reference to their being or not bap
tised (v. ii. p. 749) ; which, in distinction to the ground
taken by some, that they do not deserve so much happi
ness as the mature good, he maintains to turn, not so
much upon any difference of claim, as of natural aptitude
and capacity for happiness. OVK SO-TLV elirslv
tcvplcas aim-