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It may perhaps be supposed that because God said, "Ye shall die the
death," and not "deaths," we should understand only that death
which occurs when the soul is deserted by God, who is its life; for
it was not deserted by God, and so deserted Him, but deserted Him,
and so was deserted by Him. For its own will was the originator of
its evil, as God was the originator of its motions towards good, both
in making it when it was not, and in remaking it when it had fallen and
perished. But though we suppose that God meant only this death, and
that the words, "In the day ye eat of it ye shall die the death,"
should be understood as meaning, "In the day ye desert me in
disobedience, I will desert you in justice," yet assuredly in this
death the other deaths also were threatened, which were its inevitable
consequence. For in the first stirring of the disobedient motion which
was felt in the flesh of the disobedient soul, and which caused our
first parents to cover their shame, one death indeed is experienced,
that, namely, which occurs when God forsakes the soul. (This was
intimated by the words He uttered, when the man, stupefied by fear,
had hid himself, "Adam, where art thou?", words which He used
not in ignorance of inquiry, but warning him to consider where he was,
since God was not with him.) But when the soul itself forsook the
body, corrupted and decayed with age, the other death was experienced
of which God had spoken in pronouncing man's sentence, "Earth thou
art, and unto earth shall thou return." And of these two deaths that
first death of the whole man is composed. And this first death is
finally followed by the second, unless man be freed by grace. For the
body would not return to the earth from which it was made, save only by
the death proper to itself, which occurs when it is forsaken of the
soul, its life. And therefore it is agreed among all Christians who
truthfully hold the catholic faith, that we are subject to the death of
the body, not by the law of nature, by which God ordained no death
for man, but by His righteous infliction on account of sin; for
God, taking vengeance on sin, said to the man, in whom we all then
were, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return."
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