For whether it be a newborn infant or a decrepit old man–since no one should be barred from baptism–just so, there is no one who does not die to sin in baptism. Infants die to original sin only; adults, to all those sins which they have added, through their evil living, to the burden they brought with them at birth.
Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion: On Faith Hope and Love, 13.43 in Confessions and Enchiridion, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 7, trans. Albert C. Outler (SCM Press, 1955), 366.
13. 43. A parvulo enim recens nato usque ad decrepitum senem, sicut nullus est prohibendus a baptismo, ita nullus est qui non peccato moriatur in baptismo. Sed parvuli tantum originali, maiores autem his omnibus moriuntur peccatis quaecumque male vivendo addiderunt ad illud quod nascendo traxerunt.
—Enchiridion de fide, spe, et charitate liber unus.
S. Aureliii Augustini, Opera Omnia, editio Latina, Patrologia Latina, 40.
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