Chapter 197 — That not all sins are transmitted to posterity

It does not follow, however, that all other sins, either of the first parent or of other parents, are handed down to posterity. For only the first sin of the first parent removed in its entirety the gift that had been supernaturally granted to human nature in the first father’s person. This is the reason why sin is said to have corrupted or infected nature. Subsequent sins do not encounter anything of this sort that they can uproot from the whole of human nature. Such sins do take away from a man or diminish some personal good; but they do not corrupt the nature except insofar as it pertains to this or that person. Since a man begets his like not in person but only in nature, the sin that defiles the person is not handed down from a parent to his descendants, but only the first sin that defiled the nature.