Brother Cadfael 16: The Heretic's Apprentice

a deadly error," insisted Gerbert. "It is as I have said, such a belief casts out and debases the sacrament of baptism, which is the only deliverance from mortal sin. If one sacrament is brought into derision, then all are denied. On this count alone you stand in danger of judgment."
    "Sir," Aldwin took him up eagerly, "he said also that he did not believe in the need because he did not believe that children are born into the world rotten with sin. How could that be, he said, of a little thing newly come into being, helpless to do anything of itself, good or evil. Is not that indeed to make an empty mockery of baptism? And we said that we are taught and must believe that even the babes yet unborn are rotten with the sin of Adam, and fallen with him. But he said no, it is only his own deeds, bad and good, that a man must answer for in the judgment, and his own deeds will save or damn him."
    "To deny original sin is to degrade every sacrament," Gerbert repeated forcibly.
    "No, I never thought of it so," protested Elave hotly. "I did say a helpless newborn child cannot be a sinner. But surely baptism is to welcome him into the world and into the Church, and help him to keep his innocence. I never said it was useless or a light thing."
    "But you do deny original sin?" Gerbert pressed him hard.
    "Yes," said Elave after a long pause. "I do deny it." His face had sharpened into icy whiteness, but his jaw was set and his eyes had begun to burn with a deep, still anger.
    Abbot Radulfus eyed him steadily and asked in a mild and reasonable voice: "What, then, do you believe to be the state of the child on entering this world? A child the son of Adam, as are we all."
    Elave looked back at him as gravely, arrested by the serenity of the voice that questioned him. "His state is the same," he said slowly, "as the state of Adam before his fall. For even Adam had his innocence once."
    "So others before you have argued," said Radulfus, "and have not inevitably been called heretical. Much has been written on the subject, in good faith and in deep concern for the good of the Church. Is this the worst you have to urge, Aldwin, against this man?"
    "No, Father," Aldwin said in haste, "there is more. He said it is a man's own acts that will save or damn him, but that he had not often met a man so bad as to make him believe in eternal damnation. And then he said that there was a father of the Church once, in Alexandria, who held that in the end everyone would find salvation, even the fallen angels, even the devil himself."
    In the shudder of unease that passed along the ranks of the brothers the abbot remarked simply: "So there was. His name was Origen. It was his theme that all things come from God, and will return to God. As I recall, it was an enemy of his who brought the devil into it, though I grant the implication is there. I gather that Elave merely cited what Origen is said to have written and believed. He did not say that he himself believed it? Well, Aldwin?"
    Aldwin drew in his chin cautiously at that, and gave some thought to the possibility that he himself was edging his way through quicksands. "No, Father, that is true. He said only that there was a father of the Church who spoke so. But we said that was blasphemy, for the teaching of the Church is that salvation comes by the grace of God, and no other way, and a man's works can avail him not at all. But then he said outright: I do not believe that!"
    "Did you so?" asked Radulfus.
    "I did." Elave's blood was up, the pallor of his face had burned into a sharp-edged brightness that was almost dazzling. Cadfael at once despaired of him and exulted in him. The abbot had done his best to temper all this fermenting doubt and malice and fear that had gathered in the chapter house like a bitter cloud, making it hard to breathe, and here was this stubborn creature accepting all challenges, and digging in his heels to resist even his friends. Now that he was embattled he would do battle. He would not give back one pace out of regard for his skin. "I did say so. I say it again. I said that we have the power in ourselves to make our own way towards salvation. I said we have free will to choose between right and wrong, to labour upward or to dive down and wallow in the muck, and at the last we must every one answer for our own acts in the judgment. I said if we are men, and not beasts, we ought to make our own way towards grace, not sit on our hams and wait for it to lift us up,