Augustine of Hippo, on Ezek 18:4

“Behold all souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, the same shall die.”

“This whole passage is so constructed as to show that bad children are not given relief because of good parents or good children oppressed because of bad parents. So having first established this absolutely true and rock-firm principle on our own account, we go on now to examine what our obligations are in our relations with others; and here we must be very careful to distinguish between the effect of salvation, which we must seek for ourselves, and the consideration that we must show to our neighbors. If you are good, you are good with your own goodness, not with someone else's. And yet through that goodness of yours with which you are good you also rejoice over another's goodness together with him, not by exchanging goodnesses but by exchanging love.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.