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| Sebald Beham Adam sitting on tree stump 1519 engraving British Museum |
"Every sinner is inexcusable, whether because of the original sin, or because of an additional offense due to his own will, whether he knows or does not know it, whether he condemns or does not condemn it; because in those unwilling to understand, ignorance itself is beyond doubt a sin; and in those unable to understand, this inability is the penalty of sin."
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| Sebald Beham Eve, with the serpent 1523 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Adam, with the serpent 1524 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Adam & Eve 1536 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Adam & Eve & Death 1543 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Adam & Eve Expelled from the Garden 1543 engraving British Museum |
"All Christians who really hold to the Catholic faith believe that it is not by a law of nature that man is subject to bodily death – since God created for man an immortal nature – but as a just punishment for sin."
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| Sebald Beham Woman & Death 1547 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Sleeping Woman & Death 1548 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Night 1548 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Three Women & Death ca. 1531-50 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham The "Satyr Nessus" & Dejanira ca. 1531-40 engraving British Museum |
"The quest for a happy life is thus common to the philosophers and the Christians. Tell us, Epicurean, what things make us happy? His answer is: Bodily pleasure. And you, Stoic? Intellectual virtue. And you, Christian? The gift of God."
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| Sebald Beham Cleopatra 1529 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Venus & Cupid ca. 1518-30 engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Woman & Children in Bath-house 1540s engraving British Museum |
"Do not believe, do not say, do not teach that infants who died before being baptized can attain to forgiveness of original sins."
Quotations are translated from the Latin of St. Augustine (AD 354-430). By the time Sebald Beham became one of Northern Europe's first master-engravers in the mid-16th century, the words of St. Augustine had been circulating for more than a thousand years at the highest possible level of authority. The German artist could have had little idea that this age-old unity of Christian thought was in fact breaking up during his own lifetime, just as Augustine had little notion that the "Roman peace" he actively endorsed – and Roman culture itself – were about to dissolve beyond recovery.
I am grateful to the British Museum for the excellent reproductions.