Breviloquium

Concerning the punishment inflicted on the first parents, this must be held: the man and woman immediately after the fault felt the punishment of rebellion and shame in the flesh; and therefore, to cover their private parts, they made themselves aprons¹. — But afterwards, by divine judgment, the man incurred the punishment of labor and anguish, the punishment of hunger and want, the punishment of death and dissolution into ashes; as Scripture says: “Cursed is the earth in your work,” etc. — But the woman's punishment was doubled, because she was afflicted with the penalty of manifold hardships in conception, the punishment of pains in childbirth, and also the punishment of subjection to the man in their life together; and thus, as is evident, that sin—namely, the eating of the forbidden wood—was punished quite severely, although it was perpetrated easily.

The reason for understanding the foregoing is this: since the first principle is most provident in governing and most righteous in presiding, it leaves absolutely nothing disordered in the universe; and because fault is rightly ordered toward punishment, therefore in the first parents the dishonor of sin was immediately followed by the honor of judgment, so that what was disordered in falling from the order of nature would immediately fall into the order of justice. For this twofold order embraces all things in such a way that what has fallen from one returns into the other².

Since, therefore, each parent, by being proud in mind and tasting in the flesh, was disobedient to his superior, by God's just judgment it came about that his lower bodily part was made disobedient to him, especially with respect to those parts by which the union of the two sexes takes place, which are members serving the generative power. And because this was in them not by nature but by their own fault, therefore they were ashamed and covered themselves.

Again, because the man, having spurned the highest delight, sought delight in the flesh, therefore by God's just judgment labor and the want brought by hunger and thirst were inflicted upon him.

Finally, because on account of the good of the flesh he chose to be separated from the good of the mind, therefore by God's just judgment the unwilling soul is separated from the flesh through death and incineration; and thus, just as God had given man, according to the order of nature, a body subject to the soul, capable of propagation without lust, living without defect, unchangeable without intervening death; so, with man sinning, according to the order of justice it came about³, that it would withdraw all the aforesaid and inflict the opposites; so that fault would not remain unpunished and disordered, which divine providence ought by no means to tolerate.

And since sin took its beginning from the woman, therefore her punishment is doubled. Because she was proud in mind, she incurred subjection; because she saw and desired the wood, pleasant to eat, she incurred pain; finally, because she broke the yoke of obedience, she incurred the bond and burden of manifold hardship.

And thus it is clear with what order of divine providence the manifold punishments were inflicted on the man and doubled in the woman, so that thus “the dishonor of sin would not be without the beauty of justice”⁴.