Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

Having investigated with all the acumen of mind he could muster the surpassing gifts of man, Aristotle rightly said: All things that men can wonder at, man himself is above all else to be wondered at: for, as Plato says in Book 1 of the Laws, Man is held in the genus of living beings as a kind of divine miracle, because he is the messenger of all things that wander: familiar with those above and those below: the interpreter of nature: the interval or bond of the world; truly a great monster by nature, since although he is one, he yet contains within himself many diverse things, sorrow and pleasure, hope and fear, etc. Hence Quintilian, Declamation 260, and Isidore Pelusiota, book 1, Epistle 259, together with Plato in the book De Legibus, said ζῷον θεῖον, a divine animal, or one near to God. — Whence there was derived from this the error of Plato himself, who in the Timaeus called the world a rational animal. To whom Cicero accords, writing: it must not be refused to confess, if anything can be investigated by conjecture, that this world is an animal, and one possessed of understanding and constituted by Divine Providence. With these agrees whoever is the author of the book Pymander, under the name of Trismegistus, dialogue 10, where he calls man a great miracle, an animal to be adored and honored: which passes over into the nature of God, as if he himself were God, etc. Great, I say, is the miracle that is man, seeing that he is the epitome and end of all nature: for, as Chrysostom says, homily 8 on Genesis: Man excels in dignity among all things capable of laughter, for whose sake all these things were created. Likewise an animal to be adored, since on earth he is a mortal God, says the same Trismegistus, whereas God in heaven is an immortal man: and indeed to be venerated, as the Ruler and Lord of the world: For, God says, addressing our first Parents, your trembling and fear shall be upon all the beasts of the earth: whence it comes about that every animal by its own nature fears and venerates man. The Angels also, proclaiming him their fellow citizen and co-heir and partaker of the same spirit, attend him with unceasing ministrations. Finally, he is fashioned into the nature of the Deity; for God, by the indwelling of sanctifying grace, makes him a sharer and partaker of His own Divinity: For we are transformed into the same image from brightness into brightness, as by the Spirit of the Lord, says the Apostle 2 Corinthians 3. Thence it appears that man may rightly be called the miracle of the world, the ornament of the orb, the germ of immortality, the lord of the universe, the epitome, as has been said, of creatures, the end of the divine works, the companion of Angels, the horizon, the bond, the perfection of all things, the image of divine Majesty, the son of God Omnipotent, the splendor of eternal light, the mirror of immaculate Divinity, admirable among all things admirable, the master of things below, the intimate friend of things above, and finally, according to some, every creature whatsoever, since he exists with stones, lives with plants, senses with beasts, understands with Angels. — But that we may demonstrate all these things to be most true by divine authority and theological reason, it is pleasing to investigate the natural excellencies of man in three following Articles, of which the First will explain generally the natural state and dignity of man: the Second will delineate his bodily excellence: while the Third will lay open the surpassing gifts of his soul.

Here I call ingenerate perfections those which man receives from God, the magnificent Artificer of nature, together with the other created beings, and which perfect and constitute him within the order of nature in such a way that he is thereby ordained to the sole end of nature, to be attained by natural powers. Concerning this state three things above all may be inquired: First, whether man can truly be formed and constituted in the state of pure nature, such that he needs neither the benefits of grace to attain the end due to himself, nor can be removed from it by any sin. Second, what that state would have been like, namely, whether it would have been subject to the same defects of body and mind by which we are now burdened. Third, whether man by his native and ingenerate excellences surpasses created corporeal beings.

Note 1. For the state of pure nature two things are required, in which the purity of nature is judged chiefly to consist: one positive, namely, that in that state human nature possess its entire natural perfection; that is, a substance complete in every way, faculties fitted for operation, and divine providence ready at hand assisting in all things: the other negative, namely, that it possess nothing naturally undue to itself, or that is not fit to inhere in it within the very order of nature, whether evil or good: that is, that it be neither illumined by the gifts of grace, nor by other benefits conducing to the supernatural end, nor infected by any sin, especially original sin; nor be liable to the punishments deriving from it. From this negation of original sin and of any grace whatever, the state of pure nature takes its name; for the purity of nature in the present case denotes only the negation of all those things which do not pertain to man's natural constitution and order. Therefore we call the state of pure nature the mean between the state of original justice, in which the first man was fashioned, and the state of sin, into which he fell. I say the mean, by the negation of the extremes, such that it includes neither sanctity, which gives the possessor a right to eternal life, nor sin, by which he would be excluded from it on account of the guilt of damnation.

Note 2. That state of pure nature has nowhere existed, nor does it seem likely to exist in the future; for the first parents of mankind, fashioned immediately by God, were endowed at once with grace and other heavenly gifts, and enriched in order to the supernatural end, to which they together with their whole posterity were destined. But of their posterity, as many as are conceived — if you except Christ the Lord of the only Virgin Mother of God — are infected with the lethal stain of original sin, and are damned before they are born: and so there is no man who was truly fashioned in the state of pure nature, nor does any seem likely to be so fashioned; since all, by vitiated propagation, are conceived in iniquities; and healed and cleansed by the medicinal grace of Christ the Lord, they are ordained to the attainment of eternal beatitude. — But whether that state is possible not only according to God's absolute power, but also as He works according to the natural inclination of things, very many of the Recentiores deny, teaching that that state is impossible, and that the contrary opinion savors of Manichaeism; and that it is one of the capital errors of Pelagius attacked by St. Augustine. Which assertion indeed Calvin long ago published in book 1. of the Institutes, chapter 15, n. 1, and likewise Luther on chapter 3 of Genesis, where among other things he writes: Let us hold that justice was not a certain gift that came from without, separate from the nature of man, but was natural to it: so that it was of the nature to love God, to believe God, to acknowledge God. These things then were natural in Adam, as it is natural for the eyes to receive light. And further within: Moreover, he says, these things prove that original justice was of the nature of man: yet it having been lost through sin, it is manifest that natural things did not remain intact, as the Scholastics rave.

Note 3. That the gifts and divine aids granted gratuitously to men are of a twofold kind: for some perfect man in order to the end and operation of the natural order: others illumine and assist him in order to the supernatural end, and to operations proportioned to the dignity of that end. Of the former kind are certain special extraordinary aids, exceeding the common activity and course of natural causes, which God sometimes bestows upon natural agents, by which they may carry out their operation, and overcome the extrinsic obstacles that would arise from the concurrence of other causes, and attain the intended natural end. Of the latter kind, however, are all those aids of divine grace by which man, beyond the capacity and order of nature, is promoted to the supernatural end, namely eternal life, which we can obtain only by the benefit of grace divinely infused, according to that of Ephesians 2: By grace you are saved through faith, and this not of yourselves: for it is the gift of God, that no one may glory. — Concerning both aids the present Question is moved, but chiefly concerning the latter: for we inquire whether God can truly create some man in that state, such that, immune from original sin and from the punishments deriving from it, he may be ordained to the sole natural end, and need no benefit of divine grace, and ought not to be illumined and assisted by it.

Single Conclusion. — Man could truly have been created in the state of pure nature. This Conclusion is now common among Catholic Doctors; and the Subtle Doctor holds and teaches it as valid in 2 dist. 22, qu. unica, n. 7, where, demonstrating that there is no immediate opposition between guilt and grace, since a middle state could exist between the two, he says: For someone could be in pure natural things then without grace as without guilt: therefore these are in no way immediately opposed. — The Angelic Doctor affirms the same in 4 q. De malo art. 1, ad 1m, where he says: The lack of the divine vision belongs to someone in two ways: in one way thus, that he have not in himself that from which he could arrive at the divine vision, and thus the lack of the divine vision would belong to him who would be in mere natural things without sin: for thus the lack of the divine vision would not be a punishment, but a defect consequent upon every created nature: and in 2 dist. 30, qu. 1 he says that the defects of human nature which now exist can be compared to it in two ways; namely, either to it as considered in its natural principles, and thus, he says, they are not punishments of it, but natural defects: or to it as despoiled of the contrary perfections which it had received in the first Parent, and thus they are the punishment of the sin committed by him and transfused into his posterity.

Proof 1. From the definition of the supreme Pontiffs Pius V in the year 1570, and Gregory XIII in the year 1579, and Urban VIII, condemning various propositions published in writings or words and defended by Michael Baius. But among these condemned propositions, the twenty-second was: The sublimation and exaltation of human nature into the fellowship of the divine was due to the integrity of the first condition, and therefore must be called natural, and not supernatural. By the fellowship of the divine nature, however, he understands nothing other than what is had through sanctifying grace, as is gathered from proposition 12. Propositions 21, 25, 27 contain the same; but proposition 79 explains his mind more evidently, in which he says: False is the opinion of the Doctors, that the first man could have been created and instituted by God without natural justice: for he had said before that that natural justice was that in which the first man was created: but he was fashioned without sin and illumined by sanctifying grace: he wills, therefore, that man could not have been created without that justice and rectitude which the first man obtained by the benefit of divine grace infused into him: and therefore he denies that a middle state could have existed, in which man would have neither that justice in which he was created, nor the sin with which he is now born; and so he judges the state of pure nature to be impossible. — But since these propositions were condemned in Baius, it does not appear how they can again be defended by certain of the Recentiores as rash.

The adversaries answer that that censure is contrary to those nine supreme Pontiffs by whom the doctrine of St. Augustine against the Pelagians was long ago praised, commended, and approved: in which doctrine nothing is more frequent than that God would be unjust or impotent, if He were to create a creature unstained by sin, subject to the miseries to which it is now subject on account of original sin: and therefore, lest the holy Roman Pontifical See seem contrary to itself, every care must be taken that the later Pontiffs not be judged to depart from the opinion of the earlier ones. And thus the doctrine of the three praised Pontiffs was not that censure of Baius which we set forth. Next they subjoin that those Pontiffs condemned the aforesaid proposition not as false, but as disturbing to peace, since it was contrary to the common opinion of the Scholastics received long ago in the schools with their consent; for since the Bull proscribes at once and respectively many of Baius's propositions as heretical, erroneous, suspect, rash, scandalous, and offensive to pious ears; and does not determine which of those propositions in particular were heretical, which erroneous, etc., it suffices that one part of this censure fall upon this proposition, namely that by which it is said to have given birth to scandal, or offended pious ears. Finally they affirm that they themselves, and everyone else who so thinks, ought to remain with them in doubt between the censure of the three Pontiffs and the opinion of St. Augustine, which he so often proved and followed, and which the Apostolic See admonished should be followed. — On the contrary: first, it is false that the aforesaid proposition concerning the impossibility of the state of pure nature was approved by the ancient supreme Pontiffs, the praisers of Augustine, since no mention of it is made in those chapters drawn from the doctrine of St. Augustine and approved by Pope Celestine in the Epistle to the Bishops of Gaul; nor in the Canons of the Councils of Orange and Mileve, or in others specially celebrated against the Pelagians or Semi-Pelagians, in which the opinion and doctrine of St. Augustine is praised and proved. Moreover I say that it does not befit a Catholic man to set the opinions of supreme Pontiffs against one another, and to say that in receiving and expounding them the authority of the recent Pontiffs must be so defended that the opinion of the ancients be not injured; as if the authority were not equal in each Rector of the supreme See and Successor of Peter, and as if it were licit to appeal from the Recentiores to the more Ancient, as if the latter had established a contrary doctrine. — Secondly, I say that there is no room for rashness in the fact that they apply, by their private judgment and at their pleasure, the milder part of the censure to the aforesaid condemned proposition: for thus they open the way of eluding the note of any other proposition whatsoever proscribed by those Bulls; for of any other one could similarly say that it was reproved and prohibited, not as false, but as offensive and disturbing to peace. Next, it is false that the aforesaid proposition was not condemned as erroneous, or heretical, rash, or suspect; for since it is the foundation of almost all the others condemned there, it is certain that if any among those propositions are heretical and erroneous, as the censure affirms many to be, certainly this one especially, which is the basis and prop of the others. — Finally I say that it is plainly unworthy of Catholic men to remain in doubt between the definition of the supreme Pontiffs and the authority of a particular Doctor of the Church: for thus any heretic could elude all definitions, both of the supreme Pontiffs and of Councils, as if to be postposed to the doctrine of St. Augustine, or even of Sacred Scripture, to which he pretends to cling obstinately. Whence, if it was licit for St. Augustine against the Epistle of the Foundation, chapter 5, to say: I would not believe the Gospel, unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me, anyone can with better right say: I would not believe Augustine, unless the authority of the Church and of its supreme Rector moved me.

Second proof of the Conclusion; for St. Augustine in book 3 against Maximinus, chapter 15, affirms that man, formed to the image of God, therefore becomes by grace a son of God, because he is not so by nature: but if by grace he becomes a son of God, not by nature: therefore this is not connatural to him, or due to him connaturally: for it implies in express terms that something is gratuitous and yet due by nature: and consequently that human nature could have been created pure, without any safeguard, without such a gift. And in book 6 De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 27, he says that the power not to die was bestowed upon Adam from the tree of life, not from the constitution of nature: therefore it is false that the immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace, but a natural condition. Finally in book 1 against Julian, chapter 16, he says, that the grace of God was great there, where the earthly and animal body had not the bestial lust: therefore the integrity of the first creation, or the absence of unbridled concupiscence, as the Adversaries explain it, was not his natural condition, but a gratuitous benefit of God.

Proof 3. and the preceding argument is confirmed: the Angels were never infected with original sin, and yet, according to St. Augustine, they could have been created without grace: therefore also men, immune from the stain of original sin, can be produced without it. The consequence is evident from the parity of reason: the antecedent is proved from St. Augustine lib. 22. De Civit. Dei, cap. 1. where he affirms that God in the Angels fashioned nature and bestowed grace: for speaking of the good will of the holy Angels, he says: Who had made these, save He who created them with good will, that is, with the chaste love whereby they clave to Him, at once fashioning for them nature and bestowing grace? In which words he distinguishes the donation of holy love from the creation of nature, in that the former is a bestowal of grace, the latter a formation of nature. It is confirmed by what he subjoins, while inquiring into the causes of so unequal an outcome of the Angels, the blessed and the damned, he thinks it can be said that the evil Angels received a lesser grace of divine love: for how would they have received a lesser, if each received what was due to his nature? — It is confirmed again by what he subjoins, that there then belonged to the Angels what is now said of men: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us: for how would that saying have belonged to the Angels, unless as it is now understood that charity was gratuitously poured forth by the benefit superadded to nature, so it is believed to have been done then? How by the Holy Ghost, if nature drew with itself the necessity of receiving Him against its will? How, finally, by the Spirit who is given, if nothing properly and of itself is given, and no peculiar reason of benefit and gratuitous gift intervenes, besides that which is included in the creation of nature? — It is confirmed finally from book 13. Confessionum, c. 2. 3, seq., where St. Augustine, speaking of the creation of the Angels, distinguishes a twofold action of God toward them: one which he calls the creation of nature, or, as he says, the inchoation of the spiritual creature, by which it had that it should at least float darksome, like an abyss, unlike God: that is, by which it had that it should exist, but without the spiritual things of the mind. The other which he calls the bestowal of grace, or illumination, by which that intellectual creature received these supernatural ornaments, and was illumined with the splendor of grace; concerning which he says these words of God speaking are to be understood: Let there be light, and there was light. This, he says, I understand of the spiritual creature, because there was already a life of whatever sort which you would illuminate: but as it had not merited of you that it should be such a life as could be illuminated, so neither, when it now was, did it merit of you that it should be illuminated, so that both that it lives in some manner, and that it lives blessedly, it should owe to nothing but your grace; in which words he plainly designates that both were to God equally easy and equally a matter of choice: to suffer the Angels, unproduced, to remain in their very nothing, and, the light of grace denied, to leave those produced formless in natural darkness. — Whence they must acknowledge a twofold benefit of God altogether gratuitous: first, that they live in any manner; second, that they live blessedly: for he says, addressing God: what then would be lacking to you for the good that you are to yourself, even if those things either were altogether none, or remained formless, which you made not from indigence, but from the plenitude of your goodness! It is evident, therefore, that grace was not connatural to the holy Angels: and so much the less must this be said to be connatural to man. Which indeed is plainly deduced from the same St. Augustine. — For what he said here of the Angels, he had said almost the same of the first man in the books De Genesi ad litteram, where he likewise distinguishes a twofold operation of God: one by which He wrought man, that he might be man; the other, that he who was already man might be pious and wise: As, he says, man works the earth, not to make a thing be earth, but to work that man may be: so He Himself works that he be just, if man depart not from Him through pride. And again: Wherefore, by which manner of speaking it is said that man works the earth, which was already earth, that it be adorned and fruitful, by that manner of speaking it is said that God works man, who was already of the soil, that he be pious and wise. From which it is evident that St. Augustine distinguishes the productive action of God with respect to man, inasmuch as he is man, from another action by which he becomes wise, just, and holy.

Proof 4. The Conclusion by theological reason: that God can easily execute at His nod which implies no contradiction, nor does it beseem His majesty and the virtue of operating: but such is the state of pure nature; which I thus evince: this state chiefly embraces three things: First indeed it supposes human nature powerful with its essential perfection and all faculties fitted for operating, and connatural accidents, together with the concurrence of divine Providence ready at hand and naturally due to it; Second, with no supernatural gifts, by which it would be illumined for the higher order and end exceeding its ingenerate powers: Third, immune from original sin and from all punishments flowing from it: but neither of these implies a contradiction, nor beseems God operating. Not indeed the first, because He in fact fashioned all natures complete in all their numbers: For He saw all things that He had made, and they were very good. Not even the second, for it is established that man can be created by God without all original sin, as in fact the first Parents were fashioned by God without sin. Not finally the third: for since supernatural gifts are undue to nature, and it belongs to the divine will and gratuitous liberality to adorn human nature equally with Angelic nature with them, it is manifest that God can abstain from their bestowal: therefore from neither head does the state of pure nature imply a contradiction. — Further, if grace and the other supernatural gifts were owed connaturally to the Angel, or to man not infected with original sin, such that he could not, according to the regal order of operating, be created by God without them, it would follow that those gifts and sanctifying grace at once were and were not grace for the Angels and first Parents. It would indeed have been, as is supposed, and as the very name signifies: but it would not have been grace, because it repugns to grace properly so called that it be due to nature, or connatural. For the supernatural gifts of grace and glory, by which the rational creature is ordained to the supernatural end, do not regard its natural power, but only its obediential power, as the Theologians commonly teach; who therefore distinguish a threefold receptive power in creatures: one indeed Natural, in which are received accidents connatural to the subject, as light in the eye, science in the intellect, etc. Another Violent, in which are subjected accidents repugnant to the nature of the subject, as heat in water. Another finally Obediential, by which the rational creature is subjected to God for receiving the forms of the supernatural order. But it is certain that God, in the ordinary mode of operating, is not bound to bestow upon a creature even immune from original sin those things which it can receive by obediential capacity alone, since that regards a preternatural mode of acting; nor is the creature naturally ordained to receive those forms by obediential capacity; otherwise that capacity would not be obediential, but natural: therefore those gifts are not connaturally due to the rational creature. — Finally, men and Angels, however innocent, are only adoptive sons of God; for the only natural Son is Christ the Lord; but every creature is by nature and by force of its origin a servant of God, since such servitude is founded in its nature: but an adoptive son has a right not by reason of birth, but only by reason of gratuitous liberality, both to the inheritance and to the things pertaining to the inheritance; therefore neither Angels nor men, however free from sin, have from their nature a right to the intuitive vision of God, which is their inheritance, nor consequently to the grace necessary for the attainment of that inheritance. Whence deservedly St. Cyril of Alexandria, book 1 on John, chapter 13, affirms that the creature, since it is a servant, is called to supernatural things only at the nod and will of the Father.

The adversaries answer, that grace indeed properly so called is not due to the rational creature from the exigency of its very nature, or by the right of natural works; that it is nevertheless due, and connatural, on account of certain decencies, congruities, and equities which arise from other heads: for nothing, they say, is more connatural to the innocent image of God naturally fashioned with the capacity of enjoying God Himself, than grace: whence although God would not act against justice if He denied grace itself to the creature, He would nevertheless act against wisdom and the regal mode of operating, if He did not furnish to the creature itself the means for obtaining that end to which it is ordained by its nature. — They confirm this from the fact that the Theologians affirm sufficient grace to be grace absolutely, and nevertheless to be so due to the rational creature, even in the state of lapsate nature, that it cannot be denied to it by God in the ordinary way; otherwise God would command impossibilities, and the same man would sin in that which he could not avoid: therefore, they say, similarly, sanctifying grace, without which no one can, would no less be properly grace, although by congruity it would be connaturally due to the rational creature. — On the contrary: first, this response supposes what is false, namely, that man is ordained by his nature to the vision and fruition of God as to a connatural end, as will be evident below. Second, it speaks by implication; for if man be ordained to that end by his nature, it follows that to innocent man, or man without original sin, grace and the vision and fruition of God are due not only by a debt arising from the wisdom of God, or from some congruity, but even by the very right of nature requiring this end from within, to which it is naturally ordained; and consequently requiring the means necessary for the attainment of that same end.

Third finally, he says also erroneously that the notion of debt repugns to grace properly so called only in that it would suppose a work of the creature, but not that it would arise from the natural exigency of the creature itself; such that it would not cease to be, and truly to be called, properly grace, even if it were owed to nature, provided no work preceded on account of which it be judged due. For, as we shall prove in the first Tractate of the following book, by the name of grace properly so taken the holy Fathers and Councils understand a gratuitous gift, superadded to nature, exceeding its due and exigency; not merely that which is not owed to our works by way of wages: otherwise free will and whatever natural perfections could be called grace properly so called: since we performed no work before God granted these gifts to us. But that this is most absurd and erroneous, the Councils and Fathers, as many as proscribed the heresy of Pelagius, judged. — To the confirmation he says that the example concerning sufficient grace is not to the purpose; for although sufficient grace is sometimes said by Theologians to be due to the rational creature, it is no less grace properly so called, because it is not owed to it absolutely, as if God could not deny it to man without injustice; but only by congruity, and on the hypothesis that he be ordained and elevated to the supernatural end, which ordination and elevation is undue to him, and is done by God altogether freely. But according to the opinion of the Adversaries, the elevation itself to the supernatural order is so due to a nature free from original sin, that God cannot abstain from it except in punishment of sin; nor consequently can that nature be created without grace and the other aids necessary for the attainment of its supernatural end.

1. Objection drawn from the manner of speaking of the Holy Fathers. — They object therefore 1. The gifts of integrity and of sanctifying grace are said by the Holy Fathers to have been natural to the first Parents: for Celestine in the Epistle to the Bishops of Gaul, chapter 1, says: Men in the transgression of Adam lost natural possibility and innocence. And St. Augustine in many places, especially book 11 De Genesi ad litteram, affirms that men, by losing the supernatural gifts, could have lost even the things of nature and natural possibility: therefore, according to the ordinary power of God, and His providence over each thing according to its natural exigency, men before sin could not have been created without gifts of this kind, and therefore not in the state of pure nature.

I deny the consequence, and to the antecedent I say that the holy Fathers call natural not only that which man connaturally requires, but also that which human nature received in its origin and creation, although it be undue to it and preternatural. Thus the Apostle to the Ephesians 2 says that we are by nature children of wrath; wherefore St. Augustine, book 1 Retractationum, chapter 15: Properly, he says, that nature is called [natural] in which we were created without vice. And in sermon 14 De Verbis Apostoli, he calls original sin the sin of nature, or natural; not because it is connatural to human nature, but because it is in us from the very beginning of life and nature, and with it is transfused and propagated to all the posterity of Adam. Therefore although the gifts of integrity and of sanctifying grace were undue to Adam and beyond his natural lot, they could nevertheless be called natural by the Holy Fathers, because they were granted to him from the beginning of his formation. Hence it is that the Author of the books Hypognosticon assumes for the same reason that man can naturally do what he wills, and has the same gift of possibility which was lost through the fault of the first Parent.

2. Objection brought from the ordination of man to beatitude. — It is objected 2. God could not fashion a rational creature guilty of no sin incapable of attaining true beatitude, in which it might rest: but man created in the state of pure nature, destitute of the supernatural gifts of grace and charity, would be incapable of attaining true beatitude: therefore he could not be created in that state. The major is established from the fact that all men naturally desire beatitude: for St. Aug. says lib. 13. De Trinitate, cap. 8. That all wish to be blessed the truth cries out, nature compels, which the Creator, supremely good and immutably blessed, has instilled in it. Thence it comes that every rational creature flees misery, and as the same holy Doctor says in the Enchiridion, chapter 101: So we will to live, that we not only do not will to be miserable, but can by no means will it. — But they prove the minor: man cannot be truly blessed unless he enjoy the clear vision of God and his supreme love, by which he may as it were comprehend God Himself: for the rational soul, by this very thing that it is naturally rational and the image of God, is of so immense a capacity that it is satiated by no other thing, nor consequently can it be blessed, save by the possession of that immense divine essence alone, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, especially lib. 14. De Trinitate, cap. 8. and lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, cap. 1. Whence St. Bernard, in the sermon on the dedication, says: My soul can be occupied by created things, but cannot be satiated: and being capacious of God, whatever is less than God will not fill it. But this fruition of God cannot be obtained by the powers of nature: therefore neither can man be formed in the state of pure nature; since he cannot in that state be ordained to beatitude. — I answer to the major, that indeed man, free from sin, cannot be created by God without ordination to some beatitude and ultimate end; but that end can be twofold: namely natural, consisting chiefly in adhesion to God through knowledge and love, attainable by the powers of nature; and supernatural, consisting in the clear vision of God, or love, and beatific joy. But on the hypothesis that man had been created in pure natural things, he would have been destined and ordained only to the former end and beatitude. For that he is now ordained to supernatural beatitude and the ultimate end was of surpassing grace and divine liberality, according to that of Titus 3: That, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs according to the hope of life everlasting. The former beatitude man desires by a natural and innate appetite; to the latter indeed, since he has only an obediential capacity, therefore he does not desire it naturally by an innate appetite, inasmuch as it is supernatural, but only by an elicited one. The former coincides with the natural ultimate end of man; the latter, however, is the same as his supernatural ultimate end. But since God, by gratuitous liberality, above the capacity and exigency of nature, has ordained men to that supernatural beatitude, He doubtless could have abstained from that ordination, free as it was to Him, and have ordained men only to natural beatitude, by creating them in the state of pure nature. But if you ask in what that natural beatitude would consist? I answer, that the Theologians constitute it in the perfect and sweet contemplation of God, as of the Author of nature, which indeed would not extend to the intuitive and clear vision of Him; but would be only an abstractive knowledge of Him gleaned from creatures, especially from separate and spiritual substances. That contemplation, moreover, would be the root and incentive of the natural love of God and of the other natural virtues of which man is naturally capable, and by which he could attain those goods which would fill the natural satiety of soul and body and the ingenerate desire of beatitude.

They insist: That sweet contemplation of God, whatever it might be, would not satiate the soul of man, for from it he would desire the clear vision of God; since from the knowledge of effects the natural desire of seeing the cause is excited: therefore that contemplation would not be satiating for man, nor consequently beatific; and consequently a natural beatitude cannot be given. — I distinguish the antecedent: that there would arise from such a contemplation the desire of seeing the cause, which would be absolute, and productive of disquiet, I deny: that it would be conditional, and not disturbing the quiet of the mind, I concede: for the appetite of seeing the cause, the effects having been seen, is absolute only in him to whom such vision appears possible: whence since to man existing in pure natural things the possibility of the divine vision, which is supernatural, would not be naturally known, it follows thence that the appetite of the clear vision of God would be only conditional, and inefficacious. But an inefficacious volition, or velleity, since it does not move man to the attainment of the desired thing, produces neither disquiet nor anxiety.

They urge again: The beatific vision is naturally due to the rational creature, inasmuch as it is its ultimate end: therefore man desires it naturally, nor can God deny it to man without the fault of the man himself and sin presupposed. They prove the antecedent from St. Augustine, who frequently reproaches the Pelagians, especially book 1 ad Bonifacium, chapter 22, and book 1 against Julian, chapter 3, because they said infants are born without original sin, and yet are excluded from the kingdom of Heaven if they die without baptism: whence sermon 14 De Verbis Apostoli he thus inveighs against Pelagius: Why do you tear away the patrimony of the kingdom of Heaven from an innocent one? where is that justice of God? Say, I beseech you, what does the unbaptized little one offend in? that he has no guilt? etc. But this discourse would not hold unless Augustine judged eternal beatitude to be so connaturally due to man that it can be denied to him only on account of guilt: therefore, etc. — I answer 1. The antecedent of the adversaries contradicts both Scripture and the holy Fathers, who affirm that eternal beatitude is not connatural to man, but supernatural, and the greatest benefit of divine grace. Therefore David the Royal Prophet attributes it not to nature but to grace, Ps. 83: Grace, he says, and glory will the Lord give: and St. Paul pronounces absolutely: The wages of sin is death; but the grace of God, life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord; that is, grace conferred through Christ. Whence St. Augustine lib. 1. De Trinitate, cap. 6. alluding to the place of Paul 1 ad Timoth. 6, Whom no man hath seen, nor can see, says: The Divinity can by no means be seen with human sight: but it is seen with that sight by which they who see are already not men, but beyond men. — I answer 2. That St. Augustine rightly carps at the Pelagians; for he argues from the order already established, according to which the intellectual creature is ordained to the supernatural end, as is the possession of the kingdom of Heaven, which indeed now cannot be denied to anyone except on account of his own guilt; because punishment cannot be inflicted upon anyone except on account of guilt: but exclusion from glory, such ordination supposed, cannot fail to be a punishment. But Augustine does not speak of the state of pure nature, in which man would not be ordained to eternal glory.

Finally they insist: Natural beatitude can be none at all: therefore all that inclination which man has toward beatitude must be toward that which we call supernatural. They prove the antecedent from the fact that every beatitude must chiefly comprise four conditions: namely, that the blessed can neither be offended, nor deceived, nor die, nor be anxious, but secure concerning the perseverance of his beatific state: but these cannot be had in the state of pure nature: therefore, etc. This they prove from St. Augustine in many places, especially from lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 25. where he says: The just man lives not as he wills, unless he has arrived where to die, to be deceived, to be offended is altogether impossible: and since it is certain that it will always be so. For this nature seeks: nor will he plainly and perfectly be blessed unless he has attained what he seeks. The minor will be established in the following Question, in which it will be proved that the state of pure nature would not be without death, miseries, and anxiety over the loss and forfeiture of any good possessed.

— St. Augustine confirms this, Epist. 52, where, after he had said:

How great is the vanity, how great the insanity, and how great the falsehood, for mortal man leading a wretched life with mutable spirit and flesh, burdened with so many sins, subject to so many temptations, liable to so many corruptions, to trust in himself, that he may be blessed: when even that which he has as chief in the dignity of his nature, that is, mind and reason, he cannot vindicate from errors unless God, the guardian light of minds? He concludes: Let us therefore cast away, I beseech you, the vanities of false Philosophers and their lying insanities: because neither shall we have virtue, unless He Himself be present by whom we swear, nor beatitude unless He Himself be present whom we enjoy: and may He absorb all our mutable and therefore corruptible self, which of itself is weak and ever prone to miseries, by the gift of immortality and incorruption: therefore no felicity is to be hoped for on earth.

— I deny the antecedent: and to the major of its proof I say that the four aforesaid conditions desired for beatitude pertain not to temporal but eternal beatitude; not of this life, but of another; nor natural, but supernatural, from which the anxieties of death and the dread of disease are banished forever: for the Adversaries themselves confess that beatitude can be distinguished as twofold: one imperfect, which St. Aug. calls less resplendent than the beatific vision. Another truly perfect, which consists in the very clear vision and fruition of God. The former, they say on Augustine's authority, Adam had in the state of innocence, in which he saw God not intuitively, but only abstractively; destined thence to attain the latter if he had stood firm and unmoved in the former. Why then will it not likewise be licit for us to distinguish a twofold beatitude, one perfect and supernatural, another imperfect and natural, to which pure nature could tend and arrive, and through which it could be promoted to that supernatural and more excellent one?

Perhaps they will answer that that imperfect and less resplendent beatitude designated by them is a disposition to the more excellent one, which that natural beatitude devised by us would not be. — But truly, what hinders us from saying equally that man in pure natural things could be left for some time in the state of that natural beatitude, until, without any merit of his own and out of the pure liberality and grace of God, he should be promoted and transferred to the supernatural: just as the Adversaries themselves contend that Adam could have been left for some time in the state of his imperfect and less resplendent supernatural beatitude, that then, his merit accruing, he might be transferred to the perfect, namely the intuitive vision of God? For we do not contend that man constituted in the state of pure nature must necessarily remain perpetually therein; such that, the benefit of God accruing, he could not be raised to a more excellent and more perfect state: but it suffices us that he remain in it for some time, that that state be not judged impossible, — To the confirmation, and to each opinion of St. Augustine, I say that he speaks not of natural beatitude and of the state of man who would be in pure nature, but of the present state of lapsate nature, and of perfect beatitude, to which we are ordained by the grace of God, and without which we cannot truly be blessed; since we now remain bound by sin, and are pressed by grave hardships and the punishments conjoined with them. But if St. Augustine seems to deny that there is any other beatitude besides the eternal and supernatural, in comparison with which whatever other beatitude be conceived seems to be misery alone, I say he speaks in that sense in which that which is supreme and most excellent is said to be alone in such a genus, and the others which are far inferior are said to be nothing besides it; and in the manner in which God in Sacred Scripture is affirmed to be alone: Art not thou he that art alone? Ps. 11; while the remaining beings besides Him are said to be nothing; so Isaiae 10: As if standing things stood not, so are they, and as a thing of nought and emptiness are they accounted of Him. Whence as created beings, although respectively to God they are called nothing, yet in themselves, pro suo modulo, vindicate to themselves a true and real ratio of being; so that natural beatitude which men can attain in the state of pure nature would participate, pro suo modulo, the ratio of beatitude, proportioned namely to man existing in such a state, from which finally he would be promoted by the benevolence of God to a more excellent one.

3. Objection drawn from the love of God. — They object thirdly: A rational creature cannot be instituted by God except with a will ordered to loving the Creator and to being loved with chaste love, that is, immediately, and only for Himself: but that love cannot be had without the benefit of grace, as St. Augustine indicates in innumerable places: therefore, etc. — I distinguish the major: He cannot be created thus without being ordained to love God with a natural or supernatural love, I concede: with only a supernatural love, and which is perfect charity, I deny. Therefore a twofold love of man toward God can be distinguished; one indeed less perfect and of pure nature, which man could exercise by the powers of nature and with the aid of connatural providence: another more perfect and sublime, which he cannot elicit except by the aid of the Holy Ghost, and which is called perfect charity poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us, whereby we love God not only as the Author of nature and the munificent bestower of natural benefits, but also as the Author of grace and the eternal Maker of our salvation.

They insist, that this distinction of a twofold love of God, natural and supernatural, has neither foundation nor trace in Sacred Letters, nor in the Councils, nor in St. Augustine or the other holy Fathers: but is altogether a human fiction, devised by the benefit of Aristotelian Philosophy: therefore this distinction is not to be admitted in the Schools of Christians. — I deny the antecedent, whose falsity appears as regards all its parts: First indeed Sacred Scripture affords a trace and argument of that natural love of God; for in chapter 1 to the Romans, the Apostle affirms not only the Philosophers knew God by the natural light of reason, but also in chapter 2 teaches that the Gentiles who had not the law did naturally the things that are of the law: whereas the first and highest law signified by the natural light and inscribed in the hearts of men is that God, the Creator of all, must be loved: whence St. Bernard, lib. De diligendo Deo: Justice, he says, cries within by innate and not unknown reason, that He must be loved whose we wholly are, and that we owe all to Him, we do not ignore. For if men can naturally know God to be the Creator of all things, the Author of themselves, and the best Parent and most liberal benefactor, it is highly connatural that they can also pursue Him with natural love; for nature so inclines to the love of parents and benefactors that those appear to have stripped off human sense and reason among all, even Barbarians, who act otherwise. Whence deservedly St. Paul, chapter 1 to the Romans, pronounces that those Gentiles who naturally acknowledged God were thereby inexcusable, because they glorified Him not as God, nor gave thanks, and served the creature rather than the Creator. But the worship of God consists chiefly in His love, according to that of St. Aug., Epist. 120: Piety is the worship of God, nor is He worshiped save by loving: therefore the Apostle judges that the Gentiles ought to have pursued God with natural love. — As regards the Councils, they also furnish evident argument of that distinction: especially Orange, canon 25, and Trent, Session 6, Canon 3, while namely they define the aid of the Holy Ghost to be necessary for loving God, not in whatever manner, but as is required for salvation, or as is required that the grace of justification be conferred: for that limitation, "as is required for salvation," would be put in vain if no other love of God were possible except the perfect and supernatural, which leads to salvation and justification. Therefore, etc. The holy Fathers sufficiently indicate this same thing, as is established both from the praised St. Bernard and equally from St. Augustine, lib. 6 Contra Iulianum, chapter 10, where concerning little ones dying without baptism he thus speaks: If this will not be evil for them, namely to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven, they will not therefore love the kingdom of God as innocent images of God. But if they will love it, and will love it as much as innocents ought to love His kingdom from which they are created to His image: do they suffer no evil from this very separation? In which words he affirms that those little ones, though excluded from glory and left to the powers of nature alone, will love the vision of God, and will have grief that they must be deprived of it forever; for they would not grieve over the loss and forfeiture of God unless they pursued Him with love: but who will say that those infants condemned to the penalty of loss and despoiled therefore of all heavenly gifts terrify with supernatural love into the beauty of God to be seen? There remains therefore that their love toward God be purely natural. Add that among the condemned propositions of Baius this was num. 32: That distinction of a twofold love, namely natural, whereby God is loved as the Maker of nature, and gratuitous, whereby God is loved as Beatifier, is vain and fictitious, devised to mock Sacred Letters and very many testimonies of the ancients: therefore to deny that twofold love of God savors not of a Catholic.

You urge: The love of God, without which the rational creature cannot be fashioned, or at least unless it have it in its power, cannot be other than that whereby God is loved for the sake of God: for if God be loved on account of something else, that will not be the true and chaste love of God which he wishes to attain through God: for, as St. Augustine says on Ps. 77: They who seek God on account of earthly benefits seek not God, but those things, because in the same manner God is worshiped with servile fear, not with free love: thus therefore God is not worshiped: for that is worshiped which is loved: whereas such chaste and right love cannot be had without the true and properly so-called grace of God, as the same Doctor teaches, sermon 15 De verbis Apostoli. chapter 11, and lib. 6 against Julian, chapter 3: therefore, etc. — I deny the minor: for neither would some measure of love of God for Himself be impossible in the state of pure nature, such as is now possible in the state of corrupt nature by the powers of free will, as we shall demonstrate on 3 sent. Nor does it follow either that every love of God which is not purely for Him is vicious and inordinate, as we shall prove in the same place, both from Scripture, wherein He more often exhorts men to love and worship God on account of His surpassing benefits toward us; but He exhorts not to vicious and impure love: and from the Councils and Fathers, who commend even such love of God; and finally, because if God could not be rightly loved except for Himself, and no other good were done except what proceeded from such love, it would follow that there is no other virtue besides charity; which manifestly conflicts with Sacred Scripture itself and the doctrine of the holy Fathers. — By the authority of St. Augustine I say that he himself is to be understood by the aforesaid words of him who would be so affected that he would not love God if those benefits were not granted; as if God would be unworthy of love unless He were beneficent; which affection and estimation of the will is indeed altogether vicious and inordinate. Or he is to be understood of him who loves God on account of His benefits so that he holds the benefits as the better reason, than God Himself, whom he in a manner postpones to them, according to what Augustine himself says on the same Psalm 77: The heart is right with God, he says, when for the sake of God it seeks God.... But the heart is not right with God where it rather loves those things for the sake of which it requires the help of God.

You will insist again: That the principal error of Pelagius was that he asserted some pure and chaste love of God could be had by the powers of nature. Whence there was a grave contestation between him and the Catholics, as St. Augustine testifies, lib. De gratia et libero arbitrio, chapter 18, saying: Whence also in men the charity of God and of neighbor, except from God Himself? For if not from God, but from men, the Pelagians said: but if from God, we say the Pelagians [are answered]. Whence also lib. De natura, et gratia, chapter 2, he says of those who heard nothing of Christ, and who can only believe in God their author, and by living rightly fulfill His will, that they cannot do this without the benefit of the grace of Christ: If anyone, he says, this could be done, or can be done, this I too say, which the Apostle says of the law: therefore Christ died gratis. — I answer, that St. Augustine there speaks of the love and good works conducing to supernatural beatitude; for at the beginning of the chapter of the book just cited he had said: Human nature, begotten in a mass from that one transgressor, if it can suffice itself for fulfilling the law and perfecting justice, ought to be secure concerning its reward, that is, eternal life: even if in some nation, or at some earlier time, the faith of the blood of Christ lay hid from it. Add that Pelagius especially denied grace necessary, not for moral and honest works only, but for supernatural works, by which we are promoted to eternal felicity: and therefore St. Augustine there speaks not of the former works to be elicited by the powers of nature alone, but of the latter, which cannot be done without the aid of grace.

You will urge moreover: That the Gentile Philosophers also acknowledged that the love whereby God, known by the natural light, must be loved as more Just than all, cannot inhere in men without the benefit and grace of God Himself, as St. Augustine testifies in many places, especially lib. 8 De Civit. chapters 5 and 10, and lib. 4 Contra Iulianum, chapter 3: therefore in the state of pure nature no love of God could inhere in men. — I answer. That the sense of the Philosophers was that they willed that love, and Philosophy and wisdom, and the other eminent endowments of man, indeed could not be had without the benefit of God; not indeed of the supernatural order — for the Adversaries themselves openly confess that the Ethnic Philosophers discussed or knew nothing at all concerning the elevation of nature to the supernatural state — but of the natural order, gleaned namely from that special providence of God which does not exceed the limits of the same order, and which does not transcend the capacity of the Philosophers. Therefore in this sense in Augustine, lib. 8 De Civit., chapter 5, they said: the Author, Gift, and maker of things, and illuminator of truth, and bestower of beatitude: and that from Him we have both the principle of nature, and the truth of doctrine, and the felicity of life, which consists chiefly in His knowledge and love: and lib. 4 Contra Iulianum, chapter 3, they also said: That the true virtues are only those which are in a manner impressed upon the mind by the form of that eternal and immutable substance which is God. Nor does it matter that there and elsewhere often St. Augustine says that His grace and its sweetness ought to be given to us by God, that we may love Him: for he understands that we love Him more perfectly than Philosophy teaches, and than the natural powers alone can supply: by which reasoning he requires grace also that we exercise patience and the other virtues more perfectly, according to what he says lib. 22 De Civit., chapter 22: To this end let me be helped altogether by grace in these evils, that with a heart so much the more faithful, so much the stronger we may endure: for which purpose he says Philosophy also profits the learned of this age, since to certain few Gods, as Tullius says, they gave the matter, or to men from them, as it were the greater gift, which could be given.

Finally you will insist that St. Augustine teaches in many places that every love of a rational creature is charity or cupidity; since namely it is necessary that a rational creature in every voluntary action tend to God or to a creature, that it rest in one or the other as last: if in God, it is charity: if in a creature, cupidity. But in this division St. Augustine acknowledges no other charity except that which is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, nor any other cupidity except that by which the rational creature is vitiated and exorbitates from its ultimate end: but this doctrine would be false if some natural love of God were granted which was not comprehended under that divinely infused charity, for it would not truly be cupidity. - I answer. That St. Augustine there takes charity not strictly and properly, for the love of God, whereby He alone is loved for Himself and above all things, and inasmuch as charity is opposed to cupidity; but broadly, for the love of the good and honest, whereby the honest is loved, in which sense lib. 2 ad Bonifacium. chapter 1, he says: What is the cupidity of the good, except charity? Add to these that, notwithstanding the testimonies of St. Augustine produced by Michael Baius for confirming this proposition, this proposition of Baius num. 37 was condemned by the praised supreme Pontiffs: Every love of a rational creature is either viciously cupidity, whereby the world is loved, which is prohibited to us: or that laudable charity, whereby God is loved, poured forth in the heart by the Holy Ghost. Wherefore there is no reason why the Followers of him should again obtrude upon us this same proposition.

1. OBJECTION DRAWN FROM THE VIRTUES AND WORKS MORALLY GOOD. — They object 1. That state implies for the nature of a rational being which both excludes sin and has annexed the impotence of acquiring rectitude and justice, and of exercising virtue: but the purely natural state excludes sin, as is supposed, and has that impotence annexed: therefore that state implies [a contradiction]. They prove the minor from St. Augustine teaching in many places that the rules of whatever rectitude and virtue are to be acquired exist in God: in whom must be discerned whatever true thing is discerned concerning the virtues, as he affirms lib. 2 De libero arbitrio, chapters 12, 13, 14; whence it comes that the mind cannot be wise, just, good, but only distorted and perverse, unless it love those unchangeable rules of wisdom and justice, as he says in the same place, chapter 19. Hence lib. 1 Retract., chapter 9, where he recounts and approves what he had written lib. 2 De libero arbitrio, he says: Not only the great, but even the least goods cannot be, save from Him from whom are all goods: that is, from God, and through the gift of grace, as the words immediately preceding signify. Hence he subjoins: The virtues whereby one lives rightly are great goods: but the powers of the soul, without which one cannot live rightly, are middle goods... Wherefore the abundance and magnitude of the goodness of God has provided not only great, but also middle, and least goods: His liberality is more to be praised in great (that is, virtues) than in middles, such as the will and faculties of the soul: by which he signifies that God confers a greater grace upon us by giving the virtues than He conferred by conferring the faculties of the soul; and therefore that the virtues are not conferred except through supernatural grace. — I answer 1. By denying the minor, and to its proof I say first, that St. Augustine in none of the places cited by the Adversaries affirms that the rules of the virtues cannot be known except in God, although they shine forth most perfectly in Him, and better and more evidently is their knowledge had from Him than from creatures. — I say 2, that he asserts nowhere even that the grace of God is so necessary that without it the rules of the virtues can neither be known nor inquired into: nor is this gathered from the praised words of lib. 1 Retractationum; for there St. Augustine speaks, as he is wont elsewhere in many places, of the virtues conducing to meriting life everlasting, which therefore he teaches are alone the true virtues, for eliciting which grace is chiefly required, as he indicates lib. 1 Contra Iulianum, chapter 3: If for attaining true beatitude, he says, which immortal faith, which is true in Christ, promises us, the virtues of man profit nothing, they can by no means be true virtues. — I say 3. that by those or similar words St. Augustine does not intend that grace is so necessary for acquiring and exercising the virtues that, it failing, man cannot elicit any moral virtue: for he most constantly affirms, as we shall prove more fully elsewhere, that many men even in the state of lapsate nature, outside the state of sanctifying grace, indeed even of faith, exercise works of justice and virtue: for thus most expressly does he speak of the works of infidels alien from the grace of Christ, lib. De Spiritu et littera, chapters 27 and 28: Certain works of infidels, and of those alien from the grace of Christ, are such that according to the rule of justice we can not only not blame them, but deservedly and rightly praise them. And although he says those works, if well examined, would scarcely have the due praise of justice, he subjoins: Yet the image of God has not been so erased in the mind by the stain of earthly affections, that there have not remained in it as it were the ultimate lineaments; whence it can deservedly be said that even in the impiety of his life he does or understands something of the law. And he adds thirdly: as certain works elicited by the powers of nature do not hinder the just man from life everlasting, provided Julian confess those works to be sterile unto life everlasting: and that all those things which lead to it are inspired by none other than God the Father through Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. But it is certain that man would not be weaker in pure nature than in lapsate nature: therefore similarly he could in the state of pure nature, without sanctifying grace and faith, exercise some works of justice and virtue.

You will insist: That St. Augustine in the same place against Julian proves that virtues acquired outside faith and grace are not true virtues: therefore they are false and feigned, and so no moral good, no virtue, could be exercised in the state of pure nature devoid of grace. — I answer that St. Augustine speaks comparatively, not absolutely, such that he wills that virtues acquired outside grace have not the same perfection and so great force for restoring the integrity and felicity of man as Christian virtues have, whereby our old man is put off from day to day that the new may be put on, and whereby we are promoted to eternal felicity and salvation. Which when we do, he says there, we have the same true virtues because the truth is that for the sake of which we do them, that is, consonant with our nature unto salvation and felicity; for not absurdly was virtue defined by those who said: Virtue is a habit of the mind consonant with nature after the manner of reason. Well said they: but what is consonant for liberating and beatifying the mortal nature they knew not. — Behold wherein St. Augustine places the truth of virtue: that it be consonant with nature unto salvation and true felicity, or, of what sort it be that is consonant with the nature to be liberated and beatified.

The other arguments drawn from the misery of the human body, concupiscence, etc., the Adversaries reject and urge; but lest the present Question be more diffuse, he will recount and refute them.

The present Question is not only a necessary sequel to the preceding, but also its explanation and confirmation: for those who oppose the possibility of the state of pure nature throw every stone in their power to assail it. They assail it most vigorously with three principal arguments, drawn sometimes from natural evils, such as diseases, pains, and other defects of bodies; sometimes from concupiscence, which wages perpetual war against reason and resists it; sometimes from ignorance, which, taking away the knowledge of good and evil, binds the faculty of the will so that it cannot be exercised upon such objects. But since these men think that these things can neither be absent from rational nature without grace, nor present in it without sin, as seems to be urged by innumerable testimonies of St. Augustine, they therefore judge that state impossible in which both grace and sin are excluded from that nature: and so they deem the state of pure nature to be fictitious and chimerical.

But that we may the more easily solve all these windings and difficulties proposed by them, and establish and confirm the possibility of the state of pure nature,

Note 1. The calamities and miseries of body and soul can admit a twofold account: For either they are the pure and simple defects and appendages of nature itself as deficient and corruptible: Or they are punishments inflicted by God, the avenger of crimes, upon each of the first Parent's posterity on account of his sin, as all Theologians commonly hold; which the Adversaries deny, teaching that no punishment, however slight, can be inflicted upon innocent nature; and they contend that St. Augustine removes from divine power and equity the infliction upon the innocent of punishments no less slight than grave; and that Augustine does not speak of punishment as punishment, but as evil: and that he wills that evil cannot be inflicted except under the aspect of punishment, or cannot fail to be a punishment: finally, that he contends such miseries cannot be inflicted except upon sinners. Behold the head and synopsis of the first difficulty: whence they conclude that the divine law, sanctioned by eternal truth, by no means allows God to make a creature miserable without any fault; for this, they say, belongs not to a Lord, but to a Tyrant: whence it follows that this is as impossible as that God is not God.

Note 2. Concupiscence can be used in a twofold sense: namely, either for the power of concupiscence, or for the motion or act of that power. Again, each of these can be taken in a threefold sense: First indeed broadly, for the power or act of appetiting any good whatever, whether spiritual, or material and sensible; in which sense it is the same as the will, or the act of willing. Second, more strictly, for the power or act of appetiting only sensible things; and thus it is the same as the sensitive appetite, or the act of that faculty appetiting those things which are fitting or necessary to nature and do not conflict with the honorable. Third, finally in the strictest sense, for those disordered motions of the sensitive appetite, rebelling not only against the dictate of right reason, but also against the will rightly and justly desiring, and alluring and drawing it toward evil. Taken in the first and second mode, concupiscence is a certain natural perfection implanted in us by God; for it is the very will, or its act, by which the soul appetites good, and pursues those things which pertain to natural perfection and the conservation of nature itself. — Nor does it matter that it can break out into evil and base acts: for on that account it is no less a natural perfection in itself: for just as it would be absurd to judge that life, sense, and intellect are not natural perfections concreated in us by God, because the intellect can decline into falsehood, and the senses can be deluded about sensible objects, and life can cease through death: so equally would it be absurd to deny that the power of appetiting is a natural perfection granted by God, because it can break out into vicious motions rebellious against reason. But concupiscence taken in the third mode is not a natural perfection, but a defect of nature vitiated by sin.

Note 3. Ignorance (which is the lack of that knowledge which man is born apt to have) is chiefly distinguished into three kinds: namely, Invincible, Crass, and Affected. 1. is that by which we are ignorant of some thing which we are either not bound to know or cannot know. 2. is that by which we apply little or no diligence to knowing a thing which nevertheless we are bound to know. 3. is that by which someone spontaneously wills to be ignorant of what he is bound to know, that he may sin more freely: for example, if one were unwilling to know on what day he must fast, that he might more freely give himself to feasts. The first excuses from the whole, the second from so much, the third accuses, and by no means excuses. The first removes all malice; the second part of malice; the third increases it, not indeed according to degree, for since ignorance diminishes the voluntary, an act done from such ignorance will have lesser degrees of malice than if it were done from perfect knowledge: but it is said to increase malice, because to the prohibited operation it adds the affection of such ignorance. Now the present discourse is about invincible ignorance of the natural law, from which (as St. Augustine seems to teach) infinite sins proceed from men, even at times from saints; and with which the condemned nature of man is born; which therefore is so contrary to rational nature that whatever arises from it makes man guilty of fault. Therefore, say the Adversaries, it cannot be that man be created in the state of pure nature, in which there would be such ignorance, whose horrid darkness cannot be veiled except by the illumination of grace. Three things therefore are to be discussed in the present question: namely, first, that the miseries of the body are not so much punishments of sin that they cannot even be simple effects of nature, and therefore can exist in the state of pure nature. Second, that even in that state concupiscence could prevail. Third, that even in that state men could labor under ignorance.

First Conclusion. — Man, constituted in the state of pure nature, could be subject to death, and diseases, and the other corporeal miseries. This is the Doctor's teaching in 2 dist. 10, q. unica n. 3, where he concedes that although the first Parent, innocence standing, was immortal by divine benefit, nevertheless by the constitution of his nature he could have died: not indeed from without, but from within; because man in the state of innocence was of the same nature as he is now, as to substance and connatural qualities. Therefore just as he now has contrary parts, from whose mutual action and struggle he can fail, so also in the state of innocence he could have died, unless by the eating of the tree of life his nature had been wholly restored; and consequently the Doctor judges that much more would man be mortal in the state of pure nature. — To this concurs St. Thomas in 2 dist. 18, q. 1, art. 2, in these words: God could at the beginning, when He created man, also form another man from the clay of the earth, whom He would leave in the condition of his nature, namely that he would be mortal and passible, and feeling the penalty of concupiscence as regards reason; in which nothing would be derogated from human nature, because this follows from the principles of nature. Nor would this defect in him have had the aspect of fault or punishment, because this defect would not have been caused by the will. By which words he plainly teaches our assertion.

Proof of the conclusion: first indeed from the authority of St. Augustine book 6, De Genesis ad litteram chap. 25, where, after he had said: The body of Adam before sin was both mortal because it could die, and immortal because it could not die: for it is one thing not to be able to die, as God created certain natures immortal; another thing to be able not to die, according to which mode the first man was created immortal, which was to be afforded him from the tree of life, not from the constitution of nature; he subjoins: He was therefore mortal by the condition of his animal body, but immortal by the benefit of his Creator, etc. By which he plainly indicates that man from his nature was in truth mortal, even in the state of innocence. Therefore much more would he be mortal in the state of pure nature.

It is proved 2. by reason: If man from his nature required the immortality of the body, it must be either from within or from without; namely, either from his constitutive principles, or on account of the singular care and providence of God preserving man from all corruption: but from neither head can the natural immortality of man be derived. Not indeed from within, for if the body of man were intrinsically immortal, it would not be composed of the elements, nor capable of the vegetative and sensitive soul, since these import perpetual struggle, consumption, and defect; wherefore neither would it be a fitting abode for the rational soul; for this presupposes the operations of sensitive and vegetative life. Nor from without; for such immortality would not have befallen man in a natural manner, but in a preternatural order, and by a certain special and extraordinary reason; and therefore it would not have been connatural to him, but would have accrued to him only by a supernatural way. — Then, if the immortality of the body had been connatural to human nature, God would hardly have promised it to man as the reward of his obedience, and would have threatened death in vain as the just punishment of disobedience; for on account of sin those things which are natural to man are neither taken away nor diminished; since even in the demons the natural things persevered intact: but God had pledged immortality to the First Parents as the reward of their observance and obedience, and had threatened death if they should become hostile: therefore it is a sign that immortality was not connatural to man; and therefore that man from his nature is mortal. — Finally, that is not due to the nature of man which is beyond his natural constitution: but the immortality of the body is not according to the nature of man: for man, according to nature, is a mixed, living, and sentient body: but that which is such has also according to nature that it be corruptible, and therefore could at some time be corrupted; therefore never to die and be corrupted is not according to the nature of man: nor is that power of not dying natural... [truncated]

The same is also proved of the miseries of the body: and that from St. Augustine, who seems to have held the first position in determining whether, on the hypothesis that Adam had not sinned, his sons and posterity would have been born with ignorance, concupiscence, infirmity of strength, pains, and other inconveniences of that kind: therefore false is what the Adversaries say, namely that it is as it were a dogma spread through all the most holy domains of Augustinian doctrine; which from the first beginnings of the received Catholic Religion even to his last breath he taught without wavering, namely that under a just, omnipotent, and good God a rational creature can by no means be tortured with so many and so great miseries, of which the state of pure nature is as it were composed, unless his fault deserve it. Equally false, they say, is this doctrine the capital foundation on which the chief part of that edifice which Augustine built against the Manichees and Pelagians rests, which if it were withdrawn it becomes impossible to defend the doctrine handed down against those pests. — The antecedent is proved from book 1, De peccatorum meritis, et remissione chap. 37, where he does not dare to define whether the same infirmity and mediocrity of body would have been in infants, if Adam were not to sin: whence he reasons only by conjecture and infers, either that the stature must be supplied divinely, as was done in Eve: or that the motive virtue must be increased and its organs strengthened, so that infants born could do what chicks newly issued from the egg do: which granted, there would remain in the infant as much of misery as of due perfection were lacking, and to be acquired in time. I wonder, he says, if the first men had not sinned, whether they would have such sons, who would use neither tongue, nor hands, nor feet. For on account of the capacity of the womb it was perhaps necessary that little ones be born, although since a small part of the body, yet God did not make a little bride for man, whom He built into the woman. Thence, and his sons the omnipotence of the Creator could make at once full-grown as soon as issued. But that I may omit this, He could certainly do what He bestowed on many flocks also, whose chicks... [truncated]

The Notator replies book 2, chap. 19: So great are the goods which proceed from the toleration of evils, that they ought deservedly to be despised, if even a just man suffer something of such penal molestations without fault. — Against this: it is therefore false, as he elsewhere asserted, that evil cannot be inflicted upon a rational creature except under the aspect of punishment, or cannot fail to be a punishment; for if adults already justified, the justice of God safe, suffer such penal molestations, when conflict with them can be fruitful, whence there arise a harvest of virtue and of greater glory; why should not the same equally be able to happen in the state of pure nature, namely, that according to the series of natural providence, and through the aids of the natural order, men subject to molestations of body and mind might from this acquire a great harvest of moral virtue? It is confirmed from this, that he affirms there that some good due to innocent nature can be deferred for a time; namely when it happens that by the deferral it becomes greater: and he alleges St. Augustine as author of this assertion, while by that reason he defends the equity of the counsel which Joseph entered upon in Egypt, when he at first reduced his brethren into those straits which Scripture narrates. For it was not fitting, he says, that their passion throughout that whole time, in which they were troubled, tend to the future exaltation of glory, which was to be revealed in them when the brother was known. What evil then would it be, if a rational creature existing in the state of pure nature were at some time pressed by miseries, and deprived of a good due to it, that it might the better estimate the benefit from it, when it understood from how great a misery God had freed it, and how great a good He had conferred upon it? For, that a purely natural state be said to be possible, it is not necessary that it be perpetual: but it suffices us that it be granted as possible at least for some time; and it will be, if there can be some deferral even of a good that is due: for in this way also we say absolutely that Christ was mortal, even though immortality was due to Him, and to be granted at an appointed time.

It is proved 2. That St. Augustine constantly asserts that God can, apart from the fault of man, inflict temporal punishments upon him, and that without any prejudice to His divine justice and equity. This I establish most of all from the commentary on Psalm 70, where Augustine speaks thus: I greatly wonder at the love and fear of God; fear of God because He is just; love because He is merciful: for who would say to Him, what hast Thou done, if He should damn a just man? What then is His mercy, that He justifies the unjust? Now St. Augustine speaks of damnation not properly taken, juridical and punitive: for that implies, on the hypothesis that he who is supposed to be damned is innocent; but it is understood of the infliction of evils, which are imposed upon the damned as punishment: so that God can inflict these upon the just; even though not as punishment: therefore this infliction of evils does not necessarily presuppose sin.

The Notator replies, author of this assertion, book 3, chap. 16: First indeed, that St. Augustine speaks of the just as they are in the present state of life, in which on account of the merit of original guilt God can damn them, that is, not impede them lest they lapse into sin and damnation; for since God gratuitously confers perseverance upon justified men, it can be said that He damns them when He denies that gift of perseverance, from the denial of which follows mortal sin, and thence eternal damnation; but this gift, he says, God sometimes denies on account of contracted original sin. — Against this, first: this interpretation is altogether ridiculous and alien to the mind of St. Augustine: for what need is there to presuppose original sin in order that God may deny to man the gift of perseverance; and to deny the gift even before original sin? Did He not permit the Angels to lapse with perseverance lost; in whom nevertheless no original sin had preceded? Second, this interpretation militates directly against the Council of Trent, affirming in session 5, Canon 5, and of the sixth session chap. 11, etc. that in the baptized there is nothing at all which removes them from entrance into heaven: and that the whole temporal punishment is always remitted in baptism: and that there is nothing of damnation in those who are truly buried with Christ through baptism into death. For does there not remain much of damnation and the sum of punishment removing from entrance into heaven, if after baptism there still remain that merit of original sin by which the aid to persevere is taken away, that is, by which salvation is made impossible? Third, finally this explanation also plainly conflicts with St. Augustine, who affirms in many places, most of all book 1, De peccatorum meritis chap. 37, that in the baptized concupiscence indeed remains, but that baptism works this, that it may not harm the dead what was in the born. And book 2, chap. 4, he says it remains for the struggle. All sins being deleted, he says, and even the guilt dissolved, by which it held all originally, it remains meanwhile for the struggle, doing no harm at all to those who do not consent to its illicit things. And chap. 28: But this law of sin... [truncated]

Second reply. That passage of Augustine is corrupt: for, he says, where it is read if He should damn a just man, it ought to be read, if He should damn an unjust man: then because there St. Augustine speaks of the unjust: then because his mind was to excite contrition by the commendation of divine justice; but this has its place in the damnation of the unjust, not of the just: therefore, etc. — Against this, first: there are no exemplars which report this opinion otherwise than we have expounded: whence I can deservedly reply what St. Augustine wrote against Faustus book 11, chap. 1: These men, he says, if they are stopped by manifest truth, so blunted that in lucid words they cannot find in them what their fallacy has dug out: they answer that that testimony which was brought forward is false. O blind, fleeing from certainty, pertinacious in madness: so invincible are the things which are brought forward against you from the codices, that you have nothing else to say except that they have been falsified? — Second, if in the first place that unjust had been written, what need was there to repeat it again? Third, this conduced to the aim of Augustine, namely that he might strike terror into sinners: for if God, by His absolute command over creatures, can inflict even upon the innocent every dire punishment, how much ought a sinner to fear and guard himself? For even these things they do in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? says Christ the Lord, Luke 23:31.

You will object 1. Sacred Scripture specially affirms that death is not from God, but from sin: God made not death, says the Wise man in the first chapter, but, it says chap. 2, envy of the devil death came into the world: whence St. Paul to the Romans ch. 6: The wages, he says, of sin, death: but if death were natural to man, God, who is the Author of nature, would be also the Artificer of death, and it could truly be said that He made death: therefore man in truth is not by his nature mortal. — I answer, that God indeed made it not: for He had endowed the first man with the benefit of immortality to be transferred to all his posterity, if he had abstained from sin, as he could most easily; and His intention was that he should not sin, and live forever: whence death is rightly said to have been indicted against His intention, from the sin of man, and the envy of the devil. Hence all those aforesaid contexts are understood of nature as it truly is fallen, and was innocent: not indeed of nature, which could be under the state of purely natural, namely with the gift of innocence, and free from sin; and therefore nothing against our assertion is established from these.

You will object 2. It is unjust that man be afflicted with diseases, pains, and molestations, unless by sin he have deserved these: but man in pure nature would lack even original sin: therefore in that state it would not be just that he experience those miseries. The Notator proves the major with many texts of St. Augustine, most of all from book 8, De Genesis ad litteram, chap. 14, and book 3, De libero arbitrio, chap. 9, where he says: If, sins withdrawn, misery persevered, or even sins preceded, the order and administration of the Universe is rightly said to be deformed: therefore, etc. — I answer, that miseries and corporeal afflictions are of twofold genus: for certain of them are natural defects consequent upon the very nature of men, as are diseases, corporeal death, etc. But others are preternatural, as the punishment of damnation and of eternal combustion. The former follow the very nature of man: but the latter are hurled by God, the avenger of crimes, upon sinners. Of the latter St. Augustine speaks, not indeed of the former, which could happen in the state of pure nature, because God by His ordered providence is not bound to impede the action of natural causes, lest corporeal ones, defective by their nature, should not fail.

You will object 3. St. Augustine in the books against Julian, and elsewhere, proves original sin against the Pelagians, from this, that children, destitute of actual sin, are subjected to death, diseases, pains, and other corporeal miseries: but this discourse would establish nothing, if man in the state of pure nature, in which original sin would not prevail, were liable to the same miseries: therefore in that purely natural state he would not be subject to these calamities. — I answer, that St. Augustine, and the other Fathers, the expugnators of the Pelagians, conclude indeed rightly original sin from those corporeal afflictions with which infants are subject from the very beginning of their conception. For they speak of fact, and according to the tradition of faith, and Sacred Scripture, by which it is established that the first man was endowed by God with the benefit of integrity, immortality, and exemption from pain, the promise being touched of transferring to his posterity these gifts and privileges, if he himself should not sin. Whence, since God is not unjust, nor unfaithful, nor does He fail in His promises, the holy Fathers rightly conclude, from those miseries inflicted upon the whole human race, a posteriori some sin of Adam as the occasion why God willed to strip men of these benefits, and devote them to those molestations; for fault lies hidden, says St. Prosper, book Against the Collator chap. 2, where punishment does not lie hidden, and the society of sin is convicted by the communion of the penalty.

Second Conclusion. — Man, constituted in the state of pure nature, could labor under ignorance.

It is proved from St. Augustine in many places, most truly De Genesis ad litteram book 10, chap. 14, where, since he had wavered among differing opinions about the creation of the rational soul: and had embraced that one which teaches that for each man a single soul is created: yet since thence it seemed to follow that injury is done to divine equity, in that He would compel an innocent soul, mixed with sinful flesh by no fault of its own, to dwell in that ignorance in which all the sons of men are submerged at the beginning of their life; St. Augustine answers, that no inconvenience follows from this, if it were said that the harmless soul was permitted to lie for a time in those shadows of beginnings: But when, he says, little by little from this obligation and torpor the soul, coming to itself, can be converted to God its own, and merit His mercy and truth first by the piety of conversion, then by the perseverance of keeping His commandment; what does it hinder that it be submerged a little in that sleep as it were, from which we are little by little raised into the light of understanding, on account of which the rational soul was made, and can by the will choose a good life? He concedes therefore that the soul can at some time labor under an ignorance which does not arise from sin, or which is not indigestible, as he speaks there; for if it were in some way indigestible, it would be attributed to the Creator. He judges therefore that those gifts can be deferred, with which the rational creature is not unworthy to be endowed, namely knowledge, without any sin of its own: therefore an ignorance can be admitted which does not arise from sin: because if it had its origin thence, it would not be indigestible, nor attributed to the Creator.

It is proved 2. more evidently from the same in the 3rd book De libero arbitrio, where he expressly affirms that human nature can be created with concupiscence and ignorance, no sin presupposed; for he there distinguishes the natural difficulty of those laboring from the penal one: and adds, that if ignorance and difficulty were natural, which is now penal to man, nevertheless his Creator would still be to be praised: But his Creator, he says, is everywhere praised; either because He began it from its very beginnings with a capacity for the highest good, or because He aids its progress.... For not on this account did He create it much, because it is not yet so great as it received that it could be by profiting.

The Adversaries reply. That St. Augustine wrote these things when younger, while he disputed against the Manichees, and before the heresy of Pelagius had sprung up: wherefore he emended that opinion in Epist. 28 to Jerome. — Against this, this response is altogether silly and false; First, for in that Epistle to Jerome there is not even a little word by which St. Augustine signifies that that conditional proposition taken from book 3 De libero arbitrio; if ignorance and difficulty were natural, nevertheless God would be to be praised, does not please him, or is false, as will be evident to the reader. Second, he confirms this very opinion in book 1 of the Retractations, chap. 9, where he reviews that passage of the third book De libero arbitrio in these words: To which misery of just damnation belongs the ignorance and difficulty, which every man suffers from the beginning of his birth: nor from this evil is anyone freed except by the grace of God. Which misery the Pelagians are unwilling to descend from just damnation, denying original sin: although ignorance and difficulty, even if they were the natural beginnings of man, God would not thus be to be blamed, but praised; as we disputed in the same third book De libero arbitrio. But it is established that the first book of the Retractations was written after the Epistle to Jerome: since Augustine in the first book of the Retractations cites the last book De Civitate Dei, and in Epistle 102, says that he had given to Jerome, and had at hand the books De Civitate, of which he had written only five: therefore the Epistle to Jerome was written with the first book of the Retractations not yet written; and therefore it is false that Augustine in that Epistle emended what he had written in the books De libero arbitrio. Add that not when younger, but already an old man he treated the same opinion, and again proved it in the book De bono perseverantiae chap. 12, where, having related among other things the aforesaid words, although ignorance and difficulty, etc., he says; These things I said in book 1 of the Retractations, when I was retracting the books De libero arbitrio: And finally... [truncated]

You will object 1. It does not seem congruous to divine equity and justice, that an innocent creature have reason so bound, and sunk in so profound an ignorance as is in children, except in vengeance of some crime: but in the state of innocence there would be no sin: therefore neither such ignorance and binding of reason. — I deny the major; both because this binding of reason follows the very defect and state of nature, as is sufficiently established from Augustine; And because even in the state of innocence there would have been sleep, as St. Augustine concedes, book 6 Contra Iulianum, chap. 10. For it remains in adults justified, in whom for a third or fourth part of life reason is bound, and lulled to sleep, and all use of science interdicted, namely at the time of falling asleep, which nevertheless no one afflicts as repugnant to the justice and equity of God: therefore neither will it be repugnant, that God suffer the souls of infants to grow torpid as it were for a while in sleep; whence little by little awakening into the light of understanding, on account of which the rational soul was made, they can by the will choose a good life, as we said above from St. Augustine: For if, he himself adds, book 3 De libero arbitrio chap. 2, we in no way rightly call a young tree and rude shrub sterile, although several ages pass without fruits, until at a fit time it brings forth its fertility: why should not the soul also (though little?) be praised with due piety, if He attributes to it such memory, and by studying and profiting it arrive at the fruit of wisdom and justice?

You will object 2. Error and folly, which are the fruits of ignorance and a certain disconvenience of evil nature, cannot be except the punishment of sin; for, as St. Augustine says in the Enchiridion chap. 19: Error itself, by itself, either great in a great matter, or small in a small matter, is always an evil: Who, unless erring, denies that it is evil to approve false things as true, or to hold the uncertain as certain, or the certain as uncertain? And book 5 Contra Iulianum, c. 1: Who, he says, does not daily prove, with human affairs as witnesses, that a little one first knows nothing, and afterwards, if it pertains to the lot of wisdom, knows rightly, and so from infancy advances to middle wisdom.... And you are unwilling to cut down even the root of it, or you do cut it down, which is worse, you deny it. Therefore St. Augustine judges original sin to be the cause of the ignorance of little ones: and therefore it could not be tolerated in the state of pure nature. — I answer, that these are indeed disconveniences of nature, and that in fact they are the punishment of original sin, the state of innocence having been lost through it, in which not only would there have been the greatest facility for acquiring knowledge and wisdom, but also, as the Doctor teaches in 2 dist. 20, quaest. 1, the posterity of Adam, if he himself had not sinned, would have been confirmed in grace, and illustrated with all wisdom and knowledge, and so preserved from ignorance and sin. But this does not stand in the way that man, constituted in the state of pure nature, could labor under ignorance: for since all our cognition hangs upon the senses, which do not perceive spiritual things, nor the essences of things, thence it comes that natural reason is dim and fails in many things, and labors under much ignorance and various errors.

Third Conclusion. — Man, constituted in the state of pure nature, could be agitated and stimulated by the motions of concupiscence.

The truth of this Conclusion follows and stands from the preceding. For truly if man, constituted in such a state, could be pressed by internal and external molestations of body and mind, without doubt he could also be agitated by the motions of concupiscence: especially since he consists of two parts appetiting different things; For the flesh concupisceth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for the one sighs after and seeks corporeal pleasures: the other the delights of the mind, namely virtue and wisdom: the one delights in terrestrial and corporeal, the other in celestial and spiritual goods and gifts: and therefore they have native inclinations repugnant to one another.

It is proved besides: if anything stood in the way of man's being formed subject to the motions of concupiscence, chiefly because God would have to be judged the author of that concupiscence as of nature: but thence nothing inconvenient follows, nor is any injury inflicted upon the supreme majesty and wisdom of God: therefore nothing stands in the way. The major is evident from the very Novator himself, book 3, chap. 22, where he says that St. Augustine repeats nothing more frequently with greater authority, inculcates nothing more sharply, than that God can be said to be the author of shameful concupiscence as of modesty only by an erroneous and blasphemous opinion. And book 2, chap. 18, after he had declaimed at length against the whole and shameful concupiscence, in order to show that that state of pure nature, in which there would be the same struggle of flesh with spirit, the same repugnance of concupiscence with virtue, the same necessity of blushing at so great foulness, would be chimerical and impossible, concludes in chaps. 20 and 21, that he who asserted these things would be ungrateful and irreligious toward God, and also blasphemous. The minor is proved: on the hypothesis that man would be created without sin, with concupiscence, and at the same time with grace, by which he could resist concupiscence, God could be its author without any prejudice to His divine wisdom and divine majesty: therefore equally He can be the artificer of that state, in which, no sin preceding, nature would have concupiscence annexed to itself, which reason, sustained by natural aids, could resist. The antecedent is evident; for from this nothing is detracted from divine holiness, since no sin annexed is supposed in that state, and from that struggle of concupiscence with the will, the amplest harvest of merit and virtues can be gathered. For since the Novator concedes in book 3, chap. 19, that that unhappiness of the Apostle, agitated by the goads of concupiscence, and therefore crying out, Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? is to be reckoned as nothing, nor that misery to be true misery, since it is an occasion of virtue to be exercised; why could it not equally avail for the exercising of virtue, and p... [truncated]

You will object 1. No vice can be natural to man: but concupiscence, since it inclines to sin, is a certain vice: therefore it cannot be connatural to man. — I deny the minor; for concupiscence in the state of pure nature would not properly be a vice; but a defect of nature itself consequent upon its constitutive principles. For just as from this, that man is naturally constituted of matter and form, it follows that he is corruptible; and just as from this, that he is from nothing, he is also peccable, from which defect God frees no one except in the state of beatitude; so the contrariety and struggle of appetites in man follows naturally from his intrinsic constitution, namely because he consists of a spiritual and a corporeal part, of which the one savors of heavenly, the other of earthly things. This very thing St. Augustine teaches expressly in book 5, contra Iulianum, c. 7, where he consents to Julian in this, that he said concupiscence to be natural: Since, he says, we say both that concupiscence is natural and that it can be conquered, and whether we judge either of them good or evil, the question itself is disputed between us. The same St. Basil teaches in the book De Virginitate, where he says: The natural appetite to gluttony or luxury tickles the body. And St. Chrysostom, hom. 19 to the people of Antioch: Although, he says, we judge custom, how shall we conquer concupiscence, whose root has its beginning from nature? For to concupiscence is natural; but to concupiscence evil is already of custom. It stands therefore that concupiscence is an appendage of nature itself; and therefore would be in the state of pure nature.

You will object 2. Concupiscence is not from God, but from sin, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, most of all in the books De Nuptiis, et Concupiscentia: whence St. James ch. 1: Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted of God: for God is not a tempter of evils, and He tempteth no man: but every one is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured: yet if concupiscence were natural to man, and would befit him in the state of pure nature; since God is the author of nature, concupiscence would also have to be said to be His workmanship: therefore, etc. — I distinguish the major: that concupiscence is not from God, inasmuch as it is the appetitive power of sensible goods fitting to nature and by no means repugnant to reason, I deny: inasmuch as it is the propensity of the appetite to a good contrary to reason, by which it is called the fomes of sin, I concede. For concupiscence can be used in a twofold sense, as was said in the second Notandum: of the latter St. James speaks, not indeed of the former.

You will object 3. The motion of concupiscence injects shame: whence men deservedly blush at it: but in the state of pure nature nothing would be shameful or to be blushed at, because nature is the work of God; but he does injury to God who blushes at His work: For what, says St. Augustine in book 2 De Nuptiis, et Concupiscentia, chap. 9, would shame a man of any work, which not man, but God made in man: since all artificers with as much labor and industry as they can strive that they blush not at their own works? But surely that shames us, which shamed those first men, when they wove coverings. That is full of sin, that is the wound and vestige of sin, that is the allurement and fomes of sin: therefore in the purely natural state there would be no concupiscence. — I deny the minor; for deservedly indeed in the purely natural state there would be shame of concupiscence, as of the work which follows from it, not because it is the work of God, but because it is a defect of nature and an imperfection following from the natural condition and constitution: for more natural things follow any state of man which, although they do not flow from original sin, nevertheless inject shame, of which kind is the evacuation of the belly, which doubtless is natural to man even though not sinning; and therefore that shame which the act of concupiscence injects could be natural, even if there had been no sin in man. But when St. Augustine affirms that shame to be an appendage of vice, he speaks of concupiscence inasmuch as it is now the punishment and fomes of sin, as is evident from his words.

You will urge: if concupiscence flowed from the very natural constitution of man, it would be lawful for all to consent to its desires: for nature unstained by no sin cannot incline to anything perverse: but this appears most absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. — I deny the consequence of the major; for those motions of concupiscence, although they proceed from nature, can be repugnant to right reason; for nature, although good, inasmuch as it is defectible, can do something evil; since the nature of the Angels and of the first Parents had been created immediately by God, and was depraved by no vice before they sinned, and nevertheless sin proceeded from it. Whence in that state those motions of concupiscence could have existed, not that sin should thence be made, but that there should be an occasion of more goods, namely of exercising virtue more generously, and of making it worthy of greater praise and reward; because the more perilous the contest, the more illustrious the victory stands forth: by which reason St. Ambrose in the book De Viduis affirms the purity of men to be more excellent than that of Angels; For the Angels, he says, contend without flesh: but Virgins triumph in the flesh. Although indeed we cannot deny that in that possible state of pure nature there would be motions of concupiscence, the enticements and allurements of beauty, and the enticements of pleasure, which would tickle the senses, and irritate the appetite, and allure the mind, which indeed those goads of dishonest and base concupiscence would follow, which are not in the power of the will, and at which especially every honest and wise man is ashamed, which seem to be natural, and not able to be subjected to reason, as also the motions of the heart, for Aristotle hands down that both exist beyond reason, in the book De causis motuum animalium: nevertheless those motions would be fewer and more remiss than in fallen nature, and would be more easily subjected to reason. Whence St. Augustine, lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, chap. 16: *This, that, he says, the motion of the genital members obeys not reason, is from the punishment of sin, namely... [truncated]

Pelagian, chap. 25, where, answering the Pelagians objecting, from the Manichees, that the calamities and diseases with which little ones who have not yet sinned are tossed about proceed from the commixture of two natures, namely of good and evil, he answers: The Catholic truth refutes these, confessing original sin, by which the human race was made a mockery of the demons, and the progeny of mortals destined for laborious misery. But it would not be so, if human nature had persevered in that state in which it was first founded by free will. Thence it follows that in the state of pure nature there would be much less dissension and struggle between the rational and sensitive appetite than in the state of fallen nature: and that man now has lesser powers for working moral good than he would have in the state of pure nature if it existed. Which indeed three arguments seem effectually to persuade: the first indeed because man on account of original sin is clad in the servitude of the demons, and is tossed about by their temptations without ceasing. The second is, that to fallen man, if he be not aided by grace, he has scarcely the faculty of keeping the natural law. The third, that through sin he has been despoiled in great part even of gratuitous aids within the order of nature, and also wounded in natural things, as Christ the Lord signifies, Luke 10, by the parable of the man fallen among robbers. But nothing of those three would occur in the state of pure nature. Not indeed the first, because then there would have been no cause why he should be so subjected to the temptation of demons. Nor the second, because man in that state would have means fitting, not only physical but also moral aids, for keeping the whole natural law, and for attaining his ultimate natural end. Nor the third, because pure nature would not only not be to be despoiled of goods connatural to it, but neither would it be to be wounded in them in any part; since by that very fact it would not be pure, that is, having nothing more, and nothing less, than it would bear of itself and in view of the beneficent condition of its Creator; therefore it cannot be denied but that fallen nature by reason of its fall is in some measure... [truncated]

TO BE OBSERVED nevertheless that man, created in the purely natural state, cannot repress and conquer the rebellious motions of the sensitive appetite without the special aid of God within the order of nature. Which St. Augustine indeed indicates not obscurely in book 3 of the book De arbitrio, chap. 20, where he says: It behooved the sons of God not only worshipping not to prohibit, but also to adjure, that each one conquer the punishment which his origin had deserved by his aversion… Although in ignorance and difficulty the soul has been born, nevertheless it is not compressed by any necessity to persevere in that state in which it was born. Which it has the faculty, with the Creator adjuring, to exercise itself, and by a pious study can acquire and take to itself all the virtues; and therefore if it should not will, to be held guilty of sin by right, as if it had not well used the faculty which it received. But these things would be said in vain, unless God, aiding, were at hand as often and as long as is needed, for the completing of the natural faculty through the aids necessary to it.

TO BE OBSERVED besides, that that aid is indeed undue to man in such a state; it is nevertheless natural as to its entity and substance; both because in that state nothing would be entitatively supernatural: and because man, constituted in the purely natural state, would not be ordered to a preternatural end; but would pursue God as the Author of nature, as it were the object of his beatitude, through natural cognition and love. — Nor does it matter that those aids are sometimes called by St. Augustine by the name of grace; for St. Augustine himself in Epist. 95 to Pope Innocent, acknowledges a twofold grace: one of creation, and as it were natural, another of predestination, and supernatural: For although, he says, a certain grace of God not to be disapproved is said to be that by reason of which we have been created, that we might be something, nor yet should we be such a thing as that which does not live should fall, and the tree which does not feel, or the beast which does not understand: but men, who both are, and live, and feel, and understand, and on account of so great a benefit we ought to give thanks to our Creator: thence deservedly even this can be called grace, because it has been given not by the merits of the works of any predecessors, but by the gratuitous goodness of God: but there is another, by which predestinated we are called, justified, glorified, that we may be able to say, if God be for us, who is against us?

NOTE 1. Man may be considered in a threefold state, of Nature, of Grace, and of Glory; that is, either inasmuch as he is a rational man, or as he is a Christian, or inasmuch as he is to be beatified. And according to this threefold order he likewise possesses excellencies of a threefold kind: for, as a rational creature, he contains in epitome all the perfections of the whole Universe, and is as it were a world abridged, embracing and shadowing forth in himself the excellencies of every being, corporeal, spiritual, and divine. In the order of grace, he is the sanctuary and the goal of all divine charisms: For all things are for the Elect. But in the order of glory, he is an inhabitant of the Heavens, a fellow-citizen of the Angels, a familiar of God, His heir and possessor. Of the former only is there question here; the perfections of the latter kind we shall discuss in what follows.

NOTE 2. There is a threefold way of detecting the perfection of man: namely, first, by negation, removing from him, to be sure, whatever defects are found in the other creatures; second, by affirmation, attributing to him all the excellencies which we see shining in the other creatures; third, by eminence, attributing that all those perfections are found in him in a nobler degree and in a more excellent manner than in the other created beings. For just as by the negative definition we remove from God the defects of all created being; by the affirmative we attribute to Him whatever perfection shines forth in created being; and by the way of eminence we think and predicate of Him above all being and every conceivable perfection: so in this threefold way the various excellencies of man, above the other created beings, can be detected and affirmed.

NOTE 3. And since man, according to the judgment of the Philosophers and of the holy Fathers, is a Microcosm, or a little world, or a world abridged, his native excellence must be measured and delineated from that intimate commerce which he has with the threefold order of the world. For Platonic philosophy of old distinguished three worlds, namely, the Archetypal, the Intellectual, and the Corporeal world, which man most happily gathers together in himself. The Archetypal world is God, bearing the world in His mind and forming it after His own like image: for He is the first principle, exemplar, and end of all creatures; for in Him exists the fullness of all being, infinite wisdom, and supreme goodness. By reason of the first, He is the supreme cause of existences and essences; by reason of the second, He possesses in Himself the unique ideas, and vindicates to Himself the name of prototype and exemplar; by reason of the third, He discharges the office of the last end. The celestial Intelligences themselves, separated from all matter, are called the intellectual world: spiritual substances, incorruptible in state, everlasting in duration, most wise in the power of understanding, ardent in love, etc. The corporeal world is completed and formed by all creatures devoid of reason and endowed with sense, distinguished in a threefold grade: for some of them have life, existence, and nature, as any inanimate thing whatsoever; some have life; others sense. But in what manner man embraces in a more eminent degree the excellencies of this threefold world must be determined in the present place: wherefore let there be

One single Conclusion. — MAN BY HIS NATIVE AND INBORN ENDOWMENTS EXCELS THE OTHER CORPOREAL CREATURES. The truth of this conclusion is evident above all from the various prerogatives with which the primal formation of man was illustrated.

For first of all he was created last of all, as the supreme Prince and Monarch of the other corporeal things, for whose sake all things were created. Which prerogative Philo thus weighs in the book De mundi Opificio: Therefore, he says, just as those who give concerts do not come upon the stage before the things necessary for the stage have been made ready, and those who exhibit gymnastic games and theatrical shows, before the spectators gather in the theaters or stadia, make ready an abundance of the contestants and of those things which pertain to the delight of the eyes or of the ears: so the Prince of the whole world, as the giver of a contest or of an assembly, about to call man to the banquet and to the spectacles, prepared whatever pertained to both: lest, on his entrance into the world, both the banquet and the most sacred theater should begin at once. To him agrees St. Gregory of Nyssa in the book De hominis Opificio: For it was not, he says, consonant that the Prince should delight himself before those things existed over which he was to rule: but that the empire being already constituted, the king should at length be proclaimed. St. Gregory Nazianzen also agrees, Orat. 13: It was fitting, he says, that the palace be built first as for a King, and so the king be introduced with all ⟦greek: …⟧ Philo himself adduces other causes of this last formation, namely, that from so great and so abundant an apparatus of goods man might learn that he was thereafter to live amid the greatest affluence of things if he should render obedience to his Creator, and should emulate the holiness of Him whose dominion he bore. He adds also that man was created last for this reason, that, coming upon the scene after all things had been brought forth, he might strike terror into the other living beings: for so it was to come about that, at his first sight of him, they, stupefied, would adore him, as an arbiter given by nature, and as Lord. Other reasons also can be brought forward why man was created in the last place, namely, 1. that, since he was to be a rational and contemplative animal, it was fitting that all those things be prepared beforehand which were to be the worthy and just object of his contemplation and meditation. 2. That what preceded in the intention of God it was fitting should follow in His operation, according to the common rule: what is first in intention is later in execution, and vice versa. Now the end, among sublunary creatures, was intended first and principally by God, was man; therefore he had to be last in creation. 3. That a dwelling had first to be provided for man, furnished and adorned with all furniture, namely, this world, complete in all the genera of things, of which man was to be formed the inhabitant. 4. That man has need of all corporeal things, either for conducting and defending his life, or for apprehending and cultivating all doctrines and arts. Finally, that man, since he is a certain nature placed between corporeal and incorporeal things, and a partaker of the nature and properties of both kinds, had to be formed after the extremes, by whose participation he was to consist.

The second prerogative is that man was constituted otherwise, and with a more noble apparatus, than the other corporeal beings; for in the formation of the others God, by the absolute command of His divine will put in use, spoke, and they were made: but when it came to the creation of man, as in an exquisite work, the product of greater industry and wisdom, He first employs consultation and counsel, saying: Let us make man to our image and likeness. Which St. Gregory of Nyssa weighs in a wonderful manner in lib. De hominis Opificio, cap. 3. The rest of creation, he says, is after a certain hasty manner brought forth by the divine power, subsisting by the sole command: but the structure of man is preceded by counsel, and is sketched by the Artificer Himself with a certain summity of painting, what he was to be. To him concurs St. Basil, homil. 20. in Hexaemeron. To know himself? or from this does he take his beginning For upon none of the works which God had theretofore created was that word Faciamus passed into letters; but all things were created by the simple word and command of God. Learn therefore from this, O man, and mark how great goods thou alone art esteemed: for He judged that thy generation was not to be handed over by the common command of creatures, as of a common price: in God the consultation goes before, how great this animal ought to proceed unto life. Let us make, He says, is a wise consultation, and He sets forth for decision what the Artificer was determining with Himself. Before these Tertullian had gone, lib. 2. Contra Marcionem, cap. 4. Who, in fine, he says, is worthy to be cut into the work of God, than His own image and likeness? That also the goodness, and indeed the more operative, wrought it, not with an imperial word, but with a familiar hand, even with a blandishing word set before it: Let us make man to our image and likeness: Goodness framed man of the slime of the earth, etc.

The third prerogative is, that of the other creatures it is said not merely that they were made, but that He created them. But of man it is said that He Formed him, Therefore the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: which Severianus thus weighs, homil. 5: He did not say simply He made, but He framed, or formed: for formation indicates elegance, the grace of art. For the dignity and excellence of that work is commended above all by the divine Artificer Himself, who deigned with His own hands, as it were, to fashion from the very mire that vile and most abject particle of that condition, namely, the body. Which Tertullian commends and weighs thus, lib. De Resurrectione carnis, cap. 5. And God framed man. Great without doubt was the reason of the difference, on account of the condition, namely, of the things. For the lesser things, which were being made, were made for the sake of him for whom they were being made — they were being made for man himself, upon whom the delays of God were bestowed. Therefore deservedly, at the formula of command and of empire, and by the sole vocal power, had all things proceeded forth. On the contrary, man, as the Lord of them, was in this built up by God Himself, that he might be able to be lord, while he is made by the Lord. Moreover, to the commendation of the same excellence of the work pertains this besides, which Prosper sang thus in the poem on Providence.

…And when all things by the word He created: this one with His hands, that he might have more of the Father, He deigns to form.

The fourth prerogative is, that man alone, beyond the other corporeal creatures, bears the likeness and image of God, is alone the contemplator of the divine works and of the Deity, and has the highest commerce with the Divinity. Whence Gregory of Nyssa in the Catechetical book, cap. 5, says that the cause of procreating was man: That God might have one who should behold His light, and be a witness of His glory, and enjoy His goodness. Wherefore, he says, it was necessary that Man, who was created for the enjoyment of divine goods, should have in his nature something cognate to Him of whose participation he was to be. Therefore he cites that he was adorned with reason, and wisdom, and all divine goods. Whence also the Pythagorean Gryphanus speaks elegantly: God, he says, placed man, the most precious animal in the world, answering to his own nature, and a certain eye of the whole Universe: who in the manner of God should range through and behold all things, but above all should delight himself and be occupied in the contemplation and love of the Divinity. Wherefore Lactantius, lib. 7, says that the world was made for this reason, and man constituted in it. Namely, that there might be one who should understand His works: who could admire the providence of disposing, the reason of making, the virtue of consummating, and the senses, and could utter them with his voice: whence he concludes: A plainer argument can be brought forward that God made the world for man's sake, and man for His own, than that of all living beings he alone was so formed, and his eyes directed to Heaven, his face looking toward God, his countenance common with his parent, and it seems that God raised man, as it were lifted up with an outstretched hand from the earth, to the contemplation of Himself. Which also Ovid presaged, lib. 1. Metamorphoseon:

An animal more sacred than these, and more capable of high mind, Was still wanting, and one that could rule over the rest: Man was born: whether He made him of divine gift, That Artificer of things; the beginning of a better world….. He framed him in the likeness of the Gods who rule over all.

Finally, the fifth dignity and prerogative of man beyond the other corporeal things is, that he embraces the excellencies of all beings whatsoever, as well corporeal as spiritual: wherefore St. Gregory, homil. 29. in Evangelia, calls him every creature; and testifies that this was the sentiment of Christ the Lord, when He sent forth the Apostles into the whole world that they might preach the Gospel to every creature: For by the name of every creature, he says, man is signified, because man has something of every creature: for he has being in common with the stones, life with the trees, sense with the animals, understanding with the Angels: whence he concludes: if therefore man has something in common with every creature, in accordance with something every creature is man. Therefore to every creature the Gospel is preached, when it is preached to man alone. — Hence it is that man has been called by the ancients μικρὸς κόσμος or a little world, and the most artful, as it were, abridgment of the whole universe, in which the Creator willed all things both celestial and terrestrial, summarily, as it were depicted in a little map. Thus they named him Clement of Alexandria in the Protrepticus, and Chalcidius in Plato's Timaeus: There is, he says, in our bodies that part which is likewise of the aether, and also of fire and of earth, whence man the more is called by the rest a brief world. The same is the opinion of Philo Judaeus in the book above cited, where he says that man was for this reason created last, that he might correspond as the last to the first divine work. For as at the beginning God had created Heaven, the most perfect of all sensible and incorruptible things; so at the last He made man, born of the earth, and far the most excellent of corruptible things, and abridged as it were Heaven, in which assuredly the endowments and excellencies of the others shine as the stars in Heaven: whence St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 38. affirms that man was created by God as it were a certain other world, great in the little, placed above the earth, an honorary Angel, a mixed adorer, a spectator of visible creature: a mystery intelligible: of those things indeed which are on earth the king, but subject to the heavenly King, earthly alike and celestial. The other natural and inborn excellencies of man we shall open more clearly in the following Articles.

You will say: There are more corporeal creatures which by their native endowments and excellencies excel man: therefore it is false that man holds the first place over the rest. The antecedent is evident: for first, in the perfection of the exterior senses, the sight of the Eagle is keener, that of the fox and the mole more acute, the scent of the dog more sagacious, the touch of the oyster more vigorous, and that of the Spiders more subtle: therefore, etc. Next, in strength of body man yields to the bulls, in stature to the elephants, in longevity to the crows, in swiftness to the tigers. Add that the bodies of the other animals are covered with natural coverings, either hairs, or skins, or hides, or shells, or scales: they are likewise instructed and fortified with natural arms and defenses: some are armed with horns, others either with claws, or teeth, or spines, or stings, whereby they can both defend themselves and terrify and overthrow their enemies: to man alone is given a body naked and unarmed, weak and invalid for attacking and defending. Hence certain persons complain, as in Seneca lib. 2. De Beneficiis, cap. 29. That they are not conquered by the elephants in magnitude of body, by the stag in swiftness, by the lions in ferocity, by the bulls in onset: That the hide is more solid in beasts, more comely in stags, denser in bears, softer in fibres: That dogs conquer us in the sagacity of their nostrils: That many animals surpass us in swimming, the eagle in keenness of eyes, the crow in length of age. — Lactantius answers, lib. De Opificio Dei, cap. 2, that God supplied all these things in man most abundantly with the gift of natural reason and innate sagacity: He gave, he says, to men sense and reason, that Artificer and parent of ours, God, that it might appear that we were generated by Him, because He Himself is intelligence, Himself sense and reason: to the other animals, since He did not attribute that rational life, He provided beforehand how their protection should rather be. For He clothed them all with their own skins, that they might the more easily sustain the force of rain and the colds. But to each genus He constituted its own proper defenses for repelling external onsets: so that either those which are stronger resist by their whole natural powers: or those which are less warlike withdraw themselves from dangers by the swiftness of flight: or those which need both strength and celerity protect themselves by cunning or know hiding places, as.

But man, reason being conceded, and the power of sensing and of speaking being given, made destitute of those things which are attributed to the other living beings: and because wisdom could render what nature had denied to them when created, He determined him naked and unarmed, because he could be armed by genius and resist by reason. But how wonderfully those very things which were given to the mute animals and denied to man make for the beauty of man cannot be expressed. For if He had added to man the teeth of beasts, or a horn, or claws, or a tail, or hairs of various color, who does not perceive how foul a deformity it would have produced in the living being, just as if the mute animals were fashioned naked and unarmed? If you take from them the natural clothing of their body, or those things wherewith they arm themselves of themselves, they can be neither beautiful nor safe: so that, wonderfully, if you regard utility, they will seem equipped; if beauty, adorned: so wonderfully does utility consent with comeliness. But man, whom He was fashioning an eternal animal, and immortal, He armed not outwardly, as the others, but inwardly; nor did He place his defense in the body, but in the mind, since it was superfluous, when He had bestowed on him that which was greatest, that corporeal coverings should both be defenses and especially impede the beauty of the human body.

Seneca adds in the place cited: Therefore whosoever thou art, an unjust estimator of the lot of man, ask how great things our Parent bestowed on us. How much stronger animals do we send under the yoke: how much happier ones do we acquire: since there is nothing mortal not placed by our nod. So many virtues have we received, so many arts, in fine the mind, to which nothing is not perceived at the same moment at which it directs itself, swifter than the stars, whose courses to come after many ages it anticipates: Finally so great a store of fruits, so great a store of riches, of other things heaped one upon another. Though thou look about upon all things, and since thou shalt find nothing whole which thou wouldst rather be, from all thou mayest select single things which thou wouldst wish to be given thee. Thus, the indulgence of nature having been well estimated, thou must needs confess that thou hast been in her delights. These things Seneca spoke assuredly not less truly and wisely, than elegantly and eloquently.

Although the human body, vitiated by sin, is assailed by the holy Fathers with every eloquence of words that they can muster — as being, while conceived, foul seed; while living, a bag of dung; while dying, the food of worms; whose matter is vile, whose operation shameful, whose state unstable; whose end is darksome, death sorrowful, dissolution miserable, as says Bernard, that honey-flowing doctor after St. Augustine — nonetheless, if we consider the original state of the human body, we shall pronounce without doubt, with St. Ambrose (lib. 6. Hexaemeron, c. D.), that it is a wondrous workmanship of divine Wisdom. Now its dignity and excellence can be attended to chiefly under three heads: namely either as regards its Formation, or its Disposition, or its Union with the rational and immortal soul; concerning which there will be three following Questions.

Note 1. The dignity and excellence of any work must be drawn chiefly from a threefold source: namely from the supreme skill of the Artificer; from the matter, whether by reason of its price or of its usefulness; finally from a figure and form wrought with most exquisite care. Indeed, the skill of an artificer sometimes shines forth more manifestly in the fashioning of a lesser than of a greater work. For far more expert surely was the sagacity and industry of that Artificer who had fitted chariot and steeds with such elegant deftness that they could be covered by the wing of a single fly, veil-like, and borne through the air in flight, than was the art and ingenuity of that Craftsman who had hammered out the immense Colossus of Rhodes in bronze. In like manner the summit of divine Wisdom, and the power and activity of omnipotence, are more commended in the production of a tiny ant than in the fabrication and construction of a huge elephant. Likewise the dignity of matter must be estimated not so much from price as from usefulness; especially in those things which are of supreme utility and necessity, both for the public or particular good, and for attaining some most excellent end: whence bread and other foods seem dearer and more precious to man than gold, silver, and other things commended for their price, since those serve immediately for the conservation of life, these only for pleasure.

Note 2. Since the human body was formed that it might serve the rational soul in eliciting its operations, chiefly in acquiring knowledge, it had to be made such as to be capable of the senses. Indeed, whereas the rational soul was to be created naked and devoid of all science, and had itself to hunt down and acquire it through the senses, it was necessary that the body of man be furnished and adorned with all the senses. But touch is as it were the foundation of all the senses, constituted in a certain mediocrity and quasi-tempering of the primary qualities; for beyond the others it serves efficaciously toward acquiring knowledge from experience. For the other senses are oftentimes deceived in perceiving their objects, whether on account of a vitiated organ, or on account of too great distance of the object to be perceived, or on account of a medium indisposed: but their error is corrected by touch, which is not subject to these deceptions, as we demonstrated in the first Question of our Philosophy. Whence it comes that the human body ought to have been fabricated of that matter which was most suitable for touch.

Note 3. From our Alensis, pur. 2. p. 8. lib., member 2, ad primum: the rational soul, like the human body, can be considered in a threefold state: namely of innocence, of fall, and of glory; in which, he says, the body and soul of the first man shared a certain parity in nobility and ignobility: First, just as the soul in the first state, namely before the fall, was allotted to be noble, in which it lived the life of nature integrally, strengthened and sustained by the life of grace, which was in potency and habituation unto its final and ultimate esse of nobility: so likewise the body in that state was in the integrity of nature best in its genus, and, by means of the fruits given it for sustenance, could be perpetuated in that esse until it attained its most noble esse.... Wherefore just as the soul in the life of nature was nourished and sustained by grace, as by spiritual food, in its progress toward its best esse: so the body was promoted by corporal food, the fruits of paradise, unto the most noble esse of the body. Second, just as in the state of guilt the soul was allotted to be ignoble, incurring by its fall into sin a twofold evil, namely of corruption and of spiritual death, whereby it was made unworthy of the good for which it was created: so likewise the body was allotted to be ignoble, incurring a twofold evil, namely of corruption and of the necessity of dying; and was made unworthy of the good for which it was created. Third, just as the soul, by advancing, recovered aptitude and dignity for obtaining its optimum, which it had lost through sin, upon possessing which it is allotted to be most noble: so likewise the body, through the exercises of bodily virtues and the Evangelical torments of mortification, is advanced to the beatific state, in which it will obtain its most noble esse ».

These things thus premised, we must now demonstrate the dignity and excellence of the human body: first from its divine Artificer; then from its ministries and offices toward the rational soul; lastly from its most excellent configuration and form.

First Conclusion. — THE PREROGATIVE OF THE HUMAN BODY AMONG SENSIBLE THINGS IS, THAT BEYOND ALL OTHER CORPOREAL THINGS IT WAS FIGURED BY A SPECIAL WORKMANSHIP OF GOD, AS IT WERE BY HIS OWN AND DIVINE HANDS; AND LIKEWISE ON ACCOUNT OF ITS VARIOUS MINISTRIES AND OFFICES TOWARD THE RATIONAL SOUL.

This Conclusion consists of two parts, whereof the first is common among the holy Fathers, who commend and illustrate this truth by many texts of sacred Scripture. Chiefly indeed St. Ambrose, expounding on Psalm 118, octonary 10, those words, Thy hands have made me and fashioned me, weighs them thus: Beasts thy hands made not, but thou didst say: let the waters bring forth reptiles of living souls; and the earth brought forth according to kind quadrupeds, and reptiles, and beasts of the earth. But me, he says, thou hast made, me thy hands have figured: that is, thou didst not figure the beasts with thy hands, nor reptiles, nor flying things. And further on he observes that God fashioned the human body not only with one hand: but that He applied a double hand to this work. Hands, he says, have fashioned me: he says hands, in the plural, not hand: whereas everywhere else it stands: I have strengthened the heaven with my hand, and my hand hath made all these things: in the constitution of man what did not abound seems abundant beyond what abounded for the making of the whole world. One hand formed the heavens, as it is written; and both the hands of God figured man, as we read. From which it is established how great is the supercelestial dignity of the human body, since to form the celestial body God applied but a single hand; to fashion the human body He labored with a double hand. — This truth Tertullian commended above the rest, lib. De resurrectione carnis, c. 6, wherein he extols human flesh thus: How much did He confer who made it, when already then it gloried that that littleness, that clay, arrived at whatever are the hands of God: blessed enough even if merely touched. For what if by no further work the figment stood constituted straightway from the contact of God? So great a thing was in hand, when that matter was being wrought out. And so it is honored as often as it suffers the gift of God, while it is touched, while it is shaped, while it is drawn out, while it is refashioned. Recollect that whole God occupied about it, devoted to the thing, not only in sense, work, counsel, wisdom, and above all in that very affection which guided the instruments. A few words later, rebuking Marcion because he would make the human body vile, seeing it had been drawn from earth and figured, he says: What gift does he make toward weakening the origin of man, by recalling the name of earth, as if sordid, as of an element lying prostrate? Since even had another material been chosen for stamping out man, the height of the Artificer ought still to be recollected, who judged it worthy in choosing it, and made it in working it. Phidias fashions and polishes his Olympian Jove out of ivory: the tooth of an already-dead beast, and of no distinguished beast at all, yet the supreme light of the age: not because Elephant, but because Phidias is so great. That is, the work is commended not by the price of the material, but by the skill of the Artificer. How then, true God and very God, had He not cleansed whatsoever dignity of material from His own operation, and purified it from all infirmity? There will remain this, that man was more honorably framed by God than God by man? All these things Prudence described in most elegant verses in Apotheosis:

So great his love of earth, so great his fondness for us, That he deigns with divine fingers to take up the soft Clod of the fat soil: nor does he judge sordid the contagion Of the clinging mass. Light he bade complete the work: It was done as he bade: all things, his command Imperious, drew forth new forms as they emerged. Man alone merited to take in the Lord's right hand His moldable face, and to be born of the river of Deity's breath.

From these things therefore it is established how great is the dignity of the human body, since it has had for its Maker God omnipotent, an Artificer of peculiar wisdom; for all other bodies, nay even the spiritual intelligences, stood by the mere command, nay mandate, of God alone; but the human body was wrought by the hands of God. Not indeed by true and corporeal hands (whatever Tertullian imagined, thinking God had assumed the likeness of a body that He might fashion the human body), but by mystical hands, that is, by a special unfolding of divine wisdom and omnipotence: for by these two excellencies, namely wisdom and power, God, as it were with hands, molds and works all His creatures.

Second Conclusion. — THE BODY OF MAN CONTINUALLY WAS FORMED FROM ELEMENTARY MATTER RATHER THAN FROM CELESTIAL.

This truth the Seraphic Doctor proves in 2 dist. 17, art. 2, qu. 1, by a fourfold reason, to be sought from the four orders which man holds, either toward God, or toward the Angels, or toward corporeal creatures, or toward himself. First, indeed, the order of man toward himself required this; because, he says, man was therefore created and born that he might know many things, not only by intellectual but also by sensitive cognition: therefore he ought to have a multiform body consisting of diverse organs: that the diverse senses might serve for knowing various objects. Moreover, because he was created with supreme liberty of will, by which he could live as he pleased, original justice preserved; or become liable to death, original justice forfeited by his own fault through voluntary sin committed: he also ought to have a body which should be devoted not only to life but also to death: and so the order of man toward himself required that his body be multiform and corruptible, and therefore it ought to be not celestial but elementary.

Second. The order of man toward inferior creature required the same; for since corporeal creatures were made inferior to man, that they might serve him for attaining his end, he also ought to be formed of composite matter, namely that he might admit the service of inferior creatures, so that through him as mediator those inferior creatures might in some way be promoted to beatitude, and glorified together with man. But this could not have been had man been formed of celestial matter; for in that state he would in no wise have needed the service of inferior creatures for the attainment of his ultimate end: therefore on this account it was fitting that his body be constituted of elementary matter.

Third. This same thing the order which he holds toward a peer creature, namely the Angel, required; for just as one rational creature was made near to God, and in the supreme place, as in the Empyrean: so another rational creature ought to be made in the lowest place, namely the earth: and therefore his body ought to be constituted of such a nature as befitted such a habitation: and so more fittingly was it formed of an elementary than of a celestial nature.

Fourthly, finally. This also befitted the order which man held toward God as toward his ultimate end; for it was fitting that man be subjected to God, that by humility of subjection he might ascend whence the Angel had fallen by loftiness of elation: and therefore he ought to have a body constituted of earthly and inferior nature, that, reckoning himself earth and ashes, he might be subject to God in all things.

You will say 1. To the most noble form ought to be given the most noble matter; since matter must be proportionate to form: but the rational soul is a most noble form: therefore it ought to have the most noble matter. But the most noble among bodily natures is the celestial nature: therefore the human body ought to have been formed of it.

The Seraphic Doctor answers that the nobility of matter is not to be regarded from the nature of the matter itself, but from the order it holds to form. Therefore since the human body was formed not only that it might be vivified by the rational soul: but also that it might serve it for meriting eternal beatitude, by means namely of those virtues which can be exercised only by benefit of the body, accordingly it was fittingly formed, not of incorruptible matter, but of that which should be liable to corruption, and apt likewise for the manifold operation of the senses, such as is the elemental nature, and not the celestial.

You will say 2. It was becoming that such a body be formed for man, from which his integral nature should consist: but such did not exist with a corruptible body and an incorruptible soul; since the soul by reason of its incorruptibility is perpetually vivifying of the body; but a corruptible body is not perpetually vivifiable: therefore it is not apt to be united to the soul. For according to Aristotle, what is possible on the part of the form must also be possible on the part of the matter: as in like manner what is possible on the part of active power is possible also on the part of passive power, otherwise that power would be frustraneous; but God and nature work nothing in vain in things, nor permit it to be: therefore it would have been more fitting that the immortal soul have an incorruptible body, and therefore one formed of incorruptible matter, namely the celestial.

The Angelic Doctor answers, 1 part, q. 76, art. 5, that in the matter chosen as cause of any form a twofold condition is found: one which is chosen per se, that by it the matter be fitting for receiving the form, and suitable that the form may perform its proper actions; the other truly, which is not chosen per se, but which, since it naturally follows the former condition from necessity of the matter, cannot be rejected and removed from the matter. By way of example, an Artificer, to fabricate a saw, chooses iron, as matter suitable thereto, which namely by its hardness is apt for cutting; but that the teeth of the iron saw can be dulled and affected with rust follows from necessity of the matter. So for the intellectual soul there is due per se a body of equal complexion, capable of vegetative and sensitive soul; but such a body from necessity of the matter entails corruptibility. So he. As though he said, God indeed fitted the human body to the rational soul not inasmuch as it was corruptible, but inasmuch as it could serve it for performing its operations; so that corruptibility bears an accidental relation to the soul itself to which the body is fitted, because, clearly, that corruptibility follows from the condition of the matter, and not from the intention of the agent assuming the matter, to unite it with such a form. Add that God also constituted the immortality of the body from the beginning in the choice and power of the soul itself, conferring on it the gifts of innocence, which assuredly had it preserved them, its body would not have been subjected to corruption and death.

Third Conclusion. — THE HUMAN BODY IN ITS CONFIGURATION AND FABRIC SURPASSES ALL OTHER CORPOREAL THINGS.

This is common among the holy Fathers; and St. Ambrose extols it thus on Psalm 118, Octonary 10. If anyone wish to consider the very fabric of the human body, he says, he will judge nothing on earth more precious: for man is lofty in stature, comely in culture, pleasing in hair; not curved after the manner of any of the other animals; but sublime by the very law of nature, who looks up into heaven with free gaze, bowed down to earth by no craving servitude of neck: but as conscious of his own liberty, and rich, a witness of his own authority. But what he here commends in general, he sets forth in detail, lib. 9. Hexaemeron. c. 9, wherein he elegantly delineates the excellence, beauty, and grace of the human body from the wondrous constitution of its members thus: Let it seem, he says, that one and the same is the substance of all earthly bodies, stature and height being in certain beasts greater: nevertheless the form of the human body is more graceful, its posture erect and lofty, so that neither be there enormous tallness, nor vile and abject littleness: then the very build of the body is sweet and pleasing, so that neither gluttonous vastity be an horror, nor slender thinness an infirmity. But first of all let us recognize that the fabric of the human body is the counterpart of the world. For as heaven towers over air, lands, and sea, which are as it were certain members of the world; so also we see the Head eminent above the remaining limbs of our body, and most excellent of all, as heaven among the elements; as citadel among the remaining walls of the city. In this citadel moreover dwells a certain royal wisdom, according to the Prophetical saying: for the eyes of the wise are in his head: this is safer than the rest, and from it vigor and providence are conveyed to all the members. For what profit the strength and force of arms, what the swiftness of feet, unless there minister a certain imperial power of the head as of their prince? For from this all things are either destitute or all are supported. What does fortitude do, unless it use the eye as guide in battle? What flight, if sight be lacking? The whole body is blind, shuddering in darksome plight, unless illumined by the aspect of the eyes. What therefore Sol and Luna are in heaven, that are the eyes in man. Sol and Luna are two luminaries of the world: but the eyes are certain stars shining in flesh from above, illuminating inferior things with clear light, nor suffer us to be entangled in some shadows of night. Our sentinels keep watch day and night: for from sleep they are roused sooner than the other members, and keeping vigil look around on all; for they are nearer to the brain, whence flows all use of seeing. The head therefore explores all things with the eyes, ransacks hidden things with the ears, knows secrets, hears what is done elsewhere in the world. But the crown of the head itself, how sweet and pleasing! how beautiful the hair! how reverend in old men! how venerable in priests! how terrible in warriors! how decorous in youths! how adorned in women! how sweet in boys. From trees indeed one may estimate how great is the grace of the human head. On the head of every tree is the growth, there is all its beauty, whose foliage covers us either from rains or defends us from Sun. Take from the tree its foliage, the whole tree is unlovely. How much greater therefore the adornment of the human head, which with the hairs of the head guards and clothes our brain, that is, the seat and origin of our senses, lest it be vexed either by cold or by heat? For he is wholly of all things: and therefore where injury harms, there grace preeminently helps. What is man without the head, when the whole is in the head? When you see the head, you recognize a man. If the head be wanting, no recognition can be: lies the ignoble trunk, without honor, without name. Heads of princes alone cast in bronze, and features drawn from bronze or marble, are adored by men. Not undeservedly therefore do the other members minister to this as their counselor, and encompass it with servile gesture as a numen, and venerate it placed on high. Whence with lordly power it directs the services of certain little servants whither it will, and decrees commands to each to be obeyed. You may see everything serving its emperor gratuitously with stipend. Some carry, some feed, some defend, and exhibit their ministry: obeying as prince, serving as lord: thence proceeds as it were a certain watchword, whereby the feet should know what course to run, whereby the hands, soldiers, execute their duties in completing works: what form of abstaining or eating the imposed discipline of the belly hold. To this the forehead, free, open with bare temples, whereby it betrays the habit of mind in its appearance: now glad, now sadder: now set toward severity, now remitted toward gentleness, expressing by silent signs the inward will: a certain image of the soul. It speaks in the countenance, basis of faith, on which daily the name of the Lord is inscribed and held. It a twin hedge of eyebrows follows, which offer ramparts to the eyes and preface grace: that both the loveliness of beauty may smile, and the diligence of protection assist: for if anything sordid fall from the head, whether sand's dust, or dewy mist, or sweat of moistened crown, it is caught by the eyebrow, lest offense disturb the tender sight of soft eyes: the eyes adhere as it were to certain brows of mountains, that they may be safer under protecting mountain peak, and as if placed on high, survey all things from a superior stage. Most excellent also is the gift of hearing, with a proud grace over vision. Therefore the ears are more extended, that they may both preface ornamental beauty, and catch all that whatsoever of dregs or moisture has flowed from the crown; meanwhile that within their bounds the voice repelled may enter inner windings without offense: for were it not so, who would not be stunned at every louder sound of voice, since amid their very defenses we often feel ourselves deafened by unforeseen stroke of clamor? Then you may see them put forward as it were certain bulwarks against the harshness of cold and the flagrancy of heat, that neither cold penetrate the open ducts, nor excessive heat scorch. But the interior winding of the ears affords a certain rhythm and discipline of modulation: since through the windings of the ears a certain rhythm is effected. Moreover that the very windings of the ears retain received speech, usage itself teaches us: since as in hollows of mountains, or recess of rocks, or winding of streams, the voice is heard sweeter, and echoes back bearing suave responses. Even the dregs of the ears themselves are not useless, which bind the voice that its memory be more tenacious within us, and its charm. But of the nostrils what shall I say, which by their curved and elongated opening afford a sort of cavern for receiving odors, that odor pass not through punctorially but linger longer in the nostrils, and by their duct graze the brain and senses? Therefore odor, received, flames longer than speech resounds or sight appears. Often what you have smelled in a brief moment breathes in your nostrils the whole day. Through them too the purgations of the head flow away, and are diverted without loss or any offense of body. There is also no mean sense in touch, and in it a most pleasing pleasure and sincere judgment: for oftentimes we prove by touching what we cannot prove by eyes. Last is also the office of the Mouth, or tongue, which however ministers strength to all: for neither would the eyes have vigor of seeing, unless bodily substance received virtue, which is conveyed by food and drink: nor ears for hearing, nor nostrils for smelling, nor hands for touching, unless the whole body were refreshed with aliments. For we fail in strength, unless we repair it by constancy of competent food. Finally, [the senses] comforted are delighted with no pleasures of the senses, but as it were bereft feel not their blandishments. Why should I describe the rampart of Teeth, whereby food is prepared, and fullness of voice expressed? Who without teeth would delight in nourishment? Finally we often discern those ripened early aging the faster for this very thing, that with teeth lost they can assume no virtue of stronger food. Therefore mute infancy, because it has not yet the organ of voice. Of the tongue too not only in speaking, but even in eating, is the most precious office; for it is as it were the plectrum of the speaker, and a certain hand of the eater, whereby it offers and ministers the food flowing down to the teeth. But why speak of the kiss of the mouth, which is the pledge of piety and charity? Sheep and dove kiss: but what is that to the grace of the human kiss, wherein shines forth the sign of friendship and humanity, in which the full faith of charity is expressed with affection? Wherefore also the Lord, condemning as it were a species of prodigy in the traitor, says: Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss? That is, thou turnest the sign of charity into a token of betrayal, and evidence of infidelity: [turnest] the pledge of true peace into cruelty: What therefore is the mouth of man, but a certain approach of discourse, fountain of disputation, hall of words, storehouse of will? There follows the Throat, through which vital commerce and the passage of spirit is infused to the whole body. Next succeed the arms and sturdy masses of shoulders, strong hands for working, and elongated fingers apt for holding. Thence apter use of working, thence elegance of writing, and that penman of the swiftly writing clerk, whereby the oracles of divinity are expressed by voice. The hand is that which ministers food to the mouth: the hand is that by which it leans on illustrious touches, which as conciliatrix of divine grace is borne to sacred altars, through which we offer and receive the heavenly sacraments: the hand is that which works and dispenses alike the divine mysteries, whose name the Son of God deigned not to refuse to be called by, David saying: The right hand of the Lord hath wrought strength, the right hand of the Lord hath exalted me. The hand is that which made all things, as God omnipotent said: All these things my hand hath made. The hand is the bulwark of the whole body, protectress of the head. Which although lower in place, shields the entire crown, and beautifies it with honorable ornament. Who worthily unfolds the lattice of the Chest, and softness of the Belly? For otherwise softer viscera could not be guarded, and the recesses of the intestines would doubtless be wounded by hard bones. What so salutary as that the Lung be joined to the heart by neighboring boundary, that when the heart has burned with wrath and indignation it be the sooner tempered by blood and humor of the lung? and therefore the lung is softer, because it is ever moist, simultaneously that it soften rigor of indignation. This also holds tractuous vicinity with the gall: which while it takes wherewith itself is fed, wipes off whatsoever dregs it detects, that through the finer fibers of the liver the thin and subtle remnants of foods may pass, which may be turned into blood and profit the strengths, and not be cast out with dung and dregs. But the circumplex coils of the intestines, though bound by no knot, yet mutually linked together, what else do they show than the divine foresight of the Creator? That food pass not quickly through, and presently run down from stomach; which were it so, perpetual gullets and continual lust of devouring would be begotten in men. For the viscera emptied and exhausted, while by momentary effusion there must needs be generated an inexpleble and insatiable craving for food and drink, which doubtless immature death would follow. Therefore prudently food is first concocted in upper womb, next is labored in liver, until its juice digested by vapor be transfused into the remaining parts of the body, and with that substance human limbs are nourished: which the young receive for increment: the aged for perseverance: but the remainder, as it were superfluous, is led down through intestines, and diverted through that cross door. What of the office of the Feet, which sustain the whole body without any injury of burden? The flexible knee, whereby beyond the rest offense of the Lord is mitigated, anger soothed, grace provoked: for this is the gift of the highest Father toward the Son: that in the name of Jesus every knee shall be bent, etc. For two things there are which beyond the rest soothe God, humility and faith. The foot therefore expresses the affection of humility and the obedience of sedulous servitude: faith equals the Son to the Father, and confesses the same glory of both. Rightly however not more but two feet are man's: for four feet are beasts' and wild animals', birds' two by two; and therefore man is as it were of the chased-metal kind, who aims at high things with sight, and flutters with a certain oarsmanship of sublime thoughts. And therefore of him is it said: Thy youth shall be renewed as the eagle's, because he is nearer to celestials, and loftier than eagles, who can say: But our conversation is in heaven ». All these things, save few, St. Ambrose.

But that there be had an integral and exact delineation of the principal parts of man, it is pleasing to add from Lugo, lib. De Provid. Numinis. Man has need of bones, that he be sustained: but he could not consist of a single bone, because he would not have been able to bend himself, and use his limbs for various motions and functions. Therefore he is constructed of very many bones, part greater, part lesser, part most minute; of which each has that magnitude, figure, firmness, and connexion which the strength of body, facility of motion, and use of the members required. The bones of the head are eight: of the upper jaw twelve, of the lower one. Teeth thirty-two: the spine consists of thirty-two vertebrae, the ensiform bone of the breast of three bones. The ribs are twenty-four, of which fourteen reach from the spine of the back to the bone of the breast, and are therein fixed for the custody of heart and lungs; ten do not reach, that laxity be left for the stomach and belly. Each finger consists of three bones, the thumb of two.

He adds from Galen that there are in the human body above two hundred bones: and each bone has above 10 ends, to be considered in forming, disposing, connecting them; so that for the bones alone of the human body to be aptly formed more than eighty thousand ends must be reckoned. Muscles to be above six hundred, of which each has ten ends; and consequently in muscles alone six thousand ends to be considered. The same art, he says, exists about all viscera, and absolutely about any part whatever, so that if one consider the ends of structure, their multitude grows into several myriads. Hence he concludes the human body to be formed by a most wise and most potent artificer. Nor was it enough for the human body to consist of bones and muscles, but heat was needed that it might live, and blood whereby it might be fed, and spirit whereby it might move and feel. For it is agreed that without spirit the soul can neither feel nor move its body. For spirit, since it is a most tenuous substance, is as it were a medium between the most subtle soul and the gross body, and the nearest instrument of the soul, by which it effects motion and sense, without which also distribution of aliment cannot occur. Providence therefore fabricated three principal viscera in man, by which these things are accomplished, heart, liver, brain. Heart for the heat of the whole body and vital spirit: liver for blood and natural spirit: brain for animal spirit. The workshop therefore of blood is the liver: for from the liver two huge veins issue, one upward, the other downward, which are then divided into various branches, and each branch again into other lesser ones, and these into others, until at length they end in minutest invisible veinlets... Wonderful is the structure and force of veins: for they consist of direct, oblique, and transverse fibers. Direct, that they attract and suck blood: oblique, that they retain it; transverse, that they transmit it further to muscles and even extremest parts. The same art observed in the ducts of the intestines; they have the power of conserving blood, which poured outside them straightway putrefies and produces diseases, as we see in pleurisy, contusions, and inflammations. To blood is mixed serous humor for easier distribution, which afterwards is either dissipated by heat into breath, or excreted in sweat. Is mixed also a little bile for tenuity, lest it thicken and as it were coagulate: is mixed also spirit, which we call natural, that it open pores and conduct aliment. For there is no particle of body which is not porous. As liver supplies to all parts of body blood whereby they be fed, and natural spirit; so heart heat and vital spirit, whereby native heat be continually cherished and ventilated: to which end from heart issue two arteries, one upward, one downward, which again go into many branches, and these again into other lesser ones, until they terminate in minutest as it were fibers, precisely in the manner of veins. The little branches of arteries reach all muscles and all viscera, that they may infuse to them heat and spirit. Brain supplies animal spirit, which, as blood and natural spirit through veins, and as heat and vital spirit through arteries, so is diffused through nerves. But because from the brain, contained in the head, sufficient nerves could not proceed reaching all viscera and all muscles; the crafting providence of man extended the substance of the brain together with its membranes from the head through the vertebrae of the neck and through the whole spine of the back, so that spinal marrow is nothing else than a certain continuation and prolongation of the brain. Lest however spirits vanish and the animal suddenly die, the brain is wrapped in double membrane, one thinner, which is inner, another harder and sturdier, which is outer and proximate to skull bone. In similar manner is wrapped the spinal marrow. Wonderful is composition of nerves: as the brain entire consists of three, namely marrow and double membrane wherewith it is wrapped: so also each individual nerve arising from it; for the inmost marrow of nerves is similar to brain substance, covered by two tunics: so that nerves seem to be nothing else than production and continuation of that marrow and those membranes of which brain consists. By this reasoning it happens that the brain is in a manner throughout the whole body, and in each particle of body having sense and motion. For primarily located in head, wherein are all organs of senses: from head extended together with its membranes through spine: from spine departs into nerves, which spread diffused through whole body into all muscles. In similar manner heart through arteries, which imitate nature of heart, and liver through veins, which retain its force and character, are diffused through whole body and exist in any least particle: by which wondrous artifice those three principal viscera by which sense, motion, pulsation, and nutrition are accomplished, namely brain, heart, liver, extend through whole body and exist in a manner in each of its parts. I omit other innumerable things which could be said of structure and use of each.

All these things, more briefly but not less elegantly and graphically, depicts holy Clement, lib. 8. Recognitionum. Behold, he says, in the body of man

the work of the Artificer, how bones serve as certain columns whereon flesh may be supported and borne: then how equal measure is kept on either side, that is right and left; that foot fit foot, and hand hand: finger too fingers, that each answer each with total equality: and eye eye, ear ear, which are not only consonant and concordant with themselves, but aptly formed for necessary uses: hands namely that they be commodious for work, and feet for strides: eyes that they serve vision, guarded by the watches of the brows: ears so formed for hearing that like cymbals they render back the repercussed sound of the word received higher, and emit it even to the sense of the heart. Hear what follows, artistic and wondrous. The tongue moreover renders for them, with the teeth, the office of plectrum for speaking: the teeth indeed themselves, some to incise and divide foods and deliver them to the inner ones. The inner ones grind in manner of millstone and crush, that delivered the more opportunely to stomach they be cooked, whence they are called molars. But the nostrils too were made for passage of breath and for rendering and receiving, that by renewal of spirit the natural heat, which is from heart, be able to be kindled or cooled as need requires, by office of lung, which given to adhere to breast, that by its softness it caress and cherish vigor of heart, in which life seems to consist: life I say, not soul. For what shall I say of substance of blood, which like river proceeding from fountain, conveyed first from one bed, then derived through innumerable veins as through channels, irrigates the whole land of human body with vital streams, ministered by operation of liver, which lies on right side for efficacy of digesting foods and changing them into blood? Who of all these recognizes not work of reason, and wisdom of Creator? » —

To be heard also is Alcimus Avitus, bishop of Vienna, lib. 1. Poëmatum, which is on the creation of the world, wherein he graphically represents the fabric of the human body thus:

Thus Almighty from the side handles the bow that was to live, And meditates the viscera in yielding mire. Hence he marks the citadel of the head in lofty crown, Fitting the sevenfold face to senses of reason, Potent in smell, hearing, touch, and taste. Touch alone shall be, which judge through whole body, Shall feel, and scatter its own vigor through limbs. Thus the pliant tongue is fastened to hollow palate, That pressed in chamber by stroke of striking plectrum The measured speech resound in struck air. Then over the extended body the succedant chest Scatters branching palms behind strong arms. Middle succeeds to stomach, which with soft covering Between either side cherishes vitals, the belly. Femur receives the part of divided frame, that gait Alternate move itself with doubled knee. But from other part, which one Founder fashions, Neck submitted begins to descend from its occiput, And to add vast sinews to its framework.

Spine rigid with brain between exchanges of modes Diffuses the double grate from order of ribs. Inner part is fashioned to new uses of life, Vitals prepare natural covering for heart, And mass hanging of congested entrails hides. Added to these is lung to be fed by thin air, Which drawing the breathing-holes of slow breath conceived, May receive returning, return airs which it took, And in turn panting be driven by frequent draught. Right holds fountain of liver to be quickened with blood, Wherewith veins sprinkle closed river through viscera. Rule of spleen allots left part, Whereby hairs and nails, they say, grow again cut. Nor do they smart cut: hence now resumes increase What live and lack sense in use of body. After image of newness perfected lay, And molded mud reached species into every part, Mud is tempered into flesh, and hardened drew Soft marrows into viscera of middle. Blood is inserted into veins, and living color Redness infects mouth: then pallor through whole body Is driven out, and purple paints snowy faces. Thence when whole man consents to live with perfected limbs, And warmed viscera await that they may assume the sole [soul], Expect the soul, which from pure font Creator May draw forth, and send ruling upright airs: Light perpetual breath he pours forth from mouth And inspires into man: which he straightway received Draws in, and learns airs of frequent breathing.

To be heard also is Cicero, lib. 1. De legibus, discoursing thus on the excellent configuration of the human body: But man himself the same nature adorned not only with celerity of mind, but attributed senses also as satellites and messengers, and initiated obscure, not sufficiently lucid apprehensions of many things, as it were certain foundations of science: and gave figure of body apt and suited to human genius. For when she had cast down other animate beings to pasture, man alone she erected, and excited to view of heaven as it were of kinship and pristine home: then she so formed the species of face, as to portray therein manners deeply hidden. For the eyes are exceedingly eloquent, how we are affected in mind: and that which is called countenance, which can exist in no animate being save man, indicates manners: whose force Greeks know, name they utterly lack. » So Cicero.

Note 1. That there is a twofold uprightness of man, namely spiritual and corporeal, of which Ecclesiastes chap. 7 speaks, saying:

God made man upright: namely as regards the disposition of the body, and as regards the habit of the mind, as our Alexander of Hales explains, part 2, qu. 81, mem. 2. The former is that natural and inborn inclination of the rational soul, by which, superior to all bodily things, and likewise mistress of all the senses and passions of the body which it informs, it is borne toward God as toward the center in which it may rest, toward the first truth which it may contemplate, and toward the highest good in whose love and comprehension it may be blessed and delight. The latter is the tall and upright posture of the human body itself, whereby it is not bent, as the other animals are, with face prone toward the ground: but is borne heavenward with countenance erect, and looks forth. Of the former uprightness there will be treatise in what follows; here, however, of the latter.

Note 2. That since man can be considered in a threefold state: namely of nature, of grace, and of glory, in which he has diverse gifts and operations, even the dignity and majesty of the uprightness of his body can be gathered from the operations to be elicited in this threefold state. For since God by His divine wisdom and counsel brought forth all things in number, weight, and measure, that is, constituted each in a just and certain order of perfection, of disposition, and of position, according to the nature of each and its mode of existing and operating; hence it is that He ought to grant to man, according to his threefold order, that figure and disposition of body which was more congruent and apt for his diverse operations to be elicited in this threefold state; which corporeal uprightness we shall demonstrate to be such.

Note 3. That corporeal uprightness considered in itself does not indeed confer the highest perfection upon the one possessing it: for certain creatures, even of the least dignity, have an upright figure and are raised toward heaven, such as nearly all genera of plants; on the contrary, however, certain most noble bodies, such as the stars and precious stones, do not have this uprightness and erection toward heaven: for the virtue of the stars inclines more toward the earth than toward heaven, and the most precious pebbles grow sordid and lie hidden in the earth. Whence the dignity of the human body is not to be measured and gathered from its uprightness alone, but chiefly from its erection; for erected uprightness, says Alexander of Hales, in the same place, is the first sign of the perfection of the human body, namely of its noble and heavenly form, and likewise of its appetite for beatitude, which it can have complete only in heaven. Not so, however, of plants, which although upright are not yet erect, but rather bowed down by the adhesion of their part to the earth from which they obtain life and growth; hence man and plant hold a contrary position, wherefore man is called the inverted tree.

One Conclusion. — THE HIGHEST DIGNITY AND MAJESTY OF THE HUMAN BODY SHINES FORTH CHIEFLY IN ITS TALLNESS AND ITS ERECTION TOWARD HEAVEN.

This truth our Alexander of Hales proves from the threefold state of man, namely of innocence, of grace, and of glory, in which man ought to have various operations, toward which the very erection of the body especially conduces. For first, the state of innocence was endowed with three excellencies; for in it man had power in ruling, wisdom in speaking, and goodness in loving: despoiled of which by sin, he fell into infirmity of operation, into the darkness of ignorance, and into the malice of concupiscence, as Alexander of Hales says: but for the fulfilling of these three gifts the tallness and erection of the body were necessary; for first, it indicates that royal majesty and power by which innocent man ought to rule over the fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth; for all these animate creatures, that they might testify their obedience and observance toward man, held their bodies prone, and were inclined downward more readily, that, subjected to man as standing above them, as to their prince and head, they might exhibit their veneration. — This erect state likewise serves for demonstrating the wisdom of man in speaking: for if his body had been inclined and not erect, he would not have had easy use of speech, which is the most excellent indication of the divine wisdom communicated to him.

Hence St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the book De hominis opificio, chap. 9, gathers that man was therefore endowed with hands, not only that they might be ready instruments for all the arts and all works to be carried on in peace and in war; but also that they might serve speech and language. For if, he says, man had to be without these, doubtless, after the manner of four-footed animals, the parts of the human face would needs have been so formed that they would be accommodated to the nourishing of man; and therefore the form of this had to be oblong, attenuated, and pressed in where the nostrils are situated, while the lips had to be prominent, covered with callus, hard and thick, that manifestly they might be aptly fitted for cropping herbs. Moreover the tongue between the teeth, not indeed such as we now use; but either ample in flesh, solid, rough, which would crush together with the teeth whatever had been cast between them: or on the contrary, soft toward the sides, and fluid; such as is the tongue of dogs and of the other raw-eating animals, whereby it is diffused between the as it were iron-fenced chinks of the teeth. Wherefore if hands had not been added to the human body, how at last could articulate as it were speech have been expressed, the parts of the mouth being conformed not sufficiently apt for aiding the sound? For assuredly man would have had either to bleat, or to frisk like a goat, or to bark, or to neigh, or to low, or to trumpet, or indeed to utter bellowsings after the manner of beasts. Now since hands have been given to man, the mouth serves and is occupied solely in expressing speech: therefore it is rightly established that the hand is a certain proper instrument of nature endowed with the faculty of speaking, and that it has been made chiefly for this end, that through its agency the use of speech might be more ready in us. » So he. Whence if hands were not present to the human body, man could utter no speech. But if the body of man were inclined and prone, it would not have hands; because in all inclined animals the anterior members of the body are feet: and therefore if the body did not have erection, neither would it have the free ministry of speech; nor consequently would it be endowed with wisdom, for speech is not only an indication of wisdom, but also its vehicle. Hence Ovid, 1 Metamorphoses, says elegantly:

Pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri Iussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.

Lastly, it is evident that that erection of the human body also conduces most of all to divine contemplation and divine love: for since love is in spirits what weight is in bodies, according to that familiar saying of St. Augustine, My love is my weight: by it I am borne, whithersoever I am borne. Hence it is that since bodies tend downward by their natural weight, the very human body, which is the sanctuary of divine love, the vessel and organ of the spirit tending toward God, ought also by its natural disposition to tend upward, whither the love of man ought to be borne: for there love is, where the eye is. Whence Cassiodorus, book De anima, chap. 16: Moreover the animal of man, erect in the likeness of most beautiful contemplation, looks toward the things above and renewed: whose harmonious disposition declares to us the mysteries by our understanding. He subjoins how all the parts of our body conduce to the glory of God.

Likewise this erection of the human body conduced most of all to the operations of grace, which are contained chiefly in two things: the first is that carnal delight be cast aside: the second, that man be wholly ordered and occupied in pursuing spiritual delights. But both are rightly evident and gathered from the very tallness and erection of the human body. For therefore the other animals are prone, and have their looks turned toward their belly: because all their delight is carnal and earthly: but the delights of man are heavenly and spiritual. Which St. Basil in the Hexaemeron explains excellently: All cattle, he says, are earthly, and they disdain not those things which are earthly: but man is a certain heavenly plantation, who as much exceeds the cattle in habit as in dignity. Their gaze is borne downward, that it may look upon the belly, and follow that which is pleasing to its lust: but thy head is ever raised toward Heaven: thy eyes look upon the things above. But if thou delight in the pleasure of the body, obeying the belly and its lower parts, thou art compared to the foolish beasts, and made like unto them. To whom St. Bernard consents, on the Canticles, serm. 21: God gave man, he says, an upright stature of body, perhaps that that uprightness of the exterior body, a figure of spiritual uprightness, might admonish that man, who was made to the image of God, concerning spiritual things, of his second uprightness: and that the comeliness of the body might argue the deformity of the soul. For what is more unseemly than to bear a perverse mind in an upright body? Perverse is the way, and sordid, to be mire, which the body is, of the earth, and to have the eyes upward. Freely to look up at the heavens, and to delight the sight in the lights of heaven, while on the contrary the spiritual and heavenly creature, that is, the inward sense and affection, draws its equals down to the earth: and that which ought to have been nourished in heavenly things, to cling to the mire as one of the swine, and to embrace the dung.

Lastly, this erect disposition of the human body affords some trace of the future glory: for it implants in man a twofold contemplation; namely of heavenly things, and of earthly. For, as St. Augustine says, book 83 Questions, The body of man alone among the bodies of earthly animals is not prone, prostrated upon the ground, though it be discernible, and erect for beholding Heaven. And further on: Such is it, that it is the more apt for contemplating Heaven: in this it can deservedly be judged more to the image and likeness of God than the other bodies of animals. Whence St. Bernard in the place praised subjoins: Blush, O my soul, to have exchanged the divine likeness for the worse: Blush, to wallow in the mire, thou who art of Heaven. Blush, saith the body, O soul, in the consideration of me. A creature like unto a creature upright, thou hast received me also as a help like unto thee, assuredly according to the lineaments of the uprightness of the body, whithersoever thou bearest thyself, whether upward toward God, or downward toward me. For no one ever hated his own flesh: everywhere there meets thee the semblance of thy beauty, everywhere according to the state of thy dignity thou hast from the teaching of the wise a familiar admonition. Wherefore, since I have not retained, while beholding, the prerogative which I received for thy sake, how is it that thou art not confounded to have lost thine?

You will say 1. That which is inborn and from nature is not worthy of praise or blame, according to Aristotle, 3 Ethics, chap. 5; nor consequently does it confer any dignity: but the uprightness of the human body is inborn in man from nature: therefore from it no dignity accrues to him. Alexander of Hales answers, that a good worthy of praise is of a twofold kind: namely in the genus of morals, and by respect to acts elicited according to the dictate of right reason: or in the genus of nature, and according to the perfection indited by nature to each thing. Of the former the Philosopher speaks: not indeed of the latter, of which our discourse is. For although natural perfection more allures to the praise of the Creator than of the creature; nevertheless on account of that perfection the creature itself also is worthy of praise, inasmuch as it is referred to the good of the Universe, namely insofar as it concurs to the decor and splendor of the Universe itself, so that that which has the greater perfection confers also in a more perfect manner upon the beauty of the Universe; and therefore on account of its more excellent excellencies it may seem worthy of greater praise.

You will say 2. By sin the soul fell from its inborn uprightness: therefore it was likewise fitting that the human body should lose its uprightness, and consequently on account of it man is not to be judged worthy of praise. The consequence is evident; for the uprightness of the body was granted for the illustrating of the uprightness of the soul, as we have said. It is confirmed. from Psal. 48¹ Man when he was in honor did not understand: he is compared to the foolish beasts, and made like unto them: chiefly in the crookedness of the soul, which appears by the goads of concupiscence, ever seeking what is noxious and earthly; for, as St. Augustine says, two things have been inflicted upon us by sin, namely ignorance of what is to be done, and concupiscence of what is noxious: therefore much more ought the body, which was the instrument of sin, to be despoiled of its uprightness, and this in no wise redounds to glory.

I answer, that on account of the loss of the uprightness of the soul the uprightness of the body ought not to be lost: nay rather, therefore the soul comes the more heavily to the goads of penance, because the body subjected to it has preserved its corporeal uprightness; whereas it has voluntarily lost its spiritual tendency toward God by its dejection toward creatures, as we said above from St. Bernard. To the confirmation. They say that man by sin is likened to the beasts on account of the unbridled motions of concupiscence, by which he is driven toward base things, namely those which please the flesh and in which the sinful soul delights: but this likeness is not made as regards the state and disposition of the body itself; for it is evident that it always stands upright, as it was from the beginning, while indeed the state of innocence flourished.

Note 1. That it is certain by faith that the rational soul is the form of the human body, not assisting and merely moving it, as Plato willed; but informing it, and really united to it, as was defined in the Council of Vienne under Clement V in these words: Whosoever shall henceforth presume to assert, defend, or pertinaciously hold that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body in itself and essentially, let him be regarded as a heretic. Which sanction the third Lateran Council, under Leo X in his decree concerning the rational soul, restored, where he reproves both of the aforesaid opinions, and strikes with anathema those asserting the things reproved, in these words: With the approval of the sacred Council we damn and reprove all asserting that the intellectual soul is mortal, or that it is one in all men; and those turning these things into doubt; since it is not only true, and in itself, and essentially the form of the human body. — Reason also lends its aid: since man understands formally and properly, as Aristotle affirms, 10 Ethics, where he constitutes the happiness of man in actual understanding: but the happiness of man inheres in him formally. Moreover, the rational soul is essentially distinctive of man; for man differs essentially from beasts, not by the body, nor by the vegetative or sensitive grades, which are common to them: therefore by the rational soul: but that which is distinctive essentially inheres formally in that which it distinguishes: therefore, etc. Lastly, if it were only an assisting form, it would be to the body as the pilot to the ship, and the rider to the horse: therefore as the rider can depart from the horse, and the pilot from the ship, both persevering unharmed, so likewise the rational soul, if it were only an assisting form, could depart from the body, the latter persevering unharmed.

Note 2. That God for very many reasons conjoined the spiritual and immortal soul to a material and mortal body, of which the chief are: First, lest the soul should swell with the wind of pride, and on that account fall most easily into error, and incur the same loss with Lucifer and his hostile Angels. Second, God instituted this that He might make known His supreme wisdom, by instituting the greatest of all natural unions: for the greatest union ought to be between the lowest of the highest and the highest of the lowest: therefore since the soul is the lowest among spiritual substances holding the highest place among beings, and since the human body, by its marvelous fabric, holds the first place among bodies, therefore the union of both was congruous. Third, that the soul might profit toward merit of greater glory through good bodily works, namely of chastity, temperance, patience, etc.

Note 3. That the rational soul and the human body can be considered in a twofold manner: namely either absolutely, and according to the proper gifts of each; or respectively, and inasmuch as they are ordered to one another as matter to form, and form to matter. In the former manner the gifts of the body are opposed to the gifts of the soul: for those are material and corruptible: but these are spiritual, immortal, and indefectible; and therefore the body thus considered obtains no nobility from the proximity of the soul; nay it is altogether depressed, and in this comparison grows vile. But otherwise it happens, while they are considered in the latter manner, for there is the greatest nobility in the human body, in that from its congruous harmony it is apt and suitable to be united to a form so excellent, from which it obtains not only life and motion, but even dignity and pre-eminence, as will be proved

One Conclusion. — The highest nobility and pre-eminence of the human body is from its union with the rational soul.

Proof, from the threefold dignity which the human body obtains from the soul, according to the threefold state: namely of nature, of grace, and of glory. For first, by reason of its conjunction with the rational soul it excels all bodily things, as has been proved above: for if thou shouldst separate from it the rational soul, truly the human body, both in the operation of the senses, and in the length of life, and in virtue and strength, would far surpass the bodies of very many beasts, as was said above in Concl. 3 of the first Question of this Article. Therefore the whole natural dignity and pre-eminence of the human body above the other corporeal creatures is to be sought from its internal commerce with the rational soul. Which Tertullian, in the book De Resurrectione carnis, chap. 6, ponders in a most marvelous manner, where he gathers the dignity of the human body from its union with the rational soul; for there he thus addresses Marcion, the darkener of human flesh: Art thou not more diligent, O God, so that thou indeed engrave Scythian and Indian gems, and the shining grains of the red sea, not with lead, not with bronze, not with iron, not even with silver: but with gold most erect and moreover most laborious? Thou vinest therefore, and with most precious unguents, taking care of whatever things were previously congruous: accordingly with swords of well-tempered steel thou equalize the dignity of ravens: but God committed the shadow of His soul, the breath of His spirit, the work of His mouth to some most vile haft, and by placing it unworthily has surely damned it. But He placed it, or rather implanted it, and commingled it with flesh, with indeed such a concreteness, that it can be held uncertain whether the flesh carries about the soul, or the soul the flesh... but although it must rather be believed that the soul inheres and dominates, as nearer to God, this also overflows to the glory of the flesh, that it contains what is near to God, and affords the head of His domination. He subjoins, moreover, how also the body serves the soul for acquiring its natural gifts; For, he says, what use of nature, what fruit of the world, what savor of the elements, does she not enjoy and feed upon through the flesh? ... And the discourse is concerning the organ of the flesh, the arts through the flesh: the studies inborn through the flesh: the works, businesses, offices through the flesh. It belongs to the flesh to seem apt as a whole for the soul, etc. Hence whoever is the author of the book De Spiritu et anima, which is inserted among the works of St. Augustine, tom. 3, and is falsely attributed to him by not a few of the ancients, for in chap. 37 he cites Boethius, far later than Augustine; this author, I say, rightly says in chap. 11: When the soul is joined to the body, by which friendship no one hates his own flesh: for associated with it, although she be burdened by its association, yet by an ineffable condition she loves it, loves her companion, and therefore cannot be free: she is vehemently afflicted by its pains: she fears its destruction, who cannot die: she dreads its failure, who by nature cannot fail. She is fed by the contemplation of the eyes, delighted by sonorous hearings, gladdened by the sweetest odors, refreshed rapaciously by the tongue: and although she uses these things not at all, she is nevertheless afflicted with grave sorrow if they are withdrawn. By which it is evident how natural and how strict is the society and friendship of the rational soul with its body, and how great a dignity thence accrues to the human body.

Second: This same is evident from the order of grace, since sanctifying grace, informing the soul, represses the incentives of bodily vices; it orders its passions, and orders and composes all its motions not only toward reason, but even toward sanctity: in turn also the human body has conferred no little utility upon the rational soul. For no flesh, says Tertullian in the same place chap. 8, can attain salvation, unless it is in the flesh: therefore the flesh is the hinge of salvation; moreover when the soul is joined to God, it is the flesh itself which avails that the soul may be bound. But the flesh is washed, that the soul may be cleansed: the flesh is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed, that the soul also may be fortified: the flesh is overshadowed by the imposition of hands, that the soul may be enlightened by the spirit: the flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ, that the soul may be fattened on God... Moreover, the sacrifices acceptable to God, I say the conflicts of the soul, fastings, and squalors, and dry foods, and the squalors of its proper office as appendices, the flesh restores from its own inconvenience. Virginity also, and chastity, and the modest dissimulation of matrimony in secret, and the single knowledge of it concerning the goods of the flesh, are odored to God, etc.

Thirdly, lastly, the dignity of the human body is evident from its union with the rational soul, in that through it it becomes capable of perceiving eternal beatitude: for, as Tertullian says in the same place, They cannot be separated in the reward whom God joins in their works. Therefore that union, says Alexander of Hales, qu. 81, member 3, which is of the soul with God through the conformity of the flesh, in a certain manner redounds to the very body. For it has, and the most perfect dignity in the genus of bodies, from this, that from that union which it has with the soul it has been rendered fit, that according to some part of itself, or of another genus of itself, it might be united to the Son of God in the unity of person: which union excels both that which is of nature and that which is of glory, which dignity the Son of God manifested through His Incarnation. Hence the union of the soul with the body was as it were a delineation of the future beatific union, and likewise of the hypostatic conjunction, which the Author De Spiritu et anima, chap. 14, elegantly explains: The first thing was marvelous, he says, that things so diverse and so divided from one another could be conjoined with one another. Nor less marvelous was it that God joined Himself to our mire, that God and mire might be united to one another: such sublimity, and such vileness: for nothing is more sublime than God, and nothing viler than mire... But if God was able to join so unequal a nature of flesh and soul to mutual federation and friendship, by no means was it previously impossible for the rational spirit, which has been humbled even to the fellowship of an earthly body, to exult together with the same body glorified, that it may be to it what flesh was to it, unto the fellowship of the blessed spirits who persevered in their purity, and to be raised to the participation of its glory: for to this end the Most High created it by charity alone, by no necessity, that He might make it a partaker of His beatitude.

This same truth St. Bernard inculcates with his wonted elegance and piety, Serm. 2 De Nativitate Domini, where he says that the supreme goodness and magnificence of God toward us cry out by a certain threefold pious work: of our first Creation, of our present Redemption, of our future Glorification... To consider the threefold conjunction in these three is a festival of things of most great work and of divine virtue: For in the first work of our condition God fashioned man from the mire of the earth, and breathed into his face the spirit of life. What an artificer, what a founder of things, to whose nod the mire of the earth and the spirit of life are thus glued to one another!.. Know, O man, thy dignity, acknowledge the glory of the human condition: for thou hast thy body in common with the world: for thus it befits him who has been constituted above the whole mass of this corporeal creature, and things like unto it in part: but thou hast also something more sublime, nor art thou altogether to be compared with the other creatures. Compacted and confederated in thee are flesh and soul: the one fashioned, the other inspired. The second conjunction he thus commends: The second conjunction is now made from three, that from it one might ascend to the Sacrament of the Trinity. The Word, which was in the beginning with God, and was God: the soul which was created from nothing, and before was not: flesh from the mass of corruption, without any corruption, segregated by divine artifice, such as no flesh ever was, coalesce in the unity of person by an indissoluble bond. Thou hast in these a threefold genus of power: that which was not, created: that which had perished, repaired: that which was above all things, made a little less than the Angels, etc. — Lastly, the third union he expresses thus: What shall be in the third union, who shall say? Neither hath the eye seen, nor the ear heard, nor hath it ascended into the heart of man, what God hath prepared for them that love him. That consummation will be when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father: and they shall be two no longer one in flesh, but in one spirit. For indeed if the Word adhering to flesh was made flesh, much more he who shall have adhered to God will be one spirit with him. And in this union indeed (namely of the Word with flesh) a middle humility is exhibited, and a humility too great: but in that which we look upon, toward which we sigh, there is laid up for us, if nevertheless for us, a perfected glorification, etc.

You will say. From the same St. Bernard, the dignity of the soul is far depressed by its union with the body: therefore so far is this union from contributing anything to the pre-eminence of the body, that rather it darkens it. The antecedent is proved from chap. 3 of the book De Conditione humanae conditionis: where he thus addresses the soul; O soul signed with the image of God, adorned with the similitude, espoused by faith, imbued with the spirit, redeemed by blood, deputed with the Angels, capable of beatitude, heir of goodness, partaker of reason, what hast thou to do with flesh, whence sufferest thou these things? On account of the flesh the sins of others are imputed to thee, and thy justices are reputed as the cloth of a menstruous woman: and thou thyself art reduced to nothing, and reputed as nothing and vain. Nothing else is the flesh (with which thy society is so great) except foam made of flesh, a fragile rest of comeliness: but trampled, it will be to be despised, a wretched and putrid cadaver, and the food of worms. For however it is honored, it is always flesh. If thou diligently considerest what goes forth through the mouth, and the nostrils, and the other passages of the body, thou hast never seen a viler dunghill. If thou wishest to enumerate its single miseries, since it is laden with sins, entangled with vices, itching with concupiscences, occupied with passions, polluted with illusions, ever prone to evil, and inclined to every vice, thou wilt find it full of all confusion and ignominy! On account of the flesh man has been made like unto vanity, because from that vice of concupiscence he has drawn, whereby he is held captive, and bent that he may love vanity, and work iniquity, etc.

I answer 1. That the aforesaid book, although most devout, is not St. Bernard's, but either Hugh of St. Victor's, or of some more modern Author. Secondly I say, with the Author, that it is to be understood of the body vitiated by original sin; but we speak of the pre-eminence of the human body according to its primary origin and formation, in which it was free from these defects; and therefore the aforesaid authority does not impede the truth of our Conclusion.

So great and so divine is the dignity and excellence of the rational soul that, as Tertullian relates in his book De anima, chapter 24, Plato all but made it equal to God: For he makes it innate... and adds that it is immortal, incorruptible, incorporal, because this he believed even of God: invisible, without figure, uniform, principal, rational, intellectual. What more could he proclaim of the soul if he were to name it God. But you, from whom nothing is taken away from God, we reckon by this very thing to be far beneath God at the least, because we acknowledge it to be born, and therefore of a more diluted divinity, of a more slender felicity, etc. — And although it is far inferior to God in dignity, yet its nature and excellence seem almost as unknown as God's own. The same thing, indeed, can easily be said of it, saith Cassiodorus in lib. De anima, cap. 1, because through it we know not how to explain innumerable things. For the eye, which reaches even to the stars, is not able to see itself: and our palate, though it perceive a diversity of tastes, knows not of what savor itself may be. The nostrils also draw in the various odors of fragrant bodies, but what they themselves smell they do not perceive. Finally our brain, though it hands over sensation to the other members, is nevertheless read to have no sensation of its own. Hence it is no wonder if the Philosophers erred so greatly in uncovering and assigning the dignity and nature of the rational soul; for some of them, saith Saint Justin Martyr, in Exhortation 1. to the Greeks, asserted the soul to be fire, others air, others wind, others motion, others an exhalation, and not a few a power flowing down from the stars; some, a number possessing the power of moving: others generative water: and as Tertullian relates in the book cited above, cap. 3. Rational souls, through the philosophical doctrines of men, mixing water with wine: some deny the soul to be immortal: others affirm it more than immortal: some dispute about its substance, some about its form: some about each and every disposition. These derive its state from one source, those hide away its end in another: according as the honor of Plato, or the rigor of Zeno, or the tenor of Aristotle, or the stupor of Epicurus, or the lament of Heraclitus, or the fury of Empedocles persuaded them. Whence that dark Heraclitus, as he had premised, observing the gloomier mists and the more wearisome subtleties of the soul's questions, pronounced that the soul had by no means found, in walking along every way, its boundaries. Wherefore he admonishes in the same place, cap. 1. If anything concerning the soul is to be examined, it must be directed according to the rules of God: Certainly he points out no better teacher of the soul than God its author... For who has reported what God said? etc. Therefore from the divine Eloquia themselves must the dignity and nature of the soul be investigated, which is done in this Article by resolving three Questions; whereof the First will demonstrate the nature and substance of the rational soul: the Second, that the soul is to the image of God: the Third will open wherein the account of this image is to be placed.

Three things above all come to be determined in the present Question: First, whether the rational soul is a substance wholly spiritual and devoid of matter: Second, whether it is incorruptible and immortal: Third, whether it is from traduction, that is, whether as the human body is formed from a particle cut off from the body of the parents, so also the soul of the child is handed down to posterity by the continuous propagation of the parent's soul.

Note 1. Not only did the Gentile Philosophers err in designating the substance of the soul, which all of them, as has just been said, affirmed to be something corporeal; but also certain defenders of Christian truth. For above all Tertullian, lib. De anima, cap. 5. to 11. proves the rational soul to be corporeal, or at least to be overlaid with a body of its own kind. Since, he saith in cap. 8. we assert the body of the soul to be of its own quality, and of its own kind: this condition of property has already proclaimed the other accidents to be corpulent, so that we not only show these things to exist as body, but also by its own pro-corporeal property of its own kind, that even if they are not present, this property is not absent from the body of the soul, as also from other bodies in which they are present. And although Saint Augustine, lib. 10. De Genesi ad litteram, in the last two chapters, judges that the soul can be explained as incorporeal, where he says: Tertullian, because he believed the soul to be corporeal, for no other reason than that he could not think it incorporeal: and therefore he feared that it would be nothing if it were not a body: who indeed, although acute, is at times surpassed in the truth against his own opinion; nevertheless Tertullian truly judged the soul to be truly corporeal, and overlaid with matter, though more subtle: which he certainly proves not only by various texts of Scripture, and likewise by philosophical reasons to be proposed and resolved below; but also by a certain prophetic revelation which he expounds thus in cap. 9. There is today among us a sister who has received the gift of revelations, which she suffers in the Church amid the Sunday solemnities by ecstasy in the spirit: she converses with Angels, and at times even with the Lord; and she sees and hears the mysteries, and discerns the hearts of certain ones, and submits remedies to those who desire them. Now, just as the Scriptures are read, or the Psalms are sung, or addresses are delivered, or petitions are offered: so from these matter is supplied to her visions. Perhaps we had been discussing something of the Soul, when that Sister was in the spirit. After the solemnities were completed and the people dismissed, as is customary she reported to us what she had seen; for these things are most diligently recorded, that they may also be tested: Among other things, she said, the Soul was shown to me corporally, and the spirit seemed to be a body; yet not empty and void of quality, but one that would even promise to be held, tender, and luminous, and of airy color, and in form throughout human: This is the vision: God is witness, and the Apostle fit sponsor of the charisms of things to come in the Church, etc. Therefore Tertullian seems to have been led astray to that absurdity concerning a soul of airy and luminous color by certain false revelations of a certain Montanist woman — not indeed Prisca or Maximilla, who had long before perished by hanging — but of a certain Disciple of theirs, deceived by a demon.

Note 2. That the opinion concerning the incorruption and immortality of the rational soul was various among the ancient Philosophers; for the most part they said it was altogether mortal, with the Epicureans and Atheists, to whom must be numbered all who affirmed it to be composed, dissoluble, and divisible: For if it is structile, that is composed, saith Tertullian in cap. 11. of the same book De Anima, and dissoluble: if dissoluble, it is already not immortal... For to be divided is to be dissolved, and to be dissolved is to die. But it is divided into parts, now into two by Plato, now into three by Zeno, now into five and six by Galen, and into seven by Soranus, even into eight according to Chrysippus, even into nine besides Apollophanes, but also into ten according to certain Stoics. What Aristotle thought here, however, is sufficiently ambiguous, because he speaks variously and obscurely: nevertheless in lib. 2. De ortu animalium, cap. 3. he says plainly that mind alone enters the body from without, and that mind alone is divine: since its operation shares nothing with the corporeal operation. And since he teaches that the other souls are ingenerated in matter by the force of the seed, because all their operation depends upon the body, he gathers that the human soul is not born by the force of the seed, but comes from without, because it does not depend upon the body; and so he seems to think it to be incorporeal and immaterial.

Note 3. From the Seraphic Doctor, lib. 2. d. 18. q. 2. a. 2. 3., as regards the formation of the soul there are chiefly three opinions: for certain Philosophers said it is formed by an Intelligence; so that as the celestial body concurs in the production of the human body, so the Intelligence in the production of the soul: in which manner the author of the book De Causis seems to have thought, Propositions 11. and 16. The second opinion was that the production of souls takes place by traduction, so that soul is traduced from soul, as flesh from flesh: and as many candles are lit from one candle, so from one soul, by its communication without diminution, many bodies are vivified... Concerning which Saint Augustine hesitated, in doubt even unto death, as will appear in Concl. 3. — The third opinion is that souls are not sown, but are created by God when the bodies are formed, so that they are infused in creating, and produced in infusing.

First Conclusion. — The rational soul is truly spiritual according to substance, and altogether devoid of every body and of matter.

This is of faith. Proof 1. From Ecclus. 12. Let the dust return into its earth, and the spirit to God. 1. Corinth. cap. 2. What man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man which is in him? And this was sanctioned under anathema in the Council of Lateran, under Innocent III., where it is defined that the Soul of which man is constituted is spiritual. Likewise in the sixth Synod of Constantinople, Action 11. it is decreed that the divine Word assumed flesh, and an incorporeal rational soul.

Therefore this proposition is of faith, held by almost all the holy Fathers, especially Saint Augustine, lib. De Civitate Dei, cap. 9. and lib. De Genesi, cap. 21. and following, where he refutes the aforesaid error of Tertullian. Now the spirituality of the soul is urged by many reasons. First indeed: operation follows upon being: but the soul elicits spiritual operations: therefore it is spiritual. The major is evident: for operation depends upon the substance and entity of the thing operating: therefore if the entity be material, the operations will likewise be material; and consequently where spiritual operations are, there is likewise a spiritual substance. The minor is proved: that which is borne into the object, abstracted and freed from all concretion of matter, is also immaterial and spiritual: but the operations of our soul are of this kind: therefore, etc. The Doctor proves the minor in 1. dist. 13. qu. 2. n. 10: Our intellect contemplates in Metaphysics things most abstracted from matter, singulars and universals; negatives and positives; possibles and impossibles; existent and non-existent things; sensible and insensible; it attains material and spiritual things: therefore by a spiritual operation and faculty; for no corporeal faculty perceives spiritual objects. — Cassiodorus expends and confirms this reason thus, lib. De anima, cap. 1. Although, he saith, the soul is weighed down by the mass of its body, yet it weighs the operations of things with solicitous curiosity, thinks profoundly on celestial things, tracks natural things with subtle investigation, and desires to know something even of its own Maker. But if it were corporeal, it certainly would not discern spiritual things in its thoughts, nor see them. Let suspicion of its corporeality therefore cease: since it renders itself alien in every way from the definition of body, and seeks out such causes as only a sublime spirit strives to reach. Hence it is that by the sounding Scriptures it is most justly admonished to contemn all the visible things of this world, because it itself is incorporeal: that it may deservedly tend toward spiritual things, by which it knows itself to have been formed like unto them. — It is confirmed from the author of the book De Spiritu et anima found among the works of Saint Augustine, tom. 3. who says: The mind is invisible, for otherwise it will not be able to discern invisible things. It sees visible things through the body, invisible things through itself: and it sees itself in itself; what it sees in itself as visible, it nevertheless seems to see in the body through the body, as the sense remains in the letter, and is seen through the letter. The mind, the ruler, governor, and dweller of the body, sees itself through itself. It seeks not the aid of bodily eyes, but rather withdraws itself to itself from all the bodily senses as hindering and clamoring, that it may see itself in itself, that it may know itself from itself, and when it wills to know God, it raises itself above itself by the keenness of mind. For God is not such a thing as the mind is; yet He cannot be seen except by the mind, nor so seen as the mind can be seen. For truth is unchangeable, without defect of substance; such is not the mind: but it fails and prospers, it is harmed and is ignorant, it remembers and forgets: now it wills, now it wills not, and diffused in thoughts and counsels it wanders hither and thither, etc. — He urges this same truth in cap. 19. Invisible, he saith, and incorporeal is the soul: for if it were visible, it would be corporeal; and if corporeal, it would be partible, and would have parts, nor could it be wholly at once in one place. For no body can either be touched whole at once, or touch whole at once. But the soul, in whatever of its motions or acts, is wholly present at once: it sees wholly, and remembers wholly the things seen: it hears wholly, and recalls wholly the sounds: it smells wholly, and recollects wholly the odors: it wholly tastes and discerns savors by tongue and palate: it wholly touches both hard and soft things: it wholly approves or disapproves at once: but it wholly discerns hot or cold things with the tip of a finger alone.

It is wholly sight, wholly hearing, it wholly remembers: and since it wholly remembers, it is wholly memory: since it wholly wills, it is wholly will: since it wholly thinks, it is wholly thought; since it wholly loves, it is wholly love. Therefore it is not corporeal; since body is divisible into parts, nor can so diverse things be wrought by one power. — Saint Augustine confirms the same, Epist. 27. to Saint Jerome, where he says: Moreover, if body is nothing but what is set or moved through the space of a place with some length, breadth, height, so that with its greater part it occupies a greater place, with its lesser a lesser, and is less in the part than in the whole: the soul is not a body: for through the whole body which it animates it is extended not by local diffusion, but by a certain vital intension: for it is wholly present at once through all its particles, not less in the lesser and greater in the greater: but in some place more intense, in some more remiss, and whole in all, and whole in each: for otherwise, that which senses in even a part of the body, yet senses wholly..... Therefore it could not be wholly present at once both in all and in the single particles of its body, if it were diffused through them as we see bodies diffused through the space of places occupy less with their lesser parts and more with their greater: wherefore if the soul must be called a body, it would not be a body such as the earthly is, nor such as the humid or airy or aethereal, for all those are greater in greater places and lesser in lesser, and none of them is whole present in any part of itself: but as parts of places are, so they are occupied by parts of bodies. And although here he does not plainly pronounce the soul to be altogether devoid of matter; yet he expresses the same distinctly elsewhere, especially in the Treatise on Ps. 145. For always the body, he saith, because it is body, is beneath the mind; and thou askest, O soul, by what most excellent body thou art found to be more excellent. Again in the same Treatise: The nature, he saith, of the soul is more excellent than the nature of the body: it excels greatly, it is a spiritual thing, an incorporeal thing: it is near to the substance of God. The same he teaches also in book twelve De Genesi ad litteram, cap. 32. and 33. and in book 8. De Civit. Dei, cap. 16.

You will object. 1. From sacred Scripture it is urged that the soul is corporeal: therefore it must be so judged. Tertullian proves the antecedent in the book De anima, cap. 1. The corporeality of the soul, he saith, shines forth in Paradise itself; for the soul of a certain one grieves in hell, and is punished in flame, and tortured in the tongue, and implores from the finger of the happier soul the solace of a drop of water. You think that the departure of the poor man exulting and the rich man mourning is an image! But what is the name of Lazarus there, if it is not the thing in truth? and even if the image is to be believed, it will be a testimony of the truth: for if the soul had not a body, the image of the soul would not take on the image of a body, nor would Scripture lie about bodily members; if they were not. He concludes: Therefore if the soul perceived any torment, or solace, in the prison, or inn of hell, in the fire, or in the bosom of Abraham, the corporeality of the soul will be proved: for incorporality suffers nothing, having nothing through which it can suffer: or if it has this, it will be body; inasmuch as every corporeal thing is passible: in so far as it is passible, it is corporeal.

I answer 1. It can be said with Saint Augustine that Tertullian believed the soul corporeal because he could not think it incorporeal; and therefore he feared it would be nothing if it were not a body: for Tertullian himself says in the same place: For it is nothing if not body... By a like reason these words of Saint Hilary can be explained, Comment. on cap. 5. of Saint Matthew: There is nothing which in its substance and creation is corporeal, and the elements of all things, whether in heaven or in earth, whether visible or invisible, were formed. For even the species of souls, whether of those possessing bodies or of those exiled from bodies, nevertheless receive a corporeal substance of their nature: because everything created must be in something. Even thus, or otherwise, must that be restricted which John bishop of Thessalonica says, in the Synod of Nicaea II. at the beginning of Action V. concerning the Angels and archangels and their powers, to which I join also our own souls: the catholic Church itself here holds them to be indeed intelligible, but not altogether devoid of body, endowed with a thin body of things, air, or fire, etc. Afterwards indeed he would call either angels, or demons, or souls incorporeal. Nor are those words of John rejected by the others who were present at the Synod. These things, I say, are to be taken in the same sense as the aforesaid words of Tertullian, namely that corporeal is said of that which has a solid entity, not indeed a fictitious or chimerical one, as we have said more fully already in treating of the immateriality of God; nor can the contrary be evinced from those words of Saint Luke which Tertullian adduces; for from them it is not licit to conclude that the soul is corporeal, as Saint Augustine at length deduces, lib. 1. De anima et eius origine, to Vincentius Victor, who lay in the same error as Tertullian. Claudian proves the same, lib. 3. De statu animae, cap. 3. contra Faustum, asserting likewise that these members of the soul are to be interpreted not corporally, but spiritually and metaphorically; so that Christ the Lord willed by those wrappings of the parable to delineate the bitterness of inward punishments.

You will say 2. From the same Tertullian in the same place cap. 5. the passions of corporeal and incorporeal things do not communicate with one another: But the soul suffers with the body, when it aches at its being stricken by blows, wounds, ulcers: and the body shrinks at the soul's being afflicted by care, anguish, love, through the loss of its vigor, whose shame and dread it testifies by blushing and pallor. Therefore the soul is a body, from the communication of the passions of corporeal things. — I distinguish the major: spiritual things do not communicate in passions with corporeal things, as to entity and effect, I concede; as to conjunction and affection, I deny: for since incorporeal things are united to corporeal things as forms informing them, that they may make one something, as the rational soul is united to the body with which it integrates and constitutes man, it is necessary that a mutual communication of passions take place, so that the soul grieve while the body suffers; not indeed by the reception of corporeal pain, but by the affection with which it pursues its own body, as its own companion and its native dwelling. — I confess, however, that Tertullian can scarcely be excused from the error of those who judge the soul to consist of a most subtle body, by reason of which it is visible at least in ecstasy. The same Tertullian produces examples of this kind, lib. De anima; but this opinion of his must be reckoned among those which are reproved by the Church.

Second Conclusion. — The rational soul is truly immortal and incorruptible.

This is of faith. It is proved by innumerable texts of sacred Scripture, to be drawn both from the Old and from the New Testament. Especially indeed from that of Wisdom 3. The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and their reward is with the Most High, and the torment of death shall not touch them: in the eyes of the foolish they seemed to die; but they are in peace. And if they have been placed in torments before men, their hope is full of immortality. He calls them foolish who think that souls die and are dissolved together with bodies. Hence in the same place cap. 5. he introduces those fools doing penance too late in hell, and groaning through anguish of spirit at the sight of the happy lot of souls, bursting forth into these words: These are they whom we sometime had in derision, and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor: behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the Saints: from which they infer this wonderful and most certain consequence; Therefore we have erred from the way of truth and justice, the light hath not shone unto us, and the sun of understanding hath not risen upon us. What more openly for establishing the immortality of souls? what more efficaciously for reproving the blindness and impudence of the wicked? — We should never finish if I strove here to copy out all the authorities and sayings which in the New Testament establish the immortality of our souls: for no page occurs in it to be read which does not treat of the rewards or punishments of eternal life, of the recompense or the punishment promised to the wicked after death. I bring forward one alone, namely that oracle of Christ the Lord, Matth. 10. by which He sweetly consoles us with blandishment, and warns that the destruction of the body is not to be feared; Fear ye not, he saith, them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul. As if He would say, saith Saint Jerome: Fear not the malediction of bodily death, which is dissolved temporally. Fear the malediction of spiritual death, by which the soul is crucified eternally with its body. Man cannot kill thy soul; it reaches even to the body: do not thou serve thy soul: the presence of thy soul is snatched: he can cast out the present one, but not kill thy soul.

I pass over the sayings of all the holy Fathers on this matter, who all together with Saint Clement, lib. 6. Constitut. Apost., cap. 11. burst forth into these words: We firmly maintain the soul to be incorporeal and immortal, nor that it perishes as bodies do, but that by a perpetual gift it is endowed as a partaker of reason and liberty. Here I do not recount the opinions of the ancient Philosophers on this matter: for it is evident that the wiser among them professed the immortality of souls, as is gathered from Cicero, lib. De Amicitia: The authority, he saith, of the ancients, or of our forefathers, weighs more with me. who bestowed so religious rights upon the dead, which they would not have done if they had judged the soul to perish together with the body.

This same is urged by Physical and Moral reason; of which the first is drawn from the spirituality of the soul. Every spiritual being is immortal and incorruptible: but the soul is spiritual, as was proved in the preceding Conclusion: therefore, etc. The major, in which there might be difficulty, is proved: First, because matter is called the principle of corruption: but that which is spiritual does not involve matter: therefore neither the principle of corruption. Second, because a spiritual being, if it could be corrupted, would be corrupted either by itself, or by nothing, or by another. Not by nothing, because a real being is not corrupted except by that which is real; for of nothing nothing is made. Nor yet by itself, because nothing desires the ceasing of itself; rather, with natural desire stimulating, all things covet the perpetual conservation of themselves. If by another, it is corrupted either by another of inferior virtue, or of equal, or of superior. Not the first, because that which is inferior in virtue cannot corrupt that which is more excellent in virtue; otherwise a drop of water could extinguish a burning torch, and a spark could heat and burn the whole Ocean. Nor yet the second: for that which corrupts another overcomes its resistive virtue, and has over it a dominion of activity: for equal has not power over equal, nor does like act upon like. Finally not the third, because God alone possesses a virtue superior to souls: but God, although He can, yet with equity ought not to annihilate rational souls together with the body. — The moral reason is drawn from the providence of God. By natural light it is evident that God provides for all things; whence among all nations, even barbarous ones, there has always existed the cult, observance, and religion of some deity: and whether they will or no, the Atheists must confess that God is, and that human affairs are cared for, since in sudden and urgent peril by natural instinct they cry out for God to be propitious to them: but the providence of God would be of little account if souls were mortal. It is proved: that the dispensation of the divine providence may be worthy and equitable, it ought to decree rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked: but this does not happen in this mortal life; for that I may speak with the words of Saint Chrysostom, Homil. 1. De Providentia: Many, he saith, impious in mortal life, who more often lead a prosperous life, abound in riches, rejoice in health: but the good and studious patiently bear adversities: therefore there would not seem to be an equitable distribution, nor a providence worthy of God, unless there were another life, in which the wicked pay the merited punishments and the just receive worthy rewards: but if there be another life, in which God justly recompenses the good and the evil, the soul will be a survivor after the body, and immortal.

They will reply, that the good are rewarded in this life, and the wicked tormented: For virtue, saith Seneca, is a reward unto itself: but sin its own punishment, according to that of Saint Augustine, lib. 1. Confessionum, c. 12. Thou hast commanded, O Lord, and so it is, that every sinner be a punishment to himself: so that sin itself may be the punishment of sin, as the Doctor adds in 1. dist. 1. quaest. 2. n. 27. — Against this, 1. This being posited, all men would have to be permitted to live as each one pleases, and the criminal let go, who would be more wretched in his crime than under tortures and punishments — which no one even of the least reason would admit. Second, those would have to be condemned as mad who met a glorious death for the sake of their Country, or their Parent, or virtue, or even of God Himself, if beyond present virtue there remained no reward of it. Why do we extol with encomia and celebrate with praises those who were less devoted to the comforts and pleasures of this life even unto death, if after death there remains to them no felicity to be hoped for? God could be judged unjust if He should bestow no rewards after life upon those who offered themselves to torments and an ignominious death for defending His religion, worship, and glory: and should allow their murderers, usurpers of goods, subverters of commonwealths, blasphemers, adulterers, homicides, to go immune and glorying in their crimes? Saint Peter used this argument; who, as Saint Clement his disciple relates, lib. 3. Recognitionum, testifies that he heard these words from him often: If God is just, the rational soul is immortal.

You will object. 1. From Ecclesiastes cap. 3. The death of men and of beasts is alike, and the condition of both is one rest: but while beasts die their souls perish: therefore, etc. — I answer that these words were uttered in the person of the impious, who, that they may gorge themselves more freely with every bodily pleasure after the manner of beasts, pronounce their soul mortal. Whence Wisdom 2. has it thus: The impious said among themselves, thinking not aright: Small is our time and tedious, and there is no refreshment at the end of man: and there is none who has been known to return from hell, because we are born of nothing; and after this we shall be as if we had not been: and shortly after they added: Come therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present, etc.

You will say 2. God alone is said to be immortal, ad Timoth. 6. in these words: He is King of kings, and Lord of lords, who alone hath immortality: therefore the rational soul does not rejoice in immortality.

I answer: that a twofold immortality can be distinguished, whereof the first denies every corruptive power, both from without and from within, and this belongs to God alone, because since He exists necessarily of Himself it cannot be implied that He could be annihilated by another. The second denies the principle of corruption from within, namely matter: but it can be corrupted from without, namely by the divine power, which since it formed all things out of nothing, can by the same reduce them again into nothing. Of the former immortality speaks the Apostle, we indeed of the latter. In that sense the holy Fathers must be understood who say the soul and Angels are immortal by grace, not by nature. Thus Saint Damascene lib. 2. cap. 3. De Angelis: Immortal, he saith, is the Angel, not by nature, but by grace, for whatever has had a beginning can also cease by its own nature. And against the heresy of the Manichaeans: Everything, he saith, that has a beginning has also an end by its own nature: and what has an end has also a beginning. Wherefore the Angels have a beginning, and have also an end of their nature, although by divine grace they again begin to be, and are renewed. — Sophronius of Jerusalem expounds the same beautifully in the Epistle found in the acts of the sixth Synod, action 11. where he conveniently opens also the distinction between sensible and spiritual creatures thus: God, he saith, willed indeed that those things which fall under sense end in time, but He willed to honor intelligible and invisible things with greater honor than these. Therefore they die in no way, nor are corrupted, as happens to sensible things, which are placed in flux and easily pass away. Yet neither are they immortal by nature, as if they had made a passage to incorrupt substance; but grace indulged them, which vindicates them from corruption and destruction. So do the souls of men remain devoid of corruption. So did the Angels pre-exist immortal, not because they have a truly incorrupt nature, as we said, or consist of a properly immortal substance: but because they obtained by divine gift a grace bestowing immortality and procuring incorruptibility. — Hence mortal and immortal names are used threefold among the holy Fathers, for that which is mutable, and affected now one way now another, is called mortal, even though it never dies; For mutability itself, saith Saint Augustine 2. De Trinit., cap. 6. is not unfittingly called mortality, according to which the soul also is said to die, not because it is changed and converted into body, or into some other substance: but in its very substance whatever is otherwise now, or was, according to that whereby it ceases to be what it was, is apprehended in mortality. By which reason only that is called immortal which is altogether immutable. Second, that is called mortal which by divine power can be reduced into nothing; thus both soul and Angels can be called even mortals, because since they were created by God out of nothing, so by Him they can pass into nothing. Third finally, that is called immortal which lacks an intrinsic principle of corruption and defectibility; and thus both Angels and rational souls, since they are wholly spiritual, are truly immortal.

You will say 3. That soul whose every operation and function depends upon a bodily organ cannot subsist separately from the body: but the rational soul is such: therefore it cannot subsist separated, and so perishes together with the body. The major is Aristotle's, lib. 1. De Anima, cap. 1. text 13. and is made manifest by reason; for since being is for the sake of operation, in that state in which the soul cannot have operation, it cannot have being either: for that being would be frustraneous, deprived of its end; but God and nature do nothing in vain. But the minor is proved, namely that every function of the rational soul depends upon the body: First, because it is evident that we cannot understand anything, nor judge about a thing understood, unless at the same time we fashion and imagine in the mind some corporeal similitude of it, so much so that we cannot conceive even spiritual and divine things otherwise; whence Aristotle lib. 3. De Anima, cap. 13. text 39. when the mind contemplates, he saith, it is necessary at the same time to contemplate some phantasm. Second, because experience shows that when the passages of the animal spirits are intercepted, as happens in syncope and apoplexy, man is suddenly deprived of all use of reason, which is a sign that the use of reason depends upon the spirits and the disposition of the brain.

I answer with Lessius, lib. 2. De procidentia Numinis, num. 23., as to the major, that the operation of the soul depends upon a bodily organ in two ways: first per se and immediately; second medially and per accidens. If it depended in the first way, I concede the major, namely that such a soul cannot exist separate from the body, such as are the souls of brute animals. But if the soul depends on the body only per accidens, I deny the major, because that which belongs per accidens, and only through another, can fail. Now the operations of the rational soul depend on the body only per accidens, which is evident from many signs. First, for the function of the intellect consists chiefly in judging; yet for judging, phantasy and that corporeal similitude help in no way; but rather impede, and furnish occasion of error: whence the intellect ought not follow the conception of phantasy, nor judge according to its mode and species; but correct it by its own light, that it may attain truth itself. But if so great is the force of the intellect that it corrects the crudeness and errors of phantasy, and attains liquid truth placed far above the grasp of phantasy, it is evident that it does not depend on phantasy per se according to its substance. Second, because we desire above all to understand spiritual things, which do not fall under phantasy. Third, because, as was said in the preceding Conclusion, we know many things abstracted from matter, as God, universal natures, etc.

Third Conclusion. — THE RATIONAL SOUL IS NOT PRODUCED BY PROPAGATION; NOR IS IT MADE BY TRADUCTION: BUT IS INFUSED INTO THE ORGANIZED BODY BY GOD IN CREATING, AND IS CREATED IN INFUSING.

This is against Apollinarius, and Tertullian, who in the book De Anima, cap. 27. affirms that the soul of the child is sown and produced from the parent's soul in generation, as body from body.

It is proved first by the authority of the holy Fathers, especially Lactantius lib. De Opificio Dei, cap. 10. That question, he saith, can come into dispute, whether the soul is generated from the father, or rather from the mother, or truly from both: but I am within my right, away from the doubtful judgment. Nothing indeed of these three is certain, because neither from both nor from one or other are souls sown to bodies altogether. For body can be born of bodies, since something from each is conferred: but the soul cannot of these least things, because nothing can be derived from a thing thin and incomprehensible. Therefore the account of souls to be sown is subject to God alone. For of mortal things nothing but mortal can be generated. Nor must he be thought a father who transfuses, or breathes of his own; (directly against Tertullian's paradox) in no way did he sense it, nor if he senses when or how it is done does he comprehend it in mind. From which it appears that souls are given not by parents, but by the one and same fatherly God of all, who alone constituted the law and reason of being born, since indeed He alone effects it. — And although Saint Augustine pronounces this question most difficult of explanation in several places, especially Epist. 120. ad Honoratum, cap. 11. saying: Who would dare rashly precipitate himself into this opinion, since the reason concerning the advent or exit of the soul lies hidden in so great a depth of nature, that it is better to seek it always while we are in this life than to presume it sometimes found? For which cause, desiring to be instructed on this matter, he consults Saint Jerome, Epist. 28., addressing him thus: Teach, I beseech, what thou teachest, teach what thou holdest, and tell me whether souls are made one by one in each single one born, wherein they persist in little ones, that stricken they need in the sacrament of Christ remission, sinning in Adam, from whom their propagation of sin is derived. Or if they do not pray, by what justice are creatures bound by another's sin so, when grafted as dead members propagated from Adam, that damnation follows them, unless through the Church aid has been brought, since it is not in his power that the grace of baptism can come to their aid. • • And Epist. 29. to the same, Therefore, he saith, it must be thought to be sought, lest perchance we hold any unshaken one of those opinions of the incarnation of the soul which contradicts the soul of the little one being utterly freed, denying him to be in this evil. This therefore most firmly retained, that the little soul of the infant must be freed from the guilt of sin, nor can be freed in any other way except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ — if we can know the cause and origin of that evil itself, more reasonably we resist disputants rather than litigants, readier and more instructed. But if we cannot, because the beginning of mercy lies hidden, the office of mercy ought not grow sluggish. Therefore we know those only who laugh at themselves knowing what they know not to be safer in this, that we are not ignorant of this our ignorance. Whence in Epist. 157. which is to Optatus, near the end, he affirms the question of the origin of souls cannot be known without stain of faith: wherefore at the beginning of the same Epistle addressing Optatus himself, who had consulted him whether, namely, souls are born by the propagation of body, and are from that one created for the first man: or the omnipotent Creator, who surely works even until now, makes new ones proper to individuals without any propagation: he responds: Concerning which matter before I advise anything, I will that thy sincerity know that in so many of my little works I was never bold to bring forth a defined opinion on this question, and impudently report in letters to inform others what has not been explained by me. • But he hesitated, as it seems, in this doubt concerning the origin of the soul even unto death; for although he taught most constantly that it is immortal and spiritual, nevertheless what its origin might be, and whether it is created by God alone, or truly as the bodies of Adam's posterity are sown from his body, so souls too would be made from his soul, as many lamps are lit from one without diminution of its light — he willed to settle and define nothing certainly. In which matter he had as pertinacious predecessors certain holy Doctors: Gregory of Nyssa, lib. 2. De Anima, cap. 11.: Eucherius in the Commentary on cap. 2. of the Canticle; Gregory the Great, lib. 7. epistolarum, Epist. to Secundinus, where he writes: On the origin of the soul a question has been much discussed among the holy Fathers: but whether they descend together with the body, or certainly is given to each one, it has remained uncertain, and they confessed this question to be insoluble in this part. This is the question of that thing, nor can it be comprehended by man: because if it is born with Adam, the substance of the soul dies with flesh; but if it is not born with flesh, why in that flesh which came forth from Adam is it held bound by sins? But although this be uncertain, this is not uncertain: because unless man has been reborn by the grace of sacred Baptism, every soul is bound by the bonds of original sin. Whence in the aforesaid epistle to Optatus, admonishing the same, he says: if you find what I advised you to seek, which I confess I myself have not found, defend it as much as you can, and that such is the newness of infant souls that they are not drawn by any propagation; and share with us in fraternal charity what you find. But if you find not wherefore, or how the souls of infants become sinners, having nothing of malice in themselves, are compelled to draw from Adam whence they are damned, since you believe them propagated not from that first sinful one, but new and innocent, unstained by the flesh of sin — let not your assent rashly deflect to the other opinion, that you believe they are traduced by propagating from that one; lest perhaps another may find what you yourself cannot, or you may someday find what now you cannot. Nor indeed those who assert that souls are propagated from the one which God gave to the first man, and so say they are drawn from parents — if they follow Tertullian's opinion — contend that they are not spirits but bodies, and arise from corpulent seeds. What more perverse can be said? — Hence lib. 1. De Anima et eius origine, cap. 19. he permits indeed that everyone maintain as he pleases the opinion of the daily creation of new souls, provided he guard against four errors contrary to faith. Whoever, he saith, wish to defend that souls, as they say, are breathed anew into those being born, not drawn from parents, let them take care absolutely of something of those four, that is: let them not say that souls are made sinful by God through original sin from elsewhere. Let them not say that little ones who expire without Baptism can attain eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, original sin being resolved by anything else whatsoever. Let them not say that souls perished somewhere before flesh, and were deservedly thrust down into sinful flesh for this. Let them not say that sins which are not found in them, nay rather are proscribed, were deservedly punished. Saying nothing therefore of these four, since anyone of them is false and impious: let them find the authority of the Scriptures, most certain testimonies on this matter, and let them defend this opinion of theirs, not only with me not forbidding, but with things themselves witnessing and giving thanks. But if they find not most certain authority of the divine Eloquia on this matter, and are compelled by impossibility to say something of those four, let them restrain themselves, lest they be compelled to say through this very thing that the souls of little ones have not original sin, according to the Pelagian heresy once damnable, and most recently condemned. — Nevertheless now common is the opinion of Theologians that the rational soul is not produced by traduction, but is created by God, and infused into bodies furnished with prepared organs. Which truth

our Alensis proves, qu. 60. membr. 3. art. 8. First indeed from Hugh of Saint Victor, lib. 1. De Sacramentis, parte 1. cap. 30. and this from lib. Exodi 12. Let the dust return into the earth, from which it was taken, and the spirit return to God who gave it: by which, he saith, it is plainly shown that spirit is not traduced materially from spirit, but flesh from flesh; for although our bodies are not formed immediately from earth, nevertheless not unfittingly are they said to be taken from earth: since from it was figured the body of the first man, from which our bodies have been sown and propagated.

Some answer, according to Saint Augustine, Epist. 157. around the middle: Body into the earth, from which was made the body of the first man, and spirit to God, from whom was made the soul of the first man. For as our body, they say, although propagated from that first body, returns nevertheless thither whence that first body was made: so our soul, although propagated from that soul, returns not into nothing, because it is immortal, but to Him from whom that first soul was made. And concerning this, that which is written of the spirit of each man, that it return to God who gave it, does not solve that most obscure question, because whether from that one, or from no other, God surely gave it.

But our Alensis answers that as in the first man the body is read to be taken from the earth, but the spirit given by God, so also reason demands that in subsequent men too flesh indeed descend from flesh; but the spirit be believed to come to the Lord.

Proof 2. From the same in the same place, by that of Exodi 21. If anyone strike a pregnant woman, and she bring forth an abortive child, if it be not formed, he shall be fined a price; but if it have been formed, he shall render soul for soul: it is plainly declared, because while flesh is sown from flesh, soul likewise is not drawn from soul. For if soul is sown together with flesh, why would soul for soul not be rendered in the unformed abortive child? Since therefore in the abortive one formed only is soul for soul commanded to be rendered, what else is shown but that in that which is not yet formed there is not yet a soul? so that evidently, as in the first man we read the body first formed, then the soul sewn in: so also in all subsequent ones let us believe that first in the womb the human body is formed, then the soul infused. But if it perhaps seems marvelous to anyone how paternal seed in the womb can before animation grow, or vegetate, or even advance to the figure of a human body: let him see how shrubs, plants, and all sprouts of this kind, not possessing a rational soul, vegetate and grow by greenness alone, and by their motion are produced into the form fitting their own kind. By these and similar reasons therefore it has been made probable that souls are not from traduction, but newly created out of nothing, infused daily into new bodies formed in the womb from paternal seed, unto vivification.

Saint Bonaventure proves third, in 2. dist. 18. quaest. 2.: If the rational soul, since it is a subsisting substance per se and incorruptible, has matter and form: then since it is produced, it is produced either from pre-existing matter, or its matter is produced together with it. If its matter is produced together with it, therefore it is necessary that it be produced out of nothing: therefore by God alone. If it is produced from pre-existing matter, I ask about that matter: it is either corporeal or spiritual. If corporeal, from it a soul cannot be made. If spiritual, it either has form or not: if not, how can it be in the nature of things without form, since all being is from form? If it has: therefore it will be either an Angel or a Soul. Not an Angel, it is agreed; therefore a soul: but from the same numerically the same is not made: therefore from it a soul cannot be made. It is confirmed: Souls are not sown, but are created by God when the bodies are formed, and infused in creating, and produced in infusing: for God ought to reserve to Himself alone the creation of souls, both on account of their dignity, and on account of their immortality. On account of the dignity of souls, because since the soul is the image of God, and born to be borne immediately into God, and beatified in Him, loving Him with the whole heart, it ought to have its whole being immediately from Him, that it might be held to love Him with the whole heart. He owed this also on account of the immortality of souls; for since God alone is He who has life in Himself, and unfailing life, He alone is He who can produce the principle of perpetual life. Since therefore an incorruptible thing cannot be substantiated in mutable matter, and the operation of a creature is upon mutable matter, it is impossible that any creature produce the rational soul, and therefore God ought to reserve its production to Himself alone. Therefore the reasons proving that rational souls are not from traduction but from the Creator must be conceded. — Yet in all these things, saith Hugh of Saint Victor cited above, no reason or authority ever prevailed so far as to remove the uncertainty of the question; excepting that alone, that the Catholic Faith chose rather to believe that souls, to be joined daily to bodies to be vivified, are made out of nothing, than that according to the nature of the body and the property of human flesh they are propagated by traduction. But if souls were said to be from traduce, there would not be so great a question; because justice would be more manifest in that original sin is said to pass from fathers into sons. But although we cannot comprehend by reason the hidden judgments of God, yet for resolving doubts we ought not assert false things.

You will object 1. Saint Augustine in the aforesaid Epistle: Those who with inconsiderate temerity defend the lineage of souls, among other testimonies which they judge to further their cause, can bring forward none, as it were, more manifest and express for themselves than that which is written in Genesis: and all the souls that went in with Jacob into Egypt, who came out of his thighs. For by this as it were most evident testimony they can be believed that souls are propagated into sons from parents, since it seems said plainly enough that souls also went out of the loins of Jacob, not the bodies of sons alone; so that in that way he wishes even that understood a parte totum which Adam said, when his woman was shown to him: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. For he said not, and soul of my soul: but it can happen that... whether it be understood, but here he wished to remember the soul, and intended the derivation of body into sons. — Saint Augustine answers that the pronomen prefixed can be joined to the words by equal usage, either in the feminine or masculine gender, namely quae, or qui, namely that it signify either the souls quae, or the men qui went out: but neither way favors the opposed opinion. Because, he saith, also with the name body alone can be signified, as indeed the mode of speech shows, by which that is signified through that which contains it which is contained: as is that whence they are crowned therewith, when wine vessels are crowned; for wine is contained, and vessel contains. Therefore as we call the Basilica basilica because it contains the people who is truly called Church: that by the name Church added as proper, we might signify by the contained the place which contains: so they who are contained by bodies can be understood, the bodies of sons through the named souls. For thus slightly is taken that which there he says is defiled in him who has entered over a dead soul. Numer. 1.

He answers 2. if, as I said, the feminine gender had been placed: quae exierunt de femoribus Iacob: that is, which souls; not that the masculine gender had been placed, idest qui exierunt de femoribus Iacob: which he might prefer not so to understand, for all were they who had gone out of his loins, that is, the souls of men: yet even if they can be understood to have gone out of the loins of the Father only according to the body, whose were those souls, through whose number so many men are understood?

You will object 2. That of Ephesians 2. cap. We are all by nature children of wrath: but we are not children of wrath on the part of flesh, but on the part of soul: nor are we children of wrath unless because we are sons of Adam: therefore our soul proceeds from the soul of Adam. — The Seraphic Doctor answers in the place cited, that we are by nature children of wrath therefore, because the soul, when it is united to infected flesh, is straightway infected, and contracts original guilt: not because it itself is traduced, but because the flesh to which it is united is traduced. How however this can be done, will be determined below, when original sin is treated.

You will object 3. The generative power principally resides in the soul: therefore if man generates man, since generation consists in like production, he produces soul more principally than flesh: therefore if flesh is from flesh, much more strongly is soul from traduction. It is confirmed: there is equally great or greater congruence of man to man, than of brute to brute: and the generative power is more perfect in man, than in any brute animal: if therefore a brute can produce a brute totally, both as to soul and as to body, and it is not necessary that the soul of brutes be created: much more strongly does it seem that the rational soul can be traduced, and terminated by coition. — The same Seraphic Doctor answers [Responfet] that although the generative power principally regards the soul by way of mover and agent: nevertheless it principally regards the body as that from which it produces: and since decision can be made from the body, not from the soul, hence it is ordered to the production of the human body, not to the production of the rational soul. It is confirmed that there is no parity, because the soul of the brute, since it is form only, and corruptible form, can be educed from the potency of matter: but the rational soul, since it is hoc aliquid incorruptible, neither is educed from pre-existing matter; it is necessary that it be educed out of nothing, and so be created. That moreover it cannot be produced from pre-existing matter Augustine shows manifoldly super Genesim ad litteram, lib. 1., namely that that pre-existing matter can neither be corporeal nor spiritual.

You will object 1. Either the rational soul is by propagation, or by creation. If by propagation, I have my point, namely that it is from traduce: if by creation, since creation belongs to God alone, it will follow that, creating the soul and infusing it into a body begotten by adultery, He will approve that adulterous coition; since it would be compared to Him. — I deny the sequella; for God creating it, and infusing it into a body begotten adulterously, acts not as particular and moral cause: but as universal and physical cause, to which the defect of the erring creature is not to be attributed. — Saint Jerome weighs this very reason, and from him Saint Augustine, Epist. 28. to the same Jerome around the middle, saying: But this which you put in the book against Rufinus, that certain ones calumniate this opinion, that it seems unworthy that God give souls to adulterous conceptions: whence they feign that souls, as it were, by merits wrought before the life of the flesh can justly be led to such straits, moves me not, pondering many things by which this calumny could be refuted: And what you yourself answered, that the fault is not in the seed of the wheat, which is said to be stolen away, but in him who stole the foundations, nor therefore ought the earth not to have been filled with seed in its bosom because the unclean sower cast it with that hand — is a most elegant similitude; and even before I read it, that objection concerning adulterous fates made me no straits in this question, viewing generally, that God bears well many things even from our evils and our sins: but the creation of any animal whatsoever, if it has a pious and prudent considerer, stirs up ineffable praise to the Creator; how much more the creation not of any animal whatever, but of man? But if the cause of creating is asked, nothing is answered sooner and better, except that every creature of God is good, and what more worthily ever should a good God make good, which no one can make except God?

Note 1. From the Seraphic Doctor in 2. dist. 16. art. 1. qu. 1., there are four kinds of likeness among things: The first is by an agreement of every sort in nature: and thus one Person in the Trinity is like another. The second, by participation of some universal nature: as man and ass are assimilated in animal. The third indeed, according to proportion, as a Pilot and a Charioteer agree by comparison with those things which they govern. The fourth is a likeness by agreement of order, as the exemplified is assimilated to the exemplar. Now it is certain that by the two prior modes no creature can be assimilated to God: but it can be made like Him by the two posterior modes; and that either imperfectly and remissly, and so it is a vestige; or proximately and perfectly, and so it is an image.

Note 2. That this is the difference between the notion of Image and of likeness: that an image, says the Doctor in 1. dist. 3. qu. 4. num. 2., is representative of the whole: but a vestige is representative only of a part: For if, he says, the whole body were impressed upon dust, as the foot is impressed, there would be left there the image of the whole, as a footprint is the image of the foot, and the vestige of the whole. Yet that expressive conformity of the whole does not suffice for the notion of image, but imitation is required, because according to Augustine book 83. questions q. 74., whichever two things are alike, one is not the image of the other, because it is not born to imitate it: and likewise it is required that the image be born to imitate that of which it is the image. Therefore it is necessary that something be truly said to be the image of another when it bears in itself that thing's likeness expressed from that very thing; I say likeness, either according to species, as the image of a King is in his son: or certainly according to some accident proper to that species: especially indeed according to figure, as the image of a King is said to be either depicted on a tablet, or expressed in silver, or any other matter whatever. But the likeness of species ought to be regarded according to the last grade and difference of the thing. Things therefore destitute of reason and intelligence can indeed be assimilated to God according to existence, life, and the lowest mode of knowing, which is through the senses: but they in no wise attain the supreme grade of mind and intelligence, in which grade nevertheless the notion of the likeness between God and man properly consists.

Note 3. Those words of Genesis chapter one: Let us make man to our own image and likeness, according to the genuine signification of the Hebrew tongue designate a shadowy likeness, that is, a deficient and passing likeness: for the words Selem and Demuth, which the Hebrews use to signify the notion of image and likeness, also signify shadow and defect. Therefore God willed by these words to signify that man was made like unto God, as great a likeness as there can be between a craftsman and such a work: but because God is of infinite perfection, therefore it was necessary that the likeness of God which is in man be by infinite degrees inferior in beauty and excellence to the divine Archetype. Even as a shadow is indeed a likeness and image of the body whose shadow it is, yet obscure and imperfect. Whence man in Sacred Scripture is said to vanish away after the manner of a shadow. Thus Psalm 38: Surely man passeth in the image, that is, quickly passes away after the manner of a shadow swiftly vanishing: and that place of Psalm 101: My days are declined like a shadow, and I am withered like grass: and that of Psalm 108: I am taken away as with a shadow when it declineth.

These things premised, two things are to be resolved in the present Question: First indeed, that the rational soul was formed to the image and likeness of God: Second, it must be opened up whether, and what be the difference between the notion of the image and of the likeness of God.

First Conclusion. — TRULY MAN IS FORMED TO THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD. This truth is most constant in Sacred Scripture, in which nothing is handed down more often than that man was formed to the image and likeness of God: especially indeed in the first and second chapters of the book of Genesis.

The Seraphic Doctor praised in the first place cited proves this conclusion, from the twofold agreement, namely of order and of proportion, which man has with God. — First indeed, concerning the agreement of order he thus speaks: God wrought all things for His own sake, in such wise that, since He made all things for His praise: since He is the highest light, He made all things for His manifestation: since He is the highest goodness, He made all things for His communication. But praise is not perfect unless he who approves be present: neither is manifestation perfect unless he who understands be present: nor the communication of goods perfect unless he who can use them be present. And since to approve praise, to know truth, to assume gifts into use belongs to none but the rational creature alone, therefore the irrational creatures themselves have not to be ordered immediately to God, but through the medium of the rational creature. But the rational creature itself, because of itself it is born to praise, and to know, and to assume other things into the faculty of the will, is likewise born to be ordered into God immediately. Moreover, since the more immediately anything is ordered to anything, the more it agrees with it in the agreement of order; therefore the rational soul, and any rational creature whatsoever, because it is capable of God and can be a partaker of Him, is ordered immediately into Him, and agrees most of all with Him in the agreement of order. And furthermore, because the greater the agreement, the more expressive is the likeness: hence it is that with respect to this genus of likeness, the rational creature is the expressed likeness of God; and therefore it is an image. And this is what St. Augustine says in book 11. De Trinitate, So far is the soul the image of God, as it is capable of Him, and can be a partaker of Him; for because it is ordered to Him immediately, therefore it is capable of Him, or conversely: because it is capable, it is born to be conformed to Him; and therefore it bears in itself from its origin the light of the divine countenance; and therefore with respect to the likeness, which is attended to with respect to the agreement of order, it is perfectly called the image of God, because in this it is assimilated to Him expressly. — Second, the same proves it concerning the agreement of proportion; for the agreement of proportion, he says, is attended to according to a like manner of being disposed; but to be similarly disposed can come about in a twofold way: either in comparison with extrinsics: or in comparison with intrinsics. Then is the likeness expressed, when there is not only a like mode of being disposed in comparison with extrinsics; but also in comparison with intrinsics; but the irrational creature is compared to God only extrinsically, namely by comparison of effect to cause from which it is produced: but the rational creature is compared also with respect to intrinsics, namely with respect to spirituality in entity, the power of understanding and of willing in faculty, etc.; and therefore it has a greater proportion with God, and so is His image.

But why God brought forth man to His own image and likeness, various moral reasons are adduced by various Authors; which Pererius gathers together and explains expressly lib. 1. in Genesim quaest. 8. Of these the First is, that it might be evident how great is the interval between the goodness and benignity of God and the malice and envy of man. For if a man excel in some respect, as riches, power, nobility, honors, and wisdom, no one would wish any other men to be equal to him in that respect, or even similar: but the goodness of God is so great, and so utterly devoid of envy, that in those things wherein He excels He made man himself capable and partaker of them, and in whatsoever ways man could be like unto God, in all these He made man like unto Himself: for He made him like unto Himself according to nature, advancing him to the highest grade of nature in which He Himself is, namely by giving him a partaker of reason. Then secondly as to supernatural and divine goods, by making him by His grace, wisdom, and felicity a partaker and consorter. Finally by joining the nature of man to the Word in the unity of the divine person: so that not only is man like unto God, but God is even named and is.

Second cause: that all bodily things might reverence man, as bearing in himself so illustrious and express an image of God, the Maker and Dominator of all: thus God said Genes. 9.: Your fear and dread shall be upon all the beasts of the earth, and upon all the fowls of the air, etc. Lest Heaven and the stars should disdain to serve man, or even the Angels to minister to him. Finally lest the demons should dare to injure man, and lest all creatures should rise up against him on account of man's rebellion against God, God willed to mark and adorn man with His own image. The figure of this thing was that which is read in the book of Genesis cap. 4., that God set a sign upon Cain, lest anyone finding him should see the sign of God in him and dare to kill him. And as the Egyptians honored, nay worshipped Joseph the Patriarch, and the Persians and Medes Mardocheus the Jew, because the one bore the insignia of the kings of Egypt, and the other of the Persians and Medes, so all creatures worship and reverence man marked and adorned with the effigy of God.

Third cause: God had given all things to man, yet He willed man Himself nonetheless to belong to the divine right and possession: wherefore that it might be acknowledged that man is something proper and peculiar to God, He sealed him with the seal of His own image so deeply and throughout his whole course, that without prejudice to the nature of man that signet could by no means be taken away. Even as that most noble Phidias is said to have made the Shield of Minerva, and to have enclosed his own effigy in it with such art, that it could not be taken out while the Shield remained whole. Man therefore bears the image of God as the son of his Father, to whom he owes love and piety: as the bondslave of his Lord, whom he ought to fear and revere: as the soldier of his Leader and emperor, to whom he ought to render faith and obedience: finally as the minister and dispenser of the goods of his heir and lord, to whom he ought to exhibit the right use of the creatures which are committed to his dispensation.

Fourth cause: even as, because no animal was found like unto Adam with which he could have society, friendship, and familiarity, God created Eve as his companion; so, all bodily things having been created, none of which was like unto God, and with which God could enter into society and familiarity, He made man like unto Himself, that he might be one whom God would love, and by whom He would in turn be loved with the love of friendship. And indeed concerning other things, when God discerned them made by Himself, He is said to have approved them; God saw, says Scripture, all the things that He had made, and they were very good: but of man God spoke far otherwise by Solomon Proverbs 8., saying: My delights were with the sons of men. Therefore God praised and approved the rest as good; but the unique man He willed to love as a friend, and as it were to hold familiarity with him, and to be his consorter in His own felicity. Therefore deservedly Job cap. 7., admiring so great a benevolence and benignity of God toward man, exclaimed: What is man, that thou dost magnify him, and again settest thy heart toward him? Thou visitest him early in the morning, etc. That visiting denotes the society, conversation, and familiarity of God with man: but that setting thy heart toward him signifies the love of friendship whereby God deigns to embrace man. Truly we can rightly answer Job's admiration, that God visits man, and sets His heart toward him, because God made man to His own image and likeness: for likeness conciliates love, and glues together friendship.

Fifth cause: all things created by God and contained within the compass of the world lead man contemplating them as is fitting, to the knowledge of God their maker. For the invisible things of God, as Paul testifies, from the creation of the world are seen, being understood by the things that are made, His eternal power also and divinity. But lest man should be compelled to seek and ask the knowledge of God outside himself and from afar, God placed within man, in his very mind, the most beautiful effigy and image of Himself, which alone would declare more expressively than all other things together the power and nature of God. Man therefore contemplating within himself this image of God, knows through it what manner of being God is; for because the mind of man is like unto God, such as the mind is imperfectly, such one ought to judge God to be perfectly, with imperfection removed. And therefore as our mind is, so is God intelligent, endued with free will, full of virtue, grace, and wisdom, preserving, ruling, and containing the world, even as the mind its own body.

Sixth cause: therefore was man made to the image of God, that man might in a manner be capable as it were of eternity, infinity, and Divinity: and never should there be so great a good that man would not dare to ask it of God, and hope that he should obtain it from Him; for we can confidently say to God: Lord, fill with Thy goods the boundless capacity of our mind and will, which Thou hast given us: for if Thou sufferest not anything to be empty in nature, but willest all places to be occupied and filled with bodies, how much less is it to be thought that Thou wouldest have anything empty in our mind? Do Thou therefore who alone canst fulfill our desire with good things, fill our will, which nothing besides Thee alone can fulfill and satisfy. Therefore even as a vessel endowed with round figure cannot be filled on every side except by a body similarly rounded, so neither can the mind of man fashioned to the image of God be filled and satisfied except by God alone, to whom it is like.

Seventh cause: even as a King, when a city has been founded by him, places his image in a celebrated spot in the midst thereof, wrought out of some choice and precious material, that it may be manifest to all beholding it who was the founder of that city: so God, when the world had been fabricated by Him, placed His effigy in the midst of this, that is, man, who is a certain medium between the things created by God, that from the aspect and contemplation of him it may lie open and manifest to all what manner of maker and craftsman the fabricator of this world was. And as Apelles, overtaken by death, could not finish the statue of Venus which he had begun, nor afterward was any painter found who could succeed to the work according to the prescribed lineaments; for the beauty of the face took away the hope of imitating the rest of the body, as Cicero relates in the exordium of book 3. De Officiis, and Pliny book 35. c. 10.; in like manner God gave to man His own image by creation, but imperfect, which nevertheless no other thing besides God, not even man himself, nor even an Angel, could polish and finish. For this is proper to God, who polishes and adorns that image which He began by creation, through justification, and finishes and consummates it through glorification. Therefore as he would be held guilty of lèse-majesté, and worthy of the extreme penalty, who should cast down and injuriously treat the king's image placed in a public and celebrated spot: so he who by crimes defiles and stains the image of God placed and expressed in himself, and destroys and blots it out as far as lies in him, merits most grievous punishments as it were injurious and contumelious toward God. — Here St. Chrysostom lucidly weighs all things homil. 42. on caput. 22. Matth., where weighing those words: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, he says: The image of God is not depicted in gold, but figured in men. The coin of Caesar is gold: the coin of God is man. Wherefore let us always render our image unblemished to God. Not swollen with the pride of haughtiness, not enfeebled with the fury of anger, not inflamed with the blasts of avarice, not devoted to the allurements of gluttony, not contracted with the duplicity of hypocrisy, not contaminated with the filth of luxury, not fierce with the extension of elation, not maddened by the trumpet of envy, not bereft of mutual charity by discord, not pestiferous with the bitingness of detraction, not vain with the emptiness of much speaking: but preeminent in charity, most sure in faith and hope, most strong in the virtue of patience, tranquil in humility, purpled in chastity, sober in frugality, pleasing in tranquillity, adorned with hospitality. He adds: As he who renders to Caesar an adulterine image is commanded to be scourged by torturers and subjected to atrocious punishments: so God omnipotent will deliver the corruptors of His image to perpetual death, and commands infernal punishments to be paid. Whoever therefore desires to avoid horrendous destructions, let him study to preserve incorrupt the image of his maker: so that when God shall require His image which He formed, seeing it sated and immune from the infestations of the enemy, He may place him in His bosom, mingling him with the choirs of Angels, and make him enjoy the everlasting joys of heaven.

You will object 1. Wherever there is an image, there is likeness; and wherever there is likeness, there is some identity: but wherever there is identity, there is agreement in some third thing; therefore if God and creature do not agree in some third thing, the creature cannot be the likeness of God, and so neither the image. — The Seraphic Doctor answers, that the likeness which is in an image is not attended to through identity, or participation of the same nature, but through agreement in order and proportion: which likeness does not require communication in a third, because in the agreement of order one is the likeness of the other; but in the agreement of proportion there is not likeness in one, but in two comparisons.

You will object 2. Whatever is an image is a figuration: for an image is attended to in figure: but the divine essence is by no means figurable: therefore it is by no means representable by any image: therefore no creature is the image of God. — The same Seraphic Doctor answers, that figure is twofold: one proper and corporeal; another spiritual and metaphorical: whence as a corporeal image requires corporeal configuration, so a spiritual one is accomplished by spiritual configuration. This, he says, consists not in quantity of bulk, but in quantity of virtue, namely in the powers: so that as the triangular figure has three termini and three lines, so likewise in the spiritual image the powers correspond to the motion of termini, and the emanation of one from another, as to act, corresponds to the motion of the connecting line.

You will object 3. In this an image differs from a vestige, that a vestige represents according to part; but an image according to the whole: therefore since God is infinite, and every creature finite, no creature can be the image of God. — The same Seraphic Doctor answers, that the Major is true of the image which has perfection of every kind, and thus only the Son is the image of the Father: but not of that which represents the whole simply, but only according to the notion of whole: whence as the rational creature and intellect is in a manner all things, and all things are born to be written and impressed therein, and likenesses of all things to be depicted: therefore as the whole Universe represents God in a certain sensible totality, so the rational creature represents Him in a certain spiritual totality: but every other irrational creature represents Him only in part, because according to itself only, since it is not born to contain other things spiritually in itself, so that there is nothing which it is not born to know: this I say on account of the sensitive soul, which although it knows some things, is nevertheless not born to know all things.

Second Conclusion. — THE NOTION OF IMAGE CHIEFLY RESPECTS THE SUBSTANCE AND FACULTIES OF THE SOUL: BUT THE NOTION OF LIKENESS SEEMS PLACED IN THE GRATUITOUS GIFTS WHEREBY MAN EXPRESSES THE DIVINE SANCTITY. The holy Fathers establish and express this distinction of likeness and image. First of all St. Basil, who Homilia 10. in Genesim, says: Through the image impressed upon my soul I obtained the use of reason; but being made Christian I am certainly made like unto God. And St. Jerome on Ezechiel 28.: Thou art the seal of likeness, thus speaks: It must be noted that the image was then made in creation only; the likeness is completed in baptism. And St. Chrysostom Homilia 9. in Genesim: The image, he said, on account of the reason of principality; the likeness that so far as human powers allow we may become like unto God in mildness, lenity, etc., which Christ also said: Be ye like your Father who is in heaven. St. Bernard Serm. 1. De Annuntiatione adds: for the image may burn in hell, yet not be consumed; it may glow, but not be erased. Not so the likeness; but it either remains in good, or if the soul sin, it is miserably changed, made like to the senseless cattle. — The same think St. Ambrose lib. 6. in Hexameron cap. 7. and 8., St. Nyssenus in the Homily on the creation of man, and many others, who are all of this sentiment, that man was made to the image of God according to natural gifts, I say mind, will, memory, and free will, and that this is the natural image of God commonly expressed in all men, whereby we excel the beasts, and which by no sin can be erased and lost: for this does not hang upon us, but hangs wholly upon God. But the likeness of God to which man is said to be made, they think is regarded in gratuitous and supernatural gifts, such as justice, sanctity, innocence: and this image depends not only upon God, but exacts also our study, endeavor, and cultivation; herein good men differ from and excel the reprobate.

But St. Augustine in the book of Questions upon Deuteronomy quaest. 4., treating those words, Lest perhaps deceived ye make to yourselves a likeness or sculptured image, attacks this distinction of image and likeness, writing: What is the difference between likeness and image is wont to be asked: but here I do not see what difference he wished there to be, unless perchance one thing were signified by those two words.... Thence that which in Genesis cap. 1. is written, God made man to the image of God, is manifestly so said, that the image which was made is not of the same substance: for if it were of the same substance, it would be called begotten, not made. But that He adds, and likeness, when above it had been said, Let us make man to our image and likeness, means that the likeness of the same thing is somewhat more than the image; which was reserved for man afterwards, in being refashioned through the grace of Christ. Hence moreover, if He did not afterwards will to commemorate the image alone, because where there is image, straightway there is also likeness. Whence here Moses related both likeness and image as made, according perhaps to that reason which we mentioned. — The sentiment of St. Augustine is confirmed herein, First, because as man is said in this place to be made to the image and likeness of God, so likewise below cap. 5. it is read that Adam begat his son Seth to his image and likeness. Where, since those two words, image and likeness, are posited, nevertheless the distinction handed down by the aforementioned Authors finds no place between them. — Next, Paul more than once usurps the word of image for the likeness which consists chiefly in gratuitous and supernatural gifts, since in the former Epistle to the Corinthians, cap. 15.: As we have borne, he says, the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly. And to the Colossians 3.: Stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, which is renewed unto the knowledge of God, according to the image of Him that created him. — Finally Scripture sometimes puts both names, image and likeness, in the same case, as here: Let us make man, to our image and likeness. Sometimes it puts both names, but in different cases, as in the second chapter of the book of Wisdom: God created man incorruptible: He made him the image of His own likeness. But sometimes the name of likeness is omitted, only the word of image being posited: so shortly after is read cap. 9 For man was made to the image of God. And in the book of Ecclesiasticus, cap. 17.: God created man of the earth, and made him according to His own image. Therefore it is manifest from what we have said, that these words, image and likeness, have the same force and signification; and that in this place they are posited to declare the same thing more significantly, more expressively, and more illustriously.