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

In the preceding Disputation we have delineated the various and most excellent gifts implanted by nature in men; now it remains to set forth what were the natural excellences of Adam and Eve in the state of innocence. And it must be observed above all, with St. Bernard, Sermon 11 on the Psalm Qui habitat, that we owe a fourfold thanksgiving to God on account of the fourfold great benefit bestowed on us by Him. First, He says, because He bestowed on us that we are ourselves. For He Himself made us, and not we ourselves: does this seem to you a little thing, because He made you? Consider what He made you. Truly even according to the body an excellent creature, but according to the soul more so, as being marked with the image of the Creator, a partaker of reason, capable of everlasting beatitude. Moreover, both together, beyond all other creatures, most admirable in their coherence joined to itself by an incomprehensible artifice and by the investigable wisdom of the Maker. Therefore so great is this gift, and how great a thing is man. But how gratuitous was it bestowed? It is plain, since he merited nothing before, who at first was nothing.

Was it hoped afterwards that he would repay grace to its Author? I have said to the Lord: Thou art my God, for thou hast no need of my goods. We therefore, being about to repay necessary gratitude to Him who thus suffices to Himself in all things: but being about to render devoted thanks to Him who was thus hoped to merit it. Why should he not give thanks? If anyone seemed in any way to have restored to you the light of your eyes, the use of your ears, of your nostrils, of your hands, of your feet; if anyone had by some occasion aroused in you your reason when sunk in sleep; who would not be most vehemently kindled against you, if he should ever find you forgetful of such a benefit, or ungrateful to the benefactor? Indeed the Lord God Himself bestowed upon you these very instruments, and made all these things out of nothing. Nor did He only make them, but also compacted and formed them, and adorned them with His own service. How should not He demand of you by every right the ampler thanks? For He was not content even with this (though greatest) gift, who gave that you might be who before were not, but added also whence you might subsist who already were. Nor did He work this less liberally than that miraculously. Let us make man, He says, to our image and likeness. What then afterwards? and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the beasts of the earth, etc. For He had taught beforehand that the heavenly elements also created themselves for your uses: namely, they are related to have been made, that they might be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. For whom do you think? For none surely but you. For the rest, how much for consolation, how much hence already for correction, how much also for delight? Two other benefits he subjoins; namely, those of redemption and of remuneration, which since they are supernatural, we have judged must be passed over here.

But far greater and ampler thanksgivings was the first Father of men bound to render to God on account of the immense benefits conferred on him by God; which St. Augustine thus elegantly weighs, lib. 14. De Civit. Dei, cap. 26. Man bore, he says, in Paradise as he willed, so long as he cultivated what God had commanded: he lived enjoying God, from which man was good: he lived without any want, having it thus in his power always so to live. Food was at hand lest he hunger: drink lest he thirst: the tree of life lest old age dissolve him: no corruption in the body, or from the body did any molestations press upon any of his senses. No disease from within, no blow changed him from without: supreme health in the flesh, entire tranquillity in the soul. As in Paradise there was no heat or cold: so in its inhabitant no offense of good will arose from covetousness or fear. Nothing at all was sad, nothing vainly joyful: the joy of things was perpetuated from God, towards whom charity burned from a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned; and between themselves the faithful society of spouses from honorable love, the concord of mind and body's vigilance, and the keeping of the commandment without labor, wearied not him at leisure, nor did sleep prove fruitless, etc. But in chapter 10 he had premised: How happy therefore will the first men be, who will be agitated by no perturbations of soul, will be wearied by no inconveniences! So happy would the whole human society be, if neither did they have evil, which they would hand on even to posterity, nor did anyone commit iniquity from their stock, which would receive damnation. And thus, happiness remaining, by the gift of that blessing wherein it was said: Increase and multiply, the number of predestined saints would be filled up: another greater gift would be given, such as was given to the most blessed Angels, that there would then be certain security that no one would sin, and no one would die: and such would be the life of the Saints, after no experience of labor, sorrow, death, as it will be after all these things in the incorruption of bodies... [truncated]

These things being premised, three points especially come to be determined in the present Article: First, what and of what sort was the bodily formation and occupation of Adam and Eve. Second, what was the illumination and wisdom of their mind. Third, of what sort would the propagation of men be in the state of innocence.

Note 1. That the name of Adam is not only the appellation of the whole human species, as is "man," but is also the proper name of the first parent of men, who in Hebrew is called Adam from Adamah, that is, earth, or red clay. For in Hebrew Adam means to grow red, and Adamah is earth so called from redness, such as clay has. Hence Esau in Hebrew is called Edom, the reason of whose name Genesis 25 and 30 unfolds, when he himself says to Jacob: Give me of this red pottage, namely of lentils, and Moses straightway infers for what cause his name was called Edom, evidently as it were "red."

Some ancient Fathers of the Church judge that the first man was called Adam for this reason, that his body was molded of earth taken from the four parts of the world: and thence obtained the name Adam, because each letter of this word begins each of those four chief parts of the world, according to the Greek idiom, which St. Cyprian, or whoever is the author of the book On the Mountains of Sinai and Sion against the Jews, indeed thus expounds: The Hebrew Adam is interpreted in Latin as earth touched by flesh, because out of the four cardinal points of the world He grasped earth with His fist, as it is written, I measured the Heaven with my palm, and grasped the earth with my fist, and fashioned man out of all the mire of the earth, I made him to the image of God: It behooved him to bear in himself from these four cardinal points of the world the name Adam. We find in the Scriptures that by each cardinal point of the world four stars were constituted by the Maker of the world in each cardinal point. The first Eastern star is called Anatole. The second Western Dysis. The third star of the North Arctos. The fourth Southern star is called Nesembria. From the names of the four stars, take from each star's name its principal letter: from the star Anatole, a; from the star Dysis, d; from the star Arctos, a; from the star Nesembria, m: in these four letters of the cardinal points you have the name Adam.

This same opinion St. Augustine confirms, tractates 9 and 10 on John, where he says: In Adam, a square of four letters, the four parts of the world are demonstrated through Greek appellations. For if in Greek there be named Prions (south), decidens (west), Aquilo (north), Meridies, as Scripture commemorates them in most places, in the heads of the words you find Adam. The same teach Sixtus Senensis, book 3 of the Bibliotheca, Salmeron, Prolegomenon 1 on the Evangelical history, Pererius on the first chapter of Genesis. From which it is plain how worthy of laughter Erasmus is, who after his fashion laughs because the Holy Fathers wished the etymon of the name Adam, though it be Hebrew, to be sought from the Greek tongue. For what is inept or incongruous, when names from Hebrew first origin become common in other languages, to derive their etymon and allusion also from those same languages? Thus Optatus interpreted the name Cepha not in Syriac, but in Greek as caput (head).

Note 2. That the first woman was named Eve by Adam, because she was to be the mother of all the living, according to that of Genesis, chapter 3: And Adam called the name of his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. That this signification may indeed be legitimate, she seems to be called not Eva, but Chaffa, that is living, or life-giving, from the root Chaia, that is, he lived. But it is not sufficiently clear whether this imposition of the name was made before the fall; for there are those who opine that Adam, touched with immense grief and stupefaction, because for the sake of his wife he had been despoiled of such great goods, and had been condemned to such great evils and to the death of evils the greatest of all, called his wife mother of the living through a certain bitter irony, just as the Greeks call the infernal Furies Eumenides, that is, well disposed and mild, from the contrary indeed, since they are said to be hard and inexorable. Unless perhaps with Lyranus and Abulensis you say that Eve signifies mother of all, not simply, but of those living laboriously and miserably in this mortal life. Hence piously some contemplate that Eve was fitly so called, as if this name alluded to the wailing of the little ones begotten from Eve. For a male newly born crying says A, but a female says E, whence the Poet:

Dicent e, vel a, quotquot nascentur ab Eva.

Again, Eve by anastrophe and apocope in Latin is ave, by anastrophe alone ava, which Gabriel the Archangel brought in saluting the Blessed Virgin.

Note 3. That it is certain the body of the first Parent of men was formed by God from the slime of the earth; for this in most open words: He fashioned God from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. In which words He assigns four causes of man: the Efficient indeed, namely God, saying: Therefore the Lord God formed man. The matter when He subjoins: from the slime of the earth: the form when He adds: He breathed into his face the breath of life: finally the end: man became a living soul, that is, that he may be a living soul, or a living animal, namely sensing, moving himself, knowing himself and other things, and exercising all the operations of life. Although He had declared the form together with the end of man more significantly and expressly above, saying in chapter 1, verse 26: Let us make man to our image and likeness. For that is the genuine and proper form of man, whereby he bears the similitude and image of God: and this is the rational soul.

Now the end of man is this, that by meritorious works, aided by the help of God, he may be assimilated to God as much as possible through sanctifying grace in this life, and through glory in the other, as St. John writes, 1 John chapter 3: We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him.

It is likewise to be observed that in Hebrew and Chaldaic it is thus had: God molded or fashioned man dust or clay from the earth; whence the Seventy Interpreters so translated: God fashioned man taking dust from the earth, by which is signified that man was made dusty, earthly: whence St. Paul, 1 Corinthians c. 15: the first man of earth earthly; and men are for the most part called Earth-born in Sacred Scripture: wherefore the contemplation of our earthly origin is so often inculcated in Sacred Scripture, that it may admonish us of the fragile and falling condition of man, soon to perish. Which Rupertus indeed treats expressly and piously in chapter 20 of book 2 On the Trinity. While, he says, it was said by Moses what it is worth the while diligently to attend to, namely that God formed man, and formed him not of whatsoever, but from the slime of the earth. For weighing this as it had been said, holy men called this very Creator of theirs the Molder, but themselves clay, in elegant confession and tearful declamation: and now, O Lord, says Isaias in chapter 61, Thou art our Father, and we clay: our maker, and we all the work of thy hands: and in Jeremias, chapter 18, the same is expressed of God our molder: shall I not be able to do to you as this potter, O house of Israel? Behold as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand.

And He showed him the potter doing his work upon the wheel; and it was broken, he says, the vessel which he himself was making with his hands, and turning he broke it into another, as it had pleased in his eyes to make. Hence the same Isaias, as above, says: Woe to him who contradicts his maker, a shard of earthen pottery.

Knowing these and like things, that Celestial Jurisperitus Paul says in Romans 9: O man, who art thou that answerest God? Shall the thing formed say to him who fashioned it, why hast thou made me thus? Or does not the potter have power to make of the same clay one vessel indeed unto honor, another unto contumely? Therefore we too, when we read that God formed man from the slime of the earth, must not discuss why He so made him, but rather that must be feared by each of you concerning himself, lest the vessel which He Himself made be dissipated in His hands; and this cast off He make another vessel as it pleased in His eyes. Thus Rupertus.

These things thus premised, three things are to be resolved in the present Question: First, where Adam and Eve were formed. Second, of what sort and in what body they were endowed. Third, what their occupation was and would be in the state of innocence.

First Conclusion. — It is more probable that Adam was formed outside Paradise: but Eve in Paradise.

The first part is [the doctrine] of all the Holy Fathers; and Sacred Scripture clearly indicates it, Genesis 2, v. 15, where of created man it says: Therefore the Lord God took man, and put him in the paradise of pleasure, to dress and to keep it: and Genes. 3, v. 23: The Lord God sent him forth from the paradise of pleasure to till the earth from which he was taken. If God received man created, and put him in Paradise, where he never before had been, therefore he was not created in Paradise: if created outside Paradise to inhabit the earth from which he was framed, then already outside Paradise he was molded of earth.

But why God willed not to create man in Paradise, various reasons are brought forward by authors: First indeed, says Pererius on chapter 2 of Genesis, because the dwelling of Paradise did not suit man according to his nature, but on account of the dower of immortality, which God was about to concede to him as about to remain in the state of innocence. But since the dower of immortality was not natural to man, but tributed to him by the gratuitous gift of God: that therefore Adam might understand the more manifestly that that place was not due to him naturally, but conceded by the sole grace of God, it was congruous that Adam be created outside Paradise. Second, if Adam had been created in Paradise, nor had before seen other places, he might perchance have thought that place to suit him and be due to him naturally: but created outside Paradise, more clearly acknowledging by comparison of other places the preeminence of Paradise, without doubt he understood the eminent benevolence and beneficence of God toward himself, who deigned him so happy a place and dwelling. Third, that Adam might be the more cautious, and the readier to execute the will of God, and the more diligent and attentive in keeping His commands and precepts: most certainly knowing that he must abide in Paradise only so long as he obeyed the command of God. Finally fourth, he could have no cause of grieving and complaining of God, when he would be cast out of Paradise for sin, as if denied a place naturally due and suitable to him: whereas God is not at all wont on account of sin to mulct and deprive man of natural goods.

As to the formation of Eve, Josephus judges, lib. 1 of the Antiquities, chapter 1, that she was formed also outside Paradise: for after narrating the production of Adam and Eve, describing also the beauty and amenity of Paradise, he thus subjoins: Moses asserted therefore that God planted a garden toward the east with every green plant: into this garden when God had led him together with his wife, he commanded them to have full care thereof. Such are his words. He judges therefore Adam and Eve begotten elsewhere. Then Josephus seems plainly to affirm that they were introduced into Paradise by God. Tertullian, lib. 2 against Marcion, seemed to indicate the same when he says: No one of mortals, not even Adam himself, was born in the Paradise of God. Nevertheless Sacred Scripture indicates quite plainly enough that Eve was formed in the terrestrial Paradise, while it says she was brought forth from Adam already translated into Paradise.

St. Ambrose confirms all these things, the book On Paradise, chapter 4, saying: Mark that outside Paradise the man was made, and the woman within Paradise; that you may know that not by nobility of place, nor of birth, but by virtue does each one procure grace for himself. Finally, the man made outside Paradise, that is, in an inferior place, deservedly falls: and she who was made in a better place, that is, in Paradise, is found inferior. For the woman was first deceived, and she herself deceived the man: Whence the Apostle Peter subjoining, remembered that women, the stronger cause, obey the holy men their husbands as Lords.

From these things it is established that both first Parents had the same efficient cause; namely God, the immediate and sole artificer of their body and soul: but a wholly diverse material cause; for the man was formed from dusty earth, but the woman from a rib extracted from Adam, formed of a rib: for Moses says Genes. chapter 2, v. 21 and 22: Therefore the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam, and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it, and the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman, and brought her to Adam. Which words comprise three things most noteworthy: First indeed, that a sleep was cast upon Adam by God, that is, as the Septuagint render it, extasim: for that sleep was ecstatic, such that not only was his mind loosed and free for the natural use of reason and the exercise of the soul, but it was even illuminated divinely and filled with a prophetic spirit, understanding in his very sleep that a woman was being formed from his side, and perceiving the mystery of that fact, then awaking he said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Let us say therefore that there was indeed a sleep, but such nevertheless that in it, the senses bound, the mind nonetheless loosed and divinely illuminated both discerned the things which were being done at that time and understood the mysteries which lay hidden in them.

But this sleep had so bound the external senses that Adam felt not the rib taken from him. Whence Alcimus Avitus, in the Poem on the formation of man, represents this Adamic sleep thus:

Dumque petunt dulcem spirantia cuncta quietem, Solvitur et somno laxati corporis Adam. Cui Pater Omnipotens pressum per corda soporem Iecit, et immenso tardavit pondere sensus, Vis ut nulla queat sopitam solvere mentem. Non si forte fragor securas verberet aures, Nec si commoto coelum tunc intonet axe, Sed nec pressa manu rupissent membra quietem.

But this ecstatic sleep to have been the figure of the future death of Christ, and of the Church about to arise from His side, thinks the Master of the Sentences in 2 dist. 18.: Not without cause, he says, was the rib withdrawn also from the sleeping man rather than from the waking, of which rib the woman was formed for the man as a help to generation: namely, that it might be shown that he felt no pain therein, and at the same time the marvelous work of divine power might be shown forth, which opened the side of the sleeping man, yet roused him not from the quiet of sleep. In which work also was figured the sacrament of Christ and the Church, because as the woman was formed from the side of the sleeping man, so the Church from the sacraments which flowed forth from the side of Christ sleeping on the cross: or as St. Augustine speaks in the Sentences, sent. 328. Adam sleeps, he says, that Eve may be made: Christ dies, that the Church may be made. While Adam sleeps Eve is made from the side: the dead Christ's side is pierced by the lance, that the sacraments may overflow, whereby the Church is formed.

To these concords the above-praised Alcimus Avitus:

Of this dream the judgment of death was the sequel, Which Christ of His own accord undertook when He had taken a body. And when, about to suffer, He hung on high upon the tree, Nailed and bound fast, while He hung bearing the sins of the world, The Executioner fixed the spear deep in His outstretched side.

Forthwith, springing forth, He fortified with that wound the shield. For the peoples round about, even then while the chalice was being promised, the stream of blood was a sign of martyrdom. Thence, while He lay at rest in the twofold night, the Church, rising from the member of His side, was wedded.

Secondly, as it occurs in the first formation of woman, it is to be noted that woman was formed from the rib of Adam; and this for various reasons, which St. Thomas expounds thus in I part, qu. 92, art. 2: First, he says, it was fitting that woman should be formed from man rather than from any other creature; first indeed, that in this way a certain dignity might be preserved to the first man, so that, according to the likeness of God, he himself might be the principle of his whole species, as God is the principle of the whole universe. Hence Paul also said, Acts 17, that God made of one man the whole race of mankind. Secondly, that man might love woman the more, and cleave to her more inseparably, since he knew that Eve had been brought forth from himself: whence it is said, Genesis 2, She was taken from man; wherefore shall a man leave father and mother, etc.

Hence Adam was vehemently incited to love Eve by four causes: namely, on account of the similitude of the same nature; on account of carnal union; on account of the generation of offspring; but above all, because Eve was something of himself, that is, procreated from his substance: for it is chiefly for this reason that parents love their children so greatly. But if the mind of Adam had not been so occupied with love of the woman, when afterwards at her persuasion and impulse he fell into sin, and on that account was despoiled of so many and so great gifts and endowments of God, he would have conceived an immense and implacable hatred against her, and would ever have borne a mind estranged from her and turned away. The third reason (says St. Thomas) is sacramental; for there was figured thereby that the Church takes her beginning from Christ: hence the Apostle says to the Ephesians 5: This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church.

A fourth reason Pererius adds on chapter 2 of Genesis, n. 187: namely, that man is by a certain mean nature between the Angels and the animals: wherefore a mean manner also of origin befitted the human race. Now the Angels, all and each without exception, were created proximately by God: nor among so great a number of Angels may one be found who was procreated from another Angel: but the animals arose from others, yet not all, even those of the same species, were generated from one: for at the beginning of the world God made many males and many females of each species of animal, by whom the rest might easily and numerously be procreated: but in man the matter stood in a certain middle way: for the first man was made proximately by God; from him the woman was fashioned; and from both proceeded every offspring of men.

Thence we can distinguish four modes of human production: one without man and woman, as of Adam; another from man without woman, as of Eve: a third from woman without man, as of Christ our Lord from the Virgin Mary: a fourth from man and woman, as of the rest of men, which is the natural and common mode of generation.

It must be observed likewise that Eve was not formed from any part whatsoever of the body of man, says the Master of the Sentences in the place cited, but she was formed from his side; that it might be shown that she was created for fellowship. Lest perchance, if she had been made from the head, she might seem to be given for domination over the man: or if from the feet, to be subjected unto servitude: therefore, since neither mistress nor handmaid was being prepared for man, but companion, she was to be produced neither from the head nor from the feet, but from the side: that he might recognize her to be set beside himself, whom he had learned to have been taken from his side.

Thirdly, finally, concerning the formation of woman from the aforesaid words of Scripture it is to be noted that God drew out one rib from Adam, and filled up flesh for it: whence a doubt arises whether that rib withdrawn from Adam was one of those ribs necessary to the integrity of the human body: for the Physiologists and Physicians relate that our body is constructed and joined together of twenty-four ribs, twelve on either side: whether then that rib was superabundant and superfluous, e.g., so that Adam had thirteen ribs on his left side: whichever way it be said, the matter seems absurd. For if that rib be among the necessary ribs: then after its withdrawal Adam remained mutilated and imperfect: but if it was superfluous: then Adam was created monstrous and deformed, having, namely, more ribs on one side than on the other: which was a notable mark of deformity, no less surely than if he had been made two-headed, or three-headed, or with six fingers on both hands or on one.

Theologians answer commonly that that rib was partly superfluous to Adam, partly necessary: superfluous, indeed, if Adam be considered as some singular man and particular person: for beyond the just number of ribs that rib was over and above, pertaining nowise to the integrity of the body of Adam: but if Adam be considered as the first man, and destined to be the principle of the whole human race, and from whom Eve was to be formed, then that rib was necessary; not simply, indeed, nor according to the natural order and reason — for Eve could have been formed of another thing — but only according to the election and ordination of God, who had determined to fabricate the body of Eve from the substance of Adam.

I grant, as more probable, that this rib withdrawn from Adam was among those ribs necessary to the constitution and integrity of his body: for if that rib had been superfluous to Adam, and outside his nature, it could not truly be said that Eve was formed from Adam; nor would Adam have said truly that Eve was bone of his bones: for that rib would not have been his natural and proper bone, but, as far as he was concerned, beside nature and accidental, and had been imposed upon him for the briefest time. Therefore, to signify the most intimate union of Adam and Eve, and the natural origin and dependence of woman upon man, it was more fitting and congruent that Eve be formed from a rib which was a natural and necessary part of Adam, than from one which was superfluous and beside his nature.

You will ask: To whom, Adam or Eve, will that rib, withdrawn from Adam, have to be restored in the resurrection of the dead? It seems indeed that it must be restored to Adam, because from the beginning it was Adam's, as an integral part of him: but on the contrary it seems that it must be restored to Eve: since from it Eve was principally formed. — I answer: That rib will remain with Eve, since from it her body was compacted as it were of matter and foundation: and therefore it is necessary that it subsist in Eve. Nor on that account is the body of Adam to be judged imperfect, since in place of that rib God substituted flesh: not soft indeed, but hardened and thick, which in the course of time supplied the use and office of the rib. Add, moreover, that not all things which were of our body are to be restored in the resurrection: otherwise our body would rise monstrous and enormous: for it is certain that the parts of flesh throughout the whole course of life flow away continually from birth, namely, even unto death, and are lost; and in their place others in turn are regenerated through nutrition. If therefore all that had been dispersed were restored, the body of the rising man would be gigantic. — Noyssius adds, on Genesis 23, v. 21, that Adam joined to himself in marriage the woman whom he had formed, making her his wife by God's command. Which Alcimus Avitus, cited above, admirably represents, where he thus prescribes the laws of matrimony:

At the beginning the priest, preparing to consecrate So great a bond, ties the nuptials with his word: Live with concordant zeal, and fill the world, Let the long-lived offspring grow from happy seed; Neither let number fail with years, nor term of life. A progeny without end have I given, which through all time Thou shalt behold, thou who art set as the first author of thy race. Thy grandson's sons, scattered through ages, Shall count their living forefathers; and into the mouths of parents The aged pledges of their sons shall lead the children of their children. Then the law of wedlock, venerable through every age, Unstained shall be kept in its own order by all. Let the woman persist, taken from the bowels of man, To keep faith to her husband: nor let anyone sever What God joins and associates: and let the husband, bound By rightful love, leave father And mother. Let not these bonds of parental care be broken, But let the flesh of both be held as one. Thus joining their vows in an everlasting covenant, He spoke the joyful hymeneal; and to chaste modesty With mingled melody sang an angelic song. For bridal chamber there was Paradise, and the world was given them Forever, and the stars rejoiced in cleansed flames.

Second Conclusion. — Our first parents were created in perfectly complete and ordered magnitude and beauty of body.

This is gathered from Holy Scripture, which so often testifies that the works of God are most perfect; and accordingly it equally fits that man, the most excellent work of God the Creator, was formed absolutely complete in his first creation. It is proved, indeed, of rightly perfected things: for those first works of God which in the fashioning of the world were made proximately by Him ought to have been perfect. As therefore He created the other living creatures complete in bulk of body, so also, and much more, must He be judged to have created man in a perfect state. It is confirmed by this, that as soon as Adam and Eve were created, God said to them: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth: from which it may be understood that Adam and Eve were created already of firm age, and fit for generation. This very point St. Augustine proves, book 6, De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 13, writing thus: But how did God make man of the slime of the earth? Was it suddenly into adult perfection, that is, into virile and youthful form; or as He has ever since formed in the wombs of mothers, so that Adam had this alone proper to himself, that he was not born of parents, but made of earth; or yet in such wise that in perfecting and augmenting him through stages these numbers of times were fulfilled which we see attributed to the nature of mankind? Or rather ought this not to be inquired into? For whichever way He made him, He did what befitted God, omnipotent and wise, to be able to do and to do fittingly. For thus He assigned certain general laws of times and of the qualities of things to be brought forth into the manifest from some beginning, so that His will is above all, etc. Although in these words he may seem to weigh this question on both sides and to leave it undetermined, nevertheless he inclines to our side, as appears from the examples by which he proves that God can bring His work to a perfect state in a single moment of time, which nature could compass only by long labor of time: whence he subjoins: *Do not all serpents coalesce, are they not formed, born, and strengthened, each kind in its own appointed numbers of days? Were not these days awaited, that the rod... [truncated]

Some think the Protoparents were created at a youthful age, namely, that at which our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, that is, between the thirtieth and fortieth year. But I judge it more credible that they were created at that age at which a man of fifty years might be matched: for since then the life of man was longest, namely, tenfold more enduring than now, each several age also was longer alike than now it is: childhood and adolescence were longer: and each age prolonged beyond the former, the next following came later: therefore, by comparison and proportion of the whole life exceeding nine hundred years, the youthful age of the first man could not have fallen to him before the fiftieth year.

The second part is proved, namely, that Adam was made of perfect stature of body, not tending to gigantic bulk: for Scripture and the holy Fathers with one voice confirm that Adam was procreated by God perfect in soul and body: but a gigantic bulk of body is an excess of nature running wild: and therefore this is not to be attributed to the most excellent of the divine works.

You will say: In Joshua, chapter 14, it is found written: the name of Hebron before was called Cariath-Arbe: Adam the greatest among the Enacim is there said to be: now that the Enacim were giants is manifest from what the spies, returning from exploring the land of Chanaan, said to Joshua, chapter 13 of the book of Numbers: The people, say they, whom we beheld is of tall stature; there we saw certain monsters of the sons of Enac of the giant race, compared with whom we seemed as locusts. By which words Scripture seems to signify that Adam was the greatest among the Enacim giants: and therefore that he was the greatest Giant.

I deny the consequence: for the aforesaid words of Joshua are not to be understood of the first man, whom we shall show below, from the holy Fathers, to have been buried not in Hebron but on Mount Calvary: nor is that word Adam there the proper name of the first parent of mankind, but it is common and appellative, signifying the same among the Hebrews that the word Man does among the Latins: whence the city of Hebron was anciently called Cariath-Arbe, that is, the city of Arbe, because Arbe was the greatest man among the Enacim: greatest, I say, in celebrity of name and glory of achievements; or in amplitude of principality, power, or duration of life; or finally because he was the founder of that city, or the parent of the race of the Enacim.

Third Conclusion. — The occupation of the bodies of men, had the happy state of innocence persevered, would have been the tillage of the earth, but exempt from labor and weariness.

It is proved from Scripture, Genesis, chapter 2, verse 15, where we read: And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress and to keep it. Although St. Augustine, book 8, De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 10, seems to refer these words to man, so that the sense of them is, that God placed Adam in Paradise chiefly for this cause, that He Himself might work Adam more and more, that is, perfect him, by cultivating him with clearer precepts, and by inviting and aiding him toward the more excellent works of virtue; or, as he says, He who created man that man should be, Himself works man, and keeps him that he be also good and blessed. Wherefore, as by that manner of speaking man is said to work the earth, which already was earth, that it may be adorned and fruitful; by the same manner of speaking God is said to work man, who already was man, that he may be devout and wise; and to keep him, since man, delighting in the power which he had over himself rather than that which God had over him, and despising His dominion, could not be safe. This interpretation the Hebrew text excludes, because in Hebrew the pronoun it, which in Greek and Latin has an ambiguous reference to man and to Paradise, is put in the feminine gender, and is necessarily joined with the word Eden, or Paradise, which in Hebrew signifies garden.

Whence the sense of the aforesaid words is: God placed Adam in Paradise, that Adam himself by his own works, care, and industry might dress that Paradise, that is, cultivate it, exercising, namely, various works which concerned the culture and adornment of the place itself: and might keep it, both from the wild beasts which were outside Paradise, says St. Basil, and from the very animals which were in Paradise, lest they injure or defile its beauty and pleasantness: whence St. Chrysostom, Homily 11, on Genesis: God willed, he says, that a certain pure and temperate charge should rest with man, both in keeping and in dressing. For that culture was wholly exempt from molestation, and afforded him some occupation without pain and hardship.

That this operation and keeping, however, was not laborious and troublesome, but easy and delightful — whereby, namely, the first parents of mankind laid out and arranged for themselves various places, whether for dwelling, or for walking commodiously and with pleasure — St. Augustine elegantly unfolds, book 8, De Genesi ad litt., chapter 8, where, when it had been objected to him that before sin God condemned man to the labor and hardships of agriculture, he answers: So indeed we should think, did we not see some men till the ground with such delight of mind that it is a great punishment to them to be called away thence to anything else. Whatever delight, therefore, agriculture has, then assuredly it had far more, when nothing adverse happened, either to earth or to heaven. For there was no affliction of labor, nor exhilaration of indulgence, when He dealt with that which God had created by the aid of human labor, and the fertile fields brought forth, whereby the Creator Himself might be more abundantly praised. He who gave to the soul, constituted in an animal body, a reason for working, and faculty enough, as much as sufficed the willing soul of man, not compelled by any goad of unfruitful need of the body. For what greater and more wonderful spectacle is there, or where can human reason in a manner hold converse more with the nature of things, than when, seeds having been sown, shoots planted, saplings transplanted, grafts ingrafted, as if it were questioned at every turn what the power of root and germ can do, and what cannot: whence it can, whence it cannot: what power of unseen moisture and inward potency avails therein, what diligence applied from without; and in that very contemplation to perceive that neither he who planteth is anything, nor he who watereth, but God who giveth the increase, etc.

Corollary. — From these things gather, first, the antiquity of agriculture: for it began with man and with the world, since it was the first imposed upon man in the state of innocence, and after sin it alone was laid upon him in penance and punishment. Secondly, its dignity, both because it was instituted by God and enjoined upon Adam: and because Adam, from whom all nobility descends, and his nobler posterity, namely Abel, Seth, Noë, Abraham, and all the most celebrated men of old, were husbandmen. Thirdly, its innocent exercise: for this among other arts was commended to innocent man in Paradise as involving injury to none, but profitable to all: which Virgil elegantly expounds in the second Georgic:

O too fortunate, if they knew their own good, The husbandmen! for whom, far from discordant arms, Most just Earth herself pours forth an easy livelihood from her soil.

And again:

This life of old the Sabines cultivated, This Remus and his brother. Thus valiant Etruria grew; Doubtless thus too was Rome made the fairest of realms. Golden Saturn lived this life upon earth.

Cicero also is to be heard, in the book De Senectute, where he says that nothing seems to him so royal as the pursuit of agriculture: of all things, says he, from which anything is acquired, nothing is better than agriculture, nothing more abundant, nothing sweeter, nothing more worthy of a free man. Rightly therefore does St. Augustine say: agriculture is the most innocent of all arts: yet the impious Faustus the Manichee did not blush to condemn it; saying that husbandmen violated the precept of God, Thou shalt not kill. Hence it was the custom that those chiefs of Roman nobility, men of antiquity, were summoned from the fields to commands and dictatorships: which offices when they had held, they returned to their earlier exercises of husbandry: or, as Valerius Maximus says, even those men endowed therewith who are called from the plough that they may become consuls, tilled the soil of the Roman people, sterile of pleasures and most productive of virtues [restored], and with abundant sweat furrowed the chastest clods, gymnasia though they were of delights: nay rather, those whom the perils of the republic claimed as generals, straitened means compelled to become oxherds.

Notandum 1. From Hugh of St. Victor, lib. 1. De Sacramentis, par. 6. cap. 12., that man was first instructed from the very beginning of his condition with a threefold knowledge: namely, the knowledge of his Creator, that he might know by whom he had been made. Secondly, knowledge of himself, that he might know what had been made, and what he ought to do. Thirdly, finally, knowledge of Him with whom he had been made, and what he ought to do concerning Him, and in Him. Of what kind, however, this threefold knowledge was must be determined here.

Notandum 2. From the Seraphic Bonaventure in 2. dist. 23. art. 2. qu. 3., that there is a fourfold genus of knowing God: namely, through faith, through contemplation, through apparition, and through open vision. The first is of common grace; the second of excellent grace; the third of special grace; and the fourth of consummating glory. And the sufficiency of these modes is gathered thus: for everything that is known is known through something present; if, therefore, God is known, it is necessary that He be known by the intellect through something present. But I call present this according as Augustine calls it present which is present to the intellect to be seen. Either, therefore, I know God through His being present to me, or through His being present to others. If through His being present to others, this is the cognition of faith: for that God is Three and One, this I believe on the word of the Son of God, who declared and preached it, and of the Holy Ghost, who inspired it. For what we believe we owe to authority, as Augustine says. De Utilitate credendi, cap. 11. But if I know God through His being present to me, this can be in a threefold manner: either through His being present to me in His proper effect: and then it is contemplation; which is so much the more eminent as man more sensibly feels in himself the effect of divine grace, or as he likewise knows better how to consider God in exterior creatures. Or He is present to me in His proper sign: and thus there is apparition, as God appeared to Abraham in a subject creature, which figured Him, and as the Holy Ghost appeared in a dove. Or God is present in His light, and in Himself: and such is the cognition whereby God is seen in His countenance, or face to face; and such is open vision, which is wholly called the reward of all merits. Therefore the first and last genus of cognition did not befit the state of innocence. The first indeed, on account of its enigmatic cognition, and because the cognition of faith is for the most part from hearing. But the last could not be there on account of its supreme perfection: therefore it was not exhibited to man, but rather promised as a reward. Now the two middle ones, namely of contemplation and of apparition, could be common to both states: especially the cognition of contemplation, which is in both states: yet it flourished there above all, both on account of the purity of the soul, and also on account of the subjection of the flesh and of the lower powers, which two the soul for the most part lacks in the state of lapsed nature; therefore it cannot attain to that degree of contemplation. This is from St. Bonaventure. Yet I would not tacitly concede that Adam did not have the light of faith, since faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, and the hinge and pivot of all eternal salvation; unless perhaps the Seraphic Doctor should wish that Adam indeed had the habit of faith, but not the act regarding those things of which he had evident and scientific knowledge.

Notandum 3. From the same author, ibidem qu. 1., that progress in knowledge can be considered in a threefold way: either on the part of the things knowable, or on the part of the modes of knowing, or on the part of a greater aptitude in knowing. According to the first mode, since some things come to pass in the natural course, or miraculously; others in a voluntary course; it is certain that in the cognition of those things which indeed come to pass in the natural course, Adam could not have progressed as regards the acquisition of a new habit: for he received (as Hugh says, and the Master in the text) from the beginning of all things full knowledge. He could nevertheless have progressed as regards another mode of knowing, and as regards a greater habit of knowing. As regards another mode, he could progress, because what he knew by simple knowledge he could know by experience: and what he knew by intellect he could know also by sense. He could also progress as regards a greater aptitude, because from frequent consideration of those things which he knew, he would have been readier and more prepared to judge concerning those things of which he had cognition through an innate habit. For although the first man had no slowness of dullness through the burden of a mortal body, yet his spirit had a certain lesser swiftness through the vitalization of an animal body: and thus in the cognition of natural things Adam would in some way by no means have stood still. — But in the cognition of those things which come to pass in a voluntary course, and miraculously, or simply supernaturally, he could have progressed: not only as regards the mode of knowing, but even in acquiring new cognition. Nor is this wonderful, because in order to know divine mysteries he needed supernatural illumination: but in order to know the secrets of another, he needed the direction of that person himself. Nor did such progress derogate from the state of innocence, since even the blessed Angels make progress in the cognition of divine mysteries and human secrets: wherefore it is said in Ephesians 3.: That the manifold wisdom of God may be made known to Principalities and Powers through the Church. So far he.

These matters having been thus set forth in outline, there remains here to be determined of what kind was the wisdom and knowledge of Adam, both as regards natural things and as regards supernatural things.

First Conclusion. — Adam in the state of innocence possessed the most perfect science of all natural things, and a certain and evident cognition thereof.

It is proved first from that passage of Ecclesiasticus, c. 17., where concerning the first parents we read thus: Discipline of understanding filled them: knowledge of the spirit he created in them: with sense he filled their heart, and showed them good and evil; in whom are not obscurely signified the four principal parts of Philosophy. Indeed Logic, through discipline of the understanding, since that discipline consists wholly in handing down rules and precepts by which the intellect, when instructed, reasons perfectly: but Metaphysics, through knowledge of the spirit, since it is concerned with the noblest species of being, namely God and the Angels: but Physics, through which "with sense he filled their heart," that is, he adorned their soul with sciences drawn from corporeal things by the aid of the senses: and by the last words Moral Philosophy is plainly expressed, since it directs the intellect to knowing good and evil, that the will may embrace the former and abhor the latter.

It is proved likewise by a threefold argument: The first indeed: that which God produces proximately and immediately, those things are most perfect: but Adam God alone created without any intervening efficient cause contributing concurrence, both as to body and as to soul: therefore he was created most perfect by God on both sides. Therefore just as he was formed with a perfect body, namely as regards completeness of age, height of stature, strength and firmness of powers, and the power of generating others; so there is no doubt that he was created perfect in soul and mind: and therefore since the natural perfection of the mind is science, Adam had this from the beginning. — Second reason: as Adam was to be the sower and parent of humankind according to carnal generation, therefore he had to be created at a perfect age, and fit for generation: and since the same man was to be the first Doctor and Ruler of men, it was indeed fitting that he be created with a perfect faculty of teaching and ruling other men: but this cannot be done without science. For, as Aristotle writes in the first and second books of the Metaphysics, The sign of one who knows is the ability to teach others: and that which is the cause why other things are such, must itself be maximally such. — Third reason: if Adam had been created without science, and ought to have acquired it gradually by study and labor, he would have dwelt for a long time in ignorance of truth: but ignorance of truth, and unacquaintance with things that lie open to the senses, would have been exceedingly troublesome and bitter to a man most desirous of knowledge: yet nothing troublesome or bitter would have happened to him in that state, either in soul or in body: therefore Adam was not created ignorant and unknowing. For if he had long been ignorant, he would easily, on account of ignorance of truth and of things, have assented to false opinions and lapsed into absurd errors; namely by approving false things as true, or rejecting true things as false, which, as Augustine said most excellently, belongs not to the nature of man as created, but to the punishment of the condemned.

You will say 1.: Adam believed the serpent, who deceived him, to be capable of speech: therefore he did not acknowledge its nature, and consequently was not a Philosopher. Next, he believed this serpent promising science, and in order to obtain it broke the commandment imposed upon him by God: therefore he then did not possess science. Finally, after the eating of the forbidden fruit Holy Scripture testifies that the eyes of the First Parents were opened: not indeed the eyes of the body, for they were not blind, but the eyes of the mind and of the heart: therefore they were ignorant, for ignorance is called blindness of the mind.

I answer to 1. and to 2., denying that Adam supposed serpents to be capable of speech: but he believed that beneath the serpentine form some Angel lay hid, who spoke true things to him, promising a science, not natural and philosophical, which he already possessed most perfectly, but supernatural, theological, and independent, namely such as God comprehends in Himself, as is clear from those words uttered from the serpentine mouth: You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. To which add that not Adam, but Eve was deceived by the serpent. To 3. I say that the eyes of their mind were opened, not by any infusion or acquisition of a new science, but by the use and experience of the former; for they knew themselves stripped and despoiled of all the gifts and ornaments of innocence and of original grace, with which they had been enriched at their formation, and they experienced the rebellion of the inferior part against the superior, namely of the body against the soul, which before sin was unknown to them.

You will say 2.: With Cajetan expounding the passage of Moses about the imposition of names made by Adam: Adam did not have science of all corporeal things, seeing that evidently he did not know the elements, the heavens, and the stars: for since these are the principal parts of the world, out of which this world is joined together and constituted integral, their perfect cognition is reserved to God alone, who, as David says Psalm 116.: He that telleth the multitude of the stars, and calleth them all by their names: whence it follows that the cognition of celestial things is known to God alone, and therefore not granted to Adam himself.

I deny the antecedent; for first it is false that the cognition of the heavens and of the stars is reserved to God alone; seeing that Solomon, cap. 7. of the book of Wisdom, says of himself: He himself gave me the true knowledge of the things that are, that I might know the disposition of the world, and the virtues of the elements, the beginning and ending and midst of times, the alterations of their courses and changes of seasons, the circuits of years and positions of stars: the natures of living creatures and the rage of beasts, the force of winds and thoughts of men, the differences of plants and virtues of roots, and whatsoever things are hidden and unforeseen I learned: for Wisdom, the artificer of all, taught me. From which it is clear that there was granted to Solomon perfect science of the world, of the elements, and of the stars, and of all things hidden and concealed: therefore much more to Adam. Nor is it true that the perfect cognition of those things was so reserved to God alone that Adam could not obtain it. Nor does it matter that Adam imposed names only upon flying and terrestrial animals, but not upon earth, nor sea, nor heavens, and stars, as if he had not had science of them. For he had perfect science of stones, metals, plants, and fishes, yet we nowhere read that he imposed names upon these things: — It must nevertheless be observed that three things are to be excepted from this general science which I contend was in Adam: First indeed, he did not know all future contingents. Secondly, certainly and evidently he did not know the arcanum and secrets of hearts, for both of these cognitions lie hidden even from the Angels. Finally thirdly, he did not have science of all the present individuals of each species: for he did not know all the individuals of fishes, nor every number of grains of sand, or of stones: for cognition of this kind neither pertains to the perfection of the human intellect, nor contributed to the perfection and felicity of the state of innocence.

You will ask: Whether Adam excelled the other men in wisdom?

I assert: that he did; since first he had a greater amplitude of science; for he knew all natural things, which has been granted to no one hitherto. Next he had a more excellent mode of knowing; for others know many things only by probable reasoning, or not from causes but from effects, or not by ostensive demonstration but only by that which leads to impossibility: but Adam held perfect cognition of each thing and from its proper causes. Finally thirdly, he had a more firm immobility of science: for in the state of innocence science could not be lost, neither through long cessation from act, nor through corruption of the interior sense, nor through forgetfulness, as sometimes happens in other mortals.

Nor does it matter that Holy Scripture makes Solomon wiser than all men who had gone before him, and who were to come after him: for thus God speaks to Solomon in 3. Kings, cap. 3.: I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, insomuch that there hath been no one like thee before thee, nor shall arise after thee. For thence it is not concluded that Solomon was wiser than Adam: otherwise it would be permitted to infer that he also surpassed in wisdom Christ the Lord, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge: which certainly no believer would admit. Therefore the aforesaid words of Scripture signify only either that Solomon was wiser than all those who acquired wisdom for themselves by study, labor, and art, among whose number Adam is not to be reckoned: or that he was wiser than all, not indeed men, but Kings and princes, as he himself indicates near the end of the first chapter of Ecclesiastes: I, he says, am become great, and have surpassed in wisdom all that were before me in Jerusalem: or finally he is said to be wiser than all those who at that time were accustomed to be called wise: which is indeed signified in 3. Kings, cap. 5. in these words: The wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the Orientals and Egyptians, and he was wiser than all men: wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Dorda, sons of Mahol etc... And he discoursed upon trees from the cedar that is in Libanus unto the hyssop that cometh out of the wall: and he discoursed upon beasts, and birds, and creeping things, and fishes, and they came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon.

Second Conclusion. — Moreover Adam in the state of innocence had cognition of supernatural things.

This is sufficiently gathered both from the preceding Conclusion, wherein it was proved that he was constituted in a most perfect state as to body and soul: and therefore it was necessary that he have a most excellent cognition of all things, such as that whereby supernatural things are known: and from the following Article, wherein it will be proved that he was formed with sanctifying grace, of which faith is as it were the foundation: For it is impossible, says St. Paul to the Hebrews 11., to please God without faith: But faith is a cognition of supernatural things; for it is defined by the same Apostle, ibidem, as the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.

Moreover this truth is urged by a theological reason: for Adam had been founded by God principally on account of a supernatural end rather than a natural one: therefore just as in order that he might attain his natural end, the science of natural things was struck into him from the beginning, much more was it consonant that he be instructed in the cognition of supernatural things, whether through faith, or through contemplation, whereby he might attain his supernatural end: therefore it must be concluded with Hugh of St. Victor, lib. 1. De Sacramentis, parte 6. cap. 12: Man therefore knew his Creator: not with that cognition which is perceived outwardly from hearing alone, but with that which is rather ministered inwardly through inspiration. Not indeed with that whereby God is now sought by believers through faith while absent: but with that whereby He was then more manifestly discerned through the science of present contemplation.

But of what supernatural things he had attained cognition, it is uncertain to us. Probably, however, it seems that five genera of supernatural things were known by him: First indeed, he knew that supernatural rewards were laid up in the heavens for just men serving God holily and piously; and therefore he knew God as remunerator in the order of glory and eternal beatitude. For, as St. Paul writes to the Hebrews 11.: He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and is a rewarder to them that seek him. Hence without doubt he knew that he had been founded for a supernatural end; since when he had been made perfectly endowed with the use of reason and free will, and able from the beginning to act well or ill, it was most fitting that his ultimate end should straightway become known to him: that he might know to what he ought to refer all his goods and himself. Thence he knew also all the means necessary for attaining that supernatural end, such as sanctifying grace, the three Theological Virtues, which cannot proceed from us, nor be acquired by our own powers, but must be gratuitously given by God. — Secondly, almost all Theologians agree that Adam in the state of innocence distinctly knew the mystery of the most holy Trinity, as St. Epiphanius affirms at the beginning of the book Panarius haereses. And truly indeed; for it was not consonant that the first man, heaped with such great goods, both natural and supernatural, should be ignorant of the mystery of the Trinity; especially since this mystery was indicated in the very formation of Adam himself in these words: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and afterwards God Himself said before Adam: Behold Adam is become as one of us. — Thirdly, he also knew the future Incarnation of the Son of God, as the Subtle Doctor affirms, teaching that although Adam had not sinned, nevertheless the Son of God would have become incarnate. St. Prosper adds in cap. 1. of the first part of De promissionibus Dei, et praedictionibus, that the union of Christ with the Church was also known to Adam himself: which Adam himself indeed signified in 2. Genesis uttering concerning his wife: Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: which words St. Paul adapts to the union of Christ with the Church in Ephesians, c. 5., subjoining: This is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ, and in the Church. — Fourthly, also it is not improbable that Adam knew the fall of the Angels, who on account of pride were cast down from heaven and hurled into Tartarus: for this cognition greatly profited Adam, both unto humility and unto observance of the commandments of God, namely that he might avoid so tremendous a judgment: which Ecclesiasticus, cap. 17., indeed seems to signify, where among various gifts granted by God to the First Parents he also places the fact that he showed them his judgments. — Finally fifthly, Adam had perfect cognition of himself: for, as Hugh of Victor writes in the place cited, it was fitting that man from his first formation should have perfect cognition of himself, inasmuch as he should acknowledge both the debt of his obedience toward a superior, and not be ignorant of the debt of his providence toward an inferior. For this was to acknowledge himself: his condition, and order, and due, whether above him, or in himself, or below him, not to be ignorant: to understand of what sort he had been made, and how he ought to walk, what to do, what likewise to guard against. This whole was to acknowledge himself. If man had not had the cognition and discernment of these things, he would not have known himself, nor would he afterwards have stood guilty of transgression of them, if he had not previously been illuminated unto their cognition. But if it is asked, whether man then from the beginning had cognition of those things which were to come about concerning him, that is, whether he foresaw his fall and ruin, and all the other evils which passed first into himself, afterwards through him into all who were from him: and similarly whether he foresaw the goods which he would have had, if he had persevered in obedience; this seems altogether probable and consequent, that what pertained to instruction and the form of right living was of greater moment, that things to be done should be indicated to him rather than that future things should be foretold to him. For it would seem entirely to diminish the liberty of his arbitrium and the purity of his obedience, if man himself before merit were said to be prescient of future things: because he could neither hope for good things with a prescience of evils; nor, with a prescience of good things, would he have feared evils to come. Therefore for this reason it is judged more fitting, that the first man received science and precept of those things indeed which were to be done: but prescience of those things which were to come he had not, that his arbitrium might stand free toward either side. Thus Hugh. — This very thing St. Augustine confirms, lib. 11. De Genesi ad litteram, cap. 18., where concerning the first man existing in Paradise he inquires: If he was prescient of his future sin and of the divine vengeance, whence could he be blessed? Therefore drawn into Paradise he was not blessed. But if he was not prescient of his own future sin: therefore through this ignorance, either uncertain of that same beatitude: and how already believed blessed? Or certain by false hope, not by science, and how not foolish? He answers: But nevertheless of man still constituted in an animal body, to whom the fellowship of the angels was still to be given obediently serving, and the change of body from animal to spiritual, we can understand blessed life after a certain mode, even though he was not such as they were to whom the Apostle says: you who are spiritual, instruct such a one in the Spirit of lenity, watching thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Nevertheless not absurdly nor unworthily do we say that they were already blessed in this very thing, that they were spiritual, not only in body, but also strong in hope of faith, patient in tribulation. How much more, therefore, and in a more ample mode was man in Paradise blessed before sin, though uncertain of his own future fall, who so rejoiced in hope on account of the future reward of change, that there was no tribulation for which patience had to serve in enduring it? For although, not by vain presumption certain of the uncertain like a fool, but by hope not unfaithful, before he apprehended that life, wherein most certain of eternal life itself he was going to be, he could exult, as it is written, with trembling and exultation, much more abundantly in Paradise than the saints in these lands, he was blessed in a certain inferior mode than in that eternal life of the saints supercelestial angels, yet not in none.

But whether the cognition of supernatural and divine things which Adam had in the state of innocence was more sublime and clearer than faith, though it was more interior and more obscure than the cognition of the same things through the light of glory; so that that light which Adam had was in some mode a medium between the light of faith and the light of glory: Hugh of Victor seems to affirm ibidem cap. 12., saying: it must nevertheless be known, that that first cognition of man which he had of his Creator, we truly say to be greater and more certain than that cognition which now consists in faith alone: so also that which will afterwards be revealed manifestly in the excellence of divine contemplation, we must confess it to be less. Man therefore, though supreme, knew his Creator, yet not so excellently, as he ought afterwards to have known, if he had persevered: for as the disobedience of man took away much of the first cognition through subsequent ignorance: so to that same cognition, if man had persevered in obedience, much would have been added through subsequent revelation. Here Hugh. Thence St. Bonaventure in 2. dist. 23. qu. 3. art. 2. qu. 3. says, that truly the cognition of the state of innocence is midway between the cognition of the state of glory and the state of misery, as also the place of Paradise is midway between this vale of misery and the heavenly Fatherland: and as earthly Paradise holds more with earth than with Heaven, so the cognition of Adam or the state of innocence is more conformable to the cognition of the present state than of the future. Whence in the state of glory alone will God be seen immediately, and in His substance, so that there will be no obscurity there: but in the state of innocence, and of lapsed nature, God is seen through a medium mirror, but differently: because in the state of innocence God was seen through a clear mirror: for there was no cloud of sin in the soul: but in the state of misery He is seen through a mirror obscured by the sin of the first man, and He is now seen the same through a mirror, and in an enigma. For an enigma, as St. Augustine says in the book De Trinitate, is an obscure similitude. Thus St. B... — But this cognition which Adam had in the state of innocence was so sublime and excellent that, refreshed by the contemplation of heavenly things, his mind was often rapt into ecstasy: which indeed the holy Fathers explain lucidly, weighing those words of Genesis 2.: The Lord God sent a sleep upon him: or as the Septuagint render it, he mingled ecstasy: whence St. Augustine De Genesi ad litteram, lib. 9. cap. 19.: That ecstasy, he says, which God sent upon Adam so that, lulled to sleep, he might slumber, is rightly understood to have been sent by God, that his very mind through ecstasy might become partaker as it were of the angelic court, and entering into the sanctuary of God might understand the last things: finally awaking as it were a prophet full, when he saw the woman his wife brought to him with the rib, he straightway uttered that which the Apostle commends as a great document: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, etc.; which words, since Scripture itself testifies they were spoken by the first man, the Lord at length declares in the Gospel that God had spoken, that hence we might understand that on account of the ecstasy which had preceded in Adam, he could not speak divinely as a Prophet.

Notandum 1. Certain of the holy Fathers were of the opinion that, had the innocence of that state persevered, men would have been born without the commingling of the sexes. This was especially the sentiment of S. Gregory of Nyssa, in his book De hominis opificio, asserting in c. 17 that if the first man had not sinned, there would have been no use of marriage, nor would men have been multiplied as now happens through carnal copulation; but that the race of men would have been propagated in some certain and unknown manner, namely in that way in which he believed the Angels to have been multiplied; for, says he, if that emulation by which we create ourselves equal to the Angels had not fallen away through sin — "we would have had no need of marriage for our increase: but whatever is that great mode of increase belonging to incorrupt nature, which indeed assuredly cannot be set forth in words, nor grasped by the conjectures of men, yet exists in them in some measure: the same would avail for those who are diminished but a little from the Angels, men; which would have brought the increments of the human race up to the full culture of the Creator."

The same is the opinion of holy Damascene, lib. 2, cap. 30, affirming that the propagation and succession of men from themselves occurred in consequence of their condemnation to death on account of transgression. To these are consonant the words written by S. Chrysostom, Homil. 18 in Genesim, expounding those words of the fourth chapter: Adam knew his wife. But the chiefest reason of these was the shameful character of the conjugal act on account of the heat of lust and the corruption of integrity: wherefore

Notandum 2. From S. Bonaventure, in 2 dist. 20, art. 1, quaest. 3: that if the state of innocence had persevered, there would indeed have been delight in the conjugal act, yet moderate and measured, according as the reason of man was able to temper it: and therefore it would not have been so great as it is now. For now, because that power has chiefly gone forth from under the empire of reason — since reason lost the bond and bridle of original justice, whereby it commanded the interior powers — the same, its reins loosened, precipitates itself with its whole impulse and endeavor upon whatever delightful thing is offered it, not by reason of the intensification of the moving power, but by reason of the defect of the retarding power. Hence, just as an unruly horse, its bridle broken, runs more swiftly and impetuously than when it is bridled and held back by its rider, although it has not greater strength; and so must this matter be understood in the case at hand. And this is what Augustine says, De Civitate Dei: Those marriages worthy of the felicity of Paradise would have begotten offspring to be loved, and would not have had shameful lust. And therefore the reasons are to be granted which show that there would not then have been so great an intensity of delight as there is now, when it is now so great that it does not observe due measure and order. So the Seraphic Doctor.

Notandum 3. From the same, qu. 1: that the corruption of integrity entails three things: namely, the opening of the enclosures, penal suffering, and foul delight. The first is of nature: the second is punishment: the third truly is the viciousness of corruption, which holds a middle place between fault and punishment. If therefore man had known his wife in the time of instituted nature, there would have been therein an opening of the enclosures: yet there would not have been therein penal suffering, nor foul delight; because the generative power would neither be corrupt nor infected: nay, those members would obey reason, as Augustine says, just as the mouth, the hands, and the tongue obey. Whence, as the hand is opened and closed, and the mouth opened and closed, and there is therein no suffering or punishment, nor any foul delight, so would it have been in instituted nature: nor would it have been more shameful then to speak of those members than it is to speak of others; for it is not shameful to speak of a thing because nature shrinks from and blushes at that act by reason of the foulness residing in it; but by reason of the intemperate and disordered delight annexed to it.

Conclusio prima. — In very truth the human race would have been propagated in the state of innocence through the commingling of the sexes. So it accords with the more numerous throng of holy Fathers, by whom it was judged that the posterity of Adam was to be begotten in no other manner than by the customary union of the sexes: yet without that heat of lust which overrode reason. Let one suffice above the rest, S. Augustine, who in lib. 1 contra Iulianum, cap. 1, says: Nor even if human nature had not been vitiated by the sin of the first men, could sons be begotten otherwise than from the commixture of bodies: but they are under the power of the devil who are born of the commixture of bodies before they are reborn through the Spirit, because they are born with concupiscence, whereby the flesh concupisceth against the spirit, and compels the spirit to concupiscence against itself. And in lib. 2 De peccato originali, c. 35 and 36: Marriages, says he, without doubt would have existed even had sin not preceded, for neither for any other cause was she made for him as an aid, not of another man, but a woman. And those words of God, increase and multiply, are not a foretelling of sins to be condemned: but a blessing of marriages to be founded, etc. But had nature not been dishonored by sin, we think such marriages would have been in Paradise that in them, for the sowing of offspring, the will of nature would move the genital members as the foot moves to walk, the hand to work, the tongue to speak: but they would not be moved by the heat of lust: nor, as now happens, would the integrity of virginity be violated for conceiving offspring by a turbulent ardor: but it would have obeyed the command of most tranquil charity. And in that manner there would be neither pain nor blood of the virgin in her coming together, even as there would not be the groaning of the mother in childbirth.

S. Bonaventure proves this truth in the place cited, quaest. 1, both by the authority of Scripture and by reason. For, says he, men were spoken to in the state of innocence, as it is written: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth. And another text of Scripture declares that woman was made for a helper unto man. This also accords with right reason, which says that the power of generating pertains to the completion of nature: but the use of generation to the complement and perfection of the heavenly city; and because in the state of innocence nature was more perfect than in the state of the way: and had man stood, the heavenly city would by no means have been defrauded of the multitude of its citizens; it must be posited that man in the state of innocence could generate, and would have generated; and because neither man by himself nor woman by herself would have sufficed for generating, therefore by commixtion there would be made a conjunction of one to the other, and they would render each other mutual aid in the procreation of offspring for multiplying the human race; and therefore had man stood, there would have been generation and the commixtion of the sexes. — It is confirmed from Genesis 2: Woman was given as a help unto man: but surely for nothing else than for the generation of offspring; for in all other things man could be aided by man either better or certainly no less well. Then again, the distinction of the sexes is for nothing save generation: but in its primary condition the distinction existed in the human species as in others: therefore if distinct sexes concur to one effect only by being mingled, it seems that had man stood, man and woman would have been mingled. Finally, man had generative power: but it is plain that he could not conceive offspring within himself, since he had neither the place in which the fetus should be nourished, nor the passage by which it should go forth: therefore it seems that, that he might generate, it was necessary for him to mingle with and come together with woman.

Dices 1: The commixtion of the sexes implies shamefulness: but in the state of innocence there would have been no dishonesty nor shamefulness: therefore neither the commixtion of the sexes.

Respondeo: I distinguish the major: the commixtion of the sexes, with immoderate ardor of lust and unbridled motions of concupiscence, implies shamefulness — this I grant; where these are absent, I deny. That shamefulness and loathing, indeed, which now inheres in the very act of generation, is felt by reason of the deformity of lust and the immoderate pleasure of the sexes, which our first parents immediately after sin, to use the words of Augustine, felt, blushed at, and covered themselves. But this ardor of lust, shaming and deforming the act of generation, would not have been in the state of innocence. For in it the soul would have been wholly subject to God; and the interior part of man perfectly subjected and obedient to reason; so that, with that same facility and moderation with which we now move the other members of the body — feet for walking, hands for taking, mouth and tongue for speaking — in that state, without disturbance of reason, without ardor of lust, and without all foulness, man would have moved, ruled, and moderated those members of the body which nature furnished for generating.

Dices 2: There can be no generation except from the decision of seed: but in the state of innocence there would have been no decision of seed; for seed is a superfluity of nutriment: but wherever there is superfluity, there is vitiosity: but in instituted nature there was no vitiosity: therefore neither superfluity: consequently neither the seminal humor. Further, seed is a superfluity of the third digestion: but had man stood, there would not have been in him a superfluity of the second digestion, namely dung and urine: therefore neither a superfluity of the third. The first is plain from the Philosopher: the second is manifest, because those superfluities are never without foulness and ignominy: therefore if foulness and ignominy are not in man except through fault, in no wise would there have been superfluity in them.

Nego minorem: and for its proof I answer with S. Bonaventure in the place cited, quaest. 2, that there is a twofold superfluity, namely of residuum and of impurity. The superfluity of residuum is in seed; and this superfluity does not exclude necessity; nay, the very same thing which is necessary is superfluous — necessary for the species, superfluous for the individual: necessary for the generative power, but superfluous for the nutritive: and this superfluity is not repugnant to the goodness and complexion of nature, because it sounds not in defect but in complement. — There is also another superfluity of impurity, such as dung and urine, the flow of rheum, the emission of sweat, and things like these; and this is of a twofold difference: some comes from weakness of the contentive and conservative powers, as sweat and rheum, and such was not in Adam, for this cause, that the natural powers in him were efficacious in their operations; but the other is that which comes from the impurity of nutriment, and this would have been in Adam — such as the superfluity of excrement and urine, which exist for the separation of the pure from the impure; and that which is pure and fit should be assumed into nourishment, but that which is less fit should be cast outward, though not with such great stench and foulness, as the vessels and intestines and passages sufficiently indicate, which are naturally assigned to man from his first condition. So S. Bonaventure.

Dices 3: The generation of offspring cannot come to pass without corruption of the seal and virginal integrity: but in the state of innocence there would have been no corruption: therefore neither generation of offspring.

S. Augustine answers, lib. 14, De Civitate Dei, cap. 26, that amid so great a facility of things and felicity of men, far be it from us to suspect that offspring could not be made without the motion of lust: but those members would be moved by the nod of the will as the others; and without the seductive stimulus of ardor, with tranquillity of soul and body, without any corruption of integrity, the seed of the marital wife would have been infused: for neither because experience cannot prove it is it therefore not to be believed; since those parts of the body would not be acted upon shamefully by ardor, but spontaneous power would employ them as need required: thus then could the male seed be implanted while the feminine integrity of the genital member remained whole in one of the spouses: even as now, with the same integrity preserved, the flux of menstrual blood can be emitted from the womb of a virgin: for by the same path could that be implanted by which this can be emitted; for as, in giving birth, not the groaning of pain but the impulse of maturity relaxes the female womb: so, for cherishing and conceiving, not appetite of lust but voluntary use would unite both natures.

Respondeo 2. It seems more probable that the seal of virginal integrity would even then have been opened through the act of generation. For the manner in which the act of generation is now accomplished, through the opening of the female part, is natural, seeing that it is observed also in the other animals. Therefore, setting aside the ardor of immoderate lust and the deformity of concupiscence, which befell the act of generation through sin and the privation of original Justice, this manner too would have been in the state of innocence: for the things natural to man were not changed on account of sin. Further, why should we fear to say that feminine bodily integrity would then have been taken away through the act of generation, when we cannot deny that it is corrupted in childbirth through the going forth of the offspring from the womb? Unless anyone should be so senseless and mad as to think that what in the most blessed Virgin was an excellent and singular miracle — that she bore her Son with her womb closed — would have been the customary lot of all women in that state. — I add that the sentiment of S. Augustine can be expounded in that sense in which S. Bonaventure used and distinguished it, as was observed in the 3rd Notabile.

Quaeres: Whether, if the state of innocence had persevered, only those men would have been born who are now elected unto eternal beatitude? — quaest. 100, a. 2, where answering the authority borrowed from S. Gregory the Pope, who says that if the state of innocence had persevered, only the predestined would have been about to be born, Dicendum, says he, that if Adam had not sinned he would not have begotten from himself children of gehenna: namely in such sort that from him they would contract that sin which is the cause of gehenna. They could become children of gehenna through free choice by sinning. He adds indeed: And if they did not become children of gehenna through sin, this would not be because they were confirmed in grace, but on account of divine providence, whereby they would be preserved immune from sin. Where you see that in this second part of the response he indicates that they would not sin mortally unto gehenna, God preserving them from sin. Yet since he places first, in the first position, the prior response denying that preservation, dicendum rather inclines toward that opinion.

AFFIRMING the opinion in truth, the Subtle Doctor defends it in 2 dist. 20, qu. 2: I say, says he, that only those now elect would have been born in the state of innocence; and he proves this first by the authority of S. Gregory, 1 Moralium, cap. 36, who says: had no rust of sin corrupted the first parent, he would by no means have generated from himself children of gehenna, but those alone who are now to be saved through the Redeemer would alone have been born elect from him; whose assertion, since no theological reason and no implication is repugnant to it, faith itself is not to be denied.

2. The Doctor proves it by theological reason, because everyone willing orderly some end, and those means which conduce to its attainment, wills first the means nearer the end than those more remote: but God is one willing orderly: therefore He first wills Himself, or His goodness to be communicated to creatures, as His own ultimate end: therefore equally He ought to will those means which proximately confer upon fruition of His beatitude and goodness. Now of these means nearer is the election of man unto glory than that he be produced by this or that man, or that sin be permitted: therefore prior does that election take place than the permission of sin be decreed, or the nativity of that man from this or that man; and hence parents of this kind could not vary those determined and elected unto beatitude from the divine will, but the same in number would be born.

Verily, however, since this proof of the Doctor can only be understood of election incomplete and merely designative, but not of election absolute, complete, and determinate, as we said demonstrating that the predestination of men is rendered efficacious only after merits foreseen, therefore I judge otherwise that the assertion of S. Gregory, and likewise of the Subtle Doctor, is to be proved. Those alone then would have been born who were foreseen as about to depart this life in final grace: but only those now elect are such: therefore only those would then have been born. The minor stands: the Major likewise, both because S. Gregory openly confesses that, had Adam stood, he would by no means have generated from himself children of gehenna: therefore all then to be generated were about to depart this life in final grace: then also because, as will be proved below, all the posterity of Adam, had he stood, after having conquered the first temptation and occasion of sinning, would in truth have been confirmed in grace: and hence none of them would have departed this world without sanctifying grace: finally, because though some had sinned, nevertheless they could have repented of sin, and repaired lost sanctifying grace through an act of contrition, and through a more fervent act of charity discharged the penalties due to their sin; and thereafter avoid occasions of sinning with greater prudence, and repel them with firmer mind: therefore none of them would have departed this life without sanctifying grace, and thus none of them would have been damned. — To the confirmation there accrue several probable reasons and conjectures, which Francis Macedo reports thus from S. Augustine, collat. 6, diff. t., sec. 4. The first is drawn from the condition of that state, which, since it was of integrity and innocence, ought to have been like virginity: namely either to remain intact, or to perish corrupted, for no middle was given. The second from the like, or rather from the opposite: through sin that whole state perished from the foundations: therefore through its innocence it would wholly stand entire and complete. The third from the proportion between the propagation of nature and the transfusion of justice: for as from one parent the whole nature is transmitted into posterity, so justice seemed to be transfused, God so ordaining, that one should answer to the other. The fourth from the covenant of God with man: which seems to have been of such kind that, had Adam obeyed, all his posterity would be saved: if otherwise, all damned, as happened through sin. The fifth from the difference of this state from the state of Redemption after sin: because if in that state there were mortal sins, private persons would need a necessary Mediator and Redeemer, and the grace of necessary redemption, which condition is proper to the present state of fallen nature, not to another. Whence it follows ex absurdo. Sixth, namely from the confusion of these states: for that state would become altogether like our state with Redemption and with the grace of the Mediator, with the Sacraments and remedies of sins, which do not appear able to be done away without the grace of the Redeemer: and consequently Christ would be in it passible, and there the grace of the Cross, or something similar. So Macedo.

To these conjectures the SS. Fathers also give the suffrage of their authority. For besides S. Gregory the Great already cited, S. Anselm adds, lib. 1, c. 18.: Had the first parents so stood that, tempted, they had not sinned, they would have been confirmed together with their whole progeny, so that thereafter they could not sin. — S. Augustine also favors it, lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, cap. 23, where, inquiring whether in the state of innocence other men were to be generated from the first parents, it being objected that there would be among them some sinners, and accordingly only the first parents righteous would remain, he answers against this affirmatively, saying: Much rather is it to be believed that the number of saints sufficient to complete that most blessed City would have been as great, even had no one sinned, as it is now gathered through the grace of God out of the multitude of sinners. He has like things in the book De correptione et gratia, cap. 10.

But whether truly those very ones alone who are in fact elected unto glory — that is, the selfsame men individually who are now effectually destined unto eternal beatitude — would have been born, innocence persevering, the Doctor seems to affirm in 2 dist. 20, quaest. 2, n. 3, where he says: I say (as has been said) that the same man in number, not only as regards the soul but even as regards the organic body, could have been son of Adam and son of Abraham; and from whichever of these two he had been, the same in number he would have been, because if nothing of the substance of the son be of the substance of the father, but the whole from the menses, as the Philosopher holds in the second De generatione animalium, or if the seed of the man concur there with that seed of the woman, I say nevertheless that the same matter from which this one is generated, which was in the state of fallen nature under the form of nutriment, could have been in the state of innocence under another form, for instance of an apple, or the like. So the Doctor, in which words he establishes two things, namely, that the same in number would have been born in the state of innocence who already are predestined; although perhaps they would not have had the same parents, because, says he, the same man can be son of Adam and of Abraham, that is, have had a different father. For in this individual man there are two things, namely form and matter, that is, soul and body. But the soul does not depend on parents, but is created and infused by God; the body, however, is formed from seed, which is not so proper to one that it might not be of another, since from diverse aliments the same seed can be generated. — Third, in a matter so doubtful and uncertain it is licit only probably to opine: let it suffice therefore with that Doctor and S. Gregory constantly to assert that no man in that state would have been damned, but that all would have been predestined and saved.