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

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ADAM is in truth our Prince, the beginning of our race, and of our guilt, says mellifluous Bernard: for that first Sower and Parent of men derived upon the whole human race, together with its degenerate nature, the entire flood of sin by vitiated propagation, and introduced it; for, saith the Apostle, as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death: so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. Rom. 5. Our Theological dissertation therefore proceeds by a straight step, when, after the crime of our First Parents has been laid open, and the divine chastisement inflicted upon them set forth, it descends to uncover the sins of the rest of men: and above all the head of all sins, which is therefore called Original; either because it is the fountain and origin of the others: or because by origin itself, that is, by natural generation, it is transfused into us: or — which I judge the more fitting account to give — because it took its rise from the first Parent and origin of mankind, and was derived upon all his posterity as from a poisonous fountain and a vitiated root. For which cause Ignatius calls it Iniquity: Irenaeus, the Handwriting which Adam wrote: St. Chrysostom, Radical sin: Cyprian, the contagion of ancient death: Dionysius, the habit of dissimilitude from God ingenerated in man: others again an Hereditary stain, or that defilement, the Handwriting of death, and the mark of irregularity, which everyone propagated from Adam contracts, whereby he becomes illegitimate to receive and obtain the sacred order of Angels, as our Maioronius sweetly speaks. — But how necessary, and of how great weight and moment the determination of the present controversy is, hence appears, that from the assertion of original sin the knowledge of several Articles of faith is drawn out and confirmed; for, saith St. Augustine, book 1. against Julian, chapter 2., they are those wherein sometimes even the most learned and best defenders of the Catholic rule do not accord among themselves while the fabric of faith remains safe, and the one says something better and more certain than the other concerning the same matter. Now this, with which we are at present occupied, pertains to the very foundations of faith. Whosoever labours to shake in Christian faith what is written,

by a man death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive, labouring to take away the whole that we believe in Christ. Hence in the book On original sin, having proposed in chapter 20. various questions which may be discussed and agitated on either side without peril of error and heresy, he concluded at last, chapter 24.: But in the cause of two men, through the one of whom we were delivered over under sin, through the other we are redeemed from sins: through the one we were precipitated into death, through the other we are set free unto life: of whom the one lost us in himself by doing his own will, not his who made him: the other made us his own in himself, not by doing his own will, but his by whom he was sent: in the cause therefore of these two men proper Christian faith consists.

Wherefore every effort must be spent upon deciding and elucidating the matter of the present controversy; and that we may execute it in a congruent order, we subjoin the five following Questions: whereof the First will disclose whether there be original sin. The Second, what it is. The Third, how it is transmitted. The Fourth, what miseries and calamities it has brought upon the whole human race. The Fifth, by what punishments, after this life, it is punished.

MOST GRAVE certainly, and such as long and sorely vexed the Church, is the present Question; for various heretics of old existed, and exist even now, who, blinking in meridian light, affirm that no burden has truly been transfused from the First Parents of mankind into their posterity, contracted by origin and propagation; that these may appear more evident,

Note 1. That although very many think Carpocrates to have been the primary impugner of original sin, yet the concurrent opinion of others is that Rufinus was the first discoverer of this unclean fountain and error; who, as Caelestius testified before the Fathers of the Council of Carthage, taught that there is no transduction of sin from Parents into little ones. For, as St. Augustine relates, book On original sin, chapter 3., where he copies out the acts of the aforesaid Council, when Caelestius had been asked whether he had said, That the sin of Adam had harmed him alone, and not the human race: and had answered that he was in doubt concerning the traduction of sin, because he had heard certain Catholic Priests denying it: being asked again by Paulinus the Deacon who those were, he answered, the holy Priest Rufinus at Rome, who abode with St. Pammachius. I heard him saying that there is no traduction of sin. From that Rufinus therefore Pelagius likely imbibed this error, as well as others, so that what the one spread abroad secretly, the other proclaimed openly. For although Pelagius before the Fathers of the Palestinian Synod pronounced Anathema against those who hold, That the sin of Adam harmed him alone, and not the human race: and that Infants are in that state in which Adam was before his prevarication, as St. Augustine relates in several places, chiefly in the book On original sin, chapter 12.: yet he said these things, saith the same, chapter 13., lest the Catholic Synod should be deceived, or the new heretic condemned. For, as he adds, chapter 15., when the disciples of Pelagius asked him why he had pronounced such an Anathema; he answered that he had condemned those propositions because, as he himself says, Not upon the first man only, but also upon the human race did that first sin bring harm: not by propagation, but by imitation; that is, saith St. Aug., not because he drew from him any vice, since from him they were propagated, but because they imitated him first sinning, since afterwards they sinned; by which craftiness, saith c. 21., he so much the more covertly deceived the Judges, as he expounded it so much the more cunningly. But, saith St. Augustine in the same place c. 2., Caelestius stood yet more freely in this error, so much so that neither in the Episcopal judgment at Carthage would he condemn those who say that the sin of Adam harmed him alone, and not the human race: and that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before his prevarication: And in the city of Rome in his little book, which he gave to the most blessed Pope Zosimus, he thus asserted more expressly, that original sin binds no one of the little ones. And Julianus defended this error above all most keenly, having written many books on this matter against St. Augustine, as will be shown more fully below.

Note 2. That the errors of the Pelagians touching the present controversy are contained especially in these five propositions: whereof the First affirmed that Adam had harmed himself alone, nor had by his crime shaken human nature or his posterity: the Second, that little ones contract no fault and punishment on Adam's part in their propagation: the Third, that baptism is not necessary to men for the remission of sins, but only that they be reborn in Christ and obtain an hereditary right to the kingdom of Heaven; whence Pelagius was wont to say, Infants dying without baptism, whither they go not, I know: whither they go, I know not, that is, saith St. Augustine, relating these words in the book On original sin, he did not consent: the Fourth, they asserted diseases, death, and the other calamities and straits of our nature not to be effects of original sin, but mere defects and necessities of human nature: the Fifth finally, they taught concupiscence, or the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit, to be neither evil of punishment nor evil of fault; but a good of nature itself, fitting, and a necessary incentive unto the propagation of the human race, which flourished in Adam even in the state of innocence before sin.

Note 3. That all these erroneous opinions, long since buried, were in later centuries recalled forth from the abyss of darkness into light through various errors. For the Anabaptists taught therefore that little ones ought not to be baptized, not only because they must first be taught than regenerated, but also because they were defiled by no stain of sin. Before them had shone forth the Armenii, and Ilbigenses, as St. Antoninus testifies in the Summa of Theology part 3. title 12.; and likewise the Albanenses, as Alphonsus a Castro, Bernardus Luthenburgensis, and Prateolus teach: whom Sanderus undeservedly confounds with the Albigenses, Heresy 151. for the Albanenses flourished in the time of Leo the Third Pontiff, and Constantine the Sixth Emperor about the Year of the Lord 796.; the Albigenses truly in the time of Innocent the Third Pontiff, and Frederick the Second Emperor. Before these had shone Peter Abaillardus; for he, as St. Bernard writes, Epist. 109., did not rightly feel concerning the sin of origin, teaching, as the same Epistle 109. relates, that Christ came not into the world, nor suffered and died, except that He might teach and instruct us by word and example. Thence St. Bernard gathers that Abaillardus judged that Adam harmed us only by a perverse example unto sinning, and that infants, who are not capable of institution and examples, neither perished in Adam, nor are called through Christ. But as touching the punishments and natural calamities arising from original sin, very many Reformers confess indeed that they arise from the sin of Adam: yet that they suppose no crime in his posterity. So judged Zuinglius, Iacobus Faber in the Commentaries chapter 5. upon Romans, and in the Apology for the same commentaries; where he teaches that we draw nothing from Adam save an obligation unto death. The same equally judged Erasmus, as Suarez proves in many places, chapter 2. On original sin. —

The same most pestilent error certain men of our own days labour to renew, the Socinians namely, who, that they may evacuate the grace of Christ, and His merit and satisfaction, impiously snarl that the blood of Him shed upon the cross conduces nothing at all to the expiation of original sin, which, say they, is none at all, and a wholly vain figment. That therefore we may meet their impiety, the following must be defended and confirmed according to our strength

Single Conclusion. — Truly there exists original sin, or that which, commutatively by origin and vital propagation, committed by Adam the first Parent as it were the head of the whole human race, thence flows over upon posterity as into the members. This is of faith, and is proved by various arguments, which, that they may appear more evident and efficacious, it pleases to propose and weigh singly under the following Paragraphs.

§ 1. — Original sin is proved by the plain oracles of holy Scripture. — First indeed from that of Genesis 17. The male, whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, that soul shall be destroyed out of his people, because he hath made void my covenant: and hereupon, saith St. Augustine, lib. 16. De Civit. Dei, cap. 27. Because circumcision was the sign of regeneration, not undeservedly is the generation damned for the Original sin whereby first the testament of God was dissipate, unless regeneration deliver. For, as the same saith lib. On orig. Sin, c. 30. If the justice of so horrible a punishment be sought, will not all that argumentation of these Pelagians concerning free will, and the laudable soundness and purity of nature, however subtle it be, rebounded and contrary, leap asunder? For what evil, I ask, has the infant committed by his own will, that others being negligent and not circumcising him, he himself should be damned with so severe damnation, that that soul perish out of its people? He subjoins c. 31. Whence then is that most lost Infant rightly punished, unless because he pertains to the mass of perdition, and is justly understood to be born of Adam, damned by the obligation of the ancient debt, unless thence he had been freed not according to debt, but according to grace? — Secondly, the same stands from that of Psalm 50. Behold in iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother conceived me. And likewise from that of Job 14., where according to the version of the Seventy we read: No one is clean from filth, nor the Infant whose life is of one day upon the earth. Wherein certainly nothing is more illustrious for proving this truth: for if no one is clean from filth, nor the Infant of one day, assuredly there is some sin which is contracted by natural propagation itself. Nor does the Vulgate differ from that version, while it renders: Who can make clean him that is conceived of unclean seed? is it not thou only? For indeed if God alone can make clean a man conceived of unclean seed, it follows that from conception itself man is unclean with the uncleanness of sin; both because to God alone is attributed that He can cleanse from it: and also because it speaks of that filth by reason of which man must be led unto judgment, as appears from the preceding words: and dost thou think it meet to open thy eyes upon such a one, and to bring him into judgment with thee? Both the aforesaid testimonies of Job and David Jerome and Augustine use for proving Original sin. Jerome indeed upon those words of Job, This little verse, saith he, sets forth the cause of the whole human race: as in Job, even if he be of one day upon the earth he cannot be clean from the filth of sin. But he is conceived, and is born in Original sin, which is drawn from Adam, but is cleansed by baptism through the grace of God. But the verse of the Psalmist is thus weighed by St. Augustine: What is it that he says himself was conceived in iniquity, unless because iniquity is drawn from Adam? Also with that iniquity the bond of death itself is joined: no one is born save drawing punishment, drawing the merit of punishment. — Thirdly above all this truth is proved from that to the Romans 5. By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. From which this argument can be deduced: by one man entered into this world a certain sin, which made all men sinners, and thereby obnoxious to death: but such a sin cannot be actual, that is, committed by actual will, since even infants are obnoxious to death, and often times without number die before they have done anything good or evil by their own will: therefore that sin, through which they become obnoxious to death, must needs be contracted by origin itself. It is confirmed from the following words; for the Apostle subjoins: As by the disobedience of one man many were constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of one many shall be constituted just, properly namely sinners, as properly just, as sin reigned unto death, so also grace may reign by justice unto life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord. Nor ought it to move anyone that the Apostle said, many, as though not all are constituted sinners; both because by many are understood all who are born of Adam, who truly are many: for it is not infrequent in Scripture that all be signified by many, which St. Augustine proves On Genesis chapters 17. and 22.; in the former of which God said to Abraham: Father of many nations have I constituted thee: in the latter truly: in thy seed shall all nations be blessed: concerning which words, saith St. Aug., it has been shown that the same all are many, and the same nations all: so also when it has been said, by one sin passed into all, and afterwards by the disobedience of one many were constituted sinners, they themselves are many who are also all. Then because not all simply have been constituted sinners by Adam: since neither Eve, nor Christ, nor blessed Virgin were stained by Adam's sin.

The Pelagians answered 1. To that testimony of the Apostle, that indeed truly sin entered into the world through one man, not by propagation, but by imitation; so that the first Parent opened to his posterity the way of sinning, and by his example enticed them unto sin. — But to this excuse St. Augustine thus shuts the approach, lib. On the merits and remission of sins, chapter 9. If the Apostle, he saith, had brought forward to commemorate that sin which entered into this world not by propagation, but by imitation, he would have said its prince to be not Adam, but the devil, of whom it is written, first of John 3., the devil sinneth from the beginning; of whom also it is read in the book of Wisdom 2., But by the envy of the devil death came into the world: For because that death came thus from the devil into men, not because they had been propagated from him, but because they had imitated him, he immediately subjoins: but they imitate him who are on his part. Wherefore the Apostle, when he commemorated that sin and death, which had passed from one unto all by propagation, placed as its prince him from whom the propagation of the human race took its beginning. — Moreover the Apostle comprehends not only adults, but even little ones; since even little ones are obnoxious to death, which he teaches entered through sin, and is the punishment and effect thereof, teaching universally, affirming: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned: but into little ones Adam's sin did not pass by imitation, since before the use of reason they cannot imitate it by sinning: therefore it must be confessed the Apostle speaks not of the passage of sin by imitation, but by propagation. — Finally St. Paul affirms that the sin of Adam is so transmitted to posterity, as the justice of Christ to the regenerate: As therefore, saith St. Augustine in the same place, he in whom all shall be made alive, besides that he offered himself to them as an example of justice to be imitated, gives also the most hidden grace of his Spirit to the faithful, whilst latently he infuses it even into little ones: so also he in whom all die, besides that he is to them, who transgress the command of the Lord by will, an example of imitation, with hidden stain also of carnal concupiscence corrupted in himself all coming of his stock.

The Pelagians answered 2. By sin indeed the Apostle here signifies that sin which is contracted by origin, yet not properly, but metonymically speaking; so that his sense was, that by one man sin entered into this world, that is, one man sinning, a certain malady and proneness unto sinning, mortality, and other miseries entered into the world: for these effects of sin the Apostle called sin metonymically: so Zuinglius expounds this place. — On the contrary, in the aforesaid words the Apostle manifestly distinguishes sin from its punishment, such as death is: asserts both to have entered into the world by one man, namely Adam; and deservedly indeed; for if by sin he understood its own punishment when he says: sin entered into this world, and by sin death, the sense would be, that death entered into this world, and by death death; which locution would certainly be altogether absurd. Add that although metonymically sin be sometimes taken for the punishment of sin in Scripture, in which sense the Apostle calls concupiscence sin; nowhere nevertheless does Scripture affirm anyone to sin, or to be a sinner, for the sole cause or punishment of sin: here truly the Apostle expressly pronounces, In whom all have sinned. The Pelagians answered finally, that sin in those words of the Apostle does not signify the original sin of the sons of Adam, but their actual sin, which is said to have entered into the world through one man, because then first sin began to be in the world, when it was in Adam, who was a part of the world. Thus also Zuinglius expounds it in his book On Baptism. — On the contrary, if this interpretation held place, it would follow that not through one man, but through one Angel, sin entered into this world, since the Angel existed as part of the world, and sinned, before man. But if Zuinglius says the Apostle must be understood of the corporeal world, and of its bodily parts, still it will not be true what the Apostle says, that sin entered into this world through one man: for Eve sinned before Adam, and she sinning, sin entered into this world: therefore the Apostle speaks not of that actual sin alone of the first Parent having entered into this world, but also of its transference unto posterity, not by imitation, but by propagation. — Finally the Apostle insinuates the same truth from that passage to the Ephesians, chapter 2.: We were by nature children of wrath even as others, that is, from the beginnings of our nature, or from our conception and nativity, we were liable to the wrath and vengeance of God. But no one is liable to the wrath and vengeance of God except by reason of sin: therefore we truly inherit the sin of our first Parent from his propagation.

The Iuliani answered, the patron of the Pelagians, that the saying of the Apostle could by force of speech and the Greek text be thus rendered: We were quite children of wrath. And truly St. Jerome does not reject this interpretation, although he more approves and follows the other. — But that reading in which "of nature" is to be preferred St. Augustine proves from the supreme consensus of all Latin codices: Oughtest thou not, saith he, to have been admonished hence, before thou didst defend the Catholic faith against them: because scarcely is a Latin codex found, if it do not now begin with us to be emended, or rather changed into a faulty one, wherein "of nature" is not written? Which antiquity of the Interpreters ought certainly to have done more blindly, unless this antiquity were also of the faith, which your novelty desires to resist. (Lib. 6. Contra Iulianum, cap. 10).

§ 2. — The same truth is proved from the Councils. — First indeed from the Palestinian Council, in which the Pelagian Heresy, already published by Caelestius the disciple of Pelagius, was proscribed and condemned; for when all the articles had been recited wherein were contained all the errors of Pelagius and Caelestius, whose principal ones St. Augustine relates in the book On the acts of Pelagius, chapters 18. and 30., Pelagius being asked by the Fathers of the Synod what he thought of them, said: I anathematize those who so hold, or have ever so thundered: with which words however he mocked the too great credulity of the Fathers, and indeed even St. Augustine himself, who, as he says in the book On original sin, chapter 11., I was rejoicing that by that answer of Pelagius that question was concluded safe: and it seemed to me most openly confessed to him, that original sin is in little ones: by anathematizing those who believed that the sin of Adam harmed him alone, and not also the human race, and who opined little ones to be in that state in which that first man was before his prevarication. But afterwards when I had read his four books, and had found the man still thinking against the Catholic faith concerning little ones, I began to wonder more, both at his imprudence in the Ecclesiastical judgment, and his mendacity in so great a Question.... For in the same books he both speaks against the passage of sin from Adam into little ones, and glories in the acts of the Palestinian Synod; where he was thought quickly to have condemned those who so hold, and by absolving while deceiving he stole them away. — Secondly, the same truth was defined in the second Council of Milevum under Innocent the First, in which by Canon 1. this sentence concerning original sin is handed down. It hath pleased, that whosoever denies little ones newly taken from their mothers' wombs to be baptized, or says that they are baptized indeed unto the remission of sins, but contract nothing from Adam of original sin, which is expiated by the laver of regeneration: whence it follows, that in them the form of Baptism, unto the remission of sins, must be understood not true, but false, let him be anathema. — Thirdly, the same did the second Council of Orange define under Felix the Fourth against the Semipelagians and Massilians, in which by Canon 2. it is defined: If anyone asserts that Adam's prevarication harmed himself alone, and not his posterity, or certainly affirms that only the death of the body, which is the punishment of sin, but not also sin itself, which is the death of the soul, passed through one man into the whole human race, he will do injustice to God, contradicting the Apostle saying: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death passed into all men, in whom all have sinned. — Fourthly, the same was determined in the Florentine Council in the decree of Eugene the Fourth Supreme Pontiff, wherein it is defined that the souls of those who depart in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, descend immediately into hell, to be punished however with disparate pains. — Finally, this same was determined most clearly of all by the Council of Trent, Session 5. Canon 2. and following; where it repeats word for word and renews the decrees of the Councils of Milevum and Orange, thus writing: If anyone asserts that Adam's prevarication harmed himself alone, and not his posterity etc. And Can. 3: If anyone asserts that this sin, which is one by origin, and transfused into men by propagation, not by imitation, is in each one proper to him, and is taken away either by the forces of human nature, or by any other remedy than by the merit of the one Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ, etc. let him be anathema.

§ III. — The same is proved by the authority of the SS. Fathers. — Most constant among the SS. Fathers, and concordant, was ever the opinion concerning the transfusion of the sin of Adam into posterity: for saith St. Augustine book 3. On the merits and remission of sins, chapter 7. From the beginning even to this present time, in which this novelty strives to be: this concerning original sin was guarded with such constancy among the faith of the Church, that by those who treated the divine eloquia it was rather brought forward as most certain for refuting other things, than that it should be attempted to be refuted by anyone as false. Which indeed he proves with very many sentences of the SS. Fathers, which St. Augustine himself selected and produced, as may be seen in book 1. against Julian, chapters 3. and 7.

There can be brought forward in the first place St. Dionysius the Areopagite book On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 6., where he ascribes the sin of the first man to the whole of human nature, not only according to punishment, but also with respect to guilt: Human nature, saith he, at first foolishly fallen away from divine benefits, took up on account of its merit the various passages of life, and the end of corruptible death. Indeed that pernicious defection from celestial goodness, and the prevarication of the sacred law in Paradise, whereby of its own accord, lulled by blandishing and hostile frauds of the adversary, it had knocked out the seat of the vital yoke, it handed over to things contrary to divine goods. By which he teaches that human nature therefore lacked the divine benefits bestowed upon it in its first formation, because voluntarily deficient from God it had knocked out the vital yoke by the frauds of Satan. — Secondly, there comes forth St. Ignatius, who in his Epistle to the Trallians thus speaks: Be ye therefore girt with meekness, imitators of the passions of Christ, and of his love, wherewith he loved us, giving himself for us that he might cleanse us by his blood from ancient impiety. — Thirdly, St. Justin Martyr, who in his dialogue with Trypho says: That He came not for Himself we hold ascertained; for neither was there need to Him of the washing of baptism, nor of the advent of the Spirit in the species of a dove, as neither did He sustain to be born, and crucified on account of indigence of such an office: but for the cause of the human race, because He considered sin through Adam unto death, and the fraud of the seduction of the serpent — that meanwhile I may pass over His own guilt while He acted ill for Himself. — Fourthly, Irenaeus of Lyons

First can be brought forward St. Dionysius the Areopagite, book De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, cap. 6, where he ascribes the sin of the first man to the whole of human nature, not only as regards punishment, but even as regards guilt: Human nature, he says, at the beginning foolishly fallen away from the divine benefits, on its merit he took upon himself the manifold passibilities of life, and the end of corruptible death. For indeed that pernicious defection from the celestial goodness, and the transgression of the sacred law in Paradise, whereby of its own will, soothed by the flattering and hostile frauds of the adversary, it had struck out the vital yoke, it handed down to things contrary to the divine goods. By which he teaches that human nature therefore lacked the divine benefits conferred upon it in its first formation, because willingly falling away from God it struck out the vital yoke by the frauds of Satan. — Secondly, there comes forward St. Ignatius, who in his Epistle to the Trallians speaks thus: You therefore girt with gentleness, imitators of your

Bishop, book 6, cap. 17. He destroyed, he says, the handwriting of our debt, fastening it to the cross: that as by the wood we were made debtors to God, so by the wood we receive the remission of the debt. And cap. 19. As, he says, the human race was bound over to death through a Virgin, so it is saved through a Virgin, the virginal disobedience being balanced by an equal scale against virginal obedience; for still, upon the sin of the first-formed man there succeeds, by the correction of the First-begotten, the rectitude of the serpent's craft by the simplicity of the dove, and we are loosed from those bonds by which we had been bound over to death. From these words St. Augustine, book 1 contra Iulianum, cap. 3, thus conjures him: Do you not see what the ancient man of God thinks of the ancient wound of the serpent? What of the similitude of the flesh of sin, by which the wound of the serpent in the flesh of sin is healed? What of the sin of the first-formed man, by which we had been bound? — Fifthly, Tertullian in the book *De Ani

§ IV. — The same truth is proved by theological reason. — First the Seraphic Doctor proves it, dist. 30, qu. 2, by a threefold reason drawn from the lack of the vision of God, the shamefacedness of reason, and the predominance of concupiscence. First indeed, the lack of the vision of God makes this manifest, because no one ought to be deprived of the eternal good for which he was made, unless he have in himself something by which he is unworthy to be presented to the divine aspect: and such a thing is nothing but guilt: if therefore all as many as are, are deprived of the vision of God unless they be reborn through the baptism of water, or of the Spirit; it is plain that all as many as are contract guilt from their origin. — Secondly, from the shamefacedness also of reason, this makes it manifest: for no one rationally blushes at those passions which he has from nature, unless they be in him through some fault: but every man naturally blushes at the motion of the genital members: from this therefore it is gathered, and man

The Subtle Doctor proves it secondly in 2 dist. 32, n. 8: Whosoever is propagated from Adam and lacks the original justice which he had received from God to be handed on to his posterity, is defiled by original sin: but all the posterity of Adam, unless prevented by a special divine privilege, lack that original justice: therefore, etc. The minor stands of itself by that experience whereby each one of us experiences himself to be stripped of those eminent gifts with which Adam had been illumined at the very beginning of his formation. The major the Doctor proves from that teaching of St. Anselm in book 1 De Conceptu Virginali, c. 27, who says: The voluntary desertion of justice which he committed does not accuse him, nor does the incapacity of receiving excuse the persons, as he declares in cap. 2: Because it made for itself that incapacity by deserting justice in the first Parents, in whom the whole nature was, and it is always debtor to have that power which it received for the observing of justice always. From which thus

who might sin less would be punished equally. It is plain from another quarter, from the divine law, whereby it is established that justice is propagated as it were naturally through the father not setting up an obstacle by sin, not indeed because the father would transfuse it, since it is a supernatural gift; but that God himself would cooperate with nature in the regular manner of giving justice to the one propagated, just as he now creates the intellectual soul for the perfectly organized body. So this Doctor.

It is proved thirdly from the necessity of baptism: for baptism is absolutely necessary for the remission of sin: but according to Apostolic tradition, as St. Dionysius teaches in the book De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, in the last chapter, Origen Homilia 8 on Leviticus, Cyprian book 3, Epistle 3, and other Fathers of the Church, baptism is to be administered to infants; therefore it supposes in them sin to be washed away: not actual; therefore original. The major is proved: both from the words of Christ saying John 3: Unless a man be born again of Water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God: but why ought he to be reborn through grace, unless his generation had been corrupted through sin? And because those who are baptized were dead in sin, and through baptism rise again and walk in newness of life, as the Apostle says to the Romans 6: therefore those who are baptized suppose sin. For they who are baptized are cleansed and washed; Ephesians 5.

It is proved fourthly from the Redemption of Christ: for Christ the Lord underwent death not only for adults, but also for little ones: since St. Paul says 2 Corinthians 5: Christ died for all: but Christ suffered death only for those who, dead in sin, were to be vivified, as the Apostle signifies in the same place writing: if one died for all, then all were dead: therefore infants were dead in sin; otherwise Christ would not have died for them, and they would have been wholly without share in his Passion. Whosoever therefore, as St. Augustine says in the response to cap. 17 of book 2 against Julian, says that infants are free from that sin in which enmities were made, most certainly denies that they pertain to that reconciliation for the sake of which Christ was made mediator. He accordingly separates them also from that justification which takes place in the blood of Christ, for the shedding of which, when he commended it to be drunk, it was said to be for no other purpose than the remission of sins. Hence it follows that for infants not having sins the death of Christ profits nothing at all.

§5. — THE OBJECTIONS ARE PROPOSED AND SOLVED. 1. THOSE WHICH ARE SOUGHT FROM SACRED SCRIPTURE.

You will object 1. That of Ezekiel cap. 18: The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father: therefore those who draw their origin from Adam are not stained by his sin.

I answer 1. Ezekiel is to be understood of the personal sins of parents, which are not passed on to the offspring, and by reason of which sons are not subjected to divine vengeance unless by actually sinning they follow the wicked examples of their parents.

I answer 2. That Adam's transgression was also morally the iniquity of his posterity, who were constituted in him as in the head of human nature, and transgressed the law of God together with him. Hence St. Augustine says book 1 De peccatorum meritis, cap. 10: Certainly it is manifest that there are other sins proper to each, in which only those sin whose sins they are

I answer 3. St. Augustine, book 6 in Iulianum cap. 20, says that the aforesaid words of Ezekiel are prophetical, and that in them is promised the benefit of the New Testament and of the spiritual inheritance pertaining to the other world, whereby through regeneration the paternal handwriting was to be blotted out, so that the sin of the old Adam might no longer harm those who had put on the new Adam through baptism; for in this New Testament, as St. Augustine says, Through the blood of the Testator the paternal handwriting being destroyed, man begins by being born again not to be liable for his paternal debts, by which he had been bound in being born.

You will object 2. That word of the Apostle to the Romans 5, saying: As by the disobedience of one man many were constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of one shall many be constituted just: but not all are constituted just by this: therefore neither are all made unjust by that. Moreover the Apostle says significantly, many were constituted sinners, but he does not say all: therefore he holds that the posterity of Adam become sinners not by propagation but only by imitation of his sin.

To the first, I answer by denying the minor: for it is certain that through the obedience of Christ all are constituted just, since Christ was made obedient for all, and merited for all the means necessary for justification and salvation: therefore by the same reason that all are justified through Christ, who are spiritually reborn in him, so also all are constituted sinners through the disobedience of Adam, who are born from him and propagated from him.

To the second St. Augustine answers, book 6 contra Iulianum, cap. 21: by the many the Apostle means All, according to the customary phrase of Scripture: which he confirms from that of Genesis 17, where God says to Abraham: I have made thee father of many nations: yet Genesis 22 says: In thy seed shall all nations be blessed: concerning which St. Augustine says that the same all are shown to be the same many, and the same many the same all: But, he says, Scripture so spoke because there can be certain things that are all, which are not many: just as we call all the Gospels, and yet they are contained in a brief number, that is four: and again there can be some things many, yet not all, as we say many believe in Christ, yet not all believe. Hence among all those unto death through Adam, all unto life through Christ; because as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive: that is, from the first origin of the human race no one unto death except through Adam, and no one through Adam except unto death: and no one unto life except through Christ, and no one through Christ except unto life.

You will object 3. The same Apostle saying in the same place: Death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even over them who had not sinned in the similitude of the transgression of Adam: but to sin in the similitude of Adam's transgression would be to be stained with his sin: therefore it is false that all the posterity of Adam are defiled with his sin.

I deny the minor: For as St. Augustine says book 1 De peccatorum meritis, cap. 11, the sense of the Apostle is that death reigned even before the written law, or the times of Moses, over those also who did not sin actually, as Adam sinned, or, as St. Augustine says, Who had not yet with their own and proper will sinned as he did, but drew from him original sin, which is the form of what was to come: because in him was constituted the form of condemnation for his future posterity who were to be created from his propagation, that from one all might be born unto condemnation, from which nothing delivers except the grace of the Savior: therefore so far is original sin from being impugned thereby, that rather it is defended.

You will insist: The Apostle says in the same place that the grace of Christ abounded unto more than the sin of Adam abounded: therefore at least there are more who were not stained by the sin of Adam.

He answers in the same place that St. Augustine says that word many does not signify a comparison in that place, but is equivalent to the word all: For neither, he says, are more justified than are condemned: but it abounded far more: for Adam bewailed guilty from one offense; but Christ by his grace looses and forgives also those men who have added the offenses of their own will to that original one in which they were born: and so the sense is, that the grace of Christ was not limited only to washing away original sin, which is contracted from Adam; but also to wash away those which are afterwards actually committed; or that the grace of Christ is more powerful and efficacious to justify men than the sin of Adam was to stain them. Whence indeed the grace of Christ truly abounded unto far more than the sin of Adam; since the Blessed Virgin, free from original sin, was enriched and endowed most copiously with the grace of Christ. Eve likewise was not guilty of Adam's sin, nay she was the occasion of the sin itself, yet she was justified by the grace of Christ; for as St. Augustine says in the same place, The kingdom of death in any man whatsoever is destroyed only by the grace of the Savior,

You will object 4. That word of the Apostle 2 Corinthians 5: We must all be manifested before the tribunal of Christ, that everyone may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil: therefore only those are to be damned who have committed their own sin.

I deny the consequence, for as St. Augustine argues most excellently, book 6 Contra Iulianum, cap. 10: Infants will be manifested before the tribunal of Christ, or they will not: if they will not be manifested, what does that sentence avail you, when it does not pertain to them (namely infants) whose cause is now being treated? but if they will be manifested, how shall each of them receive what he did, who did nothing, unless because there pertains to him what was done through the hearts and mouths of those doing it, whether they believe or believe not?... For how does he receive good so as to enter into the kingdom of God, if each receives what he did, unless because there pertains to the infant even what was done through another, that is, believed? As therefore what he believed pertains to him, that he may receive good, that is, obtain the kingdom of God; so there pertains to him also that he did not believe, that he may receive the judgment of condemnation, because that too is an Evangelical sentence saying: he that believeth not shall be condemned.... Whence therefore, however importunely you would not have the infant carry away evil from another's sin, and would have him carry away good from another's right deed, not any good whatsoever, but the kingdom of God: for it is another's, since he believed through another, just as

You will object 5. That word of the Apostle to the Romans 3: By the law is the knowledge of sin: where therefore there is no knowledge of the law, there neither can there be knowledge of sin: but where there is no knowledge of sin, there neither is transgression: and therefore neither can damnation be there. For Paul himself testifies to this Romans 1, saying: for where there is no law, neither is there transgression. Now therefore consider the force and power of these testimonies, which is so great that it utterly subverts all the commentaries of all the Theologians on original sin. For this disease cannot bring upon us damnation, which only then follows, when we have beheld the law set before our eyes, yet still impelled by this disease and the affection of corrupt nature, we transgress the law. Thus Zwinglius.

I answer, that the aforementioned consequence of Zwingli is null; for the Apostle does not say, "where there is no knowledge of the law, neither is there transgression," as Zwingli's collection would require; but "where there is no law, neither is there transgression," which is most certainly true; for no transgression can be feigned unless there be a law which is violated by transgressing. Next, Zwingli assumes as certain the very point at issue in the Question, namely that actual sin alone, which is transgression, is properly the sin by which God can damn men; this all Catholics flatly deny, and we proved the contrary above from open texts of Scripture. Equally false is what he supposes as certain, namely that there is no damnation where there is no transgression of the law; for the same Apostle says in Romans 9 that infants did neither good nor evil, and hence did not transgress the Law by their own will: in Romans 5 itself he writes: "As by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification." And to the Ephesians, 2, he affirms that we are all by nature children of wrath — that is, guilty by our very birth and propagation. Finally, we can assert that even infants are transgressors of the Law, according to that of Osee 6: "But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there have they dealt treacherously against me" — namely, in Paradise, where Adam violated the law given him by God, and in which, as in their head, all sinned and transgressed.

THE AUTHORITIES OF THE HOLY FATHERS WHO SEEM TO DENY ORIGINAL SIN ARE PROPOSED AND ANSWERED.

You will object 1. Clement of Alexandria, book 3 of the Stromata, near the end, where he says: "Let them tell us then where the infant that is born was formed, or how it fell under Adam's curse, since it has done nothing?" Therefore he judges infants not to be guilty of Adam's sin.

I deny the consequence: for it is not established whose words these are, whether Clement's own, or those of the heretics whom he attacks in the same place, who taught that marriage was to be rejected because generation was evil, seeing that infants, though stained by no act of their own, yet, as holy Job says, "are not clean from filth" — which Clement certainly indicates; for he immediately subjoins: "It remains therefore for them (it seems) consequently to say that generation is evil, not only that of the body, but also that of the soul." Therefore those heretics did not deny original sin, but rather affirmed it, in order that from that assertion they might reject marriage and establish their own error.

You will object 2. St. Ambrose, in his Commentary on chapter 5 of Romans: "The death of the dissolution of the body is when the soul is separated from the body. There is also another death, which is called the second, in Gehenna, which we do not suffer through sin, but acquire on occasion of our own sin; from which the good are immune, only so far as they are in hell below, but in the higher, as it were, in a balance; because they could not ascend into Heaven."

I answer 1. That this Commentary on the Apostle does not appear to be by St. Ambrose, but by some other Author contemporary with Ambrose; for he lived at the time of Pope Damasus, as he testifies in the Commentary on the third chapter of the former Epistle to Timothy. Secondly, to say that this Author, whoever he may be, does not deny original sin, but rather establishes it: for a little before, expounding the aforesaid words, explaining that text "in whom all have sinned," he says: "It is therefore manifest that all sinned in Adam as in a mass; for he himself, corrupted by sin, begat all those who were born under sin. And thus also all are sinners, because we are all from him."

You will object 3. St. Chrysostom, whom the Pelagians claimed as the chief patron of their error, because he seemed in various places to deny original sin, especially in the Epistle to Theophilus, where, having said: "Blessed be God, who alone worketh wonders, who made all things and adorned all things: behold, he now enjoys the serene brightness of liberty who a little before was held captive; they are about the Church who were wandering in pilgrimages, and they occupy the lot of justice who were shut up in the confinement of sin. For they are not only free, but also holy; not only holy, but also just; not only just, but also sons; not only sons, but also heirs; not only heirs, but also brethren of Christ; nay, not only brethren of Christ, but also co-heirs; not only co-heirs, but also members; not only members, but also a temple; not only a temple, but also an instrument of the Spirit" — he subjoins: "Such are the dignities of faith through baptism; but to many the grace of baptism seems to consist only in the remission of sins. We, however, have already reckoned ten honors of baptism. For this reason also we baptize infants, although they are not stained with sin; namely, that sanctity, justice, adoption, inheritance, and the brotherhood of Christ may be bestowed upon them."

St. Augustine answers, book 1, chapter 6 of Contra Iulianum, against Julian, who had objected that aforesaid authority: "Do you then dare so to set forth these words of St. John the Bishop, as if opposed to so many and such great sentences of his, and so to sever him from their most harmonious fellowship and make him an adversary to them? Far be it, far be it, to believe or say such an evil of so great a man. Far be it, I say, that John of Constantinople should resist, on the baptism of little ones and their deliverance from the paternal handwriting through Christ, so many and so great Bishops of his own, and above all Innocent of Rome, Cyprian of Carthage, Basil of Cappadocia, Gregory of Nazianzus, Hilary of Gaul, Ambrose of Milan." Then he expounds the aforesaid words, saying that according to the Greek idiom "sins" is read in the plural, not "sin" in the singular, so that the genuine Latin version would be: "Therefore also we baptize Infants, although not having sins." Whence St. Augustine subjoins: "Certainly it was not said that little ones are not stained with sin, or sins, because John then spoke when no one was pressing this Question; more securely will he speak when we are no longer disputing." — Further, even if it be read singularly "with sin," it must be understood of personal sin, as St. Augustine explains in the same place, saying: "John therefore, comparing parents with their elders, whose own sins are remitted in baptism, said that they had not sins." — Finally, in other codices, especially of the Paris edition of the year 1556, we read: "We baptize infants that they may not be stained with sin," that is, that they may be cleansed from sin — surely none other than original. But that St. Chrysostom did not attack original sin, but rather defended it, St. Augustine proves in the same place from several texts taken from him, especially from the same Epistle to Theophilus, where he says: "Christ came once, and found the instrument, the paternal handwriting, which Adam wrote. In the beginning he introduced the debt; we have increased the interest by later sins." Whereupon Augustine addresses Julian thus: "Do you hear a man Catholic in Faith, and learned, and able to teach, distinguishing the debt of the paternal handwriting, which adhered to us hereditarily, from those debts whose interest accrued through our own sins? Do you hear what is revealed to little ones in baptism, who have not yet contracted debts of their own, and yet could not be immune from the paternal handwriting?"

ARGUMENTS DRAWN FROM REASON AND THEOLOGY ARE PROPOSED AND ANSWERED.

The Pelagians chiefly brought forward five arguments by which they assailed and attacked the assertion of original sin, as St. Augustine indicates in book 2 of Contra Iulianum, chapter 9. "Yours," he says, "are the arguments by which you say: If God creates men, they cannot be born evil together with Him; if marriage is a good, nothing evil arises from it; if all sins are remitted in baptism, those born of the reborn cannot draw original sin; if God is just, He cannot damn sins in the children while He forgives the parents their very own; if human nature is capable of perfect justice, it cannot have natural vices." But that the solutions of these objections may become more evident and easier, it pleases us to propose them, as well as others like them, one by one. Therefore:

You will object 1. God cannot be the artificer of evil: but He Himself is the author of all men who are born: therefore men being born cannot be evil, and hence neither infected with original sin.

St. Augustine answers, in the book De peccato originali, chapter 32, that two things must be distinguished in the procreation of men, namely nature and vice. "Together," he says, "both are propagated, both nature and nature's vice, one of which is good and the other evil. The one is taken from the bounty of the Creator; the other is drawn from the condemnation of origin. The cause of the one is the good will of the supreme God; of the other, the evil will of the first man. The one shows God the institutor of the creature; the other shows God the punisher of disobedience. Finally, Christ Himself, the very same, is the maker of man on account of creating the one, and is made man on account of healing the other." From which it follows that that evil, or original vice, must be referred not to God but to the disobedience of Adam as to its proper cause. It follows likewise that deliverance from this sin is not to be despaired of; for nature is not to be destroyed but perfected, that this disease may be cured. Which that heavenly physician can easily accomplish, who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Thence the same St. Augustine, book 2 against Julian, chapter 1: "Nor is perfection of virtue to be despaired of, through the grace of Him who can change and form nature vitiated from its origin."

You will object 2. A good tree cannot make evil fruits: but marriages are good: therefore from them evil children and sinners cannot be born.

St. Augustine answers 1., book 2 of De Nuptiis and Concupiscence, chapter 20: "Not only from wedlock but even from adultery something good is in children, according to the work of God by which they are created; but according to original sin they are born unto condemnation from Adam the first, not only if they are generated of adultery, but even if of wedlock, unless they be regenerated in Adam the second, who is Christ." Whence he concludes in the following chapter: "Rightly therefore have we said that the good of marriages cannot be accused on account of the original evil which is drawn thence, just as the evil of adultery cannot be accused on account of the man who is naturally born thence; because human nature which is born, whether of wedlock or of adultery, is the work of God; which, if it were evil, would not be to be generated; if it had no evil, would not be to be regenerated." And to conclude both in one word: "human nature, if it were evil, would not be to be saved; if no evil inhered in it, it would not be to be saved. Whoever therefore says that it is not good denies the good, confessing the Creator; but whoever denies that evil inheres in it mocks the merciful grace of the Saviour." Wherefore in men who are being born neither are adulteries to be excused on account of the good which is thence created by the good Creator; nor are marriages to be accused on account of the evil which is there to be healed by the merciful Saviour.

He answers 2. that chapter 26, the context of the Gospel aforesaid, is to be understood of two wills of men, namely the good and the bad; calling this good and that bad tree, because good works arise from a good will, and evil from an evil one. But if we set marriage down as a good tree, according to that Gospel similitude which he commemorated, we shall assuredly, on the contrary, set fornication down as an evil tree. He subjoins: "Wherefore if man is there called the fruit of marriage, as good from a good tree, doubtless man ought not to be born of fornication, for indeed an evil tree does not make good fruits." Moreover, if he should say that adultery ought not to hold the place of that tree, but rather human nature, of which man is born: so also here it will not be marriage that is the tree, but human nature, of which man is born. Nothing therefore does that Gospel similitude avail for this question, because marriages are not the cause of the sin which is drawn from the one being born and expiated in the one reborn; but the voluntary sin of the first man is the cause of the sin. Spouses therefore, whilst they beget children, propagate nature indeed corrupt and vitiated; but the guilt of that corruption must be referred not to themselves, but to the first man.

You will object 3. No one gives what he has not: but most parents, begetting children, no longer have original sin, seeing that it was expunged in them through baptism: therefore they cannot transfuse it into their children.

St. Augustine answers, book 3 of De peccatorum meritis, chapter 8 and following, that man regenerated in Christ, and thereby justified, does not beget carnal offspring according to that whereby he is regenerated, that is, according to the Spirit which he received in Christ; but according to that whereby he was born, that is, according to the flesh which he drew from Adam. Whence, having proposed this objection of the Pelagians — "but if Baptism cleanses that ancient offence, those who are born of two baptized persons ought to be free from sin: for they could not transmit to posterity what they by no means had" — he answers: "If the difficulty of refuting falsehoods and persuading truths resisted me among the dull and contentious on account of the obscurity of the natures of things, I would surely have recourse to examples which are in use and at hand, and would interrogate them in turn, that they might tell me how the sin which is cleansed through Baptism remains in those whom the baptized have begotten? They themselves would explain how the foreskin which is removed by circumcision remains in those whom the circumcised have begotten? how also chaff, which is separated by human labor with such diligence, remains in the fruit which is born from the purged grain? With these and such examples perhaps I would try to persuade both, that the sacraments of cleansing are superfluously believed applied to the sons of the cleansed, than that with right counsel the little ones of the baptized should be baptized: although it can happen that to a man having both seed, of death in the flesh and of immortality in the spirit, what harms his son generated of the flesh does not harm himself regenerated through the spirit; and what was cleansed in this one by remission should also be in that one, to be cleansed by a similar remission, as by circumcision, as by threshing and winnowing. But now, since we deal with those who confess that the sons of the baptized must be baptized, we act better thus, that we say:" (Then he presses the Pelagians thus:) "You who assert that sons ought to be born without sin of men cleansed from the stain of sin, why do you not add that in the same way it can be said of Christian parents that they ought to beget Christian sons?... What will you answer? Do you ask whether Christians are not born of Christians: save that generation does not make, but regeneration makes, Christians? Render therefore to yourselves this reason, that similarly of sins no one of you is born, but all are cleansed by being reborn. And hence to men equally cleansed, because the man who is born of reborn men is reborn, that he too may be cleansed. They could not [scil. could] parents transmit to posterity what they by no means had: not only as wheat chaff, and the foreskin from the circumcised; but also, as you yourselves say, the faithful transmit infidelity to posterity — which is now not of those manifest regenerated ones, but the vice of mortal seed, in that flesh they were generated. For even those little ones whom you command to be made faithful through the sacrament of the faithful, you do not deny to be born unbelievers from faithful parents."

He subjoins a similar answer in book 1 of De Nuptiis and Concupiscence, producing the example of the olive producing the wild olive. For thus he writes in chapter 19: "What is born of this concupiscence of the flesh, assuredly is born unto the world, not unto God. But one is born unto God when he is reborn of water and the Holy Ghost. The guilt of this concupiscence regeneration alone remits, which generation draws. Therefore let that which is generated be regenerated, because it cannot otherwise come to pass that what has been drawn be remitted. For that what has been remitted in the parent is drawn into the offspring is done in wondrous ways indeed, but nevertheless it is done. These things, invisible and incredible to unbelievers, but true, divine Providence provided in certain shrubs, that they might have some visible example. For why should we not believe that for this reason it was instituted that from the olive a wild olive be born? Ought it not to be believed that in some thing created for the uses of men the Creator provided and instituted what might serve as an example for the human race? It is wonderful therefore how, delivered from the bond of sin through grace, they nevertheless beget bound by the same bond, who must be delivered in the same manner: we confess, it is wonderful. But that the embryos of wild olives lie hidden even in the seeds of olives — when would this be believed, unless it were proved by experience? Therefore as a wild olive is begotten from the seed of a wild olive, and from the seed of an olive nothing but a wild olive, although between the wild olive and the olive there is the greatest difference: so from the flesh of a sinner, and from the flesh of a just man, a sinner is begotten on either side, although between the sinner and the just there is the greatest difference. Now the sinner is begotten none as yet in act, new in origin, but old in guilt: man from the Creator, captive from the deceiver, needing the Redeemer. But it is asked how captivity can be drawn into offspring even from parents already redeemed? And because it is traced out by no easy reasoning, nor explained in speech, it is not believed by unbelievers, as if even that which we said of the wild olive and of the olive, that the foetus of a dissimilar kind be like, some reason tacitly finds, or speech explains. But this can be seen by him who wishes to experience it. Let it be therefore in an example, whence also that may be believed which cannot be seen."

Whence I distinguish the minor: parents cannot transfuse into their children that which they have not, neither formally nor virtually — I concede: that which they have not formally, but only virtually — I deny: parents, moreover, although when they generate they have not original sin formally in themselves, yet always retain it virtually; namely, in the power of the seed and of the concupiscence of corrupted nature, which are the causes, or instruments, of generation, or of the union of the soul with the body, through which union original sin is contracted.

You will object 4. The redemption of Christ does not profit men who believe not: therefore neither does the transgression of Adam harm those who sin not, since it is not more efficacious.

St. Augustine answers, book 3 of De peccatorum meritis, chapter 2, that as the grace of Christ profits little ones baptized, believing only in another's person; so likewise sin, committed by the actual consent of the head of the whole human race, harms them: "therefore as," he says, "the spirit of justice of those through whom they are reborn, by his answer, transfers into them the faith which they could not as yet have by their own will: so the flesh of sin of those through whom they are born transfers into them death, which they had not as yet contracted by their own life. And as the spirit of wickedness regenerates the faithful in Christ, so the body of death had generated them in Adam as sinners: for that is carnal generation, this spiritual: that makes sons of the flesh, this sons of the spirit: that sons of death, this sons of resurrection: that sons of the age, this sons of God: that sons of wrath, this sons of mercy; and hence those bound by original sin, these freed from the bond of every sin."

You will object 5. Julian, in St. Augustine, book 2 of De Nuptiis and Concupiscence, chapter 28: "This one who is born does not sin, that one who begat does not sin, this one who fashioned does not sin; through what crevices then, creeping in amidst so many safeguards, do you feign the entrance of sin?"

St. Augustine answers in the same place: "Why do you seek the hidden crevice, when it has a most open door? By one man, saith the Apostle; by the offence of one, saith the Apostle; by the disobedience of one man: what do you seek further? what do you seek more openly? what more curiously!" Therefore the consequence of Julian must be denied: for although the father who generates is not the cause of sin, nor the son who is born, nor God who fashioned: it does not follow from thence that there is no cause of that sin, especially since the Apostle says: "By one man sin entered into this world."

You will object 6. Every sin is voluntary: but original sin in infants cannot be voluntary, since they lack the use of reason and liberty: therefore it cannot have the ratio of sin in them. The major is proved from that of St. Augustine, book De vera religione, chapter 11: "So voluntary is sin an evil, that in no way is it sin unless it be voluntary."

The Subtle Doctor answers, in 2, number 11: "'Every sin must be voluntary to the sinner, insofar as it is in his power, either secundum se or secundum alium, in whom he is morally constituted as in a head' — I concede: 'it must be voluntary, so that it be in the physical power of his own will not to have it' — I deny; and similarly, distinguishing the minor, I deny the consequence." Thus does St. Augustine solve the aforesaid argument, book 2 of De Nuptiis and Concupiscence, chapter 28, where, to Julian saying: "If sin is from the will, the will which makes sin is evil; if from nature, nature is evil," he answers: "Sin is from the will." He asks perhaps, whether it is original sin? I answer: it is altogether original sin, because this also was sown from the will of the first man, that it might be in him and pass over into all. This same he often inculcates in book 1 of the Operis imperfecti against Julian, where to Julian himself objecting what he himself had written in the book De duabus animabus, namely that "sin is the will of losing or retaining that which justice discerns, and whence it is free to abstain," and inferring from thence that there is no original sin in little ones: inasmuch as Julian said, "there is no sin without will; and there is no will where liberty is not unfolded; and there is no liberty where there is not the faculty of choice through reason": which certainly is not found in infants — St. Augustine responds in the same place, chapter 47. "These three things," he says, addressing Julian, "do you distinguish, and know that one thing is sin, another the punishment of sin, another both. You understand which of these three pertains to that definition, wherein there is will of doing that which justice forbids, and whence it is free to abstain. For sin is defined in this manner, not the punishment of sin, not both." Then, explicating the three members of this division, he subjoins: "Now these three genera have their species, of which it would now be long to dispute. Of these three genera take examples, if they are required; of the first genus there occurs in Adam, without any manner of question: for many are the evils which men do, from which it is free to abstain: but to none is it so free as it was to him who served God, by whom he was founded upright, abiding wholly depraved by no vice. Of the second genus, however, insofar as it is only the punishment of sin, the example is that evil which anyone does from the evil part, but only suffers: as when for his crime he who sinned is slain, or is tortured by any other punishment of the body. But the third genus, wherein sin itself is, and the punishment of sin, can be understood in him who says: 'the evil which I would not, that I do.' And finally, applying the distinction to the argument of Julian, he says that original sin pertains not to the first member of the division, but to the third: and hence it is no wonder if it be not comprehended by that definition of his related by Julian, seeing that it was handed down only concerning sin spoken of in the first manner. 'First,' he says, 'we mentioned original sin: for we now treat of sin, not of the punishment, which is not sin, although it follows by the merit of sin: which indeed little ones suffer, since there is in them a body dead because of sin; yet death of the body itself is not sin, or any bodily torture whatsoever. That third genus, insofar as it is, is sin, that it be both itself and the punishment of sin, which indeed is inherent in those being born, yet the origin of this sin descends from the will of the sinner. For Adam was, and in him we all were. Adam perished, and in him all perished.'"

You will insist: That is called voluntary which proceeds from an intrinsic principle with cognition: but original sin in little ones proceeds from an extrinsic principle, namely Adam, and without any cognition, seeing that they are destitute of reason: therefore it can in no wise be voluntary in them, nor be imputed to fault. Further, the free voluntary must be in the power of that will to which it is called voluntary, namely so that it may be or not be: but original sin is not in the power of the will of little ones, and hence in them it is neither voluntary nor free. Finally, that what is done through the will of another may be judged voluntary to me, it is necessary that I have committed my offices to him: but the posterity of Adam did not commit their own will to him, that namely in their stead he might keep or lose original justice at pleasure, seeing that they did not yet exist: therefore the privation of original justice, wherein original sin consists, cannot be voluntary in them.

I answer to the first: that original sin, in the manner in which it is voluntary, is from an intrinsic principle with cognition — not indeed in us, but in Adam: for something is said to be voluntary in two ways: namely physically, and in order to our own proper will; or morally, and in order to the will of another, in whom our own proper will is morally judged to be contained; of which kind is the will of the Ward, which is morally judged to be the will of the Tutor, and of the Actor; and also the wills of minor sons are morally contained in the will of the Fathers. Hence, since the wills of all men were morally contained in Adam the First Parent, after the manner of a Father and Head of all, he himself sinning freely and with perfect cognition, so likewise are we judged to have sinned in him. For as the blow given by the hand is voluntary, and with cognition, not by the will and cognition existing in the hand, but by the will of the whole supposit whose part the hand is: so original sin contracted by children is truly voluntary; not by a will existing in them physically, but by the will of Adam, in whom, as in the head of the whole human community, the wills of all men are morally contained. Therefore I distinguish the major: "that is called voluntary which is from an intrinsic principle with cognition" — either physically, and in itself only — I deny: or morally, and in another — I concede. And thus distinguishing the minor, I deny the consequence: for although original sin be not voluntary in us physically, and by an act of our own will, yet it is voluntary morally; namely by the will of Adam, who, since he is the principle of human nature not only natural but also moral, what he committed can be reputed morally intrinsic to others.

To the second I distinguish the major: "the personal voluntary, proceeding physically from the proper will of the agent, must be in the power of his will" — I concede: "the capital voluntary, or proceeding from the head of some moral member, must be in the physical power of the will of that member itself" — I deny; for it suffices thereto that that voluntary thing be in the physical power of the head containing morally the wills of the members. Similarly, distinguishing the minor, the consequence must be denied; for since original sin is not voluntary to little ones by the will of the person, but only by the will of the head of human nature, it is not required that it be in their physical power to have this defect or not to have it; but it suffices that it was in the physical power of the will of Adam to sin or not to sin.

To the third I say, that for original sin to be judged voluntary to men by the will of the head, it is not necessary that they committed their own right and consent to Adam their First Parent with regard to the keeping or loss of original justice: but it suffices that God, constituting him Adam our head natural and moral, constituted the wills of all of us alike in him morally: for since He is the supreme Lord of us and of our things, and holds the wills of men in His power more than they themselves do, as St. Augustine says in the book De Correptione et gratia, chapter 14, He was able to ordain that the will of Adam, the First Parent of all, with regard to the loss or keeping of original justice, should be alike the will of all his posterity: not insofar as they are singular persons; for thus each of them has his own will: but insofar as they are parts and members of the whole body, and multitude of men, of which Adam is the head and origin.

You will object 7. No one sins in that which he cannot avoid: but little ones cannot avoid original sin: therefore it cannot be deputed to them as fault.

The Doctor distinguishes the major, dist. 32, number 14: "No one sins in that which he cannot avoid, neither in himself, nor in another in whom he is morally contained" — he concedes: "that which he cannot avoid secundum se, but could avoid it in another" — he denies; and similarly, distinguishing the minor, he denies the consequence: for although little ones secundum se physically cannot avoid original sin, yet they could avoid it in Adam: whence they do not indeed sin by actual and personal sin, which would arise physically from their will: but by original sin, which is transmitted together with human nature itself. "For as," St. Augustine says, book 2 of De Nuptiis and Concupiscence, chapter 5, "through the will of that one all sinned in him the evil, when all those were the one man," therefore each drew original sin.

You will object 8. Nothing natural is culpable, seeing that Aristotle says in 3 Ethicorum: "In natural things we are neither praised nor blamed"; whence no one will reproach one born blind, but rather pity him: but original corruption is natural, since it necessarily follows nature itself, and is the same in all: therefore it is not to be blamed; and hence neither is it sin.

The Seraphic Doctor answers, from St. August. lib. 1. De Trinitate, cap. 10: that something can be called natural in two ways, namely that which follows nature itself according to its institution; or that which accompanies it according to its corruption: that which is natural in the prior manner is not culpable, whence Aristotle rightly said that reproach must not be cast upon men laboring under natural defect, as the blind born blind: but that which is natural in the latter manner is culpable; inasmuch as it is not only natural, but also voluntary, both physically on the part of the head, and morally on the part of the member contracting sin together with nature.

Julian the Pelagian was insisting, that what is accidental in parents cannot be natural in sons: but the sin of Adam was accidental in him: therefore it cannot be judged natural or innate in his sons.

St. Augustine answers, book 6 contr. ipsum Iul., chapter 6, denying the major, and confirms it by the example of Fundanus, the Carthaginian rhetorician, who, though the vice of luxury was accidental in him, begat sons of luxury. "By which example," St. Augustine says, "that sentence of yours would be overturned, whereby you do not grant natural things from accident: for it was accident in the father which was made natural in the son."

You will object 9. The sin of origin, if it existed, would exist in the body or in the soul: not in the body, because this is not the seat of sin, although it is often the seedbed and conflagration; nor even in the soul, for this is created immediately by God alone; for if it were made by traduction from Adam, and, like the body, were propagated through generation, it would be subject to death, as also the body. Therefore it proceeds from God alone: but God is not the author of sin, nor straightway the artificer of a sinful soul. Therefore original sin is none.

I answer with Bellarmine, book 4 of De Statu peccati, chapter 10, near the end: that this argument of the Pelagians ever seemed most difficult to St. Augustine, and almost insoluble. Wherefore in book 5 cont. Iulianum, chapter 1, expounding two modes of explaining the corruption of the soul from original sin and its propagation, he writes: "Lest, namely, soul and flesh be punished together with both, unless what is born be emended by punishing. Indeed, either both vitiated is drawn from man; or one into the other, and whilst in the vitiated case it is corrupted, where the hidden justice of the divine law is inculcated. But which of these be the true, I learn more willingly than I say, lest I dare to teach what I know not. Yet this I know, that of these that is truer which true, ancient, catholic faith, which believes and asserts original sin, would pronounce not false. That faith is not denied, and this which lies hidden concerning the soul, either is learned in leisure, or, as many other things in this life, is known without the blemish of salvation. More must I care, whether in little ones or in grown ones, by what help the soul be holier, than by what merit it be vitiated."

Although indeed the solution of this question appears truly difficult, nevertheless, to the argument we shall say that the soul is touched through generation, not indeed so that it is made by its force; but so that it is united to the body by the mode of a form, which union is the formal terminus of generation: but the whole man is he himself consisting of soul and body: whence, since the whole man is judged propagated from Adam, the whole man also is said to be stained, as well according to the body as according to the soul. But in what manner that sin is produced by Parents into posterity, we shall show below.

Tam abstrusa, tamque a sensibus, et mentis captu longe remota est peccati originalis natura, ut ipse S. August. lib. De moribus Ecclesiae, cap. 22. scribere non dubitaverit; De peccato antiquo nihil est praedicandum notius, nihil ad intelligendum secretius. Unde non mirum si in huius difficultatis enodatione tanta sit, tamque multiplex Auctorum pugna, ut vix numerari possint diversae eorum sententiae. Quorum praecipuae ut innotescant,

NOTANDUM 1. Varios Haereticos circa propositam veritatem fuisse hallucinatos. Primo namque fuerunt quidam erronei, inquit Guillelmus Parisiensis lib. De vitis, et peccatis, cap. 5. dicentes animam humanam naturaliter diligere corpus, et desiderare coniunctionem ipsius, et propterea cum eidem coniungitur, nimio gaudio amplecti corpus, arctiusque ei coniungi quam deberet, et hoc, inquiunt, originale peccatum dicitur, quo peccat anima nimio isto gaudio, et amplexu quam deceat arctiori.

Secunda erronea sententia fuit Mathiae Illyrici Centuriatorum Antesignani, hominis revera ad monstra exeogitanda quodammodo nati, qui in libello de peccato originis, docet illud non esse accidens naturae superadditum, sed ipsammet animae rationalis substantiam ipso Adami peccato substantialiter vitiata, et ex imagine Dei quam in creatione acceperat in imaginem diaboli transformatam: quem errorem prius videtur docuisse Lutherus, siquidem in explicatione Psalmi 50. tractans illa verba, Ecce in iniquitatibus conceptus sum, ait: Non loquitur David de ullis operibus, sed simpliciter de materia, et ipso esse, et dicit; Semen humanum, idest massa, ex qua conceptus sum, tota est vitio et peccato corrupta: materia ipsa est vitiata: lutum illud ex quo vasculum hoc fingi coepit, damnabile est. Et paulo post, Foetus. inquit, in utero antequam nascimur, et homines esse incipimus, peccatum est. — Tertia erronea sententia est Lutheranorum, et Calvinistarum asserentium peccatum originale esse ipsam concupiscentiam habituale, sive fomitem peccati, quem contendunt esse vere, et proprie, ac formaliter peccatum.

Variae pariter fuerunt Doctorum Catholicorum de peccati originalis natura sententiae. Primo namque Gregorius Ariminensis dist. 30. qu. 2. art. 1. et Gabriel ibidem, necnon et Guillelmus Parisiensis Tract. de vitii, cap. 4. docent peccatum originale esse morbidae animae qualitatem ob Adae transgressionem in posteros ex vitiata carne per virulentum serpentis afflatum derivatam; ita quod caro sic infecta animam inficiat, eo modo quo liquor optimus ac vitio infundatur. Secundo, plurimi contendunt peccatum originale esse fomitem concupiscentiae, quatenus habet annexam privationem iustitiae originalis debitae: ita ut fomes sit velut materiale, privatio autem ista formale peccati originis; quae sententia tribuitur S. Thomae qu. 82. art. 3. et S. Bonaventurae dist. 30. art. 2. qu. 1. Tertio Rottensis Articulis 2. contra Lutherum, and nonnulli alii post ipsum, affirmant peccatum originale essentialiter consistere in ipso reatu poenae, quo nempe parvuli ex Adamo propagati in ipsa sua conceptionis momento afficiuntur. Quarto, plurimi Theologi, maxime ex recentioribus, volunt rationem formalem peccati originalis consistere in aliqua privatione, quam tamen non omnes eodem modo explicant: aliqui enim dicunt eam consistere in privationе subiectionis mentis ad Deum: alii in privationе iustitiae originalis, et subiectionis partis inferioris superiori parti, necnon et immunitate donorum spiritualium quibus Adamus fuerat exornatus: aliqui in privationе gratiae sanctificantis qua collata fuerat Adamo, in posteros, nisi peccasset, transferenda. Quinto denique probabilior eorum mihi videtur opinio, qui censent peccatum originale esse ipsummet Adami peccatum in posteros transfusum, quatenus nempe moraliter omnes in eo peccaverunt tamquam in suo capite; cui sententiae plurimi subscribunt: imprimis vero Albertus Pighius Controversia prima: Catharinus in Opusculo De casu hominis cap. 8. Salmeron In caput 5. Epistolae ad Romanos, disputatione 15. et 16. ubi addit hanc sententiam debere esse omnium Catholicorum; nam Ita aperte intulit Paulus, inquit, dicendo omnes homines in Adamo peccasse, ut qui hunc sensum ex eius verbis non eliciunt, plane delirare videntur. In eandem sententiam eunt plurimi recentiores, quos refert, et sequitur Egidius de Presentatione lib. 2. De pura Virginis Conceptione, qu. 1. art. 5. Ipsis autem omnibus praeluxit Subtilis Doctor, ut infra demonstrabimus, cuius sententia ut notior fiat,

NOTANDUM 2. Peccatum originale dupliciter considerari posse. Primo, quatenus fuit actuale, hoc est actu commissum, et sic nihil est aliud quam peccatum primi Parentis prout ab illo personam omnium posterorum sustinente commissum est; sic enim omnes in ipso moraliter peccaverunt, et omnes eundem inobedientiae, et transgressionis actum commiserunt, quatenus omnes ille unus homo fuerunt, ut loquitur S. Augustinus, lib. 1. De peccatorum meritis, et remissione, cap. 10. Sicut autem nonnisi moraliter omnes homines in Adamo unus homo fuerunt, ita nonnisi moraliter illo peccante peccaverunt. Seconda spectari potest quatenus est habituale, et habitualiter manens in Adami posteris, donec eluatur; et ut sic nihil aliud est, quam homines in Adamo peccasse moraliter, et propter illud peccatum a se moraliter commissum in primo Parente, esse vere, et realiter Deo exosos, ac privatos ipsius gratia, omnibusque donis, et innocentiae charismatibus ad se transfundendis, nisi cum Adamo peccante peccassent, et talium donorum cum ipso indigni fuissent.

NOTANDEM 3. Quod quemadmodum homines possunt unum aliquem in suum caput morale eligere, suasque voluntates in illum derollvere, ut omnium nomine aliquid agat, et quod ipse fecerit censcantur ipsi fecisse, proindeque omnibus imputetur ac si ipsi fecissent; ita Deus, qui supremus omnium voluntatum nostrarum est Dominus, potuit illas in Adamum transfundere, ipsumque in caput nostrum morale constituere, ita ut sors omnium nostrum, sive in bonum, sive in malum, ex decreto, et pacto divino ab eo ita penderet, ut quemadmodum ius ad sanctitatem originalem, et felicem illum statum in quo fuerat ipse conditus habuissemus, si divinis mandatis obtemperasset, sic eiusdem transgressione illius peccatum ad omnes derivaretur per propagationem naturalem ab ipso descendentes derivatione, et communicatione morali. Qua fit ut Adami peccatum personale sit moraliter peccatum omnium posterorum; nimirum quia peccatum illud commissum fuit a primo Parente veluti capite totius generis humani personam omnium posterorum sustinente, et in quem omnium voluntates erant moraliter a Deo transfusae, ita ut quod ille bene, vel male ageret, imputaretur omnibus veluti membris in ipso capite moraliter, et representative operantibus. His ita praelibatis, primo expugnanda sunt alienae sententiae; demum ea quae nobis probabilior apparet, erit confirmanda.

Conclusio prima. — Peccatum originale non est ipsa substantialis animae corruptio.

Primo, quia ex illa erronea sententia, sequeretur dari aliquam substantiam per se malam: at hoc sapit haeresim Manichaeorum, qui peccatum substantiam quamdam, seu naturam esse asserebant: quod utique pridem damnatum fuit ab Ecclesia, et sanctorum Patrum auctoritate proscriptum. Nam Basilius in Oratione, quod Deus non sit auctor malorum, ait: Non imagineris esse aliquam propriam substantiam mali: nam malitia non est aliquid subsistens. Sanctus Gregorius Nazianzenus, Oratione in sanctum Baptisma: Crede, inquit, nullam esse mali essentiam, nec per se subsistere, nec a Deo creatum. S. Epiphanius Haeresi 37. Malum, inquit, aliquando non erat, neque radix ulla fuit malitiae: neque malum est quiddam per se subsistens, etc. Denique Augustinus pluribus, sed maxime lib. 6. contra Iulianum, cap. 1. docet peccatum originale non esse corpus, neque substantiam. Et in Psalmo 62. generaliter ait: Iniquitas ipsa non est substantia: non enim iniquitas est natura quam formaverit Deus: sed iniquitas est perversitas quam formavit homo.

Sequeretur secundo, Deum, et parentes esse causas peccati originalis; illum animam creando; hos corpus generando; quod utique omnes debent execrari; quippe cum non solum in infinitam Dei bonitatem pugnet, sed et in ipsam Scripturam sacram, qua diserte pronuntiat omnem a Deo conditam naturam esse bonam. Sic Sapientiae 11. Diligis omnia quae sunt, et nihil odisti eorum quae fecisti: et secundam ad Timotheum 2. omnis creatura Dei bona est.

Tertio sequeretur, vel hominem mutari essentialiter in Baptismo, et in resurrectione gloriosa, vel peccatum originale nusquam elui; quod directe militat in ipsammet Scripturam sacram docentem peccata omnia deleri per Baptismum. Sic Romanorum 8. Nulla est damnationis iis qui sunt in Christo Iesu: qui non secundum carnem ambulant. Ephesiorum 5. Mundans lavacro aquae in verbo vitae, ut exhiberet ipse sibi gloriosam Ecclesiam non habentem maculam neque rugam. Et prima Ioann. 1. Sanguis Christi emundat nos ab omni peccato. Sequeretur denique animam esse corruptibilem, siquidem homo secundum illam mutatur substantialiter per peccatum.

Impugnatur iterum haeretica illa sententia: homo peccato originali inquinatus, vel est eiusdem substantialis speciei cum homine mundato originali peccato, vel non. Si sit: ergo nulla facta est in ipso substantialis mutatio, quando a statu peccatoris ad statum gratiae transiit. Si non sit: ergo alteruter non est animal rationale, vel erunt homines essentialiter diversae speciei, quod nullus Philosophorum hactenus somniarit. Secundo, non magis peccatum originale deberet esse forma aliqua substantialis teterrima superinducta, quam quodcumque aliud peccatum mortale, propter paritatem rationis: sed absurdum est, quod alia peccata mortalia sint substantiae aut formae substantiales, alias toties homo mutaretur substantialiter quoties peccat, et qui plura admisisset peccata, longe plures haberet gradus substantiae quam qui minus peccasset, vel qui iustus esset. Denique, illa corruptio, et mutatio substantialis qua fieret in anima, necessario fieri deberet per introductionem alicuius formae substantialis advenientis: sed hoc dici nequit; produceretur enim vel a Deo, vel ab homine peccante. At produci non potest a Deo; Deus enim non potest esse causa peccati. Non etiam ab homine, quia nullum habet in se principium quo talem substantiam produceret; illud unicum principium, si quod esset, maxime voluntas a qua peccatum procedit: sed voluntas tantum producit actus, qui solum sunt accidentia, non autem substantiae: ergo, etc.

Obiciunt Illyricus varios Scripturae textus. Primo quidem illud Genes. 6. ubi iuxta Hebraicam editionem legimus: Figmentum humani cordis malum est ab adolescentia sua: ergo massa ipsa cordis, hoc est substantia, dicitur esse mala. Ad Rom. 6. Vetus homo noster crucifixus est ut destruatur corpus peccati: quibus peccatum vocatur vetus homo, et dicitur habere corpus: ergo est substantia. Et codem cap. 6. dicit Apostolus: Non regnet peccatum in vestro mortali corpore ad obediendum concupiscentiis eius: ergo peccatum est aliquid regnans, et habens concupiscentias: adeoque debet necessario esse substantia, et non accidens. Denique, imago Dei in homine non erat aliquod accidens, sed substantia; sicut enim dicitur Genes. 1. Creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem suam, ita dicitur Genes. 5. Adam genuit filium ad imaginem suum: certum est autem filium esse ad imaginem patris, non propter sola accidentia, sed propter naturae similitudinem. Sed si imago Dei substantia erat, profecto etiam imago diaboli substantia esse debet. Amisit autem homo per peccatum imaginem Dei, et induit imaginem diaboli, iuxta illud Ioannis 8. Vos ex patre diabolo estis: et ad Colossenses 3. Induite novum hominem qui renovatur secundum imaginem eius qui creavit eum: ergo cum ipsa imago diaboli sit substantia, etiam originale peccatum erit quid substantiale.

Nego has omnes consequentias, et ad primum contextum respondeo, per figmentum cordis non intelligi ipsam substantiam cordis, sed operationes eius quas in se fingit sive tacit, et sic ex illo testu nihil adversum nos urgetur. Vel dico quod etsi intelligeretur ipsa cordis substantia, inde non sequeretur illam esse peccatum; potest enim esse mala denominative a peccato, seu operatione mala, quamvis nec ipsum peccatum, nec mala operatio esset quid substantiale: sicut potest dici infirmus homo et doctus ab infirmitate et doctrina, licet neutra sit substantia. Ad secundum dico, per corpus peccati non intelligi aliquid substantiale, sed ipsam massam, seu congeriem peccatorum. Deinde loquitur Apostolus de peccatis actualibus. Denique, si quid inferri posset, sequeretur ipsum peccatum originale esse aliquod corpus in anima residens, peccatum enim in anima sedem habet: sed hoc asserere stupidum esset: ergo, etc. Ad alterum Apostolicum textum dico, peccatum regnare in mortali nostro corpore eo modo quo superbia in superbo, et in avaro avaritia dominatur; cum tamen neutra sit substantia, sed accidens; regnare autem dicuntur, quatenus inclinant, et movent ad actus sibi conformes. Ad tertium dico, ipsam quidem animae substantiam esse revera imaginem Dei, sed nego illam per peccatum deperdi, vel in aliam transformari: iste namque fuit error Origenis pridem ab Ecclesia damnatus, ut colligitur ex Epiphanio Haeresi 61.

Obicies 2. Peccatum originale est fons, et origo omnis mali: ergo est substantia. — Respondeo negando consequentiam: ita enim appellatur, quia est fons omnis mali, quatenus ob ipsum commissum, Deus subtraxit iustitiam originalem, et auxilia quibus mediantibus non committerentur peccata: sed ex eo non sequitur quod sit substantia; quamvis enim esset accidens, posset habere hanc rationem fontis, et originis.

Obicies 3. Quidquid est difforme, seu non conforme legi, est peccatum: sed ipsamet substantia hominis descendentis ex Adamo, est non conformis legi Dei: ergo est peccatum. — Nego maiorem: solum namque illud peccatum est, quod ex natura sua est non conforme legi: sic autem substantia hominis non est difformis legi Dei, sed hoc competit per se operationi ipsius. Quae responsio confirmatur, quia qua ratione quidquid esset non conforme legi Dei deberet esse peccatum, etiam quidquid esset conforme legi Dei deberet esse opus bonum, et virtus ac meritum, quo nihil absurdius. Itaque quidquid est non conforme legi Dei, est peccatum, vel habens peccatum; sicut quidquid est conforme est opus bonum, vel habens opus bonum; sed non quidquid est non conforme hoc modo debet esse peccatum.

Conclusio secunda. — Peccatum originale non est formaliter concupiscentia, nec fomes ad malum inclinans. Haec est de fide contra Lutheranos, et Calvinistas.

Probatur primo: Per Baptismum eluitur quidquid habet veram, et propriam rationem peccati: sed concupiscentia non tollitur in renatis per Baptismum: ergo concupiscentia non est formaliter peccatum originale. Maior constat tum ex Apostolo ad Romanos 8. Nihil damnationis est in his qui renati sunt in Christo. Tum ex Concilio Tridentino Sess. 5. Canone 5. Si quis per Iesu Christi Domini nostri gratiam, quae in Baptismate confertur, reatum originalis peccati remitti negat, aut etiam asserit non etiam tolli totum id quod veram, et propriam peccati rationem habet, sed illud dicit tantum radi aut non imputari, anathema sit. Tum denique ex sanctis Patribus: Hieronymo Epistola ad Oceanum: Quomodo, inquit, iustificati sumus, et sanctificati, si peccatum aliquod in nobis relinquatur? Augustino contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum, cap. 3. ubi ait: Baptismus abluit peccata omnia, prorsus omnia, sive originalia, sive addita. Minor etiam constat tum ipsa experientia qua unusquisque ex renatis per Baptismum in seipso fomitem illum deprehendit, quo ad bona delectabilia etiam vetita stimulatur. Tum ex Apostolo ad Romanos 7. dicente: Video aliam legem in membris meis repugnantem legi mentis meae. Tum denique ex eodem Concilio Tridentino ibidem: Manere autem in baptizatis concupiscentiam, vel fomitem haec sancta Synodus fatetur, et sentit; quae cum ad agonem relicta sit, nocere non consentientibus, seu viriliter per Christi Iesu gratiam repugnantibus non valet; quinimo qui legitime certaverit coronabitur.

Utrainque hanc propositionem confirmat S. Augustinus lib. 6. contra Iulianum, cap. 19. ubi diserte probat quod etsi concupiscentia ex originali peccato promanans remaneat in renatis quantum ad actum, non tamen remaneat penes reatum. Ego, inquit, de concupiscentia dixi, quae est in membris repugnans legi mentis, cuius reatus eius in omnium peccatorum remissione transierit: sicut e contrario, sacrificium idolis factum, si deinceps non fiat, praeterit actu, sed manet reatu, nisi per indulgentiam remittatur. Quiddam enim tale est sacrificare idolis, ut opus ipsum cum fit praetereat, eodemque praeterito reatus eius maneat venia resolvendus. Tale est carnis concupiscentia, ut maneat in homine secum per continentiam confligente, quamvis reatus qui fuerat generatione contractus, iam sit regeneratime transactus. Actu enim manet, non quidem abstrahendo et illiciendo mentem, eiusque consensu concipiendo et pariendo peccata, sed motu, quibus mens resistat, desideria commeando. Ipse quippe mutus actus est eius, quamvis mente non consentiente desit effectus.

Quibus verbis S. Augustinus declarat quod etsi concupiscentia quatenus seminarium est peccati originalis et cum ipso coniuncta remittatur in Baptismate quantum ad reatum, hoc est, quantum ad rationem formalem peccati originalis cuius est tradux, tamen ex integro subsistit in renatis quantum ad suum vigorem suamque efficacitatem, utpote cum in eis motus illicitos et rationi adversantes plerumque suscitet, subindeque ipsa non est peccatum originale.

Probatur secundo ex illo S. Iacobi, cap. 1. Unusquisque tentatur a concupiscentia sua abstractus, et illectus. Deinde concupiscentia cum conceperit, parit peccatum; peccatum vero cum consummatum fuerit, generat mortem. Quibus quatuor res videtur Apostolus distinguere: Primo concupiscentiam, idest, potentiam appetendi pronam, et stimulantem ad malum, et tres eius motus, nempe suggestionem, delectionem, et consensum: concupiscentiam autem, idest potentiam pronam, et primum eius motum, non appellat S. Iacobus peccatum: delectationem autem, quae est partus imperfectus, dum non est plene deliberatus, peccatum vocat, sed non mortale: denique partus perfectus, hoc est desiderium cum pleno consensu, quod vocat peccatum consummatum, generat mortem, idest, fit plene mortale.

Confirmatur ex sanctis Patribus qui praefatum contextum sic explicant, maxime vero S. Augustinus membro 6. adversus Iulianum, cap. 5. Sed, inquit, cum dicit Apostolus Iacobus: unusquisque tentatur a concupiscentia sua abstractus, et illectus: deinde concupiscentia cum conceperit parit peccatum: profecto in his verbis partus a pariente distinguitur, pariens enim est concupiscentia, partus peccatum. Sed concupiscentia non parit, nisi conceperit, non concipit, nisi illexerit: hoc est, ad malum perpetrandum obtinuerit voluntatis assensum. Idem docet S. Chrysostomus Homilia 13. in Epistolam ad Romanos; Ipsae, inquit, passiones in se peccatum non sunt: effrenata vero rerum immoderantia peccatum operata est. Et ut exempli gratia unam illarum tractem, concupiscentia quidem peccatum non est; quando vero egressa modum foras eruperit, tunc demum adulterium fit, non a concupiscentia, sed a nimio, et illicito illius luxu. Similiter S. Hilarius in Psalmum 118. exponens versiculum 29. Viam iniquitatis amove a me, ait: Viam peccati qua ad peccatum pergere promptum est, amoveri a se deprecatur, idest, omnia corporalium voluptatum desideria auferri, nec tentationem aliquam concupiscentiae, aut ignorantiae, qua tamquam per viam ad peccatum itur, ingruere. Denique S. Bernardus in Sermone de sex tribulationibus, Peccatum, inquit, in foribus est, nisi ipse aperias, non intrabit: appetitus in corde prurit, sed nisi sponte cesseris, nihil nocebit; consensum cohibe, ne praevaleant haec, et immaculatus eris.

Ipsis concinit Subtilis Doctor in 2. dist. 32. n. 7. ubi inquirens ac resolvens quid sit peccatum originale, quaestionemque resolvens ex doctrina S. Anselmi, lib. 1. De conceptu virginali, cap. 27. nimirum quod peccatum originale sit carentia iustitiae originalis quatenus debite: cum sibi obiecisset quod aliqui SS. Doctores videntur rationem formalem peccati originalis constituere in concupiscentia; respondet,

that concupiscence, whether as a habit or as a proneness in the sensitive appetite: and none of these is formally sin, for there is no sin in the sensitive part according to chapter 3 and 4 there. Or it can be taken as it is a proneness in the rational appetite, that is, in the will, toward concupiscing delights immoderately, which is apt to delight together with the sensitive appetite to which it is joined, and in this way concupiscence is the material element of original sin: because through the lack of original justice, which was like a bridle restraining it from immoderate delight, it becomes, not positively but through privation, prone to concupiscence of immoderate delights: as he illustrates in chapter 5 by the example of a ship with a broken rudder: and of a horse with a broken bridle, which is left to itself: and from this it executes the disordered motion which that bridle would have restrained.

Ita Doctor. Ex quibus apparet quantum hallucinentur Lutherani, ac Calvinistae, dum sanctos Patres suis erroneis dogmatibus patrocinari adfirmant.

Probatur tertio: ideirco concupiscentia, et fomes ad malum stimulans censeri posset originale peccatum, quia revera peccatum proprius dictum esset: sed falsum consequens: ergo et antecedens. Maior constat. Probatur minor: si homo crearetur in puris naturalibus absque aliquibus habitibus innatis, aut acquisitis virtutum moralium, haberet concupiscentiam non minus quam modo; quia haberet appetitum inclinantem ad bonum delectabile, sive esset prohibitum, sive non: et voluntas ipsius esset naturaliter inclinata ad conformandum se appetitui; concupiscentiam autem habere nihil aliud est quam habere appetitum, et voluntatem hoc modo: sed in tali casu non esset necesse ut fieret ullius praecepti transgressio: ergo potest esse concupiscentia absque ullo peccato. Deinde, peccatum originale reperitur in animabus parvulorum non baptizatorum quando moriuntur, sicut et in animabus aliorum omnium qui absque baptismo in re, vel in voto decedunt: sed in parvulis nulla est concupiscentia, nullusque peccati fomes: ergo peccatum originale non est peccati fomes, neque concupiscentia. Denique concupiscentia est effectus et poena peccati originalis: ergo esse nequit ipsum originale peccatum. Consequentia patet; quamvis enim unum, et idem possit esse peccatum, et poena peccati, et etiam causa peccati; tamen hoc sine dubio intelligendum per comparationem ad diversa; nequit enim res una esse peccatum, et poena, atque effectus peccati respectu eiusdem: alioquin esset poena, et effectus respectu sui ipsius, et per hoc prior ac posterior seipsa. Antecedens est ipsius sancti Augustini pluribus in locis, maxime vero lib. 6. in Iulianum cap. 3. Concupiscentia, inquit, poena peccati est, quia reddita est meritis inobedientis. Necnon et lib. De continentia, cap. 7. ubi comparat peccatum originale febribus: concupiscentiam vero languori, qui sanatis febribus remanet. Aliud, inquit, carere febribus, aliud ab infirmitate, quae febribus facta est, recalescere. Et intra: Prima curatio est causam removeri languoris, quod per omnium fit indulgentiam peccatorum: secundo, ipsum sanare languorem, quod fit paulatim proficiscendo, etc. Quibus aperte docet peccatum, quod in baptismate remittitur, causam dici languoris, idest, concupiscentia remanentis: igitur ipsa concupiscentia non potest dici peccatum originale; alioquin esset causa sui ipsius.

Obiciunt primo haeretici varia Apostoli oracula, quibus probare nituntur concupiscentiam revera esse formaliter peccatum. Sic ad Romanos 6. Non regnet peccatum in vestro mortali corpore. Intelligitur autem Apostolus de concupiscentia, subdit enim: ad obediendum concupiscentiis eius. Similiter cap. 7. Iam non ego operor illud, sed quod habitat in me peccatum; scio enim quod non habitat in me, idest in carne mea, bonum. Quibus verbis Apostolus concupiscentiam peccatum appellat: sed illa non potest esse peccatum actuale, cum non sit actus, sed habitus: ergo erit peccatum originale. — Respondent Doctores Catholici, concupiscentiam ab Apostolo peccatum appellari, non quod peccatum sit formaliter, sed quia est effectus peccati originalis, et causa peccati actualis. Loquitur enim Apostolus iuxta morem Scripturae sacrae, quae plerumque vocem peccati usurpat nunc pro ipsa culpa, nunc pro poena, quae est culpae effectus, nunc etiam pro causa peccati: nunc denique pro sacrificio, quod est peccati expiatio; Sic Deuteronomii 9. Moyses ait: Peccatum vestrum quam feceratis, igne combussi, et in frusta comminuens, in pulverem redegi. Ubi manifeste vitulus aureus dicitur peccatum, quia effectus, et causa peccati exstitit. Sic Oscae 1. Sacerdotes dicuntur comedere peccata populi. Sic ipsemet Apostolus, eodem cap. ad Romanos, legem, peccatum appellat, quia nimirum est causa manifestativa peccati. — Eamdem solutionem tradit Concilium Tridentinum Sessione 5. Canone 5. ubi legimus: Hanc concupiscentiam, quam aliquando Apostolus peccatum appellat, sancta Synodus declarat, Ecclesiam Catholicam numquam intellexisse peccatum appellari, quod vere, et proprie peccatum sit, sed quia ex peccato est, et ad peccatum inclinat. Quam utique doctrinam secutus erat S. August. lib. 1. De Nuptiis, cap. 23. ubi dicit concupiscentiam vocari peccatum. Quia, inquit, peccato facta est, cum iam in regeneratis non sit ipsa peccatum: sicut lingua vocatur locutio, quam facit lingua, et manus vocatur scriptura, quam facit manus. Itemque sic vocatur peccatum, quia peccatum si vincat, facit: sicut vocatur frigus piger, non quod a pigris fiat, sed quod pigros faciat.

Instabis ex S. Augustino lib. 5. contra Iulianum, ubi ait: Sicut infiditas cordis et peccatum est, quia in Deum non creditur, et poena peccati, qua cor superbum digna animadversione praemitur, et poena peccati cum aliquod male cordis errore committitur: ita carnis concupiscentia, adversus quam bonus concupiscit spiritus, et peccatum est, quia non est illi obedientia contra dominatum mentis, et poena, et causa peccati. — Respondeo ideoque S. August. concupiscentiam peccatum appellare, et non solum causam, vel effectum peccati, eo quod sit vitium, et naturae infirmitas tollens primam naturae veluti perfectionem, ingenitumque rigorem, quem in prima sui formatione a Deo acceperat: non autem ipsam peccatum appellat, quod sit proprie, et formaliter offensa Dei, ibi enim agebat contra Pelagianos, qui concupiscentiam quasi naturae perfectionem laudabant. Ut scilicet, inquit ibidem S. August. cap. 30. eam tamquam bonum naturale laudando suum pestiferum dogma confirment, quo asserunt prolem, quae per illum nascitur, nullum trahere originale peccatum.

Urges: S. August. ibidem comparat concupiscentiam cum caecitate cordis, qua Deo non creditur: sed cordis caecitas proprie et formaliter est peccatum: ergo et concupiscentia. — Respondeo 1. Negari posse consequentiam: non enim opus est, quod quae inter se comparantur, in omnibus quadrent, sed sufficit quod in aliquibus conveniant, ut omnibus fere comparationibus accidit. — Secundo dico, ipsam cordis caecitatem per se formaliter non esse peccatum: infideles enim, qui nihil unquam de Evangelio audierunt, nec audire potuerunt, habent negativam cordis caecitatem, et mysteriorum fidei ignorantiam, quae tamen caecitas in ipsis non est culpanda, ut docet S. August. Epistola 106. scribens: In illis qui non audierunt, neque potuerunt, poena peccati est non credere, non autem peccatum. — Tertio dico S. August. ibidem concupiscentiam appellare peccatum, quia interdum permittit Deus, ut homo cedat concupiscentiae motibus, et in novum peccatum ruat, in vindictam scilicet prioris peccati: unde ibidem explicans illud Apostoli ad Romanos: Tradidit Deus in desideria cordis eorum, ait: Aliud est habere mala desideria cordis, aliud tradi eis, utique ut consentiendo eis possideatur ab eis, quod fit cum divino iudicio traditur eis... Cum ergo dicitur homo tradi desideriis suis, inde fit reus, quia desertus a Deo, cedit eis, atque consentit, vincitur, trahitur, possidetur; a quo enim quis devictus est, huic et servus addictus est, et fit ei peccatum consequens praecedentis poena peccati. Quibus patet S. August. non appellare peccatum omnes concupiscentiae motus, sed tantum eos, quibus homo in poenam praecedentis peccati iusto Dei iudicio cedere permittitur. Alioquin, ait ille, frustra dictum est Ecclesiastici 18. Post concupiscentias tuas non eas, si iam quisque non reus est, quod tumultuantes, et ad mala trahere nitentes sentit eas, nec eas sequitur: si eis traditur exercens adversus eas gloriosa certamina, si vivit in gratia.

Obiciunt 2. Quidquid formaliter opponitur legi, et dictamini rationis, peccatum est: sed concupiscentia opponitur legi rationis, iuxta illud ad Romanos 7. Sentio aliam legem in membris meis repugnantem legi mentis meae: ergo peccatum est. Non actuale; ergo originale. Deinde: quidquid in peccatum inducit, etiam peccatum est: sed concupiscentia, ex eodem Apostolo ibidem, inducit, et captivat in lege peccati: ergo peccatum est. Denique: solum peccatum odio habetur a Deo; diligit enim omnia, quae sunt, et nihil odit eorum, quae fecit: solum autem peccatum non facit: adeoque quod odio habet, peccatum censeri debet: sed Deus odio habet concupiscentiam, ut docet S. Augustinus in Psalmum 37. Expendens illa verba: Malitiam autem non odivit, ait: Peccatum, et iniquitatem oderis, ut iungas te Deo, qui tecum illud oderit, iam coniunctus mente legi Dei, mente servi legi Dei: ibi autem loquitur de concupiscentia, quam peccatum appellat.

Respondeo ad primum, distinguendo maiorem: id quod opponitur legi, et dictamini rationis formaliter, ac per se, est etiam formaliter peccatum, concedo: quod opponitur tantum causaliter, nego. Et similiter distincta minore, nego consequentiam, concupiscentia enim per se non opponitur dictamini rationis, quippe cum prosit homini ad pugnam, et coronam. — Ad secundum nego maiorem, non enim id omne, quod ad peccatum inducere potest, peccatum est, sed tantum id peccatum formaliter appellatur, quod voluntas pleno, ac libero assensu contra divinam legem admittit. — Ad tertium denique nego maiorem: non enim solum odio habetur a Deo id quod est malum morale formaliter, sed etiam id quod est malum morale causaliter, seu causa malitiae moralis, ut constat in habitu vitioso, qui odio habetur a Deo, quatenus inclinat ad actus malos, licet per se non sit formaliter peccatum. Ad Augustinum dico, ipsum ibidem concupiscentiam appellare peccatum, quatenus nempe ipsi homo voluntarie succumbit: unde ait: Aliud est non pugnare, et esse in poena certa, atque perpetua: aliud pugnare, et vincere: aliud pugnare, et vinci; aliud nec pugnare, sed trahi. Sunt enim homines prorsus, qui non pugnant, quales est iste, de quo loquitur cum dicit malitiam non odio habuisse: Quomodo enim pugnaret contra eam, quam non odit? Iste a malitia trahitur, nec pugnat. Sunt autem, qui pugnare incipiunt, sed quia de viribus suis praesumunt, ut ostendat illis Deus, quia ipse vincit, si se homo subiungat Deo, et pugnantes vincuntur, et cum quasi ceperint tenere iustitiam, fiunt superbi, et eliduntur: isti pugnant, sed vincuntur. Quis est autem, qui pugnat, et non vincitur? Qui dicit: Video aliam legem in membris meis repugnantem legi mentis meae.

Obiciunt denique: Christus Dominus eos omnes naturae humanae detectus assumpsit, qui non sunt formaliter peccatum: ergo quos non assumpsit formaliter esse peccatum censendum est: sed neque fomitem, nec concupiscentiam induit: ergo signum est quod concupiscentia, et fomes sit peccatum. — Nego maiorem; non enim tantum non assumpsit eos detestans, qui sunt formaliter peccatum; sed etiam eos, qui sunt peccatum causaliter, qualis est concupiscentia, cuius motus quamvis non sint peccatum formale, tamen quatenus ad actus venereos inclinarent Christi sanctitatem, ac dignitatem dedecent: sicut et ipsius corpus dedecent defectus naturales caecitatis, claudicationis, monstruositatis, quos propterea non erat conveniens, ut assumeret.

Third Conclusion. — Original sin is not some morbid quality derived from the corruption of the carnal appetite into the very soul.

It is proved first: That morbid quality, if there were such, would above all be the cause of the inclination to evil, and of the languor toward good: but this cannot be affirmed: therefore, etc. The major is evident: for the champions of that opinion can assert nothing else, since no other effect of that virulent quality can appear. But the minor is proved, first indeed, because an inclination and languor of this kind, experience being witness, subsists even in the regenerate after baptism, and therefore also the cause from which it flows must needs subsist: but original sin does not subsist after baptism: therefore it is not that morbid quality. — Secondly: Either the sin of the first parent, or the corruption of our flesh, is naturally the efficient cause of such a morbid quality caused in the soul, or God Himself must be assigned as its author: but neither can be affirmed. Not indeed the first: for how could the sin of the first parent, which was long since extinguished and physically perished, be the physical cause of such a quality in infants contracting original sin? How also could the corruption of the flesh, which is a material thing, naturally produce a spiritual quality in the soul? The second likewise cannot be said; for to assert that God is the cause of that morbid quality which is not connatural to us, by which we are inclined to sin and withdrawn from good, is not only absurd, but impious and blasphemous.

Objector: St. Ambrose, in the 7th chapter to the Romans, saying: How does sin dwell in the flesh, since it is not a substance, but the privation of a Gift? The sin of the first man made the body corrupt through sin; and that very corruption, through the condition of the offense, remains in the body, holding the force of the divine sentence given in Adam, by whose fellowship the soul is stained: therefore he truly holds original sin to be a morbid and virulent quality. Then St. Augustine, book 1. De Nuptiis, and concupiscence, ch. 25. says original sin is a certain affection of an evil quality, and a morbid affection: for inquiring how concupiscence remains in the regenerate he says: Although however it is now loosed from its guilt, it nevertheless remains until all our infirmity is healed, the renovation of the interior man profiting from day to day, until the exterior man shall have put on incorruption; for it does not remain substantially as some body or spirit, but it is a certain affection of an evil quality, as a languor: therefore he holds original sin to be some morbid quality. — I deny both consequents, and to St. Ambrose I say first, that those commentaries are probably not his, as we have said many times already. Then, even if they were his authorship, yet from the quoted opinion nothing against our Conclusion could be evinced; for the body to be corrupted through sin can only be understood insofar as it is deprived of the many gifts and graces by which it would have been illumined, had the happy state of innocence persevered, by reason of which the sensitive appetite would not have been carried with such impetuosity toward delectable good. Whence it comes about that from the fellowship of a body deprived of gifts of this kind, the soul is stained, insofar as its appetite is borne immoderately against the prohibition toward delectable objects, and thus original sin reigns, insofar as it has these effects in us, which otherwise would not have been. — To St. Augustine I say, that he calls original sin an affection of an evil quality, not because it is so physically, but because it is so morally; insofar as man, affected by that sin, holds himself in that manner... [truncated]

Fourth Conclusion. — The privation of original justice, however it be taken, cannot be called original sin. This is against the common opinion of the Thomists.

It is proved 1. Original sin, which is drawn by the posterity of Adam, and is to be cleansed in the laver of regeneration, is a true, and properly so called sin: yet the privation of original justice can by no means be called a true, nor a properly so called sin: therefore, etc. The major stands from what was said in the preceding Question, especially from the Council of Trent, Session 5. Canons 1. and 2. in which it is decreed that the sin which in little ones must needs be expiated in the laver of regeneration, in order to obtain life everlasting, is a true, and properly so called sin. But the minor is proved both from St. August. book 3. De libero arbitrio, ch. 19. where he says, That is not properly called sin which is committed with free will by one who knows: by which words he clearly signifies that every mortal sin, properly so called, is that which is committed with free will by one who knows; namely either of itself immediately, or mediated by another as moral head. But the privation of original justice can by no means be called a true and properly so called sin: Both because without all fault God could deprive man of all the justice and perfection which He had granted to the first Parent; for as He is bound by no right to confer such perfection, but had bestowed it on Adam from His mere liberality and divine munificence; so neither is He bound to preserve it, but at His pleasure He can take it away: that being taken away, and not preserved by God, in that case man would be said to be deprived of original justice, insofar as privation signifies the lack of a form, toward which the subject is inclined; yet thus it would by no means be sin; since it would happen apart from all fault of man: therefore, etc. Both because that privation of original justice in Adam and his posterity was willed by God: but God cannot will or approve sin: therefore that privation is not sin. The major stands: for that lack of justice after the commission [of sin] is an effect of the divine vengeance and chastisement of God upon Adam himself, and thereupon was willed by God. The minor also is manifest; for something is sin insofar as it is done against the divine vol... [truncated]

Then, if the privation of original justice were formally the primordial and hereditary sin, it would follow that it is not altogether blotted out and remitted by the sacrament of Baptism; since by Baptism that original justice is not restored which was committed to Adam to be handed on to posterity: since neither integrity, nor constant innocence, nor the concord of peace between body and soul and the harmony of their faculties, once lost, is repaired. But it is erroneous to assert that original sin is not altogether remitted by Baptism, as the Council of Trent defines, Session 5. Canon 5. in these words: If anyone shall deny that by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord, which is conferred in Baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted: or even shall assert that not the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is taken away: but shall say that it is only erased, or not imputed: let him be anathema. For in the regenerate there is left nothing by which God condemns them: because there is no condemnation to those who have been truly buried with Christ by baptism into death: who walk not according to the flesh, but putting off the old man, and putting on the new, which is created according to God, are made cleansed, pure, innocent, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but co-heirs of Christ, so that nothing whatsoever delays them from the entrance of heaven. From these things it appears that by Baptism all that is altogether remitted which has the nature of original sin, nor is any whit of it found any longer in the regenerate; but since there is found in them the lack of original justice, it is a most evident argument that original sin does not consist in that privation and lack of original justice itself.

Finally, that which is the punishment of sin is not formally the sin itself: but the privation of original justice is the punishment of the sin of Adam and of all his posterity who sinned in him: therefore it is not formally sin. There is added in confirmation that God could create man in the state of pure nature, since, as has been proved, that state is possible: but in that state man would lack original justice and sanctifying grace, and yet would have no sin: therefore that lack of primordial justice cannot be formally original sin.

Some answer with Vasquez, in 1. 2. disp. 131. that the privation of original justice, but especially of grace, can be regarded in two ways: First, inasmuch as it is an evil to God, and takes away the subjection due to Him: Secondly, as it is an evil to man, and as it takes away a perfection promised and due to him, namely the subjection of the body to the soul, and of the interior appetite to the superior. In the former way, they say, the privation of grace, or of original justice, has the nature of fault, since it is a moral and voluntary aversion from God as the last end: but in the latter way it has the nature of punishment, since it is an evil and unbecoming to man, and ordained by God against the disorder and deformity of fault. — Against this, first: no fault, nor any sin, is efficiently from God: but the privation of original justice, or that lack of grace, by which the soul was subjected to God Himself, by which the body obeyed the soul in all things, is caused by God, who, as He alone could confer that gift of original justice, so also He can take it away. Secondly, the sin of Adam deserved as much the subtraction and lack of grace, and of subjection to God, as the lack of the subjection of concupiscence, and of appetite, to reason: therefore by the same reason that the lack of the subjection of the appetite to reason is said to be a punishment, by equal reason the lack of subjection to God ought also to be held a punishment inflicted on account of original sin. Thirdly finally, the privation of grace and of the subjection of the soul to God, however it be taken, is formally a punishment: therefore it is not formally sin. The antecedent is proved: that is formally a punishment which is inflicted in vengeance for some fault: but the privation of the subjection of the soul to God is inflicted upon the posterity of Adam on account of his sin; since God had entered into a pact with him concerning the giving of grace to his posterity, upon the hypothesis that he would not sin, and concerning its denial if he should sin, just as in fact He denies it on account of his sin: but this denial can be nothing else than a punishment. Which indeed is evident from a similar case, for if some Prince should so stipulate with a nobleman, that if he were faithful in his obed... [truncated]

You will say 1.: That which is joined with sin by the nature of the thing necessarily cannot be the punishment of sin: but the privation of grace in Adam and his posterity is necessarily joined with sin by the nature of the thing: therefore it cannot be called the punishment of sin. — I deny the major; for if this were true, it would follow equally that the privation of glory is not the punishment of sin; for this has a necessary consequence and connexion by the nature of the thing with sin: but this consequent is altogether absurd and erroneous.

I answer 2. I distinguish the major: that which is joined physically with a sinful act, either as an essential predicate, or its property, or as an accident inhering connaturally in the subject itself, cannot be its punishment, I concede the major. That which is joined by the Decree of God, and only morally by way of punishment inflicted by God in vengeance for a sinful act, I deny the major: and likewise the minor as distinguished, I deny the consequent.

Objector 2. St. Anselm, 1. De Conceptu virginali ch. 1. I know not how to understand anything else in those infants by the sin which is called original, than that through disobedience a nakedness has been made by the want of due justice: but this nakedness is the privation of that justice: therefore, etc. Then St. Dionysius, book De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia ch. 2. calls original sin the state of dissimilitude of man with God, namely the supernatural, consisting in the lack of sanctifying grace; and therefore he holds that sin to be nothing else than the lack and privation of sanctifying grace. Finally the Council of Trent, Session 5. Canon 2. says, original sin is the death of the soul: but the death of the soul is nothing else than the privation of grace: for death formally is the lack of life, but the life of the soul is sanctifying grace. Moreover the same Council there Canon 3. 4. and 5. affirms original sin to be something intrinsic to the posterity of Adam, and to be a true, and properly so called sin: but nothing else is intrinsic to them which can be truly and properly called sin, besides the privation of grace, and of the justice due. Finally from the same Council Session 6. ch. 3. it is the same thing to contract original sin, as to borrow one's own injustice from Adam: but injustice properly and formally is the privation of justice: therefore the Council holds original sin to be nothing else than the lack of original justice. — I deny all these consequents, and to the authority of SS. Anselm and Dionysius, I answer that they can be understood causally and effectively; so that they wish original sin to be the efficient cause of that dissimilitude of the soul with God, and likewise of spiritual nakedness, and of the lack of all supernatural gifts; but not that original sin be formally that dissimilitude, or nakedness. Or I say, that they wish original sin to be in us morally; namely insofar as the sin of Adam is formally in us, and morally infects us. For a twofold dissimilitude with God, and injustice, can be distinguished; one actual,... [truncated]

Anselm to understand justice, and injustice as actual, but not habitual; for little ones after baptism do not lack habitual justice, but only actual; of which they are not yet capable. — To Trent, I say that it is likewise to be understood causally and effectively; so that original sin be the cause of the privation of grace, and of the death of the soul, and likewise of the lack of the justice due; since by reason of that sin, the soul is not only stripped of spiritual life, namely sanctifying grace; but also of all the other spiritual gifts, by which the soul itself was to be subjected to God, and likewise the body was to obey the soul in all things. But the Council does not will original sin to be formally that privation, or injustice: for as according to the same Council Session 6. ch. 7. Justification is not the sole remission of sins, but also the infusion of grace, and gifts: so injustice is not only the privation of justice, and of gifts, but also sin. But little ones contract both, since they participate in the sin of the first Parent morally transfused into them, and on account of it become hateful to God, and are deprived of supernatural habits.

Objector 3. Original sin formally and essentially consists in that which is first taken away by baptism, since this Sacrament was instituted for the blotting out of original fault: but by baptism the privation of original justice is taken away per se first, especially as to its primary effect, namely the lack of sanctifying grace: therefore original sin consists formally in the privation of original justice, but as the primary effect of sanctifying grace, which is to rectify the soul, and to join it to its last end. — I distinguish the major; that it is taken away first by baptism formally, I concede: causally, and consequently only, I deny: but the privation of grace and justice is taken away only consequently through the remission of sin, and the infusion of sanctifying grace, and likewise the bestowal of the supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Whence the primary effect of baptism is not the infusion of grace itself, but the cleansing of sin. And likewise the minor as distinguished, I deny the consequent.

Objector 4. That in each thing holds the character of the constitutive reason, from which as from a root and origin the other things pertaining to it emanate and follow: but from the privation of original justice as to its first effect, namely the conjunction of the mind to God, emanate the other disorders from the sin of Adam translated to us by generation: therefore such privation is the constitutive reason of original sin. The major stands: the minor is proved: from the sin of Adam there are derived into posterity the fomes, or concupiscence, and the rebellion of the inferior appetite against the superior, and likewise the penalties of the body, as sicknesses, pains, weariness of body, the necessity of dying, and other miseries by which we are tossed on every side: therefore, etc. — I deny the minor; for all those privations take their origin not from the very lack of sanctifying grace, but from the very guilt of fault, which little ones contracted in Adam as sinning in him as head; just as also the very privation of sanctifying grace, which emanates from the same guilt of fault: for not for any other reason did God strip Adam and his posterity of sanctifying grace, than because he himself rebelled against the divine mandate, and while he sinned, all his posterity also sinned in him, and with him.

Last Conclusion. — Original sin in the posterity of Adam is the very sin of Adam itself remaining in them morally, inasmuch as all sinned in it as in a head. This seems to be the genuine opinion of the Subtle Doctor in 2. dist. 32. single question, num. 7. as the most learned Scholiast Cavellus rightly notes there, where, having said that Original sin is the privation of original justice: he subjoins: Yet it is not the privation of any habitual gift, but of the rectitude due to be inherent by way of term from a second act, caused in the will, and transfused by generation; whence it is deprived of habits not formally, but causally: and thus teach Herrera in 2. q. 82. art. 3. and Zimel. disp. 1. ad 1. and disp. 2. concl. 5. Poncius in 2. dist. 30. q. 2. Herinx disp. 6. sect. 2. But the Doctor's opinion was embraced by Pighius, controversy 1. Catharinus in Summa doctrina de peccato originali: Salmero in ch. 5. to the Romans disp. 45. and 46. where he adds, This opinion ought to be of all Catholics: for, he says, Paul so plainly spoke it, that they who do not elicit this sense from his words plainly seem to rave: and it is defended by very many of the Recent writers, whom Martinonus relates and follows disp. 20. sect. 5.

But this opinion is proved: First indeed from that to the Romans ch. 5. By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. And a little after, verse 15. By the offense of one many are dead. And verse 19. By the disobedience of one man many were constituted sinners. The Council also of Trent Session 5. Canon 3. citing the aforesaid words of the Apostle, subjoins: If anyone shall say that this sin of Adam, which by its origin is one, and transfused into all by propagation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, etc. From which it stands that original sin is one and the same of all: but it is not another sin which is one and the same of all posterity, unless the sin of the first Parent committed in the person of all: therefore, etc.

It is confirmed by the authority of SS. Fathers, but especially St. August. who teaches in many places that original sin is the single sin of all men, namely the sin of the first Parent in which all sinned: which indeed he demonstrates most clearly book 4. contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum, ch. 1. where, praising the aforesaid words of the Apostle: In whom all have sinned: he adds these: In that man all sinned, when he sinned: since in him were all, because universally the sin of all was that which all, being born, were going to contract. And book 1. De Peccatorum meritis, et remissione, ch. 10. Certainly it is manifest that the sins of each are one thing, in which only those sin whose proper sins they are: another this, in which all sinned, when all those were one man. Likewise book 2. ch. 7. Lest, he says, they should be called the sins of others as not pertaining to little ones: since in Adam all sinned, when in that nature so implanted in him, in which he was able to beget them, that one man was all the fault. But they are called the sins of others, because they were not yet living their own lives, but whatever was in the future propagation, the life of one man contained. Then, subjoining the exception of the Pelagians, By no reason, they say, is it granted, that God who remits proper sins should impute the sins of others: he answers thus: He remits them, but to those regenerated by the Spirit, not begotten of the flesh. But He imputes them no longer as the sins of others, but as their own. For those were such when those who carried them propagated were not yet: for now by carnal generation they are already theirs, to whom they have not yet been remitted by spiritual regeneration. — And book 1. Retract., ch. 13. where, having examined what he had said in book De Vera Religione, ch. 14. that sin is so voluntary that in no way is it sin, unless it be voluntary: proceeding to original sin, he says thus: And that which in little ones is called original sin, while they do not yet use the free choice of the will, is not absurdly called also voluntary, because contracted from the evil will of the first man, it is in a certain manner hereditary. — Similar things the rest tea... [truncated]

It is proved secondly: That is original sin by which the posterity of Adam are constituted sinners, and which is transfused from Adam himself into them: yet the sin of Adam is that very thing by which his posterity are constituted sinners, and which is transfused from Adam himself into them: therefore, etc.

The major stands; the minor is proved, both from the aforesaid words of the Council of Trent; then from the praised authorities of SS. Fathers; finally by reason itself, because the merit of Christ is imputed to little ones, and by reason of it they merit life everlasting morally: therefore the actual sin of Adam also can be imputed to little ones; so that by reason of it they demerit, which in fact they demerit on account of original sin; and consequently it can be called their demerit, and sin morally. Then, the privation of grace, and of supernatural gifts, is a punishment inflicted on the posterity on account of the sin of Adam: but it cannot be inflicted on little ones on account of any other sin than that of Adam, which is proper to them, inasmuch as all sinned in it: therefore, etc. Finally, as in political affairs we see the sins of Parents justly imputed to sons, and they on that account punished, because they are said to have sinned in their Parents; so by equal reason it must be said that the posterity of Adam, guilty of no actual sin, are nevertheless justly condemned by God to the death both of soul and of body, and other afflictions, because in that first Parent, as members in a head, all sinned: therefore it must be concluded with Bellarmine, book 5. De Statu peccati, ch. 18: Even if we should suppose that little ones in Adam, and with Adam, truly sinned, no reason will be able to explain how there is in newborn little ones any true fault: and this dogma of the Catholics will then seem not above reason, but against reason. For whatever we may say adheres in little ones from the sin of Adam, whether guilt, or aversion, or the privation of grace, or anything else: that could by no means give reason to little ones, or harm them, unless it proceeded from a free act, of whose action they were in some manner partakers... There remains therefore what we said above, that there cannot be in little ones anything which has the nature of fault, unless they were partakers of the acts of that precipitation of Adam. Thus Bellarmine, whence I can scarcely conceive how he went over to the opinion opposed to our conclusion.

You will say 1: The Council of Trent Session 5. Can. 3. teaches that original sin is transfused by propagation from Adam into posterity, is in all, and is proper to each one: and Session 6. ch. 3. says, When men are conceived they contract their own injustice: but the sin which was in Adam has none of these things; for neither does it inhere in posterity, or affect them intrinsically, but only extrinsically, and morally; nor is it the proper sin of each one, but one common for all; nor is it something translated by generation as by a cause: therefore according to Trent something distinct from the sin of Adam ought to be admitted, in which the essence of original sin consists. — I deny the minor; for the sin of Adam affects posterity, little ones, not only extrinsically, but also intrinsically, and is proper to them, inasmuch as they themselves all sinned in it, as in a head, which sin remains in them so long as it is not washed away by the saving laver of baptism: it is also transfused into them, not by imitation, but by propagation: namely inasmuch as men contract it by propagation and natural generation, and not only by imitation; that is, by sinning actually, in imitation of Adam sinning, as the Pelagians wished. — Likewise the sin of Adam is physically one in number, but morally multiple, and morally and estimatively multiplied by propagation; for it stands with respect to each one just as if it had been committed by them, in order that on account of it, morally and habitually inhering, they may be hateful to God, and destitute of His grace: whence from the Council nothing against the Conclusion is evinced.

You will urge: That which is common to all cannot be proper to each: but from the Council of Trent the sin of Adam is common to all: therefore it cannot be proper to each, such as original sin ought to be. — I distinguish the major: it cannot be proper, that is, peculiarly to itself, and not convening to others, I concede; it cannot be proper, that is, properly convening to each one, although it convene not peculiarly and privately to one alone, I deny. Likewise the minor as distinguished, I deny the consequent. For that which is physically one, common to many, can morally be proper to each of them by moral multiplication, by reason of which it is made morally and equivalently multiple: and it can be taken away from one, and persist in another, as was said above.

You press: The Council in the same Session Can. 5. declares anathema against him who shall say that by the grace of Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, there is not remitted to little ones all that which has in them the true and proper nature of sin: the Council therefore supposes that which is to be cleansed in little ones to be a true and proper sin inhering in them: but the sin of the first Parent cannot have in little ones the nature of a true, and properly so called sin; for otherwise the sin of Adam could inhere in little ones only by imputation: so that although it were truly extrinsic to them, nevertheless it is morally imputed to them in order to certain moral effects, as if it had been committed by them; but this is to be sin only by imputation, which directly militates against the aforesaid oracle of the Council: for if original sin were only the sin of Adam, as imputed to posterity, therefore the remission of that sin would be the same as that sin not being imputed: but this directly militates against the opinion of the Council declaring anathema against him who should say original sin is not taken away, but only erased, or not imputed: therefore, etc. — I deny the minor; for the sin of Adam transfused into posterity truly has the nature of a properly so called sin, nor only by external imputation, but by intrinsic guilt little ones are said on account of it contracted to be sinners, in the manner expressed above, namely because all sinned in Adam. Whence I say that the remission of that sin is partly no longer to be imputed to the little one, that is, its nature can no longer be held, so that the little one be on account of it hateful to God, and deprived of grace: partly also that all that is taken away which made the little one himself hateful, and deprived of grace, and which remained morally, until it should be remitted and cleansed. But when the Council says, that the whole is taken away which has the true, and proper nature of sin, and not only that it is not imputed; it decrees this against the heretics, who say concupiscence is a truly and properly so called sin, and that it persists in the regenerate, although it is not imputed in them: from which error... [truncated]

You will say 2: SS. Fathers expressly affirm original sin to be something other than the sin of the first Parent: therefore it is not the very sin of Adam which is transfused into posterity. The antecedent is proved from St. August. book 2. De Nuptiis, and Concupiscence, ch. 26. where he says: The voluntary sin of the first man is the original cause of sin: but the same cannot be the cause of itself; and therefore original sin is not the very sin of Adam transfused into posterity. Likewise St. Anselm, book De Conceptu Virginali, ch. 27. One thing, he says, was the sin of Adam, another is the sin of little ones: that was the cause, this was the effect. — I deny the antecedent, and to the aforesaid authorities I say that the sin of Adam is called the cause of original sin, because indeed, while he sinned as head, the posterity of him also sinned as his members; and therefore it was the cause why the rest sinned; for it contained to himself as their head and prince the wills, gifts, and rights of all men: whence, he losing them through sin, the rest equally lost them; and thus his sin was the moral cause of the multiplication and diffusion of sin in posterity, and the reason why we are hateful to God, and deprived of grace and justice, which would have been inherent in us from conception, if Adam had not sinned.

You will say 3: Our sins were morally in Christ as in our head, as the sin of Adam as of the head of men is in posterity as in members; according to that of Isaias 53. He hath laid on him the iniquities of us all: whence in Psalm 21. which was written concerning Christ about to suffer, that adorable Saviour names our offenses his own, in these words: Far from my salvation are the words of my offenses: hence St. Peter, first Epistle, ch. 2. says: Who himself bore our sins in his own body upon the tree: but Christ on that account was not truly a sinner, and stained with our sins, as we truly are sinners and stained with original sin: therefore we are sinners originally from elsewhere than from the sin of Adam morally inhering in us. — I distinguish the major: our sins were morally in Christ, in the manner in which the sin of Adam is morally in posterity, I deny; otherwise, I concede: for our sins were not in Christ morally, as if he himself had sinned while we sinned; so that our sins were as it were his own acts by the union, and transsumption of his will into ours: but only our sins are attributed to him, inasmuch as he discharged their punishments, and made satisfaction to the eternal Father for sinners: but the sin of Adam is in us morally as committed by us sinning with him. But there is the greatest difference between a sin attributed to anyone in order only to discharging punishments, and a sin morally committed by someone and ordained to the privation of original justice, and of sanctifying grace: for the first neither constitutes a sinner nor infects: nay rather it very often remains even in the justified, who although by sanctifying grace they are grateful and acceptable to God, nevertheless are still ordained to punishment on account of the sins committed and remitted to be suffered. But in the latter way a sin taken to oneself truly constitutes and infects sinners, and therefore has the true and properly so called nature of sin.

You will say 4: Sons are sometimes punished by God even to the fourth generation on account of the crimes committed by Parents, but for no other reason than because the sins of Parents morally remain in them: yet on that account they are not said to contract original sin from them: therefore even if the sin of Adam morally subsists in posterity, on this account it could not be called original sin. The major is proved by various texts of Scripture, but especially from that of Exodus 20. I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation. The same he repeats ch. 31. Likewise among the maledictions which David utters against the impious, he says: Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered in the sight of God. — Poncius distinguishes the major in the Commentary to Question 2. dist. 3.: Sons are thus punished with a punishment congruent and due to mortal sin on this account, that they be guilty of it, I deny the major: since the temporal punishments to which sons are subjected on account of the sins of Parents are not punishments congruent to mortal sin, seeing that this merits eternal damnation; and therefore the sin of the Parents does not morally subsist in them as to all manner of imputation, and ordination to punishment on account of mortal sin. I deny the minor: sons who are guilty, but only akin to those who sinned, I concede: but thus to be punished is not to be punished on account of a sin morally imputed, and resident in him who sustains the punishment: very often innocent subjects are struck with the heaviest punishment on account of the crimes of princes: thus the pestilence raged against the people of Israel on account of the swelling of vain glory expressed by David the King. — Otherwise I distinguish the same major: Sons are punished on account of the sins of Parents, because they imitate the depraved examples of Parents from vitiated propagation, I concede: they are thus punished, because the guilt of Parents passes into posterity, I deny: and thus the punishment due to sinners is transfused into their posterity no otherwise than because their fault, and crimes follow them, as SS. Aug. contra Adimantum explains, Gregory book 13. Moral., ch.... [truncated]

You will say 5: If original sin were the very sin of Adam, it would follow that, the sin of Adam being blotted out, they ought no longer to be, and to be denominated sinners from that sin: for a sin which has ceased physically, and also morally been abolished, can no longer stain, nor denominate a sinner: but the consequent is false, because otherwise there would have been no sin of origin from the beginning of the world: therefore, etc. — I deny the sequel of the major: because posterity are denominated sinners from the sin of Adam not precisely as it was Adam's, but as it was morally the proper sin of each one, and morally remains in them: wherefore although it has been abolished with respect to Adam, to whom it was forgiven, yet it is not forgiven to posterity, until they are justified through baptism. For God could forgive Adam his sin after he did penance, without forgiving that same sin to Peter being born.

You will urge: The sin of Adam cannot be contracted by his posterity except insofar as it perseveres: but this does not persevere any longer, since a sin does not persevere except so long as the sinner subsists: moreover Adam no longer exists a sinner: therefore his sin cannot be contracted by his posterity. — The Doctor answered in 2. d. 32. n. 15:

That as merit, when it passes away in itself, nevertheless remains in the knowledge and acceptance of God, because He so rewards for it, as if it were present: so when demerit passes away as to the act, it nevertheless remains in the divine knowledge, because He so punishes for it, as if it were already present. Thus therefore the ways by which it enters, of this negation, not to have original justice, will be God's not giving, and the demerit of Adam, in the knowledge of God, on account of which He does not give.

Thus the Doctor.

You will say 6: No one can be denominated evil from an action, unless he be its efficient cause, but infants are not the cause of the action by which Adam transgressed: therefore, etc. — I answer by distinguishing the major: unless he be its physical cause, I deny: physical, or moral, I concede: although infants are not the physical cause, yet they are the moral cause: moral, I say, not in that sense in which he who counseled, requested, commanded, or approved is called a moral cause; but in that which the Apostle signifies, when he said, all transgressed in Adam: which however is not true, neither physically, nor morally with the morality of counsel, command, or approbation; but with the morality of equivalence in order to incurring the aversion of God, and the privation of divine friendship, and of original justice.

You will say 7: Original sin is the effect of the sin of Adam, as St. Augustine teaches, and it can be proved that this proposition of causality is true, we are born original sinners for the same reason, because Adam sinned: therefore original sin is not the very sin of Adam; since the same cannot be the cause of itself. — It can be answered 1. Original sin according to all that it includes both in recto and in obliquo, is the sin of Adam, I deny: according to that which it includes in recto, let the antecedent stand in the good sense. But the sin of Adam is in some manner the cause of non-forgiveness, and moving God, so that He will not remit it to posterity, unless the remedy of the Sacrament, or of perfect contrition, be applied. I answer 2. the antecedent conceded, distinguishing the consequent: therefore original sin is not the very sin of Adam, according to the same morality, I concede: according to a diverse one, I deny. The original sin of Peter, e. g. is physically and really the very sin of Adam, but not inasmuch as it is morally the sin of Adam: yet nothing forbids that rather the sin of Adam be in some manner the cause of original sin according to the morality by which it is proper to each one; for moral diversity suffices for moral causality. Hence as in some sense this proposition is true, therefore we have sinned in Adam, because he himself sinned: so in the same sense the sin of Adam was the cause of the sin of posterity, although it was not diverse physically, but only morally.

You will say 8. In the same manner we are just by the obedience of Christ, as by the disobedience of Adam we are unjust, as is evident from that: As by the disobedience of one man many were constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of one man many shall be constituted just: yet by the obedience of Christ we are not just formally, as by a denominating form; but only efficiently, and meritoriously: therefore neither by the disobedience of Adam are we constituted formally unjust, and sinners. — I answer by denying the major; according to all manner of parity, for the Apostle does not intend this ch. 5. to the Romans when he says as by one, &c. otherwise he would also prove that as we are stained by the disobedience of Adam without our own act, so we are sanctified by the obedience of Christ without our own act, which is false; but he wished to signify only a parity in the general reason of cause, precisely taken; so that as the disobedience of Adam is the cause why we are unjust, so the obedience of Christ is the cause why we are just: yet he does not descend to the special modes of causing, in which rather he indicates a diversity, while concerning disobedience he says. we were constituted. with a past voice; but concerning obedience he says. shall be constituted. in the future. For although both be past, nevertheless, the disobedience of Adam once posited, whatever is necessary in order that those propagated from him be formally sinners, is posited; but the obedience of Christ being posited, whatever is necessary in order that they be formally just, is not yet posited; but it is further required that, certain dispositions being posited, they receive from God inherent justice, which Christ by his obedience merited, that they be saints, as Trent teaches Session 6.

Objector 9. If original sin is the very sin of Adam, it follows that posterity merit the same punishment which he himself merited: but the consequent is false, for Adam beyond the punishment of loss merited the punishment of sense: but little ones dying in original sin incur only the punishment of loss: therefore, &c. — I answer by denying the sequel of the major, because Adam sinned physically, and by his own will. but posterity only morally. and interpretatively by the will of Adam. But far greater is a voluntary, proper, and physical sin, than a moral interpretative one, because on account of that by which each thing is such, that is more, and therefore the liability to punishment is greater.

THIRD QUESTION. IN WHAT MANNER, AND INTO WHOM, ORIGINAL SIN IS TRANSMITTED.

TRULY a difficult question, and one which drove St. Augustine into such straits that he scarcely had anything to answer, as he indicates in many places, but most of all in Epist. 29. to Jerome, where he explains the supreme difficulty in the Question to be unraveled at present by this witty apologue: When, he says, someone had fallen into a well, where there was only water enough that it would rather catch him so that he did not linger than suffocate him, so that he could not speak, another approached and said: How did you fall here? but he said: I beg you, consider how you may free me from here, and do not ask how I fell here. So, since it is certain from the Catholic faith that the soul of the infant is freed by the grace of Christ from original sin as from a well, it ought to suffice us that we know the mode by which it is saved, even if we should never perfectly know how it came into that evil. Whence in book 6. of the Contra Iulianum, *chapter 8, when he had proposed two modes by which original sin seemed to be transmitted, he said: either in the flesh alone, or in the soul; or in both, namely both flesh and soul; or the whole man: or one is corrupted in the other as in a subject: wherein the hidden justice of the divine Law is contained: he adds: But which of these things is so, I more willingly learn than say, that I may dare to teach what I do not know. It would therefore seem better to lament that supreme loss of innocence through original sin than to take anything from its transmission and propagation. Nevertheless, since it is not fitting to be silent in so fruitful and so necessary a subject of discourse, therefore

NOTANDUM 1. From the Seraphic Doctor in 2. dist. 33. art. 1. q. 1., the sins of parents can be transmitted to their children in a threefold manner, namely either by punishment, or by imitation, or by transfusion. By punishment indeed, when the offspring is punished for the sins of the parents; by imitation, when the offspring imitates the sins of the parents; by transfusion, as one infection is caused by another infection through propagation. Now therefore the transfusion of sin by punishment can be understood in two ways, according to the twofold punishment, eternal and temporal. As to the eternal, the sin of other parents is by no means transmitted, but only original sin; as to the temporal indeed, all the sins of other parents can be transmitted. Indeed Anselm, De conceptu Virginali, says that little ones are damned not only for the guilt of Adam, but for their own sin and guilt, although they do not have it by acting, but by contracting it. By imitation indeed the sins of the nearest parents are transferred to the children, when the children imitate the vices of the parents; not that the guilt of the parent's fault passes into posterity, but the punishment, when the child imitates the fault of the parents. By transfusion, finally, only original sin is transmitted to posterity: and the reason is assigned by St. Bonaventure, because there are two things in sin, namely the privation of what is due, and the undue conversion: and according to these two there are posited in the sinner deformity and stain. For the stain is posited from the conversion, but the deformity from the privation of what is due, the obligation remaining to punishment.

NOTANDUM 2. From our Lyranus upon Chapter 5. of the Epistle to the Romans: that just as in the state of innocence a twofold aspect would have to be considered in the seed of Adam, one natural and as it were proper, according to which it would be an instrument of the race in order to communicate nature in itself; the other as it were supernatural, or superadded by God, according to which it would stand as an instrument of God in order to propagate with nature original justice; so after sin, in the same seed of Adam and of posterity descending from him, a twofold aspect, or one thing, is found: one natural, according to which it has the instrument of the generation and propagation of nature; for this aspect, or perfection, just like the other natural things, was not lost through sin: the other accidental and extrinsic, by reason of which it is the instrument of Adam sinning, for communicating the defect of original justice: the first belongs to it by reason of its natural and positive perfection; the second indeed it has from the privation of the aforesaid vigor, caused by the sin of the first Parent. For we see this rule preserved in causalities, that whatever is found in the effect of perfection is attributed to the perfection of the cause: but whatever of defect and imperfection is reduced to its defect; just as whatever there is of utility, actuality, and motion in limping is attributed to the soul and its motive power; but whatever of obliquity and defect is reduced to the lame and weak leg.

NOTANDUM 3. That the opinions of the Ancients concerning the resolution of the present Question are various. For first the Master of the Sentences in 2. dist. 31., and with him Gregory of Rimini and Gabriel in the same place, teach that original sin is transmitted through a morbid quality inherent in the human seed, or a real infection superadded to it; just as in the seed of a leper there is a certain corruption, which is the principle of leprosy. For the flesh, they say, was corrupted in Adam on account of sin, so that whereas before sin man and woman could come together without the incentive of lust and the fervor of concupiscence, and the bed was immaculate; now indeed after sin carnal copulation cannot take place without lustful concupiscence, which is always a vice and even a fault, unless it be excused by the goods of marriage; in concupiscence therefore and lust the flesh to be formed into the body of the offspring is conceived. Whence the flesh itself which is conceived in vicious concupiscence is polluted and corrupted, from whose contact the soul when it is infused draws a stain, by which it is polluted, and becomes guilty, that is, it receives the vice of concupiscence, and accordingly that sin is said to remain in the flesh. — But this opinion is proscribed: First, because the flesh cannot be infected by any quality which is a sin; since it is not of itself capable of sin, and consequently although it might infect the soul, it cannot nevertheless infect it with an infection which is a sin: therefore from the infection of the flesh there is not had a sufficient principle whence the sin of the soul might arise. Second, nothing material can produce something in a spiritual thing as total cause: therefore although the flesh were infected, it could not infect the soul. Third, it is false that the flesh itself is infected by any quality, or in any way, except insofar as it would be said to be infected, because it does not have those perfections which it would have in the state of innocence, which would be an infection rather negative than positive. Fourth, if the flesh were positively infected, especially since the flesh of the generator would be so infected; but this is false; because otherwise the flesh of Adam would have been infected on account of his own sin: but this is absurd; both because his sin did not have the power of producing in the body an infecting quality, just as neither do our sins have it, which could be of the same species or even graver; and because there is no sign of positive infection in our flesh, which would arise from any quality. Fifth, because it is false that the flesh is therefore born, from the fact that it is generated with concupiscence; because even if some were already generated by some without concupiscence, they would still be born with original sin. Moreover it would follow that the greater the concupiscence with which someone was generated, the more gravely he would be infected with original sin, and thus one would have graver original sin than another, than which nothing is more absurd. — Some think, with Alexander of Hales, 2. p. q. 105. memb. 1., that the soul is vitiated in the flesh, not that sin properly so called inheres in the flesh, or that the flesh can properly draw the spirit into what is forbidden; but that the flesh, stripped of original justice, concupiscences against the spirit and inclines the soul downward, and thereby makes it distorted and crooked. But this opinion likewise cannot stand. For if anyone were created from nothing with that imperfection, so that he would be subject to the motions of concupiscence by which we are now tossed, he would certainly have flesh rebelling against the spirit, and yet would not be stained with original sin, since he would not be propagated from Adam.

Wherefore from the premises, as well as from other opinions of various Ancients omitted, what is to be determined will be opened up by the

First Conclusion. — Original sin is transmitted for no other reason than because man is generated from Adam by seminal propagation through the common way; so that the soul, at that very instant of conception in which it is infused into the organized body and constitutes the natural son of Adam, is also to be reckoned as having violated the precept of God in the first Parent himself, as head of the whole human race. This is the genuine opinion of the Subtle Doctor in 2. dist. 32. qu. unica n. 12., where he says: The soul contracts original sin through the mediation of the flesh, not in such a way that the flesh causes this original sin in it as if through a certain quality caused in it: but from this, that the flesh is sown concupiscibly, and from it the organic body is formed: into which the soul is infused, constituting a person, which is a son of Adam, who is a debtor of the original justice given by God to Adam himself for all his sons, and lacks it: therefore he has original sin. Therefore that sin is contracted in the flesh, inasmuch as it is the natural reason; and from this it ought to have the justice, which through the sin of Adam it lacks. — The Angelic Doctor accords with him in 3. p. quaest. 27. a. 2. ad 1.: Original sin, he says, is drawn from origin inasmuch as through it human nature is communicated, since it properly regards original sin, which indeed takes place when the conceived offspring is animated.

To this doctrine St. Augustine above all subscribes, who constantly in his labors against the Pelagians asserts that Adam's posterity truly and properly contract original guilt through transmitted generation, and, as the Apostle says, are by nature children of wrath. Which doctrine of Augustine, although it occurs so frequently in his works that it is obvious to anyone unrolling them, nevertheless, that we may in part lighten the reader's study and effort, I bring forth some of his texts conducive to the matter itself. First indeed from book 2. of the De gratia Christi or on Baptism against Celestius, c. 31., he poses the question: What then does it mean, he says, so great a damnation for no fault of one's own will admitted? And having rejected the opinion of the Platonists he answers: Is this man otherwise than because he pertains to the mass of perdition, and is justly understood as born of Adam damned by the obligation of the ancient debt? And c. 32.: The propagation of a damned origin damns us: and a little after: At once both nature and the vice of nature are propagated. And seeking the origin and way of the propagated vice, exactly distinguishing the honorableness of marriage from the shamefulness of lust, he affirms this to be the origin and way of the transmission of sin, c. 34. and 37., where thus: Lust is in that, which the Apostle calls, disobedience repugnant to the law of the mind, by the law of the members. But here thus: Hence it is that even infants who cannot sin are nevertheless not born without the contagion of sin, not from that which is lawful, but from that which is shameful, for from that which is lawful nature is born; from that which is shameful, vice. — He declares the matter still more openly in book 1. of the De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, where treating of the most chaste marriage between the Virgin Mother of God and St. Joseph her spouse, when he had said at the end of c. 11.: Every good of marriage was fulfilled in those parents of Christ, offspring, faith, sacrament. Offspring we recognize as the Lord Jesus himself: faith, because no adultery; sacrament, because no divorce. He immediately adds at the beginning of c. 13.: Alone there was there no nuptial intercourse, because in the flesh of sin it could not be done without that concupiscence, which accrues from sin, without which he who was to be without sin could be conceived, not in the flesh of sin, but in the likeness of the flesh of sin, that hence also he might teach that every flesh which is born of intercourse is flesh of sin, since the flesh which alone was born from it was not flesh of sin. And book 2. c. 1., answering Julian, who had published a book against him, and had thus inscribed it: against those who condemn marriages and assign their fruit to the devil, he writes: Not therefore against us who neither condemn marriages, which we even praise in due order of preaching: nor do we assign their fruit to the devil: for the fruit of marriages are men who are orderly generated from them, not the sins with which they are born. Nor are men therefore under the devil because they are men, where are the fruits of marriages, but because they are sinners, where is what is proper to vices; for the devil is the author of fault, not of nature. And c. 5., answering the objection of Julian saying: by what therefore are those under the devil whom God made? And adding the answer of Augustine: by sin, he says, not by nature. Then, to him subjoining: but as the fetus cannot be without the sexes, so neither can the fault be without the will. This instance Augustine thus meets: So indeed it is, for thus through one man sin entered into the world, etc. Then, Julian insisting: you say therefore that they are under the devil because they are born of the commixture of both sexes? Augustine replies: I say plainly that on account of the fault they are under the devil: therefore indeed they are not without fault because they are born of that commixture, which cannot without shameful lust work even that which is honorable. Which he confirms there by the authority of St. Ambrose on Isaiah, where he said that the carnal nativity of Christ was therefore without fault, because his conception is without the commixture of both: but that no man is without fault who is conceived of that commixture: Therefore, he says, also as a man he was tempted in all things, and in the likeness of men sustained all things, but as born of the spirit, he abstained from sin, for every man is a liar, and no one without sin, except one God. It is separated therefore, that from man and woman, that is, through that commixture of bodies, no one should seem to be without fault: but he who is without fault is also without this kind of conception. — Thence St. Augustine thus presses the Pelagians: Will you dare to say that even this man, O Pelagians and Celestians, was a Manichean, whom Jovinian the heretic called such, against whose impiety this holy man defended even the virginity of St. Mary remaining after childbirth? If therefore you dare not call that man a Manichean; why do you call us Manicheans, when we defend the Catholic faith in the same cause with the same opinion? — More distinctly indeed Augustine explains the matter in the same place, c. 8.: Nor would I have said this, he says, as if any Creator of human seed, or of man himself, should be thought to exist beyond the supreme and true God, but that he would have gone forth from the womb with a tranquil will, if sin had not preceded; nor is it now said of the nature of man, but of the vice. For the former has God as author; from the latter however original sin is drawn. For if the seed itself has no vice, what is that which is written in the book of Wisdom: God, not ignorant that their nation is wicked, and their natural malice, and that their thought could not be changed forever, their seed was cursed from the beginning. How therefore the natural malice of any man, and seed cursed from the beginning? unless that be regarded which through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so death passed through into all men, in whom all sinned? — The Venerable Bede subscribes to Augustine, tom. 8. quaest. 14., where he says: That man therefore contracts original sin, because he is generated with the ardor of lust; and he adds: The soul from its union with flesh is stained with sin. He then adds: Therefore through one man sin entered into the world, because it entered through the seed of generation, in what manner the woman conceives, beginning from the man. In which manner he was unwilling to be born who alone was born without sin of a woman.

The Council of Trent confirms these things, Sess. 5. can. 4., where concerning little ones it decrees: Therefore they are truly baptized unto the remission of sins, that what they have contracted by generation may be cleansed in them by regeneration. And session 6. c. 3., treating of justification which is made through the grace of Christ, says: Just as truly men, unless they were born propagated from the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust; since by that propagation, through him, while they are conceived they contract their own injustice: so unless they were reborn in Christ, they would never be justified; since by that rebirth the grace whereby they are made just is bestowed upon them through the merit of his passion. From all these it is established that all the posterity of Adam contract original sin for this reason, because all sinned in him as in the head of the whole of humanity, namely by reason of the covenant entered into by God with him, by which, if he had preserved the original justice, which he had received as much for himself as for his posterity, he would have transfused it by the way of natural generation to posterity; otherwise, if by his rebellion he should lose it: but all men are not reckoned to have sinned in Adam for any other reason than because they are his natural sons, and propagated from him by the natural way of common generation: therefore original sin is not transfused otherwise than through that natural generation.

Second Conclusion. — Although concupiscence is not formally sin, it is nevertheless the vehicle and mode by which original sin is transfused from parents into children. This opinion seems to be common not only to St. Augustine, but to very many other Fathers who either preceded or followed him, as appears from those whom St. Augustine himself praises and relates, book 1. contra Iulianum, c. 3. and 5. First indeed Origen on chapter 8. of the Epistle to the Romans, when explaining why Christ had come in the likeness of the flesh of sin, not in the flesh of sin, said: He who came to an immaculate body from no contagion of man, but by the Holy Spirit alone coming upon the Virgin, and the power of the Most High overshadowing, indeed had the nature of our body, but had not at all the pollution of sin, which is transmitted to those conceived by the motion of concupiscence. The same Olympius

the Spanish Bishop, cited by Augustine book 1. contra Iulian. c. 3., where he says: by the deadly transgression of the first-formed man the vice was spread into the germ, and sin would be born with man. By which he indicates that the germ, or seed, whence man is born, is so vitiated that he is not born without sin. Similarly St. Ambrose in the same St. Aug., in the same place c. 4.: It is separated therefore, he says, that from man and woman, that is, through that commixture of bodies, anyone should seem to be without fault; but he who is without fault is also without this kind of conception. — That all who were followers and disciples of St. Augustine seem to feel the same, who teach that therefore the Lord Christ was unwilling to be born by the natural way of generation, lest being begotten through concupiscence he should be subject to original sin. Thus St. Leo, ser. 5. De Nativitate Domini.: Alone, he says, among the sons of men the Lord Jesus was born innocent, because alone conceived without the pollution of carnal concupiscence. Thus St. Fulgentius, book De Libero arbitrio et gratia, c. 13., explaining the cause of the immaculate nativity of Christ, says: Indeed the womb of his mother was opened not by the concupiscence of the husband coming together, but by the omnipotence of the Son being born. He alone is that one in whom the prince of this world coming finds nothing. St. Bernard in the Velitationibus, c. 3., says: Because of the flesh man was made like unto charity: because from it he drew the vice of concupiscence, by which, captive to its pull, and bent, he loves carnality and works iniquity. Therefore from these and other similar opinions of the holy Fathers it is established that no other cause of the transfusion of original sin is to be assigned than concupiscence itself, by which in the act of generation there is fervor, and it is transmitted to the offspring. — The same opinion St. Augustine most constantly hands down and defends in very many places, but especially Epist. 105.: Just as error, he says, so in Baptism the infirmity of the concupiscence of the flesh is immediately healed, as its guilt is immediately abolished: but by the grace of being reborn, not by the condition of being born. Thence whoever is born through this concupiscence even of one reborn, without doubt will harm the one born, unless he himself likewise be reborn. And book 5. contr. Iulian. c. 18.: The affectional quality, he says, does not pass by migrating from substance to substance, but by a certain running contagion, that is, by the affect of concupiscence, just as from diseased parents diseased offspring is procreated. — This same he explains book 2. of the oper. imperf. contr. Iulian., by the example of gout, which children in turn draw from parents by hereditary right. If anyone should make gout for himself by intemperance, and transmit it to his sons, which often happens, is it not rightly said that that vice passed from the parent into them: that they also did this in the parent? Because when he did it, they were in him: therefore they did it not by the action of men, but by the reason of the already existing seeds. What therefore is found several times in the diseases of the body, let it be known was done in that ancient and great sin of the first begetter, by which the whole of human nature was vitiated. Thence book 1. De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia, he declares what he undertakes to treat in this work in these words: The intention of this book is this, that as much as the Lord deigns to help us, we may discern the evil of carnal concupiscence, on account of which man, who is born through it, draws original sin, from the goodness of marriage. And c. 12. of the same book, bringing forward the cause why Christ was unwilling to be generated by the natural way, he says it is, lest being begotten through concupiscence, he should draw the vice of concupiscence, or original sin, from Adam. Alone there was there no nuptial intercourse, he says, namely in the blessed Virgin, because in the flesh of sin it could not be done, without the shameful concupiscence of the flesh, which accrues from sin, without which he willed to be conceived, who was to be without sin: not in the flesh of sin, but in the likeness of the flesh of sin; that hence also he might teach that every flesh which is born of intercourse is flesh of sin. And c. 23.: This concupiscence, which is expiated by the sacrament of regeneration alone, truly passes by generation as a bond of sin into posterity. And c. 21: From this concupiscence of the flesh as daughter of sin, whatever offspring is born, is bound by original sin, unless it be reborn in him whom the Virgin conceived without this concupiscence: therefore when he deigned to be born in the flesh, he alone was born without sins.

Next the Pelagians themselves never doubted that Augustine was of the opinion that concupiscence itself propagated original sin. Thence arose that most bitter conflict between him and Julian; namely whether that concupiscence had arisen through the sin of Adam; for Julian most pertinaciously attributed it to God's creation, that by this device he might erase the transmission of original sin: Augustine on the contrary contended with all the sinews of his genius that this concupiscence had arisen from the sin of Adam, and had been transmitted into his posterity, together with sin, as is seen book 2. contra Iulianum, c. 10., and book 2. of the imperfect work, and elsewhere often. And that this is true anyone will easily understand who knows who St. Augustine was and his conflict against the Pelagians: for in all the books published against them he takes up this one thing above all to be proven, namely that concupiscence is not from God, but from the sin of Adam, and through the same original sin is transfused from Adam to posterity. Also the victory of the Church over the Pelagians would be vain, unless that opinion of Augustine were true; for all the arguments of Julian, the Architect of the Pelagian Heresy, by which he asserted the transit of original sin to be impossible, tended to this, that he might assert concupiscence not to be transmissive of sin, not to arise from sin; but that it had been originally implanted in nature by God: otherwise spouses by that natural commixture of the sexes would be the cause of sin, and thus marriages, or wedlocks, would have to be condemned; God likewise, the author of marriage, would have to be condemned, or certainly the devil himself would have to be called the author of marriage and of the commixture, from which sins would be born: which Pelagian device indeed, in order that St. Augustine might overthrow it, he taught that in the commixture of spouses two things are to be considered; namely the commixture itself, and its honor; marriage, by which spouses are legitimately joined, and the concupiscence of the flesh, by which, stimulating, they are joined: and he says the former is good, the latter evil; of the former God, of the latter the devil is author; by the former nature, by the latter sin is propagated, he holds: therefore St. Augustine holds that original sin is transfused from parents to children through concupiscence itself, as through a vehicle.

This the Angelic Doctor excellently explains, 1. 2. q. 81. a. 1., where answering the second argument proposed at the beginning of the question, he says: It must be said, that although the soul is not transmitted, because the power of the seed cannot cause a rational soul, it nevertheless moves to it dispositively. Whence through the power of the seed human nature is transmitted from parent to offspring, and together with nature the infection of nature. For from this it is that this one, who is born a partaker of the guilt of the first parent, is made, because he receives nature from him through a certain generative motion. And again ad 3.: To the third it must be said, that although guilt is not actually in the seed, it is nevertheless there virtually in human nature, which such guilt accompanies. Again ad 4.: To the part it must be said, that the seed is the principle of generation; which is the proper act of nature serving its propagation, and therefore the soul is more infected through the seed, than through the flesh already perfect, which is already determined to a person.

Therefore from the mind both of St. Augustine and of the Angelic Doctor and of other Fathers and Doctors, concupiscence is as it were the vehicle by which original sin is transmitted from parents, although these be cleansed of it, to children, through the seminal way and the propagation of nature. For the seed of both parents, diffused with the itch of lust, has annexed to it vital and animal spirits, which are transfused with it into the offspring, which presently from the heat of that concupiscence and lust grows warm and is formed; in such a way, however, that if this lust were absent from the act of generation, the offspring begotten would no less contract original sin, because that is transmitted chiefly through the propagation of human nature, derived from Adam in rebellion against God.

Things similar to these the Subtle Doctor hands down in 2. dist. 32. quaest. unica, where he teaches three things: first, that concupiscence is the material or vehicle of original sin. Second, that libidinous propagation contributes to the transfusion of that sin. Third, that that sin is contracted in the very union with the body, by which it comes about that the man conceived is a son of Adam. The first he teaches n. 1., where he writes: Concupiscence in this manner, that is, inasmuch as it is a pronity in the rational appetite to concupiscence immoderately of delectable things, is the material of original sin. The second he hands down n. 18.: Propagation, he says, in the state of innocence would have been entirely without lust, but not every common propagation is libidinous: and that therefore, because it is stained, stains the offspring. And he adds, expounding the authority (as he says, of Augustine): Lust is taken for the lack of original justice in the propagators, which is the cause of lust in the act of propagating. The third he indicates in the same place, where he says: The soul is the form of the flesh, from whose union there results a son of God. And answering the arguments proposed at the beginning of the question, he says that Adam is the cause of our guilt and of the lack of original justice. Adam, he says, corrupted himself by personal sin, and in this meritoriously his whole posterity.

From these it appears that original sin is contracted by the posterity of Adam insofar as they are his sons, begotten by their parents through the seminal way and lustful concupiscence. Thence St. Augustine inveighs so greatly against concupiscence itself; especially in the books contra Iulianum, who celebrated concupiscence with praises as a good of nature implanted by God. Thence St. Augustine elegantly and subtly carps at him, book 3. c. 21.: Both of us, he says, profess continence: and if we profess anything we act, that concupiscence indeed we both bridle, against its repugnant motions we both war. But this is the difference, that I say I bridle an evil, but you yourself a good. I say that an evil repugns to me, you that a good repugns to you. I war against evil, you against good... Gloriously you profess to exercise contests through continence, against what? I ask what will you say, unless against the concupiscence of the flesh? But whether as a friend, or as an adversary? Unless as an adversary, do you answer? For the flesh concupiscences against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for these are opposed to one another, as the apostle is witness. Perhaps therefore when you praise it you feign: but how you faithfully do both these things at once, I do not see, that you praise it as a friend, and assault it as an enemy. We believe both these: but say what we should believe. If you fight from the heart, you do not praise from the heart: but if you act simply in the procoenium, you play in the battle... Nevertheless of these two, of which you can be thought to do one from the heart, the other feigned: I would rather you falsely praise concupiscence, than falsely assault it: for your tongue lies more tolerably than your life: your opinion more tolerably than your continence is feigned. For you feign the praise, whereby you are an adversary of my opinion, if you do not feign the chastity, whereby you are an adversary of your own concupiscence. So it will come to pass that you no longer bring forth falsely a contest against me, if faithfully you wage war against lust. From which it is evident that St. Augustine pretends nothing else than that concupiscence is the incentive of evil, against which one must fight with all one's strength.

You will say: Against this and the preceding Conclusion, and what has been asserted hitherto: Therefore concupiscence is reckoned to be propagative of original sin, and that it is transfused from nature itself through vitiated generation, especially because all men are said to contract original sin insofar as they sinned in Adam, for this reason namely, that God entered into a covenant with Adam, and placed all the wills of posterity in his will; so that as his will would have been the guardian of the will of all in transferring original justice, if he had obeyed the divine mandates; so also his transgression would be reckoned the transgression of all. But that divine covenant is entirely fictitious, and wholly unknown to St. Augustine and other holy Fathers: therefore original sin is not reckoned to be propagated for this reason. — I deny the minor; for that divine covenant was entered into with Adam very many teach from the holy Fathers, but especially St. Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Colossians, by that covenant he explains that passage of chapter 2.: Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us. What, he says, does the author understand by the handwriting? That which they had said to Moses, Whatsoever God shall say we will do: or that which he had said to Adam, saying: Whatsoever day you shall eat of this tree, dying you shall die. Similarly St. Jerome, weighing those words of Osee c. 6.: They like Adam have transgressed my covenant, there have they dealt treacherously against me: he thus introduces God speaking: But they imitated Adam, that what he had done in Paradise, passing over my covenant and law, these should do on earth. And there, that is, in Paradise, all have dealt treacherously against me, in the likeness of the transgression of Adam. For it is not wonderful, if what preceded in the parent is also condemned in the children. This same St. Augustine also openly teaches. Expounding that Gen. 17.: That soul shall be blotted out from its people, because it had made void my covenant, he thus says: It can be seen, as it ought to be understood, what was said here: the male who shall not be circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall perish from its kindred, because it shall have dissipated my testament; since this is no fault of the little one, whose soul he said would perish: nor has he himself dissipated the testament of God, but the elders, who did not care to circumcise him, except that little ones also, not according to the proper condition of their own life, but according to the common origin of the human race, all dissipated in him one testament of God, in whom all sinned. For the testaments of God are commonly so called, excepting those two great ones, the old and the new, which anyone may know by reading. But the first testament, such as it was made with man, is indeed that: When you shall have eaten, you shall die. — This answer is confirmed from holy Scripture itself, which not obscurely signifies that some covenant or divine constitution intervened, that the sin of Adam should be transfused, and pertain to posterity. For this Paul indicates when he says all sinned in Adam, Rom. 5.: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so death passed through into all men, in whom all sinned. But therefore we all sinned in him, says St. Augustine, because we were all that one; not physically only, inasmuch as he was the progenitor of us all: for thus anyone can be reckoned the head of his own sons, and one with them; and yet for that reason sons are not said to contract the sins of parents. Therefore it was necessary that Adam should be by divine constitution the moral head of all descending from him by the natural way of generation, to this effect, that his will in the observance, or in the transgression of the divine precept should be reckoned the will of all posterity. — It is confirmed again from the same Apostle saying in the same place, that in a similar manner Adam harmed us by his disobedience unto the contracting of original sin, as Christ profits us by his obedience unto the obtaining of justification and life; and yet the obedience of Christ does not profit us efficaciously unto justification and eternal life from the sole nature of the thing, but chiefly from the will and institution, by which God willed that it be applied to us, and that it profit unto that end: therefore as the merits of Christ profit these and those unto the justification of life, not from the sole nature of the thing, but from the institution of God, so with Christ covenanting, as we read Isaiah 53.: If he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be directed in his hand. Because his soul has labored, he shall see and be filled. In his knowledge the just my servant shall justify many, and their iniquities he himself shall bear. Therefore I will distribute to him very many, and he shall divide the spoils of the strong; because he has delivered his soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked: so from the same divine institution, and not from the sole nature of the thing, it comes about that the sin of Adam pertains to posterity, and harms them unto condemnation.

Third Conclusion. — Only, and all, the posterity of Adam, who descend from him by the natural way of generation, are infected with original sin, unless by a special benefit of God they be exempted from that common law. This Conclusion embraces three parts, of which the First is of all Catholics, namely that all propagated from Adam contract original sin; and this St. Aug. openly teaches, book 10. De Gen. ad litter., c. 19. and 20., where he affirms that original sin is transfused only through seminal generation. The Council of Trent likewise teaches the same, Sess. 6. c. 3., where it says: Men, unless they were born propagated from the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust. But the assertive reason of this truth is, because Adam alone received justice to be transfused into those who descend from him by seminal generation, or by the natural way of generation: and in its place he transmits sin, and the privation of that original justice.

But the reason why Adam alone was able to infect the whole human nature with his sin, and that none of the posterity can accomplish this with his sin, is threefold: The first indeed, because Adam was not only an individual of human nature, but also the principle of the same nature. The second, because the divine precept was imposed upon him not only as upon a singular person, but as upon the stock of the human race, and the head representing and containing that whole human genus; thence, he sinning, the whole human race seemed to sin. Finally the third reason is, because from the law of equity and justice no one can merit a reward and advantage who has not on the contrary been subject to loss. Whence neither could sons and grandsons merit original justice, Adam conducting himself well, unless they were likewise subject to loss, he sinning: but this cannot be said of other men; for no one is the first principle of his own, nor does the whole nature flourish in him, nor, he meriting, can his posterity become capable of that merit; thence neither, he sinning, ought they to become partakers of his sin. Therefore Adam alone could vitiate the whole nature with his sin; inasmuch as he preceded the lot of all, as also their nature: and presently it is certain, that only those propagated from him by the seminal way contract original sin. — It is to be inferred, that Adam alone is the moral cause of the transfusion of sin into posterity; so that if Adam had not sinned, yet Eve had sinned, posterity would not have contracted original sin. Which holy Scripture indeed openly sufficiently teaches, while it refers the damnation, death, and sin of all men to Adam alone. Thus Rom. 5.: Through one man death, etc. By the disobedience of one man many were constituted sinners, etc. Whence the Apostle, Adam being reckoned as head, so also in Christ all shall be vivified. Similarly the Councils of Milevis, Orange, and Trent, Sess. 5. Canon 2., define that the transgression of Adam harmed not himself alone, but also his progeny, and that he lost sanctity and justice, as much for himself as for us. Which all things ought equally to have been said of Eve, if she had transfused original sin to posterity.

Nor does that of Ecclesiasticus 25. stand in the way: woman is the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. For although not in her, yet through her, as through the devil the inciter of sin, we all die, because by sinning first she was the occasion and irritation of sin for Adam. Which the Wise Man indeed alleges, that he may give warning to a good man, how providently he ought to guard himself against women. — It is to be inferred secondly, with the holy Fathers praised in the first objection of the preceding Conclusion, that Christ the Lord was not liable to original sin; inasmuch as he did not descend from Adam by the seminal way, but was Conceived of the Virgin Mary by the wonderfully operating power of the Holy Spirit. — It is to be inferred finally, that those who would be miraculously created, or formed, either from a rib, or from some part of the body of one of the posterity of Adam, would not contract original sin, as the Subtle Doctor teaches in 2 distinct. 32. n. 6., where he says: A man miraculously formed from the flesh of my finger would not contract original sin, because this Anselm teaches c. 19., where he holds that there are two reasons why Christ did not contract original sin, and one of which would suffice of itself without the other: one, because his flesh was purified in the blessed Virgin: the second, because he was not a natural son of Adam, and therefore was not obligated in Adam. This same is gathered from the Council of Trent Sess. 6. c. 3., where it says: Truly men, unless born propagated from the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust: since by that propagation, through him, while they are conceived, they contract their own injustice. But otherwise it is of men begotten from incubi with virile seed brought from elsewhere; or from parents whose sterility God has miraculously removed, as St. Anselm teaches, book De Conceptu Virginali, c. 16. Because, supposing that miracle, the seed acts naturally in the virtue of the sowing one; thence natural generation follows, and seminal propagation from Adam.

The second part of the Conclusion is against the Calvinists, affirming that children procreated by faithful Parents are by this very fact exempt from the guilt of original sin by non-imputation, so that although they affirm them not to lack habitual concupiscence, in which they constitute the reason of original sin, as is evident from article 11. of their Confession; they nevertheless will that original sin not be in those little ones as in others, namely with the guilt of punishment, and exclusion from the kingdom of heaven: even if no other remedy is applied to them than the sanctity of the parents. But holy Scripture militates against them, which speaks generally, In him all have sinned, Rom. 5.; and the same Paul, although originating from the faithful in part, nevertheless says Ephesians 2.: We also were by nature children of wrath even as the rest, that is, there was no difference between us born of the faithful and others as to being children of wrath; and consequently excluded from the kingdom of heaven. And that was always the tradition of the Church, which therefore judged baptism, even of faithful Parents, necessary unto salvation, according to that of Christ John 3.: Unless one be born again of water, and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Whence St. August., book De Origine animae, c. 9.: Do not believe, do not say, that infants prevented by death before they are baptized can arrive at the indulgence of original sins, if you wish to be a Catholic.

Finally the third part is of itself clear, namely that all contract original sin unless they be exempted by divine privilege: for God can, by his authority and mercy, exempt whom he wills from the posterity of Adam from the debt and stain of original sin: as indeed by that singular privilege he made the Virgin Mother of God free from that common law and debt of contracting original sin, as we shall prove in the third book of the Sentences, where we shall enumerate the heavenly and divine excellences and prerogatives of the most blessed Virgin.

You will ask: do all the posterity of Adam equally contract original sin?

Let the Seraphic Doctor answer in 2. dist. 33. qu. 1., first supposing three things to concur in original sin; namely the lack of due justice, concupiscence, the foulness of the flesh: and the first to be essential to original sin itself, the second indeed material, and the third causal. If therefore original sin ought to be augmented, it would be necessary that it be intensified by some one of these: but since it has no intensification through any of these, it has to be found equally in all. For as to the lack of due justice it cannot be intensified; for that lack cannot be greater in one than in another, except for a threefold cause: Either because the obligation is stronger, or because there is a greater privation there, or because the mode of privation is more detestable: in none of these modes can the lack be greater in one man than in another; for the obligation is not stronger, because we are all equally obligated in Adam; nor is the privation greater, because by the same gift, namely of original justice, all are stripped by original guilt: nor is the mode of privation more detestable, because all are deprived by the one disobedience of Adam: and thus original sin by reason of the lack of due justice does not admit of more and less, but is in all equally. Similarly it has no intensification as to concupiscence. For if the appetite, or concupiscence, with respect to some delectable thing is intensified in someone, this can be in a threefold way: Either from complexion, or from habituation, or from the contraction of the restraining bond: in the first mode without doubt concupiscence can be augmented, as is evident of the concupiscence of the flesh, which fervors more in the choleric and sanguine than in the melancholic; but such intensification contributes nothing to guilt: for it is not culpable, but natural or penal. Similarly, and in the second mode concupiscence can be intensified in the same man, as is evident in him who is habituated to luxury and to eat good foods, to which he is more prone, and concupiscences more ardently, than he who has not tasted such things: but this intensification does not contribute to original sin, but rather to actual; because original sin is not said of concupiscence in whatever mode, but only inasmuch as it was contracted from origin. In the third mode it cannot be intensified, but has to be found equally in all, for the reason that that restraint of original justice was contracted in all by the deserved guilt of Adam. And since according to that third mode the quantity of original sin is regarded on the part of concupiscence, thence it is that as to concupiscence original guilt is found equally in all in whom it is. Similarly as to the foulness, which is in the flesh, original sin cannot be greater and less: and this is evident; for that any property be intensified there is required a fitness for intensification, both on the part of the receptive subject, and on the part of the property by which it is intensified, and also on the part of the agent: and if any one of these should be lacking, that property has no intensification, as is evident to one considering. But all these are lacking in the matter at hand. For the defect is on the part of the receptive subject: for as a new mirror is infected by a menstruous woman, but after it has grown old it does not receive a new infection from any aspect, so evil nature, existing in the primordial state as it were new, had to be infected by the corruption of the person: but afterwards, as it were grown old, it does not receive a new infection from a new corruption. The defect is also on the part of the agent, because there is no one after the first man whose transgression regards anything but the obligation of a person; thence it is that such guilt has no power to infect the flesh conjoined. The defect is also on the part of the property capable of intensification; for those things whose power is in the terminus have no capacity to receive more and less, as the Philosopher wills: but the foulness of the flesh, inasmuch as it is the principle of the contraction of original sin, has its origin from the lack of original justice: and because that lack is a certain nakedness, and in the naked there cannot be found a more naked, as the nakedness of original justice does not admit of more or less, so neither the foulness of the flesh. And thus it is evident that on the part of the foulness of the flesh original sin has no intensification, nor augmentation in the same or in different persons; nor on the part of concupiscence: nor of the lack of due justice, as has been shown; nor are there more things concurring in original sin. It is manifest therefore that original sin in all, in whom it is found, has to be equal: and the reasons showing this are to be conceded.

You will say: No evil is in the supreme; because nothing that is supremely evil is: therefore it is not in the supreme: but that which is short of the supreme can be intensified and augmented: therefore original sin is capable of intensification: therefore it can be found greater in one than in another. — The Seraphic Doctor answers, that there is a supreme simply, and a supreme in a genus: and although it does not happen that supreme evil be found in its proper genus; nevertheless supreme evil can be found in someone so deprived of vision, that it cannot be more. So also in the matter at hand it can be understood, that original sin deprives simply of original justice: and therefore its infection is in the terminus, so that although it is not in the supreme, it nevertheless does not follow that it could be intensified; because a defect can be on the part of its receptive subject, or on the part of the agent: and both are here lacking, as su-

You will say 2: One soul has better natural endowments than another, and therefore its corruption is worse; similarly some are more prone to evil, and are more fiercely agitated by the motions of concupiscence; and therefore are more infected with original sin. — I deny the consequence, and to the first I say that although rational souls have gradual perfections according to which one substantially excels another; nevertheless one does not excel another by reason of that purity and innocence unto which they were destined: and therefore since that original innocence was to be transfused equally into all men, so likewise its privation is equal in all. But to the second I say, that truly indeed some men are tossed more fiercely than others by the motions of concupiscence; that, says the Seraphic Doctor, however, does not proceed from original sin more gravely harming and affecting them, but from complexion or habituation; namely because they do not resist their wicked motions, nor oppose them.

Notandum 1. It is more certain than certain that the sin of the first Parent not only shook human nature, stripping it of the charisms divinely bestowed upon it, but also wounded it in many respects. Hence not incongruously very many of the holy Fathers think that the first man, and in him all his posterity, was shadowed forth by Christ the Lord in that Parable of Luke 10, of the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, who fell among thieves; who stripped him, and having laid wounds upon him went away, leaving him half dead; yet it has not been so ascertained what those principal wounds are which were inflicted upon human nature by sin. Indeed it is agreed that all the miseries of body and of soul with which we are tossed throughout the whole course of our life, as well as death itself, have been derived from original sin upon the whole human race. For had the happy state of innocence stood, man would never have endured death, nor the miseries asserted to attend upon death; for although by the constitution of nature he would have been mortal, as was proved in the preceding Disputation, yet he would nowhere have experienced death, as St. Augustine most excellently teaches, book 6 De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 25, where, having said that Adam was created immortal after a certain mode, he adds:

that which was granted him from the tree of life was not from the constitution of nature, from which he was separated by the tree when he sinned, so that he could die: had he not sinned, he could not die. He was therefore mortal by the condition of his animal body: but immortal by the benefit of his Creator.

Therefore just as death altogether dwelt as an exile from that fatherland of happiness, so misery would be wholly absent — that misery pressing in from every quarter, whether from the soul, or from the senses, or from the body, or from external things, whereby man would be tormented against his will: for to be afflicted against one's will by any evil, whether great or small, is not of the nature instituted in man, but of the punishment of the condemned. Whence St. Augustine, book 1 against Julian, chapter 5, briefly sets forth in these words that total immunity from all bodily inconveniences, whereby before the sin committed by Adam no external sense would in any way have been offended or disturbed either inwardly or outwardly: Far be it, he says, that we should believe there was anything whereby our sense, whether inwardly or outwardly, would be pricked by pain, or wearied by toil, or confounded by shame, or burned by heat, or constricted by cold, or assailed by horror. It is certain therefore that all the miseries of body and of soul flowed forth from original sin itself, as from a virulent fountain of all evils, into the whole human race; but whether it also utterly ruined the natural faculties and powers of man is here to be determined. Therefore

Notandum 2. A threefold genus of natural virtues and faculties can be distinguished in man; namely, intellectual, arbitral, and animal: from which there bursts forth, as it were, a corresponding appetite, whereby he is borne toward that which is agreeable to those very faculties: for the intellective power follows and inquires into truth, that in its attainment it may delight and rest: while the arbitral, or voluntary, pursues the good, shuns evil, and seeks out and desires everything whatsoever that illustrates and confirms the liberty of man: finally the sensitive bursts forth toward that which pleases the senses, that it may derive therefrom a certain delight and felicity. The first assimilates man to the Angels: the second makes him, as it were, equal to God: but the third aggregates him to the brute animals. To the first are opposed ignorance and blindness of mind: to the second captivity and languor in attaining the good and fleeing evil: to the third, the miseries of the senses and the tossing of unbridled concupiscence. But whether, and in what manner, original sin inflicted all these plagues upon human nature must here be opened up.

Notandum 3. There has been implanted in rational nature, by that very fact that it is rational, not only a capacity but also an inclination and native propension toward the good of honesty, which above all among the three genera of goods is consonant with reason. Now this inclination can be distinguished as twofold: one indeed remote and radical, which is the very substance of the rational soul, as it has the character of a nature and, as it were, of a radical principle from which faculties and operations burst forth: the other proximate, by which it is found in the powers and faculties from which operations arise: and those powers are especially the intellect and the will; for the sensitive appetite participates only in something of reason on account of the intimate conjunction it has with the rational part; whence also it has only an imperfect inclination toward the good of honesty; wherefore it stands in need of the moral virtues, which subject it to the rational appetite.

Advertendum moreover that the inclination of these faculties toward the good of honesty can be understood to be diminished in two ways. First indeed intrinsically, and on the part of the subject, if something of entity or intensity be withdrawn from them, just as habits are diminished when they are relaxed. Secondly, on the part of the term, the entity of the subject remaining intact, insofar as, certain impediments supervening, the power is removed from attaining or achieving the term toward which it tended: for the more the power has been hindered by reason of impediments from some act, the less will be its inclination and aptitude for such an act.

These things thus premised, four questions come principally to be resolved in this Question. 1. What wounds were inflicted upon the rational faculty through original sin. 2. Whether it altogether broke the liberty of the arbitral and voluntary faculty. 3. What plagues it inflicted upon the sensitive appetite. 4. Finally, in what manner it altered the inclination toward the good of honesty.

First Conclusion. — There are four wounds especially which original sin inflicted upon the intelligence or human mind.

The first is ignorance of things necessary even for the conservation of natural life itself, wherein infants possess as little as not even the beasts, as St. Augustine elegantly explains in book 1 De Peccatorum meritis et remissione, chapter 38.

The young, he says, of many flocks, although they be very small, do not indeed advance even in understanding as their bodily growths depart, because they have not a rational soul; yet even the tiniest of them both run and recognize their mothers, nor are they brought by care and help to the teats of others for sucking: but they know of themselves, with wonderful facility, those things placed in a suitable position within their mothers' bodies. Contrariwise, man when born has neither feet fit for walking, nor hands apt at least for writing; and unless the nipples of the breast be applied to his lips by the aid of those nourishing him, he does not perceive where they are, and rather than suck at the breasts lying beside him he can only cry from hunger. Accordingly this infirmity of body altogether corresponds to the infirmity of mind; nor would the flesh of Christ have been in the likeness of the flesh of sin unless that flesh had been flesh of sin, under whose weight the rational soul is thus weighed down.

The second wound is fatuity and dullness of mind, which abides in some persons from their very birth; for there is no animal so destitute of knowledge by means of reason suited to its own nature as some idiotic and rude men are born. Lamenting this calamity and misery of the human mind, St. Augustine describes it thus in Epistle 28 to Jerome:

Then some are slow, he says, and forgetful, so that they have not even been able to learn the first elements of letters. But certain ones are of such fatuity that they differ not much from the flocks, whom the common people call fools.

Hence, in book 1 De Peccatorum meritis, chapter 22, refuting those who, following Plato, think that souls, on account of offenses committed elsewhere, are thrust down into bodies congruent with their merits, and therein afflicted more or less, he says thus:

Who, according to those men, who opine that souls, which before this body lived in heavenly places according to the merits of a former life, are burdened by earthly bodies more or less, would not affirm that those who deserved to lose the light of mind so as to become, with senseless reason, brutish — as the common people call them — sinned before this life more wickedly and more savagely?

The third wound is difficulty in learning and in acquiring knowledge. For ignorance has propagated its roots so deep and so high in the talents of certain men that they prefer to live always in the shadows of ignorance rather than to drain so great a labor as occurs in acquiring the sciences. Hence St. Augustine lib. 22. De Civit. Dei, cap. 22. What, he says,

of that which indicates a certain horrible depth of ignorance, from which every error arises, which embraces all the sons of Adam as with a dark bosom, so that man cannot be delivered from it without labor, sorrow, and fear?

Hence, in book 1 De Peccatorum meritis, chapter 36, from this ignorance and difficulty in learning he gathers original sin.

Into that therefore, he says, densest darkness of slowness, where the soul of the infant fresh from the womb — certainly the soul of a man, certainly a rational soul — lies not only without speech, but incapable even of learning things: why, or when, or whence was it thrust thither? If it is the nature of man so to begin, is not that nature already vitiated? Why was not Adam created such? Why was he capable of precept, and knowing how to impose names upon his wife and upon all the animals?... But this one, not knowing where he is, what he is, by whom he was created, from whom begotten, already guilty of offense, not yet capable of precept, is involved and pressed by so great a darkness of profound ignorance that he cannot, even as one awakened from sleep, know these things at least when shown to him, but time must await wherein he may gradually digest this I-know-not-what intoxication, not through one night, as any gravest drunkenness is wont, but through several months and years: which until it be done, we punish so many things in adults and tolerate them in infants that they cannot all be numbered.

Now this difficulty of learning and of undertaking knowledge appears chiefly from this, that although all men by nature desire to know, as Aristotle says in book 1 of the Metaphysics, or as Tullius says in book 1 of the Tusculans: Nature presses upon our minds an insatiable kind of desire of seeing the truth: yet so great is the weakness of the human mind that it knows perfectly neither even the tiniest creature nor the worm; whence Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, deserves to say: All things are difficult: man cannot explain them by speech. But far greater is its ignorance of itself; since the human mind knows nothing less than itself, nay, does not even understand its own works: whence the royal Psalmist, Psalm 18: Who can understand sins? From my secret ones cleanse me. Which indeed is the highest argument of incredible unhappiness, that he himself who sins daily by his own will can scarcely discern whether he has truly sinned, or consented with deliberate will, how often and how much he has offended. But how obscure and meager a knowledge of God human study can acquire, so many erroneous opinions of the Gentiles concerning the nature of God bear witness; since their madness proceeded so far that they attributed divinity not only to viler animals, but even to certain kinds of vegetables and herbs.

Finally, the fourth wound implanted in the human mind by original sin is that very levity and undisciplined agitation of the mind, whereby it comes to pass that we turn over many empty and vain things even against our will. St. Jerome laments this calamity in his Dialogue against the Luciferians, perhaps speaking in the person of another: Hence very often in my prayer, either I walk through the public place, or I reckon accounts from the treasury, or, defiled by a base thought, I carry about things which even boys would blush to utter. And St. Augustine, book 10 of the Confessions, chapter 35:

When, he says, in matters of this kind our heart is the receptacle, and bears the wares of copious vanity, thence also our prayers are often interrupted and disturbed, and before thy countenance, while we direct the heart's attention to thine ears, the matter so great is cut off by trifling thoughts rushing in, I know not whence.

Second Conclusion. — Likewise there are four principal wounds inflicted upon the human will and arbitral faculty by original sin.

The first is that very conversion of love toward self, whereby it comes to pass that all seek their own things and burn with disordered self-love. Thence arise all those deviations of the soul which Saint Augustine enumerates in lib. 22. De Civit. Dei, cap. 22.

Namely, biting cares, perturbations, terrors, mad joys, discords, quarrels, wars, treacheries, angers, enmities, deceits, flattery, fraud, perjury, rapine, perfidy, pride, ambition, envy, homicides, parricides, cruelty, wickedness, lust, petulance, impudicity, impurity, fornications, adulteries, incests, and against nature, of both sexes, so many filthy and unclean things which we are accustomed even to call shameful; sacrileges, heresies, blasphemies, false oaths, oppressions of the innocent, calumnies, circumventions, betrayals, false testimonies, unjust judgments, violences, robberies, and whatever such evils do not come to mind, and yet depart not from the life of man: whence all the works of darkness, although exercised only by wicked men, nevertheless flow forth from that virulent fountain of perverse self-love ingested through original sin.

The second wound is that very great difficulty which each experiences in overcoming vices and cultivating virtues. For although nature itself stimulates toward virtue and withdraws from vice — especially since the natural end of man, as regards the will, is to live according to the dictate of right reason, and therefore to pursue virtue itself — nevertheless men tend toward it with difficulty and hardly: witnesses of which thing are those immense and manifold punishments wherewith both children and adults must be urged, that even against their will they may be stimulated toward virtue and restrained from vices. Hence Augustine, in the passage praised shortly above:

What mean the many rods which are employed to curb the wantonnesses of little ones? What mean Pedagogues, Masters, the rod, the straps, the whip, that discipline whereof Sacred Scripture says, the sides of the beloved sons must be beaten, lest growing untamed, being now hard, they can be subdued soon, or perhaps cannot? What is done by all these punishments except that ignorance may be beaten down and depraved desire restrained, amid which evils we groan in this age? To these is added that incredible negligence in acquiring those things which look toward living blessedly, both in this life and after death: for although men know exceedingly well that the sole felicity, however slight, which they can taste in this mortal life lies stored in the study of virtue; although likewise by the light of faith they know steadfastly that heavenly beatitude is promised only to those living piously; nevertheless experience establishes that most men have nothing less at heart than procuring virtues and eliciting good works, whereby they may attain temporal beatitude and merit eternal: so great evidently a forgetfulness of themselves, so huge a sleep, so unhappy a security has oppressed the human race from the sin of the first transgression.

The third wound is that continual struggle of one's own will against itself, and a certain unstable inconstancy; for since all created things, both superior as the Angels and inferior as cattle, ever will the same or nill the same, pursue good, flee evil, man alone, tossed by his own will alternating, rejects what he had just chosen, and chooses what he had held in contempt. Thence it comes to pass that the superior part of the soul not only suffers perpetual struggle with the inferior, but even conflicts perpetually with herself. Hence St. Augustine, book 8 of the Confessions, chapter 9:

Whence this monster, he says, and why this? Let thy mercy swear, and I ask, if perchance they can answer me, the hiding places of the punishments of men, and the darkest contritions of the sons of Adam. Whence this monster, and why this? The mind commands the body, and it is obeyed at once: the mind commands itself, and is resisted.... I, when I deliberated that I might now serve my Lord, as I had purposed, I was he who willed, I who would not. Nor plainly did I will, nor plainly would I not: the same contended within me, and I was dissipated by myself, and that dissipation befell me indeed unwillingly: yet it showed not the nature of an alien mind, but the punishment of mine.

Finally, the fourth wound inflicted by original sin upon the arbitral, voluntary faculty of man, is that very infirmity and diminution of free choice; for, as St. Augustine teaches in many places, through the sin of the first Parent the free choice of man has been so vitiated that, unless it be quickened and strengthened by divine grace, it is altogether weak and powerless for pursuing and embracing virtue: here he seems to assert that it altogether fell: for as he says in the book De perfectione iustitiae, chapter 4, Nature, conquered in vice into which it fell by will, collapsed in liberty: and in the Enchiridion, chapter 30, Man, ill using free choice, lost both himself and it: and in the Epistle to Vitalis, We have lost free choice for loving God by the greatness of the first sin. These things, however, are not to be so understood, as though St. Augustine wished that free choice had altogether perished through the sin of the first Parent: for he openly teaches the contrary in many places, especially Epist. 47 to Valentinus; The Catholic Faith, he says,

neither denies free choice, whether unto a good life or unto a bad life, nor attributes to it so much that without grace it can avail for anything; and in book 2 to Boniface, chapter 5, he says:

We do not say that the free choice perished from the nature of men through the sin of Adam.

And in book 1 to the same, chapter 2, he teaches openly in what manner man's free choice is held to be diminished through Adam's sin; namely, that he no longer possessed that perfection of liberty which he had in the state of innocence, for acting with the greatest ease whatsoever good, and abstaining from evil; for having said: Which of us says that through the sin of the first man free choice has perished from the human race? He adds:

Liberty indeed perished through sin: but that which was in Paradise, of having full justice together with immortality: wherefore human nature stands in need of divine grace, the Lord saying, if the Son shall make you free, then shall you be truly free.

Whence, when he says that the first man, ill using free choice, lost both himself and it, he signifies quite clearly that he did not lose free choice as to substance, but as to that accidental mode of perfection which he had in the state of integrity and innocence: thus the first man did not lose himself as to substance, but as to accidental and gratuitous gifts: with which in that happy state he was illustrated, and on account of sin despoiled of them. But concerning these things we shall say more in the following Disputation.

Third Conclusion. — Various, but principally four, are the wounds wherewith the inferior part of man, or the sensitive appetite, has been wounded through original sin.

The first is the continual warfare and struggle itself, which concupiscence renews against the higher part of the soul at every moment; for man endures an internal war unceasingly even unto death: wherefore the Apostle, Romans 6, lamenting, exclaims: Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? How fierce, how deadly is that war, the depraved life of many young men bears witness, who burn in an immense fire of most shameful pleasures: the constant courses of lusts also bear witness, whereby the concupiscence of perverse men is irritated and inflamed; likewise the constant mortifications bear witness, whereby men devoted to piety crucify themselves, that with these as it were heavenly arms they may bind and conquer so hostile an enemy.

The second are the innumerable calamities and miseries, and above all the very many kinds of diseases with which we are tossed day by day. Whence St. Augustine, book 1 against Julian, chapter 6, thus addresses him:

Behold, misery of the human race surrounds thy senses. Thou art a man; put nothing human away from thee, and in those things which thou dost not suffer, sympathize with those who suffer; although thou thyself, however great thine earthly felicity may be, dost pass no day without internal war, if indeed thou strivest to fulfill what thou professest. But in those things which thou canst no longer remember, look upon little children, how many and how great evils they suffer, amid what vanities, torments, errors, and terrors they grow up. Then already grown, even those serving God, error assails that it may deceive, labor or pain assails that it may break, lust assails that it may inflame, sorrow assails that it may cast down, pride assails that it may exalt: and who can swiftly expound all things wherewith the yoke weigheth heavy upon the sons of Adam? This evident misery of the nations compelled the Philosophers of the Gentiles, whether knowing or believing something of the sin of the first man, to say that we are born for the sake of undergoing punishments on account of certain crimes committed in a former life....

But the Apostle deems such to be that opinion whereby each soul is believed to be inserted into diverse bodies according to the merits of its former life. What therefore remains, unless the cause of these evils be either the injustice or the impotence of God, or else the punishment of the first and old sin? But because God is neither unjust nor impotent, there remains what thou dost not will, but art compelled to confess: that the heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their going forth from their mother's womb unto the day of burial in the mother of all, would not have been, unless the merit of original guilt had gone before.

The third kind of evils which original sin introduced into the animal portion of man is the very need of food and drink, and that so great as sometimes to drive men even to frenzy. Hence St. Augustine, lib. 22. De Civit. Dei, cap. 22.

Hath not, saith he, the foul ardor brought thirsty men even to this, that they have drunk human urine, or even their own? Hath not hunger brought them to this, that they could not abstain from the flesh of men, nor from men not slain and burnt, but killed by themselves for the moment, nor yet strangers merely, but even mothers devouring their own children with incredible cruelty, which raging hunger wrought?

Fourth and last is the very savagery of the whole universe against man; for not only the brute animals, which from the beginning ought to have obeyed man in all things, immediately after his sin withdrew from his dominion and lay snares for his very life in countless ways, but also the elements themselves of things and the heavens fight against him; for as St. Augustine observes in the place just praised,

Scarcely can it be told how great are those losses which befall the race of men from heats, colds, tempests, rains, floods, lightning, thunder, hail, the bolt, chasms of the earth, oppressions of ruins, eruptions of fires, and likewise so many poisons of plants, of waters, of winds. What evils do they suffer who sail! what they who journey over land! what the tillers of gardens and fields! How many and how great calamities are feared for the fruits of the fields from heaven and earth, or from most pernicious animals!

Fourth Conclusion. — Original sin vitiated man's native inclination toward honest good; not indeed intrinsically, and as to entity, but extrinsically, and as to ready operation, namely by subjecting certain obstacles, through which he may not attain that good so promptly and readily.

This Conclusion consists of three parts: the First of which appears from all those texts of Scripture whereby the very inclination of man toward evil is proved. For the sense and thought of the human heart are prone to evil from its youth, saith God, Genesis 8. Which truth St. Paul plainly expounds, Romans 7:

I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do. Now if I do that which I will not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members.

The second and third part are likewise evident, namely that that natural inclination toward virtue, or honest good, is not diminished intrinsically by original sin: since the substance of the soul and its faculties, namely intellect and will, can suffer no intrinsic loss, seeing that they are incorruptible and indefectible as to entity, whence no substantial change, no defect can occur in them. Hence the whole repugnance to the attainment of honest good is extrinsic: for original sin, by taking away original justice, turns man away from his last end: but that aversion renders him not so prompt to operate rightly: therefore by original sin the promptitude, aptitude, and inclination of rational nature toward honest good is diminished. The major is evident; the minor is proved: the last end stands related to operable things in the same way as first principles stand to speculative matters: but the intellect lacking assent to the premises is not so apt and prompt to assent to conclusions as when furnished with that assent to the premises: therefore neither does the will averted from the last end become so prompt and ready to pursue the honest good as while it adhered to the last end. Wherefore original sin, by taking away original justice, whose rein kept the powers of man free from the raging motions of concupiscence, is indirectly, and as it were by removing an obstacle, the cause that such powers tend with unbridled impetus toward their objects and burst forth into illicit affections.

Whence four wounds in general are reckoned to human nature from original sin: namely ignorance in the intellect; malice in the will; weakness in the irascible, and unbridled commotion of concupiscence itself in the concupiscible.

To be noted 1. That although the kinds of torments in Hell whereby the reprobate are to be tormented are diverse, yet all of them are reduced chiefly to three heads, namely the pain of loss, of sense, and of the worm. The first is the very privation forever of the divine vision and fruition; the second, horrible torment from hellish fire, cold, and other ministering creatures of divine justice that torment; the third, finally, is the ever-tormenting bite and stimulus of conscience. The first answers the aversion from God; the second, the conversion to creatures; the third, the internal delight which is made apart from the dictate of reason and the divine law, whereby the sinner sins in the very aversion from God and conversion to creature: now it is certain that by this threefold punishment adult reprobates are to be tormented, as can be shown by very many texts of Scripture, above all from that of Matthew 25, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels: and also from that of Mark 9, Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished: whether however infants departing this life with original sin alone are to be punished by this threefold pain must be determined in the present place.

To be noted 2. That it is certain indeed, and altogether undoubted among Catholics, that all departing this life, even with original sin alone, are punished with the pain of loss. For this rests on most manifest texts of Scripture, especially from that of John 3, Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And 1 Corinthians 15, For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive: that is, as no one is freed from the death contracted through Adam unless he be united to Christ through baptism as to his head, and incorporated into Him as His member; so no one can attain eternal life except through this incorporation. Finally from that of Apocalypse 20, Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; in these the second death hath no power: but unbaptized infants have no part in the first resurrection: therefore over them the second death, namely the want of the divine vision, which is life eternal, hath power.

Likewise it has been defined in Councils: first indeed the Palestinian, or Diospolitan, as St. Augustine testifies, book De gestis Pelagii, c. 8, where he relates that Pelagius was compelled to anathematize that assertion, that infants, even if they be not baptized, have eternal life. But this being denied, saith St. Augustine, what will remain but eternal death? Likewise the Council of Carthage in Augustine, num. 90: Whoever, it saith, denies that little children are freed from perdition through the baptism of Christ, and receive eternal salvation, let him be anathema. Likewise the Council of Milevis in the Epistle in Augustine 92. The like it repeats writing of the Pelagians:

If little children be imbued with no sacraments of Christian grace, that they shall have even eternal life they do not presume to contend.

The same the Florentine teaches in the last session, writing:

The souls of the dead who depart with actual mortal sin, or with original sin alone, presently descend into hell, yet to be punished with pains unlike one to the other.

Finally the Council of Trent, session 5, especially Canon 1, repeating the doctrine of the preceding Councils, anathematizes those who assert that little children draw nothing from Adam of original sin, which must needs be expiated by the laver of regeneration for the attaining of eternal life.

The same all the Holy Fathers teach, especially as many as pressed hard upon the calamity of the Pelagians or Semi-Pelagians. Above all St. Augustine, book 1, De origine animae, chapter 9. To unbaptized infants, he saith,

let no one promise a middle place, where one listeth, as it were, between damnation and the kingdom of Heaven, or some quiet or felicity whatsoever: for this the Pelagian heresy promised them.

And book 2, chapter 12, he saith:

The authority of the Catholic Councils, and of the Apostolic See, most justly condemned Vincentius, the heretical Pelagian, because they dared to give to unbaptized infants a place of quiet and salvation, even outside the kingdom of Heaven, etc.

To these subscribe St. Prosper, book 2, De vocatione gentium, c. 8. What is it, he saith,

that so great a multitude of infants is alienated from perpetual salvation, as many as in these ages thousands of men are left outside the eternal rite?

And St. Fulgentius, book De fide ad Petrum, chapter 2. Infants, he saith,

to whom there can be inherent no proper merits of will, either good or evil, are held by an indissoluble bond in eternal damnation.

The same holds St. Anselm, book De Conceptu Virginali, chapter 27, and all the rest, followers and disciples of St. Augustine. These things I have noted at somewhat greater length, that thereby it may appear how execrable, and how much to be condemned, is the assertion of Calvin, Zwingli, and other heretics, whereby they teach that the whole human nature has been so restored through Christ, that not only the children of the faithful, as Calvin wills, but even of infidels, as Zwingli asserts, in the Declaration on original sin, though dying without baptism, can attain eternal life.

To be noted 3. That although all Catholic Doctors agree that infants departing this life with original sin alone are to be condemned to the pain of loss and perpetual want of the divine vision; nevertheless they controvert among themselves whether those infants also suffer any pain of sense and of the worm; in the resolution of which difficulty there are chiefly four diverse opinions of Authors.

The first indeed, most rigid, contends namely that those infants departing with original sin are deprived not only forever of the vision and fruition of God, but also punished with the very pain of the fire and worm of eternity: yet more mildly than damned adults, forasmuch as they are infected with lighter guilt. Thus above all taught Gregory of Rimini, in 2 dist. 3. For this same opinion fought keenly our Florentius Conrius, Archbishop of Tuam, in the Treatise published at the end of Jansenius's work De statu parvulorum sine baptismo decedentium ex hac vita: in which Treatise he contends that the opposite opinion is not only false, but also bordering on heresy, and that original sin, as he himself says, is utterly evacuated. To him subscribe very many Moderns; above all our Poncius in the Commentary on distinction 33, where n. 77 he congratulates himself that while still a youth he had enjoyed the grave and religious conversation of the aforesaid Most Illustrious Conrius; in whom, he saith,

I experienced several proofs of supreme humility joined with so great profundity of doctrine, which I admire even now, and often recall for my own profit.

The second opinion teaches that infants dying in original sin will indeed be punished with no pain of fire and of sense: yet that they will suffer the pain of the worm, or of sadness and sorrow, for the loss of eternal beatitude. This taught Abulensis on chapter 25 of Matthew, Bellarmine book De statu peccati, chapter 6, and others. The third affirms that infants thus departing are indeed deprived of the eternal vision and fruition of God, yet will have after the day of judgment a certain temporal beatitude, inasmuch as they will inhabit the earth as it were an earthly Paradise, full of wisdom and instructed in moral virtues, and refreshed also by the companionship and apparitions of Angels. Thus Catharinus book De statu Parvulorum decedentium sine baptismo; Albertus Pighius in the first Controversy on original sin; which opinion Salmeron also deems probable on chapter 5 of Romans. Fourth and last, the opinion teaches indeed that infants departing in original sin are to be punished with the eternal want of the vision and fruition of God, and likewise to be destitute of all natural beatitude: yet not to be tortured with any pain of sense or of the worm. Thus the Subtle Doctor with the Master of the Sentences in 2 dist. 33, and St. Thomas in the same place qu. 1. art. 1 and 2, and likewise the Seraphic Doctor Bonaventure in the same place art. 2. qu. 1, where, having reported the first opinion on this matter, he subjoins:

that position is milder which accords better with piety, faith, and the judgment of reason: that because infants departing with original justice lack justice, and the grace of the Holy Ghost, which is the first inheritance of eternity, they are deprived forever of the vision of God: but because in her was the inheritance, therefore they are placed in the place of naught, namely hellish; but because they had not in themselves actual delectation of sin, neither in spirit nor in flesh, therefore they feel not the harshness of the pain of fire.

That we may subscribe to which opinion, as the more probable, let there be

One Conclusion. — Infants departing this life with original sin alone suffer no pain of sense, nor of the worm, or remorse of conscience.

Proof is made first from Sacred Scripture: for Apocalypse 18: How much she hath glorified herself, and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her: but little ones have in no wise glorified themselves, nor have they been in any delicacies: therefore they deserve no torment and sorrow. Likewise in Isaiah at the end, and Mark 9, fire is joined with the worm: Their worm, he saith, dieth not, and their fire shall not be extinguished; but it is evident that little ones will suffer no punishment from the bite of the worm, that is, from a conscience of an evil work pricking and afflicting the soul; therefore it is credible that they will also suffer no punishment of material fire.

Proof is made second from the authority of the Holy Fathers, and especially of St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 10 on holy Baptism, where, having enumerated three kinds of men dying without baptism — of whom some despised baptism; others omitted it through their own negligence; and the third, that is, infants, lacked it through the negligence of others — he pronounces thus concerning the punishment of all of them:

I judge that it will come to pass that the first indeed shall pay penalties both for their other crimes and for the contempt of baptism: but the others shall pay penalties indeed, yet lighter, as those who departed from baptism not so much by depravity of soul as by folly: lastly, the final ones shall be touched neither by heavenly glory nor by punishments from the just Judge; inasmuch as, although they were not signed with baptism, they nevertheless lack wickedness, and have suffered this loss rather than made it: for not everyone who is unworthy of punishment straightway receives the honor he merits, just as not everyone who is unworthy of honor straightway merits punishment.

Conrius replies, chapter 15. First indeed, that Gregory there defines nothing about our controversy, but only says that those who have not received baptism will not have its effect, namely eternal life. Second, that they ought not to be punished with torment on account of that defect committed in not receiving the Sacrament, as they are to be punished who despised or neglected to receive baptism. On the contrary, Gregory manifestly asserts that these little ones are to be touched neither by heavenly glory nor by punishments on account of the loss of baptism, which they suffer involuntarily; and he says the reason why they are not touched by punishments after this life is that they lack wickedness, that is, that they are not culpable by their own iniquity. And therefore Nicetas the ancient, his Commentator, gathers from these words that infants dying without baptism are not to be tortured by the punishment of fire. A middle grade of those, he saith, who feel neither the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom nor are tortured by any punishments: in which also the little ones who have not been washed by baptism shall be placed. The same St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches, Oration 1 On Infants who are snatched away prematurely, near the end, whose words are these:

The untimely death of infants suggests to us that it must not be understood to be with pains and mourning for one who has so ceased to live: nor that he is in equal lot and the same condition with those who have been purged in this life by every virtue.

And the same must be said of adults, if any likewise die with original sin alone: for since their condition is equal to that of infants, the same must be judged concerning the punishment of both. The same truth St. Augustine openly teaches in many places, but especially book 3 De libero arbitrio, chapter 23, where he says:

The unskillful say, what need was there that he should be born, who departed this life before he had entered upon the merit of that life? Or of what sort shall he be accounted in the future judgment, for whom there is a place neither among the just, since he did nothing rightly, nor among the wicked, since he sinned nothing?

To whom it is answered, embracing the whole, that the most orderly connection of the whole creature, whether through places or through times, cannot have been superfluously created, of whatever sort a man may be, wherein not even one leaf of a tree is superfluously created; but indeed it is superfluous to complain of the merits of him who merited nothing. For it must not be feared lest life could be a certain middle thing between a rightly done deed and sin, and the sentence of the Judge cannot be a middle thing between reward and punishment. In which words St. Augustine does not assign some middle place between Heaven and Hell to those dying with original sin alone, but a middle sentence between the reward which is due to those who by their own will have merited something of good, and the punishment which is due to those who by their own will have bred punishment for themselves: wherefore, as Bellarmine says,

little ones dying without baptism shall not be without the punishment common to original and actual sin, whereby the grace of God is lost, which punishment is the privation of the divine vision; but they shall be free from that punishment which is proper to actual sin, which punishment is called of fire, or of sense.

Nor does it matter that in Epistle 28 to Jerome, and in the book De dono perseverantiae, chapters 11 and 12, he says that in that place he did not doubt of the damnation of little ones; but that he was unwilling to touch that question about which there was no contention between himself and the Manichees, against whom he was fighting. That, I say, does not matter: for there he says nothing else was certain to himself than punishment in general, and the damnation of little ones. But it is one thing that their damnation is certain, which is most certain among all Catholics; and another thing concerning the species and quality of the punishment, concerning which there have been various opinions of Catholics hitherto, and concerning which he himself doubted even after the arising of the Pelagian heresy, in many places, as in the same Epistle 28, where he says thus: But when we come to the punishments of little ones, believe me, I am pressed by greater straits, and I find not at all what I should answer. And book 5 contra Iulianum, chapter 11: I do not say, he saith,

that little ones dying without the baptism of Christ are to be punished with so great a punishment that it would rather have been expedient for them not to be born.

And a little after:

Who would doubt that unbaptized little ones, who have original sin alone, shall be in the most light damnation of all? Which, of what sort and how great it shall be, because I cannot define, yet I dare not say that it would be more expedient for them to be nothing than to be there. Certainly it would rather be expedient for them not to be, than to burn in the fire of Hell forever: for who would choose this, if he be wise?

This same truth the supreme Pontiffs taught, and especially Innocent III, as is related book 3 Decret. de baptismo, et eius effectu, chapter maiores. Where, teaching that an adult sleeping or out of his mind is not to be baptized — for he is held to be in baptism whoever would have actual sin together with original — he subjoins this reason of his assertion and resolution: Moreover, he saith,

the punishment of original sin is the privation of the vision of God: but the actual punishment of sin is the everlasting torment of hell: whence if to anyone the first were remitted, the other not remitted, such a one would not be without the vision of God on account of the original remitted, and would be tormented in hell forever on account of the guilt of actual crime: but these, as incompossible things, by no means suffer one another: nay, they are adverse to each other mutually.

In which words the Pontiff openly teaches that no other punishment corresponds to original sin than that very privation of the vision of God: as the punishment of sense and the torments of hell correspond to actual sin; and therefore, since infants are guilty of no actual sin, neither ought they to be tortured by any punishment of sense or of conscience.

Conrius replies, chapter 16. That the Pontiff indeed says truly that the punishment of original sin is the privation of the vision of God; but does not say that this is the sole punishment, nor exclude the punishment of eternal torment: just as, when he says the punishment of actual mortal sin is the torment of everlasting hell — likewise. On the contrary, the Pontiff speaks of one who is at once infected with original sin while actual mortal sin remains habitually in him: and he says that in such a one the former sin cannot be remitted while the latter remains; likewise he speaks of how any remission is made in reality according to the law laid down by God, namely through the infusion of justifying grace, which gives the right to hereditary eternal life. From which it follows that if to anyone having actual mortal sin original sin were remitted through baptism granted to him — as indeed it ought to be remitted, if baptism were to be administered to him; since baptism ought to be administered for no other reason than that of washing away original sin — it would follow, I say, that he would have a right to the vision of God on account of the remission of original sin, and at the same time the debt of lacking it, and of suffering the eternal torment of hell on account of actual sin, which two things are incompossible, as the Pontiff truly says; who, since he sets these two in opposition to each other — namely, that original sin merits the privation of the vision of God, but actual mortal sin merits the everlasting torment of hell — must be understood to mean the first member of this division exclusively: so that the sense is, that original sin merits only that privation, but actual mortal sin merits the ultimate torment of hell: otherwise that division and opposition between these two would be altogether null, and the Pontiff would conclude nothing, if he meant that both original and actual sin merit both punishments. Nor does it matter that for actual mortal sin both these punishments are owed, namely the privation of the vision of God, and the torment of fire and worm. For thence it does not follow that the Pontiff's reasoning is weak; since he argues ad hominem, and demonstrates most excellently against those who contended that baptism ought to be administered to those sleeping or out of their minds who had actual mortal sin, that it ought not to be administered to them; because plainly it would be frustrated of its effect; since it could not remit original sin without the actual mortal sin: but as actual mortal sin was committed by voluntary deliberation, so it must be blotted out by voluntary penance: and since those asleep and out of their minds are incapable of such penance, they are also incapable of receiving baptism: otherwise, as the Pontiff most excellently concludes, if baptism had its effect in them, namely the remission of original sin, without the remission of actual sin, which ought to be washed away by contrition at least virtual, it would follow that a man so baptized would at once become an heir of the heavenly kingdom on account of the original sin remitted, and condemned to the torments of hell on account of the actual, which things being incompossible, the Pontiff rightly gathers that baptism ought not to be conferred upon him; whereby it is manifest how wrongly the glossator, and also certain moderns, have said that the Pontiff's reasoning is superficial.

Likewise Eugenius IV taught in the letters of union with the Greeks, when he defines that the souls of those who depart in actual mortal sin, or in original alone, descend straightway into hell, yet to be punished with unequal punishments; unequal, that is, according to the inequality of sins, so that those who depart in actual mortal sin are punished with the privation of the divine vision, and moreover with sensible punishments of fire and other torments: but those who pass away with original sin alone suffer no sensible punishment whatsoever, but only the punishment of loss, namely the privation of the divine vision. For the Pontiff cannot be understood to speak of an inequality of punishments according to intensity, because in that way even actual sins are punished with unequal punishments.

The Doctor proves this truth in book 2, distinction 32, n. 2, where, having said: This seems to be the opinion of the Masters, that the damned for original sin alone will have no punishment of exterior sense, as fire, he proves it with a threefold reason: the first indeed,

because, he saith, the damned for original sin alone will have no punishment of exterior sense, as fire, who have had no inordinate delectation, to which delectation the bitterness of afflicting fire might correspond as its proper punishment: neither will they have any interior punishment, as sadness, because if they were sad over their state — since sadness, according to St. Augustine, is over those things which happen to us against our will: therefore they would involuntarily sustain their state, and would will the opposite, and thus would murmur against the divine disposition, and thus would have an inordinate disposition of the will, which seems absurd. For the divine sentence is disposed, that wheresoever the tree shall fall, there it shall be, in Ecclesiasticus. Therefore since these have had no inordinate volition in that state, it follows that they will have no interior sadness. Moreover, if they were sad over the privation of beatitude and the divine vision, since they despair of it, because they will have no hope; therefore they would have the gravest punishment among the punishments of all the damned, namely sadness from desperation. It seems also that the punishment of sadness is simply greater to man, as it is distinguished against pain [dolor], than any other punishment of sense: because as the will is more the appetite of man, inasmuch as he is man, than the sensitive appetite: so whatever he does, or suffers, according to the will, he simply does and suffers more inasmuch as he is man, than according to any other appetite; and thus he simply suffers more if he be sad, than if he feel pain: and thus it does not seem that any sadness should be posited in them.

So the Doctor, whose words and opinions it has pleased to transcribe here, that it may appear how wrongly certain men affirm him to have thought otherwise.

The Angelic Doctor proves this same truth with various reasons: First indeed: the punishment of sense corresponds to sin according to conversion to a changeable good; for although such a punishment is owed even to aversion from God found in personal sin, this nevertheless proceeds from the fact that such aversion is not a pure aversion, but partakes somewhat of conversion, because it is voluntary by the act of one's own will, and by reason of this participation the punishment of sense is owed to it: but in original sin there is not a conversion to a changeable good, even by participation, since such sin is not voluntary by the act of one's own will, but only by the will of the head: therefore the punishment of sense is not proportioned to original guilt. Second reason: that guilt which does not render one worthy of vituperation and rebuke, much less renders one worthy of any sensible and positive punishment, since this is sharper and harsher: but through original sin no one becomes worthy of reprehension and vituperation: therefore neither of sensible and positive punishment, or of the torment of eternal fire. The major is evident: the minor is proved from Augustine, book De duabus animabus, chapter 11, where he openly teaches that He who did not do what He could cannot be worthy of any reprehension; and he subjoins that this is so known and perspicuous to everyone, that Pastors chant it in the mountains, and Poets in the theaters, and the unlearned in circles, the learned in libraries, and Masters in schools, and High Priests in sacred places, and mankind in the whole orb of the earth. But infants have contracted original sin in such wise that they could not fail to contract it: therefore according to the mind of St. Augustine they are worthy of no rebuke or reprehension. So Gonetius after St. Thomas. I add that the sin of origin does not take away in man the natural order, but the supernatural, namely conversion to God through the gift of grace, which is of the supernatural order. It is just, therefore, that the punishment corresponding to original sin be only the privation of a supernatural good, such as the lack of the vision of God; and not the infliction of sensible punishment, whereby the creature serves God as vindicator and avenger, to punish that natural disordination which the sinner actually caused in the nature of things, using creatures against the prescription and glory of God. Moreover the Church, in enjoining due satisfaction and punishment for sins, imitates the order and manner of divine Justice in punishing offenses: but the Church imposes no positive punishment on account of original sin; therefore it is a sign that neither does divine justice inflict any sensible punishment on account of it.

The Assertors of the contrary opinion object 1. various texts of Scripture, by which they strive to prove that little ones are to be tortured with eternal fire and punishment together with those sinning actually. First indeed, that of Matthew 25, wherein the universal Judgment is described, to which all Gentiles are said to be gathered; and one part of them to be stationed at the right hand, and the nobler place, the other truly at the left, or baser; and those at the right are to be called into the kingdom; but to those who will be at the left the Judge shall say: Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire: but little ones passing away with original sin are not at the right hand, nor to be called into the kingdom: therefore they are to be stationed at the left, and thrust into eternal fire with the other reprobate. It is confirmed from the same St. Matthew, chapter 13, where, the parables having been premised — of the wheat to be gathered into the barn, and the cockle to be cast into the fire, and of the net cast into the sea gathering good and bad fishes — Christ infers: So shall it be at the consummation of the world: the Angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth: which are signs of a most grievous punishment of sense and remorse of conscience: but little ones dying without baptism are not to be reckoned among the just: therefore they are to be placed with the wicked and sinners, and with them cast into the furnace of fire. Moreover, from the same chapter 3, the Precursor of Christ the Lord, speaking of Him as the future Judge, saith: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor; and will gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire: but little ones dying without baptism are not grains to be brought into the barn: therefore they are to be fuel of the unquenchable fire to come. I deny all these consequences; and to the first text I say with St. Augustine, book Contra Donatistas, chapter 4, and book De Fide, et operibus, chapter 15, and elsewhere, that by those words of Matthew there is described chiefly the form of the future judgment of those who lived in the Church; and therefore the aforesaid words do not regard little ones dying with original sin, inasmuch as they lived nowhere in the Church. Nor does it matter that in the same chapter it is read: All Gentiles shall be gathered before him: for often in Scripture the word all is used for the far greater part, such as the multitude of adults in respect of infants; in which sense St. Paul, 2 to the Corinthians 5, saith: We must all be manifested before the tribunal of Christ, that everyone may render the things proper to his body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil. But little ones cannot render the good or evil works proper to their body, since they have elicited none at all: and therefore that word all does not regard them, but only adults. — That this, however, is the genuine evangelical sense, appears from the text: both because the Lord there compares the good and the wicked to sheep and goats, which are numbered in the same flock of the same shepherd: but it is evident that the flock of Christ the good Shepherd is none other than the Church, in which indeed there are good and wicked, but all baptized and faithful; while all the unbaptized are excluded; and therefore those infants who pass from the living with original sin: and because those stationed at the left shall hear the sentence of the Judge thundering against them, Go into everlasting fire; they shall hear also the cause of their damnation, namely that they did not do works of mercy toward the poor, the Judge saying, For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat, &c. But the little ones of whom we speak can neither be judged nor damned on account of those omitted works of mercy: hence that sentence of the Judge, Go into everlasting fire, does not regard them. Finally, because this very thing St. Augustine openly teaches in the places soon to be praised: for in book De fide, et operibus, chapter 15, he saith: Therefore he saith he will separate all the Gentiles which shall have pastured mixed together in the same pastures, that it may appear they shall say to him: Lord, when saw we thee suffering this and that, and did not minister to thee? They who believed in him, but cared not to work good works. And in book Contra Donatistas: We shall act, he saith, so that the cause and person of the cockle may not prejudice the cause and person of the wheat: although they be threshed together in the same floor, until they be separated by the last winnowing: so that the cause and person of the goats may not prejudice the cause and person of the sheep: although the mixed flocks be kept in common pastures, until by the supreme Shepherd in the last judgment some be separated to the left, others to the right: so that the cause and person of the bad fishes may not prejudice the cause and person of the good fishes, although they be held within the same nets, to be separated on the extreme shore, that is, at the end of the sea, which signifies the end of the world: by which parables and figures the Church was foretold as about to have good and wicked together until the end of the world. Therefore, according to the opinion of St. Augustine, the formula of the judgment described by Matthew does not regard all men whatsoever, but only adults. — Hereby is manifest the easy solution of both texts alleged in confirmation; since by the floor, the net, the field, is signified not the universe, in which all men dwell, but the Church alone, in which the faithful act.

The adversaries urge, that if that passage of Matt. 20 [25] is understood not so much of little ones stained with sin as of adults, it will follow that it can in no wise be gathered from Scripture that they are to be stationed at the left, to be judged and damned: since neither do the Councils decree it, nor does Scripture elsewhere make mention of a separation of those to be judged into two parts, right and left. The minor, they say, cannot be denied salva fide: for all men whatsoever must be stationed before Christ the Judge in the general Judgment, to be judged. — I answer 1. by denying the minor: for Catholic Doctors are not wanting who affirm that those little ones will be present at that universal judgment, not indeed to be judged, since they have done nothing of good or evil that should come into judgment, but only to assist at the rendering of judgment, and to exhibit honor to Christ, as Abulensis teaches, question 323, on the preface of the Matthew chapter: or as St. Thomas affirms in I. dist. 47. q. 1. art. 3. ad 3: Children dying before the perfect age are to be present at the judgment, not to be judged, but to see the glory of the Judge. — I answer 2. that even if those children should be present at the judgment to be judged, thence it does not follow that they are to be placed at the left or right; for it can be said that they are to be stationed in a certain middle place, just as their state is middle between the good and the wicked, who are to be judged concerning their own acts.

Objection 2. That passage of Apoc. 20, where it is said: I saw a great and white throne, and one sitting upon it, and from his face heaven and earth fled away, and the rest of the dead great and small standing in the sight of the throne, and books were opened, and the book of life was opened, and he who was not found in it was cast into the pool of fire: but an unbaptized little one is not found in the book of life: therefore he is cast into the pool of fire. — I answer that that passage of the Apocalypse, as it is customarily alleged by the Adversaries, is not proved by right faith, but is truncated and mutilated; for after the words alleged in the objection, And another book was opened, which is of life: there is subjoined: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works, and the sea gave up the dead that were in it: and death and hell delivered up their dead that were in them: and judgment was made of each one according to his works: whereby it is evident that John speaks only of adults to be judged according to their works good or evil: and concerning these same he afterwards adds, and whosoever of them was not found written in the book of life was cast into the pool of fire. Moreover, in the following chapter, the reward of the victors having been premised, the Apostle declares whom he had said to have been cast into the pool of fire, namely the fearful, unbelieving, murderers, &c. Nor does it stand in the way that he says there that the great and the small are to be judged: since John there understands the small not by age or stature, but by dignity and rank; that is, vile and abject men, such as servants, rustics, and handmaids; for he soon subjoins there that those small, equally with the great, are to be judged according to the works of each: and therefore by the small he does not understand infants, but only plebeian men. Hence Apoc. 19, inviting the birds to devour the flesh of the free and of servants, he adds, of the small and of the great: as if he said of plebeians and of nobles or princes.

Objection 3. Various contexts of St. Augustine: First indeed from Sermon 14 De verbis Domini (sic), where he openly affirms little ones dying without baptism to be going into eternal fire, according to that sentence of the Lord, Go ye cursed, &c.; and he grants that the damnation of the said little ones does not consist in that exclusion alone from the kingdom of Heaven, without all pain and molestation: and thus that it is not only true damnation, which the Pelagians denied, but also the damnation of fire; The Lord will come, he saith there, chapter 3, and will judge of the living and the dead, and, as Frangellim? speaks, he will make two parts, the right and the left: to the left he shall say, that they go into eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his Angels: to the right he shall say, Come ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom, &c. This he names the kingdom, that the damnation with the devil: no middle place is left where thou mightest place infants, &c. And chapter 4: Then these shall drink into everlasting combustion: but the just into life everlasting: Behold he hath set forth to thee, what the kingdom is, and what eternal fire: so that although thou confessest the little one shall not be in the kingdom, thou shouldst confess him to be going into eternal fire. And a little after: He terrified them with the threat that they shall be in everlasting fire, whither without doubt they shall go, if they are not corrected; but he terrified them so much only because they shall not be in the kingdom, that when they saw themselves to lose the hope of the kingdom, they might not see anything else to follow except the punishment of eternal fire. Moreover, from the same St. Augustine: they who shall not rise with a glorious body shall suffer eternal punishments: but little ones passing away with original sin shall not so rise: therefore, etc. The antecedent is proved from book 6 Contra Iulianum, the chapter where he saith: But in those who shall not rise unto life, concupiscence shall be not felicitously, but penally; not because then shall anyone be cleansed from it: but because then it shall yield to the wicked not into delectations, but into torments. And in Epistle 146, which is to Consentius: Therefore, he saith, those who shall rise to judgment shall not be changed into that corruption which can suffer no corruption of pain, for that is of the sons and of the saints: but these shall be tormented with perpetual corruption, because their fire shall not be extinguished, and their worm shall not die. — The Seraphic Doctor answers, and with him the Subtle Doctor, art. 1. q. 1. ad 1, that Augustine in those words does not intend to say that little ones are tormented sensibly; but he intends to manifest their punishment as to the privation of the vision of God, and also as to the vileness of place, and he expresses this very abundantly, saying more, and intending less to be understood. Nor does he speak thus without cause: for this serves to extirpate that heresy which said that little ones are punished with no punishment. Whence as it is taught in morals, that he who wishes to arrive from one extreme at the middle ought, as it were, to incline toward the other extreme, as the Philosopher teaches; so also blessed Augustine, that he might extirpate that heresy which said little ones immune from all punishment, and reduce them to the middle, namely to the punishment of the privation of the vision of God, asserted simply that they are damned eternally with other sinners. But he explained this his meaning in the Enchiridion, where he said their punishment to be most mild. Thus St. Bonaventure. — The Subtle Doctor adds that much weight is to be given to the consideration against which heretics the Holy Fathers had the matter in hand; for wishing to extinguish the heresies springing up, they inclined to the other extreme; as Augustine against Arius seems to incline toward Sabellius, and conversely: likewise acting against Pelagius he seems to incline toward Arius (I think it should be written Manicheus) and conversely. — In a similar manner St. Thomas answers in 2. d. 33. q. 2. art. 1. ad 1, and q. 5 De malo art. 2. ad 1, where he says that the name of torment, fire, punishment, hell, torture, or anything similar, in the sayings of St. Augustine and of the other Holy Fathers, is sometimes to be taken in a wide sense for punishment generically; so that the species is put for the genus, and therefore the Saints used this manner of speaking so as to render detestable the error of the Pelagians, who asserted that there is no sin in little ones, nor any punishment owed to them. The same solution the weightier Theologians each and all hand down: Aureolus, Richard of Mediavilla, John Major on the same distinction 33, and Tostatus in the Defensorium, chapter 18.

The Notators of the Dogmatists respond, that to assert that St. Augustine and the other Holy Fathers disputing against heretics sometimes spoke excessively, is the same as to say they were accustomed to lie, that they might recall lying heretics to the truth; and thus by their example and deed approved the heresy of the Priscillianists, which asserted that lying is sometimes licit. How greatly St. Augustine execrated this is evident from his book to Consentius. — But truly I answer that one can be understood to speak excessively in a twofold manner: First indeed knowingly, that is, asserting something against his own mind which would be altogether alien from the truth: secondly unknowingly, and beside his mind, speaking indeed as he felt, but carried away by the heat of disputation sometimes declining to the other extreme. The first is to lie, and to go against one's mind: for he lies who speaks against his mind, whether he say what is true in reality, or what is false. The second truly is to be deceived; for he is deceived who says that to be which is not, or that not to be which is: even if he speak as he feels, and therefore does not lie. In the first manner the Holy Fathers fighting against heretics did not speak, inasmuch as they judged that they were always saying what is true: but that it befell them in the second manner the cited Princes of Theology affirm, and also very many moderns, with Cardinal Sadoleto book 3. Epist. 5, Genebrard epist. to Charles 9, Claude de Sainctes Bishop of Évreux in the book on the Atheisms of Calvin, &c., some of whom, besides the sayings of St. Augustine, confirm it with examples of many others, as of St. Jerome, who, writing in defense of Virginity against Julian, spoke more harshly concerning second marriages; St. Chrysostom, who, writing against the Anomoeans, seems to deny that God is to be beheld in Himself by the Blessed; Dionysius of Alexandria, who, wishing to confute Sabellius, inveighed so sharply against his heresy that he seemed to some to have divided the divine essence from the persons, and to have furnished Arius matter for his heresy: by which name also he was accused before St. Dionysius the Pope. Epiphanius the Deacon confirms this same concerning the cult of sacred images in the second Nicene Synod, act 6; and he adds generally that our holy Fathers, who expound to us the saving will of God, were accustomed to teach us the observance of the commandments by way of exaggeration; and to prepare hearers toward that commandment at which their scope tends, and to extol and magnify it. Theodoret confirms this matter with an example adduced, tom. 4. pag. 170, where he says the Holy Fathers often declined to the contrary part when they joined battle against the enemies of the Church. The very thing happens also to husbandmen, cultivators of plants: who, when they see some plant bending awry, not only erect it to the straight rule; but even bend it beyond the straight line toward the other part, that from a more vehement inclination to the contrary it may be brought to an upright state.

Objection 4. Little ones are punished in this life with punishment of sense: therefore also in the other. The antecedent is established by the very experience, whereby we see little ones brought into this light subject to all the miseries of the present life. But the consequence is proved: if little ones after death were immune from punishment of sense, it would follow that they are of better condition in the other life than in the present: but the consequent seems absurd. — It is confirmed: little ones beyond the punishment of loss in the other life suffer also the punishment of the prison, since they will be detained in the pool of fire: again, they will be servants of the devil and of sin; for Christ saith, John 8: He that com-mitteth sin is the servant of sin, which must be understood not only of actual sin, but also of original, as Trent teaches, session 5: that man at once lost the sanctity and justice in which he had been constituted, and incurred through the offense of the transgressor of this sort the wrath and indignation of God: and therefore death, with which God had before threatened him, and with death captivity under his power, who afterwards had the empire of death, that is, of the devil, &c., let him be anathema: but little ones are not freed from this servitude in this life, when they depart in the state of original sin: therefore neither in the other; and therefore beyond the punishments of loss and of the prison, they will have also the punishment of a most infamous servitude; they will live, namely, forever under the dominion of the devil, and consequently beyond the punishment of loss they will pay other punishments. — I answer to the first, distinguishing the antecedent: little ones are punished in this life with punishment of sense per se, I deny: per accidens, I concede; for death and the other corporal miseries of human nature are not punishments strictly per se for original guilt; but only the lack of original justice, which bestowed immortality and impassibility; and forthwith, that being removed, it is no wonder if death and temporal and corporal miseries overflow into the whole human race as appendices of nature itself. But since in the other life nothing is done by the power of nature, but according to the order of divine justice, whether in the soul or in the body; it does not follow, that if miseries pervade all men in this life per accidens and by reason of infirm nature, therefore also some corporal punishments ought to torture them in the other life; since in the other life nothing is done except by divine ordination: but it is not established that God has ordained those sensible punishments for mulcting original sin alone. Whence, in proof of the consequence, I deny the major: for although little ones in the other life suffer no punishment of sense, thence it does not follow that they are of better condition than they are in the present: for it far excels, with corporal miseries to have some hope of enjoying God, than to be without those miseries with desperation of that divine fruition. — To the confirmation I say that those little ones will be under the power of the devil so far as they will be deprived of supernatural beatitude, and will have the punishment of loss; but thence it does not follow that they will suffer any sensible molestation, interior or exterior; since those punishments are only appendices of actual sin.

Objection 5. Adam by sinning incurred not only the punishment of loss but also the punishment of sense: but he transfuses to posterity every punishment which he himself merited by sinning: therefore little ones passing away with original sin become subject to both punishments. — I deny the minor: for although the whole sin of Adam is transfused to posterity, it does not however inhere in them physically as perpetrated by their own will, or admitted or accepted by actual and personal consent: but only morally, inasmuch as what was done by Adam, as head of all and representing the person of all, is held to have been done by all posterity morally existing in him. Wherefore that sin has not the same mode of existing, nor the same condition; but one far different in Adam and in posterity: and therefore it does not follow that it ought to have in them the same punishment, and beyond the privation of grace and glory to have annexed the punishment of eternal fire: for punishment ought to be proportioned to guilt, according to Isaiah 27: In measure against measure when it shall be cast into her: but the defect which is transmitted by origin, having the character of guilt, since it is only a subtraction of a supernatural good, not however of a natural good, therefore merits no other punishment than the privation of that end toward which the supernatural good subtracted ordered.

Objection 6. Christ suffered grievous torments on account of original sin: therefore there corresponds also to this sin the punishment of sense. — I deny the consequence; for Christ suffered those punishments not only on account of original sin, but also on account of actual, signally of Adam and Eve, to whom the punishment of sense corresponded. Further, if original sin merited any punishment of sense, it can be said that it could be remitted and compensated through the death and sensible punishments endured by Christ the Lord unto that end: for debts can be variously compensated, as when satisfaction for a debt of money is made through services; and therefore even if the punishment of sense had been in some degree owed to original sin, thence it does not follow that little ones are now subject to it.

Objection 7. He who departs from the living with original sin ought to undergo a graver punishment than he who, created in the state of pure nature, would depart in the same: but the latter would incur the punishment of loss; since he would be deprived of eternal felicity: therefore the former beyond the punishment of loss ought to be adjudged to others, and therefore he ought to pay punishments of sense. — I distinguish the major with the Doctor, d. 38. q. 2. n. 1: he ought to suffer something graver which in both would have the character of punishment, I deny; that he would have only the character of punishment in him who is infected with sin, it concedes. For although man dying in the state of pure nature would lack forever the vision of God: nevertheless that lack would not inhere in him after the manner of a punishment, since it would not inhere in him by reason of sin. Which the Doctor indeed explains with this evident example: if someone had in mind to bestow some benefit upon two men, and one of them offended his benefactor, on account of which offense he would revoke his will of conferring the benefit upon both; in this hypothesis each would be defrauded of the benefit, yet under a diverse aspect: for he who had not offended would not be deprived of that favor on account of demerit: but on account of the good pleasure of him who had promised, and who no longer has in mind to confer the benefit upon him: whence, saith the Doctor, these would be unequal in that aspect of privation; for one would be deprived because guilty; the other truly not so. The same must be said in the present case.

Objection finally: Venial sin is far lighter than original: but the former is punished with the punishment of sense in the other life: therefore much more is original to be punished with a similar punishment. — I distinguish the major: Venial is lighter than original as to the guilt of fault, which corresponds to aversion from God and the privation of grace, I concede: as to the guilt of punishment which corresponds to voluntary conversion to creatures through inordinate delectation, I deny. And the minor denied, the consequent likewise must be distinguished: since the punishment of sense corresponds to one's own will, and to conversion and inordinate delectation, it is no wonder if venial sin be punished in the other life with punishment of sense, but original only with the punishment of loss.

You ask 1. What should be thought concerning the state of little ones passing from this life with original sin, namely whether they have any pain from the loss of eternal beatitude?

The Seraphic Doctor answered, dist. 33. q. 2, that although little ones have cognition of the lost beatitude, they will nevertheless be affected with no actual pain and no mourning, which he proves thus: «For those departing, he saith, in original alone hold as it were a middle place between those having grace, and those with actual guilt: and since the state of retribution ought to respond to the state of the present life, the souls of little ones ought to be placed in such a state, that they hold as it were a middle place between the blessed and those tortured with eternal fires. Since therefore the blessed lack the evil of sensible punishment, and therewith have the vision of God, while the damned on the contrary are in darkness, and are punished with sensible punishment: little ones, according to the right order of divine equity, ought to communicate in one with the damned, and in the other with the blessed: but they cannot communicate with the blessed in having the divine presence; because then they would communicate in nothing with the damned. For the presence of the vision of God does not stand together with sensible punishment: therefore they communicate with the blessed in this, that they lack all exterior or interior affliction: but with the damned in this, that they are deprived of the vision of God and of corporeal light. Little ones therefore, constituted by the just divine judgment as it were in the middle between the blessed and those simply wretched, know this, yet so that on the one side consideration generates desolation, on the other consolation: thus their cognition and affection are balanced with equal scale by divine judgment, and are perpetuated in such a state, that neither sadness casts them down, nor joy refreshes them: but herein the admirable order of divine Wisdom is shown forth, whereby she knows how to dispose all things in their places, and to order them to her glory. For as mercy is manifested chiefly in the blessed, and justice shines forth chiefly in the damned, so in these both mercy and justice are at once manifested. And hence it is clear that God does not make in vain souls which He knows will go out from the body before the reception of baptism. For God does all things unto the manifestation of His glory. — Therefore divine equity and immutability will consolidate them perpetually in the same state, both as to body and as to soul, whether as regards the cognitive part or the affective, so that they neither advance nor fall short: neither rejoice nor are sad: but remain always thus uniformly, that they may be matter for praising the divine judgment, which is so equitable and just, that no good remains unrewarded, and no evil unpunished, and most perfectly holds the middle between superfluous and diminished». Thus the Seraphic Doctor.

You ask 2. In what place will little ones dwell after the universal judgment, and what will be their exercise and occupation?

I answer that it seems more probable that they are to be shut up in certain subterranean places; for in those things which depend altogether upon the divine will, nothing is to be asserted except what God Himself has revealed through the Scriptures, or made known by sacred tradition, or the holy Fathers have taught by constant authority, or Councils have defined: but by none of these is it established that a middle place between heaven and hell is to be assigned to little ones after the last animadversion of the supreme Judge upon the reprobate: nay, the sacred Scriptures signify no more than two abodes of men after the day of the last judgment: one indeed in heaven with the blessed Angels, the other in hell with the demons; which are also the two cities, namely Jerusalem, and Babylon. And this St. Augustine testifies with very many witnesses: but especially book 1 De peccatorum meritis, et remissione, where he saith: «Nor is there any middle place for anyone, so that he could be otherwise than with the devil, who is not with Christ. Hence the Lord Himself, wishing to take away from the hearts of ill-believers that I know not what middle state which certain men were eager to attribute to unbaptized little ones, so that they should be in life eternal as it were by the merit of innocence, but because they are not baptized should not be with Christ in His kingdom, brought forth the definitive sentence to stop these mouths, where he saith: he who is not with me is against me». And Sermon 11 De verbis Domini, not far from the beginning: «No one, he saith, is left a middle place, where thou mightest place infants. Of the living and the dead judgment shall be made; some shall be at the right, others at the left; I know no other. If therefore there shall be a right and a left, and we know no middle place in the Gospel, behold, at the right is the kingdom of heaven. Possess, he saith, the kingdom: what is not there, is at the left. What shall be at the left? Go ye into eternal fire». — The Author of the Hypognosticon, who is either Augustine or another, ancient and learned by the consensus of all, book 5, beyond the middle: «The first place, he saith, the faith of Catholics believed by divine authority to be the kingdom of the heavens, whence, as I said, the unbaptized is excluded: the second, gehenna, where every apostate, or one alien from the faith of Christ, shall experience eternal punishments. A third we know not at all; nay, we shall not find it to be in the Holy Scriptures. Suppose, O Pelagian, a place from the workshop of thy perverse dogma, where little ones alien from the grace of Christ could possess the rest and glory of life». — But although they be thrust down in tortuous fashion into the internal places, and inhabit the uppermost part of the fire of hell, as some conjecture with the Angelic Doctor: thence nevertheless it is not consequent that they should be agitated by any punishment of sense, on account of the reasons expressed above. Although likewise their will is habitually averted from God: nevertheless it will be so actually rectified that they will nowhere pray, as is to be gathered from the following article from three Pontiffs condemned among the propositions of Baius. «From the habitual dominant will it comes about that a little one departing without the Sacrament of regeneration, when he shall have attained the use of reason, will actually hate God, blaspheme God, and repugn the law of God». — More probable indeed, I said, these things seem to us; for Authors of greater weight are not wanting who think more benignly concerning the state of these infants, namely Catharinus, Suarez, our own Smisinegius, tract. 3 De Deo uno, disp. 6. n. 399, and Lessius book 3 De divinis perfectionibus, chapter 22, where he indeed brought forth various things which, if they be true, the state of those infants will not so much be to be mourned. For he thinks that they will receive the sentence of the Judge, but a benign one, and will be heaped with natural goods both in body and in soul; and therefore will have illustrious knowledge not only of the whole Universe, but also of spiritual things, and even of God Himself, whose perpetual praisers and lovers they will be: whence he concludes it to be credible that their state will be far more felicitous than that of any mortal man in this life. But all these things are most uncertain; therefore to be believed with the less certainty.