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

Note 1. That five kinds of divine laws can be assigned. The first indeed is the Natural Law, which God instilled into all men together with nature itself, which is made known to all men by the innate light of reason, and binds all alike: whose general precepts are, that some supreme Divinity is to be worshipped, and that one is not to do to another what he would not have done to himself. The second is the supernatural Law of faith, hope, and charity, binding indeed all men, and at all time simply, yet given to men not in a natural manner but by the supernatural gift and grace of God. The third was the Mosaic Law, which God gave not to all, but to the one people of the Hebrews only: whose observance plainly did not at all bind the other nations.

I speak, moreover, of the law of Moses as regards its ceremonial and judicial precepts. The fourth is a divine Law binding not indeed at all times, nor simply, but binding all nations only by institution of God after the promulgation of the Gospel, such as the law of receiving baptism. The fifth is the private Law, which God imposed upon one or another, or upon a few men: and of this kind was that law by which God forbade Adam to eat of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for by this law it is certain the first parents of mankind were bound.

Note 2. That although the precept of not eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil seems to have been given to Adam alone; nevertheless it was enjoined also upon Eve. Wherefore Eve, speaking to the serpent, Gen. 3, says: Of the fruit of the trees that are in Paradise we eat; but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of Paradise God hath commanded us not to eat, etc. She confesses therefore that that precept had been laid upon her and her husband by God. — Now it can be conceived in three ways that that commandment was enjoined upon both parents: either because both heard God commanding and forbidding; or because that precept was first given to Adam, and signified through him to Eve; or finally, because it had first been intimated to Adam, and afterwards announced both to him and his wife. St. Augustine affirms that the second way commends itself more to him, lib. 8. De Genesis ad litteram, cap. 17, and this seems consonant with the narration of divine Scripture, which, when it related that man had been placed by God in Paradise, straightway subjoins that this precept had been laid upon him, and thereafter commemorates the formation of Eve, whereby it seems signified that this precept had been imposed upon Adam before Eve was formed. — Nevertheless some hold that that precept was given to both parents at once, and this seems signified in the Version of the 70. Interpreters, where, whereas our Vulgate reports that precept in the singular number, it renders it in the plural, writing: Eat not, ye shall die the death: and this seems demonstrated in chapter 1. of Genesis, where Moses narrates that God said to Adam and Eve: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed over the earth, etc., that they may be for food for you. From this one may thus argue: when God said these things to them, either the precept concerning not eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had already been given, or not. Not the former, otherwise by these latter words, whereby He permits the eating of all fruits and herbs without any restriction, God would have seemed to abrogate the former law of not eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If the latter, therefore Eve had already been formed when this precept was given: and so it could have been signified to both parents at once. But Moses named only Adam, to whom the precept had been given, according to our Vulgate edition, because plainly it had been given principally to Adam alone, seeing that upon the observance or transgression of that precept hung the preservation or loss of the felicity received, both for Adam himself and for his posterity.

Note 3. That it was fitting that the precept imposed upon the first parents should be partly difficult, partly easy, of observance. Difficult indeed, that it might furnish man with suitable matter for meriting well of God: easy truly it ought to have been, lest if it had been too arduous and hard it would have brought sadness and trouble upon man, which least befitted a most happy state of innocence. — Now the difficulty of this precept consisted chiefly in two things: First, that the prohibition of not eating from that tree seemed to diminish man's liberty and dominion over bodily things: Secondly, from this, that by the very interdict man was forbidden the eating of the tree most splendid to behold and most beautiful in sight, unto the coveting of whose fruit the mind of man was carried away by very many enticements; and abstinence from that tree seemed the more difficult, the more it provoked man's appetite by the greater allurements of its beauty. — The facility of that precept consisted in three things: First indeed, because the eating of only one tree was forbidden, since elsewhere man had the faculty of eating of all the other trees with which that garden of delights was planted and filled. Next, the facility of keeping that interdict appears from this, that the other trees, from which the faculty of eating was permitted, were equal to that forbidden tree in beauty, sweetness, and usefulness: nay even far more excellent: for better and more excellent was the tree of life granted to man, or certainly soon to be granted. Thirdly, finally, the lightness and facility of this precept appears from the comparison of Adam's trial with the temptation and trial of Abraham, or Job, or the Martyrs. — And the easier was the observance of this precept, so much the graver and more inexcusable was its transgression, as St. Augustine elegantly weighs and expounds lib. 14. De Civit. Dei, cap. 15. Whosoever says the condemnation is excessive, or deems it unjust, certainly knows not how to measure how great was the iniquity in sinning, where there was so great a facility of not sinning. For as great obedience is not undeservedly celebrated in Abraham, because a thing most difficult was commanded him, to slay his son: so disobedience was the greater in the man made in Paradise, insofar as what was commanded was of no difficulty. And as the obedience of the second man was so much the more praiseworthy, in that He was made obedient even unto death: so the disobedience of the first man was so much the more detestable, in that he was made disobedient even unto death. — Alcimus Avitus, praised above, describes the equity and easy observance of this law in these verses:

Meanwhile the first parents, whom the Supreme Author had joined, Are placed in the paradisal seat. Then the Ruler proposes rewards in such a law: O supreme work of thy maker, whom our hand alone Created, when I bade the rest be born by my word, Behold ye how most beautiful in fertile richness is the grove Served by many riches? All these things shall be given Unto your foods without end, hence let food be sought: Take the granted harvests, and pluck the fruits. Here let secure rest abide in sweet devotion of labor, Enjoying delights in long-lived life. Yet there is in the midst of the wood the tree which ye behold, Bearing in bud the knowledge of right and wrong: From approach to this let the touch be forbidden and restrained Nor let perhaps rash care press upon you to learn What the Teacher forbids: better for the blessed not to know Than that seeking harm: I swear by the world which we made, That if anyone shall take the forbidden fruit from the tree, The crime committed hangs by the peril of death. I speak not of things immense; easy is the custody of right; The keeper also shall live, the violator shall find an end.

These things being premised, three things remain to be resolved in the present Question: First, what is the reason of the law imposed upon the first parents, or for what cause God imposed the law upon them: Second, what is the caution of the same law, that is, what it forbade: Thirdly, finally, what is the sanction of that law, or what punishments it portended to transgressors. Which three will be unfolded in the following Conclusions.

First Conclusion. — THE HOLY FATHERS PROPOSE VARIOUS CAUSES OF THIS INTERDICT, SOME OF WHICH SEEM LESS APPROVABLE.

First indeed seems to be disapproved Theophilus of Antioch, in the second book to Autolycus, where he affirms that the eating of that tree was forbidden for this reason, that Adam, since he was still an infant and unknowing, did not yet perceive the usefulness of that tree: For, he says, during that time he is said to have been still an infant; and therefore less fit to take in that knowledge. For even a little child, when first born, cannot yet properly take food, but is first nourished with milk: then, as age advances, he comes to more solid food: something of this kind, therefore, must have befallen Adam. But this reason can by no means be approved; since we demonstrated above that Adam was endowed by God, from the very beginning of his formation, with surpassing wisdom, and with knowledge both of himself and of all other things.

It profits us therefore to hear first Tertullian, book 2. against Marcion, writing that the law was prescribed to the first parents by God for this reason, that they might live uprightly and justly. For He had not, he says, brought forth man merely unto living, so as not to bring him unto living rightly, that is, with respect to God and His law. To live indeed He had conferred upon him when He made him a living soul; but to live rightly He had enjoined upon him with the help of obedience to the law. — St. Chrysostom, Homily 16. on Genesis, affirms that the fruit was the primary end of that divine commandment, that man might feel himself subject and liable to God as his Lord; and that he ought not to live by his own right and arbitrament, but to obey another's power and command. By that small precept, he says, He wished to show him his dominion over him. Which indeed he straightway explains by an elegant similitude. Just as, he says, some munificent lord, granting to someone ample and magnificent houses to enjoy, wishes to receive not their full price, but only its slight portion, that he may both reserve to himself the entire right of ownership, and that this user may know for certain that he is not the master of the house, but that he has received it by that man's benefit and liberality, to be used by him; so our Lord, since He had committed to man whatsoever is visible, and had assigned to him both a dwelling in Paradise and its delights for the refreshment of his spirit: lest, being little by little carried away sidewise in mind, he should believe that those very things which are seen exist of themselves and rashly, and should think of himself above the measure of his dignity, He forbade him the use of that one tree. — To him accords St. Augustine, lib. 8. De Genesis ad litteram, cap. 13. Finally, he says, by the sinner nothing else is coveted than not to be under the dominion of God, when that is committed in which, lest it be committed, the command alone of the ruler ought to be regarded. And if that alone were regarded, what else would be regarded than the will of God? Why indeed the Lord commanded, He Himself shall see: it is for the servant to do what He commanded, and perhaps for him who merits to ask hereafter why He commanded. But yet, that we may no longer seek the cause of this commandment, if this tree is good, why is it forbidden? If it is bad, why, being bad, did He make it? ... It is therefore in Paradise because it is good, but I will not have thee touch it. Wherefore shall I not touch it? Because I wish thee obedient, not contradicting Me. ... Serve, hear first the command of the Lord, and then learn the counsel of Him who commands: Good is the tree, touch it not. Wherefore? because I am the Lord, and thou art the servant: this is the whole cause. If it is small, dost thou disdain to be a servant: but what profits thee except to be under the Lord? how shalt thou be under the Lord, unless thou be under precept? — St. Cyril of Alexandria teaches that this was the scope of the giving of the law: that man might know himself subject to another, and lest the abundance of so many good things and pleasures make him insolent. To him subscribes Basil of Seleucia, Oration 2. On Adam: That when thou understandest Him forbidding, thou mayest at once know the Bestower, he says: and He suggests to thee the record of that one transgression, from whom are all things. Accords also Procopius in his Commentary on this passage: When God wished, he says, to render man immortal, lest he should attribute that benefit to his own or proper virtue, He acted in this manner: He willed that he should give thanks to Him, from whom he had received not only that he is, but that he is well. To him also He appointed the present life as a palestra, and as it were a lesson of the life to come. — But St. Augustine confirms that that precept was given to Adam for the praise of obedience alone: and thence that the evil of disobedience was known to be so great, since, whereas that tree was not in itself evil and harmful, no other evil existed in the tasting of its fruit besides the evil of disobedience. Nor could it, he says, be better or more diligently commended how great an evil disobedience alone is, since man was made guilty of iniquity for this reason, because he touched the thing against the prohibition, whereas if he had touched it not forbidden, he certainly would not have sinned. Thence lib. 14. De Civit. Dei, cap. 12. he writes: if anyone be asked, as I said (namely, why human nature was so greatly corrupted by the prevarication of Adam), it ought not on that account to be thought that obedience was commended in the precept: which virtue in a rational creature is in a manner the mother of all virtues and their guardian. Inasmuch as it was so made, that to submit itself to Him is profitable for it: but to do its own will, pernicious both to itself and to Him by whom it was created. Therefore concerning the not eating of one kind of food, where so great abundance of others lay at hand, the precept was so brief and to be kept, so brief and to be held in memory; especially since covetousness did not yet resist the will, as happened after the transgression in regard to the punishment: it was judged with so much greater injustice, by how much more easily could the observance have been kept. He adds in book 1. against Faustus the Manichee concerning the Law and the Prophets, chapter 1., that the first man was prohibited from the food of that tree that obedience might be commended, which is the greatest virtue, and, so to speak, the origin and mother of all virtues, in that nature to which it was so given an arbitrium of free will, that nevertheless it must needs live under the power of a better.

— Here must not be passed over the impious cavil and subtlety of Porphyry and other assailants of the Christian Religion, which, the devil suggesting it, they framed thus: The fruit of that tree of knowledge was either good or evil of itself: if good, why forbidden? if evil, why created by God, good and best? To which sophism Severianus of Gabala, Orat. 6., replying, answers that that fruit was truly of its nature most good, nor would it have been evil except from the event, and the eating against the interdict and will of God: but that tree was called of the knowledge of good and evil, because the good or evil of man, namely the continuation or loss of his very happiness, would thence arise; which Severianus illustrates by these examples:

There was called in the desert one fountain of water, Psalm. 80. 6. the water of contradiction: Thou didst prove me at the water of contradiction. Was then the nature of such water such, that it terrified the people into contradicting? Wherefore then Moses, having drunk of it, did not contradict God? Therefore as it was called the water of contradiction, not that it had such a nature, but on account of the thing which happened there. For because the people contradicted there, therefore it was called the water of contradiction. Again, Jacob saw God, as far as seeing was granted to man, and calls the name of the place: the vision of God. The place had not the vision or form of God; but because it had befallen him there, he named the place from it. Another place was called the peace of God. Upon the Angel appearing to Gedeon, seized with fear he said: woe is me, woe is me, I shall die: for I have seen the Angel of God. To whom the Angel: peace be to thee; fear not. And he built, it says, Gideon an altar, and called it: the peace of God. Therefore as the altar itself had not peace, but was the sign of the peace which had befallen him and been given him; just as also the water had not contradiction, but was so called from that which had happened in it: so also the wood had not knowledge, but because whosoever sins, comes to the knowledge of those things in which he sins, it received that name. That I may again speak by example, when sometimes we journey through places infested by robbers, it is customary to say: dreadful are those places. Has the place, I ask, fear? But on account of the robbers dwelling there we so speak. After the same manner, the tree was not of such a nature as to furnish that deadly knowledge itself, but received its name from Adam in that tragedy and sin.

Second Conclusion. — THE EATING ONLY OF THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, BUT NOT THAT OF ITS LIFE, NOR THE TOUCHING OF IT, WAS FORBIDDEN TO THE FIRST PARENTS BY GOD.

This is evident from chap. 2. of Genesis, where God commanded Adam, saying: Of every tree of Paradise eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat. In which words only the eating is provided for and prohibited, not the seeing or touching. Nor does it matter that Eve, speaking to the serpent, Genesis 3, said: Of the fruit of the trees that are in Paradise we eat: but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of Paradise God hath commanded us not to eat, and not to touch it. For the sacred Interpreters confess that that, not touch it, was added by Eve, that she might the more exaggerate the gravity of the precept: for already that precept had begun to displease them, inwardly corrupted by the persuasion of the serpent. As, says Cajetan, a woman forbidden by her husband to go out of the house answers: it is not permitted me by my husband to carry my foot outside my chamber: exaggerating, namely, the precept of her husband which displeased her: so Eve, exaggerating the divine precept, said that it was not permitted her to touch the fruit of that tree. — And so now truly the devil had crept into the soul of the woman: First indeed by exciting in her the desire of most vain liberty: Secondly by inspiring in her weariness and hatred of that precept. Whence it came to pass that the woman broke out into a false exaggeration of that precept. Whence Rupertus skillfully observes, lib. 3. De Trinitate, cap. 5., that Eve perverted the words of God, whereby He had prescribed the divine commandment, in three ways; first indeed by addition, when she said, not touch it: secondly by diminution, when she said, lest perhaps we die, for she added of her own that perhaps, which God certainly had not said: thirdly finally by mutation, when she said: of the tree that is in the midst of Paradise: for God had said of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: for in the midst of Paradise was also the tree of life, not forbidden to man. Hence Cajetan aptly says: it is gathered that the diabolical poison had crept into the affection and intellect of the woman alike: into the affection indeed, by the displeasure of the precept, whence straightway came forth the exaggeration of its bond and obligation: into the intellect truly by the hesitation about the future punishment, whence came forth that adverb, lest perhaps. — I confess nevertheless that some of the holy Fathers, when they report that law, include the touch also among things forbidden. Thus Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38. The law, he says, was the precept, both as to which trees they were to use, and which they ought by no means to touch. This same St. Augustine seems to prove, praised in the preceding Conclusion, in Psalmum 70., number 7. It is confirmed also by St. Alcimus Avitus in the book On the beginning of the world, where he takes those two, to eat and to touch, for the same thing: while he represents God commanding thus:

From approach to this let the touch be forbidden and restrained.

And straightway he introduces the woman answering the serpent:

This alone is the tree of the midst of the wood, which thou seest, Forbidden for food: for us to touch only These fruits is impious.

Whence certain ones think that in truth the touch, as well as the eating, of that fruit was forbidden to Adam; but that it was omitted before by Moses, and at length restored in the colloquy of the woman with the serpent; thus thinks Eugubinus: it is nevertheless not consistent to judge that Moses did not report that precept of God entire as it was, for neither did God, when He rebuked man for the violated precept, rebuke him for the touch, not for it, but only for the eating.

There are those who think that the law was prescribed by God at first to Adam alone, and that Eve, reporting it, added that the touch of that fruit was also forbidden, that she might impose upon Eve the greater caution, and turn her farther away from the danger of violating the law, as St. Ambrose observes, chap. 12. of the book De Paradiso: Most think, he says, that this saying is not the woman's, but Adam's: Adam said this to the woman, while he wished to make her more cautious, that he might add that God had commanded: neither touch it. For we have it that Adam alone, not Eve, received the commandment from God, for the woman was not yet formed. But I judge it better to say, with St. Ambrose himself in the same place above on that word: Touch not God had not said, but ye shall not eat: but then the fall begins to be the principle. For she who raves either added something superfluous, or, adding of her own, understood the commandment of God to be half-complete. The present series of reading therefore teaches us that we ought neither to take away anything from the divine words, nor to add.

Third Conclusion. — THE PUNISHMENT SANCTIONED BY GOD FOR THE VIOLATION OF THE AFORESAID COMMANDMENT WAS ANNOUNCED TO BE DEATH, NOT OF THE SOUL ONLY, BUT ALSO OF THE BODY. This Conclusion embraces three parts: First, that death was announced in vindication of the violated precept: Secondly, that that threatening is not to be understood only of the spiritual death of the soul: Thirdly, that it is to be taken chiefly for the death of the body.

The first is evident from chap. 2. of Genesis, where God, prohibiting the eating of the forbidden fruit, said to Adam: In whatsoever day thou shalt eat thereof, thou shalt die the death: in which words, says Pererius lib. 4. cap. 1., God announced to Adam the most certain destruction of death, wishing namely to restrain him, by threats of this kind and the peril of punishment, as it were by a certain bridle. For men are moved chiefly by three things to observe the laws laid upon them: First, love and reverence of the Legislator, whose precepts, on account of the great benefits received from Him, or on account of His surpassing wisdom, authority, and legitimate empire over them, they acknowledge themselves bound to obey: Next, the hope of rewards promised to those who keep the law: Finally, fear of punishments, to which transgressors and violators of laws are to be subjected and chastised: and this last was expressed in those words: For in whatsoever day thou shalt eat thereof, thou shalt die the death. For fear has greater force for moving our souls than hope, threat rather than promise of reward, pain lastly than pleasure. — But why God did not threaten Adam the punishments of hell, far graver and more to be feared than death itself, a threefold reason can be rendered: First, that the fear of death affects man more vehemently than fear of hell, because the former is perceived by the senses and human feeling, while the latter consists in faith alone and revelation. Secondly, God wished to set before Adam that punishment which, if he violated the precept, necessarily both he himself and his posterity would undergo: although afterwards he should repent, and, penitent for his sin, return to the grace of God: but such a punishment was the death of the body, which neither Adam nor any of his posterity were able to escape; while the punishments of hell both the first parents themselves and very many of his posterity escape. Thirdly finally, St. Augustine brings forward lib. 13. De Civit. Dei, cap. 23. the reason, namely that the promise of eternal felicity, and the threatening of the punishments of hell, were to be openly revealed only in the New Testament. Therefore, he says, God threatened Adam with death, but said nothing of the second death, because He willed it hidden on account of the dispensation of the New Testament, wherein the second death is most openly declared, that first that death, which is common to all, may be weighed, from having dined upon that sin which was made common to all in one: but the second death certainly is not common to all, on account of those who according to purpose are called saints... whom the grace of God through the Mediator liberated from the second death.

The second part is also evident, namely that that threatening can be interpreted of the death of the soul: For there are two lives, says St. Augustine in Psalmum 70., one of the body: the other of the soul: as the life of the body is the soul: so the life of the soul is God. As if the soul depart, the body dies: so the soul dies, if it desert God. That the aforesaid threatening of God is to be understood of this death of the soul St. Gregory the Pope proves, lib. 6. Epistle 31. For if, he says, the soul of Adam, who first sinned, did not die in sin: how was it said to him concerning the forbidden tree: in whatsoever day ye shall eat thereof, ye shall die the death? And behold Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree, and yet afterwards lived in their flesh more than nine hundred years. It is clear therefore that he did not die in the flesh. If therefore he did not die in the soul, God uttered a false sentence concerning him, who said: that on whatever day he should eat, he would die. To him assent Origen, Homily 15. on Genesis: Rupertus lib. 2. De victoria Verbi Dei, cap. 2., and many others, who believe that God threatened the death of the soul. — But that not the death of the soul alone was designated in those words is hence evident, because sin must be judged not the infliction of punishment, but the demerit of that punishment; since punishment is such a thing as the judge himself imposes upon the transgressor of the law, not one of which he makes himself guilty: but the death of the soul, or sin, each one brings upon himself without the will of the judge; and accordingly the death of the soul was not solely, nor chiefly signified in those words. Which indeed is confirmed from the Council of Trent, Sess. 5. Canon 1., where anathema is pronounced against him who shall assert that Adam did not lose sanctity and justice by sin; nor incur, through the offense of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God; and therefore death, which God had before threatened him. He distinguishes therefore the death of the soul, and the loss of justice, from that death itself which God had threatened.

Therefore the third part is proved, namely that that death announced was chiefly the death of the body; which indeed Adam suffered on that very day on which he sinned; not that he truly died, but that he was made subject to mortality. For although he was mortal by the constitution of his nature; nevertheless by reason of the gift of original justice he would in fact never have died anywhere if he had kept it; but it being lost, he was straightway made subject to mortality. For on that day, says St. Augustine, lib. 13 De Civitate Dei, cap. 23., he was changed to the worse, and nature vitiated, and by the most just separation from the tree of life, the necessity even of bodily death was made in them: with which necessity we are born. Wherefore the Apostle does not say: the body indeed shall die because of sin: but he says indeed: it is dead because of sin. So in book nine De Genesis ad litteram, cap. 10., where he uses the same testimony of the Apostle, and says that a certain deadly disease as it were invaded human bodies: For when they transgressed the precept, he says, in their members as it were some lethal sickness, death itself was conceived, etc. For what else do we begin, not to say being born, but altogether conceived, than a certain sickness, wherein we are doubtless to die? For it is not so necessary to die of the disease itself for him who has become hydropic, or dysenteric, or elephantiasic, as for him who has begun to have this body, in which all men are by nature children of wrath: because this He did not cause except by the prevarication [of the first]. — On this likewise Chrysostom must be heard, Homily 16. on Genesis. Although, he says, they lived for the space of many years, yet from the moment they heard that, earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return, and received the sentence of death, they became mortal: and from that time someone might deservedly say them to be dead. But Scripture signifying this spoke thus: on whatsoever day ye shall eat, ye shall die the death. As if it said: ye shall receive this sentence, that ye may be mortal henceforth: for as in human judgments, after sentence has been pronounced upon the accused, that his head be cut off, and he is straightway led to prison: although he remain there long, he is none the better already dead, and lives extinct, inasmuch as he has already undergone the very sentence of mortality: so also they from that very day from which the sentence of mortality was pronounced upon them, although they survived for a long time, were already dead by the sentence itself. — Or it must be said with St. Augustine lib. 13. De Civit. Dei, cap. 12., that God signified by the name of death every death that can happen to man, that is, of the soul as well as of the body: as well temporal as eternal: Since therefore it is asked, he says, what death God threatened to the first men if they transgressed the commandment received, and kept not the duty of obedient ones, whether of the soul or of the body, or of the whole man, or that which is called the second: The answer must be, all: for the first consists of two, the second of all together. For as the whole earth consists of many lands, and the whole Church of many Churches, so the whole death of all: since the first consists of two; one of the soul, the other of the body: that the first may be the death of the whole man, when the soul suffers penalties without God and without the body for a time: the second truly when the soul suffers eternal punishments without God together with the body. When therefore He said first to that man whom He had placed in Paradise; concerning the forbidden food, on whatsoever day ye shall eat thereof, ye shall die the death; that threatening embraced not only the former part of the first death, wherein the soul is deprived of God, nor only the latter, wherein the body is deprived of the soul; nor only that whole first death itself, wherein the soul separated both from God and from the body is punished: but whatsoever of death there is even to the last, which is called the second, and than which there is none later. In which words St. Augustine distinguishes a fourfold death; one of the soul and temporal, when the soul by sinning is separated from God; another of the body, and temporal, when the soul is separated from the body by decease: A third, which embraces both, namely the separation of the soul from God and from the body, as happens in the death of the reprobate: Fourthly finally, that whereby after the day of judgment soul and body shall be separated from God, which death is called second and last.