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

Notandum 1. That although Adam and Eve were guilty of violating only one divine commandment, this transgression nevertheless seems to have had various sins mingled in it. For in the first place Eve stood guilty of a fivefold crime, as may be gathered from those words of Genesis, chap. 3: And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold, and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband. She saw, I say, wherein there appears in Eve a certain inert idleness: namely, withdrawn from the contemplation of divine things, with wandering eyes she ranged about Paradise and its enclosure, and what was outside Paradise. Wherefore St. Bernard justly censures her in the treatise On the Steps of Humility: "Thou," he says, "intent upon another thing, meanwhile it steals secretly upon thee, creeping into thy heart; it addresses thee soothingly, by its flatteries it overcomes thy reason, by falsehood it allays thy fear, saying: No, thou shalt not die. It takes care whilst it whets thy appetite; it sharpens curiosity whilst it suggests cupidity; at length it offers what is forbidden, takes away what is granted: it holds out the apple and filches away Paradise: it labors with deadly venom, bringing forth things doomed to perish and beings destined to die: salvation perishes, yet the birth does not cease: we are born, we die: wherefore we are born to die, because we first die of knowing." — Second, Eve's vice was a certain vain curiosity: for she saw, says the sacred Text, that the tree was fair to the eyes, gazing upon it with her eyes more curiously than was fitting. The third was titillating pleasure, namely in seeing that the tree was good to eat. The fourth was a certain vanity, for she saw that the tree was delightful to behold, or as the Hebrew and Greek sound, desirable to be understood or contemplated: whereby indeed she perceived that the eating of that fruit could conduce to the participation and attainment of divine knowledge and contemplation. Finally, the fifth was a certain excessive cruelty toward her husband; whereby indeed she drew him into a share of her crime: for when, having eaten the fruit, she saw herself stripped and deprived of the divine gifts of innocence, and foreboded that she would soon be cast out of Paradise; lest she should be wretched and wander solitary, she led her husband into a share of the crime, and gave to her husband, who did eat.

Notandum 2. From the Seraphic Doctor, in book 2, distinction 22, article 1, question 1.

The sins of Eve can otherwise be detected and assigned, namely pride, avarice, and gluttony: for, he says, pride is nothing other than an immoderate appetite for excellence; avarice is nothing other than an immoderate appetite for sufficiency; gluttony is nothing other than an immoderate appetite for food and drink that refreshes pleasantly. The devil, therefore, considering this to be the way to precipitate the woman into fault; first promised the excellence of dignity: You shall be as Gods. Second, he subjoined an abundance of knowledge: knowing good and evil. Lastly, he held out the experience of sweetness, when he showed the tree beautiful to see, and sweet to eat. Since, therefore, the woman consented to the diabolical suggestion; therefore first, in appetiting to be as God, there was pride: then, in appetiting to know good and > evil which she ought not, and to know more than she ought, there was avarice. Lastly, in experiencing the sweetness of the forbidden tree, there was gluttony: and herein she was guilty of transgression, and disobedience was involved in the fault. And thus it is clear that the sin of the woman was begun in pride, made progress in avarice, and reached consummation in gluttony. It is also evident that it was disordered with respect to the triple power, namely with respect to the irascible, while she appetited high things; with respect to the rational, while she appetited to know hidden things; with respect to the concupiscible, while she wished to taste delights. Whence from that sin sprang the roots of all sins.

Notandum 3. In the sinful act by which Adam stood as an open enemy, there also appear several circumstances of different sins. First indeed, an immoderate complacency toward his wife, and a disordered love, whereby he despised the divine commandment, so as to obey his wife persuading him to eat of the forbidden fruit. Second, a certain shameless avidity, and pestilential curiosity of experiencing what might lie hidden in that fruit which God had so strictly interdicted to him, and what he would obtain by tasting it. Third, there was a certain doubt concerning the truth of the divine threat: for when he had seen that Eve, after tasting the forbidden fruit, had not died, he stood in doubt about the meaning of those words of God: In whatsoever day thou shalt eat thereof, thou shalt die the death: namely, whether those words contained a definitive sentence, or only a comminatory one. Fourth, there was the sin of disobedience: for by eating the fruit forbidden him by God, he was disobedient; wherefore St. Paul, disputing of Adam's sin in Romans 5, seems to acknowledge nothing other than disobedience: For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners: so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just. Finally, the fifth sin of Adam was of gluttony: for seeing the beauty of the apple, and hearing from his wife that it was of most delicious savor, he most ardently desired the eating of it. Whence Tertullian, in the book Against the Jews, chapter 3, elegantly says: "Adam had received from God the law not to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, being to die if he should taste... Nor any longer grasping the things of the spirit, he yielded more easily to the flesh than to God: he obeyed food rather than precept; he sold his health to his appetite. He ate at last, and perished; otherwise safe, had he been willing to fast from one little tree. I hold, therefore, from the beginning, gluttony to be a homicide, deserving to be punished with the torments and penalties of hunger." These things being premised, it must be resolved in the present Question, which of these sins the first Parents chiefly committed in transgressing the divine law prescribed to them.

First Conclusion. — THE FIRST MORTAL SIN OF EVE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN A DISORDERED LOVE OF HER OWN SELF, WHEREBY WITH PROUD MIND SHE APPETITED DIVINE EXCELLENCE, AND GAVE CREDIT TO THE DEMON PROMISING THROUGH THE SERPENT: you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.

It is gathered from St. Augustine, lib. 14. De Civit. Dei, cap. 13., where he writes: "But they began to be evil in secret, that they might fall into open disobedience: for that great work could never have been brought about, unless an evil will had preceded it. Now, what could be the beginning of an evil will, but pride? For the beginning of all sin is pride. But what is pride, but the appetite of a perverse height? For perverse height is, deserting Him to whom the soul ought to adhere as its principle, to become in some sort one's own principle. This happens when one is too well pleased with oneself, when one falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to please one more than oneself. That falling away is spontaneous: for if the will had remained steadfast in the love of the higher and unchangeable good, by which it was illumined that it might see, and kindled that it might love, it would not have turned thence to self-complacency, and have grown dark and cold thereby, so that either the woman believed the serpent to have said those things: or the man preferred his wife's will to God's commandment, and thought himself a venial transgressor of the precept, if he did not desert the companion of his life in the fellowship of sin. Therefore that evil work, that is, that transgression, was not done, that they might grow by eating the forbidden food, except by those who were already evil." In which words St. Augustine observes three things especially: First indeed, that the eating of the forbidden fruit was not the primary sin of Eve and Adam, but that they were vitiated interiorly before they leaped into open crime. Which he confirms moreover, writing:

Manifestly therefore, in the open sin, where was done what God had forbidden to be done, the devil had not caught man, unless he had already begun to be pleased with himself: hence he delighted in that which was said, you shall be as Gods.

Second, that that interior depravation was wrought through an internal complacency in his own perfections. Third, that from that complacency there leaped forth into affection the pride, and it came to pass that Eve emulated divine knowledge: hence followed the eating of the forbidden fruit, and the open transgression of the imposed law.

This conclusion the Doctor proves in book 2, distinction 21, qu. 2, num. 20, showing namely that the first mortal sin, both of Eve and of Adam, was not the formal act of pride: for if that desire, whereby Eve appetited the similitude of God, had been pride, it would above all have been that species of pride which is called presumption: but this is false, for presumption is the love of concupiscence, whereby one covets to excel others and to preside over them: but this love is preceded by a disordered complacency in one's own perfections; for no one desires to preside over others, save because he esteems himself worthier and excelling: therefore, etc. — It is confirmed: because according to all, pride properly so called is the love of one's own excellence, whereby one covets or wills some preeminence either above oneself or above others. Above oneself indeed, if he desire that his perfections be accounted more excellent than they really are; or if he refuse to hold that subjection to another which he is bound to hold. Above others truly, if he covet to surpass others beyond his due state. But it is certain that the primary sin of Eve had none of these affections; for she first took disordered complacency in her own proper perfections, before she concupisced that similitude of divine science, and strove after an undue perfection for herself: therefore truly her first sin was not the formal act of pride, but an excessive complacency in her perfections, and a disordered love of herself; whence, as from a vitiated root, pride germinated. This the following will set forth more evidently.

Second Conclusion. — THE FIRST MORTAL SIN OF ADAM WAS A DISORDERED LOVE OF HIS WIFE. This is the Doctor's doctrine in book 2, distinction 21, qu. 2, num. 2. And he proves it, because the first sin of Adam was not the love of concupiscence, since this presupposes the love of friendship; and indeed a disordered one, if the love of concupiscence was disordered: therefore the first sin of Adam was the love of friendship, either of himself or of another. Of himself alone: but that sin was not from an immoderate love of self, as was the first sin of the Angel: for the Angel, since by his essence he understands himself first, thence comes to know and love himself before other things: but man, since he understands other things before himself, because he understands nothing save dependently on phantasms; thence loves other things before himself with the love of friendship. I confess nevertheless that this proof presses but little according to the Doctor's principles; for the Doctor contends that man in the state of innocence would not depend in knowing upon phantasms: and thus he could understand both himself first and other objects. Then, although Adam had known other things before himself, it is certain that he also knew himself: but he need not have sinned when he first knew other things; nor is it likely that he sinned by disorderly loving Eve as soon as he knew her: therefore since he could know himself before he disorderly loved Eve, he could likewise before that disorderly love himself. Finally, even if this reasoning had any force, it would not prove that Eve had previously sinned by a disordered love of another, which militates against the Doctor himself. — I should say therefore with Poncius, that the Doctor's mind is, that the first sin of Adam was a disordered love of his wife: not because it could not also be a disordered love of self: but because since he could have disorderly loved another object, nor is it established that he so first loved himself, it is to be inferred that he first disorderly loved another object rather than himself.

The conclusion is proved thus: Adam could pursue his wife with disordered love before himself, and as far as can be gathered from Scripture, he de facto disorderly loved his wife before himself: therefore it must be said that his first sin was a disordered love of his wife. The antecedent is proved as to the second part: for it stands from Scripture that Adam did not transgress the divine commandment prescribed to him before Eve enticed him to eat of the forbidden fruit: but it is altogether likely that he would not have admitted so great a wickedness, save on account of a disordered love of his wife: therefore, etc. — It is confirmed from St. Augustine, lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 11. "It must be believed," he says, "that this befell through the woman's own error, that the one believed the one, the man the woman, the spouse the spouse, when credence was given to the transgressor against the law of God, not as believing one speaking truth, but as obeying social fellowship." He adds in book 11, On Genesis according to the Letter, chap. 12: "Adam would not sadden Eve, whom he believed able to pine away without his solace, if she were alienated from his nourishment of soul, and utterly to perish through that discord: not indeed overcome by concupiscence of the flesh, which he had not yet felt in his members, but by a certain friendly benevolence, which often comes to pass that God may be offended, lest man be the friend of a mimic: which, though he ought not to have done, the most just issue of the divine sentence declared." — It stands therefore from St. Augustine that the first sin of Adam was a disordered love of his wife, not indeed concupiscence, which had not yet been excited in his members, but friendship or conjugal benevolence: for he loved her with supreme love: 1. because she was supremely lovable on account of the excellent ornaments of body and mind: 2. because she was the only woman in the whole world: 3. because she was his wife, of whom he was to receive offspring, and propagate the whole human race: 3. because she had been given to him by God as companion: finally, 4. because she was his, formed out of his flesh and bones. Wherefore, that he might not sadden his darling, he made light of the precept of God, and ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree, which Eve had offered to him.

Repugnance of the Thomist. From those sayings of St. Augustine it is rightly inferred indeed, that Adam before he ate had disorderly loved his wife: not however that the first sin was that love: since in other places he more often affirms that Adam sinned by pride, namely in appetiting Divinity. Thus treating of Psalm 64, on those words, which I have not taken away, then shall I blush, he says: "the first Parents broke by worshipping Divinity, and lost felicity." The same Bernard teaches, sermon 1 On Advent, in these words: "You have heard, Fathers, what was read last night in Isaias, the Lord saying: thy princes are faithless, or as the other rendering has it, disobedient, companions of thieves. Truly our princes, Adam and Eve, the beginnings of our progeny, disobedient and companions of the thief, attempted to steal by the counsel of the serpent, nay of the devil's serpent, that which belongs to the Son of God." — On the contrary, by the same reason by which they expound the foresaid contexts of St. Augustine praised by us, by the same reason we can reply that from the sayings of St. Augustine adduced by them it can be gathered that Adam did commit the sin of pride before eating: although that sin was not his first sin, but the disordered love, once admitted, whereby he was afterwards able to be proud. Which certainly suits the opinion of St. Augustine himself: otherwise he would not aptly enough say that Adam sinned compelled not by carnal concupiscence, but by friendly benevolence. For although together with pride this benevolence concurred to induce him, nevertheless if pride preceded, his fall ought rather to be assigned to pride than to that benevolence: wherefore he ought to make mention of pride rather than of that benevolence. Whence because he first made mention of this, assigning the cause of the transgression, it is more likely that Augustine judged the first sin to have been that disordered love of benevolence toward his wife. Whence when either Augustine himself, or the other holy Fathers affirm that Adam sinned by pride, it does not follow that his first sin was pride: nay, as I said, since it is not admitted that he sinned by pride before the matter had been proposed to him by the woman, and since the devil himself did not dare to tempt him before he deceived the woman: it is a sign that he could not even be induced by the woman to sin from that motive, unless he had first sinned by disorderly loving her; which sin once committed, other sins could easily be persuaded. — The Seraphic Doctor confirms this in book 2, dist. 21, art. 1, qu. 2: if Adam had first sinned by pride, above all because he appetited the similitude of God: but it is not so: for if, he says, Adam appetited to be as God: then either suggesting by the woman, or suggesting by the serpent. Not suggesting by the serpent, because Adam himself complains not of the serpent, but of the woman: The woman whom thou gavest me, etc. If suggesting by the woman: therefore as the woman was deceived by the serpent, so the man by the woman. Thus therefore the woman said: The serpent seduced me: so the man would have said: The woman deceived me: but this he did not say, but said: The woman gave me, etc. But if you say that it was so although Scripture does not express it, this appears simply improbable: for if the woman had said: Eat, for you shall be as God, whereas she herself had eaten... and without doubt was not as God, no reason seems probable why the man should have believed her.

You ask 1. Whether the first Parents, having fallen also into heresy, suffered the loss of faith?

I answer. Many of the holy Fathers affirm the same. Above all Tertullian, book 2 Against Marcion, chap. 12, constantly asserts: "Who will doubt to pronounce this very thing of delinquency heresy, when he admitted his election rather than the divine sentence? Unless because he never said to his son: thou hast not prudently defined me: he confessed the seduction, he did not conceal the seductress: rudely admonished, he was a heretic." This same St. Ambrose indicates, Epistle 33 to Marcellina his sister, in which he introduces God thus addressing the Arian: "thou knowest that thou wast born, because thou hast lost the good garments of faith." To them assents St. Augustine, book 11 Of the City of God, chap. 17: "This therefore they knew," he says, "which it would have been happier for them not to know, if believing God and obeying Him, they had not committed that which would compel you to experience infidelity and disobedience, whereby ye die," etc. Finally this same St. Prosper expressly affirms in the Chapters of the Ungrateful, dub. 3: "What is it," he says, "that nature would not have its faith snatched away, since unless Adam had omitted the first, he would lack none of the other goods? For Adam believing the devil, did not believe God." And shortly after: "How should faith lost in Adam be found in any of his sons, unless the same Spirit, who worketh all in all, infused it?" And in the book Against the Collator, chap. 9: "Adam lost faith, lost continence, lost charity."

To all these subscribes St. Fulgentius, book 2 On the Incarnation and Grace of Christ, c. 22, where speaking of Adam he says: "He lost faith, losing faith he lost life boldly(?), for it is written: He that believeth not God shall not be protected by Him."

This answer is confirmed by all those holy Fathers who affirm that Adam was deceived. So St. Ignatius Martyr in the Epistle to the Trallians: "The devil," he says, "seduced Adam, the father of our race, through Eve." Irenaeus, book 3 Against Heresies, chap. 36: "By the other," he says, "he was seduced under pretense of immortality, immediately seized with fear, he hid himself," etc. Hilary, Canon 3 on Matthew: "The serpent had enticed Adam, and by deceiving had led him into error." Epiphanius Against Heresies, num. 50, disputing: "the devil himself," he says, "by a lie deceived Eve and Adam, saying one thing for another, and showing friendship with the Creator, when he said: you shall be as Gods, and you shall by no means die." Augustine explaining Psalm 68, on those words: what I took not away, I then paid again: "Who," he says, "took away? That one. Who took away first? That very one who seduced Adam. How did the devil take away? I will set my seat in the North, and I shall be like the Most High. He coveted to be that which he had not received, and with the chalice of his own pride he offered drink to him whom he wished to deceive: Taste, he says, and you shall be as Gods: they coveted Divinity, they lost felicity." St. Leo subscribes, in the sermon On the Prophecy of the Lord: "The devil boasted," he says, "that man, deceived by his fraud, had lacked the divine gifts: and stripped of the dower of immortality had undergone the hard sentence of death." And in sermon 4: "The first man, because he believed rashly and unhappily the envious deceiver, and acquiescing in the counsels of pride preferred to seize the increase of the proposed honor rather than to merit it."

They will say. He is not to be accounted an unbeliever and heretic, who does not pertinaciously in spirit resist by sinning the truth divinely revealed to him: but neither Adam nor Eve resisted pertinaciously by sinning the truth divinely revealed to them: therefore, etc. The major is evident, for heresy is an error of faith contrary, together with pertinacity. Whence St. Augustine, Epistle 162, says: "If any defend a false and perverse opinion with no pertinacious animosity, and are ready to be corrected, and seek the truth with all solicitude, they are not to be reckoned among heretics." And book 1 On Baptism against the Donatists, chap. 16, assigning the difference between two men believing the same error, but with this discrimination, that one be in the Church, the other outside the Church, and baptized by heretics, speaks thus: "Let us constitute two persons in this manner: e.g. let one of them think of Christ as Photinus opined, and be baptized in his heresy outside the communion of the Catholic Church; but let the other think this same thing, yet be baptized in the Catholic Church, thinking it itself to be the Catholic faith: him I call not yet a heretic, unless he shall prefer to resist when the doctrine of the Catholic faith has been manifested to him:" but neither Adam nor Eve were pertinacious in sin, nor rebels against the divine reprehension; nay each excused his own deed, he accusing his true companion, she accusing the serpent as the instigator of the perpetrated crime: therefore, etc.

I distinguish the major. If one does not resist the truth with pertinacity, when the truth to which he resists is not known to him, nor is he certain that it has been revealed by God, he is not to be accounted a heretic — I concede: otherwise — I deny. But to the first Parents of mankind it stood most openly known that God had threatened them with death if they should eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree: therefore giving faith to the devil saying: By no means shall ye die, etc., it follows that they denied it to Him who had said: From the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat; for in whatsoever hour thou shalt eat, thou shalt die the death.

Truly I do not deny these things to be true of the woman: but I cannot be induced to believe that Adam suffered loss of faith; for he neither heard the serpent falsely promising, nor was he seduced, as St. Paul testifies, as will stand within. Nay the Seraphic Doctor in book 2, dist. 22, qu. 1 denies even Eve to have fallen into heresy: for answering to the first argument he says: "it is not to be conceded that the woman sinned the sin of infidelity, unless infidelity be taken very largely." Therefore what is objected, that the woman said: perhaps, it can be said that perhaps is there a note of event, not of doubting: but because the Master expressly says that it is a note of doubting, therefore it can otherwise be said, that truly the woman did not doubt that what the Lord had said was true: but she doubted about this, namely how the Lord understood it; whether namely he understood it of bodily death, or spiritual, or in any other manner whatever: and that doubting was neither punishment nor fault; but a certain nescience, which afforded a way to the tempting devil.

You ask 2. How is that saying of St. Paul to be understood, 1 Timothy, chap. 2: Adam first was formed, then Eve: and Adam was not seduced, but the woman being seduced was in the transgression?

I answer. There are various interpretations of this saying. For some state the first with St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian, and Chrysostom in the exposition of that passage. Adam is said by Paul not to have been deceived, because he was not seduced by the serpent as Eve was: for Adam did not sin seduced by the serpent, but indulging the will and desire of Eve. "It is not of Adam and Eve," says Chrysostom, "he was seduced by the woman, who had been given to him by God, and joined to him by fellowship of nature: but she was deceived by the beast, which had been devoted to the servitude of man. Paul therefore, in comparison with the woman, says Adam was not deceived: for she was seduced by an irrational creature: but he by a free woman." Several teach with St. Augustine, book 11 On Genesis according to the Letter, last chapter, that Adam was said not to have been seduced because he was not the cause why the woman sinned. "Nor is it in vain," says St. Augustine, "that the Apostle says, Adam first was formed, but the woman being seduced was in the transgression, that is, that through her the man might transgress. For he calls him also the transgressor, where he says: in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a figure of him to come: yet he denies that he was seduced. For being interrogated, he did not say, the woman whom thou gavest me seduced me, and I did eat; but she gave me, he says, of the tree, and I did eat: but she said, the serpent seduced me. So must Solomon, of such great wisdom, be believed to have thought there was any utility in the worship of idols? But he could not resist the love of women drawing him to that evil, doing what he knew ought not to be done, lest he should sadden those mortal delights to which he was bound, and in which he melted away. So also Adam, after the seduced woman had eaten of the prohibited tree, and given to him, that they might eat together, would not sadden her, whom he believed able to pine away without his solace, if she were alienated from his mind, and utterly to perish through that discord."