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

Note 1. That as soon as God had rebuked the first Parents for the crime committed, and sentenced each to special punishments, Moses subjoins that He cast them out of Paradise; He cast out, he saith, him, namely Adam, from the Paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken: by which words the supreme Judge decrees that He cast them down from the place of pleasure, lest, if they persevered therein, they should eat of the tree of life, and live forever: For they had to be sent away from life, being already about to die, saith St. Augustine: whence Procopius, Man, he saith, was cast out according to the tenor of the precept from the place which received the living, the dying. Hence St. Bernard, sermon 1 on the Feast of All Saints: Wretched, he saith, Adam and Eve, who turned to words of malice to excuse their excuses in sins: while they flee the cleansing after confession, they remain with an unclean heart, and are cast out from the face of the Lord as excommunicates: Not only because they ate the forbidden thing, but because, having confessed ill, they did not do penance, the Lord banished them from the tree of life and the garden of delights. Therefore three things come chiefly to be discussed here: First, for how long a time Adam and Eve remained in Paradise. Secondly, in what country they lived after their ejection from Paradise. Thirdly, whether they were afterwards restored to the grace and benevolence of God by their salutary penance.

Note 2. That the contest among the Doctors is most famous, for how long a time the first Parents persisted in the earthly Paradise. A matter indeed most difficult of explication; for who, where no mention is made by the sacred Writer, would dare affirm anything for certain? At present there is room only for conjecture, because divine revelation is lacking in this matter, nor can anything certain be elicited from holy Scripture for defining this controversy. Whence men have gone into various opinions and assertions. The opinion of the Cabbalists indeed, accepted by no sane person, is that Adam remained in that state three score and twenty years, because no one is capable of damnation who is not of just so many years: which they ridiculously gather by gematria from the word "was," cap. 3 of Genesis, verse 22. But it is also void of all reason, that others fix the sojourn at thirty-three years, because Christ lived so many years: others at forty days, because Christ fasted so many days in the desert; who taught us to compare Adam with Christ in circumstances of this kind? Irenaeus, Cyril and Epiphanius, and very many following them, judge that Adam was not more than six hours in the state of innocence. On the same day, they say, namely the sixth, he was created at the third hour: fell at the sixth hour: was expelled at the ninth hour, which they confirm likewise from the analogy with Christ. As Christ at the beginning of the sixth day of His passion, seized before the tribunal, was defiled with most filthy spittings, so Adam was formed of clay. As at the third hour Christ, sentence being given, was condemned and led to punishment, so Adam was formed in Paradise at the same hour. As at the sixth and ninth hour Christ stretched forth His hands upon the cross, so at the sixth hour Adam stretched forth his hand to pluck the fruit. As finally at the ninth hour Christ expired on the cross and the thief entered Paradise, so at the same hour Adam was cast out of Paradise. Nearly the same thinks the Arabian Patricides: that they were expelled at the ninth hour of Friday into a certain mountain of India.

But Ibn-Fora the Jacobite also has similar things in the apologetic writing which he opposed to Patricides, Holtingerus relating, Siegmat. Oriental. lib. 1, pag. 209. — In this diversity of opinions, however, what is to be fixed with certainty does not occur. Yet those seem to me to augur more probably who judge that Adam stood innocent in Paradise more than one whole day. For Moses indicates this not obscurely, cap. 2 of Gen., v. 3, when he says that God rested on the seventh day and sanctified it, man still being in Paradise; for what was that sanctification other than the precept given to man concerning sanctifying that day? Therefore man had not yet sinned on the seventh day, for doubtless that whole day was sanctified. It is added that Josephus says, lib. 1, Antiquitatum iudaicarum, cap. 2: that Adam began to interpret nature after the seventh day, while namely, all living things being brought before him, he imposed names upon each according to its nature: for whether God summoned each animal really before Adam, or this bringing was made through an intellectual vision, as Cajetan wills, it is certain from the series of Jewish History that that imposition of names was made by Adam while he was still innocent and standing in Paradise; and consequently it is probable that Adam stood in Paradise innocent at least through a whole entire day.

Note 3. That in this doubtful matter three things seem certain: First indeed, that Adam and Eve did not remain so long a time in Paradise: for it is credible that the daemon, whom the envy of human felicity burned, and the most ardent desire of disturbing man from that happy state vehemently instigated, could not long restrain himself from attacking man, and attempting to circumvent him by guile and fraud. The second is, that they were cast down out of Paradise on the same day on which they sinned: this namely Moses' narrative indicates; for he relates that after sin they blushed on account of the nakedness of their body, and made for themselves breeches to cover it; and having heard the voice of God, struck at once with shame and fear, hid themselves in the midst of the grove of Paradise; and thence went forth at the command of God, rebuked by Him, and exterminated from Paradise. Nor surely was that place of Paradise, constituted on account of innocent man, a suitable dwelling for the guilty. Add that if they had remained a longer time, there was danger lest they should commingle, since mutual lust had already blazed in them: and yet St. Augustine and other Fathers with the fullest consent report that those virgins departed from Paradise. Finally the third, which seems certain, is that they were exterminated from Paradise toward the end of that day on which they sinned, that is, before the setting of the sun: for Moses relates that God appeared and uttered His thundering voice at the afternoon breeze, that is, toward evening, for at that time a wind is wont to breathe, especially the zephyr: chiefly indeed in maritime places. These things thus premised, let it be:

First Conclusion. — It is more probable that Adam and Eve did not linger only one day in Paradise.

This is the more common opinion among the holy Fathers; and St. Augustine confirms it with his judgment, lib. 11, De Genesi, cap. 31, and lib. 2, De peccatorum meritis, et remissione, cap. 21; for when he says that the first Parents before sin used the other fruits of Paradise, he sufficiently intimated that they remained in Paradise more than one day. More clearly the same St. Gregory signifies, lib. 1 of the Dialogues, cap. 1, in these words: In Paradise man enjoyed the words of God and the society of the spirits of the blessed Angels, with cleanness of heart and uprightness of vision.

Pererius proves this truth, quaest. 2 on cap. 3 of Genesis, from the fact that so many and various things, which are related as done between the creation of Adam and his ejection, do not seem consonantly to be compressed within one day. For on the sixth day, first indeed the terrestrial animals were created: afterwards man was created outside Paradise. Then, being introduced into Paradise, he received from God the precept of abstaining from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After this the animals were led to him, to each of which, the force and nature of each being considered, congruent names were imposed by him. And since none of them was found suitable to him for the society of life, and a helper in the generation of offspring, from the side of Adam lulled in a most profound sleep Eve was formed. Still naked they both dwelt in Paradise without any shame of their nakedness or experience of external inconvenience or molestation. After this followed the discourse held between the serpent and Eve on either side, namely, as is credible, far longer than Moses commemorates. Eve moreover, deceived by the serpent's promises, went to the forbidden tree; and the beauty of its bark having been inspected and considered, she plucked the fruit, ate, went to her husband, and with her blandishments enticed him to eat. Which done, when they were straightway ashamed of their nakedness, they made for themselves breeches to cover it; and having heard the voice of God coming to them, they hid themselves in the middle place of Paradise, shaded with most dense trees: whence, going forth at the command of God, each separately interrogated by Him, punished at length they were cast out of Paradise. So great a mass of matters, therefore, his mind judged it not to have been able to be conveniently included in one day. Such are his words. — This truth is confirmed from the very sacred Scripture itself: for if so short a time had flowed between the creation of Adam and Eve and the temptation of the serpent, there was no reason why the serpent should say to Eve: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of Paradise? For this is an argument that the serpent had observed them to be accustomed to eat of the fruits of all the trees, except the fruit of one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from which he saw them religiously abstain, which Eve indeed seems to have confirmed, when she answered the serpent: Of the fruit of the trees that are in Paradise we do eat, etc. For what is "we do eat," unless "we are wont to eat"? although it escapes me not that in Hebrew is read "we shall eat," in the future tense. — Whence not incongruously certain persons conjecture that they stood in Paradise for eight days, and on the eighth day, after they had been created, that is, on the sixth day of the second week, were driven out of the garden; for a space of eight days was sufficient for experiencing somewhat of that state of felicity, and for tasting the pleasure of Paradise. And this accords with what the holy Fathers teach, namely that Adam was created and fell on the same day — the same, I say, not in number, but in week, namely on the sixth recurring. — It likewise has consonance with what the second Adam, namely Christ, endured for expiating the crime of the first Adam; for on the sixth day Adam was created and cast out of Paradise: on the same day also Christ suffered, and with His blood unlocked the gates of the heavenly Paradise to Adam and his posterity. 1. At the beginning of that day, he was formed of clay: this same was seized and brought to the tribunal, and defiled with most filthy spittings. 2. At the third hour of that day Adam was introduced into Paradise; and Christ at the third hour, sentence of death being given, was led forth from the city of Jerusalem to punishment. 3. Between the sixth and ninth hour Adam and Eve stretched forth their hands to receive the fruit which brought death upon us: at this very time Christ stretched forth His hands upon the Cross, shed His blood, and died, that He might procure for us eternal life. Finally at the breeze of that day God cast Adam and Eve, robbers of the forbidden fruit, out of the earthly Paradise: but Christ at the same time, as He had promised, led the penitent Thief into the heavenly Paradise.

Second Conclusion. — It is credible that Adam and Eve, cast down out of Paradise, fell into that land and region which was afterwards called Judaea and Palestine. Thus, from a most ancient tradition of the Hebrews, St. Basil affirms on cap. 5 of Ezechiel, saying: There obtained a certain report consecrated in the memory of the Church, not delivered in writing, which is such, that first of all Judaea had man for an inhabitant, namely Adam, as soon as he fell from the delights of Paradise, placed in this land, for the mitigating of the loss of the goods whereof he had been stripped. — The same Rupertus affirms, lib. 8, cap. 31, and from him Tostatus, and both from St. Jerome, contending that Adam sojourned in Judaea, and was buried there. There can be added the authority of those who relate that the field of Damascus, which is interpreted "mixture of blood," was so named because in it human blood was first shed with gore, while namely there innocent Abel was slaughtered by his fratricidal brother Cain. This truth is confirmed: Adam must be said to have dwelt there while he lived, where after death he was buried: but he was buried in Palestine: therefore he lived in it.

The major stands, for as Christ the Lord speaks in the Gospel, where the tree shall fall, there shall it remain, in which words He signifies not only that the state of souls will be the same after death as it was in death, but also that bodies are to be buried in the same region in which they were extinguished. Add that at that time the custom had not yet grown up among the Magnates of choosing for themselves a special place of burial, to which, if they were farther away when dying, their bodies would have to be carried. The minor is proved from the common tradition of the Jews, confirmed by several holy Fathers, that Adam was buried on Mount Calvary, so named from his Skull, or Calvary, on which after three thousand years our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified; that he who had been the first author of sin might first also receive the salutary power of the medicine of sin. Thus before all others Tertullian thinks in his poem against Marcion, writing thus:

Golgotha, the place of the head, Calvary once In the paternal tongue, thus he named it by that title: Here we first received man to be buried: Here Christ suffers; the earth grows moist with pious blood: The dust of Adam, that mingled with the blood of Christ of old It may be washed by the power of the dripping water.

To him subscribe St. Cyprian, in the sermon On the Resurrection of Christ: We, he saith, and Christ belong together, with whose blood the Calvary of Adam is believed to have been sprinkled, who, beneath the place where the Cross of the Lord was fixed, is reported by the Ancients to have been buried. Origen, treatise 3 on Matthew: There came to me a certain tradition, that the body of the first man was buried where Christ was crucified, that as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be vivified, so that in that place, which is called the place of Calvary, that is, the place of the head, the head of the human race may begin the resurrection with the people, wholly through the resurrection of the Lord Saviour, who suffered there, etc. St. Chrysostom, Homily 21 on chapter 19 of John: He raised in that place which is called the place of Calvary, where some say Adam was both dead and buried, and Jesus, where death held dominion, in the same place, a trophy through the Cross, which He bore against the tyranny of death. St. Augustine, sermon 71 De tempore: This also is related by the account of the Ancients, that Adam, the first man, in the very place where the Cross was fixed, was at some time buried: and therefore the place of Calvary was so called, because the head of the human race is said to be buried there. And certainly, Brethren, not incongruously is it believed, because there the physician was raised up where the sick man lay; and it was fitting, that where human pride had slain, there divine mercy should bow itself down: and while that precious blood deigns even corporally to touch by its dripping the dust of the ancient sinner, it may be believed to have redeemed him.

Indeed even Jerome himself, although he seems to think otherwise in the Epitaph of St. Paula, yet writing in the name of Paula and Eustochius to St. Marcella, Epistle 17, says: In this city — nay, in this very place — Adam is said both to have dwelt and to have died; whence also the place in which our Lord was crucified is called Calvary; namely because there is deposited the Calvary of the ancient man; that the blood of the second Adam, that is, Christ, dripping from the Cross, might wash away the sins of the first Adam and of the Protoplast lying there.

You will object from Josue 14: The name of Hebron was before called Cariath-arbe; Adam the greatest among the Enacim is situated there. Hence St. Jerome in the Epitaph of St. Paula: Cariath-arbe, he saith, is the same as the city of four men, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Adam the great, whom the Hebrews affirm to have been buried there, according to the book of Josue Nave; although most think the fourth was Caleb, whose memorial is shown at its side. Therefore Adam was buried in Hebron. — Secondly, since with the deluge many embankments of lands were carried away, and very many mountains distracted hither and thither, it is probable that likewise all the sepulchres of the dead were plundered, and consequently their bones scattered and dissipated. In what manner therefore did it come about, that the bones of Adam persevered in Golgotha so entire, that afterwards his Skull should be found there? — I answer to the first: the name Adam was not always proper to the first Parent, but granted to any man whatsoever, as is clear from these words of Genesis 6: He created them male and female; and blessed them; and called their name Adam: and therefore it is there attributed to a certain man whose peculiar name was Arbe, who, as is read in the same place, cap. 15, verse 13, was the Father of Enac the Giant; since either Arbe was greater in stature, or more excellent in dignity than his sons, who in cap. 13 of Numbers are called certain monsters of the Gigantean kind, that Arbe deservedly is said to be the greatest among the Enacim. To the second I say it is false that with the deluge all the carried-away mountains, and the sepulchres placed in them, were dissipated; for many mountains stood unmoved, as the mountains of Armenia, in which

the Ark of Noe stood. — It is confirmed again by those things which Moses Bar-Cepha relates, lib. De Paradiso, cap. 11, from James of Edessa: namely that Noe dwelt in the land of the Jebus, and in the region of the Sodomites, and there planted those Cedars from which he constructed the Ark: which Ark, when he was about to mount it together with his children with the deluge impending, he carried into it with him the bones of Adam; and then, the Ark having gone forth after the deluge, distributed them among his sons, according as the orb of the earth was divided among them to be inhabited; e. g. that he gave the Calvary of Adam to his firstborn Sem, and assigned to him the land of Judaea; and thus the posterity of Sem, when they had come into Judaea, or their own inheritance, restored that Calvary of Adam, which had fallen to them from his bones by the paternal distribution, into Adam's sepulchre, which otherwise already even then existed there. Therefore it stands that before the deluge Adam was buried in Palestine.

Third Conclusion. — It is certain that Adam and Eve were restored to the divine grace and benevolence by their continual penance.

The truth of this Conclusion is clear from the book of Wisdom cap. 10, where we read: Him who was the first formed of God, the father of the world, when he alone was created, she kept, and delivered him from his own offence, etc. Whence St. Augustine in Epistle 99, which is to Evodius, says thus: Of that indeed first man, the Father of the human race, that Christ when He descended into hell delivered him thence, almost the whole Church consents, which must be believed not to have believed in vain, both of these things having been handed down, even if canonical authority of the Scriptures is not expressly brought forth hence. Although that which is written in lib. of Wisdom chapter 10: this (namely divine wisdom) kept him who was the first formed of God, the father of the world, when he alone was created, and delivered him from his own offence; and gave him power to contain all things — this, I say, which is written there, seems to make more for this opinion than for hardly any other understanding. Thus Augustine. Nor does it matter that Rupertus, lib. 3, cap. 38, calls this truth into doubt, and affirms the book of Wisdom not to be canonical: for it is wonderful that a man most learned otherwise was ignorant that the book of Wisdom was deposited among the canonical Scriptures many centuries before his age, as may be seen in the Councils of Carthage and Laodicea. Add that all the holy Fathers oppose themselves to Tatian, a certain disciple of St. Justin Martyr, afterwards the unhappy Parent of the heretics the Encratites, one of whose principal errors was, that the First Parents are pressed with eternal torments, because they had neither done penance for the crime committed, nor obtained pardon, as is to be read in St. Epiphanius, Haeresis 16, and St. Augustine in the book De haeresibus cap. 27.; but chiefly in St. Irenaeus, lib. 3, cap. 34, who with many arguments impugns the aforesaid Tatian, and defends our Conclusion.

It is proved by reason that the first Parents were restored to the divine grace: First indeed, because God cursed not Adam nor Eve, as He had cursed the serpent; which certainly is an indication that their salvation was not desperate, as desperate was the salvation of the devil lurking in the serpent, which was not to be restored: or, as Tertullian speaks, lib. 3, Adversus Marcionem, cap. 20, Hence He cursed not Adam himself and Eve as candidates of restoration, etc. Secondly, because Adam and Eve clothed themselves with rough breeches made of fig leaves, as it were sackcloth and haircloth, and expiated the unworthy transgression of man with every habit of satisfaction, saith Tertullian in the book De cultu feminarum. Thirdly, because God would not seem, nor would He rightly be called, the good Shepherd seeking and finding the hundredth sheep that had perished, if the first man, who was signified by that lost sheep, were not saved. Finally fourthly, the devil might boast that he had been by no means vanquished and disarmed by Christ, if the first Parents, whom he himself had conquered, had not been absolved and freed from sins and punishments by penance. A fifth reason others of the Fathers add with St. Epiphanius praised above, from the fact that Adam was buried in that place where Christ was crucified; namely, that he who had been the first author of sin might be the first also to be made partaker of the salutary medicine, as was said above.

You ask: What is signified by those words of Genesis 3, verse 24: He placed (the Lord) before the Paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a fiery and turning sword, to keep the way of the tree of life!

I answer 1. That various persons think variously concerning those Cherubims, the Keepers of Paradise. Theodoretus judges, quaest. 40 on Genesim, that Cherubim signify not certain invisible virtues, or some celestial spirit of the Angels, but a certain powerful and terrible vision and form: just as if God had placed certain animals at the entrance of Paradise, whereby Adam might be barred thence. More gravely Iacobus Chytraeus exorbitates in the exposition of the Symbol published by himself, where he says that that statue with a fiery sword for the keeping of Paradise, which Moses called Cherubim, was not an Angelic spirit, but a certain manly image of horrible form, encompassed with a mask, which God had placed before the gates of Paradise to strike terror into the first Parents; after the manner of farmers, who in their fields and gardens fix wooden stakes clothed with rags of torn human garments, that by that kind of scarecrow they may deter birds from feeding on the seeds and fruits. But that the Cherubims were truly certain Angelic virtues, and supernal and celestial spirits, very many of the holy Fathers affirm. St. Chrysostom, Homily 18 on Genesim, says: God commanded that those virtues the Cherubims should keep the way of the tree of life. And in the Sermon On the Ascension: And the Angels and Archangels grieved over our punishments; and when we were being punished, they also were held in exceeding sadness: And the Cherubims although they kept Paradise, yet grieved over our punishments; and the Cherubims indeed merited to keep Paradise, but grieved to keep it as an honour. St. Augustine, lib. 11, De Genesi, c. 10: And He appointed Cherubims, and the fiery sword which turns, to keep the way of the tree of life. This must be believed to have been done through the celestial superpotestates even in the visible Paradise, that there might be there a certain fiery guard by angelic ministry. St. Gennadius Bishop of Constantinople in the Greek Catena on Genes. 3: The Cherubim are Potestates from those which are called incorporeal, fiery, not manifest. And when they were chosen for the keeping of Paradise they are said to have conformed themselves to a sword, who by the very sight of their fiery appearance seemed ever mobile, and thus excluded Adam from entrance. But although ordinarily Angels are indeed not sent from the superior orders, but only from the interior ones, yet extraordinarily, sometimes, although rarely, the supreme Angels can be sent, even Cherubims and Seraphims, Durandus and Gabriel teach with the Doctor Subtilis in 2 distinct. 10. And so according to this opinion, which is among the first in probability, it can easily be said that the Cherubims appointed to the keeping of Paradise were blessed Spirits of the second order of the first Hierarchy: and then they alone are read to have been sent in Scripture, because that thing was singular and arduous. — I answer secondly: that certain persons, as Vorstius indicates, understood by the fiery sword the Torrid Zone to be designated, which by the vehemence of its heat bars men from entrance into Paradise, beyond which, or in which, under the equinoctial, it is supposed to be placed, so that men, for fear of being burnt, cannot penetrate thither through the girdle. Tertullian indicates this, Apologet. cap. 47: Although we name Paradise I know not what, separated by a certain fiery quality of that Zone from the knowledge of the common world. And St. Ambrose lib. De Genesi, cap. 2, intimates the same, thus singing of the Protoplasts driven out of Paradise:

Driven far from the consecrated gardens, the barrier ......in the midst of fire removes In which with swift heat the Cherub rolls, While the hot crest cools, and rolls its flames,

Others supposed the fiery sword to be a certain wall of fire, either there bursting forth from the earth, as in Aetna of Sicily, Mount Vesuvius, the Vulcans of the new world, or even brought from elsewhere, or newly created there in the same place, whereby Paradise might be circumvallated in its whole circuit and on every side as it were with an impenetrable barrier. Thus Lactantius Firmianus seems to have thought, lib. 2, Divinarum institutionum, cap. 18, saying thus: God cast man out of Paradise, and circumvallated the Paradise itself with fire, lest man could approach. — But this interpretation appears more allegorical than historical. Therefore I judge that, unto the most simple truth of History, true Angels in human species were appointed as Cherubim Keepers; so also the fiery sword truly was a certain fiery flame in the likeness of a very great romphaea, or the species of a sword, or of a blade round and shining of the earth: for both are to be taken historically, that all the other antecedent things be narrated with the same tenor and duct of words, as the consensus of the learned teaches, nor is it safe to think otherwise. — But Pererius also observed with others, that as there were several Cherubims (seeing that Cherubim, as placed by Moses, is in Hebrew plural) so also it seems certain that there were several fiery swords: and that each Cherub had his own fiery sword, horrible and resplendent. Nor does it hinder these that Scripture puts Cherubim in the plural form, and the fiery sword singularly: for by the usage of Hebrew speech sometimes the singular is joined to the plural. Thus Genesis 47. 3: We are shepherds, thy servants, that is, each single one of thy servants. Isaie 59. 12: our sins shall answer to us, that is, each single one of our sins. So in this place Cherubim and the fiery sword accord, that it may be signified that each one of the Cherubims had his own sword.