Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

(St. Thomas, qq. 75, 91-102; 2a 2ae, qq. 163 and 164)

[ Three errors especially are opposed to the Mosaic history of the creation of man. The first of these is that of those who deny that man was formed by God, at least immediately, but assert that he arose from organizing particles or essences, as they call them, or from a vegetative force, with which God endowed nature — which they assert all the more of the other living things. — The second error, akin to the first, is that of our pantheists, who derive the production of man from that law of the eternal substance of the world, by which nature, the mother of all things, progresses necessarily and eternally from the imperfect forms of things to the more perfect. Hence they dream that man was at first a most imperfect sea-animal, for example, an oyster; then, through various stages, emerged from the sea after the manner of an amphibian; crawled for a long time; from a reptile became a quadruped, from a quadruped a quadrumane, from the quadrumane ape (orang-outang) became a two-footed, two-handed rational being. Since this condition is the noblest of the infinite forms which nature has thus far assumed, nature takes pleasure in itself in the human form, in which it has rested for many ages now. Yet this form is not the last; for humanity, which is the head of eternal nature, by the fatal law of progression, tends inescapably toward the form of God, that is, toward a more perfect form than uncreated matter can assume. The most recent and more celebrated herald of this system, Darwin, calls this series of evolutions transformism. — The third error of these men is that of those who assert that other men were formed before Adam: who are therefore called pre-Adamites. The founder of this error was Isaac La Peyrere, in a work entitled Praeadamitae. He, having been recalled from Calvin's school to a better way of thinking, abjured this opinion along with its heresy. Not far from this error are those who hold that not all men were begotten from the same parent, but who contend that in each region of the world there were their own aborigines, distinguished in species, from whom the different races of men arose, whose first parents, however, were formed by God.

I say 1°: Our first parents were formed immediately by God.

This is against the first and second error. — And it must be noted that, when we say that our forebears were formed immediately by God, we wish our proposition to be understood not only of the soul, but also of the body, not agreeing with certain rabbis who have supposed that God made use of the ministry of angels to form the body of the first parent from the slime of the earth, into which He Himself afterward breathed life and a soul; whom Augustine refutes, lib. IX de Genes ad litt., c. 15, n. 26, as we shall see below.

Proof 1°. This proposition belongs to the faith, as is clear from

the Fourth Lateran Council: « We firmly believe... that there is one only true God..., the one principle of all things, creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who by His almighty power, together, from the beginning of time, made both creatures out of nothing, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelic and the worldly, and then the human, as it were common, constituted of spirit and body. »

Proof 2° from Holy Scripture. Genes., II, 7, openly hands down that, once all the irrational living things had been formed, God created man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. From this it is rightly deduced that God made the whole man; for by Himself He formed the body from the slime of the earth, and imparted the soul by inspiration. And this indeed concerning the man. But concerning the formation and origin of the woman we read, ibid., 21: The Lord sent a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and built it into a woman. If we understand these things, as we ought, in the historical and literal sense, it is clear that each of our first parents was formed and made by God Himself, that is, immediately, as regards the body just as the soul. Now that these words are to be taken in the literal sense, the context itself, the traditional understanding of the Hebrews, and the irrefragable authority of the rest of the sacred books show. In the first place, the context requires it. For unless the literal sense is held to, the things that follow cohere with it in no way. For scarcely had Adam, awakened from his sleep, beheld Eve, when, divinely inspired, he said, ibid., 23: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. And to these words the Apostle plainly alludes, saying, I Cor., XI, 8: For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Likewise I Tim., II, 13: For Adam was first formed, then Eve. Nor have the Jews, except for certain rabbinical fable-tellers, ever departed from this same sense.

Proof 3° from tradition. It is superfluous to review the ancient Fathers of the Church one by one, since there is but one opinion of them all. Let Augustine speak for all, who, refuting the opinion of those who asserted that the bodies of the first parents were formed by the hands of angels at God's command, says, lib. IX de Genes. ad litt., c. 15, n. 26, 27 and 28: « These things, perhaps, might be said to have been able to be done through angels. But to form or build a rib, that there might be a woman, no one but God could do, from whom the whole of nature subsists, so that I would not believe that even that supplement of flesh in the body of the man, which took the place of that rib, was made by angels, any more than the man himself was made from the dust of the earth... No angel can create nature, any more than it can create itself... I would say most certainly... that this was done in no other work of God than one which God worked not through angels, but through Himself. » Many teach that the formation of Eve from the side of Adam while sleeping was a type of the Church formed from the side of Christ the Lord as He died on the cross: which work assuredly has God Himself as its author. Hence, as the adversaries themselves admit, it is from this very source, as it were, that the myths about the formation of woman current and received among the peoples of the East, akin to the Mosaic history, have spread, especially among the peoples of upper Asia, nor are there wanting documents of this tradition among the barbarous peoples recently discovered. All of which things indeed prove that the Mosaic anthropogony is to be taken in its native and literal sense, and that therefore our first parents were formed immediately by God.

I say 2°: The whole human race was propagated from Adam, the first parent of all.

Proof 1°. This proposition belongs to the faith, having a necessary connection with the article on the propagation of original sin, which will be treated below.

Proof 2° from Holy Scripture, against those who admit the authority of the divine Books. For Holy Scripture excludes the existence of pre-Adamites, if it constantly presents Adam to us as the sole and only progenitor of all men. And such is indeed the case. It is read, Genes., I, 27, that, once all the works of the sensible world had been completed, God created man to his own image...: male and female he created them. But of this man, before the manner of his creation is more clearly set forth, it is said, ibid., II, 5:

And there was not a man to till the earth, whence it appears that, to fulfill the end which God had proposed to Himself, one man sufficed at first. Accordingly it is added, ibid., 7: And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth. One is formed, because more would then have been useless. This man, then, from whom the whole race necessarily had to arise, having been made, the reason is shown why he was not to remain alone. Other men do not come forth through creation; a wife is given to him, because, ibid., 20, for Adam there was not found a helper like himself. And that it might be known that all men were to arise from that one man and the one wife built from his rib, it is added, ibid., III, 20: And Adam called his wife's name Eve: because she was the mother of all living. This is confirmed both from Sap., X, 1: She (wisdom) preserved him who was first formed by God, the father of the world, when he was created alone; and from Paul, saying, Act., XVII, 26: And hath made of one all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth. These things are so plain that it is superfluous to argue from these words. But if there be added the traditional sense of the Hebrews and the Christians, which is constant and universal, and the dogma of the propagation of original guilt into each man, which, as we shall show, the Church has always professed, and which rests upon this truth and cannot be conceived apart from it, no room for doubt remains. Therefore.

Proof 3° from traditions and facts, especially against those who reject the authority of the divine Scriptures. For 1°, against them stand all the anthropogonies which either poets or historical writers admit, which agree entirely with the Mosaic narrative. Sanchoniaton, cited by Eusebius, Berosus the Chaldean, in Syncellus, Diodorus Siculus, trace the origin of the whole human race back to one man and one woman, as also do the poets Orpheus, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Horace, and Ovid. 2° In favor of this origin fight the traditions of all peoples, not only of the more ancient, but also of the more recent. 3° All the histories which relate the migrations of colonies from Asia, especially Chaldea, Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece, etc., most clearly testify that all peoples grew, from a slender

beginning, gradually increased, and had a common origin, as is related by Moses, so that the later histories of his narrative appear to be nothing but commentaries and confirmations of it. 4° Philology itself, which has been cultivated with the greatest care in this our age, supplies another argument against those whom we are attacking. For it has been ascertained that all languages are to be traced back to two chief or matrix and primitive tongues, namely the Semitic and the Japhetic. Moreover these languages, or idioms, have many roots, indeed even common words, apart from a slight difference of inflection, and sometimes also forms and grammatical system. Again it has been found that the Sanskrit language, which is in use among the Indians, agrees in very many words with Greek and Latin, and that therefore one and the same was the first language of these peoples. But all these things prove that all men arose from a common origin. Therefore¹.

Proof 4° from reason. Those who reject the divine creation of man are refuted as follows. 1° It is mathematically evident that there cannot be given either a successive or a simultaneous infinite series of terms. Therefore man necessarily had some origin. 2° From physics it is likewise certain and scientifically demonstrated that all living things presuppose other beings of the same species by which they are begotten, and that the systems both of organic particles, and of an egg existing without a beginning, and of spontaneous generation from putrefaction, are absurd. As for transformism especially, the most ancient histories and monuments of sculpture, which must certainly be referred to three, and perhaps to four, thousand years, prove that the human species was already then fixed and altogether the same as we now behold it. But this immobility the theory of indefinite evolutions would not allow. Therefore.

You will ask 1° where Adam and Eve were formed.

I answer. Adam and Eve were formed outside the paradise of pleasure, into which they were transferred a little afterward.

Proof from Holy Scripture. After the narrative of the creation of man, whom God created male and female, it is read, Genes., II, 15: And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it and to keep it. If man is said in the singular number, this is understood in the sense stated above, that is, of the man both male and female, and it is proved otherwise from the fact that Eve induced Adam to sin in paradise.

You will ask 2° what work and what keeping were enjoined upon Adam by God.

Augustine answers, lib. VIII de Genes. ad litt., c. 10, n. 22: « Man was placed in paradise, that he might till that same paradise, by an agriculture not laborious, but delightful, and suggesting great and useful things to a prudent mind; and that he might keep that same paradise for himself, lest he should admit anything for which he would deserve to be expelled from it. »

You will ask 3° whether paradise was a corporeal place².

I answer. As Augustine relates, lib. XIII de Civit. Dei, c. 21, « some refer the whole paradise, in which the first parents of the human race are related by the truth of Holy Scripture to have been, to things intelligible, and turn those trees and fruit-bearing woods into the virtues and habits of life. » And he adds: « Let these things, and whatever else can more fittingly be said about understanding paradise spiritually, be said, no one forbidding it: provided, however, that the truth of that history also be believed, commended by the most faithful narration of the things done. » Whence St. Jerome, Epist. 74 ad Pammachium, charges Origen with « so allegorizing paradise, and taking away the truth of the history, understanding angels for the trees, heavenly powers for the rivers, and overturning the whole content of paradise by a tropological interpretation. » ]

[ That man was made to the image of God is plainly established from Holy Scripture. Genes., I, 26, God says: Let us make man to our image and likeness. And it is added, ibid., 27: And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. The same is said in Sap., II, 23 and Eccli., XVII, 1. But the question is in what respect man is the image of God.

I say: Man is a true image of God by reason of his intellectual nature, imperfect, however¹.

Proof of the first part. Two things are required for the note of an image. First, that it be like that of which it is the image in the specific note and ultimate difference, or in the mark of the species, or at least in the noblest property thereof. Second, that the likeness be expressed and derived from that of which it is called the image, because a thing is called an image from the fact that it imitates another: thus a son is the image of his father, the representation of Caesar in copper is the image of Caesar, because each is in the likeness of the specific nature or its mark, and expressed and derived from that of which it is the image. But man has these two conditions with respect to God, by reason of his intellectual nature. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Man is expressed and made by God himself according to the likeness of that intellectual nature which in God is the ultimate difference and, as it were, the species; for according to this intellectual nature, man is apt to know and love God, just as God knows and loves himself. Therefore.

Proof of the second part². The likeness of God in man is not unto equality, since the exemplar exceeds it infinitely. And Holy Scripture indicates this, saying that man was made to the image of God; for the preposition to signifies a certain approach which befits a thing that is distant. Hence the Son of God alone is the perfect image of the eternal Father; because, (made) if he himself is the image of God, as the Apostle testifies, II Cor., IV, 4, he was not made, but begotten to the image of God, as his natural and consubstantial Son.

Although the image of God is found in every individual of human nature, whether male or female, yet according to something secondary the man displays the image of God relative to the woman, and not conversely. For as God is the principle and end of every creature, so the man is the principle and end of the woman. Hence, when the Apostle had said, I Cor., XI, 7, that the man is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man, he gives the reason, adding, ibid., 8 and 9: For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man, namely as to their first creation, and: For the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man.

You will ask whether in man there is the image of God, not only as regards the divine nature, but also as regards the trinity of persons.

I answer affirmatively³. Man not only imitates the divine nature insofar as he understands and loves himself, but also insofar as, by understanding himself, he produces the Word, and by loving himself, Love. For man likewise, by knowing God, produces a word, and by loving him produces love; and thus in him is found the principle of the word, the word, and love, by which in God the trinity of persons is constituted. But because understanding and loving are not necessary operations in man, they are not substantial in him, nor do they constitute persons, and in this respect too, although man is a true image of God, he is nevertheless an imperfect image.]

¹

[Three kinds of union are distinguished. Accidental union is when, from two united substances, no new essence arises, nor does a communicability of actions result. Thus a garment with which a man is clothed is united to him. — Personal union is a union in which, between the substances that are united, there is a unity and communicability of actions, insofar as the actions of either substance, as of a principle quo, are also of the other, as of a principle quod, namely of the suppositum, in which each subject is united. Thus in Christ there are divine actions and human actions, according as they proceed from either nature as a principle quo, yet all of them pertain, as to a principle quod, to the person of Christ, God and man at once. — Essential union is had when, from two united substances, there arises not only a unity and communicability of action, but also a specific unity of nature in which the united substances exist.]

I say 1°: The union of the soul with the body is not accidental.

This is against Plato, who held that the pre-existing soul is united extrinsically to the body, in much the same way that a sailor is united to a ship, that is, accidentally. This opinion, which D. de Bonald seems to follow when he defines man as « an intelligence using bodily organs, » is not true. For by the common sense of men it is held that man essentially consists of a rational soul and an organic body, as of physical principles essentially required for constituting his specific nature. Hence the union between our soul and our body is more intimate.

I say 2°: The union of the human soul with the body is personal.

Proof. As consciousness evidently testifies, manifold

actions, whether corporeal, as sitting, or vegetative, as digestion and nutrition, or sensitive, as seeing and imagining, or intellective, as knowing and willing, are of one and the same principle quod, namely of the whole man, although those actions belong to man from a different principle quo, as falling from the body, and understanding from the soul. But the unity and communicability of actions arising from united substances is a sign of personal union. Therefore the union of soul and body in man is a personal union.

I say 3°: The union of the human soul with the body is also essential.

Proof. As we have already noted, by the common sense of men, if we wish to define man physically and essentially, we do not say that man is a rational soul, nor that he is an organic body, but that he is composed of a rational soul and an organic body. That is to say, from the rational soul and the organic body there results one specific substantial nature (for soul and body are substances, not accidents), which is man himself, from whom, if either the one or the other be withdrawn, he himself is destroyed. But things that are united in this way are united by essential union. Therefore the union of the human soul with the body is not only a personal union, but also an essential union.

St. Thomas has summed up both of the preceding conclusions in a few words, p. 3ª, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2, where he says: « From soul and body there is constituted in each of us a twofold unity, of nature and of person. Of nature indeed, according as the soul is united to the body, formally perfecting it, so that from the two there comes to be one nature, as from act and potency, or matter and form... The unity of person, however, is constituted from these insofar as there is some one [namely, man], subsisting in flesh and soul. »

It is confirmed. In the Athanasian Creed open mention is made of this twofold union, personal and essential. For it is said of Christ: « Perfect God [the divine nature], perfect man [the human nature], subsisting of a rational soul and human flesh. » These latter words express the essential union of the human nature. Moreover:

« As the rational soul and flesh are one man (behold, a person in a simple man), so God and man are one Christ (not by unity of nature, but by unity of the divine person). »

I say 4°: The human soul is the substantial form of the human body.

Although this conclusion is to be deduced from the preceding ones as a necessary corollary, it must be demonstrated singly and explicitly, so that the nature of the union of the soul with the body in man may be perfectly known.

Proof. 1°. It is of faith. Thus the Council of Vienne defines, Clement. unica, de summa Trinit., § Porro: « We reprobate, with the aforesaid sacred council approving, as erroneous and hostile to the catholic faith, every doctrine or position rashly asserting, or calling into doubt, that the substance of the rational or intellective soul is not truly and of itself the form of the human body: defining, that the sincere truth of the faith may be known to all, and that access be closed off to all errors lest they creep in, that whoever shall henceforth presume to assert, defend, or pertinaciously hold that the rational or intellective soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be judged a heretic. » Here the council defines of every human soul what it had before pronounced of the soul of Christ, in these words: « Firmly adhering to the foundation of the catholic faith, besides which, as the Apostle witnesses, no one can lay another, we openly confess with holy mother Church that the only-begotten Son of God — subsisting eternally together with the Father in all those things in which God the Father exists — assumed in time, in the virginal chamber, unto the unity of his hypostasis and person, the parts of our nature united together, from which he himself, existing in himself true God, was made true man: namely, a passible human body, and an intellective or rational soul truly informing that body of itself and essentially. » But since opinions contradicting this definition afterward arose, the Fifth Lateran Council judged that this should be renewed. In the constitution Apostolici regiminis, promulgated in the eighth session, it is read: « Since in our days not a few have dared

to say concerning the nature of the rational soul, that it is mortal, or one in number in all men, and certain persons, philosophizing rashly, assert that this is true, at least according to philosophy — we, with the sacred council approving, condemn and reprobate all who assert that the intellective soul is mortal, or one in number in all men, and who call these things into doubt, since that soul is not only truly, of itself and essentially, the form of the human body — as is contained in the canon of Pope Clement V, issued in the general Council of Vienne — but is also immortal, and, in respect of the multitude of bodies into which it is infused, is singularly multipliable, and has been multiplied, and is to be multiplied. »

This doctrine was most recently confirmed by Pius IX in the Brief addressed to the Archbishop of Cologne on June 15, 1857, against the writings of Günther, who taught that there are two distinct souls in man, one sensitive and the other intellective: « We know, says the Pontiff, that the catholic opinion and doctrine concerning man is injured in those same books — that man is completed by body and soul in such a way that the soul, and that a rational one, is the true, per se and immediate form of the body. » But since Baltzer, professor at the University of Breslau, had attempted to revive the Güntherian doctrine, thus refuted, the aforesaid Pontiff wrote to the bishop of that same city on April 30, 1860: « This indeed we cannot but vehemently disapprove, considering that this opinion, which posits one principle of life in man, namely the rational soul, from which the body also receives motion and all life and sense, is most common in the Church of God, and appears so joined with the dogma of the Church by most doctors — and indeed by the most approved ones especially — that it is the legitimate and only true interpretation of it, and therefore cannot be denied without error in faith. »

Proof. 2°, by an easy and evident argument borrowed from St. Thomas, II Contra gent., c. 68: « For something to be the substantial form of another, two things are required. One of these is that the form be a principle of being substantially to that of which it is the form: and I call it a principle, not effective, but formal, by which something is and is denominated a being. Whence it follows

another thing, namely, that the form and the matter agree in one act of being, which does not happen with an effective principle in relation to that to which it gives being; and this act of being is that in which the composite substance subsists, which is one according to being, consisting of matter and form. » This major of the argument is the very definition of substantial form. But our human soul is a principle of being substantially to our body, which is not essentially human except from the human soul, and soul and body subsist in a unity — not only personal, but essential and specific — of man. Therefore the human soul is united to our body as its true substantial form.

The Angelic Doctor, hic q. 76, a. 1, o, sets forth another demonstration, drawn from consciousness, by which we know with certainty that the vital operations which we notice in ourselves come from the soul: « It must be said that the intellect, which is the principle of intellectual operation, is the form of the human body. For that by which something first operates is the form of that to which the operation is attributed: as that by which the body is first healed is health, and that by which the soul first knows is knowledge; whence health is the form of the body, and knowledge is in a certain way the form of the soul. And the reason for this is that nothing acts except according as it is in act. Whence, that by which something is in act is that by which it acts. Now it is manifest that the first thing by which the body lives is the soul. And since life is manifested according to diverse operations in the diverse grades of living things, that by which we first perform each of these works of life is the soul. For the soul is the first thing by which we are nourished, and sense, and are moved according to place, and likewise that by which we first understand. This principle, therefore, by which we first understand — whether it be called the intellect, or the intellective soul — is the form of the body. And this is the demonstration of Aristotle in book II de Anima. But if anyone should wish to say that the intellective soul is not the form of the body, he must find a way in which this action, which is to understand, is the action of this man². » Now no one will be able to find another way.]

[The sense of the question is: whether, just as the body of the son is produced by the power of the father, so too his soul would be produced, as other substantial forms are produced; or rather, whether, when the body is organized, it is infused into it immediately by God — not indeed by emanation, but by way of creation.

On the testimony of Theodoret, bk. V on Divinis decretis, Cerdon and Marcion said that the human soul was something of the substance of God¹, from the fact that it is said in Gen., II, 7, that God breathed, or as another version has it, breathed into the face of man the breath of life, which breath they contended to be a communication of the divine spirit itself. This error Augustine attributes to the Manicheans, de Haeresib., heresy 46; and the Council of Braga I, ch. 5, and Pope Leo, Epist. 91, otherwise 93, ch. 5, condemn it in the Priscillianists — Leo adding that this error flowed from the opinion of certain philosophers and of the Manicheans.

The production of souls by traduction was upheld by Tertullian, Apollinaris and several westerners, on the testimony of St. Jerome, though more obscure ones. About this manner of production St. Augustine was in doubt, and following him in his doubt were St. Gregory, Eucherius, Salvian and Rabanus Maurus; because it seemed difficult to them to conceive how otherwise the soul of an infant would contract original sin in the instant of conception, since God is not the author of sin.

I say: The rational soul is not of the divine substance, nor is it transmitted from the parents, but it is created by God and united to the body².

Proof 1° from Holy Scripture. Genes., II, 7, it is said: The Lord God formed man from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. That is, God formed the body of man from the earth, as from pre-existing matter, and infused into it a soul produced from nothing. Eccles., XII, 7: Let the dust return into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit return to God, who gave it. Now, if the spirit were from the seed, God would no more have given it than the body. Hebr., XII, 9, parents are called fathers of the flesh, but God is called the Father of spirits. If souls were transmitted from the parents, the parents would likewise be fathers of spirits, and God would be no more the father of spirits than of flesh. Zach., XII, 1, God is said to be forming the spirit of man within him. Nothing could be clearer. Likewise Psal. XXXII, 15: Who fashioned their hearts one by one. By the name of heart Holy Scripture is accustomed to understand the soul.

Proof 2° from the councils and the Fathers. The Council of Toledo I, in its assertion of faith, says, « that the soul of man is not of the divine substance, or of God the Father, but we declare it to be a creature created by the will of God. » Lateran V, under Leo X, session 8, defines the soul to be immortal, and « multipliable singularly according to the multitude of bodies into which it is infused, and multiplied, and to be multiplied. » Which signifies that each soul is produced or created singularly from without, for constituting human nature in each individual.

St. Ambrose, bk. on Arca et Noe, ch. 4, says: « Souls are generated from no man. » St. Jerome, on ch. XII of Eccles.: « They are worthy enough to be laughed at who think that souls come to be along with bodies, and are generated not by God, but by the parents of the bodies. » St. Hilary, bk. X on Trinit., proves that Christ did not assume a soul from the Blessed Virgin, because « the soul of man is the work of God, whereas the generation of flesh is always from flesh...; the soul is never furnished by man from the origins of those who beget. » St. Bernard, sermon ii on Nativ., n. 1 and 6: « Flesh and soul are compacted and joined together in you: the former formed, the latter breathed in... That the creature of the rational soul is united to the earthly body..., it is sent in by being created, and is created by being sent in. » In this the Greek Fathers agree with the Latin.

From all of which it now seems to many, together with the Author, that our conclusion pertains to the faith and that the opposite is heretical, who here, q. 118, a. 2, o, says: « Therefore it is heretical to say that the intellective soul is transmitted with the seed. »

Proof 3° from reason³. 1° If there were a power left by the soul of the parent in the seed for producing a soul, it would be either material or spiritual. But neither can be said. Therefore. — Proof of the minor 1° It is not material. For no active power acts outside its own genus. Therefore a material power cannot produce a spiritual substance. 2° It is not spiritual, both because it is not from the soul as it is spiritual, but as it is the act of the body, in which respect it belongs to the order of material things; and because it could not be permanently subjected in the bodily seed, until the body were sufficiently organized; for what is received permanently in a subject, is received according to the mode of that subject. Therefore.

2° Of things that are of one genus, the mode of coming forth into being is the same⁴. But the soul is of the genus of intellectual substances, which cannot be understood to come forth into being otherwise than by way of creation, as is evident in the angels. Therefore.

If you should object that it is affirmed many times in Holy Scripture that souls came forth from the father, as Genes., XLVI, 26: All the souls that went with Jacob into Egypt and came forth from his thigh, — I answer with the Angelic Doctor⁵, that in that authority, and in similar ones, the part is put for the whole by synecdoche, that is, the soul for the man, as being the nobler part. It is not, however, to be understood that the whole man thus comes forth from the father's thigh, but only that which pertains per se to carnal generation, that is, the flesh.

You will object against the first testimony of Scripture: 1° The inspiration or insufflation by which man was made into a living soul regards Adam alone, and does not prove

the individual souls of his descendants to be truly created by a positive act of God, and not to be brought to existence by traduction. Therefore this passage is outside the question and cannot be suitably alleged here.

I answer. I deny the antecedent. 1° This passage is interpreted by Aquinas himself just as we understand it. After he proved, II Contra gent., c. 87, « that the human soul is produced into being by God through creation, » pronouncing this of any soul whatsoever, he adds: « This too Sacred Scripture seems to hint. For when, speaking of the institution of the other animals, it ascribes their souls to other causes, as when it says, Gen., I, 20: Let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life, and likewise concerning the others, coming to man, it shows that his soul is created by God, saying, ibid., II, 7: God formed man from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life. » What is here, according to the Angelic Doctor, at least hinted at, is that any human soul whatsoever is produced into being by God through creation. 2° If the human soul could be produced otherwise than by creation, God would probably in the beginning have produced it in the same way as he produced the souls of the other animals, namely, by a power implanted and inherent in each nature. But, once the body of Adam was formed, God created his soul by a distinct and special act. Therefore by this very fact it is demonstrated that the human soul cannot be produced otherwise. And since by its very essence the soul had to be created in Adam, it follows that the text adduced hints that the other human souls, which are of the same essence, are created immediately by God. 3° Thus was that text interpreted by the ancient writers. Theodoret, Quaest. xxiii on Gen., thus sets forth the opinion of the heretics whom he attacks: « If the soul was created from the breathing of God, then the soul will indeed be of the substance of God. » And he answers: « Such an opinion is of extreme impiety and blasphemy. For by this the divine Scripture demonstrated the ease of creating, and declared not obscurely the nature of the soul itself, namely, that it is a spirit capable of being created, invisible and intellective, devoid of bodily grossness. »

You will object against the texts of the councils: The Council of Toledo indeed defines « that the soul of man is a creature created by the will of God, » and the Council of Lateran, that it is « multiplied according to the multitude of bodies into which it is infused. » But in these definitions the mode of creation and multiplication is not determined. Therefore they cannot legitimately be invoked in the present question.

I answer. I distinguish the minor. The mode of creation and multiplication is not determined explicitly, I concede; it is not determined implicitly, I deny. For 1° the Council of Toledo pronounces that every human soul is created by the will of God. But a production of this kind cannot be understood except of creation properly so called, and if it were interpreted in the sense that the human soul is brought to being by traduction, it would no more be created than the body is, which, insofar as it is produced by the material power of the seed, cannot properly be said to be created, but only in a broad sense. Therefore the decree of the council expresses creation taken in the strict sense. 2° The Council of Lateran defines the soul « to be multiplied singularly according to the multitude of bodies into which it is infused. » But this is not verified unless, for each body produced by the power of the seed, one soul in no way pre-existing is multiplied, that is, is produced by creation. Therefore as before. And it suffices that creation be implicitly contained in the above decrees, for them to be rightly invoked in support of our proposition.]

[ It was the error of Origen and the Priscillianists, that all souls were created from the beginning of the world along with the angels, and that, as a punishment for the sins which they had committed at that time without a body, they were thrust down into bodies as into prisons. Whence the union of the soul with the body would not be essential, but merely accidental, and man himself ought not to be considered as a being specifically distinct from others, but as a composite in some way artificial and temporary; or human nature would consist in the soul alone¹.

Another error came forth in the opposite sense. Ioannes Marcus of Prague, following Plato, Asclepiades and Protagoras, protracted animation until the birth of the infant, the soul of the mother sometimes supplying the soul of the embryo: whence he concluded that true homicide could never be committed by abortion. Which doctrine was condemned by Innocent XI. The Scholastics, among whom the Master of the Sentences and St. Thomas himself², his commentator, embraced the opinion of Aristotle, who teaches that the animation of the fetus cannot occur before the perfect organization of the body, and determines it, according to sex, at the fortieth day after conception in males, and the eightieth in females. They supposed that the fetus lived before that first by a vegetative soul, second by a sensitive soul, which, having been substituted for the former, itself vanished away when the intellective soul arrived, and thereafter this latter, as the higher form, fulfilled by its own power the offices of the two former. Although this doctrine commonly prevailed in the schools, Thomas Fienus, who in the year 1593 obtained the chair of medicine in the University of Louvain, boldly asserted that perfect animation occurs on the third day after conception, which some had already assigned to the twenty-fifth day and even to the seventh. This opinion, although closer to the truth, is to be rejected by the same right as the others. Therefore.

I say: The rational soul is created when the human body is first constituted, that is, at the very conception.

Proof 1° from Holy Scripture. It is said in Job, III, 3: Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man is conceived. But this word man does not designate a formless embryo, or one outlined only by an inferior and fleeting form, but a fetus already essentially possessing human nature by virtue of the substantial form which man

properly and in act constitutes, that is, the rational soul. Therefore.-- Likewise, Psalm L, 6 and 7: To thee only have I sinned... For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me. It is clear from this that man, in his very original conception, is stained by original sin. But the immediate subject of this sin is not a being not yet specified by its proper form and belonging either to the genus of plant through the vegetative soul, or to the genus of brutes through the sensitive soul, but a true man at least essentially formed and constituted through the rational soul, in which sin properly resides, as does grace also. Therefore.

Proof 2° from the doctrine of the Church. 1° The Council of Vienne, related at length above in art. iii, defined that « whoever should presume to assert that the rational or intellective soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be judged as a heretic. » Likewise the Fifth Lateran Council, renewing this definition, pronounces the rational soul « truly, of itself and essentially to be the form of the human body. » But, unless the being which is produced through human generation should belong successively to different genera before man comes to be — which cannot reasonably and with faith wholly safe be maintained — it must, in its first constitution, that is, at the very conception, be informed by its true, proper and essential form, which is the intellective soul. Therefore.

In the Brief related above to the Bishop of Breslau, Pius IX teaches « that there is in man one principle of life, namely the rational soul, from which the body receives both motion, and all life, and sense. » But, since the body is living in its first constitution, that is, at the very conception, if the rational soul were not created and infused into it except after some time, this soul would not be the sole principle of life in man, nor would the body receive all its life from that principle. Therefore.

Proof 3° by theological reasons. 1° Applying the doctrine on the substantial form of man to the mystery of the divine Incarnation, the Council of Vienne defines « that the only-begotten Son of God... the parts of our nature united together, from which

he himself, being in himself true God, might become true man, namely a passible human body and an intellective or rational soul truly informing that body of itself and essentially, [he] assumed at a point in time in the virginal chamber, unto the unity of his hypostasis and person. » From which it is established that the Word of God assumed, in his conception, a truly human body, that is, at once informed by a rational soul. But human nature was not constituted otherwise in Christ than in us. Therefore.

2° Alexander VII, in the bull instituting the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, declared that the Church, in this solemnity, commemorates not the material conception of Mary, which of itself could not be the object of worship, but her formal conception, that is, the instant at which her soul and body were united. And Pius IX, in the bull Ineffabilis, defined that « the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, was... preserved immune from every stain of original guilt. » But, just as original sin has its seat in the rational soul, so sanctifying grace, with which the Blessed Virgin was endowed in the first instant of her conception, could only have been infused into that same soul. Therefore.

3° In the ancient canonical sanctions, the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae had been decreed against those procuring the abortion of an animated fetus, and the law had been so worded on account of the opinions then current concerning the time of perfect animation through the arrival of the intellective soul, which opinions, however, the Church never approved. In the constitution Apostolicae Sedis, issued on the 4th of October, 1869, in which the number of censures is reduced, we read: « Those procuring abortion, the effect having followed. » Which signifies that excommunication is incurred at whatever time the crime is committed, even a few days after conception. But this penalty is inflicted on account of homicide, and true homicide is not committed, except when man has already been informed by the intellective soul. Therefore.

4° The Roman Ritual prescribes that, « if the pregnant mother has died, the fetus should be carefully extracted as soon as possible, and if it is alive, it should be baptized. » No time is fixed; whence,

whatever the age of the fetus may be, this is to be observed. Therefore it is supposed that the fetus is informed by the intellective soul from the beginning.

Proof 4° by physiological reasons. 1° By generation properly so called, every being generates something specifically like itself. But, if at the very conception the being generated by man is not informed by the intellective soul, it is not specifically like the one generating it. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. Man the generator has a single substantial form, which is the intellective soul, by which he is specified. Therefore, if the being generated by him is not at once informed by the intellective soul, but first and for a time by the vegetative soul only, or the sensitive, it is not specifically like the one generating it, but belongs at first to the genus of plant, or of brute. Which is altogether repugnant.

2° Man is not a multiple being, even successively, but one. Therefore in his first constitution, that is, in conception, he must have the essential principle of his unity. This the Angelic Doctor demonstrates thus, II Contra gent., c. 58: « A thing has being and unity from the same source; for unity follows upon being. Since therefore each thing has being from its form, it will also have unity from its form. If, then, several souls be posited in man as diverse [successive] forms, man will not be one being, but many; nor will an order of forms suffice for the unity of man, because to be one according to order is not to be one simply, since unity of order is the least of unities. »

3° If the intellective soul should come to the fetus already conceived only after some time, since this fetus must already have been informed by some form, either vegetative or sensitive, which would have assigned it to this or that genus, it follows that the intellective soul is united to it only accidentally, and therefore is not the substantial form of this body. Therefore. Let us hear again our Doctor reasoning thus, ibid.: « This will bring back the aforesaid untoward consequence, namely that from the intellective soul and the body there would not come to be one thing simply, but only accidentally. For everything that comes to something after its complete existence comes to it accidentally, since it is outside its essence. Now every substantial form makes a being complete in the genus of substance; for it makes a being in act, and this particular thing³. Whatever, therefore, comes to a thing after the first substantial form, will come to it accidentally. Since, then, the nutritive soul is a substantial form (for "living" is predicated substantially of man and of animal), it will follow that the sensitive soul comes accidentally, and likewise the intellective; and thus neither animal nor man will signify simply one thing, nor any genus, nor species in the predicament of substance. »

[That the first man was constituted in the state of sanctifying grace before he sinned is a doctrine of faith defined at the Council of Trent, sess. V, can. 1, in these words: « If anyone does not confess that the first man, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted...; let him be anathema. » The Council says constituted, and not created, in order to avoid the controversy debated among theologians, which is the question here. For some, at least in the time of St. Thomas¹, indeed acknowledged that the first man had been endowed with sanctifying grace before he sinned, yet contended that he had not received it at his creation. But since, with the common and now far more probable opinion

I say: The first man was created in sanctifying grace².

Proof 1° from Holy Scripture. Eccles., VII, 30: God made man upright. Yet, according to the phrasing of Holy Scripture, the upright are called just; whence Canticle, I, 3: The upright love thee; Psalm, VII, 11: He saveth the upright of heart; Psalm, XXXII, 1: Rejoice in the Lord, O ye just: praise becometh the upright. Therefore.

Proof 2° from the Holy Fathers. Jerome, book I adv. Iovinian., ch. 16, says: « Since we were created good and upright by God, by our own fault we have fallen away to worse things. » Hilary, in Augustine, book II contra Iulian., ch. 8, n. 27: « In Adam's offense we lost the nobility of that first and blessed creation. » Augustine himself, book de Corrept. et Gratia, ch. 11, n. 31: « God therefore did not will that he himself [Adam] should be without His grace, which He left in his free will. » And in the Enchirid., ch. 106, n. 28, speaking of Adam before sin, he attributes justice to him: « Although sin was situated in free will alone, yet free will was not sufficient for retaining justice, unless, by participation in the unchangeable good, divine assistance were provided. » Damascene, book II de Fide orthod., ch. 12: « God created man innocent, upright, virtuous, adorned with every kind of virtue, a second angel, a composite worshiper, spirit and flesh together, spirit by reason of grace. »

Proof 3° from reasons. 1° The same reasoning holds here for man as for the angel; for each is equally ordered to grace³. But the angels were created in grace, as St. Augustine defines, book XII de Civit., ch. 9, n. 2, saying of the angels: « He created them with a good will, that is, with a chaste love, by which they would cling to Him, at once both establishing their nature and bestowing grace. » Therefore man too was created in grace.

2° The happiness in which God created man consisted in this: that reason was subjected to God, and the lower powers and the body to reason; but the first subjection was the cause of the second and the third⁴. But the second and third were not natural, otherwise they would have remained after sin⁵. Therefore neither was the first: and thus it was through the supernatural gift of grace.

3°⁶ — It is repugnant to say that God established man for a supernatural end, and did not immediately confer on him everything necessary for pursuing this end; because, as long as this state lasted, man would at once have had to tend toward such an end and yet would have been unable to attain it: which implies something contradictory and opposed to the wisdom and justice of God. But without sanctifying grace man could not tend toward his supernatural end. Therefore, as soon as He created man, God endowed him with sanctifying grace.

You will say: The Apostle, Ⅰ Cor., XV, 45, opposing Adam to Christ, says: The first Adam was made into a living soul, but the last into a quickening spirit. But the quickening of the spirit is through sanctifying grace. Therefore.

I answer. I deny the consequent. The Apostle there compares Adam with Christ, not as to the soul, but as to the body, in His resurrection, so that the sense is that Adam at his creation received an animal body needing food, like the other animals, but Christ at His resurrection received a spiritual body, that is, one not needing food⁷.

You will ask 1° whether the first man was constituted in justice after the manner of adults, by means of an act of free will, namely, by consent to the acceptance of grace.

I answer more probably in the affirmative. 1° — Because through the conferral of grace a spiritual friendship is contracted between God and man. But friendship implies a mutual agreement of minds. Therefore, while grace is being conferred on one having the use of reason, it is fitting that he consent to that conferral by some act of his own. — I subsume. But Adam was created

with the perfect use of reason. Therefore. 2° Because the manner of receiving grace, by freely consenting to its infusion, is nobler than that manner by which infants receive it. But nothing forbids attributing this nobler manner to the first parent, since it is common to all adults, according to this saying of the Apostle, Ⅰ Cor., XV, 10: The grace of God with me, and the excellence of the divine gift demands that it be accepted by one who enjoys free will, just as it also befits the nobility of human nature that it freely enter into friendship with God.

It cannot be objected that, if man was truly created in sanctifying grace, he could not truly have consented to its infusion, because to be precedes to act. For although the consent of free will was simultaneous in time with the infusion of grace, it can nevertheless be called a disposition toward it, insofar as nature would precede grace in the genus of material cause, but would accompany it, by way of concurrence, in the genus of efficient cause. And this very thing the Angelic Doctor teaches, hic q. 95, a. 1, ad 5. He objects to himself: « For someone to receive grace, consent is required on the part of the recipient... But consent to grace cannot belong except to one already existing. Therefore man did not receive grace in the first instant of his creation. » He answers: « Since the movement of the will is not continuous, nothing prevents the first man from having consented to grace even in the first instant of his creation. »

You will ask 2° whether Adam in the state of innocence possessed all the virtues.

I answer. Adam in the state of innocence possessed all the virtues in some manner⁸; because, as has been said, such was the rectitude of the first state, that reason was subject to God, and the lower powers to reason. But the virtues are nothing other than certain perfections by which reason is ordered to God, and the lower powers are disposed according to the rule of reason. Therefore.

It is confirmed. The first man, as we have said, was created in sanctifying grace. But sanctifying grace is the root

of all the virtues, which flow from it, as properties from an essence. Therefore.

I said in some manner, because not all the virtues were present in the first man in the same way and equally perfectly; for some were present as to habit and act, some as to habit only. The virtues that involve no imperfection, such as charity and justice, were present as to habit and act. Those that imply imperfection, but not one repugnant to the perfection of the first state, such as faith, which concerns things not seen, and hope, which concerns things not yet possessed, were likewise present as to habit and act. But those that imply an imperfection repugnant to the perfection of the first state, such as penance and mercy, were present as to habit only, and not as to act. For sin, which is the concern of penance, and another's misery, which is the concern of mercy, were repugnant to the perfection of the first state. Adam was, however, so disposed that, if he had sinned, he would have grieved, and if he had seen misery in another, he would have repelled it as far as he could; and thus penance and mercy were in him as to habit.

Here it can be inquired what the state of pure nature is; what the integrity of nature is; what the state of original justice is; whether integrity and original justice were so owed to human nature that the state of pure nature would be impossible; whether both for Adam and for the angels, besides habitual grace, actual grace efficacious of itself for perseverance was necessary. These questions will be better and more conveniently resolved in the preliminary dissertation of the treatise on Grace.]

[ I say 1°: The first man had knowledge infused by God of all things that men can naturally know; but of supernatural things he had as much knowledge as was necessary for the governance of human

life according to that state ordered to the supernatural end¹.

Proof. The first man was formed by God to be the principle of other men, not only through bodily generation, but also through instruction and governance, in an order not only natural and moral, but also supernatural, to which he had been elevated. Therefore, just as he was established in a perfect state as to the body, so that he could at once generate, so too was he established in a perfect state as to the soul, so that he could at once instruct others, govern himself and others, both in the natural and moral order and in the supernatural order to which the whole human race was elevated in Adam. — I subsume. But he could not have well instructed others, nor governed himself and others, both in the natural and moral order and in the supernatural order, unless he had had knowledge of all things, both natural and moral, that can be acquired by human study and diligence, and of those supernatural things which are necessary to be known for the supernatural end. Therefore. Hence in Eccli., XVII, 5 and 6, the Wise Man says of our first parents: The discipline of understanding filled them, he created in them the knowledge of the spirit, he filled their heart with sense, and showed them good and evil.

Hence you will infer 1° that Adam had explicit faith of the divine mysteries, and especially of the incarnation, as our Angelic Doctor teaches, 2ª 2ae, q. 7, a. 1, o: « The way for men to come to beatitude is the mystery of the incarnation and passion of Christ. For it is said, Act., IV, 12: There is no other name given to men whereby we must be saved. And therefore the mystery of Christ's incarnation had, in some manner, to be believed by all at every time, though differently according to the diversity of times and persons. For before the state of sin man had explicit faith concerning the incarnation of Christ, insofar as it was ordered to the consummation of glory, but not insofar as it

ordered to the liberation from sin through the passion and resurrection, because man was not foreknowing of sin. But he seems to have foreknown the incarnation of Christ, from the fact that he said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, as is found in Genes., II, 24. And this the Apostle, ad Ephes., V, 32, says is a great sacrament in Christ and the Church; and indeed it is not credible that the first man was ignorant of this sacrament. » Furthermore, if Adam had explicit faith of the incarnation, consequently he had the same faith of the Trinity, since the incarnation cannot be explicitly believed without explicit faith of the Trinity.

You will infer 2° that Adam's infused knowledge of natural things was of the same species as ours²; because it was infused only accidentally, since it could be acquired in a human manner. Thus the eyes which Christ gave to the man born blind were of the same species as the eyes which nature produces.

You will infer 3° that Adam was the wisest of all men, except Christ; because no one besides him was appointed teacher and governor of all men, either by himself, or through his earlier descendants, whom he himself had instructed. Therefore it was fitting that he should excel the rest of men in preeminence of knowledge.]

[I answer in the negative. The sensitive appetite in innocent Adam was so perfectly subject to reason that it was subject to no disordered motions of concupiscence.

This is of faith; for thus it was defined by the Council of Trent, sess. V, can. 5: « Concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin and inclines to sin. But if anyone shall think the contrary, let him be anathema. »

Proof, 1° from Sacred Scripture. Eccles., VII, 30: God made man right. But man would not have been right, if he had been subject to disordered motions of concupiscence. Therefore. It is said, Genes., III, 7: The eyes of them both were opened, and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves aprons; that is, they blushed, because they felt the motions of disordered concupiscence. But they experienced this shame only after sin, for before it had been said, ibid., II, 25: And they were both naked, namely Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Therefore.

Proof, 2° from the authority of St. Augustine interpreting the passage cited above, lib. XI, de Genes. ad litt., c. 1, n. 3: « They were, then, both naked. It is true; the bodies of the two people dwelling in paradise were entirely naked. Nor were they ashamed. For what should have shamed them, when they had felt no law in their members rebelling against the law of their mind? This penalty of sin followed them after the commission of the transgression, disobedience seizing upon what was forbidden, and justice punishing what was committed. Before this came about, they were naked, as has been said, and were not confounded: there was no motion in the body to which shame was owed; they thought nothing needed to be veiled, because they had felt nothing that needed to be restrained. » The other Fathers agree.

Proof, 3° from reason¹. The rectitude in which God created man consisted in this: that reason was subject to God, the lower powers to reason, and the body to the soul. But if concupiscence had held sway in the first man, order would not have been perfect in him, and he could not have been called right. Therefore.]

[I answer in the affirmative¹.

Proof from Sacred Scripture. Genes., II, 7, it is said: The Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth. There by "man" is understood Adam alone, since afterward it is said that Eve was made from one rib of Adam. Hence in Tob., VIII, 8, it is read: Thou madest Adam of the slime of the earth, and gavest him Eve for a helper. Now the slime is earth or dust mixed with water. Hence Sacred Scripture often calls man clay, as in Iob, XXXIII, 6; Is., XLV, 9 and LXIV, 8; Ierem., XVIII, 6; Eccli., XXXIII, 13 and XXXVIII, 33.

It was fitting that this should happen thus, because man, placed at the boundary of the spiritual and material order, ought to have in himself a spiritual nature in his soul, and virtually, in his body, the natures of all material beings, whose elements are contained in the earth. Thus he was made an abridged world, and just as through his soul man draws near to separate, or angelic, substances, and through them to God; so, on account of the affinity which they have with the human body, all corporeal things, which were subject to Adam's dominion, are bound back to their Creator through man.

Now the moral reason for this fact, according to St. Jerome, is that man, beholding the matter of his own body, should know that nothing is baser than it, and should cease to boast of his origin. Another reason, according to others, is that the hope of the resurrection might be confirmed, and men might be reminded that, by the same power by which God was able to form Adam's body from dust at the beginning of the world, he will be able to call forth our bodies from the dust of the grave and restore them to their pristine integrity.

You will ask, 1°, whether the human body was produced immediately by God.

I answer in the affirmative². For everything that is made by a creature is made from something pre-existing similar in species; for the thing made and the maker must be similar in species. But in the first formation of the human body, there was nothing pre-existing similar in species. Therefore.

Certain Jews and Arians were of the opinion that these words, Genes., I, 26: Let us make man to our image and likeness, were directed by God, not to the divine persons, but to the angels. But this opinion is altogether false, both because man is not said in Sacred Scripture to have been made to the image of an angel, but of God; and because God is not accustomed to say to the angels, as to associates: Let us make, but commands them, as a Lord to servants.

You will ask, 2°, in what stature Adam's body was produced.

I answer that Adam's body was produced in that stature which befits a perfect man, namely about six feet. Nor is it an obstacle that in Iosue, XIV, 15, it is said: Adam the greatest among the Enacims was laid there, from which some have said that Adam was of gigantic stature; because there the name Adam is not a proper name of the first parent, but an appellative or common name of the human species, as though it were said "a man" or "a human being" among the sons of Enac, who were giants. Add that in Sacred Scripture no mention is made of giants, except in chapter vi, 4, of Genes., after the death of Adam.

You will ask, 3°, in what physical condition Adam was produced.

I answer that he was produced such as he ought to have been in the most flourishing age, that is, most apt for all operations both of body and of mind: which commonly happens around the thirtieth year, which age is held to be perfect. The reason of fittingness is taken from this, that Christ, after the thirty-third year from his temporal birth, perfectly repaired human nature, by completing the work of our redemption. Augustine asks, lib. VI de Genes. ad litt.,

c. 13, n. 23: « How did God make him from the slime of the earth: whether suddenly in a perfect age, that is, manly and youthful, or as he still forms them now in the wombs of mothers? » He answers, ibid., c. 18, n. 29: « Adam was made, when he was formed from the slime, as is more credible, already of perfect manhood... For then it was the case, not only that it could happen thus, but even that it was necessary for him to be made thus. »]

[That someone is immortal can be understood in two ways: 1° that he cannot die; thus the angels, thus the blessed in heaven; 2° that he is able not to die. — It is certain that Adam was not immortal in the first sense, since he did die: unless it be understood in the composite sense of the state of innocence, namely that, had he persevered in it, he could not have died. The question, then, proceeds concerning immortality taken in the second sense.

This the Pelagians denied to our first parents, saying that independently of sin they were mortal, just as we now are. Against whom

I say: Our first parents were immortal in such a way that, if they had persevered in innocence, they would never have died¹.

Proof 1°. It is of faith. The Council of Milevis, can. 1, thus defines: « Whoever shall say that Adam, the first man, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die in the body, not by reason of the merit of sin but by the necessity of nature; let him be anathema. » Likewise the Council of Trent, sess. V, can. 1: « If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the command of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and incurred, through the offense of this transgression, the wrath and indignation of God, and therefore death, which

God had before threatened him with, and together with death, captivity under the power of him who thereafter held the empire of death, that is, of the devil, and that the whole Adam, through that offense of transgression, was changed for the worse as to body and soul; let him be anathema. »

Proof² 2° from that passage, Genes., II, 17: In whatsoever day thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death, that is, thou shalt be mortal. That the discourse there is about the death of the body is clear from cap. seq., 17, 19, where God, in execution of this threat, says to Adam the sinner: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat..., in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken; for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.

It is confirmed from the Apostle, who, when he had said, Rom., V, 12: By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death, and cap. VI, 23: The wages of sin is death, clearly shows that he understands this of bodily death in cap. VIII, 10, where he says: The body indeed is dead, that is, subject to death, because of sin, but the spirit liveth because of justification. And I Cor., XV, 21: By a man, he says, namely Adam, came death, and by a man, namely by Christ, the resurrection of the dead: where he plainly speaks of bodily death, which he opposes to the resurrection of bodies.

Add: Sap., I, 13, it is said: God did not make death, that is, God did not so fashion man that he would be subject to death, if he had persevered in that state in which He created him. And cap. II, 23 and 24: God created man incorruptible... but by the envy of the devil death entered into the world; that is, God created man immortal — in Greek, in incorruption — if he had not consented to the devil tempting him; for through his envy death entered into the world.

Proof 3° from the authority of the Holy Fathers. Augustine says, Epist. 157³, n. 19: « [Infants] are held bound by original sin alone, by which the kingdom of death would drag them to condemnation... Temporal death itself is also propagated from the original offense. » The same, lib. I de Peccatorum meritis et remissione, c. 2, n. 2: « If Adam had not sinned, he was not to be despoiled of the body, but to be clothed over with immortality and incorruption, so that what was mortal might be absorbed by life, that is, might pass from the animal into the spiritual. » And in the same place, c. 4, n. 4: « The body, [the Apostle] says, is dead, not because of earthly frailty, since it was made from the dust of the earth, but because of sin. What more do we seek? And most watchfully he does not say, « mortal, » but, dead. » Elsewhere he teaches the same thing many times. One should also read Athanasius, orat. Contra gentes; Jerome, in Quaest. Hebraic.; Gregory, lib. XI Moral., c. 27. In this all the rest agree.

You will ask 1° whence immortality came to the first man in the state of innocence.

It is certain that it did not come from nature or from what is intrinsic to man; for since the body of Adam was, like ours, composed of dissimilar elements, from which contrary qualities arose, which continually struggle against one another, from this struggle the dissolution of the body ought naturally to follow, as happens in the other animals, which were not endowed with immortality. It must therefore be asked what was the other cause of this immortality, besides innocence.

I answer. There were several causes concurring together for the immortality of our first parents in the state of innocence.

St. Thomas⁴ thus states the first and chief cause: « His body was not indissoluble through any vigor of immortality [naturally] existing in it; but there was in the soul a certain power, supernaturally and divinely given, by which it could preserve the body from all corruption, as long as it remained subject to God. » But the holy Doctor seems to understand by this supernaturally implanted power original justice itself. For indeed, in 1^a 2^ae, q. 85, a. 5, o, he says: « Something is per accidens the cause of another, if it is a cause removing an impediment... And in this way the sin of the first

parent is the cause of death and of all defects of this kind in human nature, insofar as by the sin of the first parent original justice was taken away, through which not only were the lower powers of the soul contained under reason without any disorder, but the whole body was contained under the soul without any defect. And therefore, this original justice having been withdrawn through the sin of the first parent, just as human nature was wounded as to the soul through the disorder of the powers, so also it was made corruptible through the disorder of the body itself. But the withdrawal of original justice has the character of a punishment, just as also the withdrawal of grace. Hence also death and all the consequent bodily defects are certain punishments of original sin, and although defects of this kind are not intended by the sinner, they are nevertheless ordained according to the justice of God who punishes. »

The second cause was the good disposition or constitution of the body, by which indeed it was not made indissoluble, but fit to be preserved from mortality by the soul, through the supernatural power implanted in the soul itself.

The third was the eating of the fruit of the tree which is called, Genes., II, 9, the tree of life in the midst of paradise: of which more shortly.

The fourth was the knowledge and prudence of innocent man.

The fifth, the singular providence of God concerning innocent man⁵.

But these last two causes chiefly regard the preservation of innocent man from violent death, that is, from external harmful things, such as fire, lightning, water, the sword, poison, and the like.

You will ask 2° how the eating of the tree of life contributed to the immortality of innocent man.

I answer. The eating of the tree contributed to the immortality of our first parents insofar as it strengthened for a time the active power of the species, or the nutritive power, lest it be weakened by the taking of extraneous food⁶. I say, for a time,

for it did not cause immortality absolutely, but only in a certain respect, because it could not confer upon the body that it could never be dissolved. For since the power of any body whatsoever is finite, this power of the tree of life was finite, nor could it give the body the power of enduring for infinite time; for the greater or lesser the power is, the greater or lesser the durability it impresses upon its effect. The tree of life, therefore, once eaten, preserved from corruption and weakness only for a determined time, at the end of which either man would have been transferred to a spiritual and eternal life, or he would have needed to eat again of the tree of life.

Hence you will gather that our first parents in the state of innocence needed food and drink⁷. This is clear from that passage, Genes., II, 16 and 17: And he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat. This hunger and thirst, however, was not tormenting, or such as to bring on distress, but was the bare appetite for necessary food and drink. Add that food is not unwelcome to one who is not hungry. But there is no doubt that food was pleasing to the first man. Therefore he hungered. — What, therefore, St. Augustine says, lib. XIV de Civit., c. 26: « Food was at hand, lest he should hunger; drink, lest he should thirst, » must be understood of tormenting hunger and thirst, that is, such as brings on distress. Hence in the same place, lib. XIII, c. 20, he says: « They were nourished by the other [trees] which they took, lest their animal bodies should feel any distress from hunger and thirst. »]

[I answer affirmatively¹.

Proof 1° from Sacred Scripture. Genes., I, 28, God said to our first parents: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth. Therefore².

If you should contend that God said this to our first parents because he had foreseen that they would sin, and that on account of sin they would be liable to death, and therefore lest, when they should die, the human race would cease, he willed, by the force of that blessing given before sin, that after sin they should devote themselves to generation, for the multiplication of men,

I answer 1° that this evasion is a mere fiction without any foundation, and this is demonstrated whether from Sacred Scripture, or from tradition, or from reason, and it is against the natural and obvious sense of Sacred Scripture. 2° God directed these same words to the brute animals, which are not capable of sin, ibid., 22. Therefore they would have been verified independently of sin.

It is confirmed. It is incredible that God created this universe and all the things that are in it for the use of only two men, and that these two alone would have completed the number of the elect for the heavenly homeland.

Proof 2° from reason³. The principal intention of universal nature is toward that which is always and perpetual; but toward the temporal it is not, except in so far as it is ordered to another thing which is perpetual; otherwise, that temporal thing being corrupted, the principal intention of universal nature would remain void and vain. But in corruptible things nothing is perpetual and always remaining, except the species; whereas incorruptible substances always remain, not only according to species, but also according to individuals. Therefore, although in incorruptible substances, not only the species, but the individuals themselves also are of the principal intention of universal nature, in corruptible things nevertheless only the good of the species, and not of the individual, is of the principal intention of universal nature, and generation is ordered to the conservation of the species. — I subsume. But man is, as it were, a mean between corruptible natures and incorruptible natures; for he consists of a body, which is corruptible, and a soul, which is incorruptible. Therefore, although on the part of the body generation belongs to him so that the good of the species may be preserved, on the part of the soul, however, it belongs that

the multitude of individuals be per se intended by universal nature, or rather by the author of nature, who alone is the creator of human souls; and consequently, that generation for the multiplication of men would have existed in the state of innocence.

It is confirmed. If in the state of innocence only the good of the species had been of the intention of nature, Adam alone, and not Eve, would have had to be created immortal, since in him alone the human species would have been sufficiently preserved.

Proof 3° from inconvenience⁴. If in the state of innocence there had not been generation for the multiplication of the human race, it follows that sin was necessary for so great a good as is the multiplication of the human race, and especially of the elect. But sin can in no way be supposed necessary. Therefore the multiplication of the human race would have existed independently of sin.]