Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

[I say: The first punishment of the sin of the first parents, common to both, imposed of itself and directly by God, is the loss of original justice and of the supernatural gifts annexed to it¹.

Proof. To man, in his first institution, this benefit had been divinely bestowed: that as long as his mind was subject to God — a subjection it had through sanctifying grace — all the lower powers of the soul were subjected to reason, and the body to the soul, and in this consisted original justice. Therefore, when man lost grace through sin, his mind

withdrew from divine subjection, and from this it followed that neither were the lower powers any longer wholly subjected to reason, nor the body to the soul; and hence the necessity of dying, bodily defects, and all the penalties of this life, which are called the punishments of the first sin. And these man suffered immediately after sin.

The second punishment, likewise common to each parent, is death², according to that word of God to Adam, Genes., II, 17: In what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. And this is evident, although death was of itself natural. For the privation, on account of guilt, of a benefit received is a punishment. But the first parents had been endowed with immortality by a mere benefit of the Creator, as we proved before. Therefore death is a punishment, or at least a penalty, of sin, which comes to the same thing. Hence the Apostle, Rom., V, 12: Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all sinned.

The first punishment proper to the woman is set forth in these words, Genes., III, 16: I will multiply thy sorrows and thy conceptions³. Understand a multiplication of conceptions, not as to the substance and conception of offspring — for this would have occurred even in the state of innocence — but on account of the multitude of afflictions which the woman suffers from the fact that she carries the conceived offspring in her womb. In this way women who cultivate virginity, or who are sterile, are also subject to this punishment, at least in part, on account of the condition proper to their own sex. Add that sterility in married women is a punishment equivalent to the inconveniences of conception.

The second punishment of the woman is thus declared, ibid.: In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. For in the state of innocence women would have given birth without pain.

The third punishment of the woman is thus set forth, ibid.: Thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee. In the state of innocence the woman was indeed subject to the man, but this subjection was pleasing and

free, because the woman desired nothing but just and reasonable things, and the man's authority was not despotic, but tempered by love. But now this order is often disturbed, on account of inordinate concupiscence on both sides, whence arise untimely desires in the wife and excessive domination in the husband, and consequently dissensions which disturb peace and provoke violence.

The punishment proper to man is contained in these words, ibid., 17-19: Cursed is the earth in thy work. In labours shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the earth from which thou wast taken. Here it is to be observed: 1° The earth is called cursed, not because it was changed, but because that which before, blessed by God, was bound to produce everything for man after light and pleasant labor, now, left to its native barrenness, brings forth nothing except when tilled with the heaviest labors. 2° Before sin it would have sprouted thorns and thistles, but not to thee, that is, hostile to man. 3° Man must eat bread in the sweat of his face. By bread is understood whatever food, and generally all things necessary or useful for life, which can be procured only by great and hard labor. And this is found in the conditions of every kind, because, as it is said, Iob, V, 7, man is born unto labor.]