Pars 3, Cap. 3
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/5/d/3/q/bon-brev-p3-c3
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### Chapter III. *On the transgression of the first parents.*

Concerning the *guilt* of the first parents, however, these things are to be held: that the woman, consenting to the diabolical temptation, desired *knowledge* and *excellence* after the manner of God, and desired nonetheless to experience the *sweetness of the* forbidden *tree*; and at last fell into the *transgression* of the precept. — Nor content with this, by offering the fruit of the forbidden tree she led on the man, who, unwilling to sadden his own delights, did not rebuke the woman but rather gave consent to her who was persuading him to evil; and by tasting the apple offered him, became a transgressor of the divine command.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: since, when from the first principle, as was said above, there had been given to man a twofold *sense* and *appetite* in respect of a twofold *book* and in respect of a twofold *good*, so that according to the freedom of choice man might be able to turn to either; the woman, having heard the outward suggestion of the serpent, did not have recourse to the *inner* book, which offers itself legible to the right judgment of reason; but held her *sense* about the *outer* book and began to traffic about the *outward good*. And because her *sense* did not attain to the infallible truth, her *appetite* began to be turned to the changeable good. She *desired*, therefore, what the devil promised, and therefore consented, so as to do what he suggested.

Desiring, then, excellent *knowledge*, she was raised up into *pride*, and being raised up into *pride*, by that very fact she was enticed to *gluttony*; and thereby, in the third place, she was laid low through *disobedience*. The first was in the *mind*, the second in the *sensuality*, the third in the *deed*. — And just as the *temptation*, beginning from the lower, arrived as far as the highest, because from the hearing it came through the appetite to consent; so conversely the *disordering*, beginning from the higher, arrived as far as the lowest and made one consummated sin, which in human nature is the beginning of every sin and the origin of evils.

For the woman, enticed, enticed the man, who likewise, turned to the *outer book* and to the *changeable good*, valuing too much the woman's companionship and the solace of her society, willed neither to *rebuke* the woman nor to *sadden* his own delights. And since he ought to have *rebuked* her and did not rebuke her, on that account the woman's sin is imputed to him. But because he was unwilling to *sadden* his delights by driving the woman from himself, he began to love himself too much, and thereby, withdrawing from the divine friendship, fell into *gluttony* and *disobedience*.

The transgression of the precept was therefore common to both, though from one cause and another, since it was not the man but the *woman* who *was seduced*; yet in both, namely in the man and in the woman, there was a disordering from the highest as far as the lowest, because first in the *mind* or in reason, then in the *sensuality*, and last in the *deed*. For therefore each was laid low through *disobedience* and enticed through *gluttony*, because each was raised up into *pride* — the woman indeed by desiring and courting what she had not yet received, the man by loving and valuing too much what he already had; whence the woman by eating believed she would be exalted, but Adam, reckoning himself something great and dear to God, believed he would be punished less gravely. For he had not yet experienced the rigor of the divine severity. — And thus each of them, while inordinately raising himself *above himself*, fell miserably *below himself*, from the state of innocence and grace to the state of guilt and misery.

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