Pars 3, Cap. 5
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-c5
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### Chapter V. *On the corruption of original sin.*

After the fall of the first parent, some things are to be said concerning the *transmission* of original sin. Concerning which, first the manner of its *corrupting* is to be considered, second the manner of its *transmission*, third the manner of its *cure*.

Now the manner in which the human race is *corrupted* through original sin is this. For everyone generated through intercourse is born by nature a *son of wrath*, because deprived of the rectitude of original justice; on account of the absence of which we incur, as regards the *soul*, a fourfold punishment, namely *weakness*, *ignorance*, *malice* and *concupiscence*; which four were inflicted on account of original sin; and these spiritual punishments are accompanied, in the *body*, by manifold penalty, manifold failing, manifold labor, manifold disease and manifold pain. Upon these punishments there follows the punishment of *death* and of *reduction to ashes*, the punishment of the *lack of the vision of God* and of the loss of heavenly glory, not only in adults, but also in little ones not baptized; who indeed, the little ones, are punished among the rest with « the mildest punishment », because they have only the punishment of *loss* without the punishment of *sense*.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: since the first principle does all things *from itself* and *according to itself* and *for the sake of itself*, it is necessary that it be best and most upright, and thereby most loving and most just; and hence it is that *all his ways are mercy and truth*, that is, judgment. But if God had *from the beginning* founded man in such great miseries, there would be neither loving-kindness nor justice — namely that so great a misery should oppress his own work, with no guilt preceding. Likewise, if he filled *us* with such great miseries, or permitted us to be filled, without guilt, the divine providence would govern us neither lovingly nor justly. If, therefore, it is most certain that the first principle is, both in *producing* and in *providing*, most upright and most clement; it is necessary that it made the human race in such wise that from the beginning there should be in it neither *guilt* nor *misery*; it is necessary also that it so *administers* that it does not permit misery to be in us except on account of some antecedent guilt. Since, therefore, it is most certain that from our origin we contract manifold misery of *punishment*; it is certain that we are all born *by nature sons of wrath*, and thereby deprived of the rectitude of original justice, which privation we call *original guilt*.

And because every *guilt* bespeaks a withdrawing from the unchangeable good and an approaching to the changeable good; and *to withdraw* from the unchangeable good is to withdraw from the highest power, truth and goodness; while *to approach* the changeable good is to tend into it by love more than is due: hence it is that he who loses original justice incurs *weakness*, *ignorance*, *malice* and *concupiscence*.

Again, because he who deserts the unchangeable good for the sake of the changeable good is made unworthy of both: hence it is that, by reason of the lack of original justice, the soul loses its temporal rest in the *body* through manifold *corruption* and *death*, and at last is separated from the vision of the eternal light, losing the *happiness of glory* both in soul and in body.

Last, because the *lack* of this justice in those being born is not through a motion of their own will nor through an actual delight; hence it is that to original sin there is not owed, after this life, the punishment of *sense* in gehenna, for the reason that the divine justice punishes not beyond what is deserved, but short of it, and that justice is always accompanied by a superabounding mercy. — This is to be believed to have been the mind of blessed Augustine, although his words outwardly, on account of his detestation of the error of the Pelagians, who conceded them some measure of happiness, seem to sound otherwise. For in order to lead them back to the middle, he inclined more abundantly to the extreme.

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