Pars 3, Cap. 6
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-c6
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### Chapter VI. *On the transmission of original sin.*

Now the manner of the *transmission* of original sin is this: that although the *soul* is not from the seed, nevertheless the original *guilt* passes from the soul of Adam to the souls of his posterity, by the mediation of the flesh generated through concupiscence — in such wise that, just as the flesh of Adam was infected by the sinning soul and made prone to lust, so, being sown through lust and drawing along with itself the vicious infection, it infects and vitiates the soul; which infection indeed is in the soul not only a *punishment*, but also a *guilt*. And thus the person corrupts the nature, and the corrupted nature corrupts the person, the divine justice being in all things preserved intact, to which the infection of the soul can in no way be imputed, although it pours the soul in by creating it, and by pouring it in unites it with the infected flesh.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: since the first principle made man to its own image for the sake of the expression of itself, it so founded him on the side of the *body* that all men should be propagated from the first man as from one radical principle; and so on the side of the *soul* that, on account of the express likeness — both in being and enduring and in understanding and loving — all rational spirits should emanate immediately from God himself as from the first and immediate principle. And since the *spirit*, as the more excellent, comes nearer to the first principle, God so founded man that the spirit should preside over the body, and the body be subject to the created spirit, so long as that spirit obeyed the uncreated Spirit; and conversely, that if the spirit did not obey God, by the just judgment of God his own *body* should begin to rebel against him — which also came to pass when Adam sinned.

Just as, therefore, if Adam had stood, his body would have been obedient to the spirit, and he would have transmitted it such to his posterity, and God would have poured a soul into it, so that, united to a body immortal and obedient to itself, it would have had the order of justice and immunity from every punishment: so, from the time that Adam sinned and the flesh was made rebellious to the spirit, it must be that he transmits it such to his posterity, and that God pours in the soul according to the primary institution; but the soul, when it is united to the rebellious flesh, incurs the defect of the natural order of justice, by which it ought to command all lower things. And because the soul is united to the flesh, it must be either that it draws the flesh, or that it is drawn by it; and because it cannot draw it, as being rebellious, it is necessary that it be drawn by it and incur the *disease of concupiscence*. And thus it incurs at once the *lack* of the justice owed and the *disease of concupiscence*; out of which two, as out of an aversion and a conversion, original sin is said to be *made up*, according to Augustine and Anselm.

Since, therefore, it was most orderly that human nature should be so *founded*, and that, once founded, it should be so *propagated*, and that, sinning, it should be so *punished*, as was said before — in such wise that in its *founding* the order of wisdom is kept; in its *propagation*, the order of nature; in its *punishment*, the order of justice — it is clear that it is not against the divine justice if guilt is transmitted to posterity.

Again, because the original *guilt* could not be poured into the soul unless the *punishment* of rebellion in the flesh preceded; and there would be no *punishment* unless guilt had gone before; and the *guilt* proceeded not from an ordered will, but from a disordered one, and thereby not from the divine will, but from the human: it is clear, therefore, that the transmission of original sin is from the *sin* of the first man, not from God, not from the nature as founded, but from the vice committed. And thus that is true which Augustine says, that « propagation does not transmit original sin to posterity, but lust does ».

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