Dist. 19, Art. 2, Q. 2
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/2/d/19/q/bon-sent-II-d19-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether, with Adam sinning, his body could have been perpetuated through eating of the tree of life.*

Secondly it is asked whether, with Adam having sinned, his body could have been perpetuated through eating of the tree of life. And that it could, it seems:

*On the affirmative side.*

1. *First* by the text of Genesis third: *Now therefore lest perhaps he take from the tree of life and live for ever*; this was said of Adam after sin: therefore if after sin he had taken, he would have lived forever, and his body would have been perpetual.

2. *Likewise,* this same thing seems through Richard of Saint Victor, who says thus of Adam: *He had corruptibility before sin, corruption after sin; but in either mode he could have been sustained through eating of the tree of life.*

3. *Likewise,* this is proved by experiment. For Enoch and Elijah, as the Gloss and the authorities of the Saints say, are preserved in paradise through eating of the tree of life until the coming of antichrist; but by whatever reason they can be preserved up to that time, by the same reason also thereafter: therefore by parallel reasoning also the body of Adam.

4. *Likewise,* the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not of greater efficacy for losing the body, than the tree of life for preserving it; but through the eating of that tree man's body was made dissoluble: therefore by parallel reasoning through the eating of the other tree a corruptible body could be made solid and perpetual, just as conversely the eating of the other tree rendered a sound and solid body dissoluble and infirm.

5. *Likewise,* after sin, if the spirit of man were joined to the fount of life, it would be disposed to perpetual beatitude and immortal life: therefore if the corporeal tree of life so stood to the body for preserving it, as the spiritual tree of life stands to the spirit; it seems that if man had repented and had tasted of the tree of life, his body would have been made indissoluble.

6. *Likewise,* a man of good complexion, if he has no extrinsic impediment, can live until the consumption of the radical moisture. If therefore that moisture could be restored, his body could be preserved incorrupt in perpetuity: if therefore that tree of life, as the doctors say, had the power of restoring the radical moisture; it seems that if man had eaten of it, his body could last forever, even after the commission of fault.

*Foundations.*

**On the contrary:**
1. To the Romans sixth: *The wages of sin is death;* therefore if, after man had sinned, it was necessary that he had sinned; it was necessary that he die: therefore it was necessary that his body be dissolved: therefore it could not be perpetuated through eating of any tree.

2. *Likewise,* a sentence was given, Genesis second: *On whatever day you shall eat* etc. If therefore no created power can weaken that sentence, however much man might eat of the tree of life, it was necessary that he die and his body be dissolved. And this same thing the other text says, Genesis third: *Dust thou art, and unto dust* etc.

3. *Likewise,* man through sin was made like the senseless beasts; but if the beasts were to eat of the tree of life, their bodies would not for that reason become indissoluble: therefore if man as regards the condition of death has been made like the beasts through fault; however much he might eat of the tree of life, his body would necessarily be dissolved.

4. *Likewise,* it is no less to make the immortal from the mortal than the living from the dead; but to raise the dead is of the power of God alone and of infinite power: therefore to reduce a dissoluble body to indissoluble, this is of divine power alone: therefore if man after sin were to eat of that tree, his body would nonetheless necessarily be dissolved.

### Conclusion

> The eating of the tree of life after sin could not have rendered Adam immortal.

**I respond:** It must be said that by the same law by which divine justice does not allow the innocent to be punished and to die, it likewise does not allow evil to remain unpunished. And therefore the divine decree was, that, if man by transgressing God's command should sin and should be disobedient to his very Author, the spirit would lose dominion of the flesh; and just as the will had withdrawn from God, so the soul, unwilling, would desert the body itself, and the body, dissolved, would return to its origin whence it had been taken. And since the divine decree was inviolable, hence it is that after man had sinned, however much he might eat of the tree of life, his body would not become indissoluble, in such a way that it could escape death. — Therefore the reasons showing this are to be conceded.

*Solution of the opposites.*

**To the arguments for the affirmative:**

*To 1.* To that which is first objected to the contrary from the text, it must be said that *for ever* does not there denote interminability of life, but a certain length of life, in the way Scripture is often accustomed to speak. Although the tree of life could not perpetuate that body, it could nevertheless so aid and invigorate its nature that it would live longer.

*To 2, 3.* And through this the response is clear to the two following points, namely to the saying of Richard, and to that which is objected concerning Enoch and Elijah. For neither concludes interminability of life, but only a certain length; which, even if the tree of life could confer it upon fallen man through the power divinely bestowed upon it, it could nevertheless not preserve forever; because it could not weaken the divine decree, and the body of sinning man was not suited for this after sin, and that tree had efficacy only in that it had a disposition to its effect.

*To 4.* To that which is objected through a parallel concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it must be said that that parallel falls short in two ways. *First,* because that tree of knowledge of good and evil did not make those bodies to be dissoluble, but only man's fault and the divine sentence did. *Secondly,* because the body of Adam, before he sinned, had neither a necessity for permanence nor a necessity for corruption; but after man had sinned, his body was subjected to the necessity of dying, and therefore through eating of the tree of life it could not be preserved.

*To 5.* To that which is objected concerning the conjunction of spirit to the fount of spiritual life etc., it must be said that that parallel falls short in two ways. *First* indeed, because the will is turned and turned back more easily than nature. *Secondly* however, because the fount of spiritual life is much more powerful over the soul, than that tree would be over the body; and therefore it does not follow, that if the divine Spirit recreates and vivifies the soul, that the tree of life should reform and consolidate the body to its pristine state.

*To 6.* To that which is objected, that the tree of life would restore the radical moisture; it must be said that even if through its eating it would sufficiently restore the moisture in man's body according to the state of *instituted* nature, never however in the state of *fallen* nature would it so restore it, that there would not always be some loss; and so, although it would preserve it longer, nonetheless at some time that radical moisture would fail, and the body would come to dissolution.

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