Dist. 30
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/30/q/bon-sent-II-d30-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXX.

#### Cap. I.

#### *That through Adam sin and punishment pass into posterity.*

In what precedes it has been intimated — though in part, for we are not perfectly sufficient to expound it — in what way the first man sinned, and what punishment he underwent for the sin; to which must be added that sin together with punishment passed through him into posterity, as the Apostle shows, saying: *As by one man sin entered into this world, so death passed upon all men.*

#### Cap. II.

#### *Whether that sin which passes was original or actual.*

Here first it must be seen what that sin was, namely original or actual; and if it is understood of original sin, then consequently it must be diligently investigated what original sin is, and why it is called original, and how it has passed or passes into all.

#### Cap. III.

#### *Some think it was actual.*

To some it seemed good to take this of the actual sin of Adam, asserting that the Apostle meant this when he says below: *As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners,* and so forth. Evidently, they say, the Apostle expresses even by the very name the sin which entered *into the world through one man,* namely disobedience. But disobedience is an actual sin.

#### Cap. IV.

#### *How they assign that it entered into the world.*

But they say it entered into the world not by the traduction of origin, but by the likeness of transgression; and that all sinned in that one man, because to all that one man stood forth as an example of sinning. — Certain heretics judged ill of this, who were called Pelagians, concerning whom Augustine in the book on the Baptism of Little Children records, saying: « It must be known that certain heretics, who were named Pelagians, said that the sin of the first transgression passed into other men not by propagation, but by imitation. Hence also in little children they refuse to believe that original sin is loosed through baptism, which they contend is in those being born nothing at all. But it is said to them that, if the Apostle had wished sin to be understood of imitation, not of propagation, he would have called its prince not Adam, but the devil. Concerning whom in the book of Wisdom it is said: *By the envy of the devil death entered into the world.* And because he does not wish it to be understood that this came about by propagation, but by imitation, Scripture immediately added: *But they that are on his side imitate him.* They indeed imitate Adam, as many as by disobedience transgress the commandment of God; but one thing is that which is an *example* to those sinning by will, another that which is an *origin* to those being born with sin ». It is therefore not to be taken that Adam's sin passed into all by the example of imitation alone, but by the vice of propagation and origin.

#### Cap. V.

#### *That there truly was an original sin, which passes into posterity.*

And that sin is original, as Augustine openly testifies, which through Adam passed into all who were begotten concupiscibly through his vitiated flesh.

#### Cap. VI.

#### *What original sin is.*

Which must be diligently investigated, *what* it is. For concerning this the holy doctors have spoken somewhat obscurely, and the scholastic doctors have held various opinions. — For some think that original sin is the *guilt of punishment* (reatus poenae) for the sin of the first man, that is, a debt or liability whereby we are liable and bound to temporal and eternal punishment for the actual sin of the first man: because for that sin, as they say, eternal punishment is owed to all, unless they are freed through grace. — According to their opinion it must be said that original sin is neither *fault* (culpa) nor punishment. That it is not fault they themselves confess; and punishment, according to them, it cannot be, because, if original sin is a *debt of punishment,* since a *debt of punishment* is not a *punishment,* neither is original sin a *punishment.* Which some of them also admit, saying that in Scripture original sin is often named *guilt* (reatus), and there they understand *guilt,* as has been said, to be the liability to punishment; and for that reason they assert that original sin is said to be in little children, because little children for that first sin *are liable to punishment;* just as for the sin of a wicked parent the children are sometimes banished according to the justice of the court.

#### Cap. VII.

#### *That original sin is fault (culpa).*

But that original sin is *fault* is taught by many testimonies of the Saints. On Exodus, where it is said: *The firstborn of an ass thou shalt change for a sheep,* Gregory says: « We are all born in sins, and conceived of the delight of the flesh, we have contracted original guilt, whence also by our own will we are entangled in sins ». — Behold! he says that we *draw original guilt;* whence it is clear that original sin is fault. Augustine also in the book on Nature and Grace says of this same matter thus: « All, as the Apostle says, *have sinned,* either indeed in themselves, or in Adam, because they are not without sin, either because they drew it originally, or because they added it by evil habits ». « For the sin of the first man harmed not only himself, but the whole human race, because from him we received at once both damnation and fault ». The same on the fiftieth Psalm: « That which is sown from the dead body is born with the bond of original sin and of death ». « Therefore David says that he was conceived in iniquities for this reason, because in all men iniquity is drawn from Adam, and the bond of death; for no one is born except drawing *punishment* and the *desert of punishment.* But the *desert of punishment* is sin. Everyone therefore who is born through the concupiscence of the flesh draws sin. And so original sin is *fault,* which all who are conceived concupiscibly draw ». Whence in the Ecclesiastical Dogmas it is written: « Most firmly hold and in no way doubt that every man who is conceived by the intercourse of man and woman is born with original sin, subject to impiety and subject to death, and on this account *is born a child of wrath,* from which no one is freed except through faith in the *Mediator of God and men* ». — By these and other authorities it is evidently shown that original sin is *fault* and is drawn from their parents by all who are begotten concupiscibly.

#### Cap. VIII.

#### *That original sin is called the fomes of sin, that is, concupiscence.*

Now it remains to see what original sin itself is, which, since it is not *actual,* is not an *act* or *motion* of the soul or of the body. For if it is an *act* of the soul or of the body, it is indeed *actual* sin; but it is not *actual:* therefore it is not an *act* or *motion.* What then is original sin called? The *fomes of sin,* namely concupiscence or concupiscibility, which is called the law of the members, or the languor of nature, or the *tyrant* which is in our members, or the *law of the flesh.* Whence Augustine in the book on the Baptism of Little Children: « There is in us a concupiscence which is not to be permitted to reign. And there are its *desires,* which are the actual concupiscences, which are the arms of the devil, which come from the *languor of nature* ». « But that languor is a *tyrant,* who stirs up evil desires. If therefore you wish to be a victor over the tyrant and to find the enemy unarmed, do not obey the evil concupiscence ». — By these words it is sufficiently shown that the *fomes of sin* is concupiscence.

#### Cap. IX.

#### *What is understood by the name of concupiscence, which is the fomes of sin.*

But by the name of *concupiscence* he signified not the act of coveting, but the first vice, when he called it the *law of the flesh.* Whence the same in the treatise on the Words of the Apostle says: « Always there is a battle in the body of this death, because that very concupiscence, with which we are born, cannot be finished while we live; it can daily be diminished, it cannot be finished ». But what is the concupiscence with which we are born? It is indeed a vice, which makes the little child fit to covet, and makes the adult also coveting. « For just as in the eye of one blind in the night there is the vice of blindness, but it does not appear, nor is it discerned between the seeing and the blind, except when the light comes; so in the child the vice does not appear to be there, until a more advanced time of age comes ».

#### Cap. X.

#### *That through Adam original sin entered into all, that is, concupiscence.*

From these things it is given to understand what original sin is, namely the vice of concupiscence, which through Adam entered into all who are born concupiscibly and vitiated them. Whence Augustine in the book on the Baptism of Little Children: « Adam, besides the example of imitation, by the hidden infection also of his carnal concupiscence corrupted in himself all who were to come from his stock. Whence the Apostle rightly says: *In whom all have sinned.* Circumspectly and without ambiguity the Apostle says this; for whether it be understood *in whom* (in what man), or *in what sin,* it is sound ». « For in Adam all sinned as in matter, not only by his example, as the Pelagians say. For all were that one man, that is, in him they were materially ». « It is manifest therefore that all sinned in Adam

as it were in the mass. For he himself, corrupted through sin, those whom he begot, all were born under sin; from him therefore all were constituted sinners ». So too in that one *sin,* which entered into the world, all are rightly said to have sinned; because, just as from that one man, so from the same one sin they cannot be immune, unless they are absolved from its guilt through the baptism of Christ. « There are therefore proper sins, in which those alone sin whose sins they are; and there is this one, in which all have sinned, that is, from which all were constituted sinners ».

#### Cap. XI.

#### *Whether there is an original sin, in which all have sinned.*

This is original sin, with which all who are begotten concupiscibly are born sinners, which emanated from Adam, or from his disobedience, and migrated into posterity. Whence the Apostle consequently says that *by the disobedience of one man many were constituted sinners,* which is an actual sin. But since he said *that by one man sin entered into the world,* and that in him all sinned, this is what must be taken of original sin.

#### Cap. XII.

#### *In what sense it was said that by the disobedience of one many were constituted sinners.*

What therefore he says: *By the disobedience of one many were constituted sinners,* is to be understood as said in this sense, that from the disobedience of Adam, namely from the *actual* sin of Adam, proceeded *original* sin, with which all are born sinners, so that it might be both in him and pass into all.

#### Cap. XIII.

#### *That original sin was in Adam and is in us.*

Whence Augustine, answering Julian the heretic, who contended that there is no sin in little children, openly asserts that original sin proceeded from the will of Adam and entered into the world through his disobedience. For Julian asks: By what is sin found in the little child, saying thus: « He who is born does not sin, he who begot does not sin, he who created does not sin. By what crevices then, among so many safeguards of innocence, do you imagine sin to have entered? And the sacred Page answers: *By one man sin entered into the world;* by the disobedience of one, says the Apostle. What does he ask further, what does he ask more plainly? Likewise Julian says: If through man sin entered into the world, sin is either of the *will* or of *nature.* If it is of the *will,* the will which makes the sin is evil; but if it is of *nature,* nature is evil. To whom I respond: Sin is of the *will.* He asks perhaps whether original sin is of the will. I respond that original sin too is wholly of the will, because it was sown from the will of the first man, so that it might be in him and pass into all ».

« But to this which we have said, that all men were in Adam, certain *followers of words* object, saying: Not all the flesh which was traduced from Adam could exist in him at the same time; because it is of much greater quantity than was the body of Adam, in which there were not even so many atoms as men descended from him. Wherefore they assert that it is not true that the substance of each one was in the first parent ».

#### Cap. XIV.

#### *How all are said to have been in Adam when he sinned, and to have descended from him.*

To whom it can be answered that *materially* and *causally,* not *formally,* everything which is naturally in human bodies is said to have been in the first man, and descended from the first parent by the law of propagation, and was increased and multiplied in itself, with no exterior substance passing into it, and it itself shall rise again in the future. It indeed *has nourishment* (fomentum) from foods, but foods *are not converted* into the human substance, which namely descends through propagation from Adam. For Adam transmitted a little something of his substance into the bodies of his children, when he begot them, that is, some little something was divided from the mass of his substance, and from it was formed the body of the child, and was increased by its own multiplication without the addition of any extrinsic thing; and from that thing so increased something is thence separated, whence the bodies of posterity are formed; and so the order of procreation proceeds by the law of propagation up to the end of the human race. And so to those understanding diligently and clearly it is plain that all, according to their bodies, were in Adam by *seminal reason* and descended from him by the law of propagation.

#### Cap. XV.

#### *That nothing extrinsic is converted into the human substance, which is from Adam.*

But that nothing extrinsic passes into the nature of the human body, *Truth* in the Gospel signifies, saying: *Everything that enters into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the privy.* « Which also can be shown by reason

in this way: a child who dies immediately after birth will rise again in that stature which he would have had if he had lived up to the age of thirty years, hindered by no defect of body. Whence then will that substance, which was so small when it died, be so great in the resurrection, except by its multiplication in itself? Whence it appears that even if he had lived, that substance would be increased not from elsewhere, but in itself; just as the rib, from which the woman was made, and just as the evangelical loaves. Yet we do not deny that foods and humors pass into *flesh and blood,* but not into the *truth of human nature,* which descends from the first parents, which alone will be in the resurrection; but the remaining flesh, into which foods pass, will be laid aside in the resurrection as superfluous »; which nevertheless coalesces by the nourishments of foods and other things.

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