Dist. 31, Art. 2, Q. 1
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/31/q/bon-sent-II-d31-a2-q1
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## Article II.
### *Whether original [sin] is transmitted by means of the flesh.*

Next we must proceed to the second principal [question], namely that in which it was asked whether original [sin] is transmitted by means of the flesh. And concerning this three [questions] are asked.

First it is asked whether the soul can be infected by the flesh.

Second it is asked whether this comes about from some will and appetite of the soul.

Third it is asked whether such infection comes about from propagation, or from lust.

### Question I.
### *Whether the soul can be infected by the flesh.*

Concerning the first we proceed thus, and it is asked whether the soul is infected by the flesh. And that it is, seems [to be the case]:

1. *First*, by the authority of the Apostle to the Romans, chapter seven: *I know that there does not dwell in me, that is in my flesh, anything good*; there the Gloss [says]: "Corruption, by the condition of the offense, remains in the body, retaining the force of the divine sentence given in Adam, by whose fellowship the soul is stained with sin." From this it is expressly gathered that the flesh infects the spirit.

2. *Likewise*, Augustine *On the Words of the Apostle*: "The vice of concupiscence is that which the soul has drawn out of the flesh."

3. *Likewise*, this same thing seems [to follow] *by reason*. Original sin is in man from the fact that it is transmitted from the first parent, in whom all his descendants are said to have sinned; but a son is not said to be born of a father except only by reason of the flesh, which he draws from him: therefore if the soul becomes a sinner, this is from the corruption of the flesh.

4. *Likewise*, no property is transmitted from one to another except by means of some conveying substance which is common to both; but no substance is common to father and offspring except the substance of the flesh alone: therefore it is impossible that the sin of the father descend into the soul of the son, except by means of the flesh.

5. *Likewise*, a bad disposition existing in the body can induce forgetfulness in the memory and dementia in the understanding: therefore by parity of reasoning it can induce concupiscence in the will; but concupiscence in the soul is original sin, as was shown above: therefore the flesh can make the soul a sinner.

6. *Likewise*, the soul joined to passible flesh becomes passible and suffering: therefore by parity of reasoning, joined to infected and lascivious flesh it is stained and becomes concupiscent: if then concupiscence is sin, the point is clear, etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Anselm *On the Virginal Conception*, chapter seven: "There is no more fault in the seed than there is in spittle or blood, if someone with an evil will spits, or emits something from his blood":

therefore, if nothing can give to another what it does not have, it seems that the flesh cannot infect the soul.

2. *Likewise*, Augustine in the sixth [book] of *Music*: "Every agent is more excellent than what it acts upon, and the efficient [more excellent] than the matter"; but the soul is more excellent than the flesh: therefore in no way can the flesh act upon the soul, therefore neither can it infect it.

3. *Likewise*, as the Philosopher holds, "it is necessary that the agent and the patient share in matter"; but the flesh and the soul do not share in matter: therefore the flesh cannot act upon the soul, therefore neither can it corrupt it.

4. *Likewise*, the soul is much more spiritual than a ray [of light]; but a ray, from its conjunction to unclean bodies, is not infected: therefore neither is the soul, from its conjunction to infected flesh, able to be infected.

5. *Likewise*, no corruption is greater in the effect than it is in the cause; but the corruption which is in the flesh is not a culpable corruption, "since fault, as Anselm says, is in the will alone": if then the least fault is worse than any punishment whatsoever and has more of the character of evil, as Augustine says in the *Sermon on the Innocents*; therefore from the penal infection of the flesh it is impossible for fault to be generated in the soul.

6. *Likewise*, the corruption which is in the flesh is either punishment or fault. Not fault; this is established. If punishment: then it is just; but nothing just is the cause of the unjust insofar as it is such: therefore the corruption which is in the flesh, since it is punishment, cannot be the principle of infecting the soul with fault.

### Conclusion.

> *The soul contracts original sin by means of the flesh.*

**I respond:** It must be said that without doubt, as the Saints say and the doctors hold, that the soul contracts original sin by means of the flesh. — But as to how this may be understood, various [authors] strive [to explain it] in various ways.

For some say that from this very fact, that the soul is united to mortal and passible flesh which it cannot govern, it becomes concupiscent; and so it contracts the stain of original fault, because the concupiscence itself, or the necessity of concupiscence, renders the soul perverse. And since mortal flesh is propagated from mortal flesh, and mortality was in the flesh of the first parent on account of the sin of disobedience; hence it is that original sin is said to pass into us from the first parent. And this they draw from the very words of Hugh, who says in the seventh part, first distinction of his book, where he speaks thus: "Because the flesh has been struck with mortality, dissolved by the very infirmity of its languor, it extends its desires beyond the measure of the first disposition." "Because, therefore, human flesh is sown by the parents with mortality, in this very fact that, sown, it lies subject to mortality, afterward being vivified, it is found subjected to the necessity of carnal concupiscence; whence the very infirmity of mortality is the cause which the concupiscent necessity follows." Thus far the words of Hugh, which seem to say that which was said before. — But since in Christ there was the infirmity of mortality, and yet there was not in him concupiscence or original fault; this does not seem to satisfy fully, nor to assign the whole cause why the flesh infects the soul. For suppose that some body were purified from the fomes, mortality nevertheless remaining, as was the case in the Blessed Virgin; if a soul were joined to such a body, it does not seem that it would contract original [sin], although that body be passible and mortal.

And therefore others wished to say otherwise, that since original sin is not a positive thing or some essence, but rather a privation and a lack of justice; the soul does not contract it from the flesh in such a way that the flesh acts upon or influences the soul in some way, but because it offers an obstacle to the soul itself, by reason of which the soul is deprived of its due justice, and, deprived of that justice, is borne downward by the impulse of concupiscence, since it has no restraint; and thus concupiscence follows from the lack of due justice, and thus the lack of due justice precedes the concupiscence itself by nature. Now the flesh offers to the soul itself an obstacle or stumbling-block, so that it does not have that justice, from the fact that it has been propagated from the first parent. Hence from the conjunction of the soul to such flesh the one who is born is called a son of Adam; and because Adam offended God not only for himself, but also in his whole posterity: hence it is that the soul, by this very fact, that it is joined to such flesh and belongs to the race of Adam, becomes unworthy that God should bestow justice upon it; and since it ought to have it and does not have it, it is culpable and guilty, and consequently becomes concupiscent and vain, just as a paralytic hand, from the dissolution of the governing power, becomes

trembling. And this seems to be drawn from the words of Anselm *On the Virginal Conception*, chapter five, where he says: "Such a thing is not injustice, by which the soul is infected and corrupted, as a body by poison, and which does something, as it seems, when a malicious man does evil works. For just as, when an untamed beast, its bonds broken, rages running about, and a ship, if the helmsman, having let go the rudder, abandons it to the winds and motions of the sea, wanders and is borne into any perils whatever, we say that absence of the chain or rudder does this, not that the absence of these is something: so when the evil man rages, we cry out that injustice is at work, not that it is itself any essence." And again, below, chapter twenty-three: "The person despoiled the nature of the good of justice in Adam, and the nature, made destitute, makes all the persons whom it procreates from itself sinners and unjust by the same destitution. In this way the personal sin of Adam passes into all who are personally propagated from him." From these words it seems that the understanding which was stated before can be gathered. — But nevertheless this still does not seem to satisfy the understanding fully, because, suppose that that soul which is created in the body were created outside the body, and nothing more were given to it than is given when it is infused into the body; it would not be said to have original sin, but rather would be pure and innocent; therefore one must understand that in some way the corruption redounds into the soul from the flesh.

And on account of this there is a third mode of understanding, that in the flesh of Adam, on account of sin, there was a twofold corruption. One, namely, of pure penality; and from this the soul, when it is joined to the body, contracts passibility. But the other was a corruption of viciousness or foulness, through which the flesh is rebellious to the spirit; and from this the soul contracts original fault, since such viciousness holds, as it were, a middle [position] between fault and punishment. And this is what the Master says in the text, and what the words of Sacred Scripture sound forth, that from the fervor of the coitus of the parents and from libidinous concupiscence the flesh contracts a certain foulness when it is conceived, which is the cause of original sin, and can rightly be called the vice or corruption of the flesh.

Now in order to understand how the soul can be infected with a culpable corruption from such foulness, these three [things] must be supposed as manifest: of which one is that the foulness of the flesh can make the flesh rebellious to the spirit; which was evident in Adam, who after sin felt the rebellion of his flesh. The second is that the soul, united to the flesh, on account of its conjunction to the flesh, either draws it upward, or is drawn downward by it, on account of the bond which the flesh has to the soul. The third is that the soul cannot by its own power govern the rebellious flesh, unless it is helped by divine grace, according to which the Apostle cries out: *Unhappy man that I am*, etc. — From these three suppositions, therefore, it necessarily follows that if the soul is united to such flesh, [it follows] that it is drawn *downward* by it and is *bent* by concupiscence. But for *the soul to be bent* is nothing other than *for it to be perverted*; and perversity in a rational substance, which is capable of justice, is nothing other than injustice and fault. From this, therefore, it is clear that the foulness which is in the flesh can make the soul united to it a sinner. And because this foulness is transmitted from the first parent into all his descendants begotten according to the law of propagation; hence it is that by means of the flesh it transmits original [sin] to all.

But this is better explained through the evidence of examples. For we see that the flesh of itself does not suffer, nor is there in it a passion of pain before the coming of the soul, although there can be a cut in it. Suppose then that the soul is united to cut and wounded flesh: immediately, when it is united to it, it has pain; and we say that the pain is generated in the soul, not the cut. If then a cut of the flesh can make the soul suffer, why does not likewise a certain foulness and dissolution of the flesh make the soul lascivious and concupiscent, as long as it dwells in the flesh? — *Likewise*, suppose that some body were unfit for the use of reason, as is a body in that disposition which the frenzied and the furious have; in such a body there is said to be neither fury nor ignorance, but a certain bad disposition. If, however, a soul were infused into such a body, it would immediately become ignorant and furious, as long as it were in that flesh. Why can we not understand it likewise also in the case of concupiscence? — *Again*, suppose that some member were formed unfit and unsuited for the motion and governance of the soul, namely in that complexion which a paralytic member has; immediately, when the motive power were united to that member, it would be said that the disease of paralysis is there, and there would be a dissolution of the power and consequently trembling. But the dissolution of the power would not be with respect to the corruption of the motive power itself in itself, but with respect to the unfitness of the organ, which ought to be governed by that power. — So also in the matter at hand it must be understood that

in the body, before the coming of the soul, there is not actually the disease of fault; but once the soul is joined, which ought to govern the body itself, on account of the unfitness of the flesh the soul lacks the rectitude of the governing power, and, lacking that, it becomes trembling through the act of concupiscence. — And so it is clear that it is highly probable that original [sin] can be contracted in the soul from the flesh.

Now for the dissolution of the objections it must be noted beforehand that something is said to act upon another in three ways: in one way by *predominance*, as a contrary acts upon its contrary; in another way by *influence*, as a higher body acts upon these lower [things]; in a third way by *binding-together*, as when two [things] are so united that one draws the other to itself and communicates its properties to the other. When therefore we say that *the flesh infects the soul*, this is understood with respect to the third mode of acting, namely on account of the *binding-together* which it has to the soul, on account of which, while it tends downward, it draws [the soul] along with it; for as Gregory says, that "he who leans on one who is falling, must needs fall with the one falling." These things seen, those things which were objected are clear.

1. To that which Anselm says, that sin is not in the seed; it must be said that he says this with respect to the actual existence of the sin itself, which indeed is a deformity regarding the will itself as its proper subject; but he does not wish to deny that there is there the *cause* of sin, rather he asserts it, as is clear from his subsequent words.

2. To that of Augustine, that every agent is more excellent than what it acts upon; it must be said that he understands it of an agent acting by *influence*; but in this mode, in the contraction of original [sin], we do not say that the flesh acts upon the soul, as was said before.

3. To that of the Philosopher, that agent and patient must share in matter; it must be said that he understands it of the action by which a contrary acts upon a contrary by *predominance*.

4. To that which is objected, that the soul is much more spiritual than a ray; it must be said that, although it is more spiritual, nevertheless it is more bound to the flesh than a ray is to the air or to an illuminated body; therefore it contracts its properties, whether of *passibility* or of *foulness*, more than a ray contracts the properties of the illuminable [body].

5. To that which is objected, that there is not greater corruption in the effect than in the cause; it must be said that this fails in two ways. First, when something is not related in the character of a perfect causality, but only in the character of an instrument and conveyor. For if we wished to compare the corruption of the soul of an infant to the first cause, namely the soul of Adam, [a corruption] equally great or greater would be found in Adam. — It also fails on this account, that the magnitude of the corruption is frequently intensified by the nobility and dignity of the corruptible, since the vice is so much the greater, and the corruption the worse, the more excellent the nature, as Augustine says; and hence it is that, when the soul is corrupted by the flesh, the corruption is greater in it than it was in the flesh; and this is by reason of the nobility of the subject.

6. To that which is objected, that punishment is not the cause of fault; it must be said that this is true of that which is purely punishment. But such a vicious corruption in Adam followed from fault, because from the fact that he sinned, his flesh was dissolved, not only by a dissolution ordaining [him] to death, but also by one causing rebellion and causing [him] to desire what is not licit; and therefore, because such viciousness is both from fault and toward fault, it can in a certain way cause sin in the soul. But it does this not by imparting something to the soul itself, but rather by rebelling, and therefore by withdrawing. — And in this way the Master understood the soul to be infected by the flesh, and he drew this from the words of Augustine; and with these words the words of Anselm agree. For Anselm does not wish to say that the lack of due justice precedes the necessity of concupiscence, since on the contrary it is so in the natural order; for by this very fact the soul is deprived of that justice, by which it has the necessity of concupiscence from the conjoined flesh; but he understands this with respect to the act of concupiscence. Likewise the words of Hugh are not to be understood [to mean] that the flesh infects the soul only by reason of passibility, but also by reason of the adjoined foulness and viciousness, which the very corruption — which is felt in the act of the generative power, and resides principally in those members — manifests to be in the seed, although all the other [members] are just as passible as those.