Dist. 33, Art. 1, 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/33/q/bon-sent-II-d33-a1-q1
----------------------------------------
### ARTICLE I.
### *On the original [sin] as to its preceding cause.*

### QUESTION I.
### *Whether the sins of proximate parents are imputed to children or transmitted to them.*

Concerning the first point one proceeds thus and it is asked, whether the sins of proximate parents are imputed to children or transmitted to them. And that they are, it seems:

1. First, *by authority*, Exodus, twentieth [chapter]: *I am a jealous God, avenging the sins of the fathers upon the sons* etc.: if therefore God does not avenge except for guilt, and God's vengeance passes from the father into the son, by parity of reasoning it seems that the guilt [does so too].

2. Likewise, this seems [to follow] *by example*, third [book] of Kings, fourteenth [chapter]: *I will bring evil upon Jeroboam and upon his whole house*; and there it is recorded how the whole posterity was consumed on account of the father's sin: therefore it seems that the sins of proximate parents are imputed to children.

3. Likewise, this seems [to follow] *by reason*. « Among things having a common bond the passing-over is easier »; but greater is the common bond and the affinity of the proximate parent to the offspring than of the remote parent: if therefore the remote parent was able to transmit guilt into his descendants, much more strongly does it seem [so] concerning near parents.

4. Likewise, the proximate parent transmits into the son a sin which he received *from elsewhere*; but each one can the more communicate what *he has of himself* than what *he has from another*: therefore it seems that much more strongly can he transmit to the offspring the sin which *he committed*, if he can transmit the sin which *he contracted from elsewhere*.

5. Likewise, the sin of Adam passes to his descendants for the reason that we were in Adam when he sinned: therefore by parity of reasoning, if the proximate parent sinned when his offspring was in his loins; it seems likewise that the sin of the proximate parent is transfused into the offspring.

6. Likewise, the reason why original sin is transfused is that it is an infection of the generative power as regards the act of generating: therefore if any sin consists as regards the act of generation, it seems that such a sin ought to be transfused into the offspring. But such is the sin of adultery: therefore it seems that at least that kind of sin ought to redound into the descendant, and thereby intensify and multiply original sin.

**On the contrary:**

*To the opposite.*

1. Ezekiel, eighteenth [chapter]: *The son will not bear the iniquity of the father*: therefore if this is not true of the remote parent, as of Adam, at least it holds true concerning near parents.

2. Likewise, to the Galatians, sixth [chapter]: *Each one will bear his own burden*; but if the sins of parents redounded into the offspring, each one would not bear his own burden, but rather even the burden of another: therefore etc. And again elsewhere: *Each one will render an account for himself to God.*

3. Likewise, Anselm, *On the Virginal Conception*, chapter twenty-fourth: « The sins of proximate parents I do not judge to pertain to original sin »; but if they were transfused from the parent into the offspring, they would pertain to original sin: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, there is no greater reason why he transfuses injustice than justice; but a holy father does not beget a holy son, and a baptized [father] does not beget a baptized [son], as was shown above: therefore by parity of reasoning the proximate parent does not transmit his own sin to the offspring.

5. Likewise, no sin is transmitted from the parent into the offspring except by the mediation of the flesh; but actual sins, which are committed, do not change the flesh nor infect it with a new infection: therefore it seems that they cannot be transmitted to the offspring.

6. Likewise, if actual sins were transmitted from the parent into the offspring: therefore the son would always be worse than the father and deserving of greater punishment. If therefore it is of great cruelty and impiety to say that a newborn child is worse than the wicked parent; it is evident etc.

### Conclusion.

> The actual sins of proximate parents do not pertain to original [sin] nor are transfused along with the original [sin].

**I respond:** It must be said that the sin of parents passing to the offspring can be understood in three ways: either by punishment, or by imitation, or by transfusion. — If by punishment, so that the offspring is punished for the sin of the par-

ent, then it is to be attended to that punishment is twofold: one *eternal* and the other *temporal*. As to *eternal* punishment it in no way passes over, namely that anyone be damned for the sin of the parent alone. Whence Anselm, *On the Virginal Conception*, says that little children are not damned for the guilt of Adam only, but for the proper guilt which they have, although they do not have it by acting, but by contracting. But if we speak of *temporal* punishment, then, because the father is punished in the son, as we see to the letter, and as Scripture shows, the sin of the parent does indeed pass into the offspring, whether the offspring is willing or unwilling, and this is from the severity of divine justice. — In another way sin is said to pass from the parent into the offspring by *imitation*. And thus the sin of the devil in a certain manner passed into the human race, and the sin of Adam into his descendants, and the sins of proximate parents frequently pass through into the children, according to that [text] of Wisdom, second [chapter]: *By the envy of the devil death entered* etc.; yet it does not pass into all, but into those who are willing to imitate. — In a third way sin is said to pass from the parent into the offspring, and this by *transfusion*, just as a new infection is caused by another infection; and in this way sin is to be transfused into the offspring from the first parent alone.

But the reason for this is that there are two things in sin, namely the *privation of what is due* and the *undue turning-toward*; and according to this two things are posited in sin: *deformity* and *stain*. For the *stain* is posited from the turning-toward, but the *deformity* from the privation of what is due, the obligation remaining. To this end, therefore, that anyone may be able to contract sin from a father, it is necessary that in him it be possible to be *obligated* to something, and that he be able in the good to which he is obligated to be *deprived* in himself, and that he be able also to be *stained*; but this was only in the first parent. For to something the whole human nature, and all his descendants in him, were *obligated*, namely to having the rectitude of justice or to not concupiscing; and in him by his turning-away we were *deprived* of that rectitude. And because that obligation infected his flesh with the infection of foulness and the suffering of mortality; and our flesh is to be propagated from that: hence it is that in him we have [the capacity] to be *infected*, and from him we draw down in a singular way the sin according to its full character. But in none of the descendants are the children *obligated* by a new obligation in a parent, nor even is the flesh to be transmitted infected with a new infection from the perpetration of anyone's actual guilt. And hence it is that no proximate parent can transfuse his actual guilt into his offspring.

And this is what Anselm says in the book *On the Virginal Conception*, chapter twenty-fourth. « The sins of proximate parents I do not judge to pertain to original sin. For indeed, if Adam had not been able to transmit his justice to those whom he was going to beget, he could in no way transmit his injustice to them ». — But this he understands as far as concerns the transfusion of guilt, upon which eternal damnation follows; but concerning the passing-over as to the punishment of temporal penalty he adds at the end of the chapter: « I do not deny that, on account of the good merits of parents, many and great benefits of body and soul are bestowed upon children, and that on account of the sins of parents, children and grandchildren even to the third and fourth generation, and perhaps beyond, are scourged in this life with diverse tribulations and lose those goods of body and soul which perhaps they would have obtained, had they been just; an example of which it is too long to insert here ».

From these things, therefore, the response to the question proposed is evident. For it must be conceded that the actual sins of proximate parents do not pertain to original [sin] nor are transfused along with the original [sin], as the reasons adduced for the second part show.

1. 2. Nevertheless they do in some manner pass over as to vengeance and temporal punishment, as is first proved by the authority of Exodus and then by the example.

3. To that, however, which is objected by reason, that the passing-over is easier among things having a common bond: it must be said that that is true when on both sides the character of the *acting principle* is equally preserved. But the one who sins actually does not have the power of vitiating the offspring, except he alone in whom we had [the capacity] to be *obligated*, and in whom the whole mass of the human race could be *vitiated*, as was shown; and therefore that [argument] does not compel.

4. To that which is objected: he transmits what he received from elsewhere; it must be said that from this it does not follow that he transmits that which is *of himself*. For the sin which he received from elsewhere is a natural sin; but the sin which he himself does is a personal sin; but the communication of any property by

the way of generation regards the power of *nature* more than the act of the *person*, as was shown above.

5. To that which is objected, that we sinned in Adam for the reason that we were in him when he sinned; it must be said that this is not the *whole cause*, but together with it there is required that in the first parent all the descendants could be *obligated*, and the flesh of all the descendants could be *infected* and *defiled*; but this is not to be found in any other than Adam: therefore it is evident etc.

6. To that which is objected, that the sin of adultery is considered as regards the generative act; it must be said that although it is considered as regards the generative act, yet it does not state a corruption which is in the *generative power* itself in itself, but one which consists as regards the rational will, and so as regards the person; and on account of this the guilt of adultery, insofar as it is guilt, is not to be transfused into the offspring. Nevertheless, because it consists as regards the generative act, it is imputed to the offspring more than the other sins of parents; whence vile and abject is reckoned he who is born of adultery, and even according to human laws he is reckoned unworthy of paternal inheritance. Whence that sin redounds into the offspring more than other actual [sins], yet it does not so redound as the guilt of the first parent, which not only obligated his posterity to ignorance and punishment, but also defiled [it] with the stain of original sin, on account of which everyone, when he is born, is worthy of wrath and unworthy of the vision of God.