Dist. 33, 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/33/q/bon-sent-II-d33-a2-q1
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### ARTICLE II.
### *On the quantity of original sin.*

Consequently, concerning the second article, it is asked about the quantity of original [sin]. And concerning this two things are asked.

First it is asked about original [sin] itself under the character of *continuous* quantity, whether one original [sin] can be greater than another.

Secondly it is asked as to the character of *discrete* quantity, namely whether one is to posit one original [sin], or several.

### QUESTION I.
### *Whether original sin is found in all equally.*

Concerning the first point one proceeds thus and it is asked, whether original [sin] is found in all equally. And that it is, it seems:

1. Anselm, *On Original Sin*, chapter twenty-seventh: « Original sin I judge to be equal in all ».

2. Likewise, this same thing seems [to follow] *by reason*. Original sin is the lack of due justice, as has often been said; but anyone is simply stripped and deprived of that original justice: therefore if all are equally deprived, they are equally infected with the original stain: therefore in whomever original sin is found, it is found equally.

3. Likewise, this same thing is shown *by its cause*. Original sin is in us on account of Adam's disobedience; but Adam's disobedience was one and regarded all his posterity equally: therefore it seems that it made all equally culpable.

4. Likewise, this same thing seems [to follow] *by punishment*. For all who have original guilt are punished equally, namely by the complete lack of the vision of God: if therefore the quantity of punishment corresponds to the quantity of guilt, it seems that, if there is equality in the lack of vision, there is equality in the corruption of original [sin].

5. Likewise, this same thing is proved *by the annexed concupiscence*. For original sin renders one prone to every evil through concupiscence — whence when the law prohibits concupiscence, it is said to prohibit every evil — therefore original sin corrupts each one universally. But universal corruption is not found according to greater and less, but rather in all in whom it is found it is found at the limit: therefore it seems that original guilt cannot be greater in one person than in another.

6. Likewise, if original [sin] is greater in one than in another, either this is from the act of the *parent*, or from the act of the *offspring*. From the act of the *parent* it cannot be; for, as

has been proved above, the sin of the parent does not pass into the offspring. But from the act of the *offspring* it cannot be, as is plain: therefore it seems that in no way is original [sin] found more intensely in one than in another.

**On the contrary:**

*To the opposite.*

1. Anselm, *On the Virginal Conception*: « Just as on account of nature a corrupt person is born, so nature through the person is made more sinful »; but the sin which infects nature is original sin: therefore it seems that original sin in someone can become greater and more intense.

2. Likewise, this seems [to follow] *by reason*. No evil is at the highest [degree], because nothing is supremely evil; but original sin is an evil: therefore it is not at the highest. But what is below the highest can be intensified and increased: therefore original sin is intensifiable, therefore it can be found greater in one than in another.

3. Likewise, original sin is concupiscence; but concupiscence can be intensified, just as it can also be remitted, and is sometimes intensified, as is plain by experience: therefore it seems that original sin can be intensified, so that it is greater in one than in another, or even more intense in the same [subject] according to diverse states.

4. Likewise, the foulness of the flesh is the reason why the soul contracts original [sin]; but the flesh is not infected at the highest [degree], and what is not infected at the highest, while it passes through the way of infection, can be infected more and more: if therefore our flesh passes through the way of infection while it is propagated, it seems that it is infected more and more, and through this original sin is daily augmented.

5. Likewise, every property, the more it approaches its cause, is the more intense and stronger, and the more it is removed [from it], the weaker; but the corruption of original [sin] is produced from Adam as from a source-principle and root: therefore it seems that the nearer one is to Adam, the more intense original guilt is in him.

6. Likewise, one soul has better natural endowments than another, as was held in the preceding distinction; but corruption is the worse, the more it is in a better nature, as Augustine says and reason manifestly shows, on account of the dignity of that which is corrupted: therefore the corruption of original [sin] is worse in one soul than in another; and if this is so, it seems that the guilt is more intense.

### Conclusion.

> Original sin is found in all equally.

**I respond:** It must be said that, just as, if Adam had stood, all would equally be innocent, so now, since Adam sinned, all are made equally sinners; and so original guilt is found in all equally, such that it is not greater in one than in another, nor does it even have it [in its power] to be intensified in the same subject.

For the understanding of this it is to be noted that these three things concur in original sin, namely the lack of due justice and concupiscence and the foulness of the flesh; and the first is essential to original [sin] itself, the second material and the third causal, as was explained above. If therefore original [sin] ought to be augmented, it would have to be intensified from one of these; but since it has [it in its power] to be intensified through none of these, it has [it in its power] to be found equally in all. — As to the *lack* of due justice it cannot be intensified. For this lack cannot be greater in one than in another except for a threefold cause: either because there is a *stronger obligation*, or because there is there a *greater privation*, or because the *mode of depriving is more detestable*. By none of these modes is the lack greater in one human than in another. For there is not a *stronger obligation*, because all are obligated equally in Adam; nor a *greater privation*, because by the same gift, namely of original justice, all are stripped by original guilt; nor a *more detestable mode of depriving*, because all are deprived by the one disobedience of Adam; and so original [sin] by reason of the *lack of due justice* does not receive more and less, but is in all equally.

Likewise neither as to *concupiscence* does it have [it in its power] to be intensified. For if appetite or concupiscence with respect to some delectable [thing] is intensified in someone, this can be in three ways: either from *complexion*, or from *habituation*, or from the *breaking of the restraining bond*. In the first way concupiscence can undoubtedly be increased, as is plain of the concupiscence of the flesh, which

burns more in the choleric and sanguine than in the melancholic; but such intensity does nothing toward guilt; for it is not culpable, but natural or penal. — Likewise also in the second way concupiscence can be intensified in the same human, as is plain in one who is habituated to being lustful and to eating good food, who is more prone and more ardently concupisces than one who has not tasted such things. But this intensity does nothing toward original sin, but rather toward actual [sin], because original sin is not called concupiscence in any mode whatever, but only insofar as it is contracted from origin. — In the third way it cannot be intensified, but has [it in its power] to be found equally in all, for the reason that that restraint of original justice is broken in all by the merit of Adam's guilt. And since according to that third mode the quantity of original [sin] is attended to on the part of concupiscence, hence it is that as to *concupiscence* original guilt is found equally in all in whom it is.

Likewise as to the *foulness* which is in the flesh, original [sin] cannot be greater and less; and this is plain. For that some property be intensified, an aptitude for intensification is required both on the part of the *receivable* [subject], and on the part of the *property* which is intensified, and also on the part of the *agent*; and if any of these be lacking, that property does not have [it in its power] to be intensified, as is plain to one considering. But all these are lacking in the case at hand. For there is a defect on the part of the *receivable* [subject]. For just as a new mirror is infected by a menstruating woman, but after it has grown old, from some aspect it does not receive a new infection; so human nature, in its origin existing as if new, was capable of being infected by the corruption of the person; but afterward, as if grown old, it does not receive a new infection from a new corruption. — There is also a defect on the part of the *agent*, because there is no one after the first human whose transgression regards the obligation of *nature*, but the obligation of the *person*. Hence it is that such guilt does not have [it in its power] to infect the conjoined flesh. — There is also a defect on the part of the *intensifiable property*. « For those things whose imposition is at the limit do not have [it in their power] to receive greater and less », as the Philosopher holds. But the foulness of the flesh, insofar as it is the principle of the contraction of original [sin], has its origin from the lack of original justice; and because that lack is a certain nakedness, and of the naked there is no finding [anything] more naked, just as the nakedness of original justice does not receive greater and less, so neither does the foulness of the flesh.

And so it is plain that on the part of the *foulness of the flesh* original [sin] does not have [it in its power] to be intensified or augmented in the same or in diverse [subjects], nor on the part of *concupiscence*, or [on the part of] the *lack of due justice*, as has been shown; nor are there several [things] concurring in original [sin]. It is manifest therefore that original sin in all in whom it is found has [it in its power] to be equally; and the reasons showing this are to be granted.

1. To that therefore which is first objected concerning Anselm, that nature through the person is made more sinful; it must be said that *nature* is taken in two ways. In one way nature is called « a force implanted in things, procreating like from like »; in another way nature is called the *common* [thing] itself. By these two modes nature is distinguished against the person. And when it is said that nature corrupts the person, nature is taken for the propagative force, and the corruption of the person is called that which regards the rational will. But when Anselm says that nature is made more sinful through the person, he takes nature for the *common* [thing], insofar as it is considered in the supposit — and this is plain by his own example, which he gives: just as, when Adam sins, the human sins, so, when Adam sins more, the human sins more — and in this mode nature does not have [it in its power] to be corrupted only by original sin, but also by actual sin. From this therefore it does not follow that original [sin] has [it in its power] to be greater and more intense.

2. To that which is objected, that no evil is at the highest [degree]; it must be said that there is the *highest simply* and the *highest in a genus*; and although it does not happen that the highest evil is found simply, yet there is found an evil which is highest in its *own genus*, as we see someone so deprived of sight that he cannot be [deprived] more. So also in the case at hand it can be understood that original [sin] simply deprives [one of] original justice; and therefore its infection is at the limit. — Yet it could be said that even if it were not at the highest, it still does not follow that it can be intensified, because there can be a defect on the part of the *receivable* [subject], or on the part of the *agent*; and both are lacking here, as was shown above.

3. To that which is objected, that concupiscence can grow; it must be said that it is true *intensively*, but not *extensively*. Yet that increase does nothing toward original sin, since it is only either from complexion, or from habituation, as has been shown.

4. To that which is objected, that the foulness of the flesh can be greater; it must be said that even if the foulness of the flesh, insofar as it is a *penal* corruption, be intensified and grow, as is plain in lepers and those with a flux of seed and others oppressed by foul infirmities, yet insofar as it is itself the principle of original [sin], it has [it in its power] to be found equally in individuals, because it proceeds from one sole and first source.

5. To that which is objected, that a property is more intense when it approaches its origin; it must be said that that is true of a property which indeed states a *nature* and a *position*, and of that which has [it in its power] to be *continued* with its origin, as is the case in the moving power and the effusion of light; otherwise it does not hold true, as is plain: for a candle kindled from another will kindle just as well as that one was kindling. For both [conditions] are lacking in the case at hand, both because that foulness of the flesh states the character of privation rather than of position; and also because the transfusion of that foulness is through generation, in which the first and second generated have the same force which the first generator had.

6. To that which is objected, that one soul has better natural endowments than another; it must be said that even if this be true and is to be conceded, yet, as far as pertains to the purity of innocence, all souls would be equal; and because original [sin] directly regards the privation of that [purity], hence it is that, although other natural endowments be more excellent, yet on this account the corruption of original guilt is not intensified. For when it is said that corruption is the worse, the more the nature is better; this is understood according to that [respect] according to which the nature is corrupted by the vice; for otherwise it does not hold true, because frequently he who has better natural endowments does not have such grave sins as he who has lesser goods, even in the same genus of sin.