Part II, Chapter II, Section 3, Article 1: The Sin of Adam Considered as the First Sin, and Its Effects on Our Proto-Parents

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter II, §3, Article 1 (pp. 233–239)

Section 3: Man’s Defection from the Supernatural Order, or the Doctrine of Original Sin

We shall treat the subject-matter of this Section in five Articles, considering (1) The sin of Adam as the first sin and its effects on our proto-parents; (2) The sin of Adam as original sin in the technical sense of the term, i.e., in so far as it affects the whole human race; (3) The nature of original sin; (4) Its mode of propagation; and (5) Its effects in Adam’s descendants.

The doctrine of original sin is a fundamental dogma of Christianity, because on it is based the necessity of the Redemption.

General Readings: St. Thomas, S. Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 81 sqq. Billuart, De Peccatis, diss. 6. Suarez, De Vitiis et Peccatis, disp. 9. The principal Scholastic treatise on the subject is De Rubeis, De Peccato Originali, Venetiis 1757, nov. ed. Herbipoli 1857. Of later authors the student may profitably consult the following: Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. II, §§ 197 sqq., Freiburg 1878 (Wilhelm-Scannell’s Manual, Vol. II, pp. 20 sqq., 2nd ed., London 1901). Palmieri, De Deo Creante et Elevante, thes. 65–81, Rome 1878. Oswald, Religiöse Urgeschichte der Menschheit, Part II, 2nd ed., Paderborn 1887. Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, Vol. II, 2nd ed., pp. 616 sqq., Münster 1872. Mazzella, De Deo Creante, disp. 5, Rome 1880. Heinrich, Dogmatische Theologie, Vol. VI, Mainz 1887. Chr. Pesch, Praelect. Dogmat., t. III, 3rd ed., pp. 121 sqq., Freiburg 1908. G. B. Tepe, Instit. Theol., t. II, pp. 551 sqq., Paris 1895. D. Coghlan, De Deo Uno et Trino et de Deo Creatore, pp. 599 sqq., Dublinii 1909. S. Hunter, S.J., Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 394 sqq., London 1894. Le Bachelet, Le Péché Originel, Paris 1900. P. J. Toner, Dissertatio Historico-Theologica de Lapsu et Peccato Originali, Dublin 1904. Chanvillard, Le Péché Originel, Paris 1910.

Article 1

All men are born in the state of original sin. This state necessarily supposes as its cause a sinful act of the free will; for the assumption that original sin is not incurred through actual guilt would logically lead to the Manichaean heresy of the existence of an essentially evil principle.

The sin of Adam is original sin in a twofold sense: (1) As a sinful personal act (peccatum originale originans), and (2) as a sinful state (peccatum originale originatum). It is the state not the act that is transmitted to Adam’s descendants.

In the present Article we shall consider the sin of Adam as a personal act, (1) in its historic aspects and (2) in the immediate consequences which it entailed upon our first parents.

Thesis I: Our first parents, seduced by Satan, committed a grave (mortal) sin by transgressing the precept of probation.

This thesis embodies an article of faith.¹

Proof. The Fall of our first parents, as every Catholic knows from his catechism, is an important historical fact, not a mere myth, as alleged by the Rationalists.

a) The Bible relates that God gave Adam and Eve a probationary precept by forbidding them to eat of the fruit of a certain tree in the Garden, called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” This command bound them under pain of mortal sin not because of its intrinsic importance, but on account of the attendant circumstances. We all know how Satan approached Eve in the form of a serpent and persuaded her to transgress the divine command, how “She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband, who did eat.”² This simple account is plainly meant to be historical and is treated as such throughout the Bible. Cfr. Ecclus. XXV, 33: “A muliere initium factum est peccati, et per illam omnes morimur” — From the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die. 1 Tim. II, 14: “Adam non est seductus [a serpente], mulier autem seducta in praevaricatione fuit” — Adam was not seduced [by the serpent]; but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression. Ecclesiastical Tradition, too, has always maintained the historic character of the Fall. St. Augustine thus explains the gravity of the first sin: “There is in it pride, because man chose to be under his own dominion rather than under the dominion of God; and sacrilege, because he did not believe God; and murder, for he brought death upon himself; and spiritual fornication, because the purity of the human mind was corrupted by the seducing blandishments of the serpent; and theft, for man turned to his own use the food he had been forbidden to touch; and avarice, for he had a craving for more than should have been sufficient for him; and whatever other sin can be discovered on careful reflection to be involved in this one admitted sin.”³

b) Differences of opinion are permissible with regard to certain questions of detail, provided only that original sin be acknowledged as a historical fact.⁴ The “tree of knowledge” is as mysterious as the “tree of life.” Cajetan held that the story of the serpent merely symbolizes inward temptation. But this audacious hypothesis never found much support among Catholic theologians. The divine curse⁵ is intelligible only on the assumption that the serpent was a real animal, employed by Satan for the purpose of seduction. Cfr. Apocalypse XII, 9: “Et proiectus est draco ille magnus, serpens antiquus⁶, qui vocatur diabolus et satanas” — And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan. 2 Cor. XI, 3: “Timeo ne sicut serpens Hevam seduxit astutia sua, ita corrumpantur sensus vestri” — I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted.

The holy Fathers and theologians generally hold that intellectual pride was the motive of the Fall. Cfr. Ecclus. X, 15: “Initium omnis peccati superbia” — Pride is the beginning of all sin. Considered in itself, the sin of our first parents, according to St. Paul’s teaching, was an act of grave disobedience, which disposes of the strange hypothesis that the Fall was due to the natural use of marriage.⁷

It is not so easy to decide whether the transgression of the law of probation constituted the first mortal sin committed by Adam and Eve, or whether they had previously been guilty of other grievous offenses. Alexander of Hales held that previous mortal sins on the part of our first parents had smoothed the way for their transgression of the decisive precept of probation, which involved the fate of Adam and all his progeny. Among modern theologians this view has been adopted by Schell.⁸ Though not exactly untenable, it lacks probability. The majority of Catholic divines hold that original sin was the first mortal sin committed by our first parents, because every mortal sin entails the loss of sanctifying grace.

Thesis II: By transgressing the law of probation Adam forfeited sanctifying grace and merited eternal damnation; he became subject to bodily death and the dominion of Satan, and suffered a deterioration in body and soul.

This is de fide.⁹

Proof. Every grievous sin entails the loss of sanctifying grace and provokes the anger of God. The very grievous nature of the sin committed by our first parents may be inferred from the punishment with which God had threatened them. After the Fall He appears to Adam as the angry judge. The relation of sonship was turned into enmity, which spelled eternal damnation. Death, which had been the sanction of the law of probation,¹⁰ was actually inflicted on our first parents as a punishment.¹¹ “Invidia diaboli mors introivit in orbem terrarum” — By the envy of the devil, death came into the world.¹² Incidental to it was the dominion of Satan, which is intimated in the so-called Protevangelium (Gen. III, 15), and explicitly taught in the New Testament.¹³ The deterioration which human nature suffered through the Fall, manifested itself in the sudden awakening of concupiscence, which had till then been duly subject; the flesh rebelled against the spirit, the intellect was darkened and the will enfeebled.¹⁴

The corruption of nature caused by original sin must have been far greater in Adam than it is in his descendants, and for two reasons: first, because of the singularly privileged status of our progenitor, and secondly, because the first or original sin, which St. Augustine calls “peccatum ineffabiliter grande,” was a voluntary personal transgression, deserving of far severer punishment than a merely inherited state. In Adam’s descendants original sin exists merely as habitual sin, in which the personal will of the individual has no share.

As for Adam and Eve, the Church piously believes that they repented and were ultimately saved.¹⁵ St. Irenaeus¹⁶ defends this belief against Tatian. Rupert of Deutz’s assertion that our first parents were damned cannot be made to square with the fact that their names figure in the calendar of Saints (December 24th). Besides, the promulgation of the Protoevangelium in Paradise would seem to indicate that they were saved.

Notes

Readings

Reinke, Beiträge zur Erklärung des Alten Testaments, Vol. II, pp. 210 sqq., Münster 1855. P. Scholz, Theologie des Alten Bundes, Vol. II, pp. 90 sqq. Patrizi, De Interpret. Scriptur., l. II, qu. 3, Rome 1876. Schöpfer, Geschichte des Alten Testamentes, 3rd ed., pp. 40 sqq., Brixen 1907. J. F. Driscoll, art. “Adam” in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. I.

Note on this transcription: this article is textually clean apart from footnotes 15–16, whose citation text spilled past the “Readings” list onto the following page (a spillover pattern seen throughout this book) and has been recovered and placed correctly here. One Greek phrase (ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος, “the ancient serpent,” Apoc. XII, 9) was reconstructed from garbled OCR.