Part II, Chapter II, Section 3, Article 4: How Original Sin Is Transmitted

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter II, §3, Article 4 (pp. 279–286)

1. The Specific Unity of Original Sin

Our guiding principle in this Article must be that original sin is specifically one in all men, and that it comes down to us from the first sin of our proto-parents in Paradise. By its peculiar mode of transmission original sin is numerically multiplied as many times as there are children of Adam born into the world. Yet in each and every one of these there inheres one and the same specific sin, i.e., the sin of Adam, with no difference either of essence or degree so far as gravity is concerned. Such is the express teaching of the Church. “Hoc Adae peccatum,” says the Tridentine Council, “quod origine unum est, propagatione transfusum, omnibus inest unicuique proprium” — This sin of Adam, one in its origin, being transfused into all by propagation, is in each one as his own.¹

It is a controverted question among theologians whether original sin derives solely from Adam or from both Adam and Eve as its efficient cause; or, rather, whether there would be an original sin if Eve alone had fallen. Holy Scripture seems to answer this question in the negative; for whenever it refers to original sin, it speaks of it as the “sin of Adam” (peccatum Adami) or the “sin of one man” (peccatum unius hominis).² In point of fact Adam alone was qualified to act as the head and representative of the human race. The apparently dissentient text 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, is merely a statement of the historic fact that Eve seduced her husband. Hence, in the words of St. Thomas, “Original sin is not contracted from the mother, but from the father. Accordingly, if Adam had not sinned, even though Eve had, their children would not have contracted original sin; the case would be different if Adam had sinned and Eve had not.”³ It remains to be explained how original sin is transmitted from Adam to his descendants.

2. The Transmission of Original Sin by Natural Generation

To solve this problem we must first examine in what way the nature of Adam is transmitted to his descendants. The answer obviously is by sexual generation. By this same act the child also contracts natural or original sin. The Catholic formula for this truth reads: “Generatione contrahitur peccatum,”⁴ or: “Adae peccatum propagatione transfusum,”⁵ which is diametrically opposed to the Pelagian heresy that “sin is transmitted by imitation, not by propagation.”⁶

Original sin can be transmitted only by the natural mode of sexual generation, i.e., the commingling of male with female, because this is the way in which all children of Adam come into being. Hence the frequent occurrence of the phrase “ex semine Adae” in the various definitions of our dogma.⁷ If any man, therefore, though a descendant of Adam, were not born ex semine Adae, he would not be subject to original sin. This is the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was “conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary.”⁸ Not so His mother, who was miraculously conceived without original sin in view of the merits of her Divine Son.⁹ When, as in the case of St. John the Baptist, the lack of generative power (regardless of whether it is due to female sterility or male impotency) is miraculously supplied by God, there is sexual generation, and consequently also original sin.

3. Original Sin and Creationism

The Catholic teaching that original sin is transmitted by sexual generation contains the solution of a great difficulty, which caused St. Augustine to waver between Creationism and Generationism.¹⁰ The Pelagian argument was substantially this: A spiritual soul cannot originate otherwise than by a creative act of God. But since nothing impure can come from the hands of God, it is absurd to say that the human soul is contaminated by original sin. The solution of the difficulty is as follows: The parents engender the whole child, not merely its body. This is not, of course, to be understood in the sense that they create the spiritual soul. What they do is to produce a material substratum which is determined and disposed by the laws of nature to receive a spiritual soul. This soul, forming a constitutive element of that human nature for which the parents lay the foundation, incurs original sin, not on account of its creation by God, but in consequence of the genesial connexion of the human nature, of which it forms a part, with Adam. “Sic ergo originale peccatum est in anima,” says St. Thomas, “inquantum pertinet ad humanam naturam. Humana autem natura traducitur a parente in filium per traductionem carnis, cui postmodum anima infunditur, et ex hoc infectionem incurrit.”¹¹ Bellarmine gives an equally clear explanation in his treatise De Amissione Gratiae: “Siquidem anima ut prius intelligitur creari a Deo, nihil habet cum Adamo ac per hoc non communicat eius peccato, sed quum in corpore generato ex Adamo incipit habitare et cum ipso corpore unum suppositum facere, tunc peccatum originis trahit.”¹²

It follows that original sin in the soul of a new-born babe is produced neither by Almighty God nor by the child’s parents. It is not produced by God, for He merely creates the soul, just as He would do were man in a state of pure nature, and refrains from endowing it with sanctifying grace for the sole reason that it is destined to be the substantial form of a body which is derived by generation from Adam. Nor is original sin produced by the child’s parents, because the parents merely beget a human nature, regardless of whether it is to be constituted in righteousness or sin. The efficient cause of original sin is purely and solely Adam. “Infectio originalis peccati nullo modo causatur a Deo, sed ex solo peccato primi parentis per carnalem generationem,” says Aquinas.¹³ This is the reason why even pious and saintly parents beget their children in the state of original sin. For, as St. Augustine observes, “parents, though themselves regenerated, beget not children inasmuch as they are born of God, but inasmuch as they are still children of the world.”¹⁴

4. The Part Played by Concupiscence in the Transmission of Original Sin

To prevent misunderstanding and to acquire a clearer notion of original sin and the manner of its propagation, we must carefully distinguish (1) between actual and habitual concupiscence, (2) between concupiscence in the begetting parents and in the begotten child, and (3) between material and formal concupiscence.

a) Whether concupiscence be conceived actually as an evil commotion, or habitually as an evil disposition, the fact that it exists both in the begetting parents and the begotten child furnishes an inductive proof of the actual transmission of original sin by sexual generation. It is an article of faith that the loss of integrity is a penalty of original sin. Had not human nature, through Adam, voluntarily renounced sanctifying grace, and with it all the preternatural prerogatives with which it was originally endowed (including the perfect dominion of reason over the lower passions), neither parents nor children would now be subject to concupiscence. The existence of concupiscence, which is the result of sin, may, therefore, from the standpoint of Catholic dogma, be taken as a certain proof for the existence of original sin, which is its underlying cause. We say, from the standpoint of Catholic dogma, for human reason would be unable to draw this conclusion without the aid of Revelation, because in the state of pure nature, which we know to be possible, concupiscence might exist without being caused by sin.

b) Taken in the more limited sense of formal concupiscence of the flesh as manifested in the act of sexual generation, concupiscence is not the proper cause of the transmission of original sin, nay it is not even a necessary condition of such transmission. We know from Divine Revelation that the principal cause of original sin is the transgression of Adam. Sexual generation, whether accompanied by concupiscence or not, is merely instrumental.

St. Augustine, instead of regarding concupiscence as a mere mode, or an inevitable concomitant, of sexual generation (in the state of fallen nature), held it to be the instrumental cause of original sin. Such at least seems to be the tenor of a number of passages in his writings; e.g.: “The very embrace which is honorable and permitted, cannot be effected without the ardor of concupiscence. … Now from this concupiscence whatever comes into being by natural birth is tied and bound by original sin.”¹⁵ It was due to the influence of this great Doctor (who, as we have pointed out before, found himself unable to form a definite opinion with regard to the comparative merits of Generationism and Creationism),¹⁶ that Peter Lombard and others of the Schoolmen unduly exaggerated the part played by concupiscence in the transmission of original sin.¹⁷ Even if a child were miraculously begotten without concupiscence on the part of its parents, it would yet be tainted by original sin, because born of the seed of Adam. Such a child would come into the world precisely like other children, not in a state of pure nature, nor yet in the state of sanctifying grace, but defiled by original sin; and it would consequently need Baptism just as much as any other child. Consequently the “ardor of concupiscence” is not a necessary condition, much less the instrumental cause, of original sin.

c) In its material sense, however, i.e., as sexual commerce, or the conjugal embrace, concupiscence is the instrumental cause of original sin, because original sin is transmitted by sexual generation. It is in this sense that the Fathers of the Church, and especially St. Augustine, say that where there is no concupiscence of the flesh, there is no original sin. They take absentia concupiscentiae as meaning sine opere viri, or sine amplexu maritali.¹⁸ Jesus Christ is the only man who was thus conceived.¹⁹

Notes

Readings

Kilber (Theol. Wirceburg.), De Peccato Originali, cap. 3. Katschthaler, Theol. Dogmat. Specialis, Vol. II, Ratisbon 1878. Wilhelm-Scannell, Manual of Catholic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 30 sqq., 2nd ed., London 1901.

Note on this transcription: this article was textually clean throughout, with routine page-break footnote splits resolved by cross-referencing the following page.