ously maintained by some of the theologians of the Roman Church at the time of the Reformation, especially by Catharinus and Pighius. The latter, according to Chemnitz,^ thus states his doc- trine : " Quod nee carentia justitise originalis, nee concupiscentia habeat raticnem peccati, sive in parvulis, sive adultis, sive ante, sive post baptismum. Has enim affectiones non esse vitia, sed naturae conditiones in nobis. Peccatum igitur originis non esse defectum, non vitium aliquod non depravationem aliquam, non habi- tum corruptum, non qualitatem vitiosam haerentem in nostra sub- stantia, ut quae sit sine omni vitio et depravatione, sed hoc tantum esse peccatum originis, quod actualis transgressio Adas reatu, tan- tum et poena transmissa et propagata sit ad posteros sine vitio aliquo et pravitate haerente in ipsorum substantia : et reatum hunc esse, quod propter AdsB peccatum extorres facti sumus regni coelorum, subjecti regno mortis et aeternae damnationi, et omnibus humanie naturae misei-iis involuti. Sicut ex servis, qui proprio vitio liberta- tem amiserunt, nascuntur servi : non suo, sed parentum vitio. Et sicut filius scorti, sustinet infamiam matris, sine proprio aliquo in se haerente vitio.'"'^
Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas.
3. The third form of doctrine which prevailed during this period was that proposed by Thomas Aquinas (a. d. 1224—74) a Domin- ican monk, the Doctor Angelicns of the schoohnen, and by far the most influential theologian in the Latin Church since the days of Auiiustine. His " Summa Theoloo-iffi " wa^ long regarded as a standard work among Romanists, and is still referred to as an authority both by Romanists and Protestants. Thomas approached much nearer to Augustine than the other theologians of his age. He taught (1.) That original righteousness was to Adam a super- natural gift. (2.) That by his transgression he forfeited that gift for himself and his posterity. (3.) That original righteousness consisted essentially in the fixed bias of the will towards God, or the subjection of the will to God. (4.) That the inevitable conse- quence or adjunct of the loss of this original righteousness, this conversion of the will towards God, is the aversion of the will from God. (5.) That original sin, therefore, consists in two things, first, the loss of original righteousness and second, the disorder of the whole nature. The one he called the formate the other the materiale of original sin. To use his own illustration, a knife is
1 Examen Concilii Tridenlini, de Peccato Originale, edit. Frankfort, 1674, part i. p. 100 S See also Kollner's Symbolik, vol. ii. p. 285.
172 PART 11. Cii. Vni. — SIN.
iron ; tlie iron is tlie material, the form is that which makes the material a knife. So in original sin this aversion of the will from God (as a habit), is the substance of original sin, it owes its exist- ence and nature to the loss of original righteousness. (6.) The soul, therefore, after the loss of its primal rectitude, does not re- main in puris naturalibus, but is in a state of corruption and sin. This state he sometimes calls inordinatio virium animce ; some- times a deordinatio ; sometimes aversio voluntatis a bono incom- municahili ; sometimes a corrupt disposition, as when he says,^ " Causa hujus corruptae dispositionis, quae dicitur originale pecca- tum, est una tantum, scilicet privatio originalis justitiae, per quam sublata est subjectio huinana3 mentis ad Deum." Most frequently, in accordance with the usus loquendi of his own and of subsequent periods, this positive part of original sin is called concupiscence. This is a word which it is very important to understand, because it is used in such different senses even in relation to the same sub- ject. Some by concupiscence mean simply the sexual instinct ; others, what belongs to our sensuous nature in general ; others, everything in man which has the seen and temporal for its object ; and others still, for the wrong bias of the soul, by which, being averse to God, it turns to the creature and to evil. Everything depends therefore on the sense in which the word is taken, when it is said that original sin consists, positively considered, in concu- piscence. If by concupiscence is meant merely our sensuous na- ture, then original sin is seated mainly in the body and in the animal affections, and the higher powers of the soul are unaffected by its contamination. By Thomas Aquinas the word is taken in its widest sense, as is obvious from its equivalents just mentioned, aversion from God, corrupt disposition, disorder, or deformity, of the powers of the soul. It is in this sense, he says, " Originale peccatum concupiscentia dicitur." (7.) As to the constituent elements of this original corruption, or as he expresses it, the wounds under which our fallen nature is suffering, he says, they include, (a.) Ignorance and want of the right knowledge of God in the intelligence. (6.) An aversion in the will from the highest good. (<?.) In the feelings or affections, or rather in that department of our nature of which the feelings are the manifestations, a tend- ency to delight in created things. The seat of original sin, there- fore, with him is the whole soul. (8.) This concupiscence or inhe- rent corruption, is not an act, or agency, or activity, but a habit, i. e., an immanent inHerent disposition of the mind.''^ (9.) Finally, 1 Sumtp.a, II. i. qu. Ixxxii. art. ii. edit. Cologne, 1640, p. 144 of second set. ^ j^id, art. j