§ 120. SIN AND GRACE. 749
§ 120. Sin and Grace.
SIN. — The Schoolmen are unanimous in affirming that the infection of original sin has passed down upon all Adam's descendants and involved them all in guilt and eternal death. Following Augustine, Anselm called the race a sinning mass — peccatrix massa. By the Fall, man's body, or flesh, was made, like the beast, subject to carnal appetites and the mind, in turn, became infected with these appetites.1 If man had not sinned, his nature would have been propagated as it was originally created by God. In condemning Abeelard, the synod of Sens, 1141, condemned the heresy that Adam's guilt does not pass down to his posterity.
Man does not secure his sinful nature by imitation of Adam, but by inheritance through generation from Adam. The flesh is tainted, being conceived in concupiscence, and concupiscence is both a taint and guilt. Nay, it is original sin, as the Lombard says.2 Before the first sin, the man and the woman came together without the passion of concupis cence and the bed was undefiled; but, after the Fall, they could not join in marital intercourse without libidinous lust.3 These are the views of all the Schoolmen, yet they agree in rejecting the doctrine of traducianism.4 The flesh only is carried down from parent to child, not the spirit.
Original sin is defined by Alexander of Hales and by Thomas Aquinas as the want or the " deficiency of original righteousness."5 It involves the loss of superadded grace and a wounding of the natural powers.6 This wound, or original sin, is a lasting quality or condition of depravity —
1 Carnalibus appetitis infecta, de conceptu. II. Migue, 158. 434.
2 vitiwn concupiscentifE, quod est oriyinale peccatum.
8 Post peccatum non valet fieri carnalis copula absque libidinosa concupiscentia quce semper vitium est et etiam culpa. P. Lomb., Sent., II. 31, 3.
4 Etsi anima non traducatur, quia virtus seminis non potest causare animam rationalem. Th. Aquinas, Summa, II. 81, 1, Migne, II. 629.
5 Carentia . . . defectusoriginalisjustitice estoriginal peccatum. Schwane, p. 401 ; Th. Aq., Summa, II. 81, 5.
6 Spoliatio in gratuitis et vulneratio in naturalibus.
750 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
a habitus corruptiotiis or vitium, — like a bodily disease. It is not merely a defect. It is a depraved tendency — inordinata dispositio. In another place, Thomas defines original sin to be in substance concupiscence or lust and in form a de fect of original righteousness.1 God cannot be the author of sin because sin is an offence against order.
Thomas taught that the taint of original sin is inherited not from the mother but from the father who is the active agent in generation. If Eve only had sinned and not Adam, the children would not have inherited the taint. On the other hand, if Adam had sinned and Eve remained inno cent, their descendants would have inherited original sin.2 According to Peter the Lombard, Albertus Magnus, and others, pride was the original root of sin.3
At much length, the Schoolmen elaborate upon the sin against the Holy Ghost and the seven " capital or principal " offences,4 the number of which they base on Proverbs 6 : 16, " These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto Him." The question as to whether there would have been any admixture of the sexes if Adam had not sinned was answered in the affirmative, in view of the command to be fruitful and to replenish the earth. Bonaventura also elaborately discussed the question whether the number of male and female descendants would have been equal had man not sinned. This he also answered in the affirma tive, partly on the ground that no woman would have been without a husband and no husband without a wife, for in paradise there would be neither polygamy or polyandry. He also based his conclusion upon Aristotle's reason for the
1 Summa, II. 82, 3, materialiter qufdem est concupiscentia, formaliter vero est defecttts orig. just. Vitium and corruptio are the words most fre quently used for the moral character of sin. Hugo of St. Victor, De sacr., I. 28, Migne, 176. 299.
2 Peccatum orig. non contrahitur a matre sed a patre, etc. Summa, II. 81, 5.
3 P. Lomb., II. 42, 9; Alb. Magnus, Borgnet's ed., XXVII. 663 sqq., etc.
4 P. Lomb., II. 42, enumerates them as inanis gloria, ira, invidia, acedia vel tristitia, avaritia, gastrimargia, luxuria. Albertus Magnus skilfully discusses whether there could be any more than seven. In Sent., II. 42, Borgnet's ed., XXVII. 662 sqq.