§ 120. SIN AND GRACE. 751
unequal conception of male and female children which is now due to some weakness or other peculiarity on the part of one of the parents.1 The ultimate purpose in the birth of children, had our first parents remained innocent, was that they might fill up the number of the elect angels.
Another question which was discussed with much warmth was which of the two sinned the more grievously, Adam or Eve, a question Hugo of St. Victor, Peter the Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, and other great Schoolmen united in attempting to solve — a question which arose quite naturally from Paul's statement, 1 Tim. 2 : 14, that the woman was beguiled and not the man. The conclusion reached was that the preponderance of guilt was with Eve. The Lombard is inclined to be lenient with Adam and makes out that when he yielded to the persuasions of his wife, he was actuated by sympathy and was unwilling to give her pain by refusing her request. He was inexperienced in the divine severity and his sin was a venial, not a mortal fault. In fact this theologian distinctly gives it as his belief that Adam would not have given way to the temptation of the devil.2 Eve sinned by pride, desiring to be equal with God. Adam was not seduced by the devil at all and had in mind the mercy of God and intended later to make confession of his sin, and secure absolution. Eve's sin was the more grievous for she sinned against herself, against God, and against her neighbor. Adam sinned against himself and God, but not against his neighbor. Hugo of St. Victor said that the woman believed that God was moved by envy in forbidding them to eat the fruit of the tree. Adam knew this to be false. His sin was in consenting to his wife and
1 Utrum (zqualis fieret multiplicatio virorum et mulierum. In Sent., II. 20, 2, Peltier's ed., III. 85. The three reasons which Bonaventura adduces to account for the differences in sex will have to be read in the original. He enters into the subject with the precision of statement and detail which is a characteristic of scholastic discussion. It is fair to say that he pronounced the question a difficult one and one upon which the physicians and natural philosophers of his day were much divided.
8 Sed dolo illo serpentine quo mulier seducta est, nullo modo arbitror ilium potuisse seduci.
752 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
not correcting her.1 Albertus Magnus seems inclined to draw a more even balance. In that which pertained to the essence of sin, he said, Eve was the greater offender, but if we look at Adam's endowment and at other circumstances, Adam was the greater offender.2 Bonaventura laid down the proposition that the gravity of sin depends upon three things : ingratitude, lust, and the corruption which follows the sinful act.3 Applying these rules to the Fall, he declared that, so far as ingratitude goes, Adam's sin was the greater and, so far as lust goes, the woman's sin was the greater. As for the evil consequences flowing from the sin, Adam sinned the more grievously as the cause of damnation to his posterity and Eve the more grievously as the occasion of such damnation. But as Eve was also the occasion of Adam's sinning, her sin and guilt must be pronounced the greater.
GRACE. — In the doctrine of grace, the medieval theology used the terminology of Augustine but makes the impres sion of departing from him in the direction of semi-Pelagianism.4 The treatment which Thomas Aquinas gave to two elements he found in the African father, namely, freewill which man preserves after the Fall, and the doctrine of merit, has the appearance of a de-Augustiniamzing tendency. In reality Thomas taught that all that is good in man is from God and he can have no merit before God except by the prearrangement of a divine decree.5 In no other sense is an act
1 De sacr., I. 7, Migne, 176. 290.
2 In Sent., II. 22, E, Borgnet's ed., XXVII. 377.
3 In Sent., II. 22, I. 3, Peltier's ed., III. 123.
4 Man hatte augustinische Formeln und gregorianische Gedanken. Loofs, p. 291. Schwane, p. 455, praises Thomas' clear treatment of the doctrines of grace, and says he taught them as they are taught in the Catholic systems of dogmatics to-day. Loofs, Harnack, and Seeberg seem to me to go too far in ascribing to Thomas a de-Augustinianizing tendency. His plain statements of the necessity of divine grace and human inability are Augustinian enough. Passing from the study of Thomas' theory of the sacraments, it is easy to put upon the statements about grace a Pelagian interpretation. The fairer way is to interpret his theory of the sacraments in the light of his teachings on the doctrine of grace.
6 meritum apud deum rsse non potest, nisi secundum prcesuppositionem divince ordinationis. Summa, II. 114, I. Migne, II. 960.