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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Four — the creation of the first human beings

QUESTION II. Whether the death which God threatened to Adam was only of the soul, or of the body, or of both

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QUESTION II. Whether the death which God threatened to Adam was only of the soul, or of the body, or of both.1

QVAESTIO II. An mors quam Deus minatus est Adamo, fuerit tantùm animae, an corporis, an utriusque.

ALTERA iisdem ex verbis oritur quaestio: Mors quam Deus Adamo comminatus est, cùm dixit, In quocunque die comederis ex eo morte morieris, intelligendáne sit mors animae tantùm, per quam scilicet anima peccando separatur à Deo qui ei per gratiam suam, spiritualem & divinam vitam donabat: An etiam mors corporis qua separatur animus à corpore. Multi & cùm primis nobiles scriptores censuerunt, non mortem corporis, sed animae duntaxat esse significatam. Hoc affirmat Philo, quem propter admirabilem eloquentiam, Platoné Iudaeorum veteres appellarunt, idque scriptum ille reliquit libro secundo, de Allegoriis legis Mosaicae. Eandem sententiam amplexus est Eucherius in primo Commentariorum in Genesim: quibus etiam subscripsit Eugubinus in Annotationibus suis in Pentateuchum, haec Mosis verba tractans, scribensque, (dubitanter tamen suamque opinionem censurae Ecclesiae subiiciens) peccatum Adae non corporis, sed animae duntaxat mortem hominibus attulisse. Verùm posteà cùm intellexisset id adversari doctrinae sacrae Ecclesiasticae, in sua Cosmopoeia mutavit sententiam.
Another question arises from the same words: The death which God threatened to Adam, when He said, “In whatever day you eat of it, you shall die the death,” is it to be understood as the death of the soul only — by which, namely, the soul, by sinning, is separated from God, who by His grace bestowed on it the spiritual and divine life — or also as the death of the body, by which the soul is separated from the body? Many, and among the foremost, noble writers have judged that not the death of the body, but only of the soul, was signified. This Philo affirms — whom, on account of his admirable eloquence, the ancients called the Plato of the Jews — and he left this written in the second book On the Allegories of the Mosaic Law. The same view Eucherius embraced, in the first book of his Commentaries on Genesis; to which Eugubinus [Steuco] also subscribed, in his Annotations on the Pentateuch, treating these words of Moses and writing (doubtfully, however, and subjecting his opinion to the Church's judgement) that Adam's sin brought to men not the death of the body, but only the death of the soul. But afterward, when he understood that this contradicts the sacred doctrine of the Church, he changed his opinion in his Cosmopoeia.2

BUT beyond the rest, Gregory added faith and authority to this opinion, professing and defending it in the weightiest words, in the Register, book six, chapter one hundred and ninety-five — and it is Epistle 31 of Gregory, written to Eulogius bishop of Alexandria and Anastasius bishop of Antioch; and Gregory writes thus in that place: “If the soul of Adam, who first sinned, did not die in sin, how was it said to him concerning the forbidden tree, ‘in whatever day you eat of it, you shall die the death’? And behold, Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree, and yet in their flesh they afterward lived more than nine hundred years. It is agreed, therefore, that he did not die in the flesh. If, then, he did not die in the soul — which it is wicked to say — God brought forth a false sentence about him, who said that on the day he ate he would die. But away with this error, away from true faith! For we say that the first man, on the day he sinned, died in soul, and that through him the whole human race was condemned to this penalty of death and corruption. But through the second Man we trust that we can be freed — both now from the death of the soul, and afterward from all corruption of the flesh in the eternal resurrection. And we say that the soul of Adam died in sin, not as to the substance of living, but as to the quality of living. For since substance is one thing and quality another, his soul was not so dead that it did not exist, but so dead that it was not blessed. Yet Adam afterward returned to life through penance.” Thus Gregory.3

SED praeter caeteros huic opinioni fidem & auctoritatem adiunxit Gregorius, eam gravissimis verbis professus & tutatus, in Regist. libro sexto, capite centesimo nonagesimoquinto, & est Epistola 31. Gregorij ad Eulogium episcopum Alexandrinum, & Anastasium episcop. Antiochenum scripta, sic autem eo loci scribit Gregorius: Si Adae qui primus peccavit anima in peccato mortua non est: quomodo de ligno vetito ei dictum est, in quacunque die comederitis ex eo, morte moriemini? Et ecce comedit Adam & Eua de ligno vetito, & tamen in carne sua ultra nongentos annos postmodum vixerunt. Constat itaque quia in carne non est mortuus. Si ergo in anima mortuus non est, quod dici nefas est, falsam sententiam de illo protulit Deus, qui dixit, quia qua die comederet moreretur. Sed absit hic error, absit à vera fide. Nos enim primum hominem, qua die peccavit, anima mortuum dicimus, atque per hunc omne genus humanum in hac mortis & corruptionis poena damnatum. Per secundum verò hominem, & modò à morte animae, & postmodum ab omni corruptione carnis in aeterna resurrectione liberari nos posse confidimus. Animam verò Adae in peccato mortuam dicimus, non à substantia vivendi, sed à qualitate vivendi. Quia enim aliud est substantia atque aliud qualitas, non est eius anima ita mortua ut non esset, sed ita mortua ut beata non esset. Qui tamen Adam postmodum per poenitentiam ad vitam rediit. Haec Gregorius.

Secundùm istos igitur auctores, Adam edendo cibum sibi vetitum, in mortem animae non autem corporis incurrit.
According to these authors, therefore, Adam, by eating the food forbidden to him, ran into the death of the soul, but not of the body.4

But on the contrary, blessed Augustine — whom the Scholastic Theologians and most Doctors have deservedly followed — in book 13 of the City of God, chapter 12, confirms that in this place, by the word “death,” there is signified every death that can befall man, that is, both of soul and of body, both temporal and eternal. The words of Augustine in that place run thus: “When, therefore, it is asked with what death God threatened the first men, if they should transgress the command received from Him, and not keep obedience — whether of the soul, or of the body, or of the whole man, or that which is called the second [death] — the answer is: all. For the first consists of two; the second is whole out of all. For just as the whole earth consists of many lands, and the whole Church of many Churches, so the whole death of all: since the first consists of two, one of the soul, the other of the body — so that the first death of the whole man is when the soul, without God and without the body, pays penalties for a time; but the second is where the soul, without God, with the body, pays eternal penalties. When, therefore, God said to that first man, whom He had set in Paradise, concerning the forbidden food, ‘In whatever day you eat of it, you shall die the death’ — not only the former part of the first death, where the soul is deprived of God; nor only the latter, where the body is deprived of the soul; nor only that whole first death, where the soul, separated both from God and from the body, is punished; but whatever of death there is, up to the last, which is called the second, and than which there is none later — that threat comprehended.” Thus Augustine.5

Ex adverso autem B. Augustinus, quem Theologi Scholastici & plerique Doctores merito secuti sunt, in lib. 13. de Civitate Dei, cap. 12. confirmat, hoc loco mortis vocabulo significatam esse omnem mortem quae potest homini accidere, hoc est, tam animae quàm corporis, tam temporalem quàm aeternam. Verba Augustini eo loco, sic habent: Cùm ergo requiritur quam mortem Deus primis hominibus fuerit comminatus, si ab eo mandatum transgrederentur acceptum, nec obedientiam custodirent, utrum animae an corporis, an totius hominis, an illam quae secunda dicitur: respondendum est, omnes. Prima enim constat ex duabus: secunda ex omnibus tota. Sicut enim universa terra ex multis terris, & universa Ecclesia ex multis constat Ecclesiis, sic universa mors ex omnibus: quoniam prima constat ex duabus, una animae, altera corporis: ut sit prima totius hominis mors, cùm anima sine Deo & sine corpore ad tempus poenas luit: secunda verò ubi anima sine Deo cum corpore poenas aeternas luit. Quando ergo dixit Deus primo illi homini quem in Paradiso constituerat de cibo vetito, Quacumque die ederitis ex eo, morte moriemini: Non tantùm prima mortis partem priorem ubi anima privatur Deo, nec tantùm posteriorem ubi corpus privatur anima, nec solùm ipsam totam primam ubi anima & à Deo & à corpore separata punitur: sed quicquid mortis est usque ad novissimam quae secunda dicitur, & qua est nulla posterior, comminatio illa complexa est. Sic Augustinus.

Licet igitur, secundùm Augustinum, quadruplicem mortem distinguere: unam animae & ad tempus, cùm anima peccando separatur à Deo, alteram corporis & ad tempus: qua separatur anima à corpore: tertiam quae simul utramque complexa est, separationem dico animae à Deo & à corpore: quartam qua homo in aeternum morietur post diem iudicij, secundùm animam & corpus: quae mors secunda & novissima appellatur. Placet igitur Augustino, omnes has mortes illis Domini verbis esse comprehensas, eísque Adam post peccatum suum fuisse obnoxium.
It is permissible, therefore, according to Augustine, to distinguish a fourfold death: one of the soul and for a time, when the soul, by sinning, is separated from God; another of the body and for a time, by which the soul is separated from the body; a third, which comprehends both at once — I mean the separation of the soul from God and from the body; a fourth, by which man will die forever after the day of judgement, according to soul and body — which is called the second and last death. It pleases Augustine, therefore, that all these deaths are comprehended in those words of the Lord, and that Adam, after his sin, was liable to them.6
QVOD autem Dominus illis verbis significaverit mortem corporis, multis probatur argumentis. Primò, quia vox mortis & verbum moriendi precisè posita in narratione historica, qualis est haec Mosis, accipienda sunt secundùm propriam & apud omnes usitatam eorum significationem, id est, pro morte corporali. Deinde, ut haec Dei sententia effectum haberet, Deus eiecit Adamum ex paradiso, eíque facultatem omnem abstulit edendi ex arbore vitae, ne scilicet mortem corporis sibi destinatam effugere posset.
Now that the Lord by those words signified the death of the body is proved by many arguments. First, because the word “death” and the verb “to die,” placed precisely in a historical narration — such as this of Moses is — are to be taken according to their proper and by all customary signification, that is, for bodily death. Then, in order that this sentence of God might have its effect, God cast Adam out of paradise, and took from him every faculty of eating from the tree of life — lest, namely, he should be able to escape the bodily death destined for him.7
Hoc ipsum manifestis verbis docet Paulus, ita scribens in cap. 5. Epistolae quam misit ad Rom. Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, & per peccatum mors: & ita in omnes homines mors pertransiit. Et in lib. Sapientiae perspicuè traditur, mortem corporis homini contigisse propter peccatum. Sic enim est in cap. 1. & 2. Deus mortem non fecit, nec laetatur in perditione vivorum. Et: Deus creavit hominem inexterminabilem, & ad ima-[ginem suae similitudinis fecit illum...]
This very thing Paul teaches in manifest words, writing thus in chapter 5 of the Epistle which he sent to the Romans: “Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and so death passed unto all men.” And in the book of Wisdom it is plainly handed down that the death of the body befell man on account of sin. For thus it stands in chapters 1 and 2: “God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living.” And: “God created man imperishable, and to the ima-[ge of His own likeness He made him...] [continues]8
[...Deus creavit hominem inexterminabilem, & ad ima]ginem similitudinis suae fecit illum: Invidia autem diaboli mors introivit in orbem terrarum: Denique hoc idem decretum & constitutum est in Cócilio Arausicano, can. 1. & in Tridentino, sess. 5. in decreto de peccato originali. Argumétum autem illud Philonis & B. Gregorij, quo sententiam hanc oppugnant, Adamú, non statim ut comedit cibum vetitum, esse mortuum secundùm corpus, sed ultrà nongentos annos posteà vixisse, esse infirmum nec opinioni huic officere, manifestum est ex his quae praecedenti quaestione tractavimus, disputantes quomodo Adam, statim ut comedit illum cibum vetitum, sit mortuus.
[...God created man imperishable, and to the ima]ge of His own likeness He made him: but by the envy of the devil death entered into the world. Lastly, this same thing has been decreed and established in the Council of Orange, canon 1, and in the Council of Trent, session 5, in the decree on original sin. But that argument of Philo and of blessed Gregory, by which they assail this view — that Adam did not, immediately upon eating the forbidden food, die according to the body, but lived for more than nine hundred years afterward — is weak, and does not stand in the way of this opinion, as is manifest from the things which we treated in the preceding question, disputing how Adam, as soon as he ate that forbidden food, died.9
At enim, inquit Eugubinus, Christus omnia mala sustulit qua homini propter peccatum Adae acciderant, sed non sustulit mortem corporalem: ergo ea mors non est poena peccati Adae. Verùm, deceptus est Eugubinus, non animadvertens tam in Evangelio Ioannis, quàm in epistolis Pauli, praesertim autem in cap. 15. prioris Epist. ad Corinth. apertè scriptum & testatum esse, utrumque malum, peccati nempe & mortis esse à Christo sublatum, sed illud in praesenti, & in priori suo adventu: hoc autem in consummatione saeculi, & in posteriori adventu.
“But indeed,” says Eugubinus, “Christ took away all the evils which befell man on account of Adam's sin, yet He did not take away corporeal death: therefore that death is not the penalty of Adam's sin.” But Eugubinus is deceived, not observing that both in the Gospel of John and in the epistles of Paul — and especially in chapter 15 of the former Epistle to the Corinthians — it is openly written and attested that both evils, namely of sin and of death, were taken away by Christ: but the former in the present, and in His first coming; the latter at the consummation of the age, and in His latter coming.10
SED illud nobis posset obiici, mortem esse naturalem homini, non igitur esse poenam peccati: sicut enim peccatum non est naturale, ita nec peccati poena naturalis esse potest. Esse autem naturalem homini mortem, duobus argumentis evidenter convincitur: tum quòd mors accidit homini ex naturali & substantiali eius constitutione, ea scilicet ratione ut ex materia & forma, & ex rebus contrariis, perpetuóque pugnantibus inter se constitutus est; tum etiam quòd esse mortalem & posse mori naturale est homini: ergo actus moriendi quae est mors, naturalis quoque homini erit. Illud enim apud Philosophos pervulgatum & indubitatum est, potentiam & actum ei respondentem, eiusdem esse ordinis & rationis.
But this could be objected to us: that death is natural to man, and therefore is not the penalty of sin — for just as sin is not natural, so neither can the penalty of sin be natural. That death is natural to man is evidently proved by two arguments: both because death befalls man from his natural and substantial constitution — namely, in that he is constituted of matter and form, and of contrary things perpetually at war among themselves; and also because to be mortal and to be able to die is natural to man: therefore the act of dying, which is death, will also be natural to man. For this is widely received and undoubted among the Philosophers, that a potency and the act corresponding to it are of the same order and reason.11
SED facilis est ad haec responsio. Homo enim duobus modis considerari potest, vel per se ac secundùm nudam naturae suae conditionem, remoto nempe omni Dei dono ei superaddito, & hac ratione mors naturalis est homini, non minùs quàm caeteris animantibus: vel ea ratione ut homo fuit à principio conditus à Deo, ut videlicet rectus, innocens, poténsque semper vivendi & nunquam moriendi si non peccaret, quae quidem homini contigerant non ex conditione naturae suae, sed ex Dei gratia & benignitate, atque hunc in modum considerando hominem, verè dicimus mortem fuisse ei poenam ad-[missi peccati...]
But the answer to these things is easy. For man can be considered in two ways: either in himself, and according to the bare condition of his nature — with every gift of God superadded to him, namely, removed — and in this way death is natural to man, no less than to the other animals; or in the way in which man was at the beginning founded by God, namely as upright, innocent, and able always to live and never to die if he did not sin — which things had indeed befallen man not from the condition of his nature, but from the grace and kindness of God; and considering man in this manner, we truly say that death was for him the penalty of [his committed sin...] [continues]12
[...verè dicimus mortem fuisse ei poenam admissi peccati: nisi enim peccasset, in illo foelici statu permanens à morte fuisset immunis. Posset hoc illustrari exemplo Saulis, cui ante electionem eius & promotionem ad regnum, non fuerat poena regali dignitate ac potestate carere; postquam autem creatus est Rex, regnóque per aliquot annos potitus, magna profectò fuit poena & ipsum & posteros eius regio dominatu & imperio privari. Idem quoque dici potest de summo sacerdotio posteris Heli adempto. Si quis veró nos urgere insistat, dicens omnem poenam esse à] Deo, mortem autem non esse à Deo, clamat enim Scriptura in libr. Sapientiae 1. Deus mortem non fecit, ergo mors non est poena peccati. Respondebimus, mortem ut est malum quoddam naturae esse à Deo, non quidem per se ac directè, sed consequenter & obliquè. Nam quia Deus constituit hominem ex anima rationali & corpore sensuum facultatibus & organis instructo & praedito, huiusmodi autem corpus quia constat ex qualitatibus contrariis, necesse est dissolubile ac mortale esse, hinc fit, ut ex necessitate materiae qua coagmentatus est homo, mors ei contingat. At verò mors ut est iusta poena pec-[cati...]
[...we truly say that death was for him the penalty of his committed sin: for unless he had sinned, remaining in that happy state, he would have been immune from death. This could be illustrated by the example of Saul, for whom, before his election and promotion to the kingdom, it had been no penalty to lack the royal dignity and power; but after he was made King, and had held the kingdom for some years, it was assuredly a great penalty for both him and his posterity to be deprived of the royal dominion and rule. The same too may be said of the high priesthood taken away from the posterity of Eli. But if anyone insists on pressing us, saying that every penalty is from] God, but that death is not from God — for Scripture cries out in the book of Wisdom 1, “God did not make death” — therefore death is not the penalty of sin: we shall answer that death, as it is a certain evil of nature, is from God, not indeed per se and directly, but consequently and obliquely. For because God constituted man of a rational soul and of a body furnished and endowed with the faculties and organs of the senses — and such a body, since it consists of contrary qualities, is necessarily dissoluble and mortal — hence it comes about that, from the necessity of the matter from which man is compacted, death befalls him. But death, as it is the just penalty of sin... [continues]13
[...At verò mors ut est iusta poena pec]cati, per se à Deo est, non quidem efficienter, nam cùm mors non sit res aliqua sed mera privatio non potest effectorem habere Deum, verùm eius causa Deus fuit, removendo id quod arcebat mortem, videlicet subtrahendo homini iustitiam originalem, & singularem quandam protectionem & curam hominis, qua Deus quoad in statu innocentiae perstitisset, & mortem omniáque corporis incómoda & mala ab eo propulsasset.
[...But death, as it is the just penalty of sin,] is per se from God — not, indeed, efficiently, for since death is not some thing but a mere privation, it cannot have God as its maker; but God was its cause by removing that which kept off death, namely by withdrawing from man original justice, and a certain singular protection and care of man, by which God, so long as man had stood firm in the state of innocence, would have driven death and all the discomforts and evils of the body away from him.14

Translator’s notes

  1. Second question of the disputation (rule above). ↩
  2. Large decorated initial 'A'. The 'soul-only' view: Philo (de Allegoriis 2), Eucherius (Comm. in Gen. 1), Steuco of Gubbio (who later recanted in his Cosmopoeia). ↩
  3. Gregory the Great, Register Ep. 6.195 (= Ep. 31, to Eulogius of Alexandria and Anastasius of Antioch), block-quote ('Haec Gregorius'): Adam died 'in soul' (in blessedness, not in substance) the day he sinned, revived by penance; bodily death came through him to the race (1 Cor 15:21-22, the 'second Man'). ↩
  4. Sums up the 'soul-only' school (Philo, Eucherius, Steuco, Gregory). (The sentence straddles the page-break; printed across the catchword 'auctores'.) ↩
  5. Augustine, Civ. Dei 13.12 (block-quote): the threat comprehended EVERY death — of soul, of body, of the whole man, and the 'second death.' Marginal gloss: 'Augustini & Scholasticorum Theologorum sententia.' ↩
  6. The fourfold death systematized: (1) soul/temporal (loss of God); (2) body/temporal (soul-body separation); (3) both together; (4) eternal (the 'second death,' Rev 20). Marginal gloss: 'Quadruplex mors hominis.' ↩
  7. Arguments that bodily death was meant: (1) in historical narrative 'death' means bodily death; (2) God barred the tree of life so Adam could not escape it. Marginal gloss: 'Deum Adamo minatum esse mortem corporis.' ↩
  8. Scriptural proofs for bodily death by sin: Rom 5:12; Wisdom 1:13 ('God did not make death') and 2:23 ('God created man imperishable, in His image'). Page ends at the catchword 'ginem' (signature MM). RESUME POINT for next batch: PDF 499, 'ad imaginem [suae similitudinis fecit illum]...'. ↩
  9. Completes the Wisdom citation (Wis 2:23-24) and adds conciliar authority (Orange canon 1; Trent session 5, on original sin). The Philo/Gregory objection (Adam lived 930 years) already answered in QUAESTIO I (death 'begun'). ↩
  10. Steuco's objection answered: Christ removes death too (1 Cor 15), but bodily death is abolished only at His second coming. Marginal gloss: 'In Cosmopoeia.' ↩
  11. Objection: death is natural (a body of warring contraries must dissolve; the act answers the natural potency 'able to die'), hence not a penalty of sin. Marginal glosses: 'An mors sit naturalis homini'; 'Axioma Philosophorum.' ↩
  12. Reply: man in pure nature dies like the animals; but as God actually constituted him (upright, deathless by grace), death is the penalty of sin. Marginal gloss: 'Quomodo mors sit naturalis, & sit poena hominis.' ↩
  13. (The opening completes PDF 499's sentence and adds the Saul / Eli examples — what is no penalty in pure nature becomes one once a grace is given and lost.) Objection from Wis 1:13 ('God did not make death') answered: death as a natural evil is from God only obliquely (via the necessity of contrary-composed matter). Marginal gloss: 'An mors sit à Deo.' ↩
  14. Death as penalty is 'from God' not by efficient causation (it is a privation) but by withdrawing the original justice and protection that would have warded it off. ↩