QUESTION V. What Eve's first sin was.¹

QUAESTIO V. Quod fuerit primum peccatum Evae.

Augustine declares this same thing in most elegant words and sentences in book 14 of the City of God, chapter 13, writing in this manner: But they began to be evil in secret, so that they slipped into open disobedience. For the evil deed would not have been reached, had not an evil will gone before. Now what could be the beginning of the evil will but pride? For pride is the beginning of all sin; and what is pride but the appetite for a perverse loftiness? For it is a perverse loftiness, when the soul, forsaking the principle to which it ought to cling, becomes and is in a manner its own principle. This happens when it is too pleased with itself, when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to have pleased it more than it pleases itself. This falling away is voluntary: for if the will had remained steadfast in the love of the higher unchangeable good, by which it was enlightened that it might see and kindled that it might love, it would not have turned away thence to please itself, and from this grow dark and cold, so that either she might believe the serpent had spoken the truth, or he might prefer his wife's will to God's command, and think himself a venial transgressor of the precept if he did not forsake the partner of his life even in the partnership of sin. Therefore the evil deed was not done — that is, that transgression, the eating of the forbidden food — except by those who were already evil; for that fruit would not have become evil except from an evil tree. After this, with some things interposed, he adds: By the manifest and open sin, then, where there was done what God had forbidden to be done, the devil would not have caught man, had not man already begun to please himself. For hence too what was said gave delight, 'You shall be as Gods': which they could better be by cleaving through obedience to the highest and true principle, than by being their own principle through pride. For created gods are gods not by their own power, but by participation in the true God; but man, by seeking more, becomes less, for while he chose to suffice for himself, he falls away from him who truly suffices for him. That evil, then, by which a man is pleased with himself as if he too were a light, turns him away from that light which, if he is pleased with it, makes him also to be a light: that evil, I say, had gone before in secret, so that this evil might follow which was perpetrated in the open. For it is true what is written, before ruin the heart is exalted...³

Declarat hoc ipsum elegantissimis verbis & sententiis Augustinus in lib. 14. de Civitate Dei, cap. 13. hunc in modum scribens: In occulto autem mali esse coeperunt, ut in apertam inobedientiam laberentur. Non enim ad malum opus perveniretur, nisi praecessisset mala voluntas. Porro malae voluntatis initium, quod potuit esse nisi superbia? Initium enim omnis peccati superbia est: quid est autem superbia, nisi perversae celsitudinis appetitus? Perversa enim celsitudo est deserto eo cui debet animus inhaerere principio, sibi quodammodo fieri atque esse principium. Hoc fit, cum sibi nimis placet, cum ab illo bono immutabili deficit, quod ei magis placere debuit, quam ipse sibi. Spontaneus est autem iste defectus: quoniam si voluntas in amore superioris immutabilis boni, a quo illustrabatur ut videret, & accendebatur ut amaret, stabilis permaneret: non inde ad sibi placendum averteretur, & ex hoc intenebresceret & frigesceret, ut vel illa verum crederet dixisse serpentem, vel ille Dei mandato uxoris praeponeret voluntatem: putaretque se venialiter transgressorem esse praecepti, si vitae suae sociam non desereret etiam in societate peccati. Non ergo malum opus factum est, id est, illa transgressio, ut cibo prohibito vescerentur, nisi ab eis qui mali iam erant, neque enim fieret ille fructus malus, nisi ab arbore mala. Post haec interpositis quibusdam subdit: Manifesto ergo apertoque peccato, ubi factum est quod Deus fieri prohibuerat, diabolus hominem non cepisset, nisi iam ille sibi ipsi placere coepisset. Hinc enim & delectavit quod dictum est, Eritis sicut Dii: quod melius esse possent, summo veroque principio cohaerendo per obedientiam, non suum sibi existendo principium per superbiam. Dii enim creati, non sua virtute, sed Dei veri participatione sunt Dii: plus autem homo appetendo, minus est: qui dum sibi sufficere delegit, ab illo, qui ei vere sufficit, deficit. Illud itaque malum quo cum sibi homo placet tanquam & ipse sit lumen, avertitur ab eo lumine quod ei si placet & ipse sit lumen: illud inquam malum praecesserat in abdito, ut sequeretur hoc malum quod perpetratum est in aperto. Verum est enim quod scriptum est, ante ruinam exaltatur cor...

...the heart, and before glory it is humbled. That ruin, which happens in secret, altogether precedes the ruin which happens openly, while the former is not thought to be a ruin. For who reckons exaltation a ruin, when there is already there a falling-away, by which the height has been forsaken? But who would not see it to be a ruin, when there is an evident and unquestionable transgression of the command? For this reason God forbade that thing, which, once committed, could be defended by no imagining of justice. And therefore I dare to say that it is useful for the proud to fall into some open and manifest sin, that they may become displeasing to themselves who had already fallen by being pleased with themselves. For more wholesomely did Peter become displeasing to himself when he wept, than he was pleasing to himself when he presumed. This too the sacred Psalm says: 'Fill their faces with shame, and they shall seek your name, O Lord' — that is, that you may please them who seek your name, who had pleased themselves by seeking their own.' Thus far the words of Augustine.⁴

cor, & ante gloriam humiliatur: Illa prorsus ruina, quae fit in occulto, praecedit ruinam, quae fit in manifesto, dum illa ruina esse non putatur. Quis enim exaltationem ruinam putat: cum iam sit ibi defectus, quo est relictus excelsus? Quis autem ruinam esse non videat, quando fit mandati evidens atque indubitata transgressio? Propter hoc Deus illud prohibuit, quod cum esset admissum, nulla defendi posset imaginatione iustitia. Et ideo audeo dicere, superbis esse utile cadere in aliquod apertum manifestumque peccatum: unde sibi displiceant, qui iam sibi placendo ceciderant. Salubrius enim Petrus sibi displicuit quando flevit, quam sibi placuit quando praesumpsit. Hoc dicit & sacer Psalmus, Imple facies eorum ignominia, & quaerent nomen tuum Domine, id est, ut tu eis placeas quaerentibus nomen tuum, qui sibi placuerant quaerendo suum. Hactenus sunt verba Augustini.