A DISPUTATION WHETHER ADAM WAS TRULY DECEIVED.¹

DISPUTATIO AN VERE Adam fuerit deceptus.

'Nor is it in vain that the Apostle says, Adam was first formed: but the woman, being seduced, was made in transgression — that is, that through her the man too should transgress. For he calls him too a transgressor, where he says, In the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the figure of him who was to come; yet he denies that he was seduced. For even when questioned he did not say, the woman whom you gave me seduced me, and I ate; but, She gave me, he says, of the tree, and I ate; whereas she said, The serpent seduced me. So Solomon, with such great wisdom — is it indeed to be believed that in the worship of idols he believed there was anything of use? But he was not strong enough to resist the love of women drawing him to this evil, doing what he knew ought not to be done, lest he sadden his deadly delights by which he was perishing and dissolving...'⁹

Neque frustra est quod Apostolus ait, Adam primus formatus est: mulier autem seducta in praevaricatione facta est, id est, ut per illam etiam vir praevaricaretur. Nam & ipsum dicit praevaricatorem: ubi ait: In similitudinem praevaricationis Adae, qui est forma futuri, seductum tamen negat. Nam & interrogatus non ait, mulier quam dedisti mihi seduxit me, & manducavi: sed, Ipsa mihi, inquit, dedit de ligno & manducavi: illa vero, Serpens, inquit, seduxit me. Ita Salomon tanta sapientia, nunquid nam credendum est, quod in simulacrorum cultu credidit esse aliquid utilitatis? Sed mulierum amori ad hoc malum trahenti resistere non evaluit, faciens quod sciebat non esse faciendum, ne suas quibus deperibat atque diffluebat, mortiferas delicias contristaret...

'...So too Adam, after the woman, being seduced, had eaten of the forbidden tree, and gave it to him, that they might eat together: he did not wish to sadden her, whom he believed could waste away without his consolation, if she were alienated from his mind, and altogether perish by that discord. Not indeed conquered by concupiscence of the flesh, which he had not yet felt in the law of the members resisting the law of his mind, but by a certain friendly benevolence, by which it often happens that God is offended, lest a man become an enemy out of a friend: which that he ought not to have done, the just outcome by the divine sentence showed. Therefore in another way he too was deceived: but by that serpentine guile by which the woman was seduced, in no way do I think he could have been seduced in the manner in which she could. This properly the Apostle called seduction, by which what was urged, though it was false, was thought to be true — that is, that God forbade them to touch that tree because he knew that if they touched it they would be as Gods, as though he who had made them men envied them divinity. But even if some desire of experiencing solicited the man, on account of some elation of mind by which he could not be hidden from God the searcher of inner things, when he saw the woman, having taken that food, was not dead, according to those things we treated above: yet I do not think, if he was already endowed with a spiritual mind, that he could in any way believe that God had forbidden them the food of that tree out of envy. But why more? That sin was urged, as such things could be urged; and it was written down, as all ought to read it, even if these things were understood by few as they ought.' Thus Augustine.¹⁰

ret: Ita & Adam, postquam de ligno prohibito seducta mulier manducavit, eique dedit, ut simul ederent: noluit eam contristari, quam credebat posse sine suo solatio contabescere, si ab eius alienaretur animo, & omnino illa interire discordia. Non quidem carnis victus concupiscentia, quam nondum senserat in resistente lege membrorum legi mentis suae, sed amicabili quadam benevolentia, qua plerumque fit ut offendatur Deus, ne homo ex amico fiat inimicus: quod eum facere non debuisse, divina sententia iustus exitus indicavit. Ergo alio quodam modo etiam ipse deceptus est: sed dolo illo serpentino, quo mulier seducta est, nullo modo illum arbitror potuisse seduci in illo modo quo illa potuit. Hanc autem proprie seductionem appellavit Apostolus, qua id quod suadebatur, cum falsum esset, verum esse putatum est, id est, quod Deus ideo lignum illud tangere prohibuerit, quod sciebat eos si tetigissent velut Deos futuros, tanquam eis divinitatem invideret qui eos homines fecerat. Sed etiam si virum propter aliquam mentis elationem, qua Deum internorum scrutatorem latere non poterat, solicitavit aliqua experiendi cupiditas, cum mulierem videret accepta illa esca non esse mortuam, secundum ea quae superius tractavimus: non tamen eum arbitror, si iam spiritali mente praeditus erat ullo modo credere potuisse, quod eos Deus ab esca illius ligni invidendo vetuisset. Sed quid plura? persuasum est illud peccatum, sicut persuaderi talibus posset: conscriptum est autem, sicut legi ab omnibus oporteret, etsi a paucis haec intelligerentur sicut oportet. Sic Augustinus.

I should like to add here, for confirmation of what we have taught about Adam's first sin, the words of Augustine, Gregory, and Bernard. In book 14 of the City of God, chapter 13, Augustine writes thus: '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 one is too pleased with himself: and one is so pleased with himself, when he falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to have pleased him more than himself. This defect 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.'¹⁸

Libet adscribere hoc loco, ad eorum quae de primo Adami peccato docuimus comprobationem, Augustini, Gregorij, & Bernardi verba. In libro 14. de Civitate Dei capit. 13. ita scribit Augustinus: 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: sibi vero ita 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 tenebresceret & 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.

In the same author, in chapter 15 of the same book, it goes thus: 'Because, therefore, God commanding was contemned — God who had created man, who had made him to his own image, who had set him over the other animals, who had placed him in Paradise, who had furnished an abundance of all things and of welfare, who had burdened him with precepts neither many nor great nor difficult, but with one most brief and most light had given him support toward the wholesomeness of obedience, by which he reminded him that he was Lord over that creature for whom free service was expedient — a just condemnation followed: such a condemnation indeed, that man, who by keeping the command was going to be spiritual even in his flesh, became carnal even in his mind; and because by his pride he had pleased himself, by God's justice he was given over to himself; nor, as he affected, was he in his own complete power, but, dissenting also from himself, under him to whom by sinning he consented, in place of the liberty which he coveted...'¹⁹

Apud eundem in eiusdem libri capite decimoquinto, sic est: Quia ergo contemptus est Deus iubens, qui hominem creaverat, qui ad suam imaginem eum fecerat, qui ceteris animalibus praeposuerat, qui in Paradiso constituerat, qui rerum omnium copiam salutisque praestiterat, qui praeceptis nec pluribus nec grandibus nec difficilibus oneraverat, sed uno brevissimo atque levissimo ad obedientiae salubritatem adminiculatus fuerat, quo super eam creaturam, cui libera servitus expediret, se esse Dominum commonebat, iusta damnatio subsecuta est: talis quidem damnatio, ut homo, qui custodiendo mandatum futurus fuerat etiam carne spiritalis, fieret etiam mente carnalis: & quia sua superbia sibi placuerat, Dei iustitia, sibi donaretur: nec sicut affectabat, in sua esset omnimoda potestate, sed a seipso quoque dissentiens, sub illo, cui peccando consensit, pro libertate quam concupie...

...he should lead a hard and miserable servitude, dying in spirit willingly, and about to die in body unwillingly: a deserter of eternal life, condemned also to eternal death, unless grace should set him free. Thus Augustine.²⁰

cupierat, duram miseramque ageret servitutem, mortuus spiritu volens, & corpore moriturus invitus: desertor aeternae vitae, etiam aeterna, nisi gratia liberaret, morte damnatus. Sic Augustinus.

Of St. Gregory, in chapter 17 of book 34 of the Morals, explaining that passage of Job chapter 41, 'He is king over all the children of pride,' these are the words: 'That this Leviathan, that is, the devil, might fall in all the things said above, pride alone struck him down; for he would not have withered through all those branches of vices, had he not first rotted through this in the root. For it is written, The beginning of all sin is pride: by this he himself succumbed, by this he laid low the man that followed. For with that dart he assailed the salvation of our immortality, by which he extinguished the life of his own blessedness. But the Lord inserted this at the end of his speech, so that, when after all evils he spoke of this Leviathan's pride, he might show what was worse than all evils. Though also by this, that it is placed lowest, it is shown to be the root of the vices. For as the root below is hidden, but from it the branches are spread outward: so pride hides itself within, but from it open vices at once sprout. For no evils would come forth into the open, unless this constrained the mind in secret. This is what makes this Leviathan's sense seethe like a pot: whence it shakes human minds in a kind of fervor of madness, but shows by open deeds how it overturns the soul it has shaken. For within it first boils up in elation, what afterward foams outwardly in deed.' Thus Gregory.²¹

B. Gregorii in capite 17. libri 34. Moralium, locum illum Iob cap. 41. Ipse est rex super universos filios superbiae explanantis, haec sunt verba. Ut Leviathan iste, id est, diabolus, in cunctis quae superius dicta sunt caderet, sola se superbia perculit, Neque enim per tot illos vitiorum ramos aresceret, nisi per hanc prius in radice putruisset, Scriptum est namque, Omnis peccati initium superbia: per hanc enim ipse succubuit, per hanc se sequentem hominem stravit. Eo etenim telo salutem nostrae immortalitatis impetiit, quo vitam suae beatitudinis extinxit. Sed idcirco hanc Dominus fini suae locutioni inseruit, ut cum post mala omnia, Leviathan istius superbiam diceret, quid esset malis omnibus deterius indicaret. Quamvis etiam per hoc quod in imo ponitur, vitiorum radix esse monstretur. Sicut enim inferius radix tegitur, sed ab illa rami extrinsecus expanduntur: ita se superbia intrinsecus celat, sed ab illa protinus aperta vitia pullulant. Nulla quippe mala ad publicum prodirent, nisi haec mentem in occulto constringeret. Haec est quae Leviathan istius sensum fervescere sicut ollam facit: unde & humanas mentes in quodam fervore insania concutit, sed per aperta opera qualiter concussi animam evertat, ostendit. Intus namque prius ebullit in elatione, quod foris postmodum spumat in opere. Haec Gregorius.

Finally, in Bernard, in the first Sermon on the Advent of the Lord, these things are read concerning Lucifer: 'Why are you proud, O earth and ashes? If God did not spare the proud Angels, how much more you, rottenness and worm? He did nothing, wrought nothing, only thought pride, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, was irreparably cast down: because, according to the Evangelist, he did not stand in the truth. Flee pride, my brothers, I beseech you, flee it greatly. The beginning of all sin is pride: which so swiftly darkened with eternal gloom even Lucifer himself, shining more brightly than all the stars; which changed not only an Angel, but the first of the Angels, into a devil. Whence, at once envying man, the iniquity which he had conceived in himself, he brought forth in him, persuading that by tasting the forbidden tree he would become as God, knowing good and evil. For what do you promise, what do you pledge, wretch? when the Son of the Most High has the key of knowledge — nay, is himself the key of David, who shuts and none opens — in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge: will you wickedly steal them, to give them to man? You see that truly, according to the Lord's word, he is a liar, and the father of it: for he was a liar, saying, I will be like the Most High; and the father of lying, when into man too he poured the poisoned seedbed of his falsehood, saying, You shall be as Gods. You too, O man, if you see a thief, will you run with him? You have heard, brothers, what was read this night in Isaiah, the Lord saying, Your princes are unfaithful (or as another translation has it, Disobedient), companions of thieves. For truly our princes, Adam and Eve, the beginnings of our stock, were disobedient and companions of thieves, who attempt to steal away, by the serpent's — nay, the devil's — counsel through the serpent, what belongs to the Son of God.' Thus far St. Bernard.²²

Denique apud Bernardum in Sermone primo de Adventu Domini haec de Lucifero leguntur. Quid tu superbis terra & cinis? si superbientibus Angelis Deus non pepercit, quanto magis tibi, putredo & vermis? Nihil ille fecit, nihil operatus est, tantum cogitavit superbiam, & in momento, in ictu oculi irreparabiliter praecipitatus est: quia iuxta Evangelistam in veritate non stetit. Fugite superbiam, fratres mei quaeso, multum fugite. Initium omnis peccati superbia: quae tam velociter ipsum quoque sideribus cunctis clarius micantem aeterna caligine obtenebravit Luciferum: quae non modo Angelum, sed Angelorum primum in diabolum commutavit, Unde & protinus invidens homini, quam conceperat in semetipso, in eo peperit iniquitatem, suadens, ut lignum vetitum gustans, fieret sicut Deus, sciens bonum & malum. Quid enim polliceris: quid promittis miser? cum Filius Altissimi scientiae clavem habeat, immo & ipse sit clavis David qui claudit & nemo aperit: in eo sunt omnes thesauri sapientiae & scientiae absconditi: tune eos, ut homini praestes, inique furaberis: Videtis quia vere iuxta Domini sententiam mendax iste est, & pater eius: nam & mendax fuit dicens, Similis ero Altissimo: & mendacij pater, cum in hominem quoque venenatum suae falsitatis seminarium effudit, dicens, Eritis sicut Dii. Tu quoque homo, si vides furem curres cum eo? Audistis fratres, quid hac nocte lectum est in Esaia, dicente Domino, Principes tui infideles, vel ut alia translatio habet, Inobedientes, socij furum. Revera enim principes nostri Adam & Eva, principia nostrae propaginis, inobedientes & socij furum, qui quod Filij Dei est, serpentis, immo diaboli per serpentem consilio subripere tentant. Hactenus S. Bernardus.

I will not pass over in silence what Augustine reported in the third Sermon on the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord (which is the 19th among those on the Saints): for he signifies that if Adam, when rebuked by God for his sin, had not excused himself, but with humble confession of the crime committed and with penance had sought pardon from him, it would have come about that he would not be exiled from Paradise. Augustine writes thus: 'When Adam was charged by the Lord with the disobedience he had committed, he did not humbly accuse himself, as the fault demanded, but proudly accused the author, saying, The woman whom you gave me, gave me the fruit, and I ate. By saying this, he thought himself excused: and thus he accused the creator of the woman who had drawn the man into the fault of sinning. Who, if he had humbly accused himself, and had not turned the blame back upon his author, would not have been exiled from Paradise.' Thus Augustine. But since the dwelling of the first man in Paradise was joined with the power of eating the fruit of the tree of life, and this in turn with the immortality of the body — for God, as Moses narrates a little below, cast Adam out of Paradise for this reason: lest, namely, remaining...³¹

Non involvam silentio quod Augustinus prodidit in Sermone tertio de festo Annunciationis Domini, qui est 19. de Sanctis: significat enim, si Adam cum de peccato suo reprehensus est a Deo, non excusasset se, sed humili sceleris patrati confessione ac poenitentia veniam ab eo postulasset, futurum fuisse, ut non exularet a Paradiso. Sic autem scribit Augustinus: Cum Adam de perpetrata a Domino argueretur inobedientia, non se humiliter, ut culpa exigebat accusavit, sed auctorem superbe accusavit dicens, Mulier quam dedisti mihi, dedit mihi fructum, & comedi. Haec dicendo, se putavit excusatum: & sic accusavit creatorem mulieris, quae ad peccandum, virum traxerat in culpam. Qui si humiliter se accusasset, & in auctorem suum culpam non retorsisset, a Paradiso non exulasset: Haec Augustinus. Sed cum habitatio primi hominis in Paradiso coniuncta esset cum potestate comedendi fructum arboris vitae, haec autem cum immortalitate corporis; propterea enim Deus, ut paulo infra narrat Moses, eiecit Adamum de Paradiso; ne scilicet manens...