obedience incurred death." Though the body naturally tends to dissolution and death, if man had persevered in the state of innocence God would have preserved his vital.y, protected him from outward dangers, and, finally, transferred him to everlasting bliss, without his having tasted death. This immortality was, nevertheless, as St. Paul tells us (1 Cor. xv. 45), less perfect than that promised to the blessed in heaven; for, while the glorified bodies will need no nutriment, our first parents were to nourish themselves from the fruits of the earth.

d. Our first parents were exempt from sufferings. As they were exempt from death so they were also free from all those ills that lead to death. Therefore the many evils which now afflict humanity, though resulting from the nature of the body, are so many consequences and punishments of sin; for

was by the disobedience of our first parent that this state of happiness was lost to posterity (Trid. Sess. v. can. 2). To this state of external happiness belonged, besides the blissful abode in Paradise, the perfect dominion over nature and all its living creatures.

II. Those gifts bestowed on our first parents were supernatural and, therefore, constituted their supernatural likeness to God.

All those prerogatives of our first parents taken collectively are called original justice. While we may consider sanctifying grace as the source of exemption from concupiscence, and immunity from death, that superior knowledge vouchsafed to Adam may be regarded as conferred on him by a special dispensation as the head and educator of the human race.

That these prerogatives were supernatural is manifest from their relation to human nature as well as from the teaching of the Church.

1. By sanctifying grace, according to the teaching of St. Paul, we are made the adopted sons of God (Gal. iv. 5). It, therefore, confers on us rights which naturally do not belong The right to a future happiness consisting in the beatific vision is the result of this adoption. Now, this adoption being a gift far exceeding the claims of nature, the beatific

to us.

vision, that happiness resulting from it, is also a supernatural gift (cf. 3, 7, 102).

2. The exemption from concupiscence is not grounded in nature, nor in any way due to nature. For, as every faculty naturally tends to its peculiar object, the sensitive faculties seek their own sensual enjoyment and thus give rise to a confict with reason; for man, endowed as he is with free will, car. lawfully allow them only those enjoyments which reason and the moral law approve. It was no small boon to man that he was exempt from the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit; for although the first involuntary sensual motions are of themselves not sinful, yet they are irksome and dangerous; and without the dominion of reason man does not possess perfect harmony within him. By a laborious struggle he can now, with God's assistance, restore the lost harmony. Since, therefore, God gave to man the means of restoring harmony between reason and sense, that is, free will, He has in a certain measure restored to him that harmony itself, as far as human nature can claim it. Consequently, we cannot say that exemption from the rebellion of the flesh, as possessed by our first parents, is due to man's nature. All that man can claim is the power to restore the original order by the dominion of free will. The same may be said in regard to that superior knowledge granted to our first parents; for if God left man to his own natural powers also in this regard, "He would not," as St. Augustine (Retract. I. c. 9, n. 6) teaches, "therefore deserve blame, but praise."

3. The immortality of the body was a supernatural gift. Death, with its accompanying sufferings, is the result of man's nature, which neither God's goodness nor His wisdom required that He should avert from His creature: not His goodness, for this attribute does not oblige God to bestow all possible benefits on man; not His wisdom, for His wisdom only requires that He give His creatures the necessary means to attain to their end. But man could gain his end without the gift of mmortality.

Hence it follows that God could have created man in a purely

natural state (in statu natura pura), i.e., without sanctifying grace, without a supernatural end, and without those supernatural gifts which He bestowed on our first parents. In this case God would have given man the means necessary to attain to his end; but these means, and the end itself, would have been in that case of the natural order. Death and sufferings, which are now the punishments of sin, would have been merely natural consequences. In like manner, the struggle resulting from the rebellion of the senses against reason would exist. But in any case, the external difficul ties coming from the assaults of the evil one would not be so great as at present; for, after the fall Satan acts the part of a victor towards the vanquished. We may also reasonably suppose that in the natural state God would render it comparatively easy for man to attain to his end by abundant external help, by a bountiful providence in the government of the world, as well as in the guidance of individuals. In this supposition a supernatural revelation of the truths of natural religion would not be morally necessary, since man's external difficulties, as we suppose, would be less, and his external helps more abundant. Hence the Church condemned the proposition: "God could not have created man from the beginning as he is born at present [i.e., bereft of all supernatural gifts].”

111. Adam was destined to be the father of the human race not only according to the flesh, but also according to the spirit. Adam received the supernatural gifts comprised in original justice (110), particularly sanctifying grace, not only for himself, but also for all his descendants. This is true of Adam alone as the head and representative of the human race; not of Eve, though she, too, possessed the same gifts.

1. This is intimated in the words: "Increase, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the whole earth" (Gen. i. 28). Here God confers on man that sovereign dominion which was the result of his supernatural elevation (110). If this dominion is to continue in Adam's descendants, so also its cause, or source-man's supernatural likeness to God-is to be transmitted. Moreover, Scripture represents Christ as the new Adam, who imparts to His spiritual posterity the inheritance of His justice, in the same way as the first Adam was destined to bequeath to his descendants the spiritual goods entrusted to him (Rom. v. 16-19).

2. This is the express teaching of the Church. The Second Council of Orange (can. 19), says that human nature, that is, the human race, 66 had received salvation in Adam." Council of Trent (Sess. v. can. 2), declares that Adam "lost

The

the sanctity and justice received, not only for himself, but also for us. But he could not have lost it for us, if he had not also received it for us.

Adam was, therefore, destined to be the father of the human race spiritually as well as physically, being the mediator through whom God intended to confer His spiritual favors on man. His descendants were to inherit their natural gifts by descent from him, but sanctifying grace and the mastery over the passions were to be directly infused by God Himself into the soul. While Adam, as the head and educator of the human race, received an extensive infused knowledge at his creation, his descendants would in all probability be left to acquire their knowledge by observation and instruction (S. Thom. I. q. 100, a. 1; q. 101, a. 1). Finally, immortality would be ensured to all by a supernatural preservation of their natural vitality, and by a special divine providence (S. Thom. 1. q. 97, a. 4). The wisdom and goodness of God is especially manifested in the fact that He made man himself the mediator through whom His supernatural gifts were to be transmitted to the human race. Thus a wonderful harmony was established between the natural and the supernatural order, and man was made the dispenser of supernatural grace to man.

112. Our first parents, being subjected to a probation, transgressed the divine command, and thus incurred the severest penalties.

1. Like the angels (102), so also our first parents were subjected to a trial. Since God from mere benevolence had given such gifts and graces to our first parents, He was free to make their continuation and transmission to posterity dependent on certain conditions. The probation. chosen by God was obedience to His command not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree (Gen. ii. 17). If it pleased God in His wisdom that mankind should inherit the graces He had destined for them by their descent from Adam, it is no less in keeping with His wisdom to make the actual transmission of these gifts dependent on the obedience of the head of our race.

If Adam had not sinned and lost the gifts destined for his de scendants, yet each individual would have to undergo a like trial, and would thus be exposed to the danger of losing the graces received (S. Thom. I. q. 100, a. 2).

2. Our first parents transgressed God's command, and thereby committed a sin that was all the more grievous be cause, considering the abundance of gifts and graces imparted

to them, they could easily have obeyed the divine precept. They were not swayed by immoderate passions, but sinned with full deliberation, notwithstanding the greatness of God's favors and the severity of His menaces.

3. The consequences of the transgression for our first parents themselves were manifold (Trid. Sess. v. can. 1.).

a. They lost the supernatural gifts: (1) sanctifying grace, and with it the supernatural life of the soul, and the supernatural likeness to God. For it is sanctifying grace that makes man the friend and child of God, while sin deprives him of the divine friendship and sonship, and, consequently, of sanctifying grace, which is inseparable from it. Spiritual death took the place of the spiritual, supernatural life of grace; divine wrath took the place of the friendship of God; and the slavery of Satan succeeded the adoption of the children of God. (2) They lost those preternatural gifts which resulted from sanctifying grace: dominion over the passions, immortality of the body. Sickness and sufferings, the forerunners of death, ensued.

b. The loss of the supernatural gifts produced the most baneful effects upon the natural faculties and the external conditions of our first parents. (1) Since original justice no longer controlled the functions of their soul, their understanding was darkened and their will weakened. (2) Driven out ɔf Paradise, they were forced to till the earth in the sweat of their brow. (3) Nature no longer willingly submitted to their sway; they became sensible of the discomforts that awaited them now that they no longer enjoyed the special protection of God; the very thistles and thorns which the earth brought forth even before man's fall became an instrument for man's punishment.

c. The future punishments which our first parents incurred were twofold. Having turned away from God, their last end, they incurred the pain of loss, or banishment from the presence of God; having turned to God's creatures, they incurred likewise the pain of sense; having, like Satan, rebelled against God, they incurred, like him, the eternal pains of hell.