Nevertheless there remains yet another question which can be advanced by
those who do not believe that the human body was taken from Mary, but
that the body was in some other way set apart and prepared, which in the
moment of union appeared to be conceived and born of Mary's womb. For
they say: if the body was taken from man while every man was, from the
time of the first disobedience, not only enslaved by sin and death but
also involved in sinful desires, and if his punishment for sin was that,
although he was held in chains of death, yet at the same time he should
be guilty because of the will to sin, why was there in Christ neither
sin nor any will to sin? And certainly such a question is attended by a
difficulty which deserves attention. For if the body of Christ was
assumed from human flesh, it is open to doubt of what kind we must
consider that flesh to be which was assumed.
In truth, the manhood which He assumed He likewise saved; but if He
assumed such manhood as Adam had before sin, He appears to have assumed
a human nature complete indeed, but one which was in no need of healing.
But how can it be that He assumed such manhood as Adam had when there
could be in Adam both the will and the desire to sin, whence it came to
pass that even after the divine commands had been broken, he was still
held captive to sins of disobedience? But we believe that in Christ
there was never any will to sin, because especially if He assumed such a
human body as Adam had before his sin, He could not be mortal, since
Adam, had he not sinned, would in no wise have suffered death. Since,
then, Christ never sinned, it must be asked why He suffered death if He
assumed the body of Adam before sin. But if He accepted human conditions
such as Adam's were after sin, it seems that Christ could not avoid
being subject to sin, perplexed by passions, and, since the canons of
judgment were obscured, prevented from distinguishing with unclouded
reason between good and evil, since Adam by his disobedience incurred
all these penalties of crime.
To whom we must reply[76] that there are three states of man to
envisage: one, that of Adam before his sin, in which, though free from
death and still unstained by any sin, he could yet have within him the
will to sin; the second, that in which he might have suffered change had
he chosen to abide steadfastly in the commands of God, for then it could
have been further granted him not only not to sin or wish to sin, but to
be incapable of sinning or of the will to transgress. The third state is
the state after sin, into which man needs must be pursued by death and
sin and the sinful will. Now the points of extreme divergence between
these states are the following: one state would have been for Adam a
reward if he had chosen to abide in God's laws; the other was his
punishment because he would not abide in them; for in the former state
there would have been no death nor sin nor sinful will, in the latter
there was both death and sin and every desire to transgress, and a
general tendency to ruin and a condition helpless to render possible a
rise after the Fall. But that middle state from which actual death or
sin was absent, but the power for both remained, is situate between the
other two.
Each one, then, of these three states somehow supplied to Christ a cause
for his corporeal nature; thus His assumption of a mortal body in order
to drive death far from the human race belongs properly to that state
which was laid on man by way of punishment after Adam's sin, whereas the
fact that there was in Christ no sinful will is borrowed from that state
which might have been if Adam had not surrendered his will to the frauds
of the tempter. There remains, then, the third or middle state, to wit,
that which was before death had come and while the will to sin might yet
be present. In this state, therefore, Adam was able to eat and drink,
digest the food he took, fall asleep, and perform all the other
functions which always belonged to him as man, though they were allowed
and brought with them no pain of death.
There is no doubt that Christ was in all points thus conditioned; for He
ate and drank and discharged the bodily function of the human body. For
we must not think that Adam was at the first subject to such need that
unless he ate he could not have lived, but rather that, if he had taken
food from every tree, he could have lived for ever, and by that food
have escaped death; and so by the fruits of the Garden he satisfied a
need.[77] And all know that in Christ the same need dwelt, but lying in
His own power and not laid upon Him. And this need was in Him before the
Resurrection, but after the Resurrection He became such that His human
body was changed as Adam's might have been but for the bands of
disobedience. Which state, moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
taught us to desire in our prayers, asking that His Will be done as in
heaven so on earth, and that His Kingdom come, and that He may deliver
us from evil. For all these things are sought in prayer by those members
of the human family who rightly believe and who are destined to undergo
that most blessed change of all.[78]
So much have I written to you concerning what I believe should be
believed. In which matter if I have said aught amiss, I am not so well
pleased with myself as to try to press my effusions in the face of wiser
judgment. For if there is no good thing in us there is nothing we should
fancy in our opinions. But if all things are good as coming from Him who
alone is good, that rather must be thought good which the Unchangeable
Good and Cause of all Good indites.
[76] This _respondendum_ has the true Thomist ring.
[77] Adam did not need to eat in order to live, but if he had not eaten
he would have suffered hunger, etc.
[78] The whole of this passage might be set in _Tr._ iv. without
altering the tone.