Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Loss of Grace · Book III: On the Sin of the First Man
Chapter 12: On the penance and salvation of the first men
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. V, De Amissione Gratiae et Statu Peccati, Book III. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
There remains the last part of this disputation, which was concerning the penance and salvation of the first parents. For it was one of the heresies of Tatian that the first men after death were delivered to eternal damnation. Which error has been rejected by the common consent of the Fathers and of the Church. For first of all, as many as write of heresies reprehend Tatian for having dared to contradict the salvation of the first parents.
See Irenaeus, book 1, chapters 30 and 31; Tertullian, in the book On Prescription against Heretics, chapter 52 [al. 32]; Epiphanius, on the heresy of Tatian, which is the 46th; Philastrius, in the Catalogue of Heretics; Augustine, in the book On Heresies, chapter 25 [al. 23]. To which add the testimony of the same St. Augustine from epistle 99 to Evodius, in these words: “And concerning that first man, the father of the human race, that he (Christ, descending to the lower regions) released him there, almost the whole Church consents. Which it is to be believed she has not believed emptily, from wheresoever this has been handed down — even if the express authority of the canonical Scriptures is not brought forward on this point. Although that which is written in the book of Wisdom, chapter 10 — She kept him, that was first formed by God, the father of the world, when he was created alone, and she brought him out of his sin, and gave him power to govern all things — seems to make for this opinion more than for any other understanding.” In which place St. Augustine proves first from unwritten tradition that Adam was saved, then from Scripture; nor does he call into question whether the book of Wisdom is canonical, but whether the words of that book make so perspicuously for this opinion that nothing can be objected against it. And plainly (as he himself also indicates) it does not appear how those words — she brought him out of his sin — can be understood otherwise than of the penance and salvation of the first man.
Moreover, St. Irenaeus, in book 3, chapters 34 and following, endeavors to prove by many reasons that the first parents are saved. First, because the contrary opinion is new, and first devised by Tatian himself. Next, because God did not curse Adam and Eve, as he cursed the serpent, whose salvation was altogether despaired of. Which argument Tertullian also uses, in book 2 against Marcion: “Therefore,” says he, “he cursed not Adam and Eve themselves, as candidates for restitution, as ones relieved by confession.” Third, because Adam and Eve, in sign of penance, clothed themselves with rough girdles of fig leaves, as it were with sackcloth and haircloth. Fourth, because the good shepherd does not seem properly to have found the hundredth sheep which had perished, if the first man, who was signified by it, were not saved. Fifth, because the devil could deservedly glory that he had not been conquered by Christ, if the sons and posterity of the first parents, and not the first parents themselves, were delivered from captivity. For the devil properly overcame the first parents; but the other men he holds captive by right for this reason, that they are the sons of those whom he by the right of war made his slaves. For by whom one is overcome, of him he is made the slave.
Epiphanius, heresy 46, adds another argument from this: that not without an immense mystery is Adam handed down to have been buried in that very place where Christ, hanging on the cross, poured out his blood; which place indeed, from the skull of the first man found there, received the name of Calvary. For to what purpose would the divine providence have procured this — that the corpse of the first man should be covered by that earth above all which was to be sprinkled with the blood of the Redeemer — unless that we might understand that the first man himself also was expiated from his sin by the blood of Christ?
For as to St. Jerome's judging, in the commentary on Matthew, chapter 27, and on the epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 5, that this opinion about the burial of the first man on mount Calvary is refuted from the book of Josue, chapter 14, where it is said that the great Adam was buried in Cariath Arbe — which place seems to have been called Cariath Arbe, that is, the city of four, because it contains the bones of four greatest men, Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — it does not much move us. For that opinion about the burial of Adam on mount Calvary is not of Epiphanius alone, but of many others: as Origen, tractate 35 [al. 33] on Matthew; Athanasius, in that briefest sermon on the passion of the Lord which begins “The sins of men assuredly”; Basil, on chapter 5 [al. 3] of Isaias; John Chrysostom, homily 84 [al. 85] on John; Anastasius of Sinai, book 7 of the Contemplations on the Hexaemeron; Germanus, in the Theory of Ecclesiastical Things; Euthymius and Theophylact, on chapter 27 of Matthew. Of the Latins, the most ancient, Tertullian, wrote thus of this matter in book 2 against Marcion, written in verse:
Golgotha is the place, once the Calvary of a head;
the paternal tongue of old so named it by that name.
Here is the middle of the earth, here is the sign of victory;
here our ancients taught that a great bone was found;
here we have received that the first man was buried.
Here Christ suffers; with holy blood the earth grows moist,
that the dust of old Adam, mingled with the blood of Christ,
might be raised up by the virtue of the dripping water.
Thus he. The same afterwards wrote Cyprian — or whoever is the author — in the sermon on the Resurrection of the Lord; Ambrose, epistle 19 to Horontianus, and on chapter 23 of Luke; Augustine, sermon 71 On the Season; and, what seems more to be wondered at, Jerome himself, in the epistle to Marcella in which he exhorts her to come into Palestine.
To that argument which was alleged — that Adam was buried in Hebron, which is Cariath Arbe — it can be answered that by “the greatest Adam” is not understood in that place the first parent, but a certain great man who was called by the proper name Arbe. For the Hebrew word Adam is common to the proper name of the first parent and to the name common to all men; but when the demonstrative He is prefixed, as in this place, where we have ha-Adam, it is not wont to be a proper name, but a common one. Moreover, in that place, Josue, chapter 14, verse 15, it is said: Arbe, the greatest man among the Enacims. And why he is so called is gathered from chapter 15, verse 13, and from chapter 21, verse 11, where we read that Arbe was the father of Enac, and hence the head and prince of all the Enacites. And so Hebron was called Cariath Arbe because it was the city of Arbe; and this Arbe was the greatest man among the Enacites because he was the father of Enac, from whom all the Enacites drew their origin. Perhaps also he was the greatest man in tallness of body, since the Enacites were giants, as is plain from chapter 13 of Numbers, where those who had surveyed the land of promise say: There we saw certain monsters of the sons of Enac, of the giant kind: in comparison of whom, we seemed like locusts.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XII.
De poenitentia , et salute primorum
hominum.
Restat pars ultima hujus disputationis,
qua? erat de primorum parentum poenitentia
et salute. Fuit enim u na ex Tatiani hairesibus,
primos homines post mortem a?terna? dam¬
nationi addictos fuisse. Qui error communi
Patrum , et Ecclesia? consensu rejectus
est. Nam imprimis quotquot scribunt de
hieresibus Tatianum reprehendunt, quod sa¬
luti primorum parentum contradicere ausus
fuerit.
Vide Iraeneum lib. i. cap. 30. et 31. Ter¬
tullianum in lib. de pra?scriptione adversus
haereticos cap. 32. Epiphanium in ha?resi
Tatiani, qua? est 46. Philastrium in Catalogo
hajreticorum. Augustinum in lib. de ha?resi-
sibus cap. 23. Quibus adde ejusdem S. Au¬
gustini testimonium ex epistol. 99. ad Evo-
dium in ha?c verba : « Et de illo quidem pri¬
mo homine, patre generis humani, quod
eum ibidem (Christus ad inferna descendens)
solverit, Ecclesia feie tota consentit. Quod
eam non inaniter credidisse credendum est
undecumque hoc traditum sit, etiamsi cano¬
nicarum Scripturarum hinc expressa non
proferatur auctoritas. Quemquam illud, quod
in lib. Sap. cap. 10. scriptum est ; ha?c illum,
qui primus factus est, patrem orbis terrarum,
cum solus esset creatus, custodivit, et edu¬
xit illum a delicto suo, et dedit ei virtutem
continendi omnia, magis pro hac senten¬
tia, quam pro ullo alio intellectu facere videa¬
tur. »
Quo loco S. Augustinus primum probat ex
traditione non scripta, Adamum salvatum
326
LIBER TU.
esse, deinde ex Scriptura; neque revocat in
quaestionem, an liber Sapientia} sit canoni¬
cus, sed an verba ejus libri ita perspicue pro
hac sententia faciant, ut nihil contra objici
possit. Et plane (ut ipse etiam indicat) non
apparet , quomodo aliter intelligi possint
illa verba ( eduxit cum a delicto suo ) quam de
poenitentia, et salute primi hominis.
Adliaeo S. Irenccus in lib. nr. cap. 34. et
seq. multis rationibus probatur conatur pri¬
mos parentes salvos esse. Primum, quia no¬
va est sententia contraria, et ab ipso Tatia-
no primum excogitata. Deinde, quia Deus
non maledixit Adamo et Evae, sicut maledixit
serpenti, cujus salvus omnino deplorata erat.
Quo argumento utitur etiam Tertullianus in
lib. ii. adversus Marcionem : « Ideo, inquit,
nec maledixit ipsum Adara et Evam, ut re¬
stitutionis candidatos, ut confessione revela¬
tos. » Tertio, quia Adam et Eva in signum
poenitentia} induerunt se asperis perizomatis
ex foliis ficulneis, quasi sacco et cilicio. Quar¬
to, quia non videtur bonus pastor ovem cen¬
tesimam , quae perierat , proprie invenis¬
se, si primus homo, qui per eam significaba¬
tur, salvus non esset. Quinto, quid posset
diabolus merito gloriari, se a Christo victum
non esse, si filii, ac posteri primorum paren¬
tum, non ipsi primi parentes, de captivitate
liberarentur. Diabolus enim primos parentes
proprie superavit, caeteros autem homines
ideo jure captivos tenet , quod filii sint
eorum, quos ipse jure belli servos suos fecit,
A quo enim quis superatur, ejus servus effi¬
citur.
Addit Epiphanius haeresi 46. aliud argu¬
mentum ex eo, quod non sine ingenti myste¬
rio Adam sepultus fuisse traditur in eo ipso
loco, ubi Christus in cruce pendens sangui¬
nem suum fudit ; qui quidem locus a cranio
primi hominis ibi reperto Calvariae nomen
accepit. Quorsum enim divina providentia
hoc procurasset, ut cadaver primi hominis
ea potissimum terra contegeretur, quae san¬
guine Redemptoris aspergenda erat , nisi
ut intelligeremus, ipsum etiam primum ho¬
minem a peccato suo Christi sanguine ex¬
piatum ?
Nam quod S. Hieronymus in comment.
Matth. cap. 27. et epist. adEphes. cap. 5 hanc
sententiam de primi hominis sepultura in mon¬
te Calvaria} refelli existimat ex lib. Josue cap.
14. ubi dicitur, Magnus Adam sepultus in Ca-
iath Arbe ; qui locus dictus videtur Ca-
r
riath Arbe ; id est, civitas quatuor, quia qua-
tuor summorum hominum ossa contineat,
Adam, Abraham , Isaac et Jacob , non
multum nos movet . Nam sententia illa
de sepultura Adami in monte Calvaria} non
solius Epiphanii, sed aliorum multorum est,
ut Origenis tract. 33. in Matth. Athanasii in
sermone illo brevissimo de passione Domini
qui incipit « Hominum certe peccata» ; Basilii
in cap. 3. Isaiae ; Joannis Chrysostomi homil.
84, in Joan. Anastasii Sinaitae lib. vii. con¬
templat. in Exam. Germani in theoria rerum
Ecclesiasticarum, Euthimii et Theophilacti
in cap. 27. Matth. Ex Latinis antiquissi¬
mus Tertullianus ita de hac re scripsit
in lib. ii. adversus Marcionem carmino
scripto.
Golgotha locus est, capitis Calvaria quondam,
Lingua paterna prior, sic illuni nomine dixit.
Hic m- dium terrae est, hic est victoria signum,
Os magnum hic veteres nostri docuere repertum,
Hic hominem primum suscepimus esse sepulium.
Hic patitur Christus pio sanguine terra madescit,
Pulvis Adae ut possit veleris cum sanguine Christ
Commixtus stillantis aquae virtute levari.
Haec ille. Idem postea scripsit Cyprianus, vel
quicumque est auctor, sermone de Resurre¬
ctione Domini. Ambrosius epist. 19. ad Horo-
ntianum, et in cap. 23. Lucae. Augustinus
serm. 71. de tempore, et quod magis admi¬
randum videtur, ipse IIiei'onymus in epistola
ad Marcellam, in qua hortatur illam, ut ve¬
niat in Palestinam.
Ad argumentum illud, quod dicebatur,
Adam sepultus in Hebron, quae est Cariath
Arbe, responderi potest, per Adam maximum
non intelligi eo loco primum parentem, sed
hominem quemdam magnum, qui dicebatur
proprio nomine Arbe. Nam vox hebraica
DIS communis est ad nomen proprium pri¬
mi parentis, et ad commune omnibus homi¬
nibus, sed quando praefigitur (") demon¬
strativum, ut hoc loco, ubi habemus DUSM
non solet esse nomen proprium, sed commu¬
ne. Praeterea in eo loco, Josue cap. 14. vers.
13. dicitur, Arbe homo maximus inter Ena-
cim. Cur autem sic dicatur, colligitur ex cap.
13. vers. 13. et ex cap. 21. vers. 11. ubi le¬
gimus, Arbe fuisse partem Enac, ac proinde
caput, et principem omnium Enacitarum.
Itaque dicebatur Hebron Cariath Arbe, quia
CAPUT XII.
327
erat civitas Arbe, qui Arbe fuit maximus
homo inter Enacitas, quia erat pater Enaci,
a quo Enacitae omnes ducebant originem.
Fortassis etiam fuit maximus homo proce¬
ritate corporis, siquidem Enacitae gigantes
erant, ut perspicuum est ex cap. xiil. Num
ubi qui terram promissionis lustraverant, di¬
cunt : Ibi vidimus monstra quxdam filiorum
Enac de genere giganteo, quibus comparati
quasi locustx videbamur.
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