Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Loss of Grace · Book VI: The Punishments of Original Sin
Chapter 8: The method of the future disputation on the punishment of sin in this life is set forth
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. V, De Amissione Gratiae et Statu Peccati, Book VI. 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).
We have discoursed thus far on the punishment of original sin which they suffer who, scarcely born, depart from this life without the remission of this sin. Now we shall discourse on that punishment — or rather on those punishments and calamities — which they suffer in this life who survive for some time, and then especially if they come to the use of reason. Now this disputation will be threefold. For first, by way of simple narration, we shall enumerate the disadvantages of this life. Then, on account of the Pelagians, we shall inquire whether these disadvantages are punishments of original sin. Lastly, we shall examine what the Lutherans think concerning this matter.
As to the first, then: St. Augustine reduces the disadvantages of this life to two fountains, as it were — ignorance and difficulty — from which he says two other fountains of evils arise, error and sorrow. For ignorance begets error; difficulty, sorrow. See Augustine, book 3 On Free Choice, chapters 18, 19, and 20; in the Enchiridion, chapter 24; and in the book On Nature and Grace, chapter 67.
The Scholastic theologians hand these things down a little otherwise: for they write that there are four wounds of nature — ignorance, malice, concupiscence, infirmity — of which they place the first in the mind, the second in the will, the third in the concupiscible appetite, the fourth in the irascible. But we have judged it worth the labor — chiefly on account of the Lutherans, who think that the effects of original sin are extenuated by us — to explain all these things more distinctly and more fully.
The evils of this life, then, are some internal, some external. Internal I call those which are in man himself, as ignorance, concupiscence, and the like; external, those which are outside man, as to have God angry, to be under the power of the devil, to lack the obedience of the animals devoid of reason, and to suffer many and various calamities from the heaven, from the air, from the water, from the earth itself.
But again, of the internal, some are in the higher part of the soul, some in the lower, some in the body. In the higher part, the intelligence and the will have been wounded; in the lower, the senses both internal and external, and both faculties of desire; in the body, finally, there are very many disadvantages, and at the last death itself. And so it was truly written in the Council of Orange, canon 1, and in that of Trent, session 5, that the whole man, according to the body and according to the soul, was changed for the worse through the prevarication of Adam.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT VIII. Proponitur methodus fulunc disputationis de poena peccati in hac cita. Disseruimus hucusque de poma peccati originalis, quam ii patiuntur ,qui vixdum nati cx hac vita sine hujus peccati remissio¬ ne decedunt. Nunc de poena illa, vel potius de poenis, et calamitatibus illis disseremus, quas in hac vita patiuntur, qui aliquandiu supervivunt, et tum praesertim si ad usum rationis accedant. Erit autem tripartita haec disputatio. Primum enim per modum simpli¬ cis narrationis enumerabimus incommoda hujus vitae. Deinde propter Pelagianos quae¬ remus sint ne haec incommoda poenae peccati originalis. Postremo, quid Lulherani de hac re sentiant excutiejnus. Quod igitur ad primum attinet, incommo¬ da hujus vitae sanctus Augustinus ad duos veluti fontes reducit, ignorantiam et difficul¬ tatem, ex quibus alios duos fontes malorum oriri dicit, errorem et dolorem. Ignorantia enim parit errorem, difficultas dolorem. Vide Augustinum lib. m. de libero arbitrio, cap. 18. 19. ct 20. In Enchirid, cap. 24. et in lib. de natura ct grat. cap. 67. Theologi scholastici paulo aliter luce tra¬ dunt, scribunt enim quatuor esse vulnera naturae, ignorantiam, malitiam, concupi¬ scentiam, infirmitatem; quorum primum in mente, secundum in voluntate, tertium in appetitu concupiscente, quartum in irasceutc constituunt. Sed nos opera; pretium esse du¬ ximus, maxime propter Luthcranos, qui ex¬ tenuari a nobis effectus peccati originalis ex¬ istimant, si haec omnia distinctius atque ube¬ rius explicemus. Igitur mala hujus vitae, alia sunt interna, alia externa. Interna voco, quae sunt in ipso homine, ut ignorantiam, concupiscentiam, et similia; externa quae sunt extra hominem, ut habere Deum iratum, esse side diaboli po¬ testate, carere obedientia animantum ra¬ tionis expertium ; a cmlo, ab aere, ab aqua, ab ipsa terra multas et varias calimitates per¬ peti. Sed rursus interna alia sunt in parte ani- 31 LIBER VI. 474 mae superiore, alia in inferiore ; alia in cor¬ pore. In superiore laesa sunt intelligentia et voluntas ; in infeiiore sensus tum interni, tum externi, et utraque appetendi facultas ; in corpore denique plurima sunt incommoda et ad extremum ipsa mors. Itaque vere scri¬ ptum est in Concilio Arausic. can. d. ct in Trident. sess. 5. totum hominem secundum corpus, ct secundum animam per Adami praevaricationem in deterius esse muta¬ tum.