Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On the Loss of Grace · Book VI: The Punishments of Original Sin
Chapter 11: On the disorder of the lower part of the soul
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).
In the lower part of the soul, in which are the senses both internal and external, and the twofold faculty of desire, there are many wounds, and grave ones.
The first, that many are born blind, or deaf, or mute, or lame, or injured in some other way in this part; for without doubt nothing of the kind would ever have happened if the first man had not sinned. Nor do we see in the other animals those things which in men we often bewail. And so St. Augustine, book 6 against Julian, chapter 4, refers this also to the punishment of original sin: that so many are born bereft, diseased, and monstrous.
The second is the illusion of dreams, which is effected through the interior senses — which illusion does not leave free to us even that part of time which seems to have been granted by nature for some little rest: “Sleep itself,” says St. Augustine, book 22 On the City of God, chapter 22, “which has properly received the name of rest — who could explain in words how unquiet it often is with the visions of dreams, and with how great terrors of false things — which it so exhibits, and in a certain manner expresses, that we cannot discern them from true — it disturbs the miserable soul and the senses?”
The third is that, whereas the interior sense was assigned to us by nature that it might serve the mind for contemplation and understanding, yet it often in a wonderful manner hinders and confounds the understanding, when at the most inopportune time it suggests various figments to the mind, and turns it almost violently from the contemplation of heavenly things to its own trifles.
The fourth is the infirmity in the appetite which is called irascible. For whereas this faculty was given to man that it might obey commanding reason like an armed soldier, and be as it were a certain sinew of the soul (as the great Basil speaks in the oration on anger), affording fortitude, constancy, and strength for carrying on affairs well and in order — contrariwise it commonly happens that, invading of its own accord the empire of the soul, it turns the man utterly into a wild beast, and forces him to be carried by impulse, to leap upon others, to be affected with madness like dogs, to sting like scorpions, to bite like serpents. This plague is born with us, and begins to appear in infancy itself: “Or were those things,” says Augustine, book 1 of the Confessions, chapter 7, “good even for that time: to seek by weeping even what would be given to one’s harm; to be bitterly indignant at persons free and older not being subject to him, and at those by whom he was begotten; and to strive as much as he can to hurt by striking many besides who are wiser, because they do not obey at the nod of his will commands which it would be pernicious to obey? Thus the weakness of infant limbs is innocent, not the mind of infants. I myself have seen and known an envious little one: he did not yet speak, and, pale, he gazed with a bitter look at his foster-brother.”
The fifth is concupiscence, which, after the loss of original justice, being unloosed, fights against the spirit; and hence is born that intestine war which cannot be ended until death — on account of which the Apostle cries out in Romans 7: Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Concerning which evil Augustine wrote entire books against the Pelagians, and we have said much in the preceding book, and shall say something also toward the end of this book.
Now how great an empire over reason this affection has received, and contrariwise how feeble are the forces of reason against the onset of this untamed beast, the life of very many young men bears witness, who burn with so immense a conflagration of the basest pleasures that they are almost reduced to insanity. Witness the new and unheard-of inventions of lusts, by which the concupiscence of men far surpasses the concupiscence of the beasts, as Plutarch shows in the little work That Brutes Use Reason. Witness the fastings, vigils, sackcloths, lyings on the ground, pricks of thorns, and other things of that kind, which holy men used as heavenly arms to repress this evil. Witness the horrible tragedies which in every age and in all parts of the world have happened by occasion of carnal concupiscence. Certainly in the holy Scriptures the examples strike horror which are read of Samson, Solomon, and David — of whom the first went before all in fortitude, the second in wisdom, and the third had joined to fortitude and wisdom a plainly singular sanctity and piety.
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XI. Or< minem partis anima; inferioris. In parte anima? inferiore, in qua sunt sen¬ sus, tum interni, tum externi, et duplex ap¬ petendi facultas, multa sunt, etiam ct gravia vulnera. Primum, quod multi nascantur ca?ci, aut surdi, aut muti, aut claudi, aut alio modo in hac parte la?si, nam sine dubio nihil unquam tale accidisset, si primus homo non peccas- set. Neque in aliis animantibus ista cerni¬ mus, qua? in hominibus sa?pc deflemus. Ita¬ que S. Augustinus lib. vi. in Julian. cap. 4. ad prenam peccati originalis etiam hoc refert, quod tam multi orbi, morbidi, monstrosique nascantur. Secundum est illusio somniorum, qua? per sensus interiores efficitur, qu.e illusio ne partem quidem illam temporis liberam nobis relinquit, qua? ad aliquantulam quietem a. natura concessa fuisse videtur : « Ipse som¬ nus (inquit S. August. lib. xxir. de Civ. Dei cap. 22.} qui proprie quietis nomen accepit, quis verbis explicet sirpe somniorum visis quam sit inquietus, et quam magnis licet falsarum rerum terroribus, quas ita exhibet, ei quodam modo exprimit, ut a veris eas dis¬ cernere nequeamus, animam miseram, sen¬ susque perturbet ? » Tertium est, quod cum interior sensus, ideo nobis a natura sil attributus, ut menti ad contemplationem, intelligentiamquc de¬ serviat; tamen sa?pe mirum in modum intel- ligentiam impedit et confundit, cum impor¬ tunissimo tempore varia figmenta suggerit animo, et a contemplatione rerum coelestium ad suas nugas pene violenter avertit. Quartum, est infirmitas in appetitu, qui dicitur irascibilis : nam cum ha?c facultas homini data sit, ut imperanti rationi tan- quam miles armatus obediat, et sit quasi ner- 478 LIBER VI. vus quidam animi (ut loquitur magnus Basi- lius in oratione de ira) fortitudinem, con¬ stantiamque, ac robur ad res bene et ordine gerendas prmbens. Contra plerumque acci¬ dit, ut imperium anima; sponte invadens hominem penitus in feram convertat, eum- que cogat impetu ferri, insilire, rabie ut ca¬ nes affici, pungere ut scorpiones, mordere ut serpentes'. Nascitur nobiscum ista pestis, et in ipsa infantia incipit apparere : « An, inquit Augustinus lib. i. Confessionum cap. vil, pro tempore etiam illa bona erant, flen¬ do petere etiam quod noxie daretur, indi¬ gnari acriter non subjectis hominibus, libe¬ ris et majoribus, liisque a quibus genitus est ; multisque prmterea prudentioribus non ad nutum voluntatis obtemperantibus , fe¬ riendo nocere, niti quantum potest, quia non obeditur imperiis, quibus perniciose obedi- retur? ita imbecillitas membrorum infanti¬ lium innocens est, non animus infantium. Vidi ego et expertus sum zelantem parvu¬ lum : nondum loquebatur, et intuebatur pal¬ lidus amaro aspectu collactaneum suum. » Quintum est concupiscentia, qua; post amis¬ sam originalem justitiam, soluta contra spi¬ ritum pugnat, et hinc nascitur intestinum illud bellum, quod usque ad mortem finiri non potest, propter quod Apostolus clamat ad Rom. vn : Infelix ego homo, quis me libe¬ rabit de corpore mortis hujus (i) ? De quo malo integros libros scripsit Augustinus ad¬ versus Pelagianos, et nos multa diximus in libro superiore, et aliquid etiam dicturi su¬ mus circa finem hujus libri. Quantum autem imperium in rationem hic affectus acceperit, et contra, quam debiles sint vires rationis adversus impetum hujus indomitie fera;, testatur vita plurimorum adolescentium, qui tam immenso voluptatum turpissimarum incendio flagrant, ut pene ad insaniam redigantur. Testantur novee et in¬ audita; libidinum adinventiones, quibus con¬ cupiscentia hominum longe superat concu¬ piscentiam bestiarum, ut ostendit Plutarchus in opusculo, quod bruta ratione utantur. Testantur jejunia, vigiliae, sacci, humi cuba¬ tiones, spinarum aculei, aliaque id genus, quibus viri sancti tanquam armis coelestibus, ut hoc malum reprimerent, utebantur. Tes¬ tantur horribiles tragoedia;, qua; singulis ®ta- tibus, et in omnibus mundi partibus occa¬ sione carnalis concupiscentia; acciderunt. Certe in Scripturis sanctis horrorem incu¬ tiunt, qua; de Samsone, Salomone et Davide leguntur exempla, quorum primus fortitu¬ dine, secundus sapientia omnibus anteibat, tertius ad fortitudinem, et sapientiam, san¬ ctitatem et pietatem plane singularem ad¬ junxerat.