Via Patrum

On the Imputation of Adam's First Sin · §409

Man. Post. Cap. VII: PLAC — imputatur = nature's vice; Thomas not for immediate imputation

You added other words of the same Thomas in which the verb "to impute" occurs, which you painted in capital letters. One wonders that those who in other controversies give Thomas Aquinas and other Pontifical scholastics no place lean on them in this question though they themselves also contemn them: for that dogma of imputing Adam's actual sin to all men is not ancient, and first flowed from nowhere but the puddles of certain scholastics whom even Lombard, Thomas's master, would not name, so obscure were they. But though Thomas used the word "impute" and seems in appearance to favor your cause, in truth he is not a little distant from your sentence, and it is strange you did not see it in these very words you cite: Adam, he says, sinning vitiated human nature, but afterward in others a vitiated Nature (not therefore imputation of Adam's actual sin) infects the person, namely when to the one begotten is imputed unto fault NATURE'S VICE on account of the first parent's will, as was said. Do you not see that the nominative of "is imputed" is nature's vice? And you will doubtless grant me that nature's vice is not Adam's actual sin, which Thomas constantly teaches was a person's sin. For Thomas's whole aim was to show how that infection or vice of nature inhering in us can be considered a fault even though it is involuntaryoluntaryoluntary. So he affirms that as an act exercised through a member has the nature of fault and is imputed to the member because of the will not of the member itself but of the whole person, so the vice drawn from Adam and inhering in the begotten has the nature of fault and is imputed to the begotten unto fault, not because of the begotten's will in respect of which it is involuntary, but because of the first parent's will. So he added "as was said"—namely in the preceding words we weighed from your citation. I would dare affirm that imputing Adam's actual sin to all his posterity and inflicting privation of original justice on all men as penalty of that imputed sin were unknown to Thomas Aquinas, and I could prove it by necessary arguments if need were.

Latin

Adjunxisti alia eiusdem Thomae verba in quibus occurrit verbum imputandi, quod tu majusculis literis pinxisti. Subit mirari qui in caeteris controversiis Thomae Aquinatis, aliorumque scholasticorum Pontificiorum authoritatem nullo loco habent, in hac quaestione ea apud eos niti qui eam ipsi quoque contemnunt: nempe dogma istud de imputatione peccati actualis Adami omnibus hominibus nec antiquum est, & non aliunde primum fluxit quam ex lacunis quorundam scholasticorum, quos ne nominare quidem Lombardus Thomae magister, adeo obscuri erant, voluit. Thomas autem quamvis & imputandi verbo usus sit & tuae causae in speciem favere videatur, tamen revera abest a tua sententia haud parum, & mirum est te id non vidisse in his ipsis verbis quae citas, Adam, inquit, peccans vitavit naturam humanam, sed postmodum in aliis Natura vitiata (non igitur imputatio peccati actualis Adae) inficit personam, dum scilicet genito imputatur ad culpam NATURAE VITIUM propter voluntatem primi parentis, ut dictum est. Nonne vides verbi imputatur nominativum esse naturae vitium? dabis autem proculdubio mihi vitium naturae non esse peccatum actuale Adami, quod Thomas constanter docet fuisse peccatum personae. Nempe omnis in eo erat Thomas ut ostenderet quomodo ista nobis inhaerens naturae infectio seu vitium culpae rationem habere possit, cum sit involuntaria. Affirmat igitur ut actus per membrum exercitus habet rationem culpae & imputatur membro propter voluntatem non ipsius membri sed totius personae, sic vitium tractum ab Adamo & genito inhaerens culpae rationem habere & imputari genito ad culpam, non propter voluntatem geniti cuius respectu involuntarium est, sed propter voluntatem primi parentis. Itaque addidit ut dictum est, nempe verbis praecedentibus quae nos a te citata expendimus. Ausim affirmare imputationem peccati actualis Adami toti eius posteritati & inflictionem privationis justitiae originalis omnibus hominibus in poenam illius peccati imputati ignotas fuisse Thomae Aquinati, & possem id si opus esset necessariis argumentis demonstrare.

About this text

New English, free to read. Open any section below.

English follows the locked 1661 Saumur Latin of Capita I–XIV partial through Man. Post. No modern English was copied. Cap. IX deepen+ remain.

Catalogue & scope

IA deimputationepri00lapl. Densify: Capita I–XII + Caput XIV + Man. Post. Cap. II–VI through Cap. X Rom. 5:14 tip. Not whole Disputatio; Cap. X Rom. 5:14+ / ~494 pp Disputatio remain.

Witnesses

This is an AI-assisted study translation. Source fidelity and completeness have not been independently certified. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.