Thomas Aquinas Commentary Romans 5:12

"Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:--" — Romans 5:12 (ASV)

After indicating the benefits we obtained through Christ’s grace, the Apostle now indicates the evils from which we were set free. Concerning this, he does three things:

1. First, he shows that through Christ’s grace we have been freed from the slavery of sin.
2. Second, he shows that through His grace we have been freed from the slavery of the law, where he says, or know you not, brethren (Romans 7:1).
3. Third, he shows that through His grace we have been freed from condemnation, where he says, there is now therefore no condemnation (Romans 8:1).

In regard to the first point, he does two things:

1. First, he shows that by Christ’s grace we are set free from original sin.
2. Second, that we are shielded against future sins, where he says, what shall we say then (Romans 6:1).

In regard to the first of these, he does two things:

1. First, he deals with the history of sin.
2. Second, he deals with grace destroying sin, where he says, but not as the offense (Romans 5:15).

In regard to the first of these, he does two things:

1. First, he sets forth the origin of sin.
2. Second, he shows its effects, where he says, for until the law (Romans 5:13).

Concerning the first of these, he does two things:

1. First, he sets forth the origin of sin.
2. Second, he shows its universality, where he says, and so death passed.

First, therefore, he says that we have been reconciled through Christ. For just as sin came into the world through one man, Adam, so reconciliation came into the world from Christ. As the Apostle says, as by one man sin entered into this world, and elsewhere, as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Here it should be noted that the Pelagian heretics, who denied the existence of original sin in infants, claim that these words of the Apostle must be understood as referring to actual sin. According to them, sin entered this world through Adam because all sinners imitate Adam's sin: but like Adam they transgressed the covenant (Hosea 6:7).

But, as Augustine argues against them, if the Apostle were speaking of the entrance of actual sin through imitation, he would have attributed its entrance not to a man but rather to the devil, whom sinners imitate: through the devil’s envy death entered the world .

Therefore, the correct interpretation is that sin entered this world through Adam not only by imitation but also by propagation—that is, by a corrupted origin of the flesh. This is in accordance with Ephesians, we were by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), and the Psalm, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity (Psalms 51:5).

But it seems impossible for sin to be passed from one person to another through carnal origin. For sin exists in the rational soul, which is not passed on by carnal origin. This is true for two reasons. First, the intellect is not the act of any physical body and so cannot be caused by the power of bodily seed, as the Philosopher says in On the Generation of Animals. Second, the rational soul is a subsistent reality, since it can perform certain acts without using the body and is not destroyed when the body is destroyed. Therefore, unlike other forms that cannot subsist on their own, the soul is not produced merely by the body’s production but is caused directly by God. It seems to follow, then, that sin, which is an accident of the soul, cannot be passed on by carnal origin.

The reasonable answer seems to be this: although the soul is not in the seed, the seed nevertheless contains a power that disposes the body to receive the soul. When the soul is infused into the body, it is adapted to that body, because everything received by something exists in it according to the mode of the recipient. This is why children resemble their parents not only in bodily defects (for example, a leper fathers a leprous child, and a person with gout a gouty child) but also in defects of the soul (for example, an irritable parent produces irritable children, and mentally unstable parents produce mentally unstable offspring). For although the foot subject to gout or the soul subject to anger and instability are not in the seed, the seed nevertheless contains a power that forms the bodily members and disposes them for the soul.

Yet a difficulty remains, because defects traced to a corrupted source do not involve guilt. They are not deserving of punishment but rather of pity, as the Philosopher says of one born blind or with any other defect. The reason is that guilt, by its nature, must be voluntary and within the power of the one to whom it is imputed. Consequently, if any defect in us arose from our origin in the first parent, it seems to have the nature of a punishment, not of guilt.

Therefore, it must be admitted that just as actual sin is a person’s sin because it is committed through the will of the person sinning, so original sin is the sin of the nature, committed through the will of the source of human nature.

We must remember that just as the various members of the body are parts of one human person, so all people are parts and, as it were, members of one human nature. Thus, Porphyry says that by sharing in the same species, many men are one man.

Furthermore, a sinful act performed by a member of the body—for example, the hand or the foot—does not derive its guilt from the will of the hand or foot, but from the will of the whole person. It is from the person's will, as from a source, that the impulse to sin is passed to the individual members. Similarly, the total disorder of human nature derives its character of guilt from the will of Adam, who was the source of that nature. This guilt is carried in all who receive that nature, precisely because they are susceptible to it.

Just as an actual sin, which is a sin of the person, is transmitted to the individual members by an act of the person, so original sin is transmitted to each individual by an act of the nature—namely, generation. Accordingly, just as human nature is obtained through generation, so too is the defect it acquired from the first parent’s sin passed on through generation.

This defect is the lack of original justice. This justice was divinely conferred on the first parent not only in his role as an individual person but also as the source of all human nature, and it was meant to be passed along with human nature to his descendants. Consequently, the loss of this original justice through sin was passed on to his descendants. It is this loss that takes on the character of guilt in his descendants, for the reason already given. That is why it is said that in the progression of original sin, a person infected the nature (that is, Adam, by sinning, corrupted human nature). Later, in others, the corrupted nature affects the person, in the sense that this corrupted state of nature is imputed as guilt to the offspring on account of the first parent’s will, as explained above.

From this it is clear that although the first parent's first sin is passed on to his descendants by generation, his other sins—or even the sins of other people—are not passed on to their children. This is because it was only through the first sin that the good of nature, which was originally intended to be passed on by generation, was lost. Through all later sins, the good of personal grace is lost, which is not passed on to one’s descendants.

This also explains why, although Adam’s sin was removed by his repentance—she delivered him from his transgression ()—his repentance could not remove the sin of his descendants. His repentance was a personal act, which did not extend beyond him personally.

Consequently, there is only one original sin, because the defect resulting from the first sin is the only one passed on to descendants. Therefore, the Apostle is careful to say that by one man sin entered into this world, and not sins, which he would have said if he were speaking of actual sin. But sometimes it is said in the plural, as in and in sins did my mother conceive me (Psalms 51:7), because original sin virtually contains many sins, insofar as the corruption of the fomes, or concupiscence, inclines one to many sins.

It seems, however, that original sin entered this world not through one man, Adam, but through one woman, Eve, who was the first to sin: from a woman sin had its beginning and because of her we all die .

A Gloss answers this in two ways. First, it is the custom of Scripture to present genealogies through the men, not the women. Hence, the Apostle, in giving what is effectively the genealogy of sin, mentions only the man and not the woman. Second, because the woman was taken from the man, what is true of the woman is consequently attributed to the man.

But this can be explained in another, better way. Since original sin is passed on along with the nature, as has been said, it is passed on in the same manner as nature itself: by the active power of the man, while the woman furnishes the matter. Hence, if Adam had not sinned, but only Eve, sin would not have been passed on to their descendants. For Christ did not contract original sin, because He took His flesh from the woman alone, without male seed.

Augustine uses these words from the apostle Paul to respond to the heretic Julian, who asked: the one who is born does not sin, the one who begot him does not sin, the one who bore him does not sin; through what crack, therefore, in such a garrison of innocence do you suppose sin has entered? But Augustine responds: why do you seek a crack when you have a wide open gate? For according to the Apostle, sin entered into this world through one man.

Next, he touches on the entry of death into this world when he says, and by sin death entered this world. As it is written, ungodliness purchases death . However, it seems that death arises not from sin but from nature, due to the presence of matter. The human body is composed of contrary elements and is therefore corruptible by its very nature.

The answer is that human nature can be considered in two ways. First, according to its structural principles, death is natural. Hence, Seneca says that for man, death is natural, not a penalty. Second, human nature can be considered in light of what divine providence supplied it through original justice. This justice was a state in which the human mind was under God, the lower powers of the soul were under the mind, the body was under the soul, and all external things were under humanity. As a result, as long as the human mind remained under God, the lower powers would remain subject to reason, the body would receive life from the soul without interruption, and external things would serve humanity, which would never experience any harm from them.

Divine providence planned this for humanity on account of the worth of the rational soul, which, being incorruptible, deserved an incorruptible body. But because the body is composed of contrary elements and serves as an instrument for the senses, it could not by its own nature be incorruptible. Therefore, divine power supplied what was lacking to human nature by giving the soul the power to maintain the body in an incorruptible state, just as a metalsmith might give the iron from which he makes a sword the power never to become rusty.

Thus, after the human mind turned from God through sin, it lost the strength to control the lower powers, the body, and external things. Consequently, humanity became subject to death from internal causes and to violence from external forces.

Then, with the words and so death passed, he shows the universality of this process for both death and sin, but in reverse order. Previously, he first treated the entry of sin, which is the cause of death’s entry. Now, he first deals with the universality of death, as it is more obvious. Hence he says that death passed upon all because people, on account of their corrupted origin, merit the necessity of dying: we must all die (2 Samuel 14:14); what man can live and never see death? (Psalms 89:48).

Then he touches on the universality of sin when he says, in whom all have sinned. According to Augustine, this can be understood in two ways. It can mean in whom—that is, in the first man—or in which—that is, in that sin. For while he was sinning, all people in a sense sinned, since all were in him as in their first origin.

But since Christ derived His origin from Adam (Luke 3:23 and following), it seems that even He sinned in Adam’s sin. Augustine’s answer in On Genesis is that Christ was not in Adam as completely as we were. We were in Adam according to both bodily substance and seminal power, but Christ was in him only in the first way.

Some who interpreted these words incorrectly supposed that the entire substance of all human bodies required for a true human nature was actually present in Adam. They believed that, by a multiplication traced to God’s power, something taken from Adam was increased to form such a large quantity of bodies. But this is unfitting, because it explains the works of nature by a miracle. Indeed, it is obvious that the human body, though required for the integrity of human nature, still corrupts and becomes a corpse.

Hence, it is better to say that because everything generable is corruptible and vice versa, the matter that was present under some other form before a person is conceived then receives the form proper to human flesh. Accordingly, not everything in our bodies that belongs to the integrity of human nature was actually in Adam. It was there only according to origin, in the way that an effect is present in its active principle.

According to this, therefore, human generation involves both the bodily material, which the woman provides, and an active force, which is in the male’s seed. Both are derived originally from Adam as their first principle. Hence, we are said to have been in him according to seminal power and bodily substance, since both came forth from him. But in Christ’s generation, there was the bodily substance which He obtained from the virgin, while in place of the male seed there was the active power of the Holy Spirit, which is not derived from Adam. Consequently, Christ was not in Adam according to seminal power, but only according to bodily substance.

Thus, we not only receive and contract sin from Adam, but we also derive human nature from him as from an active principle, which amounts to being in him according to seminal power. But as has been stated, this is not true of Christ.

Finally, it seems that original sin is not passed on to all, because the baptized are cleansed of it. Hence, it seems they cannot transmit to their descendants something they do not have. The answer is that through baptism a person is freed from original sin with respect to the mind, but the infection of sin remains with respect to the flesh. Hence the Apostle says later, I serve the law of God with the mind, but with the flesh, the law of sin (Romans 7:25). But a person does not father children with the mind but with the flesh; consequently, he transmits not the new life of Christ but the old life of Adam.