Question Three. Whether the Soul contracts Original Sin from Infected Flesh, Sown in Concupiscence

17. Concerning the thirty first distinction I aska whether the soul contracts original sin from infected flesh, sown in concupiscence.

a. a[Interpolation] Concerning this thirty first distinction, where the Master deals with the manner of transmission of original sin, one question is asked.

18. That it is not:

Because matter does not act on form; therefore neither does flesh act on the soul.

19. There is confirmation, because Augustine says, Literal Commentary on Genesis 12.16 n.33, “What acts is more excellent than what is acted on;” and according to him in the same place, “body is not more excellent than spirit;” from which he concludes that “body does not act on spirit” - and from this we have the intended conclusion.

20. Again, if it be said that Augustine’s major [‘what acts is more excellent than what is acted on’] is true of the good, not of the bad, because in the bad the effect can be worse than its cause - on the contrary: the natural cause of the evil of guilt cannot be punishment alone, because punishment is just and guilt precisely does not naturally follow on what is just; but what is in the flesh is punishment only, and if it is the cause of guilt, it is only a natural cause, because it is not free;     therefore etc     .

21. Next: if original sin is contracted from infected flesh [n.17], then it would be contracted from the nearest parent, because by him is such flesh sown. The consequent is false, because then original sin could be increased in the intermediate parents; for more agents of the same idea have power for a more perfect effect, and so the nearest parent along with the intermediate parents can increase original sin in intensity beyond what it would have been in a son generated immediately by the first parent.

22. On the contrary:

The Master in the text adduces authorities to the effect that the soul is infected by the flesh, because unless it were so, no other cause seems able to be assigned whereby this sin should be caused in the soul; not by God, as is plain; nor by Adam himself, because we may posit that he has been annihilated - or if he still exists, at least he does not have any guilt, because he is posited as blessed - so he does not now exist under the idea of a sinner, under which idea the cause of this sin would have to be placed.

23. Further, we contracted this sin insofar as we existed in Adam according to seminal reason, according to Augustine Literal Commentary on Genesis 10.20 n.35; but this was according to the body, not according to the soul; for the soul does not come from the parent, as the Master adduces in the authority in the text On Ecclesiastical Dogmas [Gennadius of Marseilles, “We say that only the Creator of all things knows the creation of the soul, and that the body alone is sown by union of the spouses.. and that the soul is created and infused for an already formed body”].