CHAPTER X
IT are many other texts where Adam is seen to be more at fault than Eve.
X think perhaps Scripture speaks this way because a union of two things often takes its name from the chief member of the union, just as a whole sometimes takes its name from one of its parts. Or Scripture may speak this way because the name 'Adam' was applicable both to Adam and to his rib, which was able to be fashioned into a woman--just as we read that God'created them male and female, and blessed them, and called their name "Adam1' on the day in which they were created.' (Gen. 5:2) Or again. Scripture may speak this way because if only Eve had sinned, but not Adam, it would not have been necessary for the human race to perish, but only for Eve to perish. For God could have created another woman from Adam. For from Adam, in whom the seed of all mankind had been created, God could have made another woman through whom His purpose with respect to Adam might have been accomplished. For these same reasons, I shall refer to these two people by the one name 'Adam' --except in those places where it is necessary to distinguish between them.
CHAPTER X
Why Men Who Were Not Conscious of Adam's Sin Are Weighed Down by It Each of us is a man and is a son of Adam by virtue of creation; and each of us is Adam by virtue of propagation; and each of us is a person by virtue of the individuation by which we are distinguished from one another. So we do not have our manhood from Adam, but through him. For just as Adam did not cause his own manhood, so he did not create in himself this human nature which can reproduce. Rather God, who created him a man, created in him that nature by which he might propagate other men. Therefore, we need have no doubt why each of us is under the obligation we have been discussing. We are not under this obligation because we are men or because we are persons: For if anyone
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were guilty of this debt simply because he is a man or is a person, then it would have been necessary for Adam himself to have been under this obligation even before he sinned--since he was even then a man and a person. But such a consequence is completely absurd. So the remaining alternative is that man is a debtor only insofar as he is Adam. But he is not a debtor simply because he is Adam, but because he is Adam the Sinner. For if he were a debtor simply because he is Adam, then it would follow that even if Adam himself had not sinned, those who are propagated from him would still have been born with this debt. But such a thought is impious.
It is not out of place here to repeat the question which was asked above, namely why someone who was not conscious of Adam's sin should be nonetheless weighed down by Adam's sin and debt simply because of being propagated from him. When God created Adam He made in him a reproductive nature, and God sub jected this nature to Adam's power, so that Adam might use it in accordance with his own will as long as that will was subordinate to God. But his repro ductive nature was not meant to be used for irrational bestial pleasure, but rather in accordance with a rational human will. For just as it is character istic of beasts to will nothing rationally, so it is proper to men to will nothing apart from reason. For men should always will in accordance with reason, because Adam could have always kept this power to will in accordance with reason which he received from God. When God created Adam directly, without the working of any reproductive nature and apart from the will of any creature, He made
Adam rational and just. And God also gave Adam grace such that, if he had not sinned, those whom he would beget by his will and by the working of his animal nature would also be just in the moment they had rational souls.
The argument presented in the Cur Deus Homo to show that human nature
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