Adam

 THOUGH the Fathers, in accordance with Scripture, hold that Adam was created sinless, they also hold that he could not have persevered in his state of innocence and uprightness without a special grace, which he lost upon his fall, and which is regained for us, (and that in far greater measure,) by our Lord's sufferings and merits.

 The Catholic doctrine is, that Adam innocent was mortal, yet in fact would not have died; that he had no principle of eternal life within his body naturally, but was sustained continually by divine power till such time as immortality should have been given him. Vid. Incarn. 4. "If God accorded to the garments and shoes of the Israelites," says S. Augustine, "that they should not wear out during so many years, how is it strange that to man obedient should by His power be accorded, that, whereas his body was animal and mortal, it was so constituted as to become aged without decay, and at such time as God willed might pass without the intervention of death from mortality to immortality? For as the flesh itself, which we now bear, is not therefore invulnerable, because it may be preserved from wounding, so Adam's was not therefore not mortal, because he was not bound to die. Such a habit even of their present animal and mortal body I suppose was granted also to them who have been translated hence without death; for Enoch and Elias too have through so long a time been preserved from the decay of age." De Pecc. Mer. i. 3. Adam's body, he says elsewhere, was "mortale quia poterat mori, immortale quia poterat non mori;" and he goes on to say that immortality was given him "de ligno vitæ, non de constitutione naturæ." Gen. ad Lit. vi. 36. This doctrine came into the controversy with Baius, and Pope S. Pius V. condemned the assertion, "Immortalitas primi hominis non erat gratiæ beneficium, sed naturalis conditio."

 Then, as to his soul, S. Augustine says, "An aid was [given to the first Adam], but a more powerful grace is given to the Second. The first is that by which a man has justice if he will; the second does more, for by it he also wills, and wills so strongly, and loves so ardently, as to overcome the will of the flesh lusting contrariwise to the will of the spirit," etc. De Corr. et Grat. 31. And S. Cyril, "Our forefather Adam seems to have gained wisdom, not in time, as we, but appears perfect in understanding from the very first moment of his formation, preserving in himself the illumination, given him by nature from God, as yet untroubled and pure, and leaving the dignity of his nature unpractised on," etc. In Joan. p. 75.