Chapter 2 [II.]—If Adam Had Not Sinned, He Would Never Have Died.

They who say that Adam was so formed that he would even without any demerit of sin have died, not as the penalty of sin, but from the necessity of his being, endeavour indeed to refer that passage in the law, which says: “On the day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die,”3    Gen. ii. 17. not to the death of the body, but to that death of the soul which takes place in sin. It is the unbelievers who have died this death, to whom the Lord pointed when He said, “Let the dead bury their dead.”4    Matt. viii. 22; Luke ix. 60. Now what will be their answer, when we read that God, when reproving and sentencing the first man after his sin, said to him, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return?”5    Gen. iii. 19. For it was not in respect of his soul that he was “dust,” but clearly by reason of his body, and it was by the death of the self-same body that he was destined to “return to dust.” Still, although it was by reason of his body that he was dust, and although he bare about the natural body in which he was created, he would, if he had not sinned, have been changed into a spiritual body, and would have passed into the incorruptible state, which is promised to the faithful and the saints, without the peril of death.6    1 Cor. xv. 52, 53. And for this issue we not only are conscious in ourselves of having an earnest desire, but we learn it from the apostle’s intimation, when he says: “For in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven; if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life.” 7    2 Cor. v. 2–4. Therefore, if Adam had not sinned, he would not have been divested of his body, but would have been clothed upon with immortality and incorruption, that “mortality might have been swallowed up of life;” that is, that he might have passed from the natural body into the spiritual body.

CAPUT II.

2. Adam, si non peccasset, non fuisse moriturum. Qui dicunt Adam sic creatum, ut etiam sine peccati merito moreretur, non poena culpae, sed necessitate naturae; profecto illud quod in Lege dictum est, Qua die ederitis, morte moriemini (Gen. II, 17); non ad mortem corporis, sed ad mortem animae quae in peccato fit , referre conantur. Qua morte mortuos significavit Dominus infideles, de quibus ait, Sine mortuos sepelire mortuos suos (Matth. VIII, 22). Quid ergo respondebunt, cum legitur hoc Deum primo homini 0110 etiam post peccatum increpando et damnando dixisse: Terra es, et in terram ibis (Gen. III, 19)? Neque enim secundum animam, sed, quod manifestum est, secundum corpus terra erat, et morte ejusdem corporis erat iturus in terram. Quamvis enim secundum corpus terra esset, et corpus in quo creatus est animale gestaret; tamen si non peccasset, in corpus fuerat spirituale mutandus, et in illam incorruptionem quae fidelibus et sanctis promittitur, sine mortis periculo transiturus . Cujus rei desiderium nos habere non solum ipsi sentimus in nobis, verum etiam admonente Apostolo cognoscimus, ubi ait: Etenim in hoc ingemiscimus, habitaculum nostrum, quod de coelo est, superindui cupientes; si tamen induti, non nudi inveniamur. Etenim qui sumus in hac habitatione, ingemiscimus gravati, in quo nolumus exspoliari, sed supervestiri, ut absorbeatur mortale a vita (II Cor. V, 2-4). Proinde si non peccasset Adam, non erat exspoliandus corpore, sed supervestiendus immortalitate, et incorruptione, ut absorberetur mortale a vita, id est, ab animali in spirituale transiret.