Chapter IV.
On the punishment of the first parents.
Concerning the punishment inflicted upon the first parents, this must be held: that the man and the woman immediately after their fault felt the penalty of rebellion and shame in the flesh; and therefore to cover their shameful parts they made for themselves loincloths. - Afterwards, by divine judgment, the man incurred the penalty of labor and anguish, the penalty of hunger and want, the penalty of death and dissolution into dust, as Scripture says: Cursed is the earth in your work, etc. - But for the woman the punishment was doubled, because there was inflicted upon her the penalty of manifold hardships in conception, the penalty of pains in childbirth, and also the penalty of subjection to the man in married life; and through this, as it appears, that sin was punished quite severely—namely, the eating of the forbidden tree—even though it was easily committed.
The reason for understanding the aforesaid is this: since the First Principle is most provident in governing and most upright in presiding, it leaves nothing whatsoever disordered in the universe; and since fault is rightly ordered through punishment, therefore immediately in the first parents the disgrace of sin was followed by the dignity of judgment, so that what was disordered by falling from the order of nature might fall immediately into the order of justice. For this twofold order so embraces all things that what falls from the one relapses into the other.
Since therefore each parent, by being proud in mind and tasting in the flesh, was disobedient to their superior, by the just judgment of God it came about that their inferior became disobedient to them, especially with respect to those parts according to which there is the union of both sexes, which are the members serving the generative power. And because this was in them not from nature but from their own fault, therefore they were ashamed and covered themselves.
Again, because the man, having despised the supreme delectable, sought to delight in the flesh, therefore by the just judgment of God there was inflicted upon him labor and the want of hunger and thirst.
Finally, because on account of the good of the flesh he chose to be separated from the good of the mind, therefore by the just judgment of God the soul is unwillingly separated from the flesh through death and incineration—and through this, just as God had given to man according to the order of nature a body subject to the soul, capable of propagation without lust, capable of sustenance without failing, incapable of change without death intervening, so, when man sinned, according to the order of justice it came about that He withdrew all the aforesaid and inflicted their opposites: so that fault might not remain unpunished and disordered, which divine providence ought in no way to permit.
And since from the woman sin took its beginning, therefore her punishment is doubled. For because she was proud in mind, she incurred subjection; because she saw and desired the tree as sweet to eat, she incurred pain; finally, because she broke the yoke of obedience, she incurred the bond and burden of manifold hardship.
And thus it is clear with what order the manifold punishments were inflicted by divine providence upon the man and doubled in the woman, so that "the disgrace of sin would not be without the beauty of justice."