2 SIN 



alternately, declares that: "A sin is some deed, 

 word, or desire against the eternal law." 7 

 Since all temporal laws are derived from, or con- 

 tained in, the lex aetema, every sin manifestly 

 involves a violation of the will of God. St. 

 Thomas says: "Sin is nothing else than a bad 

 human act. Now, that an act is a human act is 

 due to its being voluntary. . . . Again, a human 

 act is evil through lacking conformity with its 

 due measure: and conformity of measure in a 

 thing depends on a rule, from which no thing 

 can depart without becoming incommensurate. 

 Now there are two rules of the human will. One 

 is proximate and homogeneous, viz., the human 

 reason ; the other is the first rule, vis., the eternal 

 law, which is God's reason, so to speak. Accord- 

 ingly Augustine includes two things in the defi- 

 nition of sin ; one pertaining to the substance of a 

 human act, and which is the matter, so to speak, 

 of sin, when he says, 'deed, word, or desire' ; the 

 other pertaining to the nature of evil, and which 

 is, as it were, the form of sin, when he says, 

 'against the eternal law.' " 8 



7 Contra Faustum Manich., 1. Habet autem actus humanus quod sit 

 XXII, c. 27 (Migne, P. L., XLII, mains ex eo quod caret debita com- 

 418): "Peccatum est factum vel mensuratione. Omnis autem com- 

 dictum vel concupitum aliquid contra mensuratio cuiuscunque rex at- 

 oeternam legem." tenditur per comparationem ad 



8 Summa Theol., ia, qu. 71, art. aliquam regulam; a qua si di- 

 6: "Peccatum nihil aliud est quam vertat, incommensurata erit. Re- 

 actus humanus malus. Quod au- gula autem Z'oluntatis humanae est 

 tern aliquis actus sit humanus, habet duplex: una propinqua et homogenea, 

 ex hoc, quod est voluntarius. . . . scil. ipsa humana ratio; alia vero 



