heaven, Scotus replies: "It is evident that the gate was opened to her through the merit of the passion of Christ, foreseen and specially accepted with regard to this person [Mary]. So that on account of this passion, sin would never be found in her, and thus nothing on account of which the gate would be closed; although, because of her birth and origin, the gate would be closed to her as to others.’’ 43
Again, his adversaries claimed that a stainless conception was in flagrant contradiction with the human nature of Mary. How could it be that her soul was not soiled by its contact and union with a sinful flesh? Such was the objection. It must have seemed unanswerable to those theologians of the period who did not plainly distinguish original sin from concupiscence, and who looked upon the latter as a defective quality tarnishing primarily the flesh and through it reaching the soul.
The Subtle Doctor first clears the ground of these false ideas. Appealing to the authority of St. Anselm and to sound reason, he denies that concupiscence is a real infection of the flesh, or a positive vice. He explains that original sin does not consist in any corruption or infection of our human nature, but in the privation of original justice due. Moreover, he insists, inasmuch as sin is a moral deordination, the flesh cannot serve as a physical cause in the transmission of original sin. The argument taken from the common descent does not, then, conclude against Mary’s Immaculate Conception: "The conclusion from the infection of the flesh on account of her descent does not hold, according to St. Anselm’s explanation of the nature of original sin.’’ 44
20
