kwaw
kwaw said:"Because by a man came death, by a man also comes resurrection [1 Cor 15:21]."
The fall of man, is paralled in the descent of the word made flesh, the incarnation of God to take the sin upon himself for the sake of man's salvation.
The fall of man and the descent of the word made flesh, head first, birth into temporal life (and the coming of death); thus we may see in this figure of shame/death, also a prefigurement of the incarnation. We need not take it as either/or, but both, an integrated complex of mutually related ideas, the fall neccesitates salvation.
"The Word Himself, born of a Virgin, received in birth the recapitulation of Adam, thereby recapitulating Adam in Himself." St. Irenaeus.
According to Augustine, body is ruled by the soul: wherefore it is entirely due to his soul that a man make good use of his body: "For instance, if my coachman, through obedience to my orders, guides well the horses which he is driving; this is all due to me." Thus ‘virtue is not in the body but in the soul’, and as the soul perfects the body, so virtue perfects the soul; and virtue “is nothing else than perfect love of God.”
“...temperance is love keeping itself entire and incorrupt for God;fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all else, as subject to man;...”
He expands upon temperance:
"The root of all evils is covetousness; which some having followed, have made shipwreck of the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows." And this sin of the soul is quite plainly, to those rightly understanding, set forth in the Old Testament in the transgression of Adam in Paradise. Thus, as the apostle says, "In Adam we all die, and in Christ we shall all rise again." Oh, the depth of these mysteries! But I refrain; for I am now engaged not in teaching you the truth, but in making you unlearn your errors, if I can, that is, if God aid my purpose regarding you.
36. Paul then says that covetousness is the root of all evils; and by covetousness the old law also intimates that the first man fell. Paul tells us to put off the old man and put on the new. By the old man he means Adam who sinned, and by the new man him whom the Son of God took to Himself in consecration for our redemption. For he says in another place, "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly," —that is, put off the old man, and put on the new. The whole duty of temperance, then, is to put off the old man, and to be renewed in God,—that is, to scorn all bodily delights, and the popular applause, and to turn the whole love to things divine and unseen. Hence that following passage which is so admirable: "Though our outward man perish, our inward man is renewed day by day." (19.35-36)
St. Augustine Of the Morals of the Catholic Church translated by the Rev. Richard Stothert.