I) The catechism of the Council of Trent: Part I, Article 2
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_catechism_of_the_Council_of_Trent/Part_1:_Article_2
But as the fruit of these admirable blessings is best known by we considering the ruin brought on man, by his fall from that most happy state in which God had placed our first parents, let the pastor be particularly careful to make known to the faithful, the cause of this common misery and universal calamity. When Adam had departed from the obedience due to God, and had violated the prohibition, "of every tree of Paradise thou shall eat; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat, for in what day soever thou shalt eat it, thou shalt die the death;?[3] he fell into the extreme misery of losing the sanctity and righteousness in which he was created; and of becoming subject to all those other evils, which are detailed more at large by the holy Council of Trent. [4] The Pastor, therefore, will not omit to remind the faithful, that the guilt and punishment of original sin were not confined to Adam, but justly descended from him, as from their source and cause, to all posterity. The human race, having fallen from their elevated dignity, no power of men or angels could raise them from their fallen condition, and replace them in their primitive state. To remedy the evil, and repair the loss, it became necessary that the Son of God, whose merits are infinite, clothed in the weakness of our flesh, should remove the infinite weight of sin, and reconcile us to God in his blood. The belief and profession of this our redemption, as God declared from the beginning, are now, and always have been, necessary to salvation. In the sentence of condemnation, pronounced against the human race immediately after the sin of Adam, the hope of redemption was held out in these words, which denounced to the devil, the loss which he was to sustain by man's redemption: " I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." [5] The same promise he again often confirmed, and more distinctly signified his counsels to those chiefly whom he desired to make special objects of his predilection: amongst others to the patriarch Abraham, to whom he often declared this mystery, but then more explicitly when, in obedience to God's command, he was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac: " Because," says he, " thou hast done this thing, and hast not spared thy only begotten son for my sake; I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore. Thy seed shall possess the gates of their enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." [6] From these words it was easy to infer that he, who was to deliver man kind from the ruthless tyranny of Satan, was to be descended from Abraham; and that, whilst he was the Son of God, he was to be born of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. Not long after, to preserve the memory of this promise, he renewed the same covenant with Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. When in a vision Jacob saw a ladder standing on earth, and its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending by it, [7] he also heard the Lord saying to him, as the Scripture testifies; " I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land, wherein thou sleepest, I will give to thee and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in thee and thy seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." [8] Nor did God cease afterwards to excite in the posterity of Abraham, and in many others, the hope of a Saviour, by renewing the recollection of the same promise; for, after the establishment of the Jewish republic and religion, it became better known to his people. Many types signified, and prophets foretold the numerous and invaluable blessings which our Redeemer, Christ Jesus, was to bring to mankind. And, indeed, the prophets, whose minds were illuminated with light from above, foretold the birth of the Son of God, the wondrous works which he wrought whilst on earth, his doctrine, manners, kindred, death, resurrection, and the other mysterious circumstances regarding him; [9] and all these as graphically as if they were passing before their eyes. With the exception of the time only, we can discover no difference be tween the predictions of the prophets, and the preaching of the apostles, between the faith of the ancient patriarchs, and that of Christians But, we are now to speak of the several parts of this Article.
Footnotes [3 - 9] 3) Gen. ii. 16, 17.
4) Sess. 5. Can. 1. & 2. Sess. 6. Can. 1. & 2.
5) Gen. iii. 15
6) Gen. xxii. 16, 17, 18.7) Gen. xxviii. 12.
8) Gen. xxviii. 13, 14.
9) Is. vii. 14; viii. 3; ix. 5; xi. 1 - 53 per totum. Jer. xxiii 5: xxx. 9. Dan. vii. 13; ix. 21.
II Catechism of Pope St. Pius X, The Apostle's Creed, The First Article of the Creed
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/catechism-of-st-pius-x-1286
- 35 Q.
- In what state did God place our first parents, Adam and Eve?
- A.
- God placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the state of innocence and grace; but they soon fell away by sin.
- 36 Q.
- Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?
- A.
- Besides innocence and sanctifying grace, God conferred on our first parents other gifts, which, along with sanctifying . grace, they were to transmit to their descendants; these were: (1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense . reason; (2) Immortality; (3) Immunity from all pain and sorrow; (4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.
- 37 Q.
- What was the nature of Adam's sin?
- A.
- Adam's sin was a sin of pride and of grave disobedience.
- 38 Q.
- What chastisement was meted out to the sin of Adam and Eve?
- A.
- Adam and Eve lost the grace of God and the right they had to Heaven; they were driven out of the earthly Paradise, subjected to many miseries of soul and body, and condemned to death.
- 39 Q.
- If Adam and Eve had not sinned, would they have bee exempt from death?
- A.
- If Adam and Eve had not sinned and if they had remained faithful to God, they would, after a happy and tranquil sojourn here on earth, and without dying, have been transferred by God into Heaven, to enjoy a life of unending glory.
- 40 Q.
- Were these gifts due to man?
- A.
- These gifts were in no way due to man, but were absolutely gratuitous and supernatural; and hence, when Adam disobeyed the divine command, God could without any injustice deprive both Adam and his posterity of them.
- 41 Q.
- Is this sin proper to Adam alone?
- A.
- This sin is not Adam's sin alone, but it is also our sin, though in a different sense. It is Adam's sin because he committed it by an act of his will, and hence in him it was a personal sin. It is our sin also because Adam, having committed it in his capacity as the head and source of the human race, it was transmitted by natural generation to all his descendants: and hence in us it is original sin.
- 42 Q.
- How is it possible for original sin to be transmitted to all men?
- A.
- Original sin is transmitted to all men because God, having conferred sanctifying grace and other supernatural gifts on the human race in Adam, on the condition that Adam should not disobey Him; and Adam having disobeyed, as head and father of the human race, rendered human nature rebellious against God. And hence, human nature is transmitted to all the descendants of Adam in a state of rebellion against God, and deprived of divine grace and other gifts.
- 43 Q.
- Do all men contract original sin?
- A.
- Yes, all men contract original sin, with the exception of the Blessed Virgin, who was preserved from it by a singular privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour.
- 44 Q.
- Could not men be saved after Adam's sin?
- A.
- After Adam's sin men could not be saved, if God had not shown mercy towards them.
- 45 Q.
- What was the mercy shown by God to the human race?
- A.
- The mercy shown by God to the human race was that of immediately promising Adam a divine Redeemer or Messiah, and of sending this Messiah in His own good time to free men from the slavery of sin and of the devil.
- 46 Q.
- Who is the promised Messiah?
- A.
- The promised Messiah is Jesus Christ, as the Second Article of the Creed teaches.
I will not venture to call "Vatican II" a valid council, as long as Pope Michael II holds it invalid, but it cannot be denied it kind of says the same thing:
III DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON DIVINE REVELATION DEI VERBUM, Chapter 1, § 3
https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html
3. God, who through the Word creates all things (see John 1:3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19-20). Planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and from the start manifested Himself to our first parents. Then after their fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved (see Gen. 3:15) and from that time on He ceaselessly kept the human race in His care, to give eternal life to those who perseveringly do good in search of salvation (see Rom. 2:6-7). Then, at the time He had appointed He called Abraham in order to make of him a great nation (see Gen. 12:2). Through the patriarchs, and after them through Moses and the prophets, He taught this people to acknowledge Himself the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior promised by Him, and in this manner prepared the way for the Gospel down through the centuries.
In other words, all of these sources are unanimously saying:
- God promised the Redeemer (and His Blessed Mother) directly to Adam
- God gave reminders to Abraham so it should not be forgotten
- the promise of the Redeemer was never forgotten by all men, but rather cherished by all men up to fairly shortly before Abraham, and since then, it was cherished at least by Hebrews, and at least some remnants or exceptions among other men.
Let's see which chronology, taken as literal history, note, I say history, not science, fits these criteria best, shall we?
- Adam was created 6000 - 7500 years ago, on an earth not yet 144 hours old (all men, Sapiens, Neanderthalenses, Denisovans, Heidelbergians, Erectus Soloensis, descend from him)
- Adam was the first among "behaviourally modern humans" c. 40 000 years ago
- Adam was the first Homo Sapiens, c. 300 000 years ago
- Adam was the first ancestor of Sapiens, Neanderthalenses, Denisovans, Heidelbergians, but counted as per modern scientific datings, i e at least 600 000 years ago
- Adam was also the first ancestor of Homo Erectus Soloensis, counted as per modern scientific datings, i e nearly two million years ago.
In the first of these scenaria, Abraham is the roughly speaking midpoint between Adam and Jesus, 2000 - 3000 years after the former, 2000 years before the latter. There is another midpoint between Abraham and each of the midpoints, namely Noah, between Adam and Abraham, King David, between Abraham and Our Lord Jesus, the Christ. If the former two stretches between anchor points are 1.5 times the time of the latter ones, the lifespans were also much longer, so, in terms of generations, Abraham is closer to Adam than to Jesus (20 - 21 for the former, 21 if there was a second Cainan, either way including the extremes, 45 - 46 for the latter, with only 41 or 42 generations ritually acknowledged). No huge risk of things being forgotten.
Now, suppose instead the shortest of the other scenarios.
Adam was the first among "behaviourally modern humans" c. 40 000 years ago.
Suppose the ages in Genesis 5 and 11 were not meant to be taken literally, take modern lifespans and generation distances.
40 000 - 4000 = 36 000 years
36 000 years / 25 years per generation = 1440 generations.
I think there is a pretty significant difference between 1440 and 20 generations.
1440 / 21 = 68.57 times as many ... plus obviously, in that case, even 21 generations would have hit worse, since the overlaps would
have been in shorter spans. Here is Haydock on Genesis 3:
Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. H.
With a LXX chronology, I'd require a bit more than seven "minimally overlapping generations" from Adam to Moses, more like 12, but on the other hand, I am taking the purely oral tradition only to Abraham, who would be sixth from Adam to take this knowledge up, plus all the generations in between each minimal overlap who would reinforce it. To show what I mean, I have met my grandparents but never my great-grandparents. This makes me and my grandparents two minimally overlapping generations. In this sense, 1440 generations would be 720 minimally overlapping generations, also from Adam to Abraham.
720 / 6 = 120
So, in this scenario, the memory Abraham had of the promise to Adam would have been 120 times more diluted = irrecognisable.
To make this worse, in the scenario dating human history by modern science instead of by the Bible, most of this time, the people would have been hunter gatherers and probably even lacking writing. I am not denying that the 32 symbols Genevieve von Petzinger found all over the palaeolithic could be some kind of alphabet, but if so, the samples we found suggest it was used to give initials as memory points.
11 And Sem lived after he begot Arphaxad, five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. 12 And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Sale. 13 And Arphaxad lived after he begot Sale, three hundred and three years; and begot sons and daughters. 14 Sale also lived thirty years, and begot Heber. 15 And Sale lived after he begot Heber, four hundred and three years; and begot sons and daughters.
16 And Heber lived thirty-four years, and begot Phaleg. 17 And Heber lived after he begot Phaleg, four hundred and thirty years: and begot sons and daughters. 18 Phaleg also lived thirty years, and begot Reu. 19 And Phaleg lived after he begot Reu, two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters. 20 And Reu lived thirty-two years, and begot Sarug.
21 And Reu lived after he begot Sarug, two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. 22 And Sarug lived thirty years, and begot Nachor. 23 And Sarug lived after he begot Nachor, two hundred years: and begot sons and daughters. 24 And Nachor lived nine and twenty years, and begot Thare. 25 And Nachor lived after he begot Thare, a hundred and nineteen years: and begot sons and daughters.
26 And Thare lived seventy years, and begot Abram, and Nachor, and Aran. 27 And these are the generations of Thare: Thare begot Abram, Nachor, and Aran. And Aran begot Lot.
Probably this would have looked like:
SASHPRSNT
T:ANA
AL
With each letter just used to get the ordering correct, as an aid to learning by heart. We have not found anything that remotely looked like longer texts. But the problem is, this becomes vastly inadequate if instead of 21 generations back to Adam you had 1440. If only one in every 68 to 69 people is recorded, the collective memory has suffered considerably, and therefore the memory of Genesis 3 too.
And the points I made from two catechisms, plus a good paragraph in a probably spurious council, actually require Genesis 3 to be all of this time recalled as history, not to be first forgotten and then revealed, for instance to Moses.
So, on top of this, it is also dogma that the Catholic Church in one shape or another, has always existed. This becomes highly dubious if we count 40 000 years of people, or more, with not just only hunters and gatherers, but on top of that these often becoming cannibals, and the most noble hunter gatherers in our time at least being partially corrupt in the faith. However, the 3000 years instead of 36 000 years from Adam to Abraham, the odds become very much less daunting. And the same observations would all be even stronger if you pushed Adam back even earlier than 40 000 years ago.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Exaltation of the Holy Cross
14.IX.2023
Exaltatio sanctae Crucis, quando Heraclius Imperator, Chosroa Rege devicto, eam de Perside Hierosolymam reportavit.
