Seven

DRAWING EVIL WITH A HAPPY FACE:

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE FELIX CULPA
Victor Yelverton Haines
How can we draw a picture ofa sin being fortunate? The Exultet, written in the
fourth century, probably by Saint Ambrose, and incorporated into the Easter
liturgy of the Roman rite, proclaims in words the logic of the fortunate fall.' In the
darkness of the night before Easter dawn, new fire is stmck from a flint outside
the church and the flame brought into the church in procession. The new light is
blessed in remembrance of the pillar of fire leading Israel in Exodus, the light of
the world, and the etemal glory of heaven. As the paschal candle breaks the
darkness, symbolizing the new light from the risen Christ, the deacon begins to
chant the Exultet: "Exultet iam angelica turba. . .." The hymn proclaims this as
the night our fathers were led out of Egypt, the night the pillar of fire dispelled the
darkness of sin, the night Christians, separated from the murk of sin, are restored
to grace. This holy night dispels all evil. Let this Easter candle mingle with the
lights of heaven to dispel the darkness of this night. At the climax of the hymn,
amid such exalted paradoxes, the author exclaims:

O certe necessarium Adae peccatum quod Christi morte deletum est! O felix
culpa, quae talem ac tantum memit habere Redemptorem!
(O assuredly necessary sin of Adam, which has been blotted out by the death
of Christ! O fortunate fault, which has merited such and so great a
Redeemer!)

The liturgical source for the paradoxical doctrine of the felix culpa is still
celebrated in the Catholic Church, although the Latin has been replaced by the
vemacular tongue.
In words, a guilty action may be expatiated as fortunate, but how can it be
done in pictures? We cannot simply draw a picture of Adam eating the apple with
a big grin on his face, for what is fortunate about that? Perhaps the apple tastes
good, or he is thinking he will leam something. Such benefits intended by Adam
got us kicked out of Eden, engendering all our woe. Nor can we depict cute
bunnies looking on with noses wiggling at how well it is all going to tum out.
How could they know? If any contemporary creature in the garden knew with
certainty, Adam could know too, and the initiative of God's free act of
Redemption would be incoherently constrained. One does not get lost in the desert
so one can experience the joy of being fotind. The loss of our initial innocence cut
78 VICTOR YELVERTONHAINES

us off from God and exiled us from Eden. What scene could limn the horror of
that sin, showing at the same time its glorious comedy?
In the first chapter of The Fortunate Fall of Sir Gawain: The Typology of Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, I argue that the juxtaposition of the same images
from the Fall and Redemption suggests the necessity of the Fall: the first and
second Adam, the first and second Eve, the first and second Tree, the friiit of the
forbidden Tree and the fmit of Mary's womb.^ The same props for the Fall
scenario are used again for the Redemption scenario. On a visual level, the logical
relation is suggested: without the Fall, the Redemption could not be staged. From
the iconographie juxtaposition of the same images, the glorious comedy is
indicated.
Because the events succeed one another in history, this opposition is not
synchronically Manichaean, but diachronically prophetic. The use of the same
images suggests, moreover, apart from any aspect of prophetic fortune, that evil
deconstmcts in self-reñexivity: good can be good to itself; evil cannot be evil to
itself So good and evil cannot be Manichaean as symmefric, etemally opposed
forces that we must choose between. As in the fradition of homeopathy, the
remedy for an ill comes out ofthat ill itself The difference in the clinical fradition
is that getting ill is not fortunate since restoration of health is a retum to the
previous state. The perfection of redemption does not retum Christians to a
previous state of innocence, but brings them to the glory of redeemed guilt in a
new state. It is a different perfection, with the benefits of penance, forgiveness,
reconciliation, and humility in the way of the Cross. These benefits are impossible
in a state of innocence, and accordingly the Fall was necessary to secure them.
In addition to the typological images of self-reference in the first and second
Adam, Eve, Tree, and Fmit, the necessity of the Fall for Redemption, and thus its
fortuitousness, may be indicated in medieval iconography in at least two other
ways not included in my previous study: by the juxtaposition of the first and
second shovel, and the juxtaposition of the first and second snake.

1. Christ the Gardener

The risen Christ first appeared to human vision as a gardener. Mary Magdalen,
"supposing him to be the Gardener" (John 20:15), asked if he had taken the body
away; then he called her name and she recognized him. This scene, as Robert
Myles notes, was frequently portrayed in medieval art with Christ striking the noli
me tangere pose and holding a shovel, alluding thus to the many depictions of
Adam with a shovel.-* V. A. Kolve puts together the typological symbohsm linking
the viewer with Mary as another second Eve to the second Adam, who will
cultivate the garden of our souls in the Church, his bride." Another refrospective
dimension is also imposed on the scene: Adam was a gardener in Eden; his
innocent cultivation there, perhaps with a shovel, then becomes the very image of
toil as his punishment. Without Adam's shovel, Christ would not have the garden
to cultivate near where he had been buried, a cultivation that looks forward not to
 Drawing Evil with a Happy Face: The Iconography of the Felix Culpa 79

the innocent garden of Eden again, but to the redeemed paradise of New
Jemsalem. The shovel as a tool in reahns of both iiuiocence and guilt signifies the
necessity of guilt for the hope of glory and the cultivation of our redemption by
Christ. The logic of the felix culpa is presented in the allusion of Christ's shovel
to the first shovel of Adam, without which there could be no relief in New
Jemsalem.

2. The First and Second Serpent

The serpent is naturally more complicated. Perhaps I ought not to blame myself
for missing its allusion to the felix culpa. The bronze serpent Moses lifted up in
the desert as a standard is connected typologically with the cmcifixion and
ascension, when Christ was lifted up. According to Üie evangelist, Jesus himself
instmcted Nicodemus: "No one ever went up into heaven except the one who
came down from heaven, the Son of Man whose home is in heaven. This Son of
Man must be lifted up, as the serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wildemess, so
that everyone who has faith in him may in him possess etemal life" (John 3:13-
15). This typological connection was frequently depicted in medieval and
renaissance art—two liftings up, a type and antitype. I thought no more about it,
even though the obvious omission of the serpent in Eden was puzzling. I did not
read the account in Numbers of the Israelites' snake bites on the way to the
promised land:

Then they left Mount Hor by way of the Red Sea to march round the flank
of Edom. But on the way they grew impatient and spoke against God and
Moses. "Why have you brought us up from Egypt," they said, "to die in the
desert where there is neither food nor water? We are heartily sick of this
miserable fare." Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and
they bit the Israelites so that many of them died. The people came to Moses
and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and you. Plead with
the Lord to rid us of the snakes." Moses therefore pleaded with the Lord for
the people; and the Lord told Moses to make a serpent of bronze and erect
it as a standard, so that anyone who had been bitten could look at it and
recover. So Moses made a bronze serpent and erected it as a standard, so that
when a snake had bitten a man, he could look at the bronze serpent and
recover. (Num. 21: 4—9)

The recirculation of images becomes apparent in the source of perdition as

its own remedy. Wandering in the wildemess following the error of the first
serpent is remedied by wandering in the wildemess following the way of God.
Grousing about hardship on this retum from exile is a falling away from the tme
way and takes you where you get bitten by serpents—the remedy for which is a
serpent idol. Idolatry eats its ovra tail in self-reference. Moses could not have set
up the remedy for the serpents if it had not been for the serpents. The stage setting
80 VICTOR YELVERTON HAINES

and images for the falling away from the way of God both in the Garden of Eden
and the wildemess of Edom are used again in the redemption ofthat falling away.
Moses's act in the wildemess of Edom is also typological, looking back to the first
serpent in Eden. We have fallen into idolatry as a result of our general Fall with
the serpent. By making an idol of what we cannot worship (the serpent associated
with the source of our harm), we refute the idolatry of the golden calf,
remembering the law that keeps us from such idolatry and on the way of God.
As the Wisdom writer was concemed to point out, the second bronze serpent
was a "saving token to remind them of the commandment of your Law. Whoever
tumed to it was saved, not by what he looked at, but by you, the universal savior"
(Wisd. of Sol. 16: 6-7). The idolatry in images of an object we worship is rejected
in this idolatry of an image of what we don't worship. Juxtaposed to the Numbers
account of the bronze serpent is an account in the previous paragraph of Aaron's
death atop Mount Hor, which he had ascended with Moses and his son Eleazar to
die (Num. 21: 22-29). Moses descends from the mountain without his brother,
whose golden calf he had met after the descent from Sinai with the injunction
against idolatry. The juxtaposition heightens the contrast between the two
images—an attractive calf and a repulsive, or at least deadly, serpent. Without the
pemicious idolatry derived from our initial fall in Eden with the first serpent,
rejection of idolatry would be impossible. The bronze second serpent that the
Israelites look to for salvation would not be possible without the first serpent in
Eden. Nor could looking at the bronze serpent heal the Israelites without those
serpents in Edom, that bit whoever had strayed from the way of God. This
typology finds general application in the logic of Exodus: you cannot come out
of Egypt if you have not gone down to Egypt. Bringing Joseph's bones out of
Egypt moralizes the Exodus as a redemption after the moral failure that drew the
children of Israel into Egypt.
The same typology is applied by Jesus in his allusion to Moses and thence
to the first serpent in Eden, as well as in Christ's cmcifixion and ascension, which
a Christian can look to for salvation. Jesus is not a serpent and so not a second
serpent the way Mary is a second Eve. But he is lifted up as the Son of Man must
be lifted up, as the bronze second serpent was. This bronze second serpent is still
a serpent tiie way the Son of Man lifted up on the cross is still the Son of Man in
a heritage of guilt. We do not worship the instmment of torture or the act of
cmcifixion perpetrated by sons of Adam; nor do we worship the first Adam. That
Adam, created with Eve in God's image, who has thereby come down from
heaven, suffers the moral wound of the first serpent in Eden. In the heritage of sin
we continue to bite each other. Yet, it is still a Son of Man who is raised as a
standard, the second Adam, for us to look to and recover. We who look up do not
see an alien serpent on the cross but one of our own, as if serpents themselves
looked to a bronze serpent for the poisonous cure of self-reflexivity. One of our
own who is perfect has become the agent of our own salvation and recovery,
despite what we have done to this Son of Man.
 Drawing Evil with a Happy Face: The Iconography of the Felix Culpa 81

For such recovery the first serpent in Eden was necessary. Jesus takes the
bronze serpent lifted up as a model; the saving idol of the serpent would not be
possible without the serpents that bit; the remedy would not be possible without
the disease. These conditionals suggest the logic of the fortunate fall in the remedy
of Christ's own Redemption. Thus, in these coils of allusion, the first and
"second" serpents fit into the complex iconography of Ûie felix culpa. Without an
awareness of such subtlety, much of the irony in Christian art will be missed.

3. The Nature of the Felix Culpa

The felix culpa is first of all an event, something that happened in history.
Originally conceived as history, its historicity may still be debated. Obviously the
felix culpa has not been handed down as an eyewitness account, such as the
Exodus. If we had been in Eden, we might not have seen a talking serpent, nor, for
that matter, might the Jews have seen a pillar of fire at Sinai. Or, perhaps, they
would have; we do not know how the ancient phenomena appeared to human eyes
then nor the extent to which the written record is based on metaphor. Since it is
impossible to communicate anything without the metaphor of taxonomy or
essential "sameness," the presence of metaphor in the account of ancient events
is no basis for modem skepticism seeking "demythologization."
Nor may we take them as pure fiction, myths of gods symbolic of present
conditions in the world order or parables to get a point across. As pure fiction the
story of Exodus, for example, would still teach a lesson. But it is not simply a
myth to get a point across, for part ofthat very point is that it really happened in
the history we are still living. We have to believe in that history if we believe in
ourselves, and we cannot coherently believe we do not believe in ourselves.
Neither the Exodus nor the Fall can be taken as myth without the absurd
conclusion that the point of the myth is that it is not a myth. Historical accounts
like the story of Exodus or the Fall of Man may be false (the events may never
have happened), but they cannot be true as myths, which do not have to have
happened to be "tme" and are usually someone else's religion.
In addition to the history-myth question regarding ^e felix culpa, the idea
of corporate entity also confuses a modem mind. Modem consciousness, based
on the individual's separate ego, does not easily see its corporate nature as
humankind, in which the individual person is also one Adam or Eve. If Adam and
Eve can be accepted as all humankind, the actual occurrence of the Fall at the
dawn of history may be accepted without sacrificing the integrity of a modem or,
at least, postmodem mind.
An important consequence in intellectual methodology follows from the
historicity of the Fall. As an historical event, ihe felix culpa can be described, but
not defined. Events are not defined, but described. The nature of the felix culpa
is not, therefore, to be discovered in the definition of a concept, but in points of
resemblance with other events. Such a description of resemblance must be
govemed by the spirit of Christian understanding, which cannot be free of
82 VICTOR YELVERTON HAINES

interpretation. We have to interpret what the author of the Exultet intended to

know, for example, that by "necessarium Adae peccatum" he did not mean that
the sin had to happen as a necessary part of God's creation in the way two sides
of a scalene triangle, by necessity, are longer than the third. Although the term
"necessarium" may sometimes be taken as equivalent to "inevitable," it cannot be
completely freed from its sense of a condition for something—a triangle, a
universe, a certain good, or whatever. In the Exultet, what the sin is necessary for
must be clearly interpreted as the Redeemer, referred to in the next verse, and all
his mighty work.
The dark possibility of misinterpreting "necessarium" as "inevitable" may
have troubled some Frankish-German abbots in the Middle Ages, who omitted the
two verses containing "necessarium" and "felix culpa," even though they were
always retained in the Roman liturgy. In countering the view that "necessarium
Adae peccatum" is at least a "theological exaggeration," G. M. Lukken argues that
"necessarium" merely means "useful, profitable."' This still does not solve the
problem of deciding what it may be useful for. If we say for Adam's necessary
development or for the universal order, we betray the Christian author. If we say
for Adam's redemption or for the Redeemer and his mighty work, we interpret the
author's intention correctly and may understand "necessarium" with all its logical
and theological force. To describe the felix culpa, therefore, we cannot avoid such
interpretive choices, since they are govemed by the Christian context and intent.
Another interpretive choice is whether \ht felix culpa is fortunate because of
the Redeemer or because of Redemption, or both. The Exultet uses the word
"Redeemer": "O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum memit habere Redemptorem!"
Certainly there is great exultation because of who the Redeemer was, Jesus Christ,
Son of God and the Son of Man, in whom God's perfect love was incarnate. The
hymn maintains the primary importance Christianity gives to persons and to love
in personal relationships. Even if the work of Redemption had failed and we were
all in Hell, conceivably we might exult in the recognition of what a great man
Jesus was, in his being the incamation of God's love, and in God's choice to work
through Him rather than through some lesser being. If this is all that the author of
the Exultet meant, he would have written "incamatum deum" rather than
"Redemptorem," and would not have spoken of Adam's sin as necessary, for a
mere incamation could have taken place without it.
In the Easter context of the hymn, with its emphasis on salvation in the
Passover feast when Christians are restored to grace in the night that allows them
to escape from the darkness of sin (here referring to reconciliation with God), who
the Redeemer was cannot be separated from what he was: the Redeemer who in
fact redeems. The/e/ú culpa is, therefore, fortunate because of both the Redeemer
and the Redemption, the mighty acts without which the Redeemer could not have
fulfilled that role. Thus, in addition to the glorious nature of the Redeemer, the
fortune of \he felix culpa must also be seen in the nature of Redemption and what
happens to the sinner, Adam.
 Drawing Evil with a Happy Face: The Iconography of the Felix Culpa 83

As it affects Adam, one preliminary point to notice in the felix culpa is that
the sin has an important dampening effect on the state of the sinner. The lower the
estate of the being before the fall the lower the degree of restoration, and
conversely. Adam and Eve were not primitive monkeys who did something that
had liftle effect on their condition and was only a necessary part of their
experience and evolutionary progress. They were made in the image of God, the
crowning work of creation, and had the creative power of an imagination and will
corresponding to God's own freedom. The fall of such creatures, no matter how
small the sin, should be seen as immense. Implicit in the upward effect of the
restoration is the sinner's own participation in the benefits. The Fall of the Angels
with Satan cannot be considered a proleptic type of the felix culpa, even though
without it temptation to evil could hardly have been present in Eden. Satan's fall
thus has a degree of necessity for the likelihood of Man's Fall and, hence, for our
Redemption.
The difference between the human Fall and the Fall of the Angels is that the
angels remain fallen. Satan does not participate in any of the benefits of otir
restoration. It does not make any sense to think of his fall as fortunate, even
though the outcome of it may greatly benefit others. Satan may later play into
God's hands as the scourge of God, but there is nothing fortunate about this for
Satan. Similarly, historical figures traditionally considered the Scourge of God,
such as Tamerlane, Attila the Hun, or Richard III, may wreak havoc and bring
great benefits in their wake, but they do not share in these benefits. Their sinfiil
action does not resemble the felix culpa. Adam, however, does share in the
benefits of humankind's Redemption, both as an individual in the resurrection of
the dead and corporately in the redeemed seed of Adam.
The corporate nature of Adam's sin, along with the corporate nature of the
benefits it makes possible for many, is another feature of the felix culpa to which
some actions may be compared—for example, the sins of kings and govemors,
who represent a society collectively and draw others into sin with them. Like
original sin, their acts draw the human community into the vitium or the general
vitiation of sin, making it easy for a member ofthat corrupt community to give in
to corrupt desires and so incur the reatus of personal guilt. The community may,
in tum, participate collectively in benefits made possible by their sins. Despite the
mystery of humankind's collective communion as a corporate entity, the benefits
must at least always be shared by the individual sinner. Society cannot be
redeemed if the individual in it is not. Hence, the delineation of an individual
typological instance of the felix culpa is always significant and points to the total
glory of Redemption.
A primary attribute of the felix culpa is that it is a sin seen retrospectively in
the light of another event of benefit to the sinner. The relation between the two
events is such that the sinñil one is necessary for the beneficial one. The logic is
simple. One cannot be found unless one is lost. One cannot be redeemed from sin
unless one is a sirmer. Since all sin is merely the twisted use of good, every sin
involves some potential benefit that the sinner expects. In the relation between the
 84 VICTOR YELVERTON HAINES

sin and its special benefit in the felix culpa, the benefit is not expected or in any
way sufficienfly caused by the sin. The relation between the/e/¿c culpa and the
Redemption is thus distinguished from the relation most sins have to subsequent
benefits.
Let us consider the sinftil event, S, and the possibility of two kinds of
subsequent benefits: B, caused by the sin, and B', not caused in any way by the
sin, but the result of redemption. In general, when all other required material
conditions are present, S is sufficient for B but not necessary, while S is necessary
for B' but can never be sufficient. First let us consider the relation between S and
B: the only volition required in the set of sufficient conditions for B is the sinner's
(or any accomplice's). This volition is the focus of the sinful act and, given that
all the other conditions in the set are present, is sufficient for B, that is, the
benefits caused and intended by the sinner. Not all these other conditions may be
present, however; the sinner may miscalculate. He or she may get caught stealing,
for example, so that B is only a potential benefit the sinner thinks he or she
can cause.
On the other hand, the sinner's act, S, is not necessary for B. The money he
or she wanted to steal might be given by a friend. In that the benefit may be
characterized by specific particularities—the sinner obtains the desired end when
it is desired—the sin S appears to have a degree of necessity for B. However, it
is conceivable, at least, that the benefit be obtained right then and there in some
other way. The only particular of an illicit benefit for which S was absolutely
necessary is its illicitness, which human folly may take as a benefit: "The stolen
pears are more delightftil." Perhaps the illicit feature is merely an aspect of our
attitude toward the benefit and not the benefit itself Stolen fr^it is still the same
fmit, and there is no reason we cannot pay just as much attention to it if it is
obtained honestly.
The B benefits in Adam's case are such benefits as enjoying the fruit,
finding out what it tastes like, and gaining the knowledge of good and evil when
and in the way intended. Presumably God could have this knowledge without ever
actually sinning. He simply had not given the benefit of this knowledge to Adam,
who then grasped it in the wrong way from the Tree of Knowledge. Such benefits,
B, caused by Adam's sin are obviously not what make ûie felix culpa felix. Those
who justify evil means by the beneficial ends they intend and/or achieve are still
unredeemed as sinners. Even if the benefit redounds to others, the sin is not like
the felix culpa. It is not possible to offer our own damnation as an acceptable
sacrifice for others. Adam and Eve also must benefit from the felicity of the
felix culpa.
In the relation between S and B, some benefits entrammeled in the
consequences may have been unforeseen by the sinner, and apparently due to luck
or fortune. A person who steals a friend's wallet may find an unexpected two
thousand dollars in it due to blind luck. Other favorable conditions existed in the
initial circumstances that were unknown. Insofar as they relate to the person's
benefit, B, they do not involve anyone else's volition—except, perhaps, Fortuna's.
 Drawing Evil with a Happy Face: The Iconography of the Felix Culpa 85

She stirs the pools of luck with her rod of fate—blindly. The suggestion that she
does have volition as a free agent indicates, however, an important feature in the
relation between S and the fortunate B' benefits. B' could not have been caused
by the sinful event S, since B' requires the volition of a free agent who is not a
party to the sin. S cannot be sufficient for B', yet it is necessary. Within this sort
of relationship between S and B' we must look for the felix culpa, where the
sinner cannot act to obtain B and B' at the same time.
The relation between S and B' is seen in the case of a child conceived
through rape who lives to save the life of the man who is the father. The man
could not expect this benefit, and the child's volition is required for the act that
benefits the man. The situation resembles the felix culpa, especially in the
providential nature of the opportunities for repentance and reconciliation, but an
important difference exists. The volition of the child does not relate to any remedy
for the sin.
Consider the case of people who swindle their way into a rich society where
they are eventually exposed but, instead of going to jail, are bailed out by the rich
friends they have made. If the friends' mercy was unexpected, the case bears a
resemblance to the/e/¿c culpa in that the volition of a second party is involved in
the beneficial outcome B'. How close the resemblance is will depend further on
the motivation of the second party. Ifthey merely want to keep the people around
for their own amusement, the resemblance is remote. If they want somehow to
repair the moral damage caused by the fraud, it is closer. The volition of the
second party must somehow be directed toward a remedy or repair of the damage
caused in the sinner by the sin.
This process of forgiveness and redemption, by which past life is forgiven
and future life redeemed with new power to resist sin, is the mysterious center of
the felix culpa and is special for every human being who is saved. If the sinner has
a change of heart with no extemal help, the second party may only be God, who
forgives the person who repents. In other cases, the sinner may have help from
others. One aspect of the process is, however, generally clear: the redemption of
sinners does not retum them to their previous, innocent state as if nothing had
happened. Their histories are redeemed, not wiped out or changed.
Consider the case of a man who spums his wife for the secret love of another
woman. He then confesses the adultery to his wife, whose forgiveness allows a
new approach to marital problems and a richer, albeit changed, marriage. The
volition of the wife, in freely choosing to forgive, directly relates to benefits that
will annihilate harm caused by the sin. The husband has a chance to realize how
gracious and forgiving his wife is (just as Adam and his seed have a chance to
experience the forgiving grace of God). In his penance and remorse, accepting the
grace of his wife's forgiveness, the husband finds new power to resist sin. The
wife experiences the joys of a forgiving heart, just as God enjoys the glory of His
mercy. The marriage is consummated in a new way as victory over sin,
resembling the incorporation of Adam in the second Adam and the higher (but no
better) perfection of the redeemed state.
86 VICTOR YELVERTON HAINES

None of these benefits would be possible without the prior sin, just as other
benefits of innocence are forever lost. The lost benefits of innocence, however,
cannot be better than the present benefits of reconciliation, restoration, and
redemption, or else continual misery over their loss would exist, contrary to the
bliss of the redeemed state. The benefits of reconciliation will never restore the
marriage to its innocent state before adultery, the memory of which will always
remain. But because they are reconciled, the couple will desire and cherish this
new state of marriage, which now is an outcome of the whole history of the
marriage. Accordingly, they will not wish for any part ofthat history to have been
otherwise. Oh happy adultery!
Even if the confession results in the breakdown of the marriage and divorce,
the couple may come to see the adultery as happy if, as good neighbors, they come
to a loving understanding in mutual forgiveness that could never have been
possible in the innocent married state. Such events seem to be a rather close
analogue to the felix culpa. In describing other events, such as the adventure of Sir
Gawain, a similar resemblance to the felix culpa may be discovered.
The attributes of theye/¿c culpa, delineated in terms of the sinner's benefit
and another's volition, are to some extent shared by many events. Every heroic
individual who does something wicked, repents, and is forgiven resembles Adam.
Although Adam's Fall as a specific event in history is not to be confused with an
archetype, it is, nevertheless, basic as a primary event in the history of the human
race, which is still being lived. Our countless tales of guilt and innocence show the
continued human relevance of the topic. Its importance also is indicated by the
number of sayings (usually slightly off the mark) directed toward human
experience analogized by the felix culpa: "We leam from our mistakes"; "A man
has to sow a few wild oats"; "The end justifies the means"; "Things can't get any
worse"; "It's an ill wind that blows no one any good"; "Every cloud has a silver
lining"; "You have to take the bad with the good"; "To err is human, to forgive,
divine." The paradox is treacherous, as many of these sayings show: most of the
time we do not leam from our mistakes—^the infected will simply finds it harder
to resist sin the next time; no justification exists for evil means; to err is not
human but unnatural perversion; and things can always get worse. Yet the
prevalence of our faith in such sayings indicates the central nature of the felix
culpa in the human experience of evil. Discussing the Pauline ideas basic to the
doctrine, Jacques Maritain says: "it is the most important datum of revealed
wisdom with respect to human history."'
This wisdom depends on a profound psychological insight. Instead of
denying the existence of guilt as something we should try to forget, the doctrine
of the felix culpa recognizes guilt as something we would not want to forget. A
guilty siimer exults in a past history of guilt now redeemed, giving focus to what
has happened in a person's life. History is not the past we must forget, but the
continuing relevance of realify and its Creator, the God of History. We live in the
hope of a redeemed afterlife when we will not wish any part of our life to have
been other than it was. Finally, incorporated into the mystical body of Christ, the
 Drawing Evil with a Happy Face: The Iconography of the Felix Culpa 87

redeemed will know their Redeemer well and exult in the full knowledge of who
He is and that He is the Redeemer.
The development of this new consciousness of the redeemed Adam means,
moreover, that redemption is not the mere restoration back to square one in the
consciousness of the innocent Adam. The joys of hopeful penance and patient
suffering remembered in the history of personal sin from which the redeemed
have been extricated, confession of personal guilt in the knowledge of good and
evil, the bliss of a new communion with a loving, forgiving God, reconciliation,
acceptance of forgiveness, thanksgiving for conquered sin, and resurrection from
penal death are all benefits of the New Creation that could never have been
benefits in the perfection of Eden. Whatever other gifts the innocent Adam could
have been given, he could not have been given these. God is to be praised for
them, since both Eden and the New Creation are perfect. In such praise, the
redeemed must recognize the fortune of their fall and, thence, the wisdom revealed
in the doctrine of theye/¿c culpa.
In the reality of human experience where guilt is so cenfral, the possibility
of forgiveness is cmcial, and human history continually bears a resemblance to the
fortunate fall of Adam. The question then arises as to when the degree of
resemblance becomes relevant, especially in a work of literature that mirrors
human experience. In his study, "Pepita Jiménez and the 'Fortunate Fall' Theme,"
Kevin S. Larsen, reviews a number of such literary studies.' Although it is
methodologically unsound to consider the fortunate fall as a "theme," since only
one exists, other events must be compared to it typologically as a unique self-
exemplary event.* At times the resemblance may be so faint that pointing it out
does not add much to our understanding. The attempt to do so may seem no more
than the farce of the Fall of Winnie the Pooh (out of a free) in Frederick Crews's
parody, "O Felix Culpal The Sacramental Meaning of Winnie-the-Pooh."' I
suppose the answer is a pragmatic matter of the common sense of our own
intentionality. We also must consider whether the author intended the reader to
make the comparison and whether the author was skillful enough to create the
resemblance.
The perfection of both Eden and the New Creation leads to the peculiar
corollary that it would be unfortunate if the Fall had not happened. For most
fortunate events, their non-occurrence would be considered less than fortunate. If
the misfortune of an event's non-occurrence is required for an event to be
fortunate, then the Fall cannot be considered fortunate. Some have argued this
way—^usually with an understanding of Redemption as simple restoration of an
original state, from which it is no misfortune not to Fall. However, the
fortuitousness oí the felix culpa is not to be sought in the misfortune of its non-
occurrence, but rather in the fortune without which all the benefits peculiar to the
redeemed state would be impossible.
The perfection of the innocent and the redeemed states means that one
cannot be compared invidiously with the other. Redeemed human beings may be
higher than innocent human beings, but no better. To assume otherwise implies
88 VICTOR YELVERTON HAINES

that God failed the sixth day in the crowning work of creation, and this would lead
to the vice of believing innocence to be unworthy. God's perfection does not
depend on God's having all conceivable perfections, such as perfect forgiveness
of sins. If there were no sins to forgive, God would still be perfect, just as the
innocent Adam would still be perfectly glorious, with the potential to develop in
ways forever lost, but never to be regretted by the redeemed Adam.
We are happy in a fallen world, blessed with the hope of that redeemed
perfection. The history of evil may be drawrt with a happy face through the
iconographie wit of juxtaposing the "same" images of the Fall and Redemption,
so long as in drawing that evil, we draw it with a happy face.

Notes

1. St. Ambrose, Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris,
1844-1882), pp. 72, 269. See also B. Capelle, "L'Exultet Pascal oeuvre de Saint
Ambroise," Miscellania Mercati, 1, pp. 219 f.
2. See Victor Yelverton Haines, The Fortunate Fall of Sir Gawain: The Typology of
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Washington: University Press of America, 1982).
3. Robert Myles, Chaucerian Realism (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1994).
4. In a paper presented at McGill University, Montreal, in 1991.
5. G. M. Lukken, Original Sin in the Roman Liturgy (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), pp.
391-392.
6. Jacques Maritain, On the Philosophy of History (New York: Scribner's, 1957),
p. 43.
7. Kevin S. Larseh, "Pepita Jiménez and the 'Fortunate Fall' Theme,"
Neophilologus, 77 (1993), pp. 229-241.
8. Victor Yelverton Haines, "A Unified Theory of Allegory and Typology: Its
Application to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Typology and English Medieval
Literature, ed. Hugh T. Keenan, Georgia State Literary Studies, No. 7 (New York: AMS
Press, 1992).
9. See Frederick C. Crews, The Pooh Perplex (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1965).
Copyright of Problem of Evil is the property of Editions Rodopi BV and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.