Thomas Aquinas, on 1Tim 2:15

“Yet she shall be saved through childbearing; if she continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.”

“Then when he says, yet she shall be saved, he answers a tacit question, because someone might say that if the woman is not for the man, and sin stems from her, she is harmful to men. But if something is not for someone, but is harmful to him, it should be destroyed. Therefore, the woman should not be saved. The answer is that salvation is of two kinds: temporal, which is common also to brutes, and eternal, which is proper to man: my salvation shall be forever (Isa 51:8). But the woman has lost neither of them: not the temporal, because she is not deprived of her sex as soon as a child is born; nor the eternal, because she is open to grace and glory by reason of her soul. Therefore, in regard to the first he says, she shall be saved and not rooted out; and this through childbearing, to which she is ordained by God. In regard to the second he says, if she continue. But since, if it implies a cause, does that mean that if she does not continue, she will not be saved? For the Apostle says that a woman does better if she does not marry. The answer is that this can be taken as a figure of speech, so that by man is understood the superior reason, and by woman the lower reason. Now good works are the product of the inferior reason, as is charity which conceives through the man and through which she is saved. The other explanation is literal, and the through does not express a cause but a repugnance. As if to say: the woman shall be saved, even if she enters by way of generation, i.e., if she marries and is not a virgin. Then the through suggests an increase of salvation, as though by generating children for the service of God, she will be saved the more: have you children? Instruct them and bow down their neck from their childhood (Sir 7:25). As far as the attainment of eternal salvation is concerned, there are three things to be considered: first, something in regard to the intellect; second, something in regard to the affections; third, something in regard to the external act. In the intellect is faith, through which the intellect is subjected to Christ; hence he says, in faith: without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). And because faith avails nothing without charity, he immediately adds something in regard to the affections, namely, and love: if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2). In regard to the outward act he mentions two things against lewdness, which consists in two things, namely, in lust; and in regard to this he says, and sanctification, i.e., in chastity: this is the will of God, your sanctification; that you should abstain from fornication (1 Thess 4:3), and in drunkenness, against which he says, with sobriety: we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world (Titus 2:12).”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.