Introduction: “Why can it be so hard to see the face of Christ in [historical] scholarship? Perhaps we forget how that face was beaten, spat upon, and crowned with thorns for our salvation and fail to recognize it before our eyes. Or perhaps, more likely, the problem is that the image in us and the scholarship we produce is obscured by the overgrowth of our sin and corruption. As the chanters pray in the person of Adam during memorials for the dead, ‘I am an image of Your ineffable glory, though I bear the scars of my transgressions.’ Whether studies of texts new or old, the contributions to this volume sift through the dragnet of history and human thought, endeavoring to sort the good from the bad. This even applies, as is the custom of the Fr. Georges Florovsky Orthodox Christian Theological Society, to the works of Florovsky himself. And so it does, far too soon, to the works of Fr. Matthew Baker.”

Inherited Guilt in Ss. Augustine and Cyril

By Nathaniel McCallum

In his article “St. Augustine’s Doctrine of Original Sin,” Jesse Couenhoven notes that, paradoxically, for such an “(in)famous” doctrine as original sin “the last century saw only a handful of anything approaching comprehensive discussions.”¹ And, for the question of ecumenical dialogue, to which both Fr. Florovsky and Baker were indelibly committed, there is perhaps no historic doctrine more centrally situated to anthropological questions. It is no wonder that recent years have shown a renewed interest in the topic, especially on the relationship between the Augustinian tradition and its Greek counterparts. Romanides’ controversial work The Ancestral Sin drew a sharp distinction between inherited guilt under Augustine and inherited death in the East.² Meyendorff followed Romanides in a similar emphasis and blamed Augustine’s departure on a mistranslation of Romans 5:12.³ Since then, several notable qualifications have been made. Larchet,⁴ McFarland,⁵ and Ferrell⁶ have attempted to position Maximus as a synthesis of the Eastern and Western traditions via a corrective to Augustinianism. In contrast, Archambault has criticized such a corrective as unnecessary.⁷ Kappes has approached the problem while exploring the related Latin dogma of the Immaculate Conception⁸ and of particular note discusses some of the broader Latin use of inherited guilt in relation to Augustine.⁹ Similarly, Cooper discusses the problem through the Patristic exegesis of Psalm 50:5.¹⁰

Returning to Meyendorff, he argues specifically that the mistranslation of Romans 5:12 “[justifies] the doctrine of guilt inherited from Adam and spread to his descendents.”¹¹ Translated correctly, Romans 5:12 “presupposes a cosmic significance of the sin of Adam, but does not say that his descendants are ‘guilty’ as he was, unless they also sin as he sinned.”¹² Meyendorff adopts the main thesis of Romanides: “There is indeed a consensus in Greek patristic and Byzantine traditions in identifying the inheritance of the Fall as an inheritance essentially of mortality rather than of sinfulness, sinfulness being merely a consequence of mortality.”¹³ Meyendorff argues that this difference is seen most acutely in the baptism of infants which, for Augustine, is for the remission of an inherited sin. In contrast, the Greek tradition baptizes children “not to ‘remit’ their yet non-existent sins, but in order to give them a new and immortal life, which their mortal parents are unable to communicate to them. The opposition between the two Adams is seen in terms not of guilt and forgiveness but of death and life.”¹⁴ Although Meyendorff enlists a host of Greek fathers and Byzantine theologians to his side, he does so generally without engagement with their thought and with few quotes. Of particular note, one of the first names he proffers against the Augustinian theory is that of Cyril of Alexandria—a contemporary of Augustine.

This paper will reveal Meyendorff’s reading of Augustine and Cyril as caricature. We will accomplish this in two parts. First, we will survey the teaching of Augustine on the topic of inherited guilt with an aim to demonstrate that Augustine consistently uses nuanced language in order to avoid the idea of an inherited personal guilt. Second, we will likewise survey Cyril on the question of inherited guilt in order to demonstrate that Cyril has a sense of inherited guilt that, while not personal guilt, is remitted by baptism.

Inherited Guilt in Augustine of Hippo

My analysis begins with Augustine’s De libero arbitrio. Augustine began writing this work during his stay in Rome before his final return to North Africa, but composed the critical third book between his presbyteral (c. 391) and episcopal (c. 395) ordinations. This short, anti-Manichaean dialogue is significant for two reasons. First, it represents the earliest period of Augustinian thought. Second, the work contains all of the basic contours of the Augustinian metaphysical system. Seeking to answer the question “Is not God the cause of evil?”¹⁵ Augustine responds that evil is caused by free choice, a faculty that is itself a good.¹⁶

Augustine then proceeds to lay out his metaphysics of guilt: God has made everything from nothing and each created thing is good, including its natural faculties. He owed this to none, since none existed before He gave them existence.¹⁷ However, all that receive existence owe as a debt to their Creator the proper use of their nature’s faculties.¹⁸ This can arise due to either neglect or misuse. Thus, he concludes, “No one is responsible (reus) for what he has not received; but he is justly responsible (reus) for not doing what he ought to do, and he has a duty to perform if he has received a free will and sufficient powers.”¹⁹

Next Augustine considers four methods of ensoulment: (1) souls are derived from the parents; (2) souls are uniquely created by God; (3) souls pre-exist and are sent by God; or (4) souls pre-exist and come down of their own accord.²⁰ Each of these requires a somewhat unique explanation. However, one bears noting in particular: “if only one soul was made from which are derived the souls of all men who are born, who can say that he himself did not sin when the first man sinned?”²¹ This logic foreshadows what will shortly become the normal approach for Augustine. Yet, even in this case: “A soul is not held guilty (reatum) if its ignorance and incapacity result from its nature, but only if it does not attempt to acquire knowledge, and if it makes no sufficient effort to gain the power to act rightly.”²²

Finally, he turns to the question of children. First, if a child dies without merit, he says, “We need not fear that there may be a life halfway between virtue and vice, a sentence of the Judge halfway between reward and punishment.”²³ Second, when addressing the benefits of baptism to such children he discusses only that the faith of the baptismal sponsor will benefit the child in some unelaborated way.²⁴ Third, when addressing the question of why the child suffers, he provides the answer that the child’s suffering is used by God to correct their parents. Here he suggests that God may compensate the infants in some way for having “suffered without having sinned” while alluding to the feast of the Holy Innocents.²⁵

In this work, Augustine uses three terms related to the question of guilt: culpa (the most common), reatus,²⁶ and reus.²⁷ However, Augustine never applies these terms, in this work, to speak of anything inherited. Pontifex translates the first as fault and the latter two as guilt. Likewise, Williams²⁸ and Burleigh²⁹ also use guilt for both reatus and reus. It is possible that in this work Augustine intends these words to be synonyms. However, the subtle difference between these words will shortly become an important one. The word reus is used broadly for any person accused or convicted of a crime or owing a debt.³⁰ Likewise, reatus is the same root with the -atus suffix, and refers to the condition thereof.³¹

Augustine himself would later express his own frustration with this work and the seeming intractability of the problems he attempts to solve.³² However, he would shortly begin to employ a different way of speaking about inherited guilt. This change first appears in To Simplician (c. 397), a letter to the successor of Ambrose in Milan attempting to answer various difficult questions:

“Now all men are a mass of sin, since, as the apostle says, ‘In Adam all die’ (I Cor. 15:22), and to Adam the entire human race traces the origin of its sin against God. Sinful humanity must pay a debt of punishment to the supreme divine justice…. He decides who are not to be offered mercy by a standard of equity which is most secret and far removed from human powers of understanding…. He justly finds fault with sinners because he does not compel them to sin…. But carnal concupiscence now reigns as a result of the penalty of sin, and has thrown the whole human race into confusion, making of it one lump in which the original guilt [originali reatu] remains throughout.”³³

Here, in Augustine’s first statement of unconditional election, we simultaneously see the first mature articulation of Augustine’s notion of inherited guilt. And yet, the latter doctrine can be isolated from the former, as we see in Epistle 98 (c. 408). Here, Augustine is asked why pagan sacrifices for an infant don’t harm a child while baptism can help a child. Augustine responds by citing Ezekiel 18 against a notion of a transference of personal culpability in the case of sacrifices. Yet as regards the guilt from Adam, “he derived guilt (reatum) from another, because, at the time when the guilt which he has derived was incurred, he was one with the person from whom he derived it, and was in him.”³⁴

Up until this point, Augustine’s musings on the subject of inherited guilt had been limited to some private correspondence. However, the outbreak of the Pelagian controversy suddenly thrust Augustine into the spotlight. This period, starting at the Council of Carthage in 412 and remaining until the end of his life, can be cleanly divided into two halves by the council of Carthage in 418.

In the first half of this period, Augustine is primarily engaging the Pelagians on the question of the sinless life; which he takes as an occasion to explore a wide set of anthropological and metaphysical concerns broader than the immediate debate. Specifically, Squires notes that throughout the first half Augustine “understood better than Cassian or Jerome … that the claim to the possibility of sinlessness calls into question the necessity of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection.”³⁵

This leads Augustine to engage the scriptural narrative to establish a systematic view of Christian history. It is possible, thereby, to live a sinless life if one so desires.³⁶ However, we do not desire it due to fleshly concupiscence. Therefore, we need the law written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.³⁷ Thus, we need to be born of water (the circumcision made without hands³⁸) and the Spirit.³⁹ This language, used originally by the apostolic writers to articulate baptism as the fulfillment of the messianic hope of the exilic prophets, is now being used by Augustine to link Israel’s perpetual moral failings with the perpetual moral failings of the human race. Thus, Israel is a macrocosm of the human person. So where Israel could not fulfill her divine calling without the Messiah, the human person likewise cannot fulfill his divine purpose without baptism and the Holy Spirit.

Three additional things need to be said at this point. First, Augustine admits that this regeneration which normally is obtained by baptism may come about by martyrdom or even “faith and conversion of heart, if recourse may not be had to the celebration of the mystery of baptism for want of time.”⁴⁰ Second, Augustine distinguishes between the liability to punishment (reatus)—which is remitted in baptism—and the persisting concupiscence. Put simply, after baptism, Christians do not cease to struggle for spiritual advancement; they simply now possess the Holy Spirit and avoid condemnation. Third, throughout the debate Augustine is insistent that infants do not inherit personal sin.⁴¹

So, what do infants inherit? In this second period, Augustine centers on the term reatus, while the terms culpa and reus disappear, never to be used in relation to infants.⁴²

Continuing to the second half of the Pelagian controversy, we find that the refusal by Julian of Eclanum to subscribe to the canons of Carthage (418) draws Augustine into an extended engagement of Scripture, Tradition, metaphysics, and rhetoric that would consume his twilight years. In this later era, Augustine is particularly prolific and increasingly more strident. Julian represents a sophisticated philosophical interlocutor and, at times, Augustine seeks to drown him in disdain and volume.

Yet, even here, Augustine continues to prefer reatus to speak of what is inherited. In a crucial passage, he even juxtaposes the terms reus, which he uses to speak of that which is personal, and reatus, which he uses to speak of that which is inherited:

“However, it is called sin, not in such a way that it makes us guilty [reus], but because it is the result of the guilt [reatu] of the first man and because by rebelling it strives to draw us to guilt [reatum], unless we are aided by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, lest even the dead sin so rebel that by conquering it revives and reigns.”⁴³

Schumacher, here, follows the general tradition of treating reus and reatus as synonyms, translating both as guilt. However, we must observe that in this passage, translating both words as guilt obscures the distinction that Augustine is trying to make between the personal and the inherited.

However, Julian of Eclanum is not satisfied with this distinction. So he forces the point by rejecting it and demanding that Augustine must also teach an inherited reus in addition to the inherited reatus. Only here does Augustine acquiesce (using reus throughout):

“[You] ask me briefly and to the point whether I hold an action or the nature to be guilty in infants. You yourself answer both alternatives, saying that, if it is an action, I must show what acts infants perform; if it is the nature, I must show who made it. You speak as though an evil action, too, made only the nature guilty. In truth, the one made guilty by a man’s action is man, but man is a nature. Therefore, just as adults become guilty by a sinful action so minors become guilty by contagion from adults.”⁴⁴

A few words are necessary about this difficult passage. Julian has recognized that Augustine is trying to use the reus/reatus distinction to refer to the person/nature distinction. Thus, Julian attacks this usage directly by asserting that natures cannot be made guilty by the persons that possess that nature. Augustine’s response to this challenge is to blur both the reus/reatus distinction and the person/nature distinction. His point is that we don’t receive our nature ex nihilo as Adam did, but rather we receive it from our parents. Thus, the boundaries of person and nature meet in human reproduction.

Why does Augustine collapse the reus/reatus distinction that he had maintained for decades in the face of this challenge by Julian? It may also be the byproduct of a translation issue. In 418, Augustine begins citing Romans 3:19 which, in Augustine’s translation, is rendered, “et reus fiat omnis mundus deo.”⁴⁵ In contrast, the Greek text contains “ὑπόδικος,” which the later Vulgate more accurately renders “subditus.” But Augustine’s increasing usage of this verse—with its mistranslation—would make it difficult for him to explicitly reject an inherited reus in the face of Julian’s challenge.

Yet, even after he collapses the reus/reatus distinction, he still wishes to maintain a distinction of some kind, this time articulated using the adjectives personal and original: “no matter whence born, a man is innocent because there is no personal sin, and he is guilty (reum) through original sin.”⁴⁶

However, this is not the only passage in this work where Augustine departs from his usual phraseology. He challenges Julian thusly:

“Is a non-baptized infant bound by this sentence or not? If you say he is not bound, then you will be vanquished and punished by the evangelical truth and by the testimony of Pelagius himself, for where is the life of God except in the kingdom of God, into which none but those born again of water and the Spirit can enter? But, if you assert that he is bound, you acknowledge the punishment. Then you must acknowledge the guilt (culpam). You confess the torment—confess, then, that it is deserved.”⁴⁷

Again we are faced with the question as to why Augustine departs from his long-established terminology of reatus—this time for culpa. And, just like the previous example, we find that this word choice is supplied by a challenge from Julian (in the preceding paragraph): nulla culpa sua mali essent.⁴⁸ And again, likewise, Augustine would find explicitly denying culpa difficult since he had already quoted Ambrose using this terminology.⁴⁹

Here then we end at Augustine’s final logic. Throughout most of his life he maintains a rhetorical distinction between reus and reatus—the former is personal and the latter is natural and is inherited through human reproduction. In Augustine’s sunset years, he is challenged by Julian on specific terminology, reus and culpa, both of which have an earlier precedent which Augustine cannot reject. And while he relents on the specific use of terminology, he does not relent on a distinction between personal guilt and inherited guilt. This natural guilt is the byproduct of his developed rejection of a middle place for unbaptized infants.⁵⁰

Inherited Guilt in Cyril of Alexandria

After Pelagius’s acquittal at the synod of Diospolis, Augustine had written to John of Jerusalem to obtain a copy of the acts of the council.⁵¹ The recently discovered Divjak letters also reveal that Augustine had written to Cyril of Alexandria with the same request. Afterwards, a minor dispute arose in Alexandria over the assertion found in Augustine’s On the Proceedings of Pelagiusthat “not all sinners are punished in eternal flames.”⁵² How the work came to be in Alexandria and who disputed it is unknown. However, one Justus journeyed to North Africa in order to compare his text with the original. Upon the return journey (c. 417), Augustine took the opportunity to send a letter to Cyril via Justus. In this short letter, Augustine warns Cyril about the wiles of the Pelagians: specifically, that they believe in sinless lives in opposition to the Our Father.

When this exchange is combined with the condemnation of Pelagianism at Ephesus under the presidency of Cyril, it behooves us to ask if Cyril expresses any knowledge of the doctrine of inherited guilt.⁵³

As Meyendorff rightly states, Cyril does not follow Augustine in his commentary on Romans 5:12, and instead seems to use Pelagian terminology: sinners die because they imitate (μιμηταὶ) Adam.⁵⁴ However, further examination reveals Pelagian theology to be precluded by Cyril’s other statements. First, in this same paragraph, he cites Romans 3:12 emphasizing the totality of unrighteousness. Second, in his reflections on Romans 5:14, he emphasizes absolute necessity rather than the Pelagian imitation of will.⁵⁵ While we don’t find “in Adam” in his commentary on Romans 5:12, Cyril does not hesitate to use Augustine’s “in Adam” language in other contexts. Speaking of the very same curse which is the referent of Augustine’s reatus language, Cyril says: “He struck us because of the transgression in Adam (ἐν Ἀδὰμ) by saying, ‘Earth you are, and to earth you will return.’”⁵⁶ And again: “Therefore, we are condemned (Κατακεκριμεθα) to death in the midst of paradise in Adam (ἐν Ἀδάμ), the entirety (ὅλης) of human nature afflicted in him (ἐν αὐτῷ) – becoming the first-fruit of the human race.”⁵⁷ In both of these passages, death is a punishment on us because of a transgression “in Adam,” not the inverse as Meyendorff claims.In the latter quote, Cyril uses “condemned” in the passive voice, approximating the -atus suffix of reatus and emphasizing the state of criminal conviction which flows from Adam’s sin.

Again he says, “It is as though the Only Begotten, being the Word of God the Father, lends us the immutability of his own nature, which we needed because human nature was condemned in Adam [ἐν Ἀδὰμ] for not being able to remain unchanged.”⁵⁸ We should note that the condemnation of which he speaks is one of nature, not one of person, and parallels the reus/reatus distinction. This distinction becomes abundantly clear when Cyril attempts to answer the hypothetical objection of Ezekiel 18 (an objection that, given the contemporary Pelagian disputes, is not actually hypothetical):

“What has Adam’s guilt [πταίσματα] got to do with us? Why are we held responsible for his sin when we were not even born when he committed it? Did not God say: The parents will not die for the children, nor the children for the parents, but the soul which has sinned, it shall die. (Ezekiel 18:19-20 LXX) How then shall we defend this doctrine? The soul, I say, which has sinned, it shall die. We have become sinners because of Adam’s disobedience in the following manner…. After he fell into sin and surrendered to corruption, impure lusts [ἡδονή τε καί ἀκαθαρσίας] invaded the nature of his flesh and at the same time the evil law of our members was born. For our nature contracted the disease of sin because of the disobedience of one man, that is Adam, and thus many became sinners. This was not because they sinned along with Adam, because they did not then exist, but because they had the same nature as Adam, which fell under the law of sin. Thus, just as human nature acquired the weakness of corruption in Adam [ἐν Ἀδὰμ] because of disobedience, and evil desires invaded it, so the same nature was later set free by Christ, who was obedient to God the Father and did not commit sin.”⁵⁹

The objection Cyril here responds to is precisely the Pelagian one. We die not because we merely copy Adam’s actions, but because we are sinners through our generation from Adam. Cyril even distinguishes between personal and impersonal guilt when he argues that we “did not then exist.”⁶⁰ It is further notable that specific terminology in this passage has direct parallels to Augustine’s terminology. For example, the idea that “impure lusts invaded the nature” should be compared to Augustine’s notions of libido and concupiscence. Thus, Cyril’s response in this passage depends on the same exact juncture between nature and person that Augustine uses in Against Julian—the very one where he concedes the use of reus to Julian.

This notion of generation is more explicit in the previous paragraph: “Truly condemned, therefore, as I have said, in Adam (ἐν Ἀδὰμ)—the root [ρίζης] of everyone from which springs the curse of death…”⁶¹ The terminology of Adam as the “root of evil” is quintessentially Augustinian.⁶² Yet this metaphor is, in fact, one of Cyril’s most common throughout his commentary on Romans 5.⁶³

Cyril’s logic is not contained just to the commentary on Romans. In his commentary on Luke he phrases the problem this way:

“Thus has the guilt of the disobedience that is by Adam been remitted; thus has the power of the curse ceased, and the dominion of death been brought to decay. And this too Paul teaches, saying, ‘For as by the disobedience of the one man, the many became sinners, so by the obedience of the One, the many became righteous.’ For the whole nature of man became guilty in the person of him who was first formed; but now it is wholly justified again in Christ. For He became for us the second commencement of our race after that primary one; and therefore all things in Him have become new.”⁶⁴

Here we see the “opposition of Adams” articulated not only in terms of death and renewal, but of natural guilt and justification. And here again we see the causal relationship: the language of curse and guilt wrought “in the person [Adam]” always precedes the language of death and renewal.Likewise we see an explicit notion of natural guilt. Cyril continues:

“For the law was instituted because of transgressions, as Scripture declares, ‘that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God, because by the works of the law no flesh is justified.’ For there was no one so far advanced in virtue, spiritual virtue I mean, as to be able to fulfill all that had been commanded, and that blamelessly. But the grace that is by Christ justifieth, because, doing away with the condemnation of the law, it frees us by means of faith…. For before the coming of the Savior we all were in sin; there was no one who acknowledged Him Who by nature and verily is God. There was no one doing good, no not one; but they all had turned aside together, and become reprobate. But because the Only-begotten submitted Himself to emptiness, and became flesh, and was made man, sinners have perished, and exist no longer. For the dwellers upon earth have been justified by faith, have washed away the pollution of sin by holy baptism, have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, have sprung out of the hand of the enemy; and having bidden as it were the hosts of devils to depart, dwell under the yoke of Christ.”⁶⁵

That no one is excluded from unrighteousness and that all had “turned aside together” – a reference again to Romans 3:10-12 – logically approximates the massa peccati of Augustine’sTo Simplician. And while, like Augustine, Cyril speaks in resoundingly universal ways about Christ’s Incarnation, he also insists that the solution to natural guilt is baptism and the Holy Spirit. Here it is not only those who have committed personal sin that have the “pollution of sin” washed away but the “dwellers of the earth.”

All together, we see nine points of substantial overlap between Augustine and Cyril:

1. The solidarity of man “in Adam”
2. Adam as the defective “root” of humanity
3. The ordering of guilt and punishment preceding death
4. The incapability of moral perfection
5. The use of Romans 3:12, 3:19 and 5:19
6. The remission of the guilt inherited from Adam by baptism and the Holy Spirit
7. The distinction between personal and natural guilt
8. The parallel of natural “impure lusts” (Cyril) with libido/concupiscence (Augustine)
9. The yoke of Christ⁶⁶

One outstanding question for Cyril’s theology is whether he denies the possibility of a middle place for unbaptized infants. He does not appear to address this topic explicitly in his writings. Nor is the question settled by the canons of Carthage (418), which were affirmed by Cyril in theEpistola Tractoriaof Pope Zosimus. We simply have to accept his silence on this doctrine. I think it wise to avoid argumentum ex silentio.

Conclusion

Augustine’s thought develops through three periods. In the first period (before 397), he establishes the metaphysical contours of human guilt while allowing for the possibility of a “life halfway” for unbaptised infants who perish without baptism. In the second period (397-318), he uses the reus/reatus distinction to distinguish between personal and natural guilt. The inherited reatus means that no person can enter the Kingdom of God without baptism; and thus there is no “middle place.” However, the degree of punishment received by those excluded from the

Kingdom is measured by personal reus. In the third period, Augustine abandons the reus/reatus distinction due to a mistranslation of Romans 3:19 and a challenge from Julian of Eclanum, but retains a parallel distinction of original versus personal sin. Finally, we have located significantly overlapping ideas in Cyril, demonstrating (contra Romanides and Meyendorff) that at least one prominent Greek Father had integrated a sense of naturalguilt from solidarity with Adam as Augustine has done.

1 Jesse Couenhoven, “St. Augustine’s Doctrine of Original Sin,” Augustinian Studies36, no.
2 (2005): 359.2 See John Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, trans. George S. Gabriel (Ridgewood: Zephyr Publications, 2002).
3 See John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes(New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 144ff.
4 See Jean-Claude Larchet, “Ancestral Guilt According to St. Maximus the Confessor: A Bridge Between Eastern and Western Conceptions,” Sobornost20, no. 1 (1998): 26-48.
5 See Ian McFarland, “‘Naturally and by Grace’: Maximus the Confessor on the Operation of the Will,”Scottish Journal of Theology, 58, no. 4 (2005): 410-433.
6 See Joseph P. Farrell, Free Choice in Saint Maximus the Confessor(Waymart: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1989)
7 See Jacob Archambault, “Nature, Will, and the Fall in Augustine and Maximus the Confessor,”Augustiniana65 no. 3-4 (2015), 205-230.
8 See Christiaan Kappes, The Immaculate Conception: Why Thomas Aquinas Denied, While John Duns Scotus, Gregory Palamas, & Mark Eugenicus Professed the Absolute Immaculate Existence of Mary(New Bedford, MA: Academy of the Immaculate, 2014).
9 See Christiaan Kappes, “Gregory Palamas’ Reception of Augustine’s Doctrine of the Original Sin and Nicholas Cabasilas’ Rejection of Aquinas’ Maculism as the Background to Scholarius’ Immaculism,”Byzantinisches Archiv: Series Philosophica(forthcoming).
10 See Adam G. Cooper, “Sex and Transmission of Sin: Patristic Exegesis of Psalm 50:5 (LXX),” Studia Traditionis Theologiae8 (2011) 77-95.
11 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes(New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 144.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 145.
14 Ibid., 146.
15 Augustine of Hippo, The Problem of Free Choice, trans. Mark Pontifex (New York: Newman Press, 1955), 1.1.1.
16 See ibid., 1.1.1.
17 See ibid., 3.16.45.
18 See ibid., 3.16.43.
19 Ibid., 3.16.45.
20 See ibid., 3.21.59.
21 Ibid., 3.20.56.
22 Ibid., 3.22.64.
23 Ibid., 3.23.66.
24 See ibid., 3.23.67.
25 Ibid., 3.23.69.
26 See ibid., 3.16.44, 3.22.64.
27 See ibid., 3.16.45, 3.20.56, 3.24.71.
28 See Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993).
29 See Augustine, Augustine: Earlier Writings, ed. J.H.S. Burleigh (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953). Henceforth “Earlier Writings.”
30 See Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), s.v. “reus.”
31 See ibid., “reatus”
32 See Augustine, Epistle166 in NPNF11:525ff.
33 Augustine, Earlier Writings,398-404. It is noteworthy that in the first historical articulation of what will become the classic Augustinian position we find an appeal to 1 Corinthians 15:22 rather than Romans 5:12. While the latter verse will become prominent after the council of Carthage (418), it is the former that is more foundational for Augustine’s theology. For a similar reflection, see Cooper, “Sex and Transmission of Sin,” 87.
34 Augustine, Epistle98 in NPNF11:407.
35 Stuart Squires, “Reassessing Pelagianism: Augustine, Cassian, and Jerome on the Possibility of a Sinless Life” (PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 2013), 154.
36 This is one of the central themes of the Pelagian debates. See, e.g., Augustine of Hippo, A Work on the Proceedings of Pelagius, 16ff in NPNF15:190ff.
37 See Augustine, A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter, 35 in NPNF15:97-98.
38 See Augustine, A Treatise on the Merits and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants, 1.47 in NPNF15:33.
39 See Augustine, Epistle98.
40 Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists,4.22.30 in NPNF14:460-61. Although this comes from Augustine’s earlier anti-Donatist writings, it is clear that Augustine’s formulation here is designed specifically to avoid the charge of Origenism. This anti-Origenist climate continues throughout the Pelagian debates (see, e.g., Jerome’s Against the Pelagiansand To Ctesiphonand Augustine’s On the Proceedings of Pelagius, 10). For an attempted re-reading of the Pelagian debates qua Origenism, see Dominic Keech, “Augustine and Origen: Fathers of Pelagianism,” in The Anti-Pelagian Christology of Augustine of Hippo, 396-430(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). However, we should question Keech’s approach given that Augustine is already trying to distance himself from Origen’s theology before the Pelagian disputes arise.
41 Augustine, A Treatise on the Merits,1.22.
42 Kappes situates Augustine’s reluctance to use culpafor infants against the backdrop of Ambrose and its broader use in the Latin tradition. See Kappes, “Gregory Palamas’ Reception.”
43 Augustine, Saint Augustine: Against Julian, The Fathers of the Church, vol. 35, trans. Matthew A. Schumacher (Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press of America, 1957), 96. Henceforth Against Julian.
44 Augustine, Against Julian, 117. We should note in this passage that there is a seamless blending of the medical and legal terminologies that Meyendorff wishes to juxtapose.
45 Augustine, De Gratia Christi,9.7 in CSEL 42. See also idem, A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, 4.30 in NPNF15:431-32; idem, A Treatise on Rebuke and Grace,28 in NPNF15:483.
46 Augustine, Against Julian, 153.
47 Ibid., 129.
48 PL 44:714.
49 See Augustine, Against Julian, 10.
50 See Augustine, A Treatise on the Merits,1.28, 25.
51 See Augustine, Epistle179.
52 See Augustine, Epistle4*.3, in Les lettres de saint Augustine découvertes par Johannes Divjak: Communicationsprésentéesaucolloquedes20et21Septembre1982,ed.J.Divjak(Paris:Études Augustiniennes, 1983).
53 For more background on the historical question of Cyril and Pelagianism in general, see Geoffrey D. Dunn, “Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria and the Pelagian Controversy,” Augustinian Studies37, no. 1 (2006): 63-88.
54 Cooper, “Sex and Transmission of Sin,” 87.
55 PG 74:785
56 Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John,vol. 1, ed. Joel C. Elowsky, trans. David R. Maxwell, Ancient Christian Texts (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 91.
57 PG 74:785, translation mine.
58 Ibid., 310.
59 Gerald Bray, ed., Romans, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 142-43.
60 One might assume that Cyril departs from Augustine’s traducianism here. However, this may not be the case. Mapping this directly to Augustinian terminology is difficult. Does Cyril mean to say we were not personally but rather naturally “in Adam”? If so, this seems to be Augustine’s entire point in distinguishing between personal and original guilt – that we weren’t personally in Adam but rather naturally.
61 PG 74:788, translation mine.
62 For example, see radix maliin PL 44:670.
63 PG 74:781-92.
64 Cyril, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke,trans. R. Payne Smith (New York: Studion, 1983), 183.65 Ibid., 171.
66 Cf. Augustine, A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness,22 in NPNF15:166-67.