ORIGINAL SIN. - The privation of sanctifying grace, or the absence of friendship with God, in every human being at birth, caused by Adam through his sin both for himself and for all his descendants, together with the loss of other supernatural and preternatural gifts, especially immortality and the wound of concupiscence. This sin is distinguished as *originating* and *originated*, according as it is considered in Adam who committed it or in his posterity who inherited it from him, contracting it as their own.
I. HOLY SCRIPTURE
*Gen. 2, 4; 5-3, 24* narrates the special creation of Adam and Eve, and how God did not merely make them the most perfect beings in the universe, but willed to shower them with benefits and special gifts entirely beyond and unowed to their nature: i) He placed them in a most beautiful garden (v. PARADISE), there to live in filial familiarity with Him (ibid. 3, 8), a happy, immortal life (ibid. 2, 17; 3, 19), free from all suffering and fear. Innocence, the fruit of friendship with God, was the result of the perfect order reigning within man, immune from concupiscence. “And they were both naked, yet they felt no shame” (ibid. 2, 25; cf. 3, 7. 10 sqq.). Modesty, a reaction and defense against concupiscence, would arise only with sin.God commanded them an act of obedience and reverence. Having given man freedom so that he might cooperate in his own salvation and thereby merit it, God forbade man, under pain of losing immortality, to eat of the tree (v.) of the knowledge of good and evil (ibid. 2, 17), so called from the effects produced by disobedience; and this “because man understands and acknowledges that he is not the absolute possessor and master, but dependent on God even in the use of benefits granted to him. Therefore, although the matter of the prohibition was of little account, for the purpose intended by God the sin was most grave; as indeed appears from the punishment attached to it” (A. Bea).
Some Catholic exegetes, abandoning the proper sense, hold that the tree with its fruit is merely a didactic, popular representation of the true divine precept violated by the first parents. In that case it would be impossible to specify wherein the divine prohibition consisted, since none of the explanations offered provides proofs sufficient to raise them above the level of mere possibility. The explanation that it was a sexual sin, which has reappeared from time to time in the centuries (from Clement of Alexandria onwards), and still recently under various forms (Philocrestian, *Quae fuit peccatum Adae et Evae*, Carrara 1920; cf. A. Fernandez, in *Biblia*, 2 [1921], pp. 481 sqq.; J. Coppens: cf. F. Asensio, in *Gregorianum*, 31 [1950] passim; and id., *El primer pecado en el relato del Génesis*, in *Estudios Biblicos*, 9 [1950], pp. 174-91), even in the only form compatible with the context, namely a prohibition against initiating the use of marriage before a divine command (or a fixed term set by God: P. Mayrhofer, *Der Fall des Menschen*, in *Theol. und Glaube*, 28 [1936], pp. 133-62; cf. J. Miklik, in *Biblia*, 20 [1939], pp. 387-96), remains a mere possibility. The popular narrative, in its simplicity, is psychologically subtle and profound. The temptation, given the gift of integrity and inner equilibrium, could only come from without; it could not be a carnal fault, since concupiscence did not exist before the rebellion; it could only be disobedience. The rebellion of the lower part, with the motions of the concupiscible appetite, is the punishment of the rebellion against God.
The devil (under the guise of the serpent) urges man to disobedience, exploiting curiosity and that feeling of resistance which every prohibition arouses in the will (cf. *Rom. 7, 7-13*). Adam and Eve were endowed with perfect intelligence and a knowledge given them by God. Theoretically they knew that disobedience was evil and that they would be punished; what they lacked was experimental knowledge of evil, which they acquired by committing the sin. “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen. 3, 7); they feel within their members impulses and appetites contrary to reason and seek to hide them. Accustomed to converse familiarly with God and to trust in Him as a Father, now they tremble and seek to hide from His gaze (ibid. 3, 8). Punishment is already at work: man will feel the burden of toil, woman the pains of childbirth; while the fear of death will torment them. Far from Paradise, now deprived of familiarity with the Creator, they begin the painful history of human misfortunes. Adam will transmit to his children, to all mankind, physical life, but without the gifts received from God and lost through guilt; nay, with the wounded inclinations that will grow ever stronger with the accumulation of sins.
As for death, the most expressive consequence of original sin, the Old Testament is explicit: “From a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die” (Ecclus. 25, 23); “God did not make death, and He does not delight in the destruction of the living...; but by the envy of the devil death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience II. But the souls of the just are in the hand of God...” (Wis. 2, 23 sqq.). “The first cause of death was the sin of Adam, brought about by the devil’s temptation (Gen. 3). Yet it is the wicked, the partisans of the devil, who are properly the victims of death; for the good pass to a blessed immortality” (A. Vaccari). The penalty threatened by God (“in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread till thou return to the ground”), besides the loss of immortality and the actual separation of soul from body and the dissolution of the body (“unto dust thou shalt return”), chiefly ratified, with the descent of the soul into Hades, the separation from God; this will cease for the just at the descent of the Redeemer into hell, while it will be eternal for sinners. The Old Testament thus affirms the general idea of a change acquired by humanity in its relationship with God; man is no longer in a state of friendship with God; the expulsion from Paradise operates upon the entire human race. Punishments are spoken of as hereditary: death, sufferings, concupiscence. Ps. 51, 7 and other passages (ibid. 54, 4; Job 13, 25 sqq.; 14, 4) presuppose this state of native corruption, of congenital moral misery; a state of sin which implies a certain moral solidarity. Yet the doctrine of hereditary original sin is not explicitly expressed in the Old Testament; in Jewish literature it is entirely unknown.
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ORIGINAL SIN - The fall of the Protoparents, the miracle at Cana, the healing of the blind man, the raising of the widow’s son at Naim, Peter’s denial, the healing of the paralytic, the sacrifice of Abraham, the arrest of Peter, the miracle of the fountain. 4th-century sarcophagus - Rome, Lateran Museum.
St. Paul’s teaching (Rom 5:12–21) rests on Sacred Scripture (Genesis, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom) and reveals its precise meaning. Its purpose is to demonstrate the universality and efficacy of Christ’s salvific work, the sole source of life. He does so by establishing a parallel between the work of sinful Adam, who stands at the head and beginning of fallen humanity, and the work of Christ, the new Adam, who stands at the head and beginning of redeemed humanity. Two relationships of universal and effective solidarity are contrasted: the first and second Adam are the progenitors of all men. The first founds the kingdom of sin and death, the second that of grace and life.
“Thus, just as through one man sin entered the world and by sin death, and thus death passed to all men, because all have sinned.” The apodosis is missing and is well supplied by Origen: “so through one man justice entered the world and through justice life.” Indeed, until the Law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law (Rom 5:13); yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not commit a transgression like Adam’s, who is the figure (the type) of him who was to come...” (v. 14).
If the sin of one man had such dire efficacy, St. Paul continues (vv. 15–17), how much more, in reality, must the obedience, the salvific work of Christ, act upon all with superabundance! Thus, just as by the fault of one man condemnation weighed upon all men, so too the justice accomplished by one man (procures) for all men the justification that gives life (v. 18). For just as by the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man the many will be made righteous (v. 19).
Sin is personified as a malevolent power that turns man against God, keeps him enslaved, and uses the flesh as an obstacle (often in Rom 6–7). It entered the world (into human consciousness) through Adam’s rebellion, and through sin came death, which is its penalty—not merely physical death but complete separation from God (Ecclus 25:23; Wis 2:23–24), in response to God, for Adam is the head of humanity opposed to Christ.
While wishing to affirm, against the Manicheans, the integrity of man’s freedom and responsibility, some wished to explain “all have sinned” (cf. Rom 3:23) as referring to personal sins committed in imitation of Adam. But they cannot explain vv. 13–14 and must reject the literal sense of V. 19. In reality, in vv. 13–14 St. Paul is explaining the preceding parenthesis. A penalty is not inflicted unless it is decreed; now death could not be said to be inflicted for personal sins, since from Adam onward no divine command to that effect is found. The authentic promulgation of the divine Law occurs with Moses. The natural law, written on the heart, was not sufficiently manifest or characterized in its precepts and sanctions. Moreover, many men died who were not guilty of personal sins. Their death, which entailed separation from God, would be a penalty without corresponding guilt; it must therefore be explained by their solidarity with Adam, in both the penalty and the guilt inherited from him. This is precisely what V. 19 expresses clearly: “Indeed, all have sinned in Adam,” though the original text lacks such a specification. The Greek ἐξ οὗ is merely causal (2 Cor 5:4; Phil 3:12), and the Latin *in quo* can be explained by the same principle (Rom 8:3; Phil 3:12).
St. Paul does not say how this infection took place; he does not develop the idea of a sin committed by humanity in its head, transmitted through generation. He is content to state the principle, to affirm the fact. He appeals to the universal influence of Adam’s fall to establish, *a fortiori*, the universal influence of Christ’s work of justice, applying the same principle of solidarity: with Christ, source of grace and life; with Adam, source of sin and death. Where the necessities of the parallel do not compel him, the Apostle no longer speaks of our participation in Adam’s sin; it can therefore be said that the original sin has here an episodic role and is not found elsewhere.
In the expression “we were by nature (φύσει), like the rest, children of wrath” (Eph 2:3), reference is made to actual sins; φύσει emphasizes the idea of an inherent, essential property of man deprived of grace, without any allusion to a sin of nature. Redemption removes sin and separation from God; it gives the strength to overcome the concupiscence that remains in the body (Rom 7); it will ultimately triumph over death with the glorious resurrection of the body (ibid. 8). Then the order established by God at the beginning and lost by Adam through his fault—for himself and for all men—will be fully restored and perfected.
II. TRADITION
The greatest controversies surrounding original sin have arisen from its transmission to posterity.
1. Errors
A first crisis erupted in the 4th–5th centuries through the teaching of Pelagius (v. Pelagianism), according to whom Adam’s sin harmed only himself; to his descendants it brought no other harm than a bad example. The present state of man is the same as Adam’s state before the fall: in man, apart from grace, freedom is not absolutely necessary for salvation but is merely useful, consisting in external rather than internal aids. True internal grace is freedom, which makes man the master of his destiny.
In the 16th century an opposite crisis developed. Man (v.) took a pessimistic view of man and of his present life, identifying its cause in original sin as transmitted by Adam in such a way as to corrupt human nature irreparably, with the loss of freedom and the consequent inability to do any good.
2. Catholic Doctrine
The Church has condemned both errors: strict Pelagianism at the Council of Carthage (418) under Pope Zosimus, and mitigated Pelagianism (Semi-Pelagianism) at the Second Council of Orange (529), approved by Pope Boniface II; Lutheranism at the Council of Trent (Session V).
The anti-Pelagian councils insisted on the consequences of Adam’s sin, and especially the Synod of Orange uses grave phrases such as: «totum... in detritus... hominem commutatum». The Council of Trent, on the other hand, defended human free will despite original sin and attributed to it the faculty of resisting grace or of cooperating with it (sess. VI, c. 4, 5; Denz.-U., 814 ff.). No one can fail to notice the difference in tone and atmosphere in the canons of these councils, a difference which the historian transforms into a problem for the theologian. Certain critics hostile to the Catholic faith, such as Turmel, Buonaiuti, and rationalists like A. Harnack, claim to demonstrate on the basis of these canons that the Church, which in the Councils of Carthage and Orange was with Augustine against every form of Pelagianism, became itself Pelagian at the Council of Trent. Yet there is no contradiction between the African councils and the Council of Trent, because the same thing is not being affirmed and denied in the same sense. The doctrine of the ecclesiastical magisterium must be studied in relation to the heresies that have prompted its definitions. In the 4th and 5th centuries, Pelagius, by denying any solidarity of the human race with its sinful head and by exalting the powers of nature and free will, undermined at its very foundations Christianity and its supernatural world with the redeeming grace of the Saviour. To stem this pretentious naturalism it was necessary to emphasize human weakness and the need for Christ and His grace with regard to sanctification and eternal salvation. The Church did this with the words of St Augustine, who had devoted his whole life to the struggle against Pelagius. In the 16th century, however, Luther went to the opposite extreme; under the impulse of a false mysticism he denied every value of human nature, reducing man to a state of slavery and incurable sickness, refractory even to the redemptive influence of the Cross. It was then that the Church rose to defend the substantial integrity of human nature and of its freedom, the foundation of morality and of supernatural merit.
3. The Holy Fathers
As has been noted, the Old Testament generally remains silent about the sad consequences of Adam’s fall, almost until the last Jewish period that precedes Christian Revelation; and in the New Testament, neither the text of St Paul to the Romans nor other passages demonstrate the intimate nature of transmitted original sin, nor the manner in which it is propagated, nor the degree of responsibility that pertains to posterity. St Paul confines himself to the fact of original guilt transmitted on the basis of a solidarity between Adam and his descendants. It was the task of Tradition to define and develop what is implicit in the vigorous and rich Pauline expressions. When one examines the texts of the Fathers of the early centuries concerning original sin, one is immediately struck by the sense of a doctrine in the process of formation. Drawing on the data of Sacred Scripture, the Fathers affirm the concrete fact of Adam’s fall and its consequences for his descendants; then they begin to seek an explanation of the fact, advancing opinions and assimilating foreign elements along a laborious path. The result was a variety of expositions that at first sight is disconcerting.In general, the Eastern Fathers have an optimistic view of human nature and show great concern for freedom and hence for the moral responsibility of each individual. This view has as its coefficients, on the one hand, Hellenism and, on the other, the struggle against Gnosticism and Manichaeism, in which pessimism and moral determinism prevailed. They therefore tended to regard original sin in posterity more as a penalty than as guilt and did not clearly see the connection between the sinning Adam and the human race.
Among the earliest Fathers, the most important is Irenaeus, who at the end of the 2nd century gathered the tradition of the East and West and gave it precious expression. In his thought, Adam’s sin is the sin of us all: «(Deum) in primo quidem Adam offendimus non facientes eius praeceptum; in secundo autem Adam reconciliari sumus oboedientes usque ad mortem facti. Neque enim alteri cuidam eramus debitores, sed illi cuius et praeceptum transgressi fueramus ab initio» (Adv. haer., V, 16, 3). If there were no other documents, this venerable testimony of a martyr-bishop, who dominated almost the entire 2nd century, would suffice to attest the faith of the Church in transmitted original sin to the descendants of Adam.
Alongside this substantial doctrine there flourished marginal or detailed opinions, often derived from influences foreign to Revelation. Thus, for example, in St Irenaeus himself there is a hint of the theory of the childishness of the first parents, according to which Adam and Eve were created as children, ignorant of life. The Alexandrians, in opposition to Manichaean determinism, maintained that sin arises from freedom and not from a law of nature; hence they left somewhat in the shadows the question of the solidarity of men with Adam in sin. Origen, however, reaffirms the concept of a native contamination, which explains the use of Baptism for children (In Levit., 8, 3).
But the Alexandrian school marked a notable advance with the Fathers of the 4th century. St Athanasius first dealt with the state of innocence in which Adam had been created, emphasizing the purity and strength of the nous (in the Platonic manner), which conferred on the first man a great contemplative power over divine things. Adam’s sin was a turning away from the sphere of contemplation and a turning toward matter, by which human nature fell into its ordinary state, losing the divine image of the «Logos». The sons of Adam find themselves in this condition of decline and bewilderment, from which they can be freed by the Word made flesh. Finally, St Athanasius made clear that in posterity there is not only the consequence of Adam’s sin, but in a certain way the sin itself is transmitted: «Nam quemadmodum peccante Adamo, peccatum in omnes homines pertransit, ita, postquam Dominus factus homo serpentem devicit, vis illa permanebit in omnes homines» (Ad Arianos orat. quatuor, I, 51). The Cappadocians echoed these Alexandrians, particularly St Basil and St Gregory Nazianzen, and abundantly St Gregory of Nyssa. All three spoke of a true transmission of the first sin.
If the Alexandrian school, steeped in Platonic mysticism of an intellectualist character, offered some foothold for the doctrine of original sin despite its ideally optimistic tendency, in the Antiochene school the climate was entirely opposed to that doctrine. For the Antiochenes a collective sin, a contamination of conscience through generation, a participation in the guilt of another, was almost inconceivable. These premature humanists saw the individual man as responsible for his actions and the arbiter of his destiny. The tradition of original sin would find in them, if not true opponents, certainly very broad interpreters to the point of emptying that tradition of its real content.
Not without reason the greatest heresy against the doctrine of original sin, Pelagianism, is placed in intimate ideological and historical relation with the Antiochene school.
Recent critical studies show that the first open denial of the transmission of original sin arose within the Antiochene school; and precisely it is found, earlier than in Theodore of Mopsuestia (as has been hitherto believed on the basis of the assertion of Marius Mercator), in Diodorus of Tarsus, who was the teacher of Theodore and of St John Chrysostom. In a fragment of Diodorus it is stated that Adam’s sin was a single one and posterity is guilty insofar as they imitate Adam. And in another fragment from his commentary on the Letter to the Romans: «πάντες ἡμῶν (in quo omnes peccaverunt)» is referred to personal sins.
Discussion concerning Theodore of Mopsuestia is ongoing. At first, he affirmed that mortality and an inclination to sin were transmitted from Adam the sinner to his descendants. Later, however, he seems to have denied any transmission of sin, as evidenced by certain fragments and by his close friendship with the Pelagians, especially Julian of Eclanum. Devreese, in his recent work *Essai sur Théodore de Mopsuestea* (Rome 1941), completely excuses him, while Vaccari and Ammann himself acknowledge that Theodore denied the transmission of original sin, even though he contradicted himself.
His fellow bishop, St. John Chrysostom, is far more acute and moderate. A passionate interpreter of St. Paul, he first recognizes the consequences of Adam’s sin in his descendants: mortality, concupiscence—which, however, does not impair free will—pain and the miseries of this life; he acknowledges that all was lost and corrupted by that sin. He does not, however, speak of a culpable solidarity between Adam and his descendants; indeed, he interprets the Pauline expression “constituted sinners in all” not as meaning actual sinners, but as those condemned to death. Chrysostom, engaged in debate with the Manicheans, is dominated—as are other contemporaries, especially in the Antiochene milieu—by the principle of personal responsibility for one’s actions and fears that the transmission of original sin might lead to the error of a natural necessity to sin, even without an act of free will. From this brief survey, it is evident how exaggerated and false is certain criticism that delights in presenting the Eastern Fathers as wholesale deniers of transmitted sin.
Western tradition presents no notable difficulties. Of primary importance is African theology, which prepared the native environment of Augustine. Tertullian, connected with Irenaeus, attests to the common faith: “Ita omnis anima ex quo in Adam censetur, donec in Christo recenseatur, tamdiu immunda quamdiu recensetur; peccatrix autem quia immunda” (*De anima*, chap. 40).
St. Cyprian took up the doctrine of his master and purified it of its dross, affirming more clearly than he the state of guilt in children before baptism, a guilt “not their own, but another’s” (*Epist.* 65, 5).
In *Apologia prophetae David*, St. Ambrose unequivocally reaffirmed the truth of transmitted sin: “Antequam nascimur, maculamur contagio... Et sic nec unius diei infans sine peccato (I. I, cap. 11). Omnes in primo homine peccavimus et per naturae successionem, culpae quoque ab uno in omnes transfusa successio est... Adam ergo in singulis nobis est. In illo enim condicio humana deliquit, quia per unum in omnes pertransivit peccatum” (I. I, cap. 12). The mysterious Ambrosiaster, author of a commentary on the Letter to the Romans, spoke of Adam’s fall and its dire consequences for humanity: death, slavery to the devil. What is most interesting is that this known author, who wrote in Rome under the pontificate of Pope Damasus, precisely affirms the solidarity between Adam and his descendants, basing himself on the Vulgate rendering of “in quo omnes peccaverunt” and employing an expression later found in St. Augustine but with greater breadth and determination. He writes: “Manifestum itaque est in Adam omnes peccasse quasi in massa; ipse enim per peccatum corruptus, quos genuit, omnes nati sunt sub peccato.” Some critics find in this passage the source of St. Augustine’s doctrine.
St. Augustine (v.) linked his activity and much of his life to the doctrine of original sin in his incomparable struggle against Pelagianism. Like all great souls, Augustine keenly felt—indeed, lived—the problem of evil and suffering. Tormented in his youth, he threw himself into Manichaeism, which was then widespread in the provinces of the Empire. The exaggerated dualism of Manichaeism offered Augustine a pessimistic vision of the world as a battleground between good and evil, personified in two opposing deities, leaving no room for the exercise of human freedom. It was a stifling atmosphere from which Augustine emerged with the initial help of Neoplatonism and then with the full aid of Christianity, which demonstrated to him the metaphysical non-existence of evil, the substantial goodness of the universe as a reflection of the goodness of the one God, and the possibility of redemption through Christ, to which every person is called to adhere freely.
From his first conversion onward, Augustine embraced the doctrine of original sin and of grace, but he deepened them in the long battle against Pelagianism. Augustine and Pelagius embody two visions of the world and life in the light of Christianity. Pelagius, a cold dialectician and jurist, sees God as a legislator who awaits man at the threshold of eternity to judge and sanction him according to the fulfillment of his duty; and he sees man as a being rich in energy, free and personally responsible for his good and bad actions before God, capable of avoiding sin and the arbiter of his temporal and eternal destiny.
St. Augustine sees God as the Lord and ruler of the life of the universe and of man in particular, a God who does not wait but anticipates and intervenes with the powerful influence of grace even in the conscience of man to free him and decisively set him on the path to salvation. Man is not healthy; he is fallen, in need of redemption: there is in his members a germ of evil, a native defect, which can only be eliminated with the help of grace. Humanity is a mass infected by sin, a kingdom of Satan, which Christ seeks to transform into the kingdom of God, a communion of saints through His Church. Augustine’s anthropology is one of pessimistic realism, yet open to glorious liberation through grace: the supernatural is effectively affirmed not only as an end but also as a means, not only as an individual relationship with God but also as the presence and action of God in an associated religious life. These contrasting visions justify and explain the tragic struggle that convulsed the Western Church—and in part the Eastern Church—as well—during the first half of the fifth century. Pelagius fell; Augustine triumphed. It was the defeat of naturalism and the victory of supernaturalism, the vital fabric of the Church and of Christianity, on the anthropological level. Augustine’s thought has been discussed elsewhere (v. AGOSTINO AURELIO, SANTO, SAINT, vol. I, cols. 544 ff).
The Church has made its essential lines its own, but Augustine’s disciples—and worse, the heretics—have taken up its flaws and dross.
4. **Scholasticism.** — In the Middle Ages, there was no further debate about the fact of original sin in Adam and his descendants; instead, the nature and essential characteristics of transmitted sin were studied and deepened, with the simultaneous development and clarification of the doctrine of original justice. All were influenced by St. Augustine, though to varying degrees and in different directions. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find in later theology a problem that St. Augustine did not address and attempt to resolve.
At the beginning of Scholasticism, St. Anselm deliberately addressed the age-old question. In his thought, death, concupiscence, and ignorance are rather the penalty of original sin. The guilt formally consists in the privation of original rectitude, which is voluntary insofar as all men are one nature with Adam. St. Anselm thus emphasized the character of guilt, bringing sin back into the moral sphere proper to the will and restricting concupiscence to the physical sphere.
Another dialectician, more rationalist than Anselm, was Abelard, who, while drawing on St. Augustine, overturned his entire doctrine, reverting to the concept of original sin as a penalty in posterity, not admitting any true sin that is not actual. Against Abelard, St. Bernard and Hugh of St. Victor reacted by returning to Augustinian motifs, especially that of concupiscence, which they regarded, in concreto, as the substance of transmitted sin. Hugh’s idea was revived in his disciple, Peter Lombard, whose *Sentences* dominated all Scholasticism up to St. Thomas, sidelining the significant contribution of St. Anselm. The Master of the Sentences did not stop at concupiscence but spoke of a privation of supernatural gifts and a wounding of natural faculties, especially the free will (it is the famous phrase of Bede: *«vulneratus in naturalibus, expoliatus in gratuitis»*).
The positions of Peter Lombard and Anselm represent a contrast in the conception of transmitted sin: the physiological sphere of concupiscence versus the moral sphere of the will. This contrast was gradually resolved by later theologians: William of Auxerre, William of Auxerre, and above all Alexander of Hales, with whom the adoption of Aristotelianism began. This Franciscan theologian reconciled St. Anselm with Peter Lombard, proposing a formula later taken up by St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas: original sin is *«formally»* the privation of original justice and thus a deviation of the will, *«materially»* habitual concupiscence, the fomes of sin. He further clarified the voluntariness of the privation of justice to preserve the notion of guilt.
St. Thomas now had a foundation on which to construct his theological schema regarding original sin. To understand the Angelic Doctor’s thought on Adam’s sin, one must first grasp his doctrine of original justice. He held that original justice has as its formal element the *«rectitudo voluntatis»*, by which the higher faculties of the soul—reason and will—were subject to God; and as its material element, the subordination of the sensitive appetite to reason and will (*II Sent.*, d. 32, q. 1). The first element, namely the subordination of reason and will to God, does not exist, at least in the present order, without sanctifying grace, and thus St. Thomas categorically affirms (*De malo*, q. 4, a. 2, ad 17): *«Original justice includes sanctifying grace.»* Elsewhere he states that grace is *«of the essence of original justice»* (*ibid.*, q. 5, a. 1, ad 13), which justifies the interpretation of those Thomists who see grace as the formal element of original justice, even though grace and the subordination of reason and will to God can be distinguished in the abstract.
For St. Thomas, therefore, original sin, objectively considered, is the loss of original justice and has as its formal element the aversion of reason and will from God (the loss of grace) and as its material element the rebellion of the lower faculties against reason: concupiscence (*Summa Theologiae*, I-II, q. 82, a. 3).
In light of this concept of original justice as a gratuitous gift, St. Thomas developed the concept of pure nature with the aid of Aristotelian philosophy. The metaphysical essence of man is animality and rationality; his physical essence is the union of soul and body. This essence, in both aspects, existed in Adam before sin and must remain in its ontological integrity even after, otherwise fallen man would no longer be man. Thus human nature is essentially good, though it contains, by virtue of its complexity, a tension between spirit and matter—hence concupiscence, corruptibility, and mortality, as well as the perfectibility of the intellect, which progresses from ignorance to knowledge. God could have created man and left him in this state of pure nature with its congenital defects. Instead, He willed to enrich him with preternatural and supernatural gifts. St. Thomas clarified forever the clear distinction between nature and the supernatural (*II Sent.*, d. 30, q. 1; *De malo*, q. 2-5, a. 1), and he was always solicitous for nature and its conditions and exigencies.
As for original sin in posterity, the pillars of his doctrine are these:
a) By generation and the consequent unity of nature, men are one thing, indeed one man with Adam (*Summa Theologiae*, I-II, q. 81, a. 1).
b) Original sin is transmitted not only as a penalty but also as guilt. It is not, however, a personal sin but a sin of nature with singular characteristics (*ibid.*).
c) Transmitted sin is not a personal act but a kind of habit or disordered disposition of nature induced by the sinful act of the first man in his descendants.
d) In light of these principles, voluntariness—indispensable for any true guilt—is also present in transmitted sin, not however as the positive exercise of the individual will of posterity, but as a causal influence of Adam’s sinful act of will (*De malo*, q. 4, a. 1; cf. *II Sent.*, d. 30, q. 1, a. 2; and d. 31, q. 1, a. 1).
e) Original sin, objectively considered, is the act of disobedience that caused this loss. Formally, it consists in aversion from God, i.e., the loss of original justice in its formal element, which is the subordination of the soul to God through the bond of grace; materially, it is the conversion to mutable good, i.e., the loss of the equilibrium of the passions and the subjection of the flesh. This material element of transmitted sin is, in concreto, first and foremost habitual concupiscence, the fomes of sin, and then death and ignorance, which have rather the character of penalty (*De malo*, q. 4, a. 2; *Summa Theologiae*, I-II, q. 82, a. 3).
Habitual concupiscence, as *«a readiness or facility for desiring contrary to the order of reason,»* is not intrinsically culpable, but it can become so whenever the will consents, for the proper seat of true sin is reason and will, not the flesh or sensibility except insofar as they become instruments of the will. For St. Thomas, concupiscence remains in the sphere of the physical order and does not touch the moral order except through the influence of the will (*De malo*, q. 4, a. 2, ad 4; *Summa Theologiae*, I-II, q. 82, a. 3, and q. 73, a. 3, ad 2).
Taking up the well-known saying of the Venerable Bede: *«expoliatus in gratuitis, vulneratus in naturalibus,»* St. Thomas
It addresses the question of the effects of original sin. Original sin does not affect the sphere of man’s being, but rather the dynamic, psychological sphere of his activity. Man, fallen through original sin, remains essentially man in his natural integrity, but can no longer act as a man because he is wounded. The wounds are four, corresponding to the four powers of the soul capable of virtuous acts, namely, reason, the will, the irascible appetite, and the concupiscible appetite (ibid.). To these four wounds is added the death of the body. Since original sin is not a personal sin, it cannot be the cause of a positive penalty inflicted on those who are tainted by it, but it is the cause only of that penalty which necessarily follows sin as aversion from God. Therefore, children who die without Baptism will suffer no penalty of sense, but they will not be able to enjoy the beatific vision (De malo, q. 5, a. 1-2). Thus the Angelic Doctor eliminated the opinion of St. Augustine. Finally, St. Thomas clarifies and specifies the effects of Baptism, which, as incorporation into Christ the Redeemer, removes original sin as fault, reconciling the soul with God through grace; it also removes the eternal penalty due to fault, but does not remove in this life the other penalties deriving from original sin, such as death and concupiscence and other miseries. St. Thomas explains the celebrated phrase: “concupiscence passes through Baptism as a debt, it remains as an act” not in the sense that concupiscence, as an element of original sin, persists in baptism with its sinful activity, but in the sense that it disappears as a fault and remains as sensuality not subdued by grace and thus as an incentive to sin (De malo, q. 4, a. 2, ad 10). Original sin is transmitted through generation, in the sense that Adam generates children by communicating a nature deprived of original justice.
Such is the lucid synthesis of St. Thomas, who gathers the flower of tradition, tempers, eliminates, specifies, deepens, and clarifies all the theology of original sin, so as almost to remove the hope of saying better than he.
The balanced work of St. Thomas did not succeed in extinguishing the Augustinian current, which, strengthened by the authority of Peter Lombard and in part also by St. Bonaventure (who, despite the influence of Alexander of Hales, had retained some theses of the Bishop of Hippo), revived in the fourteenth century as a reaction to Thomism. The advocates of renewed Augustinianism were Henry of Ghent and the Franciscans Matthew of Aquasparta and Peter Auriol. Notable is the stance of Scotus, who this time substantially adopted Thomistic positions, adding however the thesis of the Immaculate Conception. More than in the Franciscan school, the Augustinian reaction is found in this period among the Augustinian Hermits, who had a worthy representative in Gregory of Rimini. Thomism, however, was vindicated and strengthened in the fine defense by the Dominican Natalis Hervaeus (Nédellec), who prepared the best modern interpretation of the thought of the Angelic Doctor. But the Augustinian current, favored by nominalism, asserts itself almost sovereignly in the mysticism of the late Middle Ages and, gradually tinged with pessimism, prepares the Lutheran explosion.
5. The Council of Trent
The Church responded to the errors of Luther with the Council of Trent.The synthesis of St. Thomas offered in advance a balanced solution, which effectively avoided the two extremes; and the Council of Trent made free use of it, adopting the fundamental principles, rooted and guaranteed in Sacred Scripture and Tradition. The canons of the Council (sess. V) give this schema: a) The fact of Adam’s fall, who lost “sanctitatem et iustitiam, in qua constitutus fuerat.” b) The effects of Adam’s sin are transmitted to posterity through generation, not imitation. c) This sin, transmitted from the first parent through generation, “inhaeret” to each of the posterity as proper to them. d) Original sin can be removed only by being reborn in Christ through Baptism. e) Baptism radically removes original sin, both as fault and as penalty, but leaves concupiscence, which is not intrinsically sin and serves to increase the merit of the Christian who combats II.
In this schema the formal element of original sin in Adam and in his descendants is emphasized, namely, the death of the soul, i.e., the loss of the life of grace that unites man to God; the loss of integrity, designated as bodily death and misery, is a secondary element that follows the first. Sin does not consist in concupiscence or other miseries, which are rather a penalty, but consists principally in the rupture between man and God, determined by Adam and persisting in his descendants, who share in the fault of the first parent. This is an interesting point that closes many controversies and orients theologians for the future. The Council does not say how posterity participate in Adam’s fault, but it asserts the fact and suggests that that fault is one and is transmitted “by propagation, not by imitation.” Thus it is a native guilt, founded on the unity of the race, independent of the will of posterity. It is sufficiently evident that there is an insinuation of a solidarity of an ontological order, such as that posited by St. Thomas. Against Luther and against the opinions of the Augustinians, concupiscence is excluded from the formal constitution of the sin of origin: it can only be a material element, as the Angelic Doctor had already intuited.
6. Post-Tridentine tendencies
The Council did not define the transmitted original sin, but offered the elements for future theology to formulate it; the vital point is included in the expression “inest unicuique proprium.” One might ask whether the sinful act of Adam or only the consequent sinful state passes into his descendants. The Council had not settled the question, whereas St. Thomas had decided in favor of the state. In the acts of the Council it is recorded that the Fathers had before them the doctrine of Albert Pighius, who restricted sin to Adam’s consciousness and extended it to posterity through a moral imputation. To this opinion is linked the Dominican Ambrose Catharinus (v. POLITICA, LANCELLOTTO), who speaks of Adam as the moral head of the human race and attributes his guilt to posterity by virtue of a pact that would have intervened between God and the first man, the juridical representative of all descendants. In this way the solidarity of the children with the father is reduced to the juridical-moral sphere, contrary to the spirit of Trent.The opinion of Catharinus exercised a strong influence on theologians of worth such as Salmeron, De Lugo, Suárez, Gonet, and Billuart, who spoke of a pact, of a juridical head, of a moral transference of the wills of posterity into Adam. And yet it would suffice to observe that there is no trace of such a pact in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and moreover it is not seen how one can maintain a transference of the wills of posterity who do not yet exist. A juridical fiction, then, to which so much ruin of humanity would be bound. In such opinions there seems to loom the idea of Lutheran imputation.
Lutheranism was prolonged in Baius and Jansenius (v.), who repeat its fundamental motif, albeit in attenuated form. Referring to the relevant entries, it must be observed here that both Baius and Jansenius were in their conception of Adam’s primitive state, resuming a natural state. God could not create man except as He did create him, and therefore all that Adam had from the beginning, including grace, if it was not a constitutive element (Luther), was certainly an element due to human nature (cf. propositions of Baius 21, 23, 24, 26). In other words, Baius and Jansenius denied the possibility of a state of pure nature, which theologians defend in order to safeguard the gratuity and supernaturality of grace and original justice. The concept of pure nature goes back to St. Augustine, and its possibility is the necessary presupposition for a sound theology of original sin.