ORIGINAI.
313
ORIGINAL
sin." This is going farther and farther from the text
of St. Paul. Adam would be no more than the term
of a comparison, he would no longer have any influence
or causality as regards original sin or death. More-
over, the Apostle did not alRrm that all men, in imi-
tation of Adam, are mortal on account of their actual
sins; since children who die before coming to the use
of reason have never committed such sins; but he
expressly affirms the contrary in the fourteenth verse :
"But death reigned", not only over those who imi-
tated Adam, but "even over them also who have not
sinned after the similitude of the transgression of
Adam." Adam's sin, therefore, is the sole cause of
death for the entire human race. Moreover, we can
discern no natural connexion between any sin and
death. In order that a determined sin entail death
there is need of a positive law, but before the Law
of Moses there was no positive law of God appointing
death as a punishment except the law given to Adam
(Gen., ii, 17). It is, therefore, his disobedience only
that could have merited and brought it into the world
(Rom., v, 13, 14). The.se Protestant writers lay
much stress on the last words of the twelfth verse.
We know that several of the Latin Fathers understood
the words, "in whom all have sinned", to mean, all
have sinned in Adam. This interpretation would be
an extra proof of the thesis of original sin, but it is not
necessary. Modern exegesis, as well as the Greek
Fathers, prefers to translate "and so death passed
upon all men because all have sinned ". We accept this
second translation which shows us death as an effect
of sin. But of what sin? "The personal sins of each
one", answer our adversaries, "this is the natural
sense of the words 'all have sinned.' " It would be
the natural sense if the context was not absolutely
opposed to it. The words "all have sinned" of the
twelfth verse, which are obscure on account of their
brevity, are thus developed in the nineteenth verse:
"for as by the disobedience of one man many were
made sinners". There is no question here of per-
sonal sins, differing in species and number, committed
by each one during his life, but of one first sin which
was enough to transmit equally to all men a state of
sin and the title of sinners. Similarly in the twelfth
verse the words "All have sinned" must mean, "all
have participated in the sin of Adam", "all have
contracted its stain". This interpretation too re-
moves the seeming contradiction between thetwelfth
verse, "all have sinned", and the fourteenth, "who
have not sinned", for in the former there is question
of original sin, in the latter of personal sin. Those
who say that in both cases there is question of personal
sin are unable to reconcile these two verses.
IV. Origin.\l Sin in Tr.4dition. — On account of a superficial resemblance between the doctrine of origi- nal sin and the Manichiean theory of our nature being evil, the Pelagians accused the Catholics and St. Augustine of Manichaeism. For the accusation and its answer see " Contra duas epist. Pelag.", I, II, 4; V, 10; III, IX, 2.5; IV, III. In our own times this charge has been reiterated by several critics and historians of dogma who have been influenced by the fact that be- fore his conversion St. Augustine was a Manichcean. They do not identify Manieha-ism with the doctrine of original sin, but they say tliat St. Augustine, with the remains of his former Manichaan prejudices, created the doctrine of original sin unknown before his time. It is not true that the doctrine of original sin does not appear in the works of the pre-Augustinian Fathers. On the contrary, their testimony is found in special works on the subject. Nor can it be said, as Harnack maintains, that St. Augustine himself acknowledges the absence of this doctrine in the writ- ings of the Fathers. St. Augustine invokes the testi- mony of eleven Fathers, Greek as well as Latin (Contra Jul., II, x, 33). Baseless also is the assertion that before St. Augustine this doctrine was unknown to the
Jews and to the Christians; as we have already shown,
it was taught by St. Paul. It is found in the fourth
Book of Esdras, a work written by a Jew in the first
century after Christ and widely read by the Chris-
tians. This book represents Adam as the author of
the fall of the human race (vii, 48), as having trans-
mitted to all his posterity the permanent infirmity,
the maUgnity, the bad seed of sin (iii, 21, 22; iv, 30).
Protestants themselves admit the doctrine of original
sin in this book and others of the same period (see
Sanday, "The International Critical Commentary:
Romans", 134, 137; Hastings, "A Dictionary of the
Bible", I, 841). It is therefore impossible to make St.
Augustine, who is of a much later date, the inventor
of original sin.
That this doctrine existed in Christian tradition be- fore St. Augustine's time is shown by the practice of the Church in the baptism of children. The Pelagians held that baptism was given to children, not to remit their sin, but to make them better, to give them super- natural life, to make them adoptive sons of God, and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven (see St. Augustine, "De peccat. meritis", I, xviii). The Catholics an- swered by citing the Nicene Creed, "Conflteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum". They re- proached the Pelagians with introducing two bap- tisms, one for adults to remit sins, the other for chil- dren with no such purpose. Catholics argued, too, from the ceremonies of baptism, which suppose the child to be under the power of evil, i. e., exorcisms, abjuration of Satan made by the sponsor in the name of the child [Aug., be. cit., xx.xiv, 63; Denz., n. 140 (96)].
V. Original Sin in F.\cb of the Objections of Re.\son. — We do not pretend to prove the existence of original sin by arguments from reason only. St. Thomas makes use of a philosophical proof" which proves the existence rather of some kind of decadence than of sin, and he considers his proof as probable only, satis probabiliter probari potest (Contra Gent., IV, Hi). Many Protestants and Jansenists and some Catholics hold the doctrine of original sin to be necessary in philosophy, and the only means of solving the prob- lem of the existence of evil. This is exaggerated and impossible to prove. It suffices to show that human reason has no serious objection against this doctrine which is founded on Revelation. The objections of Rationalists usually spring from a false concept of our dogma. They attack either the transmission of a sin or the idea of an injury inflicted on his race by the first man, of a decadence of the human race. Here we shall answer only the second category of objections, the others will be considered under a later head (VII).
(1) The law of progress is opposed to the hypothesis of a decadence. Yes, if the progress was necessarily continuous, but history proves the contrary. The fine representing progress has its ups and downs, there are periods of decadence and of retrogression, and such was the period. Revelation tells us, that followed the first sin. The human race, however, began to rise again little by little, for neither intelligence nor free will had been destroyed by original sin and, conse- quently, there still remained the possibility of material progress, whilst in the spiritual order God did not abandon man, to whom He had j)romised redemption. This theory of decadence has no connexion with our Revelation. The Bible, on the contrary, shows us even spiritual progress in the people it treats of; the vocation of Abraham, the law of Moses, the mission of the Prophets, the coming of the Messias, a revelation which becomes clearer and clearer, ending in the Gospel, its diffusion amongst all nations, its fruits of holiness, and the progress of the Church.
(2) It is unjust, says another objection, that from the sin of one man should result the decadence of the whole human race. This would have weight if we took this decadence in the same sen.se that Luther took it, i. e. human reason incapable of understanding even
