Greg Allison, PhD: "Historical Theology:" Ch. 16--Sin in the Early Churc...

The views of the early period include Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tatian, Tertullian, Cyprian, Pelagius, Augustine, John Cassian, the 473 Synod of Arles, and the 529 Council of Orange.

Justin Martyr, noting Adam as ancestor to descendants, focused on the individual, bringing death on themselves. People “become subject to punishment by their own fault.” Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, 88, in ANF, 1:243. They are “like Adam and Even” but who “work out death themselves.” First Apology, 61, ANF, 1:183.

 

Irenaeus. “Those people who have fallen away…have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents and exercised power over themselves…. They are destitute of all good things, having become to themselves the cause of their punishment in a place of that nature.” Against Heresies, 4.39.3-4, in ANF, 1:523.

 

Theophilus. Adam started in neutral position and put the blame for the fall on Adam and Eve. Man “was by nature neither mortal nor immortal from the beginning, he would have made to be God. But if God had made man mortal, God himself would seem to be the cause of man’s death. Thus, God did not make many either immortal or mortal…but capable of both…If he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, man should receive immortality as a reward from him and should become God.  If, on the other hand, he should incline to the things of death, disobeying God, man should himself be the cause of death to himself. For God made man free and with power over himself.” To Autolycus, 2.27, in ANF, 2:105.

 

Tertullian was a traducianist and sin was transmitted. Thus, “the soul of a human being—which may be compared with the beginning sprout of a tree—has been derived from Adam as its root. It has been propagated among his descendants by means of women, to whom it has been entrusted for transmission.” Treatise on the Soul, 19, in ANF, 3:200.

 

Tertullian on the tragic results. “…all people are perishing who never even saw a single square foot of ground in paradise.” Against Marcion, 1.22, in ANF, 3:287.

 

Tertullian on total corruption. “We have indeed born the image of the earthly [the image of Adam], by our sharing in his transgression, by our participation in his death, and by our banishment from paradise.” On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 49, in ANF, 3: 583.

 

Tertullian. Human sin is “evil which arises from its [the soul’] corrupt origin.” Treatise on the Soul, 41, in ANF, 3:220.

 

Cyprian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa seemed to deny infants are born with sin inherited from Adam—a reluctance to attribute to adults in general, but, notably, to infants.

 

Pelagius talks about ability, capacity to choose good or evil, capacity of volition and action, free will, human’s imitation of Adam and Eve, the possibility of living perfectly with the help of God’s grace, and the impossibility of God giving commands to fallen sinners (often lurking in the soggy terrain). “No one knows better the measure of our strength than he [God] who gave us our strength; and no one has a better understanding of what is within our power than he [God] who endowed us with the very resources of our power. He has not willed to command anything impossible, for he is righteous; he will not condemn people for what they could not help, for he is holy.” Letter to Demetrias, in Harrington, Cloud of Witnesses, 100-101.

 

Celestine, Pelagius’ cohort. (1) Adam’s sin harmed only himself. (2) Adam would have died with or without sin. (3) Law and gospel lead to salvation. (4) There were sinless people before Christ. (5) Infants are in the same state of the original Adam. (6) None die through the first Adam and none rise through the second Adam.

 

Augustine. (1) Adam and Eve were sinless and magnificent in creation. They had free will, posse non peccare. (2) Adam fell. Now, non posse non peccare.

 

Augustine. “To the first man who, in that good in which he had been made upright, had received the ability not to sin, the ability not to die, the ability not to forsake the good itself, was given the aid of perseverance.” On Rebuke and Grace, 34, in NPNF, 5:485.

 

Augustine and pride. “For ‘pride is the beginning of sin’ (Ecclesiasticus 10.13). And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons him [God] to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own manifestation.” City of God, 14.12, in NPNF, 2:272-273.

 

Augustine on the loss of freedom of the will. “Accordingly, he who is the servant of sin is free to sin. And hence he will not be free to do right until, being freed fro sin, he shall begin to be the servant of righteousness.” Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, 30, in NPNF, 3:247.

 

Augustine on Romans 5.12. “By his sin the whole race of which he was the root was corrupted in him and therefore subjected to the penalty of death. Thus, all his descendants were tainted with original sin and were drawn by it through various errors and sufferings into the final and eternal punishment.” Against Two Letter of the Pelagians, in NPNF, 5:419.

 

Augustine on Adam’s posterity. “In the first man … there existed the whole human nature, which was to be transmitted by the woman to posterity [offspring], when that conjugal union received the divine assistance of its own condemnation; and what man was made, not when he was created, but when he sinned and was punished, this he propagated [passed down], so far as the origin of sin and death are concerned.” City of God, 13.3, in NPNF, 2:246.

 

Augustine and death, guilt, punishment, and corruption for Adamites. “Human nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an extent that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient lust and became subject to the necessity of dying. And what he himself had become by sin and punishment, such he passed down to those whom he generated.” City of God, 13.3, in NPNF, 2:246.