The idea that the sins of the previous generations are laid upon the generations that follow is common throughout antiquity and into the modern day. It has been popularized in novels, movies, plays, the writing of philosophers, and indeed in the Scriptures. While this idea is not unique to Christianity, Christianity has a lot to say on the subject, and since there seems to be a great deal of confusion on what is actually said, I think that it is worth some exploration. This will be the first of several parts of that exploration.

Such an exploration has to begin with Adam. In starting with Adam, I would like to begin with what (I hope) we all, as Christians, can agree upon. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12 NIV) While there is certainly a lot more going on in Romans 5 than this one idea, and it is worth reading, for our purposes, it is a simple statement that shows the result of Adam’s sin. Sin and death entered into the world through Adam. Genesis 3 elaborates some more about this also explaining that the ground was even cursed because of this. Our exploration starts here, with the original sin.

Jewish Understanding

Looking at the predominate Jewish teaching often helps us better understand our Christian teaching. This is our history after all. So in Jewish teaching, the concept and idea of original sin in any form is rejected. The Jewish faith does not in any way teach that humans are basically sinful. It teaches that sin is the result of human inclinations, and not a result of anything else. So long as our inclinations are properly managed, so too can sin be properly managed and eliminated from life. There is obviously more to this, but a brief overview is all that we need I believe for our purposes. As we will see later on, many of the earliest church fathers were influenced by this understanding.

The Church Fathers (Before Ausgustine)

While the idea of original sin is well rooted in The Scriptures, it was not formally introduced into the Church’s doctrinal tradition until The Councils of Carthage (418 AD) and Orange (529 AD). This does not mean that there was not teaching about the subject, but it should be noted that there was not one church wide consensus, or rather doctrinal statement of understanding, before this. This does not mean that the concept of original sin in not found in scripture, rather it does mean that the understanding of it in an official church capacity was a fluid matter for several centuries. Now that we have some historic context, we can look at how the idea was developed.

Clement of Alexandria believed that Original Sin was indeed inherited from Adam, but viewed this inheritance as a bad example, not the actual sin itself. He did not believe that we are born bearing the guilt of Adam’s original sin. Ireneaus of Lyons interpreted Adam’s sin in Genesis 3 as simply disobedience, and not part of a cosmic fall from grace. He recognized Adam’s sin as a factor in his understanding of the theology of redemption, but did not give much thought to the cause of human’s shared sinfulness.

While infant baptism was a part of the early church, the first of the early fathers that we know wrote about the necessity of it was Justin Martyr (100 AD to 165 AD). In his First Apology, he wrote about the necessity of infant baptism on the grounds that infants are born with wayward inclinations. He did acknowledge the sinful condition of humankind, but took the sin of Adam and Eve not as an inheritance, but as a prototype for human sin. Justin believed that sin originated because of human’s free will. While Adam’s sin diminished the power to resist evil, the freedom to do so was not completely lost. Human’s were more in need of divine help to resist sin, they could still avoid sin without divine intervention. Justin spoke about the origen of evil through a demonology, thus Christ’s redemption was breaking the power of the demonic over humans.

Tertullian, different than Justin Martyr, did not find a necessity for infant baptism. His homily on baptism shows that infant baptisms were performed during this time, but that is was not a requirement. He believed that the inclination to sin due to Adam was not a sin in and of itself. Put simply, the inclination of people to sin was Adam’s fault, but that did not constitute the stain of Adam’s sin upon a person, so no forgiveness for it was required.

Finally we get to Origen, and the first known mention of “original sin”. In a homily on Leviticus, he spoke about how all are tainted by Adam’s original sin. Further more, he stated that all must be washed in water and The Spirit, in order to remove the stain of original sin. He appealed to both Genesis 3 and also many of the Psalms as the basis of this position. Psalm 51:5 would be a good example of what he was basing his theology upon.

How Does This Work?

While the doctrine of original sin was being developed and the theology surrounding it was being examined, the question became how is original sin passed on? Part of the reason for this is our natural inclination toward curiosity and using our rational mind in order to try and comprehend things that, often, are beyond our full understanding of the things which are divine. I am not saying that is a bad thing, quite the contrary. I believe that one of the great gifts of God is that he has given us a rational and curious mind so that we can explore the mysteries around us.

So, the question became how was Adam’s sin passed on to us, and even more than that, what was the relationship of how the original sin was passed and our soul? Arsing out of this question was a theory that was called generationism, or sometimes traducianism. This theory held that biological conception as a result of sexual intercourse resulted in both body and soul being generated together. The basic idea here is that because Adam’s sin caused a defect in his nature, all of the descendants of Adam would suffer the same defect in nature, both body and soul. Because this seemed to best explain the connection that humankind has with Adam though sin, Tertullian favored this theory. Ignatius of Antioch would explain the sinless nature of Jesus using this theory. Because of the virgin birth, there was no sexual intercourse, and therefore there was no defect in nature. He would further conclude that all humans enter into a sinful state by birth, but that Jesus, a human (and divine, thanks homeostatic union), is without Adam’s sin because of the virgin birth.

A second theory arose also that was centered around the soul. Jerome believed that each individual soul was divinely crafted, but that those divinely crafted souls were finite, that is to say they were not eternal. Each soul was created at the moment of physical conception. This did little to help explain the transmission of original sin however.

A third theory would state that all souls, whether angelic or human, were created at some point in time before the creation story found in Genesis. These souls were created at the same time. Under this theory, sin occurred in a realm transcendent from the physical world, and the punishment for that sin, the fall from grace, was a fall to the physical realm that we now inhabit. This view was favored by Origen as he did not believe that original sin was transmitted through Adam. Origen believed that evil in the world was from constant demonic influence.

I have included the third theory for the sake of completeness only after much careful though. The dangerous and harmful false teachings that have arisen from this theory are to numerous to count including the teachings that white supremacist movements used to justify their hate, and things like Serpent Seed teaching that are dangerous, harmful, and contrary to the Christian faith.

Wrapping Up

By the third century, three beliefs had become the predominate understanding in the early Christian church.
1. The Church baptized infants because they were born with original sin.
2. The sin that infants were born with was the original sin of Adam for which they carried moral guilt that required forgiveness.
3. The original sin of Adam was transmitted by sexual intercourse.

Cyprian of Carthage described original sin as a primal contagion that was inherited by each person through sexual intercourse.
“We ought not to shrink from hindering an infant, who being lately born, has not signed, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sin – that to him are remitted, not for his own sins, but for the sins of another.”

While this is somewhat lengthy, and only a part of a larger whole, it is also important. The subject matter is serious and deserves serious discussion and consideration. It also forms much of how we see sin in the world in our personal lives, our corporate lives, and even as a tangible force that exists as an enemy of God. It seems to me that to often we have dismissed the material with platitudes, or vague notions of of course we sinned, but we are forgiven without examining the larger picture and how this all fits into our over all understanding of how this effects not only our lives, but the cosmic struggle between God and The Adversary that we are all involved in. I think that this was worth the time, and that the writings to follow will be as well.