Commenting on the Fall and the question of whether we inherit “original sin” in Byzantine theology, John Meyendorff wrote:
Original Sin
In order to
understand many major theological problems which arose between East and West,
both before and after the schism, the extraordinary impact upon Western thought
of Augustine’s polemics against Pelagius and Julian of Ecalnum must be fully
taken into account. In the Byzantine world, where Augustinian thought exercised
practically no influence, the significance of the sin of Adam and of its
consequences for mankind was understood along quite different lines.
We have seen that in
the East man’s relationship with God was understood as a communion of the human
person with that which is above nature. “Nature,” therefore, designates that
which is, in virtue of creation, distinct from God. But nature can and must be
transcended; this is the privilege and the function of the free mind,
made “according to God’s image.”
Now, in Greek patristic
thought, only this free, personal mind can commit sin and incur the concomitant
“guilt”—a point made particularly clear by Maximus the Confessor in his
distinction between “natural will” and “gnomic will.” Human nature, as God’s
creature, always exercises its dynamic properties (which together constitute
the “natural will”—a created dynamism) in accordance with the divine will which
created it. But when the human person, or hypostasis, by rebelling against both
God and nature misuses its freedom, it can distort the “natural will” and thus
corrupt nature itself. IT is able to do so because it possesses freedom, or “gnomic
will,” which is capable of orientating man toward the good and of “imitating
God” (“God alone is good by nature,” writes Maximus, “and only God’s imitator
is good by his gnome”) (De Char., IV., 90; PG 90:1069c); it is
also capable of sin, because “our salvation depends on our will” (Maximus the
Confessor, Liber Asceticus; PG 90:953B). But sin is always a personal
act, never an act of nature (Maximus the Confessor, Expos. or. dom.; PG
90:05a). Patriarch Photius even goes so far as to say, referring to Western
doctrines, that the belief in a “sin of nature” is a heresy (Photius, Library¸177).
From these basic
ideas about the personal character of sin, it is evident that the rebellion of
Adam and Eve against God could be conceived only as their personal sin; there
would be no place, then, in such an anthropology for the concept of inherited
guilt, or for a “sin of nature,” although it admits that human nature incurs
the consequences of Adam’s sin.
The Greek patristic
understanding of man never denies the unity of mankind or replaces it with a
radical individualism. The Pauline doctrine of the two Adams (“As in Adam all
men die, so also in Christ shall all be brought to life” [1 Co 15:22]), as well
as the Platonic concept of the ideal man, leads Gregory of Nyssa to understand
Genesis 1:27—“God created man in His own image”—to refer to the creation of mankind
as a whole (Gregory of Nyssa, De opif. Hom. 16; PG 44:185a). It is
obvious, therefore, that the sin of Adam must also be related to all men, just
as salvation brought by Christ is salvation for all mankind; but neither original
sin nor salvation can be realized in an individual’s life without involving his
personal and free responsibility.
The scriptural text
which played a decisive role in the polemics between Augustine and the Pelagians
is found in Romans 5:12, where Paul, speaking of Adam, writes: “As sin came
into the world through one man, and through sin, death, so death spread to all
men because all men have sinned [eph ho pantes hemarton].” In
this passage there is a major issue of translation. The last four Greek words
were translated in Latin as in quo omnes peccaverunt (“in whom [i.e., in
Adam] all men have sinned”), and this translation was used in the West to
justify the doctrine of guilt inherited from Adam and spread to his descendants.
But such a meaning cannot be drawn from the original Greek—the text read, of
course, by the Byzantines. The form eph ho—a contraction of epi
which the relative pronoun ho—can be translated as “because,” a meaning
accepted by most modern scholars of all confessional backgrounds. Such a
translation renders Paul’s thought to mean that death, which was “the wages of
sin” (Rm 6:23) for Adam, is also the punishment applied to those who, like him,
sin. It 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.
A number of Byzantine
authors, including Photius, understood the eph ho to mean “because” and
saw nothing in the Pauline text beyond a moral similarity between Adam and
other sinners, death being the normal retribution for sin. But there is also
the consensus of the majority of Eastern Fathers, who interpret Romans 5:12 in
close connection with 1 Corinthians 15:22—between Adam and his descendants
there is a solidarity in death just as there is a solidarity in life
between the risen Lord and the baptized.
This interpretation
comes, obviously, from the literal, grammatical meaning of Romans 5:12. Eph
ho, if it means “because,” is a neuter pronoun; but it can also be
masculine, referring to the immediately preceding substantive thanatos (“death”).
The sentence then may have a meaning which seems improbable to a reader trained
in Augustine, but which is indeed the meaning which most Greek Fathers
accepted:” As sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so
death spread to all men; and because of death, all men have sinned . . .
“
Mortality, or “corruption,”
or simply death (understood in a personalized sense), has indeed been viewed
since Christian antiquity, as a cosmic disease which holds humanity under its
sway, both spiritually and physically, and is controlled by the one who is “the
murderer from the beginning” (Jn 8:44). It is this death which makes sin
inevitable, and in this sense “corrupts” nature.
For Cyril of
Alexandria, humanity, after the sin o Adam, “fell sick of corruption” (Cyril of
Alexandria, In Rom.; PG 74:789B). Cyril’s opponents, the theologians of
the School of Antioch, agreed with him on the consequence of Adam’s sin. For Theodore
of Mopsuestia, “by becoming mortal, we acquired greater urge to sin.” The
necessity of satisfying the needs of the body—food, drink, and other bodily
needs—are absent in immortal beings, but among mortals they lead to “passions,”
for they present unavoidable means of temporary survival (Theodore of
Mopsuestia, In Rom.; PG 66:801B). Theodoret of Cyrus repeats almost literally
the arguments of Theodore in his own commentary on Romans; elsewhere, he argues
against the sinfulness of marriage by affirming that transmission of mortal
life is not sinful in itself, in spite of Psalm 51:7 (“my mother conceived me
in sin”). This verse, according to Theodoret, refers not to the sexual act but
to the general sinful condition of mortal humanity: “Having become moral
[Adam and Eve] conceived mortal children, and mortal beings are necessarily
subject to passions and fears, to pleasures and sorrows, to anger and hatred” (Theodoret
of Cyrus, In Rom.; PG 80; 1245A).
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. The idea
appears in Chrysostom, who specifically denies the imputation of sin to the
descendants of Adam (John Chrysostom, In Rom. hom. 10; PG 60:474-475). (John
Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes [London:
Mowbrays, 1975], 143-45)
For those curious, the relevant section of
Chrysostom’s Homilies on Romans 10 reads as follows:
As the best
physicians always take great pains to discover the source of diseases, and go to
the very fountain of the mischief, so doth the blessed Paul also. Hence after
having said that we were justified, and having shown it from the Patriarch, and
from the Spirit, and from the dying of Christ (for He would not have died
unless He intended to justify), he next confirms from other sources also what
he had at such length demonstrated. And he confirms his proposition from things
opposite, that is, from death and sin. How, and in what way? He enquires whence
death came in, and how it prevailed. How then did death come in and prevail?
"Through the sin of one." But what means, "for that all have
sinned?" This; he having once fallen, even they that had not eaten of the
tree did from him, all of them, become mortal.