Job 14:4
Augustine
defended infant guilt by citing an idea introduced by the Greek translation of
Job 14:4. The Hebrew text of Job 14:4 reads, “Who can bring what is pure from
the impure? No one!” However, the Greek translation introduced a concept not
found in the Hebrew text, “Who shall be pure of filth? No one, not even if his
life on earth is one day!” While the Hebrew text asserts only that no one is
able to bring purity out of impurity, the Greek variant adds the idea that a
one-day-old person will not avoid the filth. Athanasius referred to “the
heretics” who interpret the “filth” mentioned in the Greek translation of Job 14:4
to refer to sin—as did Augustine. Instead, Athanasius interpreted filth as
those things that coated an infant birth, such as vernix, amniotic fluid, and
the mother’s blood. Athanasius asked a series of rhetorical questions, “What
sin can a child that is one day old commit? Adultery? Not at all, because it
has not reached the age to have pleasure. Fornication? Not that either, because
it does not yet have desire. Murder? But it is unable to even to carry a murder
weapon. Perjury? No, for it cannot yet make an articulate sound. Greed? It does
not yet have awareness of the money of another, or even its own.” Athanasius
concluded, “Since newborns are completely without a share in these misdeeds,
what sin can a one day old baby have, save only, as we said, bodily filth?
Scripture does not say, ‘No one is pure from sin,’ but ‘from filth’” (Fragments
of Matthew, 9, in PG 27.1368-69). Augustine’s appeals to Job 14:4 to support
infant guilt rested on a faulty foundation because his interpretation depended
on a concept added in the Greek translation that does not appear in the Hebrew
text.
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Ephesians 2:3
Augustine
supported his view of original sin as hereditary sin with three New Testament
texts. The first of those texts, Eph 2:3, includes the Geek phrase ēmetha
tekna phsei orgēs (“we were by nature deserving of wrath”). In context,
this passage suggests that people are “dead” in their “transgressions and sins”
(v. 1) and walk according to the world and to Satan (v. 2). Because they are
not believers in Christ, they are by nature subject to God’s wrath. Augustine
saw in the Latin translation, however, support for his interpretation that all
people (not just unbelievers) deserve God’s wrath because they were born
physically. The Latin text was translated, “by nature, sons of wrath.” The
Latin word behind “nature” is natura, which carries the idea of physical
birth and is the way Augustine used the term. In On the Trinity, Augustine
referred to “the sin of the first man passing over originally into all of both
sexes in their birth through conjugal union, and the debt of our first parents
binding the whole posterity.” In the same passage he quoted Eph 2:1-3 and
explained that “by nature” means “as it has been depraved in sin” (On the
Trinity 13.12, in NPNF1, 3:175). While discussing the man born
blind (John 9), Augustine quoted Eph 2:3 and explained that because of Adam’s
sin, evil had taken root in every person as a nature and every person is born
mentally blind (Tractates on the Gospel of John 44.9, in NPNF1,
7:245). Augustine condemned the fleshly conception of humans, claiming that “carnal
generation is from the transgression of original sin” (On the Merits and
Remission of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants, 2.15, in NPNF1, 5:50).
All people are children of wrath by nature, because they originated from the
human foreskin, which signifies original sin (Augustine, Against Julian 6.7.20).
Augustine
misinterpreted Eph 2:3 to mean that all people are under God’s wrath due to
their physical birth because sin is passed on the fleshly act of conception.
The biblical text, however, indicates that unbelievers are subject to
God’s wrath due to their sinful acts rather than due to their physical birth.
Hebrews 7:4-10
Augustine
concluded that just as Levi was in the loins of Abraham to pay the tithe to
Melchizedek (Heb 7:4-10), all humanity was in the loins of Adam when he sinned
in the garden, which makes humanity subject to judgment (Against Julian:
Unfinished Work 6.22). In reply, verse 9 says the tithe Levi receives now,
he already paid, “so to speak” (NASB; “in a sense,” CSB) because he was in
Abraham’s loins. The phrase indicates some type of analogy is in play, and it
is the extent of the analogy that is discussed. The difference between the
tithing event and the disobedience in the garden is that Levi was not counted
as having paid the tithe simply because he was in his grandfather’s loins. To
compare the analogies, the consequences of Abraham’s actions were not simply
imputed to Levi. Rather, upon Levi receiving the tithe, it could be considered
that Levi had already paid the tithe. Thus, Heb 7:4-10 does not concern original
sin. (Adam Harwood, “A Critique of Total Depravity,” in Calvinism: A
Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen and Steve M. Lemke [Nashville,
Tenn.: B&H Academic, 2022], 25-26, 28-29)