Origen never developed a doctrine
of 'original sin' (Teichtweier 1958: 98). Adam's sin symbolizes human sin, but
sin is not inherited (Cels. 4.40; H.Ex. 9.1). Inherited sin
clashes against free will, which never abandons rational creatures (e.g. Or.
29.13; C.Rom. 5.10 ). Only concupiscence in the reproductive act seems
to leave some impurity (rhupos, sordes) in the human being, which makes it
advisable to baptize children, to wash it away, although they have not yet
committed sins of their own (C.Rom. 5.9; H.Luc. 14.3, 5; H.Lev.
8.3; C.Matth. 15.23). This can be inscribed within the Origenian concept
of universal culpability, pointed out above. Origen, an ascetic, is often
negative about intercourse, although he recognizes that marriage was instituted
by God ( e.g. Pasch a 36; H.Luc. 6.1-2). This is why Mary, the
Theotokos, had 'a holy womb, worthy of all veneration, because no male
absolutely touched it' (H.Luc. 14.8). She had an 'immaculate
giving-birth; without any 'contagion of earthly corruption; since 'the Holy
Spirit poured an immaculate seed in her inviolable womb'; therefore, 'Jesus
alone is holy among all those born of woman' (Exp.Luc. 2.55-56). Origen
explains Christ's identification with a worm in Psalm 21:6 on this basis: 'the
origin of worms does not come from a seed stemming from outside, but from
themselves' sexlessly, according to the science of Origen's time (H.Luc.
14.8). Augustine, probably basing himself on Origen, gave the same
interpretation, claiming to be following his predecessors (prioribus, Ep.
140.21.8). Nevertheless, having taken up a human body, Jesus needed a
purification in the Temple (Luke 2:22). For 'no one is free from impurity, not
even if he has lived just one day' (Job 14:4-5 [LXX]). This is not sin
inherited through generations, but the aforementioned universal state of
sinfulness, based on Scripture and Philo (VM 2.29.147) and linked to the
fall of all humans. (Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, “The Pre-History of the Pelagian
Controversy, Part 1: Grace and Free Will, Intellectualism, and the Birth of
Original Sin,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pelagian Controversy, ed.
Anthony Dupont, Giulio Malavasi, and Brian Matz [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2025], 33)
