Question
84
What
does the word of the Apostle mean, “in this all sinned”?
The saying, “in this all sinned,”
which the divine Paul said and you asked to know its meaning, some interpret as
“in the person of Adam,” and others “with respect to death itself.” But I
accept neither the one nor the other. We must not understand anything else,
since the phrase has in itself its own completeness. That is, the phrase “in
this all sinned” here does not point to a person, nor indicate a person in any
way, but rather signifies a cause; that is “εφ’ ω παντες ημαρτον”
means “because all sinned.” This usage occurs countless times even in
non-Chrisitan writers, but the divine Paul is sufficient, who interprets his
own words. For he says elsewhere, “as long as we are still in the body, we
groan under its weight”; and then, “Not that we wish to put it off, but to put
on over it.” From this it becomes entirely clear that “εφ’ ω” was used to signify cause. That is, “for this we groan, not because
we wish to be unclothed, but because we wish to be clothed upon.” To speak more
freely, the sense of the phrase is as follows: “We groan while we are in this
tabernacle, feeling the burden of our body.” What then? Do you wish to put off
the body which the hands of God formed and joined with the soul by divine
breath? “no,” he says, “far be such a thought. For surely I do not groan
because I am stripped of it, but because I have not put on the clothing over
it.” And by clothing he means being clothed with incorruption, and making it as
it had been formed in the beginning. For this reason he immediately adds, “so
that mortality may be swallowed up by life.” I do not groan therefore because I
lay aside the body, but because I have not clothed it with incorruption and
eternal life.
And it is not only here evident
that “εφ’ ω” (“in this”) signifies cause, but also from
the very sense of the saying under consideration. For he says, since Adam
sinned and was afterwards condemned to death, therefore also the race that
sprang from him received death. And not simply, he says, and without judgment,
but “because all sinned,” that is, “because all sinned as the one who begot
them.” For this made them also sharers of the punishment. That is, participation
in the act led them also to participation in the condemnation. (Photius, The
Collected Amphilochia, 3 vols. [trans. Nun Christina; 2025], 2:273)
