The faith of Abraham, from which the creation story came from, doesn’t interpret the story of Adam and Eve as having to do with original sin.
It was people like St. Augustine of Hippo who later developed the doctrine of original sin. I’m sure most of you are aware of his hedonistic lifestyle and subsequent conversion and repentance. I am starting to wonder if his teachings and interpretations were heavily colored and influenced by his immense guilt of his past sinful lifestyle leading to harsh teachings on sin.
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Though initially optimistic about the ability of humans to behave morally, at the end he is pessimistic, and thinks that original sin makes human moral behavior nearly impossible: if it were not for the rare appearance of an accidental and undeserved Grace of God, humans could not be moral.
iep.utm.edu/augustin
…but his struggle to achieve celibacy, as he documented in his autobiography, Confessions, was standard fare in the saintly struggle. What was distinctive in Augustine’s account was that he blamed himself, rather than the seductive temptations of the Devil, for his plight. Appropriately enough for the author of the creation story of a culture which would become focused on individual experience, lust led him to search within to understand sin’s inexorable grip, and from this intensely personal journey emerged an explanation for everyone’s desire to sin…
In 391, at the age of thirty-seven, Augustine became a priest in the North African town of Hippo, and in 395 was made bishop. It was not until the early fifth century, while immersed in a study of Genesis, that he expounded the doctrine which he had begun to set out in Confessions. Having limited Greek, Augustine adopted the mistranslation of Paul used in the fourth-century Latin Bible known as the Vulgate, which stated that ‘all men had sinned in Adam’, and he became ever more concerned to stress how much the original sin in the Garden of Eden had permanently corrupted human nature. Augustine drew heavily on custom, theology and tradition to buttress his case. He accepted that original sin was not fully expounded in the Bible, but was adamant that unless it was accepted, even good Christians would be tempted to seek salvation through holy living and end up in hell. Before they could be saved, he argued, a person must admit that they were wholly incapable of reforming themselves, so that they would rely only on the mercy of God: ‘One hope, one trust, one firm promise – your mercy.’
The obvious difficulty in Augustine’s account was how the transmission of sin occurred. This was to remain the subject of confused controversy for centuries to come – in fact, it would never be resolved – but Augustine kept his answer simple: semen was the culprit. Original sin, and the guilt and just judgement of God which followed from it, was physically transmitted via sexual intercourse to every human being. Only Jesus ‘alone of those who are born of a woman is holy…by reason of the novelty of His immaculate birth’, whereby the Holy Spirit ‘infused immaculate seed into [Mary’s] unviolated womb’.
Despite his grim view of human nature, Augustine did not despise the body, as many of his opponents suggested.
utne.com/mind-and-body/st-augustine-and-original-sin-ze0z1505zken?PageId=2
Thousands upon thousands of pages have been written on Augustine and his views. Given his influence, he is often canvassed for his opinion on controversies (from the Immaculate Conception of Mary to the ethics of contraception) that he barely imagined or could have spoken to. But the themes of imperial God and contingent self run deep and go far to explain his refusal to accept Manichaean doctrines of a powerful devil at war with God, Donatist particularism in the face of universal religion, or Pelagian claims of human autonomy and confidence. His views on sexuality and the place of women in society have been searchingly tested and found wanting in recent years, but they, too, have roots in the loneliness of a man terrified of his father—or his God.
In the end, Augustine and his own experience, so vividly displayed and at the same time veiled in his Confessions, disappear from view, to be replaced by the serene teacher depicted in medieval and Renaissance art. It is worth remembering that Augustine ended his life in the midst of a community that feared for its material well-being and chose to spend his last days in a room by himself, posting on a wall where he could see them the texts of the seven penitential Psalms, to wrestle one last time with his sins before meeting his maker.
britannica.com/biography/Saint-Augustine
