to my Eastern Brethren

[Tanais]

It is obvious to me that there is a great misunderstanding of the differences between the Roman and Eastern concepts of original sin. Could you please explain to us what are the differences and why you hold to such views as opposed to our Augustinian one?

 

[Hesychios]

Tanais:

It is obvious to me that there is a great misunderstanding of the differences between the Roman and Eastern concepts of original sin. Could you please explain to us what are the differences and why you hold to such views as opposed to our Augustinian one?

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I myself don’t want to get too deep into this, I was told in no uncertain terms that there was no difference, yet here we are covering the same ground. But your question is sincere and I hope that some charitable individuals will address it this one last time and explain what the supposed differences are.

But the second part of the question is much easier to clearly address. You ask “why you hold to such views as opposed to our Augustinian one?”:

Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD)

Augustine was a convert to Christianity 300 years after Christ.

He did not read Greek, although he was a prolific author in Latin.

His understanding of Original Sin was unknown to earlier Christians, it was later the predominant opinion of the West.

The Eastern understanding by this reckoning preceeds the Western by 300 years, therefore the explanation for the difference will have to come from somewhere else. As far as Eastern Christians are concerned there is nothing to explain.

I am not trying to be rude here, although my writing style can sometimes make it seem that way. In all sincerity I would like to know why Augustine taught something new, if indeed he did teach something different from the Greek East.

I hope and pray that this will not be another flame war.

 

[Tanais]

Hesychios:

I hope and pray that this will not be another flame war.

I pray that too, I was just curious sense I have heard some many Eastern Rite Catholics mention how the understanding of original sin differs between East and West. All I seek is to understand how and why, I am not trying to start a war but to better understand my Eastern brethren.

 

[akemner]

Glory to Jesus Christ!

The Eastern view of Original Sin tends to be that it is the wounded human nature, and the resulting tendency to sin and die, that we inherit as a result of the Adam’s fall. Blessed Augustine’s* view was that Original Sin is the inherited fault and guilt of Adam, the stain of his sin (in other words, we are born with the actual sin of Adam).

I hope that is not too simplified, but i think these are the key emphases.

In Christ,
Adam

*In the East, Augustine is refered to as Blessed, not because he is somehow less a saint, but refers to a class of saint. Properly, we do not have three stages of canonization, but one-so the terms “Saint”, “Blessed”, and “Venerable” are all fully saints, but refer to different categories of saint (Venerable is used to refer to Confessors and Monks, for example; Blessed refers to Fool-for-Christ and saints of local veneration, &c.)

 

[OrthodoxXtian]

Blessed Augustine also used the faulty translation of Romans 5:12, the passage on which he based his teaching. When the orginal Greek is translated its reads ‘Therfore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and death spread to all in that (eph ho) all sinned’ The Latin whih Augstine used rendered epho ho (‘in that’) as in quo (‘in whom’, meaning ‘in Adam’. Thus the passge was misconcetrued as saying that all sinned in Adam, that all shared in the guilt of his orginal disobedience. This came fromOrthodox and Catholiism What are the differences? By Father Theodore Pulcini hope this if of some use