This might be a question for Duane as an Augustinian scholar.
Is the affect of the Latin Vulgate on Romans 5:12 as consequential upon the mutation of Original Sin into Original Guilt (universal) as devastating to the history of doctrine as it can seem? Augustine seemed to use a defective text to reach his massive conclusions.
That we are all born unable to not sin is not the same as to say we are all born guilty of Adam’s sin. Seems to have impact on baptism, Incarnation, and the dogmas concerning Mary … at the very least.
But unschooled thinkers catastrophize everything … open question for anyone to play
Yes, he mistranslated the passage and reversed cause and effect. Death is the inheritance and sin is the result, not the other way around.
Paul Axton is very good on this:
“The mistranslation of Ro 5:12 in the Latin Vulgate obscures (or in fact makes impossible) the meaning of the Greek original but it took the theological genius of Augustine to ensure that this fundamental error would shape Western theology. What Augustine provides is explanation for the mistranslation “in whom (i.e. Adam) all sinned”: “Nothing remains but to conclude that in the first man all are understood to have sinned, because all were in him when he sinned.” Whatever it means that all were in him when he sinned (Augustine will link it to sexual passion), in some way everyone is born guilty and damned in the eyes of God. Because they are guilty and damned or because they all sinned (mysteriously so even in Augustine’s account), death then spread to everyone. Even for those who have done nothing (infants – presumably upon conception), it is as if they have sinned. The mistranslation reverses cause and effect in Paul’s explanation, so that instead of death spreading to all and giving rise to sin, sin is made the cause of death such that anyone subject to death has to have been thought to have somehow sinned (in Paul’s language).
This mistranslation and misinterpretation make nonsense of Paul’s explanation of the propagation of sin through death and, as a result, in the history of the Western church, sin’s propagation is mostly left a mystery. It is the reign of death which accounts for the spread of sin and not vice versa. Interwoven throughout the passage is the universally observable truth that death reigns (“death spread to all men” v. 12; “death reigned” v. 14; “the many died” v. 15; “death reigned through the one” v. 17; “as sin reigned in death” v. 21). As Paul concludes in verse 21, “sin reigned in death” and not the other way around and it is this explanation for the propagation and work of sin (to say nothing of salvation) that he will build on for the next three chapters.
Original sin also directly contradicts what Paul says in verse 14: “death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who had not sinned in the manner of Adam.” In Paul’s explanation there are those who have not sinned as Adam did (there is no concept for Paul of everyone sinning “in Adam” before they exist) but death reigned even over these.
Sin’s struggle, in Paul’s explanation, is a struggle for existence in the face of the reality of death. In chapter 4 Abraham is depicted as relinquishing the struggle – though he is as good as dead due to his and Sarah’s age and childlessness – nonetheless they believed God could give them life (a son) and this belief is summed up as resurrection faith. It is not clear how resurrection faith would have anything to do with sin were it not for the fact that sin is the orientation to death (death denial) reversed in Abraham and Christ (death acceptance).
We have been so inundated with the notion of an original guilt equated with sin that it has obscured the open and obvious explanation of sin as an orientation to death. Sin reigns in death not simply because people are mortal or already guilty, but because sin arises in conjunction with death in which people deceive themselves into believing life can be had by other means. Life in and through the “I” or ego or life through the law (ch. 7), life in the tower of Babel (the implicit background of ch. 4), all amount to the lie Isaiah characterizes as the – Covenant with Death (Is. 28:15, a key reference for Paul). The irony of sin is that it is a taking up of death – a living death under the auspices of having life – and this deception is the definition of sin.”
By the way, this is a major difference between western and eastern Christianity…
This is excellent… very helpful. So even though the Reformers had better texts and translations they seemed to carry forward the idea of Original Guilt … with Augustine and an over zealous reading of Ps 139. If not the Reformers themselves most certainly their offspring.
It’s all yours today…
I hav nothing to say. Just wanted to be the first person to post on a thread. 🙂
Officerhappy! Well turn it! 😉
Well turn it? No, no ,”durn it!,,”
Hoppy, 🤪
Em, gotta love autocorrect… Not! 😁
David Lindley, RIP.
pstrmike
This one broke my heart…
Broke my heart too. Just in the last month or so we also lost Wayne Shorter, Jeff Beck, and David Crosby. I may have to give up playing music
Lynard Skynard’s original member Gary Rossington died.
This might be a question for Duane as an Augustinian scholar.
Is the affect of the Latin Vulgate on Romans 5:12 as consequential upon the mutation of Original Sin into Original Guilt (universal) as devastating to the history of doctrine as it can seem? Augustine seemed to use a defective text to reach his massive conclusions.
That we are all born unable to not sin is not the same as to say we are all born guilty of Adam’s sin. Seems to have impact on baptism, Incarnation, and the dogmas concerning Mary … at the very least.
But unschooled thinkers catastrophize everything … open question for anyone to play
This could be interesting…
*effect not affect
Alan
Yes, he mistranslated the passage and reversed cause and effect. Death is the inheritance and sin is the result, not the other way around.
Paul Axton is very good on this:
“The mistranslation of Ro 5:12 in the Latin Vulgate obscures (or in fact makes impossible) the meaning of the Greek original but it took the theological genius of Augustine to ensure that this fundamental error would shape Western theology. What Augustine provides is explanation for the mistranslation “in whom (i.e. Adam) all sinned”: “Nothing remains but to conclude that in the first man all are understood to have sinned, because all were in him when he sinned.” Whatever it means that all were in him when he sinned (Augustine will link it to sexual passion), in some way everyone is born guilty and damned in the eyes of God. Because they are guilty and damned or because they all sinned (mysteriously so even in Augustine’s account), death then spread to everyone. Even for those who have done nothing (infants – presumably upon conception), it is as if they have sinned. The mistranslation reverses cause and effect in Paul’s explanation, so that instead of death spreading to all and giving rise to sin, sin is made the cause of death such that anyone subject to death has to have been thought to have somehow sinned (in Paul’s language).
This mistranslation and misinterpretation make nonsense of Paul’s explanation of the propagation of sin through death and, as a result, in the history of the Western church, sin’s propagation is mostly left a mystery. It is the reign of death which accounts for the spread of sin and not vice versa. Interwoven throughout the passage is the universally observable truth that death reigns (“death spread to all men” v. 12; “death reigned” v. 14; “the many died” v. 15; “death reigned through the one” v. 17; “as sin reigned in death” v. 21). As Paul concludes in verse 21, “sin reigned in death” and not the other way around and it is this explanation for the propagation and work of sin (to say nothing of salvation) that he will build on for the next three chapters.
Original sin also directly contradicts what Paul says in verse 14: “death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who had not sinned in the manner of Adam.” In Paul’s explanation there are those who have not sinned as Adam did (there is no concept for Paul of everyone sinning “in Adam” before they exist) but death reigned even over these.
Sin’s struggle, in Paul’s explanation, is a struggle for existence in the face of the reality of death. In chapter 4 Abraham is depicted as relinquishing the struggle – though he is as good as dead due to his and Sarah’s age and childlessness – nonetheless they believed God could give them life (a son) and this belief is summed up as resurrection faith. It is not clear how resurrection faith would have anything to do with sin were it not for the fact that sin is the orientation to death (death denial) reversed in Abraham and Christ (death acceptance).
We have been so inundated with the notion of an original guilt equated with sin that it has obscured the open and obvious explanation of sin as an orientation to death. Sin reigns in death not simply because people are mortal or already guilty, but because sin arises in conjunction with death in which people deceive themselves into believing life can be had by other means. Life in and through the “I” or ego or life through the law (ch. 7), life in the tower of Babel (the implicit background of ch. 4), all amount to the lie Isaiah characterizes as the – Covenant with Death (Is. 28:15, a key reference for Paul). The irony of sin is that it is a taking up of death – a living death under the auspices of having life – and this deception is the definition of sin.”
By the way, this is a major difference between western and eastern Christianity…
This is excellent… very helpful. So even though the Reformers had better texts and translations they seemed to carry forward the idea of Original Guilt … with Augustine and an over zealous reading of Ps 139. If not the Reformers themselves most certainly their offspring.
Thank you …