QUESTION: What is original sin and what does Baptism have to do with it?
ANSWER: We must distinguish between the original sin of our first parents Adam and Eve and the original sin that we have all inherited. In the first case, it is a committed original sin, and in the second, it is a received sin. The original sin committed by Adam and Eve was an act of pride. Our first parents, tempted by the devil, imagined themselves in the place of God, that is, they pretended to decide instead of Him what is good and what is evil. God forbade man to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “In the day that you eat from it, you will surely die,” God warned (Genesis 2:17).
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the insurmountable limit of man as a creature. And this limit must be recognized and respected with trust in God. Man depends on the Creator, he obeys the laws of creation and moral rules that regulate the use of freedom.
Man's original sin is disobedience to God's commandment and lack of trust in His goodness. And every human sin also carries with it this double stigma: disobedience to God and lack of trust in His goodness.
Original sin entailed numerous consequences: Adam and Eve, having disobeyed God, lost His friendship, the grace with which they shone and which made them like God. By disobeying God, they became disobedient towards themselves, and their relationships with others were also disrupted. People lost the power of the spirit over the body: they saw themselves naked and felt the need to protect their dignity with primitive clothing. Since the Fall, relations between man and woman have become tense: Adam and Eve immediately began to blame each other. Their relationship also included mutual enslavement.
Having lost unity with God, the source of life, people doomed themselves to death and all the circumstances that prepare for it, that is, suffering, inconvenience, illness. Thus death entered the history of mankind.
Adam and Eve stand at the origins of the human race. And just as a contaminated well can only produce contaminated water, a humanity corrupted by sin produces an equally corrupt humanity. This is the received original sin, which all people inherit.
As for the transmission of the sin of Adam and Eve to their offspring, there are no explicit statements about this in the Old Testament, but the concept of the transmission of original sin is present in the Book of Genesis and in subsequent books of Holy Scripture: they show that the disobedience of the first parents gave rise to not only physical and material disastrous consequences , but also moral: hatred, revenge, greed, envy, fornication and so on.
The doctrine of original sin is clearly stated in the New Testament. St. Paul writes, addressing the Romans: “Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom 5:12). And again: “Both Jews and Greeks are all under sin” (3:9). That is why all people need salvation, which is given only by Jesus Christ: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God offered as a propitiation by His blood through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness in the forgiveness of sins previously committed" (Rom. 3:23 ff.).
The doctrine of original sin has occupied an important place in Christian catechesis from the very beginning of the Church. And the first who, based on three arguments, developed the doctrine of original sin was St. Augustine. These three arguments are Holy Scripture (the Book of Genesis and the Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul, as we have already discussed); the practice of infant baptism, which was, of course, based on the conviction that children are born not in a state of innocence, but in a state of sin; and, finally, the universal experience of evil and pain, which clearly testifies to the universal guilt of which every person is an accomplice.
The doctrine of St. Augustine became one of the core aspects of Catholic theology. In turn, St. Thomas Aquinas reflects it in his writings, placing greater emphasis not on the tendency to evil, but on the absence of sanctifying grace (provided by God for all people).
Let us quote from the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“Man, seduced by the devil, allowed trust in the Creator to die in his heart and, disobeying Him, wished to become “like god” without God, and not to live according to the will of God (Genesis 3:5). So Adam and Eve immediately lost – both for themselves and for all their descendants – the primordial grace of holiness and righteousness.”
Original sin, in which all people are born, is a state of deprivation of original holiness and righteousness. This sin is “received” by us, not “committed”; This is a state from birth, not a personal act. Due to the unity of the human race, it is transmitted from Adam to descendants along with human nature, “not by imitation, but by procreation.” This transmission remains a mystery that we cannot fully understand.
As a result of original sin, human nature, while not being completely corrupted, is damaged in its natural powers and is subject to ignorance, suffering, the power of death, and prone to sin. This tendency is called lust.
After the first sin, the world was flooded with sins, but God did not leave man in the power of death, but, on the contrary, mysteriously predicted - in the First Gospel (Genesis 3:15) - that evil would be defeated, and man would be raised from his fallen state. This is the first proclamation of the Messiah the Redeemer. Therefore, the Fall will even be called a happy fault, since it “deserved such a glorious Redeemer.”
Original sin represents the violation of God's commandment to obey by the first humans, Adam and Eve. This event led to their exclusion from the state of godlike and immortal. It is considered sinful, entered into human nature and transmitted at the moment of birth from mother to child. Liberation from original sin occurs in the sacrament of Baptism.
A little historyOriginal sin in Christianity occupies a significant part of the teaching, since all the troubles of mankind came from it. There is quite a lot of information that describes all the concepts of this act of the first people.
Fall is the loss of an exalted state, that is, life in God. Adam and Eve had such a state in Paradise, in contact with the highest Good, with God. If Adam had then resisted temptation, he would have become absolutely unyielding to evil and would never have left paradise. Having betrayed his destiny, he forever departed from unity with God and became mortal.
The first type of mortality was the death of the soul, which departed from divine grace. After Jesus Christ saved the human race, we again got the chance to return divinity to our lives full of sin, to do this we just need to fight them.
Atonement for original sin in ancient timesIn the old days, this happened through sacrifice in order to correct the grievances and insults caused to the gods. Often all kinds of animals acted as redeemers, but sometimes they were also people. In Christian teaching, it is generally accepted that human nature is sinful. Although scientists have proven that in the Old Testament, namely in the places dedicated to the description of the fall of the first people, nothing is written about the “original sin” of humanity, nor that it was passed on to subsequent generations of people, nor anything about redemption. This suggests that in ancient times all sacrificial rituals had an individual character; they used to atone for their personal sins in this way. This is written in all the sacred scriptures of Islam and Judaism.
Christianity, after borrowing many ideas from other traditions, accepted this dogma. Gradually, information about “original sin” and “the redemptive mission of Jesus” became firmly integrated into the teaching, and its denial began to be considered heresy.
What does original sin mean?
The original state of man bore the ideal source of divine bliss. After Adam and Eve sinned in Paradise, they lost their spiritual health and became not only mortal, but also learned what suffering is.
St. Augustine considered the Fall and Redemption to be the two main foundations of Christian doctrine. The first doctrine of salvation was interpreted by the Orthodox Church for a long time.
Its essence was as follows:
Their perfection prevented them from falling into sin on their own, but Satan helped them. It is this neglect of the commandment that is included in the concept of original sin. As a punishment for disobedience, people began to experience hunger, thirst, fatigue,... The guilt is then passed from mother to child at the time of birth. Jesus Christ was born in such a way as to remain free from this sin. However, in order to fulfill his mission on Earth, he accepted its consequences. All this was done in order to die for people and thereby save the next generations from sin.
Etc.) allegorical arbitrariness led to the fact that the very historical fact of the fall of the first people began to be rejected, and the description of the fall was perceived as “a myth, or a symbolic expression of the idea of the cultural and historical progress of mankind, rising from the lowest stage of complete mental and moral indifference to the ability distinguish good from evil, truth from error" (Pokrovsky A. The Fall of the Forefathers // PBE. T. 4. P. 776), or as “a turning, critical moment in the history of mankind on the path of its evolution from an animal to a higher state” (The Fall // Myths of the peoples of the world. M., 1987. T. 1. P. 321). Dr. Variants of interpretation of Genesis 3 recognize the historical nature of the biblical story, but do not perceive this story in the usual, modern way. sense of the word. “This is rather a spiritual history... where events of ancient times are conveyed in the language of images, symbols, visual pictures” (Men A., Archpriest Isagogy: Old Testament. M., 2000. P. 104).
The fall of Adam and Eve is a violation of one of the Divine commandments prescribed to the first people in paradise. “And the Lord God made out of the ground every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” says the biblical story... “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: From every tree You will eat in the garden, but do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat from it you will die” (Genesis 2:9, 16-17). The writer of everyday life expresses the content of the commandment through the image of a tree, characteristic of the consciousness of ancient man. With its help, as a rule, “general binary semantic oppositions are brought together that serve to describe the basic parameters of the world” or the connection between the heavenly (divine) and the earthly (Toporov V. N. The World Tree // Myths of the Peoples of the World. P. 398-406) . The tree of life, the fruits of which served as “food for immortality,” symbolized the unity of God and man, thanks to which the latter became a participant in eternal life. Human nature in itself did not possess immortality; she could live only with the help of Divine grace, the source of which is God. In its existence, it is not autonomous and can realize itself only by being in unity with God and in communion with Him. Therefore, the symbol of the tree of life appears not only in the first chapters of the book. Being. It finds continuation in another tree - the “tree of the cross”, the fruits of which - the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ - become for Christians the new “food of immortality” and the source of eternal life.
The name of the other tree of paradise - “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” - is lit. translation of ancient Hebrew , where (good and bad, good and evil) is an idiom translated as “all” (for example: “... I cannot transgress the commandment of the Lord to do anything good or bad according to my own will” (Num. 24. 13); “... my lord the king is like an angel of God, and is able to listen to both good and bad” (2 Kings 14.17); “... God will bring every deed into judgment, and every secret thing, whether it is good or bad" (Ecclesiastes 12:14)). Therefore, the 2nd tree of paradise is the “tree of the knowledge of all things,” or simply “the tree of knowledge.” The prohibition to eat its fruits may cause bewilderment, since everything that God created is “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Accordingly, the tree of knowledge was also “good,” the fruits of which did not contain anything harmful to humans. The symbolic function that the tree performed in relation to man helps to resolve this bewilderment. There are sufficient reasons to perceive this tree symbolically, since in ancient times it often acted as a symbol of knowledge of the universe. However, God does not prohibit learning about the world around us. Moreover, “contemplation of creations” (Rom 1:20) is in direct connection with the knowledge of the Creator Himself. What kind of prohibition are we talking about in this case? The ancient Hebrew helps answer this question. the verb “to know” (), often meaning “to own”, “to be able to”, “to possess” (cf.: “Adam knew () Eve his wife; and she conceived..." - Gen. 4. 1). The commandment forbade not the knowledge of the world, but the unauthorized possession of it, achieved by eating forbidden fruits, which led to man’s usurpation of power over the world, independent of God. With the help of the commandment, a person had to be involved in the process of education, which was necessary for him, for he was only at the beginning of the path of his improvement. On this path, obedience to God as one’s Father not only served as a guarantee of a person’s loyalty to God, but was also an indispensable condition for the only possible comprehensive development of a person called to live not in selfish self-isolation, but in love, communication and unity with God and with people.
The account of the Fall in Genesis 3 begins with a description of the temptation of the serpent addressed to Eve. Most of the fathers and teachers of the Church who commented on the fall of the first people claim that the devil appeared before man in the form of a serpent. Some of them refer to the text of Revelation: “And the great dragon was cast out, that ancient serpent, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world, he was cast out to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Rev 12:9). Regarding the serpent itself, the writer only notes that he “was more cunning than all the beasts of the field that the Lord God created” (Genesis 3.1). As for language as a means of communication, which, according to the biblical text, the serpent used, biblical commentators rightly note that the gift of speech can only belong to a rational being, which the serpent could not be. St. John of Damascus draws attention to the fact that the relationship between man and the animal world before the Fall was more lively, close and relaxed than after it. Using them, snakes, according to the remark of St. John, “as if he was talking to him (that is, to a person - M.I.)” (Ioan. Damasc. De fide orth. II 10).
“And the serpent said to the woman, Did God truly say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3.1). The first appeal of the devil to man, expressed in a questioning form, shows that the devil chooses different tactics of temptation compared to the one he used when seducing the angels into direct and open rebellion against God. Now he does not call for such an uprising, but tries to deceive people. Eve's answer to the devil's question indicates that the first people were well aware of how they should use the fruits of the trees of paradise (Gen. 3.2-3). At the same time, the addition contained in this answer - “and do not touch them” (i.e., the fruits of the tree of knowledge), which is absent in the commandment itself, raises the suspicion that in the relationship with God of the first people there was already an element of fear . And “he who is afraid,” as the apostle notes. John the Theologian is imperfect in love” (1 John 4:18). The devil does not seek to dispel Eve's fear by using it for the purpose of deception. “And the serpent said to the woman: No, you will not die; but God knows that on the day you eat of them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (i.e., knowing everything) (Gen. 3.4-5). The devil’s suggestion is aimed at one goal: to convince the first parents that eating from the tree of knowledge, the fruits of which will give them a new and unlimited ability to possess, can give them complete power over the world, independent of God. The deception was a success, and the temptation took effect. Love for God changes in Eve to lust for the tree. She looks at him enchanted and contemplates in him something that she has never seen before. She saw “that the tree is good for food, and that it is pleasant to the eyes and desirable because it gives knowledge; and she took of its fruit and ate; And she gave it also to her husband, and he ate” (Genesis 3:6). What happened next was what the devil predicted to the first parents in an ironic form: “your eyes will be opened” (Gen. 3.5). Their eyes did open, but only to see their own nakedness. If before the fall the first people contemplated the beauty of their body, because they lived with God - the source of this beauty, then, according to St. Andrew of Crete, having moved away from God (cf.: 1st canon of the Great Canon of Andrew of Crete), they saw how weak and defenseless they were in themselves. The seal of sin made the nature of man dual: without completely losing the gifts of God, man partially retained the beauty of his image and at the same time brought into his nature the ugliness of sin.
In addition to discovering their own nakedness, the ancestors felt other consequences of the sin committed. Their idea of the omniscient God changes, as a result of which, having heard “the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise during the cool of the day,” they hid “between the trees of paradise” (Gen. 3.8). Regarding the anthropomorphism of this verse, St. John Chrysostom remarks: “What are you saying? God walks? Are you going to attribute your feet to Him? No, God does not walk! What do these words mean? He wanted to arouse in them such a feeling of the closeness of God as to plunge them into anxiety, which in fact was the case” (Ioan. Chrysost. In Gen. 17. 1). The words of the Lord addressed to Adam: “Where are you?” (Genesis 3.9), “Who told you that you were naked? have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?” (Genesis 3.11) - and to Eve: “What have you... done?” (Genesis 3.13), created a favorable precondition for repentance. However, the first people did not take advantage of this opportunity, which further complicated their situation. Eve places responsibility on the serpent (Genesis 3.13), and Adam - on Eve, “whom,” as he deliberately emphasizes, “You gave to me” (Genesis 3.12), thereby indirectly blaming God Himself for what happened. The ancestors, therefore, did not take advantage of repentance, which could have prevented the spread of sin or to some extent reduced its consequences. The Lord God's response to the violation of the commandment by the first people sounds like a sentence determining the punishment for the sin committed (Gen. 3. 14-24). However, it is not such, since its content only reflects the consequences that inevitably arise when the norms of created existence are violated. By committing any sin, a person thereby, according to St. John Chrysostom, punishes himself (Ioan. Chrysost. Ad popul. Antioch. 6. 6).
The divine definition caused by the first sin begins with an appeal to the serpent, through which the devil acted: “...cursed are you above all cattle and above all the beasts of the field; You will go on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:14). St. John Chrysostom foresees the question that inevitably arises in this case: “If the devil gave advice, using a serpent as an instrument, then why was this animal subjected to such punishment.” This bewilderment is resolved by comparing Heavenly Father with a father whose beloved son was killed. “Punishing the murderer of his son,” writes St. John, - (father - M.I.) breaks the knife and sword with which he committed the murder, and breaks them into small pieces.” The “child-loving God,” grieving for the fallen ancestors, does the same and punishes the serpent, who has become “an instrument of the devil’s malice” (Ioan. Chrysost. In Gen. 17.6). Blzh. Augustine believes that God in this case turns not to the serpent, but to the devil and curses him (Aug. De Gen. 36). From the fate of the snake, the writer of everyday life moves on to man and describes his life. fate in conditions of sinful existence. “He (God. - M.I.) said to the woman: I will multiply and multiply your sorrow in your pregnancy; in illness you will give birth to children; and your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). The expression “by multiplying I will multiply” used in this verse is not characteristic of Russian. language, the Hebrew literally conveys. . Turns of this kind are characteristic of Biblical Hebrew. They are usually used to emphasize or strengthen the described action, to show its certainty or immutability (cf. Gen. 2.17). Therefore, “by multiplying I will multiply” in Gen. 3.16 can be understood as an indication of the special strength of the suffering of a woman who finds herself in a world lying in evil (cf. 1 John 5.19), and as evidence of a violation of the harmony of human nature, manifested in disorder relations between the sexes and people in general.
In the words of the Lord addressed to Adam, the biblical text describes the consequences that the Fall had for the surrounding nature and the relationship between it and man. Having taken a place in Adam’s soul, the “thorns and thistles” of sin spread throughout the earth (Genesis 3:18). The earth is “cursed” (Gen. 3.17), which means that a person will be forced to earn his own bread “by the sweat of his brow,” that is, to work hard (Gen. 3.19).
In the “skin garments” in which the first people were clothed after the Fall (Gen. 3.21), the exegetical tradition coming from Philo of Alexandria (Philo. De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini. 139) sees a generalized idea of the consequences of G. p. “What we received from the skin of the dumb,” writes St. Gregory, bishop Nyss, is carnal mixture, conception, birth, uncleanness, breasts, food, eruption... old age, illness, death” (Greg. Nyss. Dial. de anima et resurr. // PG. 46. Col. 148). In the interpretation of this concept sschmch. Methodius, bishop Patarsky is more laconic: by dressing the first people in “clothes of leather,” God clothed them with “mortality” (Method. Olymp. De resurrection. 20). ““Robes,” notes V.N. Lossky in this regard, “is our current nature, our rough biological state, so different from the transparent heavenly physicality” (Lossky V. Dogmatic Theology. P. 247).
Man has broken the connection with the source of life, therefore eating from the tree of life as a symbol of immortality from now on becomes unnatural for him: by eating the fruits of immortality, a mortal would only intensify his suffering, transferring it to infinity (cf. Gen. 3.22). Death must put an end to such a life. Divine “punishment educates: it is better for a person to die, that is, to be separated from the tree of life, than to consolidate his monstrous position in eternity. His very mortality will awaken in him repentance, that is, the possibility of new love. But the universe preserved in this way is still not the true world: an order in which there is a place for death remains a catastrophic order” (Lossky V. Dogmatic Theology. P. 253). The first people were expelled from paradise in the hope of the promise of the “seed” of the woman (Gen. 3.15), thanks to Krom, according to the thought of the blessed one. Augustine, a new paradise will appear on earth, that is, the Church (Aug. De Gen. XI 40).
Consequences of the sin of the first people
Due to the genetic unity of the human race, the consequences of genetic history affected not only Adam and Eve, but also their offspring. Therefore, the morbidity, decay and mortality of the human nature of the forefathers, who found themselves in conditions of sinful existence, did not become only their lot: they are inherited by all people, regardless of whether they are righteous or sinners. “Who will be born clean from an unclean person? - asks the rights. Job himself answers: “Not one” (Job 14.4). In New Testament times, this sad fact is confirmed by St. Paul: “...just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men...” (Rom 5:12).
The sin of the first people and its consequences. Augustine called “original sin” - this gave rise to significant differences in the understanding of what Adam and Eve did and what the human race inherited from them. One understanding led to the fact that all people began to attribute the crime of their ancestors as a personal sin, for which they are guilty and for which they bear responsibility. However, this understanding of G. p. is in clear contradiction with Christ. anthropology, according to which a person is charged with guilt only for what he, as an individual, does freely and consciously. Therefore, although the sin of the first parents has a direct impact on every person, personal responsibility for it cannot be assigned to anyone other than Adam and Eve themselves.
Supporters of this interpretation rely on the words of Rom 5.12, which ap. Paul concludes: “... because in him all have sinned,” understanding them as teaching about the complicity of all people in the sin of the first created Adam. This is how the blessed one understood this text. Augustine. He repeatedly emphasized that all people were in an embryonic state in Adam: “We were all in him alone, when we were all him alone... We did not yet have a separate existence and a special form in which each of us could live separately; but there was already the nature of the seed from which we were to come” (Aug. De civ. Dei. XIII 14). The sin of the first man is at the same time the sin of each and every one “on the basis of conception and origin (per jure seminationis atque germinationis)” (Aug. Op. imperf. contr. Jul. I 48). Being in the “nature of the seed,” all people, as the blessed one asserted. Augustine, “in Adam... we sinned when all were that one person on the basis of the ability to have offspring invested in his nature” (Aug. De peccat. merit. et remiss. III 7). Using the expression of the prot. Sergius Bulgakov, who in the main provisions accepted the teaching of the Bishop of Hippo about G. p., one can say that for the bl. Augustine, all human hypostases are only “different hypostatic aspects of a certain multi-unit hypostasis of the whole Adam” (Bulgakov S. Bride of the Lamb. P., 1945. P. 202). Error blzh. Augustine is anthropological in nature: the first person, as a hypostasis, is fundamentally different from any other person, while the Orthodox. Anthropology singles out Adam among others. people only because he was the first among them and was born not in the act of birth, but in the act of creation.
However, this interpretation of Rom 5.12 is not the only possible one due to the polysemy of the construction ἐφ᾿ ᾧ used here, which can be understood not only as a combination of a preposition with a relative pronoun, i.e. “in it (ἐφή ᾧ) all sinned” , but also as a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, i.e. “because all have sinned” (cf. the use of ἐφ᾿ ᾧ in 2 Cor 5:4 and Phil 3:12). This is exactly how Rome 5. 12 was understood. Theodoret, bishop Cyrus (Theodoret. In Rom. II 5. 12), and St. Photius K-Polish (Phot. Ep. 84).
Those who recognize the responsibility of all people for the sin of Adam to substantiate their opinion usually use, in addition to Romans 5. 12 and other biblical texts - Deut. 5. 9, in which God appears as “a jealous God, punishing children for the guilt of the fathers to the third and fourth generation those who hate" Him. However, lit. understanding of this text contradicts another text of the Holy Scripture. Scriptures - 18th chapter. Books of the prophet Ezekiel, which presents two positions on the problem of responsibility for the sin of others: the Jewish one, reflected in the proverb “The fathers ate sour grapes, but the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ezekiel 18.2), and God Himself, who rebuked the Jews for their erroneous understanding of the consequences of sin. The main provisions of this reproof are expressed with utmost clarity: “...if anyone has a son, who, seeing all the sins of his father that he commits, sees and does not do the like of them... (no. - M.I.) fulfills My commandments and walks according to My commandments, this one will not die for the iniquity of his father; he will be alive. ...You say: “Why does not the son bear the guilt of his father?” Because the son acts lawfully and righteously, keeps all My statutes and fulfills them; he will be alive. The soul that sins, it will die; the son will not bear the guilt of the father, and the father will not bear the guilt of the son; the righteousness of the righteous remains with him, and the iniquity of the wicked remains with him” (Ezek 18:14, 17-20). Following, the text of Deut. 5.9 does not contain letters. sense. This is evidenced by the fact that the text does not speak about all children, but only about those who hate God. In addition, the text mentions the generation from which wicked children come, which gives reason to see in it evidence not of the punishment of children for the sins of their parents, but of the consequences of generational sin (see Art. Sin).
The absence of legal responsibility of descendants for the sins of their ancestors does not mean that each person suffers only due to his own, that is, personal, sins, while remaining absolutely free from spiritual and moral responsibility for the moral state of other people. Humanity is not a mechanism consisting of separate individuals who are not spiritually connected to each other. In the broadest sense of the word, it can be called a single family, since it came from the same ancestors - Adam and Eve, which gives grounds to also call it “the human race”: “From one blood He made the whole human race to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17.26; cf.: Matthew 12.50; 1 John 3.1-2). Characteristic of Christ. anthropology, the idea of the unity of the human race has another basis: people were born (descended) from Adam and in this sense everyone is his children, but at the same time they were reborn by Jesus Christ (cf.: “... who will do the will of the Father My heavenly one, he is My brother, and sister, and mother” - Matthew 12:50) and in this sense are “children of God” (1 John 3:1-2).
Anthropological unity is not limited to the generic principle underlying it. Dr. and at the same time, the more important factor creating human unity is love - the main law of the existence of the created world. This law underlies created existence, because God Himself, who called the world out of non-existence, is Love (1 John 4:16). It is love, and not legal responsibility, that is the main driving force for people of great faith and special fortitude in their boldness to save their fellow men. Such love is limitless: those driven by it are ready to go to the last line. “This people... made themselves a golden god,” says the prophet. Moses, beseeching the Lord, forgive them their sin, and if not, then blot me out of Your book..." (Exodus 32:31-32). A similar grief haunted the apostle. Paul: “... great sorrow for me and unceasing torment of my heart: I myself would like to be excommunicated from Christ for my brothers who are related to me according to the flesh...” (Rom 9. 2-3). Prophet Moses and the ap. Paul is guided not by narrow legal ideas about sin, requiring retribution imposed on descendants, but by bold love for the children of God living in a single human organism, in which “if one member suffers, all members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it” (1 Cor 12:26).
In the history of Christ. The Church knows of cases when individual ascetics or even entire monies, in an effort to help a person free himself from the burden of sin, shared with him the heavy burden of his sins and carried it as their own, begging God to forgive the sinner and help him take the path of spiritual rebirth. The highest Christ. the sacrifice shown in this case also indicates that the problem of sin and the fight against it is solved in such cases not in the categories of law, but through the manifestation of compassionate love. A sinful burden voluntarily accepted by Christ. Ascetics, naturally, did not make them guilty before God. The problem of guilt generally receded into the background, because the main goal was not to remove guilt from the sinner, but to eradicate sin itself. Sin causes double harm to a person: on the one hand, it powerfully subjugates him, making him his slave (John 8.34), and on the other, it inflicts a severe spiritual wound on him. Both of these can lead to the fact that a person who is entrenched in sin, although he wants to break out of its shackles, will practically no longer be able to do this on his own. Only one who is ready to lay down “his life for his friends” (John 15:13) can help him. Seeing the spiritual suffering of a sinner, he shows him, as his brother, compassionate love and provides spiritual assistance, entering into his plight, sharing his pain with him and boldly praying to God for his salvation. According to schema. Zosima (Verkhovsky), “sins and stumblings... are made common in the following way: those who have succeeded... and established... in love, while sick, cry out to the Lord about the sinner and the one who is exhausted: Lord, if you have mercy on him, have mercy; If not, then blot me and him out of the book of life. And again: seek upon us, Lord, his fall; Have mercy on your weak brother! And for this reason, they apply labor to labor and feats to feats, in every possible way... exhausting themselves for their brother’s mistakes, supposedly for their own.” The love of the monks of the monastery for their brother who is weak in spirit evokes in him such strong reciprocal love that he, as the schema notes. Zosima, is ready to lose his own life, “rather than be separated from such lovingly friendly brethren” (Senior councils of some domestic ascetics of piety of the 18th-19th centuries. M., 1913. pp. 292-293).
Patristic teaching on G. p.
The problem of sin, being an integral part of the problem of soteriology, occupies a central place in the patristic heritage. At the same time, its solution, as a rule, begins with a discussion of the biblical legend about G. p. In the context of this legend, the fathers and teachers of the Church reflect on good and evil, on life and death, on the nature of man before and after the Fall, on the consequences of sin in the environment world, etc.
This problem attracted the attention of the first apologists of the Church. Yes, martyr. Justin the Philosopher, contrary to the Hellenistic ideas about the immortality of the soul that were widespread in his time, argued that the soul “if it lives, it lives not because it is life, but because it participates in life” (Iust. Martyr. Dial. 6). As a Christian, he confessed God as the only source of life, in whose communion only all things can live. The soul is no exception in this regard; in itself it is not the source of life, because man possesses it as a gift received from God at his creation. Mch. Justin said almost nothing about the fate of the soul that has lost unity with God. He only asserted that such a soul dies. The dead soul, which nevertheless continues to exist, is not the object of his observation.
Lit.: Yastrebov M. The teaching of the Augsburg Confession and its Apology on original sin. K., 1877; Macarius. Orthodox dogmatic theology. T. 1; Sylvester [Malevansky], bishop. Theology. K., 18983. T. 3; Kremlevsky A. Original sin according to the teachings of the blessed one. Augustine of Ippona. St. Petersburg, 1902; Lyonnet S. De peccato originali: Rom 5. 12-21. R., 1960; Dubarle A. M. The Biblical Doctrine of Original Sin. N. Y., 1964; Schoonenberg P. Man and Sin. Notre Dame (Ind.), 1965; Znosko-Borovsky M., prot. Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and Sectarianism. N.Y., 19722. Serg. P., 1992r; Westminster Confession of Faith: 1647-1648. M., 1995; Biffy J. I Believe: Catechism of the Catholic Church. M., 1996; Calvin J. Instruction in the Christian Faith. M., 1997. T. 1. Book. 1-2; Book of Concord: Confession and Doctrine of the Lutheran Church. [M.]; Duncanville, 1998; Erickson M. Christian theology. St. Petersburg, 1999; Tyshkevich S., priest. Catholic Catechism. Harbin, 1935; Tillich P. Systematic theology. M.; St. Petersburg, 2000. T. 1-2; Christian doctrine. St. Petersburg, 2002.
M. S. Ivanov
Adam and Eve- the first people created by God on earth.
The name Adam means man, son of the Earth. The name Adam is often identified with the word man. The expression “sons of Adam” means “sons of men.” The name Eve is the giver of life. Adam and Eve are the progenitors of the human race.
A description of the life of Adam and Eve can be read in the first book of the Bible - in chapters 2 - 4 (audio recordings are also available on the pages).
Creation of Adam and Eve.
Alexander Sulimov. Adam and EveAdam and Eve were created by God in His likeness on the sixth day of creation. Adam was created "from the dust of the ground." God gave him a soul. According to the Jewish calendar, Adam was created in 3760 BC. e.
God settled Adam in the Garden of Eden and allowed him to eat fruit from any tree except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam had to cultivate and maintain the Garden of Eden, and also give names to all the animals and birds created by God. Eve was created as Adam's helper.
The creation of Eve from Adam's rib emphasizes the idea of the duality of man. The text of Genesis emphasizes that “it is not good for man to be alone.” The creation of a wife is one of God’s main plans - to ensure a person’s life in love, for “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
The first man is the crown of the world created by God. He has royal dignity and is the ruler of the newly created world.
Where was the Garden of Eden?
We are already accustomed to the appearance of sensational reports that the place where the Garden of Eden was located has been found. Of course, the location of each “discovery” is different from the previous one. The Bible describes the area around the garden, and even uses recognizable place names, such as Ethiopia, and the names of four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates. This led many, including Bible scholars, to conclude that the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in the Middle East region known today as the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley.
Today, there are several versions of the location of the Garden of Eden, none of which has solid evidence.
Temptation.
It is unknown how long Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden (according to the Book of Jubilees, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden for 7 years) and were in a state of purity and innocence.
The serpent, who “was more cunning than all the beasts of the field that the Lord God had created,” used tricks and cunning to convince Eve to try the fruit of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve refuses, citing God, who forbade them to eat from this tree and promised death to anyone who tasted this fruit. The serpent tempts Eve, promising that, having tasted the fruit, people will not die, but will become Gods who know Good and Evil. It is known that Eve could not stand the temptation and committed the first sin.
Why does the snake act as a symbol of evil?
The serpent is an important image in ancient pagan religions. Because snakes shed their skin, they were often symbolized with rebirth, including nature's cycles of life and death. Therefore, the image of a snake was used in fertility rituals, especially those associated with seasonal cycles.
For the Jewish people, the snake was a symbol of polytheism and paganism, the natural enemy of Yahweh and monotheism.
Why did Sinless Eve allow herself to be deceived by the serpent?
Comparison, albeit indirect, between man and God led to the emergence of anti-God sentiments and curiosity in the soul of Eve. It is precisely these sentiments that push Eve to intentionally violate God’s commandment.
The co-cause of the Fall of Adam and Eve was their free will. Violation of God's commandment was only suggested to Adam and Eve, but not imposed. Both husband and wife participated in their fall of their own free will, for outside of free will there is no sin and no evil. The devil only incites sin, but does not force it.
The story of the Fall.
Lucas Cranach the Elder. Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, unable to withstand the temptation to which they were exposed by the devil (Snake), committed the first sin. Adam, carried away by his wife, violated the commandment of God and ate from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thus Adam and Eve incurred the wrath of the Creator. The first sign of sin was a constant feeling of shame and futile attempts to hide from God. Called by the Creator, they laid the blame: Adam - on the wife, and the wife - on the serpent.
The fall of Adam and Eve is fateful for all humanity. By the fall, the Theanthropic order of life was broken and the devil-human order was adopted; people wanted to become Gods, bypassing God. By the Fall, Adam and Eve introduced themselves into sin and sin into themselves and all their descendants.
Original sin– a person’s rejection of the goal of life determined by God - becoming like God. Original sin contains in germ all the future sins of mankind. Original sin contains the essence of all sin - its beginning and nature.
The consequences of the sin of Adam and Eve affected all of humanity, which inherited from them human nature corrupted by sin.
Expulsion from paradise.
God expelled Adam and Eve from paradise so that they would cultivate the earth from which Adam was created and eat the fruits of their labors. Before the exile, God made clothes for people so that they could cover their shame. God placed a Cherub with a flaming sword in the east of the Garden of Eden to guard the path to the tree of life. It is sometimes believed that the cherub armed with a sword was the Archangel Michael, the guardian at the gates to heaven. According to the second version, it was the Archangel Uriel.
Two punishments awaited Eve and all her daughters after the Fall. First, God increased Eve's pain in childbirth. Second, God said that the relationship between a man and a woman will always be characterized by conflict (Genesis 3:15 - 3:16). These punishments happen again and again in the lives of every woman throughout history. Regardless of all our medical advances, childbirth is always a painful and stressful experience for a woman. And no matter how advanced and progressive our society is, in the relationship between a man and a woman there can be seen the struggle for power and the struggle of the sexes, full of discord.
Children of Adam and Eve.
It is known for certain that Adam and Eve had 3 sons and an unknown number of daughters. The names of the daughters of the forefathers are not recorded in the Bible, since, according to ancient tradition, the family was traced through the male line.
The fact that Adam and Eve had daughters is evidenced by the text of the Bible:
The days of Adam after he begat Seth were eight hundred years, and he begat sons and daughters.
The first sons of Adam and Eve were. Cain, out of envy, kills Abel, for which he was expelled and settled separately with his wife. From the Bible it is known about six generations of the Tribe of Cain; further information is not traced; it is believed that the descendants of Cain died during the Great Flood.
He was the third son of Adam and Eve. Noah was a descendant of Seth.
According to the Bible, Adam lived 930 years. According to Jewish legend, Adam rests in Judea, next to the patriarchs; according to Christian legend, on Golgotha.
The fate of Eve is unknown, however, in the apocryphal “Life of Adam and Eve” it is said that Eve dies 6 days after the death of Adam, having bequeathed to her children to carve the life history of the first people in stone.
How can we explain why the original sin committed by Adam and Eve was passed on to their descendants?
Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) answers:
The sin of the ancestors had a profound impact on human nature, which determined the entire subsequent life of mankind, because man created by God wished consciously and freely, instead of the will of God, to establish his own will as the main principle of life. The attempt of created nature to establish itself in its own autonomy grossly distorted the divine creative plan and led to the violation of the divinely established order. The inevitable logical consequence of this was a falling away from the Source of Life. Being outside of God for the human spirit is death in the direct and precise meaning of the word. Saint Gregory of Nyssa writes that he who is outside of God inevitably remains outside of light, outside of life, outside of incorruption, for all this is concentrated only in God. Moving away from the Creator, a person becomes the property of darkness, corruption and death. According to the same saint, it is impossible for anyone to exist without being in Existing. Any person who sins commits Adam’s fall again and again.
In what way exactly has human nature been damaged as a result of the egoistic desire to establish one’s existence outside of God? First of all, all the gifts and abilities of man have weakened, they have lost the sharpness and strength that the primordial Adam had. The mind, feelings and will have lost their harmonious coherence. The will often manifests itself unreasonably. The mind often turns out to be weak-willed. A person’s feelings rule the mind and make him unable to see the true good of life. This loss of inner harmony in a person who has lost a single center of gravity is especially harmful in passions, which are malformed skills of satisfying some needs to the detriment of others. Due to the weakening of the spirit, sensual, carnal needs prevailed in man. Therefore St. The Apostle Peter instructs: Beloved! I ask you, as strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from carnal lusts that war against the soul(1 Peter 2:11). This is a revolt of the soul carnal lusts- one of the most tragic manifestations of fallen human nature, the source of most sins and crimes.
We all share in the consequences of original sin because Adam and Eve are our first parents. A father and mother, having given life to a son or daughter, can only give what they have. Adam and Eve could not give us either the primordial nature (they no longer had it) or the regenerated one. According to St. Apostle Paul: From one blood He brought forth the entire human race to live on all the face of the earth.(Acts 17:26). This tribal succession makes us heirs of original sin: Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, [because] all sinned in him(Rom. 5:12). Commenting on the above words of the chief apostle, Archbishop Theophan (Bystrov) writes: “This study shows that the holy Apostle clearly distinguishes two points in the doctrine of original sin: parabasis or crime and hamartia or sin. By the first we mean the personal transgression of the will of God by our forefathers in their failure to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; under the second - the law of sinful disorder, which has entered human nature as a consequence of this crime. When we talk about the heredity of original sin, what is meant is not parabasis or the crime of our first parents, for which they alone are responsible, but hamartia, that is, the law of sinful disorder that afflicted human nature due to the fall of our first parents, and “sinned” in 5:12 in such In this case, it must be understood not in the active voice in the sense of “they committed a sin,” but in the neutral voice, in the sense of verse 5:19: “they became sinners,” “they turned out to be sinners,” since human nature fell in Adam. Therefore St. John Chrysostom, the best expert on the authentic apostolic text, found in 5:12 only the thought that “as soon as he [Adam] fell, then through him those who did not eat from the forbidden tree became mortal” (On the Dogma of the Atonement).
The fall of our first parents and the inheritance of spiritual corruption by all generations gives Satan power over man. The sacrament of baptism frees one from this power. “Baptism does not take away our autocracy and self-will. But it gives us freedom from the tyranny of the devil. who cannot rule over us against our will” (St. Simeon the New Theologian). Before performing the sacrament itself, the priest reads four incantatory prayers over the person being baptized.
Since in the sacrament of baptism a person is cleansed from original sin and dies to a life of sin and is born into a new life of grace, baptism for infants has been established in the Church since ancient times. When the grace and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit(Tit. 3, 4-5).
