When
I first started studying Byzantine theology I was deceived. I believed in a
false tradition called Ancestral Sin. The term itself is not false, many
fathers use the term. What is false is how some Eastern Christians have used it in
the past 50yrs. The term at some point was hijacked by a tradition of
apologetics that is based in the Orthodox Church. It’s now used to contrast what
is called Original sin, which is said to be an invention of St. Augustine. The argument
states: “the Eastern Church, unlike its
Western counterpart, never speaks of guilt being passed from Adam and Eve to
their progeny, as did Augustine. Instead, it is posited that each person bears
the guilt of his or her own sin”. The problem with this argument is that it’s
totally dishonest.
The
dishonesty for this argument is found in the assumptions it makes. First, there
is the huge assumption that the argument represent all of the Eastern Church. As I
said, the argument represents a tradition of apologetics and not the Eastern
Church. Next, there is the assumption that the Western Church was the only one
to have a doctrine of inherited guilt. It’s
true that St. Augustine developed “original guilt” far more systemically than
any Church Father in the West. On the other hand, even the noted Orthodox Bishop
Kallistos Ware himself admitted “the
notion of an inherited sinfulness can be found, at any rate in a rudimentary form,
in more than one Greek writer”. Last of all, there is the assumption that the Western
Church had only one way of understanding sin. It might be true that St.
Augustine played a major role in the catechesis of the West, but this
catechesis was by no means universal. In fact, the modern Catechism of the
Catholic Church leaves the notion of inherited guilt total open. In terms of inherited
guilt, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches the following, “the transmission of original sin is a
mystery that we cannot fully understand(404)”.
This
dishonest argument is usually further exaggerated with the following distinctions:
“the doctrine of ancestral sin naturally
leads to a focus on human death and Divine compassion as the inheritance from
Adam, while the doctrine of original sin shifts the center of attention to
human guilt and Divine wrath. It is further posited that the approach of the
ancient church points to a more therapeutic than juridical approach to pastoral
care and counseling”. When I hear Eastern Christians make these distinctions
it makes me wonder why they are ignoring so many Greek Fathers. For example, St. Gregory
Palamas had this to say about the so called shift to “human guilt and Divine
wrath” , which is not the “ancient church”: “Yet God is also a 'jealous God' (Exod. 20:5), a just judge who takes
terrible vengeance on those who dishonor Him, who disobey Him and who scorn His
commandments, visiting them with eternal chastisement, unquenchable fire,
unceasing pain, unconsolable affliction, a cloak of lugubrious darkness, an
obscure and grievous region, piteous gnashing of teeth, venomous and sleepless
worms - things He prepared for that first evil apostate together with all those
deluded by him who became his followers, rejecting their Creator in their
actions, words and thoughts”. This quote was taken right of the Philokalia,
the most beloved book for the so-called, “therapeutic than juridical approach
to pastoral care and counseling”.
The
biggest problem I see with people that promote “Ancestral sin vs Original sin”
is that they are creating a false dichotomy between the Eastern and Western traditions
of the Church. On the subject of sin the fathers of the Church had diverse positions.
This diversity is witnessed in the many forms of catechesis that can be found
in Church history. Its even possible, as St. John Paul the Great said, to have one
tradition of catechesis express the mysteries of our faith better than others.
With this in mind, we should take advantage of the different forms of
theological expression in the Church. Just like what the Roman church did when it changed
its catechesis on sin, which now reflects what is emphasized in the Byzantine
churches. The Roman church’s current catechesis
on the effects of sin now fits more organically into their tradition as opposed
to the Augustine views of the past. Like the Roman church, we should discover
what best helps our own tradition organically develop. Not by seeing how we are
not like the other, but by truly learning how to “breathe with both lungs”
of the Church.
Ric,
ReplyDeleteThe concept of "ancestral sin" is really a 20th century construct rooted in the anti Roman Catholic/Western prejudices and nationalism of 19th century Russia in reaction to the Napoleonic wars. The problem with this approach is that is assumes facts not in evidence, primarily that Augustine and the Pelegian crisis were unknown in the Eastern Empire.
The other problem is that when in the 20th Century, when the false tradition of ancestral sin was raised, western scholars pointed out that the concept of original sin was found in Orthodox works of the 17 century, such as St. Peter Mogilia. The response of the party of ancestral sin was then to develop the myth of a "western captivity" of Orthodox theology as a result of the Turkish occupation. The "western captivity" had a good emotional appeal, but this hypothesis never answered why there was a western captivity in lands not occupied by the Turks, that is, Czarist Russia.
In any event, efforts to demolish this false tradition have begun by demonstrating that its underlying foundation, that Augustine and his concepts were foreign to the east, are false by being ahistorical. The book Orthodox Readings of Augustine is one such book that attacks the foundations of this false tradition.
But we can go back, and look at the time of the Pelegian issue, itself. When we read Books One and Two of St. Augustine's Against Julian, the reader will observe that Augustine quotes as sources John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory Nazianaen. The Book is in Catholic University of America's Fathers of the Church series, FOTC #35 from 1957.
The response was, of course, to say, "what proof do you have that Augustine wrote to any eastern Bishop besides John of Jerusalem regarding the Pelegian issue?" Prior to 1974, there was no hard evidence until the lost corpus of 29 letters of St. Augustine was found. Letter 4* is the one to Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 6* to Atticus of Constantinople. Both of these are about the Pelegian issue. They were published as FOTC #81 in 1989.
An interesting witness to Augustine's reception in the east comes from Theodoret of Cyrrus, and is found in his book Eransites, where he quotes Augustine. This is found in FOTC #106, published in 2003.
And, of course, more work is being done to show the influence of St. Augustine on Maximus the Confessor. But, enough - thank you for the article!
Interesting history. Thanks for sharing
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