The Heart of Augustine’s Error: His Greek

Διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ δι᾽ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ

διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος 

διῆλθεν ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον (Romans 5.12).

KJV: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

Augustine, a man many consider to be the father of Christian theology,₁ and the mastermind behind the idea of Original Sin and Predestination, had a serious lack of understanding when it came to understanding the language of the New Testament.

In the 400’s when he and Pelagius were contending about nature of Romans 5.12 and human sin, he was using a Latin text, and, not knowing Greek, made significant errors in his assumptions about the nature of man, sin, and the Fall of Adam. It would seem that a common mistranslation of Romans 5.12 was in Augustine’s rendering in which the verse stating that “in whom all men have sinned,” has a different meaning in the Greek. John Meyendorff writes:

In this passage (Romans 5.12) there is a major issue of translation. The last four Greek words were translated in Latin as in quo omnes peccaverunt (in whom [ie, in Adam] all men have sinned), and this translation was used in the West to justify the doctrine of guilt inherited from Adam and spread to his descendants. But such a meaning cannot be drawn from the original Greek—the text read, of course, by the Byzantines. The form eph ho—a contraction of epi with the relative pronoun ho – can be translated as “because,” a meaning accepted by most modern scholars of all confessional backgrounds. Such a translation renders Paul’s thought to mean that death, which was “the wages of sin” (Romans 6.23) for Adam, is also the punishment applied to those who, like him, sin. It presupposes a cosmic significance of the sin of Adam, but does not say that his descendants are “guilty” as he was, unless they also sin as he sinned.₂

John Chrysostom, living near the time of Augustine, in his comments regarding Romans 5.12 seems to indicate that he did not hold to the view that sin was contracted from another person, but was rather an act of will. He wrote, “For that one man should be punished on account of another does not seem to be much in accordance with reason,” and “For the fact that when he [Adam] had sinned and become mortal, those who were of him should be so also, is nothing unlikely. But how would it follow that from his disobedience another would become a sinner?”₃

In his analysis of Greek patristic and Byzantine ideas, Meyendorff notes that “there is indeed a consensus in identifying the Fall as an inheritance of essentially mortality rather than sinfulness, sinfulness being merely a consequence of mortality.”₄

Notes

1. St. Augustine, also called Saint Augustine of Hippo, original Latin name Aurelius Augustinus, (born November 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk Ahras, Algeria]—died August 28, 430, Hippo Regius [now Annaba, Algeria]; feast day August 28), bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation of classical thought to Christian teaching created a theological system of great power and lasting influence. His numerous written works, the most important of which are Confessions (c. 400) and The City of God (c. 413–426), shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought. In Roman Catholicism he is formally recognized as a doctor of the church. See: Britannica, St. Augustine, Christian bishop and theologian.
2. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends & Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974) 143.
3. John Chysostom, “Homily X.” Homilies on Romans, verses 15 and 19.
4. Meyendorff, p. 145.

Further Reading:

G.I. Bonner, “How Pelagian was Pelagius?: An Examination of the Contentions of Torgny Bohlin.” Studia Patristica 9 (1966): 353.

John Ferguson, Pelagius. Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd., 1956.

Pelagius, “Letter to Demetrias,” Theological Anthropology, J. Patout Burns, trans. & ed. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1981.

B. R. Rees, Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic. Wolfeboro, NH: The Boydell Press, 1988.

Eugene TeSelle, “Rufinius the Syrian, Caelestius, Pelagius: Explorations in the Prehistory of the Pelagian Controversy.” Augustinian Studies 3 (1972).