ACC ~ Romans 5 v12

FROM ONE MAN TO ALL HUMANITY. ORIGEN: Perhaps someone will object that the woman sinned before the man and even that the serpent sinned before her … and elsewhere the apostle says: “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived.” … How is it then that sin seems to have come in through one man rather than through one woman? … Here the apostle sticks to the order of nature, and thus when he speaks about sin, because of which death has passed to all men, he attributes the line of human descent, which has succumbed to this death because of sin, not to the woman but to the man. For the descent is not reckoned from the woman but from the man, as the apostle says elsewhere: “For man was not made from woman but woman from man.”

In this context the word world is to be understood either as the place in which people live or as the earthly and corporeal life in which death has its location. It is to this world, that is, to this earthly life, that the saints say that they are crucified and dead.

The death which entered through sin is without doubt that death of which the prophet speaks when he says: “The soul which sins shall surely die.” One might rightly say that our bodily death is a shadow of this death. For whenever a soul dies, the body is obliged to follow suit, like a shadow. Now if someone objects that the Savior did not sin, nor did his soul die because of sin, yet nevertheless his body suffered death, we would answer that the Savior, although he did not himself sin, nevertheless by the assumption of human flesh is said to have become sin. As a result, although he owed his death to nothing else, nor was he bound to anything outside himself, yet for our salvation he voluntarily took on this shadow as part of his incarnation. As he himself said: “I have power to lay my soul down, and I have power to take it again.” . . .

The apostle stated most categorically that the death of sin has passed to all men because all have sinned. … Therefore even if you say that Abel was righteous, still he cannot be excused, for all have sinned, including him. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

DEATH SPREAD. EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA: Since the apostle said: “By man death entered into the world,” it was surely essential that the victory over death should be achieved by man as well, and the body of death be shown to be the body of life, and the reign of sin that before ruled in the mortal body be destroyed so that it should no longer serve sin but righteousness. PROOF OF THE GOSPEL 7.1.

HOW CAN GOD CALL ME BACK EXCEPT HE FIND ME IN ADAM? AMBROSE: Although through one man’s sin death has passed to all men, him whom we do not refuse to acknowledge as the father of the human race we cannot refuse to acknowledge as also the author of death. … In Adam I fell, in Adam I was cast out of paradise, in Adam I died. How shall God call me back, except he find me in Adam? For just as in Adam I am guilty of sin and owe a debt to death, so in Christ I am justified. ON THE DEATH OF HIS BROTHER SATYRUS 2.6.

WHETHER THROUGH WOMAN OR MAN. AMBROSIASTER: Paul said that all have sinned in Adam even though in fact it was Eve who sinned because he was not referring to the particular but to the universal. For it is clear that all have sinned in Adam as though in a lump. For, being corrupted by sin himself, all those whom he fathered were born under sin. For that reason we are all sinners, because we all descend from him. He lost God’s blessing because he transgressed and was made unworthy to eat of the tree of life. For that reason he had to die. Death is the separation of body and soul. There is another death as well, called the second death, which takes place in Gehenna. We do not suffer this death as a result of Adam’s sin, but his fall makes it possible for us to get it by our own sins. Good men were protected from this, as they were only in hell, but they were still not free, because they could not ascend to heaven. They were still bound by the sentence meted out in Adam, the seal of which was broken by the death of Christ. The sentence passed on Adam was that the human body would decompose on earth, but the soul would be bound by the chains of hell until it was released. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

CHRYSOSTOM: Paul inquires as to how death came into the world and why it prevailed. It came in and prevailed through the sin of one man and continued because all have sinned. Thus once Adam fell, even those who had not eaten of the tree became mortal because of him. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 10.

SIN PASSED TO ALL. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: If sin entered the world through one human being—Eve—those who say that there was sin in the world before the devil deceived Eve are mad. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

THE DEATH OF THE SOUL. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: “All men sinned” means that they followed the example of Adam. The apostle is here referring to the death of the soul, which is the death Adam suffered when he transgressed, just as the prophet says: “The soul which sins shall surely die.” This sin passed to all men, who transgressed the natural law. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

EVEN CHILDREN. AUGUSTINE: Everyone, even little children, have broken God’s covenant, not indeed in virtue of any personal action but in virtue of mankind’s common origin in that single ancestor in whom all have sinned. THE CITY OF GOD 16.27.

BORN WITH DEATH. AUGUSTINE: When a man is born, he is already born with death, because he contracts sin from Adam. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 49.12.2.

AUGUSTINE: If the souls of all men are derived from that one which was breathed into the first man … either the soul of Christ was not derived from that one, since he had no sin of any kind … or, if his soul was derived from that first one, he purified it in taking it for himself, so that he might be born of the virgin and might come to us without any trace of sin, either committed or transmitted. LETTER 164.

INFANTS SET FREE FROM SIN’S GUILT BY BAPTISM. AUGUSTINE: As infants cannot help being descended from Adam, so they cannot help being touched by the same sin, unless they are set free from its guilt by the baptism of Christ. LETTER 157.

ORIGINAL SIN. AUGUSTINE: These words clearly teach that original sin is common to all men, regardless of the personal sins of each one. AGAINST JULIAN 6.20.63.

AUGUSTINE: All men for whom Christ died died in the sin of the first Adam, and all who are baptized into Christ die to sin. AGAINST JULIAN 6.7.21.

WHETHER THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. PELAGIUS: Just as through Adam sin came at a time when it did not yet exist, so through Christ righteousness was recovered at a time when it survived in almost nobody. And just as through Adam’s sin death came in, so through Christ’s righteousness life was regained. As long as people sin as Adam sinned they die. Death did not pass on to Abraham and Isaac, of whom the Lord says: “They all live to him.” But here Paul says that all are dead because in a multitude of sinners no exception is made for a few righteous. … Or perhaps we should understand that death passed on to all who lived in a human and not in a heavenly manner. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

ALL INCUR PENALTY. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: Death entered into the first man, and into the beginnings of our race, because of sin, and very soon it had corrupted the entire race. In addition to this, the serpent who invented sin, after he had conquered Adam because of the latter’s unfaithfulness, opened up a way for himself to enter the mind of man: “They are corrupt … there is none that does good.”Therefore, having turned away from the face of the most holy God, and because the mind of man willingly inclined towards evil from its adolescence, we lived an absurd life, and death the conqueror devoured us accordingly. … For since we have all copied Adam’s transgression and thus have all sinned, we have incurred a penalty equal to his. Yet the world was not without hope, for in the end sin was destroyed, Satan was defeated and death itself was abolished. EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

NO ONE IS SINLESS BORN. PRUDENTIUS: Such was the soul’s first state. Created pure

Through sordid union with the flesh it fell

Into iniquity; stained by Adam’s sin,

It tainted all the race from him derived,

And infant souls inherit at their birth

The first man’s sin; no one is sinless born.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST, LINES 909-15.

EACH ONE SENTENCED. THEODORET OF CYR: St. Paul says that when Adam sinned he became mortal because of it and passed both on to his descendants. Thus death came to all men, in that all sinned. But each person receives the sentence of death not because of the sin of his first ancestor but because of his own sin. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

ALL INHERIT HIS NATURE. GENNADIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE: Everyone in the following of Adam has died, because they have all inherited their nature from him. But some have died because they themselves have sinned, while others have died only because of Adam’s condemnation—for example, children. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

ALL HAVE SINNED IN IMITATION. OECUMENIUS: So that no one can accuse God of injustice, in that we all die because of the fall of Adam, Paul adds: “and so all have sinned.” Adam is the origin and the cause of the fact that we have all sinned in imitation of him. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

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