Original sin. What is Original Sin? The original sin of Eve and Adam in detail

Man before the Fall

Man, created in the image of God, came out of God’s hands holy, passionless, sinless, immortal, directed towards God. God Himself gave this assessment of man when he said about everything that He created, including man, that everything “is good” (Gen. 1:31; cf. Eccl. 7:29).

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes:

“It is told by Divine revelation that the first man was created by God... in the beauty of spiritual grace, created immortal, free from evil.”

Man represented a complete unity of spirit, soul and body - one harmonious whole, namely, the spirit of man is directed towards God, the soul is united or freely subordinated to the spirit, and the body is to the soul. The man was holy, deified.

Rev. Justin (Popovich):

"Man, created in the image of God, came from the hands of God immaculate, impassive, gentle, holy, sinless, immortal, and all this made his soul unusually God-oriented. God Himself gave such an assessment of man when he said about everything that He created, including man, that everything was “very good” (Gen. 1:31; cf. Eccl. 7:29). “God created man kindly, painless, carefree, adorned with every virtue, abounding in every goodness.” As such, man was able, with the help of God's grace, to achieve the goal God had set for him. His whole being, with all its compositions and properties, was pure and holy, and thereby capable of endless improvement in virtue and wisdom."

“Our nature,” says Saint Gregory of Nyssa, - was originally created by God as a kind of vessel capable of accepting perfection.”

The will of God, namely, is that man freely, that is, with love, strives for God, the source of eternal life and bliss, and thereby invariably remains in communion with God, in the bliss of eternal life.

This was the first man. That’s why he had an enlightened mind and “Adam knew every creature by name,” which means the physical laws of the universe and the animal world were revealed to him.

The mind of the first man was pure, bright, sinless, capable of deep knowledge, but at the same time it had to develop and improve, just as the minds of the Angels themselves develop and improve.

Rev. Seraphim of Sarov described Adam’s state in paradise this way:

“Adam was created to such an extent that he was not subject to the action of any of the elements created by God, that neither water could drown him, nor fire could burn him, nor could the earth devour him in its abysses, nor could the air harm him by any of its actions. All was subjugated to him as the favorite of God, as the king and owner of creation. And everything admired him as the all-perfect crown of God’s creations. From this breath of life, breathed into Adam’s face from the All-Creative Lips of the All-Creator and Almighty God, Adam became so wise that There has never been, no, and there will hardly ever be a man on earth who is wiser and more knowledgeable than he. When the Lord commanded him to name the names of every creature, he gave each creature names in the language that fully signify all the qualities, all the power. and all the properties of the creature that it has by the gift of God, given to it at creation. It was by this gift of the supernatural grace of God, sent down to him from the breath of life, that Adam could see and understand the Lord walking in Paradise, and comprehend His words and words. the conversation of the holy Angels, and the language of all the animals and birds and creeping things that live on the earth, and everything that is now hidden from us, as fallen and sinners, and that was so clear to Adam before his fall. The Lord God gave the same wisdom and strength, and omnipotence, and all other good and holy qualities to Eve..."

His body, also created by God, was sinless, passionless, and thereby free from disease, suffering and death.

Living in paradise, man received direct revelations from God, who communicated with him, taught him a godlike life, and guided him to all good things. According to Saint Gregory of Nyssa, the man "enjoyed the Epiphany face to face."

St. Macarius of Egypt speaks:

“Just as the Spirit acted in the prophets and taught them, and was inside them, and appeared to them from without: so in Adam the Spirit, when it wanted, stayed with him, taught and inspired...”

“Adam, the father of the universe, in paradise knew the sweetness of God’s love,” writes St. Silouan of Athos, - The Holy Spirit is love and sweetness of the soul, mind and body. And those who know God through the Holy Spirit are insatiably eager day and night for the living God.”

Saint Gregory of Nyssa explains:

“Man was created in the image of God, that like might see like, for the life of the soul consists in the contemplation of God.”

The first people were created sinless, and they, as free beings, were given the opportunity to voluntarily, with the help of God's grace, be confirmed in goodness and perfected in divine virtues.

Man's sinlessness was relative, not absolute; it lay in the free will of man, but was not a necessity of his nature. That is, “man could not sin,” and not “man could not sin.” About it Saint John of Damascus writes:

“God created man by nature sinless and free by will. Sinless, I say, not in the sense that he could not accept sin (for only the Divine is inaccessible to sin), but in the sense that he had the possibility of sin not in his nature, but primarily in free will. This means that he could, assisted by the grace of God, remain in goodness and succeed in it, just as by his own freedom he could, with God’s permission, turn away from goodness and end up in evil.”

2. The meaning of the commandment given to man in paradise

In order for a person to develop his spiritual powers by perfecting himself in goodness, God gave him the commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: “Thou shalt bring food from every tree that is in heaven; But from the tree, which you understand to be good and evil, you will not tear it down; And if you take it away one day, you will die” (Gen. 2:16-17; cf. Rom. 5:12; 6:23).

“God gave man free will,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, - so that he would choose good with his free determination... He also gave him the law as material for the exercise of free will. The law was the commandment, which fruits he could eat and which he should not touch.”

“In fact, it would not be useful for a person,” he reasons. Saint John of Damascus, - to receive immortality before he was tempted and tested, for he could become proud and fall under the same condemnation as the devil (1 Tim. 3:6), who, through an arbitrary fall, due to his immortality, was irrevocably and relentlessly established in evil; while the Angels, since they voluntarily chose virtue, are unshakably established in goodness by grace. Therefore, it was necessary for a person to be tempted at first, so that when, when tempted through keeping the commandment, he appears perfect, he accepts immortality as a reward for virtue. In fact, being by nature something between God and matter, man, if he had avoided attachment to created objects and united with God through love, would have been unshakably established in goodness by keeping the commandment.”

St. Gregory the Theologian writes:

“The commandment was a kind of educator of the soul and tamer of pleasures.”

“If we had remained what we were,” he asserts, “and kept the commandment, we would have become what we were not, and would have approached the tree of life from the tree of knowledge. What, therefore, would they become? “Immortal and very close to God.”

By its nature, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not deadly; on the contrary, it was good, like everything else that God created, only God chose it as a means of developing man’s obedience to God.

It was named so because through this tree man learned from experience what good is contained in obedience, and what evil is contained in resistance to the will of God.

St. Theophilus writes:

“Wonderful was the tree of knowledge itself, and wonderful was its fruit. For it was not deadly, as some people think, but the violation of the commandment.”

“The Holy Scripture called this tree the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” says St. John Chrysostom, - not because it conveyed such knowledge, but because through it the violation or observance of the commandment of God was to be accomplished. ...since Adam, through extreme negligence, transgressed this commandment with Eve and ate from the tree, the tree is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This does not mean that he did not know what was good and what was evil; he knew this, for the wife, talking to the serpent, said: “God said: do not eat from it, lest you die”; this means that she knew that death would be the punishment for breaking the commandment. But since they, after eating from this tree, were both deprived of the highest glory and felt nakedness, the Holy Scripture called it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: it, so to speak, had an exercise in obedience and disobedience.”

Saint Gregory the Theologian writes:

“They were commanded not to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was not planted with malicious intent and was not prohibited out of envy; on the contrary, it was good for those who would use it in a timely manner, for this tree, in my opinion, was contemplation, which only those who have been perfected by experience can approach without danger, but which was not good for the simple and immoderate in their desires "

St. John of Damascus:

“The tree of knowledge in paradise served as a kind of test, and temptation, and exercise of human obedience and disobedience; therefore it is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or maybe it was given such a name because it gave those who ate its fruit the strength to know their own nature. This knowledge is good for those who are perfect and established in divine contemplation and for those who are not afraid of falling, for they have acquired a certain skill through patient exercise in such contemplation; but it is not good for those who are unskilled and subject to voluptuous lusts, for they are not established in goodness and are not yet sufficiently established in their adherence to only that which is good.”

3. Causes of the Fall

But through their fall, people upset their nature.

Etc. Justin Popovich:

“Our first parents did not remain in the state of primitive righteousness, sinlessness, holiness and bliss, but, having transgressed the commandment of God, they fell away from God, light, life and fell into sin, darkness, death. Sinless Eve allowed herself to be deceived by the crafty and wise serpent.
...that the devil was hidden in the serpent is easily and clearly seen from other places of Holy Scripture. It says: “And the great dragon was cast out, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, who enriched the whole world” (Rev. 12:9; cf. 20:2); “he was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44); “Through the envy of the devil death entered the world” (Wisdom 2:24).

Just as the devil’s envy towards God was the reason for his fall in heaven, so his envy towards man as God’s divine creation was the motive for the disastrous fall of the first people.”

“It is necessary to count,” says St. John Chrysostom, - that the words of the serpent belong to the devil, who was prompted to this seduction by envy, and he used this animal as a suitable tool in order, covering his deception with bait, to seduce first the wife, and then with her help the primordial one.”

Seducing Eve, the serpent openly slandered God, attributed envy to him, claiming in spite of Him that eating the forbidden fruit would make people sinless and leading everything, and that they would be like gods.

However, the first people may not have sinned, but with their free will they chose to deviate from the will of God, that is, sin.

Rev. Ephraim Sirin writes that inIt was not the devil who caused the fall of Adam, but Adam’s own desire:

“The tempting word would not have led those tempted into sin if their own desire had not served as a guide to the tempter. Even if the tempter had not come, then the tree itself with its beauty would have introduced their position into the struggle. Although the ancestors sought excuses for themselves in the advice of the serpent, but more , rather than the advice of the serpent, it was their own desire that harmed them" (Commentary on the book of Genesis, chapter 3, p. 237).

Etc. Justin Popovich writes:

“The serpent’s seductive offer causes a boil of pride in Eve’s soul, which quickly turns into an anti-God mood, to which Eve curiously succumbs and deliberately violates the commandment of God. ... Although Eve fell through the seduction of Satan, she fell not because she had to fall, but because wanted; the violation of God’s commandment was suggested to her, but not imposed. She acted at Satan’s suggestion only after she had first consciously and voluntarily accepted his proposal with all her soul, for she participates in this with both soul and body: she looks at the fruit on the tree, she sees. that it is good for eating, that it is pleasant to look at it, that it is beautiful for the sake of knowledge, reflects on it and only after that decides to pick the fruit from the tree and eat from it. As Eve did, so did Adam. As the serpent persuaded Eve to eat. from the forbidden fruit, but did not force her, because he could not, Eve did the same with Adam. He could not accept the fruit offered to him, but did not do this and voluntarily violated the commandment of God (Gen. 3, 6-17).

4. The essence of the Fall

In vain do some wish to see the meaning of the Fall allegorically, that is, that the Fall consisted of physical love between Adam and Eve, forgetting that the Lord Himself commanded them: “Be fruitful and multiply...” Moses clearly tells that “Eve sinned first.” alone, and not together with her husband,” says Metropolitan Philaret. “How could Moses have written this if he had written the allegory that they want to find here?”

The essence of the Fall was that the forefathers, succumbing to temptation, stopped looking at the forbidden fruit as an object of God’s commandment, but began to consider it in its supposed relation to themselves - to their sensuality and their heart, their understanding (Col. 7, 29), with deviation from the unity of God's truth in the multiplicity of one’s own thoughts, own desires not concentrated in the will of God, i.e. with deviation into lust. Lust, having conceived sin, gives birth to actual sin (James 1:14-15). Eve, tempted by the devil, saw in the forbidden tree not what it is, but what she herself desires, according to certain types of lust (1 John 2:16; Gen. 3:6). What lusts were revealed in Eve’s soul before eating the forbidden fruit? “And the woman saw that the tree was good for food,” that is, she assumed some special, unusually pleasant taste in the forbidden fruit - this is the lust of the flesh. “And that it is pleasing to the eye,” that is, the forbidden fruit seemed most beautiful to the wife - this is lust, or passion for pleasure. “And it is desirable because it gives knowledge,” that is, the wife wanted to experience that higher and divine knowledge that the tempter promised her - this worldly pride.

The first sin is born in sensuality - the desire for pleasant sensations - for luxury, in the heart, the desire to enjoy without reasoning, in the mind - the dream of arrogant knowledge, and consequently, penetrates all the powers of human nature.

The human mind became darkened, the will weakened, feelings were distorted, contradictions arose, and the human soul I lost my sense of purpose towards God.

Thus, having transgressed the limit set by the commandment of God, man diverted his soul from God, the true universal concentration and completeness, formed for it a false focus in its selfhood. The mind, will and activity of man turned away, deviated, and fell from God to creation (Gen. 3:6).

« Let no one think, - declares St. Augustine, - that the sin of the first people was small and light, because it consisted of eating fruit from a tree, and the fruit was not bad or harmful, but only forbidden; The commandment requires obedience, a virtue that among rational beings is the mother and guardian of all virtues. … Here is pride, for man desired to be more in his own power than in God’s; Here and blasphemy of the shrine, for he did not believe God; Here and murder, for he subjected himself to death; here is spiritual fornication, for the integrity of the soul is violated by the temptation of the serpent; here is theft, for he took advantage of the forbidden fruit; here and love of wealth, for he desired more than was enough for him.”

Rev. Justin Popovich writes:

"The fall has broken and rejected the Divine-human order of life, but the devil-human one was accepted, because by a willful transgression of God’s commandment, the first people declared that they wanted to achieve Divine perfection, to become “like gods” not with the help of God, but with the help of the devil, and this means - bypassing God, without God, against God.

By disobedience to God, which manifested itself as a creation of the will of the devil, the first people voluntarily fell away from God and clung to the devil, brought themselves into sin and sin into themselves (cf. Rom. 5:19).

In reality original sin means a person’s rejection of the goal of life determined by God - becoming like God based on the godlike human soul - and replacing this with likeness to the devil. For through sin people transferred the center of their lives from God-like nature and reality to an extra-God reality, from being to non-being, from life to death, they have turned away from God.”

The essence of sin is disobedience to God as the Absolute Good and the Creator of all good things. The reason for this disobedience is selfish pride.

“The devil could not lead a person into sin,” writes St. Augustine, - if pride had not come into play in this.”

“Pride is the pinnacle of evil,” says Saint John Chrysostom. “For God, nothing is so disgusting as pride.” ...Because of pride, we have become mortal, we live in sorrow and sorrow: because of pride, our life is spent in torment and tension, burdened with incessant labor. The first man fell into sin from pride, desiring to be equal to God».

St. Theophan the Recluse writes about what happened in human nature as a result of the Fall:

“To be subject to the law of sin is the same as walking in the flesh and sinning, as can be seen from the previous chapter. Man fell under the yoke of this law as a result of his fall or falling away from God. It is necessary to remember what happened as a result of this. Man: spirit - soul - body. Spirit to live in God, the soul is to organize earthly life under the guidance of the spirit, the body is to produce and maintain visible elemental life on earth under the guidance of both. When man broke away from God and decided to arrange his own well-being, he fell into selfishness, the soul of which is all self-indulgence. Since his spirit did not imagine any ways of doing this, due to his detached nature, he turned entirely to the realm of mental and physical life, where self-indulgence was represented by extensive nourishment - and became soul-carnal in itself for man. a sin against his nature: for he should have lived in the spirit, spiritualizing both soul and body. But the trouble was not limited to this. Many passions arose from selfhood, which, along with it, invaded the spiritual-physical area, distorted the natural forces, needs and functions of the soul. bodies and, moreover, they contributed much that has no support in nature. The spiritual fleshiness of fallen man became passionate. So, fallen man is self-indulgent, and as a result he is self-indulgent and feeds his self-indulgence with passionate spiritual fleshiness. This is his sweetness, the strongest chain holding him in these bonds of fall. Taken together, all this is the law of sin that exists in our lives. In order to free one from this law, it is necessary to destroy the indicated bonds - sweetness, self-indulgence, selfishness.

How is this possible? We have a detached power - a spirit breathed into the face of man by God, seeking God and only by living in God can find peace. In the very act of creating him, or blowing him out, he is put into communion with God; but fallen man, who was torn away from God, also tore him away from God. His nature, however, remained unchanged - and he constantly reminded the fallen, mired in spiritual-fleshness - horrified - of his needs and demanded their satisfaction. The man did not reject these demands and, in a calm state, believed in doing what was pleasing to the spirit. But when it was time to get down to business, passion rose from the soul or from the body, flattered by pleasure and took possession of the will of the person. As a result, the spirit was denied the task at hand, and the passionate soul-carnality was satisfied, due to the promised sweetness in nourishing self-indulgence. As we acted in this way in every case, it is fair to call this way of acting the law of sinful life, which kept a person in the bonds of fall. The fallen one himself was aware of the burden of these bonds and sighed for freedom, but he could not find the strength to free himself: the sweetness of sin always lured him and incited him to sin.

The reason for such weakness is that in the fallen the spirit lost its defining power: it passed from him into a passionate soul-physicality. According to his original structure, a person should live in the spirit, and by this we determine to be in his activity - complete, that is, both mental and physical, and to spiritualize everything within himself with the power of it. But the strength of spirit to keep a person in such a rank depended on his living communication with God. When this communication was interrupted by the fall, the strength of the spirit also dried up: it no longer had the power to determine man - the lower parts of nature began to determine him, and, moreover, ostracized - in which are the bonds of the law of sin. It is obvious now that in order to be liberated from this law, it is necessary to restore the strength of the spirit and return to it the power that was taken from it. This is what accomplishes the economy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ—the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”

5. Death is a consequence of the Fall

Created by God for immortality and godlike perfection, people, but according to St. Athanasius the Great, turned away from this path, stopped on evil and united themselves with death.

They themselves became the cause of the death of our forefathers, because disobedience fell away from the Living and Life-Giving God and gave themselves over to sin, which exudes the poison of death and infecting everything he touches with death.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes about the first man:

“In the midst of undisturbed bliss, he poisoned himself spontaneously by tasting evil, in himself and with himself he poisoned and destroyed all his offspring. Adam... was struck by death, that is, by sin, which irrevocably upset the nature of man, making him incapable of bliss. Killed by this death, but not deprived of being, and death is all the more terrible as it is felt, he is thrown to the earth in chains: in rough, painful flesh, transformed into such from a passionless, holy, spiritual body.”

Rev. Macarius the Great explains:

“As in the crime of Adam, when the goodness of God condemned him to death, At first he suffered death in his soul, because the intelligent feelings of the soul became extinguished in him and, as it were, killed by the deprivation of heavenly and spiritual pleasure; subsequently, after nine hundred and thirty years, physical death befell Adam.”

After a person transgressed the commandment of God, he, according to the words St. John of Damascus,
“he was deprived of grace, lost his boldness towards God, was subjected to the severity of a calamitous life, - for this means the leaves of the fig tree (Gen. 3:7), - he put on mortality, that is, in mortal and rough flesh, - for this means clothing in skins ( Gen. 3:21), according to the righteous judgment of God, he was expelled from paradise, condemned to death and became subject to corruption.”

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes about the death of the souls of the first people after their fall:

“Both the human soul and body changed through the fall. In the proper sense, the fall was also death for them. The death we see and call, in essence, is only the separation of the soul from the body, which had already been killed by the departure from them of true life, God. We are born already killed by eternal death! We do not feel that we are killed, due to the general property of the dead not to feel their mortification!

When the forefathers sinned, death immediately struck the soul; the Holy Spirit, who constitutes the true life of soul and body, immediately retreated from the soul; Evil immediately entered the soul, constituting the true death of the soul and body.... What the soul is to the body, the Holy Spirit is to the whole person, to his soul and body. Just as the body dies, with the death by which all animals die when the soul leaves him, so the whole person dies, both body and soul, in relation to true life, to God, when the Holy Spirit leaves him.”

Etc. Justin (Popovich):

By his willful and selfish fall into sin, man deprived himself of that direct, grace-filled communication with God, which strengthened his soul on the path of God-like perfection. By this, man himself condemned himself to a double death - bodily and spiritual: bodily, which occurs when the body is deprived of the soul that animates it, and spiritual, which occurs when the soul is deprived of the grace of God, which revives it with the highest spiritual life.

St. John Chrysostom:

“Just as the body then dies when the soul leaves it without its power, so the soul then dies when the Holy Spirit leaves it without His power.”

St. John of Damascus writes that “just as the body dies when the soul is separated from it, so when the Holy Spirit is separated from the soul, the soul dies.”

The soul died first because Divine grace departed from it, says St. Simeon the New Theologian.

St. Gregory of Nyssa:

“The life of the soul, created in the image of God, consists in the contemplation of God; her real life lies in communion with the Divine Good; as soon as the soul ceases to communicate with God, its real life ceases.”

Holy Bible says that death entered the world through sin:

“God do not create death” (Wis. 1, 13); “God created man in incorruptibility and in the image of His likeness created him; but through envy the devil brought death into the world” (Wisdom 2:23-24; cf. 2 Cor. 5:5). “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:21:56).

Together with the Word of God, the holy fathers unanimously teach that man was created immortal and for immortality, and the Church collectively expressed the universal faith in the revealed truth about this immortality by decree Carthage Cathedral:

“If anyone says that Adam, the first-created man, was created mortal, so that even if he sinned, even if he did not sin, he would die in the body, that is, he would leave the body, not as punishment for sin, but according to the necessity of nature: yes shall be anathema" (Rule 123).

The fathers and teachers of the Church understood Adam's immortality in the body, not so that he supposedly could not die by the very nature of his bodily nature, but that he could not die by the special grace of God.

St. Athanasius the Great:

“As a created being, man was by nature transitory, limited, finite; and if he had remained in the divine good, he would have remained immortal, imperishable by the grace of God.”

“God did not create man,” says St. Theophilus, - neither mortal nor immortal, but... capable of both, that is, if he strived for what leads to immortality, fulfilling the commandment of God, he would receive immortality from God as a reward for this and would become godlike, and if he turned to the works of death without submitting to God, he himself would become the author of his own death.”

Etc. Justin (Popovich):

“The death of the body differs from the death of the soul, for the body disintegrates after death, and when the soul dies from sin, it does not disintegrate, but is deprived of spiritual light, God-aspiration, joy and bliss and remains in a state of darkness, sadness and suffering, constantly living by itself and from yourself, which many times means - by sin and from sin.
For our first parents, spiritual death occurred immediately after the fall, and physical death occurred later.”

“But although Adam and Eve lived many years after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” says St. John Chrysostom, - this does not mean that the words of God were not fulfilled: “If you take away a day from it, you will die.” For from the moment they heard: “Earth are you, and to earth you will go,” they received a death sentence, became mortal and, one might say, died.”

“In reality,” he argues St. Gregory of Nyssa, - the soul of our first parents died before the body, for disobedience is not a sin of the body, but of the will, and the will is characteristic of the soul, from which all the devastation of our nature began. Sin is nothing more than a separation from God, Who is true and Who alone is Life. The first man lived many years after his disobedience, his sin, which does not mean that God lied when he said: “If you take one day from him, you will die.” For by the very removal of man from true life, the death sentence against him was confirmed on the same day.”

6. Consequences of original sin

As a result of the Fall all the powers of the human soul were damaged.

1.The mind has become darkened. He has lost his former wisdom, insight, foresight, scope and devotion to God; the very consciousness of the omnipresence of God has darkened in him, which is obvious from the attempt of the fallen ancestors to hide from the All-Seeing and Omniscient God (Gen. 3, 8) and to falsely imagine their participation in sin (Gen. 3, 12-13).

The minds of people turned away from the Creator and turned to creation. From being God-centered, he became self-centered, gave himself up to sinful thoughts, and was overcome by egoism (self-love) and pride.

2. Sin damaged, weakened and corrupted will people: she lost her primitive light, love of God and God-directedness, became evil and sin-loving and therefore more inclined to evil rather than to good. Immediately after the fall, our first parents developed and revealed a tendency to lie: Eve blamed the serpent, Adam blamed Eve, and even blamed God, who gave it to him (Gen. 3: 12-13).

The disorder of human nature by original sin is clearly expressed in the words of the Apostle Paul: “The good that I want, I do not do, but the evil that I do not want, I do. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Rom. 7:19-20).

3. The heart has lost its purity and integrity, given over to unreasonable aspirations and passionate desires.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes about the breakdown of all the powers of the human soul:

“I plunge even deeper into examining myself, and a new spectacle opens up before me. I see a decisive disorder of my own will, its disobedience to reason, and in my mind I see the loss of the ability to guide the will correctly, the loss of the ability to act correctly. In a distracted life, this state is little noticed, but in solitude, when solitude is illuminated by the light of the Gospel, the state of disorder of spiritual powers appears in a vast, dark, terrible picture and it serves as evidence to me that I am a fallen being, I am a servant of my God, but a slave who has angered God, a rejected slave, a slave punished by the hand of God. This is how Divine Revelation declares me.
My condition is a condition common to all people. Humanity is a class of creatures languishing in various calamities..."

Rev. Macarius the Great This is how he describes the destructive effect of the Fall, the state into which all human nature comes as a result of spiritual death:

“The kingdom of darkness, that is, that evil prince, captivated man from time immemorial... So the evil ruler clothed the soul and its entire being with sin, desecrated it all and captivated it all into his kingdom, so that no thoughts, no mind, no flesh, and finally, he did not leave a single part of it free from his power; but he clothed all of it in a mantle of darkness... the whole man, soul and body, was desecrated and disfigured by this evil enemy and clothed man in the old man, defiled, unclean, disgusting to God, disobeying the law of God, that is, he has clothed him in sin itself, so that no one can see as he wants, but he sees evil, he hears evil, he has feet that strive to do evil, hands that commit iniquity, and a heart that thinks evil... Just as during a gloomy and dark night, when a stormy wind breathes, all plants waver, become restless and come into great movement: so man, having been subjected to the dark power of the night - the devil, and spending his life in this night and darkness, hesitates, restless and worried a fierce wind of sin, which pierces his entire nature, soul, mind and thoughts, and all his bodily members also move, and there is not a single mental or physical member free from the sin that dwells within us.”

“Man was created in the image of God and in the likeness,” says Saint Basil the Great, - but sin disfigured the beauty of the image, involving the soul in passionate desires.”
Etc. Justin (Popovich) writes:

“The disturbance, darkness, distortion, relaxation that original sin caused in the spiritual nature of man can be briefly called violation, damage, darkening, disfigurement of the image of God in man. For sin darkened, disfigured, disfigured the beautiful image of God in the soul of pristine man.”

According to teaching Saint John Chrysostom, until Adam had not yet sinned, but kept his image, created in the image of God, pure, the animals submitted to him as servants, and when he polluted his image with sin, the animals did not recognize him as their master, and from servants they turned into his enemies, and began to fight against him as against a foreigner.

“When sin entered human life as a habit,” writes Saint Gregory of Nyssa, - and from a small beginning, immense evil arose in man, and the god-like beauty of the soul, created in the likeness of the Prototype, became covered, like some kind of iron, with the rust of sin, then the beauty of the natural image of the soul could no longer be fully preserved, but it changed into the disgusting image of sin . So man, a great and precious creation, deprived himself of his dignity, falling into the mud of sin, lost the image of the incorruptible God and through sin put on the image of corruption and dust, like those who carelessly fell into the mud and smeared their faces, so that they acquaintances cannot recognize.”

A.P. Lopukhin gives an interpretation of the verse “And he said to Adam: because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying: you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you; you will eat from it in sorrow all the days of your life; She will bring forth thorns and thistles for you...":

“We find the best explanation of this fact in the Holy Scripture itself, namely in the prophet Isaiah, where we read: “the earth is desecrated under those who live on it, for they transgressed the laws, changed the statute, violated the eternal covenant. For this, a curse devours the earth, and they are punished living on it" (Isa. 24: 5-6). Consequently, these words give only a partial expression of the general biblical thought about the close connection of the fate of man with the life of all nature (Job 5: 7; Eccl. 1, 2, 3; Eccl. 2, 23; Rom. 8, 20). In relation to the earth, this divine curse was expressed in the impoverishment of its productive power, which in turn responds most strongly to man, since it condemns him to hard, persistent work for daily food.

According to the teachings of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, the image of God in fallen man was not destroyed, but deeply damaged, darkened and disfigured.

Rev. Macarius the Great writes about the consequences of the Fall for the God-given nature of man:

“Man was in honor and purity, was the ruler of everything, starting from heaven, knew how to distinguish passions, was alien to demons, pure from sin or vice - he was in the likeness of God.”

“Penetrate, beloved, into the intelligent essence of the soul; and don’t delve into it lightly. The immortal soul is a precious vessel. Look how great heaven and earth are, and God was not pleased about them, but only about you. Look at your dignity and nobility, because he did not send angels, but the Lord himself came as an intercessor for you, to call upon the lost, ulcerated, to return to you the original image of pure Adam. Man was the ruler of everything, from heaven to earth, he knew how to distinguish between passions, he was alien to demons, pure from sin or vices, he was in the likeness of God, but he died for a crime, became wounded and dead. Satan has darkened his mind."

“For the soul is not from God’s nature and not from the nature of evil darkness, but is an intelligent creature, full of beauty, great and wonderful, a beautiful likeness and image of God, and the wickedness of dark passions entered into it as a result of crime.”

“The evil prince of darkness enslaved man at the very beginning and clothed his entire soul with sin, desecrated her entire being and desecrated her, enslaved her all, did not leave a single part of her free from his power, neither thoughts, nor mind, nor body. the soul suffered from the passion of vice and sin, for the evil one has clothed the whole soul in his evil, that is, in sin.”

Rev. Justin (Popovich) writes about how the Fall distorted the image of God given to man by God at creation, without however destroying it:

“With the transfer of the ancestral sinfulness to all the descendants of Adam by birth, all the consequences that befell our first parents are transferred to all of them at the same time after the fall; deformation of the image of God, darkness of the mind, corruption of the will, defilement of the heart, illness, suffering and death.

All people, being descendants of Adam, inherit from Adam the godlike nature of the soul, but godlikeness, darkened and disfigured by sinfulness. The entire human soul is generally imbued with ancestral sinfulness. ...But although the image of God, which represents the integrity of the soul, is disfigured and darkened in people, it is still not destroyed in them, for with its destruction that which makes a person human would be destroyed, and this means that man as such would be destroyed. The image of God continues to constitute the main treasure in people (Gen. 9: 6) and partially reveals its main characteristics (Gen. 9: 1-2). The Lord Jesus Christ did not come into the world to re-create the image of God in fallen man , and in order to renew it - “let him renew his image, which has been decayed by passions”; may it renew “our nature, corrupted by sins.” And in sins, man still reveals the image of God (1 Cor. 11:7): ​​“I am the ineffable image of Your glory, even though I bear the burden of sins.”

Abba Dorotheus:

“God created man with His own hands and adorned him, and arranged everything else to serve him and calm him, who was appointed king over all this; and gave him the sweetness of paradise for pleasure, and what is even more amazing, when a person lost all this through his sin, God again called him through the blood of His Only Begotten Son. Man is the most precious acquisition, as the Saint said, and not only the most precious, but also the most characteristic of God, for He said: “Let us make man in Our image and likeness.” And again: “God create man, in the image of God create him... and I will breathe into his nostrils the breath of life2 (Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7). And our Lord Himself came to us, took on the image of a man, the body and soul of a man and, in a word, in everything except sin, became a man, so to speak, having assimilated man for Himself and made him His own. So, the Saint said well and decently that “man is the most precious acquisition.” Then, speaking even more clearly, he adds: “Let us render to the Image what was created in the image.” How is this possible? - Let us learn this from the Apostle, who says: “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1). Let us make our image pure, as we have accepted it; let us wash it from the filth of sin, so that its beauty, which comes from virtues, will be revealed. David also prayed for this beauty, saying: “Lord, by Thy will give strength to my kindness” (Ps. 29:8).

So, let us purify the image of God within ourselves, for God requires it from us as He gave it: without spot, blemish, or anything like that (Eph. 5:27). Let us render to the Image what was created in the image, let us recognize our dignity: let us recognize what great blessings we have been honored with; let us remember in whose image we were created, let us not forget the great blessings given to us by God solely because of His goodness, and not because of our dignity; Let us understand that we are created in the image of God who created us. "Let's Honor the Prototype". Let us not insult the image of God in which we were created."

So, according to Catholic teaching, original sin did not affect human nature, but only affected God’s attitude towards man. The sin of Adam and Eve is understood by Catholics as an infinitely great insult to God by people, for which God was angry with them and took away their supernatural gifts Your grace. According to this dogma of Catholicism, human nature did not change as a result of the Fall, having lost the harmony of all mental and physical powers and perfection with the loss of communion with God, but a certain supernatural gift of righteousness, or primitive innocence, was only taken away from it by an angry God. To restore the broken order, it was necessary, according to the teachings of Catholicism, only to satisfy the insult to God and thus remove the guilt of humanity and the punishment that weighed on it. He does not know about the deep essence of Christ’s sacrifice as a sacrifice of God’s Love and the propitiation of God’s truth for the sake of forgiveness of people who have fallen but have not lost His mercy, about the grace-filled sanctification and purification of the repentant soul resorting to God, its transfiguration by God, deification as the path of salvation. formalism of the Catholic formula "sin - wrath - satisfaction". Hence the jurisprudential doctrine of redemption, salvation, how a person should act in order to get rid of “wrath, punishment” and hell, the dogma of satisfaction to God for sins, supererogatory merits and the treasury of saints, purgatory and indulgences.

Orthodox theology The theological Catholic point of view is alien, not knowing the unchanging love of God for His creation, not seeing the distortion of the whole person by sin, distinguished by the formal, legal nature of the formulas “insult - punishment - satisfaction for the insult.” Orthodoxy teaches that in the Fall, man himself departed with his soul from God and, as a result of sin, became impervious to the grace of God. According to St. Nicholas of Serbia, when Eve “...believed the beautiful serpent, a feigned lie, her soul lost harmony, the strings of divine music weakened in her, her love for the Creator, the God of love, cooled. ...Eve... Looked into her muddy soul and no longer saw God in her. God left her. God and the devil cannot be under the same roof.” That. As a result of arbitrary sin, man lost communion with God, God's grace, holiness and perfection, the harmony of all mental and physical powers, lost true life and entered into the power of death. This nature, upset by sin, was inherited from Adam and Eve by their descendants. Original sin is understood by Orthodoxy not as a mechanical punishment of God for the sin of people, but as a disorder of human nature as a result of sin and the naturally subsequent loss of communion with God, as a distortion of human nature by an irresistible inclination to sin and death. According to this understanding of the essence of original sin, Orthodoxy understands the dogmas of atonement and salvation differently than Catholicism. We confess that God expects from a Christian not satisfaction for sins and not some sum of external, mechanical works, but repentance that transforms the soul, purification of the heart.

St. Basil the Great speaks:

“As Adam sinned because of evil will, so he died because of sin: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); to the extent that he moved away from life, to the extent that he approached death: because God is life, and the deprivation of life is death; That's why Adam prepared death for himself by moving away from God, according to what is written: “those who remove themselves from You perish.”"(Ps. 72:27)."

“Man is created in the image and likeness of God; But sin has distorted (ήχρείωσεν) the beauty of the image, drawing the soul into passionate desires.”

Prot. Maxim Kozlov writes:

"...according to Roman Catholic teaching, human nature did not suffer changes as a result of original sin, and original sin affected not so much the person himself as his relationship with God. ...the loss of a person's paradise state is interpreted precisely as the loss of a certain amount of supernatural gifts, without which “a person is not able to communicate with God, without which the human mind is darkened by ignorance, the will weakened so much that it began to follow more the suggestions of the passions than the demands of the mind, their bodies became subject to infirmities, illness and death. The last phrase was a quote from the Roman.” Catholic Catechism of 1992. The Roman Catholic understanding of human nature determines several derivative provisions. Firstly, since a person has simply lost his natural grace and at the same time human nature itself has not undergone any change, then this supernatural gift can be returned to a person at any time, and for this there is no need for the action of the person himself. From such a point of view, in order to explain why God does not return man to his heavenly state, nothing else can be imagined except that man must earn his justification, satisfy God’s justice, or that this justification must be earned for him, purchased by someone else ".

Orthodoxy claims that all God's actions towards man have their source not His insult and wrath(in the human understanding of the passion of anger), but His unfailing love and justice. So, Rev. Isaac the Syrian writes:

“Whoever admonishes with the goal of making him healthy, admonishes with love; but whoever seeks revenge, there is no love in him. God admonishes with love, and does not take revenge (let that not be done!), on the contrary, He means that the image should be healed His... This type of love is a consequence of rightness and does not deviate into the passion of revenge."

St. Basil the Great writes about the foundations of God’s providence:

“God, by a special dispensation, gives us over to sorrows... because we are creations of a good God and we are in the power of the One who arranges everything that concerns us, both important and unimportant, then we cannot endure anything without the will of God; And if we endure something, it is not harmful, or not such that something better can be provided for».

“As Adam sinned because of evil will, so he died because of sin: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); to the extent that he moved away from life, to the extent that he approached death: because God is life, and the deprivation of life is death; That's why Adam prepared death for himself by moving away from God, according to what is written: “those who remove themselves from You perish.”"(Ps. 72:27)."

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov):

God, allowing us temptations and handing us over to the devil, does not cease to provide for us, while punishing, he never ceases to do us good.

Rev. Nicodemus Svyatogorets:

« All temptations in general are sent by God for our benefit...all the sorrows and torments that the soul endures during internal temptations and the scarcity of spiritual consolation and sweets, nothing else but the cleansing medicine provided by the love of God, with which God cleanses her if she endures them with humility and patience. And of course they prepare for such patient sufferers a crown, acquired only through them, and the crown is all the more glorious, the more painful the torment of the heart endured during them.”

St. Nicholas of Serbia:

“...the forefathers of the human race. As soon as they lost love, they darkened their mind. With sin, freedom was also lost.

...At a fateful moment, God-loving Eve was tempted by someone who abused her freedom. ...she believed the slanderer of God, believed a lie instead of the Truth, a murderer instead of the Lover of Mankind. And at that moment when she believed the beautiful serpent, a feigned lie, her soul lost harmony, the strings of divine music weakened in her, her love for the Creator, the God of love, cooled.

... Eve... She looked into her cloudy soul and no longer saw God in it. God left her. God and the devil cannot be under the same roof. ...

Listen now, my daughter, to this secret. God is a perfect person, therefore He is perfect love. God is a perfect person, therefore He is perfect life. That is why Christ uttered the words that shocked the world: “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6), meaning by the way the way of love. That is why love, as a path, is put in first place. For only through love can truth and life be comprehended. That is why it is said in the Word of God: “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed” (1 Cor. 16:22). How can one who is deprived of love not be cursed if at the same time he remains without truth and life? Thus, he curses himself. ...

God wanted to forgive Adam, but not without repentance and sufficient sacrifice. And the Son of God, the Lamb of God, went to the slaughter for the redemption of Adam and his race. And all out of love and truth. Yes, and the truth, but the truth lies in love."

Orthodox dogmas of atonement and salvation are based on this understanding of original sin. According to the immutable Truth of God, sin entails alienation from God. As the Holy Scripture testifies, “retribution (“obrotsy” (glory) - payment) for sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). This is also spiritual death, consisting in alienation from God, the Source of life, for “sin committed gives birth to death” (James 1:15). This is physical death, which naturally follows spiritual death. " We must always remember that God is not only love, but also truth, and He has mercy righteously, and not arbitrarily"- writes St. Theophan the Recluse.

Without ceasing to provide for fallen man and desiring his salvation, God combined His mercy, His perfect love for the man He created and His perfect justice, Truth, by redeeming humanity with the Cross of Christ:

“The Only Begotten Son of God, unable to bear to see the human race tormented by the devil, came and saved us” (From the prayer of the rite of the consecration of the water of the Holy Epiphanies).

Orthodoxy teaches about the death of Christ the Savior on the cross, as an atoning, propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the human race, brought to the justice of God - the Holy Trinity - for the entire sinful world, thanks to which the revival and salvation of mankind became possible.

The essence of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross- this is God’s love for man, His mercy and His Truth.

Archim. John (Peasant) said:

"... out of divine love for all people, the Lord drank the bitter cup of the greatest suffering.…out of His love for people, God gave His only begotten Son to suffering on the cross and death for the atonement of the sins of the entire human race.

The Sacrifice of propitiation was offered on the Cross (Rom. 3:25) the immutable truth of God for each of us. By the life-giving Blood of Christ shed on the Cross, eternal condemnation was removed from humanity.”

St. Philaret (Drozdov) spoke about the essence of redemption:

““There is a God of love,” says the same contemplator of love. God is love in essence and the very being of love. All His attributes are vestments of love; all actions are expressions of love. ... she is His justice, when she measures the degrees and types of her gifts sent down or withheld by wisdom and goodness, for the sake of the highest good of all her creatures. Come closer and look at the formidable face of God’s justice, and you will definitely recognize in it the meek gaze of God’s love".

Smch. Seraphim (Chichagov) Orthodox states doctrine of atonement, showing and that the Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ both original sin and its consequences in the souls of believers are forgiven, on it “the right of the Redeemer is based to forgive the sins of the repentant, to cleanse and sanctify their souls with His blood”, thanks to it “gifts of grace are poured out on believers” :

“The truth of God first of all demands that people receive reward for their merits, and punishment for their guilt. ... But since God is love in essence and the very essence of love, He predetermined for fallen man a new path to salvation and perfect rebirth through cessation in there is no sin.

At the demand of God's Truth, man had to bring satisfaction to God's Justice for his sin. But what could he sacrifice? Your repentance, your life? But repentance only softens the punishment, and does not get rid of it, because it does not destroy the crime. ... Thus, man remained an unpaid debtor to God and an eternal captive of death and the devil. The destruction of sinfulness in oneself was impossible for man, for he received an inclination towards evil along with being, with soul and flesh. Consequently, only his Creator could recreate man, and only Divine omnipotence could destroy the natural consequences of sin, such as death and evil. But to save a person without his desire, against his will, by force, was unworthy of both God, who gave man freedom, and man, a free being. ... The Only Begotten Son of God, Consubstantial with God the Father, took upon Himself human nature, united it in His Person with the Divinity and, thus, restored humanity in Himself - pure, perfect and sinless, which was in Adam before the Fall. ... He ... endured all the sorrows, sufferings and death itself assigned to man by the Truth of God, and with such a Sacrifice he fully satisfied Divine Justice for all humanity, fallen and guilty before God. Through the incarnation of God, we became brothers of the Only Begotten, became His joint heirs, united with Him, like a body with a head. ... The Redeemer’s right to forgive the sins of the repentant, to cleanse and sanctify their souls with His blood is based on this infinite price of the atoning sacrifice made on the Cross. According to the power of Christ’s merits on the cross, gifts of grace are poured out on believers, and they are given by God to Christ and to us in Christ and through Christ Jesus.”

Rev. Justin (Popovich) teaching about the immutable love of God, he emphasizes that it was not God who cursed people, but people condemned themselves to death and damnation through sin:

“The human race, through sin, condemned itself to death and damnation, but God the Word, being born in the flesh, tore the garments of ancient condemnation and clothed us with incorruption.”

Prot. Mikhail Pomazansky writes in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology about Catholicism’s distorted understanding of original sin:

"Roman Catholic theologians consider the consequence of the Fall to be the taking away from people of the supernatural gift of God's grace, after which man remained in his “natural” state; his nature was not damaged, but only became confused: namely, the flesh, the bodily side, took precedence over the spiritual; original sin is that guilt before the God of Adam and Eve is transferred to all people.

Alien to Orthodox theology Roman Catholic point of view, characterized by an explicit legal, formal character.

Orthodox theology perceives the consequences of ancestral sin differently.

Man after the first fall his soul departed from God and became insensitive to the grace of God revealed to him, stopped hearing the Divine voice addressed to him, and this led to the further rooting of sin in him.

However, God never deprived humanity of His mercy, help, grace.

But even the Old Testament righteous could not escape the common destiny of fallen humanity after their death, being in the darkness of hell, until the creation of the Heavenly Church, that is, before the resurrection and ascension of Christ: the Lord Jesus Christ destroyed the doors of hell and opened the way to the Kingdom of Heaven.

One cannot see the essence of sin, including original sin, only in the dominance of the carnal principle over the spiritual, as Roman theology presents it. Many sinful inclinations, moreover, severe ones, relate to the properties of a spiritual order: such is pride, which, according to the Apostle, is the source, next to lust, of general sinfulness in the world (1 John 2:15-16). Sin is also inherent in evil spirits who have no flesh at all. The word “flesh” in the Holy Scriptures refers to the unregenerate state, the opposite of the regenerated life in Christ: “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Of course, this does not deny the fact that a number of passions and sinful inclinations originate from the physical nature, as the Holy Scripture also points out (Rom. Chapter 7). Thus, original sin is understood by Orthodox theology as a sinful inclination that entered humanity and became its spiritual illness.”

From the Catholic doctrine of original sin comes misunderstanding of the essence of salvation. Orthodoxy teaches that salvation consists of 1) the redemption of humanity by the Savior and 2) the purification of the soul of each person, sanctification and deification: and “He will deliver Israel from all their iniquities” (Ps. 129:8); “for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21); “For He is our God, deliver us from our iniquities; For that is our God, who delivers the world from the charms of the enemy; You freed the human race from incorruption, life and incorruption of the world and the gift” (stichera of Octoechos).

St. Theophan the Recluse writes about the essence of salvation:

“For our salvation it is necessary: ​​firstly, the propitiation of God, the removal of the legal oath from us and the return of God’s favor to us; secondly, the revival of us, the mortification of sins, or the granting of new life to us.”

Thus, God does not demand from man “satisfaction for sins,” but repentance that transforms the soul, becoming like God in righteousness. In Orthodoxy, the matter of salvation is a question of spiritual life, purification of the heart; in Catholicism, it is a question resolved formally and legally by external affairs.

“This is a fundamental difference in the understanding of salvation, that salvation is, according to the patristic understanding, deliverance from sin as such, and according to the legal understanding, deliverance from punishment for sin,” notes Archpriest. Maxim Kozlov. “According to medieval Catholic doctrine, a Christian should do good works not only because he needs merit (merita) to obtain a blessed life, but also in order to bring satisfaction (satisfactio) in order to avoid temporal punishments (poenae temporales).

Based on the understanding of original sin as a disorder of human nature itself, Orthodoxy asserts that no good deeds can save a person if they are done mechanically, not for the sake of God and His commandments, not from the depths of a soul that humbles itself and loves God, because in this case they do not attract the grace of God, which sanctifies and cleanses the soul from all sin. On the contrary, from the Catholic understanding of original sin arose the doctrine that, along with ordinary merits, there are supererogatory deeds and merits (merita superrogationis). The totality of these merits, together with meritum Christi, forms the so-called treasury of merit or treasury of good deeds (thesaurus meritorum or operum superrogationis), from which the Church has the right to draw to blot out the sins of her flock. From this follows the doctrine of indulgences."

Venerable Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual conversations:
About the state of Adam before he transgressed God’s commandment and after he lost both his own and the heavenly image. This conversation contains several very useful questions.
This conversation teaches that not a single person, unless supported by Christ, is able to overcome the temptations of the evil one, shows what those who desire divine glory for themselves should do; and also teaches that through Adam’s disobedience we fell into slavery to carnal passions, from which we are delivered through the sacrament of the cross; and finally, it shows how great the power of tears and divine fire is

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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 history

Original 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 times

In 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.

Archpriest Peter Andrievsky for the magazine "Blessed Fire"

It so happened that the beginning of my interest in theology had a place, a time and an event. The Moscow Theological Academy, where I entered in 1984, became such a place. And the event was the presentation of the dogma of original sin by Professor Mikhail Stepanovich Ivanov in the first year of the academy. I think that this name means nothing to many. However, prof. Ivanov has been the vice-rector of the academy for several decades and heads the department of dogmatic theology at the Moscow Academy of Arts, the most important educational center of our Church.

Original sin or corruption of nature?

So, explaining the doctrine of original (or as it is also called) ancestral sin, Prof. Ivanov said that the concept of “original sin” is actually a common noun. For Adam, this sin is sin in the proper sense of the word. For us, his descendants, “original sin” must be understood as the corruption of our nature, which we inherit from our forefather. And only the damage of nature.

Frankly, these words of Prof. Ivanov became a real revelation for many first-year students. Of course, it cannot be said that after seminary our knowledge of dogmatic theology was perfect. However, that Adam’s sin spread to all his descendants, that we all sinned in Adam, we have well learned this position of Orthodox dogma. And suddenly we hear that the descendants of Adam are not guilty for the sin of their forefather. That original sin only for Adam is sin in the proper meaning of the word. For his descendants, this is just damage to the nature they inherit. We could not agree with this.

In Adam we all sinned. Or not?

For some reason we decided to convince prof. Ivanova. To our dogmatic theology classes we brought sayings of the Holy Fathers, which, it seemed to us, irrefutably spoke in favor of the fact that descendants are guilty of Adam’s sin. However, the patristic expressions that are convincing to us for Prof. Ivanov were not like that. He said that in the sayings we quote, the Holy Fathers speak about the corruption of human nature, which occurred due to the sin of Adam. But here the Holy Fathers do not say that we are guilty before God for the sin of Adam.

I don’t remember exactly what sayings of the Holy Fathers we brought. I remember exactly that one day we brought to class a saying from the “Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East.” It sounds like this:

“Original sin is a crime of the law of God given in paradise to the progenitor Adam. This ancestral sin passed from Adam into all human nature, since we were all then in Adam, and thus, through Adam alone, sin spread to all of us. Therefore, we are conceived and born with this sin, as the Holy Scripture teaches: By one man sin came into the world, and through sin came death, and so death came to all men, in which all sinned (Rom. 5:12)” (Part 3, answer to question 20).

This saying cannot be reinterpreted. It is clearly stated here that “this”, i.e. original or ancestral sin, “passed from Adam into all human nature... therefore we are conceived and born with this sin.” Prof. Ivanov did not argue that what is being said here is the involvement of all Adam’s descendants in original sin. “But the Eastern Patriarchs,” he said, “are not Holy Fathers.”

The connection between original sin and infant baptism

Then we never found a single piece of evidence belonging to the Holy Father of the Ancient Church that could not be reinterpreted. Only a few years later, when I was reading the rules of the Council of Carthage, I found such evidence. This is what is said in Rule 124 of this Council:

“It is defined in the same way: whoever rejects the need for the baptism of small children and newborns from the mother’s womb, or says that although they are baptized for the remission of sins, they do not borrow anything from the ancestral Adam’s sin that should be washed with the wash of rebirth (from which it would follow that the image of baptism for the remission of sins is used over them not in the true, but in a false meaning), let him be anathema. For what was said by the Apostle: by one man sin came into the world, and by sin death: and so (death) came into all men, and in him all sinned (Rom. 5:12), it should not be understood differently than what the Catholic Church has always understood, spilled and spread everywhere. For according to this rule of faith, even infants, who cannot commit any sins of their own accord, are truly baptized for the remission of sins, so that through rebirth, what they took from the old birth may be cleansed in them.”

As we see, the rule of the Council is directed both against those who deny the need for baptism of children, and against those who deny the transference of our ancestral, Adamic sin to us. The Fathers of the Council say that if we are not guilty for the sin of our forefather, then it turns out that the image of baptism for the remission of sins is performed by the Church on infants not in the true, but in a false sense. For infants have no personal sins. What sins are forgiven babies in baptism? And if they are not guilty for the sin of Adam, then the Church, baptizing infants for the remission of sins, goes out and uses this image of baptism over them in a false meaning. It is noteworthy that in confirmation of this, the Council, as well as the Eastern Patriarchs, cited the saying of the Apostle Paul (Rom. 5:12), the same saying that heretics are now trying to reinterpret. But the Council testified that this saying of the Apostle should be understood exactly as the Orthodox Church has always understood it: that all people sinned in Adam, that original sin spread to everyone. And its authority is unconditional: by the 2nd rule of the VI Ecumenical Council, the rules of the fathers of the Council of Carthage, among other rules of the Local and Ecumenical Councils, were “sealed by agreement,” i.e., approved. And the VII Ecumenical Council, with its 1st rule, confirmed this statement.

Babies are sinful only through their ancestors' sin.

It is not by chance that the Fathers of the Council in this rule combined the transfer of Adam’s sin to his descendants with the need for infant baptism. That is why infants need to be baptized, because they are sinners, sinners of the only sin - the ancestral sin with which they are born into the world. And if this sin is not cleansed in the baptismal font, then in the event of the death of the baby, he will appear as a sinner before the judgment of God. Why did the fathers of the Council, under pain of anathema, order the baptism of infants?

Therefore, all the reasoning and conclusions of another MDA professor A.I. Osipov, trying to prove that it is impossible to baptize infants, are meaningless and are broken by the anathemas of the Local and two Ecumenical Councils. And Prof. Osipov, along with those whom he managed to convince of his rightness, are under anathema.

Adam's sin passed on to all humanity

Returning to prof. Ivanov and his reinterpretation of the sayings of the Holy Fathers, it should be noted that not all of them can be reinterpreted. So it is impossible to reinterpret the two sayings found in “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” by Met. Makaria (Bulgakov):

St. Ambrose of Milan: “We all sinned in the first man, and through the succession of nature the succession spread from one to all in sin...; So Adam is in each of us: human nature sinned in him, because through one sin passed on to all.”

St. Gregory the Theologian: “This newly implanted sin came to unfortunate people from the progenitor... all of us who participated in the same Adam were deceived by the serpent, and killed by sin, and saved by the heavenly Adam.”

It is also impossible to reinterpret the saying of St. Simeon the New Theologian: “That saying, which says that no one is sinless except God, even if he lived one day on earth (Job 14:4-5) does not speak about those who themselves personally sin, because How can a one-day-old child sin? But this expresses the mystery of our faith, that human nature is sinful from its very conception. God did not create man as a sinner, but as a pure and holy person. But when the primordial Adam lost this robe of holiness, not from any other sin, but from pride alone, and became corruptible and mortal; then all people descended from the seed of Adam are involved in ancestral sin from their very conception and birth. Whoever was born in this way, even if he has not yet committed any sin, is already sinful by that ancestral sin” (Words of St. Simeon the New Theologian. Issue 1. M. 1892. P. 309).

It should be added that there is not a single testimony of the Holy Father of the Ancient Church, which would say that we not guilty for the sin of his forefather. If there are expressions of the Holy Fathers where they talk about the damage to human nature that occurred due to Adam’s sin, this does not mean at all that they say that as a result of sin only nature was damaged, and Adam’s sin was not passed on to his descendants.

And here we need to name one more prof. MLA of Protodeacon Andrey Kuraev. This professor did discover one expression. It belongs to Rev. Mark the Ascetic. And he waves this expression like a flag in his books. But, unfortunately, he did not have enough intelligence to understand this expression correctly.

This is what Rev. writes. Mark the Ascetic: “We did not receive the crime by succession: for if we were to break the law because of succession, then it would be necessary for all of us to be criminals and not to be accused by God, like the one who transgresses because of the necessity of natural succession... Crime, being arbitrary, by no one is not inherited involuntarily, but the resulting death, being forced, is inherited by us, and is alienation from God; for after the first man died, that is, he became alienated from God, and we could not live in God. So, what we inherited was not crime... we inherited death unwillingly.”

Kuraev in these words, Rev. Mark, by “crime”, wants to see our forefathers breaking the commandment of God in the Garden of Eden. And since Rev. Mark says that “crime, being arbitrary, is not inherited by anyone involuntarily,” then it turns out that Rev. Mark says that Adam's sin is not inherited by his descendants against his will. But Rev. Mark is not talking here about Adam’s sin, but in general about sins committed by people. Are they committed due to the irresistible predisposition of Adam’s descendants to sin, or did the freedom not to sin remain in the human soul even after the Fall? In other words, do people commit sins freely or out of necessity, due to the fact that a person inherits an irresistible predisposition to sin from his forefather?

Rev. Mark is conducting a polemic here with heretics, very common in his time, who taught that after the Fall the image of God was completely destroyed in man and man inherits from his forefather an irresistible predisposition to sin. But if this were so, says Rev. Mark, “then it would be necessary for all of us to be criminals and not be accused by God as transgressors due to the necessity of natural succession.” If sins were committed by people due to inheritance from the forefather of an irresistible predisposition to sin, then there would be no punishment for these sins from God.

The image of God in man is damaged, but not destroyed

But that's not true. The image of God in man, although darkened, has not been completely destroyed. Although the human will is inclined towards evil, it is also inclined towards good. And after the Fall, it depends on the will of a person: to do a good deed or an evil one. And therefore “a crime,” says Rev. Mark, “being arbitrary, it is not inherited by anyone involuntarily.”

It is not crime, but death that we inherit. At the same time, Rev. Mark here means spiritual death, the consequence of which is alienation from God. “For after the first man died,” says Rev. Mark - that is, alienated from God; and we could not live in God.” Of course, Rev. is here. Mark speaks specifically about spiritual death, for bodily death does not alienate us from God, which is why our Lord Jesus Christ Himself took on mortal nature and tasted death on the Cross of Calvary. It is spiritual death, which for all Adam’s descendants is a consequence of original sin, that alienates us from God. Therefore, the words of Rev. Mark: “we have inherited death unwillingly,” we understand in the sense that St. Mark speaks here not only about our inheritance of spiritual death, but also its cause - ancestral sin, by inheriting which we become “by nature children of the wrath of God” (Eph. 2:3), by virtue of which man is born into this world “alienated from God." Thus, Rev. Mark not only does not share the delusion about our innocence for original sin, but, on the contrary, professes the Orthodox teaching about our inheritance of original sin, due to which we are born into this world already alienated from God.

Why do modern theologians deny the guilt of descendants for the sin of their forefather?

The question arises: why do modern Orthodox theologians so persistently deny the guilt of the descendants of Adam for the sin of their forefather? The answer is obvious. This is due to the fable they profess, that Christ assumed human nature exactly as it became for Adam after the Fall, with which all of Adam’s descendants are born into the world. If the descendants of Adam are guilty for the sin of their forefather, then Christ will also be guilty, and the creators of the fables themselves will come into clear contradiction with the confession of the Orthodox faith that Christ is absolutely sinless. Thus, obvious difficulties arise with the spread of this fable.

And if this is obvious, then the following is completely incomprehensible: why do people who blatantly deny the teachings of the patrists and the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils freely occupy chairs in Theological academies and seminaries?

How did Christ remain free from sinful passions?

How did Christ the Savior remain free from original sin and the reproachful passions associated with it, which were present in the nature of the Mother of God, from Whom He received human flesh?

Having assumed this mortal nature, Christ, as it is sung in the Octoechos, “cut off the passions of both,” i.e. cut them off from His Divine soul and body. What passions did he cut off? Of course, reproachful. What passions did you perceive? Impeccable. Why did He accept impeccable passions? In order to complete the House of our salvation in the flesh. Consequently, the devil was defeated by the nature that, in the person of Adam, was defeated in him. ... In order to “cut off” from Himself the reproachful passions that would impart sinfulness to His human nature, Christ used an amazing means - supernatural birth, which became a kind of “filter” that prevented the passage of these passions from the nature of the Virgin Mary. At the same time, the impeccable passions from the human nature of the Mother of God were voluntarily accepted by our Lord Jesus Christ.

- In your seminar lectures you say that original sin cannot be forgiven. What does it mean?

First, a small image, and then an explanation. Here is a man who broke his leg, this, of course, is not good. He says: “It’s my fault that I didn’t listen to good advice and jumped,” but the leg remains broken, it needs to be treated, and not forgive the person.

Let's try to understand what original sin is. There are several different points of view on this issue. Catholic and then Protestant theology understand original sin mainly as the guilt of Adam and Eve for the sin that they committed. Guilt that seems to spread to all of humanity. But this is absurd. The prophet Ezekiel writes: “The son will not bear the guilt of the father, and the father will not bear the guilt of the son.” (Ezek. 18.20). How can the guilt of my great-grandfather pass on to me?

There is another point of view that original sin is damage that arose as a result of the fall of the first people. St. Maximus the Confessor explains this damage as follows: the first is mortality, we became mortal, and the first people were immortal. The Lord says: “All the good is great”(Gen. 1:31), everything created was beautiful, but I warned: "If you sin, you will surely die" (Gen. 2:17). The first people committed sin and became mortal, and their descendants became mortal. We are not guilty, but it is a pity that we are mortal. We have become susceptible to all diseases, all environmental influences. There was a need for sleep, food, clothing, and warmth. Before the Fall, all this was not necessary. This is what the Bible calls “skin,” as it says: “And the Lord God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21).

This is what original sin is - damage. Man became mortal, perishable, vulnerable. And there is no need for any dogma, we baptized the child and - glory to You, Lord! - he died baptized. That is, with baptism, mortality and pain do not disappear.

Original sin will be healed when we receive a new body after the general resurrection.

This is what “not forgiven” means. Mortality cannot be forgiven. It is not necessary to forgive, but to heal. Healing is impossible in our living conditions; it will happen after the general resurrection.

Unfortunately, the Western idea of ​​guilt has penetrated into our theological textbooks, as if we are to blame for the sin of Adam and Eve. You understand that this is an unreasonable thing.

- Explain the question about the original sin of our Lord Jesus Christ.

By original sin we mean our mortality, corruption - our dependence on the surrounding nature and painful states of hunger, thirst, pain and illness. And also passion - blameless, non-sinful (this is almost synonymous with corruption). By impeccable passions we mean righteous anger, the desire for justice, etc. This is what we acquired as a result of the Fall of Adam. All this is named in Scripture "leather vestments" (Genesis 3:21), that is, “skinned garments” in which the Lord clothed the sinned person - mortality, perishability, passion.

The Lord Jesus in His incarnation accepts our human nature as mortal, corruptible, and not sinfully passionate, but does not sin in this and through suffering, the Cross and death resurrects it in its original state: by death he trampled death.

The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Hebrews says: “God brought about their salvation through suffering.” (Heb. 2:10). Here the word “perfected” in Greek is teliosh, that is, “made perfect.” But He was perfect, He had no sin, although by nature He was similar to us in everything, including mortality. Athanasius the Great says: “Let those who say that the human nature of Christ by nature was immortal be silent” and further, resolving the question “If He had not been crucified, would He have died or not?”, says: “The mortal nature of Christ could not help but die.”

There are many statements by the Holy Fathers on this question, and they all boil down to the fact that the Lord did not accomplish the feat of salvation and healing of human nature in the Incarnation, otherwise the Cross would not have been needed. This was the greatest humility of God (in Greek kenosis - “depreciation of oneself”), that He, the Almighty, united with mortal human nature without sinning in it. And according to the teaching of the Church, it was through death that He trampled death. He accepted true death, not an imaginary one. Rev. John of Damascus directly condemns the heretics under the name of autotodocetes, who taught that Christ assumed an immortal nature, but voluntarily took upon himself death; took on a dispassionate nature, but voluntarily took on the passions. Pope Honorius, who was condemned by the Church as a Monothelite, also argued that Christ took on the nature of the first Adam.

The Church clearly formulated its teachings, these heresies were condemned. The Holy Fathers spoke a lot about this. And suddenly, in our time, the autodocets again raise their heads, as if Christ healed human nature already in His incarnation. But why then was the Cross needed? No wonder the Apostle Paul wrote: “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks.” (1 Cor. 1:23). They are trying to remove the Crucifix again - this temptation and this madness. No! Salvation was accomplished not in the Incarnation, but on the Cross. “God made the leader of salvation perfect” (Heb. 2:10), that is, he freed him from death, made him perfect through suffering. Therefore, when we talk about original sin in Christ, I understand how it frightens many, because all of our school theological literature is filled with Catholic teaching about original sin, which is God’s curse that extends to the entire human race. And it’s as if that’s why Christ was born without original sin and appeared as a sacrifice so that the curse would be lifted. That is, he made a sacrifice to the Father. Saint Gregory the Theologian answers this like this: “I ask, to whom was the sacrifice made? If to the devil, then how humiliating it is for the Creator to make a sacrifice to His fallen creature. And if the Father, then does the Father love man less than the Son? Why did He need such a sacrifice? “It was necessary for man to be sanctified by God’s humanity.”

That is, the sacrifice was made for you and me, why should we be endlessly grateful to Him. It’s the same as if we were drowning and someone, sacrificing themselves, saves us. This is what the Lord did - by His death he trampled death, and from here the greatest gratitude to Christ is born.

- How did Adam differ from Christ?

A lot of people. Adam did not know what evil was, had no experience of contact either outside himself or inside. Adam did not have “leather garments” - a biblical term, according to Rev. Maximus the Confessor, meaning mortality, corruption and non-sinful passion, that is, dependence on natural conditions, the need for sleep, nutrition, and so on.

“Leather garments” were given to Adam after the Fall, when he became mortal, corruptible, and passionate.

Christ, when born, took on our flesh, mortal and perishable. As Athanasius the Great writes: “Let those who say that the body of Christ was immortal by nature be silent!” Christ took our sick, damaged, mortal flesh. Why he truly died and truly rose again. Adam didn't have it.

Christ was surrounded by evil. Adam did not know this, so he fell after the slightest temptation. Christ was constantly tempted and did not fall. This is the greatness of Christ - the “second Adam” in comparison with the first.

- Did Adam know about the Holy Trinity?

I can give methodological advice: whenever a question arises, you need to think: “What will I have if I receive the answer? Why do I need it?" There is an endless sea of ​​questions, but it is impossible and unnecessary to deal with them all. There is also an endless sea of ​​literature, but it is impossible and unnecessary to read everything. Be calm, you will never read everything. We must choose what is useful, what is necessary, what is in demand at the present moment. Of course, judging by my age, I will soon know the answer to your question, but how can I tell you about this?

“For two sins arose in our forefather as a result of the transgression of the divine commandment: one is worthy of censure, and the second, which had the cause of the first, cannot cause censure; the first - from will, which voluntarily renounced the good, the second - from nature, following the will, involuntarily renounced immortality." St. Maximus the Confessor. Works in 2 vols. Questions and answers to Fallasius. Question 42. M.: Martis, 1994. - T .2, p. 129
Paschal troparion.
“Christ took on a body that could die, in order to offer it as His own for everyone, and as for everyone who suffered, because of His presence in the Body, to abolish the possessing power of death, that is, the devil, and to deliver everyone who, through the fear of death, was guilty of work (Heb. 2, 14-15)” - St. Athanasius the Great. Creations. M., 1994. T. 3. P. 346
Autotodokets (Aphtartodokets, Gayanites, Imperishable Ghosts, Fantasiasts, Julianists) - a movement in Monophysitism, consisting of followers of the Halicarnassian bishop Julian. It was formed in 519 after the overthrow of the Monophysite hierarchs in the East. Julian's followers taught that the body of Jesus Christ was incorruptible, that he felt hunger, thirst and other physiological sensations either by appearance or by spontaneous desire, and not by nature. At the same time, the god Jesus and the man Jesus had no difference, and therefore Christ had one nature. The Autodocetes were divided into Aktistites, who recognized the body of Christ as uncreated, and Ktisgolarts (Ktistites), who recognized the body of Christ as created. At the IV and V Ecumenical Councils, the teaching of the Autotodocetes was rejected, and they were forced to disperse outside the Eastern Empire.
Honorius, the Pope, was elected in 625, built many magnificent churches, and established the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross in the Western Church. Died in 638. In the dispute about whether Jesus Christ has two or one will, he supported the views of the Patriarch of Constantinople Sergius, for which he was anathematized as a heretic at the Council of Constantinople.
“What remains to be explored is a question and a dogma that is ignored by many, but for me is very much in need of investigation. To whom and for what purpose was this blood shed, shed for us - the great and glorious blood of God and the Bishop and the Sacrifice? We were in the power of the evil one, sold into sin and bought damage for ourselves through voluptuousness. And if the price of redemption is given to no one other than the one in power, I ask: to whom and for what reason was such a price given? If the evil one, then how offensive this is! The robber receives the price of redemption, receives not only from God, but [receives] God himself, for his torment he takes such an immense payment that for it it would have been fair to spare us too! And if to the Father, then, firstly, for what reason is the blood of the Only Begotten pleasing to the Father, Who did not accept Isaac, which was offered by the Father, but replaced the sacrifice, giving a ram instead of a verbal sacrifice? Or from this it is clear that the Father accepts, not because he demanded or had a need, but because of the economy and because man needed to be sanctified by the humanity of God, so that He Himself would deliver us, overcoming the tormentor by force, and raise us to Himself through the Mediating Son and arranging everything in honor of the Father, to whom He appears to be submissive in everything? These are the works of Christ, and let more be honored with silence” - St. Gregory the Theologian. Creations. T. 1. - M., 1994, pp. 676-677.

Original sin in Orthodoxy is one of those provisions that is unclear to a person just beginning to become acquainted with Christian doctrine. You can learn about what it is, what its consequences are for all of us, as well as what interpretations of original sin exist in different branches of Orthodoxy from this article.

What is original sin?

At first glance, this looks absurd: in the Christian tradition it is believed that a child is born with an already damaged human nature. How can this happen if he has not yet had time to commit sins, if only because he has not yet entered conscious age? In fact, the problem is different: the essence of original sin is that every person is born into the world initially damaged (primarily in the spiritual sense, but not only) due to the act of the first ancestor Adam. It was through him, as we know, that a spiritual illness entered the world, which all his descendants will inherit.

Many people make the mistake of trying to explain what original sin is. We should not assume that in this case we are responsible for the fact that Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Everything is not so literal, and if you read the holy fathers, this will become clear. Adam's sin is no longer our sin, the fact is that for us it lies in human mortality. As follows from the Bible, the Lord God told Adam that he would die if he ate the forbidden fruit, and the serpent - that he and Eve would become equal to God. The tempting serpent did not deceive the first people, but together with the knowledge of the world they became mortal - this is the main consequence of original sin. Thus, this sin was not transmitted to other people, but had disastrous results for them.

Consequences of Adam and Eve's sin

Theologians believe that the results were so severe and painful precisely because God's original commandment was not difficult to fulfill. If Adam and Eve really wanted to fulfill it, they could calmly refuse the tempter’s offer and remain in paradise forever - pure, holy, sinless and, of course, immortal. What is original sin? Like any sin, this is disobedience to the Creator. In fact, Adam created death with his own hands by alienating himself from God and subsequently wallowing in it.

His act not only brought death into his life, but also clouded the initially crystal clear human nature. She became distorted, more prone to other sins, love for the Creator was replaced by fear of him and his punishment. John Chrysostom pointed out that previously the animals bowed before Adam and saw him as a master, but after being expelled from paradise they ceased to recognize him.

Thus, man, from the highest creation of God, pure and beautiful, turned himself into dust and dust, which his body will become after inevitable death. But, as follows from the Bible, after the first ancestors ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, they hid from the Lord not only because they began to fear his wrath, but also because they felt guilty before him.

What happened before original sin

Before the Fall, Adam and Eve had a very close relationship with the Lord. In a sense, they were one with him, so deeply were their souls united with God. Even saints do not have such a connection, much less other Christians who are not so sinless. Therefore, it seems extremely difficult for us to understand it. However, this does not mean that this union should not be sought.

Man was a reflection of God's image, and his heart was pure. The original sin of the first ancestors is called before it; they knew no other sins and were absolutely pure.

How to escape the consequences

Baptism does not eliminate original sin, as is commonly believed. It only gives a person the opportunity to become a different, true Christian. After baptism, a person remains mortal, imprisoned in a mortal body, and at the same time possesses an immortal soul. It is important not to destroy it, because, according to the Orthodox tradition, at the end of time the Last Judgment will come, at which it will become clear what fate is destined for each soul.

Thus, baptism helps restore the lost connection with God, although not fully. In any case, original sin made the essence of man more prone to evil than to good, as it was originally, and therefore it is extremely difficult to reunite with the Creator in this world. However, judging by the examples of the saints, it is apparently possible.

In essence, this is why baptism is mandatory for those who consider themselves Christians - only in this way, and in no other way, can they be together with God and be saved from the death of their soul.

Original sin in Protestantism

It is worth understanding what original sin is in the understanding of Protestants, namely Calvinists. They, unlike the Orthodox, believe that the consequences of Adam’s sin are not only the death of all his descendants, but also their inevitable bearing of guilt for the sin of their ancestor. For this, every person, in their opinion, deserves punishment. Human nature in Calvinism is thoroughly corrupted and saturated with sinfulness.

This view is most consistent with the Bible, although it is puzzling.

Original sin in Catholicism

Catholics believe that the sin of the first-born people lies in disobedience and weak trust in the Creator. This event entailed a large number of different consequences: Adam and Eve lost the favor of God, and as a result, the relationship between the two of them was disrupted. Previously pure and sinless, they became lustful and tense. This affected other people with moral and physical damage. However, Catholics believe in the possibility of his correction and redemption.