At a very early date the Christian church developed the theory / dogma of Original Sin based largely on the mythology of the creation as found in Genesis. Not realizing any better, they accepted the story as literal history.
That isn't true. Good luck finding a reference.
We all know, or should know, that the theory of Original Sin is based on the notion that we are a fallen race, unworthy of God because of the sin of our primeval parents Adam and Eve. St Augustine further developed the theory by stating that the stain of the Original Sin was passed on to the children through the seed of the father.
"[T]his concupiscence, I say, which is cleansed only by the sacrament of regeneration, does undoubtedly, by means of natural birth, pass on the bond of sin to a man's posterity, unless they are themselves loosed from it by regeneration."
Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence, 1:23 (A.D. 420).
"a man's posterity" means future generations, it doesn't exclude women.
This concept further confirmed the notion in the early church that sex was inherently evil and to be discouraged except for procreation.
Sex was evil to the Gnostic heretics. They were the ones Paul was talking about who "forbade marriage" in 1 Tim. 4:3. What is interesting as well is that Genesis is a Jewish scripture and the Jews never developed the theory of Original Sin. Moreover, the rather earthy Jewish attitude toward sex lacks entirely the Christian distaste for it.
You mean the Puritan distaste for it, an offshoot of Calvinism. Marriage has always been a sacrament since God established it in Genesis.
Devout Catholics Have Better Sex, Study Says
Group says Catholics have more enjoyable sex, more often.
The notion that Original Sin was passed on through the father's seed, somewhat like a spiritual HIV virus, turns out to have been inherently flawed. We must realize, that at that point in history, it was believed that the father, and the father only, contributed what we would today call the genetic make up of the child. What they called the male seed was regarded as containing an entire nascent human being.
No early church father taught that.
As a consequence, they regarded any wastage of the seed as tatamount to murder. This explains why masturbation, coitus interuptus and even wet dreams were considered to be serious sins.
I think you are confused.
Gen. 38:8-10 - Onan is killed by God for practicing
contraception (in this case, withdrawal) and spilling his sperm on the ground.
Gen. 38:9 - also, the author's usage of the graphic word "seed," which is very uncharacteristic for Hebrew writing, further highlights the reason for Onan's death.
The sin is contraception, not murder.
Lev.18:22-23;20:13 - wasting seed with non-generative sexual acts warrants death. Many Protestant churches, which have all strayed from the Catholic Church, reject this fundamental truth (few Protestants and Catholics realize that
contraception was condemned by all of Christianity - and other religions - until the Anglican church permitted it in certain cases at the Lambeth conference in
1930. This opened the floodgates of error).
The role of the woman was solely that of providing the warm nurturing environment for the developing child. She had no genetic contribution to make. Since she contributed nothing to the make up of the child, she could, of course, not be the agency through which Original Sin was passed on. Of course the mother herself was cursed with Original Sin but this flaw in her was not felt to have any bearing on the state of the child.
Sorry, but that's a straw man fallacy. Where did Jesus get His humanity from?
Now when we link these notions to the Nativity story we get further complications. Mary was believed to have become pregnant through the agency of God. God of course contributed the seed (genetic material) and Mary's role for the next nine months was as a nurturing womb. Jesus was born sinless because of course God was sinless. The stain of the Original Sin did not afflict him. It did not matter that Mary was afflicted with the sin.
No, it didn't matter, but God saw it was fitting.
This entire theory fell apart about 200 years ago when it was discovered by microscopic studies that the mother did indeed contribute genetically to the child. She of course supplied the egg cell to be fertilized by the male sperm.
They didn't have microscopes in the 1st century??? What stupid Catholics!
This realization seems to have provided a good deal of the impetus for the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. If Mary through her egg contributed to the genetic make up of Jesus then she too could pass on Original Sin. The Immaculate Conception solved this problem quite neatly by stating that Mary herself must have been concieved immaculately (without sin) through the agency of the grace of Jesus somehow applied retroactively.[/QUOTE]
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception hinges on the Word of God delivered by an angel, "Hail Mary! Full of Grace!!!"
The question is
WHEN this occurred.
