- Sep 29, 2016
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So I think I've come to the unfortunate realization that the EO Church has not preserved the original doctrine of the Apostles in it's entirety (probably the closest to what the Apostles taught than any other Church), because for a while I've noticed that there seem to be some clear contradictions from what the Church today teaches and what the Church of eons ago taught.
I've decided to start a bunch of posts with the topic "OrthoCliches" - because it seems to me that I have heard the same talking points parroted over and over and over again - which are just claimed with an appeal to "the Ancient" Church authority rather than any substantive evidence - and I want to show how there is substantive evidence against these claims. And I wanted to discuss this.
The topic of this post will be "Ancestral Sin."
There's a few "cliches" on this topic that I hear parroted repeatedly.
1. Saint Augustine was not well known in the East; he was a radical who was popularized in the sphere of Rome.
1a. He was declared a Church Father in the 5th Ecumenical Council - a strictly Eastern Council - and he was named an illustrious doctor in the 6th Ecumenical Council. More than this is point 3. If he wasn't well known, why would he be declared a Church Father in the 5th Ecumenical Council, a Council which didn't even have a Papal legate?
2. Saint Augustine had a faulty translation of the "by one man sin entered the world" verse, not knowing Greek and thus the original Greek text, knowing only the Vulgate Bible, and thus built an entire theology based on a mistranslation.
2a. Although it is certainly the case that Augustine didn't know Greek, the Council of Carthage specifically avoids the mistake and uses the correct Greek form of the verse in it's Canon which affirms Saint Augustine's theology (Canon 110: "For no otherwise can be understood what the Apostle says, 'By one man sin has come into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed upon all men in that all have sinned', than the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith (regulam fidei) even infants, who could have committed as yet no sin themselves, therefore are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that what in them is the result of generation may be cleansed by regeneration.")
3. The Council of Carthage that Saint Augustine presided over was a local council that has no binding on the Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox Church doesn't teach that the guilt of Original Sin is not inherited; only the consequences of the sin is inherited.
3a.
Canon 110 of the Council of Carthage says this:
"Likewise it seemed good that whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother's wombs should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed by the laver of regeneration, from whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him be anathema."
The canons of the Council of Carthage specifically was approved not only in the Quinisext Council - which the Orthodox see as Ecumenical - but also the 7th Ecumenical Council, which the Orthodox approve.
NPNF2-14. The Seven Ecumenical Councils - Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Even Dr. Taylor Marshall, the famous Thomistic theologian who has gotten popular recently in Catholic circles, pointed this out in 2006.
https://taylormarshall.com/2006/02/must-eastern-orthodox-believe-in.html
Finally, the nail which is hit in the head is the fact that Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain gave a commentary on this particular canon from the Rudder.
"
This view too was a product of the heretical insanity of the Pelagians: this refers to their saying that newly begotten infants are not baptized for the remission of sins, as the Orthodox Church believes and maintains, but, instead, if anyone say that they are baptized for the remission of sins, yet the infants themselves have not incurred any taint from the original (or primordial) sin of Adam, such as to require to be removed by means of baptism (since, as we have said, those men believed that this original sin is not begotten with the human being, simply because this was not any offense of nature, but a mischoice of the free and independent will). So the Council in the present Canon anathematizes the heretics who say this: First, because the form of the baptism for the remission of sins which is given to infants is not true according to them, but false and factitious, since, according to them, those infants have no sins to be pardoned. Secondly, because the Apostle in what he says makes it plain that sin entered the world through a single human being, namely, Adam, and that death entered through sin, and thus death passed into all human beings, since all of them have sinned just like Adam. This passage, I say, cannot be taken to mean anything else than what the catholic Church of the Orthodox has understood and believed it to mean, to wit, that even the newborn infants, notwithstanding the fact that they have not sinned by reason of any exercise of their own free and independent will, have nevertheless entailed upon themselves the original sin from Adam; wherefore they need to be purified through baptism necessarily from that sin: hence they are truly, and not fictitiously, being baptized for the remission of sins."
Some may argue "well, Carthage was simply disciplinary and not dogmatic, because after all, if we were to accept every canon of the 7th Ecumenical Council, we would have 2 canons of Scripture."
However, Carthage specifically anathematizes a specific doctrine, which by no means can be merely disciplinary. It talks about a doctrine, and thus makes it dogma.
I've decided to start a bunch of posts with the topic "OrthoCliches" - because it seems to me that I have heard the same talking points parroted over and over and over again - which are just claimed with an appeal to "the Ancient" Church authority rather than any substantive evidence - and I want to show how there is substantive evidence against these claims. And I wanted to discuss this.
The topic of this post will be "Ancestral Sin."
There's a few "cliches" on this topic that I hear parroted repeatedly.
1. Saint Augustine was not well known in the East; he was a radical who was popularized in the sphere of Rome.
1a. He was declared a Church Father in the 5th Ecumenical Council - a strictly Eastern Council - and he was named an illustrious doctor in the 6th Ecumenical Council. More than this is point 3. If he wasn't well known, why would he be declared a Church Father in the 5th Ecumenical Council, a Council which didn't even have a Papal legate?
2. Saint Augustine had a faulty translation of the "by one man sin entered the world" verse, not knowing Greek and thus the original Greek text, knowing only the Vulgate Bible, and thus built an entire theology based on a mistranslation.
2a. Although it is certainly the case that Augustine didn't know Greek, the Council of Carthage specifically avoids the mistake and uses the correct Greek form of the verse in it's Canon which affirms Saint Augustine's theology (Canon 110: "For no otherwise can be understood what the Apostle says, 'By one man sin has come into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed upon all men in that all have sinned', than the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith (regulam fidei) even infants, who could have committed as yet no sin themselves, therefore are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that what in them is the result of generation may be cleansed by regeneration.")
3. The Council of Carthage that Saint Augustine presided over was a local council that has no binding on the Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox Church doesn't teach that the guilt of Original Sin is not inherited; only the consequences of the sin is inherited.
3a.
Canon 110 of the Council of Carthage says this:
"Likewise it seemed good that whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother's wombs should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed by the laver of regeneration, from whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him be anathema."
The canons of the Council of Carthage specifically was approved not only in the Quinisext Council - which the Orthodox see as Ecumenical - but also the 7th Ecumenical Council, which the Orthodox approve.
NPNF2-14. The Seven Ecumenical Councils - Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Even Dr. Taylor Marshall, the famous Thomistic theologian who has gotten popular recently in Catholic circles, pointed this out in 2006.
https://taylormarshall.com/2006/02/must-eastern-orthodox-believe-in.html
Finally, the nail which is hit in the head is the fact that Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain gave a commentary on this particular canon from the Rudder.
"
This view too was a product of the heretical insanity of the Pelagians: this refers to their saying that newly begotten infants are not baptized for the remission of sins, as the Orthodox Church believes and maintains, but, instead, if anyone say that they are baptized for the remission of sins, yet the infants themselves have not incurred any taint from the original (or primordial) sin of Adam, such as to require to be removed by means of baptism (since, as we have said, those men believed that this original sin is not begotten with the human being, simply because this was not any offense of nature, but a mischoice of the free and independent will). So the Council in the present Canon anathematizes the heretics who say this: First, because the form of the baptism for the remission of sins which is given to infants is not true according to them, but false and factitious, since, according to them, those infants have no sins to be pardoned. Secondly, because the Apostle in what he says makes it plain that sin entered the world through a single human being, namely, Adam, and that death entered through sin, and thus death passed into all human beings, since all of them have sinned just like Adam. This passage, I say, cannot be taken to mean anything else than what the catholic Church of the Orthodox has understood and believed it to mean, to wit, that even the newborn infants, notwithstanding the fact that they have not sinned by reason of any exercise of their own free and independent will, have nevertheless entailed upon themselves the original sin from Adam; wherefore they need to be purified through baptism necessarily from that sin: hence they are truly, and not fictitiously, being baptized for the remission of sins."
Some may argue "well, Carthage was simply disciplinary and not dogmatic, because after all, if we were to accept every canon of the 7th Ecumenical Council, we would have 2 canons of Scripture."
However, Carthage specifically anathematizes a specific doctrine, which by no means can be merely disciplinary. It talks about a doctrine, and thus makes it dogma.
