Sin

SIN, Peccatum, is any Thought, Word, Action, Omission, or Desire, contrary to the Law of God. The Hebrews have several Words for expressing Sin. They think, for Example, that Chataath,¹ Peccatum, signifies a Sin committed against some positive Precept; and that Ashamath,² Delictum, expresses a Sin committed against any Negative Precept: And that Shegaga³ stands for Sins of Ignorance, Forgetfulness, Omission, or Inadvertency. But certain it is, that these Terms are often used one for another, and that the Scripture seldom observes these Distinctions: It often calls very great Sins, by the Name of Ignorance or Folly; and at other times it gives the Name of Sin to Faults of Inadvertency. Also the Name of Sin is often given to the Sacrifice of Expiation,⁴ or to the Sacrifice for Sin. Saint Paul says, for Example, that God was pleas’d that Jesus Christ, who knew no Sin, should be our Victim of Expiation: For he hath made him to be Sin for us, who knew no Sin; that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him.

Wisd. i. 13, 14.God was not the Author of Sin, or of Death; but Sin and Death enter’d into the Wisd. ii. 24. 1 Cor. xv. 20, 21. Rom. v. 12. & vi. 23. Psal. l. 7. Rom. iii. 23. Gen. viii. 21.World by the Malice of the Devil. Adam, by his Disobedience, has made us all guilty in the Eyes of God; his Sin has merited Death for us; he is the Reason that we are all born Children of Iniquity, and that we are inclined to Evil from our Mothers Wombs. Jesus Christ, by his Death, hath restored Life to us; by his Obedience, he has reconciled us to God the Father; instead of Children of Wrath as we were, he has merited for us the Character of Children of God. ‘Tis by our Baptism that we are admitted to the Participation of these Privileges, and by Repentance that we may recover them again, when we have had the Misfortune to lose them.

The Sin against the Holy Ghost, is differently explain’d by the Fathers and the Interpreters. St. Athanasius⁵, who wrote expressly upon this Matter, relates the Opinions of Origen, and of Theognostes, who made the Sin against the Holy Ghost, to consist in Crimes committed after Baptism. But Athanasius very well observes, that the Pharisees, whom our Saviour upbraided with this Crime, had not received Baptism, and consequently could not become capable of it. As for himself, he thinks it consists in this, that the Pharisees maliciously imputed the Works of Jesus Christ to the Power of the Devil; though they could not but be convinced in their own Minds, that he acted by a good Spirit: And also in this, that they deny’d the Divinity of the Son, which was so clearly proved to them by his Works. St. Hilary⁶ and St. Theophilus of Antioch⁷ follow the Opinion of Athanasius, and make the Sin against the Holy Ghost to consist, as he does, in denying the Divinity of the Son; under the Name of the Holy Ghost, meaning the Divinity.

St. Austin says in one Place,⁸ that the Sin against the Holy Ghost, consists in subverting brotherly Charity, by Motives of Envy and Malice; and in his Retractations, he adds,⁹ that to render this Crime really irremissible, the Sinner must persevere in it to the End. He says elsewhere,¹⁰ that tho’ there are several Sins that may be committed against the Holy Ghost, yet however, there are none really irremissible, except final Impenitence, Despair, the Perseverance of a hardened Sinner, who does not return to God during his whole Life. St. Chrysostom¹¹, the Author of the imperfect Work upon St. Matthew¹², St. Isidore of Damietta¹³, and several others, think, that the Sin we are speaking of, consists, in ascribing the miraculous Works of Jesus Christ to a diabolical Power; and that its Irremissibleness is not real and absolute, but only relative, because it is very difficult to obtain the Pardon of it.

St. Ambrose is not altogether consistent with himself, in what he says concerning this Crime: In one Place,¹⁴ he makes it consist in denying the Deity of the Son; which is the Opinion of Origen and Hilary. In the Book of the Holy Ghost,¹⁵ he says, it consists in denying the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, and in imputing his Works to the Power of the Devil. Lastly, In his Book of Repentance,¹⁶ he extends it to Heresy and Schism. The Author of the Apostolical Constitutions¹⁷, and Philastrius¹⁸ also, accuse Hereticks of the Sin against the Holy Ghost. But were the Pharisees guilty of Heresy, those to whom our Saviour imputes this Sin? Hermas says,¹⁹ that the Sin against the Holy Ghost, is the Blaspheming of God: And the Author of the Questions upon the Old and New Testament says,²⁰ that it is a Renouncing of God. Pacian Bishop of Barcelona says,²¹ it is ascribing to the Devil the Works of the Holy Ghost: He believes this Sin to be morally unpardonable. The Author of the Recognitions, imputed to Pope Clement,²² thinks the Sin against the Holy Ghost, the irremissible Sin, to be that of an harden’d and insolent Sinner. Grotius²³ espouses this Opinion, and gives for Examples of this Crime, the Sin of Korah, Pharaoh, Simon Magus, Ananias and Sapphira.

The Catholick Commentators are divided into two Opinions. One Side follow Saint Austin, and place the Sin against the Holy Ghost, and its Unpardonableness, in final Impenitence. The other Side place it in the wilful Malice of those that withstand the Evidence of Truth, and will not acknowledge the Miracles of Jesus Christ to be the Finger of God, but maliciously and against the Conviction of their own Consciences, impute them to the Prince of Darkness. This was certainly the Crime of the Pharisees, to whom Jesus Christ apply’d his Discourse; and those also become guilty of the same Crime, who oppose a known Truth, and who impute either to Vanity, or Hypocrisy, or, what is still more heinous, to Magick and diabolical Confederacy, such good Actions as they see perform’d by good Men. This is the Opinion of St. Chrysostom and St. Jerom²⁴, and that which to us seems to be most probable. The Reader may see the Dissertation upon this Subject, which we have prefix’d to our Commentary on St. Mark.

Original Sin. The Catholick Christian Church believes, that the Sin of Adam was communicated to all his Posterity, and that it has infected and corrupted it: And that all Men are born Children of Wrath; Ephes. ii. 3.Naturâ filii iræ. That by the Fault of one alone Sin came into the World, and Death Rom. v. 12.by Sin: By one Man Sin entered into the World, and Death by Sin, and so Death passed upon all Men. And this is what we call Original Sin, so well described by Job, Job xiv. 1, 4.saying; Man that is born of a Woman, &c. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. And David says; Behold, I Psal. li. 5.was shapen in Iniquity, and in Sin did my Mother conceive me.

But notwithstanding the Clearness of these Texts, and of several others that might be cited, both in the Old and New Testament, some learned Men have made a Doubt, whether the ancient and modern Hebrews had any distinct Notion of Original Sin, and of the Remedy that God had provided, to deliver his People from it.

Josephus and Philo, and such among the ancient Christians as admitted the Pre-existence of Souls, and that Souls are born either good or bad, according to the Good or Evil they had done in another Life; these, I say, could not hold Original Sin as we now hold it, neither did they speak of it as we do, nor in any manner that approaches to it. Those among the ancient Jews who believed a kind of Metempsychosis, had still a less Degree of Faith in it, because of the Opposition of these two Opinions. And if they did not believe that Mankind was born criminal, in the Sight of God, they had no need of having recourse to any Remedy for Original Sin. They never speak of this: In the Institution of Circumcision, they only mention Reasons of Decency, Propriety, or of the Distinction of the Jews from other Nations.

The greatest Part of the modern Jews,²⁵ as well as of the ancient, maintain the Pre-existence of Souls, and a kind of Transmigration, and consequently they cannot be much inclined to admit of Original Sin: They suppose their Children, who die before they receive Circumcision, to pass into a State of Happiness; therefore they do not think that Circumcision remits any Sin contracted at the Birth. They acknowledge in Man a natural Propensity to Evil, which they call Jetzirah raah; but they cannot bear with what we say, of a corrupted Mass appointed to eternal Misery, as a Punishment for the Sin of Adam and Eve. Maimonides,Maimon. more Neboth. part 1. c. 39. a famous Rabbi, maintains, that it is not easier to conceive how a Man should be born with Sin, or with Virtue, than to comprehend how he should be born a skilful Master in any Art or Science. He looks upon Original Sin as a thing impossible. Other Rabbins as formally deny Original Sin, and confine the Effects of Adam’s Sin to the introducing of Death on all his Posterity: And they also believe, that if Adam could have attain’d to eat of the Tree of Life, even after his Sin, he would not have died at all.

Yet however, we must allow, that some of the Rabbins seem to stand up for Oritempted c.11. §.7.Eve, cast upon her such a stinking Smell, that she communicated it to all her Posterity ; but that the Israelites alone Basnage’s Hist. of the Jews, c. 4. l. 6. c. 13.were freed from it. Others acknowledge, that the bad Inclinations which we find in ourselves, are an Evil : They say, with Moses, that it is the Fore-skin of the Flesh which must be cut off: They call it, after David, a Defilement ; with Solomon, an Enemy ; with Isaiah, an Offence ; with Ezekiel, a Stone, which God must take away, to give us a Heart of Flesh ; having asserted, with Joel, that it is a secret Thing. They add, that as the Fruit is better when the Seed that produces it has any Bitterness, so likewise Children that are born from a corrupted Father must partake of his Corruption. ‘Tis asked, in the Gemara, If Concupiscence insinuates itself at the Moment of Conception, or at the Time of the Birth ? To which it is answer’d, At the Birth ; for the Scripture says, Sin lies at the Door. But the Number of Rabbins that thus speak of Original Sin is very small : Others either deny it, or know nothing of it.

Bibl. Orient. p.440, 583.The Mahometans admit of Original Sin, as a Consequence of the Sin of Adam : They call this Original Sin, or the Concupiscence that attends it, the Grain of the Heart, or, the black Seed of the Heart, from which Mahomet boasted to be purify’d by Gabriel the Arch-angel, who pull’d it out of his Heart : They affirm also, that our Lord Jesus Christ, and his Mother Mary, were the only Persons that were preserved from it.

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