This page contains a collection of scripture and patristic quotes pertaining to the topic of original sin, and some of my notes. The idea was to research the topic. No final conclusion/argument is made on this page.

Scriptural References

Genesis 6:5
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Genesis 8:21 (NKJV)
And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

Leviticus 4:3 3
If the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer for his sin which he has sinned a young bull without defect to Yahweh for a sin offering.

Psalm 51:5 (Septuagint)
For, behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me.

Note: the above verse is used to justify the doctrine of inheritance of Adam’s actual sin/guilt. However, the Septuagint (relied upon by the Orthodox Church) states “iniquities” and “sins” (plural), not “sin” (singular). How then could the Prophet David have been speaking of the original “sin” of Adam?

Ecclesiastes 7:20
For there is not a just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not.

Job 14:4-5 (Septuagint)
For who shall be pure from uncleanness? not even one; if even his life should be one day upon the earth: and his months are numbered by him: thou hast appointed [him] for a time, and he shall by no means exceed [it].

1 Kings 8: 46
“for there is no man who does not sin”

Palm 14: 1-3
There is non who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. they have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.”

Jeremiah 17: 9-10
The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.

Gal 3: 22
“But the Scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

Psalm: 143: 2
Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no one living is righteous.”

Ephesians 2:3
“Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.”

Romans 5:12-19
Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. So also is the free gift not like the offense. For if through the offense of one many are dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many. So is the gift not like it was by one that sinned: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one; much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin
Sin entered into the world, for that all have sinned
Death reigned even over them that had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression
Through the offense of one many are dead
The judgment was by one to condemnation
By one man’s offense death reigned by one
By the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation
By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners

Romans 6:6
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

Romans 7:5
For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

Note: the Bible uses the word “sin” to refer to the “law of sin”, not only to a specific act of disobedience. A deliberate and specific act of disobedience to one of God’s known commands can correctly be called “transgression”–for example “Adam’s transgression”. Every transgression is a sin, but not every sin is necessarily a transgression.

Romans 7:8,17-18,21
But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all manner of covetousness. For without the law sin was dead…Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not…I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me…But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Romans 8:1-4,10
There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit…And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Romans 8:20-23
For the creation was made subject to vanity [futility], not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope, Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of our body.

Hebrews 3:10-12, 23
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one… For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

John 14:30
Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me.

1 John 3:8-9
He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God

Note: Christ condemned sin in the flesh, which is the seed of sin sowed by the devil, through the disobedience of Adam, which corrupted human nature. Christ sanctified/renewed the fallen human nature via His incarnation and obedience. In this way (and also by His sacrificial death), Christ destroyed the works of the devil. Because Christ’s nature was sinless, He said the prince of this world “has nothing in me”.

Romans 8:2-3
There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus: for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Cor 5:17)

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 22:11-13)

Colossians 2: 11-13
In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses

And what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3 41).

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. (Rev 12:5)

1 Cor 15:42-50, 54-57
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a life-giving spirit.But that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.The first man is of the earth, made of dust: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption…So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom 7:24)

Note: Adam’s transgression subjected human nature to the law of sin, Christ liberated us from that yoke

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (Rom 8:1)

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (Romans 5:14)

Explanation by Fr. Tadros Malaty

Patristic Quotes

St. Athanasius – Against Apollinaris, Book 1
Vain, then, is your sophism: for how could His death have taken place, if the Word had not constituted for Himself both our outward and inward man, that is, body and soul? and how then did He pay a ransom for all or how was the loosening of the grasp of death completely effected, if Christ had not constituted for Himself, in a sinless state, that which had sinned intellectually the soul? In that case, death still “reigns” over the inward man: for over what did it ever reign, if not over the soul, which had sinned intellectually, as it is written. The soul that sinneth it shall die? on behalf of which Christ laid down His own soul, (thus) paying a ransom. But what was it that God originally condemned? that which the Fashioner fashioned, or the action of what was fashioned? If God condemned that which the Fashioner fashioned, He condemned Himself, and He would then be like to men. But if it is impious to think this of God, and if He condemned the action of the thing fashioned, in that case He annuls the action, and renews the thing fashioned. For we are a thing of His making created unto good works.

St. Athanasius explained Romans 5:12-19 in terms of sin that entered the nature of man from which Christ liberated:

St. Athanasius – Against Apollinaris, Book 2

having taken from the Virgin all that God originally fashioned and made in order to the constitution of man, yet without sin: as also the Apostle says. In all points like to us yet without sin: not “exhibiting” a conversion of the Godhead, but effecting a renewal of the manhood, according to His own will: so that the Gentiles should be of the same body and jointly partakers of Christ as also the Apostle writes: that man might be truly God and God might be truly man that He might be truly Man and truly God: not that “a man was with God,” as you calumniously say, disparaging the mystery of Christians: but that God, the Only-begotten, was pleased by the fulness of His Godhead, to set up again for Himself, from the Virgin’s womb, through a natural birth and an indissoluble union, the originally formed man and (to make) a new handy work, that He might perform the business of salvation in men’s behalf, working out the salvation of men by suffering and death and resurrection. But you say, “If He assumed all, then assuredly He had human thoughts; But it is impossible that in human thoughts there should be sin: and how then will Christ be ‘without sin?’” Tell us then; If God is the maker of thoughts which lead to sin, to god we must refer His own production for He came to refer to Himself what He Himself made; but in that case the judgment which condemns the sinner will be unjust, for if God made thoughts which lead to sin, How can He condemn the sinner? and how is it possible for any such judgment to proceed from God? And if Adam was subject to such thoughts before he disobeyed God’s commandment, how could he be ignorant of good and evil? He was rational by nature, and free in thought, without experience of evil, knowing only what was good, and as it were a “solitary” being: but when he disobeyed God’s commandment, he became subject to thoughts leading to sin; not that God made the thoughts which were taking him captive, but that the devil by deceit sowed them in the rational nature of man, which had come into transgression, and was thrust away from God; so that the devil established in man’s nature both a law of sin, and death as reigning through sinful action; for this cause, then, did the Son of God come that He might destroy the works of the devil. But you say, ” He destroyed them in that He sinned not.” But that is not a destruction of sin For the devil did not originally produce sin in man in order that when He came into the world, and sinned not, sin might be destroyed : but the devil produced sin by sowing it in the rational and intellectual nature of man. Therefore it became impossible for that nature, being rational, and having sinned voluntarily, and incurred condemnation to death, to recall itself to freedom as the Apostle says : What was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh. Therefore the Son of God came to restore it by His own act, in His own nature by a new beginning and a wondrous ” generation : “…But if sinlessness had not been seen in the nature which had sinned, how could sin have been condemned in the flesh…And why did the Apostle say, Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, (not as if describing a place, but indicating a nature) that, he says, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so by one Man, Jesus Christ, might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life : so that the nature by which the advance of sin took place, might be the very nature through which the exhibition of righteousness should take place ; and in this way, the works of the devil might be destroyed by the emancipation of man’s nature from sin, and God might be glorified?…How then can it be that Christ, who became man, did not save the world? when it is plain indeed that the nature in which sin was generated is the nature in which the abundance of grace has taken place…But again you say, ” But how can the nature which had become accustomed to sin, and has received the transmission of sin, be without sin?…These are they whose opinions you are reviving, while by a different method you give over the intellectual nature of man, which is understood to be the soul, and define it to be incapable of escaping sin, and have in the plainest terms described the soul as “fleshly,” on whose authority I know not, for this cannot be found in the Holy Scriptures, nor in the general sense of men, since the Lord says, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. And if the soul is as you say, “fleshly,” why does it not die and decay with the body? and again, why did Peter call the souls detained in Hades “spirits,” saying He went to announce the good news of the resurrection spirits shut up in prison. But you apply to everything the phrase “contrary to nature,” in order to avoid giving a natural account of the Economy, and so stating the truth about the Word, that the Word truly became Man. For you have said that it is God’s voice that says, The mind of man is sedulously devoted to evil from youth; not understanding that by saying, “from youth” He indicated what was “sown in afterwards” and perishable. Therefore did the Lord swear a faithful oath unto David, that of the fruit of his body He would raise up the Christ after the flesh: not to be “seen as” a man in consequence of a change of Godhead—for then what need was there for the Lord to swear unto David? but as having taken the form of the servant, when He submitted to be born of a woman, and to grow in stature as we do, as the Apostle says, Since children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same.” Likewise,” because not from seed, but from the Spirit; “of the same,” because not from any other source, but from the seed of David, and of Abraham, and of Adam, as it is written.

St. Cyril of Alexandria
“What has Adam’s guilt to do with us? Why are we held responsible for his sin when we were not even born when he committed it? Did not God say : “The parents will not die for the children, nor the children for parents, but the soul which had sinned, it shall die.” How then shall we defend this doctrine? Yes, ‘the soul that sinneth, the same shall die.’ But we have become sinners through the disobedience of Adam in this way. Adam, you see, had been made for incorruption and life. Moreover, the life he led in the paradise of delight was suited to saints; his mind was ever absorbed by the vision of God; his body was perfectly at peace, all base lust at rest; for unbecoming emotions did not disturb him. But when he fell subject to sin and sank down to corruption, from that time forth impure lusts invaded the nature of the flesh and the law of sin blossomed which rages in our members. Human nature has, therefore, contracted the malady of sin through the disobedience of one man, Adam. It is in this way that the many have been made sinners – not as though they had transgressed with Adam (for they did not yet exit), but because they are of his nature, the nature that fell beneath the law of sin”. -St. Cyril of Alexandria, On Romans, 5.18, P.G. 74: 788-789

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Select Letters, Doctrinal Questions and Answers, P.G. 201-205 (EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY LIONEL R. WICKHAM)
[Question]:
Why is it that by dying in Adam we satisfy an ancestor’s penalty and each has a debt to pay for Adam’s transgression, whereas my father, made alive in Christ and c1eared through the Holy Spirit both of the first forefather’s penalty and his own offence, has given me, his offspring, no share in the cleansing, nor did the grace of righteousness in his case, though it prevailed over sin, do me any good?
Answer
We must inquire how Adam, the first forefather, transmitted to us the penalty imposed upon him for his transgression. He had heard ‘Earth thou art and to the earth shalt thou return’, and from being incorruptible he became corruptible and was made subject to the bonds of death. But since he produced children after falling into this state we, his descendants, are corruptible, coming from a corruptible source. Thus it is that we are heirs of Adam’s curse. That cannot mean at all that we are punished for having disobeyed along with him the divine injunction which he received; it means that he became mortal, as I said, and transmitted the curse to his seed after him (for we are born mortal from a mortal source) whereas our Lord Jesus Christ who bears the title ‘second Adam’ and is a second beginning of our race after the first, re-formed us into incorruptibility by assaulting death, nullifying it in his own flesh and in him the force of the primal curse has been broken. This is why all-wise Paul says that as ‘through man came death, so also through man came the resurrection of the dead’; and again, ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.’ So corruption and death are the universal and general penalty involved in Adam’s transgression; likewise the general ransom with respect to all men has been accomplished finally in Christ. For man’s nature in him put off that death which had been attached to it through the first man’s being made mortal. But the father of each of us, though he is hallowed through the Holy Spirit and obtains the forgiveness of his sins, does not hand on the gift to us. For there is one who hallows all, justifies and restores them to incorruption, Jesus Christ our Lord, and through him and from him the gift comes to all alike. Forgiveness of sin and dissolution of death are different things. Each enjoys forgiveness of his own offences in Christ through the holy Spirit. All of us in common are released from the primal penalty imposed upon us, the penalty of death I mean, which reaches all in its course, in resemblance to the first who fell into death. That is why all-wise Paul says that ‘Death ruled from Adam to Moses over those who had sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression.’ For whilst there was law, the penalty of death held sway. But after Christ’s dawn, righteousness entered in, justifying by grace and warding off our bodies’ corruption.

St. Athanasius – Against the Arians, Discourse I
For since the first man Adam altered, and through sin death came into the world, therefore it became the second Adam to be unalterable; that, should the Serpent again assault, even the Serpent’s deceit might be baffled, and, the Lord being unalterable and unchangeable, the Serpent might become powerless in his assault against all. For as when Adam had transgressed, his sin reached unto all men, so, when the Lord had become man and had overthrown the Serpent, that so great strength of His is to extend through all men, so that each of us may say, ‘For we are not ignorant of his devices.’ Good reason then that the Lord, who ever is in nature unalterable, loving righteousness and hating iniquity, should be anointed and Himself sent, that, He, being and remaining the same, by taking this alterable flesh, ‘might condemn sin in it,’ and might secure its freedom, and its ability henceforth ‘to fulfill the righteousness of the law’ in itself, so as to be able to say, ‘But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in us.’

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Gospel of St. John, BOOK IX, CHAPTER I
He came unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His Name: which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So then it is abundantly evident and manifest I conceive unto all, that it was for these causes especially that, being by nature God and of God, the Only-begotten has become man; namely with intent to condemn sin in the flesh, and by His own Death to slay Death, and to make us Sons of God, regenerating in the Spirit them that are on earth unto supernatural dignity. For it was, I trow, exceeding good, after this sort to gather together again into one and to recover unto the ancient estate the sore-stumbled race, to wit, the human…the Father caused him voluntarily to descend into the flesh that is subject to sin, with intent that making very flesh His own, He might bring it over unto His own natural property, to wit, sinlessness…For like as we have followed after not only death but all the sufferings of the flesh, undergoing this suffering in the first man by reason as well of the transgression as of the divine curse; after the same sort, I conceive, shall we all of us follow Christ, as He saves in many ways and sanctifies the nature of the flesh in Himself. Wherefore also Paul said: And as we love the image of the earthy, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly. For the image of the earthy, to wit of Adam, is to be in sufferings and corruption; and the image of the heavenly, to wit of Christ, is to be in impassibility and incorruption. So then the Word being God by nature condemned sin in His own flesh, by charging it to cease its activity, or rather so amending it as that it should move after the good pleasure of God, and no longer at its own will; and so whereas the body was natural, He made it spiritual.

Refuting the idea that birth in the mortal body is punishment for sin committed by pre-existing souls, St. Cyril uses Romans 5:14 to explain that we did not sin prior to birth. This point can possibly be applied to the argument that we are guilty of sin because we were in Adam’s loins:

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Gospel of St. John
Shewing that corruption is extended against the whole nature of man, because of the transgression in Adam, Paul saith, Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. How then does he say that death reigned even over them that had not sinned, if the mortal body were given us in consequence of former sins? For where at all are they that have not sinned, if the embodiment be the punishment of faults, and our being in this life with our body is a pre-existing charge against us? Unlearned then is the proposition of our opponents.

St. John Chrysostom understood “all have sinned” (Rom 5:12) to mean that all have fallen and become mortal like Adam. He does not explain this verse in the sense that all have “inherited” Adam’s actual sin/guilt or that they “sinned in Adam”, but that they had fallen in Adam:

St. John Chrysostom – Homilies on Epistle to the Romans, Homily X, Rom. V. 12
How then did death come in and prevail? “Through the sin of one.” But what means, “for that all have sinned?” This; he having once fallen, even they that had not eaten of the tree did from him, all of them, become mortal.

Nevertheless, St. John Chrysostom explained that we were “punished” on account of Adam’s sin:

St. John Chrysostom – Homilies on Epistle to the Romans, Homily X, Rom. V. 15
“But not as the offence, so is also the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto the many.” For what he says is somewhat of this kind. If sin had so extensive effects, and the sin of one man too; how can grace, and that the grace of God, not the Father only, but also the Son, do otherwise than be the more abundant of the two? For the latter is far the more reasonable supposition. For that one man should be punished on account of another does not seem to be much in accordance with reason. But for one to be saved on account of another is at once more suitable and more reasonable. If then the former took place, much more may the latter. Hence he has shown from these grounds the likelihood and reasonableness of it.

St. John Chrysostom explained that the reason the Holy Spirit was not given because “the original sin was not yet forgiven”:

St. John Chrysostom – Homilies on the Gospel of St. John, Homily 78 (John 16:5-15)
Therefore, just as the spirit of the man knows [the things of a man ] without learning them from another, so also the Holy Spirit ‘will receive of what is mine’; that is, ‘will speak in complete agreement with my words. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore, since these are mine, and the Spirit will speak from the things that are the Father’s, He will also speak from mine.’ ‘But why did He not come before Christ had departed?’ Because He could not come, since the curse had not yet been lifted, the original sin had not yet been forgiven, but all men were still subject to the penalty for it. ‘Therefore,’ He said, ‘that enmity must be destroyed and you must be reconciled to God, and then you will receive that gift.’

St. Augustine struggled to interpret the plural form of the word “iniquity” and “sin” as used in Psalm 51:5 of the Septuagint translation. He was forced to explain the verse in terms of the sinful nature. However, in order to justify his understanding of “original sin”, St. Augustine was forced to explain that infants are also subject to guilt as a result of the sins of their immediate parents:

“I was shapen in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me.” He did not say in iniquity, or in sin, though he might have said so correctly; but he preferred to say “iniquities” and “sins,” because in that one sin which passed upon all men, and which was so great that human nature was by it made subject to inevitable death, many sins, as I showed above, may be discriminated; and further, because there are other sins of the immediate parents, which though they have not the same effect in producing a change of nature, yet subject the children to guilt unless the divine grace and mercy interpose to rescue them.” – Blessed Augustine (The Enchiridion, Chap 46)

St Gregory, the Wonder Worker (Quoted from Fr. Tadros Malaty, Commentary on Romans)
Sin entered into the world through the flesh, and death reigned through sin over all mankind. Yet sin was demolished through the likeness of the same flesh (the likeness of sinful flesh).Through the burial of the flesh and the revelation of the First Born of the resurrection, sin has been conquered, and death has been dismantled of his authority. That has laid the foundation of righteousness that has spread throughout the world through faith, as well as through the preaching of the kingdom of heaven among mankind, and the building of friendship between God and men.

“Just as Adam sowed sinful impurity into pure bodies and the yeast of evil was laid into the whole of our mass [nature], so our Lord sowed righteousness into the body of sin and His yeast was mixed into the whole of our mass [nature]” – St Ephraim the Syrian

“Having been sent in a flesh in the likeness of that of sin, He did not have sin in the same way that He had flesh. But as all flesh comes from sin, that is, it derives from the sin of Adam the progenitor, He has been sent in a flesh similar to that of sin, because in Him sin does not subsist, but the image of sinful flesh.” – St Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Psalm 118

“In Adam I fell, in Adam I was cast out of paradise, in Adam I died. How shall God call me back, except He find me in Adam? For just as in Adam I am guilty of sin and owe a debt to death, so in Christ I am justified.” – St Ambrose of Milan, On the Death of His Brother Satyrus

St. Basil the Great writes, what we inherit from Adam “..is not the personal sin of Adam, but the original human being himself”, who “exists in us by necessity” – St Basil the Great

“Evil was mixed with our nature from the beginning… through those who by their disobedience introduced the disease. Just as in the natural propagation of the species each animal engenders its like, so man is born from man, a being subject to passions from a being subject to passions, a sinner from a sinner. Thus sin takes its rise in us as we are born; it grows with us and keeps us company till life’s term” – St Gregory of Nyssa, The Beatitudes

Fr. Tadros Malaty
The Orthodox Church, whose love towards St. Mary is deeprooted, considers her more holy than all the heavenly creatures, whilst a natural member of the human race. We do not however, set her apart from the human race by assuming that she was born without original sin, as if she was born not of human seed. This reality is declared in the following Theotokia: “How deep is God’s abundance and wisdom, that the womb under judgement brought forth children by incurring pain; she became a fountain of immortality, bringing forth Emmanuel without human seed, so that He might destroy corruption of our nature”

St Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Gospel of St. John – Book XII
He was scourged unjustly, that He might deliver us from merited chastisement; He was buffeted and smitten, that we might buffet Satan, who had buffeted us, and that we might escape from the sin that cleaves to us through the original transgression. For if we think aright, we shall believe that all Christ’s sufferings were for us and on our behalf, and have power to release and deliver us from all those calamities we have deserved for our revolt from God. For as Christ, Who knew not death, when He gave up His own Body for our salvation, was able to loose the bonds of death for all mankind, for He, being One, died for all; so we must understand that Christ’s suffering all these things for us sufficed also to release us all from scourging and dishonour.

St Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Gospel of St. John – Book II
The Word of God came down then from Heaven, as He Himself saith, in order that having as a Bridegroom, made human nature His own, He might persuade it to bring forth the spiritual offspring of Wisdom. And hence reasonably is the human nature called the bride, the Saviour the Bridegroom; since holy Scripture carries up language from human things to a meaning that is above us. The marriage is consummated on the third day, that is, in the last times of the present world: for the number three gives us beginning, middle, end. For thus is the whole of time measured. And in harmony with this do we see that which is said by one of the prophets, He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us, in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His Sight. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord; His going forth is prepared as the morning. For He smote us for the transgression of Adam, saying, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. That which was smitten by corruption and death He bound up on the third day: that is, not in the first, or in the middle, but in the last ages, when for us made Man, He rendered all our nature whole, raising it from the dead in Himself. Wherefore He is also called the Firstfruits of them that slept.

St. Athanasius – Against the Arians, Discourse III
If then we are by nature sons, then is He by nature creature and work; but if we become sons by adoption and grace, then has the Word also, when in grace towards us He became man, said, ‘The Lord created me.’ And in the next place, when He put on a created nature and became like us in body, reasonably was He therefore called both our Brother and ‘First-born.’ For though it was after us that He was made man for us, and our brother by similitude of body, still He is therefore called and is the ‘First-born’ of us, because, all men being lost, according to the transgression of Adam, His flesh before all others was saved and liberated, as being the Word’s body; and henceforth we, becoming incorporate with It, are saved after Its pattern. For in It the Lord becomes our guide to the Kingdom of Heaven and to His own Father, saying, ‘I am the way’ and ‘the door,’ and ‘through Me all must enter.’ Whence also is He said to be ‘First-born from the dead,’ not that He died before us, for we had died first; but because having undergone death for us and abolished it, He was the first to rise, as man, for our sakes raising His own Body. Henceforth He having risen, we too from Him and because of Him rise in due course from the dead.

St. Gregory Nazianzen – Second Oration on Easter
Our belief is that since it was needful that we, who had fallen in consequence of the original sin, and had been led away by pleasure, even as far as idolatry and unlawful bloodshed, should be recalled and raised up again to our original position through the tender mercy of God our Father, Who could not endure that such a noble work of His own hands as Man should be lost to Him; the method of our new creation, and of what should be done, was this:—that all violent remedies were disapproved, as not likely to persuade us, and as quite possibly tending to add to the plague, through our chronic pride; but that God disposed things to our restoration by a gentle and kindly method of cure.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – THAT CHRIST IS ONE
Seeing that we have been made accursed because of the transgression in Adam and forsaken of God have fallen under the snare of death, and that all things have been made new in Christ, and a return of our condition to what it was in the beginning [has taken place]; need was it that the second Adam which is out of Heaven, He Who is superior to all sin, the All-holy and Undefiled second first-fruits of our race, Christ, should free from sentence the nature of men and call again upon it the good favour that is from above and from the Father and undo the forsaking through His Obedience and entire subjection. For He did no sin, and the race of man in Him has gained the riches of spotlessness and entire blamelessness, so that it at length may with boldness cry out, My God my God why forsookest Thou me? For consider that the Only-Begotten having been made man, gave forth such words as one of us and in behalf of our whole nature, as though He said, The first man hath transgressed, he slipped down into disobedience, he heeded not the command given him, by the wiles of the dragon he was carried off into wilfulness: therefore fall rightly has he been subjected unto decay and has become subject to doom, but Thou didst plant Me a second beginning to them on the earth, I am called, Second Adam. In Me Thou seest the race of man purged, achieving sinlessness, holy, all-pure. Give now the good things of Thy Clemency, undo the forsaking, rebuke decay and let wrath reach its period. I have conquered Satan himself too who of old prevailed, for he found in Me no whit of what was his. Such then, as I think, is the meaning of the Saviour’s words; for He was inviting the good favour of the Father not on Himself but on us rather. For as the [fruits] of wrath passed through as from the first root, I mean Adam, unto the whole nature of man (for death hath reigned from Adam unto Moses over them too which sinned not after the likeness of Adam’s transgression): thus too will the [fruits] from our second first-fruits, Christ, pass through unto the whole human race. And the all-wise Paul will be our warrant, saying, For if by the transgression of one man the many died, much more by the righteousness of the One shall the many live, and again, For as in Adam all die so too in Christ shall all be quickened.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – On the Unity of Christ
We had become accursed through Adam‘s transgression and had fallen into the trap of death, abandoned by God. Yet all things were made new in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) and our condition was restored to what it was in the beginning. It was entirely necessary that the Second Adam, who is from heaven (I Cor 15:45) and superior to all sin, that is Christ, the pure and immaculate first fruits of our race, should free that nature of man from judgement, and once again call down upon it the heavenly graciousness of the Father. He would undo our abandonment by his obedience and complete submission: “For he did no sin” (1 Pet 2:22) but the nature man was made rich in all blamelessness and innocence in him, so that it could now cry out with boldness: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 17:46). Understand that in becoming man, the Only Begotten spoke these words as one of us and on behalf of all our nature. It was as if He were saying this: “The first man has transgressed. He slipped into disobedience, and neglected the commandment he received, and he was brought to this state of wilfulness by the wiles of the devil; and then it was entirely right that he became subject to corruption and fell under judgement. But you Lord have made me a Second beginning for all on the earth, and I am called the Second Adam. In me you see the nature of man made clean, its faults corrected, made holy and pure. Now give me the good things of your kindness, undo the abandonment, rebuke corruption and set a limit on your anger. I have conquered Satan himself who ruled of old, for he found in me absolutely nothing of what was his.” In my opinion this is the sense of the Savior‘s words. He did not invoke the Father’s graciousness upon himself, but rather upon us. The effects of God’s anger passed into the whole of human nature as from the original rootstock, that is Adam: “For death has had dominion from Adam up to Moses even on those who committed no sin in the manner Adam’s transgression” (Rom 5:14). In the same way, however, the effects of our new first-fruits, that is Christ, shall again pass into the entire entire human race. The all-wise Paul confirms this for us when he says: “For if many died because of the transgression of one, how much more (Rom 5:15) shall many come to life because of the righteousness of one. And again: “As all men die in Adam, so shall all be made alive in Christ” (1 Cor 15:22).

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Five Tomes Against Nestorius (Tome V)
For the nature of man was sick of decay, in its firstfruits and original root, i. e., Adam. For since it offended through its disobedience its Law-giver and God and That brought it forth unto being, straightway it was accursed and liable to death, and death hath reigned from, Adam unto Moses, the doom for this extending over the whole seed and race that is from him. For as sprung from corruptible root, corruptible are WE too, and abide (wretched !) holden in the meshes of death. But when the Creator planned good things concerning us and willed to transelement the nature of man, decay being taken away, unto what it was at the beginning, He adorned a new root (so to speak) for us, which endured not to be o’ermastered by death, the One Lord Jesus the Christ, that is, God the Word out of His Essence made man as we, made of a woman.

Gregory Thamutargus – TWELVE TOPICS ON THE FAITH, TOPIC 12
Wherefore He says, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” And this He said, not as holding before us any contest proper only to a God, but as showing our own flesh in its capacity to overcome suffering, and death, and corruption, in order that, as sin entered into the world by flesh, and death came to reign by sin over all men, the sin in the flesh might also be condemned through the selfsame flesh in the likeness thereof; and that that overseer of sin, the tempter, might be overcome, and death be cast down from its sovereignty, and the corruption in the burying of the body be done away, and the first-fruits of the resurrection be shown, and the principle of righteousness begin its course in the world through faith, and the kingdom of heaven be preached to men, and fellowship be established between God and men.

St. Basil

St. Basil of Caesarea
“Little given, much gotten; by the donation of food the original sin is discharged. Just as Adam transmitted the sin by his wicked eating, we destroy that treacherous food when we cure the need and hunger.” (Eulogies & Sermons, Famine & Drought 8:7)

St. Basil (Homilia dicta tempore famis et siccitatis, Quoted from History of Dogma v2)
“Pay for the primitive sin (ttjv irpwrOrVKov a/uipriav) by giving food away; for just as Adam, by eating unjustly, has transmitted the sin (ryvaimpriav iraptirt/it/fev) , so we do away with [the effects of] the perfidious food, by relieving the need and hunger of our brother.”

St. Basil
“Adam by eating sinfully transmitted sin.”2 But still ” he who against his will is attracted by sin ought to know that he is held in bondage by some sin previously committed by him, through his willing slavery to which he is carried forward by it even to sin which he does not desire to commit.”3 ” Let us return therefore to the grace first given, from which we fell through sin.”4

Horn, Quod Deus non est auct. mal., 7.
* Horn, in Famem, 7. 3 Moralia, Reg. xxiii.
‘ Sermo Asceticus ad init.

St. Gregory Nazianzen

“[W]e were all without exception…partake[rs] of the same Adam, and were led astray by the serpent and slain by sin, and are saved by the heavenly Adam and brought back by the tree of shame to the tree of life from whence we had fallen.” (Against the Arians 33:9)

“Let the word of Christ persuade you of this, also, as He says that no one can enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he is born again of water and the Spirit. Through Him the stains of the first birth are cleansed away, through which we are conceived in iniquity and in sins have our mothers brought us forth.” (Oratio in natalem Christi.)

“St. Gregory does not seem to have taught that our souls were, strictly speaking, stained with the sin of Adam. He declares that those children who die unbaptized are without sin, and will be neither rewarded nor punished by the just Judge. (Or. XL, 23) We find the same teaching in St. Gregory of Nyssa: he too speaks of fall, but not of sin.” – History of Dogma v. 2

St. John Chrysostom

“It is clear that it is not the sin which comes from transgression of the law, but that sin which comes from the disobedience of Adam, which has defiled all.” (Homily on Romans 10)

To prove that St. John Chrysostom did not admit original sin, Julian appealed to a passage of a homily Ad neophytos, in which the Holy Doctor said that “we baptize even children, although they have no sin, with which they are stained.” 51 To this the Bishop of Hippo replied that in that text, actual sin was meant. – History of Dogma v.2

51 August., Contra Iulian., I, 21, 22.

St. Irenaeaus

“Just as the human race was bound to death by a virgin it is released through a virgin, the obedience of a virgin evenly counterbalancing the disobedience of a virgin. For the sin of the first-formed was wiped out by the chastisement of the First-born, the wisdom of the Serpent was conquered by the simplicity of the dove, and we were released from the chains by which we were bound to death.” (Against Heresies Book 5 Chapter 19)

Tertullian
“Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame.” (On the Soul 40)

St. Hilary of Poiters
“Therefore, when He was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, He did not have the sin though He had the flesh. But, since all flesh comes from sin, namely, descended from the ancestral sin of Adam, He was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, not that the sin existed in Him, but the likeness of sinful flesh.”

And: “[David] does not think he lives in this life, for he had said: ‘Behold I have been conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me.’ He knows that he was born of sinful origin and under the law of sin.” (Exposition of Psalm 118)

Miscellaneous Fathers
St. Jerome – “Those of adult age [do penance], and it reaches to the smallest, for none is without sin, not even if their life were only one day, or the years of their life were able to be counted.”
(Commentary on Jonah 3:5, Duval 248.101-103; trans. Hegedus, 50).

St. Ambrose of Milan – “Before we are born we are stained by contagion, and before seeing the light we receive the injury of our very origin, we are conceived in iniquity…[for] there are already some sins in the one being born… The conception is not without iniquity, since the parents are not without sin, and if not even a child of one day is without sin, so much more are those days of the maternal conception not without sin. Thus, we are conceived in the sin of our parents and are born in their iniquities. But birth itself also has its own contagions, and the nature itself has not merely one contagion.” (Defense of the Prophet David 11)

St. Ambrose – On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus
For, as we read, Christ “is come to save that which was lost,” and “to be Lord both of the dead and living.” In Adam I fell, in Adam I was cast out of Paradise, in Adam I died; how shall the Lord call me back, except He find me in Adam; guilty as I was in him, so now justified in Christ. If, then, death be the debt of all, we must be able to endure the payment. But this topic must be reserved for later treatment.

And: 380 A.D. – “For death is alike to all, without difference for the poor, without exception for the rich. And so although through the sin of [Adam] alone, yet it passed upon all; that we may not refuse to acknowledge Him to be also the Author of death, Whom we do not refuse to acknowledge as the Author of our race… In Adam I fell, in Adam I was cast out of Paradise, in Adam I died; how shall the Lord call me back, except He find me in Adam; guilty as I was in him, so now justified in Christ.” (On the Death of his Brother Satyrus II:6)

384 A.D. – Ambrosiaster – “ ‘In whom’ – that is, in Adam – ‘all have sinned’. And he said ‘in whom,’ using the masculine form, when he was speaking of a woman, because the reference was not to a specific individual but to the race. It is clear, therefore, that all have sinned in Adam, en masse as it were; for when he himself was corrupted by sin, all whom he begot were born under sin. On his account, then, all are sinners, because we are all from him. He lost God’s favor when he strayed.” (Commentaries on thirteen Pauline Epistles Romans 5:12)

Baptism of Infants

Origen (In Rom. Hom. 5,9 – Quoted from “The School of Alexandria Book Two, Fr. Tadros Malaty)
The Church has received a tradition from the Apostles to give baptism even to little ones. For since the secrets of divine mysteries had been entrusted to them, they know that there are in all people genuine defilements of sin, which ought to be washed away through water and Spirit. If you like to hear what other saints have felt in regard to physical birth, listen to David when he says, I was conceived, so it runs, in iniquity and in sin my mother has borne me (Ps. 50,7), proving that every soul which is born in the flesh is tainted with the stain of iniquity and sin. This is the reason for that saying which we have already quoted above, “No man is clean from sin, not even if his life be one day long” (Job 14,4). To these, as a further point, may be added an inquiry into the reason from which, while the church’s baptism is given for the remission of sin, it is the custom of the Church that baptism be administered even to infants. Certainly, if there were nothing in infants that required remission and called for lenient treatment, the grace of baptism would seem unnecessary. For those who have been entrusted with the secrets of the divine mysteries, knew very well that all are tainted with the stain of original sin, which must be washed off by water and the Spirit.

St. Gregory Nazianzen, Orationes 40, 23: “I think that… these [babies who die unbaptized] are neither glorified, nor are punished by the Just Judge, who on the one hand were not sealed [baptized], but on the other hand are not evil, but rather suffered a loss than inflicted one.”

St. Gregory Nazianzen – Orat. xl. 23
They will neither be glorified nor punished by the just Judge; because although not baptized, they have no personal malice, and are rather ill sufferers than ill-doers. Not every one that does not deserve to be punished, deserves to be honoured, and he who is not worthy of honour, does not always deserve punishment.

St. John Chrysostom
You see how many are the benefits of baptism, and some think its heavenly grace consists only in the remission of sins, but we have enumerated ten honors [it bestows]! For this reason we baptize even infants, though they are not defiled by sins, so that there may be given to them holiness, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, and that they may be his members” (Baptismal Catecheses in Augustine, Against Julian 1:6:21 [A.D. 388])

St. John Chrysostom-Baptismal Instructions
Blessed be God, who alone does wonderful things!” You have seen’ how numerous are the gifts of baptism. Although many men think that the only gift it confers is the remission of sins, we have counted its honors to the number of ten. It is on this account that we baptize even infants, although they are sinless, that they may be given the further gifts of sanctiﬁcation, justice, ﬁlial adoption, and inheritance, that they may be brothers and members of Christ, and become dwelling places for the Spirit.

St. Cyprian (Quoted from History of Dogma Book)
It must be imparted to children, and unlike circumcision, may be administered before the eighth day. By this Baptism, children receive grace, just as well as adults, the more so that having not sinned and being afflicted through their birth from Adam only with the contagion of the former death, they obtain the forgiveness, not of their own sins, but of borrowed sins. However, the Baptism of water may be replaced by martyrdom which also confers grace, nay a more abundant and excellent grace: “in gratia maius, in potestate sublimius.”

St Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Gospel of St. John – BOOK XI, Chapter XI
For it would have been in a manner absurd, that the sentence of condemnation should fall upon all men through one man, who was the first, I mean Adam; and that those who had not sinned at that time, that is, at which the founder of our race transgressed the commandment given unto him, should wear the dishonourable image of the earthy; and yet that when Christ came among us, Who was the Man from heaven, those who were called through Him to righteousness, the righteousness of course that is through faith, should not all be moulded into His Image. And, just as we say that the unlovely image of the earthy is seen in types, and in a form bearing the defilement of sin, and the weakness of death and corruption, and the impurity of fleshly lusts and worldly thoughts; so also, on the other hand, we think that the Image of the heavenly, that is, Christ, shines forth in purity and sincerity, and perfect incorruption, and life, and sanctification. It was, perhaps, impossible for us who had once fallen away through the original transgression to be restored to our pristine glory, except we obtained an ineffable communion and unity with God; for the nature of men upon the earth was ordered at the beginning. And no man can attain to union with God, save by communion with the Holy Spirit, Who implants in us the sanctification of His own Person, and moulds anew into His own life the nature which was subject to corruption, and so brings back to God and to His Likeness that which was bereft of the glory that this confers.

“ON THE “DE INCARNATIONE ET CONTRA ARIANOS” (Most likely not written by St. Athanasius)
E. ” But do you think it just, that the bodies justly given over to death should share in resurrection with that which had been unjustly detained ?”
O. And do you think it just, that when Adam broke the commaudment, the race should follow the ancestor ?
E. Even if they had not shared in that disobedience, yet they had committed other sins, deserving of death.
O. But among the race were not sinners only, but just men, as prophets and apostles : yet they all died.
E. How could they help dying, being of mortal parentage ? When Adam became a father, he had already sinned, and become subject to death.
O. Yes, ” you have well shown why it is that we share in death.” Let us apply it to the Resurrection, ” for the remedy must be consonant to the disease.” As ” in the condemnation of the head of the race, the race was also condemned : so when our Saviour took away the curse, our nature acquired its freedom.” As we died in Adam, so we rise in Christ.

Suscopts – Baptism and Salvation
WHAT IS THE FATE OF INFANTS WHO DIE WITHOUT BEING BAPTIZED?
Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”, John3:3, and “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”, John3:5. These infants inherited the corrupt nature due to the original sin, for “we were by nature children of wrath”, Eph2:3. St Paul affirms that corruption does not inherit incorruption (1Cor15:50). Therefore, these infants cannot enter nor see the Kingdom of God. One may object, “They didn’t do anything wrong!” Well, they didn’t do anything right either. The early Church Fathers agree that these infants will not enter the Kingdom of God (based on the words of the Lord) but concerning suffering and punishment the most probable and most acceptable opinion is that they will not suffer since they did not commit any personal sin (St Gregory the Theologian).

Orthodox Study Bible
What Are the Consequences of the Fall?
1. This Fall of Adam caused mankind to become subject to mortality. While this is often seen mainly as a punishment, or penalty, the emphasis concerning God’s judgments on Adam and Eve at the Fall is best understood in terms of His mercy. So, for example, concerning man’s mortality (Gn
3:19), St. Gregory the Theologian states, “Yet here too He provides a benefit —namely death, which cuts off sin, so that evil may not be everlasting. Thus His punishment is changed into a mercy.”
2. We who are of Adam’s race are not guilty because of Adam’s sin, but because of our own sin. However, because all of mankind fell away from the grace of God through Adam’s disobedience, man now has a propensity, a disposition, an inclination towards sin, because just as death entered the world through sin, now sin enters through fear of death.
3. Mankind’s strong propensity to commit sin reveals that in the Fall, the image of God in man (Gn 1:26, 27) is also fallen. However, the ancient Fathers emphasize that the divine image in man has not been totally corrupted or obliterated. Human nature remains inherently good after the Fall; mankind is not totally depraved. People are still capable of doing good, although bondage to death and the influences of the devil can dull their perception of what is good and lead them into all kinds of evil.
4. Adam’s Fall not only brought mortality and sin into the world, but also sweat, toil, hunger, thirst, weariness, sorrow, pain, suffering, sickness, tribulations, tragedy and tears.
5. Even after the Fall, the intellectual, desiring and incensive (forceful or driving) aspects of the soul are natural and therefore neutral. They can be used in a good way, or in a bad, harmful way. For instance, desire is very good when one directs it towards God. But when desire is out of control, one may use it in very inappropriate ways, such as becoming gluttonous or desiring another person’s spouse. The classic analogy is that these powers of the soul are like iron, which can be made into a plow to help grow food, or into a sword to be used to kill someone.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Gospel According to St. John, CHAPTER XII, (John 18:22)
He was being led on in truth to the end long ago foretold, to the verdict of Jewish presumption, which was also the abolition and determination of our deserved dishonour, for that we sinned in Adam first, and trampled under foot the Divine commandment. For He was dishonoured for our sake, in that He took our sins upon Him, as the prophet says, and was afflicted on our account. For as He wrought out our deliverance from death, giving up His own Body to death, so likewise, I think, the blow with which Christ was smitten, in fulfilling the dishonour that He bore, carried with it our deliverance from the dishonour by which we were burthened through the transgression and original sin of our forefather. For He, being One, was yet a perfect Ransom for all men, and bore our dishonour. But I think the whole creation would have shuddered, had it been suffered to be conscious of such presumption. For the Lord of glory was insulted by the impious hand of the smiter.

St. Gregory Nazianzen – Second Oration on Easter, XII
Our belief is that since it was needful that we, who had fallen in consequence of the original sin, and had been led away by pleasure, even as far as idolatry and unlawful bloodshed, should be recalled and raised up again to our original position through the tender mercy of God our Father, Who could not endure that such a noble work of His own hands as Man should be lost to Him; the method of our new creation, and of what should be done, was this:—that all violent remedies were disapproved, as not likely to persuade us, and as quite possibly tending to add to the plague, through our chronic pride; but that God disposed things to our restoration by a gentle and kindly method of cure

Adam’s fallen nature was condemned to death. We inherited that nature with “the blame of that ancient transgression”. My understanding: Adam ruined his nature with sin. God cursed and condemned the fallen nature. We are born with the condemned nature. The fallen nature is renewed in baptism. That’s why the rebirth of water and Spirit is necessary to enter Kindgom of Heaven. Similarly God destroyed the earth (fallen condemned nature) in the flood to renew it with water (which symbolized baptism which now also saves and renews us). St. Paul also says: “…knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin”. He says “body of sin” suggesting a sinful nature.

St. Cyril explains how we were made sinners through Adam. Our nature became sinful and prone to sin:
St. Cyril of Alexandria – Five Tomes Against Nestorius, Tome III
By the grace of God for every man tasted He death, and again, He was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification, and as the Prophet Esaias saith, The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, with His stripes were WE healed, not Himself has been healed by the suffering of His own Flesh. He was delivered up because of our transgressions (not because of His own, far from it, for confessedly has the nature of man been borne down by the transgression in Adam unto curse and death, it is moreover sick of proneness to sin in the flesh), in order that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. …For therefore was He also named the last Adam, not enduring to be sick of the things of the first one, but rather ridding in Himself first the nature of man from the blame of that ancient transgression. For it was condemned in Adam, but in Christ was seen most approved and worthy of wonder. Earthy therefore is he, but Christ heavenly. And it was put to shame in the first, borne down to disobedience which is sin, but in Christ hath it preserved untransgression, and as in a second firstfruits of the race, was seen both unwounded by sins, and superior to curse and doom and death and decay. And the most wise Paul confirms us herein, thus writing, For as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so too by its obedience of one shall the many be made righteous. Every one who has become guilty of sin needs therefore sacrifice for his own transgressions: and Christ hath offered Himself for His kin according to the flesh, i. e., for us; but for Himself not a whit, being superior to sin, as God. For if He have been sacrificed for Himself, not WE alone have been bought by His Blood according to the Scriptures but Himself too will have been co-bought with us, no longer according to Isaiah’s voice did the Lord give Him up for our sins, but He has been given rather for His own.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. Luke, SERMON XLII
For that there is no obedience without reward, and on the other hand, no disobedience without penalty, is made plain by what God spake by His holy prophet to those who disregarded Him…For let us see, if you will, even from the writings of Moses, the grief to which disobedience has brought us. We have been driven from a paradise of delights, and have also fallen under the condemnation of death; and while intended for incorruption:—for so God created the universe:—we yet have become accursed, and subject to the yoke of sin. And how then have we escaped from that which betel us, or Who is He that aided us, when we had sunk into this great misery? It was the Only-begotten Word of God, by submitting Himself to our estate, and being found in fashion as a man, and becoming obedient unto the Father even unto death. Thus has the guilt of the disobedience that is by Adam been remitted: thus has the power of the curse ceased, and the dominion of death been brought to decay.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, On Romans 5.15, P.G. 74:785C
“[All men] have been condemned to death by the transgression of Adam. For the whole of human nature has suffered this in him, who was the beginning of the human race.”

St. Athanasius – On the Incarnation of the Word
But beyond all this, there was a debt owing which must needs be paid; for, as I said before, all men were due to die. Here, then, is the second reason why the Word dwelt among us, namely that having proved His Godhead by His works, He might offer the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering His own temple to death in place of all, to settle man’s account with death and free him from the primal transgression. In the same act also He showed Himself mightier than death, displaying His own body incorruptible as the first-fruits of the resurrection.

Hence also the meaning of “Christ condemned sin in the flesh”…By taking on human nature, He renewed the old sinful nature. As sons of Christ in adoption, we receive the new nature of Christ with the distorted image of God restored. Condemned “sin in the flesh” points to receipt of a sinful nature:

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Contra Apollinarium
When God at the beginning formed Adam, did He make sin innate in him? If so, what need was there then of a commandment ? And how was it that He condemned man after he had sinned? And how was it also that Adam did not know good and evil before his transgression? Him, whom God formed for incorruption, and as an image of His own eternity, He made with a nature sinless and a will free to choose: but through the devil’s envy came death into the world, after he had found out the device of producing the transgression. And thus, from disobedience to God’s commandment, man became receptive of the seed sown by the enemy and thenceforward sin was active in man’s nature, in the direction of every appetite: not that the devil had fashioned a nature in him, God forbid! For the devil could not be a maker of a nature, as Manicheans impiously think: but he out of a transgression produced a perversion of nature, and thus it was that death reigned over all men. For this purpose then, God came that He might destroy the works of the devil. What sort of works of the devil did the Son of God destroy? Because after God had made a nature in a sinless state, the devil perverted it into transgressing His commandment, and finding out deadly sin, therefore did God the Word restore for Himself this nature in a state which it was incapable of being perverted by the devil and of finding out sin: and therefore did the Lord say, The prince of the world cometh, and findeth nothing in me…Or this was another reason for his finding nothing in Him,—because Christ exhibited the principle of newness in its perfection, that He might accomplish in perfection the salvation of the whole of man, of reasonable soul and body, that resurrection also might be perfect.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Contra Arianos, Discourse III, 33
For if the works of the Word’s Godhead had not taken place through the body, man had not been deified; and again, had not the properties of the flesh been ascribed to the Word, man had not been thoroughly delivered from them; but though they had ceased for a little while, as I said before, still sin had remained in him and corruption, as was the case with mankind before Him; and for this reason:—Many for instance have been made holy and clean from all sin; nay, Jeremiah was hallowed even from the womb, and John, while yet in the womb, leapt for joy at the voice of Mary Bearer of God; nevertheless ‘death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression [ Romans 5:14 ];’ and thus man remained mortal and corruptible as before, liable to the affections proper to their nature. But now the Word having become man and having appropriated what pertains to the flesh, no longer do these things touch the body, because of the Word who has come in it, but they are destroyed by Him, and henceforth men no longer remain sinners and dead according to their proper affections, but having risen according to the Word’s power, they abide ever immortal and incorruptible. Whence also, whereas the flesh is born of Mary Bearer of God, He Himself is said to have been born, who furnishes to others an origin of being; in order that He may transfer our origin into Himself, and we may no longer, as mere earth, return to earth, but as being knit into the Word from heaven, may be carried to heaven by Him. Therefore in like manner not without reason has He transferred to Himself the other affections of the body also; that we, no longer as being men, but as proper to the Word, may have share in eternal life. For no longer according to our former origin in Adam do we die; but henceforward our origin and all infirmity of flesh being transferred to the Word, we rise from the earth, the curse from sin being removed, because of Him who is in us, and who has become a curse for us. And with reason; for as we are all from earth and die in Adam, so being regenerated from above of water and Spirit, in the Christ we are all quickened; the flesh being no longer earthly, but being henceforth made Word, by reason of God’s Word who for our sake ‘became flesh.’

St. Athanasius – Three Discourses of Athanasius against the Arians, Discourse II
Moreover, with what good reason He acted may be seen thus: if God had simply spoken, because that was in His power, and so the curse had been undone, the power had been shown of Him who gave the word, but man, though restored to what Adam was before the transgression, had received grace body from without, and not had it united to his body; such would he have been, but, so restored to Paradise, perhaps be had become worse, because he had learned to transgress. Such then being his condition, had he again been seduced by the serpent, there had been fresh need for God to give command and undo the curse; and thus the need had become interminable, and men had remained under guilt not less than before, as being enslaved to sin; and ever sinning, would have ever needed one to pardon them, and had never become free, being in flesh themselves, and ever worsted by the Law because of the infirmity of the flesh. Again, if the Son were a creature, man had remained mortal as before, not being joined to God; for a creature would not have joined creatures to God, as itself seeking what would join them ; nor could any portion of the creation have been the creation’s salvation, as needing salvation itself. To provide against this also. He sends His own Son, who becomes Son of Man by taking created flesh; that, since all men were under sentence of death. He, being other than them all, might Himself for all offer to death His own body; and that henceforth, all having died in Him, the word of that sentence might be accomplished, (for all died in Christ,) and that all through Him might there-upon become free from sin and from the curse which came upon sin, and might truly abide for ever, risen from the dead and clothed in immortality and incorruption.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – AGAINST APOLLINARIS, Book I
This flesh He raised up in a condition of being by nature sinless, that He might shew that the Maker was not the cause of sin, and He established it in accordance with the original creation of its own nature, that He Him self might be the exhibition of sinlessness. Vain, then, are their imaginations who go astray and say that the Lord’s body was from heaven. Rather, what Adam brought down from heaven to earth, Christ carried up from earth to heaven: and what Adam brought down into corruption, and condemnation to death, when it had been sinless and uncondemned, that did Christ show forth as incorruptible, and capable of delivering from death, so that He had authority on earth to forgive sins, to exhibit incorruption (by rising) out of the sepulchre, and by visiting Hades to destroy death, and to proclaim to all the good tidings of resurrection, because God created man to be immortal, and made him the image of His own eternity, but by the devil’s envy, death came into the world, and when it was under the reign of death unto corruption, He did not overlook it, for He Himself became man; not that He was turned into the form of man, nor that, as if neglecting real human existence, He exhibited Himself merely under a shadow, —but He who is by nature God was born man, that these two might be one, perfect in all things, exhibiting His birth as natural and most true.

St. Athanasius – Discourse Against the Arians
For since the first man Adam altered, and through sin death came into the world, therefore it became the second Adam to be unalterable; that, should the Serpent again assault, even the Serpent’s deceit might be baffled, and, the Lord being unalterable and unchangeable, the Serpent might become powerless in his assault against all. For as when Adam had transgressed, his sin reached unto all men, so, when the Lord had become man and had overthrown the Serpent, that so great strength of His is to extend through all men, so that each of us may say, ‘For we are not ignorant of his devices.’ Good reason then that the Lord, who ever is in nature unalterable, loving righteousness and hating iniquity, should be anointed and Himself sent, that, He, being and remaining the same, by taking this alterable flesh, ‘might condemn sin in it,’ and might secure its freedom, and its ability henceforth ‘to fulfil the righteousness of the law’ in itself, so as to be able to say, ‘But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in us.’

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Luke
Christ therefore ransomed from the curse of the law those who being subject to it, had been unable to keep its enactments. And in what way did He ransom them? By fulfilling it. And to put it in another way: in order that He might expiate the guilt of Adam’s transgression, He showed Himself obedient and submissive in every respect to God the Father in our stead: for it is written, “That as through the disobedience of the One man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One, the many shall be made just.” He yielded therefore His neck to the law in company with us, because the plan of salvation so required: for it became Him to fulfil all righteousness.

St. Cyril explains that Adam transmitted the “penalty” of corruption and death to the whole race, also making us subject to “Divine wrath”, but the Spirit renews our nature through Christ:

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Chapter I
The first man, being earthy, and of the earth, and having, placed in his own power, the choice between good and evil, being master of the inclination to each, was caught of bitter guile, and having inclined to disobedience, falls to the earth, the mother from whence he sprang, and over-mastered now at length by corruption and death, transmits the penalty to his whole race…Since then the first Adam preserved not the grace given him of God, God the Father was minded to send us from Heaven the second Adam. For He sendeth in our likeness His own Son Who is by Nature without variableness or change, and wholly unknowing of sin, that as by the disobedience of the first, we became subject to Divine wrath, so through the obedience of the Second, we might both escape the curse, and its evils might come to nought…For this reason, I deem, it was that the holy Baptist profitably added, I saw the Spirit descending from Heaven, and It abode upon Him. For It had fled from us by reason of sin, but He Who knew no sin, became as one of us, that the Spirit might be accustomed to abide in us, having no occasion of departure or withdrawal in Him. Therefore through Himself He receives the Spirit for us, and renews to our nature, the ancient good. For thus is He also said for our sakes to become poor. For being rich, as God and lacking no good thing, He became Man lacking all things, to whom it is somewhere said and that very well, What hast thou that thou didst not receive? As then, being by Nature Life, He died in the Flesh for our sakes, that He might overcome death for us, and raise up our whole nature together with Himself (for all we were in Him, in that He was made Man): so does He also receive the Spirit for our sakes, that He may sanctify our whole nature.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Unity of Christ
Therefore if it is true, as it is understood by them to mean rightly, that the Word has in such sort been MADE flesh, as He has been MADE both curse and sin; i. e. to the destruction of the flesh; how will He render it incorruptible and indestructible, as having achieved this in His own Flesh first? for He did not leave it to remain mortal and under decay, Adam transmitting to us the punishment for the transgression, but rather as the flesh of the uncorruptible God, Own and His, rendered it superior to death and to decay.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Five Tomes Against Nestorious
But let us see from the legal and more ancient scripture too in what manner and for whom, Emmanuel hath offered Himself for an odour of a sweet smell unto God the Father…For God the Father was representing the sacrifices that were to be made for sins, in the Law as on a tablet, outlining yet the mystery of Christ, and thus He said to the hierophant Moses, If the whole congregation of the children of Israel sin unwillingly and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly and they have done one of all the commandments of the Lord which should not be done, and have transgressed and the sin be known to them which they have sinned therein, the congregation shall offer a young bullock without blemish from among the herd for the sin. And having fully gone through how the details of the sacrifice should be done, He adds and says, And the priest shall make an atonement for them and the sin shall be forgiven them. Observe then that the bullock was offered as a type of Christ the All-Pure and That hath no spot, and they who offer and not surely the bullock were set free from their guilt…we say that the Word out of God the Father was made the High Priest and Apostle of our confession when He was made Man, abasing Himself unto emptiness and in our condition: in order that having offered Himself to the Father for an odour of sweet smell in behalf of all, He might win all under Heaven, might remove the ancient guilt, might justify by grace through faith, might render superior to death and decay, holy and hallowed and full well versed in every kind of virtue confessing Him their Saviour and Redeemer, through Whom and with Whom to God the Father be glory with the Holy Ghost for evermore. Amen.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Gospel According to John, Book XI, CHAPTER XII (John 18:22)
It had been foretold, by the mouth of the prophet, that with Christ this would come to pass: I gave My back to the scourge, and My cheeks to them that smite. He was being led on in truth to the end long ago foretold, to the verdict of Jewish presumption, which was also the abolition and determination of our deserved dishonour, for that we sinned in Adam first, and trampled under foot the Divine commandment. For He was dishonoured for our sake, in that He took our sins upon Him, as the prophet says, and was afflicted on our account. For as He wrought out our deliverance from death, giving up His own Body to death, so likewise, I think, the blow with which Christ was smitten, in fulfilling the dishonour that He bore, carried with it our deliverance from the dishonour by which we were burthened through the transgression and original sin of our forefather. For He, being One, was yet a perfect Ransom for all men, and bore our dishonour. But I think the whole creation would have shuddered, had it been suffered to be conscious of such presumption.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Book XII
He was scourged unjustly, that He might deliver us from merited chastisement; He was buffeted and smitten, that we might buffet Satan, who had buffeted us, and that we might escape from the sin that cleaves to us through the original transgression. For if we think aright, we shall believe that all Christ’s sufferings were for us and on our behalf, and have power to release and deliver us from all those calamities we have deserved for our revolt from God. For as Christ, Who knew not death, when He gave up His own Body for our salvation, was able to loose the bonds of death for all mankind, for He, being One, died for all; so we must understand that Christ’s suffering all these things for us sufficed also to release us all from scourging and dishonour. Then in what way by His stripes are we healed, according to the Scripture? Because we have all gone astray, every man after his own way, as says the blessed Prophet Isaiah; and the Lord hath given Himself up for our transgressions, and for us is afflicted. For He was bruised for our iniquities, and has given His own back to the scourge, and His cheeks to the smiters, as he also says.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
And the meaning of the figure is in no way affected by the fact, that the men who hung by His side were malefactors; for we were by nature children of wrath, before we believed in Christ, and were all doomed to death, as we said before…And the title contained a handwriting against us—the curse that, by the Divine Law, impends over the transgressors, and the sentence that went forth against all who erred against those ancient ordinances of the Law, like unto Adam’s curse, which went forth against all mankind, in that all alike broke God’s decrees. For God’s anger did not cease with Adam’s fall, but He was also provoked by those who after him dishonoured the Creator’s decree; and the denunciation of the Law against transgressors was extended continuously over all. We were, then, accursed and condemned, by the sentence of God, through Adam’s transgression, and through breach of the Law laid down after him; but the Savior wiped out the handwriting against us, by nailing the title to His Cross, which very clearly pointed to the death upon the Cross which He underwent for the salvation of men, who lay under condemnation. For our sake He paid the penalty for our sins. For though He was One that suffered, yet was He far above any creature, as God, and more precious than the life of all. Therefore, as the Psalmist says, the mouth of all lawlessness was stopped, and the tongue of sin was silenced, unable any more to speak against sinners. For we are justified, now that Christ has paid the penalty for us; for by His stripes we are healed, according to the Scripture. And just as by the Cross the sin of our revolt was perfected, so also by the Cross was achieved our return to our original state, and the acceptable recovery of heavenly blessings; Christ, as it were, gathering up into Himself, for us, the very fount and origin of our infirmity.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Gospel of St. Luke
Turtles, therefore, and doves were offered, when He presented Himself unto the Lord, and there might one see simultaneously meeting together the truth and the types. And Christ offered Himself for a savor of a sweet smell, that He might offer us by and in Himself unto God the Father, and so do away with His enmity towards us by reason of Adams transgression, and bring to nought sin that had tyrannized over us all.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life
…He became man in the body for our salvation, in order that having somewhat to offer for us He might save us all, ‘as many as through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage.’ For it was not some man that gave Himself up for us; since every man is under sentence of death, according to what was said to all in Adam, ‘earth thou art and unto earth thou shalt return.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Book XII
For death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression; and we bore the image of the earthy in his likeness, and underwent the death that was inflicted by the Divine curse. But when the Second Adam appeared among us, the Divine Man from heaven, and, contending for the salvation of the world, purchased by His death the life of all men, and, destroying the power of corruption, rose again to life, we were transformed into His Image, and undergo, as it were, a different kind of death, that does not dissolve us in eternal corruption, but casts upon us a slumber which is laden with fair hope, after the Likeness of Him Who has made this new path for us, that is, Christ.

St. Cyril explains that the way became sinners is that the “nature of man” became guilty in Adam, also evidencing a problem with the nature which needed renewal:

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. Luke, SERMON XLII
We have been driven from a paradise of delights, and have also fallen under the condemnation of death; and while intended for incorruption:—for so God created the universe:—we yet have become accursed, and subject to the yoke of sin. And how then have we escaped from that which betel us, or Who is He that aided us, when we had sunk into this great misery? It was the Only-begotten Word of God, by submitting Himself to our estate, and being found in fashion as a man, and becoming obedient unto the Father even unto death. Thus has the guilt of the disobedience that is by Adam been remitted: thus has the power of the curse ceased, and the dominion of death been brought to decay. And this too Paul teaches, saying, “For as by the disobedience of the one man, the many became sinners, so by the obedience of the One, the many became righteous.” For the whole nature of man became guilty in the person of him who was first formed; but now it is wholly justified again in Christ. For He became for us the second commencement of our race after that primary one; and therefore all things in Him have become new. And Paul assures of this, writing, “Therefore every man who is in Christ is a new creation; and the former things have passed away: behold, they have become new.”

Again, St. Cyril explains that the “nature of man” needed to be freed from blame in Adam:

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Five Tomes Against Nestorius, Book 1
For if He had not been born as we according to the flesh, if He had not taken part like us of the same, He would not have freed the nature of man from the blame [contracted] in Adam, nor would He have driven away from our bodies the decay, nor would the might of the curse have ceased which we say came on the first woman; for it was said to her, In sorrows shalt thou bring forth children. But the nature of man hath fallen into the disease of disobedience in Adam, it has become now approved in Christ through the utter obedience: for it is written. As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so too by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. For in Adam hath it suffered, Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return, in Christ hath it gained the riches of being able to be superior to the toils of death, and (so to say) to exult over decay, saying those words of the Prophet, O death, where thy victory? O grave, where thy sting? It became accursed, as I said, but in Christ was this too brought to nought. And verily it has been said somewhere to the holy Virgin, Elizabeth prophesying in spirit, Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Sin hath reigned over us and the inventor and father of sins behaved himself proudly over all beneath the skies, objecting [to them] the transgression of the Divine Laws: but in Christ we see the nature of man, as in a second firstfruits of our race, having confidence with God. For He said clearly, The prince of this world cometh, and in Me shall find nothing. But, good sir (would I with reason say) except the Only-Begotten had become as we, had become as we no otherwise than by means of birth in the flesh from forth a woman, WE had not been enriched with what is His.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Romans, Homily X on Rom. v. 12
“For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift and (so Field with most mss.) of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” What he says, amounts to this nearly. What armed death against the world? The one man’s eating from the tree only. If then death attained so great power from one offence, when it is found that certain received a grace and righteousness out of all proportion to that sin, how shall they still be liable to death? And for this cause, he does not here say “grace,” but “superabundance of grace.” For it was not as much as we must have to do away the sin only, that we received of His grace, but even far more. For we were at once freed from punishment, and put off all iniquity, and were also born again from above (John iii. 3) and rose again with the old man buried, and were redeemed, justified, led up to adoption, sanctified, made brothers of the Only-begotten, and joint heirs and of one Body with Him, and counted for His Flesh, and even as a Body with the Head, so were we united unto Him! All these things then Paul calls a “superabundance” of grace, showing that what we received was not a medicine only to countervail the wound, but even health, and comeliness, and honor, and glory and dignities far transcending our natural state. And of these each in itself was enough to do away with death, but when all manifestly run together in one, there is not the least vestige of it left, nor can a shadow of it be seen, so entirely is it done away. As then if any one were to cast a person who owed ten mites (ὀβόλους) into prison, and not the man himself only, but wife and children and servants for his sake; and another were to come and not to pay down the ten mites only, but to give also ten thousand talents of gold, and to lead the prisoner into the king’s courts, and to the throne of the highest power, and were to make him partaker of the highest honor and every kind of magnificence, the creditor would not be able to remember the ten mites; so hath our case been. For Christ hath paid down far more than we owe, yea as much more as the illimitable ocean is than a little drop. Do not then, O man, hesitate as thou seest so great a store of blessings, nor enquire how that mere spark of death and sin was done away, when such a sea of gifts was brought in upon it. For this is what Paul intimated by saying that “they who have received the abundance of the grace and righteousness shall reign in life.”

St. John Chryostom says because of Adam’s sin we became sinners, in the sense that we were “liable to punishment and condemned to death” :

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Romans, Homily X
Ver. 19. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous.” What he says seems indeed to involve no small question: but if any one attends to it diligently, this too will admit of an easy solution. What then is the question? It is the saying that through the offence of one many were made sinners. For the fact that when he had sinned and become mortal, those who were of him should be so also, is nothing unlikely. But how would it follow that from his disobedience another would become a sinner? For at this rate a man of this sort will not even deserve punishment, if, that is, it was not from his own self that he became a sinner. What then does the word “sinners” mean here? To me it seems to mean liable to punishment and condemned to death. Now that by Adam’s death we all became mortals, he had shown clearly and at large. But the question now is, for what purpose was this done? But this he does not go on to add: for it contributed nothing to his present object. For it is against a Jew that the contest is, who doubted and made scorn of the righteousness by One. And for this reason after showing that the punishment too was brought in by one upon all, the reason why this was so he has not added. For he is not for superfluities, but keeps merely to what is necessary. For this is what the principles of disputation did not oblige him to say any more than the Jew; and therefore he leaves it unsolved. But if any of you were to enquire with a view to learn, we should give this answer: That we are so far from taking any harm from this death and condemnation, if we be soberminded, that we are the gainers even by having become mortal, first, because it is not an immortal body in which we sin; secondly, because we get numberless grounds for being religious (φιλοσοφίας). For to be moderate, and to be temperate, and to be subdued, and to keep ourselves clear of all wickedness, is what death by its presence and by its being expected persuades us to. But following with these, or rather even before these, it hath introduced other greater blessings besides. For it is from hence that the crowns of the martyrs come, and the rewards of the Apostles. Thus was Abel justified, thus was Abraham, in having slain his son, thus was John, who for Christ’s sake was taken off, thus were the Three Children, thus was Daniel. For if we be so minded, not death only, but even the devil himself will be unable to hurt us. And besides there is this also to be said, that immortality awaits us, and after having been chastened a little while, we shall enjoy the blessings to come without fear, being as if in a sort of school in the present life, under instruction by means of disease, tribulation, temptations, and poverty, and the other apparent evils, with a view to our becoming fit for the reception of the blessings of the world to come.

St. Irenaeus – Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 18, 19
For it behooved Him who was to destroy sin, and redeem man under the power of death, that He should Himself be made that very same thing which he was, that is, man; who had been drawn by
sin into bondage, but was held by death, so that sin should be destroyed by man, and man should go forth from death. For as by the disobedience of the one man who was originally molded from virgin soil, the many were made sinners, and forfeited life; so was it necessary that, by the obedience of one man, who was originally born from a virgin, many should be justified and receive salvation. Thus, then, was the Word of God made man, as also Moses says: “God, true are His works.” But if, not having been made flesh, He did appear as if flesh, His work was not a true one. But what He did appear, that He also was: God recapitulated in Himself the ancient formation of man, that He might kill sin, deprive death of its power, and vivify man; and therefore His works are true. But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten
by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: “I said, Ye are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but ye shall die like men.” He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – SCHOLIA ON THE INCARNATION OF THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN
Since on account of the transgression in Adam, sin hath reigned against all, and then the Holy Ghost fled away from the human nature and it came therefore to be in all ill, and it needed that by the Mercy of God, it mounting up to its pristine condition should be accounted worthy of the Spirit:—-the Only-Begotten Word of God became Man, and appeared to them on earth with Body of earth, and was made free from sin, that in Him Alone the nature of man crowned with the glories of sinlessness, should be rich in the Holy Ghost, and thus be re-formed unto God through holiness: for thus does the grace pass through to us too, having for its beginning Christ the First-born among us. And therefore does the blessed David teaching us sing to the Son, Thou lovedst righteousness and hatedst wickedness, therefore God, Thy God anointed Thee with the oil of gladness.

St. Cyril explains that Adam transmitted to us the “punishment” for transgression:

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – That Christ is One
In that case, if it is true. that the Word became ﬂesh in exactly the same way that he became curse and sin, which is how they understand it, then surely he must have become ﬂesh for the suppression of ﬂesh? But how would this serve to exhibit the incorruptibility and imperishability of ﬂesh which he achieved, first of all in his own body? For he did not allow it to remain mortal and subject to corruption, thus allowing the penalty of Adam’s transgression to continue to pass unto us, but since it was his own and personal ﬂesh, that of the incorruptible God, He set it beyond death and corruption.

Through Adam, the law of sin also entered the members of our flesh:

St. Cyril of Alexandria – THAT CHRIST IS ONE
And the Divine Paul appears to me, thinking over with himself something of this sort, to have said full rightly, For as we bare the image of the earthy we shall bear the image too of the heavenly: and he said that the first man was from out of earth, earthy, the second from out of Heaven. But as the earthy such (he says) are the earthy ones too, and as the Heavenly One such the Heavenly ones also. For we are earthy, in that there stole in upon us as from the earthy one, Adam, the curse, decay, through which the law of sin too entered in, which is in the members of our flesh: but we have been MADE heavenly, receiving this in Christ. For He being God by Nature and out of God and from above, hath come down in our estate, in an unwonted and strange way, MADE offspring of the Spirit according to the flesh, in order that WE too as He might remain holy and undecaying, the grace descending upon us as from out a second beginning and root, i. e., Him.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Five Tomes Against Nestorius, Tome III
And as we bare the image of the earthy we shall bear the image too of the heavenly; calling the image of the earthy, that of our forefather Adam, of the heavenly, that of Christ. What then first is the image of our forefather? proneness to sin, becoming under death and decay. What again that of the heavenly? being in no wise overcome of passions, not knowing to transgress, not being subject to death and decay, holiness, righteousness, and whatever are akin to and like these. But these (I suppose) will befit the Divine and Untaint Nature to possess: for superior to both sin and decay is Holiness and Righteousness. Herein does the Word out of God the Father restore us too, rendering us partakers of His own Divine Nature through the Spirit.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
In order then that He might free from corruption and death those that lay under the condemnation of that ancient curse, He became Man; investing Himself, Who was by Nature the Life, with our nature. For thus the power of death was overcome, and the dominion of corruption, which had gained sway over us, was destroyed. And, since the Divine Nature is wholly free from inclination to sin, He exalted us by His own Flesh. For in Him we all have our being, inasmuch as He manifested Himself as Man. In order that He might mortify the members, which are upon the earth, that is, the affections of the flesh, and might quench the law of sin that holds sway in our members, and also that He might sanctify our nature, and prove Himself our Pattern and Guide in the path to piety, and that the revelation of the truth according to knowledge, and of a way of life beyond possibility of error might be complete—-all this Christ, when He became Man, accomplished. It was necessary then to confer on the nature of man the height of blessedness, and not only to rid it of death and sin, but to raise it even to the heavens themselves, and to make man a companion of the angels, and a partaker in their joys. And just as by His own Resurrection He renewed in us the power of escaping corruption, even so He thought it right to open out for us the path heavenwards, and to set in the Presence of the Father the race of man who had been cast out of His sight owing to Adam’s transgression. And the inspired Paul, adopting this view, says: For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, nor into one like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the Face of God for us.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
For of old time, through the sin that reigned in us, and the fall that was in Adam, we both failed of ability to accomplish any of those things which make for virtue, and also were very far removed from freedom of speech with God. Yea, God, to that end, out of the abundance of His kindness, spake consolation by the voice of the prophet, saying: Fear not, because Thou hast been ashamed, neither be confounded because thou hast been put to shame. As, then, in all other things that are good our Lord Jesus Christ is the Beginning, and the Gate, and the Way, so also is He here.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
We say, then, that the Only-begotten, being by Nature God, and in the form of God the Father, and in equality with Him, emptied Himself according to the Scripture, and became Man born of a woman, receiving all the properties of man’s nature, sin only excepted, and in an unspeakable way uniting Himself to our nature by His own free will, in order that He might in Himself first, and through Himself, regenerate it into that glory which it had at the beginning; and that He, having proved Himself the second Adam, that is, a heavenly Man, and being found first of all, and the firstfruits of those who are built up into newness of life, in incorruption that is, and in righteousness and the sanctification which is through the Spirit, He might henceforth through Himself send good gifts to the whole race. For this cause, though He is Life by Nature, He became as one dead; that, having destroyed the power of death in us, He might mould us anew into His own life; and being Himself the righteousness of God the Father, He became sin for us. For, according to the saying of the Prophet, He Himself beareth our sins, and He was counted together with us among transgressors, that He might justify us through Himself, rending the bond that was against us, and nailing it to His cross, according to the Scripture. Being also Himself by Nature holy as God, and granting to the whole creation participation in the Holy Spirit, to their continuance and stablishing and sanctification, He is sanctified on our account in the Holy-Spirit; no one else sanctifying Him, but rather He Himself working for Himself to the sanctification of His own Flesh. For He receiveth His own Spirit, and partakes of It in so far as He was Man; yea, and giveth it unto Himself as God. And He did this for our sakes, not for His own, that, originating in Him first, the grace of sanctification might henceforth reach even unto all mankind. Just as by Adam’s transgression and disobedience, as in the founder of the race, human nature was doomed to die by the fault of one man, the first of men hearing the sentence, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return; in the same way, I think, through the obedience and righteousness of Christ, in so far as He became under the Law, though as God He was Himself the Lawgiver, the Eucharist and the quickening power of the Spirit might be extended unto men universally. For the Spirit reforms into incorruption that which was by sin corrupted, and fashions into newness of life that which was obsolete through apathy, and verging to decay.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
Just as; then, in Adam he subdued the whole human race, showing it to be subject unto sin, so now was he vanquished by Humanity. For He That was truly God, and had no sin in Him, was yet Man; and just as the sentence of condemnation for transgression went forth over all mankind, through one man, the first Adam, so likewise, also, the blessing of justification by Christ is extended to all through One Man, the Second Adam. Paul is our witness, who says: As through one the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through One the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. We therefore are diseased through the disobedience of the first Adam and its curse, but are enriched through the obedience of the Second and its blessing. For He that was Lord of the Law as God came among us, and kept the Law as Man. Yea, we find Him saying unto us: He that loveth Me will keep My commandments; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love..

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John (Book XII)
For by Adam’s transgression, as in the firstfruits of the race, the sentence went forth to the whole world: Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return; and to the woman in special: In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. To be rich in sorrow, then, as by way of a penalty, was the fate of woman. It was, therefore, necessary that by the mouth of Him That had passed sentence of condemnation, the burden of that ancient curse should be removed, our Saviour Christ now wiping away the tears from the eyes of the woman, or rather of all womankind, as in Mary the firstfruits…that as the first woman, the mother of all mankind, was condemned for listening to the devil’s voice, and through her the whole race of women, so also this woman, in that she had hearkened to our Saviour’s words, and announced tidings fraught with life eternal, might deliver the entire race of women from the charge of old.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
Hearest thou how the transgression that was in Adam, and the “turning away” as it were from the Divine precepts, sore troubled the nature of man, and made it return to its own earth? But when God sent forth His Spirit, and made us partakers of His own Nature, and through Him renewed the face of the earth, we were transfigured unto newness of life, casting off the corruption that comes of sin, and once more grasping eternal life, through the grace and love towards mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom and with Whom unto God the Father, be glory with the Holy Spirit unto the ages. Amen.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, SERMON CXVIII
THE sacred Scripture has somewhere said, “Prepare thy works for thy departure, and make thyself ready for the field.” Now by our departure I imagine is meant our going from this world, and removal hence. For this time must of course overtake every one: for, as the Psalmist says, “What man is there that shall live and not see death, and that can save his soul from the hand of hell?” For the nature of man was condemned in Adam, and fell away unto corruption, because he foolishly transgressed the commandment given him. But those who are careless and contemptuous, lead a shameful and pleasure-loving life, not even perhaps admitting into their mind the thought of the world to come, and the hope prepared for the saints, nor feeling moreover any alarm at the torment that is appointed for those who love sin. But those who embrace a virtuous life rejoice in labours for probity’s sake, bidding, so to speak, farewell to the desire after earthly things, and paying but slight attention to the vain turmoil of the world.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Book V, Chapter II
The Only-Begotten therefore receives the Holy Ghost not for Himself (for His and in Him and through Him is the Spirit, as we before said) but, since He, having been made Man, had our whole nature in Himself, that He, might uplift it all transfashioning it unto its olden state. Besides what has been said, we must consider this too. For we shall see by going through wise reasonings, and confirmed thereto by words out of the Divine Scripture, that not for Himself did Christ receive the Spirit, but rather for us in Himself, for all good things flow through Him into us too. For since our forefather Adam being turned aside by deceit into disobedience and sin, did not preserve the grace of the Spirit, and thus in him the whole nature lost at last the God-given good, needs did God the Word Who knows not turning, become Man, in order that by receiving as Man He might preserve the Good permanently to our nature…The Only-Begotten was made therefore Man as we, that in Him first the good things returning and the grace of the Spirit rooted might be preserved securely to our whole nature, the Only Begotten and Word of God the Father lending us the Stability of His Own Nature, because the nature of man had been condemned in Adam as powerless for stability and falling (and that most easily) into perversion. As then in the turning of the first the loss of good things passes through unto the whole nature: in the same way I deem in Him too Who knoweth not turning will the gain of the abidance of the Divine Gifts be preserved to our whole race…in the Second, Christ, it riseth up again unto a second beginning, re-formed unto newness of life and unto a return of incorruption, for if ought be in Christ, a new creature, as Paul saith.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – SCHOLIA ON THE INCARNATION OF THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN
Seeing that we have been made accursed because of the transgression in Adam and forsaken of God have fallen under the snare of death, and that all things have been made new in Christ, and a return of our condition to what it was in the beginning [has taken place]; need was it that the second Adam which is out of Heaven, He Who is superior to all sin, the All-holy and Undefiled second first-fruits of our race, Christ, should free from sentence the nature of men and call again upon it the good favour that is from above and from the Father and undo the forsaking through His Obedience and entire subjection.

St. John Chrysostom
“You see how many are the benefits of baptism, and some think its heavenly grace consists only in the remission of sins, but we have enumerated ten honors [it bestows]! For this reason we baptize even infants, though they are not defiled by sins, so that there may be given to them holiness, righteousness, adoption, inheritance, brotherhood with Christ, and that they may be his [Christ’s] members” (Baptismal Catecheses in Augustine, Against Julian 1:6:21 [A.D. 388]).

St. Cyril of Alexandria? – Glaphyra in Exod. 1.3. PG 69. 392 AB
We were ‘labouring’ under the sin inherited from our first parents, and were ‘heavy burdened’ by our deprivation of all that was good. What is more, we had been enslaved in the savage dominion of that wicked ruler Satan, and set under those brutal overseers, the unclean spirits. We had come to the extremity of our trouble. Nothing could have been added to the sum of our misery and degradation. Then it was that God took pity upon us, lifted us up and saved us.

Note: When some fathers speak of “inherited sin” (except for Augustine, Jerome, and Latin fathers), they mean sinful nature:

John Cassian – CONFERENCE OF ABBOT SERAPION ON THE EIGHT PRINCIPAL FAULTS.
Through the one the whole race of mankind is brought into condemnation, through the other the whole race of mankind is set free. The one was fashioned out of raw and unformed earth, the other was born of the Virgin Mary. In His case then though it was fitting that He should undergo temptation, yet it was not necessary that He should fail under it. Nor could He who had vanquished gluttony be tempted by fornication, which springs from superfluity and gluttony as its root, with which even the first Adam would not have been destroyed unless before its birth he had been deceived by the wiles of the devil and fallen a victim to passion. And therefore the Son of God is not said absolutely to have come “in the flesh of sin,” but “in the likeness of the flesh of sin,” because though His was true flesh and He ate and drank and slept, and truly received the prints of the nails, there was in Him no true sin inherited from the fall, but only what was something like it. For He had no experience of the fiery darts of carnal lust, which in our case arise even against our will, from the constitution of our natures, but He took upon Him something like this, by sharing in our nature.

Christ Alone is Without Sin

St. Cyril of Jerusalem – Catechetical Lectures, Lecture II
Repent in like manner, brethren, and grace will not be withheld from you. Manifest henceforth a blameless habit of life. For God is a lover of man, and all time cannot worthily recount His loving-kindness. Nay, if all the tongues of men were gathered into one, not even thus could they tell in part of the loving-kindness of God. For we relate in some measure what has been written of the mercy of God towards man, but we do not know how much He forgave the angels as well. For he pardoned them also, since there is only one without sin, Jesus, who cleanses us from our sins.

St. Ambrose – On the Holy Spirit
So, then, no one is without sin except God alone, for no one is without sin except God. Also, no one forgives sins except God alone, for it is also written: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And one cannot be the Creator of all except he be not a creature, and he who is not a creature is without doubt God; for it is written: “They worshipped the creature rather than the Creator, Who is God blessed for ever.” God also does not worship, but is worshipped, for it is written: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” Let us therefore consider whether the Holy Spirit have any of these marks which may bear witness to His Godhead. And first let us treat of the point that none is without sin except God alone, and demand that they prove that the Holy Spirit has sin…“For in Wisdom is a Spirit of understanding, holy, one only, manifold, subtle, easy to move, eloquent, undefiled.” The Scripture says He is undefiled, has it lied concerning the Son, that you should believe it to have lied concerning the Spirit? For the prophet said in the same place concerning Wisdom, that nothing that defiles enters into her. She herself is undefiled, and her Spirit is undefiled. Therefore if the Spirit have not sin, He is God. But how can He be guilty of sin Who Himself forgives sins? Therefore He has not committed sin, and if He be without sin He is not a creature. For every creature is exposed to the capability of sin, and the eternal Godhead alone is free from sin and undefiled.

St. Jerome
If a bishop is short of a virtue or two out of the list of virtues, it does not indicate that he can no longer be considered as being righteous. Moreover, he would not be condemned for his failings. Rather, he would be crowned for what he possesses. Being perfectly virtuous and having no failings whatsoever are attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ only. Only He is without sin, and He never uttered deceit with His mouth. When He was insulted, He never insulted in return, (1Peter 2:22)2

Clement of Alexandria – Paidagogos 1:2:4:1-2
He is the Son of God, without sin and without defect; his soul is impassible; the immaculate God under a human form, the minister of the will of the Father, God the Word, who is in the Father, who comes from the right hand of the Father, God in human form. He is for us the immaculate image, to which with all our might, we are to endeavor to assimilate our soul. But He is wholly free from all human passions; the only judge, because He alone is without sin; but we must, as much as lies within our power, strive to keep ourselves as free as possible from sin.

Agpeya – Second Watch, Litanies of Second tach
I entreat You, Who alone are without sin. Grant humbleness to my poor soul before the end comes, and save me.

Liturgy of St. Basil- The Prayer of Preparation ((By Patriarch Severus of Antioch)
The Priest enters to the altar and prays inaudibly: Lord, Who knows the hearts of all , Who is Holy and Who rests in the midst the saints; Who alone is without sin and Who is mighty to forgive sins; You, O Lord, knows my unworthiness, my unfitness, and my unmeetness, unto this, Your holy service; and I have no boldness that I should draw near and open my mouth before Your holy glory; But according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, pardon me a sinner ; And grant unto me that I may find grace and mercy at this hour; And send me strength from high.

The Coptic Liturgy of St. Basil – FRACTION FOR THE FEASTS OF OUR LORD OR FOR ANY SEASON
Who came to the land of Egypt, and then returned and dwelt in Nazareth of Galilee; Who grew little by little, according to the form of men, yet He, alone, without sin; Who came to the Jordan and was baptized by the forerunner Saint John;
Who fasted on our behalf forty days and forty nights, with an unutterable mystery…

Coptic Church Midnight Praise for Sundays – Hymn of the Resurrection
We look at the Resurrection of Christ, and we worship the Holy Jesus Christ our Lord who alone is without sin.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Christ in the Eucharist, I The Offertory
The presbyter goes up to the altar and takes off the big veil (prospharien) from the sacred vessels. He sets them before him, and looses them from their wrappings after crossing them thrice in the name of the Holy trinity. At this instant the congregation sings the “hymn of Blessing.” If the Pope or the bishop is present they sing the “hymn of Peace.” The presbyter begins inaudibly the “Prayers of Preparation,” namely: “Lord, Who knows everyone’s heart, The Holy One, Who abides in His saints. Who alone is without sin, and Who is able to forgive sins. You, O Lord, know I am unworthy and unprepared and unfit for this Your holy service; And I have no face to draw near, and open my mouth before Your holy glory. But according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, forgive me, a sinner, and grant unto me that I find grace and mercy at this hour; and send me strength from on high.

On St. Mary

Nay, nor even in His very Body was any sin, but the likeness of sinful flesh there was in the Lord; because death is not but by sin, and surely that Body was mortal. For had It not been mortal, It had not died; had It not died, It had not risen again; had It not risen again, It had not showed us an example of eternal life. So then death, which is caused by sin, is called sin; as we say the Greek tongue, the Latin tongue, meaning not the very member of flesh, but that which is done by the member of flesh. For the tongue in our members is one among others, as the eyes, nose, ears, and the rest: but the Greek tongue is Greek words, not that the tongue is words, but that words are by the tongue.…So then the sin of the Lord is that which was caused by sin; because He assumed flesh, of the same lump which had deserved death by sin. For to speak more briefly, Mary who was of Adam died for sin,775 Adam died for sin, and the Flesh of the Lord which was of Mary died to put away sin. – St. Augustine (Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XXXV) From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series I, Volume 8

Footnote: 775 [“All, without one exception, were dead in sins.” See (City of God, book xx. cap. 6) vol. ii. p. 425, supra. Mary is not excepted by any of the Fathers; and the Latin Fathers, the last of whom is St. Bernard, unanimously ascribe to Christ the only immaculate conception.—C.]

Tertullian – A Treatise on the Soul(Chapters 41-50)
Enoch no doubt was translated, and so was Elijah; nor did they experience death: it was postponed, (and only postponed,) most certainly: they are reserved for the suffering of death, that by their blood they may extinguish Antichrist. Even John underwent death, although concerning him there had prevailed an ungrounded expectation that he would remain alive until the coming of the Lord.

Hippolytus Bishop of Rome – Exegetical Fragments, On Daniel
For when the threescore and two weeks are fulfilled, and Christ is come, and the Gospel is preached in every place, the times being then accomplished, there will remain only one week, the last, in which Elias will appear, and Enoch, and in the midst of it the abomination of desolation will be manifested, viz., Antichrist, announcing desolation to the world…And they will fulfill their testimony, as Daniel also says; for he foresaw that the beast that came up out of the abyss would make war with them, namely with Enoch, Elias, and John, and would overcome them, and kill them, because of their refusal to give glory to the accuser, that is the little horn that sprang up.

Victorinus – Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John
“And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God” He speaks of Elias the prophet, who is the precursor of the times of Antichrist, for the restoration and establishment of the churches from the great and intolerable persecution. We read that these things are predicted in the opening of the Old and New Testament; for He says by Malachi: “Lo, I will send to you Elias the Tishbite, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, according to the time of calling, to recall the Jews to the faith of the people that succeed them.”

St. Augustine – City of God
And at or in connection with that judgment the following events shall come to pass, as we have learned: Elias the Tishbite shall come; the Jews shall believe; Antichrist shall persecute; Christ shall judge; the dead shall rise; the good and the wicked shall be separated; the world shall be burned and renewed. All these things, we believe, shall come to pass; but how, or in what order, human understanding cannot perfectly teach us, but only the experience of the events themselves.

St. John Chrysostom – Homilies on 1 Thessalonians
But it may be worth while to ask, If Antichrist comes, and Elias comes, how is it “when they say Peace and safety,” that then a sudden destruction comes upon them? For these things do not permit the day to come upon them unawares, being signs of its coming. But he does not mean this to be the time of Antichrist, and the whole day, because that will be a sign of the coming of Christ, but Himself will not have a sign, but will come suddenly and unexpectedly…And He has spoken in a certain place also concerning Antichrist, when He said, “I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in His own name, Him ye will receive.” (John v. 43.) And He said that those unspeakable calamities one after another were a sign of it, and that Elias must come.

NARSAI THE SYRIAN (399 – 503)
Elijah comes back to the world to oppose the Antichrist in the name of all the believers and with the Holy Spirit will defeat him in a one peremptory war, armed by the Word. At the end of the war, Christ Himself will appear and will crown the victory of Elijah by destroying the Antichrist’s soul and flesh.

John of Damascus – An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book IV)
But Enoch and Elias the Thesbite shall be sent and shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children , that is, the synagogue to our Lord Jesus Christ and the preaching of the apostles: and they will be destroyed by him. And the Lord shall come out of heaven, just as the holy apostles beheld Him going into heaven, perfect God and perfect man, with glory and power, and will destroy the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, with the breath of His mouth.

Thomas Aquinas – The Summa Theologica, Part III
Elias was taken up into the atmospheric heaven, but not into the empyrean heaven, which is the abode of the saints: and likewise Enoch was translated into the earthly paradise, where he is believed to live with Elias until the coming of Antichrist.

St. Athanasius – AGAINST APOLLINARIS, Book I
This being so, and being acknowledged in the Catholic Church of God, how is it that you again say that the body was brought from Heaven, and why did Christ do this? Tell us, was it that He might bring down a body from heaven upon earth, and make the invisible visible, and that which could not be outraged susceptible of outrage, and the impassible passible and mortal? And what benefit was involved in this, O thoughtless men, if you say that that took place in Christ which took place in the protoplast Adam, unless Christ, having appeared in likeness of sinful flesh, and condemned sin in the flesh, had restored by an incomparable restoration that which fell in Adam so that He both lived in flesh on earth, and exhibited the flesh as incapable of sin, that flesh which Adam had in a sinless state from his first creation, and by his transgression made capable of sin, and fell down into corruption and death? This flesh He raised up in a condition of being by nature sinless, that He might shew that the Maker was not the cause of sin, and He established it in accordance with the original creation of its own nature, that He Himself might be the exhibition of sinlessness. Vain, then, are their imaginations who go astray and say that the Lord’s body was from heaven. Rather, what Adam brought down from heaven to earth, Christ carried up from earth to heaven: and what Adam brought down into corruption, and condemnation to death, when it had been sinless and uncondemned, that did Christ show forth ‘ as incorruptible, and capable of delivering from death, so that He had authority on earth to forgive sins, to exhibit incorruption (by rising) out of the sepulchre, and by visiting Hades to destroy death, and to proclaim to all the good tidings of resurrection, because God created man to be immortal, and made him the image of His own eternity, but by the devil’s envy, death came into the world, and when it was under the reign of death unto corruption, He did not overlook it k, for He Himself became man…

Theodoretus Bishop of Cyrus – The Impassible
Orth.—And how do you think it just that, when it was Adam who transgressed the
commandment, his race should follow their forefather?
Eran.—Although the race had not participated in the famous transgression, yet it
committed other sins, and for this cause incurred death.
Orth.—Yet not sinners only but just men, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and men who
have shone bright in many kinds of virtue have come into death’s meshes.
Eran.—Yes; for how could a family sprung of mortal parents remain immortal? Adam
after the transgression and the divine sentence, and after coming under the power of death,
knew his wife, and was called father; having himself become mortal he was made father of
mortals; reasonably then all who have received mortal nature follow their forefather.
Orth.—You have shewn very well the reason of our being partakers of death. The same
however must be granted about the resurrection, for the remedy must be meet for the disease.
When the head of the race was doomed, all the race was doomed with him, and so when
the Saviour destroyed the curse, human nature won freedom; and just as they that shared
Adam’s nature followed him in his going down into Hades, so all the nature of men will
share in newness of life with the Lord Christ in His resurrection.
Eran.—The decrees of the Church must be given not only declaratorily but demonstrat-
ively. Tell me then how these doctrines are taught in the divine Scripture.
Orth.—Listen to the Apostle writing to the Romans, and through them teaching all
mankind: “For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God,
and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And
not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation,
but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man’s offence death
reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of right-
eousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ”

For now the Word has become Man and has taken on all that pertains to the body, yet these aspects no longer affect the body since the Logos has resided within them and they have been destroyed through Him. Therefore mankind is no longer sinful and dead according to their own inclinations for they have risen according to the power of the Logos. Thus they remained incorruptible and unvanquished by death forever. When the Lord Jesus Christ took on a body from St. Mary the mother of God, it was said that He was born although He is the One who grants the origin of life to others. Now He Himself has come to represent our origin so that we might not return to earth as being mere dust of the earth. For once we have become united with the Logos He has transferred all the other weaknesses of the body to Himself and thus granting us to participate in eternal life not as human beings but as someone who belongs to the Logos. We no longer die on account of Adam and according to our first creation. For our origin and the weakness of our flesh has been transferred to the Logos. We now rise from the dust since He has washed the curse of sin away who lives within us and Who has become a curse for our sakes. For we all who are of dust die on account of Adam. However, we have been renewed from above and the origin of our nature has been restored to us through the water and the Spirit. We have been revived through the Lord Jesus Christ and our bodies are no longer earthly. Indeed, it has become deified (as it has received the feature of the Logos). This is the result of the wisdom of God who for us became flesh. For if you oppose the issue of my liberation from the corruption in my nature, then be careful not to oppose the Word of God Who has lifted up from me the image of slavery. It is He who became incarnate and became man and accordingly we have become deified by the Logos. Therefore He has carried us in Him through the flesh and as a result we have become heirs to eternal life from now on. – St. Athanasius the Apostolic

Pelagianism per Fr. Tadros Malaty
(1) Adam was created mortal and would have died even if he had not sinned.
(2) Adam’s sin affected only himself, not the whole human race.
(3) Children are born into the same state as that of Adam before he sinned.
(4) The human race does not die in consequence with Adam or rise in consequence with Christ.
(5) The law as well as the gospel offers entrance to the kingdom of heaven.
(6) Even before the coming of Christ, there were persons without sin.

Notes: “The Pelagians denied the corruption of man’s nature, and the necessity of divine grace. They held that infants new-born are in the same state in which Adam was before his fall; that Adam’s sin injured no one but himself, and affected his posterity no other wise than by the evil example which it afforded; they held also that men may live without sin if they will and that some have so lived.”

Fr. Tadros Malaty (Commentary on Romans)
“It is as though the Apostle is questioning: When has death been introduced? How has it conquered? He then answers: ‘Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned’, (v12). He indicates that sin was introduced by the first man and death seized and reigned over him. Then all men became sinners even though they did not fall into the same sin…yet sin invaded human nature yet remained unrevealed.“

Synods of Carthage – Canon CX.
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. For no otherwise can be understood what the Apostle says, “By one man sin is 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.

“Origen emphasizes the personal sins of individuals who have followed Adam’s example rather than their solidarity with his guilt. He believes that each one of us was banished from Paradise for his personal transgression” Fr. Tadros Malaty referencing Kelly: Early Christian Doctrines, 1978, p. 180f.

“There are passages in Origen’s writings especially in his Commentary on Romans, where he appears to accept the doctrine that the whole race was present in Adam’s loins and “sinned in him.” It is difficult, however, to take them at their face value, for we know that in his translation, he adjusted his teaching in the interests of orthodoxy.” Fr. Tadros Malaty, School of Alexandria Part 2

Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States – Servants’ Preparation Program 2003
First of all, St. Paul doesn’t affirm that tithes were counted to Levi. He said that Levi paid tithes “so to speak” (Heb 7:9), in a figurative or symbolic manner. Secondly, this view contradicts Holy Scripture that says, “The fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; a person shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deut 24:16). Also, “The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son” (Ezek 18:20)

Therefore, what we inherit or what is transmitted to us is Adam’s fallen human nature and not his actual sin. Moreover, we have our own sins to contend with because all of us have sinned and deserve punishment.

Metropolitan Bishoy
In his book On the Incarnation of the Word he wrote: “He [Christ] next offered up His sacrifice also on behalf of all, yielding His Temple to death in the stead of all, in order firstly to make men quit and free of their old trespass”…What confirms the annulment of the claim of the monk Basil St. Macarius is what was mentioned in the teachings of St. Cyril the Great, where he mentioned the phrase Original Sin of humanity: “For it is the time of holiness, when our old (original) sin ) having departed to utter destruction, the soul of each is renewed to a habit of virtue unwavering.”

Note: The wrath of God was stayed and the lives of all in the ship were spared when Jonah was thrown into the belly of the whale for three days and nights. Likewise, God’s judgment for the sins of humanity was satisfied when Christ endured the death of sinners and was in the grave, who was the offering for sin for all.

Metropolitan Kalistos Ware – The Orthodox Way
It is here, in the solidarity of the human race, that we find an explanation for the apparent unjustness of the doctrine of original sin. Why, we ask, should the entire human race suffer because of Adam’s fall? Why should all be punished because of one man’s sin? The answer is that human beings, made in the image of the Trinitarian God, are interdependent and coinherent. No man is an island. We are ‘members one of another’ (Eph. 4:25), and so any action, performed by any member of the human race, inevitably affects all the other members. Even though we are not, in the strict sense, guilty of the sins of others, yet we are some how always involved.

St. Severus of Antioch — From Letter ADDRESSED TO CONON THE SILENTIARY
The reason for which we are said to have become heirs of the curse and of condemnation and of death is not that the sin and condemnation and death passed to us, as if these fell to our nature by lot, for man’s nature was from the beginning free from all these things, but that the method by which intercourse takes place derived its origin from sin, as I have said, a method which cut away the blessing of immortality, so that the race of men is preserved from dissolution by the procreation of children. We therefore were in consequence born mortal from a mortal father. These things are defined both by the holy John in the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, and by the holy Cyril in the letter to Succensus.

Victorinus
“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on mortality.” Moreover, they ask that their reproach may be taken away — that is, that they may be cleansed from their sins: for the reproach is the original sin which is taken away in baptism, and they begin to be called Christian men, which is, “Let thy name be called upon us.”

APOCRYPHA OF THE NEW TESTAMENT (After Augustine?)
Thou, who didst lie dead in the sepulcher, hast come down to us alive; and in thy death every creature trembled, and the stars in a body were moved; and now thou hast been made free among the dead, and disturbest our legions. Who art thou, that settest free those who art held captive, bound by original sin, and recallest them to their former liberty? Who art thou, who sheddest a divine, and splendid, and illuminating light upon those who have been blinded by the darkness of their sins?

Pope Leo I – Letter LIX
For such was the state of all mortals resulting from our first ancestors that, after the transmission of original sin to their descendants, no one would have escaped the punishment of condemnation, had not the Word become flesh and dwelt in us, that is to say, in that nature which belonged to our blood and race. And accordingly, the Apostle says: “As by one man’s sin (judgment passed) upon all to condemnation, so also by one man’s righteousness (it) passed upon all to justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one man’s obedience shall many be made righteous

Pope Leo I – On the Festival of the Nativity, VIII
And therefore in the general ruin of the entire human race there was but one remedy in the secret of the Divine plan which could succour the fallen, and that was that one of the sons of Adam should be
born free and innocent of original transgression, to prevail for the rest both by His example and His merits. Still further, because this was not permitted by natural generation, and because there could be no offspring from our faulty stock without seed, of which the Scripture saith, “Who can make a clean thing conceived of an unclean seed? is it not Thou who art alone?” David’s Lord was made David’s Son, and from the fruit of the promised branch sprang One without fault, the twofold nature joining together into one Person, that by one and the same conception and birth might spring our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom was present both true Godhead for the performance of mighty works and true Manhood for the endurance of sufferings.

Pope Leo I – Sermon XXII
The unscrupulous thief and greedy robber persisted in assaulting Him Who had nothing of His own, and in carrying out the general sentence on original sin, went beyond the bond on which he rested, and required the punishment of iniquity from Him in Whom he found no fault. And thus the malevolent terms of the deadly compact are annulled, and through the injustice of an overcharge the whole debt is cancelled. The strong one is bound by his own chains, and every device of the evil one recoils on his own head. When the prince of the world is bound, all that he held in captivity is released. Our nature cleansed from its old contagion regains its honourable estate, death is destroyed by death, nativity is restored by nativity: since at one and the same time redemption does away with slavery, regeneration changes our origin, and faith justifies the sinner.

Pope Leo I (390 – 461 AD) – Letter CXXXIX
The true birth of Christ, therefore, is confirmed by the true cross; since He is Himself born in our flesh, Who is crucified in our flesh, which, as no sin entered into it, could not have been mortal, unless it had been that of our race. But in order that He might restore life to all, He undertook the cause of all and rendered void the force of the old bond, by paying it for all, because He alone of us all did not owe it: that, as by one man’s guilt all had become sinners, so by one man’s innocence all might become innocent, righteousness being bestowed upon men by Him Who had undertaken man’s nature.

Terutllian – ON BAPTISM, CHAPTER 8
And accordingly He says, “Be ye simple as doves.” Even this is not without the supporting evidence
of a preceding figure. For just as, after the waters of the deluge, by which the old iniquity was purged — after the baptism, so to say, of the world — a dove was the herald which announced to the earth the assuagement of celestial wrath, when she had been sent her way out of the ark, and had returned with the olive-branch, a sign which even among the nations is the fore-token of peace; so by the selfsame law of heavenly effect, to earth —that is, to our flesh — as it emerges from the font, after its old sins flies the dove of the Holy Spirit, bringing us the peace of God, sent out from the heavens where is the Church, the typified ark. But the world returned unto sin; in which point baptism would ill be compared to the deluge.

St. Ambrose – Concerning Repentance, Book I, Chapter III
For He was not begotten, as is every man, by intercourse between male and female, but born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin; He received a stainless body, which not only no sins polluted, but which neither the generation nor the conception had been stained by any admixture of defilement. For we men are all born under sin, and our very origin is in evil, as we read in the words of David: “For lo, I was conceived in wickedness, and in sin did my mother bring me forth.” Therefore the flesh of Paul was a body of death, as he himself says: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” But the flesh of Christ condemned sin, which He felt not at His birth, and crucified by His death, so that in our flesh there might be justification through grace, in which before there had been pollution by guilt.

Cyprian of Carthage
“If, in the case of the worst sinners and those who formerly sinned much against God, when afterwards they believe, the remission of their sins is granted and no one is held back from baptism and grace, how much more, then, should an infant not be held back, who, having but recently been born, has done no sin, except that, born of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of that old death from his first being born. For this very reason does he [an infant] approach more easily to receive the remission of sins: because the sins forgiven him are not his own but those of another” (ibid., 64:5).

“Is there [reason] for not rejecting the infant, that being lately born has committed no sin, but being carnally born according to Adam contracted at its first birth the contagion of the ancient death” – St. Cyprian

Through Adam, I have fallen, I have been expelled from Paradise, and I have died. How would
God retrieve me except by finding me guilty through Adam since that is my condition, Now,
however, I am justified through the Lord Jesus Christ St Ambrose

St Gregory Thaumaturgus

“Sin entered into the world through the flesh, and death reigned through sin over all mankind. Yet sin was demolished through the likeness of the same flesh (the likeness of sinful flesh).Through the burial of the flesh and the revelation of the First Born of the resurrection, sin has been conquered, and death has been dismantled of his authority. That has laid the foundation of righteousness that has spread throughout the world through faith, as well as through the preaching of the kingdom of heaven among mankind, and the building of friendship between God and men.” – St Gregory Thaumaturgus (the Miracle Maker) – Quoted from Fr. Tadros Malaty’s Commentary on Romans

Wherefore He says, ” Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” And this He said, not as holding before us any contest proper only to a God, but as showing our own flesh in its capacity to overcome suffering, and death, and corruption, in order that, as sin entered into the world by flesh, and death came to reign by sin over all men, the sin in the flesh might also be condemned through the selfsame flesh in the likeness thereof; and that that overseer of sin, the tempter, might be overcome, and death be cast down from its sovereignty, and the corruption in the burying of the body be done away, and the first-fruits of the resurrection be shown, and the principle of righteousness begin its course in the world through faith, and the kingdom of heaven be preached to men, and fellowship be established between God and men.

St. Athanasius (ATHANASIUS’ LETTER TO ADELPHIUS)
For He became Man, that He might make us divine in Himself: and He was made of a woman, and born of a Virgin, that He might carry over into Himself that original nature of ours which had been perverted, and we thenceforward might become a holy generation, and partakers of a Divine nature, as the blessed Peter wrote: and what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Gospel of St. Luke, From the Syriac, MS. 12,165.
Wouldst thou learn also another reason of the matter? Remember what the very wise Paul has written of Him. “For as to the powerlessness of the law, wherein it was weak through the flesh, God having sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and because of sin, has condemned the sin in His flesh, that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” What then is the meaning of his saying that the Son was sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh?” It is this. The law of sin lies hidden in our fleshly members, together with the shameful stirring of the natural lusts: but when the Word of God became flesh, that is man, and assumed our likeness, His flesh was holy and perfectly pure; so that He was indeed in the likeness of our flesh, but not according to its standard. For He was entirely free from the stains and emotions natural to our bodies, and from that inclination which leads us to what is not lawful.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Letter to Succensus
Therefore we say that, since from the transgression of Adam human nature suffered corruption and since our intellect within us is tyrannized by the pleasures of the flesh or by the inborn motions of the flesh, it became necessary for the salvation of us who are upon the earth that the Word of God be made man in order that he might make his own the flesh of man although it was subject to corruption and sick with the love of pleasure. Since he is life and life-giver, he would destroy the corruption in the flesh and rebuke its inborn motions, plainly those which tend toward love of pleasure. For thus it was possible that the sin in our flesh be killed. We recalled also that the blessed Paul called this inborn motion in us the “law of sin.”! Wherefore since human flesh became the Word’s own, the subjection to corruption has come to an end, and since as God, he who made it his own and proclaimed it as his own “did not know sin” I said, he also put an end to the sickness of loving pleasure.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Letter to Succensus
We affirm, then, that because human nature underwent corruption as a result of the transgression in Adam and our understanding was being dominated by the pleasures, the innate impulses, of the flesh, it was vital for the Word of God to become man for the salvation of us earthly men and to make human flesh, subject to decay and infected with sensuality as it was, his own and (since he is Life and Life-giver) that he should destroy the corruption within it and curb the innate, the sensual, impulses. In this way the sin within it could be done to death-and we bear in mind blessed Paul’s calling the innate impulse ‘sin’s law’. In view of the fact, then, that human flesh has become the Word’s own flesh it has stopped being burdened with corruption, and since as God, conscious of no sin, he appropriated it and displayed it as his own (as I have said) it has ceased to be infected with sensuality. Not for his own benefit has God’s Only-begotten Word accomplished this (he is, indeed, ever what he is), but clearly for ours.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – FESTAL LETTERS 13–30, Letter 19
He in fact gave his only-begotten Son, in order that, having become a human being like us and taken a body from holy Mary, the Mother of God, he might put to death sin in the flesh. For he at once freed the body, which had become the Word’s own, from the passions that afflict us, removed the goad of the movements toward wickedness, and transformed it, as it were, unto a purity ineffable and befitting God, once sin was put to death in it and pleasure shaken down to its very foundations, so to speak. For just as it [Christ’s body] was superior to death, because it became the flesh of that life which is such by nature, in the same way, I think, it trod upon the power of sin. For it belonged to the One who did not know sin. The divinely inspired Paul declared that these words are true when he wrote to us, “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 60
So in the beginning man was assigned a free and unrestrained disposition of mind with respect to everything he did. But by the trickery of the serpent he was witlessly carried away into improper actions and committed transgression without any justification. Accordingly, he was condemned to death and corruption, although in this event God, I believe, foresaw some greater good. Since man turned aside into sin and his nature was now infirm through its inclination to commit base acts, in the same way perhaps as the unclean spirits, continual evil was to be found upon the earth. For this reason, the death of the flesh was determined. Yet the living creature was not consigned to complete destruction, but rather to renewal and, if we might say it thus, to a refashioning in the same way to that a vessel which has been smashed is later made whole. That in the meantime the living creature would in fact experience corruption, the Maker was not unaware, but he well knew that together with this there would be deliverance from those things that were improper and the removal of corruption, as well as the return to a better state and the restoration of those good things that were there in the beginning. For he knew that he would later send his own Son in human form to die on our behalf, and to destroy the power of death, so that he might have dominion over the dead and the living

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 62-64
For then the author of sin deceived Adam in the beginning, he made him to be guilty of the charge of carelessness, and so it came about that he was brought down to death. Then the punishment passed upon all men, this condition coming forth just as things grow out of a root. “For death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression”. Of necessity, therefore, the Maker made prior provision for his own creatures, and prepared for us a second root, as it were, of a race that would raise us back up to our former incorruption. So, as the image of the first man taken from the ground was imprinted upon us, which had to suffer death and be ensnared in the cords of corruption, thus also in the case of our second beginning after that first one, that is to say, Christ, in whose likeness we are made through the Spirit, incorruptible nature is impressed upon us. And just as the disobedience found in that first man brought us into punishment, so the total surrender and complete obedience in this second man made us to be partakers of heavenly blessing from the Father. For “the first man Adam,” it says, “became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit.” It also explains this to us in other words when it says, “The first man was from the dust; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the heavenly man, so too are those who are heavenly. And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man.” And again, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.” For “he humbled himself,” as it is written. And the Only-Begotten Word of God voluntarily came down into our estate, not that he might be ruled over by death along with us, through Adam transmitting deadness to him, since he himself is the one who makes all things alive, but that having manifested that nature which was subject to corruption, he might transform it into life. This is the reason he became flesh. Thus the wise Paul writes, “For since through man came death, also through man came the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all will be made alive.”

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 64-65
For Adam was the beginning of the race, with respect to death, the curse, and condemnation. But Christ was the complete reverse, bringing life, blessing, and justification. Adam received the woman as one flesh with himself, and came to ruin through her. Yet Christ, uniting the church to Himself through the Sprit, rescues and saves her, and accomplishes better things for her than the devil did in his deceit…Our forefather Adam, as the wages of sin, and the punishment for transgression, received corruption. Yet righteousness was attributed to Christ, according to the insanity of the Jews, as an offence.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 90
Christ then has become our righteousness and rest, and has also saved us from the earth which the Lord God cursed. For this is what Lamech was saing when he prophesied to us in regard to Noah. And there is no doubt that the charges brought against the transgression committed in Adam have been remitted in Christ. For he became a curse for us, as it is written so delivering the earth from the ancient curse. For we say that through him God the Father restores all thing to their pristine state. “The old thing have passed away, but all things have become new,” and if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2
For the Maker did not entrust that which was so wonderful and glorious to those who had come into being for it then to perish so easily. Rather, death entered due to wrath, because our forefather Adam disregarded the divine command and turned aside to disobedience and waywardness. In Christ, however, the charges were taken up and removed from the midst, through the obedience of one man, for in Him we have been justified. The divine Paul testifies to this when he writes, “For as through one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also through one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” (Rom 5:19). In that one man we were condemned to death, but we have been shown mercy through Christ, and we have been given new life. For to the Father He was “obedient even to the point of death,” “he laid down his life on our behalf,” and “by his wounds we were healed,” in accordance with the Scriptures.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2
Now Adam was the firstfruits of the older lump of dough, but as he disregarded the commandment that was given, he fell into transgression. And in him the human race was immediately placed under a curse, and sentenced to death and corruption. Christ, however, was the firstfuits of the second lump of dough. He was free of the curse evidently through becoming a curse for us himself. And he overcame the power of corruption through himself being “left alone among the dead”.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Numbers, Page 205
“God did not create death, nor does he delight in the destruction of living creatures,” according to what is written. For he created everything to have being and the generations of the world to be preserved. But as the ﬁrst person of our race, Adam, was plagued by disobedience and ignored the divine command, he offended God the Maker, and so fell into corruption. Human nature came under a curse, and the race was subject to punishment. And we wretches, even though we were made in incorruption after we barely ﬂourished like shadows and like the grass of the ﬁeld for a short season, we descend ingloriously back to the earth, our mother.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Page 131
Now by means of the incense we may understand that the death of Christ was not for any justifiable causes, or for any offense of his, but it was a most wonderful and wholly faultless sacrifice for us (for he was presented as an offering so that he might do away with sin and with the death that came through it and because of it). For our forefather Adam by the transgressions committed in the beginning received the curse that was most properly deserved. So when he first became infected with that truly malodorous disease of sin, he was justly condemned. But the Lord and Savior of all, as he could not be charged with any wrongdoing (for he did not commit any sin), became a beautiful and fragrant offering for us, being the first, as it were, of the new fruit, and of every kind, that is to say, both of wheat and of legumes. For he died for all, great and small, Jew and Gentile, and through him and in him we have become a memorial portion for God the Father.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Page 135
For Christ became sin for our sake, as it is written, and yet he was certainly not guilty of sin in any way. Now it is not our habit to speak foolishly in this matter, since Christ did not know how to commit transgression, being God by nature, and having come forth from God the Father. Yet he became a sacriﬁcial offering for sin, for “Christ our Passover has been sacriﬁced for us.” We say therefore that he also became sin. For he was sacrificed, as I said, so that by his blood he might gain possession of everything under heaven. For “we were bought with a price,” in accordance with the Scriptures,” and we are not our own, but belong to him who became sin for us, in order that he might deliver us from the original transgression and make us holy through partaking of his holy flesh and of his blood also.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Festal Letters 13- 30, Letter 19, PG 89, 97
He thus withdrew everyone from their perversity, and removed them from their ancient guilt, “nailing the bond that stood against us to the cross,” in order that, in our joy at this very thing, we might say, “Where, O death, is your sting? Where is your victory, hell? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” But through Christ we have been removed even from the punishment in the law. The divinely inspired Paul will testify to this when he writes, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.”…For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” In order, therefore, that he might render us free from punishment and penalty, and from his denunciation, the One who is above all creation became a human being truly as we are: the Word from God the Father. He remained what he was: the Free One among slaves, the Legislator under the law, the Maker of the ages with us in a birth both carnal and effected in time.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Festal Letters 13- 30, Letter 21, PG 110
Rejoicing with one another in the churches, therefore, let us lift up songs of thanksgiving through our common, sacred, united assembly, in Christ the Savior, who has redeemed us all from the stain rubbed into us from of old through the transgression of him who was first formed; let us cry aloud the words spoken wisely of old: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.” For through the devil’s greed we fell from paradise and its delights, having drawn upon ourselves our Maker’s just wrath and heard those frightful, unbearable words: “Earth you are, and into earth shall you go”; and thus we appeared as prey to the devil’s tyranny, not daring for an instant to lift our eyes on high, wretches that we were. What way to salvation was left, then, to those who longed for it? What means of gaining forgiveness could be found for those who had transgressed the Master’s commandment? Only God’s kindness: the compassion and mercy of the power so unspeakable and indescribable.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Festal Letters 13-30, Letter 27, PG 175
For just as he died in Adam, the punishment in his case spreading to the whole race that is from him, so also we have lived in Christ. For since he is a second root of humanity, and a second Adam, he will transmit his own life to all human beings. And just as there was in Adam the nature on which was inflicted the curse and the penalty of death, so also there is again in Christ the human nature blessed by God the Father and through him rendered superior to death.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Hosea, Chapter 6
In the beginning, remember, Adam seized human nature; he immediately put [the human being] under a curse, subjecting him to death and corruption. Therefore, wrath struck him, but grace bound up his wounds; he was healed by Christ, who called him to knowledge of the true vision of God, confirmed them in observance of the commandments through the Spirit, in turn made us devout by rendering us proof against corruption and ridding us of the ailments of the ancients, namely, sin and passions. Now, this was the lot of those on earth, not on the first or second occasion, but on the third, that is, the eventual and final one. All time, you see, is divided into three—the first, the middle, and the last, when Christ was made manifest to us. Consequently, they are saying that the time of binding up wounds will come to us, as it were, as a result of surgical intervention after two days, the prophetic verse assigning us the period of a day.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Habakuk, Chapter 3
In the disturbance of my soul you will remember mercy in wrath (v.2). Humankind offended the Creator as a result of the transgression by Adam, who showed extremely little regard for the commandment given him. Accordingly, we were both disturbed and destroyed; in our wretched state we fell foul of curse and retribution, and were under the power of death for having provoked God…Now, the fact that we have been condemned to death for offending God, and in turn saved by being shown mercy, blessed David confirms by saying to the Creator of all things, “When you avert your face, they will be disturbed and return to their dust; when you send forth your Spirit, they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” In other words, we suffered the aversion on account of the transgression by Adam, and returned to the dust from which we were made; but when in turn we were enriched with the divine Spirit in Christ and through Christ, we became sharers in his nature, according to the Scriptures, and we were restored to our original condition, and have been renewed and saved.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Hosea, Chapter 13
I shall rescue them from the hand of Hades, and ransom them from death. Death, where is your vengeance? Hades, where is your goad? (v.14) After mentioning the effects of his anger on sinners, and foretelling the future results of his being offended, he re-turns to the clemency proper to God. The fact that, far from his being at odds with the whole race on earth and banishing them to unbridled and never-ending destruction, there will be some compassion and a summons to return in due time to the original condition through Christ, he mentions, adding that he will rescue them from the hand of Hades, and ransom them from death, obviously meaning those subject to him on account of the sin against the Creator and the original transgression of Adam…In other words, he has ransomed us from the hand of Hades, that is, from the tyranny of death, and the form that that redemption takes is to be seen as the death of Christ. He willingly underwent execution on the cross for us, in fact, and disarmed principalities and powers by nailing to it the record that stood against us; then it was that “all iniquity stopped its mouth,” and the power of death was undone with the removal of sin, this being the victory of death and the goad of Hades. Paul in his wisdom interpreted it this way for us, saying, “The goad of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law.” With the removal of the sin of all through Christ, therefore, we, too, would rightly say, Death, where is your victory? Hades, where is your goad? “If it is God who justified, who is there to condemn?

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Select Letters, Answers to Tiberius and His Companions, PG 173-175
It is utterly foolish for people to imagine somehow or other that because Christ came to exist in our shape for the divine plan, took slave’s form and had dealings with men on earth, he could have sinned. Had he ceased to be what he was, had he changed from being God to being only what we are, they would have to investigate charges of human frailty in him. But if he wore man’s nature in order to render it a most potent master of sin after it had sickened in Adam, why do they make a fruitless search for something they cannot find? Why have they forgotten that he said ‘The prince of this world is coming and will find nothing in me’? For the inventor of sin brings a charge against all flesh; nevertheless his malicious curiosity finds no work to do in Christ’s case, because absolutely nothing was to be found in him. Indeed he said to the Jews, ‘Which of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth why do you not believe me?’ As we are condemned in Adam for disobedience and transgression of the divine command, so we have been justified in Christ because of his utter faultlessness and his total, immaculate obedience. Human nature has its boast in him. The curse has been stayed, sin’s mouth stopped and with him the force of death has been nullified, withering away, as it were, along with its root. If sin occasioned all our ills, justification in Christ, coming in through his obedience and possessing his utter irreproachability, will mean the removal of all sin’s accompaniments. The consequence is that though he clothed himself, as they say, in Adam, he was not, as Adam was, of the earth earthy, but was celestial and so incomparably superior to what was earthy. One can see man’s nature in him crowned with the praises of sinlessness; inspired Scripture testifies of him that ‘he did no sin neither was deceit found in his mouth’.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Amos, Chapter 1
The Lord God is compassionate and merciful, long-suffering, rich in mercy and truthful, keeping steadfast love to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquities, wrongs, and sins, not clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquities of the parents on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.” The Jewish populace did not correctly understand this, thinking that God was so harsh, inexorable, and persistent in his wrath as to impose the crimes of parents on their children’s children. They said as much, for instance, in claiming, “The parents ate sour grapes, and the children’s teeth were set on edge.” Consequently, God said to the prophet Ezekiel, “Son of man, what do you mean by repeating this proverb in Israel, The parents ate sour grapes, and the children’s teeth were set on edge? As I live, says the Lord, let this proverb no more be recited in Israel, because all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child are mine. Someone who is righteous shall not die; the child will not take on his parent’s sin, nor a parent take on his child’s sin.” After all, how could the Lord of all still be long-suffering, rich in mercy, and truthful if he did not forgive sins and clear the guilty, but extended his anger to the third and fourth generation? What is the reasoning, then? While he is patient, as I said, and incomparably good, and does not immediately inflict punishment on sinners, he postpones it even to the second generation in the hope that perhaps some repentance may intervene and terminate the wrath. If this does not happen, however, and the third generation after the first and the fourth do likewise, or they are caught up in still worse evils, and are found to imitate their forbears’ impiety, then and only then does he impose punishment after having already shown the family sufficient patience for past sins. This is the meaning of inflicting sins of parents on the third and fourth generations.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA – Letter to the Sozopolitans
If, then, the sojourn of the Lord in flesh has never taken place, the Redeemer paid not the fine to death on our behalf, nor through Himself destroyed death’s reign. For if what was reigned over by death was not that which was assumed by the Lord, death would not have ceased working his own ends, nor would the sufferings of the God-bearing flesh have been made our gain; He would not have killed sin in the flesh: we who had died in Adam should not have been made alive in Christ; the fallen to pieces would not have been framed again; the shattered would not have been set up again; that which by the serpent’s trick had been estranged from God would never have been made once more His own. All these boons are undone by those that assert that it was with a heavenly body that the Lord came among us. And if the God-bearing flesh was not ordained to be assumed of the lump of Adam, what need was there of the Holy Virgin? But who has the hardihood now once again to renew by the help of sophistical arguments and, of course, by scriptural evidence, that old dogma of Valentinus, now long ago silenced? For this impious doctrine of the seeming is no novelty. It was started long ago by the feeble-minded Valentinus, who, after tearing off a few of the Apostle’s statements, constructed for himself this impious fabrication, asserting that the Lord assumed the form of a servant, Philippians 2:7 and not the servant himself, and that He was made in the likeness, but that actual manhood was not assumed by Him. Similar sentiments are expressed by these men who can only be pitied for bringing new troubles upon you.

Pope Leo I – Sermon 72, on Good Friday (April 21, 444 A.D)
That nature which took us up did not break off the shoot of our race from the common stock. Yet it separated from that shoot the contagion of the sin which passes over into all human beings. Certainly that weakness and mortality (which were not sin but the punishment for sin) were accepted by the world’s Redeemer as a penalty, in order that he might pay the price. As a result, that which used to be the transmission of condemnation onto all human beings becomes in Christ a “mystery of compassion.” ( 1 Tm 3.16) He offered himself (though free of debt) to his cruel taskmaster, allowing the violence of Jews (as servants of the devil) to crucify his sinless flesh. He wanted this flesh to be subject to death until his speedy Resurrection.

St. Vincent of Lérins – The Commonitories
Indeed, when did a heresy ever boil up except under a definite name, at a definite place, and at a definite time? Who ever introduced a heresy who had not first separated from the common agreement prevailing in the universal and traditional Catholic Church? A few examples will support these statements by clearer evidence. Who, before the profane Pelagius, ever dared to attribute such power to free will as not to believe in the indispensable help of God’s grace for our good deeds in every act? Who, before his monstrous disciple, Celestius, denied that the entire human race was bound by the guilt of Adam’s transgression? Who, before the sacrilegious Arius, was audacious enough to split the Unity of the Trinity, or, before the wicked Sabellius, to confuse the Trinity of the Unity?

Maximus the Confessor – ON DIFFICULTIES IN SACRED SCRIPTURE, Question 61
Thus, just as in Adam, sin based on pleasure condemned our nature to corruption through death and signaled the “time” for our nature to be condemned to death because of its sin, so too in Christ, on the basis of His righteousness, human nature condemns sin through death and inaugurates the “time” for sin to be condemned to death because of righteousness, inasmuch as in Christ our nature has been completely stripped of birth through pleasure. For it was on account of this birth that death, like a debt owed by everyone, necessarily accompanied our condemnation, so that in Adam the very same death was the condemnation of human nature because of sin, whereas in Christ it is a condemnation of sin because of His righteousness. The one who suffers because of sin resulting in the condemnation of his nature justly endures death, whereas the one who does not suffer because of sin, but instead bestows His grace on human nature in the divine dispensation for the condemnation of sin, willingly submits to the death caused by sin in order to destroy sin. It follows, then, that because of Adam, who by his disobedience established the law of birth through pleasure and the condemnation of death that was consequently imposed on human nature, all those who received their being from Adam (according to this law of birth through pleasure) are necessarily subject—even if unwilling—to the death that is powerfully bound up with this birth and which serves to condemn our nature. Thus it was “time” for nature to be condemned because of sin, since the law of birth based on pleasure held nature in its power.

Fr. Matta El Miskeen (Matthew the Poor) – The Titles of Christ
Even though manna was the bread from heaven, it did not provide sustenance for more than one day, so the people of Israel would gather it day by day. It is known that all those who ate the manna from heaven died like the rest of mankind. Eating the manna did not preserve them from death. As Christ said: “not such as the fathers ate and died” (Jn. 6:58). Let the reader understand that the death meant here by Christ is not just that of the flesh but the eternal curse of death which passed from Adam to his seed under the judgment of wrath.

We follow the mind of the divinely inspired writers. and for this reason we say that the one who pnmvipated in ﬂesh and blood I; not one who had flesh .ind blood as his pmper mtturc. and would not be ntherwise. but rather one who did not have this kind ul‘existence but was ol‘u different nature [0 use We say. thet‘efure, that he came innh from a wnmun and In the likeness of sinful ﬂesh he wlIn for our sake became as we are, and yet is abnve us insntir .t\‘ he is understood as God. TheWirrd hi. .imetlesh. but not sinful ﬂesh rather” in the likeness 0| stnlul flesh He lived as a man with earthly beings. and came in our likeness. hut he was nut subject tn sin like us. but was far beyond the know ledge of any
transgressrun

God became flesh, that is man, and assumed our likeness, His flesh was holy and perfectly pure;
so that He was indeed in the likeness of our flesh, but not according to its standard. For He was
entirely free from the stains and emotions natural to our bodies 11, and from that inclination
which leads us to what is not lawful.

Analogy: A man (Adam) with passengers (humanity) recklessly drives a car (human nature) into the mud, killing himself and his passengers. Another capable driver (Christ) takes the driver’s seat (incarnation) and drives the car (human nature) out of the mud and resuscitates (resurrection) the dying/dead passengers. He also restores and renews the vehicle.

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Original Sin