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Adam in Origen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2009

C. P. Bammel
Affiliation:
University Lecturer in Divinity and Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge
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Summary

Western discussion of the fall has been dominated by the views expressed by Augustine during the course of the Pelagian controversy. Just over a decade before the outbreak of this controversy, with the condemnation of Caelestius at Carthage for denying that Adam's sin injured the rest of the human race, the late fourth-century Origenist disputes had been terminated by the pronouncements of Theophilus of Alexandria and Anastasius of Rome against the heretical teachings attributed to Origen. Up to this date the rival theories on the origin of the human soul (creationism, traducianism or pre-existence) had been a matter for open discussion. Augustine himself had aired all three in his De libero arbitrio and sometimes speaks in his earlier writings of sin and the fall in terms that can best be understood of an individual fall in a previous existence. Meanwhile opponents of Origenism were rejecting not only the theory of the fall of the pre-existent soul but also the suggestion that Adam's fall implicated the subsequent human race and were propounding what seemed a naively optimistic view of the human condition. Pelagius himself, although strongly influenced by Origen's anti-gnostic emphasis on human free will, came to adopt this anti-Origenist optimism with regard to the fall, whereas Augustine in attacking Pelagianism retained Origen's view of the human condition in this life as a fallen one but, because of his rejection of the theory of pre-existence, placed the whole burden of responsibility for this condition on Adam's sin and condemnation.

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The Making of Orthodoxy
Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick
, pp. 62 - 93
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1989

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  • Adam in Origen
    • By C. P. Bammel, University Lecturer in Divinity and Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge
  • Edited by Rowan Williams
  • Book: The Making of Orthodoxy
  • Online publication: 08 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511555350.006
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  • Adam in Origen
    • By C. P. Bammel, University Lecturer in Divinity and Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge
  • Edited by Rowan Williams
  • Book: The Making of Orthodoxy
  • Online publication: 08 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511555350.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Adam in Origen
    • By C. P. Bammel, University Lecturer in Divinity and Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge
  • Edited by Rowan Williams
  • Book: The Making of Orthodoxy
  • Online publication: 08 October 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511555350.006
Available formats
×