Talk 15—On Original Sin

In the previous church discourse, brothers, we spoke of how the first people were at first innocent before the Creator and Lord, and therefore blessed. The Lord God, the source of all life, the light of every mind, peace and joy for every pure heart, was always with them; He dwelt in their hearts; He loved them and gave them inexpressible peace and joy—and if the first people had forever remained in their innocence and in their blessedness: then all people born of them would likewise be innocent and blessed. But Adam and Eve, as we have seen, did not preserve their innocence, did not fulfill the obedience laid upon them by their Creator, and—dreaming of being more than they were, proved to be proud, self-loving, and faithless—and violated God’s commandment. And as through disobedience, pride, and distrust of God they departed from Him, so He departed from them. But what is life without God, when all life—whether in heaven or on earth—comes from God, and without God there is no life? That is why, brothers, the first people, as soon as they sinned, felt disorder, confusion, sorrow, and tightness in the soul: because by the law of God’s righteousness, “there is distress and anguish for every person who does evil”; they suddenly noticed that their soul was darkened; their thoughts and desires were troubled; their imagination and memory began to be clouded. Instead of former joys and peace of soul, they now had to endure the most agonizing labors and all kinds of misery; finally sorrow and a life of suffering awaited them, and after it—death. But what is most terrible—the devil, who delights in human suffering, gained power over them. The very elements—that is, air, fire, and so forth—after sin became hostile to them: from that time they began to feel the harmful effects of cold, heat, winds, and bad weather. Beasts became fierce and began to look upon men as upon enemies—whereas before, when people were innocent, beasts feared man as their king. All that became true for the first people after sin necessarily had to become—as it indeed has become and still is—for all people born from them: because all men were in Adam as the fruit is in the seed; and what the seed is, so is the fruit; or as the tree is, so are its fruits; as the root of the tree is, so are its branches. “A bad tree cannot bear good fruit”. Among other consequences of sin, mankind was visited by various diseases, which with the passage of time became more diverse and severe; furthermore: men soon forgot that they were brothers and ceased to love one another; more than that: they began to attack one another, to be proud, to hate, to envy, to deceive, to torture, and to murder one another. Such did men become after the first sin. The sinful state of our nature, with which we are born and in which we are born, is called original sin, and all the evil consequences of it for men are called the consequences of original sin. When, brothers, you notice weakness of mind in yourselves, feel evil in your heart, or experience grief, sickness of the body, and various misfortunes: humble yourselves then before the judgment of God’s righteousness and blame yourselves or sin, which has produced all troubles in the world, and with all the strength of your soul hate this greatest of evils.

The consequences of original sin are worthy of tears especially in that human flesh has come to dominate the soul, as it ought not to do; the better has become subject to the worse; the flesh began to incline the soul to every sin, whereas the soul—the divine breath—instead of ruling the flesh, itself began to live according to the sinful inclinations of the flesh. There remained, to be sure, in the soul knowledge of God, a striving toward Him, a desire for union with Him: but all this was weak; and besides, the flesh strove as quickly as possible to stifle, to lull this: that is why all people very quickly became corrupted—so much so that it was necessary to wash them from the face of the earth with the waters of the Flood. God said of the antediluvian people: “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal”. But the evil of the flesh or of carnal men was not destroyed by the Flood, but only weakened, and therefore it spread rapidly after the Flood as well.

To subject sinful flesh to the soul, so that the soul does not fulfill the desires of the flesh, man must work much: throughout his entire life he must endure an inevitable struggle between flesh and spirit. When a Christian strives to change his life for the better: he will at once notice that “the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh”; the flesh wishes to conquer the spirit, and the spirit—the flesh; the flesh wishes to be proud and boastful, whereas the spirit, on the contrary, wishes to humble itself; the flesh wants to rage, grow hateful, quarrel, and take revenge in deed or word, whereas the spirit does not wish this; on the contrary—it wishes to forgive everything with gentleness; the flesh wants to wallow in deeds of which it is shameful even to speak: whereas the spirit avoids them and desires only chastity; the flesh wants to lie, flatter, deceive, scheme, practice deception and hypocrisy, but the spirit hates this and desires to speak only truth and to act simply, without any scheming or hypocrisy; the flesh wants to hate men, whereas the spirit wants to love every man; the flesh wants to live in idleness and laziness, whereas the spirit will not tolerate this; on the contrary it seeks exercise in blessed labors; the flesh seeks revelries and feasting, whereas the spirit turns from them and wishes either to live temperately or to fast; the flesh wants to seek in this world honor, glory, wealth: whereas the spirit despises all this and strives only for eternal good things; the flesh flees from prayer or communion with God, whereas the spirit lives only to pray; the flesh strives to destroy faith in all heavenly things and to live only by what is earthly; whereas the spirit places all its joy in contemplation of the heavenly, invisible.

Such is the struggle between flesh and spirit, such is the contradiction within ourselves: one in us wants one thing, and another wants another. And this struggle occurs in us because of original sin. All, even great saints, noticed this strange struggle between flesh and spirit in themselves. Thus St. Apostle Paul says of himself: “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh: for to will is present with me, but to do good is not. For the good that I want to do, I do not do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I do. But if I do what I do not want to do, then it is no longer I who do it, but sin dwelling in me”. St. Gregory the Theologian speaks thus of this strange contradiction within himself: “I endure the unceasing turmoil of warfare between those mutually hostile and intimately conflicting flesh and soul: I am the image of God and am drawn into sinfulness; the worse in me unjustly opposes the better; either I flee from sins and resist them, yet not without effort, after many struggles and only with heavenly help. For there are two, truly two minds in me: one—good, and it follows all that is beautiful; another—bad, and it follows what is base; one mind goes toward light and is ready to submit to Christ; whereas another mind—of flesh and blood—is drawn into darkness and is content to surrender into the captivity of the devil; or one is delighted with earthly things and seeks what is profitable for itself not in what is eternal, but in what is fleeting, loves feasting, quarrels, burdensome overeating, the shame of dark deeds and deceits, goes by the broad way and, covered in impenetrable mist of folly, amuses itself with its own ruin; whereas the other—is transported by heavenly things and things hoped for, as present; in God alone places the hope of life—whereas earthly things, subject to various accidents, it considers not as permanent things but as fleeting smoke; loves poverty, labors, and blessed concerns and goes by the narrow way of life”.

Why then have we spoken all this of original sin and its consequences? Why have we pointed out this corruption in men; why have we presented this ingrained disease of mankind, which oppresses and weighs down, but which men have no means within themselves to heal? Because we wish to show that for people, in their sinful corruption and in their distance from God, divine aid was necessary—as it still is now—there was a need for—as there still is now—a Divine Savior, without whom they would perish in their sins irretrievably and forever. This Savior was promised by the all-good God to the first people soon after their sin, and He gradually prepared mankind to receive Him—as we shall see later—through prefigurements and prophecies, and finally actually sent Him into the world. By faith in this Divine Savior men were saved long before His coming, just as they are saved and will be saved after His coming. This Savior of the whole world, the Son of God, the God-man Jesus Christ, fulfilled for us all obedience to God, “obedient even to death, even death on the cross” and, having given men saving precepts, showed through His own life an example for our life and has given us all the divine powers “needed for life and godliness” so that by His grace we can overcome our passions and evil habits and inclinations. By His most pure blood, shed for us and now offered on the altars of Christian churches, He renewed and renews our nature corrupted by sin so that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”—that is, a true Christian becomes a completely new person, holy and pleasing to God.

We, brothers, are called Christians; but here is what the Apostle says of true Christians: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Do we crucify our flesh with its passions and desires? Do we not gratify it in everything? Alas! We gratify it in everything: we live carelessly, using little or none of the aids so readily offered to us daily in God’s Word and in the Mysteries of faith for our salvation.

Brothers! Eternal salvation is desirable and priceless; and eternal damnation is fearful. But one cannot be saved without arming oneself against carnal desires, while being Christians only in name and not in deeds.

Therefore, calling upon the Lord Jesus Christ, our Helper, our almighty Savior, to our aid, let us resist sin, not gratify the flesh in its desires, and let us begin to walk in renewal of life. Amen.

Ps 148:5

Gen 18 ch.

Gen 19 ch.

Gen 28 ch.

Nav 5:14 and ff.

Is 6.

Dan 7:10.

Lk 1:26.

Lk 2:13

Job 38:7

Col 1:16

2King 19:35

Service for November 8. The Bodiless Powers. On the liturgical verses, ch. 2.

Raging with the storm of soul-destroying passions, Master Christ, calm the sea of desires within us.

Hebr 12:22-24.

Discourse XV, p. 332 in the Russian translation.

There.

E.g., see St. Cyril of Jerusalem in Discourse XV, p. 352 and others.

Gen 4:17.

Days of Divine Truth of the Church, Part II, p. 3, Ps. 9:5.

Prov 8:15.

Col 1:16.

On the Heavenly Hierarchy, ch. 6, p. 2.

Ladder, ch. 1.

Days of Divine Truth of the Church, Part 2, p. 3.

Ps 17:11

Ps 79:2

Hebr 1:3

Canon of the Guardian Angel. Verses, ch. 2.

Verses and Canon of the Bodiless Ones. Verse 1.

Canon of the Bodiless Ones. Song 5, p. 5.

St. Athanasius the Great in his discourse on virginity.

2Cor 6:14

Mt 8:28-34

Mt 8:30-32.

Lk 7:21

Mt 10:1

Eph 6:12

Lk 8:30,33,35

1Pet 5:8

Apok 20:2,7

Jn 12:31

Eph 2:2

Mt 9:34

E.g., see Canon of the Guardian Angel, p. 3, v. 4.

Rom 7:23.

Eph 6:10-12

1Jn 3:8

Catechetical Discourse of Metropolitan Philaret, Part 1, p. 32.

Mt 17:15

Mt 9:33

Mt 8:28,34

Explanation of Sunday and Festal Gospels, p. 75.

1Pet 5:8

Lk 22:3-6 Jn 13:27-30

2Pet 3; Juda 1:6, Mt 25 ch.

Lk 12:26

St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 2, ch. 4.

1Tim 3:6.

Col 3:12

Col 1:12,13.

Solom 13:5.

Genesis, ch. 1.

Is 45:12

In the Liturgical prayer of the headdrop.

Six Days of Creation.

Discourse 19, p. 387, vol. 11, Discourses of Chrysostom.

Jn 3:5.

Eph 1:18.

Mt 5:8.

1Tim 6:16

Prayer book, prayer for a woman bearing a child on the 40th day.

Jn 3:19

Six Days of Creation.

There.

Notes on the Book of Genesis, p. 18 and 19.

Catechetical Discourses, Protohegumen I. Yakhontov, Discourse 6, on the fifth day of creation. Works.

Apok 1:7

1Thes 4:17

Gen 1:8

Theological Works of St. John of Damascus, Book 2, ch. 9, on the waters.

Gen 1:10.

Gen 1:11.

Mt 6:30.

Hebr 7:10

Gen 1:14-19

Astronomy by Zeleny.

Sir 23:27

St. Demetrius of Rostov, Works, Part II, p. 618.

It was the Roman Emperor Augustus who first introduced this (Isid. lib. 17 in Gretzero—de Sancta Cruce—citatus). Only under him and the following emperors until Constantine the Great was there no cross on the imperial standard: it was set up on it by Constantine the Equal-to-the-Apostles (Niceph. lib. 7 cap. 49 in praef. sua historiae). When the emperor was depicted on coins or elsewhere, often underneath the sphere on the Roman tongue they would inscribe: “ruler of the earth”, or more precisely, “ruler of the earthly sphere” (rector orbis). Gretz.

Is 66:1

Ps 103:24

Astronomy by Zeleny.

Catechetical Discourses, Protohegumen I. Yakhontov, on the fifth day of creation.

Works of the Holy Fathers, Year 2, Book 3, p. 143.

Ps 8:4,5.

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Discourse IX, p. 158.

p. 157.

Book titled “The Beholder of God’s Works in the Universe.”

Book titled “The Majesty of God in All the Kingdoms of Nature.”

Zoology by Yu. Semashko.

See the book: The Majesty of God in the Kingdoms of Nature.

Ps 103:24

Job 39:26,27

Mt 6:26

Lk 17:37

Mt 16:18

Ps 32:9

Hebr 1:3

Discourse on the Book of Genesis, 3rd discourse.

Job 39:9,10

Ps 144:9

Discourse of Chrysostom on the occasion of the deposition of the emperor, p. 11.

Is 1:3

Discourse 11.

2Cor 4:18

Collected Works of the Holy Fathers, year 2, book 4, pages 156 and 157

Collected Works of the Holy Fathers, year 2, book 4

Gen 1:26-28

Saint Irenaeus

Divine Damascene, page 6

Jac 3:7

Ps 10:7

Is 1:17

1Jn 4:8

Is 49:15,16

Mt 5:48

1Jn 3:2

Mt 5:8

Collected Works of the Holy Fathers, book 4

Gen 18:27

Homilies on Evil, occasioned by the fall of royal power, section 10

Ps 8:4,5

Ps 93:9

1 Kings 15:22

Testimonies to this are full of various prayers, verses of canons, and hymns

Lk 8:12

Eph 6:11

Jn 10:10

Lam 4:1

Apok 3:17

1Jn 1:8

Jac 4:6

Gal 5:24

Mt 5:29

Mt 5:28

Lk 1:48

Rom 2:9

Mt 7:18

Gen 6:3

Gal 5:17

Tikhon of Voronezh, On Christian Duty, section 58

Rom 7:18-20

Works of the Holy Gregory the Theologian, book 4, pages 305 and 306, in Russian translation

Phil 2:8

2Pet 1:3

2Cor 5:17

Rom 13:14

Rom 6:4