Romans 5:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Death is the dissolution of the body, when the soul is separated from the body. There is also another death, called the "second" death (cf. Rev 20:6, 14; Rev 21:8), the death in Gehenna. We are subject to it not because of Adam's sin, but receive it for our own sins.

Good people were protected from it to such an extent that they only visited Hades. Yet they were not free to ascend to Heaven. The Old Testament righteous are meant here.

They were held by the decree given in Adam, but this handwriting was destroyed by the death of Christ (cf. Col 2:14). The decree prescribed that man's body should go to the earth (cf. Gen 3:19; Eccl 3:20), while the soul was held by the bonds of Hades until the departure.

Such a nature has many needs: food, drink, clothing, shelter, and various arts. The need for all this provokes the passions to excess, and excess gives birth to sin. Therefore the divine Apostle says that when Adam sinned and became mortal because of sin, both things extended to the whole race. For death "passed to all men," because all sinned. Each receives the sentence of death not for the ancestral sin, but for his own sin.

From ancient times and from the very beginning, says the prophet, sin gained dominion over our nature, because the transgression of the commandment preceded Eve's conception. After the transgression, after the divine sentence had been pronounced, and after he had already been deprived of Paradise, "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain" (Gen 4:1).

Therefore the prophet means that sin, having gained dominion over our forefathers, continued for itself a certain road and path in our race. Blessed Paul also says this: "By one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, in whom all sinned" (Rom 5:12).

For according to this rule of faith, infants, who could not yet have committed any sins by themselves, are truly baptized for the remission of sins. Thus through rebirth what they have contracted from the old birth may be cleansed in them.

This sin is called ancestral, first, because before it man was not defiled by any sin. Yet the devil had already been corrupted by his own sin, and by his prompting this so-called original sin arose in man. Adam, who committed it, was subjected to it, and so are all of us who descend from him. Second, it is called ancestral because man is not conceived otherwise than in sin.

Question 20. What is original sin?

Answer. Original sin is the transgression of the law of God given in Paradise to our forefather Adam, when it was said to him: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die."

This ancestral sin passed from Adam into all human nature, since we all were then in Adam. Thus, through Adam alone sin spread to all of us. Therefore we begin and are born with this sin, as Holy Scripture teaches: "By one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, in whom all sinned" (Rom 5:12).

Original sin cannot be blotted out by any repentance. It is erased only by the grace of God, through the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ and the shedding of His precious Blood. This action is accomplished in the Mystery of Holy Baptism.

Therefore whoever has not been baptized has not been freed from this sin, but is subject to wrath and eternal punishment, according to the words: "Amen, amen, I say to you: unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God" (Jn 3:5).

With the fall he lost this remedy and damaged his very nature. Therefore it is said that death entered into man and into all men.

"In whom all sinned." In the first man all sinned, because all were in him alone (Augustine, Lib. I, de baptiz. parvul., cap. 10). On the natural side, the possibility of such a sin being committed by all men in one man is explained by the descent of all men, both in body and in soul, from one pair.

According to Origen's expression, Adam bore humanity within himself as in an embryo, in a seed, in potentia. Both he and each of his descendants "begot a son in his own likeness, after his image" (Gen 5:3).

On the juridical side, that is, from the side of law and justice, the possibility of the transmission of sin from one man to all his descendants is explained by the fact that Adam was the representative of all men. In his person God concluded His covenant with the whole human race.

The teaching on original sin, closely connected with the dogma of redemption, was confessed by the Church from the earliest times. It was expressed most clearly in Church life, in the baptism of infants. It was especially unfolded and defined at the local Council of Carthage in 418, on the occasion of the appearance of the heresy of Pelagius, who directly rejected this teaching.

The Eastern Patriarchs, in their epistle, say: "We believe that the first man, created by God, fell in Paradise when he disobeyed the commandment of God and followed the deceitful counsel of the serpent. From this the ancestral sin spread successively to all posterity, so that there is no one born according to the flesh who is free from that burden or does not feel the consequences of the fall in the present life. By the burden and consequence of the fall we mean not sin, but the inclination toward sin and those misfortunes by which divine justice punished man for his disobedience: exhausting labors, sorrows, bodily infirmities, the pains of birth, a burdensome life for a time on this earthly pilgrimage, and finally bodily death."

This must prove that man's liability to judgment and death did not depend on his personal unrighteousness, but was inherited. So also righteousness and life, acquired by the merits of the one Jesus Christ, can become hereditary (Rom 5:15-19). As the Law came afterward only to multiply transgression, so grace appeared in abundance to multiply righteousness (Rom 5:20-21).

"By one man sin entered into the world." By the world the Apostle understands not only the human race, but the whole earthly world, because the consequences of man's sin, as lord of the earth, extended to all earthly creatures (Rom 8:20; Gen 3:17). The word "entered" signifies that sin did not lie in man's nature or in the natural conditions of his life, but entered from outside.

"And so death passed to all men." Death in man was the consequence of sin, "for God created man for incorruption" (Wis 2:23). Death is understood as physical and spiritual, that is, moral. Physical death belonged to plants and animals. Before the fall, man had a supernatural remedy against it, the fruits of the tree of life. With the fall he lost this remedy and damaged his very nature. Therefore it is said that death entered into man and into all men.

"In whom all sinned" (Ἐφ’ ᾧ). In the first man all sinned, because all were in him alone (Augustine, lib. 1, de baptiz. parvul., cap. 10). On the natural side, the possibility of such a sin being committed by all men in one man is explained by the descent of all men, both in body and in soul, from one pair.

According to Origen's expression, Adam bore all humanity within himself as in an embryo, in a seed, in potentia. Both he and each of his descendants "begot a son in his own likeness, after his image" (Gen 5:3).

On the juridical side, the possibility of the transmission of sin from one man to all his descendants is explained by the fact that Adam was the representative of all men. In his person God concluded His covenant with the whole human race.

It was important to prove precisely this transmission of sin for the Apostle's thought (1 Cor 15:22). Therefore Pelagius and others wrongly took ἐφ’ ᾧ in the sense of "similarly," as below in Rom 5:14, ἐπὶ τῷ ὁμοιώματι. In this way they made original sin not inherited, but personal.

The teaching on original sin, closely connected with the dogma of Redemption, was confessed by the Church from the earliest times. It was expressed most clearly in Church practice, in the baptism of infants. It was especially unfolded and defined at the local Council of Carthage in 418, on the occasion of the appearance of the heresy of Pelagius, who directly rejected this teaching.

Now he takes up the same subject from the opposite side and confirms what he has proved by other arguments. He examines what death and sin are, and investigates how, in what manner, and from where death entered the world and gained dominion.

How did death enter and gain dominion? Through the sin of one man." Death was joined to sin from the beginning by God's decree. When God gave the commandment, He said: as soon as you sin by breaking this commandment, you will die.

That is, you will fall under the law of death. They sinned and fell under the law of death. After this, their children, born while they were under condemnation to death, were born subject to the same law of death.

Thus death entered the world because of the first sin of our forefathers. Blessed Theodoret explains it this way: "The Master God created Adam and honored him with reason. To exercise his rational power, He gave him one commandment.

For one endowed with reason, and able to distinguish the good from its opposite, could not live without law. Adam was deceived and transgressed the commandment given to him. The Lawgiver, at the very beginning, joined the threat of punishment to the commandment.

Therefore, when Adam was already under the sentence of death and in that condition begot Cain, Seth, and the others, all who came from one condemned to death had a mortal nature.

The divine Apostle now says that, when Adam sinned and became mortal because of sin, both things extended to the whole race. For death entered into all men, because all sinned."

The particle "and so" in the words, "and so death entered into all men," is not comparative, answering the earlier particle "as" in the words, "as through one man sin entered the world." It is consequential.

It points to the conclusion from the two preceding statements: through one man sin entered, and through sin death. As a result of this union of death with sin, death entered into all men, for in the one all sinned.

It should be translated "and in this way," not "so also." But in that case, where is the "so also" required by the particle "as"?

This particle, and the thought corresponding to it, have been omitted and must be supplied as follows. As through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and in this way death entered into all men, because in that one all sinned.

So also, one must understand, through one Man justification now enters the world, that is, righteousness and holiness. Through justification life enters, and in this way life enters into all men, because in that one all have been justified and made righteous.

Our commentators paraphrase this passage in this way. Blessed Theophylact writes: "The Apostle shows that sin and death entered the world through one man, Adam, and again were removed by one Man, Christ."

Oecumenius adds: "After proving in various ways from Scripture that we are all justified by the death of the Son of God, he now proves this also from what is reasonable. It was reasonable, he says, that we all, who became sinners and liable to death through one man, should also be saved through one Man.

We were justified in Him and in Him paid the tribute of death." The same Oecumenius cites the opinion of blessed Photius, where the reason is also given why Saint Paul did not express the second half of the comparison.

Blessed Photius writes: "This is both possible and reasonable and consistent, namely salvation in the one Lord. From where is this clear? From the opposite, he says. For it is known that through one man both sin entered the world and death itself.

If such evil came about through one man, then it is possible and consistent that through one Man, our Lord Jesus Christ, this introduced evil should be removed and a higher good granted.

As for the Apostle, after setting forth what came from Adam, omitting what was accomplished for us by Christ, he did this so that each might understand it for himself from the opposition.

As soon as he stated the former, what came from Adam, there was no difficulty in thinking out the latter, what came from Christ. Therefore he set down only the preceding thought, since it naturally draws the following thought after it.

For the two call forth one another. Thus the Apostle, by indicating the following through the preceding, did not express the latter in words, but left us to think it out ourselves."

"What does 'in whom all sinned' mean? It means that all sinned in Adam. As soon as he fell, through him even those who had not eaten of the forbidden tree became mortal, as though they themselves had fallen, because he fell" (blessed Theophylact).

The same is found, though more briefly, in Chrysostom. "In whom" means in Adam, or through that one man, Adam (Oecumenius).

Some commentators connect other thoughts with this expression, on the ground that the Greek does not have "in whom," en ho, but eph' ho, which should be translated "inasmuch as" or "because." Yet even with this, the thought will be the same: they sinned in him.

It is in vain that some try to take from this passage its force as proof of ancestral sin, saying that the exact translation should be: "because all sinned."

Then, they say, it is not necessary to see here the thought that all sinned in him, since it is possible to say that all still sin by his example and on account of him.

It is true that, if the words "because all sinned" are taken out of context, they may fail to give the thought that all sinned in him.

But if they are taken in connection with what precedes and what follows, then even with this translation, "because all sinned," one must necessarily add the word "in him" in order to preserve the Apostle's thought fully.

He says: sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death entered into all. Sin opens the gates of death. If death entered into all, then sin preceded it in all.

But sin could not have preceded death in all except in this way: all sinned in the one through whom sin entered, that is, in the first man, Adam.

Thus, when we read, "death entered into all men, because all sinned," we cannot understand this last phrase otherwise than: they sinned in him.

Although this "in him" should have come to mind by itself from the course of the discourse, the holy Apostle nevertheless paused over it. He used the following two verses to strengthen this thought in the readers' minds.

Thus, when they read, "all sinned," they could not understand anything else than "sinned in him." This "in him" is so important.

To confirm this, the Apostle does not enter into deep arguments, but merely presents the course of death visibly. All died after Adam, he says, but they did not sin like him.

Although they did sin, they did not sin like him, because they did not have the law. Where there is no law, there is no transgression, and sin is not imputed there.

If it is not imputed, then it does not bring punishment, that is, death. If so, from where did death come to those who died after Adam?

From nowhere except from Adam's own sin. From nowhere except from the disastrous event that in Adam all had already sinned. This is the Apostle's thought in verses 13 and 14. He does not prove it with depth, but simply presents the matter visibly.