Sin in the early church · Sophia Scriptura

Sentences of Sextus 12Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · It is not the hand or the eye or any such member that sins, but the evil use of the hand or the eye.
Sentences of Sextus 297Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Do not consider one sin lighter than another.
Sentence 11 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Consider every sin an impiety.
Sentence 247 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · If you wish to be faithful, above all do not sin; but if you do, do not commit the same sin twice.
Sentence 283 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Best is not to sin; but when one sins, it is better to recognize it than to be ignorant of it.
Sentence 296 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · No good thing is unshareable. [297] Do not consider one sin smaller than another.
Diatessaron, section 35Tatian · ca. 160-180
The Instructor 1.2.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor, the sinless Son of God, is the model we must imitate; and there are degrees of freedom from sin, down to not persisting in it.
The Instructor 1.13.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Sin is whatever is contrary to right reason (the Word); obedience to the Word is faith, and produces right action.
The Instructor 1.13.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Sin makes man like the beasts; right action (duty) is obedience to the Word's commands, leading to eternal rest in God, and the Christian life is a system of such rational actions.
Against Heresies 4.27.1Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · An elder taught that the Scriptures’ own rebukes suffice for the sins of the ancients, such as David’s with Bathsheba and Solomon’s idolatry in old age.
Miscellanies 7.16.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As each master makes his pupil a craftsman, the Lord makes his obedient follower godlike; sin springs from ignorance and weakness, both of which lie in our power.
On Repentance 3Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Sins are both bodily and spiritual, of deed and of will; body and soul share guilt and need repentance alike, and Christ taught that sinful desire is itself sin.
On Patience 5Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Impatience was born in the devil, who could not bear God's favor to man; through it Eve and Adam sinned, Cain murdered, and Israel repeatedly rebelled; every sin springs from impatience.
Didascalia 2.14 (Latin)Anonymous · first half of the third century · A long quotation of Ezekiel 18: each person lives or dies by his own righteousness or iniquity, and God desires the wicked to turn and live.
6 Ezra 16.54Anonymous · 3rd century
Pistis Sophia 131Anonymous · 3rd century
Pistis Sophia 134Anonymous · 3rd century
On the Flesh of Christ 16Tertullian · ca. 206–211 · Christ did not abolish his flesh as sinful; he took our flesh and abolished sin in it, being in the likeness of sinful flesh without sin, just as Adam was made flesh without a man's seed.
Against Marcion 1.26Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · A god who forbids sin but never judges or punishes it in effect permits it; true goodness must hate and punish evil in order to protect the good.
Against Marcion 1.27Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · A god who forbids sin but never punishes it invites every vice; the Marcionites themselves still fear sin, and their teaching that sinners are “cast away” implies a judgment after all.
Against Marcion 2.9Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The soul is God's “breath,” not his Spirit: an image of God, free and rational, but not incapable of sin as God is; so its sin comes from its free choice, not from God, who forbade sin and warned of death.
On the Soul 16Tertullian · ca. 210 · Reason is natural to the soul from God, while the irrational came from the devil through sin; anger and desire can be rational, as they were in Christ.
On the Soul 40Tertullian · ca. 210 · Every soul is unclean in Adam until it is born anew in Christ; the flesh is only the soul's instrument, so sin belongs chiefly to the soul.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 291Origen · ca. 220-254 · The “fathers” whose sins are visited on the children are the devil and his spirits, whose working the sinner accepts; God visits the sinner himself to heal him.
PG 12:1461 (Ps 54 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Ps 54 LXX (55):4–9: sins of thought kept within, the passions that remain in human nature, the dove’s wings as contemplation, and flight into the desert.
PG 12:1641 (Ps 128–129 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on the end of Psalm 129 (LXX 128) and on Psalm 130 (LXX 129): crying out of the depths, no one clean from sin, Christ the propitiation, and the chain from fear of God to hope.
Commentary on John 1.270Origen · ca. 230–248 · Those in whom reason is not yet developed have no sin; those who share in the Word and act against it do.
Commentary on John 19.84Origen · ca. 230–248 · Sin is the soul's death, though only the sin John calls “unto death.”
Commentary on John 19.85Origen · ca. 230–248 · Some sins kill the soul, some weaken it, and some bring it loss.
On Prayer 25.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · The kingdom of God is within us; to pray “your kingdom come” is to ask that God's rule may grow and be perfected in our souls, displacing the rule of sin.
Homily on Luke 2Origen · ca. 233–250 · Zechariah and Elizabeth show that one who has ceased to sin can be called without sin, and that true righteousness is righteousness before God, done blamelessly and without vainglory.
Homily on Luke 36Origen · ca. 233–250 · Martyrs lose their soul in order to save it, and the soul joined to the Lord becomes spiritual; the kingdom of God is within those whom God rules, while others are ruled by sin and passion.
Homily on Luke 37Origen · ca. 233–250 · The tied colt is the soul bound by sins and ridden by no rational master until Christ’s disciples loose it for him; the apostles’ garments are their teaching and works, and if believers fall silent the stones will cry out.
Homilies on Exodus 6.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Pharaoh's chariots are the worst sinners, driven by the devil, and the “captains of three” are demons who watch the threefold way of sin in deed, word, and thought.
Homilies on Ezekiel 12.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · God’s words are sweet, but the believer who sins turns them bitter, like wormwood in honey, and so dishonors God himself and deserves a heavier punishment than unbelievers.
Homilies on Joshua 15.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Each believer had a particular king of sin, such as avarice, pride, or lust, whom Jesus slays and commands us to leave no trace of; Christ also fulfilled the whole law, being born under it.
Homilies on Judges 3.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · A good judge is taken away when the people become unworthy, and their sins give strength to their enemies, both visible and spiritual.
Homilies on Leviticus 2.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Even the high priest can sin, and God appointed priests who share human weakness; Christ, offered as a gift in heaven and for sin on earth, suffered 'outside the camp' of the heavenly angels.
Homilies on Leviticus 5.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · An 'offence' is lighter than a 'sin'; the fat offered signifies the grossness within that must be burned away, and the priest's portion is in the sinners he brings to repentance.
Homilies on Leviticus 8.5Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The six kinds of leprosy signify kinds of sin, some curable and some not, in this life and after it, judged by Christ the high priest; the scar is the trace sin leaves even in a healed soul, and leprosy reappears when old sin breaks out again after conversion.
Homilies on Leviticus 12.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The 'great priest from among his brothers' is Jesus, great because sinless; spiritual greatness comes from virtue, and the strong must care for the little ones in faith.
Homilies on Leviticus 12.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Christ alone fits the description of the great priest: anointed with the oil of gladness, with perfected hands, never laying aside his head, God, and never entering a soul dead in sin.
Homilies on Leviticus 14.4Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The law gives death to the one who 'names' the Name but only 'sin' to the one who curses God because death in this life purges sin, while unpunished sin is carried to eternal punishment; hence penitents should welcome bodily affliction.
Homilies on Numbers 22.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Moses, told to view the promised land from the mountain before dying, is a figure of perfection; yet his death for his transgression at Zin shows that even he was under sin, and that Christ alone, who did no sin, sets us free.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 3.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Only those able to sin bear arms, of God or of the devil; it is best not to have the sword of sin, or at least to sheathe it; all must pass through the fire of judgment, but only sinners will be harmed by it, as the Egyptians were drowned in the sea the Hebrews crossed.
Homilies on Jeremiah 1.7Origen · ca. 240 · The nations and kingdoms to be rooted out are sins ruling in souls; and with Scripture as witness, even “I am too young” can be applied to Christ, who emptied himself and grew as a child.
Homilies on Jeremiah 1.14Origen · ca. 240 · Unlike Isaiah, Jeremiah was touched by the Lord's own hand; the kingdoms and nations he roots out are sins in the soul, weeds sown by the devil, which God's words uproot.
Homilies on Jeremiah 2.2Origen · ca. 240 · The Word of God cleanses lighter sins like soap, but graver sins, like blood rather than dirt, need the spirit of burning.
Homilies on Jeremiah 9.4Origen · ca. 240 · Christians who sin return to their former father, the devil, for whoever sins is born of him; but as the Father always begets the Son, so God always begets the righteous as his sons in every good deed.
Homilies on Jeremiah 11.5Origen · ca. 240 · The linen loincloth that clung to the prophet is God's people, which rots when cast away for sin; the church from the nations is God's new loincloth, and like linen must be washed and whitened to cling to God.
Homilies on Jeremiah 16.10Origen · ca. 240 · Jeremiah's “sin of Judah engraved on the heart” (not in the Septuagint) applies to Christians who sin: sins leave an indelible imprint on the soul that will be laid bare at the judgment.
Homilies on Jeremiah 17.4Origen · ca. 240 · At the end of time the devil's worldly wisdom will be shown to be folly; Christ is the exalted “throne of glory,” our sanctification and endurance, and whoever sins forsakes him, “written on the earth” instead of in heaven.
Against Celsus 3.62Origen · ca. 248 · Christ came as physician to sinners and as teacher to the purified; no one except Jesus has been sinless from the beginning, and God receives the sinner who repents and lives well.
Against Celsus 3.63Origen · ca. 248 · God is not swayed by flattery; the penitent's humble confession turns sinners back, and since all sin, Christ calls all who labor to find rest in him.
Against Celsus 3.69Origen · ca. 248 · All rational souls share one nature and none was created evil; habits of vice can be changed through God's word, as practice enables even rope-walkers' feats, and no one becomes sinless without the Word.
Commentary on Matthew 10.24Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen distinguishes the soul’s weakness, sickness, and sleep, using 1 Cor 11:30: not every sin is a sickness, only one that takes over the whole soul.
Commentary on Matthew 11.15Origen · ca. 246–248 · Evil thoughts in the heart are the spring of all sin and can corrupt even good acts such as almsgiving, chastity, teaching, and seeking the office of bishop; eating with an unwashed heart, not unwashed hands, defiles.
Commentary on Matthew 12.12Origen · ca. 246–248 · Every sin is a gate of Hades; a soul stained by sin is no rock and no part of the Church, however many claim membership, and each heretic, such as Marcion, Basilides, and Valentinus, has built a gate of Hades.
Commentary on Romans 5.5Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen distinguishes sinning from being a sinner and explains why Paul says “many,” not “all,” are made sinners through Adam and righteous through Christ.
Commentary on Romans 5.7Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen answers “shall we remain in sin?” by explaining what it is to live and to die to sin, warns against relapse, and argues that death’s kingdom cannot be eternal like life’s.
Commentary on Romans 6.1Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen teaches that it lies in our power to keep sin from reigning in the body, that the soul stands between flesh and spirit, and that keeping the death of Christ before the mind routs sin.
Commentary on Romans 6.3Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen teaches that each person freely chooses whether to serve sin or righteousness, rejects excuses blaming the devil, nature, fate, or the stars, and explains the “pattern” of teaching as a shadow of the full truth to come.
Commentary on Romans 6.5Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains servitude to sin and to righteousness, the fruits of each, why evil fruits are not “ours,” and the meanings of “eternal” in Scripture.
Commentary on Romans 6.6Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen contrasts sin’s wages with God’s gift and sets out the several meanings of “death” in Scripture, showing that the death God inflicts is meant to give life.
Commentary on Romans 6.8Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen explains Romans 7:7–13: the law that makes sin known is the natural law in the conscience; the commandment is good, but sin, taking occasion from it, deceived and killed the soul.
Commentary on Romans 6.9Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen reads Romans 7:14–25 as Paul taking on the person of the weak, one beginning conversion whose good will is not yet matched by deeds, delivered at last by the grace of God through Christ.
Commentary on Romans 6.10Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen argues that “I myself serve the law of God with the mind but sin with the flesh” is still said in the person of a beginner, lest every soul despair of overcoming sin.
To Quirinus 3.54Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · No human being is free from sin.
To Demetrian 11Cyprian of Carthage · 252–253 · Even the plague does not stop plunder and injustice; as Isaiah says, God could help, but sins separate people from him.
Res. 1.29Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · The narrator shows that Aglaophon contradicted himself: if the soul sinned before receiving the 'garments of skins', the body cannot be the cause of sin, and Aglaophon concedes.
Res. 2.6Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Sin entered man through disobedience as desire lodged in the body; hence two kinds of thoughts arise in us, from that desire and from the natural law of the mind.
Res. 2.7Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Methodius distinguishes three laws in Romans 7: the law of the mind, the law of the evil one's assaults, and the law of sin lodged in the flesh through desire.
Res. 2.8Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Paul's 'body of this death' is the law of sin in the members, not the body itself, from which Christ delivers us so that the natural law of the good may be fulfilled; Methodius then pauses before the harder questions.
Against the Nations 2.39Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Arnobius ridicules the idea that God sent his own divine offspring into bodies to be born in filth, learn deceit, make war, worship idols, and fall into confusion.
Against the Nations 2.49Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · A few good people cannot outweigh the vicious majority when judging the character of the human race.
Against the Heathen 5Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Evil is the misuse of the body’s members, like a charioteer who drives at full speed while ignoring the goal of the race.
On the Incarnation 5.3Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Human sin grew without limit, from the first invention of wickedness to insatiable lawlessness.
On the Incarnation 5.4Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Adultery, theft, murder, and war filled the whole world.
Theophany 2.82Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Demonstration 14.40Aphrahat · 337-345 · Satan works through every kind of desire; a long list traces the ruin of biblical figures to particular desires, from Adam to Judas.
Catechetical Lecture 2.1Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Opening his second lecture, Cyril teaches that sin is a self-chosen disease of the soul, terrible but curable by repentance.
Catechetical Lecture 2.2Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Sin is not an outside power but an evil shoot from within; remembering God and the judgment keeps it from growing.
Catechetical Lecture 9.9Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Even if we do not know the use of every creature, the varied powers of animals and the structure of our own bodies reveal a wise Creator; the members are not the cause of sin.
Homily on the Paralytic 10Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350-387 · Christ withdrew to avoid praise; his warning "Sin no more" is addressed to all, who must master the flesh and run to the forgiver of sins.
Life of Antony 55Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Antony’s counsel to monks: faith, love of God, purity, psalmody, memorizing Scripture, daily self-examination, not letting the sun set on any sin, and writing down one’s thoughts as if others would read them.
Homilies on the Psalms 1.4Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil expounds the three steps of Ps 1:1 (counsel, way, seat): sin begins in thought, life is a way in which we cannot stand still, and the pestilent are those who spread their vice to others; he closes promising to continue.
Homilies on the Psalms 7.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-378 · Basil explains Ps 7:14–15: the order travail–conception–birth describes sin's birth in the heart, Absalom being the devil's offspring; and in Scripture pits stand for evil, wells (which reveal hidden springs) for good.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 9Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's ninth rule, on attentive learning of God's will, with Rules 10 (the end of sin is death, of the commandment life) and 11 (God's judgments must be feared), whose headings the scan lost.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 22Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's twenty-second rule: sin estranges from the Lord and binds to the devil, and true kinship with the Lord comes from doing God's will.
Moral Rules (Moralia) 23Basil of Caesarea · ca. 360-370 · Basil's twenty-third rule: one who sins against his will is held by an earlier sin which he serves willingly.
Tractates on the Psalms 57.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Sinners' estrangement from the womb reflects God's foreknowledge, not a necessity of nature; their fault is a will deliberately deaf, like the ancient serpent.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.5.16Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist asks to receive God's word with fear and to have even the suspected reproach of sin cut away, so that God's judgments may be welcome to him.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.20Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Through their names, Sihon (fruitless tree), the Amorites (embitterers), Og (wall), Bashan (shame), and Canaan (motion) signify the vices and powers Christ destroys in us.
Tractates on the Psalms 135.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The 'lords' and 'kings' whose Lord God is are believers who master their bodies and sins, a dignity given by his mercy.
Tractates on the Psalms 136.12Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The 'sons of Edom' ('earthly') are bodily vices that seek to empty the soul down to its foundation, Christ; the psalmist prays God to remember them.
Tractates on the Psalms 140.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Sinners make excuses, blaming others for their adultery or murder, and heretics labor to excuse their doctrines; the psalmist asks for a heart that needs no excuses.
Paraenesis, or Exhortation to Penitence 3Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian distinguishes the many minor faults from which Christ has freed believers from the few grave sins that remain binding.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 1.32Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Sin lies in reason’s choice, not in desire or body; on Mani’s scheme reason belongs to the good, so sin would come from the good.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.3Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · God gave man knowledge of good and evil and power over virtue and vice, so sin is acting against reason, which must be exercised like the body.
Commentary on Ephesians 2.1Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Victorinus explains spiritual death in sin, the “age of this world” as opposed to the eternal ages, and the “prince of the power of the air” as the devil, the spirit of matter, since air is the chief of the elements.
Commentary on Ephesians 2.3Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Paul includes himself among those who once lived by the flesh and were “by nature sons of wrath,” which Victorinus explains as begotten by worldly nature, unlike the eternal realm where nothing is begotten in the worldly sense.
Oration 2.20Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Sinners hide, excuse, or flaunt their sins and resent their healers, so the cure of souls needs faith, God's help, and skill.
Homilies 3.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil introduces Deut 15:9 and expounds 'give heed to yourself' as watchfulness over one's thoughts and soul, applied to every calling and to every state of fortune.
Homilies 12.8Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil explains “true righteousness” and “directing judgment”: human and divine justice, degrees of guilt, Solomon's judgment, and the inner court where chastity and pleasure contend.
Commentary on Romans 5:13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Before Moses sin was known by natural law but not reckoned as liable to God’s judgment, until the law showed that God judges; Ambrosiaster sets out three parts of the natural law.
Commentary on Romans 7:7Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The law is not sin but reveals it; through the command “You shall not covet” people learned that desire, thought harmless, is sin.
Question 1, section 5Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Because we can do either good or evil and cannot always be on guard, one who sins once is not yet condemned if he recovers and does not sin again; the one who strives not to sin is crowned.
Question 1, section 7Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · One who resists sin and falls deserves encouragement, but one who consents easily sins gravely; small sins creep up on the diligent, while great ones are deliberate.
Question 1, section 8Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Sin arises when we see or hear things contrary to the law, as in worshiping the sun or coveting; the fault lies not in beautiful or useful things but in our negligence.
Question 110, section 4Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Since no one can avoid all sin, the blessed person is the one who does not persist in it but repents; ungodliness is deadly, while sin admits amendment.
Letter 132.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine asks Jerome how to understand James 2:10, that whoever offends in one point of the law is guilty of all.
Letter 132.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine questions the philosophers' doctrine, since faithful married people truly have the virtue of chastity yet, like all, still sin, as James 3:2 says.
Letter 132.17Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine explains that all sin offends against charity and so makes one guilty of all, yet sins differ in gravity according to how far they oppose charity.
Letter 133.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome tells Ctesiphon that the new claim that a man can be free of sin and passion comes from the Stoic and Pythagorean philosophers and is refuted by Paul and common experience.
Letter 133.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome cites Scripture to show that no one is without sin, rejecting the claim that a sinless life is possible though it has never existed.
Letter 133.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains that biblical saints are called righteous for the greater part of their virtues, not for sinlessness, and warns Ctesiphon's patrons against supporting the Pelagians.
Letter 148.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · The writer rejects the Stoic view that all sins are equal but urges fear even of small sins.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 36.4.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · In Scripture the evil 'matter' is sinful thought, not the body.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 36.4.9Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Psalm 69's 'mire' is the 'matter' of sin.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 36.6.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Only sin exists apart from God, and it has no root.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.21.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Aglaophon blamed the body for sin.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.21.17Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The soul, not the body, is the cause of sin.
On Paradise 34Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Knowledge of evil is not itself evil; sin comes from anger, desire or fear. Eve sinned knowingly in giving the fruit to Adam, though some excuse her as wishing not to be parted from him.
On Paradise 39Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · To pagans, Ambrose answers that Christ chose even Judas to show his will to save all; God imposes no necessity of sin, and his law is written by nature on the human heart.
On the Lord's Prayer 1181Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Gregory lists humanity’s debts to God — desertion from its Maker, slavery to sin, the ruin of the divine image, the prodigal’s squandering — so that no one should pray as though his conscience were clean; he raises the question how the blameless can ask for forgiveness.
Canons on the Letters of Paul 22Priscillian · ca. 380–400 · Sin brings death and enslaves the soul.
Second Apology of David 66Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · Christ, sinless, was made sin to blot out ours; sin is written on the heart with an iron pen, and it accuses us from within.
Apology of the Prophet David 46Ambrose · ca. 384-390 · Few truly acknowledge their sin; many boast of it, unlike a good horse that lies still after a fall.
Apology of the Prophet David 54Ambrose · ca. 384-390 · God submits to judgment and prevails, recalling his benefits, as with Israel in Micah and with David through Nathan, who then confessed.
Catechetical Oration 29Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–390 · God delayed the incarnation, like a physician waiting for a disease to come to the surface, until every form of human wickedness had shown itself.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 1.13Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · The law made sin known and so increased guilt, raising the question how a good commandment can bring death.
On Jacob and the Happy Life 1.15Ambrose · ca. 386-390 · Following Paul in Romans 7, Ambrose shows that the law and the mind are good, but the flesh drags the mind into sin against its will.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.33.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Every sinner is a transgressor, though offenses differ in gravity.
Against the Academics 3.35Augustine of Hippo · 386 (autumn) · Augustine argues that the Academic doctrine would excuse a young man who commits adultery because it seemed probable to him, making error and even sin impossible to blame.
Letter 102.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Sin is measured by the will, not by duration; so punishments may be equally eternal yet differ in severity.
Letter 104.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Christ is the way to mercy and truth; the Stoic doctrine that all sins are equal is absurd, equating a laugh with burning one's city.
Letter 104.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Nectarius asserts but does not prove that all sins are equal; on that logic mice would equal elephants.
Letter 111.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine quotes Daniel's prayer of confession in captivity to show that even the holiest acknowledge that God justly chastises them for their sins.
Letter 157.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · No one in this life is without sin, as 1 John, the Lord's Prayer, and Daniel's confession show.
Letter 167.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine distinguishes the philosophers' doctrine that the virtues are inseparable from the Stoic doctrine that all sins are equal, which Jerome refuted against Jovinian.
Letter 167.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Faithful spouses have the virtue of chastity yet are not without sin, so one virtue does not bring all; even the apostles say “we all stumble in many things.”
Letter 167.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Even if the virtues are inseparable, sins are not equal; virtue, as love, exists in degrees in different acts and persons.
Letter 167.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Guilt is greater or less according to how far one acts against love, so sins are not equal even though each makes one guilty of all.
Letter 177.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The claim that one can be sinless in this life is refuted from Zechariah's priestly sacrifices for his own sins and the Lord's Prayer.
Letter 193.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, do not disprove that bodily death is the punishment of sin; God may remit the penalty to some.
Homilies on Matthew 14.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · As God has always confirmed a new way of life with signs, Christ confirms his preaching with healings, and his hearers are urged to seek from him the healing of the soul, which is the root of bodily ills.
Homilies on Matthew 27.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Most diseases spring from sin; Christ sends the crowds away to avoid display, and answers the scribe who would follow him for gain by exposing his purpose without shaming him.
Homilies on Matthew 27.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Nothing is to be put before spiritual things; the sinner living in luxury is a corpse worse than the dead, and his friends must bring him to Jesus as Lazarus’s sisters did, until he is raised.
Homilies on Matthew 38.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ explains that all things are delivered to him by the Father and that he alone knows the Father as the Father knows him; he then calls the weary to his kind yoke and light burden, which is lighter than the burden of sin.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.20.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Ps 1:1 names three kinds of sin: thought, deed and persistence.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.22.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Scripture asks not sinlessness but that we not remain in sin.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.27.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Long habit makes sin incurable; one must leap away from it at once.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 1.28.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Like mud, sin defiles the more the longer one wallows in it.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 38.29.1Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · He prays to be freed from all sins, knowing all are born under sin.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Evil-doing is turning from eternal to temporal things, and it comes from the free choice of the will; Evodius asks whether God should have given free choice, which Augustine defers to the next book.
On Free Choice of the Will 2.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Augustine ranks the virtues as great goods, bodily beauty as least, and the powers of the mind, free will among them, as middle goods; sin is the will's voluntary turning from the unchangeable common good to its own, external, or lower goods.
On Free Choice of the Will 2.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · The will's turning from God is a defective motion that comes from nothing and not from God, since every nature with measure, number, and order is from God; man fell of his own will but can rise only by Christ, God's right hand.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Unlike a stone's natural fall, the soul's turning from the unchangeable good is its own voluntary and blameworthy motion; otherwise praise, blame, and admonition would make no sense.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · God rightly made every grade of creature, as the moon beside the sun; not sin but souls able to sin complete the universe, and just punishment fits sinful souls into its order, while the proud who refuse the humility shown by Christ share the punishment of the fallen angels.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Temporal things that pass away are not to be blamed, but a rational creature's failing is voluntary and blameworthy; the soul must pay its debt to God either by doing justice or by suffering misery, with no interval between.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · God owes no one anything, while every creature owes him what it is and what it ought to be; since neither one's own nature nor another's forces anyone to sin, sin comes from one's own will and cannot be attributed to the Creator.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Asked why some creatures sin and others do not, Augustine answers that the wicked will, the avarice that is the root of all evils, is the first cause of sin, and no cause before the will need be sought.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Sins are due to the will alone; if ignorance and difficulty are natural, they are a starting point like an infant's speechlessness, blameworthy only if one refuses to progress, and God is praised for every stage.
On True Religion 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine argues that sin is necessarily voluntary, so that souls have free choice of the will, and that even man's yielding to the devil's persuasion was by consent.
On Two Souls 9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Scripture's “all things are from God” and “you are not from God” agree once one sees that a sinner is from God insofar as he lives and not from God insofar as he sins.
On Two Souls 12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · By common human judgment no one sins through an act done without knowledge or power to resist, unless he willed it beforehand; so sin lies nowhere but in the will.
On Two Souls 15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391–392 · Augustine defines sin as the will to keep or gain what justice forbids and from which one is free to abstain, a truth known to everyone from shepherds to bishops.
Sermon 19.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We ask God not to turn his face from us, his creation, but to turn it from our sins, our own work, so that the fault may be healed and the nature preserved.
Sermon 21.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Sin is not loving something bad, since every creature of God is good, but loving a good creature in a disordered way; love must be set in order, using lower goods and enjoying the highest.
Sermon 30.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The congregation’s response, “let no iniquity rule over me,” is a prayer against the tyranny of sin, from which the Law could not free us but Christ’s blood has redeemed us.
Sermon 51.34Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Seventy-seven is eleven, the number of transgression beyond the ten of justice, multiplied by seven, the number of the creature, soul and body; so it signifies all sins.
Sermon 56.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Besides grave sins that exclude from the altar, countless small sins of eye, ear, tongue, and thought accumulate like sand, so the daily cleansing of the Lord’s Prayer is needed by all.
Sermon 58.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Temptation conceives sin only by our consent; we must refuse concupiscence its embrace, for we leave behind what we sin for and carry the sin itself into death.
Sermon 80.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ the physician found all sick; those who knew their sickness came to him, while those who thought themselves healthy killed him, yet by his death he healed them.
Sermon 98.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The three dead signify three kinds of sinners: sin consented to in the heart, sin carried out in the deed, and sin buried under habit; Christ raises all three.
Sermon 98.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Sin advances in four steps, pleasure, consent, deed, and habit, like Lazarus four days dead; God alone gives life inwardly, while the disciples, the church’s ministers, unbind the one revived.
Sermon 114.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Every human being, even an apostle, is a sinner, as John included himself in “if we say we have no sin”; so we who need forgiveness must forgive those who ask and keep no enmity in our hearts.
Sermon 134.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Everyone who sins is a slave of sin, whatever his rank; a human ransomer frees a captive from barbarians but not from sin, from which only the true Deliverer frees.
Sermon 135.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · No one is without sin: the Old Testament priests offered first for their own sins, Augustine himself is a sinner, and even the apostles were taught to pray daily, “Forgive us our debts.”
Sermon 135.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Even after the resurrection and Pentecost the apostles were not without sin, as John, the greatest of them, confesses in 1 John 1:8–9; so all must keep praying.
Sermon 142.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The psalmist’s prayer that sinners be put to shame is a prayer for their good: God hates the sins we have made but loves us whom he made, and bids us turn to him so that he may turn to us.
Sermon 143.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Unbelief is singled out because it holds all other sins fast, while faith looses them; so Paul speaks of the Jews’ unbelief rather than their sin, since all have sinned.
Sermon 151.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The saint does good in not consenting, but does not accomplish good, which would be not to desire; the enemy does evil in stirring desire, but does not accomplish it; this war lasts until the resurrection removes sin, death’s sting, which the Law only made more guilty.
Sermon 152.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ, who takes away the sin of the world, had no sin of origin or of his own, and went to death freely, not by necessity; so the question remains by what sin he condemned sin.
Sermon 154.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Continuing yesterday's sermon on Romans 7, Augustine recalls that the Law is not sin but was given so that man might find himself and his weakness.
Sermon 163.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The triumphant cry over death belongs to the resurrection; until then the humble fighter must pray “Forgive us our debts” and confess truthfully that he is not without sin.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 1.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains adultery of the heart as full consent to lust, sets out the three steps of sin (suggestion, delight, consent) after the pattern of the fall, and widens adultery and sexual immorality figuratively to every evil desire.
Against Jovinianus 2.2Jerome · 393 · Jerome answers from 1 John itself that the baptized can sin and need Christ as their advocate.
Against Jovinianus 2.30Jerome · 393 · Jerome argues from the members of the body, the difference between sins, and the two Adams that there are degrees among the righteous and among sinners.
Against Jovinianus 2.31Jerome · 393 · Jerome answers the claims that all sins and all martyrdoms are equal and that the penitent equals the righteous, using the parables of Luke 15 and Ezekiel.
On Continence 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · Christ's sayings on inner cleanness show that sins are committed in the heart by consent, even when the body is prevented from acting.
On Continence 25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 395 · The comparison of flesh and church holds: the church is subject to Christ yet, in its carnal members and daily sins, not yet without spot, until final healing.
Confessions 1.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine argues from the greed, rage, and jealousy of infants that even infancy is not free of sin, though its weakness makes it seem innocent.
Confessions 3.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine classifies sins of violence and traces all sin to the lusts of ruling, seeing, and feeling, which violate the Ten Commandments and harm the sinner rather than God.
Confessions 8.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Like a sleeper who will not get up, Augustine keeps saying "soon" while the law of sin holds him.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine defines sin as anything done, said, or desired against the eternal law that preserves the natural order, in which body is subject to soul, and action to contemplation.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine explains that sin is failing to restrain delight in what is unlawful, and places man between beasts that cannot sin and angels that will not.
Against Secundinus the Manichaean 18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399 · Augustine argues from Secundinus's own admission that the soul sins by consenting: both the persuader and the one who consents are good natures made evil by sin, so there is no nature of evil.
On the Trinity 9.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · In love of spiritual things the word is born as soon as it is conceived; in love of temporal things it is born only when its object is obtained, and that never satisfies.
On the Trinity 12.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–419 · The fall in Gen 3 figures how sin arises in one mind: delight in thought is the woman eating alone, and the decision to act is her giving to the man, yet even sins of thought need forgiveness.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 2.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · No one in this life is without sin while the flesh fights the spirit; the law’s unblemished priests prefigured Christ alone, the spotless lamb and high priest who intercedes in heaven, not proud bishops who put themselves in the bridegroom’s place.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · The tree of knowledge was a real and harmless tree, named for the knowledge of good and evil that disobedience to God's command would bring by experience of punishment.
Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 401–415 · The forbidden tree was not evil in itself; the prohibition showed the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience as such, since sin sought escape from God's dominion.
On Holy Virginity 49Augustine of Hippo · 401 · The virgins of Revelation are praised for having no lie in their mouth, so they must confess, with John, that they are not without sin.
On Holy Virginity 50Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Confession is no license to sin; small sins that creep in are made grave by pride but cleansed by Christ through humility.
Canon 114 (Bruns)Anonymous · 401–424 (collection of 419) · Anathema on whoever says that the saints confess sin in 1 John 1:8 only out of humility, not truly.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 10.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The whip of cords signifies the rope of sins that a person weaves by adding sin to sin, which ends in being bound and cast into outer darkness.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 12.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Augustine urges watchfulness and daily confession even of small sins, which if neglected sink the soul like water seeping into a ship.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 25.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Pride is the root cause of all sin; the Son of God came humble, doing the Father's will, to cure it and to make humble those who come to him.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 33.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ, the only one without sin, did not condemn the woman but condemned her sin, telling her to sin no more.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 41.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The slave of sin cannot flee or change his master, for his sin is within; only Christ, who redeemed us with his blood, can free him.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 41.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The slave of sin does not remain in God's house, but the Son, head and body, does; freed by him, we become slaves of love and justice rather than of sin.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 41.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The first freedom is to be without crimes, that is, grave sins, for no one in this life but Christ is without sin; God hates all sin and by grace diminishes it in the progressing and consumes it in the perfect.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 41.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Church officers must be without crime, not without sin; freedom from crime begins freedom, but in this life weakness remains, and we are free only in the part in which we delight in God's law.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 41.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Paul was free where he delighted in God's law and captive where weakness remained; he looked to the Son for full freedom, being one man serving God's law with the mind and sin's law with the flesh.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 41.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Sin must not be allowed to reign in our members, though desire remains; we cannot yet fulfill “You shall not covet,” but we can refuse to follow our desires.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 42.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ called “from God” those he foreknew would be reborn by faith, and “not from God” those foreknown to remain in their sins; all men are from God by nature and sinners by fault.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 44.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's answer that neither the man nor his parents sinned refers only to the cause of the blindness, not to sinlessness.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 49.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's raisings are signs of the raising of souls; people labor greatly to put off bodily death but will not avoid sin to gain eternal life.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 49.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The three dead whom Christ raised figure three deaths of the soul: sin in thought, sin in deed, and sin hardened by habit, from which even Lazarus' sister was raised.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 84.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Martyrs imitate Christ's love but are not his equals; his blood alone remits sins, and no one may claim to be without sin as he was.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 89.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The sin those who heard Christ would not have had without his coming is unbelief, the sin by which all other sins are retained.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 91.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The sin meant is unbelief in Christ despite his words and works, the sin that retains all others.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 95.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The world is convicted of its own sin of unbelief and of the righteousness of believers, which is faith in the Christ they no longer see.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 1.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The message of the incarnate Word is that God is light, far beyond all created light; we, being darkness, are enlightened by approaching him and confessing our sin.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 4.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Sin is iniquity; Christ, who had no sin, came to take it away; whoever abides in him by faith does not sin, in so far as he believes.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Augustine sets out the problem: John says that whoever is born of God does not sin, yet also that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Augustine proposes that 'does not sin' refers to one particular sin, the breaking of Christ's commandment of love, which binds all other sins, while love looses them.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 5.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · The sin that one born of God cannot commit is to act against the new commandment of love; love covers the many other sins.
Homilies on the First Epistle of John 6.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 407 · Augustine raises the difficulty that Paul, who certainly had love, asked and did not receive, and recalls how 'sin' in John and in John 15:22 refers to particular sins.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.8Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Augustine answers the second question: no one in fact lives without sin, since Scripture says no one is justified before God and the saints themselves confess their sins.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.12Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · The two statements of 1 John apply to different parts of the same person; even Noah, Daniel, and Job, the most righteous men of Scripture, were not without sin, as Noah's drunkenness shows.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.14Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Despite God's praise of him, Job confessed his sins and said that no one is righteous before God, measuring himself by God's perfect rule of righteousness.
On the Spirit and the Letter 1Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine answers Marcellinus's objection that it is absurd to call sinlessness possible when no one but Christ has achieved it.
On the Spirit and the Letter 6Augustine of Hippo · 412 · “The letter kills” refers not only to figurative texts taken literally but chiefly to the law's command “You shall not covet,” which without the Spirit only increases desire.
On the Spirit and the Letter 9Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Paul's teaching that the law came in to increase the offense shows humanity its sickness so that it will seek God as helper, not only as teacher.
On the Spirit and the Letter 25Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Augustine quotes Rom 7:6–25 in full to show that Paul's argument concerns the law that forbids sin, not ceremonial observances.
On the Spirit and the Letter 65Augustine of Hippo · 412 · Even the lesser righteousness of this life requires consenting to no unlawful desire, yet Scripture shows that no one lives without sin, so all must pray for forgiveness and grace.
City of God 11.15Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Isaiah and Ezekiel show the devil was once without sin; “from the beginning” means from the beginning of sin, and his nature is God's good creation.
City of God 12.8Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · The will sins not by turning to evil things but by turning evilly, out of order, to lesser goods: avarice, lust, boasting, and pride lie in the soul's perverse love, not in their objects.
City of God 14.4Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · To live according to the flesh is to live according to man rather than God, which is a lie, since man was made to live by God's will; Paul's “carnal,” “animal,” and “men” all mean this.
City of God 15.7Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine interprets God's warning to Cain (Gen 4:6–7, in its Old Latin form), arguing that Cain's sin was envy and that man must rule over sin as the mind rules the flesh.
City of God 19.15Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine teaches that God made man to rule over beasts, not over other men, that slavery entered as a penalty of sin, and that slaves should serve faithfully until all human rule ends and God is all in all.
Commentary on Jeremiah 1.46Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Claiming to be without sin provokes God's anger more than the sin itself; Jerome turns the verse against the “new heresy” that boasts of righteousness.
Commentary on Jeremiah 3.15Jerome · ca. 414-419 · As every jar is filled with wine, all classes in Judah, and in the church, are filled with the drunkenness of sin; no one living is justified before God, and drunkenness leads to division and heresy.
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.41Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Israel and Judah did evil continually, or, as the Septuagint says, 'only' they did, since those who know God sin in his sight as others do not; this refutes any claim of perpetual righteousness (Jer 32:30).
Commentary on Jeremiah 6.42Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Jerusalem provoked God from its founding to its fall, which shows no one rests free of sin (Jer 32:31).
On Nature and Grace 8Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine sets out Pelagius' distinction between whether a man can be without sin and whether he is, and Pelagius' claim that the Scripture texts on universal sin speak only of fact, not of possibility.
On Nature and Grace 21Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine answers Pelagius' argument that sin, not being a substance, cannot weaken human nature, by pointing to the psalmist's prayer for healing and Christ's words about the physician.
On Nature and Grace 22Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine illustrates how sin, though not a substance, corrupts nature, just as not eating, which is not a substance, ruins the body, since God is the soul's true food.
On Nature and Grace 24Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine answers Pelagius' objection that punishment should not cause further sin by showing from Romans 1 how God's giving sinners up is itself punishment that produces graver sins.
On Nature and Grace 33Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine rejects Pelagius' claim that every sin is pride, while agreeing that pride was the beginning of sin in the devil and in Adam.
On Nature and Grace 42Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine answers Pelagius' list of sinless saints: setting aside the Virgin Mary out of honor for the Lord, all the others would have confessed with 1 John 1:8 that they had sin.
On Nature and Grace 45Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine argues that Scripture could not record the countless light sins of even one man such as Abel, and that any lack in the love of God is a fault, so the righteous are not without sin.
On Nature and Grace 57Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine answers Pelagius' reasoning about the “ability not to sin” implanted in nature, pointing out that corrupted nature, like broken feet, has lost that ability and cries for healing.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Job's clear conscience means that his faith rejects the sin that still dwells in him; he does good in resisting it, but cannot accomplish perfect good until desire is gone, and he confesses his sins.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 30Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Men are truthful only in God, not in themselves; the saints of Revelation are without lie because they confessed their sin and were forgiven.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · “None does good” refers to those who do not seek God; doing good is compatible with not yet being without sin, which the righteous are progressively leaving behind.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 38Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Zechariah and Elizabeth were blameless, not sinless, since the priest offered sacrifice for his own sins; Ps 143:2 asks for mercy because no one will be found perfectly righteous in this life.
On Man's Perfection in Righteousness 39Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · 1 John's texts on not sinning apply to what is born of God in us, while 1 John 1:8 applies to the remaining infirmity inherited from Adam, healed fully only at Christ's appearing.
Against Lying 19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Sins differ in gravity according to motive and kind, but the question is not which is lighter but what is sin, and no sin may be committed.
Against Lying 31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420 · Since a sin is by definition contrary to justice and every lie is contrary to truth, no lie can be just, and scriptural examples of lying are either not lies or not to be imitated.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine answers the charge that baptism leaves people partly sons of the devil, distinguishing 'sons of the world' from 'sons of the devil' and explaining that unbelief is what makes the latter.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine quotes Cyprian repeatedly to show that he held no one to be without sin in this life and taught daily prayer for forgiveness.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.28Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine argues that Cyprian, while praising the saints, taught that no one is sinless in this life and that perfect righteousness, peace, and joy belong to the kingdom to come.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.31Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine cites Ambrose to show that no one is perfectly sinless in this life and that full purity and the vision of God belong to the life to come.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 78Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · God alone judges which sins are light or grave; Paul's concessions to the weak, on marital intercourse for pleasure and lawsuits between Christians, show these are pardonable sins, for which we pray daily.
On Grace and Free Will 3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · Ignorance does not excuse from punishment, though sinning with knowledge is graver; and one who pleads defeat by desire is still addressed as having a will.
The Conferences 5.16John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The seven nations of Canaan figure the vices, which are more numerous and stronger than the virtues; all the lesser sins spring from the eight principal vices and die with them.
The Conferences 6.17John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · No one falls suddenly; like a house ruined by neglected leaks, the soul collapses through small neglected faults. The visitors leave consoled and instructed.
The Conferences 11.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Those who reach the love of sons imitate God’s goodness, showing mercy rather than anger to sinners and loving enemies; the saying that those born of God do not sin refers to capital sins, since even the saints commit small faults.
The Conferences 22.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Theonas distinguishes being holy, that is, consecrated to God, from being sinless, which belongs to Christ alone, who was tempted like us but without sin.
The Conferences 22.12John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Christ, born of a virgin, alone bore only the likeness of sin, though his enemies called him a sinner; anyone who claims to be sinless blasphemously claims equality with him.
The Conferences 22.13John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The righteous still fall daily in seven kinds of lesser faults without ceasing to be righteous, as Peter shows, who erred and denied Christ yet remained holy through repentance and grace.
The Conferences 22.14John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Theonas reads Romans 7 as Paul’s own confession that perfect purity is beyond human strength and must be sought from God’s grace.
The Conferences 22.15John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Germanus raises the common view that Paul in Romans 7 speaks in the person of sinners, since it cannot fit the perfect apostle.
The Conferences 23.1John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Theonas argues that Romans 7 cannot describe sinners, who sin willingly and eagerly and serve God neither in mind nor in flesh, and must describe the perfect.
The Conferences 23.7John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Ignorant of true sinlessness, we notice only crimes punished by secular law and feel no compunction for dejection, vainglory, distraction in prayer, impure thoughts and dreams, or grudging almsgiving.
The Conferences 23.8John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The saints treat even a moment’s distraction from God as a sacrilege and repent at once; yet no one but Christ has kept his mind fixed on God without ever straying.
The Conferences 23.9John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The saints are like rope-walkers whose least misstep means a fall; God harms no one, but turning away from him is itself death.
The Conferences 23.10John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Because even the saints are daily drawn from God by earthly thoughts and good but earthly works, they truly confess themselves sinners and cry out with Paul for God’s grace.
The Conferences 23.11John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The “law in the members” is the curse of Adam, by which thoughts sprout like thorns and even the saints can eat the heavenly bread of contemplation only by the sweat of their brow.
The Conferences 23.13John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Because of Adam’s curse even the saints are drawn from contemplation to earthly thoughts, yet they are not condemned, since Christ’s daily grace frees them; so Romans 7 speaks of the perfect.
The Conferences 23.15John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Theonas argues that grave sins after baptism are cleansed only by long penance or punished eternally, so the daily “law of sin” in Romans 7, cured by Christ’s daily grace, must be the distraction of the saints from contemplation, which makes them wretched rather than guilty.
The Conferences 23.17John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The saints confess themselves sinners, as Isaiah did after seeing God, yet hope for salvation by grace; his words “we sinned … and we shall be saved” answer the objection that if no one is sinless no one can be saved.
The Conferences 23.18John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The Lord’s Prayer, given to the saints, requires all to ask forgiveness daily; so no one is sinless, yet the righteous remain righteous.
The Conferences 23.19John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Anyone who claims sinlessness should test it by whether he has kept even one synaxis without a single distraction; the purer the mind, the more faults it sees, and John says that claiming to have no sin is self-deception.
The Conferences 23.20John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Those who have truly crucified the flesh testify daily that they cannot be free from sin for even an hour.
Instructions 1.3Eucherius of Lyon · ca. 428-434 · The sin unto death and the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit are impenitence until death.