by it, but, on the contrary, had the inherent power of warring against it, and of finallv overcoming it. Hence it followed that there was no guilt in this cor- ruption, since guilt could only be predicated of the TTvtvfia, being only possible when the Trviiijia trans- gressed God's law. While corrujition therefore descends from Adam, lodging in the bodily and physical nature, guilt, properly speaking, does not descend, because it is only the result of the action of the individual ■TTvtvfia ; and where the irviv^a does transgress, and thereby in- cur guilt, its doing so is of its own free choice, and not because of any connection with Adam or with his trans- gression. This doctrine, fully developed by Clem- ent and Origen, was universally accepted in the East, and was also received with much favor in the West. It experienced some modification from the fathers of the Antiochian and the later Alexandrian school, by their adoption of Jerome's theory of the origin of the soul of man ; and in this modified form continued dom- inant in the East. Here we may find all the germs of Pelagianisra. In his Liber apologelicus contra Pela~ (jhim de arhitrii libertate, as quoted by A\'urter, Orosius affirms that in Pelagius and Ccelestius Origen lived and spake : " Hsec venenatissimorum dogmatum abominatio habet etiam nunc viventes mortuos, raortuosque vi- ventes. Nam Origines et Priscillianus et Jovinianus, olim apud. se mortui in his vivunt ; et non solum vi- vunt verum etiam loquuntur: nunc vero Pelagius et Coelestius, si in his perseveraverint viventes mortui, ecce adversus ecclesiam, quod miserum est, et quod multo mi- serius est, in ecclesia palam sibilant," etc. Pelagianisra is certainly countenanced by the Greek anthropology. The latter prepared the way for Pelagianisra when it taught that original sin exists only as a disorder in the sensuous nature of raan ; and that it is not culpable, not guilt, till the TTvtvfia yields to the temptation which arises from this disorder; that our physical nature has, in virtue of its derivation frora Adam, strong animal and sensual passions which tempt to sin, and that this is all the corruption we inherit from Adam ; that sin is not inherited, but is the result of the action of the indi- vidual will of man, and that the will is in no respect whatever influenced or biased one way or another be- cause of our descent from Adam, further than what is implied in its being tempted by the sensuous nature ; which temptation it has abundant power to resist. Holding such a doctrine regarding sin, the fathers of the Eastern Church, as a natural consequence, held also the doctrine of Synergism in regeneration. They main- tained that man in his natural state has a certain ten- dency towards that which is good ; and that by giving free scope to this tendencj' he works together with God, or with the Divine Spirit, towards the attainment of holiness. The Spirit and man, they said, co-operate in this great work; but the first step towards its accom- plishment is taken by man. The natural result of teachings such as these was Pelagianisra.
There was, however, a current of thought at the same time moving in a different direction. Tertullian oc- cupies a prominent and chief place among those who guided and gave intensity to the force of this current. He found existing in the public opinions expressed by the fathers in the West indistinct traces of the theory of traducianism — the theory which affirms that man in his entire humanity, soul as well as body, is procreated ; that the entire of human nature was originated by God in creation, and that tliat nature is individualized by proci-eation. Tertullian gave form and prominence to that theory, which was afterwards embraced as the true theory of tlie origin of human souls by the whole West- ern Ciiurch. Hence it was rightly argued, if the soul is propagated, there must be also a propagation of sin — tradux animce, tradux ]KCCcdi. Juster views then began to be entertained regarding the innate sinfulness of the soul, and as a consequence also regarding the true nat- ure of regeneration as the effect of the agency of the Divine Spirit alone — monergism — seeing that the soul,
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the TTVivf-ia, has no tendency, no inchnation, and can have none towards holiness till it is acted upon by the power of the Spirit of God. Man has no desire towards holiness in himself. That desire is orir/inated and car- ried forward solely by the Spirit of God. Tertullian did not fully evolve these doctrines, but he led the way to that result. The North African Church gave them fuller development, till in the time of Augustine they received their amplest exhibition.
Cyprian in the 3d, and Ambrose and Hilary in the 4th century, made very considerable advances on Ter- tullian. They were more separated from those influ- ences of the Greek anthropology than Tertullian was, and hence presented in a clearer light than he did the doctrine of man's original sinfulness, and of his utter moral inability and disinclination towards holiness. They began to grapple with the doctrine of the distinc- tion between the guilt and the corruption of man, both of which they assumed had descended from Adam, and to exhibit the doctrine with considerable clearness of statement, according to the mode of argument adopted by the apostle in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Komans.