The Origins of Augustine’s Theology on Concupiscence, Massa Damnata and Limbo in light of Early Christian, Gnostic, Manichaean, (Neo-)Platonic,... Sources

CONTINENTAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

THE ORIGINS OF AUGUSTINE’S THEOLOGY ON CONCUPISCENCE, MASSA DAMNATA AND LIMBO IN LIGHT OF EARLY CHRISTIAN, GNOSTIC, MANICHAEAN, (NEO-)PLATONIC,... SOURCES

For the course: Dissertation (RE 301WE) May, 2017

Dedicated to the efforts of Prof. Gustav Friedrich Wiggers, which have not been forgotten. His book entitled An Historical Presentation of Augustinism and Pelagianism contains very useful overviews on different topics concerning Augustine’s and Pelagius’ theology in light of the earlier church fathers’ views. Up to date, it remains one of the most thorough works on this topic. I am also indebted to the Maurits Sabbe library in Leuven, for its useful sources on Manichaeism and (Neo-)Platonism. Furthermore, I am indebted to Prof. Johannes van Oort for his thorough studies on the Manichaean religion and the evolution of Augustine’s thoughts concerning the topic of Manichaeism. Through his collection of academic papers, published on academia.edu, he pointed me to many useful and reliable sources. I would also like to thank Prof. Naoki Kamimura and Prof. Makiko Sato for their kind email correspondence. Last, but certainly not least, I am indebted to Dr. Bob Welch, for his academic mentorship and unceasing kindness towards me, which have certainly helped me in preparing this dissertation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 I. AUGUSTINE’S CLAIMS ............................................................................................... 5 II. AUGUSTINE’S CLAIMS EXAMINED........................................................................ 8 2.1. Concupiscence ............................................................................................................ 8 2.1.1. Augustine’s Writings ............................................................................................ 8 2.1.2. Early Christian Sources ...................................................................................... 10 2.1.3. Gnostic, Manichaean,… Sources ........................................................................ 16 2.2. Massa Damnata......................................................................................................... 27 2.2.1. Augustine’s Writings .......................................................................................... 27 2.2.2. Early Christian Sources ...................................................................................... 28 2.2.3. Manichaean Influence ........................................................................................ 32 2.3. Limbo ....................................................................................................................... 35 2.3.1. Augustine’s Writings .......................................................................................... 35 2.3.2. Early Sources ..................................................................................................... 37 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 40 APPENDIX: THE PRESENT-DAY CATHOLIC CHURCH ON AUGUSTINE’S DENIAL OF LIMBO ........................................................................................................ 42 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................. 43

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INTRODUCTION My thesis statement is that while Augustine’s views on concupiscence,1 at least in the broad sense of the word, have some predecessors within orthodoxy,2 his massa damnataconcept and his denial of limbo were entirely new teachings within the Catholic Church. There is no basis for these new teachings within the pre-Augustinian orthodox tradition but they seem to at least have some connection with older Gnostic, Manichaean,… concepts. All this will be shown in this dissertation. The methodology was to, first of all, divide the work into three sections, after which I have come to a final conclusion. The three sections are respectively “concupiscence”, “massa damnata” and “limbo”. For each section I started with Augustine’s essential writings on each topic. Then I have investigated whether there were any Patristic sources, from before Augustine’s writings, which might already have included this particular theory. At the same time, I investigated whether there are sources from the time of Augustine’s works on the section’s topic, which support his claim. After having examined such early Christian sources, I looked into the possibility of his ideas having been loaned from extra-patristic sources such as Gnostic, Manichaean, Platonist,… writings. All the knowledge I have gained allowed us a proper conclusion for this dissertation, which is hoped to enlighten the reader even further and give him proper barriers, as to what it is specifically that this work has achieved.

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I will only discuss sexual concupiscence. Concupiscence can also be described as sexual desire or lust.

This claim does not deny that it has older Gnostic roots or that Augustine’s specific interpretation has its roots in Gnosticism. We will discuss this within this dissertation.

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The delimitations are that it goes without saying that this dissertation will be intentionally limited by respecting the historical timeframe I am discussing. 3 Because I will only try to figure out what the specific orthodox, Gnostic,… sources were for developing Augustine’s thoughts on concupiscence, massa damnata and his denial of limbo, I will not look into indirect influences4 but only direct influences on Augustine’s way of thinking. My methodology will only be a church-historical academic research. Concerning this dissertation, I will not examine post-Augustinian views of the Church, as such a strategy would only distract from what I am discussing. I will only discuss those (items within) ancient writings that are connected to the doctrinal matters of concupiscence, massa damnata and the concept of limbo. What was typical for the days of the early Church was that many honourable and highly respected church fathers had the tendency of incorporating culturally accepted philosophical concepts into their ways of looking at the Bible. Augustine stated concerning the advantageous Christians to incorporate Platonic concepts into the early church, “We are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it.”5 Furthermore, the Bible was to be read only for piety, all the rest could be found in Platonic books: “Upon these [books by the Platonists], therefore, I believe, it was Your pleasure that I should fall before I studied Your Scriptures, that it might be impressed on my memory how I was affected by them. (…) [If] I afterwards [had] fallen upon those volumes, they might perhaps have withdrawn me from the solid ground of piety.”6

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Post-Augustinian sources are referred to within footnotes but only to give the reader some more information. We always indicate that these sources are post-Augustinian and they do not influence this thesis. 4

For example: Document Y influenced person Z who influenced Augustine. An example of this delimitation can be found in footnote 66 on Encratites. 5

Augustine On Christian Doctrine 2.40.60. Cited from “On Christian Doctrine (Book II),” New Advent, accessed February 9, 2017, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12022.htm. 6

Ibid., Confessions 7.20. Clarification added between square brackets.

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This way of interpreting the Scriptures was based on the advice of Ambrose, who was Augustine’s mentor in the Catholic faith. Ambrose encouraged Augustine to look at the Holy Scriptures “in a spiritual [Platonic] manner”: “I heard Ambrose, in his sermons to the people, oftentimes most diligently recommend this text as a rule—The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. [And, in essence, come to a spiritual understanding of the Texts of the Bible.]”7 More specifically, Ambrose’s influence on Augustine was important concerning sexual concupiscence and marriage, since the way he applied the Scriptures was dependent upon his interpretation of the Scriptures. In this regard it was not a secret that Platonism was already a common influence in the early church. As Porphyry, a critic of the early church and of the Bible, wrote about the Christians of his day: “Desiring to find a solution of the baseness of the Jewish Scriptures rather than abandon them, (…) they boast that the plain words of Moses are enigmas, and regard them as oracles full of hidden mysteries.” In this way they create wild interpretations. 8 7

Ibid., 6.4.6. Before Augustine met bishop Ambrose, he expressed his desire to meet him. Ibid., 5.13.23. From the way Augustine looked up to Ambrose, we can deduce that he gained much influence from him, particularly in regards to his Neo-Platonic and Christian concepts. cf. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 76. On page 485, Brown calls the Milanese Christians under Ambrose “Christian Platonists.” Brown, Augustine, 485. We also know that Augustine called Ambrose “our bishop” when he wrote to Christian Platonic intellectualist Manlius Theodorus who looked up to the works of Plotinus. Augustine On Blessed Life 1.4. That Ambrose’s works were filled with Platonism is summarized well by Brown when he stated: “Ambrose (…) had cited Plotinus in his sermons and might even have been the person who first introduced Augustine to Neo-Platonic ideas." Brown, Augustine, 496. This conjecture, that Augustine received a high view of Neo-Platonism from Ambrose, will be especially useful later on in this dissertation. For this dissertation, it should also be pointed out that Augustine and Ambrose had different views in regards to sexual intercourse and marriage. Ambrose was against sex, even within marriage. Ambrose In Ps. 61.21. Augustine Confessions 6.3.3. While Augustine was not opposed to sexual intercourse, if it was for the sake of bringing forth children. Augustine Marriage and Concupiscence 2, 26, 43. Brown, Augustine, 392. Another remark that should be made here, in our effort to honestly represent Augustine, is that it is clear that, after many years, Augustine became less fond of certain Neo-Platonic concepts for interpreting the Scriptures. This tendency is visible when one compares his Retractions to his earlier works. A useful secondary quote on this matter comes from Peter Brown: “When Augustine finally approached the priest Simplicianus (perhaps in late July 386), he had already moved imperceptibly towards Catholic Christianity. He was, indeed, an enthusiastic convert to 'Philosophy'; but this 'Philosophy' had already ceased to be an entirely independent Platonism.” Ibid., 97. For a similar line of thought, read: Augustine Trapè, ‘Escatologia e antiplatonismo di sant’Agostino,’ Augustinianum 18 (Rome: Patristic Institute Augustinianum, 1978): 237–244. 8

Porphyry in Eusebius Church History 6.19.4. Cited from “NPNF2-01. Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History. CHAPTER XIX.—Circumstances Related of Origen,” Christian Classics Ethereal Library, accessed February 9, 2017, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.

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According to Origen, Celsus, who was another critic of early Christianity, wrote in the same line of thought: “The more modest among Jews and Christians are ashamed of these things [In context he is talking about how Yahweh God formed Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs], and endeavour to give them somehow an allegorical signification.” 9 And in the 1800’s, Dr. Edwin Hatch made the following summarizing remark on the way in which the Hellenized Christians of Augustine’s day regarded the Scriptures: ‘It has been one of the many results of the controversies into which the metaphysical tendencies of the Greeks led the churches of the fourth and fifth centuries, to postpone almost to modern times the acceptance of "the literal grammatical and historical sense" as the true sense of Scriptures.’10 This clearly indicates how the early church interpreted the Bible, predominately with different allegorical interpretations. Therefore, it would come as no surprise to us, if it is in fact the case that Augustine was also directly or indirectly influenced by Platonism or some other form of Gnostic doctrine when arriving at his theological conclusions in regard to his personal views on concupiscence, the sinful state of humanity as a race and the strict black and white thinking of the destiny of infants; unbaptized infants will go into eternal perdition while those who have the grace of baptism conferred to them, are to go into eternal bliss.

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Origen Against Celsus 4.38. Cited from “Contra Celsus, Book IV”, New Advent, accessed February 9, 2017, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04164.htm. I added the text which is in between the brackets, to explain the context to the reader. 10

Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892), 82. One of his lectures on this matter can be read here: Edwin Hatch, “Lecture IX – Greek and Christian Theology – III. God as the Supreme Being,” Google Drive of William Scott Taylor, accessed February 13, 2017, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9uoKbfrwJ69U1NPRE45WExPeHM/view.

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I. AUGUSTINE’S CLAIMS Augustine claimed that concupiscence was not sinful in and of itself but that it was the result of sin.11 Sexual intercourse, within a marriage relationship with the intent of procreation,12 was not sinful but contained a form of evil. 13 Because of this concupiscence, which was passed down from the genitals, 14 infants were born with this stain of original sin. “Whatever offspring is born of this concupiscence of the flesh is bound by original sin, unless it be reborn in Him whom the Virgin conceived without that concupiscence; for which reason, when He deigned to be born in the flesh, He alone was born without sin.”15

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Augustine Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.13.27. For the idea that concupiscence is not sinful in and of itself, see also Brown, Augustine, 391. The term peccata originalia (original sin) was invented by Augustine. Robin Lane Fox, Augustine: Conversions and Confessions (London: Penguin Books, 2016), 37. This does not mean, however, that the concept originated with him. 12

“At no stage in his career did Augustine deny the idea that marriage as such was an institution willed by God for the purposes of procreation.” Mathijs Lamberigts, “A critical evaluation of critiques of Augustine’s view of sexuality” in Augustine and His Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner, eds. Robert Dodaro and George Lawless (London: Routledge, 2000), 184. 13

Augustine Marriage and Concupiscence 2.26.43. Peter Brown wrote that Augustine saw “intercourse as an element of evil encapsulated in every marriage”. Brown, Augustine, 393 but he also wrote that Augustine “expected that, ideally, intercourse should take place only to conceive children.” Ibid., 392. This view was not the most extreme view going around at that time, according to Brown who stated that, when taking the A.D. 397 Dolbeau Sermon on marriage into account, it becomes clear that Augustine did not agree with Jerome, who upheld a radical ascetic ideal. Ibid., Augustine, 500. This even more radical ascetic ideal is that Jerome was against any form of sexual intercourse, even if it is for the sole purpose of begetting children. D. G. Hunter, “Augustine's Pessimism? A New Look at Augustine's Teaching on Sex, Marriage and Celibacy”, Augustinian Studies 25, no. 1 (1994): 166-167. Brown believed that, through his published and spoken works, Augustine actually tried to moderate the Church’s extreme views of his day. Brown, Augustine, 500. With this way of thinking (i.e. that procreation is permissible), Augustine goes against his Manichaean past, since hearers, such as Augustine was himself, were not allowed to procreate. Samuel N.C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and medieval China: A Historical Survey (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 21. Robert J. O’Connell, Images of Conversion in St. Augustine’s Confessions (New York: Fordham University Press, 1996), 47. 14

Augustine Marriage and Concupiscence 1.23.25. An excellent description of this phenomenon can be found in Nico Vorster, “Calvin’s Modification of Augustine’s Doctrine of Original Sin”: “The original sin of Adam is transmitted to subsequent generations through sexual concupiscence, since pro-creation cannot take place without lust”. Nico Vorster, “Calvin’s Modification of Augustine’s Doctrine of Original Sin,” in Studies in Reformed Theology, ed. H. van den Belt, vol. 23, Restoration through Redemption: John Calvin Revisited (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 79. That this concupiscence was passed down from the genitals, can be found in Augustine Sermon 151.5. This is also the interpretation of Peter Brown. Brown, Augustine, 391. 15

Augustine Marriage and Concupiscence 1.24.27.

6 According to Augustine, this concupiscence formed a law of sin within these infants; “Concupiscence, then, remains in the members of this body of death as the law of sin. It is present in the little ones at birth.”16 This would inevitably lead infants to commit sins: “The sinful flesh of those through whom they are born transmits to them a guilt which they have not yet contracted in their own life.” 17 This idea of a genetic origin of the transmission of sin was, in fact, unusual in the history of Patristic interpretation up until Augustine, as I have explored in this paper. Furthermore, according to Augustine, because of this stain of original sin, these infants belong to the whole mass of humanity (massa damnata), which was under condemnation and on its way to the lake of fire. The logical conclusion of this theory was that deceased, unbaptized babies were damned to the lake of fire. 18 Because of original sin only, 19 they were part of the massa damnata: “Infants who perish because they die without baptism (…) are kept bound by original sin alone, and for this alone they go into condemnation.”20 16

Ibid. Answer to the Pelagians 1.80.

17

Ibid. 1.118.

18

Ibid. Admonition and Grace 7.12. The same logical conclusion was taken by the unauthoritative Latin addition to the answer to the question of original sin at the council of Carthage. See council of Carthage, Latin Canon 110. Another logical conclusion, which can be made here as a side note is that because, according to Augustine, “That it is not in our power to do that which is good is part of the deserts of original sin” Augustine. To Simplician – On Various Questions 1.1.11., Cited from John H. S. Burleigh, Augustine: Earlier Writings (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1953), 381. the concept of unconditional election follows. See Ibid., 375 for another logical way of putting this. 19

It should be clarified that in Augustine’s mind, this original sin is voluntary, since it happened in Adam. “What we call original sin in infants, who have not yet the use of free choice, may not absurdly also be called voluntary, because it originated in man’s first evil will and has become in a manner hereditary.” Augustine Retractations 1.13.5. Cited from Burleigh, Earlier Writings, 219. (emphases mine). This seems to have been Augustine's way of trying to reconcile one of his early statements through which he defended free will and moral responsibility against the Manichees - In this statement he admitted to God "that my mutable substance had gone astray of free will, and erred as a punishment.” Augustine Confessions 4.15.26. - with a statement defending inheriting original sin. Augustine wants to clarify that, according to him, inheriting original sin is not incompatible with free will. He already made the same argument in his Commentary on Statements in the Letter to the Romans. While defending free will (!), he wrote about sinful, fleshly concupiscence that “these desires arise from the mortality of the flesh, which we bear from the first sin of the first man, whence we are born fleshly.” Ibid., Commentary on Statements in the Letter to the Romans 12. Trans. P. Frederiksen Landes, Augustine on Romans: Prepositions from the Epistle to the Romans, Unfinished Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (California: Scholar Press, 1982), 5-7. Read also Naoki Kamimura’s explanation of how Augustine tries to defend the freedom of the will in this text in Naoki Kamimura, “Augustine’s Evolving Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles,” The Theory and Practice of the Scriptural Exegesis in Augustine (March 2014): 65-67,

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Augustine claimed that the theory which denied the damnation of unbaptized infants was, in his day, a recent invention of the Pelagians. He claimed that infant damnation was accepted from the Church’s tradition, so much so, that it would have been redundant for him to quote any sources to prove this matter.21 This will be examined to reveal that this is not the case. The critical issues of Augustine’s theology, i.e. concupiscence, massa damnata, and the damnation of unbaptized infants, form the essential structure to defend his view of the transmission of original sin. These points will now be discussed to reveal Augustine’s possible sources and thereby serve to support the thesis of this paper that his sources were based on Gnostic, Manichaean and Platonic thought.

accessed April 14, 2017, Academia. In the same line of thought, Lee states that according to Augustine: “The vicious circle [of bondage to sin] begins as the soul voluntarily defects toward bodily pleasure.” Kam-lun Edwin Lee, “Augustine, Manichaeism and the Good,” (PhD diss., Saint Paul University, 1996), 119. (Added text between square brackets to clarify its context.) Notice also the similarity between Augustine’s text which we have just cited and Plato and Plotinus’ concepts of humanity’s fallen state as having descended into a physical body. (See footnotes 62 and 63, under the next section “Augustine’s Claims Explained”.) 20

Augustine The Gift of Perseverance 23. See also Ibid. Letter of Augustine to Vitalis, Layman of Carthage 217.5.16. Ibid. The Soul and its Origin 3.9.12. Ibid. 4.11.16. 21

Ibid. Sermons 294.2. William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, volume 3 (Minneapolis: Liturgical Press, 1979), 32.

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II. AUGUSTINE’S CLAIMS EXAMINED

2.1. CONCUPISCENCE

2.1.1. Augustine’s Writings According to Augustine, concupiscence was hereditarily passed on, because it was the result of the original sin inherited from Adam, and could only be atoned for by water baptism. “This concupiscence, I say, which is cleansed only by the sacrament of regeneration [water baptism], does undoubtedly, by means of natural birth, pass on the bond of sin to a man's posterity, unless they are themselves loosed from it by regeneration.” 22 “This concupiscence of the flesh is the daughter of sin, as it were, and, as often as it consents to shameful deeds, it is the mother of more sins. Whatever offspring is born of this concupiscence of the flesh is bound by original sin.”23 Augustine was not against marriage, and he believed that sexual intercourse for procreation was legitimate.24 He believed that concupiscence was not sinful in and of itself25 but that it was the result of sin. 26 While it was not sinful, concupiscence was, nevertheless, an evil. 27 It was God’s punishment on mankind for Adam’s “first disobedience”. 28

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Augustine Marriage and Concupiscence 1.23.25. For the same idea of the cleansing effect of water baptism: “The guilt of concupiscence is remitted in baptism.” Augustine Retractions 1.14.2. 23

Ibid., 1.24.27.

24

Ibid., 2.26.43. Lamberigts, “A critical evaluation,” 184.

25

Ibid.

26

Augustine Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.13.27. The concept that concupiscence is the result of sin was also stated in Augustine Marriage and Concupiscence 1.24.27. 27

Ibid., Against Julian, Defender of the Pelagian Heresy 6.16.49. Makiko Sato, "The Role of Eve in Salvation in Augustine's Interpretation of Genesis 3," in The Theory and Practice of the Scriptural Exegesis in Augustine, Naoki Kamimura ed., 31. Research Report: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 23520098, 2014. 28

Augustine City of God 14.17 and 14.23. Ibid., On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis 11.31.41-42.

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However, the question of Augustine’s sources for this theology occurs. Augustine, on revising and explaining his work entitled the Free Choice of the Will, explicitly stated that the Manichaeans did not believe in original sin. He wrote: “This discussion must be regarded as directed against the Manichees, who do not accept the Sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament,29 where original sin is recounted. And these have the wicked effrontery to contend that whatever we read about original sin in the Letters of the Apostles has been inserted by corrupters of the Scriptures, as if it were something the Apostles never said.”30 This means that if Augustine’s words are to be believed in this instance, the Manichees can be ruled out as a possible source from which the doctrine of original sin was derived. It is disputed whether Augustine spoke the truth in this instance. Harry Conn claimed that Augustine studied the philosophy of Manes and brought his views on original sin into the church. 31 Whether H. Conn was aware of Augustine’s claim, I do not know but Ernesto Bonaiuti stated in a similar fashion that in Augustine’s original sin doctrine, there were remnants of Manicheanism. He thought that this was the case because of the similarity between (1) the original sin of sexual concupiscence, (2) the idea that human nature is inherently wrong and, (3) Augustine never totally agreed with the idea that the human soul comes directly from God, instead of it being inherited from Adam. However, Bonaiuti admitted that “these specific instances do not betray a direct Manichaean influence” but, he continued, Augustine kept an overtly negative view on humanity. 32

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That the Manichaeans denied the inspiration of the Old Testament Accounts, can also be found in Pelagius’ Commentary on Romans. On Romans 1:2 Pelagius wrote: “(…) Indeed, this entire passage contradicts the Manicheans, for in it he states that already beforehand the Gospel was promised both through God's prophets and in the holy Scriptures; and that with regard to the flesh Christ was created from the line of David, that is, of the virgin Mary, just as Isaiah foretold it (Isa. 7:14).” Theodore de Bruyn, Pelagius's Commentary On St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 59. 30

Augustine Retractions 1.9.6. As cited from Robert P. Russell, The Fathers of the Church, Volume 59 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 241. 31 32

Harry Conn foreword to Holiness and Sin, by Gordon C. Olson (Texas: Men for Missions, 1971).

Ernesto Bonaiuti, “The Genesis of St. Augustine’s Idea of Original Sin,” The Harvard Theological Review 10, no. 2 (April 1917): 174.

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This anthropological nuance of Augustine, pointed out by Bonaiuti, was not lost on the Pelagians, as can be seen in that they labelled Augustine a Manichaean for his views on the origin and necessity of sinning, long after he left that cult. 33 What is more, if Augustine was right in that the Manichaeans denied the doctrine of original sin, this means that the Manichaeans, who predated the Pelagians, were already denying original sin, before the Pelagians appeared on scene (!). It should be noted that even in the Catholic Church, before the Pelagian controversy, this “denial” of the concept of original sin - a denial of a theory which might have already been present within extra-ecclesial sources,34 was already present.35 Wiggers argues: “Now as the fathers before Augustine held to no guilt of the Adamitic sin, they could not allow the forgiveness of a sin originating from Adam or Original sin, as an object of infant baptism, just as, on the same ground, they could not admit the condemnation of unbaptized children. They therefore differed from Augustine on this latter point also.”36 In the next sections, I will show that it is far more likely that Augustine received the concept of inheriting sin / sexual concupiscence from unorthodox, rather than from orthodox, sources. 2.1.2. Early Christian Sources

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Read, for example, Augustine Against Julian 4.42. Julian stated: “If the Ethiopian will change his skin or the leopard its spots, only in that case you will be able to cleanse yourself from the Manichaean mysteries”. 34

See under “Gnostic, Manichaean,… Sources”, under this same title (“Augustine’s Claims Explained”). 35 36

Of course, this will be discussed in this dissertation.

Gustav Friedrich Wiggers, An Historical Presentation of Augustinism and Pelagianism (Texas: OpenAirOutreach, 2011), 313. [This work was originally published in 1840 by Newman & Saxton (New York). All page numberings of this book in this dissertation follow Morrell’s cheap paperback reprint.] For Wiggers’ entire argument, see Ibid., 299-326. On the same opinion concerning the Eastern fathers, see section 11-14 in Ignazio Sanna et al., “International Theological Commission - The Hope of Salvation for Infants who Die without Being Baptised,” Vatican, last modified January 19, 2007, accessed April 13, 2017, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_unbaptised-infants_en.html.

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Augustine mentioned Cyprian († 258), together with Ambrose, most often of all church fathers.37 The importance of Cyprian is that Augustine used him as a source for defending his personal views on concupiscence.38 However, does this appeal to authority hold up to close scrutiny? According to Robin Lane Fox as well, Cyprian can be viewed as already defending a concept of original sin.39 Fox points us to On the Dress of the Virgins chapter 23 and Epistle 64.5.40 Cyprian describes how God commanded man to go forth and multiply. He then states that God advised mankind to be contingent.41 This contingency he describes as “cutting away the desires of the flesh”. He seems to connect it to his following thought of baptismal cleansing; the waters of baptism cleanse us “from the impurities of the old contagion by a second birth”. Also in Epistle 64.5, Cyprian writes that such infants have inherited the “contagion of the ancient death” but, contrary to Augustine’s views (!), he explicitly states that such new-born infants have not yet sinned. Therefore, I can conclude that Cyprian was not conceptualizing original sin. Rather, according to Cyprian, infants were contaminated 37

Vincent Hunink, “‘Practicing what he had taught: Augustine’s Sermons on Cyprian,” in Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, vol. 74, ‘In Search for Truth’: Augustine, Manichaeism and other Gnosticism: Studies for Johannes van Oort at Sixty (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 97. 38

Augustine On the Sacraments 3.1.7 and Ibid. On the Mysteries 7.32.10.

39

Fox, Augustine, 37.

40 The following description is based on Cyprian’s The Dress of Virgins-text as found on “The Dress of Virgins by St. Cyprian,” Today’s Catholic World, http://www.todayscatholicworld.com/dress-of-virgins.htm. All excerpts are taken from that source. The excerpt of Epistle 64.5 is taken from Conversion, Catechumenate, and Baptism in the Early Church, eds. Everett Ferguson, Paul Corby Finney and David Scholer (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993), 38. 41

Contrary to Genesis 9:1, this duty of contingency seems to have been a common Gnostic/Platonist opinion. On this, read footnotes 13 and 53. For more on the Jewish interpretation, read footnote 51. It must be noted that Cyprian was a highly superstitious individual. Thomas Vincent Tymms, The Evolution of Infant Baptism and Related Ideas (London: Kingsgate Press, 1913), 198-201. We will not further discuss this typically Gnostic opinion in this footnote. We only state that there can be seen some obvious similarities between Cyprian and Augustine’s views in regards to concupiscence. However, see footnote 46. (A republished version of Tymms book can be accessed for free on my website: Thomas Vincent Tymms, The Evolution of Infant Baptism and Related Ideas, eds. Douglas Duncan and Tom Torbeyns (Georgia-Vlaams-Brabant: Amazon, 2015), 172175, last modified January 1, 2015, accessed April 3, 2017, https://crosstheology.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/evolution-of-infant-baptism-and-related-ideas-the-t-vincenttymms.pdf.)

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with physical death, as inherited from Adam. 42 This same argument is also applicable to the spurious Hundredfold, Sixtyfold, Thirtyfold sermon. Augustine may have believed that this sermon was from Cyprian’s hand. 43 The author of this spurious text stated that “the sin of our first birth” was washed away in baptism.44 Its Latin translation also describes a necessary struggle with concupiscence. 45 Along with the problem of an unknown author, it also may sound very similar to Augustine's opinion that babies are born sinful, but, just like the previously discussed writings, it does not state that guilt is inherited. It seems like Augustine was trying to use Cyprian’s writings as a big proof for his newly invented, extreme cause of inheriting original sin, rather than the older view of inheriting some sort of concupiscence. In this regard, this text might have inspired Augustine to some extent but whatever amount of reliability we have to ascribe to it, later on, we will look into another source which, very probably, held a far bigger amount of inspiration for Augustine, concerning his views on concupiscence and inheriting sin.46

42

That this was Cyprian’s intend is also the conclusion of Ferguson, Finney, Scholer and Pelikan. Ibid., 38-39. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Development of Christian Doctrine: Some Historical Prolegomena (Chicago: Yale University Press, 1969), 79-87. The opinion that an infant “inherits” physical death from Adam, is also in agreement with the general opinion of the early Church fathers. Wiggers, Historical Presentation, 307-308. As to how this mortality may have been connected to concupiscence, consider also the older Jewish view of the yetser ra in footnote 51. In that footnote, notice the dissimilarity with Augustine’s new view of inheriting guilt! 43

For strong cases for different origins of that particular text, see: J. Daniélou, The Origins of Latin Christianity (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977), 63-92. Ibid., "Le Traité De Centesima, Sexagesima, Tricesima et le Judéochristianisme Latin avant Tertullien," VC 25, no. 1 (1971): 171-181. Ronald E. Heine, “The beginnings of Latin Christian Literature,” eds. F. Young et al., The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 131. A.P. Orbán, “Die Frage der ersten Zeugnisse des Christenlateins,” VC 30, no. 1 (1976): 214-238. 44

Cyprian (?), De Centesima, Sexagesima, Tricesima, ed. R. Reitzenstein, repr. J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, Supplementum, I, ed. A. Hamman (Paris: Éditions Garnier Frères, 1958), 54.5-7. 45

Ibid., 54.5-7;62.30; 63.1; 64.11. For more information on this sermon, see Daniélou, Latin Christianity, 171-181. 46

Through this critical analysis I do not try to state that this text did not inspire Augustine. I merely stated that there is a source, which we will mention later in this dissertation, which inspired Augustine to a far greater extent, as this source shows way more similarities to Augustine’s views on concupiscence, than Cyprian’s texts did.

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Ambrose of Milan, who was Augustine's mentor in the Catholic faith, made a comment which might be taken as suggesting a concept of original sin: “Peter’s feet were washed to take away his hereditary sins; for our own are taken away by baptism”.47 However, according to William A. Jurgens, this was just a bad choice of words by Ambrose. 48 The question is whether Ambrose’s words should be interpreted literally or whether the context should be examined more closely. The context of these words does not seem to suggest a belief in original sin. In the same line of thought, Ernesto Bonaiuti writes that he cannot find any of the typical Augustinian dialectic regarding the consequences of original sin and original sin in itself, with its strict materialism, when he looks at Ambrose’s loose assumptions concerning the link between Adam’s descendants and his original sin. 49 Ambrose dealt symbolically with the traces of original sin in every participant by means of water baptism.50 For Augustine’s switch from an allegorical to a literal interpretation, the reader is referred to point 8 of Bonaiuti’s summarized argument, which he will find below. It is not clear from where Ambrose received this symbolic ritual. Some have connected it to an earlier Christian tradition, which was based on the Rabbinical concept of the yetser hara. 51 47

Ambrose The Mysteries 6.32.

48

William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, volume 2 (Minneapolis: Liturgical Press, 1979),

175, ftn. 7. 49

Bonaiuti, “Original Sin,” 160-161.

50

Fox, Augustine, 37. Fox refers us to Augustine On the Sacraments 3.1.7. and Ibid., On the Mysteries

7.32.10. 51

This is understood to be an inborn inclination. Henry L. Novello, "The Nature of Evil in Jewish Apocalyptic: The Need for 'Integral' Salvation," Colloquium 35, no. 1 (May 2003): 52, accessed May 5, 2017, Ebscohost. Esther Gómez Herreruela, “James’ Theology of Sin and Evil in Relationship to the Jewish Concept of the ‘Evil Inclination’” (Paper, Continental Theological Seminary, 2016), 6, 11. Also read her valuable summary of the historical development of the yetser ra-theory in Ibid., 9-19. It should be noted that Augustine’s concept of literally inheriting sin, rather than inheriting a sinful tendency, is certainly not equal to the concept of the yetser ra, which “leads to sin but it is not itself sin” (!). Ibid., 12, 16. This would mean that Augustine’s idea of literally inheriting sin is in plain contradiction with the earlier concept of inheriting a sinful tendency (yetser ra). However, the Augustinian concept of concupiscence may have been influenced by a North-African or European reinterpretation of the Jewish yetser ra-concept. For now, this will remain an interesting piece of speculation as there has been no substantial studies on the North-African and European reinterpretations of such Jewish concepts, as far as I am aware. However, it should be pointed out that, according to Talmudic literature expert Ishay Rosen-Zvi, the earliest form of a sexual interpretation of the yetzer is found in the Babylonian Talmud! For his full argument, read Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the Problem of Evil in

14

This Christian tradition held to the idea of washing away this yetser hara through the ritual of infant baptism. 52 There is a need for research, as the scholarly world does not yet know enough about the Jewish influence on the Christian tradition of the early North-African church. 53 In a conversation with Augustine, bishop Evodius claimed that libido or passion alone54 is the cause of every sin: “It is now clear that passion alone is the ruling factor in every kind of wrongdoing.”55 This idea by Evodius was repeated multiple times in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 102-119 and Ibid., “Sexualizing the Evil Inclination: Rabbinic Yetzer and Modern Scholarship,” Journal of Jewish Studies 60, no. 2 (2009): 265, 269281. In this latter source, on pages 280-281, one can notice the similarity with various Gnostic/Platonic ascetic concepts, in regards to the negative concept of sexual desire, and the desire to get rid of this, so that, hypothetically, only procreation without sexual lust would remain. But notice especially that this ideal of lustless procreation and man’s inability to reach this state in this life, are exactly like Augustine’s views (!), since he “expected that, ideally, intercourse should take place only to conceive children.” Brown, Augustine, 392. Also read footnote 13. Could it be that Augustine (and the North-African church) somehow got indirectly influenced by these Babylonian-Rabbinical views? As interesting as this remark may be, this would take my essay too far. These earlier influences may be interesting to look at for my upcoming master thesis research. For this Bachelor’s dissertation, I am only looking at the direct influences on Augustine’s view on concupiscence (as indicated on page 2 and footnote 4) and which one of them will be the most probable direct influence on Augustine’s development of his theology, in regards to this subject. 52

See Johannes van Oort, “Was Julian Right? A Re-Evaluation of Augustine’s and Mani’s Doctrines of Sexual Concupiscence and the Transmission of Sin,” Journal of Early Christian History, no. 1-2 (2017): 17-18. Ibid., Jerusalem and Babylon (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), 365-371. P.F. Beatrice, Tradux Peccati. Alle Fonti della Dottrina Agostiniana del Peccato Originale (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1978). E. Peterson, Frühkirche, Judentum und Gnosis (Rom-Freiburg-Wien: Herder, 1959), 221-235. 53

Beatrice, Tradux Peccati. van Oort, “Was Julian Right?,” 18. Against the idea of a massive JudeoGnostic influence, we should note that A. Schremer points out that Jews living during the second Temple period were not so much into practising sexual abstinence. This was a rather marginal phenomenon. A. Schremer, “Celibacy,” in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, eds. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2010) , 465-467. Schremer clearly points out to us that, in this regard, the common Jews formed a clear distinction in practice from common Gnostic practices, which might have been practiced very seldomly among the Jewish population. 54

In this context, these terms are the same as concupiscence; read the next footnote for more information on this concept. 55

Augustine The Free Choice of the Will 1.3.8. Cited from Robert P. Russell, The Fathers of the Church, Volume 59 (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 241. In the same source, on the same page, Russell writes the following footnote, from which I believe it is correct to state that the terms libido/passion indicate the same as concupiscence (for this dissertation): “Libido indicates the disorderly and perverse tendency in man’s lower nature resulting from original sin and inclining him to evil. (…)” He seems to have believed that Evodius was talking about Adam’s original concupiscence. Notice the similarity between Evodius idea on this evil inclination, the possible Latin reinterpretation of the Rabbinic concept of the yetser ra (see footnote 51), and Augustine's later opinion on concupiscence, as indicated in the "Augustine's Claims" section of this essay.

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Augustine’s work on The Free Choice of the Will so it might be the case that Evodius was an early influence on Augustine into Augustine’s developing idea that Adam’s concupiscence was the origin of the sin of any of his descendants.56 Evodius tried to convince Augustine into believing that, because of God’s absolute foreknowledge, man sins by necessity. Augustine still disagreed, believing in foreknowledge, while holding that man was responsible for sinning because he had some sort of a free will. 57 Due to all the previous references, I have seen that the concepts of an inclination to sin and a negative view on concupiscence were probably already somewhat present in the church before the time of Augustine. As Peter Brown hypothesized: “Many Catholics in Africa and in ltaly already believed that the 'first sin' of Adam had somehow been inherited by his descendants”.58 This does not mean, however, that this view originated among the orthodox Christians. All previous remarks were not very convincing at all in regards to being the original source for the concept of inheriting sinful, sexual concupiscence. 59 Was there a theory present that resembled Augustine’s physical inheritance of the originator of sin? I will look into different unorthodox views that were present before the time of Augustine, some of which may have influenced his thinking. 60

56

Ibid., The Free Choice of the Will 1.3.8ff.

57

Howard R. Elseth, Did God Know? (Minnesota: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015), 41-43. For more information on Augustine’s opinion of how God’s absolute foreknowledge does not negate human free will, read Lorenzo Dow McCabe, Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies (New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1882), 150. For more information on Augustine’s concept of free will, in this debate, read Edward Matusek, “The Problem of Evil in Augustine’s Confessions” (PhD. Diss., University of South Florida, 2011), 129-133. and Simon Harrison, “Do We Have A Will?: Augustine’s Way into the Will,” in The Augustinian Tradition, ed. Gareth B. Matthews (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 201-202. 58

Brown, Augustine, 390. It is our opinion that a better phrasing would have been that some of the fathers already believed that libido was passed down but, according to Wiggers, they did not speak about a literal imputation of Adam’s original sin unto all of his descendants; a literal inheriting of Adam’s guilt. Wiggers, Historical Presentation, 307. 59 60

I already indicated this thought while I was discussing the pseudo-Cyprian source.

Cyril of Alexandria, an orthodox Christian who lived during the time of Augustine, seems to have made a connection between Adam and the lust of his descendants, as well. In his commentary on Romans he wrote that we have a “nature which fell under the law of sin”; due to the disobedience of Adam, “impure

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2.1.3. Gnostic, Manichaean,… Sources

Augustine was a Neoplatonist61 and Plotinus was the father of Neoplatonism. We see parallels as both Plotinus and Augustine expressed a negative view towards man and concupiscence. According to Plotinus’ disciple Porphyry, Plotinus was ashamed of being inside of his own body. 62 He described man, having descended from his original state, as “an ugly Soul, dissolute, unrighteous: teeming with all the lusts”. Through ascension, man has to try to reach his original state. One of the steps to do so is to “scour and purify himself and

pleasures crept in upon the nature of the flesh”. Here we can already see some similarity to Augustine’s ideas, as Cyril of Alexandria writes about a law of sin, wrought by pleasures which have encroached upon our fallen nature, from Adam onwards. Just like Augustine, he also believed that our human nature carries “impure pleasures”, as a result of the fall, which are hereditarily passed on. However, Cyril denies inheriting culpability for Adam’s sin, since his section on Romans 5:18 explicitly denies having “sinned along with Adam”. Therefore he did not go as far as Augustine. There is no indication, as far as I am aware, that he influenced Augustine. All quotes in this footnote are taken from Cyril of Alexandria Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans cited from Philip Edward Pusey, Commentary on John, volume 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1872), 186. no index numbers were given. 61 62

See Augustine Confessions 7.20. Matusek, “Problem of Evil,” 133.

Porphyry On the Life of Plotinus 1. A similar opinion can be found in Augustine Of True Religion 45.84.: “(…) In the very weakness of visible flesh, where no happy life can be (…)” and still later on in Augustine Retractations 1.14.2.: “They have indeed put off the corruptible body which burdens the soul (…)”. Both quotes are taken from Burleigh, Earlier Writings, 269, 285. Such quotes remind us also of Plato’s own idea of the body “as the prison house of the soul”. Thomas M. Olshewsky, “On the Relations of Soul to Body in Plato and Aristotle,” 1. http://web.stanford.edu/~mvr2j/ucsccourse/soulolshewsky.pdf. Or in the words of Plato’s Phaedrus itself: “We are imprisoned in the body, like an oyster in his shell.” Benjamin Jowett, “Plato’s Phaedrus,” 16. https://www.scribd.com/document/47455992/Phaedrus. This is confirmed by Matusek, “Problem of Evil,” 134. Christopher Fisher, who has a deep knowledge of (neo-)Platonism, wrote that “the main purpose of Platonism was to escape the body. The body was seen as evil.” Christopher Fisher, God is Open: Examining the Open Theism of the Biblical Authors (South Dakota: Amazon, 2017), Kindle Locations 5118-5119, Kindle. This was a common gnostic opinion. We can see similar remarks in other gnostic works, for example in the Coptic text of Zostrianos we read: “You have not come to suffer; rather, you have come to escape your bondage. Release yourselves, and that which has bound you will be nullified. Save yourselves, so that one [i.e. your soul] may be saved”. John D. Turner in The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: the Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts Complete in One Volume, ed. Marvin W. Meyer (The Netherlands: HarperOne, 2009), 583. Although this goes beyond the scope of this paper, it is striking to notice that the Platonists believed the soul to be like a fire, containing a divine particle of light, while the Manichees believed the body to be like a fire. As with the Platonists, so with the Manichees, this body had light locked up inside of it. What might be more useful for this study is that in both the Platonic as the Manichaean view, the soul is imprisoned in the despicable body. In Augustine’s view as a Catholic, the body contained concupiscence. This was also the Manichaean view. For a clear summary portraying the previously mentioned ideas of Platonism, one could read Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians (London: SPCK, 2011), 464. For a clear summary portraying the same ideas in Manichaeism and Augustine’s thoughts, the reader is pointed to van Oort, “Was Julian Right?”, 8. On Plotinus, we can further notice that, according to Christopher Fisher, “Plotinus lived as he preached. He disdained the flesh and earthly desires.” Fisher, God is Open, Kindle Location 5085.

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make himself what he was”.63 One can easily see how this view might have had an influence on Augustine’s negative view of the result of Adam’s fall; the cause of forbidden, evil, lustful concupiscence, which is inherited by his offspring.64 The similarities between Neoplatonist and Manichaean thought can now be explored. Augustine was a Manichaean hearer before he became a Neoplatonist.65 The Manichaean tradition, like Neoplatonism, also held to a negative view of the body and of concupiscence. 66 In his On the Nature of the Good, Augustine described the views of the Manichees and attacked them in a criticizing way. Augustine wrote on the Manichaean interpretation of the human body that “they say that Adam, the first man, was created by certain of the princes of

63

Plotinus Enneads 1.6.5. Plotinus described his views on reaching a higher state than the bodily state repeatedly in different ways. For example: “To attain it is for those that will take the upward path, who will set all their forces towards it, who will divest themselves of all that we have put on in our descent.” Ibid., 1.6.7. Augustine used to see Adam’s fall in a very similar fashion. Later on he changed his view, believing that Adam and Eve did have physical bodies of flesh and blood in the Garden of Eden. Brown, Augustine, 327. Brown refers us to Augustine On Genesis against the Manichaeans 2.19.29. Augustine retracted his former opinion in Ibid., Retractions 2.9.3. He also described his new opinion in Ibid., The City of God 14.26.16-22 and Ibid., On the Gift of Perseverance 12.30. Of course, this will be elaborated on, later on in this essay. A side note can be made in that, just like the Platonists (see the previous) and the Manichaeans, Augustine believed the evils of mortality and wickedness to be present and inevitable in our bodies, as long as we were alive. Lee, “Augustine,” 205. So for Augustine, just like in Plotinus’ concepts (and the Platonist and Manichaean’s concepts), salvation from our sins was equal to escaping from our physical bodies. 64

As another side note, this inheriting of concupiscence was also held, later on, in the East, by Maximus the Confessor, who was strongly influenced by Neo-Platonism, as well. In his Questions to Thalassius, he wrote to a Syrian ascetic saint that, because of Adam’s first transgression, concupiscence was passed on through the sexual reproduction: “After the transgression, the pleasure of sexual reproduction naturally preconditioned the births of all human beings, and no one was by nature free from birth subject to the passion associated with this pleasure”. Maximus the Confessor Questions to Thalassius 61. This might give us some kind of an indication that Augustine might have been influenced by Neo-Platonism when coming to his conclusions on the nature of concupiscence. 65 66

Augustine Confessions 3.6.

According to Lee, Augustine’s concept of concupiscence was derived from the Manichaeans, as he points out that “Augustine’s notion of concupiscentia indeed comes from his understanding of the Manichaean doctrine of evil”. Lee, “Augustine,” 126. Recall the similar strong opinion of Harry Conn in Harry Conn foreword to Holiness and Sin, by Gordon C. Olson. The influence on Mani’s views goes beyond the scope of this dissertation, but for possible influences on Mani, concerning a negative view of everything that had to do with sexual intercourse and marriage, see tenth century Muslim scholar Ibn An-Nadim. Ibn An-Nadim, Fihrist al-'Ulūm. According to van Oort, the most probable influence was Mani’s father who joined a Christian Encratite group and that group itself. J. van Oort, "‘Elkesaites’, Religion, Past and Present IV," (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 416. These Encratites should properly be described as a "Christian" Gnostic sect.

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darkness so that the light might not escape from them.” 67 Theology professor Johannes van Oort observed the dualistic views of the Manichaeans generally as: “In the realms of human unconsciousness, sexual passion churns and strives for gratification: the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit—the light-νοῦς—is held captive in the sinful flesh, which consists of evil matter.”68 “The human body is ὕλη and the ὕλη is ἐπιθυμία, concupiscentia, evil desire and lust (ἡδονή). This manifests itself in the sexual impulse, the libido. Sexual lust stirs up the human person; it operates destructively like a devouring demon and strives for gratification. Lust has its origin in the darkness of the unconscious or semi-conscious; its aim is the conquest of the pure light of the consciousness.” 69 J. van Oort substantially concludes from Manichaean texts that they held to an incredibly negative view towards the body. The Coptic Manichaean Homilies, for example, state that “he who formed you is cursed” , 70 referring to the supposed body’s demonic 67

Augustine The Nature of the Good, 46. Cited from Burleigh, Earlier Writings, 346. A more complicated but very useful description by Augustine can be found in his Confessions: “I, unfortunate one, imagined there was I know not what substance of irrational life, and the nature of the chief evil, which should not be a substance only, but real life also, and yet not emanating from You, O my God, from whom are all things. And yet the first I called a Monad, as if it had been a soul without sex, but the other a Duad,— anger in deeds of violence, in deeds of passion, lust—not knowing of what I talked. For I had not known or learned that neither was evil a substance, nor our soul that chief and unchangeable good.” Augustine Confessions 4.15.24. Cited from “The Confessions (Book IV),” New Advent, accessed April 5, 2017, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110104.htm. That which is to be noted here is that Augustine, as a hearer of the Manichaeans, believed that evil was a substance, which was not created by God. As we saw right before, the Manichees believed that this evil substance was created by the demonic. 68

J. van Oort, “Was Julian Right?” Journal of Early Christian History, 4-5.

69

Ibid. (emphases mine) Notice that Augustine took a step back from Jerome’s view and the Manichaean view by not denouncing sexual activity within marriage, when it is done with the intended purpose of begetting offspring. He did, however, agree with the Manichaean concept that concupiscentia is evil. See footnote 13, under “Augustine’s Claims” for references that support this claim and read Marriage and Concupiscence 2.26.43. To make an extension to the Manichaean view that a married person should denounce sexual activity within marriage, we can state that the Coptic Manichaean Kephalia states that the true follower of the Manichaean religion does not have sexual relationships with his wife. She is as a stranger to him. Kephalia 228.22. According to a critic, just like Jerome who did not have a background in Manichaeism, the Manichees believed in abstinence from marriage, sexual intercourse and procreation. Alexander of Lycopolis, Contra Manichaei Opiniones Disputatio, ed. Alexander Brinkmann (Lipsiae: Teubner, 1895), 7. Alexander of Lycopolis, who had a background in Platonism, lived approximately 20 years after Manes died and had personal contact with Manichaean missionaries. J. van Oort, “Alexander of Lycopolis, Manichaeism and Neoplatonism” in Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, vol. 82, Gnosticism, Platonism and the Late Ancient World: Essays in Honour of John D. Turner (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 275-283, accessed March 20, 2017, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&an=637399.This makes him a valuable witness. 70

Nils Arne Pedersen, Manichaean Homilies: with a Number of Hitherto Unpublished Fragments (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2006), 6.1-9. (emphasis mine)

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origin. 71 It even called the body and its lust cursed and condemned, and the fragmented text seems to have claimed that the body was the cause for the author (of the text)’s weeping and suffering torture.72 Furthermore, it can be observed that, according to the Manichaeans, a demonic being had sown lust into the first male human’s body73 and the Manichaean Coptic Psalm-Book elucidates that the lust of the body daily tricks its author.74 Such views were not only present among the Manichees in Egypt but also among the Manichees in China. As among the Egyptian Manichaeans, they believed also that a demon was responsible for being the source of the human body’s concupiscence.75 The above evidence substantiates the fact that the Manichees understood libido / concupiscence to be something of demonic origin, which was always evil and sinful, and, as something over which no human being could have victory, since it was always fully present in his / her very own body, being unconquerable. J. van Oort describes the Manichaean understanding of sexuality in three summarizing concepts: (1) sexuality is considered to be something negative, (2) sexual desire is the first sin and this sin is hereditary, as a punishment for this first sin, (3) it dwells within matter, which is evil and which is part of the kingdom of 71

For more on the Manichaean concept of the body’s demonic origin, read, for example, Manfred Hutter, Manis Kosmogonische Šābuhragān-Texte: Edition, Kommentar und Literaturgeschichtliche Einordnung der Manichäisch-Mittelpersischen Handschriften m 98/99 i Und m 7980-7984 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992), 84. and Friedrich Karl Andreas, Mitteliranische Manichaica Aus Chinesisch-Turkestan (Wiesbaden: Walter de Gruyter, 1933), 194. For an English translation of the former source, read Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Gnosis On the Silk Road: Gnostic Texts from Central Asia (San Francisco: Harpercollins, 1993), 232. 72

Pedersen, Manichaean Homilies, 6.1-9. (emphasis mine) The reader can ask him/herself whether this betrayed a Manichaean denial of the freedom of the will, as described by Augustine in Augustine Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians 46.1. Read also Eric Plumer, Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 208. on Augustine’s rebuttal of the Manichaean denial of the freedom of the will, in his [Augustine’s] Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians. 73

Hutter, Šābuhragān-Texte, 87-88. Translation: Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Road, 233.

74

Psalm-Book 152,14-17. The reader might consider my thought that Augustine might have actually sung such Psalms, hence brainwashing himself and influencing the way he would, later on, interpret the Scriptures. Augustine Confessions 3.14; 10.49. Augustine mentions a Manichaean song in Ibid. Against Faustus 15.5. 75

Hymnscroll H 21a, 40d and 77d in E. Waldschmidt and W. Lentz, Die Stellung Jesu im Manichäismus (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1926), 101, 104, 110.

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darkness.76 Concerning the essence of these negative views on sex, I can state that one can also see similarities in Augustine’s later writings as a Catholic theologian.77 This might be why bishop Julian, Augustine’s nemesis, expressed the same convictions when he strongly accused Augustine, in the sense that, according to him, Augustine was unable to cleanse himself from “the Manichaean mysteries”. 78 However, what can be concluded concerning the Manichaean influences on Augustine is that J. van Oort stated it well that “even striking parallelism, does not necessarily imply a causal relationship” as Julian seemed to have claimed. 79 In other words, at this point, the Manichaean influence on Augustine is nuanced and not explicit. However, Gnosticism may also have affected Augustine.

When we look at specific Gnostic texts, it is evident there are some examples which clarify the common tendency of a negative view towards sex, generally present within Gnostic sects.80 It was not only present within Manichaeism. 81 First, consider Mani’s own 76

J. van Oort, “Was Julian Right?” Journal of Early Christian History, 9, 15.

77

This was also the conviction of the following scholars (this is not an exhaustive list): Ernesto Bonaiuti. Bonaiuti, "Genesis of St. Augustine," 162. A. von Harnack. A. von Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, volume 3 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1910), 211. A. Bruckner. A. Bruckner, Julian von Eclanum. Sein Leben und seine Lehre (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1897), 66-68. W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (London: Darton, Longman & Tod, 1984), 679. K. Rudolph, Die Gnosis. Wesen und Geschichte einer spätantiken Religion (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 394, 414. A. Adam. A. Adam, Sprache und Dogma (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1969), 141-166. L. Scheffczyk, Urstand, Fall und Erbsünde. Von der Schrift bis Augustinus (Freiburg-Basel-Wien: Herder, 1981), 205. See also van Oort, Was Julian Right?, 15, for a very balanced, wellweighed conclusion on the similarities between Augustine’s writings as a Catholic and the Manichaean conclusions. For a quick comparison, compare the Manichaean views we just mentioned in the main body to "Augustine’s Writings" under "Concupiscence" in this dissertation. Read especially the first page in which it was clearly stated that Augustine believed that concupiscence is God’s punishment on mankind for Adam’s “first disobedience”, as he clearly indicated in his City of God. The reader is strongly encouraged to do so, in case he has no access to the previously referenced sources, as it might already strongly clarify why one cannot help but sense a deep similarity between the Manichaean position on concupiscence and Augustine’s position on the same, as a Catholic theologian. 78

As described by Augustine in Augustine Against Julian 4.42. Julian stated: “If the Ethiopian will change his skin or the leopard its spots, only in that case you will be able to cleanse yourself from the Manichaean mysteries”. See also van Oort, “Was Julian Right?,” 10. 79 80

Ibid., 15.

Some useful sources, clarifying this point would be: B. Thiering, “The Biblical Source of Qumran Asceticism,” JBL 93 (1974): 429-444. Fredrick Fyvie Bruce, “Sectarian Asceticism,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972), 680-681.

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retelling of Genesis, preserved by Muslim scholar Abu'l-Faraj Muhammad bin Is'hāq AlNadim in his Kitāb al-Fihrist, in which Adam is forbidden to lust after Eve: “Then Jesus came and spoke to the one who had been born, who was Adam. (…) He also made him fear Eve, showing him how to suppress (desire) for her, and he forbade him to approach her.”82 This source can be compared to the Revelation of Adam, a clear example of an early non-Manichaean Gnostic text. The writer of this source held to a negative view of concupiscence as well: “I felt a sweet desire for your mother. The power of our eternal knowledge was gone and weakness overtook us, and the days of our life became few. I realized I had come under the authority of death.”83 In this “revelation”, Adam was forbidden to lust after Eve. Adam tells his son Seth that he [Adam] failed in lusting after Eve. The consequence of Adam having lusted after Eve was death. This death was described as being a spiritual death. It made Adam and Eve lose the eternal knowledge of God and it made them appropriate the spiritually dead knowledge of human beings: “After those days, the eternal knowledge of the God of truth left your mother Eve and me, and from then on we learned about mortal things, like human beings.” 84 Substantially, in this work, the result of Adam feeling lustful towards Eve and having sexual intercourse with her, was said to have brought forth death.

81

Consider also the footnote in which I described the influence of such Gnostic sects and concepts on Mani and Mani’s father, according to Muslim scholar Ibn An-Nadim. This shows that such views on concupiscence were already present in pseudo-Christian groups, long before Mani was born, let alone started his own sect. It is possible that this broad umbrella of Gnosticism, which was very present in the cultures of Augustine’s day, has influenced Augustine. 82

G. Flügel, Mani: Seine Lehre und seine Schriften (Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1969), 58.11-61.13.

83

Marvin W. Meyer in Meyer, Nag Hammadi, 348. It should be noted that the context right before the cited text has been lost. 84

Ibid., 347.

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According to Christopher Fisher,85 these texts may have had an influence on Augustine’s views, who, holding to a figurative interpretation of Genesis, kept believing that the original sin was Adam having sexual intercourse with Eve. This interpretation seems to me to be rather spurious, as the part of Augustine’s writing on which Fisher comments, does not literally state this.86 Rather, the inference is that the sin of disobedience was made noticeable by the blushing and need to cover up only, but was not therefore the sex act. A better example of an important pre-Augustinian text stating that because of Adam’s sin, sexual desire and procreation came into existence, would be 2 Baruch 56:6: “(…) the conception of children came about, the passion of the parents was produced”. Another example would be the Revelation of Moses, which holds the idea that Adam’s sexual lust in Paradise is the root of every evil in this world. Lust is described as “the poison of his [Satan’s] wickedness” and “the root and beginning of every sin”. 87

85

For Christopher Fisher’s entire argument, read Christopher Fisher, “The Hellenization of Christianity” (B.A. diss., University of South Dakota, 2006), 11-12. 86

The text by Augustine which Christopher Fisher quotes is: “For it was not fit that His creature should blush at the work of his Creator; but by a just punishment the disobedience of the members was the retribution to the disobedience of the first man, for which disobedience they blushed when they covered with fig-leaves those shameful parts which previously were not shameful. Although, if those members by which sin was committed were to be covered after the sin, men ought not indeed to have been clothed in tunics, but to have covered their hand and mouth, because they sinned by taking and eating. What, then, is the meaning, when the prohibited food was taken, and the transgression of the precept had been committed, of the look turned towards those members? What unknown novelty is felt there, and compels itself to be noticed? And this is signified by the opening of the eyes... As, therefore, they were so suddenly ashamed of their nakedness, which they were daily in the habit of looking upon and were not confused, that they could now no longer bear those members naked, but immediately took care to cover them; did not they--he in the open, she in the hidden impulse-perceive those members to be disobedient to the choice of their will, which certainly they ought to have ruled like the rest by their voluntary command? And this they deservedly suffered, because they themselves also were not obedient to their Lord. Therefore they blushed that they in such wise had not manifested service to their Creator, that they should deserve to lose dominion over those members by which children were to be procreated.” (Italics his.) The point of Fisher’s argument does not flow from this text. See also Maximus Questions to Thalassius 61. for a post-Augustinian interpretation of the first sin of Adam, which is not in line with Christopher Fisher’s idea. 87

L.S.A. Wells, “The Books of Adam and Eve,” in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English: Volume 2, ed. R.H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 146. The end of the verse states that “goodness vanished” but the author of this book does not necessarily hold to a concept of total depravity, as he seems to indicate morally free will options in chapter 18 and chapter 54. While 56:6, which we cited above, sounds very Augustinian, 54:19 sounds strikingly Pelagian: “(…) Adam is, therefore, not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam”.

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While looking into pre-Christian, Jewish texts, I came across Dr. Claus S. Westermann. Westermann admits that there is a difference between church tradition and the Bible, in that original sin cannot be found in Genesis 3. 88 Of course, what is more interesting for this current research is that he believes that Augustine constructed his concept of original sin from 4 Esdras 7:48:89 “O thou Adam, what hast thou done? for though it was thou that sinned, thou art not fallen alone, but we all that come of thee.” 90 Westermann states that this verse depicts the Jewish teaching of the fall and original sin [“erfzonde”].91 That this text holds to a doctrine of original sin is highly suspect. The Ezra text only states “for though it was thou that sinned, thou art not fallen alone, but we all that come of thee”. 92 This fragment does not say anything about inheriting sin. Moreover, the immediate context of the quoted text describes the vanity of this life because of its temporality. Therefore, it can easily be brought in agreement with the generally accepted concept of the church fathers of humanity having been banned from the tree of life and hence inheriting physical death. 93 But whatever the truth may be in Fisher’s statement, it must be stated that, in the end,94 Augustine no longer believed that procreation would not have happened, should Adam 88

Claus S. Westermann, Hoofdlijnen van Een Theologie van Het Oude Testament (Kampen: Kok, 1981), 97-98. 89

Ibid. The original text has 4 Ezra 7:118 but this verse does not exist. It was an error.

90

2 Esdras 7:48. “Apocrypha: 2 Esdras Chapter 7,” Sacred Texts, accessed April 4, 2017, http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/apo/es2007.htm. 2 Esdras is the same as 4 Ezra. 91

Westermann, Theologie van Het Oude Testament, 97-98. The Dutch “erfzonde” can be transliterated as “inheritance-sin”. In the Dutch language it implies a literal inheriting of sin. 92

Sacred Texts. “Apocrypha: 2 Esdras Chapter 7.”

93

For more information on this view of the fathers, see Wiggers, Historical Presentation, 307-308.

94

For Augustine’s older opinion that in the Garden of Eden, there was only a marriage without sexual intercourse, read also Augustine On Genesis against the Manichees 1.20. (We previously referred to Augustine’s Of True Religion.)

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and Eve not have sinned. In that regard, Augustine wrote, while revising one of his statements in his Of True Religion: “I completely disapprove of this notion (…). It leads to the conclusion that the first pair would not have begotten offspring unless they had sinned, as if it were necessary that the offspring of intercourse between man and woman should be born to die. I had not yet seen that it was possible that children who would not die might be born of parents who would not die, if human nature had not been changed for the worse by the first great sin. In that case, if fertility and felicity remained both in parents and in children, men would have been born who were destined, not to succeed parents who die, but to reign with their parents in life (…)”95 Augustine also wrote a similar statement in his City of God, claiming sexual intercourse would have had occurred in Paradise, had Adam not transgressed God’s commandment: “We speak of things which are now shameful, and although we try, as well as we are able, to conceive them as they were before they became shameful, yet necessity compels us rather to limit our discussion to the bounds set by modesty (…). For since that which I have been speaking of was not experienced even by those who might have experienced it—I mean our first parents (for sin and its merited banishment from Paradise anticipated this passionless generation on their part)—when sexual intercourse is spoken of now, it suggests to men's thoughts not such a placid obedience to the will as is conceivable in our first parents, but such violent acting of lust as they themselves have experienced. And therefore modesty shuts my mouth, although my mind conceives the matter clearly.”96 Furthermore, the reader must be reminded that Augustine explicitly denied that the Manichaeans believed in original sin. 97 Therefore, all previous remarks were not totally convincing. A strong argument for the origin of the concept of original sin has been made by Ernesto Bonaiuti. An early source,98 which was later on used as a source of authority by

95

Augustine Retractions 1.13.8. Cited from Burleigh, Earlier Writings, 221.

96

Ibid., City of God 14.26. Cited from “The City of God (Book XIV)”, New Advent, accessed February 12, 2017, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120114.htm. For similar statements on Augustine’s latter opinion on the possibility of sexual activity within paradise, without the fall, see Lamberigts, “A critical evaluation of critiques,” 184. Hunter, “Augustinian Pessimism?,” Augustinian Studies 25 (1994), 166-167. 97

As stated before, this can be found in Augustine Retractions 1.9.6.

25 Augustine, containing the concept of sinning in Adam is “Ambrosiaster’s” Commentary on Romans 5:12.99 The strongest possibility is that Augustine received his view on original sin from this spurious “Ambrosiaster”100 document. This has been meticulously sourced by Ernesto Bonaiuti in his the Genesis of St. Augustine’s Idea of Original Sin. Ernesto Bonaiuti’s argument that the Ambrosiaster text is the most probable source is still the most valuable argument till this day. I summarize his arguments in the following way:101 1. Augustine’s opinion on original sin could not have been taken from Ambrose’s lose statements on a certain connection between Adam, in his original sin and consequent fall, and the human race. 102

98

We do not know the origin of this “Ambrosiaster” document. Ernesto Bonaiuti labels him “the unknown Roman commentator”. Bonaiuti, “Original Sin,” 173. (It is not clear why Bonaiuti thought the writer of the Ambrosiaster document was a Roman. What he probably meant was that the writer wrote in Latin.) This document might be, for example, a Gnostic document (!). Because of its spurious nature, we have put it under the category of the “early gnostic, Christian,… sources”. However, Augustine himself claimed to have thought that it was orthodox bishop Hillary of Potiers who wrote it. It might be that Augustine was again just making up a tradition, when he stated - in referring to the interpretation of Paul being a carnal Christian in the Ambrosiaster document - that Hillary, Gregory and Ambrose already held to the tradition of Paul being a carnal being, as a Christian (Augustine Against Julian the Pelagian 6.23.70.). As we shall see further on in this dissertation, Augustine does the same with the supposed orthodoxy of the denial of limbo. Of course there is no conclusive evidence to state that he did this on purpose, so it is conjecture. However, as we shall see near the end of this dissertation, he totally seems to make up an “orthodox” tradition of the denial of limbo, which goes against the writings of Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. These writings form at least some support for this conjecture and they clearly point out that Augustine’s claim for the authority of the orthodox tradition, was in fact unorthodox. 99

I could not find any earlier Christian source containing the concept of sinning in Adam. This was also the conclusion of Berthold Altaner, Patrology (New York: Herder & Herder, 1960), 458. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, volume 2, 179, ftn. 1. and Ernesto Bonaiuti. Bonaiuti, “Original Sin”, 161f. Furthermore, the author of the “Ambrosiaster” source is spurious and is still up for debate. For the original Latin manuscript see: http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/02m/03390397,_Ambrosius,_In_Epistolam_Beati_Pauli_Ad_Romanos,_MLT.pdf. 100

For studies on the authorship of the “Ambrosiaster” source, check out the following sources: Alexander Souter, A Study of Ambrosiaster (Maine: HardPress Publishing, 2012). Joseph Nirschl, Lehrbuch der Patrologie Und Patristik. (South Carolina: Nabu Press, 2013). Otto Bardenhewer, Patrologie (South Carolina: Nabu Press, 2010). These indicate that Desiderius Erasmus was the first one to start questioning the Ambrosian authorship of this document, in the sixteenth century. There is, however, an older source of doubt concerning the Ambrosiaster authorship: F. Turrianus. An even older source of doubt is Flemish Franciscus Lucas Brugensis. J. van Oort, “Notes on Calvin’s Knowledge, Use, and Misuse of the Church Fathers,” HTS Theologiese Studies 71, no. 3 (September 2015): 7, accessed April 4, 2017, Academia. So far, the quest for its authorship has not been solved conclusively. 101

Footnotes which include the page numbers of Bonaiuti’s document have been added to the following summary. This might make it easier for the reader to follow this flow of thought. 102

Bonaiuti, “Original Sin,” 160-161.

26 2. There are four reasons why Augustine derived his views on original sin from the Ambrosiaster document:103 a. The description of how we sinned in Adam. b. The similarities between their interpretations of Romans 5:12. c. The rigid idea of every human being either a slave of sin or a slave of grace.104 d. A literal interpretation of the Scriptures, which Augustine adopted under the influence of this document. 3. Before 395, in his On the Freedom of the Will, Augustine used to claim that original sin alone is not enough to damn an infant to the lake of fire 105 and he changed from a view that the human race received physical bodies after the fall 106 to a view that human beings already had bodies but after the fall they received an irredeemable corrupt, sinful nature.107 4. Augustine, after he read the Ambrosiaster file, in his reply to Simplicianus, expressed his beliefs that original sin is a material substance which is propagated through inheritance and that mankind is connected to Adam in his original sin and consequent condemnation.108 5. From this document by Ambrosiaster comes the concept of “mankind as of a people condemned”; the massa damnata109 in connection to the mistranslation of the Romans 5 passage: “in whom all sinned”.110 Augustine directly quoted this from Ambrosiaster.111 6. A comparison between Augustine’s development of his views on soteriology and christology during the Pelagian controversy and how Ambrosiaster’s document 103

Ibid., 161.

104

See also Ibid., 172 for an in-depth explanation.

105

Bonaiuti refers to On the Freedom of the Will 3.66. Also compare Bonaiuti, “Original Sin”, 162 to Augustine’s similar (but contradictory) remark that original sin alone is not enough to damn infants to the lake of fire in Augustine Answer to the Pelagians 1, 80. By contradictory, I mean to say, as I wrote before that the text we refer the reader to ‘seems to be a rather contradictory statement; on the one hand Augustine claims that “it does not punish with damnation those who die before engaging in that combat”, while on the other hand he states that “it holds unbaptised little ones enmeshed in guilt and draws them to damnation, like children to anger, even if they die as little ones”.’ 106

Augustine On Genesis against the Manichaeans 2.19.29. This fall into a human body sounds a lot like Plotinus’s view on this matter. Brown, Augustine, 327. Plotinus Enneads, 1.6.5,7. On Plato’s and Origen’s similar view, read Peter W. Martens, “Embodiment, Heresy, and the Hellenization of Christianity: The Descent of the Soul in Plato and Origen” in Harvard Theological Review: 617. See also Ambrose Hexaemeron 6.7.42 for another, more positive view by Ambrose on the relationship between body and soul. 107

Bonaiuti, “Original Sin,” 161-162. Augustine retracted his former opinion in Ibid., Retractions 2.9.3. He also described his new opinion in Ibid., The City of God 14.26.16-22 and Ibid. On the Gift of Perseverance 12.30. 108

Bonaiuti, “Original Sin,” 163.

109

Ibid., 164. See also Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, volume 2, 179, ftn. 3. for a more reluctant but similar conclusion. 110

Bonaiuti, 167.

111

Ibid., 168.

27 describes the same issues show that Augustine based his view on Ambrosiaster’s, indicating the strong similarity. 112 7. He constantly used “Hillary” (i.e. this document) as a source to base his authority. 113 8. Augustine moved from the allegorical interpretations of Origen and Ambrose to a literal interpretation through the influence of Ambrosiaster.114 Whatever the case, and whatever specific conclusions result, it cannot be denied that Augustine and his Catholic predecessors were surrounded by, and eventually influenced by, Gnostic teachings.115 We have seen that it is certainly a possibility that Augustine received his negative views on concupiscence directly from his Manichaean and Neoplatonic sources or from his predecessors, who were influenced by views which originated outside of the pure Church tradition. The significance from the understanding of Augustine’s background of defining original sin as a hereditary result of concupiscence answers the question of his unique theology. It was not a received interpretation of the early church fathers but rather a result of non-Christian sources. This is confirmed by Augustine’s treatment of unbaptized infants as being part of the massa damnata on its way to the lake of fire. 2.2. MASSA DAMNATA

2.2.1. Augustine’s Writings

Augustine believed that because all descendants of Adam inherit concupiscence, they are sinners by nature; they are, in fact, all part of one big lump of sinners. Donato Ogliari described it in a clear manner: “Augustine was adamant in asserting universal 112

Ibid., 170. Bonaiuti stated clearly that “The words of Augustine are the true echo of Ambrosiaster.”

Ibid., 171. 113

Ibid., 170.

114

Ibid., 175. See also Ibid., 173 for some more information on this point.

115

Elaborating on this point would take us off topic. A good starting point, to find out how Gnosticism and Platonism was already accepted in the early Church, is Christopher Fisher’s “The Hellenization of Christianity”.

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sinfulness: all human beings, as a result of the fall, make up the massa damnata in that they inherit Adam’s guilt – in the sense that they actually share his responsibility.”116 or as John H. S. Burleigh paraphrased Augustine’s thought: “All men are made of one lump, a massa peccati [a mass of sin], and some [men] are to be saved, others are to be lost.”117 And in the words of Augustine himself: “But carnal concupiscence now reigns as a result of the penalty of [original] sin, and has thrown the whole human race into confusion, making of it one lump in which the original guilt remains throughout.”118 This massa damnata-concept is therefore a logical result of a theory of hereditary sin. Is there evidence of this aspect in early Christian works?

2.2.2. Early Christian Sources

We have seen in the “Concupiscence” section that Ernesto Bonaiuti showed that in all probability, Augustine received this massa damnata-concept from the spurious “Ambrosiaster” document and that even among the quotes of the orthodox fathers, and the earlier Jewish Ezra fragment seemingly agreeing with a notion of original sin, there is no literal inheriting of sin. If there is no inheriting of the original sin from Adam, it cannot be said of Adam’s descendants that they have been born as part of an Adamite lump of doomed sinners. But is there perhaps, contrary to logic, yet substantial evidence for the massa

116

Donato Ogliari, "Freedom and Necessity: St. Augustine's Teaching on Divine Power and Human Freedom.(Book Review)," The Catholic Historical Review 96, no. 1 (2010): 92, accessed March 27, 2017, http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=25fa187e-dbe3-447b-80f714788474f29c%40sessionmgr120&vid=1&hid=128. 117

Burleigh, Earlier Writings, 375. First emphasis mine. The translation between the first square brackets and the addition between the second square brackets are also mine. The addition is meant as a means of clarifying Burleigh’s intent. 118

Augustine To Simplician – On Various Questions, 2.2.20. Cited from Burleigh, Earlier Writings, 404. Emphases mine. Added “original” between brackets as a contextual clarification. See also Augustine To Simplician – On Various Questions, 1.16. This section also describes “the conception of mankind as of a people condemned”, according to Bonaiuti, Original Sin, 164.

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damnata concept within the catholic Church before the time of Augustine? On the contrary, there are many sources among early Catholic Christians that are contrary to Augustine’s massa damnata-claim. The following early Christian sources establish the earliest Church’s understanding which goes against the concept of a physical inheritance of sin and, consequently, goes against the massa damnata-idea: In his longer version of his Epistle to the Magnesians, Ignatius († 108) clarified his opinion on the difference between one who has an obedient character and the other who has a disobedient, twisted character. His clarification ran as follows: “I do not mean to say that there are two different human natures, but that there is one humanity, sometimes belonging to God, and sometimes to the devil. If anyone is truly religious, he is a man of God; but if he is irreligious, he is a man of the devil, made such, not by nature, but by his own choice.”119 His clarification was a necessity against the Gnostics who commonly held, in his day, that mankind is made up out of a good and a bad nature; one person being good, the other person being evil, by nature and not by choice.120 In this statement, Ignatius explained that in his mind there is no such thing as being automatically a sinner by nature / birth. According to Ignatius, a moral character is formed by one’s own choice(s). Therefore we can extrapolate from Ignatius writings that, in his opinion, there is no possibility for being birthed as part of a mass of sinners, within orthodox Christianity. 121 Note that Ignatius lived in the first century, the century in which the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostle lived (!). Justin Martyr († 165 CE) lived right after the time of Ignatius (second century). Justin was known as the first apologist for the Christian faith. He wrote that “if a man were created evil, he would not deserve punishment, since he was not evil of himself, being unable to do 119

Ignatius To the Magnesians 5 (Longer version). Emphasis mine.

120

Lyman Beecher, Views in Theology (Cincinnati: Truman and Smith, 1836), 54-57. Also pay close attention to the following church father quotes, which will suffice to proof Beecher’s claim. 121

See also Ibid., 57. on this concept of orthodoxy.

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anything else than what he was made for.”122 Hence, in Justin Martyr’s mind, the idea of being a wicked sinner from birth is absent. He reiterates this in clearer evidence of his opinion on this matter: “God has not made man like trees and beasts without the power of election; for he that has no hand in making himself good or bad, but is born so ready made, is no proper subject for the distributions of justice, for neither the good nor the evil are such by themselves but only as they are formed by the hand of destiny.”123 Justin Martyr is stating here that a moral nature, whether good or bad, is acquired over time, during an individual’s life. It is not given to the individual at birth. Hence, Justin Martyr’s statement is contrary to Augustine’s massa damnata-theory. Irenaeus († 202), who was a contemporary of Justin Martyr, was a well-respected bishop within Christian orthodoxy. In his fourth book which was written against various heresies, he wrote: “If some had been made by nature bad, and others good, these latter would not be deserving of praise for being good, for they were created that way, nor would the former be reprehensible, for that is how they were made. However, all men are of the same nature. They are all able to hold fast and to do what is good. On the other hand, they have the power to cast good from them and not to do it.”124 Irenaeus was clearly expressing the opinion that every man is born with a neutral slate and not as a tainted, wicked sinner partaking of the massa damnata. So far we have only looked at patristic sources from the first and second century, as they are crucial for the Church’s tradition. 125 However, for our discussion on Augustine, 122

Justin Martyr First Apology 43. For a similar post-Augustinian remark, read Methodius Banquet of the Ten Virgins 8.16. 123

Justin Martyr First Apology 43.

124

Irenaeus Against Heresies 4.37.2. In this chapter, Irenaeus tries to defend the freedom of the will and because we have a free will, he argues, therefore our nature cannot be sinful or upright by inborn necessity. 125

Since they are at the basis of Church tradition. According to the Ad Fontes-principle, which is commonly attributed to Desiderius Erasmus, more weight should be given to the earliest of church father quotes. Many of these early voices of the church were direct disciples of the disciples of Jesus Christ. These early Christians seem to have been part of a far less deluded Church, which was still fighting against heresies and keeping many of these outside of the doors of the Church.

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concerning the orthodoxy of massa damnata, perhaps the clearest example is found in the words of John Chrysostom († 407), who was a contemporary of Augustine: “That one man should be punished on account of another does not seem to be much in accordance with reason. (…) For the fact that when he [Adam] had sinned and become mortal, those who were of him should be so also, is nothing unlikely. But how would it follow that from his disobedience another would become a sinner?”126 This statement indicates that John Chrysostom held to the common belief that physical death is a consequence of Adam’s transgression127 but he repeated his conviction again and again, that, while we are born mortals, this does not mean that we are born sinners. So, in Chrysostom’s mind, there was no such thing as humanity being a mass of sinners. 128 Therefore we can conclude that since there is not a single undisputedly orthodox Christian before the time of Augustine who supports his claim of massa damnata, the origin of this theory, within the orthodox Church, is with Augustine.129 This concept was either invented by him or he brought it into the catholic Church. In this regard we also have no evidence whatsoever of this exact concept (i.e. the massa damnata) existing within any form of Gnosticism. Hence, the idea that Augustine brought this doctrine into the church from a

126

John Chrysostom Homilies on Romans 10. I added “Adam” between square brackets for clarification. 127

Again, read Wiggers, Historical Presentation, 307-308.

128

This also runs contrary to Augustine’s extrapolation of Chrysostom’s words in his Homily to Neophytes; according to Augustine, Chrysostom did not mean that infants have no sin but he meant that they have not committed any personal sins. Augustine Against Julian 1.6.21-22. Jeffrey J. Meyers, “Babies, Baptism and Original Sin: Augustine’s Understanding of the Theological Implications of Infant Baptism,” 3-4, ftn. 6, accessed April 30, 2017, http://www.google.be/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi9ztO U6czTAhVKJVAKHQekAZcQFggiMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic1.1.sqspcdn.com%2Fstatic%2Ff%2F33 9200%2F4429484%2F1255462202960%2F004Augustine_baptism_paper.pdf. 129

If the reader still has doubts about this claim, he can read Wiggers’ summary on this subject, as found in chapter 22, I. entitled “Opinions of the Fathers before Augustine, concerning Original Sin and the Doctrines more immediately connected with it”, in his book Wiggers, Historical Presentation, 299-326.

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Gnostic group can be ruled out, but, as we shall see, we have some indication that some Gnostic ideas inspired him to form this doctrine. 2.2.3. Manichaean Influence The most probable source for the theory of massa damnata that I have been able to trace is Manichaeism. Within Manicheism, traces are evident which might have led to Augustine coming to believe in the concept of massa damnata. In this dissertation we already saw how, according to the Manichees, the body had a demonic origin. 130 To be more precise, according to Manichaean tradition, feminine demon Āz created the first human pair.131 Into the first male’s body, demon Āz “sowed desire and lust, covetousness and [the urge to] mate.”132 From there onwards, this human pair, through the act of procreation, spawned other human beings who had the same evil lusts present within their human bodies. 133 The similarity between this Manichaean tradition of the hereditariness of sexual concupiscence, from the first human beings, and Augustine’s idea of the massa damnata, inherited from the first human beings, has led some to come to logically believe that Augustine’s idea of the massa damnata was derived from the Manichaeism of Augustine’s past.134 130

See page 15 under “Gnostic, Manichaean,… Sources” under “Concupiscence”. As stated before: for more on the Manichaean concept of the body’s demonic origin, read, for example, Manfred Hutter, Manis Kosmogonische Šābuhragān-Texte: Edition, Kommentar und Literaturgeschichtliche Einordnung der Manichäisch-Mittelpersischen Handschriften m 98/99 i Und m 7980-7984 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992), 84. and Friedrich Karl Andreas, Mitteliranische Manichaica Aus Chinesisch-Turkestan (Wiesbaden: Walter de Gruyter, 1933), 194. For an English translation of the former source, read Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Gnosis On the Silk Road: Gnostic Texts from Central Asia (San Francisco: Harpercollins, 1993), 232. 131

H.-J. Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Road (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 232.

132

Ibid., 233.

133

Augustine The Nature of the Good 46. Hutter, Šābuhragān-Texte, 87-88. As we saw before, according to the Manichaean philosophies, it was the demons’ strategy that humanity would populate so that the light would be further spreaded out among them so that the kingdom of light would never be able to recuperate that light. 134

See also Augustine Marriage and Concupiscence 1, 23, 25. Ibid., 1, 24, 27. Notice that this seems to have been a clear relapse into a Manichaean concept, since, in his early days of being a Catholic, Augustine wrote in his Confessions that he repented of his Manichaean past in that he believed that evil, lustful passions were in the body, as a substance (Augustine Confessions 4.15.24.) and that he did not believe in free will; “[I did not] admit that my mutable substance had gone astray of free will, and erred as a punishment.” Ibid.,

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An understanding as to how Augustine’s Manichaean past influenced his massa damnata-concept might be his parable on God’s separation of the water and the dry land (Genesis 1:9), as found in his Confessions. 135 In this regard, Lee states: ‘The massa damnata whose lust is symbolized by the unruliness of the sea is being contained in order that life may grow in the elect, which is prefigured by the “dry land.” The notion of cosmic order is actually the framework of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination, and is his response to the Manichaean view of the universe as a mixture of good and evil.’136 This might possibly indicate that, firstly, God makes the mass of sinners, as the raging sea (as indicated in 13.17.20) and, secondly, He separates His elect from this raging sea (as indicated in 13.17.21). In favour of this theory, we know that Augustine had already indicated in his Confessions that he believes that all men are born sinners. 137 Hence, Augustine already believed that, initially upon birth, all are part of the mass which is doomed from the womb. 138

Confessions 4.15.26. (Added the text between square brackets, as a means of clarifying the text.) Furthermore, it will most probably be of interest to the reader that, through another way, we can point to Augustine as having relapsed to some extent, in that he went back from taking personal responsibility for his sin of sexual concupiscence, to blaming another nature which sinned in him, just as the Manichaean teachings encouraged him to do. Ibid., 5.10.18. Matusek, “Problem of Evil,” 99-101. (Compare our latest remark with Augustine’s latter teaching on concupiscence, as described in the earlier parts of this dissertation.) Augustine saw already, early on, that such a concept provided the sinner with ample excuses. In this regard, Augustine wrote in regards to Manichees: “(…) you still maintain that the mixture of a little evil prevailed over the superior force and quantity of good. Who that believes this, when incited by passion, will not find here an excuse, instead of checking and controlling his passion?” Augustine On the Morals of the Manichaeans 19.73. As Matusek put it: “Augustine clearly could draw from his own past concerning how Manichean teachings could lead to an abdication of moral responsibility.” Matusek, “Problem of Evil,” 105. In this footnote, we can conclude that the younger Augustine understood the negative influence of determinism on morality. One can certainly make some connection, at least, between the determinism of the Manichees and the determinism of Augustine’s massa damnata-theory. This can be defined as a relapse in Augustine’s mind, concerning the concepts we have just described. 135

Ibid., Confessions 13.17.20-21. That this parable gives us a hint of Augustine’s Manichaean past influencing his massa damnata concept is Lee’s opinion. Lee, “Augustine,” 144. 136

Ibid.

137

Augustine Confessions 7.

138

On the Manichaean notion that “the whole creation became enslaved forever, from the foundation of the world until now”, beginning with Adam, see also M. Waldstein and F. Wisse, The Apocryphon of John: Synopsis of Nag Hammadi Codices Ii,1; Iii,1; and Iv,1 with Bg 8502,2 (Leiden: Brill Academic Pub, 1995), 167. There is an obvious similarity between this view and Augustine’s massa damnata view, in which all mankind is born doomed, from Adam onwards.

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In summary, the influence of Manichaeanism suggests the strongest indicator of Augustine’s massa damnata-theory. It is noted that some, like Johannes van Oort, initially pointed out that the source of massa damnata may lie as well in some Jewish-Christian ascetic tradition. 139 However, J. van Oort became far less hesitant to point to the source of Augustine’s massa damnata as being Manichaean. 140 And, in the end, he was firmly convinced that Augustine derived his massa damnata-concept from his Manichaean education. 141 J. van Oort also noticed that he was not the only one to have come to this conclusion but that many other theological scholars have also come to the same conclusion.142 Therefore, it can be substantially concluded that Augustine’s massa damnata-theory evolved directly from the influence of Manichaean teachings on his life. This is further substantiated with the examination of Augustine’s view of the damnation of unbaptized infants and his denial of limbo. 139

Johannes van Oort, “Augustine and Mani on Concupiscentia Sexualis,” in Augustiniana Traiectina. Communications présentées au Colloque International d’Utrecht, 13-14 novembre 1986, ed. J. den Boeft (Paris: Études Augustiniennnes, 1987), 151–152. 140

J. van Oort, “Augustine on Sexual Concupiscence and Original Sin,” in Studia Patristica XXII, ed. E. A. Livingstone (Louvain: Peeters, 1989), 385-386. 141

A good summary of this evolution of van Oort’s ideas can be found in Paul Rhodes Eddy, “Can a Leopard Change its Spots? Augustine and the Crypto-Manichaeism Question,” Scottish Journal of Theology 62, no. 3 (August 2009): 335. Before van Oort came to the point of certainty, we already see Lee commenting on van Oort’s idea that Augustine’s concept of concupiscence was derived from the Manichees as he points out that “Augustine’s notion of concupiscentia indeed comes from his understanding of the Manichaean doctrine of evil”. Lee, “Augustine,” 126. We can only wonder whether this confirmation gave J. van Oort more certainty to describe Augustine’s massa damnata-concept as being Manichaean. 142

Eddy, “Leopard”: 335. This article points out as well that the same transmission from doubt to “personal” certainty – theology is not an exact science -, in regards to Augustine’s origins for his massa damnata theory, as having been derived from Manichaeism, has also been made by Mathijs Lamberichts and Kevin Coyle. For exact sources concerning Lamberichts and Coyle’s evolution, see Ibid., 336. J. van Oort also refers to Sinnige and Frend but I was personally unable to trace back some of these four previously mentioned sources. As far as I am familiar with van Oort’s works, he seems to be a very honest and able scholar. J. van Oort, furthermore, stated that Ernesto Buonaiuti believed as well that Augustine's concept of massa perditionis i.e. the lost part in the massa damnata theory - is derived from his Manichaeism from his past. He refers us to Ernesto Bonaiuti, ‘Manichaeism and Augustine's Idea of “Massa Perditionis”,’ HTR 20 (1927): 117–127. It is in this context that van Oort referred to Sinnige and Frend as making the same definite statements [concerning the origin of Augustine’s massa damnata concept]. Read also “Manichaeism: Its Sources and Influences on Western Christianity,” in Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times, eds. Roelof van den Broek and Wouter J. Hanegraff (New York: SUNY, 1998), 46–47. J. van Oort, “New Light on Christian Gnosis,” Louvain Studies 24 (1999): 38.

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2.3. LIMBO143

2.3.1. Augustine’s Writings We have seen that Augustine’s views on Concupiscence and Massa Damnata are under high suspicion of whether they were in fact in line with the orthodox tradition. Now we will examine the truthfulness of his claim on the unorthodoxy of the Pelagian view on limbo. For practical reasons we will repeat Augustine’s claim. Augustine’s claim was that infant damnation was accepted from the Church’s tradition, so much so, that it would have been redundant for him to quote any sources to prove this matter.144 It should also be noted that Augustine changed his view (!). Before the Pelagian controversy, regarding unbaptized deceased infants, he stated: “It is idly superfluous to inquire about the merits of one who has done nothing to merit anything. There is no need to fear lest there be a life lived which is neither righteous nor sinful, nor that the judge will be able to pronounce sentence involving neither reward nor punishment.”145

143

Note that we are not looking into whether limbo was brought into the Church’s tradition in a preAugustinian point in time. We are only investigating whether Augustine’s claims, that limbo was an invention by the Pelagians and that the Church tradition clearly denied for the possibility of limbo, are credible. 144

Augustine Sermons 294.2. Taken from Jurgens, Early Fathers, volume 3, 32. It might be the case that Augustine’s opinion was based on the North-African, eschatological opinion that, through water baptism, parents as well as infants, would become part of Christ’s new world order; they were in danger of being condemned, as not being part of that new order. Ferguson et al., Conversion, 37-38. Joachim Jeremias, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (Chicago: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004), 23. But, note that this was Augustine’s latter (!) opinion. See the following part of the main text for telling information. 145

Augustine On Free Will 3.23.66. Cited from Burleigh, Earlier Writings, 210-211. On this passage Ernesto Bonaiuti stated that Augustine claimed that “He [Augustine] insinuates, in a rather indefinite way, that original sin alone is not a sufficient cause for a man, otherwise innocent, to be condemned forever.” Bonaiuti, Original Sin, 162. Augustine clearly stated a rather similar opinion in Augustine Marriage and Concupiscence 1, 23, 25 and Ibid., 1, 24, 27. And he stated a similar opinion when he wrote that “Concupiscence, then, remains in the members of this body of death as the law of sin. It is present in the little ones at birth, though its guilt is removed when little ones are baptised. It remains for the combat, but it does not punish with damnation those who die before engaging in that combat. It holds unbaptised little ones enmeshed in guilt and draws them to damnation, like children of anger, even if they die as little ones.” Augustine Answer to the Pelagians 1, 80. This seems to be a rather contradictory statement; on the one hand Augustine claims that “it does not punish with damnation those who die before engaging in that combat”, while on the other hand he states that “it holds unbaptised little ones enmeshed in guilt and draws them to damnation, like children to anger, even if they die as little ones”.

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This would already refute Augustine’s own claim, as it would show that either Augustine himself invented the idea of a “neutral sentence”, that he received this concept from the Gnostics, or that it originated in the church from one of his predecessors who invented this idea and who was himself influenced by certain forms of Gnosticism. In On Free Will, Augustine himself wrote about an early church tradition, which can be regarded as a source on an early church opinion on the destiny of at least certain unbaptized infants: “Who knows what good compensation God has reserved in the secrecy of his judgments for the children themselves, though they have not had the chance of living righteously, at least have committed no sin and yet have suffered? Not for nothing does the Church commend for honour as martyrs the children who were slain by the orders of Herod when he sought to slay the Lord Jesus Christ.”146 In addition, Augustine refers to the following part of the liturgical tradition: “Bethlehem, do not be sad, but be of good heart at the killing of the holy infants, because they were offered as perfect victims to Christ the King: having been sacrificed on account of him, they will reign with him”. 147 Simply stated, did Augustine move from a view on limbo which was not compatible with early Christian sources, to the orthodox viewpoint? Or was it the other way around? In other words, is it true that the pre-Augustinian, Christian tradition kept no space for a concept of limbo? Or was there, within the church, a certain space for leeway on this particular issue? In the next section, early Christian sources are cited in Augustine’s own works and in different works.

146

Augustine On Free Will 3.23.68. Cited from Burleigh, Earlier Writings, 211. This was also recently noticed by the Vatican’s International Theological Council. Read section 5 of Sanna et al., “Hope of Salvation for Infants,” Vatican. 147

See “Exapostilarion of Matins in the Byzantine Liturgy” in Anthologion di tutto l’anno, vol. 1 (Rome: Edizione Lipa, 1999), 1199.

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2.3.2. Early Sources

The earliest Christian source, in regards to a supposed denial of limbo, which is often misquoted, is Pope Siricius († 399). An example of this is that Pope Siricius is claimed to have ‘insisted on the baptism of infants as well as adults lest "each one of them on leaving the world, loses both [eternal] life and the kingdom."’148 This is a misquote because the context of this partial sentence indicates that Pope Siricius was describing people who have the desire to be baptised. He was not singling out unbaptized infants and as he spoke the following words, he very probably had adults in mind: “(…) lest it should lead to the destruction of our souls if, by refusing the water of salvation to those who desire it, each of them, when taking leave of this world, should lose both the kingdom and life. (…)”.149

Another well-respected Christian, from before the time of Augustine, was saint Gregory of Nazianzus († 390). He described three categories of people: (1) The wicked

148

B.A. Robinson, “Limbo – Catholic Statements about the Fate of Unbaptized Newborns, Infants, etc., before the 20th Century,” Religious Tolerance, last modified December 9, 2010, accessed April 12, 2017, http://www.religioustolerance.org/limbo2.htm. Robinson revers to Kevin Knight, “Limbo,” New Advent, accessed April 12, 2017, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm. However, Knight does not refer to Pope Siricius. It might be the case that he updated his website and removed the error or that Robinson misquoted him. 149

Jacques Dupuis and Josef Neuner, The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church (New York: Alba House, 1996), 540. (emphasis mine). The full quote is: “Therefore just as we declare that respect for the Easter sacrifice [Paschal time] should not be lessened in the case of any person, in like manner we wish help to be brought with all speed to children who because of their age cannot yet speak, and to those who in any emergency are in need of the water of holy baptism, lest it should lead to the destruction of our souls if, by refusing the water of salvation to those who desire it, each of them, when taking leave of this world, should lose both the kingdom and life. Indeed whoever suffers the peril of shipwreck, an enemy attack, the danger of siege or desperation resulting from some bodily infirmity, and so asks for what in their faith is their only help, let them receive at the moment of their request the reward of regeneration that they beg for. This much should suffice for my digression on this subject; now let all priests who do not wish to be wrenched from the firmly-fixed rock of the apostles, on which Christ built his universal church, hold fast to the aforesaid rule.” Ibid. What is more, Pope Siricius was an anti-Manichaean. Louis Duchesne, Étude sur le Liber Pontificalis, Vol. 1 (Paris: Ernest Thorin, 1877), 216. So if the speculation that Augustine might have been influenced by Manichaeanism when forming the concept of his denial of limbo is right (see under “Gnostic, Manichaean,… Sources” under this “Limbo” section of the dissertation), then this would mean that the idea that orthodox Pope Siricius defended the denial of limbo becomes highly improbable.

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brutes, (2) The lazy greedy ones, (3) Infants or those living under tyranny. Concerning the third category he wrote: “Others are not in a position to receive it [the gift of water baptism], perhaps on account of infancy (…) the third will be neither glorified nor punished by the righteous Judge, as unsealed [through baptism] and yet not wicked, but persons who have suffered rather than done wrong. For not every one who is not bad enough to be punished is good enough to be honoured; just as not every one who is not good enough to be honoured is bad enough to be punished.”150 In this previous quotation, Gregory of Nazianzus claimed that infants who had not been baptized would not receive glory / honour or punishment from God, the righteous Judge. According to him, those infants were in a category in which they were not good enough to be honoured, nor bad enough to be punished.151 This could be extrapolated to a concept of limbo for infants, but, it certainly cannot be extrapolated to a concept of infant damnation, as he clearly denied this.

Gregory of Nyssa († 395) wrote: “The premature deaths of infants have nothing in them to suggest the thought that one who so terminates his life is subject to some grievous misfortune, any more than they are to be put on a level with the deaths of those who have purified themselves in this life by every kind of virtue (…).”152 In these words of Gregory of Nyssa, we can see that he ruled out the idea of infant damnation but neither admitted them into a place equal to the virtuous saints.

In summary, throughout our extensive research, we have found no quotes whatsoever suggesting that any of the pre-Augustinian Christians who influenced the Church’s tradition believed in the damnation of infants (!). We therefore can conclude that contrary to what 150

Gregory of Nazianz Orations 40,23. I added brief explanations between brackets, to clarify the meaning of the text. 151

The same opinion can be found in Wiggers, Historical Presentation, 314.

152

Gregory of Nyssa On Infants’ Early Deaths.

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Augustine claimed, the Pelagian position, on the issue of limbo, was the position which was in accordance with the orthodox tradition and not the position Augustine tried to uphold in his later writings.

Furthermore, as far as we were able to find out, there was no Gnostic group, in Augustine's days, nor before his days, which made a proposal on the final destiny of unbaptised infants as being in a place between good and evil (cf. limbo). This, of course, should not astonish anyone, since the question of the existence or non-existence of limbo was a debate confined to the "walls" of the Church universal. Augustine’s denial was a logical consequence of his belief in the sinfulness of all who were part of the massa damnata, including infants.153 We could speculate that Augustine had been influenced by the Manichaean concept of the realms of light and darkness, leading him to believe that there was no middle place for unbaptized babies. Whatever the case, we know that Augustine's utter denial of the existence of limbo went against the orthodox tradition. Therefore, Augustine’s denial of limbo and contradiction with the earliest orthodox discussion of the topic serves to confirm Augustine’s part in the origination of the concept of infant damnation in the Catholic Church. 154

153

As mentioned before, the same logical conclusion was taken by the unauthoritative Latin addition to the answer to the question of original sin at the council of Carthage. See council of Carthage, Latin Canon 110. 154

The damnation of unbaptized infants is not held by the present-day Roman-Catholic church. Read the appendix on page 42 for more information.

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CONCLUSION In this thesis we have seen that Augustine’s opinion that concupiscence was an evil, hereditary stain of original sin was not in line with the agreed-upon tradition of the earliest of Church fathers but there are strong arguments for believing that this opinion was based on non-Christian or spurious sources, the most probable direct source being the “Ambrosiaster” document. On this shaky foundation of the inheritance of concupiscence, Augustine built the idea of the massa damnata. It was a novel doctrine, since it was incompatible with the earlier Orthodox tradition. It was not clear what inspired Augustine to form this doctrine but the most probable source of inspiration is the Manichaean concept of the bodily inheritance of evil lusts. Augustine’s denial of limbo might have been influenced by the Manichean dualism of light and darkness but whatever the case, his claim that this denial of limbo and the positive damnation of unbaptized infants was part of the Catholic tradition, was a novelty to the Church universal. It was unsupported by early sources. This leads me to conclude that Augustine’s threefold philosophical structure of concupiscence, massa damnata and the positive damnation of unbaptized infants was not in accordance with “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3b, NKJV). The lack of orthodox evidence supporting an idea of genetically inheriting sin substantially weakens the basis as proffered by Augustine. My conclusion is believed to have significant implications for this Augustinian doctrine which is still commonly held within quite a number of churches. If there are real issues with the concept of original sin as having been transmitted biologically through procreation, then we need to look for another explanation to explain the question of evil

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within the human race. If man is not a sinner by birth, let alone totally depraved, and if man is, therefore, not part of a condemned mass, does this mean that every man is truly and fully responsible for his own sins, his own repentance and his own faithfulness and holiness towards Almighty God? These are issues the reader and the writer have to deal with, to the best of their abilities. 155

155

As professor Ian McFarland, who is in favour of original sin, put it: “The gospel does not serve the doctrine of original sin; original sin, if it has any place at all in Christian teaching, is legitimate only to the extent that it serves the gospel. (…) Original sin forces us to rethink the character of our integrity as moral agents.” Ian A. McFarland, In Adam's Fall: a Meditation On the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin (Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 213. (emphasis his)

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APPENDIX: THE PRESENT-DAY CATHOLIC CHURCH ON AUGUSTINE’S DENIAL OF LIMBO To add weight to my argument that Augustine’s absolute denial of the concept of a limbo for unbaptized infants was not in line with the orthodox tradition of the Church of his day, the reader might be interested to know that only 223 years ago, Pope Pius VI rejected the Jansenist view on limbo - which opposed the idea of limbo as being a Pelagian fable 156 - by stating that “the doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable that place of the lower regions (which the faithful generally designate by the name of limbo of the children) (…) is false, rash, injurious to Catholic schools.”157 Do I need any more sources of evidence to conclude that Augustine’s “Pelagian fable” conclusion is a false conclusion? Augustine may have imagined that his theories were the Catholic tradition, 158 but, as Anglican priest William John Sparrow Simpson stated: “The church itself has not endorsed the conclusions which Augustine drew”. 159 Therefore, the absolute denial of a limbo for infants is certainly not part of the agreed-upon Roman-Catholic, apostolic tradition. 160 156

Notice that the Jansenists repeated the exact same view as Augustine. The reader is again referred to Augustine Sermons 294.2 in Jurgens, Early Fathers, volume 3, 32. 157

Pius VI Auctorem fidei 26. As can be seen in this papal bull, this was a rebuttal of Pope Pius VI of a dogma which had been drawn up at the Jansenist council of Pistoia. 158

This is similar to how John R. Mabry put it in John R. Mabry, “That Naughty Bishop of Hippo: Disfunctional Theological Innovations of St. Augustine,” Apocryphile, last modified 1990, accessed March 18, 2017, http://apocryphile.org/jrm/articles/augustine.html. In my opinion, this source is not a professional source. It contains errors. The only reason for which I am referring to this source is because it inspired me. 159

William John Sparrow Simpson, St. Augustine's Episcopate (New York: the Macmillan Company, 1944), 106. Simpson was in favour of Augustine and he was a strong proponent of Anglo-Catholicism. Therefore he serves as an excellent example to include in my conclusion to my thesis the voices of the Catholic and Protestant churches. 160

To give two other post-Augustinian examples, Anastasius of Sinai still ruled out the possibility of the damnation of infants in the seventh (!) century, leaving us only with the option of heaven or limbo. Anastasius of Sinai Questions and Answers 81. Also Pseudo-Athanasius’ Question to Antioch’s Leader, even though it is a very spurious text comprised of many incomplete manuscripts, gives us an indication of a postAugustinian belief in limbo. In this text, infants are barred from heaven but they also “will not be lost, for they have not sinned.” Pseudo-Athanasius Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem 101. (For a comprehensive background

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