Researched by the Ignaria Editorial Team · Published 2026-04-19
When Augustine developed his doctrine of original sin, he read Romans 5:12 to mean that all humanity sinned in Adam — not only sharing his corrupted nature, but inheriting his guilt. The Greek Fathers had a different category: "ancestral sin" (to propatorikon amartema) meant that Adam's fall damaged human nature, spreading mortality and weakness, but not imputing guilt to individuals who had not personally sinned. This single difference — guilt versus damaged nature — explains most of the East-West divergence on grace (Is it healing or pardon?), free will (Is it bound or weakened?), and predestination (Does God determine all, or cooperate with human choice?). Ignaria's corpus, rich in both Western and Eastern patristic sources, lets you trace this divide directly through the primary texts.
What the primary sources show
Augustine argues that infants are involved in the sins of their parents through Adam, and that divine judgment applies to them before regeneration — the definitive Western statement of inherited guilt as the mechanism of original sin.
Chrysostom interprets Romans 5 as showing that death spread to all through Adam, but insists this represents mortality passed on rather than guilt imputed — the Eastern "ancestral sin" reading that contrasts sharply with Augustine's inherited guilt.