Great as was the respect for Augustine, the harshness of his doctrine was too shock in•to the natural sentiments to meet with lasting acceptance. In the eastern church it never gained a footing, and even in the west it met with opposition. In Gaul, John Cassia'', Faustus, Arnobius, and others, took up a view midway between the views of Augustine and Pelagius, from which they were called Semipelagians. They attributed to man a capacity For good which makes it possible for him, not indeed to merit the favor of God, but to make himself capable of receiving it; and maintained that it is only a certain inborn weakness that men inherit from the first pair. The Semipelagian doctrine found acceptance especially among the monks (in particular among the Fran ciscans), continued, to prevail during the middle ages, and among the scholastics found partisans iu the Scotists. Augustine's views also found advocates among the scholastic philosophers, who, however, added to it many limitations and explanations. Regard ing the way in which original sin is propagated, many held by the Traducian theory, while others conceived it' to be a sort of infection of the soul by the defiled body, or an imputation of guilt to all partakers of the human nature. Petrus Lombardus adhered to Augustine. Anselm of Canterbury conceived original sin to be a want of requisite righteousness, and thought that this want was imputed to all the posterity of Adam, although not in the same degree as if they had themselves sinned. Anselm 's view was adopted by Duns Scotus, while Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas sought to combine the opinions of Anselm and Augustine. Anselm had thought that his theory afforded a_ better explanation of the sinless birth of Christ; and about the 12th c. it began to be maintained that Mary also was conceived without sin, The reformers of the 16th c. everywhere made original sin a leading doctrine, and thus were enabled to combat effectively the Roman Catholic doctrine of the merit of works; while the Catholic church, in the fifth session of the council of Trent, stamped what the Calvinist school would call Semipelagianism as the orthodox doctrine: The reformed churches agreed with the Lutheran on the point of original sin. In this they followed Calvin rather than Zwingli, who looked upon it as an evil or disease, and as becoming sin only when a commandment is transgressed. The Arminians and Soci aims, on the other hand, denied the doctrine of hereditary sin in the ecclesiastical sense. The Mennonities spoke of a loss of the divine image in consequence of the fall of Adam, but still asserted the free-will of man. The Quakers rejected the name of original sin altogether; they held that there is a germ of sin in man, from which imputable sin springs, and that, however corrupt, he has still the susceptibility of being awakened to the inward light. The whole Protestant church held, besides, that Jesus alone was free
from sin, both original and actual. The Roman Catholic church ascribed this attribute also to Mary, though no public and distinct declaration on the point was given by the council of Trent. SCC IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
The harshness of the Augustinian dogma led, at time of th6 reformation, to keen controversies; Erasmus disputed the point with Luther, and would only admit a weak ness of the free-will arising from origmal sin, and by no means a complete annihilation of it. From that time the doctrine in Gerniany continued to be variously attieked and defended. It has been discussed by the schools of philosophy. Kant showed the moral signification of the dogma, and made out original sin to be a propensity to evil inherent in man. The Schelling-liegel school, again explained it as the finite nature with which the individual is born. 1.11 ream, times, the theologians of the old and strictly ordtothx tendencies, such as Olshausen, Tholuck,Hengstenberg, and others, have come forward as adherents and defenders of the Augustinian doctrine; while the more liberal theologians modify it in various ways, not admitting any moral inborn corruption aris ing- from the fall, but only a weakness in man's nature for the knowledge and perfor mance of good. Ilow far, and with what differences, the extreme Augustin.an view is held by the churches of England and Scotland, will be seen from the following extracts from the Articles and the Westnzinster Confession of Faith. • From Art. ix. of the Articles: sin staudeth not in the follow ing of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk); but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into the world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." From chap. vi. of the Westminster Confession: "By this sin" (1. e., the eating of the forbidden fruit), "they" (i. e., our first parents) "fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became decal in sin, and wholly defiled in all the facul ties and parts of soul and body. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their pos terity, descending from them by ordinary generation. From this original corruption, whereby we are 'utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.