148 THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS 



vidual freedom and responsibility occurred more 

 frequendy than those which demanded emphasis upon 

 man's inherited propensity to sin/ But, in the second 

 place, these partial statements were not developed into 

 theological systems, and both aspects of the truth held 

 their own in general patristic teaching. In particular, 

 with all their tendency to take an optimistic view of 

 human capacity, representative Eastern writers were 

 as free to acknowledge and assert what came to be 

 described as the doctrine of original sin as were their 

 Western contemporaries.^ It was only by evasion 

 that Pelagius escaped condemnation when he appeared 

 before the Orientals at Jerusalem and Diospolis; and 

 the Letter of Pope Zosimus, asserting the catholic 

 doctrine of original sin as against Pelagianism, was 

 signed by the Eastern as well as by the Western epis- 

 copate.^ 



The conclusion of the matter is that the doctrine 

 concerning man's primitive state and fall which I have 

 endeavoured to define and to distinguish from Augus- 



1 Examples are included in Tennant's survey of patristic teaching 

 before the time of St. Augustine: Sources, pp. 275 et seq. 



2 Dr. Tennant says, Sources, p. 328, "And we have seen that, in 

 spite of the tendency, natural to the Eastern mind, to emphasize 

 individual responsibility and free-will, nevertheless the belief in the 

 race's solidarity and unity with its first parent, in the one hand, and 

 in the heredity of moral taint derived from fallen Adam, on the other, 

 was discoverable in most of the Greek Fathers from Origen on- 

 wards." 



3 An account of these proceedings is given by W. Bright, Age of 

 the Fathers, Vol. II., pp. 182-190, 205-215. Cf. J. F. Bethune- 

 Baker, Early Hist, of Christian Doctrine, pp. 316-320. 



