Sin

Sin is the name these books give to wrongdoing seen as more than a fault against a rule or a mistake in judgment. It is a breach in a relation: between the soul and God, between the person and the order of things, or between the self and its own better knowledge. The idea gathers many questions. What sin essentially is, and whether it exists at all. How it entered the world through the fall of angels and of men, and whether it is inherited. How temptation becomes transgression. How guilt is felt as stain, shame or torment. How repentance, penance and grace answer it. Few ideas run so widely through the Harvard Classics. Homer’s sailors sin against the gods, Aeschylus’s houses inherit curses, Augustine anatomizes his theft of pears, Dante maps the circles of Hell, Milton narrates the first disobedience, Pascal finds in original sin the key to man, and the novelists and poets of the nineteenth century still measure their characters by remorse and pardon.

The most searching definition comes from Augustine. He holds that sin arises from an immoderate inclination toward lower goods and a forsaking of the higher: God, His truth and His law¹. Iniquity is the will turned away from God and puffed up². Sin comes from his own will, whereas what he suffers against his will is punishment, not fault³. Dante gives the same thought the form of a doctrine of love. Distorted love turns creatures against their Maker, and pride, envy and wrath are three perverse loves of evil for one’s neighbor^4,5. Pascal traces all sin to a single disorder. Man was made with an infinite love for God and a finite love of self, and after the fall self-love overflowed the space left empty, becoming criminal and immoderate^6,7. He therefore defines sin as a will opposed to God’s known will⁸. Luther locates its beginning in unbelief, the falling away from God⁹. Berkeley insists that sin lies in the will’s inward deviation from reason and religion and not in physical action, so God is not its author¹⁰.

Augustine presses further to the strangest case, evil loved for its own sake. He stole pears he did not need, loving the fault itself and the shame of it^11,12. He delighted in shared wrongdoing, ashamed not to be shameless¹³. He came to read the theft as a perverse imitation of God’s liberty¹⁴. Milton’s Satan makes such love a program. He rejects repentance and declares “Evil, be thou my Good”¹⁵. Shelley’s Cenci exults in fiendish evil and calls conscience an impostor¹⁶.

Not every author grants that sin is what Augustine says. In Homer, Helen’s folly is laid to a god who blinded her^17,18. Hobbes holds that passions and actions are no sin until a law forbids them¹⁹, and Paul had already said that the power of sin is the law²⁰. Hume confesses that philosophy cannot reconcile God’s causation of all actions with His not being the author of sin²¹. Omar Khayyám, in FitzGerald’s rendering, blames the Maker who set the snares and asks man to forgive God²². Lessing reinterprets original sin as early man’s lack of mastery over his actions²³. Emerson declares that “the only sin is limitation”²⁴ and calls the doctrine of depravity a profanation²⁵. Whitman rejects atonement altogether, holding that deeds simply return upon the doer²⁶.

Where sin is affirmed, it is also classified. Dante’s Virgil sorts sins into violence and fraud against God, neighbor and self²⁷. Fraud lies lower than violence because it betrays the love nature sets among men²⁸. Plato’s Phaedo likewise grades crimes by degree and allows that some may be repented and pardoned²⁹. The Koran names associating others with God as the one mighty sin God does not pardon³⁰. Homer’s sailors sin against Athene and are wrecked³¹. The pattern is broad agreement that sin offends something higher than the injured party.

The fall of the angels is the prototype. Dante says part of the angels fell through Lucifer’s accursed pride³². Marlowe’s Mephistopheles attributes the fall to pride and rebellion³³. Milton’s Satan confesses that pride and ambition threw him down and that disdain and shame bar his repentance³⁴. Bacon finds the root of man’s fall in a proud desire for moral knowledge, to judge good and evil for oneself³⁵. Pascal finds it in man’s wish to be his own centre³⁶. Milton draws a decisive distinction. The angels fell self-tempted and receive no grace, while man fell deceived and so shall find grace³⁷.

The human fall is told most fully in Paradise Lost. Satan’s guile works on Eve’s growing longing³⁸. She eats and nature groans³⁹. Adam eats knowingly, overcome by her charm⁴⁰. Dante’s Adam clarifies the offence: exile came not from the taste of the tree but from transgressing the mark assigned⁴¹. The consequences follow in a sequence the poem makes vivid. Adam laments innocence lost and shame and concupiscence gained⁴². He blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent⁴³. Sin and Death build their causeway to the world⁴⁴. The story becomes a pattern for later sin. Milton uses it to argue that we know good by evil⁴⁵. Andersen’s prince boasts he would never have eaten, then yields and must expiate as Adam did^46,47. Browning’s Mildred asks why sin glided like the snake into the lovers’ paradise⁴⁸.

Whether Adam’s sin passes to his descendants is among the gravest questions here. The Psalmist confesses he was sinful from conception⁴⁹, and the Preacher finds no righteous man who sins not⁵⁰. Augustine sees greed, anger and envy in infants, excused only by their weakness⁵¹. He holds that boyhood sins simply grow into the vices of magistrates and kings⁵². His own divided will he calls the punishment of a son of Adam⁵³. Thomas à Kempis teaches that the fall corrupted all men and that the flesh serves the law of sin⁵⁴. Calvin says original sin leaves man no strength to save himself⁵⁵. Sidney gives the idea a famous form: our erected wit knows perfection, but our infected will keeps us from it⁵⁶. Dante’s Limbo shows the doctrine’s hard edge, for its souls are blameless of actual sin yet lost for lack of baptism⁵⁷.

Pascal turns the doctrine into an argument. Its transmission shocks reason, he admits, yet without that mystery man is inconceivable to himself^58,59. We are born averse to loving God and must be born guilty, or God would be unjust⁶⁰. No philosopher has said that man is born in sin⁶¹. Dissent appears within the tradition as well. Malory’s hermit declares that sons do not bear their fathers’ wickedness, each carrying his own burden⁶². Rousseau’s rationalist objects that a reason depraved by sin would undermine all argument⁶³. Locke speaks only of a natural bias of temper in Adam’s children⁶⁴.

Temptation is the hinge between corrupted nature and actual sin. The devil tempts Jesus in the wilderness and is resisted⁶⁵. Thomas à Kempis roots temptation in inborn concupiscence, from which no one is free⁶⁶. He traces its progress from suggestion through imagination, pleasure and evil affection to assent, and counsels resistance at the beginning⁶⁷. On this point there is wide agreement. Pascal cites Augustine to the effect that sin is not consummated unless reason consents⁶⁸. Milton’s Adam says that evil entertained but not approved leaves no blame⁶⁹. Penn is blunter still: temptation is no sin, only being overcome, and consent makes the evil ours⁷⁰.

Bunyan dramatizes the slide. One temptation opens the way to another in By-path Meadow⁷¹, and on the Enchanted Ground the enemy uses weariness near the journey’s end⁷². Milton adds a caution against external remedies: strip a covetous man of his treasure and his covetousness remains⁷³. Consent may become deliberate damnation, as when Faustus signs in blood⁷⁴. It may also be a struggle lost, as when Macbeth weighs the damnation of murder and is spurred back by his wife⁷⁵.

Among particular sins, pride holds first place. Augustine says pride separated him from God⁷⁶. Dante’s proud bend under stones on the first terrace⁷⁷, and as each mark is erased the climb grows lighter⁷⁸. Pascal names pride and sloth as the sources of sin⁷⁹, and Carlyle calls ambition the beginning of sin in the world⁸⁰. The deadly sins parade before Faustus⁸¹. Dante curses avarice as a wolf never filled⁸², and Caxton calls idleness a capital sin and mother of lies⁸³. Murder bears Cain’s mark, from Grendel’s lineage in Beowulf⁸⁴ to the Koran’s account of Cain’s repentance⁸⁵. Dante places the betrayal of benefactors lowest of all⁸⁶. Of sexual sin, Paul calls fornication a sin against the body, the temple of the Spirit⁸⁷. Dante damns those whose reason was swayed by lust⁸⁸, yet he also shows Guinicelli cleansing himself in purgatorial fire⁸⁹.

The Greek tragedies present a different conception, sin as pollution and curse. In Aeschylus old crime breeds a young curse that broods on the race⁹⁰. Murder’s stain cannot be washed away by all the world’s streams⁹¹. Yet Apollo purifies Orestes⁹², and Orestes claims rites and time have cleansed him⁹³. Euripides’ Theseus wonders whether ancestral sins are being avenged on him⁹⁴. Oedipus, who acted in ignorance, still calls himself accursed and polluted⁹⁵, while Artemis distinguishes Theseus’s ignorant fault from wickedness⁹⁶. Shakespeare inherits the image and turns it inward. Macbeth feels all the ocean cannot clean his hands, while his wife thinks a little water will⁹⁷. Later her sleepwalking shows the stain that will not wash⁹⁸. The ancient defilement becomes the modern conscience.

That conscience is pictured often as a self-made hell. After the murder Macbeth cannot say Amen⁹⁹. Burns judges remorse for ruining innocents keener than hell’s lash¹⁰⁰. Byron’s Manfred says no penance can exorcise his sense of sin¹⁰¹, and Lanier says that hell begins in the heart of sin¹⁰². Remorse can harden into despair. Faustus longs to repent, but his heart is hardened¹⁰³, and at the end he cannot call on Christ¹⁰⁴. Claudius cannot repent while keeping crown and queen¹⁰⁵. Milton’s Satan despairs of grace¹⁰⁶, and Bunyan’s man in the iron cage sinned against light¹⁰⁷. Concealment and excuse are another evasion. Augustine once blamed another nature within him and so made his sin incurable¹⁰⁸. Tartuffe argues that secret sinning is no sin¹⁰⁹, and Burns’s Holy Willie excuses his lapses as a thorn sent by God¹¹⁰.

Repentance answers sin, and confession is its voice. The Psalmist is forgiven after the anguish of silence¹¹¹. Augustine defines confession as displeasure with oneself when evil¹¹². Dante’s three steps signify confession, contrition and resolve¹¹³, and Beatrice says self-accusing tears turn the wheel of justice¹¹⁴. Paul distinguishes godly sorrow that works repentance from worldly sorrow that works death¹¹⁵. Manzoni’s Unnamed offers the fullest modern picture of conversion: he sees his sins, shudders and feels joy¹¹⁶, then announces a changed life¹¹⁷. Fra Cristoforo consecrates his life to expiating a murder¹¹⁸. Raleigh warns that repentance cannot restore unjustly spilt blood¹¹⁹. Hume, in a secular key, allows that repentance wipes off crime when accompanied by reformation¹²⁰.

Delay is dangerous. Dante’s Belacqua waits outside Purgatory as long as he lived¹²¹. The Koran refuses deathbed repentance¹²², and Raleigh says those who seek mercy only at their last breath mock God¹²³. The abuse of penance provoked the Reformation. Chaucer already shows repentance measured in silver rather than tears¹²⁴. Luther argues that the whole life of believers should be penitence¹²⁵ and that contrition, not purchased pardon, remits guilt¹²⁶. Pascal, from within Catholicism, likewise insists that contrition and not absolution alone remits sin¹²⁷. Dante’s Guido, absolved before he sinned, is damned¹²⁸, while Cellini receives papal absolution for homicides done in the Church’s service¹²⁹.

Beyond human effort stands grace. The Psalms declare that God removes transgressions as far as east from west¹³⁰ and that none could stand if He marked iniquity¹³¹. The prodigal is received home¹³². The Gita promises that even one of evil life who turns to the Lord cannot perish¹³³, and the Koran pardons those who ask forgiveness without persevering in wrong¹³⁴.

The Christian books add atonement. Paul says Christ was made sin for us¹³⁵, and Luther describes the sinful soul’s sins laid upon Christ¹³⁶. Dante reasons that lost dignity returns only if guilt is paid with equal pain¹³⁷. Milton has Paradise regained by one man’s obedience under temptation¹³⁸. Pascal says that by one man all was lost and by one man renewed¹³⁹, and that our sins are our own while our virtues are Christ’s¹⁴⁰. Bunyan’s burden falls at the Cross¹⁴¹. Grace is thought necessary because the law in the members wars against the mind¹⁴², and because reformation cannot pay off the debt of sin¹⁴³.

Finally, forgiveness passes between persons. Jesus bids his followers forgive a repentant brother repeatedly¹⁴⁴. Manzoni holds that God’s disposition toward us mirrors ours toward others¹⁴⁵. Prospero forgives those who wronged him¹⁴⁶, and Browning’s Mildred forgives her brother¹⁴⁷. One of Eliot’s Indian rulers finds the hardest thing is to forgive himself¹⁴⁸. Poe’s poem closes bitterly on a sin Christ forgives and man curses forever¹⁴⁹.

The questions remain open across these pages. Is sin a disorder of love, the transgression of a law, or a name for limitation? Can guilt be inherited, or does each bear his own burden? Does pollution attach to the involuntary deed? Can men forgive as readily as their God is said to?