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no difference among men in God's sight (iii. 23). All are fallen under his judgment (iii. 19), and have forfeited the future glory (iii. 23). The gradations of sin are determined by the progress of divine revelation; the heathen perish without law (ii. 12) ; revelation of the law brings responsibility, the curse, wrath (iv. 15; Gal. iii. 10). Pre-Christian sins are treated by God with long-suffering (Rom. iii. 25); in view of Christian revelation, there is either grace (iii. 24) or judgment (II Cor. v. 10), either life or death (ii. 16). The connection of sin with the kingdom of Satan seldom occurs; only, deception and temptation are treated as his work (II Cor. iv. 4; Eph. ii. 2). Peculiar to Paul and original with him is his connection of sin with the flesh. He can not mean the identification of the flesh with sense, for sins of a purely spiritual nature he designates as works of the flesh (Gal. v. 16 sqq.). The whole man is represented as sarz, so far as he may be conceived in a religious-ethical sense (Rom. vii. 18). The distinction is formed from the standpoint that the spirit of Christ first makes man what he is by the divine will intended to be (II Cor. iii. 17). Flesh is man who dispenses with the divine Spirit or shuts himself against his influence. Paul is thus enabled to designate the entire pre-Christian development as the carnal or psychic (I Cor. xv. 45 sqq.). But this scheme gains its evident completion by another thought series of which Paul is unmistakably conscious. The flesh is the source of lusts which oppose God's commands (Gal. v. 16; Eph. ii. 3) ; and in this lies its positive significance for the origin of a bias of life against God. The pneumatic law which declares war on the lusts meets with opposition from the other (Rom. vii. 8, 14), which is called the "law in the members" (vii. 23). It is always the Christian's duty after he has been made free to withdraw his members from the service of sin (vi. 18-19). These statements can scarcely be reconciled unless it be assumed that in the flesh Paul saw the gateway for the entrance of sin into the human organism. The natural man is therefore flesh in the twofold sense that he is without the divine Spirit, and so long as this continues the desires of the flesh have the upper hand. A stronger influence on the development of Christian doctrine than the preceding line of thought has been wrought by the Pauline teaching of the deed of Adam and its consequences (Rom. v. 12 sqq.). The object of the passage is to elucidate the power of Christ's obedience by the adverse parallel of the disobedience of Adam with a commensurate significance. As by disobedience death entered the world, by obedience came life. Physical death is meant, but possibly the contrast with the life of Christ gave it a wider significance. The origin and dissemination of sin can not be deduced from the passage; it only states that Adam's transgression was the first sin, not that he produced the condition of sinning. It is to be admitted that in vii. the same is said of the individual's confronting a commandment as of the progenitor in v. The effect of the act of Adam appears different according as the variously interpreted clause " for that all have sinned " (v. 12) is understood; either as an additional circumstance, or, what seems more likely, as a refer-

ence to Adam's act, which would then be designated as a total act of humanity. According to the former, Adam would be only the leader; according to the latter, the totally valid representative or even the type of the human race. Questions are raised rather than answered. What it certainly implies, that Adam's act entailed a continuous judgment on mankind realized in death, does not exceed the view of Gen. iii. represented in late Jewish circles. These thoughts obtained a further expansion by Paul's noted parallelism, which occasioned a further extension of the comparison than the passage immediately had in view.

A striking completion of the Pauline doctrine of sin is contained in the Johannine writings. The totality of sinful life is more prominent. Sin is the rebellious refusal to accept the divine revelation of truth and love (John v. 40); it is essentially unbelief (xvi. 9); love of darkness (iii. 19); guilty blindness (ix. 41); contradiction of the divine standard of life (I John iii. 4). It constitutes a sphere of life, contrary to divine light and life (kosmos), and is attached to things that abide not (ii. 15 sqq.). The enemies of truth in it combine under the prince of this world (John xii. 31), hating the children of light and the light itself (xv. 19) but unable to sustain themselves under the condemnation of the light of Christ (iii. 19). Belief and unbelief originate a certain character, transcending time, so that one born of God seems incapable of sinning (I John v. 18), and one having known the truth who, by denying the same, has backslidden shall not be saved (probably sin unto death, v. 16). Constant need of forgiveness is recognized for the Christian life (i. 8). The Epistle to the Hebrews regards sin as a besetting, impeding power, causing man to stumble (xii. 1); polluting his conscience (ix. 14); separating him from God (xii. 14). Degrees in sin are discriminated as in the Old Testament; such as unintentional errors (ix. 7) and wilful sins (x. 26), among which is apostasy, for which there is no forgiveness (vi. 4-6). The Epistle of James emphasizes that God does not tempt to evil, but sin is conceived as lust, and brings forth death (i. 13-15).

The church doctrine is a continuation of the development of the Biblical only to a very limited extent. The principal thing in Scripture, the determination of evil according to experience by the norm of the revealed divine will, be-

eval View. powers, and its penal consequences upon the human race come to the front. A background of the original state has arisen having little foundation in Scripture. For a fuller presentation of the doctrine of sin in the early Church see AUGUSTINE, II.; PELAGIUS, PELAGIANISM; and SEMIPELAGIANISM. The Eastern Church regarded sin as a weakening of the intellect and of the freedom of the will, and integrates it with the fall, from which it derived universal death. It is uncertain, however, whether the fall represents a becoming stationary at a lower level or a sinking from a higher one. In case of the latter the loss of the image of God could be thought of as brought upon the race