A Divine Humanity in Sin’s Likeness

Abstract

Chapter 3 examines the development of Augustine’s theology of Original Sin alongside his concurrent description of Christ’s humanity. It traces his move from an abstract account of sin, to a fully historicized description of Adam’s Fall and the Original Sin propagated from it in carnal concupiscence (concupiscentia carnalis), and suggests that a conception of embodiment as a consequence of the Fall is subconsciously present in this shift. The chapter then highlights Augustine’s maturing exegesis of Romans 8.3, in which Christ’s conception of a virgin, without concupiscence (sine concupiscentia), emerges as the dominant motif. Surveying the shift in Augustine’s anti-Pelagianism embedded in both De Peccatorum Meritis and De Natura et Gratia, it argues that his treatment of Romans 8.3 remains constant: Christ ‘in likeness of sinful flesh’ is deployed as proof of the reality of fallen humanity, against Pelagianism’s tendency to reduce the Incarnation to the level of pedagogic exemplarism.