The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

the will of the Creator has none of the splendor of drapery in Paradise that
it has in the revolt of the angels in heaven, and it stands out, for this reason,
more nakedly, sharply, and legibly in the history of the Fall of Adam, than
in that of the fall of Satan. The littleness of the spirit of sin may readily be
forgotten in the dazzling array of its raiments, or in the baleful dignity of its
mischievous results.
Hollazius defines the first sin thus:--"The first sin of man, or Fall, is
the transgression of the law of Paradise, in which our first parents violated
the divine interdict which forbade them to eat the fruit of the 'tree of
knowledge of good and evil,' being persuaded thereto by the Devil, and
abusing the freedom of will, and thus brought on themselves, and on their
posterity, born of them in the order of nature, the loss of the divine
image,.grievous fault (culpam), and liability (reatum) to temporal and
eternal punishment. The cause of the first sin is not God, but the Devil,
who persuaded, and man who transgressed the Divine law, being
overcome by the persuasion of the Devil, and abusing the freedom of the
will. Our first parents, in the Fall, directly violated a positive law, but
indirectly and virtually, by their disobedience, broke through the restraints
of the whole moral law. The Fall of Adam was not necessary to manifest
the justice and mercy of God."
“This deflection," says Quenstedt, "embraces in its course certain
distinct acts of sin, which may be classed as follows: i. Incredulity,--not
having faith in the word of God. ii. Affectation of the likeness of God. iii. A
purpose springing from this transgression of the law. iv. A carrying out of
this purpose into action." In the Fall of our first parents began original sin.
"It is called," says Quenstedt, "original sin, not because it existed either
from the beginning or origin of the world, or of man, but partly, because it
takes its origin in man, with the origin of each man; partly, because it is the
fount and origin of all actual sin." Tertullian probably first introduced the
term. A distinction is drawn between "peccatum originale originans," and
"peccatum originale originatum." The latter is by preeminence styled
"original sin." Thus "original sin," if not by imputation, yet by some form
of association, passed over to