‘Nothing is so easy to denounce, nothing is so difficult to understand.’ So wrote Augustine on original sin. Augustine and his legacy cast a long shadow across the essays that comprise this collection. But a significant part of the story they collectively tell is an overshadowing of that tradition by the legacy of another exemplary figure, John-Jacques Rousseau. Effectively, these contributions begin with the doctrine of original sin as set forth at the Council of Trent, with its attempt to find a median between a neo-Pelagianism that issued from Erasminian humanism and a radical Augustinianism embraced by Protestantism. They range through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the latter being a watershed that elicited defence of the Augustinian tradition maintained by Trent, its moderation by Protestants as well as Catholics, or rejection, tracking all that through the nineteenth century into the twentieth, and ending with the period following another church council, Vatican II. In this larger narrative the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries occupy central space, as debate over original sin is no longer a matter of doctrinal polemic between Catholics and Protestants and becomes enmeshed in a loss of plausibility structure brought about by factors characteristic of later modernity. Advances in the sciences of human origins, evolutionary theories, the rise of historical-critical exegesis and philosophical developments all made their contribution to an erosion of credibility in the doctrine as classically presented.

The eighteen substantive essays are likewise wide-ranging. Debates and developments within Catholicism predominate, but diversity of positions among Protestants are not neglected. Nor are currents of thought stemming from occultism, philosophies and the sciences. Theological communication of the doctrine remains prominent, but the challenges of catechetical instruction are not neglected. The essays include overviews of extended periods complemented by micro-studies of figures who represent larger trends.

The period from the 1680s to the 1760s is identified as an essential one in the process of weakening of the credibility of original sin, reflected in various departures from strict Augustinianism in attempts to moderate the teaching. Original sin remains a foundational doctrine as is evident from French diocesan catechisms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (in the essay by B. Hours) which are still able to rely on the authority of ‘Deus locuta est’. However, theological challenges to the doctrine over that time are surfacing (S. De Franceschi). Y. Krumenacker connects the changing fortunes of original sin to larger discussions concerning the origin of evil and notes a decline in the themes of purgatory and hell, with Marie Huber as representative.

That tendency to moderate is given further substance in a retrieval of the writings of anti-philosophes of the second half of the eighteenth century (D. Masseau) which reveal, in addition to those desirous of remaining faithful to the tradition, conciliators who reflect a tension between a rationalism and a mystery whose existence does not completely satisfy them, and those who occlude sin in their emphasis on the process of redemption. In these writings Masseau detects signs of an anthropological rupture, an accent on moral accomplishment and marginalisation of dogma.

Moving into the nineteenth century, P. Boutry gives an overview of developments within Catholicism, showing both continuity with Trent and notable tendencies to affirm redemption over sinfulness, Paul over Augustine. In one of her two contributions to the volume S. Milbach traces a shift in Catholic apologetics over the course of the century. S. Scholl, in her survey of Protestant thought on original sin of the time, provides a pendant to Boutry. Essays on particular figures of this period particularise the more general analysis, as Abbé Bergier (S. Albertan-Coppola) who argued that infants who die unbaptised do not enter heaven but do not suffer the pains of hell – a longstanding issue in debates over the consequences of original sin. His emphasis on divine redemption and mercy is positioned as a bridge between post-Tridentine Catholicism and that of Vatican II.

Other Catholics pushed back more strongly against the doctrine. Jean-Baptiste Spiess (F. Meyer) opposed it as an invention of the Church which, among other defects, devalues marriage and sexuality. Spiess serves as exemplar which places us in the full dechristianisation of revolutionary France. Original sin was also rejected by the later Lamennais (also by S. Milbach). In the second half of the nineteenth century Pierre-Simon Ballanche was more moderate (I. Veca). In adapting original sin to a strong belief in progress and human perfectibility, however, Christology is marginalised and the dogma of the fall risks taking a secularised and immanentist form. The nineteenth century, especially toward its end, saw notable interest in occultism, examined by J.-P. Laurant.

C. Prudhomme examines complications of an already challenging educational task by invoking the difficulties of missionaries in attempting to translate the doctrine linguistically and culturally to non-Europeans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Transmission of original sin also figures in the two contributions by C. Langlois, who looks at twentieth-century catechisms aimed at children as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) as reflecting current teaching on the subject.

Twentieth-century attempts to accommodate the doctrine to modern science find a representative in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (G. Cuchet). This essay reminds us how integral original sin was to the Catholicism of the time, connected as it was to an ensemble of practices, doctrines, spiritualities and fundamental Christian attitudes – also how quickly that changed post-Vatican II. C. Sorrel examines the responses of episcopal conferences (notably that of France) to a questionnaire fielded by Cardinal Ottaviani in 1966. The responses reflect a malaise regarding original sin, within a tension between the dogmatic and the pastoral, primacy and collegiality, freedom of research and rights of authority. If one watershed occurred around 1760 with Voltaire and Rousseau, a second became manifest towards 1960. E. Parmentier takes the story beyond the council in her retrieval of feminist theologians’ revisioning of classical presentations of original sin.

In a concluding piece Boutry establishes connections among these various essays and situates them in the context of previous studies. This collection has the signal merit of situating original sin on multiple planes of discussion within the historical, cultural and social contexts that shaped its representation. While it necessarily takes large account of theology it ranges well beyond that world to larger horizons. Boutry leaves the last word to Pascal: ‘man is more inconceivable without this mystery, than this mystery is inconceivable to man’.