Old Disharmony
Original Sin: A Cultural History
by Alan Jacobs
HarperOne, 2008
(304 pages, $24.95, hardcover)
reviewed by Amanda Shaw
Original Sin is “an exemplary history,” its author says, “so-called not because it embodies excellence that other historians would do well to imitate, but because it makes its case through examples.” Scholarly tomes, staggering under the metaphysics and theology of original sin, often ignore the lived reality of fallenness and its result in despair or denial.
Alan Jacobs, professor of literature at Wheaton College, attempts to convey that reality through a series of cultural anecdotes. In doing so, he makes the paradoxical case that recognition of our innate sinfulness is a prerequisite for Christian hope and joy.
A Clearly Murky World
Can we sinful creatures possibly imagine what it is to be whole, Jacobs wonders, after discussing Augustine’s and Paul’s understanding of “the disease of the soul” afflicting all of us “children of wrath.” And with Milton he ponders the converse: How could a sinless creature, tempted beneath the tree of knowledge, possibly grasp the meaning of death or evil? “Some dreadful thing no doubt,” mused Milton’s Eve, but what did the Edenic bride know of dread?
In short, how was temptation possible? Jacobs gives no answer; the precise cause of the Fall is not ours to know, but the effect is undeniable.
This effect is not just the illusion of our over-sensitized Judeo-Christian consciences. Plato’s unnamed Athenian conceded the reality of “universal human frailty”—that “infatuate obsession that is bred in men by crime done long ago and never expiated”—and the Chinese sage Xún Zu put it even more bluntly: “The nature of man is evil.” The acclaimed Ulysses had ample opportunity to prove his might, but heroism often succumbed to humanity; on falling prey to Circe and Calypso, the warrior pitifully confessed, “As we are men, we could not help consenting.”
Call it what you will, there is something wrong with mankind, with each and every one of us.
Shrugging off the Burden
What is one to do? One can learn from Adam and shrug off the burden of blame, for which there are plenty of techniques. Augustine saw one in the Pelagians, whom Jacobs compares to the motivational speakers of our own times: “You can do it! You can be like Christ!” Man has the rational power to “come of age” before God, said the proto-enlightened Pelagians; he can emancipate himself with independent acts of goodness.
Amanda Shaw is a graduate of the Catholic University of America, is a junior fellow at First Things (www.firstthings.com). She attends the Church of Our Savior in Manhattan.
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