Free discloser for Marysecretary; John Cassian is highly regarded in the Orthodox Church as much as Augustine was in the western church. Pelagius believed there was no such think as Original Sin. Neither does the Orthodox. I would be interested in knowing if Cassian believed in Original Sin.
If one understands Augustine and the western view position of Original Sin, then they understand that no matter how much God shines a light into our dark hearts, we will never take that step. God has to spiritually change us to want to take that step. That is what the difference is all about.
St. John Cassian's theology is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is consistent with the teachings of the Desert Fathers, the Cappadocian Fathers and the Hesychastic monks whose doctrine is the backbone of Orthodoxy.
The excerpt from the Orthodox Catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church makes it very clear that God knocks on our doors and we either open our doors and let Him in or refuse Him. We are free by God's permission, and we exercise our freedom in responding to His call as well as in rejecting it.
But God makes the first move. We can either follow or stay behind. That is our decision. God offers salvation to all, even though He knows not all will accept it. God is not partial.
Under whose power do you take that first step, your's or His? He reveals Himself but who has to move?
Ours, of course. We don't have to move. That's the whole point. God gives us a choice; He doesn't make it for us.
Well, they certainly did a lot of "cursing" for being a "local" council
Little dogs bark louder to make up for their size.
Free discloser for Marysecretary; John Cassian is highly regarded in the Orthodox Church
Highly regarded? That's an understatement. He is a Saint in both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.
Pelagius believed there was no such thing as Original Sin. Neither do the Orthodox. I would be interested in knowing if Cassian believed in Original Sin
Of course not. Original Sin, as +Augustine understood it, was largely unknown unknown to the Church for four centuries, some fathers leaning to different degrees in +Augustinan direction notwithstanding.
The Orthodox Church hods that the soul is ill, in need of a spiritual physician, as a result of our ancestral (i.e. "original") sin. +Augustine believed our souls were dead. And Pelagius believed our souls were perfectly healthy.
It is noteworthy to mention that +Cassian condemmned Pelagianism as another form of Nestorianism. The Catholic Church eventually dropped +Augustine's errors and kept those portions of his teachings that were in concernt with the rest of Patristic theology.
A good summary of the Eastern Orthodox faith, where you can find many of these answers is on Wikipedia under Eastern Orthodox Church.
This is what the Orthodox Church has to say about the Orthodox Church has to say about the "Original Sin" (from Russian Orthodox Catechism) with my emphases added:
After Adam and Eve sin spread rapidly throughout the human race. They were guilty of pride and disobedience, while their son Cain committed fratricide. Cain’s descendants soon forgot about God and set about organizing their earthly existence. Cain himself ‘built a city’.
One of his closest descendants was ‘the father of those who dwell in tents and have cattle’; another was ‘the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe’; yet another was ‘the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron’ (Gen.4:17-22).
The establishment of cities, cattle-breeding, music and other arts were thus passed onto humankind by Cain’s descendants as a surrogate of the lost happiness of Paradise.
The consequences of the Fall spread to the whole of the human race. This is elucidated by St Paul: ‘Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned’ (Rom.5:12).
This text, which formed the Church’s basis of her teaching on ‘original sin’, may be understood in a number of ways: the Greek words ef’ ho pantes hemarton may be translated not only as ‘because all men sinned’[1] but also ‘in whom [that is, in Adam] all men sinned’. Different readings of the text may produce different understandings of what ‘original sin’ means.
If we accept the first translation, this means that each person is responsible for his own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression. Here, Adam is merely the prototype of all future sinners, each of whom, in repeating Adam’s sin, bears responsibility only for his own sins. Adam’s sin is not the cause of our sinfulness; we do not participate in his sin and his guilt cannot be passed onto us.
However, if we read the text to mean ‘in whom all have sinned’, this can be understood as the passing on of Adam’s sin to all future generations of people, since human nature has been infected by sin in general. The disposition toward sin became hereditary and responsibility for turning away from God sin universal.
As St Cyril of Alexandria states, human nature itself has ‘fallen ill with sin’; thus we all share Adam’s sin as we all share his nature. St Macarius of Egypt speaks of ‘a leaven of evil passions’ and of ‘secret impurity and the abiding darkness of passions’, which have entered into our nature in spite of our original purity.
Sin has become so deeply rooted in human nature that not a single descendant of Adam has been spared from a hereditary predisposition toward sin.
The Old Testament writers had a vivid sense of their inherited sinfulness:
From a rational point of view, to punish the entire human race for Adam’s sin is an injustice. But not a single Christian dogma has ever been fully comprehended by reason. Religion within the bounds of reason is not religion but naked rationalism, for religion is supra-rational, supra-logical.
The doctrine of original sin is disclosed in the light of divine revelation and acquires meaning with reference to the dogma of the atonement of humanity through the New Adam, Christ: ‘...As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous... so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Rom.5:18-21).
Hopefully, this will shed some light on this issue so that you may understand how this difference emerged. Greeks know their language better than anyone else. +Augustine's knowledge of Greek was poor. That is a well known fact. Many of his translations bore erroneous translations.
Part of the problem is that +Paul spoke in convoluted terms. often saying things that are neither here nor there. Thus, as much as +Paul was instrumental in spreading Christianity and saving the Church from certain demise in Israel, he is also inadvertently instrumental for our confessional divisions and Christianity divided.