Summary

Ancestral Sin (προπατορικὸν ἁμάρτημα) is the Orthodox account of the Fall and its inheritance. Unlike the Western/Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin, which holds that Adam's personal guilt is transmitted to all his descendants, the Orthodox view holds that what is inherited is the consequence of the Fall — mortality, corruption, and a fractured human nature prone to sin — not Adam's guilt itself. Each person is born into a broken condition but is not held personally culpable for Adam's act.

Key Points

• The prohibition (Gen 2:17) made obedience, not the fruit itself, the real issue — the text never names the fruit as an apple; that identification comes later from a Latin pun (malum = "evil" / mālum = "apple") that stuck in Western art and literature
• The temptation's core was the promise "you will be like God" (Gen 3:5) — read as an attempt to grasp at divinity rather than receive it through communion and obedience (see concept_theosis for the positive, proper form of this same goal)
• Confronted by God, Adam blames Eve (and implicitly God — "the woman you gave me"), and Eve blames the serpent (Gen 3:12-13) — neither confesses or repents
• The expulsion (Gen 3:22-24) is framed as protective rather than purely punitive: God removes them so they will not also eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in their fallen, unrepentant state
• Western (Augustinian) view: Adam's guilt itself is inherited — humanity is born already guilty
• Eastern Orthodox (Ancestral Sin) view: what's inherited is mortality and corruption, not personal guilt — this shapes Orthodox understanding of baptism, death, and theosis differently from the Western model

The Sequence

Grasping at God-likeness   → temptation: "you will be like God" (Gen 3:5)
Shame and hiding           → Gen 3:7-8
Confronted by God          → Gen 3:9-11
Blame-shifting, not        → Adam blames Eve/God; Eve blames the serpent (Gen 3:12-13)
  repentance
Expulsion                  → protective, not purely punitive (Gen 3:22-24)

Patristic commentary treats the failure to repent at the confrontation stage as decisive — the implication drawn by several Fathers is that repentance in that moment might have changed the outcome.

Patristic Material

St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis (preached Antioch, c. 385-388 AD)

• Diagnoses the root of the fall as rhathumia — indifference, carelessness, or sloth — rather than a single dramatic act of pride; carelessness opened the door.
• On Eve: her willingness to even enter into dialogue with the serpent was itself the first misstep — temptation must be refused at the root, not negotiated with.
• On Adam's blame-shifting (Hom. 54 on Acts): even though Eve gave him the fruit, Adam should have refused her, and so he himself was truly responsible.
• On God's response (Homily 18, commenting on Gen 3:20-22): frames the confrontation as mercy, not just judgment — "the loving kindness of the Judge," "an examination conducted in a spirit of great goodness" — noting the differing treatment of the deceiver (serpent) versus the deceived (Adam and Eve).
• Elsewhere, using Cain's case to make the same point about repentance: the moment of confrontation was the moment to confess, kneel, and ask pardon — repentance offered too late does no good.

St. Didymus the Blind, Commentary on Genesis — observes more generally that it is characteristic of those in sin to blame others, reinforcing that the blame-shifting itself (not just the eating) is treated as morally significant.

St. Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis (Sec. 3.14) / Hymns on Paradise (c. 4th century)

• Reads their nakedness as the loss of a garment of divine glory they had originally worn, not mere physical exposure — once stripped of it by the transgression, they felt shame and rushed to cover themselves with leaves.
• In the Hymns on Paradise: the "opened eyes" Satan promised did not deliver god-like power — instead Adam suddenly saw God's glory, realized he did not possess it, and felt shame and insignificance by comparison.
• Frames the deeper cause as a loss of focus: Eve and Adam lost their focus on God and grasped for things for themselves apart from God — the same "grasping vs. receiving" framework central to Orthodox soteriology.

Cross-References

• concept_theosis — grasping vs. receiving is the same axis on which theosis turns; the Fall is a failed, self-willed theosis, while the Orthodox path to actual union with God is received through humility, asceticism, and the Mysteries