Romans 5:12

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned …”

Romans 5:12

Context

Romans 5:12–21 is the great Adam–Christ section of the Letter to the Romans and is composed with the utmost care. Paul builds a typological parallel: as through Adam sin and death entered the world, so Christ brings in righteousness and life. V. 12 is the introduction of this comparison, opens with diá touto (“therefore”) and, in the classical sense of an anacoluthon, breaks off in the middle of the sentence. Only at v. 18 is the comparison resumed and brought to a close: “as through one man's trespass — so through one man's righteousness.”

In the immediate flow of argument (Rom 5:1–11) Paul has just unfolded the saving consequence of justification: reconciliation through Christ's death, hope in affliction, the love of God poured out through the Holy Spirit. Vv. 12–21 set this saving movement within the wider horizon of the history of humanity and contrast it with the primordial effect of Adam. Paul is not first of all concerned with a doctrine of original sin, but with the universal scope of the saving work of Christ.

The key phrase eph’ hô pantes hêmarton was already disputed in patristic Greek theology. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Cyril of Alexandria and John Chrysostom read it causally (“because all have sinned”); the Latin Vulgate renders it with in quo (“in whom”), upon which Augustine, in the Pelagian controversy, dogmatically built the doctrine of original sin. The exegetical crux is therefore not a Socinian peculiarity, but an ancient tension within the history of interpretation.

Romans 5:13–14 fills out the picture: “For sin was indeed in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.” Paul thus explicitly distinguishes Adam's breach of a positive commandment from the sin of those born after him. This differentiation sits awkwardly with a doctrine in which all those born after Adam bear, through him, the very same guilt — but very well indeed with the Socinian reading, in which Adam opens up mortality as a condition while every personal sin is reckoned by its own measure.

The Socinian core thesis

The decisive point is the reading of eph’ hô. The Vulgate translation in quo turns the Greek particle into a relative pronoun with reference to Adam: “in whom (Adam) all have sinned.” In this way the Augustinian doctrine of original sin is provided with a textual foundation. But Greek grammar does not bear this translation: eph’ hô is a conjunctional expression (cf. Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:4; Phil 3:12; 4:10; Heb 2:18) and consistently means “because,” “insofar as,” or “in that.”

The Socinian reading runs accordingly: death has spread to all human beings because all have sinned — not because Adam has sinned. The verse maintains a double statement: Adam brought sin and death into the world (v. 12a–b: diá tou henós anthrôpou); but each individual human being is reached by death on account of his own deed (v. 12d: eph’ hô pantes hêmarton). The two halves of the verse belong together, but they do not say the same thing.

This reading is supported by the immediately following verse. Rom 5:13 teaches: “Sin is not counted where there is no law.” If the sin intended in v. 12 were original sin, it would have to be reckoned independently of the law — which v. 13 explicitly denies. The sin Paul has in mind must be a sin grasped by the law, that is, a sin personally committed (peccatum actuale). Paul in v. 12 is speaking not of inherited but of actual sin.

Socinianism accepts Adam's role as the primal entry-point of sin and death into the history of humanity. Adam really and consequentially sinned, and through him mortality has become the common human condition. But Adam's deed is not reckoned to each person; every human being lives in the world Adam opened up and sins in it for himself. The universality of sin is an empirical truth, not a juridical act of imputation.

Exegesis: key terms and word-field

Four philological observations decide the interpretation of Rom 5:12 and show why the causal reading does more justice to the Greek text:

eph’ hô — the disputed particle

The phrase eph’ hô consists of the preposition epí with the dative of the relative pronoun hós. In Hellenistic Greek it is used overwhelmingly as a conjunction and means “with regard to which,” “on the ground that,” or simply causal “because.” A pronominal reading with reference to a concrete antecedent (as the Vulgate in quo) is grammatically possible, but improbable in New Testament usage.

The four Pauline parallels decide the question: Rom 8:3 (eph’ hô in context of incapacity); 2 Cor 5:4 (eph’ hô ou thélomen ekdýsasthai: “because we do not wish to be unclothed”); Phil 3:12 (eph’ hô kai katelêmphthên: “for which I was also laid hold of”); Phil 4:10 (eph’ hô kai ephroneîte: “about which you also were concerned”). In all four cases the reading is conjunctional, not pronominal with reference to Adam.

With that the basis of the Vulgate reading is exhausted. If Paul consistently uses eph’ hô conjunctionally, it is methodologically illegitimate to introduce, at a single passage — Rom 5:12 — a pronominal reading only in order to rescue a dogmatic statement. The reference to Adam is moreover syntactically problematic, since Adam is named in v. 12 only far back as henós anthrôpou and is no longer the topic of the words immediately preceding.

hêmarton — the aorist as a pointer to concrete deed

Hêmarton is the aorist indicative active, third plural, of hamartánô, “to sin.” In Greek the aorist denotes the punctiliar, completed deed, not a state. An inherited disposition would be expressed rather by perfect (“they are in a state of sinfulness”) or present (“they are permanently sinful”). The aorist directs the gaze to concrete acts.

Hence the statement is precise: “all have sinned” — in the sense that every single person has, in his life, made himself guilty of one or more sinful deeds. That is an empirical statement about the reality of human life, not an ontological statement about an inherited guilt. Rom 3:23 (“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”) repeats this same empirical finding.

If Paul had wished to speak of an inherited nature of guilt, he would have chosen words like ginomai (“to become, to come into the world as”), hamartoloií gegenêmenoi (“become sinners”) or some form with physísis (“by nature”). The choice of the aorist hêmarton tells clearly against the doctrine of inherited guilt and for the causal reading of personal deed.

diá tou henós anthrôpou — “through the one man”

The phrase diá with the genitive in Greek denotes a causal or instrumental passage: “through,” “by means of.” It produces an effect that passes through what is named; it does not mean “in substitution for” or “in place of.” Adam is therefore the causal entry-point of sin into the world, not the substitutive bearer of the guilt of all.

The language is consistent throughout the context: v. 16 speaks of krima ek henós eis katakríma, “the judgment from one to condemnation”; v. 17 of tô tou henós paraptômati ho thánatos ebasíleusen, “through the trespass of the one, death reigned.” The image is not that of a juridical substitution, but of a historically opened reality. Adam is initiator and gate, not representative.

Sozzini himself explicitly accepts this logic: the punishment set for Adam's sin, namely mortality, touches his whole posterity — but not because they have sinned, but because they descend from him. Mortality is a consequence of descent; guilt remains personal.

thánatos dieléthen — “death spread through”

Dieléthen is the aorist of diérchomai (“to pass through, to spread”) and denotes a comprehensive diffusion. Death has reached all; that is the universal fact. The only question is whether this universality arises through Adam's deed alone or through the personal sin of all — and v. 12d gives the answer: eph’ hô pantes hêmarton.

The precision is striking: Paul does not say he hamártia dieléthen (“sin spread through”), but thánatos dieléthen (“death spread through”). Death is the universal consequence; sin is the universal condition. But the universal condition of sin is not an inherited guilt but a repeatedly enacted deed (hêmarton, aorist!).

Comparison of interpretations

On Fausto Sozzini

The Racovian Catechism, the dogmatic main summary of the Polish Brethren, devotes an explicit philological explanation to Romans 5:12. In response to the classic objection “But does not Paul say in Romans 5:12 that in Adam all have sinned?” the Catechism answers with a precise grammatical analysis that at the same time formulates the central Socinian reading:

In that place it is not said that in Adam all have sinned, since neither the order of the words — because Adam was named far before and is not to be understood in the immediately preceding words — nor the Greek particle eph’ hô, of which Paul makes use, permits this interpretation. Hence those words, which some translators render by “in whom,” ought rather to be rendered by “insofar as” or “because” or “in that,” as is apparent from comparable passages in Romans 8:3, 2 Corinthians 5:4 and Hebrews 2:18: so that Paul says that death has passed upon men because, or insofar as, all have sinned.

Fausto Sozzini, Racovian Catechism, chapter ‘Original sin and free will’

The Catechism argues on two levels at once. First syntactically: Adam is named in v. 12 as the causal entry-point of sin (diá tou henós anthrôpou), but the subsequent eph’ hô cannot refer directly to him, because Adam “was named far before and is not to be understood in the immediately preceding words.” Secondly lexically: the Pauline parallels Rom 8:3, 2 Cor 5:4 and Heb 2:18 use eph’ hô conjunctionally. The causal reading is therefore not a Socinian peculiarity, but the Pauline standard usage of the particle.

Decisive is the continuation of the Catechism text: Racovian Catechism, chapter ‘Original sin and free will’ — “He is, however, speaking throughout of actual sin, as the following words show, when he says: ‘For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law.’ These words namely show that a sin forbidden by the law is meant — which original sin is not, but actual sin is.” The argument is internal-exegetical: v. 13 itself decides the matter, because original sin would precisely be reckoned without a law, whereas Paul has in mind a sin grasped by the law — that is, actual sin.

Striking is the anthropological supplement in the same chapter: Racovian Catechism, chapter ‘Original sin and free will’ — “Through the fall of Adam the nature of man has by no means been corrupted in such a way that he should have been deprived, in what God requires of him …, of the freedom and capacity of choice to obey God or not to obey. … And the fall of Adam, since it was a single act, could not have the power to corrupt the nature of Adam himself, let alone that of his descendants.” A single deed — even that of the patriarch — does not have the ontic power to alter human nature as such; that is a fundamental insight both of the theology of creation and of philosophy.

Sozzini elsewhere frames the same logic in the language of condition rather than of imputation: Racovian Catechism, chapter ‘Adam's transgression’ — “The first man transgressed the manifest commandment of God, to which the threat of death had been attached. From this it further followed that he drew his whole posterity with him into the same bond of death; in adults, however, each one's own offense was added, whose force was then increased through the manifest law of God which men had transgressed.” Mortality comes through Adam (as condition); personal guilt comes through each human being himself (as his own offense). It is precisely this distinction that bears the causal reading of Rom 5:12d.

In his treatise On Justification Sozzini formulates the same position in sharpened polemical form: Fausto Sozzini, On Justification (De iustificatione), Dialogue between John and Christopher, section ‘Grace of God, sin, and rejection of original sin’ — “That invention of original sin or the guilt of parents is in fact a Jewish fable … It would moreover be unjust that we should have to atone for what we have not sinned, since God himself has affirmed that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, but each one shall die in his own guilt.” Sozzini regards the doctrine of original sin not only as exegetically untenable, but as impossible on grounds of justice: a guilt without a personal deed is both a logical and a theological contradiction.

Sozzini closes with Paul's own argument: “Therefore Paul also, when he convicted Jews and Gentiles alike of sin by reason, experience and the testimonies of Scripture, did not accuse the sin of parents or of Adam or a corrupted nature, but imputed guilt to those themselves who sinned” Fausto Sozzini, On Justification (De iustificatione), Dialogue between John and Christopher, section ‘Grace of God, sin, and rejection of original sin’. Paul is thus his own best witness against the Augustinian interpretation of Rom 5:12: Romans 1–3 does not accuse inherited guilt, but actual deeds of Jews and Gentiles.

Overview of Sozzini's writings

Logical arguments

From Greek grammar, from the immediate context, and from Pauline language as a whole, the following arguments arise for the causal, non-Augustinian reading of Rom 5:12:

1. Argument from eph’ hô in the Pauline parallels. Paul himself uses eph’ hô in Rom 8:3, 2 Cor 5:4, Phil 3:12 and Phil 4:10 consistently as a conjunction, not pronominally with an antecedent. A pronominal reading in Rom 5:12 contradicts Pauline usage in every other instance. This is not a detail but a methodologically decisive fact: a theological reading that must be enforced at a single passage against the author's own usage stands on shaky ground.
2. Argument from the syntactic distance to Adam. Adam is named in v. 12a as diá tou henós anthrôpou, that is “far before,” as the Racovian Catechism rightly observes. In the words immediately preceding, thánatos (death) is being spoken of. A pronominal back-reference would grammatically be easier to relate to thánatos than to Adam — but that yields no sense. The only tenable reading is the conjunctional-causal one.
3. Argument from v. 13. Paul explains in the immediately following verse: “Where there is no law, sin is not counted.” If the sin meant in v. 12 were original sin, it would have to be counted even without a law — which v. 13 explicitly excludes. Consequently v. 12 cannot mean original sin, but must mean the sin grasped by the law, that is, personally committed sin.
4. Argument from the aorist hêmarton. The Greek aorist denotes concrete, completed deeds, not inherited states. “All have sinned” in the aorist is an empirical statement about a multiplicity of acts, not an ontological statement about a property of nature. For an ontic doctrine of original sin Paul would have chosen different verbal forms.
5. Argument from Rom 2:6. Paul formulates his principle of judgment a few chapters earlier in unmistakable terms: “God will repay each one according to his works.” Whoever reads Rom 5:12 in the Augustinian way places Paul in an irresolvable contradiction with himself — because a God who judges according to works does not impute alien guilt. The causal reading of Rom 5:12 is the only one coherent with Rom 2:6.
6. Argument from Deuteronomy 24:16. The Torah prohibits, in the absolute Mot-Yumat-law in Hophal, generational punishment in both directions: “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor children because of their fathers; each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” What God forbids in his own law he cannot himself practise soteriologically without having two different kinds of justice. Cf. Deuteronomy 24:16.
7. Argument from Ezekiel 18. The prophetic tradition unfolds the Torah principle dogmatically: “The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father.” If Torah, prophets and apostle teach personal guilt in concord, then Rom 5:12 read in the Augustinian way would be a systematic rupture in the logic of salvation history — an unlikely assumption.
8. Argument from the distinction condition / guilt. The Socinian reading allows Rom 5:12 to be taken in full: Adam really brought sin into the world (condition), through sin death (consequence of this condition). But each human being sins for himself and therefore dies (personal participation in the condition). This distinction completely dissolves the tension between Rom 5:12 and Deut 24:16 / Ezek 18 / Rom 2:6.
9. Argument from Adam's transgression as a single act. A single act — however consequential — does not have the power to alter human nature as such. To speak of an ontically corrupted nature through Adam's fall is philosophically questionable; it presupposes that a punctiliar act can substantially change the essence of a whole race. The consequence of the deed is the punishment (mortality), not a substantial alteration of nature.

Biblical cross-references

The following passages unfold and support the causal reading of Rom 5:12 in the biblical witness as a whole:

Romans 5:13 — “without law sin is not counted”

The immediately following verse provides the internal-exegetical decision. Paul states that sin is reckoned only where a law is present — but original sin would precisely be sin without personal transgression of the law. The sin meant in v. 12 must therefore be the personal deed grasped by the law. V. 13 is thus the decisive internal key against the Augustinian reading of v. 12.

Romans 5:14 — death also over those who did not sin like Adam

“Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.” Paul here explicitly distinguishes Adam's concrete breach of a commandment from the sin of his descendants. This differentiation makes sense only if the sin of the descendants is their own sin, not an inherited identification with Adam's deed. V. 14 confirms the Socinian distinction between Adam's deed as condition and the personal sin of all.

Romans 2:6 — “to each one according to his works”

Paul formulates the Pauline principle of judgment three chapters earlier in unmistakable terms: “God will repay each one according to his works.” If God repays each one according to his works, then he imputes no alien guilt. Rom 2:6 and Rom 5:12 must be read coherently; the causal reading is the only one that preserves this coherence. Cf. Romans 2:6.

Deuteronomy 24:16 — prohibition of generational punishment

The Torah prohibits, in the absolute Mot-Yumat-law in Hophal, generational punishment in both directions: “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor children because of their fathers; each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” What God forbids in his own law is the expression of his juridical character — and this character binds also his soteriological action. Cf. Deuteronomy 24:16.

Ezekiel 18:4,20 — “The soul that sins shall die”

Ezekiel unfolds the Torah principle prophetically and refutes the proverb of collective guilt. Ezek 18:20 (“The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father the guilt of the son”) is the mirror-image formulation of the Socinian reading of Rom 5:12. Sozzini explicitly cites this passage as a key proof against the doctrine of original sin. Cf. Ezekiel 18:20.

Jeremiah 31:29–30 — the end of the proverb of the fathers' inheritance

Jeremiah announces that in the new covenant the proverb “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge” shall no longer apply: “Each shall die for his own iniquity.” If Christ inaugurates the new covenant, then individual responsibility holds all the more in his kingdom. A doctrine of original sin would, precisely in the time of salvation of the new covenant, reintroduce what Jeremiah explicitly announces as overcome.

James 1:14–15 — sin from personal desire

“But each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire; then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.” James identifies the source of sin precisely: personal desire, not an inherited Adamic burden. He thus continues the Torah logic: personal guilt, personal responsibility, no automatic transfer. Cf. James 1:14–15.

John 9:2–3 — Jesus rejects clan guilt

To the disciples' question whether the man born blind or his parents had sinned, Jesus answers: “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents.” By this Jesus rejects not only a particular suspicion of clan guilt, but the very hermeneutical scheme on which the doctrine of original sin is built. Cf. John 9:2–3.

Objections and Socinian replies

Objection 1: Eph’ hô does mean ‘in whom’ — the whole Western tradition has read it this way

The claim of unanimity is historically inaccurate. Greek patristic theology — Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria — already in antiquity read eph’ hô conjunctionally-causally. The Augustinian reading is not that of the early Church, but a later Latin one, triggered by the Vulgate translation and the Pelagian controversy.

Modern exegesis also gives the causal reading broad consensus. Joseph A. Fitzmyer (commentary on Romans, Anchor Bible), Douglas Moo (NICNT) and many other leading exegetes give preference to the conjunctional reading, even where in part they still wish to integrate traces of the doctrine of original sin into their theological interpretation. The question is no longer exegetically open, but dogmatically loaded.

If tradition is to count as a criterion, one must choose: the Greek patristic tradition or the Latin-Augustinian tradition? Socinians appeal to the early-Church Greek reading, which stands closer to Paul's own language. This is not a break with tradition, but a selection among traditions.

Moreover: even a unanimous tradition does not correct the biblical text. Scripture itself is measure and norm; if the causal reading better captures Greek grammar and Pauline usage, tradition must follow it, not the other way round. That is the Reformation principle sola Scriptura consistently carried through.

Objection 2: But Rom 5:15–19 clearly speaks of an imputation of Adam's guilt to all

The verses cited do not speak of an ontological imputation of guilt to every individual human being, but of the salvation-historical effect of Adam as causal entry-point of sin and death. That is the Pauline Adam–Christ typology: as through Adam death came into the world (v. 12), so through Christ comes life (v. 18). Both halves of the parallelism are formulated in the same structural logic.

Sozzini himself explicitly accepts this typological parallel. In the appendix to On Justification he writes: “As all who are born of Adam according to the flesh are subjected to death, although they have not sinned as Adam sinned … so all who are spiritually born of Christ obtain life, although they do not obey as Christ himself obeyed.” The parallel does not carry an imputation of guilt, but the opening of a condition, in both directions.

The decisive word is katethéthêsan (v. 19): “they were constituted” or “were placed,” but not “they were declared guilty in the juridical sense.” They were placed in a situation in which they live as sinners. That is effective history, not imputation. In the parallel with Christ it is correspondingly said: díkaioi katastathésontai hoi polloí, “the many will be constituted righteous” — not a substantial transformation either, but a change of standing.

Whoever wishes to speak of imputation here must be consistent and assert it also in the second half of the parallel: that the righteousness of Christ is forensically imputed to each one. That may be accepted in Reformed teaching, but it has no linguistic basis in the text itself. The typological parallel is a parallel of condition and effect, not of imputation.

Finally: the universality of the concrete effect — the mortality of all human beings — is real, and Socinianism accepts it. What is rejected is the interpretation of this universality as a juridical imputation of guilt. A universal effect can also open a universal condition without a universal imputation of guilt taking place — this is the precise Socinian distinction.

Objection 3: If there is no original sin, why do children die before any sin of their own?

The objection presupposes what it sets out to prove: that mortality can be understood only as punishment. In Socinianism mortality is interpreted not primarily as punishment but as a condition of creatureliness. The Racovian Catechism explicitly teaches that man was created mortal from the beginning, that is by nature, not only after the fall. Adam's fall closed off access to the tree of life and thus made mortality present as an unavoidable fate — but not as a juridical punishment imposed on innocent descendants.

Sozzini formulates precisely: the punishment connected with Adam's fall (mortality) touches his whole posterity, but not because they were personally guilty, but because they descend from him. Mortality is a consequence of descent, not of imputation. It is an anthropological fact, not a juridical act. Thus the death of children remains explicable without imputing guilt to them.

Personal guilt presupposes personal deed — this is the precise statement of Torah, prophets and apostle. Children who die before any personal deed are not personally guilty. Their death is part of the created condition that has become unavoidable through Adam, but it is not a consequence of their own or an imputed guilt. This is the only reading that does justice to the biblical image of God.

The soteriological consequence: children who die before personal sin need no forensic remission of guilt through a baptism or a merit of Christ. God's love embraces them simply because they have no guilt to be remitted. This is the pastoral strength of the Socinian reading: parents need not worry about the eternal destiny of their deceased children, because the presupposition of the worry — guilt — is not present.

Objection 4: Without original sin the universality of sin is inexplicable — why does everyone sin?

The premise that an empirical universality can be explained only by an ontological necessity is philosophically questionable. A universal fact can also be explained by universal circumstances, without any inherited change of substance being required. Every human being is born into a mortal world driven by temptation and shaped by conditions — and every human being actually fails in it. The universality is explained without postulating an ontological inherited guilt.

The Racovian Catechism formulates precisely: “We do not, however, deny that the nature of human beings, through the persistence of sinning, is affected with a certain stain and an excessive inclination to sin; but we deny that this is itself sin.” An inclination to sin — arising from upbringing, habit, culture, creaturely weakness — is an empirically observable fact. But it is not itself sin, but the condition for personal temptation.

This distinction permits Rom 3:23 (“all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”) to be understood as an empirical statement of universality, without interpreting it ontologically as the doctrine of original sin. Paul does not say that all are born as sinners, but that all have sinned (aorist) and stand humbly before God. The anthropological fact is taken seriously without slipping into an ontological over-interpretation.

Finally, the soteriological consequence of both readings is the same: all human beings need Christ's salvation. But they do not need it for the remission of an inherited guilt, but for the forgiveness of their own deeds and for liberation from the dominion of sin that reigns in the world. The causal reading of Rom 5:12 loses neither the anthropological reality nor the soteriological universality.

History too confirms this reading: whoever as an adult makes himself guilty of sin in manifold ways cannot withdraw to an inherited necessity, but must recognise his own deeds as his own. That is the call to conversion that carries the whole Gospel — and it would be unintelligible without personal accountability.

Objection 5: Without the doctrine of original sin the necessity of infant baptism collapses — and with it the Catholic-Reformation understanding of baptism

Sozzini saw this connection very clearly and stated it openly: in his treatise On Justification he explicitly declares that the doctrine of original sin “was introduced by the Antichrist into the Church of Christ in order to secure pernicious teachings: namely the incarnation of God, infant baptism, and above all in order to hold men fast in continual sins.” The theological connection between original sin and infant baptism is therefore not a Socinian construct, but a Socinian observation.

If the doctrine of original sin breaks on Rom 5:12, Deut 24:16 and Ezek 18, then infant baptism loses its main justification. This is not a weakening of the Gospel, but a return to early Christian believer's baptism (Acts 2:38; 8:12; 8:36–37; 10:47–48; 16:33; 18:8; 19:5), in which baptism always follows personal confession. The Polish Brethren, in whom Sozzini's teaching took effect, consistently practised believer's baptism.

The practice of the early Church, moreover, is less uniform than the objection assumes. In the first and second centuries infant baptism was not universally customary; the catechumenate and deferral of baptism until adulthood were widespread (Tertullian, De baptismo 18, weighs explicitly against infant baptism). The link between the doctrine of original sin and the necessity of infant baptism is an Augustinian development, not the unanimous position of the early Church.

The pastoral consequence is not a threat but a relief: parents of children who die early need not worry about their eternal salvation, because there is no guilt to be remitted. The security that infant baptism allegedly provided was in truth a fear produced by the doctrine of original sin, taken away again by the sacrament. In Socinianism the source of this fear is not present in the first place.

Theological consequences

Linked verses

The following passages support, deepen or contrast with the reading set out here:

• Deuteronomy 24:16 — Torah norm of individual guilt; biblical foundation against the doctrine of original sin.
• Ezekiel 18:20 — Prophetic unfolding: “The son shall not bear the guilt of the father.”
• Romans 2:6 — Apostolic principle of judgment: “to each one according to his works.”
• James 1:14–15 — Sin from personal desire, not from an inherited burden.
• John 9:2–3 — Jesus rejects the question of inherited clan guilt.
• Ezekiel 18:20 — Mirror-image formulation of the Socinian reading of Rom 5:12.

Summary

Romans 5:12, read in the Socinian way and with the Greek patristic tradition, runs: “Death has spread to all human beings, because all have sinned.” The Greek phrase eph’ hô is conjunctional-causal, as the four Pauline parallels Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:4; Phil 3:12 and 4:10 attest. The immediately following verse, v. 13, confirms this reading: “Where there is no law, sin is not counted” — but original sin would precisely be sin without a personal transgression of the law.

The Racovian Catechism and Fausto Sozzini's treatise On Justification formulate this reading with precision and consistently relate it to the Torah principle Deut 24:16 and to the prophetic line of Ezek 18 / Jer 31. Adam opens up the condition of mortality (mortality of all as a consequence of descent); but each human being sins for himself and therefore dies (personal participation in the condition). This distinction between condition and guilt bears the whole of Socinian anthropology and soteriology.

What the doctrine of original sin traditionally claimed to achieve — the explanation of the universality of sin, the foundation of the necessity of Christ, the justification of infant baptism — is grounded differently, but no less earnestly, in Socinianism. The universality of sin is an empirical fact, not an ontological necessity. Christ's salvation addresses personal guilt and mortality; it does not have to remit an allegedly inherited guilt in order to be universally effective. Believer's baptism takes the place of a baptism for the remission of guilt in those not yet of age. Romans 5:12 thus remains what it wishes to be: the opening word of a Pauline Adam–Christ comparison that makes the reach of salvation universal, without teaching a forensic generational imputation.