Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book XII/Chapter 5

by Philip Schaff et al.

Chapter V.

That incentives to all sins spring from pride.

This is the reason of the first fall, and the starting point of the original malady, which again insinuating itself into the first man,^[1] through him who had already been destroyed by it, produced the weaknesses and materials of all faults. For while he believed that by the freedom of his will and by his own efforts he could obtain the glory of Deity, he actually lost that glory which he already possessed through the free gift of the Creator.

Footnotes

1. Protoplastum cf. Wisdom vii. 1; x. 1 where Adam is called πρωτοπλαστος. From these passages the term came to be commonly used as the designation of our first parents. So Clem. Alex. Strom. iii. 17: and in its Latin form it is found in the early translation of Irenæus. Hær. III. xxi. 20.