Influenced by Augustine, the councils of Carthage (411-418 c.E.) and Orange (529 c.E.) brought theological speculation about original sin into the official lexicon of the Church. Augustine fixed the meaning of the basic terms of the doctrine. The belief began to emerge in the 3rd century, but only became fully formed with the writings of Augustine of Hippo (354–430), who was the first author to use the phrase 'original sin' ( Latin: peccatum originale). The biblical bases for the belief are generally found in Genesis 3 (the story of the expusion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden), a line in psalm 51:5 ('I was brought forth in iniqtuity, and in sin did my mother conceive me'), and in Paul's Epsitle to the Romans, 5:12-21 ('Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.)
Original sin is the Christian doctrine which holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature in need of regeneration and a proclivity to sinful conduct. Depiction of the sin of Adam and Eve ( The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Paul Rubens)
