El pecado es una de las categorías fundamentales de la simbólica del mal: por una parte, se trata de un concepto clave de moralidades de diferentes épocas y latitudes. Las reflexiones de Paul Ricoeur son una referencia imprescindible al respecto. Recientemente, desde la filología clásica, David Konstan se aboca al examen de las facetas del pecado en la tradición occidental. En palabras del autor:

The argument of this short book is easy to state: sin begins with the Bible. And, in one sense, it ends there. There is no comparable concept in the surrounding Greek and Roman world [...] If by sin we mean something like violating the law of God (and this is the most common definition), then the idea of sin is certainly present in classical texts as well as in the Bible [...] But the fact is that there is a sense of sin that is specific to the Bible, both the Hebrew scriptures and (in a somewhat different form) the New Testament [...] Yet this conception of sin is fundamental to the Bible, and not a mere nuance or marginal notion. Thus, the project of recovering the original meaning of sin, as I hope to do in this book, obviously has large implications for Judaism and Christianity alike (p. viii).

En el primer capítulo, “The Greco-Roman World: The Unwritten Laws of the Gods” (pp. 1-32), el autor sigue una estrategia doble. Al inicio se aboca meticulosamente al análisis de las palabras que en griego podrían ser asociadas al concepto de “pecado” y que incluso han sido traducidas así. De Homero en adelante, los términos examinados son: atasthalia, atê, hamartia o hamartêma. Posteriormente se detiene en la teoría griega de las leyes no escritas de los dioses que subyace principal, pero no exclusivamente, en la tragedia de Sófocles y en los escritos socráticos:

Clearly, there existed a notion of sin in the classical world, if by ‘sin’ is meant ‘the voluntary departure of a moral agent from a rule of rectitude or duty, prescribed by God’ (King James Version Dictionary) or ‘a reprehensible act by which a person consciously contravenes a divine law or commandment.’ The testimony of Sophocles’ Antigone and related texts suffices to prove the point. If, however, we extend the idea of sin to include such concepts as guilt, conscience, and remorse, not to mention confession and divine forgiveness, which play so central a role, as we shall see, in the Judeo-Christian conception of sin, then we may doubt whether a comparable conception emerged in the pagan traditions (p. 31).

En el segundo capítulo, “The Hebrew Bible: Chasing after Foreign Gods” (pp. 33-75), se aborda otro de los elementos fundamentales del campo semántico histórico del “pecado” desde el mundo hebreo. El concepto en cuestión es ḥaṭa’ y se presta peculiar atención a la Biblia hebrea o Tanakh:

In the Tanakh the word that is most commonly rendered as ‘sin’ is ḥaṭa’ […] There are, to be sure, many Hebrew terms corresponding to wickedness, evil, iniquity, wrongdoing, and the various other words that are employed in rendering the Bible into English [...] The first occurrence of ḥaṭa’ in the Tanakh is found in God’s warning to Cain that sin lurks at his door and seeks to rule him (Genesis 4:7 [...]) The sin is his intended murder of Abel; unlike his parents, Cain is fully aware that slaying his brother is wicked and indeed sinful, and there is no question of ignorance of good and evil (pp. 36-38).

En el tercer capítulo, “The New Testament: Jesus’ Sense of Sin” (pp. 77-121), se rastrea la evolución del concepto en cuestión dentro de la literatura bíblica extendida. Así como ya se había mencionado la noción de ḥaṭa’ en la Tanakh, en el Nuevo Testamento es de primordial importancia el concepto hamartia:

As in the Hebrew Bible and in English, there are various words in Greek that indicate evil or iniquity, for example, ponêron, kakon, rhadiourgia, adikia, anomia, skandalon, planê, alisgêma, and paraptôma. These terms, which are variously rendered in English, refer to vices or transgressions, but usually do not bear the relation to forgiveness as hamartia […] Contrariwise, where forgiveness is not mentioned, another term often substitutes for hamartia, e.g. skandalizein or “cause to stumble” [...] The negative affirmation that only sins against the Holy Spirit are not forgiven (Matthew 12:31-32, cf. Mark 3:28; Luke 12:10) reinforces the association between sin and forgiveness indirectly (pp. 103-105).

Llaman particularmente la atención los matices entre las concepciones atribuidas a Jesús y a san Pablo. En el Nuevo Testamento se hace particularmente hincapié en la dialéctica pecado/conversión/perdón/salvación asociada a la figura de la predicación de Jesús. Konstan analiza dentro de los conceptos vinculados al pecado en lengua griega el término metanoia: “I firmly believe that ‘conversion’ or ‘change of heart’ is the proper rendering. Jesus is not asking his followers to look back to their sins and repent of them, but rather to look forward to their new faith in Jesus” (pp. 109-110). Con el advenimiento de Jesús se inaugura un sentido de “pecado” en el que éste consiste en la falta de fe: “Sin is thus a negative state, the absence of faith or apistia, the lack of trust in Jesus and his works, despite the manifest evidence of his divinity” (p. 118). En lo relativo a san Pablo:

Paul’s epistle to the Romans contains more references to sin than any other book in the New Testament: thirty with the noun hamartia […] Paul, unlike Jesus, tends to associate hamartia with the weakness of the flesh [...] Paul’s sense of a division in the self, an inability to control the promptings of the body, may well be indebted to Platonism, as Emma Wasserman has argued [...] thus, Paul’s notion of sin must be understood in relation to a tension internal to the spirit (p. 102).

En el Nuevo Testamento la noción de “pecado” se encuentra íntimamente ligada a las de “fe” y “perdón”. En cuanto a la relación del perdón y la literatura helena, ya Aristóteles se percató de que ésta resulta fundamental dentro de la tragedia:

Aristotle observed that pardon (his word is sungnômê, frequently rendered as ‘forgiveness’) is granted when people act either under external compulsion or in excusable ignorance of the facts or circumstances (Nicomachean Ethics, 1109b18-1111a2). An example is Oedipus’ slaying of his father: this is not culpable parricide, because Oedipus did not recognize Laius and because there was no reasonable way he could have known who he was. His action was, in this sense, not voluntary, and when he discovered the full truth of what he had done, Oedipus’ response was to blind himself: As Aristotle observes, if someone commits an offence in ignorance, but later, upon learning the facts, feels no regret (en metameleiâi) then he or she is hardly worthy of pity or pardon (pp. 106-107).

En el cuarto capítulo, “The Church Fathers and the Rabbis: The Transformation of Sin” (pp. 123-137), al concepto hebreo ḥaṭa’ y al griego hamartia, se suma el término peccatum, procedente de la lengua latina. En este último acápite se ofrece una explicación de la emulsión pluricultural que dio origen al concepto de “pecado” tal y como ahora se entiende. La clasificación de los siete pecados capitales, tan popular en nuestros días, es bastante tardía. En el cristianismo se registran nuevos catálogos de virtudes y vicios, se da continuidad en la condena de ciertas conductas reprobadas por las diferentes culturas cuya conjunción fue la fuente de Occidente; pero también ocurren modificaciones parciales de perspectivas y se agrega un nuevo universo del pecado:

The division between capital and venial sins was later formalized by Cassian, who, following Evagrius, identified eight deadly sins (Cassian Conferences 5; Monastic Institutes Books 5-12); these were reduced by Gregory the Great to the more familiar seven (pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia, Moralia in Iob). Lust and gluttony are characteristic vices of the body, and greed, envy, and anger were commonly viewed in antiquity as negative passions. Pride (hybris, superbia), understood in the sense of arrogance, was never a positive value, but with Christianity it came to be seen as the opposite of the new virtue of humility. Finally, acedia, loosely rendered as despondency (tristitia) or sloth, was a kind of “weariness or distress of heart”, to which anchorites in particular were susceptible (Cassian Institutes 10.1); it has no parallel in classical or Biblical inventories of vices or sins, and its connection with monkish spiritual discipline is clear (p. 149).

Aunque ^{David Konstan} hace hincapié en que su metodología y perspectivas son filológicas no puede dejar de lado el gran problema del denominado “pecado original”. ¿Existe un pecado innato inherente a cada ser humano desde su mismo nacimiento? ¿Todos y cada uno de los seres humanos son portadores desde su nacimiento de este pecado original derivado de una acción realizada in illo tempore por la pareja primordial Adán/Eva? ¿O bien las personas sólo son responsables por los pecados expresamente cometidos por ellos mismos? Un doctor de la Iglesia de la altura de san Agustín y otros grandes teólogos prestaron atención a problemáticas como éstas, que son descritas en la obra ahora reseñada. Pero no sólo los cristianos se preocuparon por cuestiones de tal índole. El inmenso problema del pecado original no deja de ser abordado por el judaísmo temprano: “There is no conception of original sin in the Jewish tradition. All sins are personal, and are to be atoned for individually” (p. 154).

Por último, “A Final Word” (pp. 159-160), ofrece una conclusión sucinta del estudio comparado del concepto “pecado” en los universos greco-romanos, hebreo y cristiano:

Sin in the Bible does not refer simply to terrible crimes or even to violations of divine law. Rather, it is inextricably connected to forgiveness; it is a fault that seeks God’s mercy. In the Tanakh, sin consists in the abrogation of the covenant with God, for which the Jewish people must atone so as to restore the relationship. In the New Testament, sin is the failure to trust in Jesus as the son of God, to realize the conversion or change of heart that the advent of the Messiah requires. In both Hebrew and Greek, a special term was appropriated to represent these distinctive ideas (p. 159).

David Konstan enfatiza que su trabajo es realizado fundamentalmente desde una perspectiva filológica y que, si bien aborda necesariamente temas teológicos, lejos se encuentra de pretender haber realizado un tratado de teología. Y desde la filología, entendida como “a study of words” (p. 160), el autor examina de manera magistral los conceptos ḥaṭa’, hamartia, peccatum y otros también relevantes en los orígenes y evolución del concepto “pecado”. Esta obra, como se promete desde su título, examina rigurosamente la literatura pertinente generada en Grecia, Roma, el judaísmo temprano y el cristianismo; a partir de las fuentes mismas de Occidente explica la forma en que se fraguó, con sus continuidades innegables y discontinuidades abismales, la concepción popular del pecado que subyace en el imaginario social contemporáneo.