Just something I've been working on today...
How would a Greek say, maxima culpa— assuming that a penitent Greek would bother with such a thing as fault, per se. Sin in the Greek vernacular—as you must have learned by now—figures in the Greek psyche as a missed opportunity, not exactly as a crime. Λάθος is how you say mistake. Αμαρτία is just a missing of the target. Guilt is something you earn, not inherit. Yes, we have come to suffer a good many bad ideas about what now to do about what we have done, or failed to do. Chin up, bucko, the way ahead is just as endless as it ever was, and we have a long, long way to go, and ever.
We’d be in a better place if Augustine had actually studied Greek. Does that sound snarky? He made wonderful contributions but unfortunately, also, as to be expected, got a few things wrong based on his inadequate knowledge of Greek.
Wow, is guilt ever the poison of the age. I can't drink bottled water without feeling guilty. But I feel like something is missing even with "missed opportunity" - if not "fault", maybe "responsibility"? Not a fun word. But that sense of, whatever it was I intended, that awful thing happened on MY watch. It happened on my watch. Now I have to deal with it. "Chin up, bucko..."