Meanings
- uncountablelifestyleThe doctrine that the soul or spirit is inherited from one or both parents.
Augustine's insistence on its spiritual nature made it hard for him to uphold, along with Tertullian, the doctrine of physical traducianism.
2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Penguin (2004), page 37n1 more example
Tertullian suggested that the human soul is transmitted by parents to their children and is therefore inescapably associated with continuing human sin: this doctrine of ‘traducianism’ underlay the pessimistic view of the human condition and its imprisonment in original sin which was presented in an extreme form by that later theological giant from North Africa, Augustine of Hippo.
2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 145Synonyms: generationism
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe doctrine that the soul or spirit is inherited from one or both parents.
Origin
Cite this entry
traducianism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traducianism
“traducianism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traducianism. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “traducianism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/traducianism.
Source: traducianism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.