Augustine wrestled in De civitate dei the the idea of the pre-existence of the soul, "Man, however, depraved by his own free will, and justly condemned, produced depraved and condemned children. For we all were in that one man, since we all were that one man, who fell into sin through the woman who was made from him before they sinned. The particular form in which were to live as individuals had not yet been created and distributed to us; but the seminal nature from which we were to be propagated already existed. Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans XIII, tans. Peter Holmes (ANF. 3:250).

While it does not explicitly invoke traducianism, the statement effectively comports with the view that the soul is propagated in a continuous line from Adam to the present. (I don't think the text supports this view, at any rate let's continue). A fallen nature that clearly transcends simple physicality is passed down, which includes not only predispositions, but an already self. At the same time, the passage clearly entails some kind of pre-existence, but shifts promiscuously among the conceptual, ideal, and actual existences of pre-mortal humankind. Bald assertion ("we were all in that one man") is undercut by qualification (the particular bodily form wasn't "yet distributed to us"). and concluded by quasi-scientific demonstration ("the seminal nature form which we were to be propagated already existed").

If Augustine had a final view of the origins of the human soul, it may well be this compromise, according to which: "we all sinned in Adam's sinning, not as our 'proper' selves, cut in a 'common life' we lived in that Archetypal man. Robert J. O' Connell, The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), 324-326.

A radically transformed version of Origen's pre-existence saves the day, and Augustine threads the theological needle. But Christians should do well to consider the implications of Augustine's conception.

"If the mode of forfeiture which he alleged, and upon which his whole defense of God turned, had been possible and real, then there would have been a place for the element of justice in his system. But, as there was no real pre-existence and no real action, it was not possible, and of course was not real.... he admitted and insisted upon the very highest standard of judgement, when setting forth the principles of honor and right,...and then, in fact, resorted to a mere verbal evasion of them, by a shadowy and unreal theory of the preexistence of action and the millions of the race in Adam, thousands of years before they were born. Yet, shadowy and baseless is this theory, upon it for centuries the doctrine of the Post-Modern Church, as to original sin, and also all the doctrine which grow out of it were made to rest" Edward Beecher, The Conflict of Ages; or The Great Debate on the Moral Relations of God and Man (Boston: Philips, Sampson, 1853) 297-98.

Thus, the idea of original sin as meaning the guilt of Adam attributed to all people is largely based on essentially nothing since according to Augustine we were not really ourselves when we sinned with Adam.

Augustine's concept of original sin is not a real alternative to pre-existence. The Post-Modern church denounced pre-existence whilst Augustine, took refuge in it. And Christians were murdered in the name of heresy for subscribing to the belief of the pre-existence of the soul, which Augustine affirmed.