Writings of Augustine. A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin.
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Augustin and the Pelagian Controversy.
Published in 1886 by Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co.
.
A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin,
by Aurelius Augustin, Bishop of Hippo;
In Four Books,
written towards the end of 419.
Book II.
In the Shape of a Letter Addressed to the Presbyter Peter.
He advises Peter not to incur the imputation of having approved of the
books which had been addressed to him by Victor on the origin of the
soul, by any use he might make of them, nor to take as Catholic
doctrines that person's rash utterances contrary to the Christian
faith. Victor's various errors, and those, too, of a very serious
character, he points out and briefly confutes; and he concludes with
advising Peter himself to try to persuade Victor to amend his errors.
To his Lordship, my dearly beloved brother and fellow-presbyter Peter,
Augustin, bishop, sendeth greeting in the Lord.
Chapter 1 [I.]--Depraved Eloquence an Injurious Accomplishment.
There have reached me the two books of Vincentius Victor, which he
addressed in writing to your Holiness; they have been forwarded to me
by our brother Renatus, a layman indeed, but a person who has a
prudent and religious care about the faith both of himself and of all
he loves. On reading these books, I saw that their author was a man of
great resources in speech, of which he had enough, and more than
enough; but that on the subjects of which he wished to teach, he was
as yet insufficiently instructed. If, however, by the gracious gift of
the Lord this qualification were also conferred upon him, he would be
serviceable to many. For he possesses in no slight degree the faculty
of explaining and beautifying what he thinks; all that is wanted is,
that he should first take care to think rightly. Depraved eloquence is
a hurtful accomplishment; for to persons of inadequate information it
always carries the appearance of truth in its readiness of speech. I
know not, indeed, how you received his books; but if I am correctly
informed, you are said, after reading them, to have been so greatly
overjoyed, that you (though an elderly man and a presbyter) kissed the
face of this youthful layman, and thanked him for having taught you
what you had been previously ignorant of. Now, in this conduct of
yours I do not disapprove of your humility; indeed, I rather commend
it; for it was not the man whom you praised, but the truth itself
which deigned to speak to you through him: only I wish you were able
to point out to me what was the truth which you received through him.
I should, therefore, be glad if you would show me, in your answer to
this letter, what it was he taught you. Be it far from me to be
ashamed to learn from a presbyter, since you did not blush to be
instructed by a layman, in proclaiming and imitating your humble
conduct, if the lessons were only true in which you received
instruction.
Chapter 2 [II.]--He Asks What the Great Knowledge is that Victor
Imparts.
Therefore, brother greatly beloved, I desire to know what you learned
of him, in order that, if I have already possessed the knowledge, I
may participate in your joy; but if I happen to be ignorant, I may be
instructed by you. Did you not then understand that there are two
somethings, soul and spirit, according as it is said in Scripture,
"Thou wilt separate my soul from my spirit"? [2397] And that both of
them pertain to man's nature, so that the whole man consists of
spirit, and soul, and body? Sometimes, however, these two are combined
together under the designation of soul; for instance, in the passage,
"And man became a living soul." [2398] Now, in this place the spirit
is implied. Similarly in sundry passages the two are described under
the name of spirit, as when it is written, "And He bowed His head and
gave up the spirit;" [2399] in which passage it is the soul that must
also be understood. And that the two are of one and the same
substance? I suppose that you already knew all this. But if you did
not, then you may as well know that you have not acquired any great
knowledge, the ignorance of which would be attended with much danger.
And if there must be any more subtle discussion on such points it
would be better to carry on the controversy with himself, whose wordy
qualities we have already discovered. The questions we might consider
are: whether, when mention is made of the soul, the spirit is also
implied in the term in such a way that the two comprise the soul, the
spirit being, as it were, some part of it,--whether, in fact (as this
person seemed to think), under the designation soul, the whole is so
designated from only a part; or else, whether the two together make up
the spirit, that which is properly called soul being a part thereof;
whether again, in fact, the whole is not called from only a part, when
the term spirit is used in such a wide sense as to comprehend the soul
also, as this man supposes. These, however, are but subtle
distinctions, and ignorance about them certainly is not attended with
any great danger.
Footnotes
[2397] Job vii. 14. 'Apallaxeis apo pneumatos mou ten psuchen mou,
Sept.
[2398] Gen. ii. 7.
[2399] John xix. 30.
Chapter 3.--The Difference Between the Senses of the Body and Soul.
Again, I wonder whether this man taught you the difference between the
bodily senses and the sensibilities of the soul; and whether you, who
were a person of considerable age and position before you took lessons
of this man, used to consider to be one and the same that faculty by
which white and black are distinguished, which sparrows even see as
well as ourselves, and that by which justice and injustice are
discriminated, which Tobit also perceived even after he lost the sight
of his eyes. [2400] If you held the identity, then, of course, when
you heard or read the words, "Lighten my eyes, that I sleep not in
death," [2401] you merely thought of the eyes of the body. Or if this
were an obscure point, at all events when you recalled the words of
the apostle, "The eyes of your heart being enlightened," [2402] you
must have supposed that we possessed a heart somewhere between our
forehead and cheeks. Well, I am very far from thinking this of you, so
that this instructor of yours could not have given you such a lesson.
Footnotes
[2400] Tobit iv. 5, 6; compare ii. 10.
[2401] Ps. xiii. 3.
[2402] Eph. i. 18.
Chapter 4.--To Believe the Soul is a Part of God is Blasphemy.
And if you happened to suppose, before receiving the instruction from
this teacher, which you are rejoicing to have received, that the human
soul is a portion of God's nature, then you were ignorant how false
and terribly dangerous this opinion was. And if you only were taught
by this person that the soul is not a portion of God, then I bid you
thank God as earnestly as you can that you were not taken away out of
the body before learning so important a lesson. For you would have
quitted life a great heretic and a terrible blasphemer. However, I
never could have believed this of you, that a man who is both a
catholic and a presbyter of no contemptible position like yourself,
could by any means have thought that the soul's nature is a portion of
God. I therefore cannot help expressing to your beloved self my fears
that this man has by some means or other taught you that which is
decidedly opposed to the faith which you were holding.
Chapter 5 [III.]--In What Sense Created Beings are Out of God.
Now, just because I do not suppose that you, a member of the catholic
Church, ever believed the human soul to be a portion of God, or that
the soul's nature is in any degree identical with God's, I have some
apprehension lest you may have been induced to fall in with this man's
opinion, that "God did not make the soul from nothing, but that the
soul is so far out of Him as to have emanated from Him." For he has
put out such a statement as this, with his other opinions, which have
led him out of the usual track on this subject to a huge precipice.
Now, if he has taught you this, I do not want you to teach it to me;
nay, I should wish you to unlearn what you have been taught. For it is
not enough to avoid believing and saying that the soul is a part of
God. We do not even say that the Son or the Holy Ghost is a part of
God, although we affirm that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
are all of one and the same nature. It is not, then, enough for us to
avoid saying that the soul is a part of God, but it is of
indispensable importance that we should say that the soul and God are
not of one and the self-same nature. This person is therefore right in
declaring that "souls are God's offspring, not by nature, but by
gift;" and then, of course, not the souls of all men, but of the
faithful. But afterwards he returned to the statement from which he
had shrunk, and affirmed that God and the soul are of the same
nature--not, indeed, in so many words, but plainly and manifestly to
such a purport. For when he says that the soul is out of God, in such
a manner that God created it not out of any other nature, nor out of
nothing, but out of His own self, what would he have us believe but
the very thing which he denies, in other words, even that the soul is
of the self-same nature as God Himself is? For every nature is either
God, who has no author; or out of God, as having Him for its Author.
But the nature which has for its author God, out of whom it comes, is
either not made, or made. Now, that nature which is not made and yet
is out of Him, is either begotten by Him or proceeds from Him. That
which is begotten is His only Son, that which proceedeth is the Holy
Ghost, and this Trinity is of one and the self-same nature. For these
three are one, and each one is God, and all three together are one
God, unchangeable, eternal, without any beginning or ending of time.
That nature, on the other hand, which is made is called "creature;"
God is its Creator, even the blessed Trinity. The creature, therefore,
is said to be out of God in such wise as not to be made out of His
nature. It is predicated as out of Him, inasmuch as it has in Him the
author of its being, not so as to have been born of Him, or to have
proceeded from Him, but as having been created, moulded, and formed by
Him, in some cases, out of no other substance,--that is, absolutely
out of nothing, as, for instance, the heaven and the earth, or rather
the whole material of the universe coeval in its creation with the
world--but, in some cases, out of another nature already created and
in existence, as, for instance, man out of the dust, woman out of the
man, and man out of his parents. Still, every creature is out of
God,--but out of God as its creator either out of nothing, or out of
something previously existing, not, however, as its begetter or its
producer from His own very self.
Chapter 6.--Shall God's Nature Be Mutable, Sinful, Impious, Even
Eternally Damned.
All this, however, I am saying to a catholic: advising with him rather
than teaching him. For I do not suppose that these things are new to
you; or that they have been long heard of by you, but not believed.
This epistle of mine, you will, I am sure, so read as to recognise in
its statement your own faith also, which is by the gracious gift of
the Lord the common property of us all in the catholic Church. Since,
then (as I was saying), I am now speaking to a catholic, whence I pray
you tell me, do you suppose that the soul, I will not say your soul or
my own soul, but the soul of the first man, was given to him? If you
admit that it came from nothing, made, however, and inbreathed into
him by God, then your belief tallies with my own. If, on the contrary,
you suppose that it came out of some other created thing, which served
as the material, as it were, for the divine Artificer to make the soul
out of, just as the dust was the material of which Adam was formed, or
the rib whence Eve was made, or the waters whence the fishes and the
fowls were created, or the ground out of which the terrestrial animals
were formed: then this opinion is not catholic, nor is it true. But
further, if you think, which may God forbid, that the divine Creator
made, or is still making, human souls neither out of nothing, nor out
of some other created thing, but out of His own self, that is, out of
His own nature, then you have learnt this of your new instructor; but
I cannot congratulate you, or flatter you, on the discovery. You have
wandered along with him very far from the catholic faith. Better would
it be, though it would be untrue, yet it would be better, I say, and
more tolerable, that you should believe the soul to have been made out
of some other created substance which God had already formed, than out
of God's own uncreated substance, so that what is mutable, and sinful,
and impious, and if persistent to the end in the impiety will have to
suffer eternal damnation, should not with horrible blasphemy be
referred to the nature of God! Away, brother, I beseech you, away with
this, I will not call it faith, but execrably impious error. May God
avert from you, a man of gravity and a presbyter, the misery of being
seduced by a youthful layman; and, while supposing that your opinion
is the catholic faith, of being lost from the number of the faithful.
For I must not deal with you as I might with him; nor does this
tremendous error, when yours, deserve the same indulgence as being
that of this young man, although you may have derived it from him. He
has but just now found his way to the catholic fold to get healing and
safety; [2403] you have a rank among the very shepherds of that fold.
But we would not that a sheep which comes to the Lord's flock for
shelter from error, should be healed of his sores in such a way, as
first to infect and destroy the shepherd by his contagious presence.
Footnotes
[2403] See below in ch. 14 [x.].
Chapter 7.--To Think the Soul Corporeal an Error.
But if you say to me, He has not taught me this; nor have I by any
means given my assent to this erroneous opinion of his, however much I
was enchanted by the sweetness of his eloquent and elegant discourse;
then I earnestly thank God. Still I cannot help asking, why, even with
kisses, as the report goes, you expressed your gratitude to him for
having taught you what you were ignorant of, previous to hearing his
discussion. Now if it be a false report which makes you to have done
and said so much, then I beg you to be kind enough to give me this
assurance, that the idle rumour may be stopped by your own written
authority. If, however, it is true that you bestowed your thanks with
such humility upon this man, I should rejoice, indeed, if he has not
taught you to believe the opinion which I have already pointed out as
a detestable one, and to be carefully avoided as such. Nor shall I
find fault [IV.] if your humble thanks to your instructor were further
earned by your having acquired from discussions with him some other
true and useful knowledge. But may I ask you what it is? Is it that
the soul is not spirit, but body? Well, I really do not think
ignorance on such a point is any great injury to Christian learning;
and if you indulge in more subtle disputes about the different kinds
of bodily substance, I think the information you obtain is more
difficult than serviceable. If, however, the Lord will that I should
write to this young man himself, as I desire to do, then perhaps your
loving self [2404] will know to what extent you are not indebted to
him for your instruction; although you rejoice in what you have learnt
from him. And now I request you not to feel annoyance in writing me an
answer; so that what is clearly useful and pertinent to our
indispensable faith may not by any chance turn out to be something
different.
Footnotes
[2404] Dilectio tua.
Chapter 8.--The Thirst of the Rich Man in Hell Does Not Prove the Soul
to Be Corporeal.
Now with regard to the point, which with perfect propriety and great
soundness of view he believes, that souls after quitting the body are
judged, before they come to that final judgment to which they must
submit when their bodies are restored to them, and are either
tormented or glorified in the very same flesh wherein they once lived
here on earth; is it, let me ask you, the case that you were really
ignorant of this? Who ever had his mind so obstinately set against the
gospel as not to hear these truths, and after hearing to believe them,
in the parable of the poor man who was carried away after death to
Abraham's bosom, and of the rich man who is set forth as suffering
torment in hell? [2405] But has this man taught you how it was that
the soul apart from the body could crave from the beggar's finger a
drop of water; [2406] when he himself confessed, that the soul did not
require bodily aliment except for the purpose of protecting the
perishing body which encloses it from dissolution? These are his
words: "Is it," asks he, "because the soul craves meat and drink, that
we suppose material food passes into it?" Then shortly afterwards he
says: "From this circumstance it is understood and proved, that the
sustenance of meat and drink is not wanted for the soul, but for the
body: for which clothing also, in addition to food, is provided in
like manner; so that the supplying of food seems to be necessary to
that nature, which is also fitted for wearing clothes." This opinion
of his he expounds clearly enough; but he adds some illustrative
similes, and says: "Now what do we suppose the occupier of a house
does on an inspection of his dwelling? If he observe the tenement has
a shaky roof, or a nodding wall, or a weak foundation, does he not
fetch girders and build up buttresses, in order that he may succeed in
propping up by his care and diligence the fabric which threatened to
fall, so that in the dangerous plight of the residence the peril which
evidently overhung the occupier might be warded off? From this
simile," says he, "see how the soul craves for its flesh, from which
it undoubtedly conceives the craving itself." Such are the very lucid
and adequate words in which this young person has explained his ideas:
he asserts that it is not the soul, but the body, which requires food;
out of a careful regard, no doubt, of the former for the latter, as
one that occupies a dwelling-house, and by a prudent repair prevents
the downfall with which the fleshly tenement was threatened. Well,
now, let him go on to explain to you what probable ruin this
particular soul of the rich man was so eager to prevent by propping
up, seeing that it no longer possessed a mortal body, and yet suffered
thirst, and begged for the drop of water from the poor man's finger.
Here is a good knotty question for this astute instructor of elderly
men to exercise himself on; let him inquire, and find a solution if he
can: for what purpose did that soul in hell beg the aliment of ever so
small a drop of water, when it had no ruinous tenement to support?
Footnotes
[2405] See Luke xvi. 22, 23.
[2406] Luke xvi. 24.
Chapter 9 [V.]--How Could the Incorporeal God Breathe Out of Himself a
Corporeal Substance?
In that he believes God to be truly incorporeal, I congratulate him
that herein, at all events, he has kept himself uninfluenced by the
ravings of Tertullian. For he insisted, that as the soul is corporeal,
so likewise is God. [2407] It is therefore specially surprising that
our author, who differs from Tertullian in this point, yet labours to
persuade us that the incorporeal God does not make the soul out of
nothing, but exhales it as a corporeal breath out of Himself. What a
wonderful learning that must be to which every age erects its
attentive ears, and which contrives to gain for its disciples men of
advanced years, and even presbyters! Let this eminent man read what he
has written, read it in public; let him invite to hear the reading
well-known persons and unknown ones, learned and unlearned. Old men,
assemble with your younger instructors; learn what you used to know
nothing about; hear now what you had never heard before. Behold,
according to the teaching of this scribe, God creates a breath, not
out of something else which exists in some way or other, and not out
of that which absolutely has no existence; but out of that which He is
Himself, perfectly incorporeal, He breathes a body so that He actually
changes His own incorporeal nature into a body, before it undergoes
the change into the body of sin. Does he say, that He does not change
something out of His own nature, when He creates breath? Then, of
course, He does not make that breath out of Himself: for He is not
Himself one thing, and His nature another thing. What is this insane
man thinking of? But if he says that God creates breath out of His own
nature in such a way as to remain absolutely entire Himself, this is
not the question. The question is, whether that which comes not of
some previously created substance, nor from nothing, but from Him, is
not what He is, that is, of the same nature and essence? Now He
remains absolutely entire after the generation of His Son; but because
He begat Him of His own nature, He did not beget a something which was
different from that which He is Himself. For, putting to one side the
circumstance that the Word took on Himself a human nature and became
flesh, the Word who is the Son of God is another but not another
thing: that is, He is another person but not a different nature. And
whence does this come to pass, except from the fact that He is not
created out of something else, or out of nothing, but was begotten out
of Himself; not that He might be better than He was, but that He might
be altogether even what He is of whom He is begotten; that is, of one
and the same nature, equal, co-eternal, in every way like, equally
unchangeable, equally invisible, equally incorporeal, equally God; in
a word, that He might be altogether what the Father is, except that He
actually is Himself the Son, and not the Father? But if He remains
Himself the same God entire and unimpaired, but yet creates something
different from Himself, and worse than Himself, not out of nothing,
nor out of some other creature, but out of His very self; and that
something emanates as a body out ofthe incorporeal God; then God
forbid that a catholic should imbibe such an opinion, for it does not
flow from the divine fountain, but it is a mere fiction of the human
mind.
Footnotes
[2407] See Tertullian's treatise On the Soul in The Ante-Nicene
Christian Fathers, vol. iii. p. 181 sq. See also Augustin, On
Heresies, 86, and Epistles, No. 190.
Chapter 10 [VI.]--Children May Be Found of Like or of Unlike
Dispositions with Their Parents.
Then, again, how ineptly he labours to free the soul, which he
supposes to be corporeal, from the passions of the body, raising
questions about the soul's infancy; about the soul's emotions, when
paralysed and oppressed; about the amputation of bodily limbs, without
cutting or dividing the soul. But in dealing with such points as
these, my duty is to treat rather with him than with you; it is for
him to labour to assign a reason for all he says. In this way we shall
not seem to wish to be too importunate with an elderly man's gravity
on the subject of a young man's work. As to the similarity of
disposition to the parents which is discovered in their children, he
does not dispute its coming from the soul's seed. Accordingly, this is
the opinion also of those persons who do away with the soul's
propagation; but the opposite party who entertain this theory do not
place on this the weight of their assertion. For they observe also
that children are unlike their parents in disposition; and the reason
of this, as they suppose, is, that one and the same person very often
has various dispositions himself, unlike each other,--not, of course,
that he has received another soul, but that his life has undergone a
change for the better or for the worse. So they say that there is no
impossibility in a soul's not possessing the same disposition which he
had by whom it was propagated, seeing that the selfsame soul may have
different dispositions at different times. If, therefore, you think
that you have learnt this of him, that the soul does not come to us by
natural transmission at birth,--I only wish that you had discovered
from him the truth of the case,--I would with the greatest pleasure
resign myself to your hands to learn the whole truth. But really to
learn is one thing, and to seem to yourself to have learned is another
thing. If, then, you suppose that you have learned what you still are
ignorant of, you have evidently not learnt, but given a random
credence to a pleasant hearsay. Falsity has stolen over you in the
suavity. [2408] Now I do not say this from feeling as yet any
certainty as to the proposition being false, which asserts that souls
are created afresh by God's inbreathing rather than derived from the
parents at birth; for I think that this is a point which still
requires proof from those who find themselves able to teach it. No; my
reason for saying it is, that this person has discussed the whole
subject in such a way as not only not to solve the point still in
dispute, but even to indulge in statements which leave no doubt as to
their falsity. In his desire to prove things of doubtful import, he
has boldly stated things which undoubtedly merit reprobation.
Footnotes
[2408] This play of words too inadequately represents Augustin's
Subrepsit tibi falsiloquium per suaviloquium.
Chapter 11 [VII.]--Victor Implies that the Soul Had a "State" And
"Merit" Before Incarnation.
Would you hesitate yourself to reprobate what he has said concerning
the soul? "You will not have it," he says, "that the soul contracts
from the sinful flesh the health, to which holy state you can see it
in due course pass by means of the flesh, so as to amend its state
through that by which it had lost its merit? Or is it because baptism
washes the body that what is believed to be conferred by baptism does
not pass on to the soul or spirit? It is only right, therefore, that
the soul should, by means of the flesh, repair that old condition
which it had seemed to have gradually lost through the flesh, in order
that it may begin a regenerate state by means of that whereby it had
deserved to be polluted." [2409] Now, do observe how grave an error
this teacher has fallen into! He says that "the soul repairs its
condition by means of the flesh through which it had lost its merit."
The soul, then, must have possessed some state and some good merit
previous to the flesh, which he would have that it recovers through
the flesh, when the flesh is cleansed in the laver of regeneration.
Therefore, previous to the flesh, the soul had lived somewhere in a
good state and merit, which state and merit it lost when it came into
the flesh. His words are, "that the soul repairs by means of the flesh
that primitive condition which it had seemed to have gradually lost
through the flesh." The soul, then, possessed before the flesh, an
ancient condition (for his term "primitive" describes the antiquity of
the state); and what could that ancient condition have possibly been,
but a blessed and laudable state? Now, he avers that this happiness is
recovered through the sacrament of baptism, although he will not admit
that the soul derives its origin through propagation from that soul
which was once manifestly happy in paradise. How is it, then, that in
another passage he says that "he constantly affirms of the soul that
it exists not by propagation, nor comes out of nothing, nor exists by
its own self, nor previous to the body"? You see how in this place he
insists that souls do exist prior to the body somewhere or other, and
that in so happy a state that the same happiness is restored to them
by means of baptism. But, as if forgetful of his own views, he goes on
to speak of its "beginning a regenerate state by means of that,"
meaning the flesh, "whereby it had deserved to be polluted." In a
previous statement he had indicated some good desert which had been
lost by means of the flesh; now, however, he speaks of some evil
desert, by means of which it had happened that the soul had to come,
or be sent, into the flesh; for his words are, "By which it had
deserved to be polluted;" and if it deserved to be polluted, its
merits could not, of course, have been good. Pray let him tell us what
sin it had committed previous to its pollution by the flesh, in
consequence of which it merited such pollution by the flesh. Let him,
if he can, explain to us a matter which is utterly beyond his power,
because it is certainly far above his reach to discover what to tell
us on this subject which shall be true.
Footnotes
[2409] See below, Book iii. 9.
Chapter 12 [VIII.]--How Did the Soul Deserve to Be Incarnated?
He also says some time afterwards: "The soul therefore, if it deserved
to be sinful, although it could not have been sinful, yet did not
remain in sin; because, as it was prefigured in Christ, it was bound
not to be in a sinful state, even as it was unable to be." [2410] Now,
my brother, do you, I ask, really think thus? At any rate, have you
formed such an opinion, after having read and duly considered his
words, and after having reflected upon what extorted from you praise
during his reading, and the expression of your gratitude after he had
ended? I pray you, tell me what this means: "Although the soul
deserved to be sinful, which could not have been sinful." What mean
his phrases, deserved and could not? For it could not possibly have
deserved its alleged fate, unless it had been sinful; nor would it
have been, unless it could have been, sinful,--so as, by committing
sin previous to any evil desert, it might make for itself a position
whence it might, under God's desertion, advance to the commission of
other sins. When he said, "which could not have been sinful," did he
mean, which would not have been able to be sinful, unless it came in
the flesh? But how did it deserve a mission at all into a state where
it could be sinful, when it could not possibly have become capable of
sinning anywhere else, unless it entered that particular state? Let
him, then, tell us how it so deserved. For if it deserved to become
capable of sinning, it must certainly have already committed some sin,
in consequence of which it deserved to be sinful again. These points,
however, may perhaps appear to be obscure, or may be tauntingly said
to be of such a character, but they are really most plain and clear.
The truth is, he ought not to have said that "the soul deserved to
become sinful through the flesh," when he will never be able to
discover any desert of the soul, either good or bad, previous to its
being in the flesh.
Footnotes
[2410] See above, Book i. 8, and below, Book iii. 11.
Chapter 13 [IX.]--Victor Teaches that God Thwarts His Own
Predestination.
Let us now go on to plainer matters. For while he was confined within
these great straits, as to how souls can be held bound by the chain of
original sin, when they derive not their origin from the soul which
first sinned, but the Creator breathes them afresh at every birth into
sinful flesh,--pure from all contagion and propagation of sin:--in
order that he might avoid the objection being brought against his
argument, that thus God makes them guilty by such insufflation, he
first of all had recourse to the theory drawn from God's prescience,
that "He had provided redemption for them." Infants are by the
sacrament of this redemption baptized, so that the original sin which
they contracted from the flesh is washed away, as if God were
remedying His own acts for having made these souls polluted. But
afterwards, when he comes to speak of those who receive no such
assistance, but expire before they are baptized, he says: "In this
place I do not offer myself as an authority, but I present you with an
example by way of conjecture. We say, then, that some such method as
this must be had recourse to in the case of infants, who, being
predestinated for baptism, are yet, by the failing of this life,
hurried away before they are born again in Christ. We read," adds he,
"it written of such, Speedily was he taken away, lest that wickedness
should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul. Therefore
He hasted to take him away from among the wicked, for his soul pleased
the Lord; and, being made perfect in a short time, he fulfilled a long
time." [2411] Now who would disdain having such a teacher as this? Is
it the case, then, with infants, whom people usually wish to have
baptized, even hurriedly, before they die, that, if they should be
detained ever so short a time in this life, that they might be
baptized, and then at once die, wickedness would alter their
understanding, and deceit beguile their soul; and to prevent this
happening to them, a hasty death came to their rescue, so that they
were suddenly taken away before they were baptized? By their very
baptism, then, they were changed for the worse, and beguiled by
deceit, if it was after baptism that they were snatched away. O
excellent teaching, worthy to be admired and closely followed! But he
presumed greatly on the prudence of all you who were present at his
reading, and especially on yours, to whom he addressed this treatise
and handed it after the reading, in supposing that you would believe
that the scripture he quoted was intended for the case of unbaptized
infants, although it was written of the immature ages of all those
saints whom foolish men deem to be hardly dealt with, whenever they
are suddenly removed from the present life and are not permitted to
attain to the years which people covet for themselves as a great gift
of God. What, however, is the meaning of these words of his: "Infants
predestinated for baptism, who are yet, by the failing of this life,
hurried away before they are born again in Christ," as if some power
of fortune, or fate, or anything else you please, did not permit God
to fulfil what He had fore-ordained? And how is it that He hurries
them Himself away, when they have pleased Him? Then, does He really
predestinate them to be baptized, and then Himself hinder the
accomplishment of the very thing which He has predestinated?
Footnotes
[2411] Wisd. iv. 11, 14, 13.
Chapter 14 [X.]--Victor Sends Those Infants Who Die Unbaptized to
Paradise and the Heavenly Mansions, But Not to the Kingdom of Heaven.
But I beg you mark how bold he is, who is displeased with hesitancy,
which prefers to be cautious rather than overknowing in a question so
profound as this: "I would be bold to say"--such are his words--"that
they can attain to the forgiveness of their original sins, yet not so
as to be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. Just as in the case of
the thief on the cross, who confessed but was not baptized, the Lord
did not give him the kingdom of heaven, but paradise; [2412] the words
remaining accordingly in full force, `Except a man be born again of
water and of the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven.' [2413] This is especially true, inasmuch as the Lord
acknowledges that in His Father's house are many mansions, [2414] by
which are indicated the many different merits of those who dwell in
them; so that in these abodes the unbaptized is brought to
forgiveness, and the baptized to the reward which by grace has been
prepared for him." You observe how the man keeps paradise and the
mansions of the Father's house distinct from the kingdom of heaven, so
that even unbaptized persons may have an abundant provision in places
of eternal happiness. Nor does he see, when he says all this, that he
is so unwilling to distinguish the future abode of a baptized infant
from the kingdom of heaven as to have no fear in keeping distinct
therefrom the very house of God the Father, or the several parts
thereof. For the Lord Jesus did not say: In all the created universe,
or in any portion of that universe, but, "In my Father's house, are
many mansions." But in what way shall an unbaptized person live in the
house of God the Father, when he cannot possibly have God for his
Father, except he be born again? He should not be so ungrateful to
God, who has vouchsafed to deliver him from the sect of the Donatists
or Rogatists, as to aim at dividing the house of God the Father, and
to put one portion of it outside the kingdom of heaven, where the
unbaptized may be able to dwell. And on what terms does he himself
presume that he is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, when from that
kingdom he excludes the house of the King Himself, in what part soever
He pleases? From the case, however, of the thief who, when crucified
at the Lord's side, put his hope in the Lord who was crucified with
him, and from the case of Dinocrates, the brother of St. Perpetua, he
argues that even to the unbaptized may be given the remission of sins
and an abode with the blessed; as if any one unbelief in whom would be
a sin, had shown him that the thief and Dinocrates had not been
baptized. Concerning these cases, however, I have more fully explained
my views in the book which I wrote to our brother Renatus. [2415] This
your loving self will be able to ascertain if you will condescend to
read the book; for I am sure our brother will not find it in his heart
to refuse you, if you ask him the loan of it.
Footnotes
[2412] Luke xxiii. 43.
[2413] John iii. 5.
[2414] John xiv. 2.
[2415] See Book i. of the present treatise, chs. 11 [ix.] and 12 [x.].
Chapter 15 [XI.]--Victor "Decides" That Oblations Should Be Offered Up
for Those Who Die Unbaptized.
Still he chafes with indecision, and is well-nigh suffocated in the
terrible straits of his theory; for very likely he descries with a
more sensitive eye than you, the amount of evil which he enunciates,
to the effect that original sin in infants is effaced without Christ's
sacrament of baptism. It is, indeed, for the purpose of finding an
escape to some extent, and tardily, in the Church's sacraments that he
says: "In their behalf I most certainly decide that constant oblations
and incessant sacrifices must be offered up on the part of the holy
priests." Well, then, you may take him if you like for your arbiter,
if it were not enough to have him as your instructor. Let him decide
that you must offer up the sacrifice of Christ's body even for those
who have not been incorporated into Christ. Now this is quite a novel
idea, and foreign to the Church's discipline and the rule of truth:
and yet, when daring to propound it in his books, he does not modestly
say, I rather think; he does not say, I suppose; he does not say, I am
of opinion; nor does he say, I at least would suggest, or
mention;--but he says, I give it as my decision; so that, should we be
(as might be likely) offended by the novelty or the perverseness of
his opinion, we might be overawed by the authority of his judicial
determination. It is your own concern, my brother, how to be able to
bear him as your instructor in these views. Catholic priests, however,
of right feeling (and among them you ought to take your place) could
never keep quiet--God forbid it--and hear this man pronounce his
decisions, when they would wish him rather to recover his senses, and
be sorry both for having entertained such opinions, and for having
gone so far as to commit them to writing, and chastise himself with
the most wholesome discipline of repentance. "Now it is," says he; "on
this example of the Maccabees who fell in battle that I ground the
necessity of doing this. When they offered stealthily some interdicted
sacrifices, and after they had fallen in the battle, we find," says
he, "that this remedial measure was at once resorted to by the
priests,--sacrifices were offered up to liberate their souls, which
had been bound by the guilt of their forbidden conduct." [2416] But he
says all this, as if (according to his reading of the story) those
atoning sacrifices were offered up for uncircumcised persons, as he
has decided that these sacrifices of ours must be offered up for
unbaptized persons. For circumcision was the sacrament of that period,
which prefigured the baptism of our day.
Footnotes
[2416] This is a loose reference to the narrative in 2 Macc. xii.
39-45.
Chapter 16 [XII.]--Victor Promises to the Unbaptized Paradise After
Their Death, and the Kingdom of Heaven After Their Resurrection,
Although He Admits that This Opposes Christ's Statement.
But your friend, in comparison with what he has shown himself to be
further on, thus far makes mistakes which one may somewhat tolerate.
He apparently felt some disposition to relent; not, to be sure, at
what he ought to have misgivings about, namely, for having ventured to
assert that original sin is relaxed even in the case of the
unbaptized, and that remission is given to them of all their sins, so
that they are admitted into paradise, that is, to a place of great
happiness, and possess a claim to the happy mansions in our Father's
house; but he seems to have entertained some regret at having conceded
to them abodes of lesser blessedness outside the kingdom of heaven.
Accordingly he goes on to say, "Or if any one is perhaps reluctant to
believe that paradise is bestowed as a temporary and provisional gift
on the soul of the thief or of Dinocrates (for there remains for them
still, in the resurrection, the reward of the kingdom of heaven),
although that principal passage stands in the way, [2417] --`Except a
man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he shall not enter into
the kingdom of God.' [2418] --he may yet hold my assent as
ungrudgingly given to this point; only let him magnify [2419] both the
aim and the effect of the divine compassion and fore-knowledge." These
words have I copied, as I read them in his second book. Well, now,
could any one have shown on this erroneous point greater boldness,
recklessness, or presumption? He actually quotes and calls attention
to the Lord's weighty sentence, encloses it in a statement of his own,
and then says, "Although the opinion is opposed to the `principal
passage,' `Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he
shall not enter into the kingdom of God;'" he dares then to lift his
haughty head in censure against the Prince's judgment: "He may yet
hold my assent as ungrudgingly given to this point;" and he explains
his point to be, that the souls of unbaptized persons have a claim to
paradise as a temporary gift; and in this class he mentions the dying
thief and Dinocrates, as if he were prescribing, or rather prejudging,
their destination; moreover, in the resurrection, he will have them
transferred to a better provision, even making them receive the reward
of the kingdom of heaven. "Although," says he, "this is opposed to the
sentence of the Prince." Now, do you, my brother, I pray you,
seriously consider this question: What sentence of the Prince shall
that man deserve to have passed upon him, who imposes on any person an
assent of his own which runs counter to the authority of the Prince
Himself?
Footnotes
[2417] Sententia illa principalis, in which principalis may mean
either "principal," "chief," or "belonging to the Prince."
[2418] John iii. 5.
[2419] Or perhaps, "as simply amplifying both the effect and the
purpose of," etc., etc.
Chapter 17.--Disobedient Compassion and Compassionate Disobedience
Reprobated. Martyrdom in Lieu of Baptism.
The new-fangled Pelagian heretics have been most justly condemned by
the authority of catholic councils and of the Apostolic See, on the
ground of their having dared to give to unbaptized infants a place of
rest and salvation, even apart from the kingdom of heaven. This they
would not have dared to do, if they did not deny their having original
sin, and the need of its remission by the sacrament of baptism. This
man, however, professes the catholic belief on this point, admitting
that infants are tied in the bonds of original sin, and yet he
releases them from these bonds without the laver of regeneration, and
after death, in his compassion, he admits them into paradise; while,
with a still ampler compassion, he introduces them after the
resurrection even to the kingdom of heaven. Such compassion did Saul
see fit to assume when he spared the king whom God commanded to be
slain; [2420] deservedly, however, was his disobedient compassion, or
(if you prefer it) his compassionate disobedience, reprobated and
condemned, that man may be on his guard against extending mercy to his
fellow-man, in opposition to the sentence of Him by whom man was made.
Truth, by the mouth of Itself incarnate, proclaims as if in a voice of
thunder: "Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God." [2421] And in order to except
martyrs from this sentence, to whose lot it has fallen to be slain for
the name of Christ before being washed in the baptism of Christ, He
says in another passage, "He that loseth his life for my sake shall
find it." [2422] And so far from promising the abolition of original
sin to any one who has not been regenerated in the laver of Christian
faith, the apostle exclaims, "By the offence of one, judgment came
upon all men to condemnation." [2423] And as a counterbalance against
this condemnation, the Lord exhibits the help of His salvation alone,
saying, "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he
that believeth not shall be damned." [2424] Now the mystery of this
believing in the case of infants is completely effected by the
response of the sureties by whom they are taken to baptism; and unless
this be effected, they all pass by the offence of one into
condemnation. And yet, in opposition to such clear declarations
uttered by the Truth, forth marches before all men a vanity which is
more foolish than pitiful, and says: Not only do infants not pass into
condemnation, though no laver of Christian faith absolves them from
the chain of original sin, but they even after death have an
intermediate enjoyment of the felicities of paradise, and after the
resurrection they shall possess even the happiness of the kingdom of
heaven. Now, would this man dare to say all this in opposition to the
firmly-established catholic faith, if he had not presumptuously
undertaken to solve a question which transcends his powers touching
the origin of the soul?
Footnotes
[2420] 1 Sam. xv. 9.
[2421] John iii. 5.
[2422] Matt. x. 39.
[2423] Rom. v. 18.
[2424] Mark xvi. 16.
Chapter 18 [XIII.]--Victor's Dilemma and Fall.
For he is hemmed in within terrible straits by those who make the
natural inquiry: "Why has God visited on the soul so unjust a
punishment as to have willed to relegate it into a body of sin, since
by its consorting with the flesh that began to be sinful, which else
could not have been sinful?" For, of course, they say: "The soul could
not have been sinful, if God had not commingled it in the
participation of sinful flesh." Well, this opponent of mine was unable
to discover the justice of God's doing this, especially in consequence
of the eternal damnation of infants who die without the remission of
original sin by baptism; and his inability was equally great in
finding out why the good and righteous God both bound the souls of
infants, who He foresaw would derive no advantage from the sacrament
of Christian grace, with the chain of original sin, by sending them
into the body which they derive from Adam,--the souls themselves being
free from all taint of propagation,--and by this means also made them
amenable to eternal damnation. No less was he unwilling to admit that
these very souls likewise derived their sinful origin from that one
primeval soul. And so he preferred escaping by a miserable shipwreck
of faith, rather than to furl his sails and steady his oars, in the
voyage of his controversy, and by such prudent counsel check the fatal
rashness of his course. Worthless in his youthful eye was our aged
caution; just as if this most troublesome and perilous question of his
was more in need of a torrent of eloquence than the counsel of
prudence. And this was foreseen even by himself, but to no purpose;
for, as if to set forth the points which were objected to him by his
opponents, he says: "After them other reproachful censures are added
to the querulous murmurings of those who rail against us; and, as if
tossed about in a whirlwind, we are dashed repeatedly among huge
rocks." After saying this, he propounded for himself the very
dangerous question, which we have already treated, wherein he has
wrecked the catholic faith, unless by a real repentance he shall have
repaired the faith which he had shattered. That whirlwind and those
rocks I have myself avoided,unwilling to entrust my frail barque to
their dangers; and when writing on this subject I have expressed
myself in such a way as rather to explain the grounds of my hesitancy,
than to exhibit the rashness of presumption. [2425] This little work
of mine excited his derision, when he met with it at your house, and
in utter recklessness he flung himself upon the reef: he showed more
spirit than wisdom in his conduct. To what lengths, however, that
over-confidence of his led him, I suppose that you can now yourself
perceive. But I give heartier thanks to God, since you even before
this descried it. For all the while he was refusing to check his
headlong career, when the issue of his course was still in doubt, he
alighted on his miserable enterprise, and maintained that God, in the
case of infants who died without Christian regeneration, conferred
upon them paradise at once, and ultimately the kingdom of heaven.
Footnotes
[2425] See Augustin's treatises, On Free Will, iii. 21; On the Merits
of Sins, ii. (last chapter); Letter (166) to Jerome, and (190) to
Optatus.
Chapter 19 [XIV.]--Victor Relies on Ambiguous Scriptures.
The passages of Scripture, indeed, which he has adduced in the attempt
to prove from them that God did not derive human souls by propagation
from the primitive soul, but as in that first instance that He formed
them by breathing them into each individual, are so uncertain and
ambiguous, that they can with the utmost facility be taken in a
different sense from that which he would assign to them. This point I
have already demonstrated [2426] with sufficient clearness, I think in
the book which I addressed to that friend o ours, of whom I have made
mention above. The passages which he has used for his proofs inform us
that God gives, or makes, or fashion men's souls; but whence He gives
them, or of what He makes or fashions them, they tell us nothing: they
leave untouched the question whether it be by propagation from the
first soul or by insufflation, like the first soul. This writer
however, simply because he reads that God "giveth" souls, [2427] "hath
made" souls, "formeth" souls, supposes that these phrases amount to a
denial of the propagation of souls; whereas, by the testimony of the
same scripture, God gives men their bodies, or makes them, or fashions
and forms them; although no one doubts that the said bodies are given,
made, and formed by Him by seminal propagation.
Footnotes
[2426] See above in Book i. 17 [xiv.] and following chapters.
[2427] Isa. xlii. 5.
Chapter 20.--Victor Quotes Scriptures for Their Silence, and Neglects
the Biblical Usage.
As for the passage which affirms that "God hath made of one blood all
nations of men," [2428] and that in which Adam says, "This is now bone
of my bones, and flesh of my flesh," [2429] inasmuch as it is not said
in the one, "of one soul," and in the other, "soul of my soul," he
supposes that it is denied that children's souls come from their
parents, or the first woman's from her husband just as if, forsooth,
had the sentence run in the way suggested, "of one soul," instead of
"of one blood," anything else than the whole human being could be
understood, without any denial of the propagation of the body. So
likewise, if it had been said, "soul of my soul," the flesh would not
be denied, of course, which evidently had been taken out of the man.
Constantly does Holy Scripture indicate the whole by a part, and a
part by the whole. For certainly, if in the passage which this man has
quoted as his proof it had been said that the human race had been
made, not "of one blood," but "of one man," it could not have
prejudiced the opinion of those who deny the propagation of souls,
although man is not soul alone, nor only flesh, but both. For they
would have their answer ready to this effect, that the Scripture here
might have meant to indicate a part by the whole, that is to say, the
flesh only by the entire human being. In like manner, they who
maintain the propagation of souls contend that in the passage where it
is said, "of one blood," the human being is implied by the term
"blood," on the principle of the whole being expressed by a part. For
just as the one party seems to be assisted by the expression, "of one
blood," instead of the phrase, "of one man," so the other side
evidently gets countenance from the statement being so plainly
written, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and
so death passed upon all men, for in him all sinned," [2430] instead
of its being said, "in whom the flesh of all sinned." Similarly, as
one party seems to receive assistance from the fact that Scripture
says, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh," on the
ground that a part covers the whole; so, again, the other side derives
some advantage from what is written in the immediate sequel of the
passage, "She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her
husband." For, according to their contention, the latter clause should
have run, "Because her flesh was taken out of her husband," if it was
not true that the entire woman, soul and all, but only her flesh, was
taken out of man. The fact, however, of the whole matter is simply
this, that after hearing both sides, anybody whose judgment is free
from party prejudice sees at once that loose quotation is unavailing
in this controversy; for against one party, which maintains the
opinion of the propagation of souls, those passages must not be
adduced which mention only a part, inasmuch as the Scripture might
mean by the part to imply the whole in all such passages; as, for
instance, when we read, "The Word was made flesh," [2431] we of course
understand not the flesh only, but the entire human being; nor against
the other party, who deny this doctrine of the soul's propagation, is
it of any avail to quote those passages which do not mention a part of
the human being, but the whole; because in these the Scripture might
possibly mean to imply a part by the whole; as we confess that Christ
was buried, whereas it was only His flesh that was laid in the
sepulchre. We therefore say, that on such grounds there is no ground
on the one hand for rashly constructing, nor on the other hand for,
with equal rashness, demolishing the theory of propagation; but we add
this advice, that other passages be duly looked out, such as admit of
no ambiguity. [2432]
Footnotes
[2428] Acts xvii. 26.
[2429] Gen. ii. 23.
[2430] Rom. v. 12.
[2431] John i. 14.
[2432] Compare on this chapter Book i. 29.
Chapter 21 [XV.]--Victor's Perplexity and Failure.
For these reasons I fail thus far to discover what this instructor has
taught you, and what grounds you have for the gratitude you have
lavished upon him. For the question remains just as it was, which
inquires about the origin of souls, whether God gives, forms, and
makes them for men by propagating them from that one soul which He
breathed into the first man, or whether it is by His own inbreathing
that He does this in every case, as He did for the first man. For that
God does form, and make, and bestow souls on men, the Christian faith
does not hesitate to aver. Now, when this person endeavoured to solve
the question without gauging his own resources, by denying the
propagation of souls, and asserting that the Creator inbreathed them
into men pure from all contagion of sin,--not out of nothing, but out
of Himself,--He dishonoured the very nature of God by opprobriously
attributing mutability to it, an imputation which was necessarily
untenable. Then, desirous of avoiding all implication which might lead
to God's being deemed unrighteous, if He ties with the bond of
original sin souls which are pure of all actual sin, although not
redeemed by Christian regeneration, he has given utterance to words
and sentiments which I only wish he had not taught you. For he has
accorded to unbaptized infants such happiness and salvation as even
the Pelagian heresy could not have ventured on doing. And yet for all
this, when the question touches the many thousands of infants who are
born of the ungodly, and die among the ungodly,--I do not mean those
whom charitable persons are unable to assist by baptism, however
desirous of doing so, but those of whose baptism nobody either has
been able or shall be able to think, and for whom no one has offered
or is likely to offer the sacrifice which, as this instructor of yours
thought, ought to be offered even for those who have not been
baptized, [2433] --he has discovered no means of solving it. If he
were questioned concerning them, what their souls deserved that God
should involve them in sinful flesh to incur eternal damnation, never
to be washed in the laver of baptism, nor atoned for by the sacrifice
of Christ's body and blood, he will then either feel himself at an
utter loss, and so will regard our hesitation with a real, though
tardy favour; or else will determine that Christ's body must be
offered for all those infants which all the world over die without
Christian baptism (their names having been never heard of, since they
are unknown in the Church of Christ), although not incorporated into
the body of Christ.
Footnotes
[2433] [The editions give the manifestly false reading nobis for non,
yielding the sense: "even for ourselves who have been baptized."--W.]
Chapter 22 [XVI.]--Peter's Responsibility in the Case of Victor.
Far be it from you, my brother, that such views should be pleasant to
you, or that you should either feel pleasure in having acquired them,
or presume ever to teach them. Otherwise, even he would be a far
better man than yourself. Because at the commencement of his first
book he has prefixed the following modest and humble preface: "Though
I desire to comply with your request, I am only affording a clear
proof of my presumption." And a little further on he says, [2434]
"Inasmuch as I am, indeed, by no means confident of being able to
prove what I may have advanced; and moreover I should always be
anxious not to insist on any opinion of my own, if it is found to be
an improbable one; and it would be my hearty desire, in case my own
judgment is condemned, earnestly to follow better and truer views. For
as it shows evidence of the best intention, and a laudable purpose, to
permit yourself to be easily led to truer views of a subject; so it
betokens an obstinate and depraved mind to refuse to turn quickly
aside into the pathway of reason." Now, as he said all this sincerely,
and still feels as he spoke, he no doubt entertains a very hopeful
feeling about a right issue. In similar strain he concludes his second
book: "You must not think," says he, "that there is any chance of its
ever recoiling invidiously against you, that I constitute you the
judge of my words. And lest by chance the sharp eye of some
inquisitive reader may have opportunity of turning up and encountering
any possible vestiges of elemental error which may be left behind on
my illegal sheets, I beg you to tear up page after page with unsparing
hand, if need be; and after expending on me your critical censure,
punish me further, by smearing out the very ink which has given form
to my worthless words; so that, having your full opportunity, you may
prevent all ridicule, on the score either of the favourable opinion
you so strongly entertain of me, or of the inaccuracies which lurk in
my writings."
Footnotes
[2434] See below in Book iii. 20 (xiv.).
Chapter 23 [XVII.]--Who They are that are Not Injured by Reading
Injurious Books.
Forasmuch, then, as he has both commenced and terminated his books
with such safeguards, and has placed on your shoulders the religious
burden of their correction and emendation, I only trust that he may
find in you all that he has asked you for, that you may "correct him
righteously in mercy, and reprove him; whilst the oil of the sinner
which anoints his head" [2435] is absent from your hands and
eyes,--even the indecent compliance of the flatterer, and the
deceitful leniency of the sycophant. If, however, you decline to apply
correction when you see anything to amend, you offend against love;
but if he does not appear to you to require correction, because you
think him to be right in his opinions, then you are wise against
truth. He, therefore, is a better man (since he is only too ready to
be corrected, if a true censurer be at hand) than yourself, if either
knowing him to be in error you despise him with derision, or ignorant
of his wandering course you at the same time closely follow his error.
Everything, therefore, which you find in the books that he has
addressed and forwarded to you, I beg you to consider with sobriety
and vigilance; and you will perhaps make fuller discoveries than I
have myself of statements which deserve to be censured. And as for
such of their contents as are worthy of praise and
approbation,--whatever good you have learnt therein, and by his
instruction, which perhaps you were really ignorant of before, tell us
plainly what it is, that all may know that it was for this particular
benefit that you expressed your obligations to him, and not for the
manifold statements in his books which call for their
disapproval,--all, I mean, who, like yourself, heard him read his
writings, or who afterwards read the same for themselves: lest in his
ornate style they may drink poison, as out of a choice goblet, at your
instance, though not after your own example, because they know not
precisely what it is you have drunk yourself, and what you have left
untasted, and because, from your high character, they suppose that
whatever is drunk out of this fountain would be for their health. For
what else are hearing, and reading, and copiously depositing things in
the memory, than several processes of drinking? The Lord, however,
foretold concerning His faithful followers, that even "if they should
drink any deadly thing, it should not hurt them." [2436] And thus it
happens that they who read with judgment, and bestow their approbation
on whatever is commendable according to the rule of faith, and
disapprove of things which ought to be reprobated, even if they commit
to their memory statements which are declared to be worthy of
disapproval, they receive no harm from the poisonous and depraved
nature of the sentences. To myself, through the Lord's mercy, it can
never become a matter of the least regret, that, actuated by our
previous love, I have given your reverend and religious self advice
and warning on these points, in whatever way you may receive the
admonition for which I have regarded you as possessing the first claim
upon me. Abundant thanks, indeed, shall I give unto Him in whose mercy
it is most salutary to put one's trust, if this letter of mine shall
either find or else make your faith both free from the depraved and
erroneous opinions which I have been able herein to point out from
this man's books, and sound in catholic integrity.
Footnotes
[2435] Ps. cxli. 5.
[2436] Mark xvi. 18.
.
Book III.
Addressed to Vincentius Victor.
Augustin points out to Vincentius Victor the corrections which he
ought to make in his books concerning the origin of the soul, if he
wishes to be a Catholic. Those opinions also which had been already
refuted in the preceding books addressed to Renatus and Peter,
Augustin briefly censures in this third book, which is written to
Victor himself: moreover, he classifies them under eleven heads of
error.
Chapter 1 [I.]--Augustin's Purpose in Writing.
As to that which I have thought it my duty to write to you, my
much-loved son Victor, I would have you to entertain this above all
other thoughts in your mind, if I seemed to despise you, that it was
certainly not my intention to do so. At the same time I must beg of
you not to abuse our condescension in such a way as to suppose that
you possess my approval merely because you have not my contempt. For
it is not to follow, but to correct you, that I give you my love; and
since I by no means despair of the possibility of your amendment, I do
not want you to be surprised at my inability to despise the man who
has my love. Now, since it was my bounden duty to love you before you
had united with us, in order that you might become a catholic; how
much more ought I now to love you since your union with us, to prevent
your becoming a new heretic, and that you may become so firm a
catholic that no heretic may be able to withstand you! So far as
appears from the mental endowments which God has largely bestowed upon
you, you would be undoubtedly a wise man if you only did not believe
that you were one already, and begged of Him who maketh men wise, with
a pious, humble, and earnest prayer, that you might become one, and
preferred not to be led astray with error rather than to be honoured
with the flattery of those who go astray.
Chapter 2 [II.]--Why Victor Assumed the Name of Vincentius. The Names
of Evil Men Ought Never to Be Assumed by Other Persons.
The first thing which caused me some anxiety about you was the title
which appeared in your books with your name; for on inquiring of those
who knew you, and were probably your associates in opinion, who
Vincentius Victor was, I found that you had been a Donatist, or rather
a Rogatist, but had lately come into communion with the catholic
Church. Now, while I was rejoicing, as one naturally does at the
recovery of those whom he sees rescued from that system of error,--and
in your case my joy was all the greater because I saw that your
ability, which so much delighted me in your writings, had not remained
behind with the enemies of truth,--additional information was given me
by your friends which caused me sorrow amid my joy, to the effect that
you wished to have the name Vincentius prefixed to your own name,
inasmuch as you still held in affectionate regard the successor of
Rogatus, who bore this name, as a great and holy man, and that for
this reason you wished his name to become your surname. Some persons
also told me that you had, moreover, boasted about his having appeared
in some sort of a vision to you, and assisted you in composing those
books the subject of which I have discussed with you in this small
work of mine, and to such an extent as to dictate to you himself the
precise topics and arguments which you were to write about. Now, if
all this be true, I no longer wonder at your having been able to make
those statements which, if you will only lend a patient ear to my
admonition, and with the attention of a catholic duly consider and
weigh those books, you will undoubtedly come to regret having ever
advanced. For he who, according to the apostle's portrait, "transforms
himself into an angel of light," [2437] has transformed himself before
you into a shape which you believe to have been, or still to be, an
angel of light. In this way, indeed, he is less able to deceive
catholics when his transformations are not into angels of light, but
into heretics; now, however, that you are a catholic, I should be
sorry for you to be beguiled by him. He will certainly feel torture at
your having learnt the truth, and so much the more in proportion to
the pleasure he formerly experienced in having persuaded you to
believe error. With a view, however, to your refraining from loving a
dead person, when the love can neither be serviceable to yourself nor
profitable to him, I advise you to consider for a moment this one
point--that he is not, of course, a just and holy man, since you
withdrew yourself from the snares of the Donatists or Rogatists on the
score of their heresy; but if you do think him to be just and holy,
you ruin yourself by holding communion with catholics. You are,
indeed, only feigning yourself a catholic if you are in mind the same
as he was on whom you bestow your love; and you are aware how terribly
the Scripture has spoken on this subject: "The Holy Spirit of
discipline will flee from the man who feigns." [2438] If, however, you
are sincere in communicating with us, and do not merely pretend to be
a catholic, how is it that you still love a dead man to such a degree
as to be willing even now to boast of the name of one in whose errors
you no longer permit yourself to be held? We really do not like your
having such a surname, as if you were the monument of a dead heretic.
Nor do we like your book to have such a title as we should say was a
false one if we read it on his tomb. For we are sure Vincentius is not
Victor, the conqueror, but Victus, the conquered;--may it be, however,
with fruitful effect, even as we wish you to be conquered by the
truth! And yet your thought was an astute and skilful one, when you
designated the books, which you wish us to suppose were dictated to
you by his inspiration, by the name of Vincentius Victor; as much as
to intimate that it was rather he than you who wished to be designated
by the victorious appellation, as having been himself the conqueror of
error, by revealing to you what were to be the contents of your
written treatise. But of what avail is all this to you, my son? Be, I
pray you, a true catholic, not a feigned one, lest the Holy Spirit
should flee from you, and that Vincentius be unable to profit you at
all, into whom the most malignant spirit of error has transformed
himself for the purpose of deceiving you; for it is from that one that
all these evil opinions have proceeded, notwithstanding the artful
fraud which has persuaded you to the contrary. If this admonition
shall only induce you to correct these errors with the humility of a
God-fearing man and the peaceful submission of a catholic, they will
be regarded as the mistakes of an over-zealous young man, who is eager
rather to amend them than to persevere in them. But if he shall have
by his influence prevailed on you to contend for these opinions with
obstinate perseverance, which God forbid, it will in such a case be
necessary to condemn them and their author as heretical, as is
required by the pastoral and remedial nature of the Church's charge,
to check the dire contagion before it quietly spreads through the
heedless masses, while wholesome correction is neglected, under the
name but without the reality of love.
Footnotes
[2437] 2 Cor. xi. 14.
[2438] Wisd. i. 5.
Chapter 3 [III.]--He Enumerates the Errors Which He Desires to Have
Amended in the Books of Vincentius Victor. The First Error.
If you ask me what the particular errors are, you may read what I have
written to our brethren, that servant of God Renatus, and the
presbyter Peter, to the latter of whom you yourself thought it
necessary to write the very works of which we are now treating, "in
obedience," as you allege, "to his own wish and request." Now, they
will, I doubt not, lend you my treatises for your perusal if you
should like it, and even press them upon your attention without being
asked. But be that as it may, I will not miss this present opportunity
of informing you what amendments I desire to have made in these
writings of yours, as well as in your belief. The first is, that you
will have it that "The soul was not so made by God that He made it out
of nothing, but out of His own very self." [2439] Here you do not
reflect what the necessary conclusion is, that the soul must be of the
nature of God; and you know very well, of course, how impious such an
opinion is. Now, to avoid such impiety as this, you ought so to say
that God is the Author of the soul as that it was made by Him, but not
of Him. For whatever is of Him (as, for instance, His only-begotten
Son) is of the self-same nature as Himself. But, that the soul might
not be of the same nature as its Creator, it was made by Him, but not
of Him. Or, then, tell me whence it is, or else confess that it is of
nothing. What do you mean by that expression of yours, "That it is a
certain particle of an exhalation from the nature of God"? Do you mean
to say, then, that the exhalation [2440] itself from the nature of
God, to which the particle in question belongs, is not of the same
nature as God is Himself? If this be your meaning, then God made out
of nothing that exhalation of which you will have the soul to be a
particle. Or, if not out of nothing, pray tell me of what God made it?
If He made it out of Himself, it follows that He is Himself (what
should never be affirmed) the material of which His own work is
formed. But you go on to say: "When however, He made the exhalation or
breath out of Himself, He remained at the same time whole and entire;"
just as if the light of a candle did not also remain entire when
another candle is lighted from it, and yet be of the same nature, and
not another.
Footnotes
[2439] See above, Book i. 4 and Book ii. 5.
[2440] Halitus (breath).
Chapter 4 [IV.]--Victor's Simile to Show that God Can Create by
Breathing Without Impartation of His Substance.
"But," you say, "when we inflate a bag, no portion of our nature or
quality is poured into the bag, while the very breath, by the current
of which the filled bag is extended, is emitted from us without the
least diminution of ourselves." Now, you enlarge and dwell upon these
words of yours, and inculcate the simile as necessary for our
understanding how it is that God, without any injury to His own
nature, makes the soul out of His own self, and how, when it is thus
made out of Himself, it is not what Himself is. For you ask: "Is this
inflation of the bag a portion of our own soul? Or do we create human
beings when we inflate bags? Or do we suffer any injury in anything at
all when we impart our breath by inflation on diverse things? But we
suffer no injury when we transfer breath from ourselves to anything,
nor do we ever remember experiencing any damage to ourselves from
inflating a bag, the full quality and entire quantity of our breath
remaining in us notwithstanding the process." Now, however elegant and
applicable this simile seems to you, I beg you to consider how greatly
it misleads you. For you affirm that the incorporeal God breathes out
a corporeal soul,--not made out of nothing, but out of
Himself,--whereas the breath which we ourselves emit is corporeal,
although of a more subtle nature than our bodies; nor do we exhale it
out of our soul, but out of the air through internal functions in our
bodily structure. Our lungs, like a pair of bellows, are moved by the
soul (at the command of which also the other members of the body are
moved), for the purpose of inhaling and exhaling the atmospheric air.
For, besides the aliments, solid or fluid, which constitute our meat
and drink, God has surrounded us with this third aliment of the
atmosphere which we breathe; and that with so good effect, that we can
live for some time without meat and drink, but we could not possibly
subsist for a moment without this third aliment, which the air,
surrounding us on all sides, supplies us with as we breathe and
respire. And as our meat and drink have to be not only introduced into
the body, but also to be expelled by passages formed for the purpose,
to prevent injury accruing either way (from either not entering or not
quitting the body); so this third airy aliment (not being permitted to
remain within us, and thus not becoming corrupt by delay, but being
expelled as soon as it is introduced) has been furnished, not with
different, but with the self-same channels both for its entrance and
for its exit, even the mouth, or the nostrils, or both together.
Chapter 5.--Examination of Victor's Simile: Does Man Give Out Nothing
by Breathing?
Prove now yourself what I say, for your own satisfaction in your own
case; emit breath by exhalation, and see whether you can continue long
without catching back your breath; then again catch it back by
inhalation, and see what discomfort you experience unless you again
emit it. Now, when we inflate a bag, as you prescribe, we do, in fact,
the same thing which we do to maintain life, except that in the case
of the artificial experiment our inhalation is somewhat stronger, in
order that we may emit a stronger breath, so as to fill and distend
the bag by compressing the air we blow into it, rather in the manner
of a hard puff than of the gentle process of ordinary breathing and
respiration. On what ground, then, do you say, "We suffer no injury
whenever we transfer breath from ourselves to any object, nor do we
ever remember experiencing any damage to ourselves from inflating a
bag, the full quality and entire quantity of our own breath remaining
in us notwithstanding the process"? It is very plain, my son, if ever
you have inflated a bag, that you did not carefully observe your own
performance. For you do not perceive what you lose by the act of
inflation by reason of the immediate recovery of your breath. But you
can learn all this with the greatest ease if you would simply prefer
doing so to stiffly maintaining your own statements for no other
reason than because you have made them--not inflating the bag, but
inflated yourself to the full, and inflating your hearers (whom you
should rather edify and instruct by veritable facts) with the empty
prattle of your turgid discourse. In the present case I do not send
you to any other teacher than your own self. Breathe, then, a good
breath into the bag; shut your mouth instantly, hold tight your
nostrils, and in this way discover the truth of what I say to you. For
when you begin to suffer the intolerable inconvenience which
accompanies the experiment, what is it you wish to recover by opening
your mouth and releasing your nostrils? Surely there would be nothing
to recover if your supposition be a correct one, that you have lost
nothing whenever you breathe. Observe what a plight you would be in,
if by inhalation you did not regain what you had parted with by your
breathing outwards. See, too, what loss and injury the insufflation
would produce, were it not for the repair and reaction caused by
respiration. For unless the breath which you expend in filling the bag
should all return by the re-opened channel to discharge its function
of nourishing yourself, what, I wonder, would be left remaining to
you,--I will not say to inflate another bag, but to supply your very
means of living?
Chapter 6.--The Simile Reformed in Accordance with Truth.
Well, now, you ought to have thought of all this when you were
writing, and not to have brought God before our eyes in that favourite
simile of yours, of inflated and inflateable bags, breathing forth
souls out of some other nature which was already in existence, just as
we ourselves make our breath from the air which surrounds us; or
certainly you should not, in a manner which is really as diverse from
your similitude as it is abundant in impiety, have represented God as
either producing some changeable thing without injury, indeed, to
Himself, but yet out of His own substance; or what is worse, creating
it in such wise as to be Himself the material of His own work. If,
however, we are to employ a similitude drawn from our breathing which
shall suitably illustrate this subject, the following one is more
credible: Just as we, whenever we breathe, make a breath, not out of
our own nature, but, because we are not omnipotent, out of that air
that surrounds us, which we inhale and discharge whenever we breathe
and respire; and the said breath is neither living nor sentient,
although we are ourselves living and sentient; so God can--not,
indeed, out of His own nature, but (as being so omnipotent as to be
able to create whatever He wills) even out of that which has no
existence at all, that is to say, out of nothing--make a breath that
is living and sentient, but evidently mutable, though He be Himself
immutable.
Chapter 7 [V.]--Victor Apparently Gives the Creative Breath to Man
Also.
But what is the meaning of that, which you have thought proper to add
to this simile, with regard to the example of the blessed Elisha
because he raised the dead by breathing into his face? [2441] Now, do
you really suppose that Elisha's breath was made the soul of the
child? I could not believe that even you could stray so far away from
the truth. If, now, that soul which was taken from the living child so
as to cause his death, was itself afterwards restored to him so as to
cause his restoration to life: where, I ask, is the pertinence of your
remark when you say "that no diminution accrued to Elisha," as if it
could be imagined that anything had been transferred from the prophet
to the child to cause his revival? But if you meant no more than that
the prophet breathed and remained entire, where was the necessity for
your saying that of Elisha, when raising the dead child, which you
might with no less propriety say of any one whatever when emitting a
breath, and reviving no one? Then, again, you spoke unadvisedly
(though God forbid that you should believe the breath of Elisha to
have become the soul of the resuscitated child!) when you intimated
your meaning to be a desire to keep separate what was first done by
God from this that was done by the prophet, in that the One breathed
but once, and the other thrice. These are your words: "Elisha breathed
into the face of the deceased child of the Shunammite, after the
manner of the original creation. And when by the prophet's breathing a
divine force inspired the dead limbs, reanimated to their original
vigour, no diminution accrued to Elisha, through whose breathing the
dead body recovered its revived soul and spirit. Only there is this
difference, the Lord breathed but once into man's face and he lived,
while Elisha breathed three times into the face of the dead and he
lived again." Thus your words sound as if the number of the breathings
alone made all the difference, why we should not believe that the
prophet actually did what God did. This statement, then, requires to
be entirely revised. There was so complete a difference between that
work of God and this of Elisha, that the former breathed the breath of
life whereby man became a living soul, and the latter breathed a
breath which was not itself sentient nor endued with life, but was
figurative for the sake of some signification. The prophet did not
really cause the child to live again by giving him life, but he
procured God's doing that by giving him love. [2442] As to what you
allege, that he breathed three times, either your memory, as often
happens, or a faulty reading of the text, must have misled you. Why
need I enlarge? You ought not to be seeking for examples and arguments
to establish your point, but rather to amend and change your opinion.
I beg of you neither to believe, nor to say, nor to teach "that God
made the human soul not out of nothing, but out of His own substance,"
if you wish to be a catholic.
Footnotes
[2441] 2 Kings iv. 34.
[2442] In the original we have here another instance of Augustin's
frequent play on words, Non animando, sed amando: "not by ensouling
but by loving him," or "not by enlivening but by loving him."
Chapter 8 [VI.]--Victor's Second Error. (See Above in Book I. 26
[XVI.].)
Do not, I pray you, believe, say, or teach that "Thus is God ever
giving souls through infinite time, just as He who gives is Himself
ever existent," if you wish to be a catholic. For a time will come
when God will not give souls, although He will not therefore Himself
cease to exist. Your phrase, "is ever giving," might be understood "to
give without cessation," so long as men are born and get offspring,
even as it is said of certain men that they are "ever learning, and
never coming to the knowledge of the truth." [2443] For this term
"ever" is not in this passage taken to mean "never ceasing to learn,"
inasmuch as they do cease to learn when they have ceased to exist in
this body, or have begun to suffer the fiery pains of hell. You,
however, did not allow your word to be understood in this sense when
you said "is ever giving," since you thought that it must be applied
to infinite time. And even this was a small matter; for, as if you had
been asked to explain your phrase, "ever giving," more explicitly, you
went on to say, "just as He is Himself ever existent who gives." This
assertion the sound and catholic faith utterly condemns. For be it far
from us to believe that God is ever giving souls, just as He is
Himself, who gives them, ever existent. He is Himself ever existent in
such a sense as never to cease to exist; souls, however, He will not
be ever giving; but He will beyond doubt cease to give them when the
age of generation ceases, and children are no longer born to whom they
are to be given.
Footnotes
[2443] 2 Tim. iii. 7.
Chapter 9 [VII.]--His Third Error. (See Above in Book II. 11 [VII.].)
Again, do not, I pray you, believe, say, or teach that "the soul
deservedly lost something by the flesh, although it was of good merit
previous to the flesh," if you wish to be a catholic. For the apostle
declares that "children who are not yet born, have done neither good
nor evil." [2444] How, therefore, could their soul, previous to its
participation of flesh, have had anything like good desert, if it had
not done any good thing? Will you by any chance venture to assert that
it had, previous to the flesh, lived a good life, when you cannot
actually prove to us that it even existed at all? How, then, can you
say: "You will not allow that the soul contracts health from the
sinful flesh; and to this holy state, then, you can see it in due
course pass, with the view of amending its condition, through that
very flesh by which it had lost merit"? Perhaps you are not aware that
these opinions, which attribute to the human soul a good state and a
good merit previous to the flesh, have been already condemned by the
catholic Church, not only in the case of some ancient heretics, whom I
do not here mention, but also more recently in the instance of the
Priscillianists.
Footnotes
[2444] Rom. ix. 11.
Chapter 10.--His Fourth Error. (See Above in Book I. 6 [VI.] and Book
II. 11 [VII.].)
Neither believe, nor say, nor teach that "the soul, by means of the
flesh, repairs its ancient condition, and is born again by the very
means through which it had deserved to be polluted," if you wish to be
a catholic. I might, indeed, dwell upon the strange discrepancy with
your own self which you have exhibited in the next sentence, wherein
you said that the soul through the flesh deservedly recovers its
primitive condition, which it had seemed to have gradually lost
through the flesh, in order that it may begin to be regenerated by the
very flesh through which it had deserved to be polluted." Here
you--the very man who had just before said that the soul repairs its
condition through the flesh, by reason of which it had lost its desert
(where nothing but good desert can be meant, which you will have to be
recovered in the flesh, by baptism, of course)--said in another turn
of your thought, that through the flesh the soul had deserved to be
polluted (in which statement it is no longer the good desert, but an
evil one, which must be meant). What flagrant inconsistency! but I
will pass it over, and content myself with observing, that it is
absolutely uncatholic to believe that the soul, previous to its
incarnate state, deserved either good or evil.
Chapter 11 [VIII.]--His Fifth Error. (See Above in Book I. 8 [VIII.]
and Book II. 12 [VIII.].)
Neither believe, nor say, nor teach, if you wish to be a catholic,
that "the soul deserved to be sinful before any sin." It is, to be
sure, an extremely bad desert to have deserved to be sinful. And, of
course, it could not possibly have incurred so bad a desert previous
to any sin, especially prior to its coming into the flesh, when it
could have possessed no merit either way, either evil or good. How,
then, can you say: "If, therefore, the soul, which could not be
sinful, deserved to be sinful, it yet did not remain in sin, because
as it was prefigured in Christ it was bound not to be in a sinful
state, even as it was unable to be"? Now, just for a little consider
what it is you say, and desist from repeating such a statement. How
did the soul deserve, and how was it unable, to be sinful? How, I pray
you tell me, did that deserve to be sinful which never lived sinfully?
How, I ask again, was that made sinful which was not able to be
sinful? Or else, if you mean your phrase, "was unable," to imply
inability apart from the flesh, how in that case did the soul deserve
to be sinful, and by reason of what desert was it sent into the flesh,
when previous to its union with the flesh it was not able to be
sinful, so as to deserve any evil at all?
Chapter 12 [IX.]--His Sixth Error. (See Above in Book I. 10-12 [IX.,
X.], and in Book II. 13, 14 [IX., X.].)
If you wish to be a catholic, refrain from believing, or saying, or
teaching that "infants which are forestalled by death before they are
baptized may yet attain to forgiveness of their original sins." For
the examples by which you are misled--that of the thief who confessed
the Lord upon the cross, or that of Dinocrates the brother of St.
Perpetua--contribute no help to you in defence of this erroneous
opinion. As for the thief, although in God's judgment he might be
reckoned among those who are purified by the confession of martyrdom,
yet you cannot tell whether he was not baptized. For, to say nothing
of the opinion that he might have been sprinkled with the water which
gushed at the same time with the blood out of the Lord's side, [2445]
as he hung on the cross next to Him, and thus have been washed with a
baptism of the most sacred kind, what if he had been baptized in
prison, as in after times some under persecution were enabled
privately to obtain? or what if he had been baptized previous to his
imprisonment? If, indeed, he had been, the remission of his sins which
he would have received in that case from God would not have protected
him from the sentence of public law, so far as appertained to the
death of the body. What if, being already baptized, he had committed
the crime and incurred the punishment of robbery and lawlessness, but
yet received, by virtue of repentance added to his baptism,
forgiveness of the sins which, though baptized, he had committed? For
beyond doubt his faith and piety appeared to the Lord clearly in his
heart, as they do to us in his words. If, indeed, we were to conclude
that all those who have quitted life without a record of their baptism
died unbaptized, we should calumniate the very apostles themselves;
for we are ignorant when they were, any of them, baptized, except the
Apostle Paul. [2446] If, however, we could regard as an evidence that
they were really baptized the circumstance of the Lord's saying to St.
Peter, "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet," [2447]
what are we to think of the others, of whom we do not read even so
much as this,--Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Silas, Philemon, the very
evangelists Mark and Luke, and innumerable others, about whose baptism
God forbid that we should entertain any doubt, although we read no
record of it? As for Dinocrates, he was a child of seven years of age;
and as children who are baptized so old as that can now recite the
creed and answer for themselves in the usual examination, I know not
why he may not be supposed after his baptism to have been recalled by
his unbelieving father to the sacrilege and profanity of heathen
worship, and for this reason to have been condemned to the pains from
which he was liberated at his sister's intercession. For in the
account of him you have never read, either that he was never a
Christian, or died a catechumen. But for the matter of that, the
account itself that we have of him does not occur in that canon of
Holy Scripture whence in all questions of this kind our proofs ought
always to be drawn.
Footnotes
[2445] John xix. 34.
[2446] Acts ix. 18.
[2447] John xiii. 10.
Chapter 13 [X]--His Seventh Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)
If you wish to be a catholic, do not venture to believe, to say, or to
teach that "they whom the Lord has predestinated for baptism can be
snatched away from his predestination, or die before that has been
accomplished in them which the Almighty has predestined." There is in
such a dogma more power than I can tell assigned to chances in
opposition to the power of God, by the occurrence of which casualties
that which He has predestinated is not permitted to come to pass. It
is hardly necessary to spend time or earnest words in cautioning the
man who takes up with this error against the absolute vortex of
confusion into which it will absorb him, when I shall sufficiently
meet the case if I briefly warn the prudent man who is ready to
receive correction against the threatening mischief. Now these are
your words: "We say that some such method as this must be had recourse
to in the case of infants who, being predestinated for baptism, are
yet, by the failing of this life, hurried away before they are born
again in Christ." Is it then really true that any who have been
predestinated to baptism are forestalled before they come to it by the
failing of this life? And could God predestinate anything which He
either in His foreknowledge saw would not come to pass, or in
ignorance knew not that it could not come to pass, either to the
frustration of His purpose or the discredit of His foreknowledge? You
see how many weighty remarks might be made on this subject; but I am
restrained by the fact of having treated on it a little while ago, so
that I content myself with this brief and passing admonition.
Chapter 14.--His Eighth Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)
Refuse, if you wish to be a catholic, to believe, or to say, or to
teach that "it is of infants, who are forestalled by death before they
are born again in Christ, that the Scripture says, `Speedily was he
taken away, lest that wickedness should alter his understanding, or
deceit beguile his soul. Therefore God hastened to take him away from
among the wicked; for his soul pleased the Lord; and being made
perfect in a short time he fulfilled long seasons.'" [2448] For this
passage has nothing to do with those to whom you apply it, but rather
belongs to those who, after they have been baptized and have
progressed in pious living, are not permitted to tarry long on
earth,--having been made perfect, not with years, but with the grace
of heavenly wisdom. This error however, of yours, by which you think
that this scripture was spoken of infants who die unbaptized, does an
intolerable wrong to the holy laver itself, if an infant, who could
have been "hurried away" after baptism, has been "hurried away" before
this, for this reason:--"lest wickedness should alter his
understanding, or deceit beguile his soul." As if this "wickedness,"
and this "deceit which beguiles the soul," and changes it for the
worse, if it be not before taken away, is to be believed to be in
baptism itself! In a word, since his soul had pleased God, He hastened
to remove him out of the midst of iniquity; and he tarried not for
ever so little while, in order to fulfil in him what He had
predestinated; but preferred to act in opposition to His predestined
purpose, and actually hastened lest what had pleased Him so well in
the unbaptized child should be exterminated by his baptism! As if the
dying infant would perish in that, whither we ought to run with him in
our arms in order to save him from perdition. Who, therefore, in
respect of these words of the Book of Wisdom, could believe, or say,
or write, or quote them as having been written concerning infants who
die without baptism, if he only reflected upon them with proper
consideration?
Footnotes
[2448] Wisd. iv. 11.
Chapter 15 [XI.]--His Ninth Error. (See Above in Book II. 14 [X.].)
If you wish to be a catholic, I pray you, neither believe, nor say,
nor teach that "there are some mansions outside the kingdom of God
which the Lord said were in His Father's house." For He does not
affirm, as you have adduced his testimony, "There are with my Father
(apud Patrem meum) many mansions;" although, if He had even expressed
Himself so, the mansions could hardly be supposed to have any other
situation than in the house of His Father; but He plainly says, "In my
Father's house are many mansions." [2449] Now, who would be so
reckless as to separate some parts of God's house from the kingdom of
God; so that, whilst the kings of the earth are found reigning, not in
their house only, nor only in their own country, but far and wide,
even in regions across the sea, the King who made the heaven and the
earth is not described as reigning even over all His own house?
Footnotes
[2449] John xiv. 2.
Chapter 16.--God Rules Everywhere: and Yet the "Kingdom of Heaven" May
Not Be Everywhere.
You may, however, not improbably contend that all things, it is true,
belong to the kingdom of God, because He reigns in heaven, reigns on
earth, in the depths beneath, in paradise, in hell (for where does He
not reign, since His power is everywhere supreme?); but that the
kingdom of heaven is one thing, into which none are permitted to
enter, according to the Lord's own true and settled sentence, unless
they are washed in the laver of regeneration, while quite another
thing is the kingdom over the earth, or over any other parts of
creation, in which there may be some mansions of God's house; but
these, although appertaining to the kingdom of God, belong not to that
kingdom of heaven where God's kingdom exists with an especial
excellence and blessedness; and that it hence happens that, while no
parts and mansions of God's house can be rudely separated from the
kingdom of God, yet not all the mansions are prepared in the kingdom
of heaven; and still, even in the abodes which are not situated in the
kingdom of heaven, those may live happily, to whom, if they are even
unbaptized, God has willed to assign such habitations. They are no
doubt in the kingdom of God, although (as not having been baptized)
they cannot possibly be in the kingdom of heaven.
Chapter 17.--Where the Kingdom of God May Be Understood to Be.
Now, they who say this, do no doubt seem to themselves to say a good
deal, because theirs is only a slight and careless view of Scripture;
nor do they understand in what sense we use the phrase, "kingdom of
God," when we say of it in our prayers, "Thy kingdom come;" [2450] for
that is called the kingdom of God, in which His whole family shall
reign with Him in happiness and for ever. Now, in respect of the power
which He possesses over all things, he is of course even now reigning.
What, therefore, do we intend when we pray that His kingdom may come
unless that we may deserve to reign with Him? But even they will be
under His power who shall have to suffer the pains of eternal fire.
Well, then, do we mean to predicate of these unhappy beings that they
too will be in the kingdom of God? Surely it is one thing to be
honoured with the gifts and privileges of the kingdom of God, and
another thing to be restrained and punished by the laws of the same.
However, that you may have a very manifest proof that on the one hand
the kingdom of heaven must not be parcelled out to the baptized, and
other portions of the kingdom of God be given to the unbaptized, as
you seem to have determined, I beg of you to hear the Lord's own
words; He does not say, "Except a man be born again of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom or heaven;" but His words
are, "he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." His discourse with
Nicodemus on the subject before us runs thus: "Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God." Observe, He does not here say, the kingdom of heaven, but the
kingdom of God. And then, on Nicodemus asking Him in reply, "How can a
man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his
mother's womb and be born?" the Lord, in explanation, repeats His
former statement more plainly and openly: "Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God." Observe again, He uses the same
phrase, the kingdom of God, notthe kingdom of heaven. [2451] It is
worthy of remark, that while He varies two expressions in explaining
them the second time (for after saying, "Except a man be born again,"
He interprets that by the fuller expression, "Except a man be born of
water and the Spirit;" and in like manner He explains, "he cannot
see," by the completer phrase, "he cannot enter into"), He yet makes
no variation here; He said "the kingdom of God" the first time, and He
afterwards repeated the same phrase exactly. It is not now necessary
to raise and discuss the question, whether the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of heaven must be understood as involving different senses, or
whether only one thing is described under two designations. It is
enough to find that no one can enter into the kingdom of God, except
he be washed in the laver of regeneration. I suppose you perceive by
this time how wide of the truth it is to separate from the kingdom of
God any mansions that are placed in the house of God. And as to the
idea which you have entertained that there will be found dwelling
among the various mansions, which the Lord has told us abound in His
Father's house, some who have not been born again of water and the
Spirit, I advise you, if you will permit me, not to defer amending it,
in order that you may hold the catholic faith.
Footnotes
[2450] Matt. vi. 10.
[2451] John iii. 3-6.
Chapter 18 [XII.]--His Tenth Error. (See Above in Book I. 13 [XI.] and
Book II. 15 [XI.]).
Again, if you wish to be a catholic, I pray you, neither believe, nor
say, nor teach that "the sacrifice of Christians ought to be offered
in behalf of those who have departed out of the body without having
been baptized." Because you fail to show that the sacrifice of the
Jews, which you have quoted out of the books of the Maccabees, [2452]
was offered in behalf of any who had departed this life without
circumcision. In this novel opinion of yours, which you have advanced
against the authority and teaching of the whole Church, you have used
a very arrogant mode of expression. You say, "In behalf of these, I
most certainly decide that constant oblations and incessant sacrifices
must be offered up on the part of the holy priests." Here you show, as
a layman, no submission to God's priests for instruction; nor do you
associate yourself with them (the least you could do) for inquiry; but
you put yourself before them by your proud assumption of judgment.
Away, my son, with all this pretension; men walk not so arrogantly in
the Way, which the Humble Christ taught that He Himself is. [2453] No
man enters through His narrow gate with so proud a disposition as
this.
Footnotes
[2452] 2 Macc. xii. 43.
[2453] John xiv. 6.
Chapter 19 [XIII.]--His Eleventh Error. (See Above in Book I. 15
[XII.] and Book II. 16.)
Once more, if you desire to be a catholic, do not believe, or say, or
teach that "some of those persons who have departed this life without
Christ's baptism, do not in the meantime go into the kingdom of
heaven, but into paradise; yet afterwards in the resurrection of the
dead they attain also to the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven."
Even the Pelagian heresy was not daring enough to grant them this,
although it holds that infants do not contract original sin. You,
however, as a catholic, confess that they are born in sin; and yet by
some unaccountable perverseness in the novel opinion you put forth,
you assert that they are absolved from that sin with which they were
born, and admitted into the kingdom of heaven without the baptism
which saves. Nor do you seem to be aware how much below Pelagius
himself you are in your views on this point. For he, being alarmed by
that sentence of the Lord which does not permit unbaptized persons to
enter into the kingdom of heaven, does not venture to send infants
thither, although he believes them to be free from all sin; whereas
you have so little regard for what is written, "Except a man be born
again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God," [2454] that (to say nothing of the error which induces you
recklessly to sever paradise from the kingdom of God) you do not
hesitate to promise to certain persons, whom you, as a catholic,
believe to be born under guilt, both absolution from this guilt and
the kingdom of heaven, even when they die without baptism. As if you
could possibly be a true catholic because you build up the doctrine of
original sin against Pelagius, if you show yourself a new heretic
against the Lord, by pulling down His statement respecting baptism.
For our own part, beloved brother, we do not desire thus to gain
victories over heretics: vanquishing one error by another, and, what
is still worse, a less one by a greater. You say, "Should any one
perhaps be reluctant to allow that paradise was temporarily bestowed
in the meantime on the souls of the dying thief and of Dinocrates,
while there still remains to them the reversion of the kingdom of
heaven at the resurrection, seeing that the principal passage stands
in the way of the opinion, `Except a man be born again of water and
the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven,' he may
still hold my ungrudging assent on this point; only let him do full
honour to both the effect and the aim [2455] of the divine mercy and
foreknowledge." These are your own words, and in them you express your
agreement with the man who says that paradise is conferred on certain
unbaptized for a time, in such a sense that at the resurrection there
is in store for them the reward of the kingdom of heaven, in
opposition to "that principal passage" which has determined that none
shall enter into that kingdom who has not been born again of water and
the Holy Ghost. Pelagius was afraid to oppose himself to this
"principal passage" of the Gospel, and he did not believe that any
(whom he still did not suppose to be sinners) would enter into the
kingdom of heaven unbaptized. You, on the contrary, acknowledge that
infants have original sin, and yet you absolve them from it without
the laver of regeneration, and send them for a temporary residence in
paradise, and subsequently permit them to enter even into the kingdom
of heaven.
Footnotes
[2454] John iii. 5.
[2455] Et effectum et affectum.
Chapter 20 [XIV.]--Augustin Calls on Victor to Correct His Errors.
(See Above in Book II. 22 [XVI.].)
Now these errors, and such as these, with whatever others you may
perhaps be able to discover in your books on a more attentive and
leisurely perusal, I beg of you to correct, if you possess a catholic
mind; in other words, if you spoke in perfect sincerity when you said,
that you were not over-confident in yourself that what statements you
had made were all capable of proof; and that your constant aim was not
to maintain even your own opinion, if it were shown to be improbable;
and that it gave you much pleasure, if your own judgment were
condemned, to adopt and pursue better and truer sentiments. Well now,
my dear brother, show that you said this in no fallacious sense; so
that the catholic Church may rejoice in your capacity and character,
as possessing not only genius, but prudence withal, and piety, and
moderation, rather than that the madness of heresy should be kindled
by your contentious persistence in these errors. Now you have an
opportunity of showing also how sincerely you expressed your feelings
in the passage which immediately follows the satisfactory statement
which I have just now mentioned of yours. "For," you say, "as it is
the mark of every highest aim and laudable purpose to transfer one's
self readily to truer views; so it shows a depraved and obstinate
judgment to refuse to return promptly to the pathway of reason." Well,
then, show yourself to be influenced by this high aim and laudable
purpose, and transfer your mind readily to truer views; and do not
display a depraved and obstinate judgment by refusing to return
promptly to the pathway of reason. For if your words were uttered in
frank sincerity, if they were not mere sound of the lips, if you
really felt them in your heart, then you cannot but abhor all delay in
accomplishing the great good of correcting yourself. It was not,
indeed, much for you to allow, that it showed a depraved and obstinate
judgment to refuse to return to the pathway of reason, unless you had
added "promptly." By adding this, you showed us how execrable is his
conduct who never accomplishes the reform; inasmuch as even he who
effects it but tardily appears to you to deserve so severe a censure,
as to be fairly described as displaying a depraved and obstinate mind.
Listen, therefore, to your own admonition, and turn to good account
mainly and largely the fruitful resources of your eloquence; that so
you may promptly return to the pathway of reason, more promptly,
indeed, than when you declined therefrom, at an unstable period of
your age, when you were fortified with too little prudence and less
learning.
Chapter 21.--Augustin Compliments Victor's Talents and Diligence.
It would take me too long a time to handle and discuss fully all the
points which I wish to be amended in your books, or rather in your own
self, and to give you even a brief reason for the correction of each
particular. And yet you must not because of them despise yourself, so
as to suppose that your ability and powers of speech are to be thought
lightly of. I have discovered in you no small recollection of the
sacred Scriptures; but your erudition is less than was proportioned to
your talent, and the labour you bestowed on them. My desire,
therefore, is that you should not, on the one hand, grow vain by
attributing too much to yourself; nor, on the other hand, become cold
and indifferent by prostration or despair. I only wish that I could
read your writings in company with yourself, and point out the
necessary emendations in conversation rather than by writing. This is
a matter which could be more easily accomplished by oral communication
between ourselves than in letters. If the entire subject were to be
treated in writing, it would require many volumes. Those chief errors,
however, which I have wished to sum up comprehensively in a definite
number, I at once call your attention to, in order that you may not
postpone the correction of them, but banish them entirely from your
preaching and belief; so that the great faculty which you possess of
disputation, may, by God's grace, be employed by you usefully for
edification, not for injuring and destroying sound and wholesome
doctrine.
Chapter 22 [XV.]--A Summary Recapitulation of the Errors of Victor.
What these particular errors are, I have, to the best of my ability,
already explained. But I will run over them again with a brief
recapitulation. One is, "That God did not make the soul out of
nothing, but out of His own self." A second is, that "just as God who
gives is Himself ever existent, so is He ever giving souls through
infinite time." The third is, that "the soul lost some merit by the
flesh, which it had had previous to the flesh." The fourth is, that
"the soul by means of the flesh recovers its ancient condition, and is
born again through the very same flesh by which it had deserved to be
polluted." The fifth is, that "the soul deserved to be sinful,
previous to any sin." The sixth is, that "infants which are
forestalled by death before they are baptized, may yet attain to
forgiveness of their original sins." The seventh is, that "they whom
the Lord has predestinated to be baptized may be taken away from his
predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which
the Almighty has predestined." The eighth is, that "it is of infants
who are fore-stalled by death, before they are born again in Christ,
that the Scripture says, `Speedily was he taken away, lest wickedness
should alter his understanding,'" with the remainder of the passage to
the same effect in the Book of Wisdom. The ninth is, that "there are
outside the kingdom of God some of those mansions which the Lord said
were in His Father's house." The tenth is, that "the sacrifice of
Christians ought to be offered in behalf of those who have departed
out of the body without being baptized." The eleventh is, that "some
of those persons who have departed this life without the baptism of
Christ do not in the meanwhile go into the kingdom, but into paradise;
afterwards, however, in the resurrection of the dead, they attain even
to the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven."
Chapter 23.--Obstinacy Makes the Heretic.
Well, now, as for these eleven propositions, they are extremely and
manifestly perverse and opposed to the catholic faith; so that you
should no longer hesitate to root them out and cast them away from
your mind, from your words, and from your pen, if you are desirous
that we should rejoice not only at your having come over to our
catholic altars, but at your being really and truly a catholic. For if
these dogmas of yours are severally maintained with pertinacity, they
may possibly engender as many heresies as they number opinions.
Wherefore consider, I pray you, how dreadful it is that they should be
all concentrated in one person, when they would, if held severally by
various persons, be every one of them damnable in each holder. If,
however, you would in your own person cease to fight contentiously in
their defence, nay, would turn your arms against them by faithful
words and writings, you would acquire more praise as the censurer of
your own self than if you directed any amount of right criticism
against any other person; and your amendment of your own errors would
bring you more admiration than if you had never entertained them. May
the Lord be present to your heart and mind, and by His Spirit pour
into your soul such readiness in humility, such light of truth, such
sweetness of love, and such peaceful piety, that you may prefer being
a conqueror of your own spirit in the truth, than of any one else who
gainsays it with his errors. But I do not by any means wish you to
think, that by holding these opinions you have departed from the
catholic faith, although they are unquestionably opposed to the
catholic faith; if so be you are able, in the presence of that God
whose eye infallibly searches every man's heart, to look back on your
own words as being truly and sincerely expressed, when you said that
you were not over-confident in yourself as to the opinions you had
broached, that they were all capable of proof; and that your constant
aim was not to persist in your own sentiments, if they were shown to
be improbable; inasmuch as it was a real pleasure to you, when any
judgment of yours was condemned, to adopt and pursue better and truer
thoughts. Now such a temper as this, even in relation to what may have
been said in an uncatholic form through ignorance, is itself catholic
by the very purpose and readiness of amendment which it premeditates.
With this remark, however, I must now end this volume, where the
reader may rest a while, ready to renew his attention to what is to
follow, when I begin my next book.
.
Book IV.
Addressed to Vincentius Victor.
He first shows, that his hesitation on the subject of the origin of
souls was undeservedly blamed, and that he was wrongly compared with
cattle, because he had refrained from any rash conclusions on the
subject. Then, again, with regard to his own unhesitating statement,
that the soul was spirit, not body, he points out how rashly Victor
disapproved of this assertion, especially when he was vainly expending
his efforts to prove that the soul was corporeal in its own nature,
and that the spirit in man was distinct from the soul itself.
Chapter 1 [I.]--The Personal Character of This Book.
I Must now, in the sequel of my treatise, request you to hear what I
desire to say to you concerning myself--as I best can; or rather as He
shall enable me in whose hand are both ourselves and our words. For
you blamed me on two several occasions, even going so far as to
mention my name. In the beginning of your book you spoke of yourself
as being perfectly conscious of your own want of skill, and as being
destitute of the support of learning; and, when you mentioned me,
bestowed on me the complimentary phrases of "most learned" and "most
skilful." But yet, all the while, on those subjects in which you
seemed to yourself to be perfectly acquainted with what I either
confess my ignorance of, or presume with no unbecoming liberty to have
some knowledge of, you--young as you are, and a layman too--did not
hesitate to censure me, an old man and a bishop, and a person withal
whom in your own judgment you had pronounced most learned and most
skilful. Well, for my own part, I know nothing about my great learning
and skill; nay, I am very certain that I possess no such eminent
qualities; moreover, I have no doubt that it is quite within the scope
of possibility, that it may fall to the lot of even an unskilful and
unlearned man occasionally to know what a learned and skilful person
is ignorant of; and in this I plainly commend you, that you have
preferred to merely personal regard a love of truth,--for if you have
not understood the truth, yet at any rate you have thought it such.
This you have done no doubt with temerity, because you thought you
knew what you were really ignorant of; and without restraint, because,
having no respect of persons, you chose to publish abroad whatever was
in your mind. You ought therefore to understand how much greater our
care should be to recall the Lord's sheep from their errors; since it
is evidently wrong for even the sheep to conceal from the shepherds
whatever faults they have discovered in them. O that you censured me
in such things as are indeed worthy of just blame! For I must not deny
that both in my conduct and in my writings there are many points which
may be censured by a sound judge without temerity. Now, if you would
select any of these for your censure, I might be able by them to show
you how I should like you to behave in those particulars which you
judiciously and fairly condemned; moreover, I should have (as an elder
to a younger, and as one in authority to him who has to obey) an
opportunity of setting you an example under correction which should
not be more humble on my part than wholesome to both of us. With
respect, however, to the points on which you have actually censured
me, they are not such as humility obliges me to correct, but such as
truth compels me partly to acknowledge and partly to defend.
Chapter 2 [II.]--The Points Which Victor Thought Blameworthy in
Augustin.
And they are these: The first, that I did not venture to make a
definite statement touching the origin of those souls which have been
given, or are being given, to human beings, since the first
man--because I confess my ignorance of the subject; the second,
because I said I was sure the soul was spirit, not body. Under this
second point, however, you have included two grounds of censure: one,
because I refused to believe the soul to be corporeal; the other,
because I affirmed it to be spirit. For to you the soul appears both
to be body and not to be spirit. I must therefore request your
attention to my own defence against your censure, and ask you to
embrace the opportunity which my self-defence affords you of learning
what points there are in yourself also which require your amendment.
Recall, then, the words of your book in which you first mentioned my
name. "I know," you say, "many men of very great reputation who when
consulted have kept silence, or admitted nothing clearly, but have
withdrawn from their discussions everything definite when they
commence their exposition. Of such character are the contents of
sundry writings which I have read at your house by a very learned man
and renowned bishop, called Augustin. The truth is, I suppose, they
have with an overweening modesty and diffidence investigated the
mysteries of this subject, and have consumed within themselves the
judgment of their own treatises, and have professed themselves
incapable of determining anything on this point. But, I assure you, it
appears to me excessively absurd and unreasonable that a man should be
a stranger to himself; or that a person who is supposed to have
acquired the knowledge of all things, should regard himself as unknown
to his very self. For what difference is there between a man and a
brute beast, if he knows not how to discuss and determine his own
quality and nature? so that there may justly be applied to him the
statement of Scripture: `Man, although he was in honour, understood
not; he is like the cattle, and is compared with them.' [2456] For
when the good and gracious God created everything with reason and
wisdom, and produced man as a rational animal, capable of
understanding, endowed with reason, and lively with
sensation,--because by His prudent arrangement He assigns their place
to all creatures which do not participate in the faculty of
reason,--what more incongruous idea could be suggested, than that God
had withheld from him the simple knowledge of himself? The wisdom of
this world, indeed, is ever aiming with much effort to attain to the
knowledge of truth; its researches, no doubt, fall short of the aim,
from its inability to know through what agency it is permitted that
truth should be ascertained; but yet there are some things on the
nature of the soul, near (I might even say, akin) to the truth which
it has attempted to discern. Under these circumstances, how unbecoming
and even shameful a thing it is, that any man of religious principle
should either have no intelligent views on this very subject, or
prohibit himself from acquiring any!"
Footnotes
[2456] Ps. xlix. 12.
Chapter 3.--How Much Do We Know of the Nature of the Body?
Well, now, this extremely lucid and eloquent castigation which you
have inflicted on our ignorance lays you so strictly under the
necessity of knowing every possible thing which appertains to the
nature of man, that, should you unhappily be ignorant of any
particular, you must (and remember it is not I, but you, that have
made the necessity) be compared with "the cattle." For although you
appear to aim your censure at us more especially, when you quote the
passage, "Man, although he was in honour, understood not," inasmuch as
we (unlike yourself) hold an honourable place in the Church; yet even
you occupy too honourable a rank in nature, not to be preferred above
the cattle, with which according to your own judgment you will have to
be compared, if you should happen to be ignorant on any of the points
which manifestly appertain to your nature. For you have not merely
aspersed with your censure those who are affected with the same
ignorance as I am myself labouring under, that is to say, concerning
the origin of the human soul (although I am not indeed absolutely
ignorant even on this point, for I know that God breathed into the
face of the first man, and that "man then became a living soul,"
[2457] --a truth, however, which I could never have known by myself,
unless I had read of it in the Scripture); but you asked in so many
words, "What difference is there between a man and a brute beast, if
he knows not how to discuss and determine his own quality and nature?"
And you seem to have entertained your opinion so distinctly, as to
have thought that a man ought to be able to discuss and determine the
facts of his own entire quality and nature so clearly, that nothing
concerning himself should escape his observation. Now, if this is
really the truth of the matter, I must now compare you to "the
cattle," if you cannot tell me the precise number of the hairs of your
head. But if, however far we may advance in this life, you allow us to
be ignorant of sundry facts appertaining to our nature, I then want to
know how far your concession extends, lest, perchance, it may include
the very point we are now raising, that we do not by any means know
the origin of our soul; although we know,--a thing which belongs to
faith,--beyond all doubt, that the soul is a gift to man from God, and
that it still is not of the same nature as God Himself. Do you,
moreover, think that each person's ignorance of his own nature must be
exactly on the same level as your ignorance of it? Must everybody's
knowledge, too, of the subject be equal to what you have been able to
attain to? So that if he is so unfortunate as to possess a slightly
larger amount of ignorance than yourself, you must compare him with
cattle; and on the same principle, if any one shall be ever so little
wiser than yourself on this subject, he will have the pleasure of
comparing you with equal justice to the aforesaid cattle. I must
therefore request you to tell me, to what extent you permit us to be
ignorant of our nature so as to save our distance from the formidable
cattle; and I beg you besides duly to reflect, whether he is not
further removed from cattle who knows his ignorance of any part of the
subject, than he is who thinks he knows what in fact he knows not. The
entire nature of man is certainly spirit, soul, and body; therefore,
whoever would alienate the body from man's nature, is unwise. Those
medical men, however, who are called anatomists have investigated with
careful scrutiny, by dissecting processes, even living men, so far as
men have been able to retain any life in the hands of the examiners;
their researches have penetrated limbs, veins, nerves, bones, marrow,
the internal vitals; and all to discover the nature of the body. But
none of these men have ever thought of comparing us with the cattle,
because of our ignorance of their subject. But perhaps you will say
that it is those who are ignorant of the nature of the soul, not of
the body, who are to be compared with the brute beasts. Then you ought
not to have expressed yourself at starting in the way you have done.
Your words are not, "For what difference is there between a man and
cattle, if he is ignorant of the nature and quality of the soul;" but
you say, "if he knows not how to discuss and determine his own nature
and quality." Of course our quality and our nature must be taken
account of together with the body, but at the same time the
investigation of the several elements of which we are composed is
conducted in each case separately. For my own part, indeed, if I
wished to display how far it was in my power to treat scientifically
and intelligently the entire field of man's nature, I should have to
fill many volumes; not to mention how many topics there are which I
must confess my ignorance of.
Footnotes
[2457] Gen. ii. 7.
Chapter 4 [III.]--Is the Question of Breath One that Concerns the
Soul, or Body, or What?
But to what, in your judgment, does that which we discussed in our
former book concerning the breath of man belong?--to the nature of the
soul, seeing that it is the soul which effects it in man; or to that