Chapter IX.—Another Cavil Answered, I.e., the Fall Imputable to God, Because Man’s Soul is a Portion of the Spiritual Essence of the Creator.  The Divine Afflatus Not in Fault in the Sin of Man, But the Human Will Which Was Additional to It.

But, you say, in what way soever the substance of the Creator is found to be susceptible of fault, when the afflatus of God, that is to say, the soul,492    Anima, for animus. This meaning seems required throughout this passage, where afterwards occurs the phrase immortalis anima. offends in man, it cannot but be that that fault of the portion is refferible to the original whole. Now, to meet this objection, we must explain the nature493    Qualitas. of the soul. We must at the outset hold fast the meaning of the Greek scripture, which has afflatus, not spirit.494    Πνοήν, not πνεῦμα; so the Vulgate has spiraculum, not spiritum. [Kaye (p. 247) again refers to Profr. Andrews Norton of Harvard for valuable remarks concerning the use of the word spiritus by the ancients. Evidences, Vol. III. p. 160, note 7.] Some interpreters of the Greek, without reflecting on the difference of the words, and careless about their exact meaning, put spirit for afflatus; they thus afford to heretics an opportunity of tarnishing495    Infuscandi. the Spirit of God, that is to say, God Himself, with default. And now comes the question. Afflatus, observe then, is less than spirit, although it comes from spirit; it is the spirit’s gentle breeze,496    Aurulam. but it is not the spirit. Now a breeze is rarer than the wind; and although it proceeds from wind, yet a breeze is not the wind. One may call a breeze the image of the spirit. In the same manner, man is the image of God, that is, of spirit; for God is spirit. Afflatus is therefore the image of the spirit. Now the image is not in any case equal to the very thing.497    Veritati. It is one thing to be like the reality, and another thing to be the reality itself.  So, although the afflatus is the image of the spirit, it is yet not possible to compare the image of God in such a way, that, because the reality—that is, the spirit, or in other words, the Divine Being—is faultless, therefore the afflatus also, that is to say, the image, ought not by any possibility to have done wrong. In this respect will the image be less than the reality, and the afflatus inferior to the spirit, in that, while it possesses beyond doubt the true lineaments of divinity, such as an immortal soul, freedom and its own mastery over itself, foreknowledge in a great degree,498    Plerumque. reasonableness, capacity of understanding and knowledge, it is even in these respects an image still, and never amounts to the actual power of Deity, nor to absolute exemption from fault,—a property which is only conceded to God, that is, to the reality, and which is simply incompatible with an image. An image, although it may express all the lineaments of the reality, is yet wanting in its intrinsic power; it is destitute of motion. In like manner, the soul, the image of the spirit, is unable to express the simple power thereof, that is to say, its happy exemption from sinning.499    Non deliquendi felicitatem. Were it otherwise,500    Ceterum. it would not be soul, but spirit; not man, who received a soul, but God. Besides, to take another view of the matter,501    Et alias autem. not everything which pertains to God will be regarded as God, so that you would not maintain that His afflatus was God, that is, exempt from fault, because it is the breath of God.  And in an act of your own, such as blowing into a flute, you would not thereby make the flute human, although it was your own human breath which you breathed into it, precisely as God breathed of His own Spirit. In fact,502    Denique. the Scripture, by expressly saying503    Gen. ii. 7. that God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and that man became thereby a living soul, not a life-giving spirit, has distinguished that soul from the condition of the Creator. The work must necessarily be distinct from the workman, and it is inferior to him.  The pitcher will not be the potter, although made by the potter; nor in like manner, will the afflatus, because made by the spirit, be on that account the spirit.  The soul has often been called by the same name as the breath. You should also take care that no descent be made from the breath to a still lower quality.  So you have granted (you say) the infirmity of the soul, which you denied before! Undoubtedly, when you demand for it an equality with God, that is, a freedom from fault, I contend that it is infirm. But when the comparison is challenged with an angel, I am compelled to maintain that the head over all things is the stronger of the two, to whom the angels are ministers,504    Heb. i. 14. who is destined to be the judge of angels,505    1 Cor. vi. 3. if he shall stand fast in the law of God—an obedience which he refused at first. Now this disobedience506    Hoc ipsum, referring to the noluit of the preceding clause. it was possible for the afflatus of God to commit: it was possible, but it was not proper. The possibility lay in its slenderness of nature, as being the breath and not the spirit; the impropriety, however, arose from its power of will, as being free, and not a slave.  It was furthermore assisted by the warning against committing sin under the threat of incurring death, which was meant to be a support for its slender nature, and a direction for its liberty of choice. So that the soul can no longer appear to have sinned, because it has an affinity with God, that is to say, through the afflatus, but rather through that which was an addition to its nature, that is, through its free-will, which was indeed given to it by God in accordance with His purpose and reason, but recklessly employed507    Agitatum. by man according as he chose. This, then, being the case, the entire course508    Dispositio. of God’s action is purged from all imputation to evil. For the liberty of the will will not retort its own wrong on Him by whom it was bestowed, but on him by whom it was improperly used. What is the evil, then, which you want to impute to the Creator?  If it is man’s sin, it will not be God’s fault, because it is man’s doing; nor is that Being to be regarded as the author of the sin, who turns out to be its forbidder, nay, its condemner.  If death is the evil, death will not give the reproach of being its own author to Him who threatened it, but to him who despised it. For by his contempt he introduced it, which assuredly509    Utique. would not have appeared had man not despised it.

CAPUT IX.

Quoquo tamen, inquis, modo substantia Creatoris delicti capax invenitur, cum adflatus Dei, id est anima, in homine deliquit. Nec potest non ad originalem summam referri corruptio portionis. Ad hoc interpretanda erit qualitas animae. In primis tenendum, quod graeca Scriptura signavit, adflatum nominans, non spiritum. Quidam enim de graeco interpretantes, non recogitata differentia, nec curata proprietate verborum, pro adflatu, spiritum ponunt, et dant haereticis occasionem spiritum Dei delicto 0295A infuscandi, id est ipsum Deum; et usurpata jam quaestio est. Intellige itaque adflatum minorem spiritu esse , etsi de spiritu accidit, ut aurulam ejus, non tamen spiritum. Nam et aura vento rarior, etsi de vento aura, non tamen ventus aura. Capit etiam imaginem spiritus dicere flatum. Nam et ideo homo imago Dei, id est spiritus: Deus enim spiritus. Imago ergo spiritus, flatus . Porro, imago veritati non usquequaque adaequabitur. Aliud est enim secundum veritatem esse, aliud ipsam veritatem esse. Sic et adflatus, cum imago sit spiritus, non potest ita imaginem Dei comparare , ut quia veritas, id est spiritus, id est Deus, sine delicto est, ideo et adflatus, id est imago, non debuerit admisisse delictum. In hoc erit imago minor veritate, et adflatus spiritu 0295B inferior, habens illas utique lineas Dei, qua immortalis anima, qua libera et sui arbitrii, qua praescia plerumque, qua rationalis, capax intellectus et scientiae: tamen et in his imago, et non usque ad ipsam vim divinitatis; sic nec usque ad integritatem a delicto; quia hoc soli Deo cedit, id est veritati; et hoc solum imagini non licet. Sicut enim imago, cum omnes lineas exprimat veritatis, vi tamen ipsa caret, non habens motum; ita et anima imago spiritus, solam vim ejus exprimere non valuit, id est, non delinquendi foelicitatem . Caeterum non esset anima, sed spiritus; nec homo, qui animam sortitus est, sed Deus. Et alias autem, non omne quod Dei erit, deus habebitur: ut expostules Deum et adflatum, id est vacuum a delicto, quia Dei sit adflatus. 0295C Nec tu enim si in tibiam flaveris, hominem tibiam feceris, quamquam de anima tua flaveris, sicut et Deus de spiritu suo. Denique, cum manifeste Scriptura dicat (Genes., II, 7) flasse Deum in faciem hominis, et factum hominem in animam vivam, non in spiritum vivificatorem, separavit eam a conditione factoris. Opus enim aliud sit necesse est ab artifice, id est inferius artifice. Nec urceus enim factus a figulo, ipse erit figulus; ita nec adflatus factus a spiritu, ideo erit spiritus. Ipsum quod anima, vocitatus est flatus. Vide etiam ne de adflata conditione transierit in aliquam diminutiorem qualitatem. Ergo, inquis, dedisti animae infirmitatem supra negatam. Plane, cum illam exigis Deo parem, id est delicti immunem, dico infirmam. Cum vero ad angelum 0295D provocatur, fortiorem defendam necesse est dominum universitatis; cui jam angeli administrant (Hebr., I, 14); qui etiam angelos judicaturus est 0296A (I Cor., VI, 2), si in Dei lege constiterit, quod in primordio noluit. Hoc ipsum ergo potuit adflatus Dei admittere. Potuit, sed non debuit. Potuisse enim habuit, per substantiae exilitatem, qua adflatus, non spiritus: non debuisse autem, per arbitrii potestatem, qua liber, non servus; adsistente amplius demonstratione non delinquendi sub comminatione moriendi, qua substrueretur substantiae exilitas, et regeretur sententiae libertas. Itaque non per illud jam videri potest anima deliquisse, quod illi cum Deo adfine est, per adflatum: sed per illud quod substantiae accessit, id est per liberum arbitrium; a Deo quidem rationaliter adtributum; ab homine vero, qua voluit agitatum. Quod si ita se habent, omnis jam Dei dispositio de mali exprobratione purgatur. Libertas enim 0296B arbitrii non ei culpam suam respuet, a quo data est, sed a quo non ut debuit administrata est. Quod denique malum adscribes Creatori ? si delictum hominis, non erit Dei, quod est hominis: nec idem habendus est delicti auctor qui invenitur interdictor, imo et condemnator. Si mors malum, nec mors comminatori suo, sed contemptori faciet invidiam, ut auctori. Contemnendo enim eam fecit; non utique futuram, si non contempsisset.