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 demonstrated84    See above in Book i. 17 [xiv.] and following chapters. 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,85    Isa. xlii. 5. “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.

CAPUT XIV.

19. Scripturarum vero testimonia quaecumque posuit, quibus animas Deum non ex illius primae propagine attrahere, sed sicut ipsam primam suas quibusque singulis insufflare, velut probare conatus est, ita sunt, quod ad istam quaestionem attinet, incerta et ambigua, ut etiam aliter accipi, quam ipse vult, facillime possint. Quod jam in eo libro quem scripsi ad amicum nostrum, cujus commemorationem superius feci, satis, quantum existimo, demonstravi (Supra, lib. 1, n. 17 sqq.) Testimonia quippe ipsa quae adhibuit, ubi legitur Deus animas vel dare, vel facere, vel fingere; unde illas det, vel unde faciat sive fingat, non ostendunt; utrum ex propagine illius primae, an insufflando sicut illam primam. Iste autem ex eo ipso quod legitur animas Deus dare, sive facere, sive fingere (Isai. XLII, 5; LVII, 16, et Zach. XII, 1), jam putat animarum negatam esse propaginem: cum Deus, eadem Scriptura teste, etiam corpora det, sive faciat, sive fingat, quae tamen ab illo ex propagine seminis dari, fieri, fingi, nemo ambigit.