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Augustine of Hippo, A Treatise On the Soul And Its Origin
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A Treatise on the soul and its origin,
Chapter 3 [III]—The Eloquence of Vincentius, Its Dangers and Its Tolerableness.
Chapter 5 [V.]—Another of Victor’s Errors, that the Soul is Corporeal.
Chapter 8 [VIII.]—Victor’s Erroneous Opinion, that the Soul Deserved to Become Sinful.
Chapter 9.—Victor Utterly Unable to Explain How the Sinless Soul Deserved to Be Made Sinful.
Chapter 16 [XIII.]—Difficulty in the Opinion Which Maintains that Souls are Not by Propagation.
Chapter 18.—By “Breath” Is Signified Sometimes the Holy Spirit.
Chapter 19.—The Meaning of “Breath” In Scripture.
Chapter 20.—Other Ways of Taking the Passage.
Chapter 21.—The Second Passage Quoted by Victor.
Chapter 22.—Victor’s Third Quotation.
Chapter 23.—His Fourth Quotation.
Chapter 26 [XVI.]—The Fifth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor.
Chapter 27 [XVII.]—Augustin Did Not Venture to Define Anything About the Propagation of the Soul.
Chapter 28.—A Natural Figure of Speech Must Not Be Literally Pressed.
Chapter 29 [XVIII.]—The Sixth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor.
Chapter 30—The Danger of Arguing from Silence.
Chapter 32 [XIX.]—The Self-Contradiction of Victor as to the Origin of the Soul.
Chapter 1 [I.]—Depraved Eloquence an Injurious Accomplishment.
Chapter 2 [II.]—He Asks What the Great Knowledge is that Victor Imparts.
Chapter 3.—The Difference Between the Senses of the Body and Soul.
Chapter 4.—To Believe the Soul is a Part of God is Blasphemy.
Chapter 5 [III.]—In What Sense Created Beings are Out of God.
Chapter 6.—Shall God’s Nature Be Mutable, Sinful, Impious, Even Eternally Damned.
Chapter 7.—To Think the Soul Corporeal an Error.
Chapter 8.—The Thirst of the Rich Man in Hell Does Not Prove the Soul to Be Corporeal.
Chapter 9 [V.]—How Could the Incorporeal God Breathe Out of Himself a Corporeal Substance?
Chapter 10 [VI.]—Children May Be Found of Like or of Unlike Dispositions with Their Parents.
Chapter 11 [VII.]—Victor Implies that the Soul Had a “State” And “Merit” Before Incarnation.
Chapter 12 [VIII.]—How Did the Soul Deserve to Be Incarnated?
Chapter 13 [IX.]—Victor Teaches that God Thwarts His Own Predestination.
Chapter 15 [XI.]—Victor “Decides” That Oblations Should Be Offered Up for Those Who Die Unbaptized.
Chapter 18 [XIII.]—Victor’s Dilemma and Fall.
Chapter 19 [XIV.]—Victor Relies on Ambiguous Scriptures.
Chapter 20.—Victor Quotes Scriptures for Their Silence, and Neglects the Biblical Usage.
Chapter 21 [XV.]—Victor’s Perplexity and Failure.
Chapter 22 [XVI.]—Peter’s Responsibility in the Case of Victor.
Chapter 23 [XVII.]—Who They are that are Not Injured by Reading Injurious Books.
Chapter 1 [I.]—Augustin’s Purpose in Writing.
Chapter 5.—Examination of Victor’s Simile: Does Man Give Out Nothing by Breathing?
Chapter 6.—The Simile Reformed in Accordance with Truth.
Chapter 7 [V.]—Victor Apparently Gives the Creative Breath to Man Also.
Chapter 8 [VI.]—Victor’s Second Error. (See Above in Book I. 26 [XVI.].)
Chapter 9 [VII.]—His Third Error. (See Above in Book II. 11 [VII.].)
Chapter 10.—His Fourth Error. (See Above in Book I. 6 [VI.] and Book II. 11 [VII.].)
Chapter 11 [VIII.]—His Fifth Error. (See Above in Book I. 8 [VIII.] and Book II. 12 [VIII.].)
Chapter 13 [X]—His Seventh Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)
Chapter 14.—His Eighth Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)
Chapter 15 [XI.]—His Ninth Error. (See Above in Book II. 14 [X.].)
Chapter 16.—God Rules Everywhere: and Yet the “Kingdom of Heaven” May Not Be Everywhere.
Chapter 17.—Where the Kingdom of God May Be Understood to Be.
Chapter 18 [XII.]—His Tenth Error. (See Above in Book I. 13 [XI.] and Book II. 15 [XI.]).
Chapter 19 [XIII.]—His Eleventh Error. (See Above in Book I. 15 [XII.] and Book II. 16.)
Chapter 20 [XIV.]—Augustin Calls on Victor to Correct His Errors. (See Above in Book II. 22 [XVI.].)
Chapter 21.—Augustin Compliments Victor’s Talents and Diligence.
Chapter 22 [XV.]—A Summary Recapitulation of the Errors of Victor.
Chapter 23.—Obstinacy Makes the Heretic.
Chapter 1 [I.]—The Personal Character of This Book.
Chapter 2 [II.]—The Points Which Victor Thought Blameworthy in Augustin.
Chapter 3.—How Much Do We Know of the Nature of the Body?
Chapter 4 [III.]—Is the Question of Breath One that Concerns the Soul, or Body, or What?
Chapter 5 [IV.]—God Alone Can Teach Whence Souls Come.
Chapter 8.—We Have No Memory of Our Creation.
Chapter 9 [VII.]—Our Ignorance of Ourselves Illustrated by the Remarkable Memory of One Simplicius.
Chapter 13 [IX.]—In What Sense the Holy Ghost is Said to Make Intercession for Us.
Chapter 15 [XI.]—We Must Not Be Wise Above What is Written.
Chapter 19 [XIII.]—Whether the Soul is a Spirit.
Chapter 20 [XIV.]—The Body Does Not Receive God’s Image.
Chapter 21 [XV.]—Recognition and Form Belong to Souls as Well as Bodies.
Chapter 22.—Names Do Not Imply Corporeity.
Chapter 23 [XVI.]—Figurative Speech Must Not Be Taken Literally.
Chapter 24.—Abraham’s Bosom—What It Means.
Chapter 25 [XVII.]—The Disembodied Soul May Think of Itself Under a Bodily Form.
Chapter 27.—Is the Soul Wounded When the Body is Wounded?
Chapter 28.—Is the Soul Deformed by the Body’s Imperfections?
Chapter 29 [XIX.]—Does the Soul Take the Body’s Clothes Also Away with It?
Chapter 30.—Is Corporeity Necessary for Recognition?
Chapter 31 [XX.]—Modes of Knowledge in the Soul Distinguished.
Chapter 32.—Inconsistency of Giving the Soul All the Parts of Sex and Yet No Sex.
Chapter 33.—The Phenix After Death Coming to Life Again.
Chapter 34 [XXI.]—Prophetic Visions.
Chapter 35.—Do Angels Appear to Men in Real Bodies?
Chapter 36 [XXII.]—He Passes on to the Second Question About the Soul, Whether It is Called Spirit.
Chapter 37 [XXIII.]—Wide and Narrow Sense of the Word “Spirit.”
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,92 See below in Book iii. 20 (xiv.). “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.”
CAPUT XVI.
22. Absit a te, frater, ut haec tibi 0509 placeant, absit ut ista vel didicisse gaudeas, vel docere praesumas: alioquin longe melior invenietur ipse quam tu. Quia in exordio primi sui libri modeste atque humiliter praelocutus est, dicens: «Cum tibi parere desidero, notam praesumptionis incurro .» Et paulo post: «Quandoquidem,» inquit, «nec mihi ipse sim credulus, ea quae dixero posse probari; studeamque semper etiam propriam sententiam non tueri, si improbabilis detegatur; et sit mihi cordi, proprio judicio damnato, meliora magis et quae sint veriora sectari. Nam ut est optimi propositi laudandique consilii, facile ad veriora transduci; ita improbi obstinatique judicii est, nolle citius ad tramitem rationis inflecti.» Haec quippe ille si veraciter dixit, atque ut locutus est sentit, magnae profecto spei animum gerit. Item in fine libri secundi: «Nec putes,» inquit, «ad invidiam tuam forsitan revocandum, quod in tua dictorum meorum constituam potestate judicium. Ac ne forte cujusquam curiosi lectoris obtutus, inter illitas fibras elementorum vestigia remanentia sollicitent et offendant, contextam paginae seriem pollice severo discerpe: meque hujus censionis experte, puni, atramenta quae indigna eloquia signaverunt ; ne hac occasione et tuum erga me judicium, quo mihi vehementer indulges, et meae quae latebant ineptiae rideantur.»