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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 10.—The Fidelity of Memory; The Unsearchable Treasure of Memory; The Powers of a Man’s Understanding Sufficiently Understood by None.
We often assume that we shall retain a thing in our memory; and so thinking, we do not write it down. But afterwards, when we wish to recall it, it refuses to come to mind; and we are then sorry that we thought it would return to memory, or that we did not secure it in writing so as to prevent its escape; and lo, on a sudden, without our seeking it, it occurs to us. Then does it follow that we were not ourselves when we thought this? And that we cease to be the same thing that we were, when we are no longer able to think it? Now how does it happen that I know not how we are abstracted from, and denied to, ourselves; and similarly am ignorant how we are restored and returned to ourselves? As if we are other persons, and elsewhere, when we seek, but fail to find, what we deposited in our memory; and are ourselves incapable of returning to ourselves, as if we were situated somewhere else; but afterwards return again, on finding ourselves out. For where do we make our quest, except in our own selves? And what is it we search for, except our own selves? As if we were not actually at home in our persons, but had gone somewhither. Do you not observe, even with alarm, so deep a mystery? And what is all this but our own nature—not what it has been, but such as it now is? And observe how much more we seek than we comprehend. I have often believed that I could understand a question which had been submitted to me, if I were to bestow thought upon it. Well, I have bestowed the thought, but have not been able to solve the question; and many a time I have not so believed, and yet have been able to determine the point. The powers, then, of my own understanding have not been really known to me; nor, I apprehend, have they been to you either.
10. Saepe nos praesumimus aliquid memoria retenturos, et cum id putamus, non scribimus; nec nobis postea cum volumus venit in mentem, nosque poenitet 0530 credidisse venturum, vel litteris non illigasse ne fugeret; et subito rursus, cum id non quaeramus, occurrit. Numquid nos non eramus, quando id cogitabamus? nec tamen hoc sumus quod fuimus, quando id cogitare non possumus. Quid est ergo, quod nescio quomodo subtrahimur negamurque nobis; itemque nescio quomodo proferimur ad nos, reddimurque nobis? quasi alii simus, et alibi simus, quando quaerimus, nec invenimus quod in memoria nostra posuimus; neque nos ipsi ad nos ipsos veluti alibi positos pervenire possimus, et tunc perveniamus quando invenimus. Ubi enim quaerimus nisi apud nos? et quid quaerimus nisi nos? quasi non simus in nobis, et aliquo recesserimus a nobis. Nonne attendis, et exhorrescis tantam profunditatem? Et quid est hoc aliud quam nostra natura, nec qualis fuit, sed qualis nunc est? Et ecce magis quaeritur, quam comprehenditur. Saepe mihi propositam quaestionem putavi me intellecturum, si inde cogitarem; cogitavi, nec potui: saepe non putavi, et tamen potui. Vires itaque intelligentiae meae non sunt mihi utique cognitae, et credo quia nec tibi.