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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 16.—Ignorance is Better Than Error. Predestination to Eternal Life, and Predestination to Eternal Death.
Do not, my son, let senile timidity displease your youthful confidence. For my own part, indeed, if I proved unequal, either under the teaching of God or of some spiritual instructor, to the task of understanding the subject of our present inquiry on the origin of souls, I am more prepared to vindicate God’s righteous will, that we should remain in ignorance on this point, as on many others, than to say in my rashness what either is so obscure that I can neither bring it home to the intelligence of other people, nor understand it myself; or certainly even to help the cause of the heretics who endeavour to persuade us that the souls of infants are entirely free from guilt, on the ground, forsooth, that such guilt would only recoil on God as its Author, for having compelled innocent souls (for the help of which He knew beforehand no laver of regeneration was prepared) to become sinful, by assigning them to sinful flesh without any provision for that grace of baptism which should prevent their incurring eternal damnation. For the fact undoubtedly is, that numberless souls of infants pass out of the body before they are baptized. God forbid that I should cast about for any futile effort to dilute this stern fact, and say what you have yourself said: “That the soul deserved to be polluted by the flesh, and to become sinful, though it previously had no sin, by reason of which it could be rightly said to have incurred this desert.” And again: “That even without baptism original sins may be remitted.” And once more: “That even the kingdom of heaven is at last bestowed on those who have not been baptized.” Now, if I were not afraid to utter these and similar poisonous allegations against the faith, I should probably not be afraid to propound some definite theory on this subject. How much better, then, is it, that I should not separately dispute and affirm about the soul, what I am ignorant of; but simply hold what I see the apostle has most plainly taught us: That owing to one man all pass into condemnation who are born of Adam135 See Rom. v. 18. unless they are born again in Christ, even as He has appointed them to be regenerated, before they die in the body, whom He predestinated to everlasting life, as the most merciful bestower of grace; whilst to those whom He has predestinated to eternal death, He is also the most righteous awarder of punishment not only on account of the sins which they add in the indulgence of their own will, but also because of their original sin, even if, as in the case of infants, they add nothing thereto. Now this is my definite view on that question, so that the hidden things of God may keep their secret, without impairing my own faith.
16. Non itaque displiceat praesumptioni tuae juvenili meus senilis timor, fili. Ego enim, si hoc quod de animarum origine quaerimus, nec Deo, nec aliquo spirituali homine docente, scire potuero, paratior sum defendere, quam recte etiam hoc Deus, sicut alia multa, nos scire noluerit, quam temere dicere, quod aut ita sit obscurum, ut hoc non solum ad aliorum intelligentiam perducere nequeam, sed nec ipse intelligam; aut certe etiam haereticos adjuvet, qui propterea persuadere conantur ab omni noxa puras esse animas parvulorum, ne scilicet eadem noxa in auctorem Deum recurrat et redeat, quod insontes animas, quibus nec lavacrum regenerationis subventurum esse praescivit, dando carni peccatrici, esse compulerit peccatrices, nulla Baptismatis gratia subventura, qua liberentur a damnatione perpetua: quandoquidem innumerabiles animae infantum antequam baptizentur, de corporibus exeunt. Absit enim, ut hoc volens diluere, dicam quae ipse dixisti: «Quod anima per carnem meruerit inquinari, et esse peccatrix, nullum habens ante peccatum, quo recte id meruisse dicatur:» et «quod etiam sine Baptismo originalia peccata solvantur:» et «quod regnum quoque coelorum non baptizatis in fine tribuatur.» Haec atque hujusmodi venena fidei nisi dicere timerem, fortasse de hac re definire aliquid non timerem. Quanto melius igitur non separatim de anima disputo et affirmo quod nescio; sed quod apertissime Apostolum video docuisse, simpliciter teneo. Ex uno homine omnes homines ire in condemnationem qui nascuntur ex Adam (Rom. V, 18), nisi ita renascantur in Christo, sicuti instituit ut renascantur, antequam corpore moriantur, quos praedestinavit ad aeternam vitam misericordissimus gratiae largitor: qui est et illis quos praedestinavit ad aeternam mortem, justissimus supplicii retributor; non solum propter illa quae volentes adjiciunt, verum etiam si infantes nihil adjiciant, 0534 propter originale peccatum. Haec est in illa quaestione definitio mea, ut occulta opera Dei habeant suum secretum, salva fide mea.