Chapter 6 [VI.]—Another Error Out of His Second Book, to the Effect, that the Soul Deserved to Be Polluted by the Body.

But he is plainly past endurance in what he says in his second book, when he endeavours to solve a very difficult question on original sin, how it belongs to body and soul, if the soul is not derived by parental descent but is breathed afresh by God into a man. Striving to explain this troublesome and profound point, he thus expresses his view: “Through the flesh the soul fitly recovers its primitive condition, which it seemed to have gradually lost through the flesh, in order that it may begin to be regenerated by the very flesh by which it had deserved to be polluted.” You observe how this person, having been so bold as to undertake what exceeds his powers, has fallen down such a precipice as to say, that the soul deserved to be defiled by the body; although he could in no wise declare whence it drew on itself this desert, before it put on flesh. For if it first had from the flesh its desert of sin, let him tell us (if he can) whence (previous to sin) it derived its desert to be contaminated by the flesh. For this desert, which projected it into sinful flesh to be polluted by it, it of course had either from itself, or, which is much more offensive to our mind, from God. It certainly could not, previous to its being invested with the flesh, have received from that flesh that ill desert by reason of which it was projected into the flesh, in order to be defiled by it. Now, if it had the ill desert from its own self, how did it get it, seeing that it did no sin previous to its assumption of flesh? But if it be alleged that it had the ill desert from God, then, I ask, who could listen to such blasphemy? Who could endure it? Who could permit it to be alleged with impunity? For the question which arises here, remember, is not, what was the ill desert which adjudged the soul to be condemned after it became incarnate, but what was its ill desert prior to the flesh, which condemned it to the investiture of the flesh, that it might be thereby polluted? Let him explain this to us, if he can, seeing that he has dared to say that the soul deserved to be defiled by the flesh.

CAPUT VI.

6. Illud plane quis ferat, quod in secundo libro, cum quaestionem difficillimam solvere conaretur de originali peccato, quatenus ad corpus animamque pertineat, si anima non de parentibus 0478 trahitur, sed a Deo nova insufflatur; hanc ergo tam molestam et tam profundam nitens enodare quaestionem: «Merito,» inquit, «per carnem, priscam reparat habitudinem, quam visa fuerat paulisper amisisse per carnem, ut per eam incipiat renasci, per quam meruerat inquinari.» Cernis nempe hominem ausum suscipere quod vires ejus excedit, in tam immane praecipitium decidisse, ut diceret inquinari animam meruisse per carnem; cum dicere nullo modo possit, unde hoc meritum traxerit ante carnem. Si enim a carne incipit meritum habere peccati, dicat si potest, unde ante peccatum suum carne meruerit inquinari. Nam hoc meritum quo in carnem peccatricem missa est, ut inquinaretur ex illa, profecto aut ex semetipsa habuit, aut, quod vero multo amplius abhorret, ex Deo. Ex carne quippe meritum non potuit habere ante carnem, quo merito inquinanda mitteretur in carnem. Si ergo a semetipsa hoc meritum habuit; quomodo habuit, quae ante carnem nihil mali fecit? Si autem hoc meritum ex Deo dicitur habuisse; quis hoc audiat? quis ferat? quis dici impune permittat? Non enim hoc loco quaeritur, quid meruerit, ut judicaretur damnanda post carnem: sed quid meruerit ante carnem ita damnari, ut inquinanda mitteretur in carnem. Explicet hoc si potest, qui est ausus dicere, inquinari animam meruisse per carnem.