A Treatise on the soul and its origin,

 Chapter 1 [I.]—Renatus Had Done Him a Kindness by Sending Him the Books Which Had Been Addressed to Him.

 Chapter 2 [II.]—He Receives with a Kindly and Patient Feeling the Books of a Young and Inexperienced Man Who Wrote Against Him in a Tone of Arrogance.

 Chapter 3 [III]—The Eloquence of Vincentius, Its Dangers and Its Tolerableness.

 Chapter 4 [IV.]—The Errors Contained in the Books of Vincentius Victor. He Says that the Soul Comes from God, But Was Not Made Either Out of Nothing o

 Chapter 5 [V.]—Another of Victor’s Errors, that the Soul is Corporeal.

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

 Chapter 7 [VII.]—Victor Entangles Himself in an Exceedingly Difficult Question. God’s Foreknowledge is No Cause of Sin.

 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 10 [IX.]—Another Error of Victor’s, that Infants Dying Unbaptized May Attain to the Kingdom of Heaven. Another, that the Sacrifice of the Body

 Chapter 11.—Martyrdom for Christ Supplies the Place of Baptism. The Faith of the Thief Who Was Crucified Along with Christ Taken as Martyrdom and Henc

 Chapter 12 [X.]—Dinocrates, Brother of the Martyr St. Perpetua, is Said to Have Been Delivered from the State of Condemnation by the Prayers of the Sa

 Chapter 13 [XI.]—The Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ Will Not Avail for Unbaptized Persons, and Can Not Be Offered for the Majority of Those

 Chapter 14.—Victor’s Dilemma: He Must Either Say All Infants are Saved, or Else God Slays the Innocent.

 Chapter 15 [XII.]—God Does Not Judge Any One for What He Might Have Done If His Life Had Been Prolonged, But Simply for the Deeds He Actually Commits.

 Chapter 16 [XIII.]—Difficulty in the Opinion Which Maintains that Souls are Not by Propagation.

 Chapter 17 [XIV.]—He Shows that the Passages of Scripture Adduced by Victor Do Not Prove that Souls are Made by God in Such a Way as Not to Be Derived

 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 24 [XV.]—Whether or No the Soul is Derived by Natural Descent (Ex Traduce), His Cited Passages Fail to Show.

 Chapter 25.—Just as the Mother Knows Not Whence Comes Her Child Within Her, So We Know Not Whence Comes the Soul.

 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 31.—The Argument of the Apollinarians to Prove that Christ Was Without the Human Soul of This Same Sort.

 Chapter 32 [XIX.]—The Self-Contradiction of Victor as to the Origin of the Soul.

 Chapter 33.—Augustin Has No Objection to the Opinion About the Propagation of Souls Being Refuted, and that About Their Insufflation Being Maintained.

 Chapter 34.—The Mistakes Which Must Be Avoided by Those Who Say that Men’s Souls are Not Derived from Their Parents, But are Afresh Inbreathed by God

 Chapter 35 [XX.]—Conclusion.

 Book II.

 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.

 [IV.] Nor shall I find fault if your humble thanks to your instructor were further earned by your having acquired from discussions with him some other

 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 14 [X.]—Victor Sends Those Infants Who Die Unbaptized to Paradise and the Heavenly Mansions, But Not to the Kingdom of Heaven.

 Chapter 15 [XI.]—Victor “Decides” That Oblations Should Be Offered Up for Those Who Die Unbaptized.

 Chapter 16 [XII.]—Victor Promises to the Unbaptized Paradise After Their Death, and the Kingdom of Heaven After Their Resurrection, Although He Admits

 Chapter 17.—Disobedient Compassion and Compassionate Disobedience Reprobated. Martyrdom in Lieu of Baptism.

 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.

 Book III.

 Chapter 1 [I.]—Augustin’s Purpose in Writing.

 Chapter 2 [II.]—Why Victor Assumed the Name of Vincentius. The Names of Evil Men Ought Never to Be Assumed by Other Persons.

 Chapter 3 [III.]—He Enumerates the Errors Which He Desires to Have Amended in the Books of Vincentius Victor. The First Error.

 Chapter 4 [IV.]—Victor’s Simile to Show that God Can Create by Breathing Without Impartation of His Substance.

 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 12 [IX.]—His Sixth Error. (See Above in Book I. 10-12 [IX., X.], and in Book II. 13, 14 [IX., X.].)

 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.

 Book IV.

 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 6 [V.]—Questions About the Nature of the Body are Sufficiently Mysterious, and Yet Not Higher Than Those of the Soul.

 Chapter 7 [VI.]—We Often Need More Teaching as to What is Most Intimately Ours Than as to What is Further from Us.

 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 10.—The Fidelity of Memory The Unsearchable Treasure of Memory The Powers of a Man’s Understanding Sufficiently Understood by None.

 Chapter 11.—The Apostle Peter Told No Lie, When He Said He Was Ready to Lay Down His Life for the Lord, But Only Was Ignorant of His Will.

 Chapter 12 [VIII.]—The Apostle Paul Could Know the Third Heaven and Paradise, But Not Whether He Was in the Body or Not.

 Chapter 13 [IX.]—In What Sense the Holy Ghost is Said to Make Intercession for Us.

 Chapter 14 [X.]—It is More Excellent to Know That the Flesh Will Rise Again and Live for Evermore, Than to Learn Whatever Scientific Men Have Been Abl

 Chapter 15 [XI.]—We Must Not Be Wise Above What is Written.

 Chapter 16.—Ignorance is Better Than Error. Predestination to Eternal Life, and Predestination to Eternal Death.

 Chapter 17 [XII.]—A Twofold Question to Be Treated Concerning the Soul Is It “Body”? and is It “Spirit”? What Body is.

 Chapter 18.—The First Question, Whether the Soul is Corporeal Breath and Wind, Nothing Else Than Air in Motion.

 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 26 [XVIII.]—St. Perpetua Seemed to Herself, in Some Dreams, to Have Been Turned into a Man, and Then Have Wrestled with a Certain Egyptian.

 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 38 [XXIV.]—Victor’s Chief Errors Again Pointed Out.

 Chapter 39.—Concluding Admonition.

Chapter 2 [II.]—The Points Which Victor Thought Blameworthy in Augustin.

And they are these: The first, that I did not venture to make a definite statement touching the origin of those souls which have been given, or are being given, to human beings, since the first man—because I confess my ignorance of the subject; the second, because I said I was sure the soul was spirit, not body. Under this second point, however, you have included two grounds of censure: one, because I refused to believe the soul to be corporeal; the other, because I affirmed it to be spirit. For to you the soul appears both to be body and not to be spirit. I must therefore request your attention to my own defence against your censure, and ask you to embrace the opportunity which my self-defence affords you of learning what points there are in yourself also which require your amendment. Recall, then, the words of your book in which you first mentioned my name. “I know,” you say, “many men of very great reputation who when consulted have kept silence, or admitted nothing clearly, but have withdrawn from their discussions everything definite when they commence their exposition. Of such character are the contents of sundry writings which I have read at your house by a very learned man and renowned bishop, called Augustin. The truth is, I suppose, they have with an overweening modesty and diffidence investigated the mysteries of this subject, and have consumed within themselves the judgment of their own treatises, and have professed themselves incapable of determining anything on this point. But, I assure you, it appears to me excessively absurd and unreasonable that a man should be a stranger to himself; or that a person who is supposed to have acquired the knowledge of all things, should regard himself as unknown to his very self. For what difference is there between a man and a brute beast, if he knows not how to discuss and determine his own quality and nature? so that there may justly be applied to him the statement of Scripture: ‘Man, although he was in honour, understood not; he is like the cattle, and is compared with them.’114    See above, Book i. 4 and Book ii. 5.    Ps. xlix. 12. For when the good and gracious God created everything with reason and wisdom, and produced man as a rational animal, capable of understanding, endowed with reason, and lively with sensation,—because by His prudent arrangement He assigns their place to all creatures which do not participate in the faculty of reason,—what more incongruous idea could be suggested, than that God had withheld from him the simple knowledge of himself? The wisdom of this world, indeed, is ever aiming with much effort to attain to the knowledge of truth; its researches, no doubt, fall short of the aim, from its inability to know through what agency it is permitted that truth should be ascertained; but yet there are some things on the nature of the soul, near (I might even say, akin) to the truth which it has attempted to discern. Under these circumstances, how unbecoming and even shameful a thing it is, that any man of religious principle should either have no intelligent views on this very subject, or prohibit himself from acquiring any!”

CAPUT II.

2. Haec autem sunt: unum, quod de origine animarum, quae post primum hominem datae sunt, vel dantur hominibus, non sum ausus aliquid definire, quia fateor me nescire; alterum, quod animam scire me dixi spiritum esse, non corpus. Sed in hoc altero duo reprehendisti: unum, quod non eam crederem corpus esse; alterum, quod eam spiritum crederem. Tibi enim videtur et corpus esse animam, et non esse spiritum. Audi igitur purgationem meam contra reprehensionem tuam, et ex hac occasione qua me tibi purgo, in te ipso disce quae purges. Recole verba libri tui, ubi me primitus nominasti. «Scio,» inquis, «plerosque et facile peritissimos viros, insuper et consultos tenuisse silentium, aut nihil expressius elocutos, cum definitionem disputationibus suis inchoata expositione subtraherent; sicuti nuper apud te Augustini doctissimi viri praedicatique episcopi comprehensum litteris lectitavi: modestius quidem, ut reor, ac verecundius hujusce rei arcana rimantes, intra se ipsos tractatus sui devorasse judicium, neque se posse ex hinc aliquid determinare professos. Sed mihi, crede, satis superque videtur absurdum atque incongruum rationi, ut homo ipse expers sui sit, aut is qui rerum omnium creditur adeptus esse notitiam, sibi ipsi habeatur ignotus. Quid autem differt homo a pecore , si nescit de sua qualitate naturaque disquirere atque disserere; ut merito in illum conveniat quod scriptum est, Homo cum esset in honore, non intellexit; assimilatus est jumentis, et comparatus est eis (Psal. XLVIII, 13). Nam cum Deus bonus nihil non ratione condiderit, ipsumque hominem animal rationale, intellectus capacem, rationis compotem, sensuque vivacem, qui omnia rationis expertia prudenti ordinatione distribuat , 0525 procreaverit; quid tam inconvenienter dici potest, quam ut eum sola sui notione fraudarit? Et cum sapientia mundi, quae sese usque ad veri cognitionem supervacua quidem investigatione protendit, quia scire nequit per quem licet quae sunt vera cognosci, aliqua tamen vicina, imo affinia veritati tentaverit super animae natura dispicere: quam indecens atque pudendum est, religiosum quemquam de hoc ipso aut nihil sapere, aut penitus sibi interdixisse ne sapiat.»