Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 37 part 12/28

For everything he knows is taken away from him, down to the very corporeal density of seeds. For man was not yet even any such thing when he was made in that first constitution of the six days. Some likeness, indeed, is given from seeds to this matter, on account of those things which are implanted in them as future things; yet nevertheless prior to all visible seeds are those causes. But he does not understand. What then shall I do, except, as far as I can, admonish him for his good, that he should believe the Scripture of God—that man was made then, when God, once the day had been made, made heaven and earth, of which Scripture says elsewhere:

He who lives forever created all things together—and then, when now not together but each in its own time, creating, He formed him from the clay of the earth, and from his bone the woman? For Scripture permits us neither to understand that they were made on that sixth day in this latter manner, nor yet to understand that they were not made on that sixth day. Perhaps, then, their souls were made on that sixth day—where the very image of God is rightly understood to be in the spirit of their mind—so that afterward the bodies might be formed? But the same Scripture does not permit us to believe even this.

First, on account of that completion of the works—which I do not see how it could be understood, if something was lacking then that was not established causally, and that was later to be established visibly—next, because the very sex of male and female cannot exist except in bodies. But if anyone should suppose that both sexes are to be taken, as it were, in a single soul according to understanding and action, what will he do concerning those things which God gave that very day for food from the fruits of the trees, which are not at all suited except to a man having a body? For if anyone should wish to take even this food figuratively, he will withdraw from the proper reality of the deeds done, which in narratives of this kind must first of all be established with every observance. How, he says, then did God speak to them,

seeing that they did not yet hear nor understand, since there were not yet any who could perceive the words? I could answer that God addressed them just as Christ addressed us who were not yet born and were to be so long afterward—and not only us, but also all those who will come after us. For He was speaking to all whom He saw would be His own: Behold, I am with you even unto the consummation of the age; just as the prophet was known to God, to whom He said: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; just as Levi was tithed while he was still in the loins of Abraham. For why should not Abraham himself likewise be in Adam, and Adam himself in the first works of the world, which God created all together?

But the words of the Lord through the mouth of His flesh, and the words of God through the mouths of the prophets, are uttered by the temporal voice of the body and take up and use up the temporal intervals fitting for all their syllables; whereas when God said: Let us make man in our image and likeness; and let him have power over the fishes of the sea and the birds of the air and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and: Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it and hold power over the fishes of the sea and the birds of the air and all cattle and all the earth and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and:

Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing herb sowing seed, which is upon all the earth, and every fruitful tree, which has in itself the fruit of its own sowing seed, to be for you as food—His very utterance, before every sound of the air, before every voice of flesh and cloud, in that His supreme Wisdom, through which all things were made, did not resound as though to human ears, but inserted into the things made the causes of the things to be made, and by His omnipotent power made future things, and established man, to be formed in his own time, as it were in the seed or as it were in the root of the times. When He established these things—whence began the ages founded by Him who is before the ages. For some creatures precede other creatures, some in time, some in their causes;

but He precedes all the things He has made, not only by that excellence whereby He is also the maker of the causes, but also by eternity. But concerning this we must perhaps discourse more fully afterward in more suitable passages of the Scriptures. Now let what has been begun concerning man be brought to a close, with this moderation preserved: that in the profound sense of Scripture we should rather show diligence in inquiring than the rashness of affirming. For since God knew Jeremiah before He formed him in the womb, it is not permitted to doubt; for He says most plainly: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

But where He knew him, before He thus formed him—even though it is either difficult or impossible for our weakness to attain—whether in some nearer causes, as Levi was tithed in the loins of Abraham, or in Adam himself, in whom the human race was as it were established at its root; and in Adam himself, whether already when he had been formed from the clay, or causally made in those works whereby He created all things together; or indeed rather before every creature, just as He chose and predestined His holy ones before the foundation of the world; or rather in all the preceding causes, whether those I have mentioned or those I have not mentioned, before he was formed in the womb—:

I do not think it ought to be inquired too scrupulously, provided it be established that Jeremiah, from the time he came forth into this light from his parents, from that time led his own life, whereby, growing up with the advance of age, he could live either ill or well, but before that in no way—not only before he was formed in the womb, but not even when already formed there, before he was born. For that apostolic sentence has no hesitation concerning the twins in Rebecca's womb, who had as yet done nothing good or evil. Nor yet is it written in vain that not even an infant is clean from sin, whose life upon the earth is of a single day, and that verse in the Psalm:

I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother nourished me in the womb, and that in Adam all die, in whom all have sinned. But now let us hold clearly: whatever merits of the parents are transmitted into the offspring, by whatever grace of God He sanctifies each one before he is born, that there is neither iniquity with God, nor does anyone do good or evil that pertains to his own person before he is born; and that opinion, by which some suppose that souls sinned more or less elsewhere and, according to the merits of their diverse sins, were thrust down into diverse bodies, does not accord with the apostolic sentence, since it was most plainly said that the not-yet-born had done nothing of good or evil.

And on this account there is another question to be treated in its own place: what the whole mass of the human race has contracted concerning the sin of the first parents, who were but two alone. Yet there is no question that a man could have had none of such merits before he was fashioned from the dust of the earth, before he lived in his own time. For just as we could not say that Esau and Jacob, whom the Apostle said had done nothing good or evil while not yet born, drew any merit from their parents, if the parents themselves had not done anything good or evil, nor that the human race sinned in Adam, if Adam himself had not sinned—yet Adam would not have sinned unless he were already living in his own time, in which he could live either well or ill—:

so it is in vain that his sin or right deed is sought, when as yet, established causally among the things created together, he neither lived his own life nor existed in parents so living. For in that first constitution of the world, when God created all things together, man was made who was to be—the plan of creating man, not the act of one created. But these things are otherwise in the Word of God, where these things are not made but eternal; otherwise in the elements of the world, where all things made together are future; otherwise in the things which, according to causes created together, are created no longer together but each in its own time:

among which Adam, already formed from the clay and animated by the breath of God, sprang up like hay; otherwise in seeds, in which again as it were primordial causes are repeated, drawn from things which, according to the causes He first established, came into existence—as the plant from the earth, the seed from the plant. In all of which those things already made received the modes and acts of their own time, which from hidden and invisible reasons that lie causally latent in the creature came forth into manifest forms and natures, as the plant sprung up over the earth and man made into a living soul, and other things of this kind, whether shrubs or living creatures, pertaining to that operation of God by which He works even until now.

But these things also carry within themselves, as it were, the power of again reproducing themselves invisibly by a certain hidden power of generating, which they drew forth from those primordia of their causes, in which, when the world was created, once the day was made, before they sprang forth into the manifest appearance of their own kind, they were implanted. For if those first works of God, when He created all things together, were not perfect in their own mode, then doubtless there would be added afterward those things which had been lacking for their completing, so that a certain perfection of the universe might consist of the individual halves, as it were, of both—as if they were parts of some whole, by whose conjunction the whole itself, of which they had been parts, would be completed.

Again, if those things were as perfect as they are perfected when each in its own time is brought forth into manifest forms and acts, then surely either nothing would come to be from them after those times, or there would come to be that which God does not cease to work from these things which now each arise in their own time.

But now, since those very things which are to be unfolded in the times that follow are in a certain manner completed and in a certain manner begun—those things which God first created all together when He made the world—completed indeed, because they have nothing in their own natures, whereby they run the courses of their own times, that was not causally made in these; but begun, since certain things were as it were seeds of future things, to be brought forth through the course of the age from the hidden into the manifest in fitting places—the very words of Scripture themselves are notably strong for admonishing us of this, if anyone keeps awake in them. For it says both that they were completed and that they were begun; for unless they had been completed, it would not have been written: And the heaven and the earth were completed, and all their array.

And God completed on the sixth day His works, which He made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; and again, unless they had been begun, it would not thus follow: because on that day He rested from all His works which God began to make. Here, therefore, if anyone should inquire how He completed and how He began—for He did not complete some things and begin others, but assuredly the very same things from which He rested on the seventh day—from what we have said above it is clear. For we understand that God completed these things

when He created all things together so perfectly that there was nothing yet to be created by Him in the order of times which had not here already been created by Him in the order of causes; but that He began, so that what He had here foreordained in the causes He might afterward fulfill in the effects.

Accordingly, God formed man—dust of the earth, or clay of the earth, that is, from the dust or clay of the earth—and breathed, or blew, into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul; not then predestined—for this was before the age, in the foreknowledge of the Creator—nor then causally begun in a completed manner or completed in a begun manner—for this was from the age, in the primordial reasons, when all things were created together—but created in his own time, visibly in body, invisibly in soul, consisting of soul and body. Now, therefore, let us see how God made him: first his body from the earth, and afterward we shall also see concerning the soul, if we shall be able at all.

For that God fashioned man from the clay with bodily hands is too childish a notion; so that, even if Scripture had said this, we ought rather to believe that the one who wrote it used the word in a transferred sense, than that God was defined by such contours of limbs as we see in our bodies. For it was said: Your hand destroyed the nations, and: You led out Your people with a strong hand and an exalted arm. But who is so foolish as not to understand that the name of this member is set down for the power and might of God? Nor is that to be heeded which some suppose, that man is God's chief work because He said of the rest, and they were made, but this one He Himself made; but rather because He made this one in His own image.

For those things which He said and they were made are so written because they were made through His Word, just as through a man things can be said to men by words which are conceived temporally and uttered by the voice. But God does not so speak, except when He speaks through a bodily creature, as to Abraham, as to Moses, as through the cloud concerning His Son. But before every creature, that the creature itself might exist, it was said by that Word which in the beginning was God with God; and because all things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made, assuredly man too was made through Him. For certainly He made heaven by a word, because He spoke and it was made; yet it is written: And the heavens are the works of Your hands. And concerning this lowest, as it were the foundation of the world, it is written:

For the sea is His, and He made it, and His hands fashioned the dry land. Let this not, then, be reckoned as being in honor of man—as though God said of the rest, and they were made, but this one He Himself made; or made the rest by a word, but this one with His hands. But this excels in man, that God made man in His own image, for this reason: that He gave him an intellectual mind, whereby he surpasses the cattle; concerning which we have already discoursed in an earlier passage. Set in this honor, if he does not understand so as to act well, he will be compared to those very cattle over which he was set. For thus also it is written: Man, being set in honor, did not understand; he has been compared to the senseless cattle and made like unto them.

For God made the cattle too, but not in His own image. Nor should it be said: "Man He Himself made, but the cattle He commanded, and they were made"; for both this one and those He made through His Word, through which all things were made. But because that same Word is also His Wisdom and His Power, His hand too is spoken of—not as a visible member, but as the power of effecting. For this same Scripture, which says that God fashioned man from the clay of the earth, also says that He fashioned the beasts of the field from the earth, when He brought them, together with the birds of the air, to Adam, that he might see what he would call them. For thus it is written: And God fashioned further from the earth all the beasts.

If, then, He Himself formed both man from the earth and the beasts from the earth, what does man have more excellent in this matter, except that he himself was created in the image of God? Yet this is not according to the body, but according to the intellect of the mind, of which we shall speak afterward. Although even in the body itself he has a certain property which indicates this: that he was made of upright stature, so that by this very thing he might be admonished that earthly things are not to be pursued by him, like the cattle, whose whole pleasure is from the earth—whence they are all bent and prostrate toward the belly. His body, therefore, also accords with the rational soul, not according to the contours and shapes of the limbs, but rather according to this: that it is raised toward heaven to gaze upon those things which in the body of the world itself are on high;

just as the rational soul ought to be raised up in those things which in spiritual matters most excel in nature, so that it may savor the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. But how did God make him from the clay of the earth? Whether suddenly in a perfect age, that is, of manhood and youth, or as He now still forms in the wombs of mothers? For no other made these things than He who said: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; so that Adam had only this as his own peculiarity, that he was not born of parents, but made from the earth, yet in such a manner that in his being brought to completion and increased through the ages, those numbers of times were fulfilled which we see assigned to the nature of the human race. Or rather is this not to be inquired?

For whichever of the two He did, He did that which it befitted God, both omnipotent and wise, to be able to do and to do. For He so assigned fixed laws of times to the kinds and qualities of things to be brought forth into the manifest from the hidden, that His will is above all things. For by His power He gave numbers to the creature, but did not bind His power itself to those same numbers. For His Spirit was borne over the world in the making of it in such a way that He is also borne over it now that it is made—not by bodily places, but by the excellence of His power. For who does not know that water, absorbed into the earth, when it has come to the roots of the vine, is drawn into the nourishment of that wood and takes on in it the quality by which it gradually advances into the grape, breaking forth and

as it grows large in it, becomes wine, and ripening grows sweet—which, while it still ferments when pressed out and is strengthened by a certain age, comes at last more usefully and more pleasantly to the use of drinking? Did the Lord therefore seek wood or earth or these delays of time, when by a wondrous shortcut He turned water into wine—and such wine as even a drunken guest would praise? Did the Creator of time have need of the aid of time? Does not all the nature of serpents coalesce, is formed, is born, is strengthened, by fixed numbers of days accommodated to each kind? Were those days awaited, that the rod might be turned into a serpent from the hand of Moses and Aaron?

Nor, when these things happen, do they happen contrary to nature—except to us, to whom the course of nature has become known otherwise—but not to God, for whom that is nature which He has made. But it may rightly be asked concerning those causal reasons which He put into the world when He first created all things together: how were they instituted? Whether so that, as we see all things being born, whether of shrubs or of animals, in their conformations and increases run through their diverse spaces of time according to the diversity of kinds; or so that, as Adam is believed to have been made, they were formed at once in a manly age without any progress of increases. But why do we not believe that those reasons had both, so that from them there should come to be that which pleased Him who was to make it?

For if we say it in the former way, not only that water-into-wine, but also all miracles which happen contrary to the accustomed course of nature, begin to seem to have been done against those very reasons; but if in the latter way, it will be far more absurd that these very daily forms and species of nature run through the spaces of their own times against those primary causal reasons of all things being born. It remains, therefore, that they were created fit for both modes—whether for this one, by which temporal things run their course most usually, or for that one, by which rare and marvelous things happen, as it shall have pleased God to do what befits the time.

But nevertheless man was so made as those first causes held that the first man should be made—he who was not to be born of parents, since none had preceded him, but had to be formed from the clay according to the causal reason in which he had first been made. For if he was made otherwise, God had not made him in those works of the six days, in which, when he is said to have been made, God had assuredly made the very cause by which man was to be in his own time, and according to which he was to be made by Him who had both completed the things begun, on account of the perfection of the causal reasons, and had begun the things to be completed, on account of the order of times.

If, then, in those first causes of things, which the Creator first inserted into the world, He placed not only that He was to form man from the clay, but also how He was to form him—whether as in the mother's womb, or in a youthful form—without doubt He so made him as He had there foreordained; for He would not act against His own disposition. But if He placed there only the force of possibility, that man might be made, in whatever way he might be made, so that he could be made both this way and that—that is, so that this too might be there,

namely that he could be made both this way and that, but reserved in His own will the one particular mode by which He was to make him, and did not weave it into the constitution of the world—it is manifest that even so man was not made contrary to what was in that first constitution of causes, because there it was also possible for him to be made thus, although it was not there necessary that he be so made. For this was not in the constitution of the creature, but in the good pleasure of the Creator, whose will is the necessity of things. For even we, according to the grasp of human weakness, can now know in the very things that have arisen in time what is in the nature of each, which we have perceived by experience; but whether it is also going to be, we do not know. For it is in the nature of this, for example, of a youth, that he should grow old;

but whether this too is in the will of God, we do not know. Yet it would not even be in nature, unless it had first been in the will of God, who established all things. And assuredly the reason of old age in a youthful body, or of youth in a boyish body, is hidden; for it is not discerned by the eyes, as boyhood itself in a boy, as youth in a youth, but by some other kind of knowledge it is gathered that there is present in nature something latent, by which are led forth into readiness the hidden numbers either of youth from boyhood or of old age from youth. Hidden, therefore, is that reason by which it comes about that this can be—but to the eyes; to the mind, however, it is not hidden. But whether this is also necessary, we in every way do not know. And that reason indeed by which it comes about

that it can be, we know to be in the nature of the body itself; but that reason by which it comes about that it must be, it is manifest is not there. But perhaps it is in the world, that it must be that this man should grow old; and if it is not even in the world, it is in God. For that will necessarily come to be which He wills, and those things are truly going to be which He has foreknown; for many things are going to be according to lower causes, but if they are so also in the foreknowledge of God, they are truly going to be; but if they are otherwise there, they are rather going to be as they are there, where He who foreknows cannot be deceived. For old age is said to be future in a youth, yet it is nevertheless not future, if he is going to die first.

But this will be as the other causes hold themselves, whether woven into the world or reserved in the foreknowledge of God; for according to certain causes of future things Hezekiah was going to die, to whom God added fifteen years to his life—doing assuredly that which before the constitution of the world He foreknew He was going to do, and reserved in His own will. He did not, therefore, do that which was not going to be; for this rather was going to be, which He foreknew He was going to do. Yet those years would not rightly be said to have been added, unless they were added to something that had held itself otherwise in other causes. According to certain lower causes, therefore, he had already ended his life;

but according to those causes which are in the will and foreknowledge of God, who from eternity knew what He was going to do at that time—and this was truly going to be—he was then going to end his life, when he did end his life, because, even if it was granted to him praying, He assuredly foreknew that he would even so pray in such a manner that it behooved such a prayer to be granted—He whose foreknowledge could not be deceived. And therefore what He foreknew was necessarily going to be. Wherefore, if the causes of all future things are implanted in the world, when that day was made, when God created all things together,

Adam was made no otherwise, when he was formed from the clay, than as it is more credible—already of perfect manhood, which he was in those causes, where God made man in the works of the six days. For there it was not only that he could be made thus, but also that it was necessary that he be made thus. For God does not act against a cause which He without doubt willingly foreordained, any more than He acts against His own will. But if He did not foreordain all the causes in the creature first established, but reserved some in His own will, those which He reserved in His own will are indeed not dependent on the necessity of these which He created; yet they cannot be contrary—those which He reserved in His will—

to those which He established by His will, because the will of God cannot be contrary to itself. He therefore established these in such a way that from them there could be that of which they are the causes, but not that it must be; but He hid those in such a way that from them there must necessarily be that which He made from these so that it could be. It is likewise wont to be asked whether the body first formed for man from the clay was an animal body, such as we now have, or a spiritual one, such as we shall have when rising again.

For although this shall be changed into that — since 'it is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body' — nevertheless the question is debated as to what was first made for man, because, if a natural body was made, we shall not recover what we lost in him, but something as much better as the spiritual is to be set above the natural, when we shall be equal to the angels of God. But the angels can be set above others also in righteousness; can they be set above the Lord Himself? Yet of Him it was said, 'Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels.' Whence lower, save because of the weakness of the flesh which He took from the Virgin, receiving the form of a servant, in which by dying He might redeem us from servitude? But why should we discuss this at greater length? For the Apostle's judgment on this matter is not obscure.

When he wished to bring forward a testimony to prove that there is a natural body, he recalled and cited not so much his own body or any man's body which is seen in the present, as this very passage of Scripture, saying: 'If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual. So also it is written: The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a life-giving spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of Him who is from heaven.' What can be said against this?