Latin original · 41 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 5:2974–5:3014 (4615 verses in all)
For it is stretched throughout the whole body which it animates, not by a local diffusion but by a certain vital intentness; for through all its particles it is present whole at the same time, and is not less in the lesser parts and greater in the greater, but in one place more intently, in another more remissly, and is whole in all and whole in each. For not otherwise does it, which perceives even in a part of the body and not the whole, nevertheless perceive as a whole; for when something touches a tiny point in the living flesh, although that place is not only not the whole body but scarcely seems to be in the body, yet it is not hidden from the whole soul; nor does that which is felt run through all the parts of the body, but is felt only there where it occurs.
Whence then does it presently reach to the whole soul, that which does not occur in the whole, except because the soul is whole even there where the occurrence takes place, and does not, in order to be whole there, desert the rest? For those parts too live by its presence, where nothing of the sort has happened. But if it did happen, and both happened at the same time, both at once would equally not be hidden from the whole soul. Accordingly, it could not be at once whole in all and whole in the several particles of its body, if it were diffused through them in the way we see bodies diffused through spaces of places to occupy lesser spaces with their lesser parts and larger with their larger. Wherefore, if the soul must be called a body, it is certainly not a body such as the earthy is, nor such as the watery or airy or ethereal.
For all such things are greater in greater places and smaller in smaller, and none of them is present whole in any part of itself, but, as there are parts of places, so are they occupied by parts of bodies. Whence it is understood that the soul — whether it must be called a body or incorporeal — has a certain proper nature of its own, created out of a substance more excellent than all these elements of the world's mass, which cannot truly be thought in any phantasy of corporeal images, such as we perceive through the senses of the flesh, but is understood by the mind and perceived by life.
Nor do I speak these things as though to teach you what is already known to you, but in order to make plain what I hold most firmly concerning the soul, lest, when I come to those things which I seek, anyone should suppose that I hold nothing concerning the soul either by knowledge or by faith. I am also certain that the soul, by no fault of God, by no necessity of God nor of its own but by its own will, has fallen into sin, and cannot be freed from the body of this death either by the power of its own will as though sufficient for this, or by the death of the body itself, but by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is no soul at all in the human race for which the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, is not necessary unto liberation.
But whatever soul, without the grace of the Mediator and His sacrament, shall have departed from the body at whatever age of the body, is both destined to be in punishment and, at the last judgment, to receive back its body unto punishment. But if, after the human generation which was made from Adam, it is regenerated in Christ, belonging to His fellowship, it is both destined to have rest after the death of the body and to receive back its body unto glory. These are the things which I hold most firmly concerning the soul. Now receive, I beseech you, what I inquire, and do not scorn me; so may He not scorn you, who for our sake deigned to be scorned.
I ask: where has the soul contracted the guilt by which it is dragged into condemnation — even that of an infant cut off by death — if the grace of Christ has not come to its aid through the sacrament by which even little ones are baptized? For you are not one of those who have lately begun to prattle certain novelties, saying that there is no guilt drawn from Adam which is loosed by baptism in the infant. If I knew that you thought this — nay, unless I knew that you did not think it — I would by no means inquire this of you or think it something to be inquired. But since we hold your opinion on this matter as consonant with the most firmly established catholic faith — by which, in refuting also the empty talk of Jovinian, you adduced a testimony from the book of Job:
'No one is clean in Thy sight, not even the infant whose life upon earth is of one day' — then you added: 'And we are held guilty in the likeness of Adam's transgression'; and your book on the prophet Jonah declares this quite notably and clearly, where you said that little ones are rightly compelled to fast on account of that very original sin — it is not unfittingly that I ask of you where the soul has contracted this guilt, from which it must be freed even at that age through the sacrament of Christian grace.
I indeed, some years ago, when I was writing certain books on free will — which have come into the hands of many and are held by very many — thought that the four opinions concerning the soul's incarnation (whether from that one soul which was given to the first man the rest are propagated; or whether new ones are made even now for each individual; or whether, already existing somewhere, they are either sent by God or slip of their own accord into bodies) were to be treated in such a way that, whichever of them was true, it would not hinder my intention, with which I was then contending, with all the strength I could, against those who try to introduce, against God, a nature of evil endowed with its own principle — that is, against the Manichaeans;
For this reason I did not add a fifth opinion, which among the others you mentioned in your letter, lest you should pass over any — the opinion where, replying to a man of devout memory and to us most dear in the charity of Christ, Marcellinus, who was questioning you on this matter, you answered that the soul is a part of God: first, because it is not about its incarnation but about its nature that the question is raised, when this is asked; then, because those against whom I was contending hold this very thing; and I was especially concerned to separate the blameless and inviolable nature of the Creator from the vices and stain of the creature, since they contend that the very substance of the good God, in the part by which it was taken captive, was corrupted and oppressed by the substance of evil (to which they attribute its own principle and princes) and brought to the necessity of sinning.
This heretical error of opinion therefore being excepted, I desire to know which of the four remaining opinions is to be chosen. For whichever is to be chosen, far be it that it should assail this faith of which we are certain: that liberation from the obligation of sin is necessary for every soul, even that of a little infant, and that there is none save through our Lord Christ, and Him crucified. Accordingly, that we may not be lengthy — this at least you hold, that God even now makes individual souls for individuals as they are born. And lest it be objected to this opinion that God consummated all creatures on the sixth day and rested on the seventh, you adduce a testimony from the Gospel: 'My Father works until now.'
For so you wrote to Marcellinus, in which letter you also deigned most kindly to make mention of me, on the ground that he had me here in Africa who could more easily explain this opinion to him. But if I had been able, he would not have inquired this of you, placed so far away — if indeed he wrote this to you from Africa. For when he wrote, I do not know; only I know that concerning this he well came to know my hesitation, whence he wished to act without consulting me. Although, even if he had consulted me, I would rather have exhorted him and given thanks that it might be conferred upon us all — unless you had preferred to write back briefly rather than to answer fully, in order, I believe, not to labor superfluously where I was, whom you supposed to know best that which he had asked.
Behold, I wish that that opinion may be mine also, but I do not yet affirm it to be so. You have sent me disciples that I may teach the very thing which I myself have not yet learned. Teach me therefore what I am to teach; for that I should teach, many demand of me, and to them I confess that I am ignorant of this, as of many other things. And perhaps, though in my presence they are abashed, yet among themselves they say: 'You are a teacher in Israel, and do you not know these things?' — which indeed the Lord said to him who was one of those who delighted to be called rabbi, whence he had come to the true Master by night, because perhaps he blushed to learn, who was accustomed to teach. But it delights me rather to hear the Master than to be heard as though a master. For I recall what He said to those whom He chose above the rest:
'But you,' He said, 'do not be called rabbi by men; for one is your Master, Christ.' Nor did another teach Moses, even through Jethro; nor another Cornelius, even through Peter who went before; nor another Peter, even through Paul who came after. By whomsoever the truth is spoken, it is spoken by the gift of Him who is Truth itself. What if for this reason we are still ignorant of these things, and have not been able to find them either by praying, or reading, or thinking, and reasoning — that it may be proved with how great charity we teach not only the unlearned, but also with how great humility we learn even from the learned?
— Teach me therefore, I pray, what I am to teach; teach me what I am to hold; and tell me, if souls are made one by one for individuals born even today, where in little children they sin, so that they need remission of sin in the sacrament of Christ, sinning in Adam, from whom the flesh of sin is propagated; or, if they do not sin, by what justice of the Creator are they thus bound by another's sin, when, being thereafter inserted into the mortal members propagated therefrom, condemnation follows them unless help be brought through the Church, since it is not in their power that the grace of baptism should be able to come to their aid.
By what equity, therefore, are so many thousands of souls condemned, which depart from the bodies of little children dying without the indulgence of the Christian sacrament, if, newly created with no preceding sin of their own but by the will of the Creator, they were joined one by one to individuals as they were born — souls which He created and gave to animate them, He who assuredly knew that each one of them, by no fault of its own, was about to depart from the body without the baptism of Christ?
Since therefore we can neither say of God that He either compels souls to become sinners or punishes the innocent, nor is it lawful for us to deny that those souls which have departed from bodies without the sacrament of Christ — even those of little children — are dragged into nothing but condemnation, I beseech you: in what way is that opinion defended, by which souls are believed to be made, not all from that one soul of the first man, but as that one was for one, so individual souls for individuals? But those things which are said in objection to this opinion, I think I can easily refute, such as that by which certain men seem to press it hard: how did God consummate all His works on the sixth day and rest on the seventh, if He still creates new souls?
If we say to them what you set down from the Gospel in the aforesaid letter — 'My Father works until now' — they reply: 'The word works is said of His administering things established, not of His establishing new natures,' lest the Scripture of Genesis be contradicted, where it is most plainly read that God consummated all His works. For also that it is written He rested must certainly be understood as from creating new creatures, not from governing them. Because then He made those things which were not, from making which He rested, since He had consummated all things which, before they were, He saw were to be made — so that thenceforth He should create and make, whatever He made, not those things which were not, but out of those things which already were.
Thus both are shown to be true: both that which is said, 'He rested from His works,' and that which is said, 'He works until now,' since the Gospel cannot be contrary to Genesis. But to those who say these things for this reason — lest it be believed that God now, just as that one soul, makes new souls which were not, but rather creates them out of that one which already was, or sends them from some fountain or treasury which He then made — it is easily answered that in those six days too God created many things out of those natures which He had already created, as birds and fishes out of the waters, and out of the earth trees, grass, and animals. But that He then made those things which were not, is manifest;
for there was no bird, no fish, no tree, no animal; and it is rightly understood that He rested from creating those things which were not and were created — that is, He ceased, so that no more things which were not should be created. But now, as to what is said — that God does not send souls already existing in some fountain or other, nor bedew them from Himself as though His own particles, nor draw them originally from that one, nor fetter them with fleshly chains for offenses committed before the flesh, but creates new ones one by one, its own for each one born — He is not said to do anything which He had not done before. For already on the sixth day He had made man to His own image, which is certainly understood to have been done according to the rational soul.
This He does even now, not by instituting what was not, but by multiplying what was. Whence both that is true, that He rested from instituting things which were not, and this is true, that not only by governing the things He made, but also by creating something more numerously — not what He had not yet created, but what He had already created — He works until now. Either in this way, then, or in some other way whatsoever, we escape from that which is objected to us concerning God's rest from His works, so that we may not on that account disbelieve that new souls are now made, not from that one but as that one was. For as to what is said, 'Why does He make souls for those whom He knows will soon die?' — we can answer that the sins of the parents are hereby either convicted or scourged.
We can also rightly leave these matters to the moderation of Him whom we know to give a most ordered and most beautiful course to all things temporally passing away — among which are also the births and deaths of animals — but that we cannot perceive these things, which, if we did perceive, we should be soothed with ineffable delight. For not in vain was it said through the prophet who had learned these things by divine inspiration, concerning God: 'Who brings forth the world in number.' Whence music — that is, the science or sense of modulating — has been granted by the bounty of God even to mortals possessing rational souls, for the admonition of a great matter.
Whence, if a man who is the craftsman of composing a song knows what durations he should assign to which notes, so that what is sung may run and pass most beautifully by sounds departing and succeeding, how much more does God — whose wisdom, by which He made all things, is far to be preferred to all arts — allow no spaces of time (which, like syllables and words, pertain to the particles of this age) in natures being born and perishing, to pass by, in this as it were wondrous song of passing things, either more briefly or more at length than the pre-known and pre-defined modulation demands!
Since I have said this even concerning the leaf of a tree and concerning the number of our hairs, how much more concerning the rising and setting of man, whose temporal life is not extended more briefly or more at length than God, the Disposer of times, knows to accord with the governance of the universe! As for that too which they say — that everything which has begun to be in time cannot be immortal, because 'all things that arise perish, and things that have grown old grow old' — so that in this way they may compel it to be believed that the human soul is therefore immortal because it was created before all times: this does not move our faith. For, to be silent about other things, the immortality of the flesh of Christ began to be in time, which nevertheless now dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over Him.
But that which you set down in the book against Rufinus — that certain men calumniate this opinion, on the ground that it seems unworthy of God to give souls to adulterous conceptions, whence they try to establish that souls can justly be brought, by the merits of a life lived before the flesh, as it were to prison-houses of this kind — this does not move me, who consider many things by which this calumny can be refuted. And what you yourself answered — that there is no fault of the seed in the wheat which is said to have been taken away by theft, but in him who stole the grain, and that the earth ought not therefore to have declined to cherish the seeds in its bosom because the sower cast them with unclean hand — is a most elegant comparison.
Even before I read it, that objection about adulterous offspring caused me no straits in this question, since I generally consider that God does many good things even out of our evils and our sins. But the creation of any animal whatsoever, if it has a prudent and pious considerer, stirs up ineffable praise for the Creator; how much more the creation not of any animal you please, but of man! But if the cause of creating is sought, none is more quickly and better answered than this: that every creature of God is good; and what is more worthy than that the good God should make good things, which no one can make except God?
These things, and others that I am able to say, I say as best I can against those who try to overthrow the opinion by which souls are believed to be made, like that one soul, individually for individual bodies. But when we come to the sufferings of little children, I am hemmed in, believe me, by great difficulties, and I find absolutely no answer to give. I speak not only of those punishments which that damnation holds after this life, to which they must needs be drawn if they depart from the body without the sacrament of Christian grace, but also of those very sufferings which, to our sorrow, pass before our eyes in this life; and if I wished to enumerate them, time would fail me sooner than examples.
They languish under sicknesses, are racked by pains, tormented by hunger and thirst, crippled in their limbs, deprived of their senses, harassed by unclean spirits. It must surely be shown how they justly endure these things without any evil cause of their own. For it is not lawful to say either that these things happen without God's knowledge, or that He cannot resist those who do them, or that He either does or permits them unjustly. Can we perhaps rightly say of man what we rightly say of the irrational animals — that they are given over for the use of natures more excellent, even if these are corrupted, just as we see most plainly in the Gospel that swine were granted to the demons for their desired use? For man too is an animal, but a rational one, though mortal.
There is a rational soul in those limbs which pay the penalty in such great afflictions. God is good, God is just, God is almighty; to doubt this belongs wholly to a madman. Let the just cause, then, of such great evils that befall little children be named. Indeed, when grown persons suffer such things, we are wont to say either that their merits are being tested, as in Job, or that their sins are being punished, as in Herod; and from certain examples which God willed to be manifest, we grant that men may make conjectures about others that are obscure. But this holds for the grown. As for the little ones, however, explain what we are to answer, if in such great sufferings there are no sins to be punished in them; for surely at that age there is no justice to be examined. And of the diversity of natural talents, what shall I say?
This indeed lies hidden in little children, yet it appears in adults as drawn from the very natural beginnings: for some of them are so slow and forgetful that they cannot even learn the first elements of letters, while others are of such stupidity that they differ little from cattle — those whom people commonly call idiots. It is answered, perhaps: 'Their bodies cause this.' But surely, according to that view which we wish to defend, did the soul choose its own body, and in choosing, when it was deceived, did it err? Or, when it was compelled by the necessity of being born to enter into a body, did it — since crowds of souls had preoccupied the other bodies — find no other, and, as in some spectacle occupies a seat, so occupy a flesh, not the one it wished, but the one it was able to get?
Can we say such things, or ought we to hold such views? Teach me, then, what we ought to think and to say, so that the account of new souls, made severally and one by one for individual bodies, may hold good for us. I myself indeed said something — not about talents, but at least about the sufferings of little children which they undergo in this life — in those books On Free Will. But of what sort this is, and why it does not suffice me in the question we now have in hand, I will make known; and I will insert into this letter the passage itself, excerpted from the third book. For it runs thus:
'As for the torments of the body by which little children are afflicted — children who by reason of their age have no sins — if the souls by which they are animated did not exist before those men themselves began to be, then a greater complaint, and one as it were of compassion, is wont to be laid down. It is said: What evil have they done, that they should suffer these things? — as though there could be a merit of innocence before anyone is able to do any harm at all!
But when God works some good in the amendment of grown persons, when they are chastised by the pains and deaths of their little ones who are dear to them, why should these things not happen — seeing that, when they are past, they will be as though they had not been, for those in whom they happened; while for those on whose account they happened, either they will be better, if, amended by temporal misfortunes, they choose to live more rightly, or they will have no excuse in the punishment of the future judgment, if amid the anguishes of this life they refused to turn their desire toward eternal life?
But who knows what good compensation God reserves, in the secret of His judgments, for the little ones themselves — by whose torments the hardness of the grown is broken, or their faith is exercised, or their compassion is tested — since, although they have done nothing rightly, yet they have suffered these things without any sinning? For not in vain does the Church commend as received into the honour of martyrs even those infants who, when the Lord Jesus Christ was sought by Herod to be slain, were themselves killed.' This is what I said then, when I wished to fortify this very opinion of which we now treat.
For as I mentioned a little before, whichever of those four opinions concerning the soul's entering the flesh were true, I strove to show that the substance of the Creator is blameless and utterly removed from any partnership in our sins. And therefore, whichever of them could be convicted by truth and rejected did not pertain to the aim of my purpose which I then had, since indeed — all being discussed with rather careful debate — whichever of them rightly overcame the rest would make me most secure, because even according to all of them I was demonstrating that the point I was pursuing stood unconquered.
But now I wish, if I can, to choose one right account out of them all; and for that reason, when I look more attentively at the defence of this very view of which we now treat — in those words of mine which I quoted from that book — I do not see it as strong and firm. For the foundation of it, as it were, is that which I there said:
'But who knows what good compensation God reserves, in the secret of His judgments, for the little ones themselves — by whose torments the hardness of the grown is broken, or their faith is exercised, or their compassion is tested?' But I see that this is not said without warrant of those who suffer some such thing, even unwittingly, either for the name of Christ and the true religion, or who have already been imbued with the sacrament of Christ — because without partnership in the one Mediator they cannot be freed from damnation, so that that compensation can be granted them even for those evils which they here endured amid diverse afflictions.
But now, since this question cannot be resolved unless an answer is also given concerning those little ones who breathe their last after the gravest torments without the sacrament of Christian fellowship — what compensation is to be thought of for them, for whom moreover damnation too has been prepared? For concerning the baptism of little children I also answered somehow in that same book — not indeed sufficiently, but as far as seemed enough for that work — that it profits even those who do not know it and do not yet have their own faith; yet I did not then think anything should be said about the damnation of those little ones who depart from this life without it, because what is now at issue was not then being treated. But that we may pass over and make light of those things which for a brief time . . .
which they suffer, and which, once passed, are not recalled — can we in like manner make light of the fact that through one man came death, and through one man the resurrection of the dead? For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. For by this apostolic, divine, and clear sentence it shines forth plainly enough that no one goes into death except through Adam, no one into eternal life except through Christ. For this is what 'all' and 'all' mean: because, just as all men, through the first, that is the carnal generation, belong to Adam, so all men come to the second, that is the spiritual generation — whoever come to Christ.
Therefore both here it was said 'all' and there 'all', because, just as all who die, die only in Adam, so all who shall be made alive shall be made alive only in Christ. And thereby whoever tells us that anyone is made alive by the resurrection of the dead except in Christ is to be detested as a plague upon the common faith. Likewise, whoever says that even those little ones are made alive in Christ who depart from life without participation in His sacrament, this man assuredly comes against the preaching of the Apostle and condemns the whole Church, where for this very reason there is haste and running with little ones to be baptized, because it is believed beyond doubt that otherwise they can in no way be made alive in Christ.
But those who are not made alive in Christ, it remains that they abide in that condemnation of which the Apostle says: Through the offence of one, upon all men unto condemnation. That little ones are born liable to this offence, the whole Church believes, and you yourself — already disputing against Jovinian and expounding the prophet Jonah, as I mentioned a little before — defined with most truthful faith, and, I believe, in other places of your works, which either I have not read or do not at present recall. The cause, then, of this damnation upon little ones I seek; for I see no sin at that age in souls, if new ones are made severally for individuals, nor do I believe that God condemns any soul which He sees to have no sin.