'He breathed the breath of life into the woman's face, and she was made into a living soul,' not even so would it follow that the soul is not propagated from the parents, unless this too were likewise read to be written concerning their son. For it could have come to pass that a limb without a soul, drawn from the body, needed to be given a soul, while the soul of the son was drawn from the father through the mother by the transfusion of propagation. But when it is passed over in silence, it is concealed, not denied, but neither affirmed. And on this account, wherever perhaps it is not passed over in silence, it must be established by clearer proofs. Whence neither are those who defend the propagation of souls at all helped by this, that God did not breathe into the woman's face, nor those who deny it, on this account, that Adam did not say:
'Soul of my soul,' ought to persuade themselves of what they do not know. For just as, with the same question not resolved but remaining, Scripture could keep silent that the woman received a soul by God's breathing, just as her man did, so, with the same question not resolved but remaining, Scripture could keep silent, so that Adam should not say, 'soul of my soul.' And on this account, if the soul of the first woman is from the man, the whole was signified from a part, where it is read, 'This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,' since she was taken wholly from the man, not the flesh alone. But if it is not from the man, but God breathed it into her as into the man, the part was signified from the whole, where it is read, 'She was taken out of her man,' since her flesh, not the whole, was taken.
Wherefore, since by these testimonies, so far as pertains to this matter, being certainly ambiguous, this question is not resolved, yet this I know, that men argue thus who from this think that the woman's soul is not of the man's soul, because it was not said, 'soul of my soul,' but 'flesh of my flesh,' just as the Apollinarists argue, or whoever else there are against the soul of the Lord, which they deny for this reason, that they read it written, 'The Word was made flesh' (John 1:14). 'For if the soul also,' they say, 'were there, it ought to have been said, the Word was made man.' But to these it is said that Scripture is wont to name the whole man by the name of flesh—as it is, 'And all flesh shall see the salvation of God' (Luke 3:6; Isa. 40:5);
—for flesh without a soul cannot see anything—; because in very many other places of the holy Scriptures it is shown without any ambiguity that not flesh alone, but also a human, that is, a rational, soul is in the man Christ. Whence these men also, by whom the propagation of souls is defended, could take it that the whole was said from a part, 'bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,' so that there the soul also might be understood, just as we understand that the Word was made flesh not without a soul—if, just as other testimonies teach that Christ has a human soul, so these men too by some unambiguous testimonies would establish the propagation of souls.
In like manner therefore we also admonish those who overthrow the propagation of souls, that they should assert by sure proofs that new souls are breathed in by God, and then may defend that what was said, 'bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,' was not spoken figuratively as the whole from a part, so that the soul also should be understood together, but properly of the flesh alone. Since these things are so, I see that this book must now be closed. For it contains all the things that seemed to me most necessary, whereby those who read them may know that they ought to beware, lest they consent to this man, whose two books you sent me, in this, so as to believe 'that souls are so from God's breath that they are not from nothing.'
For whoever believes this, even if he denies it in words, in the very fact cries out that souls have the substance of God and are of His kind not by gift but by nature. For that from which anyone draws the origin of his own nature—that he draws from it the kind of his own nature cannot soberly be denied by any means. But this man is so contrary to himself that he says souls are of the kind of God not by nature but by gift, and yet says that they are not made from nothing, but draw their origin from Him; and thus he does not hesitate to recall them, what he had before denied, to the nature of God.
But we by no means forbid that the inbreathing of new souls without propagation be defended—yet by those who are able to find something, either in the canonical books, which is not ambiguous, for resolving this most entangled question, or in their own reasonings,
which is not contrary to catholic truth; not by such as this man showed himself to be, who, by not finding what to say and by being unwilling to suspend his deliberation, in no way measuring his own powers, in order not to keep silent, dared to say 'that the soul deserved to be defiled through the flesh and deserved to be a sinful soul,' though it could have found no merit, whether good or bad, before the flesh; and 'that for little ones departing from the body without baptism the original sin can be loosed, and the sacrifice of the body of Christ can be offered for them,' who are not incorporated into Christ through His sacraments in His Church, 'and that these, departing from this life without the laver of regeneration, can go not only to rest, but even attain to the kingdom of heaven,' and other things very absurd.
To gather all of which together and digest them in this book seemed too long. Far be it, then, that the propagation of souls, if it is false, should be refuted by such men, and that the inbreathing of new souls, if it is true, should be defended by such men. Wherefore, whoever wish to defend that new souls are said to be breathed into the newborn, not drawn from the parents, let them by all means beware of any of those four things which I recalled above, that is: 'let them not say that sinful souls are made by God through another's original sin; let them not say that little ones who have departed without baptism can attain to eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, the original sin being dissolved by any other means whatsoever;
let them not say that souls sinned somewhere before the flesh, and were on that account deservedly thrust down into sinful flesh; let them not say that sins which were not found in them, because they were foreknown, were deservedly punished, since they were not permitted to attain to that life in which they would commit them.' Saying therefore none of those four things, since any one of them is false and impious, let them find also most certain testimonies of the Scriptures concerning this matter, and let them defend this their opinion, not only with me not forbidding it, but even favoring it and giving thanks. But if they do not find the most certain authority of the divine oracles concerning this matter, and are compelled through want to say some one of those four things, let them restrain themselves, lest through that very want they should also
be compelled to say that the souls of little ones do not have original sin, according to the Pelagian heresy, long ago damnable and most recently condemned. For it is better for a man to confess that he does not know what he does not know, than either to run into a heresy already condemned or to found a new one, while he rashly dares to defend what he does not know. As for this man's other false and absurd things, in which he strays from the path of truth not so perilously, yet nevertheless does stray, since they are many, and to himself also, if the Lord will, I wish to write something concerning his books; there perhaps I shall show them all, or, if I cannot show all, very many.
But this book, which I thought should rather be written to you—who, as a true catholic and good friend, have faithfully and kindly borne the care both of our faith and of my reputation—than to any other, you shall give to be read or copied by whomever you can, or by whomever you shall judge it ought to be given. In it I have thought that the presumption of this young man ought to be so restrained and refuted, that nevertheless I love him and wish him not to be condemned, but to be corrected, and thus to make progress in the great house, which is the catholic Church, whither the divine mercy has led him; that he may be in it a vessel sanctified unto honor, useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work, both by living well and by speaking soundly.
But further, if I ought to love him, as I do, how much more you, brother, whose good will toward me and whose catholic faith, cautious and sober, I know most excellently! Whence it came to pass that those books which displeased you, and in which you found my name set down otherwise than you would wish, you took care, with truly fraternal and plainly sincere love, to have copied and sent to me. So far therefore is it from my being angry at your charity for this, because you did it, that rather, unless you had done it, by the full right of friendship I ought to be angry. I give you therefore abundant thanks. And how I have received your deed, I have shown more manifestly by this, that I have written this book to you, as soon as I read those, without any delay. SECOND BOOK.
TO PETER THE PRESBYTER. To his most beloved lord, brother, and fellow-presbyter Peter, Augustine the bishop, greeting in the Lord. There have come to me two books of Vincentius Victor, which he wrote to your Holiness, our brother Renatus having sent them to me—a man indeed a layman, but for his own faith and that of those whom he loves prudently and religiously solicitous. When these were read, I saw a man flowing in speech not only to sufficiency, but even to redundance, yet in the matters of which he wished to speak not yet instructed as he ought; but if this shall be granted to him by the Lord's giving, he will be able to be useful to many.
For he has no small measure of ability, by which he can unfold and adorn what he thinks, if first he give effort to think rightly. For eloquent perversities are very harmful, because to less learned men, by the very fact that they are eloquent, they seem also to be true. But how you yourself received these same books, I do not know; yet nevertheless, if what I have heard is true, you are said, when they were recited, to have so leaped up for joy that, an old man and a presbyter having kissed the head of that young layman, you gave thanks that you had learned what you did not know. In which indeed I do not disapprove your humility, nay rather I even praise it, that you honored your teacher—not the man, but the very Truth which deigned to speak to you through him—if only you can show what truth you received through him.
I could wish, therefore, that by your reply you would teach me what he taught you. Far be it that I should blush to learn from a presbyter, if you did not blush to learn, with humility to be proclaimed and imitated, from a layman—if you learned true things. Accordingly, most beloved brother, I desire to know what you learned from him, that, if I already knew it, I may rejoice for you; but if I did not know it, I may learn through you. Were you then ignorant that the soul and the spirit are two certain things—according to that which is written, 'Thou hast delivered my soul from my spirit' (Job 7:15, LXX)—and that each pertains to the nature of man, so that the whole man is spirit and soul and body, but that sometimes these two together are called by the name of soul—such as is that, 'And man was made into a living soul' (Gen. 2:7);
for there the spirit also is understood—and likewise that sometimes both are called by the name of spirit—as it is, 'And bowing His head, He gave up the spirit' (John 19:30), where the soul also must necessarily be understood—and that both are of one substance? I think that you already knew these things; but if you did not know them, know that you have not learned anything which is not known at great peril. And if anything is here to be disputed more subtly, it is better dealt with together with him, whose eloquence too we already know:
whether, when the soul is spoken of, in such a way that the spirit also is understood together, both are soul, but the spirit is some part of the soul; or, as it seemed to him, the whole is called by this name from a part; whether also both are spirit, but the part of it is that which is properly called soul; or whether this too is called the whole from a part, when the spirit is so spoken of that the soul also is understood together—for so it pleases him. But these things, as I said, are both subtly discussed and are not known without any, or at least without any great, peril. And likewise, that the senses of the body are some, but those of the soul others, I marvel if this man taught you;
and that you, a man of that age and honor, before you heard this man, thought it one and the same thing, that whereby white and black are distinguished, which even sparrows see with us, and that whereby just and unjust are judged, which Tobit saw even with the lights of the flesh lost (Tob. 2:10; 4:1ff.). If this is so, assuredly, when you heard or read, 'Lighten mine eyes, lest I ever sleep in death' (Ps. 13:3), you thought of nothing but the eyes of the flesh. Or if this is obscure, certainly, when you recalled that saying of the Apostle, 'the eyes of your heart enlightened' (Eph. 1:18), you believed that we have a heart beneath the forehead and above the cheeks. Far be it that I should think this of you; therefore neither did this man teach you this.
Or if perhaps before this teaching, which you now rejoice to have found, you thought the nature of the soul to be a portion of God, you did not know that this was false, with dreadful peril. And if you learned from this man that the soul is not a portion of God, give thanks to God, as great as you can, that you did not depart from the body before you learned this; for you would have departed a great heretic and a dreadful blasphemer. In no way, however, would I have supposed even this of you, that you, a catholic man and no contemptible presbyter, felt the nature of the soul to be a portion of God. Whence, I confess to your charity, I fear lest perhaps this man taught you this, which is rather contrary to that faith which you held.
For just as I do not think that you ever in the catholic Church believed the soul to be a portion of God, or that in any way the soul and God are of the same nature, so I fear lest perhaps you have consented to this man, 'that God did not make the soul out of nothing, but that it is so from Himself as to have emanated from Himself'; for this word too this man set down among the rest, whereby in this question he strayed to a monstrous precipice. But if indeed he taught you this, I do not want you to teach me; nay rather I even want you yourself to unlearn what you had learned.
For it is too little not to believe nor to say that the soul is a part of God—for neither do we say that the Son or the Holy Spirit is a part of God, and yet we say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same nature—; too little, therefore, is it that we do not say the soul is a part of God; but this too is needful, that we say that it and God are not of one and the same nature. Whence he rightly indeed says 'that souls are of the kind of God by gift, not by nature,' and on this account not of all men, but of the faithful; but again he has rolled back down to that from which he had turned aside, and said that God and the soul are of the same nature—not indeed in these words, but by an open and manifest meaning.
For when he says 'that the soul is so from God, that He created it neither from another nature nor from nothing, but from His very self,' what does he attempt to persuade but that which in other words he denies, namely that the soul is of the same nature of which God is? For every nature either is God, who has no author, or is from God, because it has Him as its author. But those things which have God as their author, from whom they are, some were not made, some were made. Further, that which was not made, and yet is from Him, either was begotten by Him or proceeds from Him—that which was begotten is the only Son, that which proceeds is the Holy Spirit—and this Trinity is of one and the same nature;
for these three are one, and each single one is God, and all together one God, immutable, everlasting, without any beginning or end of time. But that nature which was made is called a creature, while the Creator is God, that is, that Trinity. A creature therefore is said to be so from God that it was not made from His nature; for it is said to be from Him
because it has Him as its author that it should be, not in such a way that it was born from Him or proceeded from Him, but was created, established, made by Him: partly from no other thing, that is, altogether from nothing, as heaven and earth, or rather all the universal matter created together with the world, the universal mass of the world; but partly from another nature already created and existing, as man from the slime, woman from man, man from parents; yet every creature is from God, but by His creating, whether from nothing or from something, not, however, by His begetting or producing it out of Himself.
If I speak these things with a catholic, admonishing rather than teaching—for I do not think they are new to you, or things heard indeed even before, yet not believed, but, as I judge, you so read my letter that here you recognize also your own faith, which is common to us in the catholic Church by the Lord's giving—; if therefore, as I had begun to say, I speak these things with a catholic, whence, I beseech you, do you believe the soul to be—I say not of each one of us, but that first one given to that first man? If from nothing, and yet made and breathed in by God, you believe that which I do;
but if from some other creature, which, as material, lay beneath the artificer God so that the soul might be made from it, as the dust from which Adam was made, or his rib from which Eve, or as the waters from which fishes and birds, or as the earth from which any land animals—that is not catholic, that is not true. But if you think that neither from nothing nor from any other creature, but from His very self, that is, from His own nature, God made or makes souls—which be far from us!—this indeed you learned from this man, but I neither congratulate nor flatter you; far, with him, have you strayed from the catholic faith.
For it is more tolerable—which indeed is false, yet, as I said, more tolerable—that you should believe the soul to have been established from some other creature, which indeed God had already made, than from the nature of God; so that that which is mutable, which sins, which becomes impious, which also, if it endure impious to the end, will be damned without end, should not, with dreadful blasphemy, be referred to the nature of God. Cast it away, brother, cast away, I beseech you, that which is plainly not faith, but the error of an execrable impiety, lest, a weighty man seduced by a youth and a layman, being a presbyter, while you suppose this to be the catholic faith, you should be reckoned out of the number of the faithful—which may the Lord avert from you.
For it must not be dealt with you as with him, nor is this so dreadful an error of yours worthy of that pardon which is that of that youth, although it has passed from him to you. He lately came to the catholic sheepfold to be healed; you are counted among the catholic shepherds. We do not want that which has come from error to the Lord's flock to be so cured, that first the ulcerous sheep should by its pestilent contagion destroy the shepherd. But if you say, 'This man did not teach me this, nor did I in any way consent to this his error, allured by the sweetness of however eloquent and ornate discourse,' I give huge thanks to God.
But I ask, on what account, having kissed his head, as it is said, did you give thanks that you had learned what up to the hearing of his disputation you were ignorant of; or, if it is false that you did and said this, this very thing I beg you would deign to intimate to us, that the empty rumor may be refuted by your letter. But if it is true that with that humility you gave thanks to the man, I rejoice indeed, if he did not teach you that which above I showed to be so detestable and to be avoided, and I do not blame you for having been grateful with such humility to a teacher, if you learned something else true and useful while he disputed; but I inquire what this may be. Or is it perhaps that the soul is not a spirit, but a body?
I do not indeed think it a great loss to Christian teaching not to know these things; and if one disputes subtly about the kinds of bodies, this is learned with more difficulty than profit. But if the Lord shall will that I write, as I desire, to that very young man, then perhaps, my beloved, you will there learn even this which he did not teach you—if, that is, you rejoice to have learned it from him. Yet lest perchance there be something else which is agreed to be useful and to pertain to the necessary faith, I beg you not to think it burdensome to write back.
For as to that which he most rightly and very wholesomely believes—that souls are judged when they have gone forth from their bodies, before they come to that judgment in which they must be judged when their bodies have already been restored to them, and be tormented or glorified in that very flesh in which they lived here—was this then something you yourself did not know? Who has become so deaf against the Gospel through such obstinacy of mind that, in the poor man who after death was carried into Abraham's bosom, and in the rich man whose torment in hell is set forth, he does not hear these things, or, having heard them, does not believe them?
But did he indeed teach you how a soul without a body could desire a drop of water from the poor man's finger, seeing that he himself confessed that the soul seeks bodily nourishment only for the sake of propping up the ruins of its corruptible body? These are his words: "Do we believe," says he, "that, because the soul seeks either food or drink, the nourishment passes over to the soul itself?" And a little later: "Hence it is understood," he says, "and proved that the sustaining supports of food do not pertain to the soul but to the body, for which, besides food, clothing too is provided by a like reasoning, so that the furnishing of pasture seems necessary to it, to which it also belongs to have clothing itself."
This opinion of his, set forth clearly enough, he further illustrated with a certain comparison and said: "But what do we think any tenant does in looking after his dwelling? Does he not, if he perceives it to shake in the roof, or the wall to totter, or the foundation to give way, seek props and heap up piles by which he may carefully and diligently shore up the threatening ruin, lest under the peril of the dwelling the safety of the dweller should seem to hang in the balance? So then," he says, "recognize that the soul too desires food for its flesh, from which without doubt it conceives that very desire."
These things indeed that young man expounded in most brilliant and most sufficient words, asserting that nourishment is required not for the soul but for the body—by the soul's care, to be sure, yet as of one dwelling in a house and propping up by provident repair the threatening ruins of the dying flesh. Let him therefore also explain to you what that soul of the rich man desired to prop up, seeing it no longer had any mortal body, and yet thirsted and asked for a drop of water from the poor man's finger. This teacher of old men has here something to exercise himself upon; let him seek and find, if he can, for what purpose that soul in hell was begging for moist nourishment, even so scanty a portion, when it no longer had any ruinous dwelling.
That he believes God to be incorporeal, I rejoice that on this point at least he is set apart from the ravings of Tertullian; for that man contended that God, like the soul, is corporeal. Dissenting from him in this, our man endeavours to persuade us of things more marvellous still: that the incorporeal God makes a breath not out of nothing, but exhales a corporeal breath out of His very self. O what a doctrine—for which every age should prick up its ears, which deserves to have aged men, indeed presbyters, as its disciples! Let him read, let him read out in an assembly what he has written; let him invite the known and the unknown, the learned and the unlearned to hear it recited. Come together, elders with the younger; learn what you did not know, hear what you had never heard.
Behold, according to this man's teaching, God creates a breath not from anything else that in some way exists, nor from that which absolutely does not exist, but from that which He Himself is: being incorporeal, He blows out a body. Therefore His own nature, before it is changed into the body of sin, He Himself changes into a body. Or does he say that He changes nothing of His own nature when He makes a breath? Then it is not when He makes it out of His very self; for He is not one thing and His nature another. Who but the most insane would think this? But if he says that God so makes a breath out of His own nature that He Himself remains entire, that is not the question; the question rather is whether that which is not from elsewhere nor out of nothing, but out of Him, is not the very thing that He is—that is, of the same nature and essence. For in the begetting of the Son too God remains entire;
but because, when He begot out of His very self, He begot nothing other than that which He Himself is. For, apart from the fact that He assumed manhood and the Word was made flesh, the Word, the Son of God, is indeed another (person), but is not another thing; that is, He is another person, but not a diverse nature. And whence is this, save that He was not created out of another or out of nothing, but was born out of Him—not that He might be better than He was, but simply that He might be, and be that which He is from whom He was born, that is, of one and the same nature, equal, coeternal, in every way alike, equally immutable, equally invisible, equally incorporeal, equally God, altogether that which the Father is, save that He is Himself the Son, not the Father?
But if He Himself remains indeed the entire God, and yet out of no source or out of another, but out of His very self creates something diverse and worse, and out of the incorporeal God a body emanates—far be it that a catholic mind should drink this in! For it is not a stream from the divine fountain, but a figment of the human heart. Now indeed, how ineptly he labours to vindicate the soul—which he thinks to be corporeal—from the passions of the body, disputing "about the infancy of the soul, about paralytics and those whose senses are impaired, about limbs of the body amputated without any cutting of the soul"—I ought to argue not with you, but rather with him; for he must sweat over it, to give an account of his own sayings, lest I should seem to wish to weary the gravity of the old man over the work of the young.
But that he disputes that the likenesses of character which are found in children do not come from the seed of the soul—this is indeed a consequence for whoever destroy the propagation of the soul; yet even those who assert this propagation do not there place the weight of their assertion. For they too see children unlike their parents in character, which they think comes about because even one and the same man often has other characters unlike his own—not by receiving another soul, of course, but by his life being changed for the better or the worse. Thus they say it is not impossible that a soul should not have the same character as that from which it was propagated, since indeed one and the same soul can now have one character, and at another time another.
Wherefore, if you believe you have learned this from him—that the soul is not derived by propagation—would that you had truly learned it! Most gladly would I hand you over to be taught by me. But it is one thing to learn, another to seem to oneself to have learned. If, then, you suppose you have learned what you still do not know, you have plainly not learned, but have rashly believed what you gladly heard; and false speech has crept upon you through sweet speech.