For what is truly unchangeable and incorruptible cannot be changed or corrupted by the accession of any thing. Otherwise not only the Achillean flesh, as the fables relate, but all flesh would be invulnerable, if no mishap befell it. It is therefore not an unchangeable nature which in any manner, from any cause, in any part is changeable; but it is impious to believe God to be anything but truly and supremely unchangeable: the soul, therefore, is not a part of God. That the soul is also incorporeal, although it can be persuaded with difficulty to the slower-witted, yet to myself I confess it has been persuaded.
But lest I either raise a verbal controversy superfluously or deservedly suffer one—since, when the matter is agreed upon, there is no need to contend about a name—if every substance or essence, or whatever more aptly names that which in some manner exists in itself, is a body, then the soul is a body. Likewise, if it is pleasing to call incorporeal only that nature which is supremely unchangeable and everywhere whole, then the soul is a body, since it is not any such thing. Furthermore, if there is no body except what is so set in place or moved through spatial extent by some length, breadth, and height, that with a greater part of itself it occupies a greater place and with a smaller a smaller, and is less in a part than in the whole, then the soul is not a body.
For it is extended through the whole body which it animates, not by local diffusion, but by a certain vital intention (application); for through all its particles it is wholly present at once, and not less in the smaller parts and greater in the greater, but somewhere more intently, somewhere more remissly, and in all it is whole and in each single part it is whole. For not otherwise does it, which feels in the body even when not the whole is touched, nevertheless feel as a whole; for when at a tiny point in the living flesh something is touched, although that place is not only not that of the whole body, but scarcely appears 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 (the sensation) presently reach the whole soul, though it occurs not in the whole, except because the soul is whole even there where the sensation occurs, and yet, in order to be whole there, it does not desert the rest? For those parts also live by its presence, where nothing of the kind has happened. But if it did happen, and both occurred at once, the whole soul would not be hidden from both alike at once. Accordingly, it could not be at once whole in all and at once whole in the single particles of its body, if it were diffused through them in such a way as we see bodies diffused through the spaces of places, occupying smaller places with their smaller parts and larger with their larger. Wherefore, if the soul is to be called a body, it is certainly not a body such as is earthly, nor such as is watery or airy or ethereal.
For all such things are greater in greater places and smaller in smaller, and none of them is wholly present in any part of itself, but, as the parts of places are, so are they occupied by the parts of bodies. Whence it is understood that the soul—whether it is to be called a body or incorporeal—has a certain nature of its own, created with a substance more excellent than all these elements of the worldly mass, which cannot truly be conceived under any phantasm of bodily images, such as we perceive through the senses of the flesh, but can be understood by the mind and felt by life.
Nor do I say these things as though to teach you the things which are known to you, but that I may lay open what I hold most firmly concerning the soul, lest anyone, when I come to those things which I inquire about, should suppose me to hold nothing concerning the soul, whether of knowledge or of faith. I am also certain that the soul, by no fault of God, by no necessity whether of God's or 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 of itself for this, or by the death of the body itself, but by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord; and that there is no soul at all in the human race for which, unto liberation, the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, is not necessary.
But whatever soul, without the grace of the Mediator and his sacrament, shall have gone forth from the body at any age of the body whatsoever, both will be destined for punishment in the future and will receive its body again unto punishment at the last judgment. But if, after the human generation which is derived from Adam, it be regenerated in Christ, belonging to his fellowship, it both will have rest after the death of the body and will receive its body again unto glory. These are the things which I hold most firmly concerning the soul. Now receive, I beseech you, what I inquire about, and do not scorn me; so may he not scorn you, who for our sake deigned to be scorned.
I ask where the soul has contracted the guilt whereby it is dragged into condemnation, even in the case of an infant prevented 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 of those who have lately begun to prattle certain new things, saying that there is no guilt derived from Adam which is loosed by baptism in the infant. If I knew that you held this view—nay, unless I knew that you did not hold it—I would by no means inquire this of you, nor think it should be inquired. But because we hold your opinion on this matter to be in harmony with the most well-founded 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 an infant whose life upon earth is of one day'; then you added: 'a tent of guilt, in the likeness of the transgression of Adam'; and your book on the prophet Jonah declares this quite notably and clearly, where you said that little ones were rightly compelled to fast on account of that same original sin—not unfittingly do I inquire of you where the soul has contracted this guilt, whence it must needs 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 gone forth into the hands of many and are held by very many, thought that 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 also made now for each individual, or whether, existing already somewhere, they are either sent by divine agency or of their own accord glide into bodies—were to be treated in such a way that, whichever of them was true, it would not hinder my intention, by which I was then acting, with all the strength I could, against those who attempt to introduce, against God, a nature of evil endowed with its own principle—that is, against the Manichees.
Therefore I did not add a fifth opinion, which among the others you mentioned in your letter—lest you should pass over any—when you wrote back to one inquiring about this question, a man of devout memory and most dear to us in the charity of Christ, Marcellinus, namely that the soul is a part of God: first, because it is not about its incarnation but about its nature that the inquiry is made, when this is inquired; then, because those against whom I was contending hold this view, and I was especially concerned to distinguish the blameless and inviolable nature of the Creator from the vices and blemish of the creature, since those men contend that the very substance of the good God has, in the part in which it was captured, been corrupted and oppressed and led into the necessity of sinning by the substance of evil, to which they attribute its own principle and princes.
Excepting, therefore, this error of heretical opinion, I desire to know which of the four remaining opinions ought to be chosen. For whichever is to be chosen, far be it that it should assail this faith, concerning which we are certain: that for every soul, even that of a little infant, liberation from the bond of sin is necessary, and that there is none save through Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Accordingly, that we may not make it long: 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 finished 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 deigned also most kindly to make mention of me, namely 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 that to you from Africa. For when he wrote, I do not know; I only know that concerning this he had well come 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, because it could be imparted to all of us—unless you had preferred to write back briefly rather than to respond fully, I believe lest you labor superfluously, where I was present, whom you supposed to know very well that which he had asked.
Behold, I wish that that opinion may be mine also, but I do not yet affirm that it is. You have sent me disciples, that I may teach that thing which I myself have not yet learned. Teach me, therefore, what I am to teach. For that I may teach, many demand of me, and to them I confess that I am ignorant of this, as of many other things. And perhaps, although they are shamefaced to my face, yet among themselves they say: You are a master 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 also he had come to the true master by night, because perhaps he blushed to learn, who had been 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 before the rest:
'But you,' he said, 'be not called rabbi by men; for one is your master, Christ.' Nor did any other teach Moses, even through Jethro; nor any other Cornelius, even through Peter who went before; nor any other 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 still do not know these things, and have been able to find them out neither by praying nor by reading nor by thinking and reasoning, that we may be proved—not only with how great charity we teach the unlearned, but also with how great humility we learn even from the learned?
Teach me, therefore, I beseech you, what I am to teach; teach me what I am to hold; and tell me, if souls are made individually for individuals born even today, where in the little ones they sin, so that they need in the sacrament of Christ the remission of sin, sinning in Adam, from whom the flesh of sin was propagated; or, if they do not sin, by what justice of the Creator are they so bound by another's sin, when they are engrafted into the mortal members thence propagated, that damnation follows them unless it be provided for through the Church—since it is not in their power that the grace of baptism can be provided for them?
So many thousands of souls, therefore, which in the deaths of little ones go forth from their bodies without the indulgence of the Christian sacrament—by what equity are they damned, if, newly created with no preceding sin of their own but by the will of the Creator, they have severally clung to the several persons born, to whom, for animating them, he created and gave them—he who assuredly knew that each one of them, through no fault of its own, was destined to go forth from the body without the baptism of Christ?
Since, therefore, we can neither say of God that he either compels souls to become sinful or punishes the innocent, nor is it lawful for us to deny that those souls which have gone forth from their bodies without the sacrament of Christ—even of little ones—are drawn to nothing but damnation, I beseech you, how is this opinion defended, by which souls are believed to be made not all from that one soul of the first man, but, as that one for the one man, so severally for the several? But those things which are said otherwise against this opinion, I think I can easily refute, such as is that whereby certain persons seem to press it hard: how did God finish all his works on the sixth day and rest on the seventh, if he still creates new souls?
To these men, if we say what you have set down from the Gospel in the letter mentioned above—'My Father works even until now'—they reply: the word 'works' was said of his administering what he had established, not of his instituting new natures, lest the Scripture of Genesis be contradicted, where we read most plainly that God finished all his works. For where it is written that he rested, this is surely to be understood of resting from creating new creatures, not from governing them; because then he made those things that were not, and from making these he rested, since he had finished all things which, before they existed, he saw were to be made, so that thereafter he would create and make whatever he made not out of things that were not, but out of those that already were.
Thus both statements are shown to be true—both that which was said, 'He rested from his works,' and that which was said, 'He works even until now'—since the Gospel cannot be contrary to Genesis. But to those who say these things precisely lest it be believed that God now makes new souls that did not exist, as he made that one soul, but rather creates them out of that one which already existed, or sends them from some fountain or storehouse which he then made, it is easily answered that even in those six days God created many things out of natures that he had already created, as birds and fish out of the waters, and trees, grass, and animals out of the earth. But that he then made things which did not exist is manifest.
For there was no bird, no fish, no tree, no animal; and it is rightly understood that he rested from these created things which did not exist and were created—that is, that he ceased, lest further things that did not exist be created. But now when it is said that he sends souls not already existing in some fountain, nor bedews them from himself as though they were particles of himself, nor draws them originally from that one soul, nor fetters them with fleshly chains for sins committed before the flesh, but creates new ones, one by one, a soul for each one being born—he is not said to do anything he had not done before. For already on the sixth day he had made man in his own image, which is surely understood to have been done with respect to the rational soul.
This he does even now, not by instituting what did not exist, but by multiplying what did exist. Whence both statements are true: that he rested from instituting things that did not exist, and this too is true, that he works even until now, not only by governing what he made, but also by creating in ever greater number something—not something he had not yet created, but something he had already created. In this way, then, or in some other way whatever it be, we escape from that which is cast at us concerning God's rest from his works, so that we do not on that account fail to believe that new souls are being made even now, not out of that one soul, but as that one soul was made. For as to what is said—'Why does he make souls for those whom he knows will soon die?'—we can answer that hereby the sins of the parents are either convicted or chastised.
We can also rightly leave these things to the ordering of him whom we know gives a most beautiful and most orderly course to all things that pass away in time—among which are also the births and deaths of animals—but which we ourselves cannot perceive; for if we could perceive them, we would be soothed with unspeakable delight. For it was not in vain that through the prophet, who had learned these things by divine inspiration, it was said of God: 'He who brings forth the age in measured number.' Hence music—that is, the science or sense of measured harmony—has been granted by God's bounty even to mortals possessing rational souls, as an admonition of a great matter.
Whence, if a man who is a craftsman of composing a song knows what pauses to assign to which notes, so that what is sung may run and pass most beautifully with sounds departing and succeeding one another, 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 in the natures being born and passing away (which, like syllables and words, belong to the small parts of this age) to pass by, in this marvelous song, as it were, of transient things, either more briefly or more prolonged than the modulation foreknown and predetermined demands!
Since I have said this even concerning the leaf of a tree and concerning the number of our hairs, how much more is it true concerning the birth and death of man, whose temporal life is stretched no more briefly or more at length than God, the disposer of times, knows to be in harmony with the governance of the universe! As for that which they also say—that everything which began to exist in time cannot be immortal, because all things that arise perish, and things that have grown old wither, so that in this way they would compel us to believe that the human soul is immortal precisely because it was created before all times—this does not move our faith. For, to be silent about other things, the immortality of Christ's flesh began to exist in time, and yet it now dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over it.
But as for that which you set down in the book against Rufinus—that certain people slander this opinion because it seems unworthy that God should give souls to adulterous conceptions, whence they attempt to establish that souls can be justly brought, as it were to prison-houses of this kind, by the merits of a life led before the flesh—this does not move me, who consider many things by which this slander can be refuted. And that which 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 for that reason to have refused to cherish the seeds in its bosom because the sower cast them with an unclean hand—is a most elegant comparison.
Even before I read it, this objection about adulterous offspring caused me no difficulties in this question, since I regard it generally that God does many good things even out of our evils and our sins. But the creation of any living thing whatsoever, if it has a prudent and pious observer, stirs up ineffable praise for the Creator; how much more the creation not of any animal, but of man! And if the cause of creating be sought, none is answered more quickly or better than this: because every creature of God is good; and what is more worthy than that a good God should make good things, which no one can make except God?
These things, and others as I am able and in the manner I am able, I say against those who attempt to overthrow this opinion by which souls are believed to be made for each individual as that one soul was made. But when it comes to the punishments of little children, I am, believe me, hemmed in by great difficulties, and I do not at all find what to answer; and I do not mean only those punishments which that damnation holds after this life, into which they must necessarily be dragged if they depart from the body without the sacrament of Christian grace, but even those very punishments which, to our grief, are turned before our eyes in this life; and if I wished to enumerate them, time would fail me sooner than examples.
They languish with sicknesses, they are tormented with pains, they are racked with hunger and thirst, they are crippled in their limbs, they are deprived of their senses, they are harassed by unclean spirits. It must surely be shown how they justly suffer 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 cause them, or that he unjustly either does or permits these things. Can we, then, rightly say of man what we rightly say of irrational animals—that they are given over for the use of more excellent natures, even if faulty (as we see most plainly in the Gospel that the swine were granted to the demons for the use they desired)? For man is indeed an animal, but a rational one, though mortal.
There is a rational soul in those limbs which pay the penalty by such great afflictions. God is good, God is just, God is almighty; to doubt this at all is the mark of a madman. Let a just cause, then, be given for such great evils as befall little children. Indeed, when older people suffer these 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 that, from certain examples which God willed to be manifest, the rest, which are obscure, are left to human conjecture—but this is in the case of the older. But as to what we should answer concerning little children, explain, if there are in them no sins to be punished by such great pains; for surely there is no justice to be tested at those ages. But what shall I say of the diversity of natural talents?
This indeed lies hidden in little children, but from their very natural beginnings it appears, when drawn out, in grown people—some of whom are so slow and forgetful that they could not learn even the first elements of letters, while certain others are of such great stupidity that they differ little from cattle, whom people commonly call fools. Perhaps it is answered: 'The bodies cause this.' But surely, according to this opinion which we wish to defend, did the soul choose its own body, and in choosing err because it was deceived? Or, when it was forced to enter a body by the necessity of being born, did it find no other body—the crowds of souls having seized the others first—and, as in some spectacle it takes a place, so did it occupy flesh, not the flesh it wished, but the flesh it was able to get?
Can we say such things and things like them, or ought we to hold such opinions? Teach, therefore, what we ought to think, what we ought to say, so that the account of new souls made one by one, individually for each body, may stand firm for us. I, indeed, have said something—not about talents, but at least about the punishments of little children which they suffer in this life—in those books on Free Will. Of what sort that is, and why it does not suffice me in this question which we now have in hand, I will make known, and I will insert into this letter the very passage excerpted from the third book. For it stands thus:
But concerning the bodily torments by which little children are afflicted, who through their age have no sins—if the souls by which they are animated did not exist before those very human beings began to be—a greater complaint, and as it were a compassionate one, is wont to be laid down, when 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!
But since God works some good in the amendment of grown people, when they are scourged by the pains and deaths of their little ones who are dear to them, why should these things not happen? For when they have passed, they will be as though not done, in the case of those in whom they were done; while for those on whose account they were done, they will either be better, if, amended by temporal hardships, they choose to live more rightly, or they will have no excuse in the punishment of the future judgment, if they have been unwilling to turn their desire, amid the anguishes of this life, toward eternal life.
But who knows what good recompense God reserves, in the secret of his judgments, for those little children by whose torments the hardness of grown people is broken, or their faith exercised, or their mercy proved—who, then, knows what God reserves for these little ones themselves? For although they have done nothing rightly, yet they suffered these things without committing any sin. For it is not in vain that the Church commends even those infants who, when the Lord Jesus Christ was sought by Herod to be killed, were slain, as received into the honor of the martyrs. These things I said at that time, when I wished to fortify this very opinion which is now under discussion.
For, as I mentioned a little before, whichever of those four opinions about the soul's incarnation might be true, I was striving to show that the substance of the Creator is blameless and utterly remote from any partnership in our sins. And therefore, whichever of them might be convicted by the truth and rejected did not pertain to the care of my intention which I then had, since—all of them having been discussed with rather careful debate—whichever of them should rightly overcome the rest, I would be made most secure, since even according to all of them I was demonstrating that what I was arguing stood unvanquished.
But now I wish, if I can, to choose one right account out of them all; and therefore, examining more attentively the defense of this very opinion which we now treat, in those words of mine which I mentioned from that book, I do not see it to be strong and firm. For its buttress, as it were, is that which I there said: 'But who knows what good recompense God reserves, in the secret of his judgments, for those little children by whose torments the hardness of grown people is broken, or their faith exercised, or their mercy proved—who, then, knows what God reserves for these little ones themselves?'
But I see this said not without reason concerning those who suffer some such thing (even unknowingly) for the name of Christ and true religion, or who have already been imbued with the sacrament of Christ; because, without the fellowship of the one Mediator, they cannot be freed from damnation, so that even for those evils which they endured here in various afflictions, that recompense may be granted them. But now, since this question cannot be resolved unless an answer be given also concerning those little children who, after most grievous torments, expire without the sacrament of Christian fellowship—what recompense is to be thought of concerning them, for whom, moreover, damnation has been prepared?
For concerning the baptism of little children too, in the same book I answered, not indeed sufficiently, but as far as seemed enough for that work—somehow—that it profits even those who do not know and do not yet have their own faith; yet I did not then think anything should be said about the damnation of those little children who depart from this life without it, because what is now under discussion was not then being discussed. But even if we pass over and make light of those things which they suffer for a brief time and which, once past, are not called back—can we likewise make light of this: 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 divine, clear, and apostolic statement it shines forth clearly enough that no one goes into death except through Adam, no one into eternal life except through Christ. This indeed is 'all' and 'all': because, just as all human beings belong to Adam through the first, that is, the carnal, generation, so all human beings come to the second, that is, the spiritual generation—whoever come to Christ. Therefore 'all' was said both here and 'all' there, because, just as all who die die only in Adam, so all who shall be made alive shall be made alive only in Christ.