For if we should say this, the answer will be: 'Then, because bodies are propagated from parents, God is not the author of all things, if on this account he must be said not to make bodies.' But who would deny that God is the author of all human bodies — yet say that he is the author of that one only which he first fashioned from the earth, or at most also of his consort's, because he himself formed her too from his side, but not also of the rest, since we cannot deny that the other bodies of men have flowed down from those two?
And on this account, if those against whom you are in conflict in this question so assert the propagation of souls from the derivation of that one, as to deny that God now makes and forms them, then press on to refute, convince, and correct them, so far as you can with the Lord's help. But if they affirm that certain beginnings are drawn from that one, and thereafter from parents, and yet that the individual souls in individual men are created and formed by God, the author of all things, then inquire what may be answered to them — from the Scriptures especially, which are holy — something that is not ambiguous and cannot be understood otherwise; or, if you have already found it, as I asked above, send it also to us.
But if it still lies hidden from you, as from me, then press on indeed with all your might to confute those who say that souls are not from the divine work — whom you said in your letter 'first murmured this among their more secret fables, and then, on account of this foolish and impious opinion, withdrew from your fellowship and from the service of the Church' — and against them defend and uphold in every way what you set down in that same letter: 'that God has made souls, and makes them, and will make them, and that there is nothing in heaven or on earth which was not, or is not, established with him as its author.' For this is most truly and most rightly believed, said, defended, and proved concerning absolutely every kind of creature.
For God has been, and is, and will be the author of all things and of all men — which you set down in your final consultation to our fellow-bishops of the province of Caesarea, and, that they might rather choose this, you in a manner exhorted them by the example of all the brethren and fellow-priests who are with you and who hold this. But it is one question, where it is asked whether God is the author and maker of all souls and bodies — which the truth holds — or whether some nature arises which he himself does not make, an opinion which is utterly one of error; and it is another, where it is asked whether God makes human souls from propagation or without propagation — souls which nonetheless it is not lawful to doubt are made by him.
For if of human bodies, whose propagation is known to all, we nonetheless say — and truly say — that God is the creator not only of that first man or of the first spouses, but of all who are propagated from them, then I think it is easily understood that those who defend the propagation of souls do not wish us on this account to destroy the truth that God makes souls, since he also makes bodies, which we cannot deny are made from propagation; but that other proofs must be sought by which those who hold that souls are propagated may be repelled, if the truth declares that they err. On which matter they, rather, ought to have been questioned, if it could be done — those on account of whose injury, being deceased, you dreaded to turn men to a better part, as you write in the letter which you sent to me later.
For you said that these deceased bishops were of such quality and so great and so learned that you, 'a new and untrained teacher,' feared to corrupt their traditions. And so, if I could know by what reasonings or testimonies 'men of such quality and so great and so learned' were asserting that opinion concerning the propagation of souls — which nonetheless, in the letter given to the people of Caesarea, in no way regarding their authority, you called a new discovery and an unheard-of dogma, though assuredly, even if it is an error, we should recognize it to be not new but old and ancient. But when certain causes in some question compel us, not without reason, to doubt, we ought not on that account to doubt whether we ought to doubt.
For concerning doubtful things one must doubt without doubting. You see in what manner the Apostle does not doubt to doubt about himself, whether he was caught up into the third heaven in the body or out of the body; 'whether this or that, I know not,' he says; 'God knows.' Why then may it not be permitted to me, so long as I do not know, to doubt whether my soul came into this life by propagation or without propagation, since I do not doubt that it was made, in either way, by the supreme and true God? Why should it not be lawful for me to say: I know that my soul subsists from the work of God and is wholly a work of God; whether from propagation as the body, or apart from propagation as that soul which was given to the first man, I know not — God knows? Which of these you wish me to affirm, I could, if I knew.
But if you yourself know it, behold, you have me more eager to learn what I do not know than to teach what I know. But if you do not know it, as I do not, then pray as I also pray, that whether through some servant of his, or through himself, that Master may teach us who said to his disciples: 'Do not wish to be called rabbi by men, for one is your Master, Christ' — if indeed he knows it to be expedient for us that we should know even such things, he who knows not only what he teaches, but also what it is expedient for us to learn. For I confess my desire to your love:
I do indeed desire to know also this which you inquire about, but I would far rather know, if it were possible, when he who is desired by all nations shall be presented, and when the kingdom of the saints shall be, than whence I began to come into this earth. And yet, when the disciples, our apostles, asked that of him who knows all things, they received the answer: 'It is not for you to know the times which the Father has placed in his own power.' What if he knows this too — that it is not for us to know — he who assuredly knows what it is useful for us to know?
And that indeed I know through him — that it is not for us to know the times which the Father has placed in his own power; but whether the origin of souls, which I do not yet know, is ours to know — that is, whether it pertains to us to know it — not even this do I know. For if I at least knew this, that it is not ours to know it, then, so long as I do not know, I would cease not only to affirm but even to inquire. But now, although it is so obscure and profound that I fear the rashness of teaching there more than I have the desire of learning, yet I wish to know even this, if I can. And although what that holy man said is much more necessary — 'Make known to me, O Lord, my end' — for he did not say:
'my beginning' — yet would that not even my beginning, so far as pertains to this question, were hidden from me! But even concerning my very beginning I am not ungrateful to my Teacher, in that I know that the human soul is spirit, not body, and that it is rational or intellectual, and that it is not of the nature of God but rather a creature — to some degree mortal, inasmuch as it can be changed for the worse and be estranged from the life of God, by participation in which it becomes blessed; and to some degree immortal, since it cannot lose the consciousness by which, after this life, it is either well or ill.
I know also that it did not deserve to be enclosed in flesh on account of acts performed before the flesh, but neither is it for that reason in man without the stain of sin, even if its life on earth were of a single day, as it is written. And on this account I know that from Adam, through the series of generation, no one is born without sin; whence also it is necessary for little children to be reborn in Christ through the grace of regeneration. These things, so many and not small, concerning the beginning or origin of our souls — among which there are many pertaining to that knowledge which rests upon faith — I both rejoice to have learned and affirm that I know.
Wherefore, if I do not know, in the matter of the origin of souls, whether God makes them for men from propagation or without propagation — souls which nonetheless I do not doubt are made by him — I do indeed choose rather to know this too than not to know it; but so long as I cannot, I would rather doubt on this point than dare to affirm as certain something which might perhaps be contrary to that thing about which I ought perhaps not to doubt.
You therefore, my good brother, since you consult me and wish that I should define one of these — whether the other souls come to be from that one man like bodies through propagation, or without propagation like the soul of that one, each singly made by the Creator for each individual (for that they are made by him, whether in this way or that, we do not deny) — allow that I too may consult in return, how the soul draws sin originally from that source from which it is not itself originally drawn. For that all souls draw original sin from Adam we likewise do not deny, lest we detestably rush into the detestable Pelagian heresy. If what I ask you also do not know, then let me be permitted patiently to be ignorant of both — both what you ask and what I ask;
but if you already know what I ask, then, when you have taught me this too, I will then answer that other thing which you wish me to answer, fearing nothing further in it. I ask therefore that you be not displeased because I could not affirm what you seek, but was able to show what you should seek — which, when you have found it, you need not doubt to affirm what you were seeking. And this indeed I have thought fit to write to your holiness, who already, as though certain, think the propagation of souls is to be disapproved. For the rest, if it had been to those who assert it that a reply had to be written, perhaps I should have shown in what manner they are ignorant of what they think they know, and with how great reason they ought to dread to dare to assert it.
And truly, in the friend's reply, which I have inserted into this letter, lest perchance it move you that he mentioned two books sent by me, to which he answered that he had no free time to reply — one is on this question, not both; but in the other I inquired of him about another matter by consulting and treating of it. And as for what he admonishes and exhorts, that we should rather bend our efforts to have the most pernicious heresy removed from the churches, he means that very Pelagian heresy, which I admonish you, brother, as far as I can, to avoid most cautiously, when you either think or already dispute about the origin of souls, lest it creep upon you that you must believe that any soul at all, except that of the one Mediator, does not draw from Adam original sin — bound fast by generation, to be loosed by regeneration.
CXLV. TO EXUPERANTIUS, ON REPENTANCE. Among all the things which the friendship of the holy brother Quintilianus has bestowed upon me, this is the very greatest, that it has joined you to me in mind, though you were unknown to me in body. For who would not love him who, beneath the military cloak and the soldier's garb, carries on the works of the prophets, and by the inner man, who is conformed to the image of the Creator, overcomes the outer man that promises otherwise? Hence I am the first to call you to the duty of letters, and I beg that you would more often grant me occasion for writing back, so that henceforth I may write more boldly. But let it suffice to have briefly indicated to your prudence that you should remember the apostolic saying: 'Art thou bound to a wife?' he says. 'Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed?'
'seek not a wife' — that is, a binding, which is contrary to being loosed. He therefore who serves the conjugal office is bound; he who is bound is a servant; but he who is loosed is free. Since therefore you rejoice in the freedom of Christ, and do one thing while you promise another, and are as it were set upon the housetop, you ought not to come down into the house to take up your tunic, nor to look back, nor to let go the handle of the plough once seized; but, if it can be done, imitate Joseph and leave behind the cloak of the Egyptian mistress, that naked you may follow the Lord and Saviour, who says in the Gospel: 'Unless a man take up his cross and follow me, he cannot be my disciple.'
Cast off the burden of the world; seek not riches, which are compared to the humps of camels. Naked and light, fly to heaven, lest the weights of gold press down the wings of your virtues. But I say this, not because I have learned that you are covetous, but that I may suppose you still give your labour to military service for this reason — to fill the purse which the Lord commanded to be emptied. If, therefore, those who have possessions and riches are bidden to sell all and give to the poor, and so to follow the Saviour, your worthiness either is rich and ought to do what is commanded, or is still of slender means and ought not to seek what it is to give away. Assuredly Christ reckons all things according to the will of the mind. No one was poorer than the apostles, and no one left so much for the Lord.
That poor widow in the Gospel, who cast two mites into the treasury, is preferred to all the rich, because she gave the whole of what she had. Do you also, therefore, not seek things to give away, but bestow what you have already sought, that Christ may recognize his most valiant young recruit; that your Father may joyfully run to meet you as you come from a most distant country; that he may bestow the robe, may give the ring, may slay for you the fatted calf, and may make you sail swiftly to us, unencumbered, together with the holy brother Quintilianus. I have knocked at the doors of friendship; if you open, you will have us often as your guests. CXLVI. TO EVANGELUS THE PRESBYTER. We read in Isaiah: 'The fool will speak foolish things.' I hear that a certain man has broken out into such madness as to set deacons before presbyters, that is, before bishops.
For since the Apostle plainly teaches that presbyters are the very same men as bishops, what does a mere minister of tables and of widows endure, that he should puff himself up in pride above those by whose prayers the Body and Blood of Christ are consecrated? Do you seek authority? Hear the testimony: 'Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.' Do you wish yet another example? In the Acts of the Apostles Paul speaks thus to the priests of a single church: 'Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has set you as bishops, to rule the Church of the Lord, which he purchased with his own blood.'
And lest anyone contentiously maintain that in one church there were several bishops, hear yet another testimony, in which it is most manifestly proved that bishop and presbyter are one and the same: 'For this cause I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that were wanting, and should appoint presbyters in every city, as I had commanded you: if any be without crime, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be without crime, as the steward of God.' And to Timothy: 'Neglect not the grace of prophecy that is given you by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.' And Peter also in his first epistle: 'The presbyters,' he says, 'that are among you I entreat, who am a fellow-presbyter and a witness of the sufferings.'
'A partaker also of the glory that shall be revealed, tend the flock of Christ and oversee it, not by constraint but willingly, according to God.' This indeed is expressed more precisely in Greek as episkopeuontes, from which the very name of 'bishop' is derived. Do the testimonies of such great men seem small to you? Let the son of thunder sound forth the evangelical trumpet — he whom Jesus loved most, who drank the streams of doctrine from the breast of the Saviour: 'The presbyter to the elect lady and to her children, whom I love in truth'; and in another epistle: 'The presbyter to the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.'
But that afterward one was chosen to be set over the rest, this was done as a remedy against schism, lest each one, drawing the Church of Christ to himself, should rend it asunder. For at Alexandria too, from Mark the Evangelist down to the bishops Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters always named as bishop one chosen from among themselves and set in a higher rank — just as if an army should make an emperor, or the deacons should choose from among themselves one whom they knew to be diligent and call him archdeacon. For what does a bishop do, except ordination, that a presbyter does not do? Nor is the church of the city of Rome to be reckoned one thing, and that of the whole world another.
Both the Gauls and Britain and Africa and Persia and the East and India and all the barbarous nations adore one Christ and observe one rule of truth. If authority be sought, the world is greater than the city. Wherever a bishop may be — whether at Rome or at Gubbio, at Constantinople or at Reggio, at Alexandria or at Tanis — he is of the same merit and of the same priesthood. The power of riches and the lowliness of poverty make a bishop more exalted or more humble, but for the rest they are all successors of the Apostles. But you will say: 'How is it that at Rome a presbyter is ordained upon the testimony of a deacon?' Why do you set before me the custom of one city? Why do you claim, as a law of the Church, that scantiness from which arrogance has sprung?
Everything that is rare is the more coveted; pennyroyal among the Indians is prized more than pepper. Their scarcity makes deacons honored, and their multitude makes presbyters contemptible. Yet even in the church at Rome the presbyters sit and the deacons stand — though, as vices gradually grow rife, I have seen a deacon, in the bishop's absence, seat himself among the presbyters, and at private banquets give blessings to presbyters. Let those who do this learn that they act wrongly, and let them hear the Apostles: 'It is not fitting that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.' Let them know why deacons were appointed; let them read the Acts of the Apostles; let them remember their own condition. 'Presbyter' and 'bishop' — the one is a name of age, the other of dignity.
Hence to Timothy and to Titus it is said concerning the ordination of a bishop and of deacons, while concerning presbyters silence is altogether kept, because in the bishop the presbyter also is contained. He who is promoted is promoted from the lesser to the greater. Either, then, let a deacon be ordained from a presbyter, so that the presbyter is proved lesser than the deacon into whom he grows from a small beginning; or, if a presbyter is ordained from a deacon, let him know that he is lesser in gains but greater in the priesthood. And that we may know the apostolic traditions were taken from the Old Testament: what Aaron and his sons and the Levites were in the Temple, that let the bishops and presbyters and deacons claim for themselves in the Church. CXLVII. TO SABINIANUS THE DEACON, AN EXHORTATION CONCERNING PENANCE.
Samuel too once mourned for Saul, because it repented the Lord that he had anointed him king over Israel; and Paul mourned for the Corinthians, among whom fornication was reported, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles, warning them with tearful voice and saying: 'Lest, when I come again, my God humble me among you, and I mourn many of those who have sinned already and have not done penance for the uncleanness which they have committed in their lewdness and fornication.'
If a prophet and an apostle, stained by no blemish themselves, did this with a mind clement toward all, how much more ought I, myself a sinner, to do it toward you, a sinner — you who will not be raised up after your fall, nor lift your eyes to heaven, but, having squandered your Father's substance, take delight in the husks of swine, and, climbing the precipices of pride, slide headlong into the depths! You will have your belly for your God instead of Christ; you are a slave to lust, you glory in your shame, and like a fatted victim you are being fattened for your own death, and you imitate the vices of those whose torments you do not fear — not knowing that the goodness of God exhorts you to repentance. But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up for yourself wrath against the day of wrath.
Or is your heart therefore hardened like Pharaoh's, because you are not smitten at once and are long deferred to punishment? He too was granted delay, and endured the ten plagues not as from an angry God but as from an admonishing Father, until, when repentance had turned to perversity, he pursued through the deserts the people he had let go, and dared to enter those seas by which alone he could be taught that He was to be feared, whom even the elements obeyed. He too had said: 'I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.' Imitating him, you say: 'The vision that this man sees is for many days, and he prophesies of times far off.' Wherefore the Lord Adonai says: 'None of all my words shall be prolonged any more, whatsoever I speak; for I will speak a word and will perform it.'
Holy David, concerning the impious and wicked — of whom you are no small part but a chief — because they enjoyed the felicity of the world and said, 'How does God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these sinners, abounding in the world, have obtained riches' — with foot almost slipping and step wavering, complained, saying: 'Then have I in vain justified my heart and washed my hands among the innocent.' For he had said before: 'Because I was envious at the workers of iniquity, seeing the peace of sinners, for there is no regard in their death, and their stroke is not lasting under the scourge. They are not in the labors of men, neither shall they be scourged with men. Therefore pride has held them; they are compassed about with their iniquity and their ungodliness.'
'Their iniquity comes forth as it were from fatness; they have passed into the disposition of the heart. They have devised and spoken evil; they have spoken iniquity on high. They have set their mouth against heaven, and their tongue has gone through the earth.' Does it not seem to you that the whole psalm was composed about you? For you are of a vigorous body and a new apostle of Antichrist, since, when you are known in one city, you cross over to another; you have no need of provisions, you are not smitten with a heavy stroke, and you do not deserve to be corrected together with men, who are not, like you, unreasoning beasts of burden.
Therefore you are lifted up in pride, and your garment has become luxury, and, belching forth deadly words as it were from rich grease and a certain fatness, you do not consider that you must die, nor are you ever pricked by penitence after your lust is glutted. You have passed into the disposition of the heart, and, lest you seem to err alone, you feign nefarious tales about the servants of God — not knowing that you speak iniquity on high and set your mouth against heaven. Nor is it any wonder if the Lord's servants, whoever they be, are blasphemed by you, since your forefathers called the master of the house Beelzebub. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. If they did such things in the green wood, what will you do to me, the dry wood?
Something of this kind is spoken also in Malachi, where the people of believers, scandalized by your chorus, says: 'They have said: Vain is he who serves God; and what profit is it that we have kept his commandments, and that we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now we call strangers blessed. All who do wickedly are built up; they have resisted God and have been made safe.' To these the Lord afterward, threatening the day of judgment and long foretelling what shall be between the just and the unjust, says: 'And you shall be converted and shall see what is between the just and the unjust, and between him that serves God and him that serves him not.'
Perhaps these things seem ridiculous to you, and you, who delight in comedies and lyric writers and the mimes of Lentulus — though I would not even grant that, on account of the excessive dullness of your heart, you are able to understand these either — despise the words of the prophets; but Amos will answer you: 'For three and for four impieties, shall I not turn away from him? says the Lord.' For since Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, the Idumeans, the Ammonites and the Moabites, and Judah too and Israel, though often summoned to themselves by God's oracle, that they might at some time do penance, scorned to hear, the Lord sets forth the most just causes of the wrath he is about to bring, saying: 'For three and for four impieties, shall I not turn away from them?' 'It is wicked,' he says, 'to think evil things: this I have pardoned.'
'To will to carry out more wickedly the things devised — this too, in my mercy, I have kindly indulged. Was the sin to be fulfilled even in deed, and my clemency proudly to be trampled? Yet even after the deed — since I prefer the sinner's penitence to his death, for they that are whole need not the physician, but they that are sick — I stretch out my hand to him who lies fallen, and I exhort him, sprinkled in his own blood, that he may be washed by his own weeping. But if he will not do penance, and, in a shipwrecked vessel, does not hold fast the plank by which he might have been saved, I am forced to say: For three and for four impieties, shall I not turn away from him? says the Lord' — reckoning that turning-away to be in the place of punishment, when the sinner is left to his own will.
Hence it is that he visits the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation, since he will not punish sinners at once, but sparing the first, condemns the last; otherwise, if he straightway showed himself the avenger of crimes, the Church would not have many others, and certainly would not have Paul the Apostle. The prophet Ezekiel, of whom we made mention above, relating the word of God that came to him, says: 'Open your mouth and eat what I shall give you. And I saw,' he says, 'and behold, a hand stretched out to me; and in it the roll of a book. And he unrolled it before me, and in it was written, on the front and on the back, a lamentation and a song and woe.'
The first writing pertains to you, if only you are willing to do penance after your offense; the second to the saints, who are summoned to God's canticle — for praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner; the third to such as you, who, despairing, have given themselves over to uncleanness and fornication and the belly and to those things which are below the belly, who think that all things are ended by death and that there is nothing after death, and who say: 'If the tempest pass over, it shall not come upon us.' That book which the prophet devours is the whole series of the Scriptures, in which both the penitent is bewailed, and the just man is sung, and the despairer is cursed. Nothing so opposes God as an impenitent heart; it is the one crime which cannot obtain pardon.