On the Soul and Its Origin 3.3–3.19

If you ask what these things are, you can read what I wrote to our brothers Renatus, the servant of God, and the presbyter Peter, to whom you thought fit to write the very things we are discussing, obeying, as you assert, his wish and request. They will certainly give it to you to read if you wish, and will even press it on you if you do not ask. Nevertheless, here too I will not keep silent about what I most wish to see corrected in those books of yours and in your faith. The first is that you will not have the soul made by God in such a way that he made it from nothing, but from himself. From this you do not think it follows that it is of God’s nature, since you yourself know how impious that is. To be free of this impiety, you must say that God is the author of the soul in such a way that it was made by him, not from him. For what is from him, like the only-begotten Son, is of the same nature as he is. But so that the soul may not be of the same nature as he is, it was indeed made by him, but not from him. Either say, then, from what, or confess that it was from nothing. What do you mean when you say that it is a certain particle of the breath of God’s nature? Do you deny that the very breath of God’s nature, of which this is a particle, is of the same nature as God? If you deny it, then God made from nothing also this breath, of which you want the soul to be a particle. Or if not from nothing, say from what God made it. If from himself, then he himself—God forbid!—is the material of his own work. But you say: when he makes breath or wind from himself, he himself remains whole; as though the fire of a lamp too does not remain whole when another is lit from it, and yet it is of the same nature, not of another.

“But,” you say, “when a wineskin is blown up by us, no portion of our nature or quality is poured into it, since this very thing—the wineskin being filled and stretched by breath drawn in—is done without any diminution of ourselves.” To these words of yours you add further, dwelling on it and pressing it, a comparison as though necessary, by which we may understand how God, without any loss to his nature, both makes the soul from himself and, made from him, it is not what he is. For you say: “Is the blowing up of a wineskin a portion of our soul, or do we form men when we blow up wineskins, or do we suffer loss of ourselves in any way when we divide our breaths among different things? But we suffer no loss when we send breath from ourselves into something, and, the full quality of our own breath and its entire quantity remaining in us, we do not remember feeling any loss from blowing up a wineskin.” Notice how much you are deceived by this comparison, which seems to you elegant and apt enough. For you say that the incorporeal God breathes out a corporeal soul, not made by him from nothing but from himself; whereas we send out a breath which, though corporeal, is finer than our bodies, and we breathe it out not from our soul but from this air through the organs of the body. For the soul, at whose bidding the other members of the body are moved too, moves the lungs like bellows to draw in and give back this airy breath. For besides solid and liquid nourishment, from which come food and drink, God has spread around us this third nourishment of the air, which we so take in that we can be without food and drink for a long time; but without this third nourishment, which the air surrounding us on every side supplies to us as we breathe in and out, we cannot live even a short space of time. And just as food and drink must not only be taken in but also passed out through passages established for this, lest they harm us either way, by not entering or by not leaving, so this third, breathable nourishment, since it is not allowed to remain in us nor is it corrupted by staying, but is passed out as soon as it is taken in, has been given not different passages but the same ones, that is, the mouth or the nostrils or both, by which to enter and by which to leave.

Prove what I say for yourself in yourself. Send out breath by blowing and see whether you last if you do not take it back; take it back by breathing in and see what distress you suffer if you do not send it out again. This, then, is what we do when we blow up a wineskin, as you say: what we do in order to live, except that then we draw in a little more so as to send out a little more, so that we force the breathable spirit, that is, wind, into the wineskin to fill and stretch it, not with the quiet of breathing in and out but with the effort of panting. How then do you say: “We suffer no loss when we send breath from ourselves into something, and, the full quality of our own breath and its entire quantity remaining in us, we do not remember feeling any loss from blowing up a wineskin”? It appears, son, that if you ever blew up a wineskin, you did not notice what you were doing. For what you lose by blowing you do not feel, because you immediately take it back. But you can learn this very easily, if you prefer this to defending your statements merely because they have been made—not blowing up a wineskin but being puffed up yourself—and to puffing up your hearers, whom you ought to build up with true things, with the empty noise of windy speech. In this matter I send you to no teacher but yourself. Send breath into the wineskin and immediately close your mouth and hold your nostrils, and so at least feel that what I say is true. For when you begin to suffer intolerable distress, what will you long to take back with open mouth and nostrils, if you think you lost nothing when you blew? See what trouble you are in unless you take back by drawing in what you gave out by pouring forth; see what losses and damage that blowing would have caused, had not breathing in repaired it. For unless what you spent in filling the wineskin comes back again by an opened entrance to nourish you, what will remain for you, not only with which to blow it up, but with which you can live?

You ought to have considered these things when you wrote, and not, by this comparison of inflated or to-be-inflated wineskins, to introduce to us a God who either breathes souls out of another nature which already existed, as we make breath from this surrounding air, or else—which is both remote from this comparison and abounding in impiety—a God who, without any loss to himself indeed, but still from his own nature, either brings forth something changeable, or, what is worse, makes it, as though he himself were the material of his work. So if we are to apply some comparison from our breath to this matter, this rather is to be believed: that just as we, not from our nature, but because we are not almighty, make breath when we blow, from this surrounding air which we draw in and give back when we breathe in and out—breath that neither lives nor feels, though we live and feel—so God, not from his own nature, but because he is so almighty that he can create what he wills even from what does not exist at all, that is, from nothing, can make a breath that lives and feels, but plainly, though he himself is unchangeable, a changeable one.

And what do you mean by what you thought should be added to this comparison as an example, about blessed Elisha, that by breathing into his face he raised a dead boy? Do you really think that Elisha’s breath became the boy’s soul? I would not believe you have strayed so far from the truth. If, then, that soul which had been taken from him while living so that he died was the very same soul given back to him so that he revived, what has it to do with the matter that you said nothing was diminished in Elisha, as though something were believed to have passed from him into the boy by which he lived? But if it was said because he breathed and remained whole, what need was there to say this of Elisha raising a dead man, which you could equally say of anyone who breathes and raises no one? You certainly spoke incautiously—since far be it from you to believe that Elisha’s breath became the soul of the reviving boy—when you would have this first deed of God differ from this deed of the prophet only in that God breathed once and he three times. For you said that Elisha breathed into the face of the dead son of the Shunammite woman after the likeness of the first origin: “And when the divine power,” you say, “kindled the dead limbs, re-ensouled by the prophet’s breath, into their former vigour, nothing was diminished in Elisha, through whose breath the dead body received a revived soul and spirit; except that the Lord breathed once into the man’s face, and he lived; Elisha breathed three times into the dead man’s face, and he lived again.” These words of yours sound as though only the number of breaths made the difference, so that the prophet is not believed to have done also what God did. So this too must be corrected. For there was so great a difference between that work of God and this of Elisha that he breathed the breath of life by which man became a living soul, while the prophet breathed a breath that neither felt nor lived, but that figured something for the sake of signifying it. In short, the prophet did not make the boy revive by ensouling him, but by loving him obtained that God should do it. As for your saying that he breathed three times, either your memory, as often happens, or a faulty manuscript deceived you. What more? You must not look for examples and arguments to establish this, but rather correct and change your opinion. Do not, then, believe, do not say, do not teach that God made the soul not from nothing but from his own nature, if you want to be a catholic.

Do not believe, say, or teach that God gives souls through infinite time and so always, just as he who gives always is, if you want to be a catholic. For there will be a time when God will not give souls, though he himself will not cease to be. What you said, “he always gives”, could indeed have been taken to mean that he gives without ceasing as long as people beget and are begotten, as it was said of some, “always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth”; for “always” as used there is not taken to mean that they never stop learning, since without doubt they do not learn when they have ceased to live in this body or when they have begun to burn in the punishment of the fire of hell. But you did not allow your word to be taken so when you said “he always gives”, since you thought it should be referred to infinite time. And this was too little; but as if you were asked to explain more plainly how you had said “he always gives”, you added and said: “just as he who gives always is.” This the sound and catholic faith altogether condemns. For far be it that we should believe that God always gives souls as he who gives always is. For he always is in such a way that he never ceases to be; but he will not always give souls, but when the age of generation is finished he will without doubt cease to give them, since there will no longer be people being born to whom they are to be given.

Do not believe, say, or teach that the soul lost some desert through the flesh, as though it had been of good desert before the flesh, if you want to be a catholic. For the apostle says that those not yet born had done nothing good or bad; how then could the soul have a good desert before the flesh, when it had done nothing good? Or will you perhaps dare to say that it lived well before the flesh, when you cannot even show that it existed? How then do you say: “You do not want the soul to contract sickness from the flesh of sin, to which in turn you see sanctification pass through the flesh, so that through it the soul may regain the state through which it had lost its desert”? These doctrines, by which the soul is thought to have had some good state and good desert before the flesh, in case you do not know, the catholic church has already condemned, not only in ancient heretics but also more recently in the Priscillianists.

Do not believe, say, or teach that the soul regains its ancient condition through the flesh and is reborn through that by which it had deserved to be defiled, if you want to be a catholic. For—to pass over the fact that in what you said, “Deservedly, then, it regains through the flesh the ancient condition which it had seemed to lose for a little while through the flesh, so that it begins to be reborn through that by which it had deserved to be defiled”, you contradicted yourself at such close quarters that you, who had just said that the soul regains through the flesh the state through which it had lost its desert—where only a good desert can be understood, which you certainly want restored through the flesh in baptism—say again that it deserved to be defiled through the flesh, where not a good but a bad desert must now be understood—to pass over this, then: to believe that the soul had any desert at all, good or bad, before the flesh is not catholic.

Do not believe, say, or teach that the soul deserved to be sinful before any sin, if you want to be a catholic. For to have deserved to be made sinful is a very bad desert. And certainly it could by no means have so bad a desert before any sin, especially before it came into the flesh, when it could have no desert, bad or good. How then do you say: “If, then, the soul deserved to be sinful, which could not have been sinful, it did not remain in sin, because, prefigured in Christ, it ought not to be in sin, just as it could not be”? Pay attention to what you say, and stop saying it now. For how did it deserve, and how could it not, be sinful? How, I ask you, did it deserve to be sinful, which had not lived badly? How, I ask you, was it made sinful, which could not be sinful? Or if you say it could not because it could not apart from the flesh, how then did it deserve to be sinful, by which desert it would be sent into the flesh, since before the flesh it could not be sinful so as to deserve anything evil?

Do not believe, say, or teach that infants overtaken by death before they are baptized can reach forgiveness of original sins, if you want to be a catholic. For the examples that deceive you, whether of the thief who confessed the Lord on the cross or of Dinocrates, the brother of Saint Perpetua, give no support to your erroneous opinion. For that thief, although by divine judgment he could be counted among those who are cleansed by the confession of martyrdom, yet you do not even know whether he was not baptized. For—to pass over the belief that, fixed beside the Lord, he could have been drenched by the water leaping out together with the blood from the Lord’s side and washed by a most holy baptism of this kind—what if he had been baptized in prison, as some later in times of persecution were able to obtain secretly? What if even before he was arrested? For the public laws could not spare him on that account, as far as bodily death is concerned, because he had received forgiveness of sins from God. What if, already baptized, he had fallen into the crime and guilt of brigandage, and received pardon, not as one lacking baptism, but as a penitent, for the crimes he committed after baptism, since so faithful a devotion appeared to the Lord in his soul and to us in his words? For if we contend that those of whom it is not written whether they were baptized departed this life without baptism, we slander the apostles themselves, of whom, except for the apostle Paul, we do not know when they were baptized. But if it could become known to us that they were baptized from the Lord’s saying to blessed Peter, “He who has washed does not need to wash”, what of the others, of whom we do not read even anything of this kind—Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Silas, Philemon, the evangelists Mark and Luke themselves, and countless others, whom God forbid we should doubt were baptized, although we do not read it? As for Dinocrates, a boy of seven, at which age boys, when they are baptized, already recite the creed and answer the questions for themselves, why it did not seem to you that he could have been baptized and then called back by an impious father to the sacrileges of the pagans, and for this reason been in the punishments from which he was freed by his sister’s prayer, I do not know. For you have not read either that he was never a Christian or that he died a catechumen—although that reading itself is not in the canon of the Scriptures, from which testimonies are to be brought in questions of this kind.

Do not believe, say, or teach that those whom the Lord has predestined to baptism can be snatched away from his predestination and die before what the Almighty predestined has been fulfilled in them, if you want to be a catholic. For here some power or other is given to chance events against the power of God, so that when they befall, what he predestined is not allowed to happen. Into what a whirlpool of impiety this error swallows the one who errs there is no need to exaggerate, since it is enough to admonish briefly a sensible man who is ready to be corrected. For these are your words: “We say,” you say, “an account must be given of infants of this kind who, predestined to the baptism of the present life, are overtaken by death before they are reborn in Christ.” Are those predestined to the baptism of the present life, then, overtaken by death before they reach it, and would God predestine what he foreknew would not happen, or not know that it would not happen, so that either his predestination would be frustrated or his foreknowledge deceived? You see how much could be said on this, were I not keeping to what I said a little before, that I would admonish you briefly on it.

Do not believe, say, or teach that of infants who are overtaken by death before they are reborn in Christ it is written, “He was snatched away, lest wickedness should change his understanding or deceit beguile his soul. Therefore he hastened to lead him out from the midst of iniquity; for his soul was pleasing to God”, and, “Being made perfect in a short time, he fulfilled long times”, if you want to be a catholic. For this does not concern them at all, but rather those who, baptized and living devoutly, are not allowed to live here long, made perfect not by years but by the grace of wisdom. But this error, by which it is thought that this was said of little children dying before they are baptized, does intolerable injury to the most holy washing itself, if a little child who could have been snatched away after baptism is snatched away beforehand for this reason, lest wickedness should change his understanding or deceit beguile his soul—as though in that same baptism there were believed to be this wickedness and deceit by which he would be changed for the worse and beguiled if he were not snatched away before. Then, because his soul was pleasing to God, he hastened to lead him out from the midst of iniquity, so as not to delay even a little to fulfil what he had predestined in him, but preferred to act against his own predestination, hurrying, as it were, lest what had pleased him in the unbaptized child should be destroyed in baptism—as though the dying infant would perish in the very place to which one must run with him so that he may not perish. Who, then, would believe, say, write, or read aloud that these words written in the book of Wisdom were said of little children who died without baptism, if he thought about it as he ought?

Do not believe, say, or teach that some of the mansions which the Lord said are in his Father’s house are outside the kingdom of God, if you want to be a catholic. For he did not say, as you yourself set down this testimony, “There are many mansions with my Father”—and even had he said so, they would be understood to be nowhere else than in his Father’s house—but he plainly says, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” Who, then, would dare to separate some parts of God’s house from the kingdom of God, so that, while the kings of the earth are found to reign not only in their own house nor only in their own country, but far and wide even beyond the sea, the King who made heaven and earth should be said not to reign even in the whole of his own house?

But perhaps you may say that all things indeed belong to God’s kingdom, because he reigns in the heavens, reigns on earth, in the depths, in paradise, in hell—for where does he not reign, whose power is supreme everywhere?—but that the kingdom of heaven, which none may approach except those washed by the washing of regeneration because of the Lord’s true and fixed sentence, is one thing, and the kingdom of the earth or of other parts of creation is another, where there can be some mansions of God’s house which, though belonging to the kingdom of God, do not belong to the kingdom of heaven, where the kingdom of God is more excellent and more blessed; and that so it comes about that no parts and mansions of God’s house are wickedly separated from the kingdom of God, and yet not all are prepared for their dwellers in the kingdom of heaven, and in those which are not in the kingdom of heaven those can live happily to whom God has willed to give them even though unbaptized, so that they are in the kingdom of God, although they cannot be in the kingdom of heaven because they are not baptized.

Those who say this seem to themselves to say something, because they pay careless attention to the Scriptures and do not understand in what sense the kingdom of God is spoken of, for which we pray, saying, “Your kingdom come.” The kingdom of God is so called where his faithful household will reign with him, blessedly and forever, in its entirety; for according to the power which he has over all things he certainly reigns even now. What then do we pray for, that it may come, except that we may be found worthy to reign with him? But under his power will be also those who burn in the punishment of eternal fire. Shall we therefore say that they too will be in the kingdom of God? For it is one thing to be honoured with the gifts of God’s kingdom, another to be restrained by the laws of God’s kingdom. And so that it may appear most plainly to you that the kingdom of heaven is not to be allotted to the baptized and other parts of God’s kingdom given, as you thought, to the unbaptized, hear the Lord himself, who did not say, “If anyone is not reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven”, but, he says, “he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” For his words on this matter to Nicodemus are these: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” See, here he did not say the kingdom of heaven, but of God. And when Nicodemus answered and said, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” the Lord, repeating the same sentence more plainly and openly, says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” See, here too he did not say the kingdom of heaven, but the kingdom of God. For what he had said, “unless one is born anew”, he explained by saying, “unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit”; and what he had said, “he cannot see”, he explained by saying, “he cannot enter.” But what he had said, “the kingdom of God”, he did not repeat under another name. Nor is there need now to inquire and discuss whether the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are to be understood with some difference or are one thing called by two names; it is enough that he who has not been washed by the washing of regeneration cannot enter the kingdom of God. How far from the truth it is to separate some mansions established in God’s house from the kingdom of God, I think you now understand. And so I admonish you, if you allow me, not to delay correcting your view that in some of the mansions which the Lord said are many in his Father’s house some will dwell who have not been reborn of water and the Spirit, so that you may hold the catholic faith.

Do not believe, say, or teach that the sacrifice of Christians should be offered for those who have left the body unbaptized, if you want to be a catholic, because you do not show that the sacrifice of the Jews which you cited from the books of the Maccabees was offered for those who had left the body uncircumcised. In this opinion of yours, so new and put forward against the authority and discipline of the whole church, you even used a most arrogant word, saying, “Certainly I decree that constant offerings and the sacrifices of holy priests should continually be offered for them”, so that you, a layman, neither submitted yourself to God’s priests by learning nor even joined them by inquiring together, but set yourself above them by decreeing. Put these things away from you, son; this is not how one walks in the way which the humble Christ taught that he himself is; no one enters by his narrow gate with this swelling.

Do not believe, say, or teach that some of those who have departed this life without the baptism of Christ go for the meantime not into the kingdom of heaven but into paradise, and afterward, in the resurrection of the dead, attain even to the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven, if you want to be a catholic. For not even the Pelagian heresy dared to give them this, though it holds that little children do not contract original sin. Though you, as a catholic, confess that they are born with sin, yet by some new and more perverse opinion you assert that without saving baptism they are both freed from this sin with which they are born and brought into the kingdom of heaven; and you do not consider how much worse your view is in this matter than Pelagius’s. For he, fearing the Lord’s sentence by which the unbaptized are not allowed to enter the kingdom of heaven, does not dare to send there the little children whom he believes free from all sin; but you so despise what was said, “If anyone is not reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”, that—apart from the error by which you dare to separate paradise from the kingdom of God—you do not hesitate to promise to some who have died without baptism, whom you believe, as a catholic, to be born guilty, both the absolution of that guilt and the kingdom of heaven besides; as if you could be a true catholic against Pelagius in establishing original sin by being a new heretic against the Lord in destroying his sentence on baptism. We do not, dearest one, want you to be a victor over heretics in such a way that error conquers error, and, what is worse, the greater the lesser. For you say: “Or if someone perhaps objects that paradise was conferred temporarily for the meantime on the soul of the thief or of Dinocrates—for the reward of the kingdom of heaven still remains for them in the resurrection, although that principal sentence stands in the way, that whoever is not reborn of water and the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom—let him nevertheless have in this part also my assent, which does not begrudge it, provided only that he magnifies both the effect and the affection of the divine mercy and foreknowledge.” These are your words. Here you confess that you agree with one who says that paradise was conferred temporarily on some unbaptized persons in such a way that the reward of the kingdom of heaven remains for them in the resurrection, against the principal sentence by which it was laid down that no one will enter that kingdom who has not been reborn of water and the Holy Spirit. Fearing to violate this principal sentence, Pelagius did not believe that even those whom he did not believe guilty would enter the kingdom of heaven without baptism; but you both confess that little children are guilty of original sin and yet absolve them without the washing of regeneration, send them into paradise, and afterward allow them to enter even the kingdom of heaven.