Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 24 part 4/9

This I say not because I am now certain that it is false that souls are rather breathed in anew than drawn from the origin of the parents—for I still judge that this must be inquired of those who are able to teach it—but because this man has so discoursed on this matter that not only did he not solve the question which still needs discussion, but he even said such things as leave no doubt of their falsity. For, wishing to prove doubtful things, he dared to say things that are without doubt to be reproved. Or will you indeed hesitate to reprove this, that, when he was speaking of the soul, he said: "You do not wish the soul to contract from the flesh of sin a sickness, to which you may in turn see sanctification pass over through the flesh, so that through that very flesh it may repair the state through which it had lost its merit"?

"Or is it perhaps that, because in baptism the body is washed, there does not pass over to the soul or spirit that which is believed to be conferred through baptism? Deservedly then does it repair through its former flesh the condition which it had seemed for a little while to have lost through the flesh, so that through the flesh it may begin to be reborn, through which it had merited to be defiled." See in these words how greatly this teacher of yours has erred! He said that "the soul repairs its state through the flesh, through which it had lost its merit": therefore the soul had some state and some good merit before the flesh, which he wants it to repair through the flesh, when the flesh is washed by the laver of regeneration; so it had lived somewhere before the flesh in a good state and merit, which state and merit it lost when it had come into the flesh.

He said that "it repairs through the flesh its former condition, which it had seemed for a little while to have lost through the flesh": therefore before the flesh it had an ancient condition—for that is what "former" means—and what could this have been but a blessed and praiseworthy condition? He asserts that this is repaired through the sacrament of baptism, since he does not want it to draw its origin by propagation from that (soul) which is agreed to have once been happy in paradise. How then does he elsewhere say that "he constantly asserts that the soul is not from transmission, nor from nothing, nor through its very self, nor before the body"?

Behold, in this place he wants souls to live somewhere before the body so blessedly that the same blessedness may be restored to them through baptism; and, as if forgetful of himself again, he adds and says: "so that through it—that is, through the flesh—it may begin to be reborn, through which it had merited to be defiled." Above he had signified that a good merit had been lost through the flesh; but now he signifies an evil merit, by which it came about that it came or was sent into the flesh, saying: "through which it had merited to be defiled"; for if it merits to be defiled, that is surely not a good merit. Let him say what it sinned before it was defiled through the flesh, so that it should merit to be defiled through the flesh; let him say, if he can, what he can in no way say—for he can find here absolutely nothing true to say.

Likewise, some while after he says: "The soul therefore, if it merited to be a sinner, though it could not be a sinner, nevertheless did not remain in sin, because, prefigured in Christ, it ought not to be in sin, just as it could not be." I ask you, brother, do you think you at least afterwards read these things and considered them, and thought about what you praised in the reader, or for what you gave thanks after the recitation? What, I beseech you, does this mean: "The soul therefore, if it merited to be a sinner, though it could not be a sinner"? What is "it merited" and "it could not," when it could not have merited this unless it had been a sinner, and yet would not have been unless it had been able to be one—so that, before any evil merit, by sinning it should make for itself the merit whereby, with the Lord forsaking it, it should come to other sins?

Or did he for this reason say "which could not be a sinner," because, unless it came into the flesh, it could not be a sinner? What then did it merit, that it should be sent to where it could be a sinner—a place to which, unless it had come, it could not be a sinner elsewhere? Let him say what it merited. For if it merited to be a sinner, it had already sinned in something, whereby it should merit to be a sinner again; but if it had sinned in nothing, whence did it merit to be a sinner? But perhaps these things seem obscure, or are boasted to be obscure, though they are perfectly plain. For he ought not to have said that the soul merited to be a sinner through the flesh, since he can find neither a good nor an evil merit of it before the flesh. But let us come to plainer matters.

For when he was being straitened by great difficulties—as to how souls are held bound by the bond of original sin, if they do not draw their origin from that soul which first sinned, but the Creator breathes them, pure from all contagion and propagation of sin, into sinful flesh—lest it be said to him that God, by so breathing them in, makes them guilty, he first attempted to fortify this opinion by the foreknowledge of God, "that He had prepared for them a redemption." In the sacrament of this redemption little ones are baptized, that the original sin may be washed away which they drew from the flesh; as though God amends His own deeds, in that He had made them innocent yet suffered them to be defiled.

But after it came to the point of speaking of those who are not aided by such help and expire before they are baptized, he says: "In this place I do not pledge myself as an author, but conjecture something from an example. We say that a reckoning of this kind must be held concerning infants who, predestined to the baptism of the present life, are forestalled by death before they are reborn in Christ. For we read," he says, "of such it is written: 'He was caught away, lest malice should alter his understanding, or lest deceit should beguile his soul. For this cause 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.'" Who would disdain to have this man as a teacher?

So then, do the little ones—whom men mostly wish to be baptized, and who, while men run, die before it—if they were delayed a little while in this life, so that once baptized they died immediately, would malice alter their understanding and deceit beguile their soul; and, lest this should befall them, was it provided for them that they should be caught away before they were baptized? Therefore in that very baptism they would be changed for the worse and beguiled by deceit, if after baptism they were caught away. O doctrine to be admired and followed—nay rather, to be detested and execrated!

But this he presumed of your prudence—you who were present when he recited it—and especially of yours, to whom he wrote and to whom he handed the recited books, so that he might be confident we would believe to have been written of unbaptized infants that which was written of the immature ages of all the saints, with whom fools think ill has been dealt if they are quickly caught away from this life and could not attain to the years which men, as though for a great divine gift, wish for themselves. But what a thing it is to say that "infants predestined to the baptism of the present life are forestalled by death before they are reborn in Christ," as though some force of fortune or fate or of anything whatever does not permit God to fulfil what He predestined!

And how does He Himself catch them away, because they pleased Him? Or does He both predestine them to be baptized, and Himself not allow what He predestined to come to pass? But attend to what he further dares—he to whom our caution in so great a depth of question, more cautious than knowing, is displeasing: "I would dare to say," he says, "that these can attain to the indulgence of original sins, yet not so as to be brought into the heavenly kingdom, just as to the thief who confessed indeed but was not baptized the Lord granted not the kingdom of heaven, but paradise—though assuredly it already stood:

'He who is not born again of water and the Holy Spirit shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven'—especially because the Lord professes that there are many mansions with His Father, in which are designated the many and diverse merits of the dwellers, so that here the unbaptized may be brought to pardon, the baptized to the palm which is prepared through grace." You see the man separating paradise and the mansions which are with the Father from the kingdom of heaven, so that places of everlasting felicity may abound even for the unbaptized. And he does not see, when he says these things, that while he is so unwilling to separate the mansion of any baptized little one from the kingdom of heaven, he does not fear to separate from it the very house of God the Father, or some parts of it;

for the Lord Jesus did not say (this) of the universe of creation or of any part whatever of the universe, but: "In my Father's house are many mansions." How then shall the unbaptized be in the house of God the Father, when he cannot have God as Father unless he is reborn? Let him not be ungrateful to God, who deigned to deliver him from the division of the Donatists or the Rogatists, so as himself to seek to divide the very house of God the Father, and to place some part of it outside the kingdom of heaven, where the unbaptized may be able to dwell. And on what terms does he himself presume that he will enter the kingdom of heaven, from which kingdom he shuts out the house of the King Himself in as great a part as he pleases?

But concerning that thief who, crucified beside the Lord, hoped in the Lord who was also crucified, and concerning Dinocrates, the brother of holy Perpetua, he argues that pardon of sins and some seat of the blessed can be given even to the unbaptized—as though someone, whom it would be impious not to believe, had indicated to him that they had not been baptized. Yet concerning these I have set forth more fully what seemed to me in that book which I wrote to our brother Renatus. Your Charity will be able to know this, if you do not scorn to read it; for he will not be able to deny it to one who asks. Yet this man seethes and is choked by dreadful straits;

for perhaps more attentively than you he attends to what evil he says—namely, that apart from the baptism of Christ original sin is loosed in little ones. Then, that he may at length, even late, in this cause take refuge in the sacraments of the Church, he says: "For these, indeed, I judge that assiduous oblations and continual sacrifices of the holy priests are to be offered." Take this man, if you please, even as your censor, if it was too little to have him as a teacher—so that you may offer the sacrifice of the body of Christ even for those who are not incorporated into Christ.

For when he would dare to insert into his books a thing so novel and so alien from ecclesiastical discipline and from the rule of truth, he did not say "I think," nor "I suppose," nor "I judge (arbitror)," nor even "I suggest" or "I say," but "I decree (censeo)," so that, forsooth, if we should be offended by the novelty or perversity of the opinion, we might be terrified by the authority of his verdict. See to it yourself, brother, how you can endure this man as a teacher; but as for catholic priests who are of sound understanding—to whom you too ought to be joined—far be it that they should acquiesce to hear this man decreeing, whom they rather wish to come to his senses and to grieve, and by a most wholesome correction to repent that he thought—nay, indeed, even wrote—these things.

"But this," he says, "I maintain must be done by the example of the Maccabees falling in battle, who, when they secretly carried off things forbidden and fell in the very combat, from the priests"—he says—"we find this counsel to have been taken, that the offering of sacrifices should repair those whose souls the guilt of the forbidden thing had bound." Thus he says this, as though he had read that those sacrifices were offered for the uncircumcised, just as he decreed that these our sacrifices are to be offered for the unbaptized. For circumcision was the sacrament of that time, which prefigured the baptism of our time. Yet in comparison with himself, in what he afterwards appeared, this man still errs more tolerably.

For as though he had repented—not of that which he ought to have repented, namely that he dared to assert that to the unbaptized original sin is relaxed and indulgence given of all sins, so that they are sent into paradise, that is, a place of such great felicity, and merit to have blessed mansions in the house of God the Father, but rather as though he repented of this, that he had granted them seats of lesser blessedness outside the kingdom of heaven—he added and said:

"Or if perchance anyone should struggle against paradise having been conferred meanwhile temporarily upon the soul of the thief or of Dinocrates—for that there still remains over for them in the resurrection the reward of the kingdom of heaven, although that principal sentence stands in the way, because 'he who is not born again of water and the Holy Spirit shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven'—nevertheless let him hold in this part also my assent, not grudging it, provided that he both amplify the effect and the affection of the divine mercy and foreknowledge." These words I have copied out, having read them in his second book. Could anyone in this cause of error have a greater audacity, rashness, presumption? He himself recalls the Lord's sentence, he himself mentions it, he himself inserts it into his own writings, he himself says:

"although that principal sentence stands in the way, because 'he who is not born again of water and the Holy Spirit shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven'"—and yet he dares to raise the neck of his own verdict against the principal sentence! "Let him hold," he says, "my assent also, as one not grudging it," he who says that the souls of the unbaptized temporarily merit paradise—for on account of these he mentions the thief and Dinocrates, as it were prescribing or rather prejudging—but that in the resurrection they are transferred to better things and receive the reward of the kingdom of heaven, "although," he says, "the principal sentence stands in the way."

Now therefore, I beg you, brother, consider for yourself: whoever gives his assent to anyone against the authority of the principal sentence—what sentence will he merit from the Prince! The novel Pelagian heretics the authority of catholic councils and of the Apostolic See has most justly condemned, because they dared to give to unbaptized little ones a place of rest and salvation even outside the kingdom of heaven. Which they would not have dared, unless they denied that these have original sin, which needs to be loosed through the sacrament of baptism.

But this man, like a catholic, says that little ones are bound by original sin, and yet looses them from a bond of this kind without the laver of regeneration, and after death mercifully sends them into paradise, and after the resurrection mercifully brings them even into the kingdom of heaven. Such a merciful man did Saul seem to himself, when he spared the king whom God had commanded to be slain; but deservedly was his disobedient mercy, or merciful disobedience, reproved and condemned, that man may beware lest from Him by whom man was made he should merit mercy against His sentence. Truth thunders through the mouth of His own body: "If anyone is not born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

And in order to make the martyrs excepted from this sentence—those to whom it befell to be slain for Christ's name before they were washed with Christ's baptism—He says in another place: "He who shall lose his soul for my sake shall find it." And lest to anyone who has not been born again by the laver of the Christian faith the abolition of original sin should be promised, the Apostle cries: "Through the offence of one, upon all men unto condemnation." Against which condemnation the Lord, showing that there is one help of salvation, says: "He who shall believe and be baptized shall be saved; but he who shall not believe shall be condemned."

The mystery of which believing is fulfilled in little ones through the response of those by whom they are carried, lest, if it be not done, they go, all from one, into condemnation. And yet, against such manifest voices which truth sings in unison, a vanity comes forth into the midst, more senseless than merciful, and says: "Not only do little ones not go into damnation, even though no laver of the Christian faith absolve them from the bond of original sin, but they also meanwhile enjoy the felicity of paradise after death, and after the resurrection they will moreover possess the felicity of the kingdom of heaven."

Would this man dare to say these things against the most firmly founded catholic faith, if he had not dared to undertake the solving of a question about the soul's origin that exceeds his powers? For he is straitened by dreadful difficulties by those who say: Why did God punish the soul with so unjust a chastisement, that He willed to relegate it into the body of sin, where by the fellowship of the flesh it begins to be a sinner—it which could not be a sinner? For indeed they say:

"The soul could not be a sinner, unless God had mingled it with the fellowship of sinful flesh." With what justice therefore God did this—since this man could not find, especially on account of the eternal damnation of dying little ones for whom, being unbaptized, original sin was not expiated—why, then, the just and good God, sending the souls of little ones (which He foreknew the sacrament of Christian grace would not aid), free from all guilt of propagation, into a body drawn from Adam, bound them by the bond of original sin, and in this way made them liable to eternal damnation, when he could not find, nor was willing to say, that these too draw any sinful origin from that (first soul)—he chose to go forth by a miserable shipwreck rather than to curb his rash course by provident deliberation, with sails lowered and the oars of his disputation held back.

For our aged caution seemed of little worth to the young man, as though for this most troublesome and most perilous question an impulse of eloquence were more necessary than the counsel of prudence. As indeed he himself foresaw this too, but in vain; for, about to propose to himself as it were objected by adversaries these things, he says: "Hence other reproaches are heaped up by the querulous murmurings of the barkers, and hence, as by a certain whirlwind, we are again and again dashed among monstrous rocks." Having foretold these things, he proposed to himself the aforesaid most rock-strewn question, where he made shipwreck of the catholic faith, unless he repair by repenting what he broke.

That whirlwind and those rocks I avoided, being unwilling to commit my ship to them; and about this matter I wrote in such a way as to show rather the reason of my hesitation than the rashness of presumption. When he had found this little work of mine at your house, he laughed at it, and committed himself to those crags with a spirit more spirited than considered. But to what point this over-confidence of his has led him, I think you now see; and I give thanks to God the more abundantly, if you already saw it before. For when he would not restrain his headlong course on account of a doubtful excursion, he found a miserable onset, asserting that God confers on little ones who have died without Christian regeneration both paradise now and afterward the kingdom of heaven.

But as for the testimonies of the Scriptures, whatever he adduced by which he attempted, as it were, to prove that God does not draw souls from the propagation of that first (soul), but breathes them, like that first one, into each several individual—these, so far as pertains to this question, are uncertain and ambiguous, so that they can most easily be taken otherwise than he wishes. Which I have already, as I judge, sufficiently shown in that book which I wrote to our friend of whom I made mention above. For the very testimonies which he brought forward, where it is read that God either gives or makes or forms souls, do not show whence He gives them, or whence He makes or forms them: whether from the propagation of that first one, or by breathing them in, like that first one.

But this man, from the very fact that we read that God gives or makes or forms souls, at once supposes that the propagation of souls has been denied — although, by the witness of the very same Scripture, God also gives or makes or forms bodies, which nevertheless no one doubts are given, made, and formed by Him from the propagation of the seed. Likewise, because it is written that God made every race of men from one blood, or because Adam says: 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh' — since neither there is it said 'from one soul' nor here 'a soul from my soul' — he supposes that it is denied that the souls of children come from their parents, or that of that woman from the man; as though, indeed, if it had been said not 'from one blood' but 'from one soul,'

something other than the whole man would be understood, and yet the propagation of the body would not thereby be denied. So too, even if it had been said, 'a soul from my soul,' the flesh would by no means be denied, which it was agreed had been taken from him; for Scripture very often signifies the whole by a part, just as it signifies the part by the whole. For surely, if in that passage from which this man drew his testimony it had been written that the human race was established not 'from one blood' but 'from one man,' this would not have prejudged the case against those who deny the propagation of souls — although a man is neither soul alone nor flesh alone, but both together. For they would reply that Scripture could there have signified the part by the whole, that is, only the flesh of the man by the word 'man.'

So therefore those also who defend the propagation of souls contend that what was said, 'from one blood' — namely, 'man' by the term 'blood' — signifies the whole by a part. For just as it seems to favour those men that it was said 'from one blood' and not 'from one man,' so it seems to favour these others that it was said: 'By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned,' and it was not said 'in whom the flesh of all sinned.' And likewise, just as it seems to favour those that it was said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh' — since a part is named, not the whole — so again it favours these others what immediately follows there:

'She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her man.' For, they say, it ought to have been said, 'because her flesh was taken out of her man,' if not the whole woman — that is, together with the soul — but flesh alone was taken from the man. Moreover, when both sides have been heard, whoever judges without partisan zeal

assuredly sees that those testimonies in which a part is named are not to be brought forward against those who defend the propagation of souls, because Scripture could there have signified the whole by a part — just as, when we read 'the Word was made flesh,' we understand not the flesh alone, but the whole man; nor are those passages to be brought forward against those who overthrow the propagation of souls, where not a part of the man but the whole is mentioned, because Scripture could there have signified a part by the whole — just as we confess Christ was buried, though His flesh alone was buried. And on this account we say that the propagation of souls is neither rashly to be asserted nor rashly to be overthrown, but we admonish that other testimonies must be sought which may not be found ambiguous.

Wherefore I do not yet know what this man has taught you, or for what you have given thanks. For that question remains, as it was, in which it is asked concerning the origin of souls: whether God gives, makes, and forms them for men from the propagation of that one soul which He first breathed into man, or from His own breath, as with the first man — souls which the Christian faith does not doubt that He gives, makes, and forms.

When this man attempted to solve that question, and did not weigh his own strength, in overthrowing the propagation of souls and asserting that the Creator 'breathes them pure from every contagion of sin' not from nothing but 'out of Himself,' he defamed the nature of God with the reproach of mutability, which there was no need to do; and, while he wishes to give a reason why God should not be believed unjust — if He should bind souls pure from all sin, even those whom He does not redeem by Christian regeneration, with the bond of original sin — he said things which I would not have him teach you. For he attributed as much salvation and happiness to unbaptized little ones as not even the Pelagian heresy could.

And yet, concerning so many thousands of little ones who are born of the ungodly and die among the ungodly — not those whom men, when they will, cannot succour through baptism, but those about whose baptism no one has been able or will be able even to think, nor has anyone offered or will offer for them the sacrifice which this man judged ought to be offered even for those who are not to be baptized — he found nothing to say.

If he be questioned concerning these — what their souls have deserved, that God should insert them, neither to be washed by baptism nor to be expiated by the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, and to be damned eternally, into sinful flesh — either he will be utterly at a loss, and our hesitation will at last, though late, please him; or else he will judge that the body of Christ ought to be offered at once for all the little ones who throughout the whole world die without Christian baptism — even with their names left unspoken, since they are unknown in the Church of Christ, and though they are not incorporated into the body of Christ. Far be it from you, brother, that these things should please you; far be it that you should either rejoice to have learned such things or presume to teach them;

otherwise he himself will be found far better than you; for at the beginning of his first book he prefaced modestly and humbly, saying: 'While I desire to obey you, I have incurred the mark of presumption'; and a little later he says: 'Since I am not myself so credulous as to think that what I shall have said can be proved, and I would ever strive not even to defend my own opinion if it be judged unworthy of approval, and it is my heart's desire, once my own judgment is condemned, to follow rather what is better and more true. For as it belongs to an excellent purpose and a praiseworthy counsel to be easily led over to truer things, so it belongs to a base and obstinate judgment to be unwilling to bend more readily to the path of reason.'

For if he spoke these things truthfully and feels as he has spoken, he assuredly bears a mind of great hope. Likewise at the end of the second book he says: 'Do not think that it should perhaps be turned to your reproach, since I place the judgment of my words within your power. And lest, perchance, the gaze of some curious reader be tempted and offended by the remaining traces amid the smeared strokes of the letters, tear apart the connected sequence of the page with a severe thumb, and punish me, exempt from this correction, blotting out the inks that marked unworthy words, lest by this occasion both your judgment concerning me, whereby you greatly indulge me, and my follies which lay hidden be laughed at.'