Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 37 part 13/28

Therefore we now bear the image of the heavenly man by faith, and shall possess in the resurrection what we believe; but the image of the earthy man we have put on from the very beginning of the human race. Here another question arises: how are we renewed, if we are not called back through Christ to that which we were before in Adam? For although many things are renewed not to their former state but to a better one, yet they are renewed from a lower state than that in which they were before. Whence then was that son 'dead and is alive again, was lost and is found,' to whom the first robe is brought forth, unless he receives the immortality which Adam lost? But how did he lose immortality, if he had a natural body?

For it will not be a natural body but a spiritual one, when 'this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality.' Some, hemmed in by these difficulties, so that both that statement might stand by which the example of the natural body was given here — where it was said, 'The first man Adam was made a living soul, [the last Adam a life-giving spirit]' — and that this renewal and recovery of immortality might not absurdly be said to be a return to the former state, namely to that which Adam lost, have supposed that man was indeed at first of a natural body, but that, while he was set in paradise, he was changed, just as we too shall be changed at the resurrection. This indeed the book of Genesis does not record;

but in order that both testimonies of the Scriptures might agree with each other — both that which was said about the natural body, and those very many things which are found in the sacred writings concerning our renewal — they believed that this followed as if by necessity. But if it is so, we strive in vain to take paradise and those trees and their fruits, apart from their figurative meaning, first according to the literal reality of events. For who would believe that foods of such a kind, from the fruits of trees, could have been necessary to immortal and spiritual bodies?

Nevertheless, if nothing else can be found, we choose rather to understand paradise spiritually than either to hold that man is not renewed, when Scripture so often mentions this, or to suppose that he recovers what he is not shown to have lost. To this is added that the very death of man — which many divine testimonies declare he deserved by sin — indicates that he would have been without death, had he not sinned. How then is he mortal without death? Or how is he not mortal, if he has a natural body? Whence some think that he did not deserve the death of the body by sin, but the death of the soul, which iniquity brought about.

For they believe that, on account of his natural body, he would have departed from this body to that rest, namely, which the saints now have who have already fallen asleep, and that at the end of the age he would have received the same members immortally, so that the death of the body might seem not to have happened from sin, but naturally, as with the other animals. But against these things the Apostle again meets them and says: 'The body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised up Christ from the dead dwells in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead shall also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwells in you.' And through this the death of the body also is from sin.

If therefore Adam had not sinned, he would not have died even in body, and so he would have had an immortal body also. How then is it immortal, if it is natural? But again, those who think that his body was changed in paradise, so that from natural it became spiritual, do not see that nothing prevents — if he had not sinned — that after the life of paradise, which he would have lived justly and obediently, he should have received that same change of body into eternal life, where he would no longer have needed bodily foods. What need then is there, on this account, to be compelled to understand paradise figuratively and not literally, on the ground that the body could not die except through sin? It is indeed true that he would not have died even in body, had he not sinned; for the Apostle plainly says: 'The body is dead because of sin.'

Yet it could have been natural before sin, and after the life of righteousness, when God willed, become spiritual. 'How then,' they say, 'are we said to be renewed, if we do not recover what the first man lost, in whom all die?' We plainly recover it in a certain sense, and we do not recover it in a certain sense. We do not therefore recover the immortality of the spiritual body, which man did not yet have, but we recover the righteousness from which by sin man fell. We shall therefore be renewed from the oldness of sin, not into the former natural body in which Adam was, but into a better one, that is, into a spiritual body, when we shall be made equal to the angels of God, fitted for the heavenly habitation, where we shall not need the food that perishes.

We shall therefore be renewed in the spirit of our mind according to the image of Him who created us, which Adam lost by sinning. But we shall also be renewed in the flesh, when 'this corruptible shall put on incorruption,' so that it may be a spiritual body — into which Adam had not yet been changed, but was to be changed, had he not by sinning deserved the death also of the natural body. Finally, the Apostle does not say, 'the body indeed is mortal because of sin,' but 'the body is dead because of sin.' For before sin it could be called both mortal in one respect and immortal in another respect: that is, mortal because it could die, immortal because it could not die. For it is one thing not to be able to die, as God created certain immortal natures;

but it is another thing to be able not to die, in which manner the first man was created immortal — which was granted to him by the tree of life, not by the constitution of his nature: from which tree he was separated when he had sinned, so that he could die, who, if he had not sinned, could have not died. He was therefore mortal by the condition of the natural body, but immortal by the benefit of the Creator. For if the body was natural, it was certainly mortal, because it could also die, although also immortal for this reason, because it could also not die. For that is not immortal which cannot at all die. It will be so only if it is spiritual, which is promised to us for the future in the resurrection.

And through this, that natural and therefore mortal body, which for the sake of righteousness would have become spiritual and thereby in every way immortal, was made because of sin not merely mortal — which it already was before — but dead: which could have not come to be, if man had not sinned. For how does the Apostle call our body dead, while he was still speaking of the living, unless because the very condition of dying has, from the sin of our parents, clung to their offspring? For this body too is natural, as was that of the first man; but this is now, even within the natural kind itself, much worse: for it has the necessity of dying, which that one did not have.

For although it still remained that it should be changed and, made spiritual, should attain full immortality, where it would not need corruptible food, nevertheless, if man had lived justly, his body would have been changed into a spiritual state, and would not have gone into death. But in us, even when we live justly, the body is doomed to die. On account of this necessity, coming from the sin of that first man, the Apostle called our body not mortal but dead, because 'in Adam we all die.' Likewise he says: 'As the truth is in Jesus, that you put off, according to your former manner of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the lusts of deception' — that is, Adam made so through sin. See then what follows.

'And be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who is created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth.' Behold what Adam lost through sin! In this, therefore, we are renewed according to that which Adam lost, that is, according to the spirit of our mind; but according to the body, which 'is sown natural and shall rise spiritual,' we shall be renewed into something better, which Adam was not yet. Likewise the Apostle says: 'Putting off the old man with his deeds, put on the new, who is renewed unto the knowledge of God according to the image of Him who created him.'

This image, impressed in the spirit of the mind, Adam lost through sin, and it is this which we recover through the grace of righteousness — not the spiritual and immortal body, in which he was not yet, and in which all the saints will be when they rise from the dead; for this is the reward of that merit which he lost. Accordingly, that first robe is either righteousness itself, from which he fell, or, if it signifies the garment of bodily immortality, this too he lost in such a way that, because of sin, he could not attain to it. For a man is said both to have lost a wife and to have lost an honor, if he has not received the hoped-for thing from the one from whom he hoped for it, that one being offended.

According to this view, therefore, Adam had a natural body not only before paradise, but even when set in paradise, although in the inner man he was spiritual according to the image of Him who created him: which he lost by sinning, and he deserved even the death of the body, he who by not sinning would have deserved even the change into a spiritual body. For if he lived naturally in his inner man as well, we cannot be said to be renewed into that. For those to whom it is said, 'Be renewed in the spirit of your mind,' are told this in order that they may become spiritual: but if he was not spiritual even in his mind, how are we renewed into that which man never was?

But the Apostles and all the righteous still had a natural body, yet they lived spiritually in their inner man, being renewed, namely, unto the knowledge of God according to the image of Him who created them; yet not for that reason were they already unable to sin, if they should consent to iniquity. For the Apostle shows that even spiritual men can fall into the temptation of sin, where he says: 'Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.' He said this lest it should seem impossible to anyone that Adam sinned, if he was spiritual in mind, although natural in body.

Since these things are so, we nevertheless affirm nothing yet too hastily, but rather wait to see whether the rest of Scripture also does not obstruct this understanding. For there follows a very difficult question concerning the soul, at which many have labored and have left to us, where we too may labor. For whether it be because I have not been able to read all the writings of all who, concerning this matter and according to the truth of our Scriptures, have been able to arrive at something clear and by no means doubtful, or because so great is the question that even those who truly resolve it are not easily understood by such as I am, I confess that no one has yet persuaded me to hold such a view of the soul that I should think nothing further need be inquired.

But whether I shall now find and define something certain, I do not know. What I shall be able to do, if the Lord assists my endeavor, I shall take care to explain in the following volume. 'And God formed man, dust from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul.' These words of Scripture we had proposed for our consideration also at the beginning of the previous book, and concerning man himself as made, and especially concerning his body, we have discussed, as far as we deemed sufficient, what seemed right according to the Scriptures.

But because the question concerning the human soul is no small one, we thought it should be deferred to this book, not knowing how much the Lord would help us who desire to speak rightly, yet knowing this, that unless He Himself helped, we should not speak rightly. And to speak rightly is to speak truthfully and fittingly: rejecting nothing boldly, affirming nothing rashly while it is still doubtful whether it be true or false, whether it belong to Christian faith or Christian knowledge; but asserting without hesitation what can be taught, either by the plainest reason of things or by the most certain authority of the Scriptures. And first let us look at what is written: 'He breathed' or 'blew into his face the breath of life.' For some manuscripts have:

'He breathed' or 'inspired into his face.' But since the Greek has ἐνεφύσησεν, there is no doubt that we must say 'breathed' or 'blew.' Now in the earlier discourse we were inquiring about the hands of God, when man was thought of as formed from clay; what then must now be said in that which is written, 'God breathed,' except that, just as He did not form with hands of a body, so neither did He blow with jaws or lips? Nevertheless, by this word Scripture has helped us very greatly, as I think, in a most difficult question.

For since some, from this word, have believed that the soul is something of the very substance of God, that is, of the same nature of which He is — thinking this because, when a man blows, he casts out something of himself in the breath — from this we are rather to be admonished to reject this opinion, hostile to the catholic faith. For we believe that the nature and substance of God, which is believed by many and understood by few to be in the Trinity, is altogether unchangeable. But further, who doubts that the nature of the soul can be changed either for the worse or for the better? And through this it is a sacrilegious opinion to believe that it and God are of one substance. For what else, in this way, is believed than that He too is changeable?

It is therefore to be believed and understood, and in no way to be doubted, as the right faith holds, that the soul was made by God as a thing which He made, not as of the nature of which He Himself is, whether He begot it or in whatever way brought it forth. 'And how,' they say, 'is it written: He breathed into his face, and man was made into a living soul, if the soul is not a part of God or wholly the substance of God?' On the contrary, from this very word it appears sufficiently that it is not so. For when a man blows, the soul itself moves the underlying nature of the body and makes the breath from that, not from itself;

unless perhaps these people are so dull as not to know that, by this reciprocal breathing, which we draw in and give back from the surrounding air, there also comes to be a blowing, when we blow with intention. But even if we cast out something in blowing not from this air which lies outside, taken in and given back, but from the very nature of our body of which it consists, the nature of the body and of the soul is not the same: which even they themselves certainly concede. Wherefore even so it is one thing, the substance of the soul, by which it rules and moves the body, and another thing, the breath, which it makes by ruling and moving from the body subject to it, not from itself, to which the body is subject. Since therefore, though in an incomparably distant manner, yet nevertheless the soul

rules its subject body, and God rules His subject creation, why should it not rather be understood that God made the soul out of the creation subject to Him, in that He is said to have breathed, since the soul itself, although it does not rule over its body as God rules over the universe which He founded, nevertheless makes the breath by the body's motion, not from its own substance? We could indeed say that not even the breath of God itself is the soul of man, but that God by blowing made the soul in man;

but lest the things He made by a word be thought better than what He made by a breath — since in us too the word is better than the breath — there is meanwhile, according to the reasoning stated above, no reason why we should hesitate to call the soul itself the breath of God, provided it be understood not to be the nature and substance of God, but that this very thing, to blow, is to make a breath, and to make a breath is to make a soul. With which opinion agrees what God says through Isaiah: 'For the spirit shall proceed from Me, and I have made every breath'; for the sequel teaches that He does not mean any bodily breath whatever. For when He had said, 'I have made every breath,' He adds, 'and because of sin I grieved him a little and struck him.'

What then does He call breath, but the soul, which because of sin was struck and grieved? What therefore is, 'I have made every breath,' but 'I have made every soul'? If therefore we were to call God, as it were, the soul of this bodily world — to which the world itself would be as the body of a single living being — we should rightly not say that He made the soul of man by blowing, save a bodily one from this air lying subject to Him from His own body; yet we ought not to think that what He gave by blowing He gave from Himself, but rather from the air subject to Him, of His own body, just as the soul makes the breath from a thing similarly adjacent, that is, from the body, not from itself.

But now, since we say that not only the body of the world is subject to God, but that He is above every creature, whether corporeal or spiritual, He must not be believed to have made the soul by blowing either from Himself or from the corporeal elements. But whether it was from that which absolutely was not, that is, from nothing, or from some thing which had already been made spiritually by Him, but was not yet a soul, may deservedly be inquired. For if we do not believe that God still creates anything from nothing, seeing that He created all things together, and for this reason we believe that He rested from all His completed works, which He began to make, so that whatever He should afterward make, He should make from these, I do not see how we are to understand that He still makes souls from nothing.

Or must it be said that, in those works of the first six days, He made that hidden day and — if this rather ought to be believed — the spiritual and intellectual nature, namely of the angelic unity, and the world, that is, heaven and earth, and that in those natures already existing He created the reasons of other natures to come, not the natures themselves? Otherwise, if they had already been created there, as they were to be, they would no longer be things to come. But if this is so, there was not yet in created things any nature of the human soul, and it then began to be, when God by blowing made it and put it into man.

But the question is not thereby removed, in which it is still asked whether He created that nature which is called soul, and which before was not, out of nothing — as though that breath of His was not made from any underlying substance, as we were saying of the breath which the soul makes from its body, but the breath was then made altogether from nothing when God willed to blow, and the same breath was made the soul of man; or whether there was already something spiritual, although this, whatever it was, was not yet the nature of a soul, and from this was made the breath of God which was to be the nature of the soul, just as the nature of the human body was not yet, before God had formed it from the mud of the earth or from dust.

For human flesh was not dust or mud, yet there was something from which that which was not yet came to be. Is it then credible that, in those first works of the six days, God founded not only the causal reason of the future human body, but also the matter from which it should be made, that is, the earth, from whose mud or dust it should be formed, but of the soul He founded there only the reason according to which it should be made, and not also a certain matter, of its own kind, from which it should be made? For if the soul were something unchangeable, we ought in no way to seek, as it were, its matter;

but now its changeableness sufficiently indicates that it is meanwhile rendered deformed by vices and deceptions, but is formed by virtues and the teaching of truth — yet within its own nature already, by which it is a soul, just as flesh too, in its own nature, by which it is already flesh, is both adorned by health and disfigured by diseases and wounds. But just as this flesh — apart from the fact that it is already flesh, in which nature it either advances so as to be beautiful, or fails so as to be deformed — had also matter, that is, earth, from which it should come to be, so that it might be flesh at all:

so perhaps the soul too, before that very nature came to be which is called soul — whose beauty is virtue or whose deformity is vice — could have had some matter of its own kind, spiritual, which was not yet a soul, just as the earth from which flesh was made was already something, although it was not flesh. But indeed the earth filled the lowest part of the world before the body of man was made from it, contributing its whole self to the universe, so that, even if no flesh of any living being were made from it, it might nevertheless by its own kind complete the fabric and mass of the world, according to which the world is called heaven and earth. But truly that spiritual matter, if there was any, from which the soul was made, or if there is any, from which souls are made — what is it itself?

What name, what appearance, what use does it hold among created things? Does it live, or not? If it lives, what does it do? What does it contribute to the effects of the universe? Does it lead a blessed life, or a wretched one, or neither? Does it give life to anything? Or is it free even from this work and rests idle in some secret place of the universe, without watchful sense and vital motion? For if there was as yet no life at all, how could there be a certain incorporeal and non-living matter of a life to come? Either it is false, or it lies too deeply hidden. But if it was already living, neither blessedly nor wretchedly, how was it rational? But if it then became rational, when from that matter the nature of the human soul was made, then irrational life was the matter of the rational, that is, human, soul?

What then distinguished it from that of a beast? Or was it already rational in possibility, not yet in actual capacity? For if we see the infant's soul, which is certainly already a man's soul, has not yet begun to use reason, and yet we already call it rational, why should it not be believed that in that matter, from which it was made, the motion even of sensing was quiescent, just as in this infant soul, which is certainly already a man's soul, the motion of reasoning is as yet quiescent? For if the life from which the soul of man was made was already blessed, then it was made worse, and therefore that is now not the matter of this, but this is a falling-away from that. For when any matter is formed, especially by God, it is without doubt formed for the better.

But even if the human soul could be understood as a falling-away from some life made by God in a certain blessedness, not even so was it to be believed to have begun to be in some act of its own merits, save from the point at which it began to conduct its own life, when the soul was made animating the flesh and using its senses as if they were messengers, and feeling itself to live in itself by its own will, intellect, memory. For if there is something from which God breathed that falling-away into the formed flesh, as it were making the soul by blowing, and the same is blessed, it is in no way moved or changed, nor does it lose anything when this flows down from it, whence the soul comes to be. For it is not a body, that it should be diminished as if by exhaling.

But if the irrational soul is in some way the matter from which the rational, that is, human, soul comes to be, again it is asked from what even that irrational soul itself comes to be, since it too is made by none other than the Creator of all natures. Is it from corporeal matter? Why then not this one also? Unless perhaps someone will deny that God can, by a shortcut, make in a single step what is conceded to be made as it were by degrees. Accordingly, whatever intermediate step be introduced, if body is the matter of the irrational soul, and the irrational soul is the matter of the rational soul, then beyond doubt body is the matter of the rational soul. Which I know no one has ever dared to hold, except one who also places the soul itself in the class of some kind of body.

Next, we must beware lest it be believed that some transmigration of the soul can take place from a beast into a man — which is utterly contrary to truth and the catholic faith — if we should concede that the irrational soul lies subject, as it were, as matter, from which the rational soul comes to be. For it will thus come about that, if this has been changed for the better into a man's soul, that too has been changed for the worse into a beast's. At which mockery of certain philosophers even their own successors blushed, and said that they had not held this, but had been wrongly understood. And I believe it is so. As if anyone should hold this even from our Scriptures, where it is said, 'Man, being placed in honor, understood not;'

'he is compared to the senseless beasts and is made like unto them,' or where it is likewise read: 'Deliver not to the beasts the soul that confesses to Thee.' For it is not the case that not all heretics read the catholic Scriptures, nor are they heretics for any other reason than that, not understanding them well, they obstinately assert their own false opinions against the truth of those Scriptures. But in whatever way the opinion of the philosophers concerning the revolutions of souls may or may not stand, it does not agree with the catholic faith to believe that the souls of beasts pass into men, or those of men into beasts. That men do indeed become like beasts in their manner of life, both human affairs themselves cry out and Scripture testifies. Whence comes that which I have mentioned: 'Man, being placed in honor, understood not;'

'he is compared to the senseless beasts of burden and is made like unto them' — but in this life certainly, not after death. Accordingly, it was to such beasts that he was unwilling to give his soul into their power, who said: 'Deliver not to the beasts the soul that confesses to Thee' — such as those whom the Lord signifies are to be guarded against, where He says that they are clothed with the clothing of sheep, but inwardly are ravening wolves — or into the power of the devil himself and his angels; for he too is called both a lion and a dragon. For what argument do the philosophers bring, who think that the souls of men can be transferred into beasts, or those of beasts into men, after death?

This at least is certain: that likeness of character draws a soul toward the corresponding animal — the greedy into ants, the rapacious into kites, the savage and proud into lions, the pursuers of filthy pleasure into swine, and any comparable case. Such things they assert, yet they fail to notice that by this very reasoning it can in no way come about that the soul of a beast should after death be transferred into a man. For in no way will a pig be more like a man than like a pig; and when lions grow tame, they become more like dogs or even sheep than like men.

Since, therefore, beasts do not depart from the ways of beasts, and even those that become somewhat unlike the rest are nonetheless more like their own kind than like the human, and differ from men far more than from beasts, these will never be the souls of men, if it is the more similar things that draw the soul. But if this argument is false, how will that opinion be true, seeing that they bring forward nothing else by which it might be held, if not true, at least plausible?