Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 37 part 19/28

What wonder, then, is it if we do not know how a human being was made from a human bone, when we are ignorant of how the angels serve God in His creating? We could not even know that a tree is made from a slip of a tree upon a foreign stock, if in like manner we did not know how farmers serve God in His creating in this matter too. Yet in no way do we doubt that God alone is the creator both of human beings and of trees, and we faithfully believe that woman was made from man without any intervening intercourse, even if perchance a man's rib was administered by the angels in the Creator's work — just as we faithfully believe that man too was made from woman without any intervening intercourse, when the seed of Abraham was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator. To the unbelieving, both are incredible.

But to the faithful, why should what was done concerning Christ seem credible as an actual event in its own proper reality, while what is written concerning Eve seems credible only as a figurative signification? Or could a man indeed come to be from a woman without anyone's intercourse, yet a woman not be able to come to be from a man? A virginal womb there was from which a man might be made, but there was no male side from which a woman might be made — seeing that in the one case a Lord was to be born from a handmaid, while in the other a handmaid was to be formed from a servant? The Lord too could have created His own flesh from a rib, or from some other member of the Virgin; but He who was able to show in His own body that He had done again the very thing that had been done, more usefully showed in His mother's body that there is nothing shameful in what is chaste.

But if it is asked how that causal condition stands, in which God first made man to His own image and likeness — for there too it was said: male and female He made them — whether that principle which God concreated and grew together in the first works of the world already contained this, that according to it it was now of necessity that a woman should be made from the side of a man; or whether it contained only this, that it could be so made, while the fact that it should of necessity be so made was not yet established there, but lay hidden in God: if, then, this is asked, I will say what seems to me the case, without rashness in asserting.

Yet when I have said it, perhaps those who consider these matters prudently, and whom the Christian faith has already instructed, even if they now learn these things for the first time, will judge that they are not to be doubted. This whole most customary course of nature has certain natural laws of its own, according to which even the spirit of life, which is a creature, has certain appetites of its own in a way determined, which even an evil will cannot exceed; and the elements of this bodily world have their own defined force and quality — what each can or cannot do, what can or cannot be made from what. From these, as it were the first beginnings of things, all things that are generated take, each in its own time, their risings and progressions and endings and the passings-away proper to each kind.

Hence it comes about that from a grain of wheat a bean is not born, nor wheat from a bean, nor a man from a beast, nor a beast from a man. But above this movement and natural course of things, the power of the Creator has it within Himself to make from all these something other than their, as it were, seminal reasons contain — yet not that which He did not place in them, namely that it should be able to be made from these even by Himself. For He is almighty not by rash power, but by the virtue of wisdom; and He does concerning each thing, in its own time, that which He beforehand made in it the power to do. There is, then, one mode of things by which this herb sprouts thus, that one thus; this creature at such an age bears young, that one does not; a man can speak, a beast cannot.

The reasons of these and such-like modes are not only in God, but were also by Him implanted in and grown together with created things. But that a piece of wood cut from the earth, dry, polished, without any root, without earth and water, should suddenly flower and bring forth fruit; that through youth a barren woman should bear in old age; that an ass should speak, and whatever is of this kind — this indeed He gave to the natures He created, that from these these things too could be made (for He would not from them do what He Himself had determined could not be made from them, since He is not other than Himself, nor is He more powerful than Himself) — but nevertheless He gave it in another mode, so that these things they should not have in their natural movement, but in that by which they were so created that their nature should be more fully subject to a more powerful will.

God therefore has hidden within Himself the causes of certain deeds, which He did not implant in things once established, and He fulfills them not by that work of providence by which He set up the natures that they might be, but by that by which He administers them as He wills — the natures which, as He willed, He established. There too is grace, through which sinners are made whole. For as regards a nature depraved by its own iniquitous will, it has no return through itself, but through the grace of God, by which it is helped and restored. For men are not to be despaired of in that sentence in which it is written: all who walk in it shall not return.

For it was said according to the weight of one's iniquity, so that the one who does return might attribute what returns not to himself but to the grace of God — not from works, lest perhaps he be exalted. Therefore the Apostle said that the mystery of this grace was hidden, not in the world, in which are hidden the causal reasons of all things that naturally arise (as Levi was hidden in the loins of Abraham when he too was tithed), but in God, who created all things. Wherefore all things — even those which, in order to signify this grace, were done not by the natural movement of things but miraculously — had their causes too hidden in God.

Among these, if one was this — that woman was thus made from the side of a man, and that while he slept; she who through him was made firm, as though strengthened by his bone, while he was made weak for her sake, since in the place of the rib not a rib but flesh was filled in — this the first condition of things did not contain (when on the sixth day it was said: male and female He made them) such that the woman should be made in exactly this way; but it contained only this, that she could also be made thus, lest against the causes which He established by His will He should do anything by a mutable will. But what should come to be, so that it would altogether not be otherwise, lay hidden in God, who created all things.

But since he said it was hidden in such a way that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, it is credibly believed that, just as that seed to which the promise was made was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator, so all things which were miraculously done in the nature of things, beyond the accustomed course of nature, either to foretell or to announce the coming of that very seed, were done with the angels ministering — yet so that everywhere the Creator or Restorer of creatures is none other than He who, whatever planter and waterer there be, alone gives the increase, God.

And through this, that ecstasy also, which God sent upon Adam so that he fell fast asleep, is rightly understood to have been sent for this purpose: that his mind too, through the ecstasy, might become a partaker as of the angelic court, and, entering into the sanctuary of God, might understand things in the last. Finally, waking as though full of prophecy, when he saw his woman brought to him, he immediately burst forth with what the Apostle commends as a great sacrament: this now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken from her man. And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh.

And though Scripture itself testifies that these words were the first man's, the Lord nevertheless declared in the Gospel that God had spoken them; for He says: have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female? And He said: for this cause a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh — that from this we might understand that, through the ecstasy which had preceded in Adam, he was able to say this divinely as though a prophet. But now the end of this book pleases me, so that the things which follow may, with a fresh beginning, renew the attention of readers. BOOK TEN. Now indeed the very order seems to demand that we discourse concerning the sin of the first man;

but because Scripture has narrated concerning the flesh of the woman, how it was made, yet was silent about the soul, it has made us all the more intent to inquire the more diligently into this: in what way those can, or cannot, be refuted who believe that the soul is made from the soul of a human being, just as flesh from flesh, by the seeds of both things being transfused from parents into children. For from this they are first moved to say that God made one soul, which He breathed into the face of the man whom He had formed from the dust, so that from that soul the other souls of human beings might now be created, just as from his flesh all the flesh also of human beings — since first Adam was formed, then Eve. And whence he had his body, whence his soul, has been stated:

his body, namely, from the dust of the earth, but his soul from the breath of God; whereas she, though she is said to have been made from his side, it is not said that God similarly animated her by breathing, as though both were drawn from him who had already been animated. For either, they say, it ought to have been kept silent about the man's soul too, so that we might understand, or at least believe, as best we could, that it was given divinely; or, if Scripture did not keep silent about this — lest we should think that the soul too, like the flesh of the man, was made from the earth — it ought also not to have kept silent about the woman's soul, lest it be thought to be from transmission, if this is not true. Wherefore, they say, it was for this reason kept silent that God breathed into her face, because that is true, that her soul too was propagated from the man.

This surmise is easily met. For if for this reason they think the woman's soul was made from the man's soul, because it is not written that God breathed into the woman's face, why do they believe the woman was animated from the man, when not even that is written? Hence, if God makes all the souls of human beings being born as He made the first, Scripture was silent about the others for this reason: that what is recorded to have been done in the one might prudently be understood also of the rest. And so, if it was fitting that we should be admonished something about this matter through this Scripture, it was rather — if something else was being done in the woman that had not been done in the man, so that her soul was drawn from her animated flesh, not, as with the man, his body from one source, his soul from another —

this very thing, that it was being done in another mode, Scripture ought rather not to have kept silent, lest we should think that this too was done in the same way as we had already learned concerning the man. Accordingly, because it did not say that the woman's soul was made from the man's soul, it is more fittingly believed that by that very silence it wished to admonish us to think nothing else here than what we had known concerning the man's soul — that is, that it was given to the woman similarly — especially since there was a place of most evident occasion, so that, if not then, when she was formed, at least afterward it might have been said, where Adam says: this now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. For how much more dearly and lovingly would he have said: and soul of my soul! Yet not for this is so great a question already solved, that we should hold one of these as manifest and certain.

Wherefore first it must be seen whether the holy Scripture of this book, treated from its beginning, permits us to doubt on this point; then perhaps we shall rightly inquire either which opinion should rather be chosen, or what measure we ought to keep amid the uncertainty of this matter. For certainly on the sixth day God made man to His own image, where it was also said: male and female He made them. Of these, the former, where the image of God is mentioned, we took as according to the soul; but the latter, where there is the difference of sex, as according to the flesh.

And since so many and so great testimonies, which were there considered and treated, did not allow us to take man as formed from the mud and woman from his side on that very same sixth day, but rather that this was done afterward, after those first works of God in which He created all things at once, we inquired what we should believe concerning man's soul; and, all the parts of our discussion having been examined, that seemed to be said more credibly or more tolerably —

namely, that the soul of man itself was made in those works, but of his body the reason was made in the corporeal world as though in a seed — lest we should be compelled, against the words of Scripture, either to say that the whole was made on the sixth day (that is, both the man from mud and the woman from his side), or that in those works of the six days man was in no way made, or that only the causal reason of the human body was made, but of the soul none, though it is rather according to the soul that man is to the image of God.

Or at least, even if not against words openly set down in Scripture, yet we would be saying something harsh and intolerable if we said either that the reason of the human soul was made in that spiritual creature which had been created only for this, though that creature in which this reason is said to have been made is not mentioned among the works of God; or that the reason of the soul was made in some creature which is mentioned among those works — as in men who already exist the reason of the sons to be generated lies hidden — and thus should believe it to be either the daughter of angels or, what is more intolerable, of some bodily element.

But now, if on this account it is asserted that the woman received her soul not from the man but, like him, made by God — because God makes single souls for single persons — the soul of the woman was not made in those first works; or if a general reason of all souls had been made, as in men the reason of begetting, we return to that harsh and troublesome position, that we should say the souls of human beings are the daughters either of angels or, what is most unworthy, of the bodily heaven or even of some lower element. And through this it must be seen — even though it lies hidden — what is true, or at least what can be said more tolerably:

whether this which I have just said, or that in those first works of God one soul of the first man was made, from whose propagation all the souls of men might be created, or that new souls come to be one after another, of which no reason, even, preceded as made in those first works of the six days of God. But of these three, the two former are not repugnant to those first conditions, where all things were created at once.

For whether the reason of the soul was made in some creature as in a parent, so that all souls are generated from it, but are created by God when they are given to individual men, just as bodies are given by human parents; or whether not the reason of the soul as the reason of offspring in a parent, but the soul itself altogether, was made when the day was made, just as the day itself, just as heaven and earth and the lights of heaven — it was fittingly said: God made man to His own image. But how this third view is not repugnant to that opinion by which man is taken to have been both made on the sixth day to the image of God and visibly created after the seventh day, cannot so easily be seen.

For if we say that new souls come to be, of which neither they themselves nor their reason as of offspring in a parent was made on that sixth day together with those works — from which, being completed and inchoate, God rested on the seventh day — care must be taken lest in vain Scripture so diligently commend that God completed all His works in six days, works which He made very good, if He was still going to create some natures which He made neither themselves nor their reasons causally there; unless it be understood that He has within Himself indeed the reason of making souls singly, to be given to those being born, and did not establish it in any creature, but that, because the soul is not of another kind of creature than that according to which man was made on the sixth day to the image of God, it is not rightly said that God now makes those things which He did not then complete.

For already then He had made the soul, such as He now also makes; and therefore He does not now make some new kind of creature which He did not then create in His completed works, nor is this His operation against those causal reasons of things to come which He then implanted in the universe, but rather according to them — since to human bodies, whose propagation is prolonged by continued succession from those first works, it is fitting that such souls be inserted as He now makes and inserts.

Wherefore, now fearing nothing lest we should seem to hold an opinion against the words of this book, which were written concerning that first condition of the six days, whichever probability of these three views should prevail, let us undertake a more diligent treatment of this question, so far as God helps, lest perchance it may come about that, if not a clear opinion on this matter — one about which there ought no longer to be doubt — we may at least obtain one so acceptable that to hold it, until something certain shines forth, is not absurd.

But if we cannot obtain even this, then, with the weights of the evidences on every side alike wavering, at least our doubt will seem to have avoided not the labor of inquiring but the rashness of asserting — so that whoever is already rightly certain may deign to teach me, but whoever had been made certain not by the authority of the divine word nor of clear reason, but by his own presumption, may not disdain to doubt along with me.

And first let us hold most firmly that the nature of the soul is neither converted into the nature of body, so that what was already soul should become body; nor into the nature of an irrational soul, so that what was the soul of a man should become that of a beast; nor into the nature of God, so that what was soul should become what God is; and that likewise in turn neither body nor irrational soul nor the substance which God is is converted and becomes a human soul. This too ought to be no less certain: that the soul is nothing but a creature of God. Wherefore, if God made the soul of man neither from body nor from irrational soul nor from Himself, it remains that He makes it either from nothing or from some spiritual, yet rational, creature.

But to be willing to demonstrate that something is made from nothing when the works are completed, in which He created all things at once, is a forced position; and whether it can be established by clear evidences, I do not know. Nor is it to be demanded of us — that which either a man is not able to comprehend, or, if he now is able, it is a wonder if he can persuade anyone of it, except one such as can, even with no man attempting to teach him, himself also understand some such thing. It is safer, therefore, in matters of this kind, to act not by human conjectures, but to search through the divine testimonies. That God, then, creates souls from angels as though from parents, no authority from the canonical books occurs to me. And still less, therefore, from the bodily elements of the world;

unless perhaps that moves someone, that in Ezekiel the prophet, when the resurrection of the dead is shown, the bodies being restored, the spirit is summoned from the four winds of heaven, by whose blowing they are made alive, so that they rise. For thus it is written: and the Lord said to me: prophesy over the spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: thus says the Lord: come from the four quarters of the winds of heaven and breathe into these dead, and let them live. And I prophesied, as the Lord commanded me, and the spirit of life entered into them, and they revived and stood upon their feet, a very great assembly.

Where it seems to me to have been prophetically signified that men would rise again not only from that field where the thing itself was shown, but from the whole globe of the earth, and that this was figured by the blowing of the four parts of the world. For neither was that blowing from the body of the Lord the very substance of the Holy Spirit, when He breathed and said: receive the Holy Spirit; but assuredly it was signified that the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him too in the same way as that breath itself proceeded from His body. But because the world is not so joined to God unto the unity of a person as that flesh is to His Word, the only-begotten Son, we cannot say that the soul is thus from the substance of God as that breath was made from the nature of the world by the four winds.

But nevertheless I think that it was one thing and signified another — which can rightly be understood by the example of the breath proceeding from the body of the Lord — even if the prophet Ezekiel in that place foresaw, by a figured revelation, not the resurrection of the flesh, such as it will properly be, but the unhoped-for restoration of a despairing people through the Spirit of the Lord, who filled the globe of the earth. Let us now, then, see to which opinion rather the divine testimonies lend support: to that by which it is said that God made one soul and gave it to the first man, from which He might make the rest, just as from his body the rest of men's bodies; or to that by which it is said that He makes single souls for single persons, as He made the one for him, not the rest from that one. For that which He says through Isaiah:

I have made every breath — since what follows sufficiently shows that He says this concerning the soul — can be taken in either sense. For whether from the one soul of the first man, or from some secret of His own, He Himself without doubt makes all souls. And that which is written: who fashioned their hearts singly — if by the name of hearts we should wish to understand souls — neither does this repugn either of the two views about which we are now in doubt. For whether from that one which He breathed into the face of the first man He assuredly fashions single souls, just as also bodies; or whether He both fashions single souls and sends them, or fashions them in those very persons into whom He sends them — although this does not seem to me to be said except from the fact that our souls are formed to the image of God by renewal through grace.

Whence the Apostle says: for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not of works, lest perhaps anyone be exalted. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works. For we cannot understand our bodies to have been created or fashioned through this grace of faith, but rather as it was said in the Psalm: create in me a clean heart, O God. Hence too, I think, is that: who fashioned the spirit of man within him; as though it were one thing to send a soul once made, and another to make it in the man himself, that is, to remake and renew it.

But even if we understand this not concerning the grace by which we are renewed, but concerning the nature in which we are born, it can be drawn to either opinion: because either from that one soul of the first man He Himself fashions in the man, as it were a seed of the soul drawn off, so that it may quicken the body; or the spirit of life, not from that propagation but infused into the body from elsewhere, He Himself likewise fashions through the mortal senses of the flesh, so that the man may become a living soul. That saying indeed from the book of Wisdom, where it says: I obtained a good soul, and, since I was rather good, I came to an undefiled body, demands a more diligent consideration. For it seems rather to attest to the opinion by which souls are believed to come to bodies not by being propagated from one, but from above. Yet nevertheless, what is this:

I obtained a good soul? As though either in that fountain of souls, if there is any such, some souls were good, others not good, which by a certain lot go forth — which one is to be assigned to which man — or as though God makes, at the hour of those conceived or born, some good, others not good, of which each has by lot the one that has fallen to him. It is a wonder if this at least helps those who believe that souls, made elsewhere, are sent singly by God to each several body of men, and not rather those who say that souls are sent into bodies according to the merits of the works they did before the body. For according to what could some be thought to come to bodies good, others not good, except according to their own works?

For it is not according to the nature in which they are made by Him who makes all natures good. But far be it that we should contradict the Apostle, who says that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil, whence he confirms that it could not be said of them from works, but from Him who calls: the elder shall serve the younger — when he was treating of the twins still situated in Rebecca's womb. Let us therefore set aside for a little this testimony from the book of Wisdom; for those are not to be neglected — whether they err or are truly wise — who think this was said specially and singularly concerning that soul of the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

And this, if it be necessary, we shall afterward consider what its meaning is, so that, if it cannot be suited to Christ, we may inquire in what way we ought to take it, lest we come against the apostolic faith by thinking that souls have some merits of their works before they begin to live in bodies. Now let us see in what way it was said: you will take away their spirit, and they will fail and be turned into their dust. You will send forth your spirit, and they will be created; and you will renew the face of the earth. For those who suppose that souls are created from parents like bodies, this seems to sound in their favor, when it is thus understood: that He called it their spirit for this reason, because men received it from men;

which, when they have died, cannot be restored to them by men, so that they may rise again, because it is not, as when they were born, drawn from parents anew, but God will restore it, who raises the dead. And through this He called the same spirit theirs when they die, but God's when they rise. This those who assert that souls come not from parents but by God's sending can, according to their own opinion, understand thus: that He called the spirit theirs when they die, because it was in them and goes out from them, but God's when they rise, because it is sent by Him, restored by Him. Accordingly this testimony too opposes neither of them. But I indeed judge it better understood concerning the grace of God, by which we are inwardly renewed.

For from all the proud, who live according to the earthly man and presume upon their own vanity, their own spirit is in a manner taken away, when they put off the old man and are made weak, so that, once pride has been driven out, they may be brought to perfection, saying to the Lord through a humble confession: Remember that we are dust; to whom it had been said, Why is the earth and ashes proud? For, beholding God's righteousness through the eye of faith, so as not to wish to establish their own, they despise their very selves, as Job says, and they melt away and count themselves earth and ashes; for this is the meaning of, And they shall be turned into their own dust. But having received the Spirit of God they say: Yet now not I live, but Christ lives in me.