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On the Soul and Its Origin

St. Augustine of Hippo

4h 46m read
Post-Nicene

Four books occasioned by the writings of Vincentius Victor on the soul, defending Augustine's reserve about the mode of the soul's origin while refuting Victor's Pelagian and materialist errors.

Table of Contents

1Extract from Augustin’s Retractations2Advertisement to the Reader on the Following Treatise1Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin1Renatus Had Done Him a Kindness by Sending Him the Books Which Had Been Addressed to Him2He Receives with a Kindly and Patient Feeling the Books of a Young and Inexperienced Man Who Wrote Against Him in a Tone of Arrogance. Vincentius Victor Converted from the Sect of the Rogatians3The Eloquence of Vincentius, Its Dangers and Its Tolerableness4The Errors Contained in the Books of Vincentius Victor. He Says that the Soul Comes from God, But Was Not Made Either Out of Nothing or Out of Any Created Thing5Another of Victor’s Errors, that the Soul is Corporeal6Another Error Out of His Second Book, to the Effect, that the Soul Deserved to Be Polluted by the Body7Victor Entangles Himself in an Exceedingly Difficult Question. God’s Foreknowledge is No Cause of Sin8Victor’s Erroneous Opinion, that the Soul Deserved to Become Sinful9Victor Utterly Unable to Explain How the Sinless Soul Deserved to Be Made Sinful10Another Error of Victor’s, that Infants Dying Unbaptized May Attain to the Kingdom of Heaven. Another, that the Sacrifice of the Body of Christ Must Be Offered for Infants Who Die Before They are Baptized11Martyrdom for Christ Supplies the Place of Baptism. The Faith of the Thief Who Was Crucified Along with Christ Taken as Martyrdom and Hence for Baptism12Dinocrates, Brother of the Martyr St. Perpetua, is Said to Have Been Delivered from the State of Condemnation by the Prayers of the Saint13The Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ Will Not Avail for Unbaptized Persons, and Can Not Be Offered for the Majority of Those Who Die Unbaptized14Victor’s Dilemma: He Must Either Say All Infants are Saved, or Else God Slays the Innocent15God Does Not Judge Any One for What He Might Have Done If His Life Had Been Prolonged, But Simply for the Deeds He Actually Commits16Difficulty in the Opinion Which Maintains that Souls are Not by Propagation17He Shows that the Passages of Scripture Adduced by Victor Do Not Prove that Souls are Made by God in Such a Way as Not to Be Derived by Propagation: First Passage18By ‘Breath’ Is Signified Sometimes the Holy Spirit19The Meaning of ‘Breath’ In Scripture20Other Ways of Taking the Passage21The Second Passage Quoted by Victor22Victor’s Third Quotation23His Fourth Quotation24Whether or No the Soul is Derived by Natural Descent (Ex Traduce), His Cited Passages Fail to Show25Just as the Mother Knows Not Whence Comes Her Child Within Her, So We Know Not Whence Comes the Soul26The Fifth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor27Augustin Did Not Venture to Define Anything About the Propagation of the Soul28A Natural Figure of Speech Must Not Be Literally Pressed29The Sixth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor30The Danger of Arguing from Silence31The Argument of the Apollinarians to Prove that Christ Was Without the Human Soul of This Same Sort32The Self-Contradiction of Victor as to the Origin of the Soul33Augustin Has No Objection to the Opinion About the Propagation of Souls Being Refuted, and that About Their Insufflation Being Maintained34The Mistakes Which Must Be Avoided by Those Who Say that Men’s Souls are Not Derived from Their Parents, But are Afresh Inbreathed by God in Every Instance35Conclusion2Book II1Depraved Eloquence an Injurious Accomplishment2He Asks What the Great Knowledge is that Victor Imparts3The Difference Between the Senses of the Body and Soul4To Believe the Soul is a Part of God is Blasphemy5In What Sense Created Beings are Out of God6Shall God’s Nature Be Mutable, Sinful, Impious, Even Eternally Damned7To Think the Soul Corporeal an Error8The Thirst of the Rich Man in Hell Does Not Prove the Soul to Be Corporeal9How Could the Incorporeal God Breathe Out of Himself a Corporeal Substance?10Children May Be Found of Like or of Unlike Dispositions with Their Parents11Victor Implies that the Soul Had a ‘State’ And ‘Merit’ Before Incarnation12Chapter 12 [VIII.]—How Did the Soul Deserve to Be Incarnated?13Victor Teaches that God Thwarts His Own Predestination14Victor Sends Those Infants Who Die Unbaptized to Paradise and the Heavenly Mansions, But Not to the Kingdom of Heaven15Victor ‘Decides’ That Oblations Should Be Offered Up for Those Who Die Unbaptized16Victor Promises to the Unbaptized Paradise After Their Death, and the Kingdom of Heaven After Their Resurrection, Although He Admits that This Opposes Christ’s Statement17Disobedient Compassion and Compassionate Disobedience Reprobated. Martyrdom in Lieu of Baptism18Chapter 18 [XIII.]—Victor’s Dilemma and Fall.19Chapter 19 [XIV.]—Victor Relies on Ambiguous Scriptures.20Victor Quotes Scriptures for Their Silence, and Neglects the Biblical Usage21Chapter 21 [XV.]—Victor’s Perplexity and Failure.22Peter’s Responsibility in the Case of Victor23Who They are that are Not Injured by Reading Injurious Books3Book III1Chapter 1 [I.]—Augustin’s Purpose in Writing.2Why Victor Assumed the Name of Vincentius. The Names of Evil Men Ought Never to Be Assumed by Other Persons3He Enumerates the Errors Which He Desires to Have Amended in the Books of Vincentius Victor. The First Error4Victor’s Simile to Show that God Can Create by Breathing Without Impartation of His Substance5Examination of Victor’s Simile: Does Man Give Out Nothing by Breathing?6The Simile Reformed in Accordance with Truth7Victor Apparently Gives the Creative Breath to Man Also8Victor’s Second Error. (See Above in Book I. 26 [XVI.].)9His Third Error. (See Above in Book II. 11 [VII.].)10His Fourth Error. (See Above in Book I. 6 [VI.] and Book II. 11 [VII.].)11His Fifth Error. (See Above in Book I. 8 [VIII.] and Book II. 12 [VIII.].)12His Sixth Error. (See Above in Book I. 10-12 [IX., X.], and in Book II. 13, 14 [IX., X.].)13His Seventh Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)14His Eighth Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)15His Ninth Error. (See Above in Book II. 14 [X.].)16God Rules Everywhere: and Yet the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ May Not Be Everywhere17Where the Kingdom of God May Be Understood to Be18His Tenth Error. (See Above in Book I. 13 [XI.] and Book II. 15 [XI.])19His Eleventh Error. (See Above in Book I. 15 [XII.] and Book II. 16.)20Augustin Calls on Victor to Correct His Errors. (See Above in Book II. 22 [XVI.].)21Augustin Compliments Victor’s Talents and Diligence22A Summary Recapitulation of the Errors of Victor23Obstinacy Makes the Heretic4Book IV1The Personal Character of This Book2The Points Which Victor Thought Blameworthy in Augustin3How Much Do We Know of the Nature of the Body?4Is the Question of Breath One that Concerns the Soul, or Body, or What?5Chapter 5 [IV.]—God Alone Can Teach Whence Souls Come.6Questions About the Nature of the Body are Sufficiently Mysterious, and Yet Not Higher Than Those of the Soul7We Often Need More Teaching as to What is Most Intimately Ours Than as to What is Further from Us8We Have No Memory of Our Creation9Our Ignorance of Ourselves Illustrated by the Remarkable Memory of One Simplicius10The Fidelity of Memory; The Unsearchable Treasure of Memory; The Powers of a Man’s Understanding Sufficiently Understood by None11The Apostle Peter Told No Lie, When He Said He Was Ready to Lay Down His Life for the Lord, But Only Was Ignorant of His Will12The Apostle Paul Could Know the Third Heaven and Paradise, But Not Whether He Was in the Body or Not13In What Sense the Holy Ghost is Said to Make Intercession for Us14It is More Excellent to Know That the Flesh Will Rise Again and Live for Evermore, Than to Learn Whatever Scientific Men Have Been Able to Teach Us Concerning Its Nature15We Must Not Be Wise Above What is Written16Ignorance is Better Than Error. Predestination to Eternal Life, and Predestination to Eternal Death17A Twofold Question to Be Treated Concerning the Soul; Is It ‘Body’? and is It ‘Spirit’? What Body is18The First Question, Whether the Soul is Corporeal; Breath and Wind, Nothing Else Than Air in Motion19Chapter 19 [XIII.]—Whether the Soul is a Spirit.20The Body Does Not Receive God’s Image21Recognition and Form Belong to Souls as Well as Bodies22Names Do Not Imply Corporeity23Figurative Speech Must Not Be Taken Literally24Abraham’s Bosom—What It Means25The Disembodied Soul May Think of Itself Under a Bodily Form26St. Perpetua Seemed to Herself, in Some Dreams, to Have Been Turned into a Man, and Then Have Wrestled with a Certain Egyptian27Is the Soul Wounded When the Body is Wounded?28Is the Soul Deformed by the Body’s Imperfections?29Does the Soul Take the Body’s Clothes Also Away with It?30Is Corporeity Necessary for Recognition?31Modes of Knowledge in the Soul Distinguished32Inconsistency of Giving the Soul All the Parts of Sex and Yet No Sex33The Phenix After Death Coming to Life Again34Prophetic Visions35Do Angels Appear to Men in Real Bodies?36He Passes on to the Second Question About the Soul, Whether It is Called Spirit37Wide and Narrow Sense of the Word 'Spirit.'38Victor’s Chief Errors Again Pointed Out39Concluding Admonition