Literal Commentary on Genesis 10.1–10.12

Now indeed the order itself seems to demand that we discuss the sin of the first man; but because Scripture narrated how the woman's flesh was made but was silent about her soul, it has made us much more intent on inquiring more carefully into this: in what way those can or cannot be refuted who believe that soul is made from the soul of a human being as flesh from flesh, the seeds of both being transmitted from parents to children. For this is what first moves them to say that God made one soul, which he breathed into the face of the man he had formed from dust, so that from it the other souls of human beings would be created, as all human flesh too came from his flesh, since Adam was formed first, then Eve. And of him it is said where he got his body and where his soul: his body, namely, from the dust of the earth, and his soul from the breath of God; but of her, though she is said to have been made from his side, it is not said that God animated her by breathing in the same way, as though both were drawn from him who had already been animated. “For either Scripture ought to have been silent,” they say, “about the man's soul too, so that we might understand, or at least believe, as best we could, that it was given by God; or, if Scripture did not keep silent about this so that we would not think that the soul too was made from the earth like man's flesh, it ought not to have been silent about the woman's soul either, so that it would not be thought to come by transmission, if this is not true. Therefore,” they say, “it was left unsaid that God breathed into her face, because it is true that the soul too was propagated from the man.” This suspicion is easily met. For if they think that 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 that the woman was animated from the man, when this is not written either? Hence, if God makes all the souls of human beings who are born as he made the first, Scripture was silent about the others because what is recorded as done in one case could also be wisely understood of the rest. So if we were to be told anything about this matter through this Scripture, it would be 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 his animated flesh, and not, as with her husband, the body from one source and the soul from another; this very thing, which was being done in another way, Scripture ought rather not to have kept silent, lest we think it was done in the same way as we had already learned about him. Therefore, since it did not say that the woman's soul was made from the man's soul, it is more fittingly believed that by this very fact it wished to warn us to think nothing here other than what we had known about the man's soul, that is, that it was given to the woman in the same way; especially since there was a place of most evident opportunity, so that, if not then, when she was formed, it would certainly have been said afterwards, where Adam says, “This now is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh.” How much more dearly and lovingly would he have said, “and soul from my soul”! Yet this does not already solve so great a question, so that we may hold one of these views as plain and certain.

Therefore we must first see whether the holy Scripture of this book, treated from its beginning, allows us to doubt about this; then perhaps we shall rightly ask either which view is to be preferred or what measure we ought to keep in the uncertainty of this matter. Certainly on the sixth day God made man to his image; where it was also said, “Male and female he made them.” Of these, we took the first, where the image of God is mentioned, as referring to the soul, and the second, where the difference of sex is mentioned, as referring to the flesh. And since so many and such weighty testimonies, which were considered and treated there, did not allow us to take it that on that same sixth day man was also formed from mud and the woman from his side, but that this was done afterwards, after those first works of God in which he created all things together, we asked what we should believe about man's soul; and after all the parts of our discussion had been examined, it seemed more credible or more acceptable to say that man's soul itself was made in those works, but the reason of his body was made in the bodily world as in a seed; so that we would not 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 man was in no way made in those works of the six days, or that only the causal reason of the human body was made and none of the soul, when it is rather according to the soul that man is to the image of God; or certainly, even if not against the plain words of Scripture, yet harshly and unacceptably, to say either that the reason of the human soul was made in that spiritual creature which had been created only for this purpose, when that very creature in which this reason was said to be made is not mentioned among the works of God, or that the reason of the soul was made in some creature mentioned in those works (as in men who already exist the reason of begetting children lies hidden, already made), and so believe the soul to be the daughter either of angels or, what is more unacceptable, of some bodily element.

But now, if the woman is asserted to have received a soul not from the man but, like him, made by God, because God makes souls one by one for each person, then the woman's soul had not been made in those first works; or if a general reason of all souls had been made, as the reason of begetting is in men, we return to that hard and troublesome view that we should say that human souls are the daughters either of angels or, what is most unworthy, of the bodily heaven, or even of some lower element. And therefore we must see, though the truth is hidden, what at least can be said more acceptably: whether what I have just said, or that in those first works of God one soul of the first man was made, from whose stock all the souls of human beings would be created, or that new souls are made from time to time, of which not even a reason was made beforehand in those first works of God's six days. Of these three, the first two do not conflict with those first foundings, where all things were created together. 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 created by God when they are given to individual human beings, as bodies are from human parents; or whether not the reason of the soul, as the reason of offspring is in a parent, but the soul itself was wholly made when the day was made, like the day itself, like heaven and earth and the lights of heaven, it is fittingly said, “God made man to his image.” But how this third view does not conflict with the statement by which man is taken to have been made on the sixth day to the image of God and created visibly after the seventh day cannot be seen so easily. For if we say that new souls are made, neither they nor their reason having been made on that sixth day, as offspring is in a parent, along with those works, completed and begun, from which God rested on the seventh day, we must beware lest Scripture commend so carefully in vain that God completed in six days all his works, which he made very good, if he was still going to create some natures of which he did not make there either the natures themselves or their reasons causally; unless it is understood that he has in himself the reason for making souls one by one and giving them to each person as they are born, and did not found it in any creature; but that, since the soul is not a creature of another kind 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 things which he did not complete then. For he had already then made the soul, such as he now makes souls; and therefore he does not now make some new kind of creature which he did not create then among his completed works; nor is this working of his contrary to those causal reasons of future things which he then placed in the universe, but rather according to them, since it is fitting that such souls as he now makes and puts in should be put into human bodies, whose propagation from those first works extends in continuous succession. Therefore, no longer fearing that we may seem to think against the words of this book written about that first founding of the six days, whichever of these three views prevails by probability, let us undertake a more careful treatment of this question, as far as God helps, to see whether perhaps it may be possible, if not to arrive at a clear view on this matter, about which there should be no further doubt, at least at one so acceptable that it is not absurd to hold it until something certain becomes clear. But if we cannot do even this, the weights of evidence on every side swaying equally, at least our doubt will not seem to have avoided the labor of inquiring, but the rashness of affirming; so that if anyone is already rightly certain, he may deign to teach me, but if anyone has been made certain not by the authority of divine speech or of clear reason but by his own presumption, he may not disdain to doubt with me.

And first let us hold most firmly that the nature of the soul is not turned into the nature of body, so that what was a soul becomes a body; nor into the nature of an irrational soul, so that what was the soul of a man becomes that of a beast; nor into the nature of God, so that what was a soul becomes what God is; and so, conversely, that neither body nor irrational soul nor the substance by which God is God is turned into and becomes a human soul. This too should be no less certain, that the soul is nothing but a creature of God. Therefore, if God made man's soul 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 try to show that something is made from nothing after the completion of the works in which he created all things together is forced, and whether it can be established by clear evidence I do not know. Nor is it to be demanded of us what man either cannot grasp or, if he can, it would be strange if he could persuade anyone of it, except someone who could understand such a thing himself even with no man trying to teach him. It is safer, then, not to deal with such matters by human conjectures, but to search the divine testimonies.

That God creates souls from angels as from parents, then, no authority from the canonical books occurs to me. Much less, then, from the bodily elements of the world; unless perhaps one is moved by the fact that in the prophet Ezekiel, when the resurrection of the dead is shown, after the bodies have been restored, the spirit is called from the four winds of heaven, by whose breathing they are brought to life so as to rise. For it is written thus: “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 lived again and stood upon their feet, a very great assembly.” Here, it seems to me, it is prophetically signified that men will rise not only from that plain where the thing itself was shown, but from the whole world, and that this was prefigured by the breath of the four quarters of the world. For neither was that breath from the Lord's body the substance of the Holy Spirit when he breathed and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; but it was certainly signified that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him in the way that the breath itself proceeded from his body. But since the world is not joined to God into unity of person as that flesh was joined to his Word, his only-begotten Son, we cannot say that the soul is from the substance of God in the way that that breath from the four winds was made from the nature of the world; but still I think that that breath was one thing and signified another, which can rightly be understood from the example of the breath proceeding from the Lord's body; even if the prophet Ezekiel in that place foresaw in figurative revelation not the resurrection of the flesh as it will properly be, but the unexpected restoration of a despairing people through the Spirit of the Lord, who has filled the whole world.

Let us see now, then, which view the divine testimonies rather support: the one by which it is said that God made one soul and gave it to the first man, from which he would make the others, as the other human bodies from his body; or the one by which it is said that he makes souls one by one for each person, as he made one for him, not the others from it. For what he says through Isaiah, “Every breath I have made,” since what follows shows clearly enough that he says this of the soul, can be taken either way. For whether from the one soul of the first man or from some secret source of his own, he himself without doubt makes all souls. And what is written, “who formed their hearts one by one,” if we wish to understand souls by the word hearts, does not conflict with either of the two views we are now in doubt about. For whether from that one which he breathed into the face of the first man he himself certainly forms them one by one, as he does bodies too, or whether he forms them one by one and sends them, or forms them in the very persons to whom he has sent them; although this does not seem to me to have been said except from the fact that through grace our souls are formed by renewal to the image of God. Hence the apostle says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone be lifted up. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” For we cannot understand that our bodies were created or formed through this grace of faith; but it is as was said in the psalm, “Create a clean heart in me, O God.” From this too, I think, comes the saying, “who formed the spirit of man within him,” as though it is one thing to send a soul already made, and another to make it within the man himself, that is, to remake and renew it. But even if we understand this not of the grace in which we are renewed but of the nature in which we are born, it can be applied to either view, because either he himself forms in the man, so that it may give life to the body, the seed, as it were, of the soul drawn from that one soul of the first man, or he likewise forms, through the mortal senses of the flesh, the spirit of life poured into the body not from that stock but from elsewhere, so that man becomes a living soul.

But that passage of the book of Wisdom, where it says, “I received by lot a good soul, and, being rather good, I came into an undefiled body,” calls for more careful consideration. For it seems rather to support the opinion by which souls are believed not to be propagated from one, but to come to bodies from above. But what is meant by “I received by lot a good soul”? As though either in that fountain of souls, if there is one, some souls are good and others not good, which go out by a kind of lot as to which is given to which person; or God makes some good and others not good at the hour of conception or birth, and each has by lot whichever fell to him. It would be strange if this helped even those who believe that souls made elsewhere are sent by God one by one into each human body, and not rather those who say that souls are sent into bodies according to the merits of works they did before the body. For according to what can some be thought good and others not good when they come to bodies, except according to their works? For it is not according to nature, in which they are made by him who makes all natures good. But far be it from us to contradict the apostle, who says that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil, from which he confirms that “The elder will serve the younger” could not be said from works but from him who calls, when he was dealing with the twins still in Rebecca's womb. Let us set aside a little, then, this testimony from the book of Wisdom; for those are not to be neglected, whether they err or are right, who think this was said specially and uniquely of the soul of the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. What this means we will consider afterwards, if necessary, so that, if it cannot fit Christ, we may ask how we ought to take it, so as not to go against the apostolic faith by thinking that souls have some merits of their own works before they begin to live in bodies.

Now let us see how it was said, “You will take away their spirit, and they will fail and return to their dust. You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created; and you will renew the face of the earth.” For this seems to sound in favor of those who think that souls are created from parents like bodies, when it is understood thus: that he said “their spirit” because men received it from men; and when they have died, it cannot be given back to them by men so that they may rise, because it is not drawn from parents again as when they were born, but God will give it back, who raises the dead. And therefore he called the same spirit theirs when they die, but God's when they rise. But those who assert that souls come not from parents but by God's sending can understand this in favor of their own opinion, 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 and given back by him. So this testimony too opposes neither of them. But I think this is better understood of the grace of God, by which we are renewed inwardly. For from all the proud, who live according to the earthly man and presume on their own vanity, their own spirit is in a way taken away when they strip off the old man and are weakened, so that, pride driven out, they may be made perfect, saying to the Lord in humble confession, “Remember that we are dust,” those to whom it had been said, “Why is earth and ashes proud?” For, beholding with the eye of faith the righteousness of God, so that they do not wish to establish their own, they despise themselves, as Job says, and waste away and regard themselves as earth and ashes; for this is “and they will return to their dust.” But having received the Spirit of God, they say, “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” So the face of the earth is renewed through the grace of the new covenant, by the great number of the saints.

That passage too which is written in Ecclesiastes, “And let the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return to God who gave it,” supports neither view against the other, but stands between them. For when these say that it is proved by this that the soul is given not by parents but by God, because, when the dust has returned to its earth, that is, the flesh which was made from dust, the spirit returns to God who gave it, the others answer: “Certainly it is so. For the spirit returns to God, who gave it to the first man when he breathed into his face, when the dust, that is, the human body, has returned to its earth, from which it was first made. For the spirit was not going to return to the parents, although it was created from there, from that one which was given to the first man, just as the flesh itself does not return after death to the parents from whom it was certainly propagated. Just as, then, the flesh does not return to the human beings from whom it was created, but to the earth from which it was formed for the first man, so the spirit too does not return to the human beings from whom it was transmitted, but to God, by whom it was given to that first flesh.” By this testimony we are indeed sufficiently reminded that God made from nothing the soul which he gave to the first man, not from some creature already made as the body was from earth; and therefore, when it returns, it has nowhere to return to except to its author, who gave it, not to the creature from which it was made, as the body returns to the earth. For there is no creature from which it was made, because it was made from nothing, and therefore the soul that returns returns to its maker, by whom it was made from nothing. For not all return, since there are those of whom it is said, “a spirit that goes and does not return.”

Therefore it is indeed difficult to gather all the testimonies of the holy Scriptures on this matter; and even if it could be done, so that they were not only cited but also treated, they would run to a great length of discourse; but still, unless something is brought forward as certain as the things brought forward which show that God made the soul or that he gave it to the first man, I do not know how this question may be solved by the testimony of divine speech. For if it were written that God breathed likewise into the face of the woman when she was formed and she became a living soul, much light would indeed be added, by which we would believe that a soul is given to each formed human flesh not from the parents; yet it would still be awaited what properly holds in offspring, which is the usual way for us of man from man. For the first woman was made in another way, and so it could still be said that the soul was given by God to Eve not from Adam because she did not arise from him as offspring. But if Scripture recorded of the human being who was first born of them that his soul was not drawn from his parents but given from above, that would then have to be understood of the rest too, even with Scripture silent.

Now, then, let us consider also whether this passage confirms neither view but can be fitted to both: “Through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned”; and a little later: “As through the trespass of one, to all men unto condemnation, so also through the justification of one, to all men unto justification of life. For as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one many will be made righteous.” From these words of the apostle, those who defend the propagation of souls try to build up their view thus: “If sin or sinner can be understood according to the flesh alone,” they say, “we are not forced by these words to believe that the soul is from the parents; but if, though through the allurement of the flesh, it is still only the soul that sins, how is the saying ‘in whom all sinned’ to be taken, if the soul too was not propagated from Adam like the flesh? Or how were they made sinners through his disobedience, if they were in him only according to the flesh and not also according to the soul? For we must beware lest either God seem to be the author of sin, if he gives a soul to flesh in which it must necessarily sin, or there could be a soul, apart from that of Christ himself, for whose deliverance from sin Christian grace is not necessary, because it did not sin in Adam, if it was said that all sinned in him only according to the flesh which was created from him, and not also according to the soul: which is so contrary to the church's faith that parents run even with little children and infants to receive the grace of holy baptism; and if in them the bond of sin that is loosed is only that of the flesh and not also that of the soul, it is rightly asked what harm it would do them if at that age they left the body without baptism. For if by this sacrament their body is provided for and not their soul, the dead too ought to be baptized; but since we see that the church universally holds to this, that people run with the living and help the living, lest, when they have died, nothing can be done that would benefit them, we do not see what else can be understood but that each little child is nothing but Adam in both body and soul, and therefore Christ's grace is necessary for him. For that age in itself has done nothing either good or evil; so there the soul is most innocent, if it was not propagated from Adam. Hence whoever holds this view of the soul and can show how it can justly go into condemnation if it has left the body without baptism is to be wondered at.”

Most truly indeed and most truthfully is it written, “The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh”; yet I think that every learned and unlearned person would not doubt that the flesh can desire nothing without the soul. And therefore the cause of carnal desire itself is not in the soul alone, but much less is it in the flesh alone. For it arises from both: from the soul, because without it no delight is felt; from the flesh, because without it carnal delight is not felt. So by the flesh desiring against the spirit the apostle means without doubt the carnal delight which the spirit has from the flesh and with the flesh against the delight which it has alone. For it alone has, if I am not mistaken, that longing not mixed with the pleasure of the flesh or the craving for carnal things, by which the soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord; it alone has also that of which it is told, “You have desired wisdom: keep the commandment, and the Lord will provide it for you.” For when the spirit commands the members of the body to serve this longing by which it alone is kindled, as when a book is taken up, when something is written, read, discussed, heard, when, finally, bread is broken for the hungry and the other duties of humanity and mercy are performed, the flesh shows obedience, it does not stir up desire. When something which delights the same soul according to the flesh opposes these and similar good desires, by which the soul alone desires, then the flesh is said to desire against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. For it is called flesh in that which the soul does according to it when he says, “The flesh desires,” in the same way as it is said, “The ear hears and the eye sees”; for who does not know that it is rather the soul that hears through the ear and sees through the eye? So too we speak when we say, “Your hand helped a man,” when something is given with outstretched hand to help someone. And if of the very eye of faith, to which it belongs to believe what is not seen through the flesh, it is said, “All flesh will see the salvation of God,” certainly only of the soul, by which the flesh lives (since even to see Christ piously through our flesh itself, that is, the form with which he was clothed for us, belongs not to the desire but to the service of the flesh, lest anyone should want to take “All flesh will see the salvation of God” in that way): how much more fittingly is the flesh said to desire, when the soul not only gives animal life to the flesh, but also desires something according to the flesh itself, which it is not in its power not to desire as long as sin is in the members, that is, a certain violent allurement of the flesh in the body of this death, coming from the punishment of that sin from which we draw our descent, according to which all before grace are children of wrath. Against this sin those established under grace fight, not so that it may not be in their body as long as it is so mortal that it is rightly called even dead, but so that it may not reign. And it does not reign when its desires, that is, the things desired according to the flesh against the spirit, are not obeyed. So does the apostle say, “Let there be no sin in your mortal body”? For he knew that the delight of sin was in it, which he calls sin, nature having been depraved, that is, by the first transgression; but he says, “Let not sin reign in your mortal body so as to obey its desires, and do not present your members as weapons of wickedness to sin.”