Literal Commentary on Genesis 10.13–10.24

According to this view we neither say the utterly absurd thing that the flesh desires without the soul, nor agree with the Manichees, who, seeing that the flesh cannot desire without a soul, thought that the flesh has some other soul of its own from another nature opposed to God, from which it desires against the spirit. Nor are we forced to say that Christ's grace is not necessary for some soul, when it is said to us: “What has the soul of an infant deserved, that it should be harmful to it to leave the body without having received the sacrament of Christian baptism, if it has neither committed any sin of its own nor comes from that soul which first sinned in Adam?” For we are not dealing with older boys, to whom some indeed are unwilling to attribute sin of their own except from the point of the fourteenth year, when they begin to reach puberty. We would rightly believe this if there were no sins except those committed with the genital members. But who would dare to affirm that thefts, lies, and perjuries are not sins, except one who wants to commit such things with impunity? Yet boyhood is full of them, although in them they do not seem to be punished as in older people, because it is hoped that as years come on, in which reason grows strong, they can better understand wholesome precepts and more willingly obey them. But we are not dealing now with boys, who, if truth and justice oppose their carnal and childish will, whether of body or of mind, resist with what strength of words and deeds they can; for what? Only for falsehood and wickedness, which will seem to them to support either the getting of what entices or the avoiding of what offends. We are speaking of infants; not because they are often born of adulterers; for the gifts of nature are not to be blamed in depraved morals, nor ought grain not to have sprouted because a thief's hand sowed it. Or will their wickedness harm the parents themselves, if they amend by turning to God? How much less the children, if they live rightly!

But that age raises a weighty question: since the soul of an infant has no sin from its own choice of will, it is asked how it can be justified through the obedience of that one man, if it is not guilty through the disobedience of the other one. This is the voice of those who hold that human souls are created from human parents, not indeed except by God the Creator, but in the way bodies are too. For parents do not create these either, but he who says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” To them it is answered that God gives new souls one by one to human bodies for this purpose: that in the flesh of sin, coming from original sin, by living rightly and subduing carnal desires under God's grace, they may acquire merit, by which, together with the body itself, they may be transferred to a better state at the time of the resurrection and live in Christ for ever with the angels; but that it is necessary that, when they are wonderfully fitted to earthly and mortal members, and above all members propagated from the flesh of sin, so that they may first give them life and later, as age comes on, also rule them, they are weighed down, as it were, by forgetfulness. If this forgetfulness were in some way beyond digesting, it would be attributed to the Creator; but since the soul, gradually recovering from the torpor of this forgetfulness, can turn to its God and deserve his mercy and truth, first by the very piety of its turning and then by perseverance in keeping his command, what harm is it to it to be plunged for a little while in that sleep, as it were, from which, gradually waking into the light of understanding, for which the rational soul was made, it can choose a good life by a good will? This indeed it will not be able to do unless God's grace helps it through the mediator. If a man neglects this, he will be Adam not only according to the flesh but also according to the spirit; but if he takes care of it, he will be Adam only according to the flesh; and, living rightly according to the spirit, he will deserve to receive back, cleansed from the stain of sin, even what was guiltily drawn from Adam, by that change which the resurrection promises to the saints. But before, by reason of age, it can live according to the spirit, it needs the sacrament of the mediator, so that what it cannot yet do through its own faith may be done through the faith of those who love it. For by his sacrament the penalty of original sin is loosed even in infancy; and unless helped by him, even a young man will not tame carnal desire, nor, having subdued it, lay hold of the merit of eternal life except by the gift of him whom he strives to deserve. Therefore even an infant ought to be baptized while living, so that fellowship with the flesh of sin may not harm the soul, a fellowship by sharing in which it comes about that the infant's soul can think nothing according to the spirit. For this very condition weighs it down even when stripped of the body, unless, while it is in the body, it is expiated by the one sacrifice of the true priest.

“What then,” someone says, “if their own people have not seen to this, through unbelief or neglect?” This indeed can be said of older people too. For they may either die suddenly or fall ill among people where no one helps them to be baptized. “But they,” he says, “also have sins of their own, which need remission, and if these have not been forgiven, no one will rightly say that they are punished undeservedly for what they committed in their own life by their own will; but that soul, to which a certain contagion has been drawn from the flesh of sin, if it was not created from that first sinful soul, can in no way be held guilty (for it was given to the flesh not by any sin, but by the nature in which it was so made, and by God's giving); why will it be estranged from eternal life if no one has helped by baptizing the infant? Or perhaps it will do no harm? What good is it, then, to the one who is helped, if it does no harm to the one who is not helped?” What those can answer here for their cause who try to assert, according to the holy Scriptures, either from what is found in them or from what is not contrary to them, that new souls not drawn from parents are given to bodies, I confess I have not yet heard or read anywhere. Yet the case of the absent is not to be abandoned for that reason, if anything occurs to me by which it may seem to be helped. For they can still say that God, foreknowing how each soul would live if it lived longer in the body, provides the administration of the saving washing for the one whose future piety he foresees, had it come to the years capable of faith, if now, for some hidden reason, it had to be overtaken by death. It is hidden, then, and very far from human understanding, or certainly from mine, why an infant is born either to die at once or soon; but this is so hidden that it helps neither of those whose views we are now discussing. For, the opinion having been exploded by which souls are thought to be thrust into bodies according to the merits of a previous life, so that a soul that had not sinned much would seem to have deserved to be released sooner (lest we contradict the apostle, who testifies that those not yet born had done nothing good or evil), neither those who affirm the transmission of the soul can show in their favor why the death of some is hastened and that of others delayed, nor those who hold that new souls are given one by one to each. This cause, then, is hidden, and, as far as I can judge, neither supports nor opposes either side.

So those who were pressed about the deaths of infants, as to why the sacrament of baptism is necessary for all whose souls were not drawn from that one through whose disobedience many were made sinners, answer that all are indeed made sinners according to the flesh, but according to the soul only those who lived badly at a time when they could also have lived well; but that all souls, including those of infants, need the sacrament of baptism, without which it is not good to depart from this life even at that age, because the contagion of sin from the flesh of sin, by which the soul is overwhelmed when it is put into these members, will harm it after death unless, while it is still in that flesh, it is expiated by the sacrament of the mediator; and that this help is provided by God for the soul which God foreknew would have lived piously if it had lived here to the years suited to faith, a soul which for some reason known to him he both willed to be born in a body and soon took out of the body: when they answer this, what can be said against them, except that we would become uncertain of the salvation of those who, after a life well lived, have died in the peace of the church, if each is to be judged not only according to how he lived but also according to how he would have lived if he could have lived longer? For then the evil merits not only of past but also of future sins would count with God, from whose guilt not even death would free a man if it came before they were committed; and nothing would have been granted to him who was taken away lest wickedness change his understanding. For why would God, foreknowing his future wickedness, not rather judge him according to it, if he judged that the soul of an infant about to die should be helped by baptism, lest the filth shared from the body of sin harm it, because he foreknew that, if it lived, it would have lived piously and faithfully? Or can this invention be refuted the more readily because it is mine, while those who affirm that they are certain of this view perhaps bring forward other testimonies of the Scriptures or proofs of reason, by which they may remove this ambiguity, or at least show that what the apostle says does not contradict their view, when, commending with great earnestness the grace by which we are saved, he says, “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive,” and, “As through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man many will be made righteous,” and, wishing these same many sinners to be understood as all, with no exceptions, he says above of Adam, “in whom all sinned”? Hence those who hold that souls come by transmission from one believe, not absurdly, that the souls of infants cannot be set apart, both because it was said “all” and because they are helped by baptism, unless they are refuted by some manifest and clear reason which does not conflict with the holy Scriptures, or by the authority of those Scriptures themselves.

Now, then, let us see, as far as the needs of this work we have undertaken allow, what that passage is which we put off a little earlier. For it is written in the book of Wisdom: “Now I was a gifted child and received by lot a good soul; and, being rather good, I came into an undefiled body.” For while this testimony seems to help those who say that souls are not created from parents but come or descend into the body at God's sending, it again hinders their view in saying, “I received by lot a good soul,” since they doubtless believe that the souls which God sends into bodies either flow in a way like streams from one fountain or are made of equal nature, not some good or better and others not good or less good. For from where would souls be good or better, or not good or less good, except either from their conduct according to free choice of will or from the difference in the constitution of bodies, some being more and others less weighed down by the body, which is corrupted and weighs down the soul? But neither was there any action of individual souls by which their conduct might be distinguished before they came to bodies, nor could he call his soul good on account of a less burdensome body, who says, “I received by lot a good soul, and, being rather good, I came into an undefiled body.” For he said that, to the goodness by which he was good, having received by lot a good soul, there was added that he also came into an undefiled body. So he was good from some other source before he came to the body; but certainly not by difference of conduct, because there was no merit of a life lived beforehand, nor by difference of body, because he was good before he came to the body. From where, then? But for those who assert that souls are created by transmission from the soul of that transgressor, although the saying “I came into a body” does not seem to sound in their favor, the rest fits not unsuitably: having said, “Now I was a gifted child,” and explaining by what causes he was gifted, he at once added, “and I received by lot a good soul,” namely from his father's gifts or bodily constitution. Then, “being rather good,” he says, “I came into an undefiled body”: and if this is understood as the mother's body, not even the saying “I came into a body” will go against this opinion, since it is taken that he came from the father's soul and body into the mother's undefiled body, undefiled, that is, either by menstrual blood (for it is said that natural gifts are weighed down by this) or by the contamination of adultery. So these words of this book too either favor rather those who speak of the transmission of souls, or, if the others too can interpret them in their favor, they waver between both.

If we wish to take these words of the Lord according to the human creature which was taken up by the Word, there are indeed things in the same context of the reading which do not befit that excellence; above all this, that the same person who speaks these words in the same book, somewhat earlier than when he said the words we are now discussing, confessed that he was curdled in blood from the seed of a man: a manner of birth from which the virgin's childbearing is certainly foreign, since no Christian doubts that she conceived the flesh of Christ not from the seed of a man. But since in the Psalms too, where it says, “They pierced my hands and feet, they numbered all my bones; they looked and stared at me. They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots,” things which properly fit him alone, it also said there, “God, my God, look upon me; why have you forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins,” which again do not befit him, except as one who transfigures into himself the body of our lowliness, since we are members of his body; and since in the gospel itself “the child advanced in age and wisdom”; if these things too which are read around this sentence in the book of Wisdom can be fitted to the same Lord, because of the lowly form of a servant and the unity of the body of the church with its head, what is more gifted than that child, whose wisdom his elders marveled at in his twelfth year? And what is better than that soul, which, even if those who affirm the transmission of souls should win, not by contending but by proving, it will not follow that it too must be believed to have come by transmission from that transgressor, lest he too be made a sinner through that man's disobedience, he through whose one obedience many, freed from that guilt, are made righteous? And what is more undefiled than that virgin's womb, whose flesh, even if it came from the propagation of sin, nevertheless did not conceive from the propagation of sin, so that not even the body of Christ was sown in Mary's womb by that law which, set in the members of the body of death, fights against the law of the mind? This law the holy fathers who were married reined in, relaxing it only as far as was allowed for intercourse, and yet did not merely suffer its impulse as far as was allowed. So the body of Christ, though it was taken from the flesh of a woman who had been conceived from that stock of the flesh of sin, nevertheless, because it was not conceived in her in the way she had been conceived, was not itself flesh of sin, but the likeness of the flesh of sin. For he did not receive from there the guilt of dying, which appears in the involuntary motion of the flesh, though overcome by the will, against which the spirit desires; but he received from there not what would suffice for the contagion of the transgression, but what would suffice for paying an undue death and showing the promised resurrection: of which the one would avail for us not to fear, the other to hope. Finally, if I am asked from where Jesus Christ received his soul, I would rather hear better and more learned men on this; but still, according to my capacity, I would more willingly answer, “from where Adam did, rather than from Adam.” For if the dust taken from the earth, in which no man had worked, deserved to be animated by God, how much more did the body taken from flesh in which likewise no man had worked receive by lot a good soul, since there one was raised up who was going to fall, here one descended who was going to lift up! And perhaps it says, “I received by lot a good soul” (if indeed it ought to be understood of him) because things given by lot are usually given by God. Or, what may be said confidently, lest even that soul be thought to have been raised to so high a summit by some preceding works, so that with it the Word might become flesh and dwell among us, the word “lot” was added to remove any suspicion of preceding merits.

There is in the letter entitled To the Hebrews a passage most worthy of careful consideration. For when, through Melchizedek, in whom a figure of this future reality had gone before, he was distinguishing the priesthood of Christ from the priesthood of Levi, he says: “See, then, how great this man is, to whom even Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the first fruits. And those of the sons of Levi who receive the priesthood have a command to take tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brothers, though these too came out of the loins of Abraham. But he who is not of their descent tithed Abraham and blessed him who had the promise. And without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater. And here mortal men receive tithes, but there one of whom it is testified that he lives. And, as one may say, through Abraham even Levi, who receives tithes, was tithed; for he was still in the loins of his father.” If, then, this too serves to show how far the priesthood of Christ surpasses the Levitical priesthood, that Christ the priest was prefigured by him who tithed Abraham, in whom Levi himself was also tithed, surely Christ was not tithed by him. But if Levi was tithed because he was in the loins of Abraham, Christ was not tithed because he was not in the loins of Abraham. Further, if we take it that Levi was in Abraham not according to the soul but only according to the flesh, Christ too was there, because Christ too according to the flesh is of the seed of Abraham; and so he too was tithed. What then is the meaning of what is brought forward as a great difference between the priesthood of Christ and the priesthood of Levi, that Levi was tithed by Melchizedek when he was in the loins of Abraham, where Christ also was, so that they were tithed equally, unless we must understand that in some way Christ was not there? But who would deny that he was there according to the flesh? Therefore he was not there according to the soul. So the soul of Christ is not from the transmission of Adam's transgression; otherwise it too would have been there.

Here those who defend the transmission of souls come forward and say that their view is confirmed, if it is clear that Levi was in the loins of Abraham also according to the soul, in whom Melchizedek tithed him, so that Christ can be distinguished from him in this tithing: since Christ was not tithed and yet was in the loins of Abraham according to the flesh, it remains that he was not there according to the soul, and so it follows that Levi was there according to the soul. This does not concern me much, since I am still more ready to hear both sides compared than to confirm the view of either. Meanwhile I wished to set apart Christ's soul from the origin of this transmission by this testimony. The others will perhaps find what to answer them on the rest, and they will say, what moves me too not a little, that although no man's soul is in the loins of his father, still Levi, set in the loins of Abraham according to the flesh, was tithed, and Christ, set there according to the flesh, was not tithed. For Levi was there according to that seminal reason by which he was to come into his mother through intercourse, a reason according to which Christ's flesh was not there, although according to it Mary's flesh was there. Therefore neither Levi nor Christ was in the loins of Abraham according to the soul, but according to the flesh both Levi and Christ; but Levi according to carnal concupiscence, Christ according to bodily substance alone. For since in seed there is both visible bulk and invisible reason, both ran from Abraham, or even from Adam himself, to the body of Mary, because it too was conceived and came forth in that way. But Christ took the visible substance of flesh from the flesh of the virgin; but the reason of his conception came not from a man's seed but in a far different way and from above. So according to what he received from his mother he too was in the loins of Abraham. He, then, was tithed in Abraham who, though only according to the flesh, was in his loins in the way that Abraham himself was in his father's, that is, who was born of his father Abraham in the way that Abraham was born of his own father, namely through the law in the members fighting against the law of the mind and the invisible concupiscence, although the chaste and good laws of marriage do not allow it to prevail except as far as they can provide from it for continuing the race. But he was not tithed there whose flesh drew from there not the fever of the wound but the material of the medicine. For since the tithing itself served to prefigure the medicine, what was tithed in Abraham's flesh was what was being healed, not that by which it was healed. For the same flesh, not only of Abraham but of the first and earthly man himself, had at once both the wound of the transgression and the medicine of the wound: the wound of the transgression in the law of the members fighting against the law of the mind, which is transcribed, as it were, by the seminal reason through all the flesh propagated from there; and the medicine of the wound in that which was taken from there from the virgin, without the work of concupiscence, in bodily material alone, by the divine reason of conception and formation, for the sake of sharing death without iniquity and of an example of resurrection without falsehood. Therefore I think that even those who defend the transmission of souls agree that the soul of Christ is not from the transmission of that first transgressing soul (for they hold that the seed of the soul too is transmitted through the seed of the father in intercourse, a kind of conception from which Christ is foreign), and that if he had been in Abraham according to the soul, he too would have been tithed; but Scripture testifies that he was not tithed, and by this too distinguishes his priesthood from the Levitical priesthood.

Or will they perhaps say: “As he could be there according to the flesh and not be tithed, why could he not be there according to the soul without tithing?” Here the answer is: because surely not even those who think the soul is a body, among whom are chiefly those who think it is created from the parents, have supposed that the simple substance of the soul is increased by bodily growth. So in the seed of the body there can be an invisible force which works numbers in a bodiless way, to be distinguished not by the eyes but by the understanding from that bulk which is perceived by sight and touch. And the very size of the human body, which certainly exceeds incomparably the measure of the seed, shows clearly enough that something can be taken from there which does not have that seminal force but only bodily substance, which was taken up and formed by God into the flesh of Christ, not from the propagation of those who have intercourse. But who could affirm this of the soul, that it has both, the manifest material of the seed and the hidden reason of the seed? But why should I labor over a matter which perhaps cannot be put across in words to anyone, unless his mind is so great and such that it can fly ahead of the speaker's effort and not wait for everything from speech? So I will sum up briefly: if it could happen with the soul too (as perhaps was understood when we spoke of the flesh), the soul of Christ is from transmission in such a way that it did not draw with it the stain of the transgression; but if it could not come from there without that guilt, it does not come from there. As to the coming of the other souls, whether they are from the parents or from above, let those prevail who can. I still waver between both, and am moved sometimes this way and sometimes that; holding fast only to this, that I do not believe the soul to be a body or any bodily quality or arrangement, if it is to be so called, which the Greeks call harmonia, nor, with God helping my mind, am I confident that I will believe it, whoever chatters about such things.

There is another testimony not to be neglected, which those who believe that souls come from above can bring forward in their favor, the Lord himself saying, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.” “What could state more definitely than this,” they say, “that the soul cannot be born of the flesh? For what else is the soul but a spirit of life, created, of course, not creator?” Against them the others say: “What else do we hold, who say flesh from flesh, soul from soul? For man consists of both, and we hold that both come from man: flesh from the flesh of the one who acts, spirit from the spirit of the one who desires”; to say nothing for now of the fact that the Lord was speaking not of carnal generation but of spiritual regeneration.

Having treated these things, then, as far as we could for the present, I would declare all the weights of reasons and testimonies on either side equal or almost equal, were it not that the view of those who think souls are created from the parents outweighs the other on the baptism of little children. What can be answered to them about this has not yet occurred to me for the present; if God perhaps grants something later, and if he grants the ability of writing to those devoted to such matters, I will not be reluctant. Now, however, I declare beforehand that the testimony of little children is not to be despised, so as to be neglected as if refuted, if the truth is against it. For either nothing is to be asked about this matter, so that it is enough for our faith to know where we are going by living piously, even if we do not know where we have come from; or, if the rational soul is not shamelessly eager to know this too about itself, let there be no stubbornness in contending, but diligence in seeking, humility in asking, perseverance in knocking; so that, if he knows this is good for us, who certainly knows better than we what is good for us, he who gives good gifts to his children may give this too. Yet the custom of mother church in baptizing little children is by no means to be despised, nor in any way to be thought superfluous, nor would it be believed at all unless it were an apostolic tradition. For that little age too has great weight of testimony, which was the first to deserve to shed its blood for Christ.

I do indeed warn, as far as I can, any who have been taken up by this opinion, so as to believe that souls are propagated from parents, to consider themselves as much as they can and meanwhile to understand that their souls are not bodies. For there is no nearer nature, by careful inspection of which even God, who remains unchangeable above all his creation, can be thought of in a bodiless way, than that which was made to his image; and nothing is closer, or perhaps nothing follows so readily, than that, if the soul is believed to be a body, God too should be believed to be a body. For this is why those accustomed to and affected by the bodily senses are unwilling to believe that the soul is anything other than a body, lest, if it were not a body, it would be nothing; and therefore they fear all the more to believe that God is not a body, the more they fear to believe that God is nothing. For they are so carried away into fancies or phantoms of images, which thought about bodies turns over, that, when these are taken away, they dread perishing as though through emptiness. So they must paint, as it were, even justice and wisdom in their hearts with forms and colors, since they cannot think of them as bodiless; and yet, when they are moved by justice or wisdom, so as either to praise them or to do something according to them, they do not say what color, what height, what features they have seen. But of these things we have already said much elsewhere and, if God wills, we will speak where the matter seems to require it. Now, as we had begun to say, if some either do not doubt that souls come by transmission from parents, or doubt whether it is so, let them not dare to believe or say that the soul is a body, above all for the reason I gave, lest they think that God himself too is nothing other than a body, even if a most excellent one, even if of a nature of its own surpassing the rest, but still a body.