On the Soul and Its Origin 2.13–3.2

But let us come to plainer things. For when he was hemmed in by great straits—how souls are held bound by the chain of original sin if they do not derive their origin from that soul which sinned first, but the Creator breathes them, pure from all contagion and propagation of sin, into sinful flesh—so that it might not be said to him that by breathing them in thus God makes them guilty, he first tried to fortify this opinion by God’s foreknowledge, in that he has prepared redemption for them; in the sacrament of this redemption little children are baptized so that the original sin they contracted from the flesh may be washed away—as though God were amending his own deeds, because he had made them defiled when innocent. But when he came to speak of those who are not aided by such help and die before they are baptized, he says: “In this place I do not pledge myself as an authority, but conjecture something from an example. We say an account must be given of infants of this kind who, predestined to the baptism of the present life, are overtaken by death before they are reborn in Christ. For we read,” he says, “that it is written of such: ‘He was snatched away, lest wickedness should change his understanding or deceit beguile his soul. Therefore he hastened to lead him out from the midst of iniquity; for his soul was pleasing to God’; and: ‘Being made perfect in a short time, he fulfilled long times.’” Who would disdain to have this man as teacher? Would little children, then, whom people often want baptized and who die before it while people are hurrying, if they were delayed a little in this life so as to die immediately after baptism—would wickedness change their understanding and deceit beguile their soul, and, so that this might not happen to them, were they helped by being snatched away before they were baptized? In baptism itself, then, they would be changed for the worse and beguiled by deceit, if they were snatched away after baptism! O teaching to be admired and followed—or rather to be detested and cursed! But this man presumed so much on the good sense of you who were present when he read, and especially on yours, to whom he wrote and to whom he handed the books after reading them, as to trust that we would believe that what was written of the early deaths of all the saints was written of unbaptized infants—saints whom fools think badly treated if they are quickly snatched from this life and cannot reach the years that people wish for themselves as a great divine gift. And what does it mean to say that infants predestined to the baptism of the present life are overtaken by death before they are reborn in Christ, as though some force of fortune or fate or anything else did not permit God to fulfil what he predestined? And how does he himself snatch them away, because they pleased him? Does he himself predestine them to be baptized and himself not allow what he predestined to happen?

But note what further he dares, who is displeased by our hesitation, more cautious than knowing, in so deep a question: “I would dare to say,” he says, “that these can reach forgiveness of original sins, yet not so as to be brought into the heavenly kingdom; just as to the thief who confessed but was not baptized the Lord granted not the kingdom of heaven but paradise, although this already stood: ‘Whoever is not reborn of water and the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom of heaven’; especially since the Lord declares that there are many mansions with his Father, by which are signified the many and different deserts of those who dwell in them, so that here the unbaptized is brought to pardon, the baptized to the palm, which is prepared by grace.” You see the man separating paradise and the mansions that are with the Father from the kingdom of heaven, so that there may be abundant places of everlasting happiness even for the unbaptized. Nor does he see, when he says this, that while he will not separate the mansion of any baptized little child from the kingdom of heaven, he is not afraid to separate the very house of God the Father, or some parts of it, from it. For the Lord Jesus did not say, “In the whole of creation” or “in some part of the universe”, but: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” How then will an unbaptized person be in the house of God the Father, when he cannot have God as Father unless reborn? Let him not be ungrateful to God, who deigned to free him from the division of the Donatists or Rogatists, by seeking to divide the very house of God the Father and to place some part of it outside the kingdom of heaven, where the unbaptized may live. And on what terms does he presume that he himself will enter the kingdom of heaven, from which kingdom he excludes the house of the King himself in as large a part as he likes? But from that thief who, crucified beside the Lord, hoped in the Lord even crucified, and from Dinocrates, the brother of Saint Perpetua, he argues that forgiveness of sins and some seat of the blessed can be given even to the unbaptized—as though someone whom it would be wicked not to believe had told him that they were not baptized. About them, however, I have set out my view more fully in the book I wrote to our brother Renatus. Your love will be able to know it if you do not scorn to read it; for he will not be able to refuse you if you ask.

Yet he is in turmoil and choked by horrible straits; for he perhaps notices more attentively than you what an evil thing he is saying, namely that original sin is loosed in little children apart from the baptism of Christ. Finally, so as to take refuge in this matter, however late, in the sacraments of the church, he says: “Certainly I decree that constant offerings and the sacrifices of holy priests should continually be offered for them.” Take him, if you please, as your censor as well, if it was too little to have him as your teacher, so that you offer the sacrifice of the body of Christ even for those who are not incorporated into Christ. For when he dared to put into his books something so new and foreign to church discipline and to the rule of truth, he does not say “I think”, does not say “I suppose”, does not say “I judge”, does not even say “I suggest” or “I say”, but “I decree”; so that, if we were offended by the novelty or perversity of the opinion, we might be frightened by the authority of the decree. You must see, brother, how you can bear him as teacher; but far be it that catholic priests of sound mind, among whom you ought to be joined, should consent to hear him decreeing—him whom they rather wish to see returning to his senses and grieving, and repenting with a most wholesome correction of having thought, and indeed even written, such things. “But this,” he says, “I establish should be done on the example of the Maccabees who fell in battle; since they had secretly taken some of the forbidden things and had fallen in the very fight, we find,” he says, “that this plan was undertaken by the priests: that the offering of sacrifices should restore those whose souls guilt had bound from the forbidden thing.” He says this as if he had read that those sacrifices were offered for the uncircumcised, as he decreed that ours should be offered for the unbaptized. For circumcision was the sacrament of that time, which prefigured the baptism of our time.

Yet this man still errs more tolerably by comparison with what he later showed himself to be. For as though he had repented—not of what he ought to have repented, namely that he dared to assert that original sin is remitted and forgiveness of all sins given to the unbaptized, so that they are sent into paradise, that is, a place of such happiness, and deserve to have blessed mansions in the house of God the Father, but rather as though he repented of having granted them seats of lesser blessedness outside the kingdom of heaven—he added and said: “Or if someone perhaps objects that paradise was conferred temporarily for the meantime on the soul of the thief or of Dinocrates—for the reward of the kingdom of heaven still remains for them in the resurrection, although that principal sentence stands in the way, that whoever is not reborn of water and the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom of heaven—let him nevertheless have in this part also my assent, which does not begrudge it, provided only that he magnifies both the effect and the affection of the divine mercy and foreknowledge.” I have copied these words as I read them in his second book. Could anyone have a greater boldness, rashness, and presumption of error in this matter? He himself recalls the Lord’s sentence, he himself mentions it, he himself inserts it into his writing, he himself says: “although that principal sentence stands in the way, that whoever is not reborn of water and the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom of heaven”—and yet he dares to raise the neck of his own decree against the principal sentence! “Let him have,” he says, “my assent, which does not begrudge it”—him who says that the souls of the unbaptized deserve paradise temporarily (for this is why he mentions the thief and Dinocrates, as though laying down a precedent or rather prejudging the case), but in the resurrection are transferred to better things and receive the reward of the kingdom of heaven, “although,” he says, “the principal sentence stands in the way.” Consider now yourself, I beg you, brother: whoever gives assent to anyone against the authority of the principal sentence, what sentence of the Prince will he deserve!

The authority of catholic councils and of the apostolic see has most justly condemned the new Pelagian heretics because they dared to give unbaptized little children rest and salvation even outside the kingdom of heaven. They would not have dared this unless they denied that they have original sin, which would need to be loosed through the sacrament of baptism. But this man, as a catholic, says that little children are bound by original sin, and yet he looses them from this kind of bond without the washing of regeneration, and after death mercifully sends them into paradise, and after the resurrection mercifully brings them even into the kingdom of heaven. So Saul thought himself merciful when he spared the king whom God had commanded to be killed; but his disobedient mercy, or merciful disobedience, was deservedly rejected and condemned, so that a man may beware of receiving mercy from a man against the sentence of him by whom man was made. The Truth thunders through the mouth of his own body: “If anyone is not reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” And to make the martyrs an exception to this sentence, those who happen to be killed for the name of Christ before being washed by Christ’s baptism, he says in another place: “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” And lest the abolition of original sin be promised to anyone who has not been reborn by the washing of the Christian faith, the apostle cries: “Through the trespass of one, to all men to condemnation.” Against this condemnation the Lord, showing that there is one help to salvation, says: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” The mystery of this believing is fulfilled in little children through the answer of those by whom they are carried, lest, if it is not done, all go from the one into condemnation. And yet against such manifest voices, which the Truth sings in harmony, a vanity more senseless than merciful comes forward and says: not only do little children not go into damnation, even if no washing of the Christian faith looses them from the bond of original sin, but they even enjoy the happiness of paradise in the meantime after death, and after the resurrection they will possess the happiness of the kingdom of heaven as well. Would he dare to say these things against the most firmly founded catholic faith if he did not dare to take up a question about the origin of the soul that exceeds his strength?

For he was hemmed in by horrible straits by those who say: “Why did God punish the soul with so unjust a penalty as to be willing to banish it into a body of sin, when by fellowship with the flesh it begins to be sinful, which could not have been sinful?” For they certainly say: the soul could not have been sinful unless God had mingled it in fellowship with sinful flesh. Since he could not find by what justice God did this—especially because of the eternal damnation of little children who die, for whom, unbaptized, original sin has not been expiated—why, then, God, just and good, bound with the chain of original sin the souls of little children, free from all guilt of propagation, whom he foreknew the sacrament of Christian grace would not reach, by sending them into the body drawn from Adam, and in this way made them guilty of eternal damnation—since he could not find this, and would not say that they too derive any sinful origin from that soul, he preferred to get out by a wretched shipwreck rather than to check his rash course by provident deliberation, lowering the sails and holding back the oars of his argument. For our old man’s hesitation seemed cheap to the young man, as though this most troublesome and most dangerous question needed the impetus of eloquence more than the counsel of prudence. He foresaw this too, but in vain; for, about to put these objections to himself as from opponents, he says: “Hence other reproaches are laid beneath us by the complaining murmurs of those who bark against us, and hence, as if by a whirlwind, we are dashed again and again among enormous rocks.” After saying this he put to himself the above-mentioned most rocky question, where he was shipwrecked from the catholic faith, unless he repairs by repenting what he has broken. I, avoiding that whirlwind and those rocks, would not commit my ship to them, and wrote about this matter in such a way as to show the reason for my hesitation rather than the rashness of presumption. When he found that little work of mine at your house, he laughed at it and committed himself to those crags with more spirit than counsel. But where this overconfidence has brought him I think you now see; and I give God still more abundant thanks if you saw it even before. For since he would not check his headlong course for fear of a dangerous outcome, he met a wretched collision, asserting that God confers on little children who die without Christian regeneration now paradise and afterward the kingdom of heaven.

All the testimonies of Scripture he set down, by which he tried to prove, as it were, that God does not draw souls from the propagation of that first soul but breathes into each individual its own soul, as he did that first one, are, as far as this question is concerned, so uncertain and ambiguous that they can very easily be taken otherwise than he wants. I have already shown this sufficiently, I think, in the book I wrote to our friend whom I mentioned above. For the testimonies he adduced, where we read that God gives or makes or forms souls, do not show whence he gives or makes or forms them: whether from the propagation of that first soul or by breathing, as that first one. But he thinks that from the very fact that we read that God gives or makes or forms souls, the propagation of souls is already denied, although by the witness of the same Scripture God also gives or makes or forms bodies, which no one doubts are given, made, and formed by him through the propagation of seed.

Likewise, because it is written that God made every race of men from one blood, and because Adam said, “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”, since neither was “from one soul” said there nor “soul of my soul” here, he thinks it is denied that the souls of children come from the parents, or that of that woman from the man; as if, had it been said not “from one blood” but “from one soul”, anything other than the whole man would be understood, and the propagation of the body would not be denied. So too, if it had been said, “soul of my soul”, the flesh, which it was agreed had been taken from him, would certainly not be denied; for Scripture often signifies the whole by a part, as also a part by the whole. For certainly, if in the place from which he took his testimony it had been written that the human race was established not from one blood but from one man, it would not prejudge the case against those who deny the propagation of souls, even though man is not the soul alone nor the flesh alone but both. For they would answer that Scripture could have signified a part by the whole, that is, by “man” only the flesh of man. So in the same way those who defend the propagation of souls contend that in what is said, “from one blood”, man is signified by blood, that is, the whole by a part. For just as “from one blood”, and not “from one man”, seems to help those, so also what is said seems to help these: “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and so it passed through to all men, in whom all sinned”—and it was not said, “in whom the flesh of all sinned”. And again, just as “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” seems to help those, because a part was named, not the whole, so what follows immediately seems to help these in turn: “She shall be called woman, because she was taken from her husband.” For it ought to have been said, they say, “because her flesh was taken from her husband”, if not the whole woman, that is, with the soul, but only the flesh was taken from the man. Moreover, whoever judges without partisanship, having heard both, certainly sees that neither should those testimonies where a part is named be brought against those who defend the propagation of souls, because Scripture could have signified the whole by a part there—as when we read, “The Word was made flesh”, we certainly understand not the flesh alone but the whole man—nor should these, where not a part of man but the whole is mentioned, be brought against those who destroy the propagation of souls, because Scripture could have signified a part by the whole there, as we confess that Christ was buried, though his flesh alone was buried. And therefore we say that the propagation of souls should be neither rashly established nor rashly destroyed, but we advise that other testimonies must be sought which are not found ambiguous.

Therefore I do not yet know what he taught you and for what you gave thanks. For the question remains as it was, in which it is asked about the origin of souls: whether God gives, makes, forms for men—as the Christian faith does not doubt that he gives, makes, forms them—from the propagation of that one soul which he first breathed into man, or from his own breath, as for the first man. In trying to solve this question without looking at his own strength, he destroyed the propagation of souls and asserted that the Creator breathes them in, pure from all contagion of sin, not from nothing but from himself; and so he defamed the nature of God with the reproach of changeableness, which was not necessary; and while he wished to give a reason why God should not be thought unjust if he entangles in the chain of original sin souls pure from all sin, even those which he does not redeem by Christian regeneration, he said things which I hope he did not teach you. For he grants to unbaptized little children as much salvation and happiness as not even the Pelagian heresy could. And yet about the many thousands of little children who are born of the ungodly and die among the ungodly—not those whom people cannot aid by baptism when they would like to, but those of whose baptism no one could or can think, and for whom no one has offered or will offer the sacrifice which he decreed should be offered even for those who are not to be baptized—he has found nothing to say. If he is asked about them, what their souls deserved that God should insert them into sinful flesh, not to be washed by baptism nor expiated by the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, and to be damned forever, he will either stick fast altogether, and our hesitation will please him, however late, or he will decree that for all little children who die throughout the whole world without Christian baptism, even with their names unspoken, since they are unknown in the church of Christ, the body of Christ must be offered for those not incorporated into the body of Christ.

Far be it from you, brother, that these things should please you; far be it that you should either rejoice to have learned them or presume to teach them. Otherwise he himself will be found far better than you, because at the beginning of his first book he spoke modestly and humbly in advance, saying: “In desiring to obey you, I have incurred the charge of presumption”; and a little later: “since I do not myself trust that what I say can be proved, and I always strive not to defend even my own opinion if it is found improbable, and it is my heart’s desire, condemning my own judgment, to follow rather the better and truer things. For as it belongs to an excellent purpose and a praiseworthy counsel to be easily brought over to truer things, so it belongs to a perverse and obstinate judgment to be unwilling to be quickly bent to the path of reason.” If he said this truly and thinks as he spoke, he certainly has a mind of great promise. Likewise at the end of the second book he says: “Nor should you think that it may perhaps reflect ill on you if I place the judgment of my words in your power. And lest perhaps the traces of letters remaining among the smeared fibres trouble and offend the gaze of some curious reader, tear apart the woven series of the page with a severe thumb, and, making me share in this judgment, punish the ink that marked unworthy words, lest on this occasion both your judgment of me, in which you indulge me so greatly, and my follies, which lay hidden, be laughed at.”

Since, then, he has fortified his books in this way at the beginning and secured them at the end, and has laid on your shoulders the devout burden of correcting and amending him, let him find with you what he asked for: that you, a just man, correct him in mercy and reprove him; but let the oil of the sinner, with which his head might be anointed, be far from your hands and your kisses—that is, the unseemly assent of a flatterer and the deceitful smoothness of one who coaxes. If you neglect to correct him when you see he needs correction, you act against charity; but if he does not seem to you to need correction because you think he held these views rightly, you think against the truth. And so he is better, who is readier to be corrected, if a corrector is not lacking, than you, if you either knowingly and mockingly despise one who errs, or unknowingly follow the error too. So consider soberly and watchfully everything in those books written to you and handed to you, and you will perhaps find more to blame than I have. And whatever in them is to be approved and praised, if there is really something there which you perhaps did not know and learned from his discussion, declare plainly what it is, so that all may know that you gave thanks for this, and not for the many things there which are to be rejected—all who either heard him read together with you or afterward read the same books—lest in his ornate eloquence, as in a precious cup, at your invitation, even if you did not drink it, they drink poison, if they do not know what you drank from it and what you did not, and because of your praise think that everything there may be drunk wholesomely. And yet what is hearing and reading and drinking in by memory what has been said, but drinking? But the Lord foretold of his faithful that even if they drink something deadly, it will not harm them. And therefore those who read him with judgment and, according to the rule of faith, approve what is to be approved and reject what is to be rejected, even if they commit to memory what is said to be rejected, are harmed by no poisoned perversity of opinions. I shall by no means regret, by the Lord’s mercy, having admonished or reminded your gravity and devotion of these things, whether with mutual or anticipating charity, however you take what I thought I should offer you. And I will give abundant thanks to him in whose mercy it is most wholesome to trust, if this letter has found or made your faith free and whole from these perversities and errors which I have been able to show from this man’s books in this letter.

In what I have thought I should write to you, my dearest son Victor, I want you first to consider this: if I despised you, I would by no means have done it. Yet do not so abuse our humility as to think yourself approved because you see you have not been despised; for I love you, not to follow you, but to correct you. And since I do not despair that you can be corrected, do not be surprised that I cannot despise one whom I love. For if I ought to have loved you before you entered communion with us, so that you might become a catholic, how much more ought I to love you now that you are in communion, so that you may not be a new heretic, and so that you may be such a catholic as no heretic can resist! For, as far as appears from the gifts of mind which God has already bestowed on you, you will certainly be wise if you believe that you are not, and if you ask devoutly, humbly, and urgently to become so from him who makes the wise, and if you prefer not to be deceived by error rather than to be honoured by the praises of those who err.

First, the heading bearing your name in your books made me anxious for you. For when I asked who Vincentius Victor was of those who knew you and happened to be present, I heard that you had been a Donatist, or rather a Rogatist, but had lately entered communion with the catholic church. And while I rejoiced as much as we usually do over those whom we know to have been freed from that error—indeed, much more, because I saw that your talent, which delighted me in your writings, had not remained with the adversaries of the truth—those who told me added something to sadden me amid that joy: that you had wished to be surnamed Vincentius because you still hold in your mind, as a great and holy man, the successor of Rogatus who was called by that name, and for this reason wished his name to be your surname. Nor were there lacking those who said that you had even boasted that he appeared to you in some vision or other and so helped you to compose these books, which I have set out to discuss with you in this little work of ours, that he dictated to you what to write as far as the matters themselves and the reasonings are concerned. If this is true, I am no longer surprised that you could say things which, if you listen patiently to my admonition and consider and examine those books with a catholic mind, you will without doubt repent of having said. For he who, as the apostle exposes him, transforms himself into an angel of light, has transformed himself for you into the one whom you believe to have been, or to be, like an angel of light. And indeed he is less able to deceive catholics when he transforms himself not into angels of light but into heretics; but I would not want you, now a catholic, to be deceived by him. Let him be tormented, then, that you have learned what is true: how much he had rejoiced to have persuaded you of what is false! And so that you may not love a dead man, love for whom can harm you and cannot profit him, I urge you to consider this briefly: that certainly he is not holy and just if you have escaped the snares of the heretical Donatists or Rogatists; but if you think him holy and just, you have perished by entering communion with catholics. For you are surely feigning to be a catholic if in your mind you are what he was whom you love. And you know how terribly it is written that the holy spirit of discipline will flee from what is feigned. But if you are truly in communion and not feigning to be a catholic, why do you still so love a dead heretic that you wish to parade yourself still by the name of one whose error no longer holds you? We do not want you to have such a surname, as though you were the monument of a dead heretic; we do not want your book to have such a heading as we would say was false if we read it on his tomb. For we know that Vincentius was not a victor but vanquished—and would that it had been fruitfully, as we wish you to be vanquished by the truth! It is thought that you were astute and cunning when you call your books, which you want believed to have been dictated to you by his revelation, those of Vincentius Victor, meaning not so much that you are called Vincentius as that he is called the Victor, as if by revealing to you what to write he had conquered error. What use are these things to you, son? Be rather a true, not a feigned, catholic, lest the Holy Spirit flee from you and Vincentius be able to profit you nothing, into whom the most malignant spirit transformed himself to deceive you; for those things of which you were persuaded by some fraud are his. If, being admonished, you correct them with devout humility and catholic peace, they will be judged to have been the errors of a most studious young man who wished to be corrected rather than to remain in them. But if he persuades you also to obstinate contention for them—God forbid!—it will then be necessary that they be condemned as heretical doctrines together with their author, by pastoral and medicinal care, before their dire contagion creeps through the unwary crowd, when wholesome discipline is neglected in the name, not in the truth, of love.