Letters 144.1–145.5

Through the devout presbyter Saturninus I received the letter of your reverence, asking of me with great eagerness something I do not yet have. But you have told me why you did this: you believe that an answer has already been given to me when I consulted about this matter. Would that it were so! Far be it from me to cheat you, whose most eager expectation I know, of sharing this gift! But, if you will believe it, dearest brother, see, almost five years have passed since I sent to the East a book, not of my presumption but of my consultation, and I have not yet been favoured with a reply by which this question might be untied for me, the question on which you want me to give you a sure opinion. So I would have sent both, if I had both.

But what I have, without the other, which I do not yet have, I do not think I ought yet to send or publish to anyone; lest he who is perhaps going to answer me, as I desire, should rightly be displeased that my question, worked out with most laborious discussion, should be spread through the hands and knowledge of men without his answer, which is not yet to be despaired of, and should judge that I did it more from boastfulness than for usefulness, as if I could ask what he could not untie; whereas perhaps he can, and while he does it, he should be waited for. For I know rather that he is occupied with other things which must by no means be put off and are of greater weight.

That your holiness too may know this, attend for a moment to what he wrote to me in another year by the bearer, by whom I had written, when he returned; for I have copied this from his letter into this one: 'A most difficult time has come upon us,' he says, 'when it was better for me to be silent than to speak, so that our studies ceased and, as Appius says, a dog's eloquence was exercised. So I could not for the time answer your two little books, which you dedicated to my name, most learned and shining with all the splendour of eloquence; not that I think anything in them is to be blamed, but because, according to the blessed apostle, let each abound in his own sense, one in this way, another in that. Certainly, whatever could be said and drawn with lofty genius from the fountains of the holy Scriptures has been set out and discussed by you. But I ask your reverence to allow me for a little while to praise your genius. For we discuss among ourselves for the sake of learning. But rivals, and especially heretics, if they see differing opinions between us, will slander us as arising from rancour of mind. For my part I have resolved to love you, to receive you, to honour you, to admire you, and to defend your words as my own; indeed in the dialogue which I recently published I have mentioned your blessedness, as was fitting; and let us rather strive that a most pernicious heresy be removed from the churches, which always pretends repentance in order to have the opportunity of teaching in the churches, lest, if it showed itself in open light, it should be driven out and die.'

You see, surely, venerable brother, that these words of my dearest friend, returned to my inquiry, did not refuse an answer but excused it on account of the time, because he was compelled to spend his care on other more urgent matters. You see also how kindly a mind he bears toward me and what he warns of: namely, that what we do between us for the sake of learning, with charity and sincerity of friendship certainly preserved, rivals and especially heretics may slander as arising from rancour of mind. Accordingly, if people read both our works, both where I asked and where he himself answers what was asked (since it is fitting also that, if the same question is sufficiently explained according to his opinion, I should give thanks for having been instructed), the fruit will be no small one when this becomes known to very many: that those after us may not only know what they ought to think about this matter, which has been examined between us by careful discussion, but may also learn by our example, through God's mercy and favour, how between dearest brothers there may be no lack of discussion for the sake of mutual inquiry, while love yet remains unimpaired.

But if my writing, in which a very obscure matter is only read as asked, should get out and go further without his reply, in which perhaps it will appear as found, it may reach even those who, as the apostle says, 'measuring themselves by themselves, do not understand'; they will not understand in what spirit we do what they do not know how to do in that spirit, and they will expound my intention toward a most beloved friend, to be honoured for his great merits, not as they see it (since they do not see it), but as they please and as their hatred dictates their suspicions. This, certainly, we ought to guard against as far as lies in us.

But if perhaps what we do not wish to become known through us becomes known, even against our will, to those to whom we do not wish it, what will remain but to accept the Lord's will calmly? For I ought not to write to anyone what I always wished to remain hidden. For if (which God forbid) by some chance or necessity he never replies, our consultation which we sent him will doubtless be made public some day, and it will not be useless to readers; for even if they do not find what they seek, they will certainly find how things are to be inquired into, and how what they do not know is not to be rashly affirmed; and according to what they read there they too will take care to consult whom they can, with studious charity, not quarrelsome contention, until they either find what they want or exercise the keenness of their mind by the inquiry itself, so as to recognize that it should not be inquired into further. For now, however, as long as the answer of the friend already consulted is not to be despaired of, I think, as far as lies in us, that our consultation should not be published; which I hope I have persuaded your love of, although you did not ask for it alone, but wished to have sent to you together with it the answer of him whom I consulted, which I would certainly do if I had it. But if, to use your holiness's words in your letter, by 'a lucid demonstration of my wisdom', which, as you write, the Author of light has given me for the merit of my life, you do not mean my consultation and inquiry itself, but think that I have already arrived at the discovery of the thing I asked, and ask me rather to send that, I would do so if it were as you think. For I confess that I have not yet found how the soul draws sin from Adam (which it is not lawful to doubt) and is not itself drawn from Adam; which I must inquire into more carefully rather than assert more rashly.

Your letter mentions some old men, I know not how many, men trained by learned bishops, whom you could not bring back to the understanding of your modesty and to an assertion full of truth; and yet you do not state what your assertion full of truth is, to which you could not bring back old men trained by learned bishops. For if these old men held or hold what they received from learned bishops, how had the rustic and less instructed crowd of clerics caused you trouble in those matters in which it had been trained by learned bishops? But if these old men or the crowd of clerics were straying by their own perversity from what they had received from learned bishops, they should rather have been corrected by the authority of those bishops and restrained from their most contentious uproar. But again, when you say that you, a new and untrained teacher, feared to corrupt the traditions of so many and such great bishops, and were afraid to convert people to the better side for fear of wronging the dead, what do you give us to understand but that those whom you wished to correct, unwilling to abandon the traditions of learned and great bishops now dead, refused to yield to a new and untrained teacher? On this matter I say nothing of them for now; but I very much desire to know your assertion, which you say is full of truth; I do not mean the opinion itself but its proof.

You have indeed informed us sufficiently that you disapprove of those who affirm that all the souls of men are propagated and transmitted through the succession of generations from that one which was given to the first-formed man; but by what reasoning or by what testimonies of the divine Scriptures you have shown this to be false, since your letter does not contain it, we do not know. Then, what you yourself hold instead of what you disapprove does not appear clearly to me as I read your letter, both the one you sent earlier to the brothers of Caesarea and the one you sent me most recently; except that I see you believe, as you write, that God has made men, makes them, and will make them, and that there is nothing in heaven or on earth that has not existed and does not exist with him as author. This is certainly so true that no one ought to doubt it. But you still need to state from what God makes the souls which you deny are made by propagation: whether from something else (and if so, what that is), or altogether from nothing. For that opinion of Origen and Priscillian, or of any others who think something of the kind, that souls are thrust into earthly and mortal bodies according to the merits of a former life, far be it from you to hold. The apostolic authority flatly contradicts this opinion, saying that Esau and Jacob, before they were born, had done nothing good or evil. So your opinion on this matter is known to us not wholly but in part; but its proof, that is, how what you think is shown to be true, is entirely hidden from us.

That is why in my earlier letter I had asked you to be good enough to send me the little book of faith which you mention having written, and to which you complain that some presbyter or other falsely subscribed (and I ask it still), and what testimonies of the divine Scriptures you could bring to unlock this question. For you say in the letter to the Caesareans that you resolved that even the secular judges should learn the whole proof of the truth; and when they sat after common prayer and examined everything with a view to faith, the Godhead, as you write, granted them by the infusion of his mercy that they brought forward a greater affirmation and proof for their own views than your modesty was holding in reserve against them with the authorities of mighty testimonies. These authorities of mighty testimonies, then, I desire with mighty eagerness to know.

For you seem to have followed only one argument with which to refute your opponents: namely, that they denied that our souls are the work of God. If they think this, their opinion is rightly judged worthy of condemnation. For if they said this of bodies themselves, they would doubtless have had to be corrected or detested. For what Christian would deny that the bodies of each person born are the works of God? And yet we do not deny that they are begotten by parents because we confess that they are formed by God. So when it is said that in the same way certain incorporeal seeds of our souls, of their own kind, are both drawn from the parents and yet souls are made from them by God's work, to refute this not human conjecture but divine Scripture must be brought as witness. For from the holy books of canonical authority a supply of testimonies could be at hand for you by which it is proved that God makes souls; but by such testimonies those are refuted who deny that each soul in men as they are born is the work of God, not those who confess this and yet contend that souls, like bodies, are formed indeed by God's working, but from the propagation of the parents. To refute these, sure divine testimonies must be sought by you; or, if you have already found them, they should be sent in mutual love to us, who have not yet found them, though we are searching as hard as we can.

For your brief consultation at the end of the letter which you sent to the brothers of Caesarea runs thus: 'I beg you,' you say, 'to teach me, your son and disciple, who have come recently and lately with God's help to these mysteries, with the instruction that you owe, which is fitting, and with which it befits wise bishops to answer: whether we should rather hold that opinion which says the soul is by transmission, and that by some hidden origin and secret order the other souls flow down into the whole human race from the transfusion of Adam, the first-formed man; or whether we should rather choose the definition and keep the belief which all your brothers and bishops placed here hold and affirm, which testifies and believes that God was, is, and will be the author of all things and of all men.' Of these two things, then, which you proposed in consulting, you want one or the other to be chosen and given you as an answer; which ought to be done by those who know, if these two were contrary to each other, so that, when one was chosen, the other would consequently have to be rejected.

But now, if someone does not choose one of these two but answers that both are true, that is, both that the other souls flow down into the whole human race from the transfusion of Adam, the first-formed man, and nonetheless believes and says that God was, is, and will be the author of all things and of all men, what do you think should be said against him? Shall we say, 'If souls are propagated from parents, God is not the author of all things, because he does not make souls'? For if we say this, the answer will be: 'Then, since bodies are propagated from parents, God is not the author of all things, if on this account he must be said not to make bodies.' But who would deny that God is the author of all human bodies, saying that he is author only of that one which he first formed from the earth, or at most also of his wife's, since he himself formed her too from his side, but not of the others, because we cannot deny that the other human bodies have flowed from them?

And therefore, if those with whom you are in conflict on this question assert the propagation of souls from the derivation of that one in such a way as to deny that God now makes and forms them, press on to refute, convince, and correct them, as far as you can with the Lord's help. But if they affirm that certain beginnings are drawn from that one man and thereafter from the parents, and yet that individual souls in individual men are created and formed by God, the author of all things, search for what may be answered to them, above all from the holy Scriptures, something that is not ambiguous and cannot be understood otherwise; or, if you have already found it, as I asked above, send it to us too. But if it is still hidden from you as from me, press with all your strength to refute those who say that souls are not from the divine work (who, you said in your letter, first murmured among more secret stories, and then withdrew from your fellowship and the service of the church because of this foolish and impious opinion); and against them defend and protect in every way what you set down in the same letter: that God has made souls, makes them, and will make them, and that there is nothing in heaven or on earth that has not existed or does not exist with him as author. For this is most truly and rightly believed, said, defended, and proved of every kind of creature whatever. For God was, is, and will be the author of all things and all men, as you set down at the end of your consultation to our fellow bishops of the province of Caesarea, and you in a way urged them to choose this rather, by the example of all the brothers and fellow bishops who are with you and hold it.

But it is one question when it is asked whether God is the author and maker of all souls and bodies, which is the truth, or whether some nature arises which he does not make, which opinion is altogether error; and another when it is asked whether God makes human souls by propagation or without propagation, though it is not lawful to doubt that they are made by him. In this question I want you to be sober and watchful, and not to destroy the propagation of souls in such a way as to run unawares into the Pelagian heresy. For if we say, and say truly, that God is the creator of human bodies, whose propagation is known to all, not only of that first man or the first couple, but of all propagated from them, I think it is easily understood that those who defend the propagation of souls do not want us to destroy it on the ground that God makes souls, since he also makes bodies, which we cannot deny are made by propagation; but that other proofs must be sought by which those who think souls are propagated may be refuted, if the truth says they are in error. On this matter those should rather have been questioned, if it had been possible, for fear of wronging whom, now dead, as you write in the letter you sent me later, you were afraid to convert people to the better side. For you said that these dead bishops were so eminent, so great, and so learned that you, a new and untrained teacher, feared to want to corrupt their traditions. So if I could know by what (reasons) or testimonies such great and learned men asserted this opinion on the propagation of souls … which, however, in the letter given to the Caesareans, paying no regard to their authority, you called a new invention and an unheard-of doctrine; whereas surely, even if it is an error, we know that it is not new but old and ancient.

When certain causes not undeservedly compel us to doubt on some question, we ought not on that account to doubt whether we ought to doubt. For about doubtful things one must doubt without doubting. You see how the apostle does not doubt to doubt about himself, whether he was caught up to the third heaven in the body or out of the body: 'Whether this or that, I do not know,' he says; 'God knows.' Why then may I not, as long as I do not know, doubt whether my soul came into this life by propagation or without it, when I do not doubt that it was made in either way by the supreme and true God? Why may I not say, 'I know that my soul subsists by God's work and is altogether God's work; whether by propagation, like the body, or apart from propagation, like that which was given to the first man, I do not know; God knows'? Whichever of these you want me to confirm, I could, if I knew. But if you yourself know, see, you have me more eager to learn what I do not know than to teach what I know. But if you do not know, as I do not, pray as I also pray that the Master may teach us, whether through any servant of his or through himself, he who said to his disciples, 'Do not wish to be called Rabbi by men; for one is your Master, Christ'; if indeed he knows that it is expedient for us to know such things too, he who knows not only what he teaches but also what it is expedient for us to learn.

For I confess my desire to your love: I do indeed desire to know this too which you ask; but I would much rather know, if it were possible, when he who is desired by all nations will appear and when the kingdom of the saints will come, than from where I began to come into this earth. And yet, when his disciples, our apostles, asked him who knows all things about this, they received the answer, 'It is not yours to know the times which the Father has set in his own power.' What if he knows that this too is not ours to know, he who surely knows what it is useful for us to know? And that it is not ours to know the times which the Father has set in his own power I know through him; but whether it is ours to know the origin of souls, which I do not yet know, that is, whether it belongs to us to know it, I do not even know this. For if I knew at least this, that it is not ours to know it, I would stop not only affirming, as long as I do not know, but also inquiring. But now, though it is so obscure and deep that I am more on guard against the rashness of teaching there than eager to learn, yet I wish to know this too, if I can. And although what that holy man says is much more necessary, 'Make known to me, Lord, my end' (for he does not say 'my beginning'), yet would that my beginning too, as far as this question is concerned, were not hidden from me!

Yet even about my beginning I am not ungrateful to my Teacher, for I know that the human soul is spirit, not body, and that it is rational or intellectual; and that it is not the nature of God but rather a creature, in some measure mortal, inasmuch as it can be changed for the worse and alienated from the life of God, by participation in which it is made happy, and in some measure immortal, since it cannot lose the sense by which, after this life, it fares well or ill. I know also that it did not deserve to be shut up in the flesh for acts done before the flesh; but yet that it is not therefore without the stain of sin in man, even if its life upon the earth, as it is written, has been of one day. And therefore I know that no one is born of Adam through the series of generation without sin, so that even little children must be reborn in Christ through the grace of regeneration. These things, so many and not small, about the beginning or origin of our souls, among which there are many belonging to that knowledge which rest on faith, I rejoice to have learned and I affirm that I know. Therefore, if I do not know, concerning the origin of souls, whether God makes them for men by propagation or without it, though I do not doubt that they are made by him, I do indeed prefer to know this too rather than not to know; but as long as I cannot, I had better doubt about it than dare to affirm as certain something which may perhaps be contrary to that about which perhaps I ought not to doubt.

You then, my good brother, since you consult me and want me to settle one of these, whether the other souls are made, one for each, from that one man by propagation, like bodies, or without propagation, like the soul of that one man, by the Creator (for we do not deny that they are made by him in either case), allow me also to consult you: how the soul draws sin by origin from that from which it is not itself drawn by origin. For we likewise do not deny that all souls draw original sin from Adam, lest we rush detestably into the detestable Pelagian heresy. If you too do not know what I ask, let me patiently be ignorant of both, both what you ask and what I ask; but if you already know what I ask, when you have taught me this, then I will answer what you want me to answer, no longer fearing anything there. So I ask you not to be angry that I could not confirm what you ask, but could show what you should ask; and when you have found it, do not hesitate to confirm what you were asking.

And this I thought I should write to your holiness, since you think, as if already certain, that the propagation of souls should be rejected. But if I had had to write back to those who assert it, perhaps I would show how they do not know what they think they know, and with how much reason they ought to fear to dare to assert it.

Certainly, in my friend's reply which I have inserted in this letter, lest it perhaps trouble you that he mentioned two books sent by me, which he replied he had had no free time to answer: one is on this question, not both; in the other I asked him, for consultation and discussion, about something else. And when he warns and urges that we should rather strive that a most pernicious heresy be removed from the churches, he means that very Pelagian heresy, which I warn you, brother, as far as I can, to avoid most carefully when you either think or argue about the origin of souls, lest it steal upon you that you should believe that any soul at all, except that of the one Mediator, does not draw from Adam original sin, bound by generation, to be loosed by regeneration.

Among all the benefits that my friendship with the holy brother Quintilian has brought me, this is perhaps the greatest: that he has joined you to me in mind, though in body you are unknown to me. For who would not love a man who, under the general's cloak and in military dress, does the works of the prophets, and who overcomes the outer man, which promises something else, by the inner man, which has been formed after the image of the Creator? So I am the first to challenge you to the duty of letter-writing, and I ask that you often give me occasion to write back, so that from now on I may write more boldly.

For the present let it suffice to point out briefly to your prudence that you should remember the apostle's saying: “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed? Do not seek a wife”, that is, a binding, which is the opposite of loosing. So whoever serves the duty of marriage is bound; whoever is bound is a slave; but whoever is loosed is free.

Since, then, you rejoice in the freedom of Christ, and your way of life is one thing while your profession promises another, and you are all but standing on the housetop, you ought not to come down from the roof to take your tunic, nor look back, nor let go the handle of the plough once you have grasped it. Rather, if it can be done, imitate Joseph and leave your cloak with the Egyptian mistress, so that naked you may follow the Lord and Saviour, who says in the gospel: “Unless someone takes up his cross and follows me, he cannot be my disciple.”

Throw off the burden of the world; do not seek riches, which are compared to the deformities of camels. Fly to heaven naked and light, so that the weight of gold may not drag down the wings of your virtues. I do not say this because I have learned that you are greedy, but because I suspect that you are still serving in the army for this reason: to fill the purse which the Lord commanded to be emptied. If, then, those who have possessions and riches are commanded to sell everything and give to the poor and so follow the Saviour, your worship is either rich, and ought to do what is commanded, or still of slender means, and ought not to seek what it will have to give away.

Certainly Christ credits everything according to the will of the mind. No one was poorer than the apostles, and no one left so much for the Lord. The poor widow in the gospel, who put two small coins into the treasury, is preferred to all the rich, because she gave all that she had. So you too should not seek what must be given away, but give away what you have already acquired, so that Christ may recognize you as his bravest young recruit; so that the Father may run joyfully to meet you as you come from a far country, give you the robe, give you the ring, and kill the fatted calf for you; so that he may quickly make you, unencumbered, sail to us with the holy brother Quintilian. I have knocked at the doors of friendship; if you open, you will often have me as a guest.