Chapter VIII: The Propagation of the Soul, § 116
CHAPTER VIII: ON THE PROPAGATION OF THE SOUL
§ 116. That concludes our discussion about the most felicitous condition of the first man before the fall. He was most blessed in the qualities of his soul, body, and exterior dwelling place; and if he had continued in his concreated integrity, he would have propagated it to his descendants too. On this basis we deduce this theorem: The souls, too, of those who had been born of Adam and Eve were not created nor even generated but were propagated.
(1) Since the image of God was the righteousness, holiness, and perfection of the concreated human soul, if the image of God had been propagated through generation, the soul itself had to be propagated also. If something cannot exist in a human body outside of the soul and without the soul, and if it has been propagated, then the soul itself must be propagated.
(2) After the fall, original sin took the place of the image of God in man. Its propagation shows that the propagation of souls occurs even after the fall.
(3) As the force of the word “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28) is effective in all other living creatures, neither did it cease with regard to man, nor did the fall ruin the power of this divine word once uttered. As proof of this, the blessing was repeated in Gen. 9:1. Gen. 5:3: “Adam fathered a son in his own likeness and image,” that is, “flesh of his flesh” (John 3:6). With this word the entire unregenerate man is indicated, not only his body, as is clear from Gal. 5:20. Therefore one should not look for the image of Adam, corrupted by sin, only in the bodies of his children but in the entire human being.
(4) God did not create the soul of Eve but transferred it from Adam into Eve, and therefore Eve partook of the soul from Adam. You see, because the entire soul is in the entire body and because the whole soul is in any given part of the body, therefore the rib was endowed with soul, and out of the rib Eve was formed. Consequently, she received her soul from Adam, not through inspiration nor through a new act of creation, but through propagation. The descendants of Eve, being endowed with soul, were generated from soul-endowed parents. The philosophers frequently call this the generation of the whole composite.
Imagine that every day God creates human souls immediately and breathes them into the one He is creating. I ask: Shall God create souls free of every stain of sin, souls which then are corrupted in the body as an impure vessel? Or, on the other hand, shall He create them infected with the stain of sin? The first cannot be said, because the first flow of sin did not pass from the body to the soul, but rather from the soul into the body. (Augustine discusses this subject very clearly in De Gen. ad lit., bk. 10, ch. 11.) The soul, (hypothetically) pure and always intent on good, could resist the body because it is stronger, and if it were to contract any blemish, it could not penetrate into its innermost substance. Neither can the latter be said, for God is good and the Creator of good alone. But now, original sin, by which human souls have been infected after the fall, is not merely some deprivation but is also a corrupt quality.
(5) In addition, God rested from His immediate creation on the seventh day (Gen. 2:2). Even if one says that God rested only from creating new species but not individuals (which is a response some people use, according to Augustine, Letter 28 ad Hieronym.), this argument would still not be destroyed, for it is a real creation in the proper sense of the word when individual things are brought forth from simple nonexistence without the intervention of natural causes.
(6) Because it does not seem right to deny to man what everyone concedes befits animals, namely, to procreate something similar to themselves according to body and soul.
(7) Because Scripture says expressly, Gen. 46:26: “The souls of his sons came forth from Jacob’s loins”; and Heb. 7:9–10: “Levi paid tithes in the loins of Abraham.” For because men of great reputation, both ancient and modern writers, favor the idea of creation [of the soul] rather than ours, one should note what Bellarmine admits in the aforementioned passage, that “no passage of Scripture can perhaps be found which clearly teaches that souls are not made by propagation but are created.” Martyr (Loc. comm., class. 2, ch. 1, § 50) writes expressly: “An opinion about transmission [of the soul] cannot be defeated from Holy Writ.” Sohnius (Exeg. August. Conf., vol. 2, p. 564): “It is absurd to say that the soul is marred by the contagion of the body, because it seems contrary to nature for a mortal body to corrupt an immortal spirit; or that, at the very moment when God creates them, souls are deprived of their uprightness and light so that they are corrupted and contaminated by sin, because the causes of that deprivation, namely, actual sin of these souls, do not come first; or, finally, that God creates souls contaminated by sin, because only good works can belong to God the highest good.” Because those who defend the opinion of immediate creation of souls have not yet resolved this, we say with Augustine (Letter 157): “We shall be glad to defend the opinion of Jerome (that souls are created) if they could teach us how souls do not come from Adam and yet receive a just sentence of condemnation because of him.”
The manner of propagation.
§ 117. As far as the manner of propagation is concerned, we admit that the investigation and explanation of this is very difficult. (I) Some say that the souls of children are kindled from the souls of their parents as a torch from a torch and a light from a light.
(II) Some argue that the soul of a child is not propagated separately from the soul of its parent but that the whole human being is generated from the whole, and that the seed indeed was endowed with soul, but not separately nor apart from the other gender but in the union of male and female which God ordained for generation. (III) Some argue that besides the form of the seed, by which it was joined to the nature of the body as an instrument [organici corporis], some other force or actuality [entelechia] and perfection were placed within the seed by God by which it could produce a soul. (IV) Some argue that by increasing itself, the soul of a mother produces the soul of an offspring in the same way as, in growing, one puts on the new matter of his nourishment. (V) Some people try to bring those contrary opinions about creation and the propagation of souls into harmony in this way: There are two acts of producing, one in regard to the power of nature, which is called generation; the other in regard to the absolute power of God, which is called creation. Creation taken in this way is, in turn, divided into that which comes from nothing and is properly called “creation,” and the other, which comes from matter but not necessarily and not with natural but with obedient potential [potentia obedientialis]. Using these presuppositions, they claim that by the second mode of creation God creates from the preexistent soul of the parents a new one for the fetus. Because this soul has matter from Adam, it partakes of his guilt. On the other hand, because it was produced immediately by God, it readily escapes the absurdities which have been cited against this opinion.
As for us, we leave the task of seeking out the mode of propagation to philosophers, especially since we do not yet see that it has been explained in the Scriptures. However, we hold tightly to the position on the propagation of souls, for one must not deny the propagation of souls just because the manner of the propagation is not clear. For divine mysteries it is solemnly established, so to speak, that Scripture explains their reality [res] but is silent about their manner [modus].
Six opinions from Bellarmine regarding the origin of souls.
§ 118. Bellarmine (De statu peccat., bk. 4, ch. 11) lists six opinions about the origin of the soul. (I) “The first opinion is that human souls are particles of the substance of God and thus are not created nor transmitted by parents but are miraculously inspired by God (according to Philo, in his book Quod deterius potiori insidietur, which the Gnostics, Manichaeans, and Priscillianists follow). (II) Origen (Περὶ ἀρχῶν, bk. 1, ch. 7) claims that all souls were created at once along with the angels but because of their inordinate love for earthly things were thrown into bodies as into prisons. (III) The rabbinic scholars make the same claim: that all souls were created in the beginning along with the angels and were sent by God into bodies. However, they do not add that souls sinned in heaven nor do they call bodies prisons for souls. This opinion is mentioned by Gregory of Nyssa (De anima, ch. 6) and by Jerome (Letter ad Marcellin. et Anaph.). (IV) Some claim that souls are taken from parents no less than are bodies, as Tertullian and the great majority of Western [writers] say (according to Jerome in the letter just cited). (V) Augustine believes that the origin of souls is hidden and that no rash declaration about it should be made. Gregory (Letters, bk. 7, ch. 27) and Eucherius (on Gen. 2:6) follow him.
(VI) Finally, there are very many who claim “a daily creation of souls.” These last are followed by Bellarmine.
Judgment.
§ 119. (I) The first, second, and third opinions are established errors which can readily be overturned on the basis of Scripture. Therefore we shall see what he says in his explanation of the other opinions. Bellarmine attributes the fourth opinion to Apollinaris and to the Luciferians, and it is readily apparent why—namely, to make it suspect of heresy—“since the Apollinarists and Luciferians were considered heretics and condemned in the ancient church.” The Apollinarists and Luciferians claimed that the human soul comes out of the seed and in physical matter and thus is itself physical. Augustine (De haeres. ad Quovultdeum, heresy 81) reports that in a booklet of the Luciferians he discovered that “they claimed that the soul is generated by transfusion and that it is of the flesh and its substance is of flesh.” Lombard (Sent. 2, dist. 18, letter H) quotes from [Augustine’s] De ecclesiast. dogmat.: “The Luciferians, Cyril, and some presumptive Latins affirm that souls are seminated into bodies by coitus.” Apollinaris claimed the same thing, namely, that “souls come from flesh and are of carnal substance,” as is clear from Theodoret (Dialog.). But what does our position have in common with that absurd and wicked idea?
(II) He says that the opinion that souls are propagated “is considered as an ascertained error by the Scholastics and as heresy by Thomas,” and that he himself follows in their footsteps.
We respond. See with what boldness and impudence he accuses of heresy the very position which Augustine nevertheless followed and a little later (col. 304) explicitly wrote: “Perhaps no passage of Scripture can be found which clearly teaches that souls do not come from propagation but are created”!
Arguments in favor of the creation of souls.
§ 120. (III) Bellarmine continues by offering some scriptural witnesses against that opinion: “In Gen. 2[:7], God Himself breathed the soul into Adam; He did not command the earth to produce man as it already previously had produced the beasts by God’s command. Ps. 33:15: ‘God fashions the hearts of people individually.’ Isa. 57[:16]: ‘I have made every breath of life.’ The last chapter of Ecclesiastes [12:7]: ‘The spirit returned to Him who gave it.’” But he himself supplies us with the response, namely:
The passage from Genesis indeed shows effectually that the soul of the first man was not brought out of matter but was created by God out of nothing. However, this does not compel us to pass the same judgment about the other human souls; for one can respond that just as God formed the body of the first man from the dust of the ground but brings forth the human bodies not of themselves from the mud of the earth but through generation from the bodies of their parents, so God properly and out of nothing created the soul of the first man but now propagates the others from that first soul.
(That this response is very true is clear from the fact that God formed the living Eve from the living rib of Adam, but did not breath into her a soul anew.)
The remaining passages prove that God is indeed the Creator of all souls but do not indicate the manner by which God created them, whether through creation from nothing or through propagation from the soul of the first man.
Those are Bellarmine’s words. It is quite clear that this response is very true, since Scripture uses the same expression in reference to the formation of the body. Job 10:9–10: “Just as You made me out of clay, and just as You have poured me out like milk, and just as You have curdled me like cheese.” Job 31:15: “Did He not make me in the womb?” Jer. 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” Acts 17:25: “God gives to all men life and breath.” Does God really work all these things by an immediate act of creation? Certainly not, but as Scaliger says (Exerc. 188, sect. 1): “We attribute these things to God because from Him comes the causality of all natural causes.”
The testimony of the fathers about the creation of souls.
§ 121. (IV) Therefore, because Bellarmine sees and admits that he cannot thoroughly attack the opinion of the propagation of souls on the basis of Scripture, he tries to prove effectually (so he says) in two other ways that souls are created and are not propagated: first, from the tradition of the church or from the testimonies of the fathers; second, by rational arguments drawn from the principles of the faith. Therefore he cites Hilary (De Trin., bk. 10), Ambrose (De Noa et Arca, ch. 4), Jerome (on the last chapter of Ecclesiastes), Chrysostom (on Matthew, homily 23), Gregory of Nyssa (De anim., ch. 6), Theodoret (Ad Graecos, bk. 5), Cyril (on John, bk. 1, ch. 9), Augustine (Letter 157 ad Opt.), Leo (Letter ad Turbium, ch. 10), Bernard (on Song of Songs, sermon 27), the Lateran Council under Leo X (session 8), the author of De operibus cardin. Christi(Sermon de resurr.), the author of De eccl. dogm. (ch. 14), Innocent (on Psalm 50). To these he adds “the consensus of all peoples, for it is put into the minds of all to claim that God creates souls.”
We respond. First, it is only from Holy Scripture that articles of the faith can be established effectually. When the matter is very obscure, human presumption ought to restrain itself if no certain and clear testimonies of the Holy Scriptures provide assistance (as Augustine says in discussing this very problem, De peccat. merit., bk. 2, ch. 36).
Second, most of the testimonies of the fathers are opposed to the opinion of the Apollinarists and Luciferians but not to the sound position about the propagation of souls.
Third, many of the fathers suspend judgment on this, which Bellarmine admits about Augustine. Gregory, Eucherius, and many others follow this reservation too.
Fourth, some clearly approve of our position. Tertullian (De resurr. carnis, ch. [45], p. 80): “Accordingly, from the blessing of begetting, the flesh and souls are made at the same time without the smallest passage of time, such that those which are also planted in the womb at the same time (as we taught in our commentary Of the Soul) mix in the fetus and are temporally the same at birth.” Jerome reports that “the majority of the Western [writers] is of this opinion” (Letter ad Marcell. et Anapsychiam). Martyr (Loc., class. 2, ch. 1, § 48): “This position is favored by Tertullian and most of the fathers.” Timothie Bright (Animadv. phys.) claims the weightiest and most excellent theologians as well as philosophers as supporters of this position.
Fifth, before the Pelagian controversy broke out, the fathers spoke more securely and freely, but it was noted afterward that the propagation of original sin was weighty evidence that souls are also propagated.
Sixth, if one examines in particular the statements of the fathers, they do not attack our position, or at least do not defeat it. Hilary says (De Trinit., bk. 10): “The soul is the work of God; the generation of the flesh is of the flesh.” Who of us denies this? The soul is completely the work of God, but it is not a product of an immediate act of creation. The generation of the flesh comes from the flesh; that is, [the generation] of the whole man comes from the entire corrupt man (John 3:[6]). Ambrose (De Noa et Arca, ch. 4) denies that souls are generated. We deny the same thing. Generation is of the entire composite [human being]; propagation is of souls. Ambrose again (De paradiso, ch. 11) says that “a rib was taken from his body, not a portion from his soul.” That is quite correct, for the soul is indivisible. At the same time, that rib was endowed with soul, and thus, in the case of Eve and in the case of the descendants of Eve, there was no need to breath in a soul again. Jerome (commentary on the last chapter of Ecclesiastes) and Chrysostom (on Matthew, homily 23) deny that souls are sown and generated by bodies. As we have said, we, too, deny the same thing. Gregory of Nyssa opposed the idea of propagation (De anima) and discusses this matter very well (De opific. hominis, ch. 30). Bellarmine himself admits (col. 300): “The book De anima was not written by Nyssa but by Nemesius,” and he says that “Nyssa did not claim a creation of souls” (col. 309). Theodoret (Adv. Graecos, bk. 5) says: “The soul is not born of the seed.” On the contrary, he claimed that the soul receives creation by divine arrangement, but he adds: “Just as the law of nature was instituted from the beginning and declared in the words of God: ‘Increase and multiply.’ ” Therefore Theodoret is not speaking about an immediate act of creation. Cyril (on John, ch. 9) claims: “The soul comes into being out of nothing.” We ourselves claim the same thing against Origen, who dreamed that all souls were created in the beginning. Lombard (Sent. 2, dist. 18, letter H) lumps Cyril in with the Luciferians, who certainly repudiated the creation of souls. We shall treat Augustine’s position a little later [§ 126]. Leo (Letter ad Turb., ch. 10) claims: “Souls are put into bodies only by God, their Creator, who is the Creator of souls.” However, he adds clearly that “God is the Creator of bodies and souls.” So, then, as He does not create bodies immediately, neither does He create souls immediately. Bernard (on Song of Songs, sermon 27) says that “souls come from heaven.” One must interpret this with discretion. Finally, against the consensus of the peoples, which Bellarmine uses as an argument, we set forth the fact that the minds of all know that human generates human, nor should one deny to man what befits animals, namely, the production of one like himself.
Rational arguments for the creation of souls: First, the soul subsists of itself.
§ 122. Therefore Bellarmine goes on to rational arguments, three of which he lists. (I) “The soul is immortal. Therefore it subsists of itself; that is, it does not depend on the body. If it subsists of itself, surely it is also produced of itself, and as a consequence it does not exist as the generation of a composite [human being], nor is it made from propagation.”
We respond. We are not saying that body and soul are produced separately; we do claim that the entire human is generated by the entire human, for it is commonly taught in the schools of the philosophers that generation is of the entire composite (Aristotle, Met., bk. 12, ch. 3; Scaliger, Exerc. 101, sect. 15; Exerc. 282, sect. 1; and Exerc. 346; Zabarella, De gener. et interit., ch. 4; and Picus, De creat., col. 1, ch. 7). Neither are we saying that the soul comes out of the potentiality of matter in the same way as the souls of animals which are subject to death; rather, we acknowledge that there is a mystery here which has not been explained sufficiently. We believe that souls are propagated, but the manner of their propagation we leave to God. Accordingly, we deny also this deduction: “If a soul is propagated, it must be mortal.” What? Would not the descendants of Adam have been produced immortal from their first immortal parent? Things are the way God intended them to be. All individuals of species were brought forth by God Himself in the first act of creation, and yet they nevertheless did not receive the gift of immortality. Furthermore,1 even if souls subsist separately, they still have a dependency on the body by God’s design so that they would not have been separated from the body if man had persisted in his integrity; and though they are separated from the body because of sin, one day they shall be reunited to it.
Second, [that] the soul is propagated neither from the whole soul nor from a part of it.
§ 123. (II) His second argument is: “If human souls are drawn from their parents, they are drawn either from the body or from the soul of their parents. If from the body, they must be corporeal and mortal; if from the soul, they must come from either the whole soul or a part of it. If from the whole soul, the parent either will subsequently have no soul, or the entire thing will remain in the father and the son. Both are false, because a parent is not deprived of his soul through generation, nor is the soul of the father and son one and the same soul. If the soul of the son exists from part of his father’s soul, the soul will be capable of division and thus corporeal and mortal.”
We respond. We repeat again that soul is not propagated from soul separately, nor body from body, for otherwise individual members would be propagated by individual members, though we know for sure that mutilated parents generate whole children. However, we do follow the lead of Scripture which considers spouses as one agent in the work of generation (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:6) which, according to Avicenna, is a work more miraculous than all miracles. Therefore we refuse to allow ourselves to be limited and forced to show the distinct propagation of each part in the generation of man; rather, we say that generation is a matter of the entire composite which generates one similar to himself by the miraculous power of divine blessing rather than by a power that we should investigate. Furthermore, I could ask the same things about the souls of animals: Are they produced from the body and soul of the ones that give them birth? After all, metaphysicists, to whom all form is indivisible, do not allow the souls of animals to be called physical and divisible.
Third, [that] the soul subsists outside the body.
§ 124. (III) The third argument: “Whatever is produced from the potentiality of matter2 is so dependent on that matter that it can neither be made nor exist without it. And yet souls subsist outside the body. Therefore they are not produced from the potentiality of matter.3” We respond. Scaliger nicely explains how to understand the production of forms from the potentiality of matter (Exerc. 6, sect. 5). He argues that no form preexists in matter actually, but that by the power of the agent brought from matter to final completion a form emerges, rather than being drawn out [educi]. Therefore if one takes “production of the soul from the potentiality of matter” to mean that a soul springs from a physical seed and is really in that seed, then we deny that a soul is brought forth in this way from the potentiality of matter. On the other hand, if this expression is explained to mean that man generates one alike to himself in species by the power of the divine blessing and thus propagates the soul into his offspring, then we do claim that the soul is produced from the potentiality of matter, yet in a way inexplicable to us; that is to say, [the soul] is not created immediately by God. From this, however, it does not follow that the soul cannot subsist outside the body, because the soul is given that subsistence separately by a special gift of God, yet in such a way that obtains its own natural dependence on the body as its dwelling place.
[First,] Genesis 46[:26]: Souls came out of the loins of Jacob.
§ 125. [IV] Finally, Bellarmine produces three arguments in confirmation of the propagation of souls, and then tries to refute them, but we can produce many more and stronger proofs to confirm our position, as we have seen in its own place [§ 116].
Nevertheless let us listen to Bellarmine as he discusses these.
First, he says, it is often cited from Gen. 46[:26] that souls came out of the loins of Jacob. He counters: “This should be understood as a synecdoche referring to human beings endowed with souls.”
We respond. This is quite correct, for what else will follow than that the entire soul-endowed human comes from the loins of his parent, that is, that generation is of the entire composite? According to Bellarmine’s opinion, the “soul” here would have to be taken for only the one part of man, namely, for the body; examples of such a synecdoche probably do not occur anywhere. Drusius (Observ., bk. 11, ch. 8) offers some examples in which a part seems to stand for a part, such as “skin” for flesh (Ps. 102:5) and for the body deprived of the soul (Job 18:13; Acts 2:17). However, a diligent consideration of these statements will show something different. There are no rhetorical precepts which teach this kind of synecdoche where a part stands for a contradistinct part [pro parteἀντιδῃρημένῃ]. (Augustine suggests, Letter 157, that one can respond that soul stands for body by metonymy, namely, as the thing contained [being stated] instead of the container.)
[Second,] Hebrews 7[:9–10]: “Levi paid tithes in the loins of Abraham.”
The second argument is that in Heb. 7[:9–10] Levi is said to have paid tithes in the loins of Abraham, but Christ did not. Therefore Christ was in the loins of Abraham in one respect, namely, only in regard to the body, but Levi was there in another respect, namely, in regard to body and soul. Bellarmine counters: “Christ was in the loins of Abraham according to the material of the flesh but not in the manner of seed; but Levi was there in both ways.”
We respond. Correct. The manner of seed involves the generation of the entire composite, “for man begets man” ([Aristotle,] Phys. acroast., bk. 2, ch. 2). The Son of God was surely not conceived of man’s seed; but by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit which came upon Mary, He put on the flesh from her sanctified inward parts. Meanwhile, this flesh was soul-endowed flesh, for the Son of God did not assume mere flesh but assumed His entire human nature in and from Mary.
The third argument is this: If God creates and inbreathes souls, it will follow that He cooperates with adulteries and fornications in the procreation of a human being. Bellarmine counters: “In fornication and adultery one must consider two things: the natural act of human generation and the sin of transgressing God’s Law in that work. The first is good, and God cooperates with that good.”
We respond. We do not use this argument, for though one may claim that souls are propagated, yet this does not happen without the effectual blessing of God and the preservation of the nature He Himself instituted. Therefore the same difficulty recurs as to why God blesses the illicit unions of fornicators and adulterers, a difficulty which the distinction given explains correctly. Augustine (Letter 28) praises the illustration of Jerome: “There is no fault in the sower’s wheat which is said to have been stolen away, but the fault lies with the person who stole the grain. The earth should not have refused to nourish the seeds in its bosom just because the sower sowed them with a dirty hand.” Then Augustine adds: “We see universally that God does many good things even from our wickedness and sins.” But if the remaining arguments which confirm the propagation of souls, especially the one about the propagation of original sin, could be resolved as easily as this one, Bellarmine would have our agreement.
Augustine suspends judgment regarding the origin of souls.
§ 126. (V) The fifth opinion includes a suspension of judgment and claims that the origin of souls is concealed. Bellarmine attributes this to Augustine but in such a way that the creation rather than the propagation of souls seemed truer to him.
We respond. Augustine was quite doubtful and uncertain on this question. Nevertheless he sees correctly that it is difficult to defend the propagation of original sin against the Pelagians apart from the propagation of souls. Let us listen to Augustine himself (De peccat. merit., bk. 2, ch. 36): “Where the topic under consideration is unclear (such as the question of the origin of the soul), and we do not have the help of definite and clear examples from Holy Scripture, human presumption should restrain itself and do nothing nor incline in either direction.” He says that he firmly believes the following about the soul (Letter 28 ad Hier.):
It is immortal in its own way. It is not part of God. It is incorporeal. It fell into guilt by no fault or compulsion of God or of itself but because of its own will. It cannot be freed from the body of this death either by the power of its own will as sufficient to itself for this or by the death of the body itself, but by the grace of God through Christ. There is no soul in the human race for which the Mediator of God and men is unnecessary for its liberation. Any soul that has left the body at whatever age of the body without the grace of the Mediator and without His Sacrament will be in punishment and will receive the body again for punishment. But the soul which is reborn in Christ after its human birth from Adam belongs to Christ’s fellowship and will have rest after bodily death and will receive its body again for glory.
Augustine says that he holds all these ideas about the soul very firmly, but asks where the soul contracted the guilt which draws it into condemnation. Later he writes:
Several years ago when I wrote some books on free choice, I presented four opinions on the incarnation of the soul: whether the rest were propagated from the one which was given to the first man, or were new ones made just for each individual, or were they preexistent somewhere and divinely sent, or voluntarily descended into bodies. I thought that they should be treated in such a way that, whichever of these were true, it should not hinder my purpose, which at that time was to argue against the Manichaeans. You see, at that time I had not yet heard anything about the Priscillianists, who invent blasphemies not much different from the Manichaeans. Therefore I did not add the fifth opinion which you mentioned in your letter, that the soul is part4 of God, etc. Therefore, having dismissed this heretical error, I wish to know which of the four remaining opinions I should choose.
Later he explains his opinion about the creation of souls and tries to refute opposing arguments, but he adds: “When it comes to the punishment of infants, believe me, I am squeezed into a tight spot and can find nothing to answer, etc. Although no one accomplishes anything by hoping that what is not true is true, yet, if it were possible, I would desire that this opinion be true, just as I desire that, if it is true, you should defend it clearly and convincingly.”
Letter 157 ad Optat.: “I want you to know that in all my many works I have never dared to offer a definite opinion about this question” (concerning the origin of the soul). “As I consider the factors and the causes, I am moved to assent to neither assertion. It would take too long to explain how I still debate between them both. Only there is no danger in the origin of the soul being hidden, provided that the redemption is manifest.” Ibid.: “I have not yet discovered anything definite about the origin of the soul in the canonical Scriptures.” Ibid.:
I would readily and willingly defend it,
(Jerome’s opinion about the creation of souls)
if he could explain to me how souls do not come from Adam and yet they receive their just condition of condemnation from him, unless they attain the remission of sins by being reborn,5 etc. If you can assert the newness of souls without any propagation as agreeing with sound reason and the catholic faith, and still show that they are subject to the sin of the first man, then assert what you think according to your ability. But if you cannot have souls be foreign to propagation without at the same time making them free from every bond of sin, then by all means restrain yourself from this sort of argumentation, etc. If you can defend souls as foreign to propagation but so that right reason still shows them to be in a bondage which Christ’s death alone would destroy—and they must be justly bound not because of their propagation but because of the debt of the flesh—then not only is no one keeping you from defending [your position], but show us how to defend it alongside you. However, if you cannot assert your opinion about the newness of souls except by claiming that they are not bound by the sin of the first man, or that those souls, innocent though they are, become sinners not through their own propagation but through the propagat of the flesh or by God’s instigation or by some other natural evil, then it is better to let the origin of the soul be hidden, etc.
In De Gen. ad lit. (bk. 10) he treats this question in great detail and weighs the reasons for both opinions for several chapters. He finally concludes (ch. 23):
Now that we have thoroughly treated this matter as much as time allowed, I would declare the importance of the reasons and testimonies of both sides to be all equal or almost equal, except for the opinion of those who think that souls are created6 from parents based on the Baptism of infants. What can be said in response to such people about infants has not yet occurred to me. If God perhaps gives me something later, and if He also gives me the ability to write it, I shall not be annoyed by the pursuits of such matters. However, now I declare in advance that the testimony of infants must not be despised as though being refuted; if the truth be contrary to it, let it be neglected. For either we should ask nothing about this matter so that it is enough for our faith that we know where we will be going by godly living, and if we do not know, to know from where we came; or, if the rational soul is not burning shamelessly to know even this about itself, then away with stubborn contention. Let there be7 incessant seeking, humble begging, and persistent knocking, so that He who knows how to give good gifts to His children may give us this too [cf. Matt. 7:11], for if He knows better than we what is good for us, then surely He knows this too.
Augustine also wrote four books De origine animae[“On the Origin of the Soul”]; he gives the occasion for this work and a summary of it in these words (Retract., bk. 2, ch. 26):
A certain Vincentius Victor in Mauritania Caesariensis discovered a little book of mine in the possession of a Spanish presbyter, Peter. In a certain passage of it regarding the origin of the soul of each human being, I confessed that I did not know whether they are propagated from that one first soul of man and then from their parents, or whether they are individually given to each without propagation, just as the first one was given to [Adam]. Yet I knew that the soul was not body but spirit. He wrote two books against me to the same Peter, which the monk Renatus sent to me from Caesarea. After reading these books, I wrote four others with my response, one to the monk Renatus, one to presbyter Peter, and two to the same Victor. In all of them, while discussing many necessary points, I defended my hesitancy about the origin of souls which are given to each human being; I also showed his many errors and his perverse presumption. Yet I treated this young man as gently as I could, not as one to be detested out of hand, but as one who should still be taught. I then received a note from him that he stood corrected.
From all of this it is apparent that: (1) On the question of the soul’s origin, Augustine was unwilling to give his assent to proponents of either the creation or the propagation of souls. (2) At the same time he claimed that the propagation of original sin could scarcely be maintained against the Pelagians if the propagation of the soul is denied.
(3) Accordingly, he vehemently opposed Vincentius, who with a juvenile temerity was asserting that he could prove with certainty that souls are created anew.
Bellarmine’s opinion about the origin of souls.
§ 127. (VI) Finally, the sixth opinion about the creation of souls follows. Bellarmine exceeds Augustine’s moderation and says we must embrace it: (1) “Because it has the rescript of Leo I, the decree of Leo X, the consensus of the Scholastics, and their outstanding reasons.”
We respond. First, all these are not yet enough to establish an article of faith for us, if we lack the firm foundations of Scripture. We leave for the philosophers to judge what force and strength their reasons have. “Argument overthrows argument.”8 Second, Biel (Sent. 2, dist. 17) acknowledges that those reasons are not compelling but merely plausible.
(2) “Because only the transmission of original sin kept Augustine from believing the creation of souls. However, the creation of souls does not interfere with the transmission of sin, nor does the propagation of souls from the soul of Adam aid the propagation of sin.”
We respond. It is certain that this argumentation from the propagation of original sin compelled Augustine to avoid the opinion that souls are created, which he otherwise favored; but instead he hesitated to give his assent to it. So if Bellarmine can prove this and show that the creation of souls does not hinder the transmission of sin and that the propagation of souls does not aid the transfer of sin, then we shall admit that a huge basis for our position has been undermined.
As to his assertion that the creation of souls does not hinder the transmission of sin, he shows this in a special chapter which we shall discuss a bit later [§ 128].
As to his assertion that the propagation of souls does not help the propagation of sins, his proof is that “as far as the soul is concerned, Adam was justified from sin before he begot his children. Also, parents who are righteous and who do not have original sin often produce children. However, the soul of an unrighteous person cannot be drawn from the soul of a righteous person.”
We respond. This proceeds from a false hypothesis, as if in one’s justification sin is remitted such that it passes away in actuality and in guilt at the same time and is plucked out by the roots with all its fibers from the nature of man. This is patently false, as we shall teach clearly in its own place [cf. On Good Works(Commonplace XX), § 71]. Who, now, are these parents who lack original sin, as Bellarmine so audaciously asserts? Scripture teaches clearly that all the descendants of Adam are born subject to original sin and that this evil adheres to them until the body is totally destroyed and wiped away. If anyone could have been completely free from the yoke of original sin, it certainly would have been Paul, the chosen instrument of God; but how wretchedly he cries out and laments, Rom. 7:14: “I am of the flesh, sold under sin!” Verse 17: “Sin dwells in me.” Verse 23: “I see another law in my members waging war against the law of my mind.” Verse 24: “Wretched man that I am—who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Whether the propagation of original sin can be reconciled with the creation of souls.
§ 128. How can the soul be subject to original sin if it is created immediately by God but is not propagated from the soul of Adam? Bellarmine (De grat. primi hominis, ch. 12) rejects: First, “the opinion of those who claim that the soul is corrupted in the body as in a faulty vessel.” And he is quite correct in this, because: (a) The body cannot act against the spirit. (b) Sin resides primarily in the soul and not in the flesh. (c) God would be unjust in sending a pure soul into an impure body.
Second, he also refutes the opinion “of those who think that the flesh, lacking its original righteousness and having become rebellious in its reason, draws the soul downward and in this way causes it to be crooked and twisted.” This is quite right, for: (a) The soul, being uncorrupted and more powerful, would resist. (b) On the other hand, if it would assent, that would be actual rather than original sin. (c) Infants would not have original sin before the age of reason.
Finally, he sets forth his own opinion contained in these theorems:
(1) For the transmission of original sin nothing else is required except that a human being descend from Adam through true generation; for in this way all were in the loins of Adam, and when Adam broke the commandment, all shared in Adam’s sin because in Adam all have sinned. (2) The soul is not polluted when God creates it, but [is polluted] when it becomes part of man through its union with the flesh drawn from Adam. (3) The cause of original sin is propagation from the corrupt nature. (4) It is enough for the transmission of sin from Adam for the soul to be part of man, who is truly brought from Adam, though the soul itself is not propagated from the soul of Adam. (5) Man truly and properly begets, though the soul is inbreathed by God, because generation is not limited to the production of form or matter but to the production of the composite. Therefore, though man does not propagate the soul, through generation he so arranges matters that a soul invariably follows, and in this way he unites soul with flesh. (6) The souls of beasts are only made as a result of propagation because their parents arrange matter by generation to the point of animation. As a result there is no reason why one should doubt the creation of souls because of original sin.
In fact, he claims (ch. 11, col. 311) that “if Augustine himself were among the living now, he would thank the proponents of creation [of the soul] after hearing this explanation.”
We respond. It is strange that Augustine, endowed as he was with so great a keenness of talent, did not see this, and that neither Jerome nor Optatus nor Vincentius gave him this response, seeing that he asked for it so often! We shall see what force this has.
(1) How can one be said to descend from Adam through true generation if he receives only part of the composite from him, and the less principal part at that, namely, matter? To be sure, the body is not man but only a part of man. But now, based on Bellarmine’s opinion, only the body, not the soul, of his descendants is drawn from Adam. How, then, do his descendants descend from Adam through true generation? The name of each and every thing is attributed first and properly to the form itself, but secondarily and because of this to the entire thing, that is, to its substance composed of matter and form ([Aristotle,] Metaph., bk. 7, ch. 3). Consequently, if the soul is created but only flesh is propagated, it would be more correct to say that man is created rather than generated because names are given from the more important part [a potiori fit denominatio].
That which is generated by Adam lacks a rational soul (based on Bellarmine’s hypothesis); but now, that which lacks a rational soul is not one in species with man. Properly and accurately speaking, therefore, man is not generated from Adam.
Only what was in the loins of Adam, who transgressed the command of God, is wholly corrupt. But now, it was not the entire human nature but only part thereof, the flesh, which was in the loins of Adam (based on Bellarmine’s hypothesis). Therefore it is not the entire human nature but only a part of it, namely, the flesh, which was corrupted.
If in Adam all sinned, as the apostle asserts, then surely the entire human nature was in Adam and is drawn totally from him. Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 6, ch. 12): “In one man all sinned originally and commonly, as in one mass.” De peccat. merit., bk. 1, ch. 9: “He in whom all die infected in himself all who come from his roots by the hidden corruption of his own lust.” Contra duas epistolas Pelagian., bk. 4, ch. 4: “In the first man all sinned, because they were all in him when he sinned. From him they receive sin by being born. St. Hilary understood this, for he said that it was clear that in Adam all sinned, as in one mass.” Anselm (De concept. virg., ch. 2): “The entire human nature was in them” (the first parents), “and outside of them there existed nothing of that [nature]. Therefore the whole [nature] was weakened and corrupted.”
(2) “The soul is corrupted when it becomes part of man through its union with the flesh.” Bellarmine should not declare this so baldly. Rather, he should explain how the body can pollute the soul; how the righteousness of God would not be undermined if He infuses a pure soul into an impure body; how sin is propagated into the soul from the flesh. Yet he himself said (in the preceding chapter, col. 302): “The image of God properly resides in the soul.” And he correctly claims with Thomas ([ST,] 1.2., q. 83, art. 2): “The soul is the primary subject of original sin.” All these points should have been explained clearly and lucidly. Because Bellarmine does not do this, he would receive very little thanks from Augustine, if he were still among the living. The difficulty still remains: From where does the soul get its just sentence of condemnation from Adam if it does not come9 from Adam? Bellarmine answers: “Because it is a part of man who does come from Adam.” Yet why does a good and righteous God make a pure soul part of man when He creates it and breathes it in? What wicked merits did the soul commit to deserve this?
(3) He asserts very correctly that the cause of propagated original sin is a propagation from a corrupted nature, but then he adds:
(4) that to contract sin from Adam it is enough for the soul to be part of man who is taken from Adam. This he will never be able to prove, because there will always remain this vivid and vigorous difficulty: Why does God unite a pure soul with an impure body and make it part of man? How is the soul corrupted in its union with the body? And how does the body of man, which holds the place of matter [materia], draw the other part of man, namely, the soul, which discharges the excellent office of form [formae eminentia], into sharing its corruption?
(5) It is difficult for us to accept that man nonetheless truly and properly generates even if the soul is created. Generation is the propagation of a species, that is, the production of another alike to oneself according to species. But now, an inanimate body and a soul-endowed man differ in species. Therefore if only the inanimate body is drawn from its parents, this is not truly and properly called production of man from man.
“But,” you say, “man so arranges matter through generation that the soul invariably follows. Consequently, it is he himself who unites the soul with the body.”
We respond. The preparation of matter for the introduction of the form is not yet true generation,10 but [true generation] is the emerging of the form produced from the matter at the last stage of preparation. However, if God inbreathes a soul by creating it, surely man does not unite the soul with the body; and given the sufficient preparation of matter, God would be able not to infuse a soul. Because there is no contradiction here, certainly the preparation of matter is not an adequate cause for this joining [of soul and body], but the unique action of God [is], namely, creation.
(6) When it is said that beasts generate in no other way than by arranging matter toward animation, this is groundless; for though in everyday speech “generation” involves the previous changes, nevertheless it is understood as shorthand for the production of the composite itself. This production consists of the emergence of the substantial form out of the potentiality of matter and is always completed indivisibly. For this reason the scholars of Coimbra [Conimbricenses] (De generat. et corrupt., bk. 1, ch. 4, q. 12, art. 2) conclude that generation is a momentary action because the introduction of form is momentary. For this reason, too, they claim (q. 13, art. 2, against Thomas, Scotus, Richard, Abulensis, Capreolus, etc., and in order to save the declaration of Aristotle that “man generates man”) that it is not enough for matter to be made ready from him into which, when it has been arranged perfectly, God infuses a soul and which He unites with the body. “Rather, in human generation, from the human who is generating there is an action aimed [actio terminata] intrinsically at the rational soul, not according to itself as it receives its being absolutely or as it is creatable, but according as it receives its essence in the matter and is coupled together with it, or as it can be united to the body.” They offer this proof:
Because generation consists of an action by which form is coupled to matter and because the soul as a partaker of reason is the end form [formalis terminus] from which human generation gets its species, we do not see how such a generation can stand unless there is an action which operates on the soul, affects it intrinsically as its proper end, and unifies it with matter. If God alone creates the soul and unifies it with the body, one of these two will follow: either it is not proper to say that man begets man, or human generation does not correspond with the generation of other living things univocally. Next, if acts of arranging as instruments of the one generat ing do not produce the action of generating itself, but merely serve to make the matter suitable for receiving its form, then, surely, just as such arrangements do not come together actively but exist from the matter, so the one who is generating will not be said to concur through them actively. Accordingly, it will not be right to say that man generates because of them, since generating is acting.
Those are the words of the scholars of Coimbra. Let Bellarmine deal with them since he claims that the arrangement of matter toward animation is the form of generating.
1 Read adde quod with Cotta instead of adde que.
2 Production from the potentiality of matter (eductio de potentia materiae) is when something that was previously only potential is brought into actuality. (See Deferrari, Lexicon of Saint Thomas Aquinas, s.v. “educo”; Micraelius, Lexicon philosophicum, s.v. “Educi.”)
3 Read materiae with Cotta instead of animae.
4 Read quod anima sit pars instead of quod anima non sit pars. Cf. Augustine, Letter 166.3.7 (PL 33:723 n. 3).
5 Read renascendo instead of nascendo. Cf. Augustine’s Letter 190.6.21 (PL 33:864).
6 Read creari with Cotta instead of creati.
7 Read adsit with Cotta instead of absit.
8 Cf. Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis 1013 (LCL 495 [2002], p. 276).
9 Read veniat instead of inveniat.
10 Read generatio with Cotta instead of regeneratio.