36. See note 34 above.
Book VI 323 receive the wife he hoped for, having offended the man he hoped to get her from, is said to have lost his wife as well as his honor.15
28, 39. According to this opinion then, Adam had an "ensouled" body, not only before Paradise, but when he was already established there, although in the inner man he was "enspirited" according to the image of the one who created him. This he lost by sinning,36 also earning the death of his body, which by not sinning he would have deserved to have changed into an "enspirited" body. I mean, if his inner life was also just something "ensouled," we cannot be said to be renewed to this feature of his. Those, after all, who are being told, "Be renewed in the spirit of your minds," are being told precisely to become "enspirited"; but if he was not that even in his mind, how are we being renewed to what the man never was?
Now the apostles and all thejust certainly still had merely "ensouled" bodies; but all the same they were living an "enspirited" inner life, being renewed, that is to say, "for recognition of God according to the image of the one who created them." This does not mean, however, that they would no longer be able to sin, were they to consent to iniquity; that spiritual people too can fall when tempted to sin is shown by the apostle, where he says: Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in some offense, all you who are spiritual correct such a one in a spirit ofgentleness, taking a look atyourself, in case you too should be tempted
(Gal 6: 1 ). He said this in case anyone should deem it impossible for Adam to sin if he was "enspirited" in mind, though only "ensouled" in body.
All this being so, we are still in no inordinate hurry to affirm anything for sure, but instead we are waiting to see whether the rest of scripture does not block this understanding of things.
A difficult question about the soul is deferred to the next book
29, 40. There follows, you see, a question about the soul ofextreme difficulty, which many people have wrestled with, and left to us to wrestle with too. lt may be because l have not been able to read everything written by all who have dealt with it in accordance with the truth of our scriptures, and who have been able to reach an answer that clears up all doubts; or it may be because it is such a vast question, that even if they have found a genuine solution, they are not easy for such as l am to understand; whatever the reason, l must confess that nobody has yet managed to persuade me I can ever have such a grasp of the soul, that l may assume there is no further question to be asked. Whether l am now going to find and define anything certain, I do not know. But what l can do in this line, l will undertake, if the Lord assists my efforts, to set out in the next volume.
35. 1 suspect there is a reference here to some current piece of scandal in high circles, perhaps even in the imperial court. 36. See note 34 above.