wonderful Hebrew pair, hesed and emeth; essentially family virtues, the parents' love for their
412 The Literal Meaning of Genesis
A possible response to this opinion
24. To this the reply can be made that God does indeed give souls to the bodies of human beings one by one; but to this end, that in the sinfulflesh (Rom 8:3) coming from the original sin20 they may live uprightly and subdue the lusts of the flesh under the grace of God, and in this way merit the reward of being transferred together with the body to a better state at the time of the resurrection, and live for ever in Christ with the angels. But this means it is necessary for them to be overcome by a kind of oblivion when they are fitted in a marvelous fashion into bodies that are earth-bound and mortal, and above all propagated from sinful flesh, in order first of all to make them alive, and next at the appropriate age to govern them.
If this oblivion were somehow or other insuperable,21 it could be attributed to the creator; but in fact the soul is able little by little to shake itself out of the torpor of this oblivion and be converted to its God, and then to earn his mercy and faithfulness,22 first of all by the filial act of conversion and then by perse vering in keeping his commandments. So what disadvantage can it be for it to be sunk, as it were, in that sleep for a little while, from which as it wakes up little by little into the light of understanding (which is why it was made a rational soul), if it is able by a good will to choose to live a good life? This it could not do, indeed, unless helped by the grace of God through the mediator. Any who neglect all this will be Adam not only as regards the flesh but also as regards the spirit; while if they take it seriously, they will be Adam as regards the flesh alone, and by living upright lives in accordance with the spirit they will deserve to receive back the culpable element derived from Adam, now cleansed of the blemish of sin by that transformation which the resurrection holds out for the saints.
20. De original! peccato. What this expression usually means for Augustine, as in all the theology derived from him, is the flaw or "vice of nature" which we are all born with, as we are born with human nature; what it does not usually mean is the first sin, the one committed by Adam, from which this flawed nature of ours derives. But here 1 think he must mean the sin of Adam, the first sin, seeing that "sinful flesh," or "the flesh of sin" is the manifestation of our flawed nature, and can hardly be said to come from it. 21. He uses the rather more graphic word indigestibilis. What he means by this oblivion is the soul's total unconsciousness in infancy—and of course in the womb. Such lack of consciousness is a kind of oblivion on the supposition which is being made here that the soul already existed by itself in some kind of divine storeroom, before being fitted into a body, and in that state the presumption is that it was fully, rationally conscious. Totally to obliterate this pre-embodiment consciousness is something only God could do, as it would be a kind of annihilation; and that is why the oblivion would have to be attributed to the creator if the soul never snapped out of it. But as it does, as a rule, do so, this infantile oblivion is simply a phase, the first one, in the process of human living. 22. His misericordia et veritas, the regular Latin translation, through the Greek Septuagint, of that wonderful Hebrew pair, hesed and emeth; essentially family virtues, the parents' love for their children and their reliability in looking after them, and the corresponding love of the children for their parents and their loyalty to them. So it is in that sense that we need God's truth as well as his mercy in our lives—in a word, his grace.