derived through parents from the soul of the first man, Adam.
BookX 415 reason known only to himself he has wished to be born in the body and has then a short while later withdrawn from the body.
So when they give this kind of answer, how else can they be rebutted, except by saying that this also makes us unsure about the salvation of those who, after living a good life, have died in the peace of the Church, if people are to bejudged not only on the kind of lives they have lived but also on the kind they would live if they had been able to live longer? l mean, if God takes account of what we deserve for future as well as past crimes and misdemeanors, then death will not deliver us from liability for them if it overtakes us before we have committed them, nor has any benefit been conferred on the one who was snatchedaway lest viciousness should change his understanding (Wis 4:11). God, after all, has foreknowledge of his future viciousness; so why will he not be judging him rather with reference to this, if it is because he foreknew the soul of a dying infant, were it to live, would live a life ofloyal faith and love, that he hasjudged it should be assisted through baptism, lest it be disqualified by the filthy backwash of sin from the body?
29. Or is it because this little loophole is my invention that it can be so easily blocked? But perhaps those who insist on the lightness of this view25 can produce either scriptural evidence or arguments of reason to dispel this uncer tainty, or definitely to show how their idea does not go against what the apostle says to commend with all possible earnestness the grace by which we are saved: Just as all die in Adam, so shall all be brought to life in Christ ( 1 Cor 1 5:22); and: Just as through one man's disobedience many were constituted sinners, so through one man 's obedience many shall be constituted asjust (Rom 5:19). And by these "many being sinners" he clearly wishes us to understand "all," with no exceptions, since he says about Adam a verse or two earlier on: in whom all sinned (Rom 5:12). So that other party, which favors souls being derived from the stock of one man, has every right to think that that "all" proves that the souls of infants cannot be excepted, as does the practice of coming to their aid with baptism, unless it can be rebutted either by some sound, clear argument ofreason which is not repugnant to the holy scriptures, or by the equally clear authority of the scriptures themselves.
25. The view—just to remind the reader—that souls are inserted by God into bodies without being derived through parents from the soul of the first man, Adam.
416 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis
Back to a difficult textfrom the book of Wisdom
1 7, 30. And so now let us take a look, as far as the needs of this work we have undertaken permit us,26 at the meaning of a text which we deferred consideration of a few pages ago. It is written, you see, in the book of Wisdom: But l was a talentedboy and lobtained a good soul by lot, and since l was good rather more, l came to an undefiled body (Wis 8: 19-20). While this testimony, you see, may seem to help those who say that souls are not created from parents, but come or descend to the body as God dispatches them, this in particular, on the other hand, stands in their way: his saying, / obtained a good soul by lot. What they undoubt edly believe, l mean, is that the souls which God dispatches into bodies either trickle somehow from one source or spring like little rivulets, or else are all made equal in nature, but not that some are good or good rather more and others not good or good rather less.
What after all could make souls good or more good, or not good or less good, but either their morals freely and deliberately chosen, or the differing tempera ments or constitutions of bodies, while some are more, some less weighed down by the body which is perishing and weighs down the soul (Wis 9: 1 5)? But in the first place no souls did anything before coming to bodies by which their respec tive morals could be distinguished; and in the second place this man could not say that his soul was good as a result of his body being less of a weight to it, seeing that he says, / obtained a good soul by lot, and since l was good rather more, l came to an undefiled body. He says, you see, that his also coming to an undefiled body was a bonus added to the goodness he was good with, having obtained, that is to say, a good soul by lot. He was good therefore from some other cause before he came to the body. But this was certainly not in virtue of distinctive morals, because there was no merit from conduct in some previous life; nor was it the result of some distinct quality of the body, because he was good before he came to the body. So where then did his goodness come from?
3 1 . As for those, though, who assert that souls are created as slips or cuttings transmitted from that soul that transgressed, his saying indeed, / came to a body, may not seem to chime in with their opinion; this nonetheless fits in with the rest without any incongruity. Thus after saying But l was a talented boy, he adds straightaway, to explain where he got his talents from, "and 1 obtained a good soul by lot," namely from his father's talents or bodily constitution. Next, since l was good rather more, he goes on, / came to an undefiled body. lf this is under stood as being his mother's, not even his saying l came to a body will clash with this opinion, when it is accepted that it was from his father's soul and body that
26. "This work we have undertaken" means here, 1 presume, the work of investigating the origin of the human soul—specifically the work of this Book X. He first raised the problem of the
Wisdom text back in 7,1 2.