33. SeeMt 1:1; Gal 3:15.
420 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis too according to the flesh is from the seed of Abraham;33 and thus he too was tithed.
"So why bring in, as indicating the great difference between Christ's priest hood and Levi's, the fact that Levi was tithed by Melchizedek since he was in the loins of Abraham, where Christ also was, so they were both equally tithed—unless it is because we have to understand that there is a certain way in which Christ was not there?"
But who would deny that he was there according to the flesh? Therefore he was not there according to the soul. Hence the soul of Christ is not derived from the transmission of Adam's transgression, otherwise it too would have been there in the loins of Abraham.
The difference in the ways in which Levi and Christ were in the loins of Abraham and its bearing on the transmission oforiginal sin
20, 35. Here the defenders of the transmission of souls step forward, and say their opinion is confirmed, if it is agreed that Levi was in the loins ofAbraham, in whom Melchizedek tithed him, according to the soul as well, so that Christ may be distinguished from him in this tithing. For since he was not tithed and yet was in the loins of Abraham according to the flesh, it remains that he was not there according to the soul; and that is why it follows that Levi was there according to the soul.
This does not concern me greatly, since I am readier still to go on listening to the discussion between the parties than to uphold the opinion of one or other of them. Meanwhile what I have wished to do by this text is to exclude the soul of Christ from the origin of this transmission. For the rest, the others will perhaps find how to answer them by saying something which does indeed interest me no little.
"Although nobody's soul," they affirm, "is in the loins of his father, still Levi was in the loins ofAbraham according to the flesh and was tithed, and Christ was there according to the flesh and was not tithed. This is because Levi was there according to that seminal formula by which he was going to come into his mother through sexual intercourse, a formula by which the flesh of Christ was not there, though Mary's flesh was there in that way."
So then, neither Levi nor Christ was in the loins of Abraham as regards the soul, while both Levi and Christ were there as regards the flesh: Levi, however, in accordance with fleshly concupiscence, Christ by contrast only in the substance of his body.
Since, you see, there is in the seed both visible bodiliness and an invisible formula, each of these ran from Abraham, or even from Adam himself, as far as
33. SeeMt 1:1; Gal 3:15.