possibly signifying life (11,3,4); since the better translations have "hay" instead
Extractfrom Revisions (I, 10, 1-3) 37 meaning that those two human beings would not have had human children unless they had sinned, I totally repudiate it.
Again, just because there are quadrupeds and winged creatures which seem to be solely carnivorous, it does not follow (1,20,3 1 ) that we can only take in an allegorical sense what the book of Genesis says about the green grass and fruit trees being given for food to wild animals of every kind and to all birds and all snakes. lt could have happened, after all, that carnivores would have been fed by human beings on the fruits of the earth, had human beings, in return for the obedience with which they might have served God without any wrongdoing, earned the right to have all beasts and birds serving them in every conceivable way.
Again, you may well wonder how I could say about the people of Israel: "That people was still keeping the law with bodily circumcision and sacrifices in the middle of a kind of Gentile sea" (1,22,40), seeing that they were unable to offer sacrifices among the Gentiles, just as we see that they have continued to this day without sacrifices, unless their slaughter of a sheep at Passover may possibly be counted as a sacrifice.
3. ln the second book there is also what I put about the word "fodder" very possibly signifying life (11,3,4); since the better translations have "hay" instead of "fodder," this does not seem after all to have been aptly said, seeing that the word "hay" is not as appropriate for signifying life as the word "fodder."
Again, I do not think l was right in ascribing the following words to a prophet: Whatdo earth andashes have to beproud of? (Sir 10:9), since they are not found in a book by an author we are absolutely certain should be called a prophet (11,5,6).
Nor did l understand the apostle in the way he himselfmeant it in quoting the text of Genesis, Thefirst man Adam was made into a living soul (I Cor 15:45), when I was myselfexplaining the text, God breathed into hisface thepuffoflife, and the man was made into a live soul, or into a living soul (Gn 2:7). The apostle, you see, quoted this text to prove that there is an "ensouled" body,4 while l on the other hand thought that what had to be demonstrated from this passage was that the whole man, not just the body of the man, was first made of a "soulish" or animal nature (11,8,10).
As for my saying, "Sins do no harm to any nature except its own" (11,29,43), the reason I said it is that the person who harms a just man does not do him any real harm, seeing that in fact he increases his heavenly reward, but really does harm himself by sinning, because on account of his will to do harm he will get
Corpus animale, animale being contrasted with spiritale, to make the contrast between our bodies in this life, animated simply by an anima, a soul (hence my neologisms "ensouled" and a little later "soulish") and our bodies in the resurrection which will be quickened by spirit, "enspirited." When we come to the passage itself in Book 11, we may be able to see more clearly how Augustine's understanding of the verse differed from the apostle's.