40. See Mt 2:16-18.
Book X 423 ment that the soul cannot be born of the flesh? What else, after all, is the soul but the spirit of life, the created one of course, not the creator spirit?"
Against them: "Well, what else," those others reply, "do we on our side think, saying as we do that flesh comes from flesh, soul from soul? Because man consists ofeach, and each we consider comes from him, flesh from the flesh that acts, spirit from the spirit that lusts—to leave aside for the moment the fact that the Lord was not talking there about carnal bodily birth but about spiritual rebirth."
Summing up the debate
23, 39 So then, having run through all these texts and arguments as thoroughly as the time allowed us, I would pronounce judgment that the weights of rational argument and scriptural evidence balance each other equally or almost equally on either side, were it not that the opinion of those who think souls are created from parents outweighs the opposition over the baptism of babies. What answer could be given them on this point has not so far occurred to me. lf God by any chance should suggest something later on, if he should even endow those who devote themselves to studying such things with a facility in writing about them, l will not take it amiss. For the moment, nonetheless, l officially declare that the testimony ofbabies is not to be disdained, so that nobody bothers to refute it, as it were, if the truth happens to go against it.
For either, you see, there is nothing further to be asked on this matter, and it should be enough for our faith that we should know where we are going to arrive by living devout and loyal lives, even if we are ignorant of where we have come from; or else, if it is not a piece ofimpudence on the part of the rational soul to be in a fever to know this too about itself, at least let there be no obstinate wran gling, but rather diligent seeking, humble asking, persistent knocking, so that if it is expedient for us to know this, the one who certainly knows better than we do what is expedient for us may also give us this, the one who gives good gifts to his children.38 The custom, all the same, of mother Church in baptizing babies is never on any account to be spurned nor in any way to be set aside as superfluous; nor should one believe at all that it is anything but an apostolic tradition.39 That infant age too, after all, bears testimony of great weight, seeing that it was the first to have the privilege of shedding its blood for Christ.40
38. SeeLk 11:9-13. 39. 1 think this is what it must mean; but it is a very odd phrase in the Latin: nee omnino credenda nisi apostolica esset Iraditio; at first sight this means, "nor should it be believed at all (that is, one should not believe in baptizing infants), unless it were an apostolic tradition." Perhaps that is what Augustine did mean; take your choice. 40. See Mt 2:16-18.