The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK SEVEN Ta
certain effect can be produced step by step, no one will deny that God can accomplish the same result even if He abridges the process. Consequently, whatever the intermediate steps, if a body is the material of an irrational soul, and the irrational soul is the material of the rational soul, there is no doubt that the body is the material of the the rational soul. But I know of no one who has ever ventured such an opinion except a person who holds that the soul itself is nothing but a kind of body.
13. If we concede that an irrational soul is the basic matter out of which the rational soul is made, we must be on our guard against the danger of believing that there is the possibility of a transmigration of souls from beasts to men (a position which flatly contradicts the truth and the Catholic faith). For if an irrational soul is changed for the better, it will become the soul of a human being; similarly, if a human soul is changed for the worse, it will become the soul of a beast. Some philosophers who have held such ridiculous opinions have been a cause of embarrassment to their later followers, who have said that their predecessors did not take such a position but were simply misunderstood.'® And I believe that this is so.
In somewhat the same way one might adopt such an interpretation of our Scripture where it says, Man, for all his dignity, has not understood; he has been joined with senseless beasts and has become like them;'7 or again where it says, Deliver not up to beasts the soul that confesses to Thee.1® For there are some heretics who read the Catholic Scripture, and the only reason they are heretics is that their interpretation is wrong, and they obstinately maintain their false opinions against the truth of these books. But whatever the opinion of philosophers regarding the transmigration of souls, it is not consistent with the Catholic faith to believe that the souls of beasts enter into men or that the souls of men enter into beasts.