The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
condition that it has not contracted the taint of sin; but if it could not be from that source without the guilt of sin, it has not come from that soul.
With regard to the origin of other souls, whether they are from their parents or directly from God, let that side prevail which can. I am still hesitant and wavering between the two theories, now on one side, now on the other. But there is one thing I cannot believe, and that is that the soul is a body or any kind of corporeal quality or arrangement?! (if you want to use that word to designate what the Greeks call appovia); and I trust that with God's help in my speculations I shall never accept such a theory, no matter who chatters such nonsense.
CHAPTER 22
The doubt about the origin of the soul cannot be solved by the words of our Lord in Jobn 3.6.
38. There is another text of some importance which can be cited for their opinion by those who hold that souls come from above, namely, the text in which our Lord says, What is born of flesh is flesh; what is born of spirit is spirit.°? What is more explicit, they say, than this statement to prove that the soul cannot be born of the flesh? For what else is the soul than the spirit of life—a created spirit, to be sure, not the Creator?
But in answer the advocates of the other opinion reply: "What else do we hold when we say that the flesh is from the flesh and the soul from the soul?" For man is made of both, and we hold that both come from him: the flesh from the flesh that acts, the spirit from the spirit that desires. Moreover, it should be noted that the Lord was speaking not of carnal generation but of spiritual regeneration.