On the Soul and its Origin — Book I

St. Augustine of Hippo

  1. 0. Greeting
  2. 1. [I.]— Renatus Had Done Him a Kindness by Sending Him the Books Which Had Been Addressed to Him.
  3. 2. [II.]— He Receives with a Kindly and Patient Feeling the Books of a Young and Inexperienced Man Who Wrote Against Him in a Tone of Arrogance. Vincentius Victor Converted from the Sect of the Rogatians.
  4. 3. [III]— The Eloquence of Vincentius, Its Dangers and Its Tolerableness.
  5. 4. [IV.]— The Errors Contained in the Books of Vincentius Victor. He Says that the Soul Comes from God, But Was Not Made Either Out of Nothing or Out of Any Created Thing.
  6. 5. [V.]— Another of Victor's Errors, that the Soul is Corporeal.
  7. 6. [VI.]— Another Error Out of His Second Book, to the Effect, that the Soul Deserved to Be Polluted by the Body.
  8. 7. [VII.]— Victor Entangles Himself in an Exceedingly Difficult Question. God's Foreknowledge is No Cause of Sin.
  9. 8. [VIII.]— Victor's Erroneous Opinion, that the Soul Deserved to Become Sinful.
  10. 9. — Victor Utterly Unable to Explain How the Sinless Soul Deserved to Be Made Sinful.
  11. 10. [IX.]— Another Error of Victor's, that Infants Dying Unbaptized May Attain to the Kingdom of Heaven. Another, that the Sacrifice of the Body of Christ Must Be Offered for Infants Who Die Before They are Baptized.
  12. 11. — Martyrdom for Christ Supplies the Place of Baptism. The Faith of the Thief Who Was Crucified Along with Christ Taken as Martyrdom and Hence for Baptism.
  13. 12. [X.]— Dinocrates, Brother of the Martyr St. Perpetua, is Said to Have Been Delivered from the State of Condemnation by the Prayers of the Saint.
  14. 13. [XI.]— The Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ Will Not Avail for Unbaptized Persons, and Can Not Be Offered for the Majority of Those Who Die Unbaptized.
  15. 14. — Victor's Dilemma: He Must Either Say All Infants are Saved, or Else God Slays the Innocent.
  16. 15. [XII.]— God Does Not Judge Any One for What He Might Have Done If His Life Had Been Prolonged, But Simply for the Deeds He Actually Commits.
  17. 16. [XIII.]— Difficulty in the Opinion Which Maintains that Souls are Not by Propagation.
  18. 17. [XIV.]— He Shows that the Passages of Scripture Adduced by Victor Do Not Prove that Souls are Made by God in Such a Way as Not to Be Derived by Propagation: First Passage.
  19. 18. — By Breath Is Signified Sometimes the Holy Spirit.
  20. 19. — The Meaning of Breath In Scripture.
  21. 20. — Other Ways of Taking the Passage.
  22. 21. — The Second Passage Quoted by Victor.
  23. 22. — Victor's Third Quotation.
  24. 23. — His Fourth Quotation.
  25. 24. [XV.]— Whether or No the Soul is Derived by Natural Descent (Ex Traduce), His Cited Passages Fail to Show.
  26. 25. — Just as the Mother Knows Not Whence Comes Her Child Within Her, So We Know Not Whence Comes the Soul.
  27. 26. [XVI.]— The Fifth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor.
  28. 27. [XVII.]— Augustine Did Not Venture to Define Anything About the Propagation of the Soul.
  29. 28. — A Natural Figure of Speech Must Not Be Literally Pressed.
  30. 29. [XVIII.]— The Sixth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor.
  31. 30. — The Danger of Arguing from Silence.
  32. 31. — The Argument of the Apollinarians to Prove that Christ Was Without the Human Soul of This Same Sort.
  33. 32. [XIX.]— The Self-Contradiction of Victor as to the Origin of the Soul.
  34. 33. — Augustine Has No Objection to the Opinion About the Propagation of Souls Being Refuted, and that About Their Insufflation Being Maintained.
  35. 34. — The Mistakes Which Must Be Avoided by Those Who Say that Men's Souls are Not Derived from Their Parents, But are Afresh Inbreathed by God in Every Instance.
  36. 35. [XX.]— Conclusion.

Addressed to Renatus, the Monk.

On receiving from Renatus the two books of Vincentius Victor, who disapproved of Augustine's opinion touching the nature of the soul, and of his hesitation in respect of its origin, Augustine points out how the young objector, in his self-conceit in aiming to decide on so abstruse a subject, had fallen into insufferable mistakes. He then proceeds to show that those passages of Scripture by which Victor thought he could prove that human souls are not derived by propagation, but are breathed by God afresh into each man at birth, are ambiguous, and inadequate for the confirmation of this opinion of his.