The soul and its origin

Saint Augustine

The Soul and its Origin

Translation: Souza Campos, EL de VALDEMAR TEODORO EDITOR

Niterói — Rio de Janeiro — Brazil 2018

Credits
De anima et eius origine
@ 419 Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis
@ 2018 Valdemar Teodoro Editor
Niterói - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Translation by Souza Campos, EL de
Translated from De l'âme et de son origine.

Translation from the Latin of M. labbé Burleraux In CEuvres Complêtes de Saint Augustin.

Bar-Le-Duc, L.
Guérins & Cie éditeurs, 1863.

Counted with the soul and its origin

Translator: Mateo Lanseros, OSA

And with Sant'Agostino. L'amine and its origin

Saint Augustine

The Soul and its Origin

The great Doctor, several times in his writings, confessed his impotence in solving, simply through logical reasoning, the problem of the soul. A young African, recently converted from the Donatists to the Catholic confession, was amazed that a person like “Augustine kept doubting about a question whose solution seemed to him so easy.
Vicente Vítor (this was the name of the philosopher novice) had found in the house of a Spanish priest named Pedro, one of the works in which Agostinho exposed his uncertainties on the matter. To this Spanish priest Vincent sent two books against the great bishop.
A friend of Augustine. the monk Renato found in Cesarea the two books by Vicente Vitor, had them copied and sent them to the bishop of Hippo, accompanied by a letter full of apologies for the freedom he was taking. Augustine responded to him through four books: the first, addressed to the monk Renato; the second to the Spanish priest and the last two to Vicente Vitor himself.

Introduction ¹

A certain Vicente Vítor found in Mauritania Cesarea, in the house of a Spanish priest named Pedro, a little book of mine where I admitted, regarding the origin of the soul of all people, that I didn't know if these souls came from the soul of the first human being and then of our parents or if they are created for every human being, without any propagation, as happened to Adam. I claimed to know only that the soul is not a body, but a spirit.

1From Revisions Book 1, ap. LVI.

This Vicente Vítor sent this same Pedro two books against my opinion and the monk Renato sent them to me from Cesarea. After reading them I answered them in four books; one addressed to the monk Renato, the other to Fr. Pedro and the last two to Vítor himself. What I wrote to Pedro is a letter, although, by its length, it is more like a book. But I didn't want to separate her from the others.
In all these books, which deal with very grave subjects, I have defended my doubts about the origin of the souls that are bestowed on each person, and have pointed out the numerous errors and falsehoods of my detractor's presumption.
However, as he was a young man who could not grow up very quickly, but who still needed to be instructed, I treated him as gently as I could and received a retraction from him.
The book to Renato begins with these words: Beloved brother Renato! We have had proof of your sincerity towards us, your brotherly benevolence and the affection that binds you to us.
The one who was sent to Peter, with these: To our beloved confrère and priest Peter.
The last two were addressed to Vicente Vítor. The first starts like this: Beloved son Vitor. I want you to convince yourself by receiving this text that if I had any dislike for you, I would never do that.

Book I
The mistakes of Vicente Vítor

Agostinho observes Vicente Vítor's imprudence and mistakes about the nature and origin of the soul. He examines the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures quoted by Vincent and proves that they are not in favor of his debater's thesis.

Chapter 1
Thanks to Renato.

Beloved brother Renato! We have had proof of your sincerity towards us, your brotherly benevolence and the affection that binds you to us. But you have just given me a fresh testimony of your affection, and devotedly sending me two books written by a man I did not know at all and whom I esteem none the less.
Then, last summer, I received the two books by Vicente Vítor; for this is the name I see written on the cover of these works. But since I was absent at the time, they couldn't reach me until late autumn.
Are we not united by a very close friendship, so that it would not be possible for you to fail to communicate to me the writings of any author whatsoever, in which my name was involved and my doctrine attacked? For then you did what a sincere and generous friend should do.

Chapter 2
Love for the adversary and correction of his follies.

However, I deeply regret not being known to you as I would like to be. Indeed, were you not afraid to offend me by informing me of the injuries a writer deigned to cover me?
But such feelings are so strange to me that the thought of regretting the insults I might have received from this writer did not even cross my mind. For if he, on some points, does not share my ideas, why should he be condemned to silence?
I then sincerely declare that I am grateful to you for having spoken, as it has given me the opportunity to read your writings.
No doubt he should have addressed me directly before accusing me in front of others. But, as he did not know me, he dared not establish with me the refutation of my writings. He didn't even feel it necessary to consult me, because he was pretty sure of all the opinions he emitted.
I believe, finally, that he acted to please a friend who forced him to pick up his pen. I suppose then that, in the heat of the speech, some offensive words escaped me. I believe that injury was far from his mind and that he only obeyed the excitement of opinions directly opposed to mine.
In fact, since an unknown man sets himself up as my adversary, I am convinced that his thought is worth more than his language and that, before being an accuser, he is a deep believer.
Perhaps he only acted in my interest, as he knew very well that his writings would reach me. I understand then that he refused to see me in error, in a matter in which he believed himself to have the truth.
So, even though I refute your opinions, I must express my gratitude to you for your benevolence.
So I will rebut him with sweetness, instead of rebuking him with bitterness. I feel obliged to do so, as he has recently embraced the Catholic faith and I congratulate him on that. In fact, I heard that he has just left the Donatist sect. or rather, of rogatists, and if he wants his conversion to give us true joy, he must understand and courageously embrace Catholic truth.

Chapter 3
Pernicious Eloquence.

Words are not lacking to develop your opinions. So all one can hope for is that these opinions are just, that he does not make the useless attractive, and that all his outbursts of eloquence have as their aim only the truth.
Therefore, I would disapprove of some inaccuracies in your style and, above all, great redundancy. I see in your letter that your maturity was shocked by these mistakes. But they can be easily corrected, and indeed, without making any attempt on faith, such errors can be loved by shallow minds and tolerated by deep minds.
We have men who are frothy in their speech, but who are still pure in their faith2. Let us hope, therefore, that these defects that would still be tolerable, even if they persist, will be corrected and disappear with time. Our writer is still a young man. Age and application will make up for your inexperience. The maturity of the years will remedy the rawness of their language.
In fact, it would be sad and dangerous if eloquence were placed at the service of error. That would be drinking poison from a very expensive cup.

2Cf. Letter to Titus 1:13 and 2:2.

Chapter 4
First mistake: the soul born of the divine substance.

I start by pointing out the main errors found in your text. He claims. and with good reason that the soul was created by God and that it is neither a part nor of the nature of God. But since he does not want it to have been taken out of thin air and he does not name any creature from which the soul may have been created, we are necessarily led to conclude that it was of his very nature that God took the soul, since he he didn't take it out of nowhere or from any creature.
Vincent believes he has escaped this conclusion and does not know that it follows naturally from his principles, so that the soul would be nothing other than the very nature of God. It would follow from this that God would have used his own nature to make something, and that the creator of that thing would himself have been its matter. Consequently, the nature of God would have been subjected to a change and condemned by God himself to decay from its state of primitive and absolute immutability.
His intelligence is quite correct and too faithful not to understand at once that such a doctrine is directly contrary to the faith and, as such, must be forcefully rejected.
Will they say that this soul was made of the breath of God or that the breath of God became the soul and that thus the soul was not created by God but, out of nothing, by God?
When a person blows, he doesn't take his breath out of nowhere, as he only returns to the ambient air what he took out of it. Let us suppose then that God was surrounded by air, that he breathed in a certain amount of it and then breathed it out onto the face of man, and in this way created a soul for him. In this hypothesis, the breath of God could not be a part of himself, but a more or less large amount of the ambient air that surrounded him.
But far from us the thought of denying that God could take out of nothing the breath of life that made human beings a living soul! Far from our cruel anxieties in the midst of which we would be reduced to thinking that God needed something other than himself to form this breath or even that it was in his very nature that he formed this soul which we see essentially subject to change!
Everything that is made of him must necessarily participate in his nature and be essentially immutable. Now everyone agrees that our soul is subject to change. It is therefore not made up of the nature of God, since God is essentially unchanging. If then our soul was not taken from any other nature, it was necessarily taken from nothing and created by God.

Chapter 5
New error: the human being composed of three corporeal elements.

He then states that our soul is not a spirit but a body. Can we doubt this claim when we hear him claim that we are composed, not of one soul and one body, but of two and even three bodies?
We are formed, he says, of a spirit, a soul and a body, and these three elements are really three bodies. Isn't this the same as saying that we are a set of three bodies? It is to him and not to you that I would like to demonstrate all the absurdities that flow from such a principle.
However, this error is still tolerable in a person who does not yet know that such a substance may exist which, without being a body, may outwardly bear a resemblance to it.

Chapter 6
The flesh tainted soul before joining her.

But, in his second book, we can tolerate the solution he tries to give to the difficult question of original sin, with regard to body and soul, if we assume that the soul is not transmitted to us through generation, but is, in us, the result of a new breath from God?
Here, then, is the way he proposes to resolve this deep and tiring question: "It is not without a very wise reason that the soul overlays through the flesh the old habit that it seemed to have insensibly lost to the flesh, and this is how it begins to be reborn through flesh, as it was for her that she deserved to be tainted”.
What do you think of a person who dares to challenge the depths of the precipice and decide that it was through the flesh that the soul deserved to be tainted? Can he then explain to us how the soul, before being united with the flesh, deserved to be tainted by it? Indeed, if it was through the flesh that the soul deserved the defilement of sin, let him tell us, if he can, how the soul, before its sin, deserved to be defiled by the flesh.
This sad condemnation of being thrown into a guilty flesh, to contract a blemish in it, either comes from your nature or well. what's worse—she received it from God. It will not be said, I think, that this condemnation she received from the flesh before she was united with her, and that it was for her that she deserved to be cast into the flesh to contract her blemish.

If this damnation she owes to herself, how can she have acquired it, since before her union with the flesh she did not commit any fault? Had she received it from God? But that is a blasphemy that no one will tolerate and that cannot be committed with impunity.
I do not ask here what fault the soul could commit after its union with the flesh, to deserve to be condemned; but how, before being joined to the flesh, she might deserve to be joined to the flesh to contract her blemish. I await an answer from the one who dared to say that the soul deserved to be tainted by the flesh.

Chapter 7
Let us flee from making God an accomplice to original sin.

In another passage of the same book, wanting to resolve this same issue in which he was unwisely involved, Vicente Vítor attributes to his opponents the following words: "Why did God strike the soul with such an unjust punishment as to relegate it to a body of sin and condemn her to become a sinner through this union with the flesh, when she could not sin without that flesh?”
Involved in this abyss full of traps, he had to try to escape the wreckage and not throw himself into an impasse from which he could only come out by retreating, that is, rethinking his imprudence.
He wanted then, but in vain, to get rid of the foreknowledge of God. This foreknowledge knows in advance the sinners that God must heal, but it is not itself that makes them sinners. To suppose that God delivers from sin the souls that he himself cast, innocent and pure, into sin, would be to suppose that he himself heals the wound he caused us and not that he found in us.
Now may God remove from us the simple thought of saying that when the Lord cleanses the souls of children, he only makes amends for the harm he himself produces, by throwing these hitherto innocent souls into sinful flesh, which should to stain them with original sin!
However, it is these very souls that our debater accuses of having deserved to be stained by the flesh, without being able to explain to us how, before being joined to the flesh, they could deserve this cruel punishment.

Chapter 8
Personal merits or demerits before birth?

Glowing then, but to no avail, of being able to resolve this difficult question of God's foreknowledge, he only sinks deeper when he cries: “Although the soul, which (before being joined to the flesh) could not be sinful, has deserved to be sinful (through the flesh), however, she did not remain in sin, because, prefigured in Jesus Christ, she could not remain in sin; not how she knew for herself to throw herself at him”.
In saying about the soul that "it could not be a sinner" or that "it could not remain in sin," I have every right to believe that he speaks of the soul before its union with the flesh.
In fact, if the soul does not pass from parents to children via generation, it can only be guilty of original sin or remain in original sin through its union with the flesh. Consequently, if we look closely at how the soul frees itself from sin by grace, we do not see how it deserved to adhere to sin.
But then what do these words mean: "Though the soul deserved to be a sinner, yet it did not remain in sin"? If I ask him why he did not remain in sin, he will answer me with good reason that the grace of Jesus Christ delivered him.
Well then, I understand how a child's sinful soul was justified, but let him explain to me in the same way how that soul deserved to become a sinner.

Chapter 9
The only wise thing for Vicente Vitor is the retraction.

He placed premises. Then does he answer them? Let's see how he puts to himself the question. "Other injuries are heard in whispers plaintiffs of backbiters and then, as people felled by a strong whirlwind, sadly rolled from the top of steep cliffs"
if I used these words, perhaps awakened him the fire of wrath. Yet these are his own words. It was in these terms that he posed the question in which he showed us the rocks against which he would wreck and crash. Thus, covered with horrible wounds, he came to the point in that salvation would only be possible for him by recanting his own language.
How, indeed, could he pinpoint by what precedent merit the soul had become a sinner and prove that, before any sin on its part, it deserved to have become a sinner? To be conceived in an iniquity that is foreign to us; before leaving the mother's womb already being guilty of sin; how then can one deserve such a horrible fate if not for sin?
On the other hand, the souls of children regenerated in Jesus Christ are freed from this punishment without any previous merit and by a purely gratuitous grace, since the character of all grace is to be gratuitous3.
I admire, no doubt, the profound genius who, in such a difficult matter, is indignant at our hesitations, not wise but prudent.
But, at the very least, let him tell us, if he can, what is this punishment which the soul has contracted without having deserved it, and from which it frees itself through grace, without any merit on its part. Let him say and prove. I wouldn't have been so picky if he hadn't said that the soul deserved to become a sinner.
Was the merit she acquired good or bad? If it was good, how does he claim she fell into evil? If it was bad, how did she get it before any sin on her part? I insist: if this merit was good, it did not happen gratuitously, but in virtue of a true right acquired through grace, since this grace was previously meritorious and, therefore, this grace is not a grace.

3Cf. Romans 11:6

If that merit was bad, then what was it? Would the soul then have deserved to come to the flesh, to which it would not have come had it not been thrown into it by the One who is exempt from all iniquity?
Unless he wants to sink deeper into the abyss, our debater will never try to prove that the soul deserved to become sinful.
As for the children who obtained the remission of original sin at baptism, were they not clearly taught that the foreknowledge of God could not in any way harm those who are predestined to eternal life, let alone make them guilty of another's sin?
All this, however, would still be tolerable if their language did not make the difficulty insurmountable, by saying that the soul deserved to become a sinner. If then he wants to get out of this embarrassment, there is nothing he can do but recant everything he has said.

Chapter 10
There is no salvation without baptism.

He felt that he should equally care for children who died before they received the baptism of Jesus Christ, and he dared to promise them, not only paradise, but even the kingdom of heaven. This was necessary, for it would be very cruel to claim that God had condemned to eternal death souls he had cast into the flesh of sin, without their having deserved it for any preceding sin.
However, he soon realized that he had made a mistake in holding that, without any grace from Jesus Christ, the souls of children can be redeemed to eternal life and that they can obtain the remission of original sin without the baptism of Jesus Christ. Measuring then how to look at the depth of the abyss into which he plunges, he cries out: "I think that these children owe their happiness to the assiduous oblations and sacrifices offered by the holy fathers."
This is also a proposition he will only escape by retracting. By whom should the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ4 be offered if it is not for those who are members of Jesus Christ5? We do not read: Whoever is not born again of water and the Spirit will not be able to enter the Kingdom of God6. And elsewhere: He who tries to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses it because of me, will he find it again?
Is it not evident then that we only become members of Jesus Christ by receiving the baptism of Jesus Christ or dying for Jesus Christ?

4 Cf. Luke 2:18.
5 Cf. 1 Corinthians 6:15 and Ephesians 5:30.
6 John 3,5.
7 Matthew 10.39

Chapter 11
The baptism of blood.

To affirm the absolute necessity of baptism, we cite the case of the good thief, who confessed on the cross the divinity of Jesus Christ, before having offered his life in sacrifice, following the example of the Savior.
Now St. Cyprian places the good thief among the martyrs who are baptized in his own blood, as happened several times, for whom the executioner was faster than the ministers of baptism. In his opinion, the good thief, in confessing the deity of Jesus Christ on the cross, performed an act as meritorious as if he had actually been crucified by Jesus Christ. The wood of the cross, before which the disciples' faith withered, really made theirs to flourish, without waiting for the glories of the resurrection to come to renew, as they did for the apostles, what the terrors of his death had destroyed.
The apostles had despaired of their master dying; the good thief waited on the one who shared his last ordeal. The apostles abandoned the author of life; the good thief prayed for the one whose punishment was common to him. The apostles mourned his death as one mourns the death of an ordinary person; the good thief believed that his death would be followed by a prompt resurrection. The apostles left the one who had promised them salvation; the good thief worshiped him who was associated with him in the torture of the cross.

Didn't he then have all the merit of a martyr, one who believed in Jesus Christ, at the moment when those who should have been martyrs felt their faith weaken? At least that is how he considered the Savior himself, since he, without demanding that this thief receive baptism and believing that he was entirely purified by a type of martyrdom, promised him the possession of eternal happiness8.

8 Cf. Luke 23:43

Who among us, by the way, would not admire the faith, hope and charity with which he sought life in a dying man and with which, with even more reason, he was able to accept death for the living Jesus Christ?
They finally say. and nothing opposes this, that this thief, moved by a very lively faith and hanging very close to the crucified Saviour, was purified by the mysterious water that gushed from the open side of Jesus Christ and which served as his baptism.
We cannot know whether this thief had not been baptized before suffering his condemnation. I will remain silent, therefore, on this point.
We are free to think as we please, as long as we do not rely on the example of this good thief to nullify the need for baptism proclaimed by the Savior; let it not be established, for the children who died without baptism, I do not know what abode of happiness, established between damnation and the kingdom of heaven.
Indeed, the Pelagian heresy did not retreat from this hypothesis and in this it was consistent with itself, since, not admitting any original sin in children, it did not fear damnation for them. On the other hand, she only promised them the kingdom of heaven on condition that they received the sacrament of baptism.
As for our debater, even though he proclaimed that children are guilty of original sin, he dared to promise the kingdom of heaven to those who die without baptism. The Pelagians recoiled from such a daring, though they did not admit the existence of original sin. Hence one can judge the close ties where his presumption ends; unless he retracts what he wrote.

Chapter 12
The Supposed Case of Dinocrates.

Dinocrates, brother of Saint Perpetua, is also cited. But, first of all, this story is not canonical. Then the author who tells it—whether the saint herself or anyone else—does nowhere say in a clear and positive way that the seven-year-old was dead without baptism. We only read that, on the point of suffering martyrdom, St. Perpetua prayed for her brother, asked that her prayer be heard, and that the child left the place of torment and went to the place of rest.
Are children of this age still unable to lie or disprove the truth, confess their faults or deny them? Are children baptized at age seven not able to repeat the symbol and answer for themselves?
Who knows then if this child, after receiving baptism, was not initiated into idolatry by his unfaithful and ungodly father? Dying at that age, she would be condemned to expiations commensurate with the degree of her faults and received full and total remission through her sister's prayers and through the merits of the blood she was about to shed.

Chapter 3
To what extent does the attitude of family members influence the salvation of children.

Even when, without prejudice to the Catholic faith and ecclesiastical discipline, it was agreed, for no real reason, with our debater, that the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ may be offered to unbaptized persons, whoever whatever their age and that this religious act may help them to reach the kingdom of heaven, the fate of so many thousands of children who belong to ungodly parents and who do not obtain any divine and human pity from the righteous must be explained and leave of this life in the tenderest age and without having been regenerated in the waters of baptism.
Let him then explain to us, if he can, how these souls deserved to become sinners, to the point where they were never freed from their sins. If I ask him why they deserve to be condemned when they do not receive baptism, he will wisely answer that it is because of original sin. If I ask him how they contracted original sin, he will answer that it was because of their union with sinful flesh. If I ask him how souls who did not commit any fault before being joined to flesh could be condemned to join sinful flesh, he no longer knows what to answer. He cannot explain to me how they have been reduced to the contagion of the sins of others to the point where regeneration from baptism is withheld from them and they find no sacrifice to atone for their sins.
How are children generated and are they born absolutely deprived of any spiritual help? Faced with a fact like this, all argument becomes impotent.
In fact, we do not ask how these souls deserved to be condemned since their union with sinful flesh. We ask how they deserved to be condemned to suffer union with a sinful flesh, since, prior to this union, they were not guilty of any sin.
It is not a question of answering: "Participation in the sin of others in no way harms those for whom, in his eternal foreknowledge, God has prepared the mighty remedy of redemption." , had no part in the redemption.

Let us not be told: "The souls who have not been justified by baptism will be justified by the numerous sacrifices that are offered for them, and, in his foresight, God willed them to partake of the sins of others, without making them run the risk of eternal damnation and with the hope of an endless happiness".
We are speaking at this time of children who belong to ungodly parents and are unable, for that very reason, to be of any help to them. Afterwards, when such help is given them, it does not help souls who have not received baptism at all.
In the Book of Maccabees mention is made of sacrifices offered for the dead,9 but these dead people, sinners as they should have been, did not benefit at all from them, for before they died they had not been circumcised.

9 Cf. 2Maccabees 12:43.

Chapter 14
Two unacceptable solutions.

Let our debater then be ready to answer, when asked to explain how a soul, hitherto exempt from any original or present sin, could deserve to be condemned to suffer the original sin of others, without being able to obtain its remission.
One of the two: either he asserts that the souls of infants who die without baptism—and therefore no sacrifice of the Lord's body are offered to them, are nevertheless freed from the snare of original sin, though the Apostle clearly teaches that all are condemned for a single sin,10 if grace does not apply to them the merits of the redemption wrought by one; or else he holds that souls, having no personal or original sin, innocent souls, simple and pure, are cast into eternal damnation by a just God, when he unites them to sinful flesh with the prediction that they will be set free. her.

10 Cf. Romans 5:16.

Chapter 15
Foreknowledge of evil cannot be a cause of punishment.

Neither one of these claims could be defended.
There is a third that is not better substantiated. It would consist in saying that souls, before being joined to a body, already possessed sin and therefore deserved to be condemned to union with the flesh.
The Apostle boldly asserts that before being joined to a body, souls did no good and no harm11. It follows from this that if children were to obtain a remission of their sins, that remission can only fall upon the original sin.

11 Cf. Romans 9:11.

A fourth hypothesis still presents itself. Before children who die without baptism, it can be said that if their souls were condemned to inhabit this sinful flesh and find there, without recourse, eternal death, it was because God, foreseeing that they would abuse their free will, they would they take advantage of an older age to devote themselves to evil?
In spite of the extreme embarrassment that obsesses him, our debater did not dare to bring his recklessness up to that point. He even protested briefly and openly against this mad assertion, when he asserted, "God would be unjust to judge a person before his birth according to simple foreknowledge of the imperfection of the works of his will."
This is what he said when he answered this question: "Why did God create the human being, since he knew in advance that this human being would be dedicated to evil?" In fact, it would be really judging a person before his birth, refusing to create him for the reason that, once created, he would become a sinner. I approve of this answer and say, like him, that the human being must be judged solely by the actions he has taken and not by the actions he is going to take, although God knows them perfectly.
Indeed, if the sins which a person would commit during his later life were to weigh on his judgment, when he dies before he has had time to commit them, what benefit would have been received by the one who was raptured lest malice corrupt his feeling , nor could cunning pervert his soul12, since he should have been judged for the malice he would have had if he had lived longer and not for the innocence he possessed at the moment of his death?

12 Wisdom 4:11

After receiving baptism, are people not able not only to sin but also to backslide? Suppose then a child who dies after receiving baptism and who would have apostatized if he had lived: Did he then not gain anything by being raptured so that malice would not corrupt his feeling, nor cunning perverted his soul? In virtue of God's infinite foreknowledge, would she be judged, not as a faithful member of Jesus Christ, but as an apostate?
If sins that do not yet exist, neither in reality nor even in human thought, but only in divine foreknowledge, are then punished, it would not have been preferable that our first two ancestors had been removed from paradise before they sinned, rather than sinning in a place so holy and so fortunate?
And what then will prescience be if its object does not come true? What shouldn't happen can be known as should happen?
How then to punish sins that do not exist, that is, that were not committed before the soul was united as a body and not even after this union, which death came to break prematurely?

Chapter 16
Only original sin can defile the souls of newborns.

Here we are dealing with the soul of a child who died too young to be able to make use of his free will and whose soul was thrown into the flesh until death came to free him from it. Having died without baptism, she is doomed. But what can be the cause of this condemnation if it is not original sin? We do not deny, in fact, that this sin is sufficient to merit a very just condemnation for the soul, since every law must always contemplate a sanction. But I would like to be told why the soul was condemned to contract this sin, if that soul is not descended, by direct generation, from that first sinner, who constituted the father of mankind.
On the other hand, it is well established that God does not condemn the innocent and that he does not make guilty those in whom he recognizes justice. It is equally certain that the only way to free souls, whether from original sin or from personal sins, is through the baptism of Jesus Christ, as he was entrusted to the Church. It is equally true that, before being joined to the flesh, souls could not commit any sin. Finally, it is beyond doubt that a just law could not condemn sins before they are committed and, above all, that they never were.
Our debater must accept these four propositions. But then, let him explain to us, if he can, why these souls, who will be condemned for having been separated from their bodies before they received baptism, could be cast into sinful flesh, without having deserved this sad fate, for no previous sin and reduced to contracting a sin which will be for them a legitimate cause of condemnation.
In the name of the strictest justice and right reason, he will surely refuse to say, either that God makes sinful souls who were sinless, or that the sacrament of Jesus Christ is not necessary to erase original sin in them, or else that they have sinned. in a state prior to their union with the flesh, or, finally, that they are condemned for sins of which they were never guilty.
After having rejected these four propositions, which in fact clash with simple common sense, he will say that children are not guilty of any original sin and that, even if they die without receiving baptism, they bring no cause with them. of conviction?
Such a speech would immediately throw him into the Pelagian heresy and make him worthy of all condemnations. To escape this cruel alternative, it would be better to stick to my hesitation about the origin of the soul, than to engage in statements that revolt human reason and that divine authority rebukes. He would thus free himself from the shame of impersonating a fool by refusing to confess his ignorance about such serious matters.

Chapter 17
The biblical texts presented by Vicente Vítor do not clearly prove creationism.

But then he tries to support his opinion on the authority of the holy Scriptures and believes he finds there the clear proof that souls are not passed down through generation, but are immediately created through a new breath of God.
Let him prove it then if he can. and I will frankly confess that it was from him that I discovered what I had long sought with ardour. But let him invoke testimonies different from the one he quoted, for these have no value. I don't mean them properly, but on the question of the origin of the soul.
It is true, for example, that God gave human beings the breath and the spirit, according to these words of the Prophet: Here is what says the Lord God who created the heavens and unfolded them, who established the earth and all its vegetation, that it gives breath to its inhabitants and the vital breath to those who tread on the ground13. Our debater invokes this passage in favor of his doctrine and considers that the words that breathe breath to its inhabitants and the vital breath to those who tread the ground clearly state that we immediately receive our soul, not through generation, but through a breath special of God.

13 Isaiah 42:5.

If he is consistent with himself, he will even maintain that it was not God who gave us our flesh directly, why is it born from the flesh of our parents?
Speaking of the seed of wheat, does the Apostle not say: But does God give him the body as he pleases, and for each seed the body of the plant that is proper to him14?
Let him deny then, if he dares, that wheat is born from wheat and the herb from its proper seed. If he dare not deny it, how can he know in what sense it was said: God gives breath to his inhabitants and vital breath to those who tread the ground? Was it taking him away from his parents? Was it creating a new one for each particular soul?

15 1 Corinthians 15:38

Chapter 18
What do breath and vital breath mean?

In the same way, how does he know that the words God gives breath to its inhabitants and the vital breath to those who tread the ground are but the repetition of the same thought in two different forms?
Is he quite sure that it is just the human soul and not the Holy Spirit at all? If this breath does not want to designate the Holy Spirit, would the Lord, after his resurrection, have taken the trouble to breathe on his disciples, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit15? We would also read in the Acts of the Apostles: Suddenly a noise came from heaven, as if a rushing wind was blowing and filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then appeared to them a kind of tongues of fire that parted and rested on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them to speak16.
And if this was the event announced by the Prophet, when he said: God gives the vital breath to those who tread the ground? And if it was only to better explain his thought, by repeating it in these terms: Does God give breath to his inhabitants?
At the very least, it is evident that this is what happened when everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit. Will he say that one hundred and twenty people who were gathered in one place cannot be called a people? At least four or five thousand people were gathered in the same faith, were baptized and received the Holy Spirit17. Shall we hesitate to say that the people, this multitude that was upon the earth, these people who tread the ground, received the Holy Spirit?
As for the spirit, which is a constitutive part of human nature, whether given to us through generation or through the direct effect of a new and special breath (because, in order to comment on this point I expect new light), it is certain that it does not it is when they tread the ground that human beings receive this spirit, but when they are still enclosed in the mother's womb.
God then gave the breath to his people of the earth and the spirit to those who tread under their feet, when all these new converts received the Holy Spirit at the same time.

15 John 20:22.
16 Acts 2:2-4.
17 Acts 4:31.

In order to give this Spirit, God does not require, moreover, that all his people be gathered together. He gives it to each person in his time and will act so until such time as that people, after having left this life to enter a new life, will complete the number of the children of God in heaven.
In this sense then, we do not distinguish the breath of the spirit and we see in the text only a simple repetition of the same idea. Likewise, we do not distinguish the One who dwells in heaven from the Lord Himself; we take laughter and mockery in the same sense, as we find in the Psalm: But he who dwells in heaven laughs. The Lord reduces them to ridicule18.
These other words of the Prophet are likewise no more than a repetition: I will give you for an inheritance all the nations; thou shalt possess the ends of the world19, Nations and ends of the world express the same idea and are but repetitions. As we carefully read the Holy Scriptures, we find in them a great number of phrases of the same kind.

18 Psalm 2:4.
19 Psalm 2:8.

Chapter 19
A single Greek word and three Latin senses.

Note also that the Greek word pnohvn, which occupies us at the moment, is interpreted differently by the Latins. It is alternatively interpreted by breath, spirit and breath.
Here is a sequence of passages in which the Greek text reproduces exactly the same term, while the Latin translates it in three different ways. God, who gives breath to its inhabitants20. The Lord God inspired in his nostrils a breath of life and the man became a living being21, In the same sense it is read in the Psalm: All that breathes, praise the Lord!!22 Finally, in the Book of Job it is written: It is the Spirit of God in man and a breath of the Almighty that makes him intelligent23.
It could not be doubted that it is the Holy Spirit himself, as it was a case of knowing the source from which humans draw wisdom and this is the answer: I said with myself: "Age will speak; many years will make wisdom known "but it is the Spirit of God in man and a breath of the Almighty that makes him intelligent24.

20 Isaiah 42:5.
21 Genesis 2:7.
22 Psalm 150:5
23 Job 32:8.

This repetition was not intended to prove that he was not speaking of the human spirit itself, when he said: the Spirit of God in man? To better prove that wisdom does not come from human beings, the author only repeated his thought in another form, saying: It is a breath of the Almighty that makes it intelligent.
We read a little further in the same book: My words spring from an upright heart, my lips will speak frankly. The Spirit of God created me and the breath of the Almighty gave me life25. In the Greek text, a single word is used: pnohvn.

25 Job 33:3e4.

It would then be a great imprudence not to apply these words to the human soul or the human spirit: God gives breath to his inhabitants and vital breath to those who tread the ground, although the immediate sense seems to designate the Holy Spirit himself. But how can we sustain that in this passage the Prophet formally taught that it is from God that we receive the soul or the spirit, that it is the principle of life in us? Is it not through generation that this soul is given to us?
The only conclusion that should be drawn would not be whether God gives human beings their soul through generation, as it is through generation that he gives them a body. not only to humans and animals, but also to the seed of wheat and all plants. or if he created her immediately and through a new breath, as he did for the first human being?

Chapter 20
The ambiguity of the texts cited by the debater.

Some interpreters refuse to see a repetition in the prophetic text and claim that the first words — God gives breath to its inhabitants — refer directly to the soul and the other words and the vital breath to those who tread the ground refer directly to the Holy Spirit. We would thus be in the same case followed later by the Apostle: But it is not the spiritual that comes first, but the animal; the spiritual comes after26.

26 1Corinthians 15:46.

According to this interpretation, which lends itself much better to oratory developments, the words and the vital breath to those who tread the ground would designate those who would have, for earthly things, the deepest contempt. Indeed, those who receive the Holy Spirit are filled with love for the things of heaven and contempt for the goods of earth.
Now faith is not affected by any of these propositions. Whether attributing a single meaning to the two words—spirit breath—to designate what constitutes the essence of human nature or to designate the Holy Spirit. Be designating the soul by breath and the Holy Spirit by the word spirit.
Assuming that this passage is only about the human soul and spirit, it is beyond doubt that it is God who gives us that soul and that spirit. But it remains to be seen whether God gives them to us through generation, as it was through generation that he gave us the body and limbs, or whether he creates each time a new soul, through a new breath that he inspires in each body that forms.
Before pronouncing ourselves exclusively for one or another of these propositions, we would like to have under our eyes the texts of Holy Scripture that are not as ambiguous as those cited, but that are perfectly clear.

Chapter 21
Does the human soul today come from God as the body or as the first soul?

We present the following text from Isaiah: The spirit will come out of me and every breath comes from me27. The words The spirit will come out of me designate the Holy Spirit, of which the Savior will say: The Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the Father28.

27 Isaiah 57:16. Quia spiritus a facie mea egredietur et fiatus ego faciam.
28 John 15:26.

On the other hand, it could not be denied that the human soul is not designated by the second part of the text: every breath comes from me. But the body comes equally from God, and yet it could not be doubted that it is given to us through generation. It is not enough then to know that the soul comes from God. It would also be necessary to say whether it is given to us through generation, like the body, or whether it is inspired to each one by a new and special breath.

Chapter 22
A text from the prophet Zechariah.

A third testimony is offered to us in these words of Zechariah: Oracle of the Lord, who stretched out the heavens, firmed the earth and formed the breath (spirit) that man has within him29. Nobody questions this, but we wonder what it forms it.

29 Zechariah 12:1.

Isn't it God who forms the physical eye of a human being? Nobody else. And he forms it in himself. However, it is certain that he forms it through generation.
Even if we admit that it is God who forms the human being's spirit in himself, we wonder if it is through generation or through a new breath.

Chapter 23
The book of Maccabees affirms the fact but does not explain how God gives rise to the human soul.

We also know that the mother of the Maccabees—this woman far more impressive for her virtues during the martyrdom of her children than for her own fertility—said to her children, to encourage their courage: I don't know, she said to them, how you grew up in mine. bosom, because I was not the one who gave you neither the soul nor the life, nor was I the one who gathered your members. But the creator of the world, who formed man at his origin and gave existence to all things, will restore you, in his mercy, both spirit and life, if you now make light of yourselves for the sake of his laws30.

30 2Macibeus7:22e23.

This text is well known to us, but we do not see what it proves in favor of our debater. Would a Christian deny that God is the author of the human soul and spirit?
Can Vicente Vítor deny that it is God who gives humans the tongue, ears, hands, feet, senses, shape and nature of the limbs? If he denied this ultimate truth, he would forget that he is a Christian.
But the body and all the members of the body are given to us through generation. It remains to be seen how the spirit and the soul are given to us. Are they taken from our parents or out of nowhere? Neither from us nor from nothing, answers our debater, but from the very nature of the breath of God, that is, of God himself. This doctrine does not hold.

Chapter 26
Vicente Vítor's safety has no biblical basis.

In this way, as to the texts he takes from the Holy Scriptures, they are entirely foreign to the particular question that concerns us and in no way support his doctrine.
How then can he say: "We do not fail to affirm that the soul is taken from the breath of God, since it is given to us by God and not by way of generation"? So do we not receive the body of the One who created everything, from whom everything proceeds, by whom and in whom everything exists31, although everything is foreign to its nature and the simple result of its action?

31 Cf. Romans 11:36.

"The soul does not come from nothing," he says, "since it comes from God."
I do not yet examine in what sense these words can be true, I only maintain that he is wrong, when he asserts that the soul is not taken from generation or from nothing. I protest against this opinion.
There is no possible alternative; if the soul is not given to us through generation, it is taken from nothing. To believe that it comes from God, in the sense that it is formed of the same nature as God, is an error and a sacrilege.
On the other hand, before believing that it is impossible for the soul to be given to us through generation, we must expect formal and explicit testimonies and these are not the ones presented, as they do not clarify the issue at all.

Chapter 25
The humility of the mother of the Maccabees was exemplary.

Since we are uncertain about such a serious matter, why not imitate the mother of the Maccabees? She knew very well that, with her husband, she had conceived them in her bosom and that God himself had created them, according to the body and according to the spirit. However, she says: I do not know how you grew in my bosom.
I would like our debater to tell me what this woman was ignorant of. She was not ignorant of how these children came from her bosom, as she could not doubt that they were the result of her marriage. She even claimed that it was God who had given them soul and spirit, how he had formed their face and limbs.
What did she ignore then? Isn't it what we ourselves ignore, namely, whether this soul that God had given them, he had taken from their parents or whether he had created it immediately and through a new breath, as he had done for the first human being?
Whatever, after all, the point she ignored, she did not hide her ignorance and did not recklessly assert what was unknown to her. However, Vicente Vítor would be ashamed if he addressed this woman with the insult he directed at us: The human being best placed in honors did not understand. He was compared to animals without reason and considered similar to them32.

32 Cf. Psalm 48:13.

This woman declares that she does not know how her children were formed in her womb. However, he doesn't compare her to animals without reason.
“I don't know,” she says, and assuming she's asked what she doesn't know, she adds, “I didn't give you spirit and soul.” He who gave them knows where he formed what he gave them. ; whether he took it from the generation or from a new creation and a new breath. As for me, I do
n't know. "It wasn't me who formed his face and his limbs." The one who formed them knows whether he formed them with his soul or whether he waited for them to be formed in order to give them a soul.
Whichever way the children came from her bosom, she ignored it. What she did know was that the One who had given them everything would give them back everything.
Faced with such a profound mystery of human nature, let our debater speak out on what this woman ignored. Only that he does not accuse her of lying and, because she ignored it, that he does not compare her to animals without reason.
What she ignored touched human nature itself. That human nature could very innocently be ignored.
I say the same for my soul. I don't know how it came into my body and I certainly didn't give it to myself. The one who gave it to me knows if he took it from my parents or if he created it for me entirely new, like he did for the first human being. I will know myself when he considers that I should know. For the moment, I ignore him.
As for confessing my ignorance on this point, I do not hesitate for a moment and not feel compelled to blush over it, as my debater does.

Chapter 26
A testimony of São Paulo that does not serve Vicente Vitor well.

“Learn then,” he says, “for it is the Apostle who teaches you.” I will certainly learn if the Apostle teaches me, for it is God Himself who will speak to me through the Apostle. it's good sound and many times, it's God who gives everyone life, breath and all things33, But no one doubts that.

33 Acts 17:25.

"But," he continues, "understand well what the Apostle says: it is God who gives us and it is not God who gave us." It presupposes on the part of God a permanent and continuous action and not a past and closed action. "What he gives without interruption, he always gives, as there is always one who gives." These are the very words of my debater, as are found in his second book.
You can already see the path that will be covered, since he he tried to assert what he does not know. He dared to say that, not just today and in the present century, but for an indefinite time without any interruption, "God gives souls to those who are born. God always gives”, he says, “as there is always one who gives”.
As I understand the Apostle's language well, I will avoid denying him. As for the language my debater dares to sustain, he must understand that it is directly contrary to the Christian faith and conclude that he must abandon it forever.
When the time comes for the resurrection of the dead, there will be no more birth. God will not then have to create new souls, but rather judge those he has already joined to bodies. God does not, therefore, always give, although the One who gives always exists.
On the other hand, although the Apostle used the present tense and not the past, we cannot conclude, as our debater does, that souls are not given to us through generation. Indeed, even if they are given to us in this way, they are always given by God. Is it not he who gives us the limbs of the body, the senses of the body, the form of the body, the substance of the body, though he gives us all of this through generation?
We do not read in the Gospel: If God thus clothes the grass of the fields, which today grows and tomorrow will be thrown into the fire, how much more to you, men of little faith? past action, but a present action, Shall we conclude from this that lilies are not all born from the seed of their species?

34 Matthew 6:30.

By saying of God that he is the one who gives the soul and the spirit to human beings, insofar as there are human beings to create, do we deprive him of the right to say that souls are given to us through generation? I do not claim that it is like this or that it is otherwise.
But you can see that, to affirm or to deny, one cannot invoke uncertain and doubtful testimony. It does not follow from this that I can be compared to animals without reason. For this very reason, I do not doubt that I deserve to be included among prudent people, as I do not have the imprudence to teach what I do not know.
On my side, I will avoid answering one insult with another insult and draw the same comparison against my debater. I think it best to give you a parent's warning to your child, ask him to acknowledge that he ignores what he doesn't know, and don't try to teach what he has never learned.
Otherwise, he would deserve to be compared, not to animals, but to the people mentioned by the Apostle: So-called doctors of the law, who understand neither what they say nor what they say35.

35 1Timothy1:7.

Chapter 27
In the matter of the origin of the soul, one cannot ignore the origin of the body.

I cannot explain why the texts of Scripture are read by him so recklessly that God appears as the Creator, not of the human body, but only of his soul and spirit.
The Apostle said in an absolute way: It is in him that we have life, movement and being36 and Vicente Vítor maintains that it is not for our bodies that we are the work of God, but only for our souls and our spirits.
If our bodies were not created by God, the following words are just a lie: From him, through him and to him are all things37.
The same Apostle tells us elsewhere: For woman was taken from man, but man is born of woman and both come from God38. Let our debater explain to us what this text is about; whether it is from the soul, the body or both at the same time.

36 Acts 17:28.
37 Romans 1:36.
38 Corinthians 11:12.

As for the soul, he doesn't want it to be handed down to us through generation. If then we believe this, he and all those who share his opinion, we must conclude that the words of the Apostle woman was taken from man, but man is born of woman apply only to the male and female body and that it is solely under this relationship that woman was taken from man and that man is born of woman.
But if the Apostle only wanted to speak of the particular body of each of the sexes, why then he immediately adds: and both come from God, if it is not to remind us that our own bodies are the work of God?
For woman was taken from man, but man is born of woman and both come from God; these are the very words of São Paulo.
Let our debater comment on the scope of these words. If they apply only to bodies, he is sure that our bodies come from God and then it is no longer possible to maintain, in view of this text of Scripture, that only our soul and not our body is the work of God. But if they apply at the same time to the bodies of both sexes and to the soul, it must be concluded that the entire woman was taken from the man.
For woman was taken from man, but man is born of woman and both come from God. Doesn't the general inclusive term "both" relate to everything the Apostle spoke, namely, to man and woman? The man who is born of the woman is not the man from whom the woman was taken, but the man who was later born from the union of man and woman, according to the order always subsisting. Consequently, if in these words the Apostle wanted to speak of bodies, there is no doubt that the bodies of man and woman are the work of God. And if our debater restricts the current work of divine creation to soul and spirit, it is proved that it is according to his soul and spirit that woman was taken from man and those who fight the transmission of the soul through generation only have that keep a deep silence. Lastly,if our debater distinguishes between body and soul and maintains that according to her body woman was taken from man, while according to her soul she was taken from God, how will these words of the Apostle remain true: both come from God , if the woman's body is so man's work that it can in no way be God's work?
Having then to choose between the Apostle and him, I stand, without hesitation, on the side of the Apostle and say: woman was taken from man only according to her body or else, at the same time, according to her body and soul. However, I only make these two propositions enunciate, without pronouncing myself in a complete way, neither for one nor for the other.
As for a man, he is either born from a woman according to her body and soul or according to her body alone. Here, too, I leave the issue to be discussed. However, all things come from God, that is, all at the same time, body and soul, whether from man or woman, and on this point there is nothing to discuss. For, by saying that all things come from God, we mean to hold that they are the work of God and not that they are a manifestation, an outpouring, an emanation of the nature of God. For them to come from him, for them to have received his being, it is enough that they have been created and made by him.

Chapter 28
In interpreting the Scriptures figurative language is not neglected.

"But," adds our debater, "when the Apostle asserts that God gives life and spirit to all; when he asserts that God made mankind out of one blood39, he does not proclaim that we have received soul and soul directly from God. spirit, while the body is transmitted to us by generation?”
Anyone who does not want to be exposed to recklessly denying the transmission of souls, before being sure that it exists or that it does not exist, must first understand that by saying that God made all mankind from one blood or one man , the Apostle evidently speaks figuratively and takes the part for the whole.
In fact, if our debater thinks he is authorized to take part for the whole in this text of Genesis: The Lord God therefore formed man from the clay of the earth and breathed a breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being40 , in order to apply it to the spirit, though the Scripture keeps the deepest silence on this point, why would others not have the same right, with regard to these other words: of one man, to apply them to the soul , to the spirit and to the flesh, since the man mentioned in this text is composed at the same time of a body and a soul.

39 Cf. Acts 17:25 and 26.
40 Genesis 2:7.

He who defends the transmission of souls through generation should not boast about crushing his debater by quoting him these words about the first human: Death passed to all mankind, because all sinned41; not all flesh has sinned. Everyone, that is, every human being. Now, the human being is not just a body; he is also a soul. Hence it follows that it is not only according to the flesh that the word all must be interpreted.
In the same way our debater should not brag about crushing the defenders of the transmission of souls, by quoting them the words He made the whole human race be born of one blood42, as if this clearly stated that it is only the flesh that transmits through the generation. If it were true that the soul does not come from the soul and that only the flesh comes from the flesh, the words of one blood would not mean the whole human being, but only a part, that is, the flesh; and the flesh of one man.

41 Romans 5:12.
42 Acts 17.26.

As for the words In whom all have sinned, they would designate only the flesh, since it alone transmits through generation.
In this way, the Scripture took the whole for the part.
In the hypothesis that the entire human being. that is, body, soul and spirit is transmitted through generation, the words In whom all have sinned retain all their literal value, while of one blood is a figure in which the whole is represented by the part. That is, every human being made up of a body and a soul or, to speak as our debater, of a body, a soul and a spirit.
In the language of the Scriptures we find, in fact, very often this type of figure, which consists in taking the whole for the part or the part for the whole. All flesh comes to you43; here the part is taken by the whole, for the flesh clearly designates the whole human being. On the contrary, the whole is taken by the part, when it is said that Jesus Christ was buried, because only his body was buried.
If then we return to the Apostle's text: It is he who gives life, breath and all things44 and interpret him according to the preceding rules, all difficulties disappear.
It is God who gives; but we wonder from what principle he brings out what he gives. Is it a new breath or is it via generation? Are we wrong when we say that it is God himself who gives the substance of canre? However, it is certain that he gives it to us through generation.

43 Psalm 64:3.
44 Acts 17:25.

Chapter 29
A text from Genesis.

We read in Genesis that when the man noticed the woman who had been taken from his side, he said: Here now is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh45. With this, our debater reasons thus, before this text: "Adam would have said: Behold the soul of my soul or the spirit of my spirit, if it were true that the soul and spirit were taken from him, as well as the body!

On the other hand, those who support the transmission of souls invoke in their favor these same words of Genesis, pointing out that, after having taken one side of the man's flanks and formed with him the woman, it is not said that God breathed into his face the breath of life. Hence they conclude that this body was already endowed with a soul. Otherwise, why did holy Scripture fail to mention it?
As for the words Here is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh, if the first man did not say "Behold the soul of my soul or the spirit of my spirit", it is because, they say, Adam spoke figuratively and took the part for the whole, bone and flesh for the whole person.
So much so that this flesh was not taken dead from the first man, but in a state of perfect life.
I know a person would try in vain to cut body to soul with flesh together, but isn't God omnipotent? Afterwards, we heard Adam say next: She will be called woman, because she was taken from man46. In order to further the opinion of our debaters, he should have said: "Because her flesh was taken from the man." As he said that it was the woman herself and not just the flesh that was taken from the man, it is then from the whole woman that he spoke, that is, your body and your soul.

45 Genesis 2:23.
46 Genesis 2:23.

It is true that the soul is independent of sex. However, when talking about women, it is not necessarily an abstraction from their soul.
Were it not so, what would the Apostle's rules for women mean about their way of praying? I want women to wear honest dress, dressing up with modesty and sobriety. Their ornaments consist not of exquisite hairstyles, gold, pearls, luxury dresses, but of good works, as befits women who profess godliness47. Piety resides above all in the soul or in the spirit, and yet the persons to whom the Apostle addresses are designated by their sex. He even orders them to be internally ornamented, that is, where there is no distinction of sex.

47 1Timothy 2:9 and 10.

Chapter 30
Affirmations must be very cautious.

So think the declared supporters of each of these two systems. To answer them, I will content myself with warning them not to blindly throw themselves into a doctrine whose foundations they are ignorant of and which they do not recklessly assert what they do not know.
In fact, even if it were written that God breathed life into the woman's face and that she was made a living soul, it would not also follow from this that the soul does not pass from parents to children by way of generation; unless the same breath was repeated in each of the children. For it is possible that the woman's body was taken without life from the man's body and that, for this very reason, he needed to receive the breath of life, while children receive life from their parents at the same moment of generation.
But the Scriptures are silent on this point. This silence is neither a denial nor an affirmation. All we can conclude from this is that we don't know.
If then this mystery is intended to be revealed to us in other passages, let it be proved with clear and formal documents.
Awaiting these proofs, I maintain that the absolute supporters of the transmission of souls cannot conclude anything from their observation that God did not breathe in the woman's face.
As for those who deny the transmission of souls, they must not believe the truth simply because Adam did not say Here is the soul of my soul.
As the question is by no means settled by either one or the other, the holy Scriptures could let us ignore whether the woman received a soul by a new breath from God dare Adam said Here is the soul of my soul.
Then, assuming that the first woman received her soul from the man, the part would be taken by the whole, in these words: Here is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh, since the woman would have come out of the man whole, with her body and your soul. If his soul came to him, not from man, but from a new breath of God, the whole is taken by the part, in these other words: The woman was taken from the man, since only the body would have been taken from him.

Chapter 31
The uncertain texts of Scripture need safer ones.

All of this authorizes us to conclude that the texts cited are far from having the necessary clarity to resolve the issue that concerns us. Those who hold that the woman's soul was not taken from the man's soul, since instead of saying Here is the soul of my soul, Adam was content to say Here is the flesh of my flesh, seem to me to think like the Apollinarists and other heretics similar, who deny the existence of a soul in Jesus Christ, basing themselves on these words: And the Word was made flesh48.
Indeed, they say, if Jesus Christ had a soul, the writer would have said: And the Word became man. We can answer them that very often, under the word flesh, the Scriptures often designate the entire human being. As, for example, in this passage: All flesh will see the salvation of God49. In fact, can flesh without soul see anything?
Indeed, many passages of Scripture clearly prove that the Savior's humanity was composed not only of a body but also of a human or rational soul.

48 John 1:14
49 Luke 3:6 Videbi omnis caro salutare Dei.

It follows from this that advocates of the transmission of souls through generation may well admit that the part is taken by the whole in these other words: Here is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh and conclude that the soul is there very clearly designated how much is in the Word, when it is said that he became flesh.
However, this conclusion would not be as rigorous as other clear and explicit testimonies that prove the transmission of souls, as a great number of testimonies prove the existence of a soul in Jesus Christ.
For the same reason, we invite the declared enemies of the transmission of souls to prove, with authentic documents, that God continues to create new souls through a new breath. Only then will they have the right to assert that the words Behold the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh are not to be taken in a figurative sense, designating the whole by the part, but in a purely literal sense and applying only to the flesh.

Chapter 32
The human soul cannot come from God without being created from nothing.

After having established these conclusions with all the evidence, I can only finish this book. In fact, I have gathered here all the reflections that I felt were necessary. Now I wish that those who read them will be convinced that it would be a gross mistake for you to believe as the author of the two books you sent me that souls are drawn immediately from the breath of God and not from nothing.
In fact, the moment such a principle was admitted, no protest could prevent us from rigorously concluding that souls are of the same substance as God and participate essentially in his nature. Is a being not necessarily of the nature of the one from which it took its origin? How then can our debater contradict himself to the point of holding that it is not by nature, but by grace, that our souls are of the same race as God?50 He does not claim that it is from him that they draw their origin and not out of nowhere? Consequently, despite all the denials, he must draw his nature from the very nature of God.

50 Cf. Acts 17:28.

Chapter 33
The many absurdities of Vicente Vítor.

We do not forbid anyone to hold that new souls are created by a new breath of God and are in no way transmitted through generation. But we ask that those who hold this doctrine provide us with formal and authentic evidence capable of resolving this important issue; either taking these proofs from the canonical books, or with their own arguments and always in accordance with Catholic truth.
But we don't want evidence like that presented by our debater. We do not want to believe in a man who, not knowing what to say, is stubborn in his opinion, deluded by the measure of his strength and, refusing to be silent, dares to maintain that "the soul deserved to be tainted by the flesh and become a sinful soul”.
Ask him how the soul could have earned, both good and evil, before joining the flesh and he is unable to answer.
He adds that "for children who die without baptism, original sin can be blotted out and the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ offered in their favor," even though they are not incorporated into Jesus Christ through his sacraments and in his Church .
Finally, he fears not to say that "children who die without baptism can not only enjoy the eternal rest, but also get the kingdom of heaven."
Add to that the countless absurdities that I couldn't point out in this book so as not to seem overly wordy.
It is not such debaters who will refute the supporters of the transmission of souls and if the insufflation of new souls had only such defenders, their cause would be strongly compromised.

Chapter 34
Exhortation to Avoid Error and Heresy.

In any case, those who support this system of insufflation of souls must be on guard against one or another of the four errors I enumerated above.
Let them not say that God constitutes these sinful souls through the original crime of another. Let them not say that children who die without baptism can gain eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, for, for both, their original sin would be blotted out. Let them not say that, before being joined to the flesh, souls sinned in any place, and that it was as a result of this lack that they were chained to sinful flesh. Finally, let them not say that the sins which these souls did not actually commit, but whose perpetration was foreseen in infinite foreknowledge, were punished, as it was in consequence of these predicted sins that these souls failed to reach the life in which these sins would have been actually committed by them.
May these people keep an equal distance from each of these errors, whose audacity and impiety revolt us. That done, let them find in the Scriptures formal and explicit testimonies in favor of the thesis they support. Not only will I not oppose this, but they will have my support and my blessings.
But if they do not find any of these clear testimonies, and authentic if, led by the lack of evidence, they come to affirm one or another of these errors, let them be careful not to fall into the abyss that threatens them.
To hold that the souls of children are not guilty of original sin would, for its part, be to rush into the Pelagian heresy; damnable heresy and very recently condemned.
Is it not wiser to confess that one ignores what is not known, than to fall into an already condemned heresy or foment a new one, wanting to recklessly uphold what is ignored?
In addition to these fundamental errors, our debater has expressed some other opinions - less dangerous, it is true - and which stray more or less from the path of truth. As these opinions are very numerous, I propose, with the grace of God, to point them out to himself and write to him on this subject.

Chapter 35
Thanks to Renato and congratulations to Vicente Vitor.

Beginning by writing to yourself, I wanted to give you a testimony of the living gratitude that your living faith and the solicitude with which you surround my faithfulness and my friendship with you inspire me.
As for the book, you can have it read or copied as and when you see fit.
I felt I should repress and correct this young man's presumption, but showing him true love. I wanted to correct him and not condemn him. My only wish is that he progress more and more in that great home which is the Catholic Church, into which he was led by divine mercy. May he become a vessel of honor, useful to the Lord, always ready for every good work, for a holy life and for an irreproachable doctrine.
But if I love you, as I must love you, what affection should unite me with you, my beloved brother, whose benevolence towards me I know, and the Catholic faith as prudent as it is sure! Nothing less than these precious qualities to make you have transcribed and sent me those books that revolt your faith and in which you regret to find my name covered with accusations and outrages that revolt your sincere and fraternal affection.
Far from upsetting myself with this impressive proof of your charity, I would feel entitled to annoy myself, in the name of friendship, if you had done otherwise.
Receive then the testimony of my living gratitude.
To prove to you the pleasure which your conduct towards me caused me, I could not resist the need to send you this book as soon as I became aware of those you sent me.

Book II
The mistakes of Vicente Vítor

Augustine invites Pedro to get rid of the two books by Vicente Vítor on the origin of the soul and shows him that they are far from formulating Catholic doctrine on this topic. It shows you some of the main errors that are contained there and refutes them in a few words.
Finally, he conjures him to bring his author to a retraction.

To our beloved confrere and priest Peter51, Augustine, bishop, greets him in Our Lord.

Chapter 1
The reason for this book: Pedro's acceptance of Vicente Vitor's book.

The two books that Vicente Vítor sent you were sent to me by our brother Renato; a simple layman, it is true, but in whom the most lively faith inspires, towards his friends, the most prudent and the most religious solicitude.
I only met the author when I read his works, whose style reveals a great self-confidence that sometimes goes even to redundancy and prolixity.

51 This Pedro is the priest to whom Vicente Vitor dedicated his work.

As for the subjects he deals with, it is very easy to see that he lacks the necessary and competent science. However, if God permits him, he may later become a writer of some merit and really useful.

In fact, he demonstrates a great facility of locution which would enable him to perfectly explain and even ornament his thought, if he were to devote himself first to bringing that thought into conformity with truth and faith.
What worries me most are these beautiful propagators of lies and errors who find, in a certain language skill, a very powerful means of imposing them on simple and ignorant people.
What you thought of these books I don't know. However, if the rumors that have reached me are to be believed, it seems that as this young man read you his writings, you have given yourself up to all the outbursts of joy. In your enthusiasm, you even gave this lay boy the kiss of an old man and a priest, thanking him with effusion, for having revealed to you what you had not known until then.
I am far from disapproving of the humility you showed and the praise with which you showered this young doctor. None of this was, of course, directed at the man, but only at the truth that had refused to speak to him with his mouth.
However, I would like to know what truths he revealed to you. Please, when replying to me, please let me know what you have learned.
You were not ashamed to be a layman's disciple; Would I be ashamed to become a disciple of a priest?
If you learned any truth at this school, I can only praise you and imitate your humility.

Chapter 2 Is
Soul Different From Spirit?

I wish then, beloved brother, to know what you have learned, to congratulate you generously on it, if these truths are already known to me, and to learn at last, if I still ignore them.
Do you then ignore the existence of the soul and the spirit, which are revealed to us by these words: "Has he separated the soul from my spirit?" You do not know that these two things constitute human nature, so that the human being is everything at the same time : body, soul, and spirit?
Yet these two things, soul and spirit, are generally taken for one another and designated one for the other. Thus, when we read: The Lord God therefore formed man from the clay of the earth, and inspired him. in his nostrils a breath of life and man became a living soul52, these words apply equally to the spirit.
Likewise, these other words: When Jesus had taken the vinegar, he said: All is finished. He bowed his head and surrendered his spirit53, do they not clearly designate his own soul? Aren't these two things of the same substance?

52 Genesis 2:7. Formavit igtur Dominus Deus hominem de limo terrae et inspiravi in ​​faciem ejus spiraculum vitae et factus est homo in animam viventem
53 John 19:30.

I think you don't ignore these elementary truths. If you ignored them, know that you learned what you could not ignore without compromising your salvation.
But if it is the case, with regard to spirit and soul, to enter into more subtle discussions, I prefer to talk to the author himself, whose talent I know.
Is the word soul a generic expression that applies to both the soul and the spirit, so that the spirit is a portion of the soul and so the whole is taken by the part?
Or is spirit the generic term, so that the soul is but a part of the spirit and that, when speaking of spirit, one speaks implicitly of the soul itself?
This. I already said. they are pure subtleties, which we can very well ignore, without taking any risk for our salvation.

Chapter 3
The bodily senses and the senses of the soul.

I would be equally amazed if you had learned that the senses of the body are different from the senses of the soul. At your age and being a priest, before you heard your doctor, you could believe that there is only one and the same organ in us, one and the same principle to distinguish white from black, as birds do, and the just from the unjust, how did Tobias do, after having lost the eyes of his body54?
Assuming you were there, when you heard or read these words: Illuminate my eyes with your light, so that I do not fall asleep in death55, would you not then think of the eyes of your body?
Let us then admit that this text is not sufficiently explicit. When these words of the Apostle were presented to you: May it light up the eyes of your heart56, would you then believe that our heart is placed between our mouth and our forehead?
I refrain from having such ideas about you and concluding that it was from your doctor that you learned this.

54Tobias 2:11.
55 Psalm 12:5.
56 Ephesians 1:18.

Chapter 4
It is a grave error to believe that the soul was emanated from the divine substance.

Perhaps, before you had the pleasure of listening to it, you thought that our soul is a portion of nature. Oh! So you ran a great risk for your salvation if you didn't know that this is a deep mistake.
If then you have learned that our soul is not a part of God, heartily thank the Lord for not having torn you out of this life before you have learned this truth, for then you would have died a heretic and a blasphemer.
But I would never suppose such ignorance on your part, Could a Catholic, an estimable priest think that our soul is a part of God?
Allow me then to tell you that I fear more that he has given you a teaching contrary to faith and your old convictions.

Chapter 5
The error about the creation of the soul.

I cannot believe that, as a member of the Catholic Church, you believed that the soul was part of God or of the same nature as God.
But today I believe that, docile to this man's voice, you do not believe that God took the soul out of nothing, but from himself, so that it would only be an emanation of God.
This is, in fact, one of the numerous mistakes he has made in, a matter which makes his salvation in the greatest danger. If that's what you learned then, I don't want you to teach it to me and I really want you to forget what you learned.
In spite of everything, it would also be very little not to believe and not to say that the soul is a part of God. Do we not really say, of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, that they are a part of God? And yet we confess that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same nature.
Let us say then that the soul is not a part of God and we need to add that the soul is not of one and the same nature with God.
I also approve of these words of Vicente Vítor: "Souls are of the race of God, not by nature, but by grace". This can only be said, of course, for faithful souls and not for all souls in general.
Why then do I have to watch him wallow in the error he seemed to want to avoid and hear him proclaim that God and soul are of the same nature? He did not say this in his own terms, but it is the rigorous conclusion to be drawn from his principles. Didn't he say that the soul comes from God, that he didn't create it from another nature or from nothing, but from himself? Isn't this clearly teaching that the soul is of the same nature as God, though in terms that seem to reject this conclusion?
In fact, all nature is either God, existing by itself, or it comes from God, in the sense that it has God as its author.
Now, inasmuch as it has God for its author, all nature presents itself to us, either as not having been made, or as having been made. As for the nature that was not made, either it was generated by him, or it proceeds from him. The nature that was generated is called the Only Son of God and the nature that proceeds from God is called the Holy Spirit. This is the Christian Trinity, of one and the same substance.
In fact, these three people are of one nature. Each one of them is God and together they make one God, unchanging, eternal, who had no beginning and will have no end.
As for the nature that was made, it is called a creature, whose creator is the very God or the Trinity. When we then say that the creature comes from God, we do not mean that it was made from the very nature of God, but by God. She comes from God because she has God as the author of her existence and not because she was born or because she proceeds from God. She was created by him, formed and made by him. Whether because he took it directly from nothing, as he did with heaven and earth, or rather, with the mass of universal matter; be it because he took her from another already created and existing nature, as he did as a human being, as he took the lemon from the earth, the woman from the man, the children of their parents.
However, in whatever way he did it, every creature comes from God, who gave it existence, whether taking it out of nothing, or taking it from another nature, but never generating it or taking it from himself .

Chapter 6
God did not make the soul of its own essence.

When I talk about this subject with a Catholic, I only revive his memory and I don't teach him anything new. I don't really believe that this is for you new things or truths that you heard without believing.
On the contrary, I am intimately convinced that, as you read my letter, you will recognize in it your own belief, or rather the belief common to all of us in the Catholic Church, through the mysterious effect of God's grace.
Therefore, since I am dealing with this matter with a Catholic, please tell me, I ask you, what the soul was taken from. I'm not talking about the soul of each one of us, but the soul of the first human being.
If you believe that she was taken out of nowhere, that she was made and inspired by the breath of God, then you believe the same thing as I do. But if you admit that it was formed from some pre-existing creature or matter which was then transformed into a soul by the omnipotence of God, as the dust between the hands became the first man, as the side of the first man became Eve, as the waters form fish or birds, as the earth forms terrestrial animals; if that's what you believe, you're no longer a Catholic, you're no longer the truth.
Finally, if you think that the soul was not taken by God from nothing or any creature, but from its own nature; if that is what your young doctor taught you, I cannot praise you or congratulate you, for you have strayed too far from Catholic truths.
Of these two errors, the least ominous. even if it remains a mistake - it would be the one to teach you that God formed our souls from another nature created by God and already pre-existing, for then I would understand that a nature that is changing, that sins, that becomes ungodly and that obstinate to the end in wickedness, it could be subjected to eternal reproach.
But to apply these characteristics to the very nature of God would be, not only a mistake, but a horrible blasphemy.
Walk away, my brother, walk away, I beg you, from this error of a terrible impiety! Do not suffer because of the seduction of a young layman, an elderly priest, who takes a lie as an exposition of the Catholic faith and finds himself cut off from the body of the faithful! May God keep this unhappiness from you!
I must not proceed with you as with this lad, for your mistake, as tremendous as his, was inspired by him, and does not deserve the same indulgence that one may have to this lad. If a sick sheep leaves error to enter the Lord's flock, we do not want their healing to be obtained at the price of the loss of a shepherd who would have suffered the poisonous attacks of contagion.

Chapter 7
Peter should write to clarify his position.

Tell me that's not what he taught you. Tell me that you have not listened to any of these errors, despite the charm and seduction of your language, and I will render to God abundant thanksgiving.
But then, I ask you, why this kiss that, they say, you placed on your forehead. Why, in your enthusiasm, did you thank him for teaching you what you had ignored until then? And if these rumors are untrue, if you have not done or said anything like that, please confirm it and, in your letter, refute these slanderous rumors. Or, conversely, if that's what you said and did, I'll still be glad if he didn't teach you the detestable mistakes I just pointed out.
I don't reproach you for showing you your gratitude to everyone, the motivations of a very deep humility, as long as you've taken some real and helpful teaching out of this discussion.

But what did you learn? Could it be, for example, that the soul is not a spirit but a body? I don't see that there is such great harm in Catholic doctrine, to ignore such nonsense. And if, on this subject, he devotes himself to subtleties of discussion about the different types of bodies, that is to involve intricate difficulties without being able to reap any usefulness from it.
If it pleases the Lord for me to write to this young man, as I have a keen desire to do, your charity may teach you how far he has gone from teaching you; if it is true, however, that you congratulated him on having learned from him.
But finally, perhaps you have educated yourself on some subject that is really useful and necessary to faith. Then be generous enough to inform me.

Chapter 8
The teaching of the parable of the rich and the poor.

He teaches with much reason and truth that souls are judged as soon as they leave the body and before presenting themselves to another judgment that they must suffer as soon as their bodies are returned to them, when they will then be tormented or glorified in the flesh with which they were united on earth.
Was this what you ignored? Is it possible then that he obstinately opposes the Gospel to the point of not hearing this truth, and if he hears it, he does not believe in the parable of that poor man who, after his death, was transported to Abraham's bosom and that of the rich man who was cruelly tormented in hell? It was he who taught her how the soul of the rich man, separated from his body, could ask the poor man's finger to drop a drop of water on it57.

57 Cf. Luke 16:19-31

However, wasn't he himself the one who said that the soul only looks for physical food to repair the damage and parts of a corruptible body? Here are his words: "Because we see the soul looking for food or drink, do we conclude from this that this food and drink reach it?"
A little later, he adds: "It is now well proven that food is prepared not for the soul but for the body. It is for the body as well that clothes are used, for the body needs it as it needs food."
He confirms by an example this doctrine, already so clear itself. "Why," he asks, "the care the tenant pays to the house he lives in? If he sees the roof wobble, the walls sway, the foundations sink, he employs moorings and supports to prevent this impending ruin from which he would have to suffer the sad consequences and cruel consequences. Know then that it is for a similar reason that the soul seeks for its body the necessary nourishment and, at times, desires it with great ardour."
It is impossible to express a thought more clearly as this young man did, to prove that it is not the soul but the body that food is needed.
The soul then demonstrates the true dedication of a tenant and must provide all the necessary care to repair the loss and damage of the house in which he lives.
That said, let him himself explain why the soul of the wicked rich man craved the modest refreshment of a drop of water. She had then left the house that was her body, and yet she was thirsty and asked poor Lazarus' finger to drop a drop of water on her.
This young master of elders must exercise his wit on this point. Let him then seek and prove, if he can, why this soul thrown into hell and despoiled from its ruined habitation so keenly craved the refreshment of a drop of water.

Chapter 9
The strangeness of Vicente Vítor's teaching.

Vicente Vítor eloquently proclaims the spirituality of God and I congratulate him for not sharing the mistakes of Tertullian, who affirms that God and the soul are corporeal beings.
But how can one not be surprised when, even admitting the spirituality of God, this young man maintains that God draws from his own nature and not from nothing a bodily breath?
Such a doctrine would turn all ages' ears off.
How then to imagine elders like his disciples and, on top of that, priests?
Let him read in a public meeting what he wrote. May he invite to this reading his friends and strangers, the wise and the ignorant. Elderly people, meet with young people, learn what you don't know, understand what you never understood. This is what this young doctor teaches: that God created a breath, not taking it from another already existing nature, not even from nothing, but from himself, from his own nature. And although her nature is essentially spiritual, the breath he takes from her is really a body. He then transforms his own nature into a body, before it is transformed into a body of sin.
Does the author say that God does not change his nature at all when he transforms it into a breath? But then it is not from him that God forms this breath, as he could not be different from his own nature. Is a greater absurdity possible?
If he replies that God takes his breath away from his nature, remaining wholly what he is; if that is the question, it is a question of knowing whether God draws this breath not from another nature, not from nothing, but from himself, so that, however, this breath is not of the same nature as God.
In begetting his Son, the Father remains fully what he is. But because he begets it from himself, he begets it from his own nature. Without speaking of his Incarnation, without remembering that the Word became flesh, the Son of God is a person different from his Father, but he is not of a different nature from his. This is because the Son of God was not begotten of another creature or from nothing, but of the Father. Therefore, begotten of the Father, he must not be more perfect or of another nature, but equal, coeternal, absolutely similar, equally immutable, equally invisible, equally incorporeal, equally God. In short, he must be absolutely what the Father is, except that he is the Son and not the Father.
But if, even claiming that God remains wholly the same, you claim that he created, not from nothing, not from a creature, but from himself something which is essentially different from himself; if you claim that an absolutely incorporeal God can emanate a body, every Catholic heart will revolt against such a claim. He will see there, not a divine oracle, but the dream of a delirious spirit.

Chapter 10
It is one thing to learn and another thing to believe that you have learned.

As for the superhuman efforts with which he tries in vain to prove that the soul, though corporeal, is alien to the passions of the body; as for discussing the infancy of the soul, the paralysis and oppression of the soul's senses, the possible amputation of the limbs of the body without causing any harm to the soul; it is not with you, but with the author himself that I want to establish this debate. I will gladly see him sweat water and blood, to give reason to his words, but I would reproach myself for tiring an old man by refuting a boy's writings.
Speaking of the similarity of customs found between children and their parents, he maintains that it is not the result of the generation of the soul.
In this he is consistent with himself, since he denies the transmission of souls through generation. As for the defenders of this transmission, it is not in similarity that they seek their main argument. Don't we see children whose customs are totally different from their parents? They explain this phenomenon by saying that it comes from the fact that the human being usually changes his behavior himself, making it better or worse, always preserving his ancestors. They conclude from this that it is very possible that a soul does not have the same customs as the ones from which he left, since that soul may have customs the following day totally different from those he had the day before.
If your doctor then taught you that the soul is not transmitted through generations, perhaps you have received irrefutable proofs on this subject and it would make me very happy if you communicated them to me.
But it's one thing to learn and another thing to seem like you've learned.
If you believe you have learned what you still didn't know, your science is not complete; you only made you believe recklessly what you heard with pleasure and the lie insinuated itself in you under the beautiful appearances of seductive words.
I do not mean by this that I condemn the supporters of the new insufflation of souls any more than the supporters of the transmission of souls. Even today I expect, from both of them, clear evidence of their system.
My reflection applies only to this young man who, far from resolving the disputed issue, divulges ideas whose falsity leaves no doubt. Wanting to prove a dubious thesis, he made sure mistakes.

Chapter 11
The soul did not exist before it joined the body.

You hesitate to reproach language like this: "You do not want a soul to receive the holiness of a sinful flesh. But do you not see that it is through the flesh that that same soul in turn receives sanctification, so that is it reintegrated by the very instrument of its fall? Is it the body that is washed by baptism, and yet the grace conferred by baptism does not penetrate to the soul or the spirit? It is then quite natural that it is through the flesh that the soul regains its first state, her first attitude, as it was through the flesh that she seemed to decay and deserve to be tainted," he says.
Such words show you what a gross error your doctor has fallen into. He dares to say that “it is through the flesh that the soul is restored to its primitive state, as it was through the flesh that it fell.” Before being united with the flesh, the soul enjoyed a perfect state and had acquired a precious merit. merit that are restored to him by the flesh, when it is purified by the bath of regeneration58.

58 Cf. Titus 3:5.

Before being joined to the flesh, the soul had also lived somewhere in a state of perfection and merit, from which it fell with its union with the flesh.
Vicente Vítor expressly says: "It is through the flesh that the soul recovers its former situation, which it seemed to lose insensibly through the flesh." Before being joined to the flesh, did the soul already have an old situation? And how could this situation be, if not happy and praiseworthy? He assures her that she recovers her through baptism. However, he does not admit that this soul takes its origin from that which existed in paradise, where it enjoyed happiness.
As then, in another passage, he dares to say that he has always asserted that the soul does not exist by way of original transmission; that she wasn't taken out of thin air; that it does not exist by itself and that it did not exist before the body?
Here, on the contrary, he holds that souls lived somewhere before the body, that they were happy, and that this happiness is restored to them by baptism.
Then, forgetting what he has just said, he adds that it is through the flesh that the soul is reborn, as "it was through the flesh that it deserved to be defiled".
Rather, he implied that the soul had lost its merit because of the flesh ; now he supposes that she has lost merit and that, in punishment for her fault, she has been condemned to dwell in the flesh and there to contract a blemish. To deserve to be tainted is surely to lose the merit.
Let him then tell us what sin to soul committed before being tainted by the flesh and for which she deserved to be tainted by the flesh.
Let him answer if he can. But he is unable to do this, as he has the truth against him.

Chapter 12
Very clear contradiction.

A little further he adds: “Although the soul, which could not be sinful (without the flesh) deserved to become sinful, (because of the flesh), yet it did not remain in sin, because, prefigured in Jesus Christ , she didn't have to remain in sin, just as she didn't have to have thrown herself into it."
Please tell me, I beg you, if after having read and meditated on these words and if you wondered what it was possible to be praised there, what made you draw such vivid thanksgiving after reading it.
What do words like these, tell me, mean: "Though the soul, which could not be a sinner, deserved to be a sinner"? "She deserved to be it, she couldn't be it." How could she deserve to become a sinner, if not because she had already committed the sin or because she was already a sinner? then why could she be. Consequently, before she became unworthy, she had already sinned, and in sinning she deserved to be forsaken by God and other sins to precipitate.
The words "The soul could not be sinful", do they mean, in their thinking, that if the soul was not united with the flesh, it could not become sinful? But then how could the soul deserve to be sent to the flesh where it should find the sad power to become sinful; that without her she would never have possessed?
What then did she deserve? If she deserved to become a sinner, how did she deserve it if it wasn't because of sin?
All of these propositions may look obscure or be presented as such. However, they are, properly, of the most last evidence. Indeed, if the soul, before being united with the flesh, could neither acquire merit nor demerit, how is it possible that "it deserved to become a sinner through the flesh"?

Chapter 13
A biblical text misapplied by Vicente Vítor.

But let's address clearer and easier topics. Our young doctor was gripped by cruel anguish over original sin. Indeed, how to explain that souls are guilty of this sin if they do not originate from the first soul who became a sinner?
On the other hand, to say that when the Creator breathed them into sinful flesh, they were exempt from any contagion and propagation of sin, is it not to believe that it was God Himself who made them guilty because of the insufflation?
The first defense argument he invokes is the foreknowledge of God and he says that "God has prepared for them redemption." By virtue of this redemption, children are baptized so that the original sin they contracted through the flesh may be blotted out. Indeed, cannot it be said that God is quick to correct his error and purify those he has defiled?
But the question should, of course, be with children deprived of this help and who die before receiving baptism.
He says: "On this point I take no responsibility as author and am content to invoke an example. I withdraw it from children who, predestined to baptism, are plucked from the present life before they have been regenerated in Jesus Christ. to these children, here is what we read: He was taken away that malice might not corrupt his feeling, nor cunning pervert his soul.59 Having quickly come to term, he had come a long way.60 His soul was pleasing to the Lord, and that is why that he quickly removed him from the midst of perversity61”.

59 Wisdom 4:11.
60 Wisdom 4:13.
61 Wisdom 4:14.

Who would dare despise a doctor like that?
Here are children who are going to present themselves for baptism. It runs, but they die before they have received it. If their lives had been prolonged for a few moments, if they had only died immediately after baptism, would malice have changed their intelligence, would the lie have deceived their soul? Was it to help against this danger that they were snatched from life before they received baptism?
Would it then have been at baptism that their minds would have fallen, that the lie would have deceived them, if death had come to strike them shortly after baptism?
O wonderful and seductive doctrine! You are but an execrable and abominable doctrine!
But he did not assume the prudence of all those who read him. From your overcoat, because it was for you that he composed these books and only released them after having read them to you. He was sure of her approval and was not mistaken.
He trusted that you would believe that it was to the dead children without baptism that these passages were applied, especially written for the saints whom God gathers before maturity and to raise the blasphemies of all the fools who reproach the Almighty for pulling out of life too quickly for his elect and not allowing them to reach old age, which so many people regard as heaven's greatest benefit.
How dare you say, "Children predestined to baptism are snatched from the present life before they have been regenerated in Jesus Christ"? Could it not be said that some stroke of luck or bad luck or anything else did not allow God to accomplish what he had foreseen? Was this because they asked you to pick them up prematurely? Could we say that he predestines them to baptism and that he himself does not allow that predestination to take place?

Chapter 14
A supposed temporal paradise for children who died without baptism.

He didn't like my hesitation—more prudent than wise—in such a profound matter.
See, on the contrary, to what extent he leads to recklessness: "I do not hesitate to say that these children can obtain the remission of original sin, although they are not yet brought into the kingdom of heaven, but only into paradise, as it is the paradise that was promised by the Savior to the good thief62, because he had confessed his divinity, before he received the baptism. It was not the kingdom of heaven that was promised to him, for the Savior had already proclaimed this sentence: Who is not born again of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.63 Then did the Savior not say that there are several abodes in his Father's house, meaning that they are appropriate to the number and diversity of those who die before receiving baptism? one who is not baptized can obtain forgiveness of his sins,while the one who is baptized can get the palm prepared for him by grace."
Here, then, is a new doctor who separates paradise and the different abodes of the Father's house from the kingdom of heaven, and this, without a doubt, in order to be able to provide abundant seasons of happiness even to those who die without baptism.
He does not see then that, by admitting children baptized into the kingdom of heaven, he is not afraid to separate them from the Father's house or the different abodes that compose it.
In fact, when the Savior speaks to us of these numerous abodes, he places them, not in the universe at large or in a part of the universe, but in my Father's house64. How then to place an unbaptized child in the Father's house, since he can only have God as Father insofar as he has been regenerated in water and in the Holy Spirit? How would the one whom God condescended to remove from the division of Donatists or Rogatists would prove ungrateful to God? How dare he divide the very house of God the Father and place in it a certain portion outside the kingdom of heaven, to make an abode for those who die without baptism? By what right does he presume to one day enter the kingdom of heaven, if he excludes the king himself from that part of the kingdom?

62 Cf. Luke 23:41.
63 John 3:5.
64 John 14:2.

As for the good thief who, hanging on the cross very close to the Saviour, trusted in the mercy of the crucified Saviour; as for Dinocrates, brother of St. Perpetua, he concludes that those who are not baptized can obtain the remission of their sins and a place with the blessed. This strikes me as a little reckless. Did someone, whose word must be credible under penalty of blasphemy, reveal to him that the good thief and Dinocrates were not baptized? Regarding these two characters, I formulated my thoughts in the book I directed to our brother Renato65. If you don't despise reading, you will be able to know this work, because you just have to ask him and he will not deny you.

65 Book I ch. 11 and 12.

Chapter 15
The Eucharistic sacrifice cannot be offered to unbaptized children.

But here he is, inflamed, oppressed under the weight of horrible anguishes.
In fact, more than you, he understood the crime it was for him to claim that original sin can be blotted out in children without the baptism of Jesus Christ.
As if to calm himself, he resorts—albeit a little late—to the sacraments of the Church and says: "I believe that the holy fathers must offer oblations and sacrifices for children without ceasing." you with the title of doctor, do not refuse him the title of censor and you will be authorized to offer the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, even to those who are not incorporated into Jesus Christ.
In his books he emits a new opinion that is totally contrary to ecclesiastical discipline and the rule of truth. Do you believe he will use expressions that reveal a certain hesitation, as I think, I believe, it seems to me, I suggest, I say? No. Affecting a kind of infallibility, he cries, “I judge.”
The novelty or perversity of his opinion might revolt us, but it is in vain, for we do not have to tremble at his authority as a judge.
See my brother, how can you authorize him to hold such doctrines. As for Catholic priests who remain faithful to traditional teaching—which you yourself should stick to—far from approving this speech, they implore him for the grace of conversion and repentance and a frank and sincere retraction of his conceived ideas and works that wrote.
He continues: "The proposition I defend is confirmed by a passage from the Book of Maccabees, in which we read that the priests conceived the project of offering sacrifices to those who had fallen on the battlefield and who might be guilty of some crimes"66, But this action could not be of any value, inasmuch as these sacrifices were offered for the uncircumcised, as he intends that we should offer for dead infants without baptism.
Among the Jews, circumcision was a type of sacrament that prefigured baptism of Christians.

66 Cf. 2Maccabees 12:39-46.

Chapter 16
Vicente Vítor openly speaks out against revelation.

However, the preceding errors are nothing compared as follows. In fact, after having maintained that children obtain without baptism the remission of original sin and all other sins, so much so that they deserve to enter paradise, to enjoy immense happiness there and to possess the numerous dwellings that exist in the house. of the heavenly Father, he is suddenly sorry for having granted them only a very small happiness outside the kingdom of heaven.
To make amends for his mistake, he says: "They may reproach me perhaps for having temporarily placed the soul of the good thief and that of Dinocrates in paradise. But I assert, at the same time, that the kingdom of heaven will be opened to them at the resurrection, despite the apparent contradiction of this fundamental maxim: Whoever is not reborn of water and the Spirit will not be able to enter the Kingdom of God. Whatever this phrase may be, let him not be afraid to embrace my opinion, as long as he has no other desire than to give more extension and more enchantment to the effects of divine mercy and foreknowledge.” These words are verbatim in the second book.
On this topic, is it possible to further the audacity of error, recklessness and presumption? He presents the Savior's maxim and even says in his work: “Despite the apparent contradiction of this fundamental maxim: Whoever is not born again of water and the Spirit cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” However, he does not hesitate to oppose the this main maxim, the pride of his own censure. "Don't be afraid to embrace my opinion," he says; an opinion which holds that the souls of children who died without baptism temporarily deserve paradise, as did the good thief and Dinocrates, whom he invokes to establish his thesis and that these souls, after the resurrection, will be transferred to an even better region and they will possess the kingdom of heaven, "in spite of the contradiction" of the fundamental maxim uttered by the Saviour.

Please, my brother, I ask you, if you ask yourself if it is possible to believe the words of a man who puts himself in manifest contradiction with a fundamental maxim of the Saviour.

Chapter 17
Worse than the Pelagians.

The councils and the Apostolic See rightly condemned the Pelagians, because they held that, outside the kingdom of heaven, infants who died without baptism enjoyed rest and salvation. These new heretics would not profess this error if they did not deny the existence of original sin, the remission of which can only take place through the sacrament of baptism.
Now here is an author who maintains, as a Catholic, the existence of original sin in children and who, however, maintains that these children can be justified without baptism, mercifully sends them to paradise after their death and after the resurrection , introduces them even more mercifully into the kingdom of heaven.
This mercy is inspired, no doubt, by the example of Saul, who spares a king whom the Lord had commanded him to immolate.
Has he forgotten that this merciful disobedience or this disobedient mercy was reproved and condemned67? What a lesson given to man, not to expect to obtain mercy by resisting Him who made him what he is!
Let the truth repeat then in the person of the Incarnate Word: Whoever is not reborn of water and the Spirit will not be able to enter the Kingdom of God!68
Then wanting to make us understand that this rule was not valid for the martyrs who had shed their blood for the name of Jesus Christ before they were cleansed by the baptism of Jesus Christ, the Savior tells us in another passage:
He who tries to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses it, because of me, will find it again69.
To show us that one who has not been reborn in the bath of Christian faith cannot hope for the remission of original sin, the Apostle says: For the sin of one man the condemnation was extended to all men, thus, for a single act of justice, they receive all men the justification that gives life70.
Against this condemnation, the Savior proclaims that there is only one remedy for salvation: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned71.

67 1Samuel 15.
68 John 3:5.
69 Matthew 10:39.
70 Romans 5:18.
71 Mark 16:16.

The mystery of this faith is fulfilled in children through the response given for them by those who hold them under the waters of baptism, for without the realization of this mystery, all would suffer the condemnation drawn on all humanity by one man.
However, in spite of these well manifested oracles, behold, inspired by an unlimited vanity, much more than merciful, his doctor cries:
"Not only are children not condemned, although they have not been immersed in any bath of Christian faith , to find there the remission of their original sin, as well as, after their death, they will temporarily enjoy the happiness of paradise and, after the resurrection, they will enjoy all the delights of the kingdom of heaven."
Can there be a doctrine more manifestly opposed to the most fundamental principles of the Catholic faith? But I am not afraid to say that he would never have dared to issue it, had he not had the imprudence to undertake the solution of a question far superior to his strength: the question
of the origin of the soul.

Chapter 18
Excessive presumption.

Their anxieties are redoubled when they argue with him: "Why, on the part of God, this unjust animosity with which he pursues a soul, to the point of chaining it to a flesh of sin, until making it sinful with this union with the flesh, without which this soul could not become sinful?"
Likewise he hears: "The soul could not become sinful if God had not united it with sinful flesh."
How to reconcile this conduct with the righteousness of God? eyes the eternal damnation of children who die without baptism and, therefore, without having obtained the remission of original sin.
Why then did a just and good God, who in his infinite foreknowledge knew that the souls of these children would be deprived of the sacrament of Christian grace, chain them, innocent and pure, in a guilty flesh originating from the first man? Why so taint them with original sin and precipitate them into eternal damnation?
Not knowing how to respond and, on the other hand, stubbornly denying that these souls originated from the first sinful soul, he thought it better to run all the risks of an unfortunate shipwreck than to lower his sails, suspend his race, lay down the perfidious oars of the discussion and anchor, to engage in serious study.
The hesitation of an old man provoked this young man's contempt, as if in such a thorny and difficult matter the tumultuous waves of eloquence should be more useful than the meditations of prudence.
He himself sensed the dangers of his task, but it was in vain.
In effect, he himself raises the objections that his debaters must submit to him. He says: "Other reproaches await the whining murmurs of the slanderers, and then, like people fallen into a thick wheel, we roll sadly towards craggy boulders."
It is after putting his premises in this way that he turns to this dangerous question in the which the Catholic faith was shipwrecked and will remain submerged until he retracts all the mistakes he has committed.
Overcome with horror by this whirlpool and this rock, I refused to trust him with the ship, and if I did get involved in the discussion it was less to reveal the temerity of his presumption than to justify my doubts and hesitations.
Finding one of my works in his house, he was filled with laughter and contempt and launched himself against the rocks with more impetuosity than prudence. To what excesses he took his presumption, I think you see today. If you've noticed it a long time ago, I give more abundant thanks to God for that.
Indeed, not wanting to interrupt his course, so as not to have to disprove his first audacity, he ran into fearful obstacles and came to be shipwrecked before this proposition: "To the dead children without Christian regeneration, God immediately grants paradise and, later on , the kingdom of heaven".

Chapter 19
The origin of the soul is a matter the Scriptures do not help.

As for the passages of the Holy Scriptures, which he invoked to prove that it is not through the generation that God gives us our soul, but through the new and particular insufflation to each person, I demonstrated that these passages, on the question that occupies, are uncertain and ambiguous and could very easily be interpreted in a different sense than the one he gave them.
I devoted myself to this issue in detail in the book I directed to Renato and I believe my demonstration is complete72. These testimonies prove that it is God who gives us, creates and forms our soul, but they do not say of what or how he forms it; is it via generation or is it via a special insufflation?
Because his doctor read that it is God who gives us, creates and forms our soul73, he concluded from this that the propagation of souls is formally denied. But doesn't the Scripture clearly say that it is God who gives us, creates, and shapes our bodies? However, no one doubts the original spread of the bodies.

72 Book I, ch. 17.
73 CF. Isaiah 42:5 and 57:16; Zechariah 12:1.

Chapter 20

More research is needed.

We also read: He made all mankind to be born of one flesh74 and Here now, said the man, the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh75.
As it is not said that was one soul that God created mankind and as Adam said , "This is the soul of my soul," he sees in these passages the denial of souls transmission life generation.
But suppose, Instead of the words of one flesh, let us read of one soul; would we conclude that it is not the whole human being or that the propagation of the body there is formally denied?
Likewise, if Adam had said Here is the soul of my soul, he Would you fail to see in these words a formal exclusion of the flesh, whose mode of transmission is evident?
In fact, the Scriptures, in their language, very often take the whole for the part and the part for the whole. If instead of the words of one blood, The text brought from one man, this passage would not be in opposition to the opponents of the transmission of souls, although man is composed not only of a soul, or only of a body, but the the same time of a body and a soul.

74 Acts 17:26.
75 Genesis 2:23.

They would then answer that the whole is taken by the part, that is, that the term man designates only the flesh. Likewise, the supporters of the propagation of souls would find in the words of one blood the designation of the whole human being or as being taking the part for the whole.
The first believe themselves strengthened because it is said to be of one blood and not of one man. The seconds apply to their system the words By one man sin entered the world and death by sin, thus death passed to the whole human race, because all have sinned76, for it is not said "in whom the flesh of all has sinned" .

76 Romans 5:12.

The first make a noise with words Here are the bones of my bones and the flesh of my flesh, for the flesh is mentioned and not the whole man.
The seconds respond with the words that immediately follow: She will be called woman, because she was taken from man. As it was not said Why was her flesh taken from the man, if only the flesh is taken from the man and not the whole woman?
Listening to these two sides, without any formed opinion, we see clearly that the supporters of the transmission of souls could not be opposed to passages that take only one of the two parts of man from man. Was it not taking the part for the whole that the Scriptures could say The Word became flesh77, with this flesh evidently designating the entire human being?
As for the opponents of the transmission of souls, it would not be possible to oppose them also the passages in which mentions are made by one or the other of the two constituent parts of the human being, but of the whole human being, because then the Scriptures could take the whole for the part, as when we confess that Jesus Christ was buried, which can only be applied to his body.
Hence I conclude that the transmission of souls is not to be recklessly asserted nor recklessly condemned. Before absolutely pronouncing one or the other of these two opinions, it is necessary to present explicit and formal testimonies.

Chapter 21
Nothing is clear about the origin of the soul.

So, I still don't know what you learned and what provoked in you the manifestations of such lively recognition. In fact, the question of the origin of souls remains what it always was. One can always question whether God gives them to us through the original transmission or whether it is through a new and special insufflation for each person. All that faith teaches us is that God is the author of these souls.

77 John 1:14

Before assessing his strengths, his doctor tried to resolve this great question. He then denied the propagation of souls and affirmed that God takes them pure and undefiled, not from nothing, but from himself, through a creative breath. Is it then necessary to lower the nature of God to the point of making him suffer the shames of changeability?
Wanting to prove that God is not unjust, by casting the bonds of original sin upon souls hitherto free from all sin and who are not destined to find in regeneration the purification of their original blemish, he has formulated before you propositions that I do not want have convinced you.
As regards the children who died without baptism, he professed to grant them a fuller salvation and a greater happiness than he ever dared to do the Pelagian heresy. However, among these children, how many thousands are the result of godless parents and dead in this state, not only without it having been thought to offer them baptism, but also without offering it to them - or without ever offering it. to them - the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, though he holds that this sacrifice should be offered to them, even if they have not been baptized!
Ask him about the destination of these children's souls and he gets no answer. Ask him how these souls could have deserved not to be cleansed by baptism or the atoning sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ and to be cast into sinful flesh, to contract there the right to eternal damnation; either he is silent, or he shares - too late, it is true of our hesitation - or he will maintain that the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ must be offered to all those children who, throughout the universe, die without the Christian baptism and without being incorporated into Jesus Christ. He does, however, allow their names to be omitted, as these names are unknown in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Chapter 22
Vicente's guilt is lessened.

God forbid, my brother, to approve such a doctrine, to rejoice that you have learned it or that you have taught it yourself. If you succumbed to this danger, you would be far inferior to this boy.
Starting his first book and indulging in a fine movement of modesty and humility, didn't he write, "Seeking to obey you, I run the risk of being presumptuous"? He adds a little after I propose. I am then willing not to hold my private opinion if I find it improbable, and, condemning my own judgment, I will wholeheartedly embrace whatever sentiment seems to me to be the best and truest. In fact, since it is to give proof of wisdom and prudence to follow without difficulty the opinion of the truth, it would be to show oneself beyond madness and stubbornness, not to immediately side with reason.” If this speech was sincere on your part, if he he really felt what he said, he showed greatness and nobility in his hopes.

At the end of the second book, he also says: "Don't believe I can take the flattery to the point of believing that my language need not be sanctioned by your judgment. Afraid that, in the eyes of some curious reader, it won't be found in my writings passages capable of hurting or offending you, proceed in correction with all possible severity, mercilessly subtracting everything that seems false or inconvenient to you. on your part, hitherto unknown ineptitudes came to cover me with universal ridicule”.

Chapter 23
Exhortation to Peter.

Such formal restrictions at the beginning and at the end of your work impose upon you the religious burden of examination and correction. May your hopes not be disappointed. Be fair and even merciful, but rebuke and correct him. That the oil with which the sinner perfumes the head78?
be far away from your hands and eyes. That is, avoid the indecorous agreement of the flatterer and the seductive sweetness of the flatterer.

78 Cf Psalm 140:5.

If you fail to correct what seems to you to be defective, you will be violating the laws of charity and if you do not see anything to correct, by believing everything he proposes, you are going directly against the laws of truth.
It will follow from this that this author — who is quite willing to correct his work if he finds someone to correct it — would be far superior to you if, knowing your mistakes, you were content to laugh or if, not knowing them, you embraced blindly.
Then study with the utmost care these books written for you and placed in your hands. This careful study will reveal to you more details that I could not find in a simple reading. If in it you find really beautiful and praiseworthy propositions that you had ignored until then and that you only knew through it, expose them without disguise.
Then you will no longer be suspected of having applauded what is really reprehensible in this work and that suspicion, believe me, was shared by those who heard it read with you and those who read it afterwards.
If you let readers ignore what you drank from this work and what you didn't drink, the praises with which you covered it will expose those readers to accepting everything and drinking it too, trusting your example, the poison in the precious cup of your style charming. Listening, reading, remembering what has been read, is it not drinking the doctrine?
Now, speaking of the faithful, the Lord foresaw that if they drink some deadly poison, he will not harm them79. Thus, those who read with discernment and rely on the rule of faith, to approve what is to be approved and to condemn what is to be condemned, even if their memory kept the memory of what is to be condemned, will not experience any harm done by the poison that possesses these erroneous and perverse doctrines.
I will not regret having obeyed mutual or provident charity, allowing me to give counsel to your reverence and your religion, for, counting on God's mercy, I knew how you would accept it.
But I will render fervent thanksgiving to God whose infinite mercy is never to be despised if your letter informs me and proves to me that your faith was in no way compromised by the lies and errors I believed I had to point out to you in the work. of this young writer.

79 Mark 16:18

Book III
The eleven errors of Vicente Vítor

Augustine points out to Vicente Vítor what he must correct in his books if he wants to be a Catholic and reduces to eleven the main errors already refuted in the previous books addressed to Renato and Pedro.
To Vicente Victor

Chapter 1
Augustine's esteem for Vicente Vitor.

Beloved son Vítor. I want you to convince yourself by receiving this text that if I had any dislike for you, I would never do that. However, if I show humility, don't conclude that you're okay because you weren't despised.
I love him not to follow him, but to correct him, and as I am in no hurry to correct him, do not be surprised that I can dishonor the one I love.
Before you were in communion with us, I had to love you to hasten your return to Catholicism. Now that you are one of us, how much more must I love you to keep you from becoming a new heretic and to make you such a generous Catholic that no heretic can resist!
Judging by the beautiful qualities God has given you, you will be really wise if you sincerely believe that you are not. If you ask insistently and with pity for wisdom, the One who makes the wise. And if, in the end, you would rather not be deceived by error than be covered in praise by those who have lost the truth.

Chapter 2
Conversion to Catholicism should not be done by half.

First of all, your name stamped on your books aroused my concern about you.
Those who could meet him, when I was very happy to meet him, I asked who Vicente Vítor was. I learned that you were a Donatist or better Rogatist and that you joined the Catholic Church just now.
In addition to the joy we experience whenever a victim of error opens his eyes to the truth, my happiness grew even more, seeing that his talents, whose proofs I savored in his writings, did not remain in the service of the defenders of error.
However, from the information I gathered, my joy was a little saddened to learn that you took the name Vicente, because you have in great esteem the successor of Rogato, who has that name.
I have also been told that you boast of having enjoyed his appearance, I don't know in what vision, that he was a powerful help for you in the composition of the books I intend to discuss with you and that he himself dictated the ideas and the proofs you formulated.
If that's true, I'm not surprised you have this guidance in your writings. But if you pay any attention to my answer and study my books from a Catholic point of view, I have no doubt that you will readily regret these reckless words.
In fact, he who transfigures himself into an angel of light80, as the Apostle says, was not he. that is, the devil who transfigured himself before you into what you regard as having been, or still being, an angel of light? Is it not known that, in order to deceive Catholics better, it is not in the form of heretics that he must be transfigured, but in the form of an angel of light?
However, even then I would not wish he had deceived you, a Catholic. May he suffer when he sees you in possession of the truth.
Let him suffer in proportion to the joy he would have felt at seeing him convinced of his error.
To escape the temptation to love a dead man, whose affection can only ruin him, without being of any help to him, please note that by shaking the chains of the Donatist or Rogatist heretics, you have asserted that he is neither holy nor righteous . If you believed in your righteousness and holiness, you would only have ensured your perdition by entering the Catholic fellowship.

80 Corinthians 1:14

In fact, your Catholicism would be a farce if you shared the views of the one you love today. Now you are well acquainted with these terrible words: The Holy Spirit will flee from treachery, he will turn away from foolish thoughts, and the iniquity that comes will repel him.

81 Wisdom 1:5

But if your union with Catholicism is not a sham, why then love a heretic after his death, to the point of taking pride in bearing the name of the one with whom you do not share his mistakes?
We don't want you to carry the name that would make you something of a monument to a dead heretic. We don't want your book stamped with a name we would proclaim false if we read it over a grave.
We don't know that Vincent was not a winner, but a loser? And it pleased God that his defeat was as advantageous to him as his was to you, thanks to the power of truth.
By signing the name of Vicente Vítor for books that you only believe you have written under your inspiration, you use cunning and wit, since the Vicente you crown with the title of Vítor - or winner - is for you the one who would have won the error in revealing what you should write.
Oh, my son, why this iniquity? Be sincerely Catholic and renounce all dissimulation, to prevent the Holy Spirit from abandoning you, when, by the way, you have no help to expect from this Vincent, whose form the evil spirit took, to better deceive and seduce him.
In fact, isn't he the author of the doctrines you only proclaim if you blindly accept his word? And then, just docile to the warnings that are lavish, if you recant these opinions, with pious humility and a complete devotion to Catholic peace, we will only see there the errors of a young man as ardent as studious and who prefers to correct his illusions and don't keep them recklessly.
If, God forbid, he had instilled in his spirit the stubbornness of discord, it would be left to pastoral and medicinal vigilance to condemn these heretical dogmas and their author, before allowing the devastation and desolation to reach the soul and spirit of the people. And that is what would happen, if the healthy rigor of discipline yielded to a disastrous complacency that would only have its name from friendship.

Chapter 3
Vicente Vitor's first mistake: the soul is not created from nothing, but from the very essence of God.

If you want to know what these errors are, I have pointed them out in my writings to our brothers, the monk Renato and Father Pedro, for whom you composed the work that occupies us at this moment and that he asked you, according to you, to eat more live insistence. If you wish, my friends will send you my books and even offer them without your asking.
However, I cannot remain silent here about what seems to me reprehensible in your writings and in your faith. First of all, I reproach you for holding that "God created the soul, not from nothing, but from himself"82.
The consequence of this is that the soul would be of the same nature as God.
But you reject this yourself, because it seems to you to be a very manifest ungodliness. To escape this, you only have one way out, which is to say that the soul was created, not by God, but by God. In fact, what is of God is of the same nature as he, as the only Son of the Father. For the soul not to be of the same nature as God, it must then have been created by him and not by him.
Now, say what she was taken from or acknowledge that she was out of nowhere. What do you understand when you are told that the soul is a particle of the breath of God's nature? This breath of God's nature, of which the soul is a small part, will you deny that it is of the same nature as God? If you deny it, you are forced to conclude that it is out of nothingness that God drew this breath from which the soul is formed.
If it's not out of nowhere, tell us what God threw at. If he shot himself, he is then the stuff of his own work, which is nonsense.

82 Liv 1, cap of Book 2, ap.5.

"But taking that breath away from himself, God remains in his whole integrity," you say. So does the fire of a lamp lose some of its integrity when it serves to light another lamp, of a nature quite similar to it?

Chapter 4
Our way of breathing cannot be applied to God.

"When blew in a bottle, we go into it a wind that is not in some way, a portion of our nature or our substance and exhale without suffer with it no decrease," you say.
It is with the help of this comparison .in which you complacently insist that you intend to show us how, without any detriment to his nature, God can take our soul from himself, and how that soul is distinct from God, though coming from him.

You soon utter this cry of triumph: "Is the wind that fills the wineskin a portion of our soul? Do we create men when we fill wineskins? Do we
suffer a loss of ourselves when we cast our breath everywhere? No, we lose none of our breath? ourselves when we exhale this breath. After we have blown enough to fill a wineskin, we feel perfectly that it remains in us with all its qualities and in all its integrity."
This comparison seems to make you smile, with its elegance and application. But let's see how fake it is. You claim that God, essentially incorporeal, breathes a corporeal soul; that he takes it, not from nothing, but from himself. You claim that the breath we exhale, though corporeal, is much more subtle than our body and that we draw it, not from our soul, but from the outside air, through the lungs. Why, these lungs. as after all all the members of our body. by whom are they set in motion, if not for our soul, which uses a breath to inhale and exhale the ambient air?
In fact, with the foods and liquids that make up food and drink, God has given us a third principle of nutrition, ambient air, which can supply food and drink for a while, but without which we could not live. just a moment, for life ceases in us as soon as the inhalation of air and breathing cease.
Now, just as solid and liquid foods find in the human body special openings for entry and exit, without which they could equally do harm; just as the air we breathe could not remain in us indefinitely, on pain of becoming corrupted, God has provided, for it to enter and exit immediately, always open paths, which serve at the same time for breathing and exhalation. These pathways are the mouth and the nostrils, or both at the same time.

Chapter 5
The Comparison Error.

Experiment with what you say yourself. Breathe out the air by blowing it out and see how long you can live if the air you lose is not replaced. Or, breathe in the air with your breath and see what sufferings you will have if you cannot exhale through the exhalation.
Now, when we fill a wineskin, we only make the laws of life in us obey. Except, perhaps, that we suck in the air in a greater quantity, so that we can exhale it and shorten the duration of the more or less painful efforts that we are obliged to make to fill the entire capacity of the wineskin.
How then can you say, "We do not suffer any lessening when we exhale our breath. Having emitted it sufficiently to fill the wineskin, do we feel perfectly that this breath remains in us in all its qualities and in all its integrity?
It can be seen, my son, that you did not realize what you had to do to fill a wineskin. Don't you feel then that you soon get what you lose by insufflation? It is very easy for you to do this experiment and I invite you to try to inflate a skin, much more than inflate your language and seduce, with words as vain as they are sonorous, listeners to whom you must offer a substantial and true teaching.
In this matter, I do not refer you to any other master besides yourself. Throw in another wineskin your breath as profusely as possible and immediately close your mouth and pinch your nostrils. Then you will see the truth of my words. You will soon experience intolerable anguish. But why the need to open your mouth and nostrils, if when you blow you don't miss anything? See what torture you will suffer if you do not immediately replace the air you have exhaled with aspiration. See what damage you would do if the breath didn't come to bring the medicine. If what you spent to inflate the skin was not returned to you, would it be possible for you not only to continue to inflate, but even to continue to live?

Chapter 6
The difference between us and God.

These are the reflections you should have made in writing, and then you would never have thought of using this comparison to prove to us that God takes souls from another already-existing substance, as we take our breath from the air around us.
You would have understood then that this comparison proves nothing, and that it is patently impious to say that God, while suffering no loss in his nature, takes something changeable from his own nature, or, what is even worse, that he is the matter of his own work.
If, then, we want to look for some trace of similarity between our breath and God's, here is how we could reason: it is not in our nature that we take our breath away, but, not being omnipotent, with the ambient air that we breathe and breathe we form a breath that does not it is neither alive nor sensitive, even though we are sensitive and alive.
Likewise, it is not in his nature that God takes the breath that constitutes our soul, but since he is omnipotent and can create whatever he wants, he can thus take out of nothing or make a living, animated breath out of nothing, which it will be essentially changeable, although God is properly changeless.

Chapter 7
The case of Elisha.

How then can you base your comparison on the example of Elisha, who raised a dead man by blowing on his face83?
Do you suppose Elisha's breath became the child's very soul? I dare not assume such an aberration on your part. This child was stricken with death when his soul was taken from him. She was resurrected right away because that same soul was given back to her. And you tell us that Elisha did not suffer any lessening of his nature, as if we could suppose that, in order to revive this child, the prophet had insufflated a part of his substance?

83 Cf. 2 Kings 4:34 and 35.

If you had no other objective than to tell us that Elisha breathed without causing any damage to his integrity, why, in this act of the prophet raising the dead, make us observe what is always done, even when it is not a question of raising a dead?
Since you won't admit that Elisha's breath could have become the child's soul. and in that you are right. I marvel that you have taken your recklessness to the point of holding that between God's primitive act and Elisha's there is the difference that God only breathed once, whereas the prophet breathed three times.
These are his own words: “Elisha breathed into the face of the Shunammite's son, as God had originally breathed on the first human being. By divine power, in which this breath was but an instrument, the dead limbs regained their primitive vigor.
But Elisha suffered no lessening of his nature, though it was through his breath that soul and spirit regained possession of that corpse. The only difference I notice is that God only breathed once on the face of the first human being, who lived immediately, while Elisha breathed three times on the face of the dead and only then did he come back to life”.
If we take his words literally, we conclude that the only difference between the act of God and that of the prophet lies solely in the number of times the breath was emitted. This is also an error you must correct. In fact, what distinguishes God's work from the miracle wrought by Elisha is that God emitted the breath of life by which human beings became a living soul, while Elisha's breath neither animated nor quickened; he is simply a figure of speech.
It is true that this child regained his life, but it was not the prophet who gave him back directly and with his own power. God was the author of this resurrection only, because he allowed himself to be touched by the love and supplications of his prophet.
As for the triple breath you attribute to Elisha; either your memory deceives you or you have been deceived by an altered text.
Why insist on it? To support your thesis, do not look for examples or arguments. It is better to change doctrine and opinion.
So avoid believing, saying and teaching that it was not out of nothing, but out of your very nature that God took the human soul. Only then will you be Catholic.

Chapter 8
Vicente Vitor's second mistake.

Avoid believing, saying and teaching that "always and without end God gives souls to those who are born and that "God always gives them, as there is always the One who gives them”. Only then will you be Catholic.
In fact, there will come a time when God will cease to create souls, without, however, ceasing to exist. Strictly speaking, the words "God always gives",
they could be interpreted as meaning that God will not cease to create souls as long as bodies are created84. This is, in fact, the meaning given to these words of the Apostle: Always to learn without ever coming to the knowledge of the truth85. It is evident that the word does not always mean that they never fail to acquire new knowledge, since they no longer learn when they cease to live and begin to suffer the horrors of the eternal torment of hell. But this interpretation you made it impossible by saying that "God always gives", specifying that he gives during an indefinite time.
You went even further and, as if to specify for yourself the length of that indefinite time, you even said: “God always gives souls, as there is always the One who gives them.” Such an error is formally reproved by the Catholic faith.
Far be it from us, in fact, to believe that God always gives souls, as there is always the One who gives. God always exists in the sense that He will not cease to exist. As for souls, he will not always create them. When the present era ends, mankind will cease to multiply and nothing will then motivate the creation of new souls.

84 Cf Luke 20:34
85 2 Timothy 3:7,

Chapter 9
Vicente Vítor's third mistake.

If you want to be Catholic, avoid believing, saying, and teaching that "the soul lost some of its merits through the flesh, as if it had possessed merits before it was joined to the flesh"86.
Doesn't the Apostle say that merits, neither good nor bad, can be attributed to those who are not yet born87? How before being joined to the flesh could the soul have acquired merit if it did no good?
How then can you say, "You don't want a soul to receive the holiness of a sinful flesh. But, don't you see that it is through the flesh that that soul in turn receives sanctification, so that it sees itself reinstated by what was the instrument of your downfall?”
To claim that before being united with the flesh, the soul enjoyed existence and that it acquired merits there is, in case you do not know, a doctrine which the Church formally condemned in the ancient heretics and quite recently in the Priscillianists.

86 Book II, ch 11.
87 C Romans 9:11

Chapter 10
Vicente Vítor's fourth mistake.

If you want to be Catholic, avoid believing, saying and teaching that it is through the flesh that the soul is reborn and regains its first condition, as it was "through the flesh that it deserved to be defiled"88.
Not to mention these other words: "Therefore, it is quite natural that it is through the flesh that the soul regains its first condition, which it seemed to have lost little by little through the flesh, so that it is through the flesh that it begins to be reborn, as it was through she that she deserved to be tainted".
I am amazed that you can contradict yourself so formally and in successive propositions. In fact, you said a little while ago that, after having lost its former merit through the flesh, the soul also regains its primitive state through the flesh at the time of baptism.
Then, still speaking of this soul, you affirm that it deserved to be tainted by the flesh. Isn't deserving of evil becoming worthy of it through a previous fault? From this it is understood that this primitive state of the soul you successively consider as a state of innocence and a state of sin.
But, without insisting on this contradiction of yours, suffice it to declare that Catholic doctrine formally reproaches the belief in a previous state of the soul, be it good or bad.

88 Book 1 ch. 6 and Book II chap. 11.

Chapter 11
Vicente Vítor's fifth mistake.

If you want to be a Catholic, avoid believing, saying, or teaching that "before any sin on your part, the soul deserved to become a sinner89.
Indeed, the greatest evil it can deserve, is it not to become a sinner? so can not be acquired before any sin, and especially before marriage as a body, since, in this state, the soul can not deserve the good and not evil.
so how dare you say that "If the soul, which does not she could be a sinner before her union with the flesh, she deserved to become a sinner through the flesh. On the other hand, she did not remain in sin, why, prefigured in Jesus Christ, she must not and could not remain in sin"?
Carefully weigh the scope of your words and don't hesitate to disapprove. How to understand that the soul deserved to be a sinner and that it could not be? How did a soul, who did not commit any sin, deserve to be a sinner? How did she become a sinner if she couldn't be? She could only be through the flesh, you answer me. But, then, is it not worthy to become a sinner, to deserve to be united with the flesh? If then, before being joined to the flesh, the soul could not be sinful, how did it deserve to be punished?

89 Book 1 ch. 8 and Book II, ch. 12.

Chapter 12
Vicente Vítor's sixth mistake

If you want to be Catholic, avoid believing, saying, or teaching that "children who are dead without baptism can obtain the remission of original sin"90.
As for the examples you present as evidence, be it the good thief, who confessed the Savior's divinity on the cross, or Dinocrates, brother of Saint Perpetua, these examples deceive you and do not help your erroneous doctrine at all.
First of all, you don't know if the baptism was not conferred on the thief, included by God among those who are cleansed through martyrdom. Doesn't a pious belief count that the water that gushed with the blood of Jesus Christ touched the good thief hanging beside Jesus Christ and became for him the most holy water of baptism?
But I silently pass through this tradition and ask if he would not have been baptized in prison, as was often the case at the time of the persecutions. What if he had been baptized even before he was put in irons? After having received the forgiveness of his sins from God, he would not be less subject to the strictness of civil laws regarding physical death. Finally, who could say that he was not already baptized when he entered the criminal world and that he was then a simple penitent on the cross? Is it not this last hypothesis that best explains to us the piety that the Savior saw in his heart and that we perceive in his words?

90 Book 1 ch. 20 and Book II chaps. 13 and 14.

To assert that all those whose baptism is not mentioned in the Scriptures are actually killed without baptism would be to slander the apostles, since nowhere is their baptism mentioned, with the exception of St. Paul91.
But if we are to be convinced that they were baptized, these words addressed to Peter by the Savior are sufficient for us: He who has taken a bath does not need to wash himself; it is entirely pure,92 what shall we say of Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Silas, Philemon, the evangelists St. Mark and St. Luke, and many others, in which baptism is not revealed to us by any word? Despite this silence, will we hesitate to believe that they were baptized?
As for Dinocrates, he had reached his seventh year and children baptized at that age recite the symbol themselves and respond in their own name. Why then do you not admit that, after receiving baptism, this child, induced by his father's impiety, returned to the sacrilege of paganism and thus deserved to suffer I don't know what punishments, from which he was released by his sister's prayers ? In fact, nowhere have you read that she was not a Christian or that she died a catechumen. And if you read it somewhere, it certainly wasn't in the canons of Scripture, whose testimonies are the only acceptable ones in a matter of this importance.

91 Cf. Acts: 9:18.
92 John 13:10.

Chapter 13
Vicente Vítor's seventh mistake.

If you want to be Catholic, avoid believing, saying, or teaching that "those who were predestined by the Lord to baptism, may be taken out of that predestination before the Almighty has accomplished His purposes in them.93
In fact, I do not know what power could possibly oppose to divine power, and to prevent him, in such circumstances, from accomplishing what he foresaw. It is useless to fathom the abyss of ungodliness which such an error brings with it. A short comment is enough, for I believe I am dealing with a prudent and willing man correct.

Here are his own words: "I invoke the example of children who, predestined to baptism, are torn out of the present life before they have been regenerated in Jesus Christ." it and would God really have predestined them to a sacrament which he knew should be withheld from them or which he knew would be withheld from them?There is no middle ground here: either that predestination must fail or their foreknowledge must be deceived!

93 Book II chap 13.

Do you understand the developments I could develop here if I did not stay true to my promise and fail to make just a short observation?

Chapter 14
The eighth mistake of Vicente Vítor.

If you want to be Catholic, avoid believing, saying or teaching that it is children who die before being regenerated in Jesus Christ94 who apply these words: He was raptured so that malice would not corrupt his feeling, nor cunning perverted him the soul. His soul was pleasing to the Lord and that is why he quickly pulled him out of the midst of wickedness. Coming to term quickly, he had a long career95.

94 Book 8 ch 13.
95 Wisdom 4: 11, 14 and 13.

These words do not apply at all to infants who die without baptism, but only to those who, after being baptized, lead holy and godly lives and see the fabric of their days prematurely cut off after they have matured, not by age, but by grace and wisdom.
To suppose that this text applies to infants who die without baptism is an error which causes holy baptism the most violent outrage, if it is admitted that such infants, who might be baptized before they die, are stricken by death before baptism, for let malice not corrupt his feeling, nor cunning pervert his soul. Would we not be led to believe that it was in baptism itself that they would find that malice and that cunning which might have wrought in them these sad devastations, had they not been carried away by an untimely death?
Moreover, how was this soul pleasing to God, to the point that he hastened to remove it from this means of iniquity, without giving time to perform in his person the benefit for which he had predestined it?
Did the Lord choose, then, to revoke the decrees of predestination, rather than expose himself to seeing perish in baptism what pleased him in this unbaptized child?
If I'm not mistaken, this is the same as saying that this child would have found his doom in that salutary bath, where it was necessary to hasten to dip him, so that he would not perish.
No matter how little one understands the meaning of these words of Wisdom, can one believe, say, or write that they apply to dead infants without baptism?

Chapter 15
The ninth mistake of Vicente Vítor.

If you want to be Catholic, avoid believing, saying, or teaching that "many of the abodes that the Lord said exist in your Father's house are outside the Kingdom of God"96.
The Savior does not say, "There are many abodes with my Father." And if that was what he had said, these abodes could only be in the heavenly Father's house.
But the Gospel text is formal: In my Father's house there are many mansions.97 Who then would dare to separate from the kingdom of God some parts of the house of God?
The kings of the earth reign not only in their palaces, not only in their homeland, but even over the distant shores and beyond the seas. would not heaven and earth reign over the entire length of his palace?

96 Book 8 ch 14.
97 John 14:2.

Chapter 16
The kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven.

Perhaps you can say that everything belongs to the kingdom of God, as he reigns in heaven, on earth, in the depths of the water98, in heaven and in hell. Where then would he not reign, since he extends his infinite power far and wide?

98 Cf. Psalm 134:6.

But one thing is the kingdom of heaven, whose access, according to the words of the Savior, is accessible only to those who have been purified in the bath of regeneration99. Another thing is the kingdom of the earth or any part of the universe, where dwellings in the house of God can be found and which belong, it is true, to the kingdom of God, but not to the kingdom of heaven, which is, par excellence, the kingdom of God.
From these explanations it follows that some parts or some abodes of the house of God are not sacrilegiously separated from the kingdom of God. However, all these abodes are therefore not prepared in the kingdom of heaven. In those who are outside of it, they can enjoy happiness and dwell in those whom God condescends to place them there; even children who die without baptism. They are, therefore, in the kingdom of God, although they are not in the kingdom of heaven, to which access is open only to those who are baptized.

99 Cf. Titus 3:51; 1 Corinthians 6:11 and Mark 16:16.

Chapter 77
The Benefit of the Kingdom of God.

Those who give us this interpretation and value it do not understand the Scriptures nor this simple prayer: Your Kingdom come to us100.

100 Matthew 6:10.

What is this kingdom, if not one in which all faithful souls form one family with God and reign with him eternally, in the bosom of joy and happiness?
As for the power with which God rules all things, it is certain that he reigns as absolute lord. Why then do we ask you for your kingdom to come to us? Isn't that why we deserve to reign with him?
The power of God will extend even over the unfortunate reprobates who will suffer in hell the torment of the eternal flames. Will they say that these unhappy people will also be in the kingdom of God? It is one thing to enjoy the benefits of the kingdom of God. It's another thing to be imprisoned there under the rule of their laws.
To convince you that it is not the case to grant the kingdom of heaven to those who are baptized and other parts of the kingdom of God to those who die without baptism, see what the Savior says.
He does not say "He who is not born again of water and the Holy Spirit cannot enter the kingdom of heaven", but rather, "He cannot enter the kingdom of God"101.
Addressing Nicodemus, on the same subject: Verily, verily I say to you: whoever is not born again will not be able to see the Kingdom of God102. He does not speak of the kingdom of heaven, but of the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus asks: How can a man be reborn, being old? Can he enter again into his mother's womb and be born a second time?103 The Savior, needing his thought even more, answers him: Verily, verily I say unto you, whoever is not born again of water and the Spirit cannot enter the Kingdom God's.
The words who are not born again are thus explained by the Savior Himself: who are not born again of water and the Spirit.
The words cannot see correspond to cannot enter. As for the words the kingdom of God, the Savior repeats verbatim. Why then seek to know whether the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are one and the same, designated by different names? Is it not enough that one who has not been cleansed in the bath of regeneration cannot enter the kingdom of God?
As for the numerous abodes in the house of God, to separate them from the kingdom of God is an error the absurdity of which you understand. And since you might think that in some of these dwellings that the Savior assigns to us in his Father's house, those who were not born again in the water and the Holy Spirit would be placed, if you allow me, I invite you to immediately correct your error. and stick to the Catholic faith.

101 John 3:5
102 John 3:3.
103 John 4:4.
104 John 4:5.

Chapter 18
Vicente Vítor's tenth mistake.

If you want to be Catholic, avoid believing, saying or teaching that "the sacrifice of Christians must be offered to those who die without baptism105.
You present as proof the sacrifice of the Jews mentioned in the Book of Maccabees"106.
But it is impossible to prove that it was offered to dead Jews without being circumcised.
In formulating your doctrine, the novelty of which is condemned by the authority and discipline of the whole Church, you used a most imprudent expression. "I think", you said, "that assiduous oblations and continual sacrifices on the part of the priests should be offered for children", as if you had forgotten that, as a layman, you must submit to the teaching of the priests of God, without mixing with him his researches and, above all, without putting himself in their midst as a censor and as a judge.
My son, get rid of such pretensions. This is not the way to walk on the path taught by the meek and humble of heart Jesus Christ107. To become puffed up at this point is to place yourself in the impossibility of passing through the narrow door he spoke to us108.

105 Book I, ch. 13 and Book II, ch. 15.
106 2Maccabees 12:29-46.
107 Cf. John 14:6.
108 Cf. Matthew 7:13 and Luke 13:24.

Chapter 19
The eleventh mistake of Vicente Vítor:

If you want to be Catholic, avoid believing, saying, or teaching that, "among those who die, there are some who are refused the kingdom of God for a time and only enter paradise. Only later - that is, in the general resurrection - is that they will obtain the happiness of the kingdom of heaven"109.

109 Book II ch. 16.

Such a doctrine has never been defended; not even by the Pelagian heresy, though it formally denies the transmission of original sin to children.
As a Catholic you admit the existence of original sin, and yet you - led I don't know by what opinion, as perverse as new. teaches that, apart from the baptism of Jesus Christ, these children can receive the remission of their original sin and enter the kingdom of heaven.
You do not understand then that on this point you are lower than Pelagius himself. He is full of respect for the Savior's sentence - in which it is said that those who are not baptized will not enter the kingdom of heaven - which refuses that kingdom to children who have died without baptism, even though, in fact, he proclaims them to be free from all sin. .
You, on the contrary, do not take into account these very formal words: Whoever is not born again of water and the Spirit will not be able to enter the Kingdom of God.
Not to mention the gross error by which you wish to establish a real separation between the kingdom of heaven and paradise, you do not hesitate to promise the remission of your sins and possession of the kingdom of heaven to these children whom, as a Catholic, you acknowledge to be guilty of original sin and that you suppose they die without baptism.
You claim to be a true Catholic, why do you assert against Pelagius the existence of original sin, while at the same time opposing the most formal denial to the words by which the Savior plainly affirms the absolute necessity of baptism? Just because of that aren't you a new heretic?
Beloved son, the victory we wish you over the heretics is not the victory of error over error and, above all, the victory of a greater error over a less guilty error.
Here are his own words: "Perhaps they reproach me for having temporarily placed in paradise the soul of the good thief and that of Dinocrates. But I affirm, at the same time, that the kingdom of heaven will be opened to them at the resurrection, despite the apparent contradiction of this fundamental maxim: Whoever is not born again of water and the Spirit will not be able to enter the Kingdom of God. Whatever this phrase is, do not be afraid to embrace my opinion, as long as you have no other desire than to give more extension and more enchantment to the effects of divine mercy and foreknowledge".
These are your own words, by which you approve the opinion of those who hold that certain dead persons without baptism are temporarily received into paradise so that, after the resurrection, they may enter the kingdom of heaven. Notwithstanding the fundamental maxim by which the Savior formally declares that one who is not reborn of water and the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Fearing to violate this grave authority of the Savior, Pelagius, who did not believe that children were guilty of original sin, would not admit them into the kingdom of heaven when they died without baptism. You, on the contrary, admit that they are guilty of this sin, and yet you relegate them to paradise first, to allow them to later enter the kingdom of heaven.

Chapter 20
Augustine's exhortation to Vincent Vitor, so that he may be faithful to his own purpose.

As for these errors and similar ones that you may discover in your writings, carry out a more careful study there, as soon as you allow your free time and correct them without delay, if you are sincerely Catholic, that is, if that thought was right. when you said: "I do not have the credulity for myself to think that I can prove what I propose. I am then willing not to hold my private opinion if I find it improbable and, condemning my own judgment, I will wholeheartedly embrace the sentiment that seems to me the best and truest".
Make haste to prove, my beloved, that these words were not a lie on your lips. Then the Catholic Church will rejoice to find not only a talent, but a prudent, pious, and modest talent, when she could fear in you the discordant stubbornness and the senseless ardors of heresy.
It is now that it is a question of fulfilling, if they were sincere, the vows that followed these excellent words I have just quoted: "As it is to give proof of wisdom and prudence to follow without difficulty the opinion of the truth, it would be to show oneself beyond the madness and stubbornness, do not immediately side with reason110. Then give evidence of wisdom and prudence and you will side with the truth. Do not show madness or stubbornness and you will immediately side with reason.
If these vows are sincere on your part, if they were uttered with all the frankness of your heart and not your lips alone, you will with horror reject every delay in the most beautiful work of your conversion.

110 Book II, ch. two.

It is an understatement to say "It is characteristic of a stubborn evil spirit not to want to bow to the yoke of reason" if you do not add "Not to want to bow at once." In this way, you cast the curse on the one who always refuses this noble action, since the one who is content to oppose embarrassment seems to you to deserve precisely the infamous note of malice and stubbornness.
Therefore, be consistent with yourself and above all enjoy the fruits of your own language. You will not hesitate then to throw yourself totally in the path of reason, much more than to allow yourself to stray from the right path, succumbing to the traps of your age.

Chapter 21
Augustine urges Vincent Vitor to immediately correct at least the eleven main errors.

It would be a very long task to raise, discuss and refute one by one all the errors that I would like to see disappear from your works and, above all, from your spirit. However, avoid belittling yourself and belittling your spirit and talent for writing.
I could convince myself that your memory was enriched with a great many passages of Scripture, and yet I must confess to you that your scholarship does not respond to the brilliance of your talents and the intensity of your work. That's why I don't want to see you get up too high or get down too low.
Oh! Please God I can read your writings with you and show you your mistakes in conversation! A conversation between us would end this matter more easily than through letters. How many letters it would take if we wanted to say it all!
However, I wanted to clearly point out the main errors to you, warning you to correct them promptly and exclude them from your belief and teaching.
How I would like this ease of discussion that you enjoy by the grace of God to serve you usefully! Not to destroy, but to ground and uphold sound and healthy doctrine.

Chapter 22
Summary of the eleven main errors of Vicente Vítor.

I have already pointed out your mistakes as I could, but I think I should list them once more, briefly, as you presented them.
1) God took the soul, not from nothing, but from himself;
2) God eternally creates souls, just as he is eternal;
3) The soul lost through the flesh the merit it had acquired before its union with the flesh;
4) The soul recovers, through the flesh, its primitive state and is reborn through it, as it was through it that it deserved to be tainted;
5) The soul deserved to become a sinner before any sin;
6) Dead children without baptism can obtain the remission of original sin;
7) Those whom God predestined to baptism can escape that predestination and die before obtaining their realization from God;
8) To children who die before being reborn in Jesus Christ, these words apply: He was taken away that malice might not corrupt his feeling, nor cunning perverted his soul111 and other similar passages taken from the Book of Wisdom;
9) Among the countless abodes that the Savior claims to exist in his Father's house, there are some that are outside the kingdom of God;
10) The sacrifice of Christians must be offered to those who die before they have received baptism;
11) Some of those who die without baptism enter, not the kingdom of heaven, but paradise. It is only after the resurrection of the dead that the kingdom of heaven will be opened to them.

111 Wisdom 4:11.

Chapter 23
Encouragement to Vicente Vítor.

These eleven propositions form errors so manifestly contrary to the Catholic faith that you must ruthlessly exclude them from your spirit, your language and your books, if you will, not only pass through the Catholic altars, but even remain Catholic and leave us to joy of your happy return.
Each of these propositions, if stubbornly defended, would become a special heresy. Would it not be unfortunate if, in one man, such a large number of opinions were to be found in which each one would be enough to condemn every unfortunate one who defended it?
Far from trying to defend them, fight them generously with your words and your writings. In this way and condemning them yourself, you will attract more glory than if you confused the most fearsome opponent. Finally, it will be more glorious for you to acknowledge your mistakes than ever to have made them.
May the Lord help you, may his divine Spirit pour upon yours such a power of humility, such a light of truth, such a sweetness of charity, such a peace, that you will a thousand times prefer to overcome yourself in favor of the truth than to sustain the lie against whatever the opponent may be.
Despite the opinions you've publicized that are directly contrary to the Catholic faith, avoid believing that you've lost your faith; as long as it be before God, who searches the kidneys and hearts - total the sincerity of your soul, when you wrote: "I do not have the credulity for me to think I can prove what I propose. I am then willing not to uphold mine private opinion, if I find it improbable, and, condemning my own judgment, I will wholeheartedly embrace the feeling that seems to me the truest best.”
When the heart is moved by such dispositions, the mind, through ignorance, may formulate contrary opinions to the faith, but one is not less Catholic just because one is willing to correct oneself.
But, it is time to close this book, so that the reader can rest a little and completely renew his attention, to better grasp what should follow.

Book IV
The spirituality of the soul

“Augustine justifies himself for not having dared to pronounce on the origin of the soul and for not having established his spirituality. He returns to this last point and proves, through the Holy Scriptures, that our soul is a spirit.
To Vicente Victor

Chapter 1
Augustine humbly thanks reproofs but gently corrects them.

Now, allow me to express my personal convictions to you with all the frankness and clarity that I would like to be inspired by the One who holds our lives and our words in His hands.
You were not afraid to qualify me and direct me a double disapproval. After having, since the beginning of your book, proclaim your inexperience and your incapacity, which you have set against my science and my ability, you offer us the spectacle of a young man rebuking an old man, a layman criticizing a bishop, whose profound knowledge and impressive ability has just greatly praised. You have finally condemned me in matters you believe you know, while I acknowledge my incompetence in solving them.
If I'm wise and skillful, I ignore it. Or rather, I know in a very sure way that I'm not. On the other hand, I confess without hesitation that an ignorant person can sometimes know what a wise person does not. So I can only sincerely praise him for having cast aside respect for man and given preference to the truth. Or at least what you believe to be the truth, without you ever getting into it.
If, then, you were reckless to boast of knowing what you do not know, at least you have demonstrated your freedom and independence, since the considerations due to the person did not prevent you from formulating your opinions.
This alone should make him understand that the greatest of all our care must be to pluck the sheep of Jesus Christ from error, since the sheep themselves reproach themselves for hiding from their shepherds the vices of which they believe themselves to be guilty.
Oh! If you had disapproved what in my writings is really worthy of disapproval! I cannot deny that my own customs and above all many of my works can be incriminated without any recklessness on the part of my judges. If you had been a censor in these matters, I might be able to show you what I would like you to be, at least in terms of what you disapprove of in me.
And, far from prevailing over my great age, in view of your age and my character, in view of your inferiority, I myself will give the example of correction, well convinced that this example will be as healthy the more humble it is. .
Why then do you reproach me for things that not only humility commands me to correct but that the truth constrains me to either confess or affirm?

Chapter 2
Vicente Vítor finds it shameful for human beings not to know themselves.

What you reproach me with is, first, not having dared to pronounce on the origin of souls given to human beings since Adam. Indeed, I confess my ignorance on this point.
Then you reproach me for affirming, in an absolute and sure way, that the soul is a spirit and not a body. On this point you still reproach me for two things, namely, to believe that the soul is not a body and to believe that it is a spirit.
In fact, you think the soul is a body and not a spirit.
Well then! I want to justify myself to you today, and by reading my justification you will understand, I hope, what mistakes you have to justify yourself for.

Here's what you say in the book where you pronounce my name: "I know that most authors - and the most skillful, able to speak out - kept silent or limited themselves to generalities, instead of giving their discussions a frank solution This, in particular, was the impression which the letters of Augustine, that man so wise, that bishop so illustrious, have made on me recently. how not to suffocate in themselves their own impressions, how not to confess publicly that any solution seems impossible to them? a difference between human and animal,if the human being does not know how to talk about their qualities and not about their nature? Shall we not then apply to him with all rigor these words of the Psalm: Is the man who lives in opulence and does not reflect like the cattle that slaughter?
Since God created nothing without reason; since he made the human being a rational animal, capable of intelligence, that enjoys reason and a lively sensibility; since divine Providence distributes all things with wisdom, weights and measures; how to admit that the only thing she has refused to be human is self-knowledge?
Do we not see the wisdom of the world vainly carrying out its investigations even into the truth itself? As she cannot touch her own nature and her real entity, she points her torch on everything that approaches the truth and presents its characteristics.

112 Psalm 43:21.

What a shame then would it be for a Catholic to ignore himself and forbid himself absolutely any research on this subject!”

Chapter 3
The ridiculous and offensive pretension of Vicente Vítor.

It is in these terms, as eloquent as they are explicit, that you plague our ignorance of what concerns human nature.
You even complete it. you and not me. that if you ignore anything that concerns you, we are entitled to compare you to animals.

Without a doubt, it is easy to see that you are alluding to us, quoting these words: The man who lives in opulence and does not reflect is similar to the slaughtered cattle, since we enjoy the honors of the Church, whereas, until then , these honors were refused to you.
However, it is not enough to enjoy the honors of human nature for you to have the right to prefer yourself to animals, which you nevertheless believe yourself to be like, if you ignore something about their nature.
In fact, his rebuke does not apply only to those who, like me, are ignorant of the origin of the soul. Are we not, on this point, also in absolute ignorance, for we know that God breathed the face of the first man and that he became a living soul113? Nor could we know this for ourselves.
Your rebuke, I say, applies to others as well, since you say, "How is human beings different from animals if they don't know how to talk about their qualities or their nature?" Wouldn't we say that, in your opinion, the human being should know so much about the extent of his faculties and the depth of his nature, that nothing is a mystery to him? Therefore, if you cannot tell me the number of strands of your hair, you give me the right to compare it to animals.
And if, despite the perfection we can achieve in this lifetime, you still allow us to ignore something about our nature, please tell us how far you extend this permission. Do you not by any chance allow us to ignore the origin of our soul, while remaining true to the data of faith, we firmly believe that our soul was given to us by God and that it is not of the same nature as God?
Do you think that everyone can remain in the ignorance that you find yourself in regarding your soul or that you should have the knowledge that you can have about it? If your ignorance is a little greater than that of the other, you will give him the right to compare you to animals. If he knows a little more than you do, will you still honor him with that flattering comparison?

113 Cf. Genesis 2:7.

So tell us the level of ignorance we can have, without fearing being compared to animals. Just see to it that the one who feels ignorance about this difficult subject is no more above the animals than the one who boasts of knowing what he doesn't know.
The human being, in its nature, is formed by a spirit, a soul and a body. Thus, it would be unwise to refuse human nature to the body. The anatomists, to get to know the nature of this body, study, even in living people, the limbs, veins, nerves, bones, marrow, the inner set of vital organs, and yet they have never compared us to animals, though we ignore the details of our being.
Perhaps you say that they compare animals to those who ignore, not the nature of the body, but the nature of the soul. So you shouldn't express yourself as you did at the beginning of your work. By saying "How is the human being different from the animal?" you do not speak only of those who do not know the properties nor the nature of his soul, but in general those who ignore the colleges and the nature of his being.
Now, we must consider our body as part of our nature, which does not prevents us from also discussing each of the parts that make up our nature.
If I had the pretension to say everything I know about the nature of the human being, I could compose several volumes. However, I confess without hesitation that I still ignore many things on this topic.

Chapter 4
Let's use serious argument and not easy insult

In the preceding book we discussed at length human breath. Does this breath belong to the nature of the soul, since it is it that produces it in human beings? Does it belong to the nature of the body, since it is through the soul that the body is activated to produce this breath? Does it belong to ambient air, without which this breath could not be produced? Or, finally, he belongs to these three things at the same time; that is, to the soul, which activates the body; to the body, whose activation receives and returns breath; to the outside air, which feeds the body as it enters it and relieves it as it exits?
You are a literate and eloquent man and yet these are things you ignore as long as you believe. as you yourself said, wrote, taught an immense audience that a wineskin placed on our lips is inflated with our own nature, without our nature experiencing any loss. For you to be aware of this phenomenon, there is no need to consult the pages of the divine Scriptures; just watch it yourself.
How is it then that you want that in a subject that I ignore. the origin of the soul I turn to you, who ignores what you do without ceasing through the perpetual movement of your nostrils and your lips?
Now that I have warned you, God wills you to yield immediately, rather than resisting a truth whose evidence eludes you.
Inflate a wineskin, interrogate their lungs, and before you make them give an answer Against me, collect the lesson they give you and the true answer they send you. Not talking or arguing, but sucking in air and returning it to the outside.
In spite of the virulent reproaches with which you attacked my ignorance of the origin of the soul, I will not vent any regrets.
Rather, I will give thanks to God if you will consent to discuss this matter with me without insult, but with real reasons.
If you can teach me what I don't know, I must patiently resign myself to being beaten; not just with words, but even with real blows of the fist.

Chapter 5
Is it really necessary to know the origin of the soul?

As for this matter, I sincerely confess that I sincerely desire a conclusive answer to one or another of these questions: what is the origin of souls and whether we can come to know this in our mortal life.
To these questions we must apply the words of the Ecclesiastical: Do not seek what is too high for you; do not seek to penetrate what is above you. But do you always think about what God has commanded you114?
However, I would like my doubts to be clarified; whether by God himself who knows very well what he created, or by a skilled doctor who knows what he is saying and not by someone who does not even know the breath he exudes.
We have no memory of our early childhood and you think that without a special revelation from God, a human being can know how life came to him in his mother's womb. Especially when that person is so ignorant of human nature that he doesn't know, not only what he experiences internally, but even the external phenomena he produces!
So do you boast, beloved child, of teaching pampered others, how life seizes a child at its birth!?
You, who until now ignored what sustains the life of living beings and how death comes to hit them, as soon as they are deprived of their necessary food!?
Do you boast of teaching me or others how human beings receive life!? You were ignorant of how the skins are inflated!?

114 Ecclesiastical 3:22.

Since you are ignorant of the origin of the soul, may I know at least if I can know it in this lifetime! If this question is one of those that we are forbidden to scrutinize its depth, it is to be feared that we may sin, not because we ignore it, but because we want to resolve it. However, if it belongs to the class of very high questions, let us know well that it is not in the sense that our soul can belong to the same nature as God and ceases to be a mere creature, with all the rigor of that term.

Chapter 6
It is not dishonorable to ignore so many mysteries about our Body and our soul.

What if I said that among the works of God there are some that we know more hardly than we know God Himself? The Trinity of God is known to us through revelation, while we are entirely ignorant of how many species God created and how many of them could enter Noah's ark. Unless you have found out yourself!
We do not read in the Book of Wisdom: If they had light enough to be able to search out the order of the world, how could they not more easily find the One who is their Lord?
Will it be said that what is in us cannot be beyond our reach? In fact, our soul is closer to us than our body. In order to reach knowledge of the body more easily, the soul proceeds outwardly through the eyes of the body, than inwardly through itself.
What is there in the most secret parts of the body if the soul is not there? However, if the soul knows some of the most secret vital principles, it is through the eyes of the body that it arrives at this knowledge.
However, before meeting them, she encouraged them with her presence. It was only through her that they had movement and life; which proves that it is easier for the soul to quicken them than to know them.
Will it be said that the body is for the soul a higher matter than it is for itself? I suppose that soul wants to know at what moment man's seed turns into blood, flesh, bone, marrow; what are the kinds of veins and nerves that the numerous deviations carry the blood throughout the body, connecting the different parts; if skin should be considered as nerves and teeth as bones, as teeth do not have marrow like bones, as nails differ from bones, from which they have the durability, and from hair, from which they have the growth, well like divisibility? What is the use of arteries, destined for circulation, not blood, but air? If, I say, our soul wanted to become aware of all these phenomena of its body, they would say to it: Do not look for what is too high for you;do not seek to penetrate what is above you?
And when it comes to her own origin, isn't that subject too high or too deep for her to embrace it? You see it as an impossible absurdity for the soul to ignore whether it was divinely insufflated or if it is transmitted through generation, when it has no memory of this past event, when this is confused for it with the numerous forgetfulness of childhood, inasmuch as she could have neither the perception nor the feeling of it.
And you see no inconvenience and no absurdity in which the soul does not know its own body; not only past phenomena, but those same ones that are renewed without ceasing; that she ignores whether to live in the body she must move the veins and also move the nerves, in order to act on the limbs of the body? If it is she who operates this movement, why are the nerves only agitated when she wants to, while the blood circulates in her veins without waiting for the consent of her will?
In what part of the body is the seat of your empire located? Is it in the heart, in the brain, in the impressions and voluntary movements of the brain, or is it in the involuntary pulsations of the veins and the heart? If it is from the brain that she communicates feeling and movement, why does it experience sensations in spite of her, while she is perfectly mistress of the movement of her limbs as she wants it? And since all this only happens in the body through her and with her, why does she ignore what she does or on what principle does she do it?
She ignores all this and you don't make it a crime, whereas you accuse her of not knowing where or how it's made, when she doesn't do it?
Nobody knows how the soul operates these phenomena in the body.
Do you not think to include them among the very high and deep truths?

Chapter 7
Why don't I know what's going on in me?

An even more important question arises, in my opinion: why so few people can realize facts accomplished by everyone? Why - perhaps you will tell me - there are few people who have studied this branch of medical science called anatomy. As for the others, they don't know why they didn't want to learn.
I could answer that many try, but in vain, to acquire this science. Their minds are so dull that they cannot understand the explanation given to them of what goes on in and through them.
But there is something more serious: because I don't need any art to tell me that there are sun, moon and stars in the firmament, while I need science to tell me if the movement I make in my finger part of the heart or from the brain or from both at the same time or from neither of these two organs? I don't need this doctor to teach me that these stars are high above me, but I hope someone will tell me where this movement that operates in me comes from.
It may well be said that the thought resides in my heart, but what I think, no one can know or say. Then, if we want to know where in the body this heart in which thought is formed resides, we need to ask a person who doesn't know what we think.
When the law commands us to love God with all our hearts, I know very well that it is not this viscera hidden in our chest, but the creative power of our thoughts and which is called the heart, why it is so impossible for us prevent this power of thinking, how impossible it is for us to prevent our hearts from releasing blood to every part of the body.
On the other hand, the soul is the principle of all the senses in the body.
Why then, despite the thickest darkness and although we close our eyes to the help of another sense called touch, we can perfectly count all our outer members, while, despite the inner presence of our soul, without which nothing would have life and neither movement, we don't know any of the interior viscera that compose us. I do not speak only of empirical physicians, anatomists, dogmatists, methodists, but I say in general that the human being does not know himself more than he knows his fellow man.

Chapter 8
We are mysteriously a mystery to ourselves.

Those who want to know these mysteries of nature might apply these words: Seek not what is too high for you; do not seek to penetrate what is above you.
It is here not what our body could not touch, but what our intelligence could not understand and what the power of our mind could not penetrate.
However, I don't speak of the sky, nor of the dimension of the stars, nor of the extension of the sea and the lands, nor of the depths of hell. We exist and we are not able to understand ourselves. All our science must recognize its impotence and its inferiority in relation to us.
We cannot understand ourselves and yet we do not exist outside of ourselves.
However, we are not comparable to animals, although we do not know what we are. However, you think we must resemble animals if we forget what we were. But to forget, shouldn't we have known?
As I speak, neither my soul was transmitted to me by my parents nor was it breathed to me by God. Whichever way God used to give it to me, he only employed it at the very moment of my creation. Today he didn't create anything in me or in me. My creation is a past fact, completely gone. I don't even know if I was aware of this fact and forgot about it. I can't even feel and know when it happened.

Chapter 9
Our memory remains a mystery.

In this moment we are, in which we live, in which we know we live, in which we are very sure to remember, to understand and to want, in this moment when we boast of knowing our nature very well, we totally ignore the power of our memory, our intelligence, our will.
One of my childhood friends, named Simplicio, had such a prodigious memory that, at our request, he would recite to us immediately and without hesitation, starting at the end, the last verses of each of Virgil's books. We asked him to recite the preceding verses and he did the same and we always believed he could quote Virgil in reverse order, as we would quiz him about all the books without distinction and he would always answer us.
We tried the same experiment with Cicero's speeches, written in prose and which he had memorized. He recited everything we asked of him in the opposite direction. As we lavished ourselves in praise and admiration, he swore to us that he never thought he could do that.
His mind, therefore, did not know this memory capacity and would never have known it if he had not been invited to try the experiment. However, before trying this experiment, he was the same person. Why then did he not know himself?

Chapter 10
We don't know the strength of our memory.

We often boast that we retain the memory of this or that thing, and in that presumption we fail to turn to the Scriptures.
It often happens that we also invoke these remember and fail. So we regret our presumption and negligence in entrusting our impressions to paper. Then these memories reappear, without our having even invoked them.
Were we not then the same when we provoked these thoughts in ourselves? However, we are not what we were when we cannot reveal the same thoughts in ourselves.
So why? I don't know how we escape from ourselves and how we come back to ourselves. Are we others? Are we elsewhere when we search without finding what we commit to our memory? And when, after not being able to reach us, as if we were somewhere else, we find ourselves somehow, when we find what we were looking for, where do we look, if not in ourselves? And what are we looking for, if not ourselves? As if we are not in us or have gone out of ourselves.
If you looked straight into an abyss like that, wouldn't you be able to shiver? And this abyss is nothing but our own nature. Not our nature as it might once have been, but as it is now. However, even in this sense, we still have a lot to try to understand in this nature that touches us so closely.
Often, when I see myself posing an issue, I boast that I can resolve it through reflection. I reflect and the answer doesn't come.
Other times, at the moment when I thought least, that answer presents itself to me. I conclude from this that the strengths of my intelligence are unknown to me, and I also believe that you do not know them any better.

Chapter 11
We ignore the strength of our will.

You cover my confessions with a proud disdain and even, for that reason, compare me to animals.
For my part, I invite you first to know better our common illness, in which virtue is perfected115. If you do not agree, I urge you, because I do not want that, glorifying yourself for knowing what you do not know, you place yourself in the impossibility of knowing
the truth.

115 Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9.

I am convinced that it is this phenomenon that you are trying to understand, without being able to achieve it. However, would you look if you didn't have the hope of finding it? This alone convinces me that you do not know the strengths of your intelligence, since, far from confessing our common ignorance as I do, you proclaim loudly that you know its nature.
What shall I say of the will, in which we confess without hesitation the existence of free will? The blessed apostle St. Peter wanted to give his life for Jesus Christ116. He sincerely wanted him and God himself witnessed his good will. But that very will did not know the measure of its strength. Danger presented itself and this apostle. to whom Jesus Christ was really the Son of God fled and shamefully hid himself.
We feel the wanting and not wanting. But unless we are mistaken, let us confess, dear son, that we are ignorant of what our will can do and even if it is good. We don't even know what her strengths are, nor to what tests she will or won't.

116 Cf. John 13:37.

Chapter 12
The Testimonies of the Psalmist and of St. Paul.

Recognize then that, without going back to the past, many current phenomena of our nature elude us; not only with regard to the body, but even the spirit. Does it follow, however, that we can be compared to animals? However, you inflict this shame and degradation on me, because I confess my uncertainties about a fact long ago: the origin of my soul.
But if I ignore something, I don't ignore everything, because I know that my soul was given to me by God and that it is not of the same substance as God.
When it comes to the nature of our spirit and our soul, how can we list everything we ignore? All we can do is say, like the Psalmist: Knowledge so wonderful surpasses me, it is so sublime that I cannot reach it117. He speaks of the knowledge that God has of his creature, for that creature could not know itself.
The Apostle was raptured to the third heaven and there he heard ineffable words, which human beings cannot repeat and he could not say whether this rapture happened with or without his body118. Should he fear you would compare him to animals? He knew that his spirit had been caught up to the third heaven, right in the center of paradise. Was he in your body? He did not know. Paul was neither in the third heaven nor in paradise, while he remained composed of body, soul and spirit. He was aware of these profound and sublime things, utterly foreign to his nature, and what his nature really was he ignored. How not to be surprised that, in the face of knowledge of such profound mysteries, he has shown such ignorance of himself?

117 Psalm 138:6.
118 Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:2.

Finally, if the Truth itself had not spoken, who would have believed in words like these: We do not know what we must ask, nor do we pray properly119? Our great concern must then be with the things that are before our eyes.
You compare me to animals because I forgot what is already far away from me: the origin of my soul. So you do not hear the Apostle say: Aware that I have not yet conquered it, I only look for this: dispensing with the past and throwing myself forward, I pursue the target, towards the heavenly prize, to which God calls us, in Jesus Christ120?

119 Romans 8:26.
120 Philippians 3:13 and 14.

Chapter 13
São Paulo offers confirmation with its example.

You will then laugh at me and compare me to animals, because I quoted these words: Do we not know what to ask, nor do we pray properly? I will tolerate your disdain once more.
In fact, prudence itself tells us to be more concerned with the future than with the past and direct our prayers not to what we were, but to what awaits us in the future. From this it follows that it is far more shameful for us not to know what to ask for than to ignore our origin.
However, before you throw stone at me, reveal your memories and remember where you read these words, as your disdain could fall on a person who is very dear to you. In fact, it was the Apostle to the Nations himself who uttered these words: We do not know what to ask for, nor do we know how to pray properly. And these words he confirmed by his example. It was not, unknowingly, against the usefulness and perfection of his salvation that he asked God to take away the thorn of his flesh, which had been given to him to deliver him from the danger of the pride that made him run to the greatness of your revelations? And because the Lord loved him, he was refused the grace that he only asked for out of ignorance121.
However, after having said: We do not know what we should ask, nor do we pray properly, the same Apostle then adds: But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with ineffable groans. And he who searches hearts knows what the Spirit desires, who intercedes for the saints, according to God122.
Note these two expressions. We receive the Spirit that cries "Abba, Father!" and in this Spirit we cry out: Abba, Father. We see clearly that the Apostle wanted to show us in what sense the Spirit cries out in us, that is, that it makes us cry out.

121 Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.
122 Romans 8:26 and 27.
123 Galatians 4:6.

When he wants, let this Spirit teach me, if he finds it useful to me, what is the origin of my soul. I do not want, on this matter, another teacher other than the divine Spirit who scrutinizes the depths of divinity, and I refuse the teaching of a man who does not know what breath fills a wineskin. This ignorance on your part does not authorize me, however, to compare you to animals, because your ignorance on this point is the result of inadvertence and not a real impossibility.

Chapter 14
Destiny matters more than the origin of our being.

You yourself recognize that questions concerning the origin of the soul are much more relevant than those that have as their object the breath we breathe in and out. However, for both you invoke the imposing witness of the Holy Scriptures, in which faith reveals to us what the efforts of the human spirit are powerless to teach us.
How many things go unnoticed by us and which are revealed to us by the scientific observations of doctors and by the careful study of the phenomena of life, even vegetative! But what a gulf to come to know that the flesh will rise to live forever!
It would be nice to get out of the ignorance we are in about memory, intelligence and will with which the will is endowed. But even better to know that the soul that has been regenerated and renewed in Jesus Christ will enjoy in eternity the ineffable delights of happiness! Now, this eminent destiny of our soul could only be known to us through the teaching of the divine oracles.
But why glory in finding in these divine oracles a definitive solution about the origin of the soul? Therefore, it would not be to human nature that you should attribute the glory of the knowledge that human beings can have of their qualities and their nature, but solely to the condescension of God.
Didn't you say: "If the human being doesn't know himself, how does he differ from the animals?" If we must have this knowledge only because of the distance that separates us from the animals, why look for knowledge in reading that we already have?
Just as it is not necessary for you to read me anything for me to know that I live, as it is in my own nature that I find this knowledge, so too, if it is in my nature that I discover the origin of my soul, why quote, on this matter, passages of Scripture? To distinguish oneself from animals one must absolutely read the Scriptures?
Is it not by virtue of our own upbringing and prior to any literary knowledge that we are distinguished from animals? How then do you dare assert that, by the very fact of being distinguished from animals, the human being knows how to dissect and resolve the question of the origin of the soul, while, on the other hand, and due to a manifest contradiction, you assert that, in order to acquire about this fear a certain knowledge, is supernatural revelation necessary, without which all our human strength would not suffice?

Chapter 15
You have to know that you don't know.

On this point, you are also in error. In fact, the divine testimonies you cite in support of your proposition do not prove it at all. All they prove is that our souls were given to us, created and formed by God. This conviction, after all, is absolutely necessary for us to give our lives a holy direction. But they don't tell us how these souls are given to us. Is it via a new and special insufflation, as it was done for the soul of the first human being? Is it via original transmission?
Read carefully what I wrote about this to our brother Renato124. What I said then, I refrain from repeating. To please you, I should definitely speak out, as you did yourself.

124 Book I. ch. 17.

I must involve myself in the inextricable embarrassments which led you to issue propositions against the Catholic faith such that, if you would take the trouble to study them seriously, you will soon understand how much it would have been helpful for you to know that you are ignorant of the fact that you are ignorant of the how happy would you be to know it nowadays?
If it is intelligence that pleases you in human nature, why without intelligence we would be similar to animals, then understand that you do not understand, lest you become incapable of understanding anything. And avoid belittling anyone who, because he has the true sense of what he doesn't understand, understands first of all what he doesn't understand.
As for the words of the Psalmist: The man who lives in opulence: he is like the slaughtered cattle125, read them and try to understand their reason and their scope, if you want to spare yourself from their shameful application, before throwing them proudly about whoever it is.
This oracle is addressed to all those who do not see any other life than the bed life and who do not expect anything after death, as animals do not have to wait. But by no means do they apply to those who confess that they know what they know and who ignore what they do not, thus proving that their knowledge of their own weakness is a sure remedy against all presumptions of pride.

125 Psalm 48:13.

Chapter 16
Respect God's Secrets.

I beg then, my son, that your youthful presumption not strike so hard on my senile hesitations. Having confessed that this question about the origin of souls has not been clarified to me by God or by any spiritual human being and that, in this way, I cannot resolve it, I feel willing to say that God has hidden this truth from us as he did. it hid from us many others, much more than exposing myself to recklessly assert a proposition whose obscurity would be such that not only would I fail to make it understood by others, but even I would not understand it.
Much less would I consent to furnishing ammunition to heretics who assert the perfect innocence of children's souls, for fear of making God responsible for this fault. It would be no better to declare these souls innocent, than to accuse God of having made them sinners by uniting them to sinful flesh, when he knew, with his divine foreknowledge, that the bath of regeneration would not be given them and that they would not would they receive any grace from baptism that would wrest them from eternal damnation?
In fact, how many children die before receiving baptism? To get rid of this difficulty, I would not like to keep, like you, this speech: "The soul deserved to be tainted by the flesh and become a sinner, although until then it had no sin that made it deserve such punishment." Original sin is blotted out outside of baptism." And finally: "The kingdom of heaven is finally given to those who have not been baptized."
If I did not see in these words a deadly poison for the faith, perhaps I would not fear to speak definitively on this subject. So far I think it is wiser to remain hesitant than to speak without knowing it.
I stick to what the Apostle taught, in a very clear and very formal way. It is because of one man that all human beings who are born of Adam are subjected to condemnation126, unless they are reborn in Jesus Christ, through the sacrament of regeneration which he himself instituted and which all must receive before dying, if they want to have a part in that eternal life to which God predestined them in His infinite mercy.
As for those who are predestined to eternal death, God will punish them in the strictest measure of justice, not only for actual sins which they would have willingly committed, but also only for original sin, if they are only guilty of that sin.
This is for me the solution to this question. However secret the works of God may be, above all I want to preserve all the integrity of my faith.

126 Cf. Romans 5:18.

Chapter 17
Can the soul be a corporeal substance?

That said, to the extent that God grants me grace, I must answer the question about the soul that you addressed me directly.
Here are his words. "Despite the contrary view, famously championed by Augustine Bishop learned, we do not admit that the soul is incorporeal and spiritual"
First of all, then discuss the question of whether, as I advocate, the soul is a spirit, or whether, as you argue, it is corporeal. We shall see next whether, in the Scriptures, this soul is presented to us as a spirit, although generally the word spirit designates only one faculty of the soul and not the whole soul.
First of all, I would like to know what definition you give of body. If the body, in his view, must be composed of fleshly members, neither the earth, nor the sky, nor the stone, nor the water, nor the stars, not all things of this kind will be bodies. If by body you mean everything that can be increased or decreased and that occupies a space more or less restricted in extension, all the objects mentioned are bodies. Air is a body, visible light is a body, and we can say like the Apostle: there are heavenly bodies and terrestrial bodies127.

127 Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:40.

Chapter 18
The incorporeality of the soul.

So is the soul a body? This is a very delicate and very subtle question.
You first affirm that God is not a body and I congratulate you on this affirmation. Why then plunge me back into worry when you say, "The soul is spiritual, in the sense that as some think—it is nothing but an empty emptiness, an airy and subtle substance?" Judging by these words, it seems that you believe that everything that has no body is but a useless substance.
If so, how dare you say that God has no body, how do you not fear that it will conclude that he is not A useless substance? Affirm, as you did, that God has no body, but do not add that he is but a useless substance. From this it will follow that everything that has no body is but a useless substance.
Consequently, it can be said that the soul is incorporeal without, that it is understood that it is nothing more than a useless and futile substance, since God is incorporeal, without thereby he is nothing more than an empty uselessness.
Understand then that there is a huge difference between what I said and what you say I said. I am far from holding that the soul is an airy substance, as I would admit that it is a body.
In fact, air is a body; at least this is the unshakable conviction of all those who, speaking of bodies, understand what they say. Now, because I said the soul is incorporeal, you conclude that I said it is an airy substance. It is the opposite that you should conclude, since if I said that it is not a body, it is therefore not aerial.
On the other hand, what fills with air cannot be an emptiness.
How did the wineskins mentioned by you not make you understand this? When they fill up, isn't it because of the effect of the air that gets there?
Nor can they be an acuity, as their weight can be measured.
Perhaps you believe there is a difference between wind and air.
But the wind is nothing but moving air, as it is easy to convince yourself when waving an apron. On the other hand, take a vase that you believe is empty, and if you want to convince yourself that it is full, immerse its opening in water and you will notice that, because of the air pressure that fills it, the liquid cannot penetrate it. Conversely, if you place the opening horizontally to the surface of the liquid or slightly to one side, the liquid will rush into it, while the air escapes through the part of the opening that has been freed. It is easier to perform this experiment than describe it. But why insist on it any longer?
Whether or not you understand that air is a body, you must admit that I did not say that the soul is aerial, but absolutely disembodied.
This property you ascribe to God, of which, however, you dare not say that he is useless and in whom you must recognize an omnipotent and immutable substance.
Why then, if the soul is incorporeal, should we fear that it is nothing more than an empty emptiness, since God is incorporeal without therefore being an empty emptiness? I conclude from this that an incorporeal God could create an incorporeal soul, as a living being can beget a living being, though an immutable being can only create a changing being, and yet an omnipotent being can only create a nature far inferior to his own.

Chapter 19
Are Body, Soul, and Spirit the Same Nature?

Surely I don't see why you want to make the soul, not a spirit, but a body. It would be because, in one of his epistles, the Apostle distinguishes, in these terms, the soul from the spirit: May your whole being, spirit, soul and body, be kept blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ128. But then you also have reason to maintain that the soul is not a body, since the Apostle distinguishes it equally from the body. If you say that the soul is a body, even though he has spoken verbatim of the body, this allows you to assume that it is also a spirit, although he has spoken verbatim in spirit.

128 1Thessalonians 5:23.

In fact, you have many reasons to admit that the soul is a spirit rather than a body, as you hold that the spirit and the soul are of one and the same substance, while denying this unity of substance between the soul. and the body. How then can the soul be a body, since its nature is different from the nature of the body? And how could the soul not be a spirit, since the soul and the spirit are of one and the same nature?
If you wanted to be consistent with yourself, shouldn't you conclude that the spirit is a body? If you admit that the spirit is not a body, but that the soul is, don't say that the spirit and the soul are of one and the same substance. However, you say it and affirm it in an absolute way.
If then the soul is a body, say likewise that the spirit is a body, for otherwise it is no longer possible to admit that the soul and the spirit are of one and the same substance.
Consequently, the three things enumerated by the Apostle — spirit, soul and body — are simply three bodies; noting, however, that the body, which we also call the flesh, is of a different nature from the soul and spirit.
Finally, it is these three bodies. two of them being of the same substance, while the third is of a different substance—which is composed of the whole human being, forming a single thing and a single substance.
Nothing is more explicit than such a statement, and yet, even admitting that spirit and soul are of one and the same substance, you don't want both to be designated by the term spirit. On the contrary, if it is the soul and the body, you deny that they are of one and the same substance, and yet you intend that both should be called the body.

Chapter 20
The absurdities about the supposed "inner, outer, and intimate" men.

I will not insist any further, so that the question that concerns us does not seem to be a simple matter of words. Let's see then whether the inner man is a soul, a spirit or, at the same time, a soul and a spirit.
If I evaluate your writings well, you define the inner man as being a soul. In fact, these are his words: "This substance, initially imperceptible, coagulates little by little, in ways that it becomes a body, engulfed in the outer body by the force and breath of its nature. This is how the inner man appeared, wrapped as if in a corporeal envelope and imprinting on that envelope the outer habits corresponding to its own nature are formed”.
You conclude: "It was then the breath of God that made the soul. What's more, that breath became a soul in a substantial way, corporeal by its nature and perfectly similar to its body.
" it has as its origin the breath of God, it could not exist until it was endowed with its own sense and inner intellect which we call spirit”. If I'm not mistaken, the inner man is the soul; the intimate man is the spirit, which is interior to the soul, as the soul is interior to the body.
Just as the body, in the interior emptiness it presents, receives, according to you, another body, called the soul, so too, the soul presents a certain emptiness, in which it receives a third body, called the spirit. In this way, we can distinguish the outer man, the inner man and the inner man. Do you see then to what absurdities you expose yourself by maintaining that the soul is corporeal?
Would you then tell me what will be restored by the knowledge of God, according to the image of Him who created it?129 Is it the inner man or the inner man? I hear the Apostle well speak of the inward man and the outward man, but I don't see him anywhere speak of the inward man or the inward man.

129 Cf. 1Co 3:10.

In any case, choose the one you want to set aside to be restored in God's image. How then can one who already has the image of the outer man receive this image? In fact, if the inner man has already flowed into the limbs of the outer man and coagulated there (I use this expression as you used it, as if this dust-formed body really had been melted), how can man be restored in the image of God, if the first form imprinted on it by the body remains absolutely the same? Will he then have two images: one that came from above, that is, of God, and another that came from below, that is, of the body, absolutely as we find the heads and tails in coins?
Perhaps you say that the soul takes on the image of the body and the spirit receives the image of God, as the soul gets closer to the body, while the spirit touches God more closely.
Is it then the inner man who will be reformed in the image of God and not the inner man? Useless Excuse, Indeed, if this inner man is spread over all the members of the soul, as the soul is spread over all the members of the body, it is certain that, through the soul, he has already assumed the image of the body and received from that soul a very special shape.
If then this intimate man retains the image of the body, how will he receive the image of God? Unless, as I said, it looks like the coins and has two images: a top and a bottom.
These are the absurdities to which you reduce as soon as you hear the bedside ideas you bring to the study of the soul.
On the other hand, as you yourself agree, God is not a body. How then can a body receive the image of God?
I beseech you, beloved brother, Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your spirit130 and do not judge according to the flesh, for this is death131.

Chapter 21
Incorporeal beings also have form.

You say, "If the soul has no body, what then could the wicked rich man recognize in hell? Yet he recognized Lazarus and recognized Abraham132, How then could he recognize Abraham, who was long dead?

130 Romans 12:2.
131 Cf. Romans 8:6.
132 Cf. Luke 16:19 and 31.

You suppose then that you can recognize the human being through the shape of his body. I also suppose that, in order to recognize yourself, you often look in the mirror, for fear that you will no longer be able to recognize yourself if you forget the shape of your face.
Tell me, isn't the person we know best ourselves? However, of all the faces around us, it is ours that we see the least. Afterwards, who could recognize God, since you affirm without hesitation that he is a spirit? If, as you say, it can only be recognized by the shape of the body or, in other words, if only bodies can be recognized?
Let a Christian be asked these grave and difficult questions, I do not think he has forgotten so much of the divine oracles, to say: "If the soul is incorporeal, it must have no form." that the Apostle really speaks to us about the form of the doctrine?133 Do you then conclude that the form of the doctrine is corporeal?
Have you forgotten then that the Apostle tells us that Jesus Christ, before the incarnation, was in the form of God?134 So, on the contrary, how dare you say, "If the soul is incorporeal, it must have no form"? God is a spirit and yet we hear about the form of God, which does not prevent him from expressing himself as if the form only existed for bodies.

133 Romans 6:17. Gratias autem Deo quad fuistis servi peccati, obedists autem ex corde in cam form doctrine, in quam traditi estis.
134 Philippians 2:6. Qui cum in forma Dei esset, non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aequalem Deo.

Chapter 22
The Abstract Nouns.

You add: "Names must go as far as there are no more forms to distinguish. The moment there is no more designation of persons, every nominal designation has no more reason to be." Then you try to prove that Abraham's soul was corporeal , since the bad rich man could say: "Father Abraham."
I just said that there can be form where there is no body. And if the nominal designations have no reason to exist where there is no body, please list the following names: The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, temperance135.
Tell me if you don't have any knowledge of these virtues, whose names you pronounce or if the knowledge you have of them, you represent them as delineations of bodies. Just tell me which figure, which members, what color the charity is. Therefore, if this virtue is not useless, it could only seem to him something useless and imaginary.
"One could only beg for help from the one who appears to us in a corporeal form," you say. If people listen to you, no one from now on will beg God's help, since no one sees in him a corporeal being.

Chapter 23
Anthropomorphism.

You continue: "In this passage, the members of the soul are described to us as if it were a real body." You also affirm: "that the eye designates the whole head; the tongue, the palate and the throat; the finger, the hand", since it is said that the wicked rich man lifts his eyes and then says: "Send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of your finger in the water and let it refresh my tongue."

135 Galatians 5:22 and 23.

However, since you claim that God is incorporeal and fearing that the passages where the members of God are mentioned will be opposed to you and that it be concluded against you that God is therefore also a corporeal being, you beware and say: "These members only designate in God virtues and incorporeal forces.”
But by what right, I ask you, can you maintain that these names of members do not require that God have a body, since they are required for the soul? these expressions in the rigor of the letter when it comes to a creature, while you should only see a figure of speech when it comes to the Creator?
Will you also give us corporeal wings? For it is not the Creator, but the creature, that is, of the human being, who is said: "I catch my wings like a dove"136.
If you conclude that the bad rich man had a corporeal tongue, why does he ask Lazarus to refresh his tongue, also conclude that in this life our tongue has corporeal hands, for it is written: "Death and life are in the hands of the tongue" 137 .
I suppose that sin not it be a creature and not a body. Why then does he have a face? It is not said in the Psalms: "There is no peace for my bones in the face of my sins"138.

136 Cf. Psalm 138:9. It will sum up only the middle feathers and will inhabit in extremis maris.
137 Cf. Proverbs 18:21. Mors et vita in manu lingua; qui diligunt eam comedent fructus ejus.
138 Cf. Psalm 37:4. Nam est pax ossibus meis, a facie peccatorum meorum.

Chapter 24
Abraham's bosom.

You take in a corporeal sense the breast of Abraham that is mentioned in this same parable and see it as designating the entire body.
Now, I must confess to you that this interpretation seems to me to be a joke and a joke on your part and not the work of a serious and respectful person.
Indeed, I may suppose him so unwise to admit that the corporeal bosom of a single man supports such a large number of souls, or rather and here I use your language, the immense multitude of the bodies of all the saints as the angels transport, how did they transport Lazarus?
Perhaps you will tell me that only Lazarus' soul deserved to reach Abraham's bosom. But, if you are not kidding, if you are not playing a child's game, you must see in that bosom of Abraham the supreme and mysterious abode of the eternal rest enjoyed by Abraham.
That is why Abraham is presented to us as being the father, not only of Lazarus, but of a great number of nations, to whom the faith of this holy patriarch is proposed as the most beautiful model to imitate. It is in this sense also that God wants to be called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even though he is the God of all peoples on earth.

Chapter 25
Imagination and memory prove the immateriality of the soul.

Do not conclude from my reasoning that I admit the impossibility, for the soul of a dead or sleeping person, to experience pleasant or sad sensations, in an absolute way, as if he felt them in a real body.
In sleep, when we experience some suffering or some pain, we keep our personality perfectly and if these painful images did not disappear when we wake up, we would feel the most bitter sadness.
However, one would have never seriously thought about it, to suppose that all these imaginary objects, over which we walk in our dreams and imagination, are real bodies.
Is it no longer fair to say that, if the soul were a body, it could not apprehend by thought the images of these numerous objects as they appear to us?
I don't suppose, in fact, that you can sustain that they are really bodies that appear to us in dreams, when we dream of the sky, the earth, the sea, the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers, the mountains, the trees, animals. To believe that they are really bodies that appear to us in this vision would be the height of absurdity. However, how these visions really look like bodies!
We can include in the same classification all the apparitions that can come to us from God, whether during a dream or during an ecstasy.
But what is the nature of these apparitions, what is their matter, is that no one can find nor know. All we know is that these apparitions are spiritual and not corporeal. There are no bodies there, but representations of bodies, formed by thought and contained in the depths of memory. They come out like this, I don't know from what secret corners and under I don't know what amazing way, and thus come to place themselves, in some way, under our eyes.
Now, if the soul were a body, could it apprehend by thought these great and vast images, and could memory contain them?
Didn't you yourself say that "The corporeal substance of the soul does not exceed the outer limits of the body"?
Now, I ask: by the effect of what magnitude, which does not belong to it, could the soul contain the images of these prodigious bodies, these immense spaces, these limitless regions? And wouldn't it be amazing if she appeared to herself, in the likeness of her body, if she herself has no body?
In fact, the body with which she appears in the dream is not a real body. However, it is with this image or simulacrum of her body that she travels through known and unknown places and experiences all the impressions of joy and pain.
I don't think, after all, that you were rash to say that this representation of bodies and limbs, as they appear to us in a dream, is a real body. Thus, one would have to see as true and real the mountain whose slope the soul seems to climb, the house it believes it enters, the tree or forest under which it seems to sit, and the water it seems to drink.
Finally, if the soul is a body, why does it appear that way in dreams, it must be said that all these objects with which it walks in dreams are also real bodies.

Chapter 26
A Vision of Saint Perpetua.

I must also say a few words about the apparitions of the martyrs, since you believed that you found a witness in your favor there.
Saint Perpetua had a dream in which she saw herself as a man fighting an Egyptian. We can doubt that this new body was anything other than a simple figure or representation and not a real body, since his body was always there, immersed in a deep dream and with the sex that belonged to him, while his soul seemed to fight a man's body?
What do you think? Was this simulacrum of a male body a real body or not, despite its perfect resemblance? Choose the answer you want. If he was a body, why didn't he keep the shape of his skin? It is why the flesh of this woman suddenly had metamorphosed into a male flesh, in ways that the soul that lived were soon adapted to this new form "by a kind of freeze," to use an expression?
In addition, that woman's body still lived, her soul struggled, but she was always in her skin, encased in every limb of that body full of life and retaining the form she had of the body with which she was endowed.
Until then she had not abandoned these members, since this separation only takes place at death. Until then she had not ripped her own limbs from the limbs they were formed with. Where did this male body in which she saw herself fighting her adversary come to her?
On the other hand, if this simulacrum was not a real body, at least it was a perfect simile, in which the soul experienced real work and real joy.
Is it more necessary to convince you that a soul can make for itself a perfect simulacrum of a body, without that simulacrum being, however, a true body?

Chapter 27
The meaning of the wound Perpetua sees in her dead brother's soul.

What would you say if, even in hell, these phenomena were reproduced, if souls recognized themselves, not in their bodies, but in the simulacra of bodies? In our dreams, the members we seem to act with are no more than simulacra and by no means realities. However, when false impressions hit us, the pain we feel is not a simulacrum but a reality. The same is true with joy. But since St. Perpetua was not yet dead, do you object to the application of this reasoning?
However, all pending question between us is to know what nature are these simulacra that appear to us in dreams. And this question would be perfectly resolved the moment you saw there only images and, in no way, corporeal realities.
On the other hand, you know that Dinocrates, brother of this saint, was dead and appeared to his sister, presenting on his body the wound that led him to the grave. What then will be the results of your intense efforts to prove that when the limbs of the body are cut off, the soul is not diminished by it? Dinocrates' soul bore in it the wound whose violence separated it from the body in which it inhabited.
You told us: "When the limbs of the body are cut, the soul gets rid of that cut and takes refuge in other parts of the body, so as not to see itself amputated by the wound made to the body. That is, without a doubt, how things happen. , when the unfortunate thing about which this happens is deeply asleep and without any awareness". But how can you still defend this opinion?
You ascribe to the soul such vigilance that, sunk in the deepest sleep and fully absorbed in its dreams, it frees itself, with all happiness and readiness, from any damage that might strike the flesh unexpectedly, so that it cannot be struck, bruised and not cut.
All good! But, in spite of your prudence, do you forget then that, if the soul were thus freed from any hurt, it would not be able to experience the backlash and pain?
I know you get rid of the embarrassment by answering that the soul withdraws all its parts and concentrates them within, to escape every amputation and every wound that could be done to your body. Well then! Remember Dinocrates and tell me why his soul did not withdraw from that part of the body upon which the killing blow was delivered. It would, however, be the only way to prevent the scar from that wound from appearing after the death of that poor corporeal soul.
Under pressure from all sides, you might answer that these apparitions are nothing but simulacra of bodies and not real bodies, so that what appears to be a wound is not a wound, just as what appears to be a body, it's not a body.
If the soul could be wounded by those who injure the body, would it not be feared that it would also be killed by those who kill the body? Now such a proposition is formally condemned by the Savior139.
So then, Dinocrates' soul could not die under the blow that made his body die. If she appeared wounded as the body had been wounded, it was because she was not a body and because she only carried the simulacrum of a wound in the Simulacrum of a body.
Now, in an imaginary body, the soul would be prey to real pain; pain clearly represented by the wound etched into his body and released by his sister's holy prayers.

139 Cf. Matthew 10:28.

Chapter 28
The theory of the soul defended by Vicente Vítor is untenable

You also tell us that the soul received its form from the body is that it extends and develops into the proper proportion of the body.

Don't you see then that you are going to make monstrous the soul of a young man or an old man who, by chance, lost one of his arms in childhood?
"The soul contracts, for fear that its hand will be cut off at the same time as the hand of the body and it condenses and tightens on other parts of the body", you say. Consequently, the arm of the soul that I mentioned , could only, in the arm of a child, receive a small extension, and this extension it will keep it thus, without increase or decrease, in every extension where it can be preserved. By losing its form, it has thus lost all principle and all means of growth.
Consequently, for the young or old man who lost his hand in childhood, his soul still has, it is true, his two hands, since the one that was threatened by the cut that hit the hand of the body, withdrew in time. But of these two hands, one has the extension of a young person's or an elderly person's hand, while the other remains as small as a child's hand.
Believe me, it is not the shape of the body that makes such hands; they are formed by the deformity of error itself.
In fact, you only seem to be able to escape this error to the extent that, with God's help, you carefully study the dreams of those who sleep and you will be given to understand that these apparitions are nothing but simulacra and not real bodies.
It is true that all the images we form of bodies are of the same nature as these dreams. However, as far as the dead are concerned, we can only get a more accurate idea by looking at what goes on with sleeping people. In fact, it is not without reason that the Holy Scriptures give death the significant name of sleep, for sleep is a very close relative of death140.

Chapter 29
The soul after death.

If the soul were a body, the image in which it sees itself in sleep would be equally corporeal, as it would be the reproduction of a body.
In this way, although having lost this or that member of his body, the person, in a dream, would never be deprived of that member and would always be in complete integrity, because his soul would not have lost any of its integrity.
Now, it happens that, in their dreams, the mutilated people see themselves both in their integrity and in the way they are, that is, mutilated. This fact does not prove that, both in relation to her body and in relation to all the things she is occupied with in a dream, in one way or another, the human soul works, not on something real, but on simple simulacra. ?
On the other hand, if she experiences joy or sadness, pleasure or pain, her impressions are always real, having her visions, as an object, real bodies or only simulacra.

140 VIRGILIO. Aeneid, Book VI, verse 279.

Didn't you yourself say very truthfully that "Food and clothing are necessary, not for the soul, but for the body"? Why then did the bad rich man in hell want so much for a drop of water141? Because, as you yourself reported, Samuel always appeared in his ordinary clothes142. Is it because the bad rich man felt the need to repair the loss of his soul with a little water, how do you repair the loss of the body?
Is it because Samuel came out all dressed in his own body? No, but the bad rich really experienced all the anguishes that tore at his soul, even though the body for which he begged the water was not real. On the other hand, Samuel could appear dressed because he presented then, not a real body, but a simulacrum with all the customs of the body. Let's not say about clothes what was meant about the members of the body: that they bind the soul and imprint on it their particular shape.

141 Cf. Luke 16:24.
142 Cf. 1 Samuel 28:14.

Chapter 30
The Mysterious Cognitive Power of Souls Beyond.

After death, when evil souls are stripped of their corruptible bodies, what strength of knowledge can they then acquire?
Good or bad, these souls can use their inner senses to perceive and know, whether bodies or simulacra of bodies, whether good or bad impressions of the understanding, although these souls no longer have the outer envelope to delimit their members?
To these questions no one can answer except with silence. Be that as it may, the wicked rich man, in the midst of his sufferings, recognized his father Abraham, and yet the figure of his body was not known to him. His soul, even though it was incorporeal, had received from this holy patriarch some impression that could cause him to be recognized.
To say that one knows someone, one must not know his life and his will, although this life and this will have no physical extension and no colors? By virtue of this principle, we can say that we have no knowledge of anyone as certain as ourselves, because our conscience and our will are known to us. We do have a clear and accurate view of them, although they don't even have the likeness of a body to us.
This is what we cannot see, even in a person placed before our eyes, while, even in his absence, his face is known to us and, as it were, is present through our thought.
We cannot do the same for our own face, yet we know ourselves better than we know anyone else. This alone is enough to make us understand what the true and best knowledge of the human being consists of.

Chapter 31
Our Diverse Cognitive Faculty.

So then, it's one thing to feel real bodies and that's what we do through our five senses. Another thing is to perceive, not bodies, but the simulacra of bodies; what is done without any action of the senses.
When it comes to ourselves, we don't see ourselves as not being like bodies. Different is to apply our understanding, not on bodies or images of bodies, but on things that have no color or extension, such as faith, hope and charity, whose knowledge we acquire, however, in a very precise way.
Therefore, if I ask where we should preferentially locate, where we will be renewed in the knowledge of God, according to the image of the One who created us, should I not answer that it is in what I have marked in third place, that is, in our essentially spiritual soul? There, at least, we don't bring any characteristics or any similarity to sex.

Chapter 32
Vicente Vitor's monster is unlikely.

Indeed, the moment you admit this form of a male or female soul, which reveals itself with the characteristics that distinguish one sex from the other, it is not a simple image of a body, but a real body that, good or bad, you must accept that you are male or female, if she appears as one or the other.
However, if, as you think, the soul is a body and a living body, endowed with fertile and protruding breasts, deprived of a beard, but possessing all the genital characteristics typical of women, without, however, that it is a woman , I have no right to assert—and with all the more reason that she has a tongue, fingers, eyes, in short, all the limbs corresponding to those of her body? Which does not prevent it from being a body, but a simple image of the body.
At least I have, to help me, all the images we make of the absent and all the representations they make of themselves and others when dreams come to disturb sleep.
As for that monstrous anomaly, can we find in nature the example of a single body, both true and alive, a woman's body that does not, however, have what makes it unique to the female sex?

Chapter 33
If the soul were a body, it would still have sex.

What you say about the phoenix bird has nothing to do with the question that concerns us. Assuming, as it is believed, that she is reborn from her ashes, she would be the image of the resurrection of bodies and would in no way destroy the belief in the sex of souls.
I imagine, however, that you would have considered your digression to have little effect if, in phoenix time, you had not been devoted to all the utterances common to young people.
Did this phoenix then have in her body the male genitals, without being male, or the female genitals, without being female? The only thing I ask you is to weigh well what you say, what you say, what you want to convince us.
You say that the soul, spread over all the members, was condensed there by a kind of freezing, and then, from top to bottom, from the most intimate marrow to the surface of the skin, it allowed itself to be impregnated by the form of the body. Consequently, when she is in a female body, she takes on the different forms of the woman's body, in ways that, being in a real body, having real limbs, she is not, however, a woman.
Tell me then how can it be that, having a real living body, with all the limbs of a woman, she is not a woman?
How can it be that, having a true and living body, with all the limbs of a man, she is not a man? To whom would the thought of believing, saying and teaching such nonsense come?
You say that souls do not generate? But aren't mules and mules male females? What would I say about eunuchs? They can be deprived of movement and fecundity, but sex is not taken from them and they always retain limbs and character. By becoming a eunuch, one does not cease to be a man. Then, to be consistent with yourself, you should say that the soul of a eunuch retains all the characteristics that the outer body has been deprived of. In fact, as the operation was carried out, the soul had to withdraw so as not to suffer this mutilation, so that it retained the first shape it had, before this change took place in its body and, by sudden repression, if preserved in all its integrity.
On the other hand, when it comes to the state of souls after death, you don't want to grant them the distinction of sexes, although they still retain the organs that make that distinction. You give, as a justification for this, the statement that their primary conformation is solely the result of the place they inhabited, that is, the outer body.
All these allegations, my son, are nothing but lies. If you don't want to admit the distinction of sexes in souls, don't see them as bodies.

Chapter 34
Biblical representations and visions are real but not corporeal.

Not everything that has the likeness of a body has, for that reason, the reality of a body.
Sleep and you will see. But when you wake up, carefully differentiate what you saw. Everything he sees in a dream seems to him corporeal, and yet it is not his body, it is his soul; it is not a real body, but the simulacrum of a body. Your body will be in complete stillness while your soul walks. Your body language will remain silent and your soul will speak. Your eyes will be closed and your soul will see.
Finally, the organs of your body, although alive, will appear inanimate and yet they will not be dead.
This is what proves the frozen form of your soul as you say. it has not yet come out of its sheath, yet it is in it that you see, with all its integrity, the simulacrum of its flesh.
To this kind of corporeal simulacra, which are not real bodies, although they have their appearance, are related all the facts that you read, without understanding, in the holy books, concerning the prophetic visions. These visions represented certain present, past and future events.
If you're wrong about this, it's not because these views are misleading. It's because you give them a false explanation.
Is it the apparition of the martyrs' souls143? We see the immolated Lamb appear at the same time bearing seven horns on his forehead144. Horses and other animals are represented there with all the desirable characteristics. The stars are shown there, swooping down in their fall, and the sky rolls up like a papyrus,145 and yet the world does not crumble.
All these visions are real, and yet if we give them the explanation they ask for, we will find nothing corporeal there.

143 Cf. Revelation 6:9.
144 Cf. Revelation 5:6.
145 Cf. Revelation 6:14.

Chapter 35
The discourse on the incorporeality of the soul ends.

It would be too long to want to exhaust the discussion of these corporeal simulacra. It would be necessary to speak of the appearance of the good and bad angels, in human form or in any other form. Do they have real bodies and are they seen in the reality of their being? When they are seen in a dream or in ecstasy, are they simply images or real bodies? Are those seen in vigil something real or even tangible? All these questions do not seem to me to fall within the limits I set myself in writing this book.
I believe I have exhausted the matter relating to the corporeal soul. If you want to admit that it is corporeal, first of all give us an exact definition of the body, for we might as well agree on ideas and argue only about words.
In any case, I think you are prudently convinced of all the absurdities that flow from a system like yours and in which you made the soul a body similar to all other bodies and endowed with all the properties attributed to it by scientists .
All bodies, they say, have length, width and extension. All necessarily occupy a space in the extension. Larger or smaller space, according to how these bodies are larger or smaller. Does the body you attribute to our soul have all these properties?

Chapter 35
Difference between soul and spirit.

I only need to show that the spirit is not the whole soul, but only a faculty of the soul, according to the words of the Apostle: All your being, spirit, soul and body146. Or, in these words: "You have separated my soul from my spirit."

146 1Thessalonians 5:23.

However, as it is very common to take the spirit for the whole soul, the question could very well be no more than a simple matter of words.
In fact, since there is certainly in our soul a faculty properly called the spirit, and beyond which the other faculties are simply called the soul, there is no longer any real difficulty to be claimed.
What proves this even better is that we are perfectly in agreement on the faculty we call spirit. By this we understand both the faculty by which we reason and by which we understand. And it is in this sense that we interpret this passage from the Apostle: Your whole being, spirit, soul and body.
The spirit is also called understanding, as in this passage: On the one hand, by my spirit, I am subject to the law of God; on the other hand, for my flesh, I am a slave to the law of sin147. This phrase, in fact, is only a repetition of this one: For the desires of the flesh are opposed to those of the Spirit and these to those of the flesh, for they are contrary to one another148.
Understanding and spirit designate then one and the same faculty, and it is wrong to claim that understanding designates both spirit and soul. I don't even know a single passage that could serve as a pretext for this interpretation. Understanding for us is just our rational and intellectual faculty.

When then the Apostle tells us, "Renew yourselves by the spirit of your understanding149, is it not as if he said, "Renew yourselves by your understanding"? The spirit of the understanding is just the understanding, as the body of the flesh is just the flesh. Doesn't the Apostle say: “In putting off the body of flesh150, calling the flesh itself a body of flesh?

147 Romans 7:26.
148 Galatians 5 17.
149 Ephesians 4:23. Renew autem spiritu mentis vestra.

Elsewhere, it is true, St. Paul distinguishes the spirit from the understanding. That's when he says: If I pray because of the gift of tongues, my spirit prays, but my understanding is without fruit151. But, we don't have to concern ourselves here with the difference between the spirit and the understanding. This would, after all, be a very difficult question, as the word spirit is often found in the Holy Scriptures and with quite different meanings. For us, at this moment, the spirit is the faculty of reasoning, of understanding, of judging. When then we speak of the spirit as such, we agree that it is not the whole soul, but a simple faculty of the soul.
Now, if you deny that the soul is a spirit, because the word spirit represents to us especially intelligence, you can quite rightly deny that all of Jacob's offspring are called Israel, because, with the exception of Judah, by this name the people of the ten tribes that formed the kingdom of Samaria were designated 152, But why detain us any longer in such details?

150 Colossians 2:11. In expoliatone corporis carnis.
151 1 Corinthians 14:14.
152 1Kings 12:20.

Chapter 37
Spirit, in its broadest sense, also includes the soul and not a part of it.

To make my demonstration easier, please note that the soul is often called a spirit. We read then: When Jesus had taken the vinegar, he said: Everything is finished. He bowed his head and surrendered the spirit153. It is evident that in this passage the part is taken as the whole. Why then do you want to argue that the soul could not be called a spirit?

153 John 7:30 pm

Well then! It is you myself that I want to invoke as a witness to the truth I am expounding. In your definition of spirit, we see clearly that you express yourself in a way that denies animals the spirit, but gives them a soul. In fact, beings that have neither reason nor intelligence are called irrational. When you then want to prove to the human being that he needs to know his nature, it is in these terms that you express yourself: "In his infinite goodness God did nothing without a reason and created the human being as a rational animal, endowed with intelligence, with reason and a highly developed sensibility, so that he would be able to put in a convenient order everything that is deprived of reason”.
These words clearly state that human beings are endowed with reason and intelligence, while animals are deprived of them. Hence you, leaning on a divine oracle, say that human beings who do not understand are comparable to animals who have no intelligence154.
In another passage, it is also said: Do not want to be without intelligence like the horse, like the mule, which only submits its impulses to bridle and bridle155.

Having said that, see in what terms you define the spirit, to better show the difference you put between it and your soul: "This soul, an output that comes from the breath of God, could not exist without its own sense and without the inner intelligence what we call spirits," you say.
A little further on, you add: "Although the soul animates the body, however, what feels, what judges, what enlivens is necessarily a spirit."
Finally, you also write: "The soul is one thing, the spirit, the discernment and sense of the soul is another thing." With these words you formulate very clearly the idea you have of the spirit, that you are the rational force by which our soul feels and understands. And when you speak of the sense of the soul, you do not mean the sense of the body, but the inner sense that is produced outwardly, by a statement that we call a sentence. This, then, is what essentially distinguishes us from animals, since they are deprived of reason.

154 Cf. Psalm 48:13.
155 Psalm 31:9.

These animals do not have, therefore, intelligence, the sense of reason, discernment, and they do not even have a soul. It's not about them that one talks about: Let the waters of a multitude of living beings swarm.
God created the sea monsters and all the multitude of living beings that fill the waters. Produce the earth living beings according to their species156?
So that you don't ignore anything, please note that, according to the language of the oracles, this soul is also called spirit and is called the spirit of animals. So these animals do not have, I think, this spirit, between which and the soul you make such a sharp distinction.
However, it is beyond doubt that the souls of animals could be called spirits, according to these words of Ecclesiastes: Who knows if the breath of life of the children of men rises to the heights and the breath of life of brutes descends to the earth?157
At the time of the flood, we also read: All creatures that moved on the earth were exterminated: birds, domestic animals, wild beasts, and everything that creeps on the earth, and all men.
Everything that breathes and breathes life on earth has perished158.
After such formal testimonies, hesitation is no longer possible and it must be concluded that the spirit is the generic name given to the soul.

156 Genesis 1:20,21 and 24. Producant aquae reptile animae viventis. Creavitque Deus cete grandia, etomnem anima viventem atquae motabilem, quam produxerant aquae in species its. Producat terra animam viventem in genere suo.

157 Ecclesiastes 3:21.
158 Genesis 7:21 and 22.

This word, finally, has such an extension that it suits even God159.
Even the atmospheric breath, which is corporeal, is called the spirit of a storm!160
In the face of such formal testimonies, in which the animal's soul, though deprived of intelligence and reason, is nevertheless called spirit, I am not in the right to conclude that henceforth you will not refuse the appellation of spirit? And if you have understood all that we have said about the disembodied soul, you should no longer be surprised to hear me knowingly affirm the incorporeality and spirituality of the soul. Have not all the possible reasons been put together to prove that the soul is not a body and is designated by the general term spirit?

159 John 4:24: God is spirit and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth.
160 Cf. Psalm 54:9. Exspectabam e a qui salvum me fecit pusillanimitate spritus et tempestate.

Chapter 38
Summary of Errors and Exhortation for Correction.

If then you receive and read these books with all the charity with which they were inspired and dictated to me, if you persevere in that commendable willingness you showed at the beginning of your work, to renounce all your opinions, if they seem unlikely to you161, First of all, please beware of these eleven propositions that I have pointed out to you in the preceding book162.

161 Book ch 2,

Say no more that "the soul comes from God, in the sense that it was created not from nothing, not from another nature, but from the very nature of God"; that "God creates indefinitely souls, as he himself has an indefinite existence"; that "the soul lost, through the flesh, the merit it had acquired before being united with the flesh"; that "the soul recovers, through the flesh, its primitive state"; that "it is through the flesh that she is reborn, as it was through the flesh that she deserved to be tainted"; that “before any sin the soul deserved to become a sinner”; that "children who died before they were regenerated by baptism obtain the remission of original sin"; what "those whom God predestined to baptism may be plucked out of that predestination and die before the Almighty has performed it in them"; that "it is to those who die without baptism that these words must be applied: He was raptured that malice might not corrupt his feeling , not even cunning perverted his soul163 and all the developments given to these words; that "among the numerous abodes which the Savior claims to exist in his Father's house, there are some that are outside the kingdom of God"164; that "the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ must be offered for thosenot even cunning perverted his soul163 and all the developments given to these words; that "among the numerous abodes which the Savior claims to exist in his Father's house, there are some that are outside the kingdom of God"164; that "the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ must be offered for thosenot even cunning perverted his soul163 and all the developments given to these words; that "among the numerous abodes which the Savior claims to exist in his Father's house, there are some that are outside the kingdom of God"164; that "the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ must be offered for those
who die without baptism”; that "among those who die without baptism, there are those who are temporarily received into paradise, to be admitted later to the beatitude of the kingdom of heaven."

162 Book III, ch. 22 and 23.
163 Wisdom 4:11.
164 John 14:2.

These are, my son, the main mistakes you must beware of and don't boast of your name Vicente, if you want to be Victor (victorious) over the mistake.
Don't think you know a thing when you ignore it, but in order to learn, learn to ignore it. It is not sinful to ignore anything in the secret works of God, but to recklessly consider known those which are not, and to produce is to defend the false rather than the true.
I say that I do not know whether God creates for every human being a new soul or whether the soul comes to us from our parents through the original transmission, although even in this case it is beyond doubt that the soul is directly created by God, without being taken away of its substance.
Now, this ignorance must not be reproved, or it must only be reproved for those who feel in the power to dispel it. For this, he must first of all confess that souls carry with themselves the simulacra or incorporeal representations of bodies; that these souls are not bodies; that even admitting a distinction between soul and spirit, the designation spirit universally suits the soul.
These are the propositions, I believe, upon which I think I have formed the convictions of your charity. Supposing, however, that I have not convinced you on this point, I assert nevertheless that one must have formed convictions about all these truths. Those who read these books will judge for themselves.

Chapter 39
Come see me.

Finally, if you want to know about all the other errors in your abundant work, come and meet me, no problem and no difficulty. It will not be a disciple who comes to meet a teacher, but a young man who will join an old man; a vigorous man I have seen: a sick man will be.
No doubt you won't have to publish such errors, but the great, the true glory in this case, is correcting and confessing the error, far more than receiving flattery from a liar.
As for those who watch your book read, I am sure that not everyone applauded the mistakes, that not everyone was discovered, and not everyone assumed that you voluntarily embraced them.
Given the impetuosity and ardor you put into your reading, you were unlikely to grasp the scope of each proposition. Indeed, those who could see the errors of your words did not praise in you the plain purity of truth, but the abundance of your speech and the explosion of your talent.
Does it not happen very often that a boy's eloquence is praised, exalted, and loved because of the hopes it gives rise to, even though he is not yet in the maturity and faith of a doctor?
If, then, you want to give every correction possible to your thoughts and ensure your eloquence, not only the applause of the crowds, but the earnest fruits of light and edification, despise these strange applause and seriously weigh the scope and value of your words .