Chapter 32: Of the Origin of the Reasonable Soul and the Derivation of Original Sin

The dignity of man in respect of his soul alone may be gathered from a consideration either of the whole, or of the parts thereof. Concerning the whole, we shall consider two things: its original, and its nature. Concerning the original of the soul, divers men have diversely thought; for, to let pass the opinion of Seleucus, who affirmed that it was educed out of the earth, and that of Origen and the Platonists, who say that the souls of men were long ago created, and after thrust down into the body as into a prison: there are three opinions touching this question. The first of those who affirm the traduction of the soul by generation, some of which so affirm because they judged [reconstructed: the soul] a corporeal substance, as did Tertullian. Others because they believed that one spirit might as easily proceed from another, as one fire or light be kindled by another: as Apollinarius, Nemesius, and divers in the Western churches, as St. Jerome witnesses. The second, of those who deny the natural traduction, and say that the soul is [reconstructed: immediately created and] infused into bodies organized and predisposed to receive them; of which opinion among the ancients were St. Jerome, Hilary, Ambrose, Lactantius, Theodoret, Aeneas Gazaeus, and of the modern writers the major part. The third is of those who hesitate, stick between both, and dare affirm nothing certain on either side, which is the moderation of St. Augustine and Gregory the Great, who affirm that this is a question incomprehensible and unsolvable in this life. Now the only reason which caused St. Austin to hesitate, seems to have been the difficulty of deriving original sin from the parents to the children. For says he (writing to St. Jerome touching the creation of the soul): if this opinion does not oppose that most fundamental faith of original sin, let it then be mine; but if it does oppose it, let it not be yours.

Now since that opinion which denies the traduction seems most agreeable to the spiritual substance of the soul, I shall here produce some few reasons for the creation, and solve an argument or two alleged for the traduction of the soul, reserving nonetheless to myself, and others, the liberty and modesty of St. Austin's hesitation, which also I find allowed by the Holy Ghost himself.

Two things there are of certainty in this point. First, that the soul is not any corporeal mass or substance measurable by quantity, or capable of substantial augmentation. Second, that the traduction of one thing out of another does connote these two things: that the thing traduced does derive being from the other, as from its original principle; and that this derivation be not any other manner of way, but by a seminal way, and the decision, separation, or effluxion of substance from the other. These things being laid, the arguments against traduction are these.

First, the testimonies of Holy Scripture, calling God the Father of spirits, as our natural parent the father of our bodies (Job 33:4; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Isaiah 57:16; Numbers 16:22; Numbers 27:16; Hebrews 12:9; Zechariah 12:1), which though they do not, according to the judgment of St. Augustine, conclude the point by infallible consequence, yet do they much favor the probability of this opinion.

Second, to have being by traduction is when the soul of the child is derived from the soul of the parent by the means of seed; but the seed of the parent cannot reach the generation of the soul, both because the one is a corporeal and the other a spiritual substance, incapable of augmentation or detriment. Now that which is spiritual cannot be produced out of that which is corporeal; neither can any seed be cut off or issue out from the soul, being a substance simple and indivisible.

Third, that which is separable from the body and can subsist and work without it does not depend in its being or making upon it; for if by the generation of the body the soul be generated, by the corruption of the body it would be corrupted, for everything that is generable is corruptible. But the soul can subsist and work without the body; therefore it does not from corporeal generation derive its being.

Fourth, if the soul be seminally traduced, it must be either from the body or from the soul of the parents. Not from the body, for it is impossible for that which is not a body to be made out of that which is a body, no cause being able to produce an effect out of its own sphere, and more noble than itself. Not from the soul, because that being a spiritual and impartible substance, can therefore have nothing severed from it by way of substantial seed to the constitution of another soul.

Fifth, if there be nothing taken from the parents of which the soul is formed, then it is not traduced by natural generation; but there is nothing taken from the parents by which the soul is formed, for then in all abortions and miscarrying conceptions the seed of the soul would perish, and by consequence the soul itself would be corruptible, as having its original from corruptible seed. These and divers other like arguments are used to confirm the doctrine touching the creation of the reasonable soul. To which may be added the judgment and testimony of some of the forecited Fathers. St. Jerome tells us that the original of the soul in mankind is not as in other living creatures, since, as our Savior speaks, the Father works until now. And the prophet Isaiah tells us that he forms the spirit of man within him, and frames the hearts of all men, as it is in the Psalms. And so Lactantius (whom I do wonder to find numbered among the authors that affirm the traduction of the soul, by Ruffinus, and the author of the dialogue among the works of Jerome): it may be questioned, says he, whether the soul be generated out of the father, mother, or both. Neither of all three is true, because the seed of the soul is not put into the body by either or both of these. A body may be born out of their bodies, because something may be contributed out of both; but a soul cannot be born out of their souls, inasmuch as from so spiritual and incomprehensible a substance nothing can issue forth or be severed for that use. So also St. Hilary: the soul of man is the work of God; the generation of the flesh is always of the flesh. And again, it is innate and an impressed belief in all that our souls have a divine original. And in like manner Theodoret: God, says he, frames the bodies of living creatures out of bodies subsisting before; but the souls, not of all creatures but of men only, he works [in non-Latin alphabet] out of nothing that had been before.

Against this doctrine of the soul's origin, the principal argument is drawn from the consideration of original sin, and the propagation thereof, which alone was that which troubled and staggered Saint Augustine in this point. For if the soul be not naturally traduced, how should original sin be derived from Adam to it? And if it were not in the loins of Adam, then neither did it sin in his loins; whereas the Apostle expressly tells us, that by one man sin came into the world, and that in one all have sinned; and that not only by imputed participation, but by natural propagation, deriving an inherent habitual pollution, which cleaves inseparably to the soul of every man that enters into the world, and is the fruit of Adam's loins.

To which argument — to omit the different resolutions of other men touching the pollution of the soul by the immediate contact of the flesh, and the parents attinging the ultimate disposition of the body, upon which naturally follows the union of the soul (God being pleased to work ordinarily according to the exigence of second causes, and not suffering any of them to be in vain for want of that concurrence, which he in the virtue of a first and supreme cause is to contribute to them) — I shall set down what I conceive to be the truth in this point.

First then, it is most certain that God did not implant original sin, nor take away original righteousness from man, but man by his prevarication and fall did cast it away, and contract sin, and so derive a defiled nature to his posterity. For as [reconstructed: Macarius] excellently speaks, Adam having transgressed, did [reconstructed: lose] the pure [reconstructed: possession] of his nature.

Secondly, original injustice as it is a sin, by the default and contraction of man, so it is also a punishment by the ordination and disposition of divine justice. It was man's sin to cast away the image of God; but it is God's just judgment (as he has that free dispensation of his own gifts) not to restore it again in such manner as at first he gave it to that nature which had so rejected and trampled on it.

Thirdly, in this original sin, there are two things considerable: the privation of that righteousness, which ought to be in us; and the lust or habitual concupiscence, which carries nature to inordinate motions. The privation and want of original justice is meritoriously from Adam, who did voluntarily deprave and reject that original rectitude which was put into him, which therefore God out of his most righteous and free disposition is pleased not to restore to his nature in his posterity again. In the habitual lust are considerable these two things [in non-Latin alphabet] the sinful disorder of it, and [in non-Latin alphabet] the punishment of sin by it. Consider it as a punishment of Adam's first prevarication; and so, though it be not efficiently from God, yet it falls under the order of his justice, who did most righteously forsake Adam, after his willful fall, and leave him in the hand of his own counsel, to transmit to us that seminary of sin which himself had contracted.

But if we consider it as a sin, we then say that the immediate and proper cause of it is lapsed nature whole and entire, by generation and seminal traduction derived upon us. But the [reconstructed: remote] cause is that from which we receive and derive this nature — nature, I say, first fallen; for to innocent nature belonged original righteousness, and not original sin.

2. Nature derived by ordinary generation as the fruit of the loins and of the womb. For though Christ had our nature, yet he had not our sin.

3. Nature whole and entire. For neither part (as some conceive) is the total spring and fountain of this sin. For it is improbable that any stain should be transfused from the body to the soul, as from the foul vessel to the clean water put into it. The body itself being not solely and alone in itself corrupt and sinful; else, all abortions and miscarrying conceptions should be subject to damnation. Nothing is the seat of sin which cannot be the seat of death, the wages of sin.

Original sin therefore most probably seems to arise by emanation, partial in the parts, total in the whole; from man's nature as guilty, forsaken, and accursed by God for the sin of Adam. And from the parts not considered absolutely in themselves, but by virtue of their concurrence and union, whereby both make up one compounded nature. Though then the soul be a partial subject or seat of original sin, yet we have not our sin and our soul from one author; because sin follows not the part, but the nature whole and entire. And though we have not from our parents Totum naturae, yet we have totam naturam — we have our whole nature, though not every part of our nature. Even as whole Christ was the Son of Mary, who therefore by virtue of the communication of properties in Christ, is justly called [in non-Latin alphabet], the Mother of God, against the Nestorians in the Council of Chalcedon. Though in regard of his divine nature, he was without beginning; and the reason is, because the integrity of nature arises from the union of the two parts together, which is perfected by generation. So then we say that Adam is the original and meritorious cause. Our next parents, the instrumental and immediate cause of this sin in us, not by way of physical emission or transmigration of sin from them to us, but by secret contagion, as Saint Augustine speaks. For having in the manner aforesaid from Adam by our parents received a nature, most justly forsaken by God, and lying under the guilt and curse of the first prevarication, from this nature thus derived, as guilty and accursed, does immediately and intimately flow habitual pollution. So then habitual concupiscence is from Adam alone, meritoriously, by reason of his first prevarication. From Adam by the mediation of our parents seminally, by natural generation. And from nature generated not as nature, but as in Adam guilty, forsaken, and accursed, by secret and ineffable resultancy and emanation. This is that which I conceive of this great difficulty, not unmindful in the mean time of that speech of Saint Augustine, that there is nothing more certain to be known, and yet nothing more secret to be understood, than original sin. For other arguments to prove the traduction of the soul, they are not of such moment; and therefore I pass them by, and proceed to the consideration of the soul in its nature.