Fisherman's Friend

A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin

edited by Philip Schaff · NPNF I

NPNF1-05. St. Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings

Contents (122 chapters)

  1. 1. Extract from Augustin’s Retractations.
  2. 2. Advertisement to the Reader on the Following Treatise.
  3. 3. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Renatus Had Done Him a Kindness by Sending Him the Books Which Had Been Addressed to Him.
  4. 4. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — He Receives with a Kindly and Patient Feeling the Books of a Young and Inexperienced Man Who Wrote Against Him in a Tone of Arrogance. Vincentius Victor Converted from the Sect of the Rogatians.
  5. 5. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Eloquence of Vincentius, Its Dangers and Its Tolerableness.
  6. 6. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Errors Contained in the Books of Vincentius Victor. He Says that the Soul Comes from God, But Was Not Made Either Out of Nothing or Out of Any Created Thing.
  7. 7. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Another of Victor’s Errors, that the Soul is Corporeal.
  8. 8. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Another Error Out of His Second Book, to the Effect, that the Soul Deserved to Be Polluted by the Body.
  9. 9. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Victor Entangles Himself in an Exceedingly Difficult Question. God’s Foreknowledge is No Cause of Sin.
  10. 10. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Victor’s Erroneous Opinion, that the Soul Deserved to Become Sinful.
  11. 11. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Victor Utterly Unable to Explain How the Sinless Soul Deserved to Be Made Sinful.
  12. 12. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Another Error of Victor’s, that Infants Dying Unbaptized May Attain to the Kingdom of Heaven. Another, that the Sacrifice of the Body of Christ Must Be Offered for Infants Who Die Before They are Baptized.
  13. 13. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Martyrdom for Christ Supplies the Place of Baptism. The Faith of the Thief Who Was Crucified Along with Christ Taken as Martyrdom and Hence for Baptism.
  14. 14. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Dinocrates, Brother of the Martyr St. Perpetua, is Said to Have Been Delivered from the State of Condemnation by the Prayers of the Saint.
  15. 15. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ Will Not Avail for Unbaptized Persons, and Can Not Be Offered for the Majority of Those Who Die Unbaptized.
  16. 16. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Victor’s Dilemma: He Must Either Say All Infants are Saved, or Else God Slays the Innocent.
  17. 17. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — God Does Not Judge Any One for What He Might Have Done If His Life Had Been Prolonged, But Simply for the Deeds He Actually Commits.
  18. 18. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Difficulty in the Opinion Which Maintains that Souls are Not by Propagation.
  19. 19. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — He Shows that the Passages of Scripture Adduced by Victor Do Not Prove that Souls are Made by God in Such a Way as Not to Be Derived by Propagation: First Passage.
  20. 20. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — By ‘Breath’ Is Signified Sometimes the Holy Spirit.
  21. 21. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Meaning of ‘Breath’ In Scripture.
  22. 22. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Other Ways of Taking the Passage.
  23. 23. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Second Passage Quoted by Victor.
  24. 24. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Victor’s Third Quotation.
  25. 25. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — His Fourth Quotation.
  26. 26. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Whether or No the Soul is Derived by Natural Descent (Ex Traduce), His Cited Passages Fail to Show.
  27. 27. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Just as the Mother Knows Not Whence Comes Her Child Within Her, So We Know Not Whence Comes the Soul.
  28. 28. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Fifth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor.
  29. 29. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Augustin Did Not Venture to Define Anything About the Propagation of the Soul.
  30. 30. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — A Natural Figure of Speech Must Not Be Literally Pressed.
  31. 31. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Sixth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor.
  32. 32. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Danger of Arguing from Silence.
  33. 33. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Argument of the Apollinarians to Prove that Christ Was Without the Human Soul of This Same Sort.
  34. 34. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Self-Contradiction of Victor as to the Origin of the Soul.
  35. 35. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Augustin Has No Objection to the Opinion About the Propagation of Souls Being Refuted, and that About Their Insufflation Being Maintained.
  36. 36. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — The Mistakes Which Must Be Avoided by Those Who Say that Men’s Souls are Not Derived from Their Parents, But are Afresh Inbreathed by God in Every Instance.
  37. 37. Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin — Conclusion.
  38. 38. Book II — Depraved Eloquence an Injurious Accomplishment.
  39. 39. Book II — He Asks What the Great Knowledge is that Victor Imparts.
  40. 40. Book II — The Difference Between the Senses of the Body and Soul.
  41. 41. Book II — To Believe the Soul is a Part of God is Blasphemy.
  42. 42. Book II — In What Sense Created Beings are Out of God.
  43. 43. Book II — Shall God’s Nature Be Mutable, Sinful, Impious, Even Eternally Damned.
  44. 44. Book II — To Think the Soul Corporeal an Error.
  45. 45. Book II — The Thirst of the Rich Man in Hell Does Not Prove the Soul to Be Corporeal.
  46. 46. Book II — How Could the Incorporeal God Breathe Out of Himself a Corporeal Substance?
  47. 47. Book II — Children May Be Found of Like or of Unlike Dispositions with Their Parents.
  48. 48. Book II — Victor Implies that the Soul Had a ‘State’ And ‘Merit’ Before Incarnation.
  49. 49. Book II — How Did the Soul Deserve to Be Incarnated?
  50. 50. Book II — Victor Teaches that God Thwarts His Own Predestination.
  51. 51. Book II — Victor Sends Those Infants Who Die Unbaptized to Paradise and the Heavenly Mansions, But Not to the Kingdom of Heaven.
  52. 52. Book II — Victor ‘Decides’ That Oblations Should Be Offered Up for Those Who Die Unbaptized.
  53. 53. Book II — Victor Promises to the Unbaptized Paradise After Their Death, and the Kingdom of Heaven After Their Resurrection, Although He Admits that This Opposes Christ’s Statement.
  54. 54. Book II — Disobedient Compassion and Compassionate Disobedience Reprobated. Martyrdom in Lieu of Baptism.
  55. 55. Book II — Victor’s Dilemma and Fall.
  56. 56. Book II — Victor Relies on Ambiguous Scriptures.
  57. 57. Book II — Victor Quotes Scriptures for Their Silence, and Neglects the Biblical Usage.
  58. 58. Book II — Victor’s Perplexity and Failure.
  59. 59. Book II — Peter’s Responsibility in the Case of Victor.
  60. 60. Book II — Who They are that are Not Injured by Reading Injurious Books.
  61. 61. Book III — Augustin’s Purpose in Writing.
  62. 62. Book III — Why Victor Assumed the Name of Vincentius. The Names of Evil Men Ought Never to Be Assumed by Other Persons.
  63. 63. Book III — He Enumerates the Errors Which He Desires to Have Amended in the Books of Vincentius Victor. The First Error.
  64. 64. Book III — Victor’s Simile to Show that God Can Create by Breathing Without Impartation of His Substance.
  65. 65. Book III — Examination of Victor’s Simile: Does Man Give Out Nothing by Breathing?
  66. 66. Book III — The Simile Reformed in Accordance with Truth.
  67. 67. Book III — Victor Apparently Gives the Creative Breath to Man Also.
  68. 68. Book III — Victor’s Second Error. (See Above in Book I. 26 [XVI.].)
  69. 69. Book III — His Third Error. (See Above in Book II. 11 [VII.].)
  70. 70. Book III — His Fourth Error. (See Above in Book I. 6 [VI.] and Book II. 11 [VII.].)
  71. 71. Book III — His Fifth Error. (See Above in Book I. 8 [VIII.] and Book II. 12 [VIII.].)
  72. 72. Book III — His Sixth Error. (See Above in Book I. 10-12 [IX., X.], and in Book II. 13, 14 [IX., X.].)
  73. 73. Book III — His Seventh Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)
  74. 74. Book III — His Eighth Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)
  75. 75. Book III — His Ninth Error. (See Above in Book II. 14 [X.].)
  76. 76. Book III — God Rules Everywhere: and Yet the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ May Not Be Everywhere.
  77. 77. Book III — Where the Kingdom of God May Be Understood to Be.
  78. 78. Book III — His Tenth Error. (See Above in Book I. 13 [XI.] and Book II. 15 [XI.]).
  79. 79. Book III — His Eleventh Error. (See Above in Book I. 15 [XII.] and Book II. 16.)
  80. 80. Book III — Augustin Calls on Victor to Correct His Errors. (See Above in Book II. 22 [XVI.].)
  81. 81. Book III — Augustin Compliments Victor’s Talents and Diligence.
  82. 82. Book III — A Summary Recapitulation of the Errors of Victor.
  83. 83. Book III — Obstinacy Makes the Heretic.
  84. 84. Book IV. — The Personal Character of This Book.
  85. 85. Book IV. — The Points Which Victor Thought Blameworthy in Augustin.
  86. 86. Book IV. — How Much Do We Know of the Nature of the Body?
  87. 87. Book IV. — Is the Question of Breath One that Concerns the Soul, or Body, or What?
  88. 88. Book IV. — God Alone Can Teach Whence Souls Come.
  89. 89. Book IV. — Questions About the Nature of the Body are Sufficiently Mysterious, and Yet Not Higher Than Those of the Soul.
  90. 90. Book IV. — We Often Need More Teaching as to What is Most Intimately Ours Than as to What is Further from Us.
  91. 91. Book IV. — We Have No Memory of Our Creation.
  92. 92. Book IV. — Our Ignorance of Ourselves Illustrated by the Remarkable Memory of One Simplicius.
  93. 93. Book IV. — The Fidelity of Memory; The Unsearchable Treasure of Memory; The Powers of a Man’s Understanding Sufficiently Understood by None.
  94. 94. Book IV. — The Apostle Peter Told No Lie, When He Said He Was Ready to Lay Down His Life for the Lord, But Only Was Ignorant of His Will.
  95. 95. Book IV. — The Apostle Paul Could Know the Third Heaven and Paradise, But Not Whether He Was in the Body or Not.
  96. 96. Book IV. — In What Sense the Holy Ghost is Said to Make Intercession for Us.
  97. 97. Book IV. — It is More Excellent to Know That the Flesh Will Rise Again and Live for Evermore, Than to Learn Whatever Scientific Men Have Been Able to Teach Us Concerning Its Nature.
  98. 98. Book IV. — We Must Not Be Wise Above What is Written.
  99. 99. Book IV. — Ignorance is Better Than Error. Predestination to Eternal Life, and Predestination to Eternal Death.
  100. 100. Book IV. — A Twofold Question to Be Treated Concerning the Soul; Is It ‘Body’? and is It ‘Spirit’? What Body is.
  101. 101. Book IV. — The First Question, Whether the Soul is Corporeal; Breath and Wind, Nothing Else Than Air in Motion.
  102. 102. Book IV. — Whether the Soul is a Spirit.
  103. 103. Book IV. — The Body Does Not Receive God’s Image.
  104. 104. Book IV. — Recognition and Form Belong to Souls as Well as Bodies.
  105. 105. Book IV. — Names Do Not Imply Corporeity.
  106. 106. Book IV. — Figurative Speech Must Not Be Taken Literally.
  107. 107. Book IV. — Abraham’s Bosom—What It Means.
  108. 108. Book IV. — The Disembodied Soul May Think of Itself Under a Bodily Form.
  109. 109. Book IV. — St. Perpetua Seemed to Herself, in Some Dreams, to Have Been Turned into a Man, and Then Have Wrestled with a Certain Egyptian.
  110. 110. Book IV. — Is the Soul Wounded When the Body is Wounded?
  111. 111. Book IV. — Is the Soul Deformed by the Body’s Imperfections?
  112. 112. Book IV. — Does the Soul Take the Body’s Clothes Also Away with It?
  113. 113. Book IV. — Is Corporeity Necessary for Recognition?
  114. 114. Book IV. — Modes of Knowledge in the Soul Distinguished.
  115. 115. Book IV. — Inconsistency of Giving the Soul All the Parts of Sex and Yet No Sex.
  116. 116. Book IV. — The Phenix After Death Coming to Life Again.
  117. 117. Book IV. — Prophetic Visions.
  118. 118. Book IV. — Do Angels Appear to Men in Real Bodies?
  119. 119. Book IV. — He Passes on to the Second Question About the Soul, Whether It is Called Spirit.
  120. 120. Book IV. — Wide and Narrow Sense of the Word 'Spirit.'
  121. 121. Book IV. — Victor’s Chief Errors Again Pointed Out.
  122. 122. Book IV. — Concluding Admonition.

Source: CCEL