Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

Three things above all come to be determined in the present Question: First, whether the rational soul is a substance wholly spiritual and devoid of matter: Second, whether it is incorruptible and immortal: Third, whether it is from traduction, that is, whether as the human body is formed from a particle cut off from the body of the parents, so also the soul of the child is handed down to posterity by the continuous propagation of the parent's soul.

Note 1. Not only did the Gentile Philosophers err in designating the substance of the soul, which all of them, as has just been said, affirmed to be something corporeal; but also certain defenders of Christian truth. For above all Tertullian, lib. De anima, cap. 5. to 11. proves the rational soul to be corporeal, or at least to be overlaid with a body of its own kind. Since, he saith in cap. 8. we assert the body of the soul to be of its own quality, and of its own kind: this condition of property has already proclaimed the other accidents to be corpulent, so that we not only show these things to exist as body, but also by its own pro-corporeal property of its own kind, that even if they are not present, this property is not absent from the body of the soul, as also from other bodies in which they are present. And although Saint Augustine, lib. 10. De Genesi ad litteram, in the last two chapters, judges that the soul can be explained as incorporeal, where he says: Tertullian, because he believed the soul to be corporeal, for no other reason than that he could not think it incorporeal: and therefore he feared that it would be nothing if it were not a body: who indeed, although acute, is at times surpassed in the truth against his own opinion; nevertheless Tertullian truly judged the soul to be truly corporeal, and overlaid with matter, though more subtle: which he certainly proves not only by various texts of Scripture, and likewise by philosophical reasons to be proposed and resolved below; but also by a certain prophetic revelation which he expounds thus in cap. 9. There is today among us a sister who has received the gift of revelations, which she suffers in the Church amid the Sunday solemnities by ecstasy in the spirit: she converses with Angels, and at times even with the Lord; and she sees and hears the mysteries, and discerns the hearts of certain ones, and submits remedies to those who desire them. Now, just as the Scriptures are read, or the Psalms are sung, or addresses are delivered, or petitions are offered: so from these matter is supplied to her visions. Perhaps we had been discussing something of the Soul, when that Sister was in the spirit. After the solemnities were completed and the people dismissed, as is customary she reported to us what she had seen; for these things are most diligently recorded, that they may also be tested: Among other things, she said, the Soul was shown to me corporally, and the spirit seemed to be a body; yet not empty and void of quality, but one that would even promise to be held, tender, and luminous, and of airy color, and in form throughout human: This is the vision: God is witness, and the Apostle fit sponsor of the charisms of things to come in the Church, etc. Therefore Tertullian seems to have been led astray to that absurdity concerning a soul of airy and luminous color by certain false revelations of a certain Montanist woman — not indeed Prisca or Maximilla, who had long before perished by hanging — but of a certain Disciple of theirs, deceived by a demon.

Note 2. That the opinion concerning the incorruption and immortality of the rational soul was various among the ancient Philosophers; for the most part they said it was altogether mortal, with the Epicureans and Atheists, to whom must be numbered all who affirmed it to be composed, dissoluble, and divisible: For if it is structile, that is composed, saith Tertullian in cap. 11. of the same book De Anima, and dissoluble: if dissoluble, it is already not immortal... For to be divided is to be dissolved, and to be dissolved is to die. But it is divided into parts, now into two by Plato, now into three by Zeno, now into five and six by Galen, and into seven by Soranus, even into eight according to Chrysippus, even into nine besides Apollophanes, but also into ten according to certain Stoics. What Aristotle thought here, however, is sufficiently ambiguous, because he speaks variously and obscurely: nevertheless in lib. 2. De ortu animalium, cap. 3. he says plainly that mind alone enters the body from without, and that mind alone is divine: since its operation shares nothing with the corporeal operation. And since he teaches that the other souls are ingenerated in matter by the force of the seed, because all their operation depends upon the body, he gathers that the human soul is not born by the force of the seed, but comes from without, because it does not depend upon the body; and so he seems to think it to be incorporeal and immaterial.

Note 3. From the Seraphic Doctor, lib. 2. d. 18. q. 2. a. 2. 3., as regards the formation of the soul there are chiefly three opinions: for certain Philosophers said it is formed by an Intelligence; so that as the celestial body concurs in the production of the human body, so the Intelligence in the production of the soul: in which manner the author of the book De Causis seems to have thought, Propositions 11. and 16. The second opinion was that the production of souls takes place by traduction, so that soul is traduced from soul, as flesh from flesh: and as many candles are lit from one candle, so from one soul, by its communication without diminution, many bodies are vivified... Concerning which Saint Augustine hesitated, in doubt even unto death, as will appear in Concl. 3. — The third opinion is that souls are not sown, but are created by God when the bodies are formed, so that they are infused in creating, and produced in infusing.

First Conclusion. — The rational soul is truly spiritual according to substance, and altogether devoid of every body and of matter.

This is of faith. Proof 1. From Ecclus. 12. Let the dust return into its earth, and the spirit to God. 1. Corinth. cap. 2. What man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man which is in him? And this was sanctioned under anathema in the Council of Lateran, under Innocent III., where it is defined that the Soul of which man is constituted is spiritual. Likewise in the sixth Synod of Constantinople, Action 11. it is decreed that the divine Word assumed flesh, and an incorporeal rational soul.

Therefore this proposition is of faith, held by almost all the holy Fathers, especially Saint Augustine, lib. De Civitate Dei, cap. 9. and lib. De Genesi, cap. 21. and following, where he refutes the aforesaid error of Tertullian. Now the spirituality of the soul is urged by many reasons. First indeed: operation follows upon being: but the soul elicits spiritual operations: therefore it is spiritual. The major is evident: for operation depends upon the substance and entity of the thing operating: therefore if the entity be material, the operations will likewise be material; and consequently where spiritual operations are, there is likewise a spiritual substance. The minor is proved: that which is borne into the object, abstracted and freed from all concretion of matter, is also immaterial and spiritual: but the operations of our soul are of this kind: therefore, etc. The Doctor proves the minor in 1. dist. 13. qu. 2. n. 10: Our intellect contemplates in Metaphysics things most abstracted from matter, singulars and universals; negatives and positives; possibles and impossibles; existent and non-existent things; sensible and insensible; it attains material and spiritual things: therefore by a spiritual operation and faculty; for no corporeal faculty perceives spiritual objects. — Cassiodorus expends and confirms this reason thus, lib. De anima, cap. 1. Although, he saith, the soul is weighed down by the mass of its body, yet it weighs the operations of things with solicitous curiosity, thinks profoundly on celestial things, tracks natural things with subtle investigation, and desires to know something even of its own Maker. But if it were corporeal, it certainly would not discern spiritual things in its thoughts, nor see them. Let suspicion of its corporeality therefore cease: since it renders itself alien in every way from the definition of body, and seeks out such causes as only a sublime spirit strives to reach. Hence it is that by the sounding Scriptures it is most justly admonished to contemn all the visible things of this world, because it itself is incorporeal: that it may deservedly tend toward spiritual things, by which it knows itself to have been formed like unto them. — It is confirmed from the author of the book De Spiritu et anima found among the works of Saint Augustine, tom. 3. who says: The mind is invisible, for otherwise it will not be able to discern invisible things. It sees visible things through the body, invisible things through itself: and it sees itself in itself; what it sees in itself as visible, it nevertheless seems to see in the body through the body, as the sense remains in the letter, and is seen through the letter. The mind, the ruler, governor, and dweller of the body, sees itself through itself. It seeks not the aid of bodily eyes, but rather withdraws itself to itself from all the bodily senses as hindering and clamoring, that it may see itself in itself, that it may know itself from itself, and when it wills to know God, it raises itself above itself by the keenness of mind. For God is not such a thing as the mind is; yet He cannot be seen except by the mind, nor so seen as the mind can be seen. For truth is unchangeable, without defect of substance; such is not the mind: but it fails and prospers, it is harmed and is ignorant, it remembers and forgets: now it wills, now it wills not, and diffused in thoughts and counsels it wanders hither and thither, etc. — He urges this same truth in cap. 19. Invisible, he saith, and incorporeal is the soul: for if it were visible, it would be corporeal; and if corporeal, it would be partible, and would have parts, nor could it be wholly at once in one place. For no body can either be touched whole at once, or touch whole at once. But the soul, in whatever of its motions or acts, is wholly present at once: it sees wholly, and remembers wholly the things seen: it hears wholly, and recalls wholly the sounds: it smells wholly, and recollects wholly the odors: it wholly tastes and discerns savors by tongue and palate: it wholly touches both hard and soft things: it wholly approves or disapproves at once: but it wholly discerns hot or cold things with the tip of a finger alone.

It is wholly sight, wholly hearing, it wholly remembers: and since it wholly remembers, it is wholly memory: since it wholly wills, it is wholly will: since it wholly thinks, it is wholly thought; since it wholly loves, it is wholly love. Therefore it is not corporeal; since body is divisible into parts, nor can so diverse things be wrought by one power. — Saint Augustine confirms the same, Epist. 27. to Saint Jerome, where he says: Moreover, if body is nothing but what is set or moved through the space of a place with some length, breadth, height, so that with its greater part it occupies a greater place, with its lesser a lesser, and is less in the part than in the whole: the soul is not a body: for through the whole body which it animates it is extended not by local diffusion, but by a certain vital intension: for it is wholly present at once through all its particles, not less in the lesser and greater in the greater: but in some place more intense, in some more remiss, and whole in all, and whole in each: for otherwise, that which senses in even a part of the body, yet senses wholly..... Therefore it could not be wholly present at once both in all and in the single particles of its body, if it were diffused through them as we see bodies diffused through the space of places occupy less with their lesser parts and more with their greater: wherefore if the soul must be called a body, it would not be a body such as the earthly is, nor such as the humid or airy or aethereal, for all those are greater in greater places and lesser in lesser, and none of them is whole present in any part of itself: but as parts of places are, so they are occupied by parts of bodies. And although here he does not plainly pronounce the soul to be altogether devoid of matter; yet he expresses the same distinctly elsewhere, especially in the Treatise on Ps. 145. For always the body, he saith, because it is body, is beneath the mind; and thou askest, O soul, by what most excellent body thou art found to be more excellent. Again in the same Treatise: The nature, he saith, of the soul is more excellent than the nature of the body: it excels greatly, it is a spiritual thing, an incorporeal thing: it is near to the substance of God. The same he teaches also in book twelve De Genesi ad litteram, cap. 32. and 33. and in book 8. De Civit. Dei, cap. 16.

You will object. 1. From sacred Scripture it is urged that the soul is corporeal: therefore it must be so judged. Tertullian proves the antecedent in the book De anima, cap. 1. The corporeality of the soul, he saith, shines forth in Paradise itself; for the soul of a certain one grieves in hell, and is punished in flame, and tortured in the tongue, and implores from the finger of the happier soul the solace of a drop of water. You think that the departure of the poor man exulting and the rich man mourning is an image! But what is the name of Lazarus there, if it is not the thing in truth? and even if the image is to be believed, it will be a testimony of the truth: for if the soul had not a body, the image of the soul would not take on the image of a body, nor would Scripture lie about bodily members; if they were not. He concludes: Therefore if the soul perceived any torment, or solace, in the prison, or inn of hell, in the fire, or in the bosom of Abraham, the corporeality of the soul will be proved: for incorporality suffers nothing, having nothing through which it can suffer: or if it has this, it will be body; inasmuch as every corporeal thing is passible: in so far as it is passible, it is corporeal.

I answer 1. It can be said with Saint Augustine that Tertullian believed the soul corporeal because he could not think it incorporeal; and therefore he feared it would be nothing if it were not a body: for Tertullian himself says in the same place: For it is nothing if not body... By a like reason these words of Saint Hilary can be explained, Comment. on cap. 5. of Saint Matthew: There is nothing which in its substance and creation is corporeal, and the elements of all things, whether in heaven or in earth, whether visible or invisible, were formed. For even the species of souls, whether of those possessing bodies or of those exiled from bodies, nevertheless receive a corporeal substance of their nature: because everything created must be in something. Even thus, or otherwise, must that be restricted which John bishop of Thessalonica says, in the Synod of Nicaea II. at the beginning of Action V. concerning the Angels and archangels and their powers, to which I join also our own souls: the catholic Church itself here holds them to be indeed intelligible, but not altogether devoid of body, endowed with a thin body of things, air, or fire, etc. Afterwards indeed he would call either angels, or demons, or souls incorporeal. Nor are those words of John rejected by the others who were present at the Synod. These things, I say, are to be taken in the same sense as the aforesaid words of Tertullian, namely that corporeal is said of that which has a solid entity, not indeed a fictitious or chimerical one, as we have said more fully already in treating of the immateriality of God; nor can the contrary be evinced from those words of Saint Luke which Tertullian adduces; for from them it is not licit to conclude that the soul is corporeal, as Saint Augustine at length deduces, lib. 1. De anima et eius origine, to Vincentius Victor, who lay in the same error as Tertullian. Claudian proves the same, lib. 3. De statu animae, cap. 3. contra Faustum, asserting likewise that these members of the soul are to be interpreted not corporally, but spiritually and metaphorically; so that Christ the Lord willed by those wrappings of the parable to delineate the bitterness of inward punishments.

You will say 2. From the same Tertullian in the same place cap. 5. the passions of corporeal and incorporeal things do not communicate with one another: But the soul suffers with the body, when it aches at its being stricken by blows, wounds, ulcers: and the body shrinks at the soul's being afflicted by care, anguish, love, through the loss of its vigor, whose shame and dread it testifies by blushing and pallor. Therefore the soul is a body, from the communication of the passions of corporeal things. — I distinguish the major: spiritual things do not communicate in passions with corporeal things, as to entity and effect, I concede; as to conjunction and affection, I deny: for since incorporeal things are united to corporeal things as forms informing them, that they may make one something, as the rational soul is united to the body with which it integrates and constitutes man, it is necessary that a mutual communication of passions take place, so that the soul grieve while the body suffers; not indeed by the reception of corporeal pain, but by the affection with which it pursues its own body, as its own companion and its native dwelling. — I confess, however, that Tertullian can scarcely be excused from the error of those who judge the soul to consist of a most subtle body, by reason of which it is visible at least in ecstasy. The same Tertullian produces examples of this kind, lib. De anima; but this opinion of his must be reckoned among those which are reproved by the Church.

Second Conclusion. — The rational soul is truly immortal and incorruptible.

This is of faith. It is proved by innumerable texts of sacred Scripture, to be drawn both from the Old and from the New Testament. Especially indeed from that of Wisdom 3. The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and their reward is with the Most High, and the torment of death shall not touch them: in the eyes of the foolish they seemed to die; but they are in peace. And if they have been placed in torments before men, their hope is full of immortality. He calls them foolish who think that souls die and are dissolved together with bodies. Hence in the same place cap. 5. he introduces those fools doing penance too late in hell, and groaning through anguish of spirit at the sight of the happy lot of souls, bursting forth into these words: These are they whom we sometime had in derision, and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor: behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the Saints: from which they infer this wonderful and most certain consequence; Therefore we have erred from the way of truth and justice, the light hath not shone unto us, and the sun of understanding hath not risen upon us. What more openly for establishing the immortality of souls? what more efficaciously for reproving the blindness and impudence of the wicked? — We should never finish if I strove here to copy out all the authorities and sayings which in the New Testament establish the immortality of our souls: for no page occurs in it to be read which does not treat of the rewards or punishments of eternal life, of the recompense or the punishment promised to the wicked after death. I bring forward one alone, namely that oracle of Christ the Lord, Matth. 10. by which He sweetly consoles us with blandishment, and warns that the destruction of the body is not to be feared; Fear ye not, he saith, them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul. As if He would say, saith Saint Jerome: Fear not the malediction of bodily death, which is dissolved temporally. Fear the malediction of spiritual death, by which the soul is crucified eternally with its body. Man cannot kill thy soul; it reaches even to the body: do not thou serve thy soul: the presence of thy soul is snatched: he can cast out the present one, but not kill thy soul.

I pass over the sayings of all the holy Fathers on this matter, who all together with Saint Clement, lib. 6. Constitut. Apost., cap. 11. burst forth into these words: We firmly maintain the soul to be incorporeal and immortal, nor that it perishes as bodies do, but that by a perpetual gift it is endowed as a partaker of reason and liberty. Here I do not recount the opinions of the ancient Philosophers on this matter: for it is evident that the wiser among them professed the immortality of souls, as is gathered from Cicero, lib. De Amicitia: The authority, he saith, of the ancients, or of our forefathers, weighs more with me. who bestowed so religious rights upon the dead, which they would not have done if they had judged the soul to perish together with the body.

This same is urged by Physical and Moral reason; of which the first is drawn from the spirituality of the soul. Every spiritual being is immortal and incorruptible: but the soul is spiritual, as was proved in the preceding Conclusion: therefore, etc. The major, in which there might be difficulty, is proved: First, because matter is called the principle of corruption: but that which is spiritual does not involve matter: therefore neither the principle of corruption. Second, because a spiritual being, if it could be corrupted, would be corrupted either by itself, or by nothing, or by another. Not by nothing, because a real being is not corrupted except by that which is real; for of nothing nothing is made. Nor yet by itself, because nothing desires the ceasing of itself; rather, with natural desire stimulating, all things covet the perpetual conservation of themselves. If by another, it is corrupted either by another of inferior virtue, or of equal, or of superior. Not the first, because that which is inferior in virtue cannot corrupt that which is more excellent in virtue; otherwise a drop of water could extinguish a burning torch, and a spark could heat and burn the whole Ocean. Nor yet the second: for that which corrupts another overcomes its resistive virtue, and has over it a dominion of activity: for equal has not power over equal, nor does like act upon like. Finally not the third, because God alone possesses a virtue superior to souls: but God, although He can, yet with equity ought not to annihilate rational souls together with the body. — The moral reason is drawn from the providence of God. By natural light it is evident that God provides for all things; whence among all nations, even barbarous ones, there has always existed the cult, observance, and religion of some deity: and whether they will or no, the Atheists must confess that God is, and that human affairs are cared for, since in sudden and urgent peril by natural instinct they cry out for God to be propitious to them: but the providence of God would be of little account if souls were mortal. It is proved: that the dispensation of the divine providence may be worthy and equitable, it ought to decree rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked: but this does not happen in this mortal life; for that I may speak with the words of Saint Chrysostom, Homil. 1. De Providentia: Many, he saith, impious in mortal life, who more often lead a prosperous life, abound in riches, rejoice in health: but the good and studious patiently bear adversities: therefore there would not seem to be an equitable distribution, nor a providence worthy of God, unless there were another life, in which the wicked pay the merited punishments and the just receive worthy rewards: but if there be another life, in which God justly recompenses the good and the evil, the soul will be a survivor after the body, and immortal.

They will reply, that the good are rewarded in this life, and the wicked tormented: For virtue, saith Seneca, is a reward unto itself: but sin its own punishment, according to that of Saint Augustine, lib. 1. Confessionum, c. 12. Thou hast commanded, O Lord, and so it is, that every sinner be a punishment to himself: so that sin itself may be the punishment of sin, as the Doctor adds in 1. dist. 1. quaest. 2. n. 27. — Against this, 1. This being posited, all men would have to be permitted to live as each one pleases, and the criminal let go, who would be more wretched in his crime than under tortures and punishments — which no one even of the least reason would admit. Second, those would have to be condemned as mad who met a glorious death for the sake of their Country, or their Parent, or virtue, or even of God Himself, if beyond present virtue there remained no reward of it. Why do we extol with encomia and celebrate with praises those who were less devoted to the comforts and pleasures of this life even unto death, if after death there remains to them no felicity to be hoped for? God could be judged unjust if He should bestow no rewards after life upon those who offered themselves to torments and an ignominious death for defending His religion, worship, and glory: and should allow their murderers, usurpers of goods, subverters of commonwealths, blasphemers, adulterers, homicides, to go immune and glorying in their crimes? Saint Peter used this argument; who, as Saint Clement his disciple relates, lib. 3. Recognitionum, testifies that he heard these words from him often: If God is just, the rational soul is immortal.

You will object. 1. From Ecclesiastes cap. 3. The death of men and of beasts is alike, and the condition of both is one rest: but while beasts die their souls perish: therefore, etc. — I answer that these words were uttered in the person of the impious, who, that they may gorge themselves more freely with every bodily pleasure after the manner of beasts, pronounce their soul mortal. Whence Wisdom 2. has it thus: The impious said among themselves, thinking not aright: Small is our time and tedious, and there is no refreshment at the end of man: and there is none who has been known to return from hell, because we are born of nothing; and after this we shall be as if we had not been: and shortly after they added: Come therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present, etc.

You will say 2. God alone is said to be immortal, ad Timoth. 6. in these words: He is King of kings, and Lord of lords, who alone hath immortality: therefore the rational soul does not rejoice in immortality.

I answer: that a twofold immortality can be distinguished, whereof the first denies every corruptive power, both from without and from within, and this belongs to God alone, because since He exists necessarily of Himself it cannot be implied that He could be annihilated by another. The second denies the principle of corruption from within, namely matter: but it can be corrupted from without, namely by the divine power, which since it formed all things out of nothing, can by the same reduce them again into nothing. Of the former immortality speaks the Apostle, we indeed of the latter. In that sense the holy Fathers must be understood who say the soul and Angels are immortal by grace, not by nature. Thus Saint Damascene lib. 2. cap. 3. De Angelis: Immortal, he saith, is the Angel, not by nature, but by grace, for whatever has had a beginning can also cease by its own nature. And against the heresy of the Manichaeans: Everything, he saith, that has a beginning has also an end by its own nature: and what has an end has also a beginning. Wherefore the Angels have a beginning, and have also an end of their nature, although by divine grace they again begin to be, and are renewed. — Sophronius of Jerusalem expounds the same beautifully in the Epistle found in the acts of the sixth Synod, action 11. where he conveniently opens also the distinction between sensible and spiritual creatures thus: God, he saith, willed indeed that those things which fall under sense end in time, but He willed to honor intelligible and invisible things with greater honor than these. Therefore they die in no way, nor are corrupted, as happens to sensible things, which are placed in flux and easily pass away. Yet neither are they immortal by nature, as if they had made a passage to incorrupt substance; but grace indulged them, which vindicates them from corruption and destruction. So do the souls of men remain devoid of corruption. So did the Angels pre-exist immortal, not because they have a truly incorrupt nature, as we said, or consist of a properly immortal substance: but because they obtained by divine gift a grace bestowing immortality and procuring incorruptibility. — Hence mortal and immortal names are used threefold among the holy Fathers, for that which is mutable, and affected now one way now another, is called mortal, even though it never dies; For mutability itself, saith Saint Augustine 2. De Trinit., cap. 6. is not unfittingly called mortality, according to which the soul also is said to die, not because it is changed and converted into body, or into some other substance: but in its very substance whatever is otherwise now, or was, according to that whereby it ceases to be what it was, is apprehended in mortality. By which reason only that is called immortal which is altogether immutable. Second, that is called mortal which by divine power can be reduced into nothing; thus both soul and Angels can be called even mortals, because since they were created by God out of nothing, so by Him they can pass into nothing. Third finally, that is called immortal which lacks an intrinsic principle of corruption and defectibility; and thus both Angels and rational souls, since they are wholly spiritual, are truly immortal.

You will say 3. That soul whose every operation and function depends upon a bodily organ cannot subsist separately from the body: but the rational soul is such: therefore it cannot subsist separated, and so perishes together with the body. The major is Aristotle's, lib. 1. De Anima, cap. 1. text 13. and is made manifest by reason; for since being is for the sake of operation, in that state in which the soul cannot have operation, it cannot have being either: for that being would be frustraneous, deprived of its end; but God and nature do nothing in vain. But the minor is proved, namely that every function of the rational soul depends upon the body: First, because it is evident that we cannot understand anything, nor judge about a thing understood, unless at the same time we fashion and imagine in the mind some corporeal similitude of it, so much so that we cannot conceive even spiritual and divine things otherwise; whence Aristotle lib. 3. De Anima, cap. 13. text 39. when the mind contemplates, he saith, it is necessary at the same time to contemplate some phantasm. Second, because experience shows that when the passages of the animal spirits are intercepted, as happens in syncope and apoplexy, man is suddenly deprived of all use of reason, which is a sign that the use of reason depends upon the spirits and the disposition of the brain.

I answer with Lessius, lib. 2. De procidentia Numinis, num. 23., as to the major, that the operation of the soul depends upon a bodily organ in two ways: first per se and immediately; second medially and per accidens. If it depended in the first way, I concede the major, namely that such a soul cannot exist separate from the body, such as are the souls of brute animals. But if the soul depends on the body only per accidens, I deny the major, because that which belongs per accidens, and only through another, can fail. Now the operations of the rational soul depend on the body only per accidens, which is evident from many signs. First, for the function of the intellect consists chiefly in judging; yet for judging, phantasy and that corporeal similitude help in no way; but rather impede, and furnish occasion of error: whence the intellect ought not follow the conception of phantasy, nor judge according to its mode and species; but correct it by its own light, that it may attain truth itself. But if so great is the force of the intellect that it corrects the crudeness and errors of phantasy, and attains liquid truth placed far above the grasp of phantasy, it is evident that it does not depend on phantasy per se according to its substance. Second, because we desire above all to understand spiritual things, which do not fall under phantasy. Third, because, as was said in the preceding Conclusion, we know many things abstracted from matter, as God, universal natures, etc.

Third Conclusion. — THE RATIONAL SOUL IS NOT PRODUCED BY PROPAGATION; NOR IS IT MADE BY TRADUCTION: BUT IS INFUSED INTO THE ORGANIZED BODY BY GOD IN CREATING, AND IS CREATED IN INFUSING.

This is against Apollinarius, and Tertullian, who in the book De Anima, cap. 27. affirms that the soul of the child is sown and produced from the parent's soul in generation, as body from body.

It is proved first by the authority of the holy Fathers, especially Lactantius lib. De Opificio Dei, cap. 10. That question, he saith, can come into dispute, whether the soul is generated from the father, or rather from the mother, or truly from both: but I am within my right, away from the doubtful judgment. Nothing indeed of these three is certain, because neither from both nor from one or other are souls sown to bodies altogether. For body can be born of bodies, since something from each is conferred: but the soul cannot of these least things, because nothing can be derived from a thing thin and incomprehensible. Therefore the account of souls to be sown is subject to God alone. For of mortal things nothing but mortal can be generated. Nor must he be thought a father who transfuses, or breathes of his own; (directly against Tertullian's paradox) in no way did he sense it, nor if he senses when or how it is done does he comprehend it in mind. From which it appears that souls are given not by parents, but by the one and same fatherly God of all, who alone constituted the law and reason of being born, since indeed He alone effects it. — And although Saint Augustine pronounces this question most difficult of explanation in several places, especially Epist. 120. ad Honoratum, cap. 11. saying: Who would dare rashly precipitate himself into this opinion, since the reason concerning the advent or exit of the soul lies hidden in so great a depth of nature, that it is better to seek it always while we are in this life than to presume it sometimes found? For which cause, desiring to be instructed on this matter, he consults Saint Jerome, Epist. 28., addressing him thus: Teach, I beseech, what thou teachest, teach what thou holdest, and tell me whether souls are made one by one in each single one born, wherein they persist in little ones, that stricken they need in the sacrament of Christ remission, sinning in Adam, from whom their propagation of sin is derived. Or if they do not pray, by what justice are creatures bound by another's sin so, when grafted as dead members propagated from Adam, that damnation follows them, unless through the Church aid has been brought, since it is not in his power that the grace of baptism can come to their aid. • • And Epist. 29. to the same, Therefore, he saith, it must be thought to be sought, lest perchance we hold any unshaken one of those opinions of the incarnation of the soul which contradicts the soul of the little one being utterly freed, denying him to be in this evil. This therefore most firmly retained, that the little soul of the infant must be freed from the guilt of sin, nor can be freed in any other way except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ — if we can know the cause and origin of that evil itself, more reasonably we resist disputants rather than litigants, readier and more instructed. But if we cannot, because the beginning of mercy lies hidden, the office of mercy ought not grow sluggish. Therefore we know those only who laugh at themselves knowing what they know not to be safer in this, that we are not ignorant of this our ignorance. Whence in Epist. 157. which is to Optatus, near the end, he affirms the question of the origin of souls cannot be known without stain of faith: wherefore at the beginning of the same Epistle addressing Optatus himself, who had consulted him whether, namely, souls are born by the propagation of body, and are from that one created for the first man: or the omnipotent Creator, who surely works even until now, makes new ones proper to individuals without any propagation: he responds: Concerning which matter before I advise anything, I will that thy sincerity know that in so many of my little works I was never bold to bring forth a defined opinion on this question, and impudently report in letters to inform others what has not been explained by me. • But he hesitated, as it seems, in this doubt concerning the origin of the soul even unto death; for although he taught most constantly that it is immortal and spiritual, nevertheless what its origin might be, and whether it is created by God alone, or truly as the bodies of Adam's posterity are sown from his body, so souls too would be made from his soul, as many lamps are lit from one without diminution of its light — he willed to settle and define nothing certainly. In which matter he had as pertinacious predecessors certain holy Doctors: Gregory of Nyssa, lib. 2. De Anima, cap. 11.: Eucherius in the Commentary on cap. 2. of the Canticle; Gregory the Great, lib. 7. epistolarum, Epist. to Secundinus, where he writes: On the origin of the soul a question has been much discussed among the holy Fathers: but whether they descend together with the body, or certainly is given to each one, it has remained uncertain, and they confessed this question to be insoluble in this part. This is the question of that thing, nor can it be comprehended by man: because if it is born with Adam, the substance of the soul dies with flesh; but if it is not born with flesh, why in that flesh which came forth from Adam is it held bound by sins? But although this be uncertain, this is not uncertain: because unless man has been reborn by the grace of sacred Baptism, every soul is bound by the bonds of original sin. Whence in the aforesaid epistle to Optatus, admonishing the same, he says: if you find what I advised you to seek, which I confess I myself have not found, defend it as much as you can, and that such is the newness of infant souls that they are not drawn by any propagation; and share with us in fraternal charity what you find. But if you find not wherefore, or how the souls of infants become sinners, having nothing of malice in themselves, are compelled to draw from Adam whence they are damned, since you believe them propagated not from that first sinful one, but new and innocent, unstained by the flesh of sin — let not your assent rashly deflect to the other opinion, that you believe they are traduced by propagating from that one; lest perhaps another may find what you yourself cannot, or you may someday find what now you cannot. Nor indeed those who assert that souls are propagated from the one which God gave to the first man, and so say they are drawn from parents — if they follow Tertullian's opinion — contend that they are not spirits but bodies, and arise from corpulent seeds. What more perverse can be said? — Hence lib. 1. De Anima et eius origine, cap. 19. he permits indeed that everyone maintain as he pleases the opinion of the daily creation of new souls, provided he guard against four errors contrary to faith. Whoever, he saith, wish to defend that souls, as they say, are breathed anew into those being born, not drawn from parents, let them take care absolutely of something of those four, that is: let them not say that souls are made sinful by God through original sin from elsewhere. Let them not say that little ones who expire without Baptism can attain eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, original sin being resolved by anything else whatsoever. Let them not say that souls perished somewhere before flesh, and were deservedly thrust down into sinful flesh for this. Let them not say that sins which are not found in them, nay rather are proscribed, were deservedly punished. Saying nothing therefore of these four, since anyone of them is false and impious: let them find the authority of the Scriptures, most certain testimonies on this matter, and let them defend this opinion of theirs, not only with me not forbidding, but with things themselves witnessing and giving thanks. But if they find not most certain authority of the divine Eloquia on this matter, and are compelled by impossibility to say something of those four, let them restrain themselves, lest they be compelled to say through this very thing that the souls of little ones have not original sin, according to the Pelagian heresy once damnable, and most recently condemned. — Nevertheless now common is the opinion of Theologians that the rational soul is not produced by traduction, but is created by God, and infused into bodies furnished with prepared organs. Which truth

our Alensis proves, qu. 60. membr. 3. art. 8. First indeed from Hugh of Saint Victor, lib. 1. De Sacramentis, parte 1. cap. 30. and this from lib. Exodi 12. Let the dust return into the earth, from which it was taken, and the spirit return to God who gave it: by which, he saith, it is plainly shown that spirit is not traduced materially from spirit, but flesh from flesh; for although our bodies are not formed immediately from earth, nevertheless not unfittingly are they said to be taken from earth: since from it was figured the body of the first man, from which our bodies have been sown and propagated.

Some answer, according to Saint Augustine, Epist. 157. around the middle: Body into the earth, from which was made the body of the first man, and spirit to God, from whom was made the soul of the first man. For as our body, they say, although propagated from that first body, returns nevertheless thither whence that first body was made: so our soul, although propagated from that soul, returns not into nothing, because it is immortal, but to Him from whom that first soul was made. And concerning this, that which is written of the spirit of each man, that it return to God who gave it, does not solve that most obscure question, because whether from that one, or from no other, God surely gave it.

But our Alensis answers that as in the first man the body is read to be taken from the earth, but the spirit given by God, so also reason demands that in subsequent men too flesh indeed descend from flesh; but the spirit be believed to come to the Lord.

Proof 2. From the same in the same place, by that of Exodi 21. If anyone strike a pregnant woman, and she bring forth an abortive child, if it be not formed, he shall be fined a price; but if it have been formed, he shall render soul for soul: it is plainly declared, because while flesh is sown from flesh, soul likewise is not drawn from soul. For if soul is sown together with flesh, why would soul for soul not be rendered in the unformed abortive child? Since therefore in the abortive one formed only is soul for soul commanded to be rendered, what else is shown but that in that which is not yet formed there is not yet a soul? so that evidently, as in the first man we read the body first formed, then the soul sewn in: so also in all subsequent ones let us believe that first in the womb the human body is formed, then the soul infused. But if it perhaps seems marvelous to anyone how paternal seed in the womb can before animation grow, or vegetate, or even advance to the figure of a human body: let him see how shrubs, plants, and all sprouts of this kind, not possessing a rational soul, vegetate and grow by greenness alone, and by their motion are produced into the form fitting their own kind. By these and similar reasons therefore it has been made probable that souls are not from traduction, but newly created out of nothing, infused daily into new bodies formed in the womb from paternal seed, unto vivification.

Saint Bonaventure proves third, in 2. dist. 18. quaest. 2.: If the rational soul, since it is a subsisting substance per se and incorruptible, has matter and form: then since it is produced, it is produced either from pre-existing matter, or its matter is produced together with it. If its matter is produced together with it, therefore it is necessary that it be produced out of nothing: therefore by God alone. If it is produced from pre-existing matter, I ask about that matter: it is either corporeal or spiritual. If corporeal, from it a soul cannot be made. If spiritual, it either has form or not: if not, how can it be in the nature of things without form, since all being is from form? If it has: therefore it will be either an Angel or a Soul. Not an Angel, it is agreed; therefore a soul: but from the same numerically the same is not made: therefore from it a soul cannot be made. It is confirmed: Souls are not sown, but are created by God when the bodies are formed, and infused in creating, and produced in infusing: for God ought to reserve to Himself alone the creation of souls, both on account of their dignity, and on account of their immortality. On account of the dignity of souls, because since the soul is the image of God, and born to be borne immediately into God, and beatified in Him, loving Him with the whole heart, it ought to have its whole being immediately from Him, that it might be held to love Him with the whole heart. He owed this also on account of the immortality of souls; for since God alone is He who has life in Himself, and unfailing life, He alone is He who can produce the principle of perpetual life. Since therefore an incorruptible thing cannot be substantiated in mutable matter, and the operation of a creature is upon mutable matter, it is impossible that any creature produce the rational soul, and therefore God ought to reserve its production to Himself alone. Therefore the reasons proving that rational souls are not from traduction but from the Creator must be conceded. — Yet in all these things, saith Hugh of Saint Victor cited above, no reason or authority ever prevailed so far as to remove the uncertainty of the question; excepting that alone, that the Catholic Faith chose rather to believe that souls, to be joined daily to bodies to be vivified, are made out of nothing, than that according to the nature of the body and the property of human flesh they are propagated by traduction. But if souls were said to be from traduce, there would not be so great a question; because justice would be more manifest in that original sin is said to pass from fathers into sons. But although we cannot comprehend by reason the hidden judgments of God, yet for resolving doubts we ought not assert false things.

You will object 1. Saint Augustine in the aforesaid Epistle: Those who with inconsiderate temerity defend the lineage of souls, among other testimonies which they judge to further their cause, can bring forward none, as it were, more manifest and express for themselves than that which is written in Genesis: and all the souls that went in with Jacob into Egypt, who came out of his thighs. For by this as it were most evident testimony they can be believed that souls are propagated into sons from parents, since it seems said plainly enough that souls also went out of the loins of Jacob, not the bodies of sons alone; so that in that way he wishes even that understood a parte totum which Adam said, when his woman was shown to him: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. For he said not, and soul of my soul: but it can happen that... whether it be understood, but here he wished to remember the soul, and intended the derivation of body into sons. — Saint Augustine answers that the pronomen prefixed can be joined to the words by equal usage, either in the feminine or masculine gender, namely quae, or qui, namely that it signify either the souls quae, or the men qui went out: but neither way favors the opposed opinion. Because, he saith, also with the name body alone can be signified, as indeed the mode of speech shows, by which that is signified through that which contains it which is contained: as is that whence they are crowned therewith, when wine vessels are crowned; for wine is contained, and vessel contains. Therefore as we call the Basilica basilica because it contains the people who is truly called Church: that by the name Church added as proper, we might signify by the contained the place which contains: so they who are contained by bodies can be understood, the bodies of sons through the named souls. For thus slightly is taken that which there he says is defiled in him who has entered over a dead soul. Numer. 1.

He answers 2. if, as I said, the feminine gender had been placed: quae exierunt de femoribus Iacob: that is, which souls; not that the masculine gender had been placed, idest qui exierunt de femoribus Iacob: which he might prefer not so to understand, for all were they who had gone out of his loins, that is, the souls of men: yet even if they can be understood to have gone out of the loins of the Father only according to the body, whose were those souls, through whose number so many men are understood?

You will object 2. That of Ephesians 2. cap. We are all by nature children of wrath: but we are not children of wrath on the part of flesh, but on the part of soul: nor are we children of wrath unless because we are sons of Adam: therefore our soul proceeds from the soul of Adam. — The Seraphic Doctor answers in the place cited, that we are by nature children of wrath therefore, because the soul, when it is united to infected flesh, is straightway infected, and contracts original guilt: not because it itself is traduced, but because the flesh to which it is united is traduced. How however this can be done, will be determined below, when original sin is treated.

You will object 3. The generative power principally resides in the soul: therefore if man generates man, since generation consists in like production, he produces soul more principally than flesh: therefore if flesh is from flesh, much more strongly is soul from traduction. It is confirmed: there is equally great or greater congruence of man to man, than of brute to brute: and the generative power is more perfect in man, than in any brute animal: if therefore a brute can produce a brute totally, both as to soul and as to body, and it is not necessary that the soul of brutes be created: much more strongly does it seem that the rational soul can be traduced, and terminated by coition. — The same Seraphic Doctor answers [Responfet] that although the generative power principally regards the soul by way of mover and agent: nevertheless it principally regards the body as that from which it produces: and since decision can be made from the body, not from the soul, hence it is ordered to the production of the human body, not to the production of the rational soul. It is confirmed that there is no parity, because the soul of the brute, since it is form only, and corruptible form, can be educed from the potency of matter: but the rational soul, since it is hoc aliquid incorruptible, neither is educed from pre-existing matter; it is necessary that it be educed out of nothing, and so be created. That moreover it cannot be produced from pre-existing matter Augustine shows manifoldly super Genesim ad litteram, lib. 1., namely that that pre-existing matter can neither be corporeal nor spiritual.

You will object 1. Either the rational soul is by propagation, or by creation. If by propagation, I have my point, namely that it is from traduce: if by creation, since creation belongs to God alone, it will follow that, creating the soul and infusing it into a body begotten by adultery, He will approve that adulterous coition; since it would be compared to Him. — I deny the sequella; for God creating it, and infusing it into a body begotten adulterously, acts not as particular and moral cause: but as universal and physical cause, to which the defect of the erring creature is not to be attributed. — Saint Jerome weighs this very reason, and from him Saint Augustine, Epist. 28. to the same Jerome around the middle, saying: But this which you put in the book against Rufinus, that certain ones calumniate this opinion, that it seems unworthy that God give souls to adulterous conceptions: whence they feign that souls, as it were, by merits wrought before the life of the flesh can justly be led to such straits, moves me not, pondering many things by which this calumny could be refuted: And what you yourself answered, that the fault is not in the seed of the wheat, which is said to be stolen away, but in him who stole the foundations, nor therefore ought the earth not to have been filled with seed in its bosom because the unclean sower cast it with that hand — is a most elegant similitude; and even before I read it, that objection concerning adulterous fates made me no straits in this question, viewing generally, that God bears well many things even from our evils and our sins: but the creation of any animal whatsoever, if it has a pious and prudent considerer, stirs up ineffable praise to the Creator; how much more the creation not of any animal whatever, but of man? But if the cause of creating is asked, nothing is answered sooner and better, except that every creature of God is good, and what more worthily ever should a good God make good, which no one can make except God?