OF VINCENTIUS. THE NAMES OF EVIL MEN OUGHT NEVER TO BE ASSUMED BY OTHER PER- SONS.
The first thing which caused me some anxiety about you was the title which appeared in your books with your name; for on inquiring of those who knew you, and were probably your associates in opinion, who Vincentius Victor was, I found that you had been a Donatist, or rather a Rogatist, but had lately come into communion with the catholic Church. Now, while I was rejoicing, as one naturally does at the recovery of those whom he sees rescued from that system of error, — and in your case my joy was all the greater because I saw that your ability, which so much delighted me in your writings, had not remained behind with the enemies of truth, — additional information was given me by your friends which caused me sorrow amid my joy, to the effect that you wished to have the name Vincentius prefixed to your own name, inasmuch as you still held in affectionate regard the successor of Rogatus, who bore this name, as a great and holy man, and that for this reason you wished his name to become your surname. Some persons also told me that you had, moreover, boasted about his having appeared in some sort of a vision to you, and assisted you in composing those books the subject of which I have discussed with you in this small work of mine, and to such an extent as to dictate to you himself the precise topics and arguments which you were to write about. Now, if all this be true, I no longer wonder at your having been able to make those statements which, if you will only lend a patient ear to my admonition, and with the attention of a catholic duly consider and weigh those books, you will undoubtedly come to regret having ever advanced. For he who, according to the apostle's portrait, " transforms himself into an angel of light," ' has transformed himself before you into a shape which you believe to have been, or still to be, an angel of In this way, indeed, he is less able to light.
' 2 Cor. xi. 14.
[KOOK III.
deceive catliolics when his transformations are i not into angels of light, but into heretics; now, however, that you are a catholic, I should be ] sorry for you to be beguiled by him. He will; certainly feel torture at your having learnt the truth, and so much the more in proportion to the pleasure he formerly experienced in having j persuaded you to believe error. With a view, however, to your refraining from loving a dead person, when the love can neither be serviceable to yourself nor profitable to him, I advise you to consider for a moment this one point — tliat he is not, of course, a just and holy man, since you withdrew yourself from the snares of the Donatists or Rogalists on the score of their heresy; but if you do think him to be just and holy, you ruin yourself by holding communion with catholics. You are, indeed, only feigning yourself a catholic if you are in mind the same as he was on whom you bestow your love; and you are aware how terribly the Scripture has spoken on this subject: "The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the man who feigns." ' If, however, you are sincere in communicating with us, and do not merely pretend to be a catholic, how is it that you still love a dead man to such a degree as to be willing even now to boast of the name of one in whose errors you no longer permit yourself to be held? We really do not like your having such a surname, as if you were the monument of a dead heretic. Nor do we like your book to have such a title as we should say was a false one if we read it on his tomb. For we are sure Vincentius is not Victor, the conqueror, but Vicfi/s, the conquered; — may it be, however, with fruitful effect, even as we wish you to be conquered by the truth! And yet your thought was an astute and skilful one, when you designated the books, which you wish us to suppose were dictated to you by his inspiration, by the name of Vincentius Victor; as much as to intimate that it was rather he than you who wished to be designated by the victorious appellation, as having been himself the conqueror of error, by revealing to you what were to be the contents of your written treatise.
But of what avail is all this to you, my son? Be, I pray you, a true catholic, not a feigned one, lest the Holy Spirit should flee from you, and that Vincentius be unable to profit you at all, into whom the most malignant spirit of error has transformed himself for the purpose of deceiving you; for it is from that one that all these eviJ opinions have proceeded, notwithstanding the artful fraud which has persuaded you to the contrary. If this admonition shall only induce you to correct these errors with the humility of a God-fearing man and the peaceful submission 1 Wisd. i. 5.
of a catholic, they will be regarded as the mistakes of an over-zealous young man, who is eager rather to amend them than to persevere in them. But if he shall have by his influence prevailed on you to contend for these opinions with obstinate perseverance, which God forbid, it will in such a case be necessary to condemn them and their author as heretical, as is required by the pastoral and remedial nature of the Church's charge, to check the dire contagion before it quietly spreads through the heedless masses, while wholesome correction is neglected, under the name but without the reality of love.
CHAP. 3 [in.] HE EXUMERATES THE ERRORS WHICH HE DESIRES TO HAVE AMENDED IN THE BOOKS OF VINCENTIUS VICTOR. THE FIRST ERROR.
If you ask me what the particular errors are, you may read what I have written to our brethren, that servant of God Renatus, and the presbyter Peter, to the latter of whom you yourself thought it necessary to write the very works of which we are now treating, " in obedience," as you allege, " to his own wish and request." Now, they will, I doubt not, lend you my treatises for your perusal if you should like it, and even press them upon your attention without being asked. But be that as it may, I will not miss this present opportunity of informing you what amendments I desire to have made in these writings of yours, as well as in your belief. The first is, that you will have it that " The soul was not so made by God that He made it out of nothing, but out of His own very self." ^ Here you do not reflect what the necessary conclusion is, that the soul must be of the nature of God; and you know very well, of course, how impious such an opinion is. Now, to avoid such impiety as this, you ought so to say that God is the Author of the soul as that it was made by Him, but not of Him. For whatever is of Him (as, for instance, His only-begotten Son) is of the self-same nature as Himself. But, that the soul might not be of the same nature as its Creator, it was made by Him, but not of Him. Or, then, tell me whence it is, or else confess that it is of nothing. What do you mean by that expression of yours, " That it is a certain particle of an exhalation from the nature of God"? Do you mean to say, then, that the exhalation ^ itself from the nature of God, to which the particle in question belongs, is not of the same nature as God is Himself? If this be your meaning, then God made out of nothing that exhalation of which you will have the soul to be a particle. Or, if not out of nothing, pray tell me of what God made it? If He made it out of Himself, 2 See above, Book i. 4 and Book ii. 5.
3 Halitus (breath).
Chap. 5.]
\ it follows that He is Himself (what should never be affirmed) the material of which His own work is formed. But you go on to say: " When, however, He made the exhalation or breath out of Himself, He remained at the same time whole and entire; " just as if the light of a candle did not also remain entire when another candle is lighted from it, and yet be of the same nature, and not another.
CHAP. 4 [iV.] —victor's simile TO SHOW THAT GOD CAN CREATE BY BREATHING WITHOUT LM- PARTATION OF HIS SUBSTANCE.
" But," you say, " when we inflate a bag, no portion of our nature or quality is poured into the bag, while the very breath, by the current of which the filled bag is extended, is emitted from us without the least diminution of ourselves." Now, you enlarge and dwell upon these words of yours, and inculcate the simile as necessary for our understanding how it is that God, without any injury to His own nature, makes the soul out of His own self, and how, when it is thus made out of Himself, it is not what Himself is. For you ask: " Is this inflation of the bag a portion of our own soul? Or do we create human beings when we inflate bags? Or do we suffer any injury in anything at all when we impart our breath by inflation on diverse things? But we suffer no injury when we transfer breath from ourselves to anything, nor do we ever remember experiencing any damage to ourselves from inflating a bag, the full quality and entire quantity of our breath remaining in us notwithstanding the process." Now, however elegant and applicable this simile seems to you, I beg you to consider how greatly it misleads you. For you affirm that the incorporeal God breathes out a corporeal soul, — not made out of nothing, but out of Himself, — whereas the breath which we ourselves emit is corporeal, although of a more subtle nature than our bodies; nor do we exhale it out of our soul, but out of the air through internal functions in our bodily structure. ] Our lungs, like a pair of bellows, are moved by the soul (at the command of which also the other members of the body are moved), for the purpose of inhaling and exhaling the atmospheric air. For, besides the aliments, solid or fluid, which constitute our meat and drink, God has surrounded us with this third aliment of the atmosphere which we breathe; and that with so good eftect, that we can live for some time without meat and drink, but we could not possibly subsist for a moment without this third aliment, which the air, surrounding us on all sides, supplies us with as we breathe and respire. And as our meat and drink have to be not only introduced into the body, but also to be expelled by passages formed for the purpose, to prevent injury accruing either way (from either not entering or not quitting the body); so this third airy aliment (not being permitted to remain within us, and thus not becoming corrupt by <lelay, but being expelled as soon as it is introduced) has been furnished, not with different, but with the self-same channels both for its entrance and for its exit, even the mouth, or the nostrils, or both together.
CHAP. 5. EXAMINATION OF VICTOR'S SIMILE: DOES MAN GIVE OUT NOTHING BY BREATHING?
Prove now yourself what I say, for your own satisfaction in your own case; emit breath by exhalation, and see whether you can continue long without catching back your breath; then again catch it back by inhalation, and see what discomfort you experience unless you again emit it. Now, when we inflate a bag, as you prescribe, we do, in fact, the same thing which we do to maintain life, except that in the case of the artificial experiment our inhalation is somewhat stronger, in order that we may emit a stronger breath, so as to fill and distend the bag by compressing the air we blow into it, rather in the manner of a hard puff than of the gentle process of ordinary breathing and respiration. On what ground, then, do you say, " We suffer no injury whenever we transfer breath from oursehes to any object, nor do we ever remember experiencing any damage to ourselves from inflating a bag, the full quality and entire quantity of our own breath remaining in us notwithstanding the process "?
It is very plain, my son, if ever you have inflated a bag, that you did not carefully observe your own performance. For you do not perceive what you lose by the act of inflation by reason of the immediate recovery of your breath. But you can learn all this with the greatest ease if you would simply prefer doing so to stiffly maintaining your own statements for no other reason than because you have made them — not inflating the bag, but inflated yourself to the full, and inflating your hearers (whom you should rather edify and instruct by veritable facts) with the empty prattle of your turgid discourse. In the present case I do not send you to any other teacher than your own self. Breathe, then, a good breath into the bag; shut your mouth instantly, hold tight your nostrils, and in this way discover the truth of what I say to you. P'or when you begin to suffer the intolerable inconvenience which accompanies the experiment, what is it you wish to recover by opening your mouth and releasing your nostrils? Surely there would be nothing to recover if your supposition be a correct one, that you have lost nothing whenever you breathe. Observe what a i»light you would be in, if by inhalation you did not regain what you had parted with b)' your breath- [Book III.
ing outwards See, too, what loss and injury the insufflation would produce, were it not for the repair and reaction caused by respiration. For unless the breath which you expend in filling the bag should all return by the re-opened channel to discharge its function of nourishing yourself, what, I wonder, would be left remain ing to you, — I will not say to inflate another bag, but to supply your very means of living?
CHAP. 6. THE SIMILE REFORMED IN ACCORDANCE WITH TRUTH, Well, now, you ought to have thought of all this when you w^ere writing, and not to have brought God before our eyes in that favourite simile of yours, of inflated and inflateable bags, breathing forth souls out of some other nature which was already in existence, just as we ourselves make our breath from the air which surrounds us; or certainly you' should not, in a manner which is really as diverse from your similitude as it is abundant in impiety, have represented God as either producing some changeable thing without injury, indeed, to Himself, but yet out of His own substance; or what is worse, creating it in such wise as to be Himself the material of His own work. If, however, we are to employ a similitude drawn from our breathing which shall suitably illustrate this subject, the following one is more credible: Just as we, whenever we breathe, make a breath, not out of our own nature, but, because we are not omnipotent, out of that air that surrounds us, whicli we inhale and discharge whenever we breathe and respire; and the said breath is neither living nor sentient, although we are ourselves living and sentient; so God can — not, indeed, out of His own nature, but (as being so omnipotent as to be able to create whatever He wills) even out of that which has no existence at all, that is to say, out of nothing — make a breath that is living and sentient, but evidendy mutable, though He be Himself immutable; CHAP. 7 [v.] VICTOR APPARENTLY GIVES THE CREATIVE BREATH TO MAN ALSO.
But what is the meaning of that, which you have thought proper to add to this simile, with regard to the example of the blessed Elisha because he raised the dead by breathing into his face? ' Now, do you really suppose that Elisha's breath was made the soul of the child? I could not believe that even you could stray so far away from tlie truth. If, now, that soul which was taken from the living child so as to cause his death, was itself afterwards restored to him so as to cause his restoration to life: where, I ask, is the pertinence of your remark when you say " that no diminution accrued to Elisha," as if it ' 2 Kings iv. 34.
could be imagined that anything had been transferred from the prophet to the child to cause his revival? But if you meant no more than that the prophet breathed and remained entire, where was the necessity for your saying that of Elisha, when raising the dead child, which you might with no less propriety say of any one whatever when emitting a breath, and reviving no one? Then, again, you spoke unadvisedly (though God forbid that you should believe the breath of Elisha to have become the soul of the resuscitated child!) when you intimated your meaning to be a desire to keep separate what was first done by God from this that was done by the prophet, in that the One breathed but once, and the other thrice. These are your words: " Elisha breathed into the face of the deceased child of the Shunammite, after the manner of the original creation. And when by the prophet's breathing a divine force inspired the dead limbs, reanimated to their original vigour, no diminution accrued to Elisha, through whose breathing the dead body recovered its revived soul and spirit.
Only there is this difference, the Lord breathed but once into man's face and he lived, while Elisha breathed three times into the face of the dead and he lived again." Thus your words sound as if the number of the breathings alone made all the difference, why w^e should not believe that the prophet actually did what God did. This statement, then, requires to be entirely revised. There was so complete a difference between that work of God and this of Elisha, that the former breathed the breath of life whereby man became a living soul, and the latter breathed a breath which was not itself sentient nor endued with life, but was figurative for the sake of some signification. The prophet did not really cause the child to live again by giving him life, but he procured God's doing that by giving him love.- As to what you allege, that he breathed three times, either your memory, as often happens, or a faulty reading of the text, must have misled you. Why need I enlarge? You ought not to be seeking for examples and arguments to establish your point, but rather to amend and change yofir opinion. I beg of you neither to believe, nor to say, nor to teach " that God made the human soul not out of nothing, but out of His own substance," if you wish to be a catholic.
CILAP. 8 [vl] victor's second ERROR. (SEE ABOVE IN BOOK I. 26 [XVI.].)
Do not, I pray you, believe, say, or teach that "Thus is God ever giving souls through infinite time, just as He who gives is Himself ever 2 In the original we have here another instance of Augustin's freqnent play on words, Non mihiinndo,:-ed amando: " not by ensouling but by loving him," or " not by enlivening but by loving ■ him."
Chap, ii.]
Chap, ii.]
existent," ii f you wish to be a catholic. For a time will come cvvhen God will not give souls, although He will naot therefore Himself cease to exist. Your phra se, "is ever giving," might be understood " ta^ give without cessation," so long as men are iborn and get offspring, even as it is said of ceilvtain men that they are " ever learning, and mever coming to the knowledge of the truth."' -'. For this term "ever" is not in this passage t.;aken to mean "never ceasing to learn," inasmuch' as they do cease to learn when they have ce3,.sed to exist in this body, or have begun to suffers the fiery pains of hell. You, however, did not li allow your word to be understood in this sense w^hen you said "is ever giving," since you thought, that it must be applied to infinite time. And ev en this was a small matter; for, as if you had bfl^en asked to explain your phrase, " ever giving.,' more explicitly, you went on to say, "just nas He is Himself ever existent who gives." This as-sertion the sound and catholic faith utterly condeimns. For be it far from us to believe that G'od is ever giving souls, just as He is Himself, wiho gives them, ever existent. He is Himself en/er existent in such a sense as never to cease to exist; souls, however. He will not be ever g;iving; but He will beyond doubt cease to give t-ihem when the age of generation ceases, and chl ildren are no longer born to whom they are toe be given.
CHAP. 9 [VII.] HIS THIRD ERROR. (SEE ABOVE ; IN BOOK II. II [VII.].)
Again, do not, I pray you, believe, say, or teach i that "the soul deservedly lost something by the.' flesh, although it was of good merit previous;to the flesh," if you wish to be a catholic. For the apostle declares that "children who are not yet born, have done neither good nor evil."^ How, therefore, could their soul, previous to its partic ipation of flesh, have had anything like good desert, if it had not done any good thing? Will y ou by any chance venture to assert that it had, p revious to the flesh, lived a good life, when you cannot actually prove to us that it even existec 1 at all? How, then, can you say: " You will not allow that the soul contracts health from the siraful flesh; and to this holy state, then, you can see it in due course pass, with the view of amending its condition, through that very flesh by which it had lost merit "? Perhaps you are not aware that these opinions, which attribute to the human soul a good state and a good merit previous to the flesh, have been already condemned by the catholic Church, not only in the c:ase of some ancient heretics, whom I do not here mention, but also more recently in the instance of the Priscillianists.
' 2 Tim. iii. 7.
2 Rom. ix. II.
CHAP. 10. HIS FOURTH ERROR. (SEK ABOVE IX BOOK I. 6 [VI.] AND BOOK II. II [VTI.].)
Neither believe, nor say, nor teach that " the soul, by means of the flesh, repairs its ancient condition, and is born again by the very means through which it had deserved to be puHuted," if you wish to be a catholic. I might, indeed, dwell upon the strange discrepancy with your own self which you have exhibited in the next sentence, wherein you said that " the soul through the flesh deservedly recovers its primitive condition, which it had seemed to have gradually lost through the flesh, in order that it may begin to be regenerated by the very flesh through which it had deserved to be polluted." Here you — the \ery man who had just before said that the soul repairs its condition through the flesh, by reason of wliich it had lost its desert (where nothing but good desert can be meant, which you will have to be recovered in the flesh, by baptism, of course) — said in another turn of your thought, that through the flesh the soul had deserved to be polluted (in which statement it is no longer the good desert, \i\!i\.anevilone,\\\v\Q}cv must be meant). What flagrant inconsistency! but I will pass it over, and content myself with observing, that it is absolutely uncatholic to believe that the soul, previous to its incarnate state, deserved either good or evil.
CHAP. II [VIII.] HIS FIFTH ERROR. (SEE ABOVE IN BOOK I. 8 [viII.] AND BOOK 11. 12 [VIII.].)
Neither believe, nor say, nor teach, if you wish to be a catholic, that " the soul deserved to be sinful before any sin." It is, to be sure, an extremely bad desert to have deserved to be sinful. And, of course, it could not possibly have incurred so bad a desert previous to any sin, especially prior to its coming into the flesh, when it could have possessed no merit either wa}', either evil or good. How, then, can you say: " If, therefore, the soul, which could not be sinful, deserved to be sinful, it yet did not remain in sin, because as it was prefigured in Christ it was bound not to be in a sinful state, even as it was unable to be "? Now, just for a little consider what it is you say, and desist from repeating such a statement. How did the soul deserv^e, and how was it unable, to be sinful? How, I pray you tell me, did that descr\'e to be sinful which never lived sinfully? How, I ask again, was that made sinful which was not able to be sinful? Or else, if you mean your phrase, " raas?nia/^/e," to imply inability apart from the flesh, how in that case did the soul deser\-e to be sinful, and by reason of what desert was it sent into the flesh, when previous to its union \ [Book III.
with the flesh it was not able to be sinful, so as to deserve any evil at all?
CHAP. 12 [iX.] HIS SIXTH ERROR. ( SEE ABOVE IN BOOK I. IO-I2 [iX., X.], AND IN BOOK II. 1 3, 14 [IX., X.J.)
If you wish to be a catholic, refrain from believing, or saying, or teaching that " infants which are forestalled by death before they are baptized may yet at-tain to forgiveness of their original sins." For the examples by which you are misled — that of the thief who confessed the Lord upon the cross, or that of Dinocrates the brother of St. Perpetua — contribute no help to you in defence of this erroneous opinion. As for the thief, altliough in God's judgment he might be reckoned among those who are purified by the confession of martyrdom, yet you cannot tell whether he was not baptized. For, to say nothing of the opinion that he might have been sprinkled with the water which gushed at the same time with the blood out of the Lord's side,' as he hung on the cross next to Him, and thus have been washed with a baptism of the most sacred kind, what if he had been baptized in prison, as in after times some under persecution were enabled privately to obtain? or what if he had been baptized previous to his imprisonment? If, indeed, he had been, the remission of his sins which he would have received in that case from God would not have protected him from the sentence of public law, so far as appertained to the death of the body. What if, being already baptized, he had committed the crime and incurred the punishment of robbery and lawlessness, but yet received, by virtue of repentance added to his baptism, forgiveness of the sins which, though baptized, he had committed?
For beyond doubt his faith and piety appeared to the Lord clearly in his heart, as they do to us in his words. If, indeed, we were to conclude that all those who have quitted life without a record of their baptism died unbaptized, we should calumniate the very apostles themselves; for we are ignorant when they were, any of them, baptized, except the Apostle Paul.^ If, however, we could regard as an evidence that they were really baptized the circumstance of the Lord's saying to St. Peter, " He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet," 3 what are we to think of the others, of whom we do not read even so much as this, — Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Silas, Philemon, the very evangelists Mark and Luke, and innumerable others, about whose baptism God forbid that we should entertain any doubt, although we read no record of it? As for Dinocrates, he was a child of seven years of age; and as children who are baptized so old as that * John xix. 34.
2 Acts ix. 18.
3 John xiii. lo.
can now recite the creed and answer Ifor themselves in the usual examination, I knowC' not why he may not be supposed after his bsiptism to have been recalled by his unbelieving r father to the sacrilege and profanity of heathen' worship, and for this reason to have been conde mned to the pains from which he was liberateed at his sister's intercession. For in the accoungt of him you have never read, either that he w^ as never a Christian, or died a catechumen. Butt for the matter of that, the account itself that wet have of him does not occur in that canon of Holyv Scripture whence in all questions of this ki nd our proofs ought always to be drawn.
I- -. '•' CHAP. 13 [X.J — HIS SEVENTH ERROR,,, (SEE ABOVE IN BOOK II. 1 3 [iX.].) |, If you wish to be a catholic, do not ve.mture to believe, to say, or to teach that " they v.vhom the Lord has predestinated for baptism cdm be snatched away from his predestination, cov die before that has been accomplished in * them which the Almighty has predestined." 'There is in such a dogma more power than I cam tell assigned to chances in opposition to the jjoower of God, by the occurrence of which casu allies that which He has predestinated is not pernnitted to come to pass. It is hardly necessary to $spend time or earnest words in cautioning the.j man who takes up with this error against the absoolute vortex of confusion into which it will absorb* him, when I shall sufficiently meet the case if I b'riefly warn the prudent man who is ready to re ceive correction against the threatening mischief, i Now these are your words: " We say that some! such method as this must be had recourse to in the case of infants who, being predestinated for baptism, are yet, by the failing of this life, hulTied away before they are born again in Christ. '^ Is it then really true that any who have been! predestinated to baptism are forestalled before;they come to it by the failing of this life? And could God predestinate anything which He eitteer in His foreknowledge saw would not come to pass, or in ignorance knew not that it could not (come to pass, either to the frustration of His puirjDose or the discredit of His foreknowledge? Yciusee how many weighty remarks might be madle on this subject; but I am restrained by the fact of