Augustine: DE CIVITATE DEI

[I] Expeditis de nostri saeculi exortu et de initio generis humani difficillimis quaestionibus nunc iam de lapsu primi hominis, immo primorum hominum, et de origine ac propagine mortis humanae disputationem a nobis institutam rerum ordo deposcit. Non enim eo modo, quo angelos, condiderat Deus homines, ut etiam si peccassent mori omnino non possent; sed ita ut perfunctos oboedientiae munere sine interuentu mortis angelica inmortalitas et beata aeternitas sequeretur; inoboedientes autem mors plecteret damnatione iustissima; quod etiam in libro superiore iam diximus.

[1] With the most difficult questions about the rise of our age and about the beginning of the human race dispatched, now the order of things demands that the discussion instituted by us be about the lapse of the first man—nay rather, of the first human beings—and about the origin and propagation of human death. For God did not establish human beings in the same manner as the angels, such that even if they had sinned they could not at all die; but in such a way that, once they had performed the duty of obedience, without the intervention of death an angelic immortality and a blessed eternity would follow; whereas the disobedient death would punish with a most just condemnation; which also in the preceding book we have already said.

[II] Sed de ipso genere mortis uideo mihi paulo diligentius disserendum. Quamuis enim anima humana ueraciter inmortalis perhibeatur, habet tamen quandam etiam ipsa mortem suam. Nam ideo dicitur inmortalis, quia modo quodam quantulocumque non desinit uiuere atque sentire; corpus autem ideo mortale, quoniam deseri omni uita potest nec per se ipsum aliquatenus uiuit.

[2] But about the very genus of death I see that I must discourse somewhat more diligently. Although indeed the human soul is truly held to be immortal, yet it has also a certain death of its own. For it is called immortal for this reason, because in some mode, however slight, it does not cease to live and to sense; the body, however, is therefore mortal, since it can be deserted of all life and does not in any measure live by itself.

Mors igitur animae fit, cum eam deserit Deus, sicut corporis, cum id deserit anima. Ergo utriusque rei, id est totius hominis, mors est, cum anima Deo deserta deserit corpus. Ita enim nec ex Deo uiuit ipsa nec corpus ex ipsa.

Therefore the death of the soul comes to be when God deserts it, just as the death of the body when the soul deserts it. Therefore the death of both things, that is, of the whole man, is when the soul, deserted by God, deserts the body. For thus neither does the soul itself live from God, nor the body from the soul.

Huius modi autem totius hominis mortem illa sequitur, quam secundam mortem diuinorum eloquiorum appellat auctoritas. Hanc Saluator significauit, ubi ait: Eum timete, qui habet potestatem et corpus et animam perdere in gehenna. Quod cum ante non fiat, quam cum anima corpori sic fuerit copulata, ut nulla diremptione separentur: mirum uideri potest quo modo corpus ea morte dicatur occidi, qua non anima deseritur, sed animatum sentiensque cruciatur.

But the death of the whole man of this kind is followed by that which the authority of the divine utterances calls the second death. The Savior signified this when he said: Fear him who has the power to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna. Now since this does not take place before the soul has been so coupled to the body that by no diremption are they separated, it may seem a marvel how the body is said to be killed by that death, in which the soul is not deserted, but, being animated and sensing, it is tormented.

Nam in illa ultima poena ac sempiterna, de qua suo loco diligentius disserendum est, recte mors animae dicitur, quia non uiuit ex Deo; mors autem corporis quonam modo, cum uiuat ex anima? Non enim aliter potest ipsa corporalia, quae post resurrectionem futura sunt, sentire tormenta. An quia uita qualiscumque aliquod bonum est, dolor autem malum, ideo nec uiuere corpus dicendum est, in quo anima non uiuendi causa est, sed dolendi?

For in that ultimate and sempiternal punishment, about which it must be discussed more diligently in its proper place, the death of the soul is rightly spoken of, because it does not live from God; but the death of the body—how so, since it lives from the soul? For otherwise it cannot itself sense the corporeal torments which are to be after the resurrection. Or is it because life, of whatever sort, is some good, but pain is an evil, that therefore the body is not to be said to live, in which the soul is not a cause of living, but of suffering pain?

Viuit itaque anima ex Deo, cum uiuit bene; non enim potest bene uiuere nisi Deo in se operante quod bonum est; uiuit autem corpus ex anima, cum anima uiuit in corpore, seu uiuat ipsa seu non uiuat ex Deo. Impiorum namque in corporibus uita non animarum, sed corporum uita est; quam possunt eis animae etiam mortuae, hoc est Deo desertae, quantulacumque propria uita, ex qua et inmortales sunt, non desistente, conferre. Verum in damnatione nouissima quamuis homo sentire non desinat, tamen, quia sensus ipse nec uoluptate suauis nec quiete salubris, sed dolore poenalis est, non inmerito mors est potius appellata quam uita.

Thus the soul lives from God when it lives well; for it cannot live well unless God, operative within it, works what is good; but the body lives from the soul when the soul lives in the body, whether it itself lives from God or does not live from God. For in the bodies of the impious, the life is not the life of souls but the life of bodies; which the souls, even dead—that is, deserted by God—can confer upon them, with however little of their own life—which does not cease, and from which they are also immortal. But in the last condemnation, although the human being does not cease to feel, nevertheless, because the very sensation is neither sweet by pleasure nor healthful by rest, but penal by pain, it is not undeservedly called death rather than life.

Ideo autem secunda, quia post illam primam est, qua fit cohaerentium diremptio naturarum, siue Dei et animae siue animae et corporis. De prima igitur corporis morte dici potest, quod bonis bona sit, malis mala; secunda uero sine dubio sicut nullorum bonorum est, ita nulli bona.

But it is called second because it is after that first one, by which the diremption of the cohering natures takes place, whether of God and the soul or of the soul and the body. Of the first death of the body, therefore, it can be said that for the good it is good, for the wicked evil; but the second, without doubt, just as it is of none of the good, so it is good for no one.

[III] Non autem dissimulanda nascitur quaestio, utrum re uera mors, qua separantur anima et corpus, bonis sit bona; quia si ita est, quo modo poterit obtineri, quod etiam ipsa sit poena peccati? Hanc enim primi homines, nisi peccauissent, perpessi utique non fuissent. Quo pacto igitur bona esse possit bonis, quae accidere non posset nisi malis?

[3] However, a question not to be dissimulated arises: whether in very truth death, by which the soul and the body are separated, is good for the good; for if it is so, how can it be maintained that this same is also the penalty of sin? For the first humans would certainly not have undergone this, unless they had sinned. In what manner, then, can that be good for the good, which could not befall except to the wicked?

Sed rursus si non nisi malis posset accidere, non deberet bonis bona esse, sed nulla. Cur enim esset ulla poena in quibus non essent ulla punienda? Quapropter fatendum est primos quidem homines ita fuisse institutos, ut, si non peccassent, nullum mortis experirentur genus; sed eosdem primos peccatores ita fuisse morte multatos, ut etiam quidquid <de> eorum stirpe esset exortum eadem poena teneretur obnoxium.

But again, if it could befall only the wicked, it ought not to be good for the good, but none at all. For why would there be any punishment in those in whom there were no things to be punished? Wherefore it must be admitted that the first humans were so instituted that, if they had not sinned, they would have experienced no kind of death; but that those same first sinners were so punished with death that even whatever had arisen from their stock should be held liable to the same penalty.

Non enim aliud ex eis, quam quod ipsi fuerant, nasceretur. Pro magnitudine quippe culpae illius naturam damnatio mutauit in peius, ut, quod poenaliter praecessit in peccantibus hominibus primis, etiam naturaliter sequeretur in nascentibus ceteris. Neque enim ita homo ex homine, sicut homo ex puluere.

For nothing other would be born from them than what they themselves had been. For, in proportion to the magnitude of that fault, damnation changed nature into the worse, so that what had penally preceded in the first sinning human beings would also naturally follow in the others being born. For man is not thus from man as man is from dust.

Puluis namque homini faciendo materies fuit; homo autem homini gignendo parens. Proinde quod est terra, non hoc est caro, quamuis ex terra facta sit caro; quod est autem parens homo, hoc est et proles homo. In primo igitur homine per feminam in progeniem transiturum uniuersum genus humanum fuit, quando illa coniugum copula diuinam sententiam suae damnationis excepit; et quod homo factus est, non cum crearetur, sed cum peccaret et puniretur, hoc genuit, quantum quidem adtinet ad peccati et mortis originem.

For dust, namely, was the material for making man; but man is the parent for begetting man. Accordingly, what earth is, this is not flesh, although flesh was made from earth; but what the parent is—man—this too the offspring is—man. Therefore in the first man the whole human race, destined to pass into progeny through the woman, existed, when that conjugal coupling received the divine sentence of its own condemnation; and what the man became, not when he was created, but when he sinned and was punished, this he begot, so far as pertains to the origin of sin and death.

Non enim ad infantilem hebetudinem et infirmitatem animi et corporis, quam uidemus in paruulis, peccato uel poena ille redactus est (quae Deus uoluit esse tamquam primordia catulorum, quorum parentes in bestialem uitam mortemque deiecerat; sicut enim scriptum est: Homo in honore cum esset, non intellexit; comparatus est pecoribus non intellegentibus et similis factus est eis; nisi quod infantes infirmiores etiam cernimus in usu motuque membrorum et sensu adpetendi atque uitandi, quam sunt aliorum tenerrimi fetus animalium; tamquam se tanto adtollat excellentius supra cetera animantia uis humana, quanto magis impetum suum, uelut sagitta cum arcus extenditur, retrorsum reducta distulerit); — non ergo ad ista infantilia rudimenta praesumptione inlicita et damnatione iusta prolapsus uel inpulsus est primus homo; sed hactenus in eo natura humana uitiata atque mutata est, ut repugnantem pateretur in membris inoboedientiam concupiscendi et obstringeretur necessitate moriendi, atque ita id, quod uitio poenaque factus est, id est obnoxios peccato mortique generaret. A quo peccati uinculo si per Mediatoris Christi gratiam soluuntur infantes, hanc solam mortem perpeti possunt, quae animam seiungit a corpore; in secundam uero illam sine fine poenalem liberati a peccati obligatione non transeunt.

For he was not reduced by sin or by penalty to the infantile hebetude and the infirmity of mind and body which we see in little ones (which God willed to be as it were the primordia of whelps, whose parents he had cast down into a bestial life and death; for as it is written: When man was in honor, he did not understand; he was compared to cattle without understanding and was made similar to them; except that we also perceive infants to be weaker in the use and motion of their limbs, and in the sense of seeking and shunning, than are the tenderest offspring of other animals; as though the human power should lift itself so much the more excellently above the rest of animate beings, the more it has deferred its own impulse, like an arrow when the bow is drawn, having been pulled back backward); — not, therefore, did the first man by illicit presumption and just condemnation slip down or get driven into these infantile rudiments; but to this extent in him human nature was vitiated and changed, that he should suffer a resisting disobedience of concupiscence in his members and be bound with the necessity of dying, and thus what he had been made by vice and penalty, that is, persons obnoxious to sin and to death, he would beget. From which bond of sin, if infants are loosed through the grace of Christ the Mediator, they can suffer this death alone, which separates the soul from the body; but into that second penal one without end, having been freed from the obligation of sin, they do not pass.

[IV] Si quem uero mouet, cur uel ipsam patiantur, si et ipsa peccati poena est, quorum per gratiam reatus aboletur: iam ista quaestio in alio nostro opere, quod scripsimus de baptismo paruulorum, tractata ac soluta est; ubi dictum est ad hoc relinqui animae experimentum separationis a corpore, quamuis ablato iam criminis nexu, quoniam, si regenerationis sacramentum continuo sequeretur inmortalitas corporis, ipsa fides eneruaretur, quae tunc est fides, quando expectatur in spe, quod in re nondum uidetur. Fidei autem robore atque certamine, in maioribus dumtaxat aetatibus, etiam mortis fuerat superandus timor, quod in sanctis martyribus maxime eminuit; cuius profecto certaminis esset nulla uictoria, nulla gloria (quia nec ipsum omnino posset esse certamen), si post lauacrum regenerationis iam sancti non possent mortem perpeti corporalem. Cum paruulis autem baptizandis quis non ad Christi gratiam propterea potius curreret, ne a corpore solueretur?

[4] If, however, anyone is moved as to why they even suffer this very thing, if this itself is the penalty of sin, whose guilt is abolished through grace: already this question has been treated and solved in another of our works, which we wrote on the baptism of infants; where it was said that for this end the soul’s experiment/trial of separation from the body is left, although the bond of the crime has now been removed, because, if the immortality of the body were to follow immediately upon the sacrament of regeneration, faith itself would be enervated, which then is faith, when what is not yet seen in reality is expected in hope. By the strength and contest of faith, moreover, in mature ages only, even the fear of death had to be overcome, which shone forth most of all in the holy martyrs; of which contest indeed there would be no victory, no glory (since there could not at all be a contest itself), if after the laver of regeneration the saints could no longer undergo bodily death. But with infants to be baptized, who would not for that reason rather run to the grace of Christ, lest he be loosed from the body?

Atque ita non inuisibili praemio probaretur fides, sed iam nec fides esset, confestim sui operis quaerendo et sumendo mercedem. Nunc uero maiore et mirabiliore gratia Saluatoris in usus iustitiae peccati poena conuersa est. Tunc enim dictum est homini: Morieris, si peccaueris: nunc dicitur martyri: Morere, ne pecces.

And thus faith would not be proved by an invisible reward, but would not even be faith any longer, immediately by seeking and taking the wage of its work. Now indeed, by the greater and more marvelous grace of the Savior, the penalty of sin has been converted into the uses of justice. For then it was said to man: You will die, if you sin: now it is said to the martyr: Die, lest you sin.

Tunc dictum est: Si mandatum transgressi fueritis, morte moriemini; nunc dicitur: Si mortem recusaueritis, mandatum transgrediemini. Quod tunc timendum fuerat, ut non peccaretur, nunc suscipiendum est, ne peccetur. Sic per ineffabilem Dei misericordiam et ipsa poena uitiorum transit in arma uirtutis, et fit iusti meritum etiam supplicium peccatoris.

Then it was said: If you shall have transgressed the mandate, by death you shall die; now it is said: If you shall have refused death, you will transgress the mandate. What then had to be feared, lest sin be committed, is now to be taken up, lest sin be committed. Thus, through the ineffable mercy of God, even the penalty of vices passes over into the arms of virtue, and even the punishment of the sinner becomes the merit of the just.

Tunc enim mors est adquisita peccando, nunc inpletur iustitia moriendo. Verum hoc in sanctis martyribus, quibus alterutrum a persecutore proponitur, ut aut deserant fidem aut sufferant mortem. Iusti enim malunt credendo perpeti, quod sunt primi iniqui non credendo perpessi.

Then indeed death was acquired by sinning; now justice is fulfilled by dying. But this is in the holy martyrs, to whom the one or the other is proposed by the persecutor: that they either desert the faith or suffer death. For the just prefer, by believing, to endure what the first unjust, by not believing, endured.

Nisi enim peccassent illi, non morerentur; peccabunt autem isti, nisi moriantur. Mortui sunt ergo illi, quia peccauerunt; non peccant isti, quia moriuntur. Factum est per illorum culpam, ut ueniretur in poenam; fit per istorum poenam, ne ueniatur in culpam; non quia mors bonum aliquod facta est, quae antea malum fuit; sed tantam Deus fidei praestitit gratiam, ut mors, quam uitae constat esse contrariam, instrumentum fieret, per quod transiretur ad uitam.

For if those had not sinned, they would not have died; but these will sin, unless they die. Those, therefore, died because they sinned; these do not sin because they die. It came about through the culpability of those that there was a coming into penalty; it comes about through the penalty of these that there is not a coming into culpability—not because death, which formerly was an evil, has been made some good, but God has bestowed so great a grace upon faith that death, which it is established is contrary to life, might become an instrument by which one might pass over to life.

[V] Apostolus cum uellet ostendere, quantum peccatum gratia non subueniente ad nocendum ualeret, etiam ipsam legem, qua prohibetur peccatum, non dubitauit dicere uirtutem esse peccati. Aculeus, inquit, mortis est peccatum, uirtus autem peccati lex. Verissime omnino.

[V] The Apostle, when he wished to show how much sin, with grace not coming to the aid, was able to harm, did not hesitate to call even the Law itself, by which sin is prohibited, the power of sin. “The sting of death is sin, but the power of sin is the Law.” Most truly indeed.

Auget enim prohibitio desiderium operis inliciti, quando iustitia non sic diligitur, ut peccandi cupiditas eius delectatione uincatur. Vt autem diligatur et delectet uera iustitia, non nisi diuina subuenit gratia. Sed ne propterea lex putaretur malum, quoniam uirtus est dicta peccati: ideo ipse alio loco uersans huius modi quaestionem: Itaque, inquit, lex quidem sancta et mandatum sanctum et iustum et bonum.

For indeed the prohibition augments the desire for an illicit work, when justice is not so loved that the cupidity of sinning is overcome by its delectation. But that true justice may be loved and give delight, it is only if divine grace comes to the aid. Yet lest on that account the law be thought evil, since it was called the power of sin: therefore he himself, in another place, handling a question of this sort: “Therefore,” he says, “the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.”

Quod ergo bonum est, inquit, mihi factum est mors? Absit. Sed peccatum, ut appareat peccatum, per bonum mihi operatum est mortem, ut fiat super modum peccator aut peccatum per mandatum.

“What then? has that which is good become death to me?” Far be it. But sin, in order that it may appear as sin, through the good has worked death for me, so that it might become beyond measure a sinner—or sin—through the commandment.

Super modum dixit, quia etiam praeuaricatio additur, cum peccandi aucta libidine etiam lex ipsa contemnitur. Cur hoc commemorandum putauimus? Quia scilicet, sicut lex non est malum, quando auget peccantium concupiscentiam, ita nec mors bonum est, quando auget patientium gloriam, cum uel illa pro iniquitate deseritur et efficit praeuaricatores, uel ista pro ueritate suscipitur et efficit martyres.

He said “beyond measure,” because prevarication is also added, when, with the libido for sin increased, even the law itself is despised. Why did we think this should be recalled? Because, namely, just as the law is not an evil when it augments the concupiscence of sinners, so neither is death a good when it augments the glory of those who suffer: when the former is abandoned for iniquity and makes prevaricators (transgressors), or the latter is undertaken for truth and makes martyrs.

Ac per hoc lex quidem bona est, quia prohibitio est peccati; mors autem mala, quia stipendium est peccati; sed quem ad modum iniustitia male utitur non tantum malis, uerum etiam bonis: ita iustitia bene non tantum bonis, sed etiam malis. Hinc fit, ut et mali male lege utantur, quamuis sit lex bonum, et boni bene moriantur, quamuis sit mors malum.

And through this the law indeed is good, because it is a prohibition of sin; but death is evil, because it is the wage of sin; yet just as injustice uses badly not only evil things but even good things, so justice uses well not only good things but even evil things. Hence it comes about that the wicked use the law badly, although the law is a good, and the good die well, although death is an evil.

[VI] Quapropter quod adtinet ad corporis mortem, id est separationem animae a corpore, cum eam patiuntur, qui morientes appellantur, nulli bona est. Habet enim asperum sensum et contra naturam uis ipsa, qua utrumque diuellitur, quod fuerat in uiuente coniunctum atque consertum, quamdiu moratur, donec omnis adimatur sensus, qui ex ipso inerat animae carnisque complexu. Quam totam molestiam nonnumquam unus ictus corporis uel animae raptus intercipit nec eam sentiri praeueniente celeritate permittit.

[6] Wherefore, as it pertains to the death of the body, that is, the separation of the soul from the body, when those undergo it who are called the dying, it is good for no one. For it has a harsh sensation, and the very force is against nature by which the two are torn asunder—what had been in the living person joined and interlaced—so long as it lingers, until all sensation is taken away, which inhered from that very embrace of soul and flesh. This whole distress is sometimes intercepted by a single stroke to the body or a snatching (rapture) of the soul, and, with anticipating speed, it does not permit it to be felt.

Quidquid tamen illud est in morientibus, quod cum graui sensu adimit sensum, pie fideliterque tolerando auget meritum patientiae, non aufert uocabulum poenae. Ita cum ex hominis primi perpetuata propagine procul dubio sit mors poena nascentis, tamen si pro pietate iustitiaque pendatur, fit gloria renascentis; et cum sit mors peccati retributio, aliquando inpetrat, ut nihil retribuatur peccato.

Whatever, however, that is in the dying which, while with grievous sensation it takes away sensation, by piously and faithfully enduring it increases the merit of patience, does not take away the appellation of punishment. Thus, since from the perpetuated progeny of the first man death is without doubt the penalty of the one being born, nevertheless, if it be paid on behalf of piety and justice, it becomes the glory of the one being reborn; and, since death is the retribution of sin, it sometimes obtains that nothing be retributed to sin.

[VII] Nam quicumque etiam non percepto regenerationis lauacro pro Christi confessione moriuntur, tantum eis ualet ad dimittenda peccata, quantum si abluerentur sacro fonte baptismatis. Qui enim dixit: Si quis non renatus fuerit ex aqua et spiritu, non intrabit in regnum caelorum, alia sententia istos fecit exceptos, ubi non minus generaliter ait: Qui me confessus fuerit coram hominibus, confitebor eum coram Patre meo qui in caelis est; et alio loco: Qui perdiderit animam suam propter me, inueniet eam. Hinc est quod scriptum est: Pretiosa in conspectu Domini mors sanctorum eius.

[7] For whoever, even with the laver of regeneration not received, die for the confession of Christ, it avails them for the dismissing of sins as much as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism. For he who said: Unless one be reborn of water and Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heavens, by another sentence made these to be excepted, where no less generally he says: Whoever shall have confessed me before men, I will confess him before my Father who is in the heavens; and in another place: Whoever shall have lost his soul on account of me shall find it. Hence it is that it is written: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

Quid enim pretiosius quam mors, per quam fit ut et delicta omnia dimittantur et merita cumulatius augeantur? Neque enim tanti sunt meriti, qui, cum mortem differre non possent, baptizati sunt deletisque omnibus peccatis ex hac uita emigrarunt, quanti sunt hi, qui mortem, cum possent, ideo non distulerunt, quia maluerunt Christum confitendo finire uitam quam eum negando ad eius baptismum peruenire. Quod utique si fecissent, etiam hoc eis in illo lauacro dimitteretur, quod timore mortis negauerant Christum, in quo lauacro et illis facinus tam inmane dimissum est, qui occiderant Christum.

For what is more precious than death, through which it comes to pass that both all offenses are remitted and merits are more cumulatively augmented? For not of so great merit are those who, when they could not defer death, were baptized and, all sins blotted out, emigrated from this life, as are those who, when they could, for this reason did not defer death: because they preferred to finish life by confessing Christ rather than, by denying him, to arrive at his baptism. Which assuredly, if they had done, even this would be remitted to them in that laver—namely, that out of fear of death they had denied Christ—in which laver even to those who had killed Christ so enormous a crime was remitted.

Sed quando sine abundantia gratiae Spiritus illius, qui ubi uult spirat, tantum Christum amare possent, ut eum in tanto uitae discrimine sub tanta spe ueniae negare non possent? Mors igitur pretiosa sanctorum, quibus cum tanta gratia est praemissa et praerogata mors Christi, ut ad eum adquirendum suam non cunctarentur inpendere, in eos usus redactum esse monstrauit, quod ad poenam peccati antea fuerat constitutum, ut inde iustitiae fructus uberior nasceretur. Mors ergo non ideo bonum uideri debet, quia in tantam utilitatem non ui sua, sed diuina opitulatione conuersa est, ut, quae tunc metuenda proposita est, ne peccatum committeretur, nunc suscipienda proponatur, ut peccatum non committatur commissumque deleatur magnaeque uictoriae debita iustitiae palma reddatur.

But when, without the abundance of the grace of that Spirit who breathes where he wills, could they so love Christ that, in so great a peril of life and under so great a hope of pardon, they would be unable to deny him? Therefore the precious death of the saints— for whom, together with so great grace, the death of Christ has been sent before and granted as a prerogative, so that, to acquire him, they did not delay to expend their own —has shown that what had previously been constituted for the penalty of sin has been turned to those uses, so that from it a more abundant fruit of justice might be born. Death, therefore, ought not for that reason to seem a good, because it has been converted into so great a utility, not by its own force, but by divine opitulation: such that what then was set forth to be feared, lest sin be committed, is now set forth to be undertaken, that sin may not be committed and what has been committed may be blotted out, and that to great victory the due palm of righteousness may be rendered.

[VIII] Si enim diligentius consideremus, etiam cum quisque pro ueritate fideliter et laudabiliter moritur, mors cauetur. Ideo quippe aliquid eius suscipitur, ne tota contingat et secunda insuper, quae numquam finiatur, accedat. Suscipitur enim animae a corpore separatio, ne Deo ab anima separato etiam ipsa separetur a corpore, ac sic totius hominis prima morte completa secunda excipiat sempiterna.

[8] For if we consider more diligently, even when someone dies faithfully and laudably for the truth, death is being guarded against. For indeed something of it is undertaken, lest the whole should befall, and, besides, the second, which never comes to an end, should be added. For the separation of the soul from the body is assumed, lest, with God separated from the soul, even it be separated from the body, and thus, the first death of the whole man having been completed, the second, sempiternal, should overtake him.

Quocirca mors quidem, ut dixi, cum eam morientes patiuntur cumque in eis ut moriantur facit, nemini bona est, sed laudabiliter toleratur pro tenendo uel adipiscendo bono; cum uero in ea sunt, qui iam mortui nuncupantur, non absurde dicitur et malis mala et bonis bona. In requie sunt enim animae piorum a corpore separatae, impiorum autem poenas luunt, donec istarum ad aeternam uitam, illarum uero ad aeternam mortem, quae secunda dicitur, corpora reuiuescant.

Wherefore death indeed, as I said, when the dying suffer it and when it works in them so that they die, is good for no one, but is praiseworthily endured for the holding or acquiring of a good; but when they are in it, who are now styled dead, it is not absurdly said to be evil for the evil and good for the good. For the souls of the pious, separated from the body, are in rest, but the souls of the impious pay penalties, until the bodies of the former revive to eternal life, but of the latter to eternal death, which is called the second.

[IX] Sed id tempus, quo animae a corpore separatae aut in bonis sunt aut in malis, utrum post mortem potius an in morte dicendum est? Si enim post mortem est, iam non ipsa mors, quae transacta atque praeterita est, sed post eam uita praesens animae bona seu mala est. Mors autem tunc eis mala erat, quando erat, hoc est quando eam patiebantur, cum morerentur, quoniam grauis et molestus eius inerat sensus; quo malo bene utuntur boni.

[9] But that time, in which souls separated from the body are either in good or in ill, should it be said rather to be after death or in death? For if it is after death, then it is not death itself—which is finished and past—but after it the present life of the soul is good or evil. But death then was evil to them, when it was, that is, when they were suffering it, when they were dying, since a heavy and troublesome sensation of it was present; which evil the good use well.

Peracta autem mors quonam modo uel bona uel mala est, quae iam non est? Porro si adhuc diligentius adtendamus, nec illa mors esse apparebit, cuius grauem ac molestum in morientibus diximus sensum. Quamdiu enim sentiunt, adhuc utique uiuunt, et si adhuc uiuunt, ante mortem quam in morte potius esse dicendi sunt; quia illa, cum uenerit, aufert omnem corporis sensum, qui ea propinquante molestus est.

But how can a completed death be either good or evil, seeing that it no longer is? Moreover, if we attend more diligently, even that will not appear to be death, whose heavy and troublesome sensation we said is in those who are dying. For as long as they feel, they assuredly still live; and if they still live, they are to be said to be before death rather than in death; because that, when it has come, removes every sensation of the body, which is troublesome as it draws near.

Ac per hoc quo modo morientes dicamus eos, qui nondum mortui sunt, sed inminente morte iam extrema et mortifera adflictione iactantur, explicare difficile est, etiamsi recte isti appellantur morientes, quia, cum mors quae iam inpendet aduenerit, non morientes, sed mortui nuncupantur. Nullus est ergo moriens nisi uiuens, quoniam, cum in tanta est extremitate uitae, in quanta sunt quos agere animam dicimus, profecto qui nondum anima caruit adhuc uiuit. Idem ipse igitur simul et moriens est et uiuens, sed morti accedens, uita cedens; adhuc tamen in uita, quia inest anima corpori; nondum autem in morte, quia nondum abscessit a corpore.

And therefore how we should call “dying” those who are not yet dead, but, with death imminent, are already tossed by an extreme and death-bringing affliction, is hard to explain, although they are rightly called “dying,” because, when the death which is already impending has arrived, they are designated not as dying but as dead. No one, then, is dying unless living; for when one is in such an extremity of life as are those whom we say are breathing out the soul, surely he who has not yet been bereft of the soul is still alive. The same person, therefore, is at once both dying and living—acceding to death, ceding life; yet still in life, because the soul is in the body; and not yet in death, because it has not yet departed from the body.

Sed si, cum abscesserit, nec tunc in morte, sed post mortem potius erit: quando sit in morte quis dixerit? Nam neque ullus moriens erit, si moriens et uiuens simul esse nullus potest. Quamdiu quippe anima in corpore est, non possumus negare uiuentem.

But if, when it has departed, not then will it be in death, but rather after death: who will say when someone is in death? For neither will there be anyone dying, if no one can be at once dying and living. Indeed, as long as the soul is in the body, we cannot deny the living.

Aut si moriens potius dicendus est, in cuius iam corpore agitur ut moriatur, nec simul quisquam potest esse uiuens et moriens: nescio quando sit uiuens.

Or if he is rather to be called dying, in whose body it is already being brought about that he die, and no one can at the same time be living and dying: I do not know when he is living.

[X] Ex quo enim quisque in isto corpore morituro esse coeperit, numquam in eo non agitur ut mors ueniat. Hoc enim agit eius mutabilitas toto tempore uitae huius (si tamen uita dicenda est), ut ueniatur in mortem. Nemo quippe est, qui non ei post annum sit, quam ante annum fuit, et cras quam hodie, et hodie quam heri, et paulo post quam nunc, et nunc quam paulo ante propinquior; quoniam, quidquid temporis uiuitur, de spatio uiuendi demitur, et cotidie fit minus minusque quod restat, ut omnino nihil sit aliud tempus uitae huius, quam cursus ad mortem, in quo nemo uel paululum stare uel aliquanto tardius ire permittitur; sed urgentur omnes pari motu nec diuerso inpelluntur accessu.

[10] For from the moment that each one began to be in this body destined-to-die, it is never not being worked in him that death may come. For this is what its mutability effects through the whole time of this life (if indeed it is to be called life), that one may come into death. There is no one, in fact, who is not nearer to it after a year than he was a year before, and tomorrow than today, and today than yesterday, and a little after than now, and now than a little before; since whatever time is lived is subtracted from the span of living, and each day what remains becomes less and less, so that the time of this life is absolutely nothing other than a course toward death, in which no one is permitted either to stand even a little or to go any slower; but all are pressed on with an equal motion and are not impelled by a divergent approach.

Neque enim, cui uita breuior fuit, celerius diem duxit quam ille, cui longior; sed cum aequaliter et aequalia momenta raperentur ambobus, alter habuit propius, alter remotius, quo non inpari uelocitate ambo currebant. Aliud est autem amplius uiae peregisse, aliud tardius ambulasse. Qui ergo usque ad mortem productiora spatia temporis agit, non lentius pergit, sed plus itineris conficit.

Nor indeed did he whose life was shorter pass the day more swiftly than he whose life was longer; but since equal moments were being snatched equally from both, the one had nearer, the other farther, the point to which both were running with no unequal velocity. It is one thing, however, to have accomplished more of the way, another to have walked more slowly. Therefore he who spends more extended spans of time up to death does not go more slowly, but completes more of the journey.

Porro si ex illo quisque incipit mori, hoc est esse in morte, ex quo in illo agi coeperit ipsa mors, id est uitae detractio (quia, cum detrahendo finita fuerit, post mortem iam erit, non in morte): profecto, ex quo esse incipit in hoc corpore, in morte est. Quid enim aliud diebus horis momentisque singulis agitur, donec ea consumpta mors, quae agebatur, impleatur, et incipiat iam tempus esse post mortem, quod, cum uita detraheretur, erat in morte? Numquam igitur in uita homo est, ex quo est in isto corpore moriente potius quam uiuente, si et in uita et in morte simul non potest esse.

Moreover, if each person begins to die—that is, to be in death—from the point at which in him death itself begins to be acted, that is, the detraction of life (since, when by subtraction it shall have been finished, it will already be after death, not in death): assuredly, from the point at which he begins to be in this body, he is in death. For what else is being transacted in the individual days, hours, and moments, until that death which was being transacted is fulfilled by being consumed, and the time begins now to be after death, which, while life was being detracted, was in death? Never, therefore, is a human in life, from the moment he is in this body that is dying rather than living, if he cannot be both in life and in death at the same time.

An potius et in uita et in morte simul est; in uita scilicet, in qua uiuit, donec tota detrahatur; in morte autem, quia iam moritur, cum uita detrahitur? Si enim non est in uita, quid est quod detrahitur, donec eius fiat perfecta consumptio? Si autem non est in morte, quid est uitae ipsa detractio?

Or rather is he both in life and in death at the same time; in life, to wit, in which he lives, until the whole be detracted; but in death, because he is already dying, while life is being detracted? For if he is not in life, what is it that is being detracted, until its perfect consumption be made? But if he is not in death, what is the very detraction of life?

Non enim frustra, cum uita fuerit corpori tota detracta, post mortem iam dicitur, nisi quia mors erat, cum detraberetur. Nam si ea detracta non est homo in morte, sed post mortem: quando, nisi cum detrahitur, erit in morte?.

For it is not in vain that, when life has been wholly drawn off from the body, it is now said to be post mortem, unless because it was death when it was being drawn off. For if, with it drawn off, the man is not in death, but after death: when, unless when it is being drawn off, will he be in death?.

[XI] Si autem absurdum est, ut hominem, antequam ad mortem perueniat, iam esse dicamus in morte (cui enim propinquat peragendo uitae suae tempora, si iam in illa est?), maxime quia nimis est insolens, ut simul et uiuens esse dicatur et moriens, cum uigilans et dormiens simul esse non possit: quaerendum est quando erit moriens. Etenim antequam mors ueniat, non est moriens, sed uiuens; cum uero mors uenerit, mortuus erit, non moriens. Illud ergo est adhuc ante mortem, hoc iam post mortem.

[11] But if it is absurd that we should say that a human, before he arrives at death, is already in death (to which, indeed, does he draw near by accomplishing the periods of his life, if he is already in it?), especially because it is far too unusual that he should be said at once both living and dying, since one cannot be at once awake and sleeping: we must ask when he will be dying. For indeed, before death comes, he is not dying, but living; but when death shall have come, he will be dead, not dying. That, therefore, is still before death; this, now, after death.

Quando ergo in morte? Tunc enim est moriens, ut, quem ad modum tria sunt cum dicimus "ante mortem, in morte, post mortem", ita tria singulis singula "uiuens, moriens mortuusque" reddantur. Quando itaque sit moriens, id est in morte, ubi neque sit uiuens, quod est ante mortem, neque mortuus, quod est post mortem, sed moriens, id est in morte, difficillime definitur.

When, then, is one in death? For then he is dying, so that, just as there are three when we say "before death, in death, after death," thus three, one for each, are rendered: "living, dying, and dead." When, therefore, he is dying, that is, in death, where he is neither living, which is before death, nor dead, which is after death, but dying, that is, in death, this is most difficult to define.

Quamdiu quippe est anima in corpore, maxime si etiam sensus adsit, procul dubio uiuit homo, qui constat ex anima et corpore, ac per hoc adhuc ante mortem, non in morte esse dicendus est; cum uero anima abscesserit omnemque abstulerit corporis sensum, iam post mortem mortuusque perhibetur. Perit igitur inter utrumque, quo moriens uel in morte sit; quoniam si adhuc uiuit, ante mortem est; si uiuere destitit, iam post mortem est. Numquam ergo moriens, id est in morte, esse conprehenditur.

For as long as the soul is in the body, especially if sensation is also present, without doubt the human being lives, who consists of soul and body, and therefore he is still to be said to be before death, not in death; but when the soul has departed and has taken away all sensation of the body, he is already after death and is accounted dead. Therefore that intermediate (state) between the two, in which he would be dying or in death, is lost; since if he still lives, he is before death; if he has ceased to live, he is already after death. Never, then, is one dying, that is, in death, comprehended.

Ita etiam in transcursu temporum quaeritur praesens, nec inuenitur, quia sine ullo spatio est, per quod transitur ex futuro in praeteritum. Nonne ergo uidendum est, ne ista ratione mors corporis nulla esse dicatur? Si enim est, quando est, quae in ullo et in qua ullus esse non potest?

Thus also, in the transit of times the present is sought and not found, because it is without any space, through which one passes from the future into the past. Must it not therefore be considered, lest by this reasoning the death of the body be said to be nothing? For if it is, when is it—since it is in no time, and in it no one can be?

Quando quidem si uiuitur, adhuc non est, quia hoc ante mortem, non in morte; si autem uiuere iam cessatum est, iam non est, quia et hoc post mortem est, non in morte. Sed rursus si nulla mors est ante quid uel post, quid est quod dicitur ante mortem siue post mortem? Nam et hoc inaniter dicitur, si mors nulla est.

Since indeed, if one is living, it is not yet, because this is before death, not in death; but if living has already ceased, it is now not, because this too is after death, not in death. But again, if there is no death either before or after, what is it that is called before death or after death? For even this is said inanely, if death is nothing.

Atque utinam in paradiso bene uiuendo egissemus, ut re uera nulla mors esset. Nunc autem non solum est, uerum etiam tam molesta est, ut nec ulla explicari locutione possit nec ulla ratione uitari.

And would that in paradise we had conducted ourselves by living well, so that in very truth there would be no death. Now, however, it not only exists, but is also so grievous that neither can it be explicated by any locution nor avoided by any reason.

Loquamur ergo secundum consuetudinem (non enim aliter debemus) et dicamus "ante mortem", priusquam mors accidat; sicut scriptum est: Ante mortem ne laudes hominem quemquam. Dicamus etiam cum acciderit: Post mortem illius uel illius factum est illud aut illud. Dicamus et de praesenti tempore ut possumus, uelut cum ita loquimur: Moriens ille testatus est, et: Illis atque illis illud atque illud moriens dereliquit; quamuis hoc nisi uiuens omnino facere non posset et potius hoc ante mortem fecerit, non in morte.

Let us speak, then, according to custom (for we ought not otherwise), and let us say "before death," before death befalls; just as it is written: Before death do not praise any man. Let us also say when it has happened: After the death of this one or that one, this or that was done. Let us also speak of the present time as we can, as when we speak thus: That man, dying, made his testament, and: To such-and-such persons he, dying, relinquished such-and-such things; although he could not do this at all unless living, and rather he did this before death, not in death.

Loquamur etiam sicut loquitur scriptura diuina, quae mortuos quoque non post mortem, sed in morte esse non dubitat dicere. Hinc enim est illud: Quoniam non est in morte, qui memor sit tui. Donec enim reuiuescant, recte esse dicuntur in morte, sicut in somno esse quisque, donec euigilet, dicitur; quamuis in somno positos dicamus dormientes, nec tamen eo modo possumus dicere eos, qui iam sunt mortui, morientes.

Let us speak also as the divine Scripture speaks, which does not hesitate to say that even the dead are not after death, but in death. Hence is that: Because there is not in death one who is mindful of you. For until they revive, they are rightly said to be in death, just as one is said to be in sleep until he awaken; although we call those placed in sleep “sleeping,” yet in that manner we cannot call those who are already dead “dying.”

Non enim adhuc moriuntur, qui, quantum adtinet ad corporis mortem, de qua nunc disserimus, iam sunt a corporibus separati. Sed hoc est, quod dixi explicari aliqua locutione non posse, quonam modo uel morientes dicantur uiuere uel iam mortui etiam post mortem adhuc esse dicantur in morte. Quo modo enim post mortem, si adhuc in morte ? praesertim cum eos nec morientes dicamus, sicuti eos, qui in somno sunt, dicimus dormientes, et qui in languore, languentes, et qui in dolore, utique dolentes, et qui in uita, uiuentes; at uero mortui, priusquam resurgant, esse dicuntur in morte, nec tamen possunt appellari morientes.

For they are not still dying, who, so far as it pertains to bodily death, about which we are now discoursing, are already separated from their bodies. But this is what I said cannot be explicated by any locution: in what way either those dying are said to live, or those already dead are said even after death still to be in death. For how after death, if still in death? especially since we do not call them dying, just as those who are in sleep we call sleeping, and those who are in sickness, languishing, and those who are in pain, of course suffering, and those who are in life, living; but indeed the dead, before they rise again, are said to be in death, and yet they cannot be called dying.

Vnde non inportune neque incongrue arbitror accidisse, etsi non humana industria, iudicio fortasse diuino, ut hoc uerbum, quod est moritur, in Latina lingua nec grammatici declinare potuerint ea regula qua cetera talia declinantur. Namque ab eo quod est oritur, fit uerbum praeteriti temporis "ortus est"; et si qua similia sunt, per temporis praeteriti participia declinantur. Ab eo uero, quod est moritur, si quaeramus praeteriti temporis uerbum, responderi adsolet "mortuus est", u littera geminata.

Whence I judge it to have happened not inopportunely nor incongruously—if not by human industry, perhaps by divine judgment—that this word, which is “moritur,” in the Latin tongue not even the grammarians have been able to decline by that rule by which other such are declined. For from that which is “oritur,” there is made the verb of past time “ortus est”; and if there are any similar, they are declined through participles of past time. But from that which is “moritur,” if we seek the verb of past time, the reply is usually “mortuus est,” with the letter u doubled.

Sic enim dicitur mortuus, quo modo fatuus, arduus, conspicuus et si qua similia, quae non sunt praeteriti temporis, sed quoniam nomina sunt, sine tempore declinantur. Illud autem, quasi ut declinetur, quod declinari non potest, pro participio praeteriti temporis ponitur nomen. Conuenienter itaque factum est, ut, quem ad modum id quod significat non potest agendo, ita ipsum uerbum non posset loquendo declinari.

Thus “mortuus” is said in the same way as “fatuous, arduous, conspicuous,” and any similar words, which are not of past time, but, since they are nouns, are declined without time. But, as though that which cannot be declined were to be declined, a noun is put in place of the participle of past time. Accordingly it has been done suitably, that, just as that which it signifies cannot be accomplished by acting, so the verb itself could not be declined in speaking.

Agi tamen potest in adiutorio gratiae Redemptoris nostri, ut saltem secundam mortem declinare possimus. Illa est enim grauior et omnium malorum pessima, quae non fit separatione animae et corporis, sed in aeternam poenam potius utriusque complexu. Ibi e contrario non erunt homines ante mortem atque post mortem, sed semper in morte; ac per hoc numquam uiuentes, numquam mortui, sed sine fine morientes.

Yet it can be done, with the aid of the grace of our Redeemer, that we may at least be able to decline the second death. For that is graver and the worst of all evils, which is not effected by the separation of soul and body, but rather by the embrace of both into eternal punishment. There, on the contrary, there will not be human beings before death and after death, but always in death; and hence never living, never dead, but dying without end.

Numquam enim erit homini peius in morte, quam ubi erit mors ipsa sine morte.

For never indeed will it be worse for man in death than where death itself will be without death.

[XII] Cum ergo requiritur, quam mortem Deus primis hominibus fuerit comminatus, si ab eo mandatum transgrederentur acceptum nec oboedientiam custodirent, utrum animae an corporis an totius hominis an illam quae appellatur secunda: respondendum est: Omnes. Prima enim constat ex duabus, [secunda] ex omnibus tota. Sicut enim uniuersa terra ex multis terris et uniuersa ecclesia ex multis constat ecclesiis: sic uniuersa mors ex omnibus.

[12] Therefore, when it is inquired what death God had threatened to the first humans, if they should transgress the command received from him and not keep obedience, whether of the soul or of the body or of the whole man or that which is called the second: it must be answered: All. For the first consists of two; the [second], of all, entire. For just as the universal earth consists of many lands and the universal church consists of many churches: so universal death consists of all.

Quoniam prima constat ex duabus, una animae, altera corporis; ut sit prima totius hominis mors, cum anima sine Deo et sine corpore ad tempus poenas luit; secunda uero, ubi anima sine Deo cum corpore poenas aeternas luit. Quando ergo dixit Deus primo illi homini, quem in paradiso constituerat, de cibo uetito: Quacumque die ederitis ex illo, morte moriemini s non tantum primae mortis partem priorem, ubi anima priuatur Deo, nec tantum posteriorem, ubi corpus priuatur anima, nec solam ipsam totam primam, ubi anima et a Deo et.a corpore separata punitur; sed quidquid mortis est usque ad nouissimam, quae secunda dicitur, qua est nulla posterior, comminatio illa complexa est.

Since the first consists of two, one of the soul, the other of the body; so that the first death of the whole human being is, when the soul without God and without the body for a time pays penalties; but the second, when the soul without God with the body pays eternal penalties. Therefore when God said to that first man, whom he had established in paradise, concerning the forbidden food: On whatever day you shall eat from it, you shall die by death, that commination embraced not only the prior part of the first death, where the soul is deprived of God, nor only the posterior, where the body is deprived of the soul, nor the whole first itself alone, where the soul, separated both from God and from the body, is punished; but whatever of death there is even unto the last, which is called the second, after which there is none, that threat encompassed.

[XIII] Nam postea quam praecepti facta transgressio est, confestim gratia deserente diuina de corporum suorum nuditate confusi sunt. Vnde etiam foliis ficulneis, quae forte a perturbatis prima comperta sunt, pudenda texerunt; quae prius eadem membra erant, sed pudenda non erant. Senserunt ergo nouum motum inoboedientis carnis suae, tamquam reciprocam poenam inoboedientiae suae.

[13] For after the transgression of the precept had been committed, immediately, with divine grace deserting, they were confounded at the nakedness of their bodies. Whence also with fig leaves, which perhaps were first discovered by them in their perturbation, they covered the pudenda; which previously were the same members, but were not pudenda. They sensed therefore a new motion of their disobedient flesh, as if a reciprocal penalty of their disobedience.

Iam quippe anima libertate in peruersum propria delectata et Deo dedignata seruire pristino corporis seruitio destituebatur, et quia superiorem dominum suo arbitrio deseruerat, inferiorem famulum ad suum arbitrium non tenebat, nec omni modo habebat subditam carnem, sicut semper habere potuisset, si Deo subdita ipsa mansisset. Tunc ergo coepit caro concupiscere aduersus spiritum, cum qua controuersia nati sumus, trahentes originem mortis et in membris nostris uitiataque natura contentionem eius siue uictoriam de prima praeuaricatione gestantes.

Already indeed the soul, delighted by its own liberty into the perverse and disdaining to serve God, was being left destitute of the body’s former service; and because by its own will it had deserted the superior Lord, it did not hold the inferior servant to its will, nor did it have the flesh in every way subject, as it could always have had, if it itself had remained subject to God. Then therefore the flesh began to desire (concupisce) against the spirit, with which controversy we are born, dragging along the origin of death, and, in our members, bearing by a vitiated nature its contention—or its victory—from the first prevarication.

[XIV] Deus enim creauit hominem rectum, naturarum auctor, non utique uitiorum; sed sponte deprauatus iusteque damnatus deprauatos damnatosque generauit. Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus, qui per feminam lapsus est in peccatum, quae de illo facta est ante peccatum. Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma, in qua singuli uiueremus; sed iam erat natura seminalis, ex qua propagaremur; qua scilicet propter peccatum uitiata et uinculo mortis obstricta iusteque damnata non alterius condicionis homo ex homine nasceretur.

[14] For God created man upright, the author of natures, not, to be sure, of vices; but, having of his own accord become depraved and justly condemned, he begot the depraved and the condemned. For we all were in that one, when we all were that one, who through the woman fell into sin, she who was made from him before sin. Not yet had there been for us an individually created and apportioned form in which each would live; but already there was a seminal nature, from which we would be propagated; and since this, on account of sin, was vitiated and bound by the bond of death and justly condemned, from man there would be born a man of no other condition.

Ac per hoc a liberi arbitrii malo usu series calamitatis huius exorta est, quae humanum genus origine deprauata, uelut radice corrupta, usque ad secundae mortis exitium, quae non habet finem, solis eis exceptis qui per Dei gratiam liberantur, miseriarum conexione perducit.

And therefore, from the evil use of free will, the series of this calamity arose, which, the human race depraved in its origin, as though the root were corrupted, by a connection of miseries conducts it all the way to the destruction of the second death, which has no end, with only those excepted who are liberated by the grace of God.

[XV] Quam ob rem etiamsi in eo quod dictum est: Morte moriemini, quoniam non est dictum: Mortibus, eam solam intellegamus, quae fit cum anima deseritur sua uita, quod illi Deus est (non enim deserta est ut desereret, sed ut desereretur deseruit; ad malum quippe eius prior est uoluntas eius; ad bonum uero eius prior est uoluntas Creatoris eius; siue ut eam faceret, quae nulla erat, siue ut reficiat, quia lapsa perierat), — etiamsi ergo hanc intellegamus Deum denuntiasse mortem in eo quod ait: Qua die ederitis ex illo, morte moriemini; tamquam diceret: Qua die me deserueritis per inoboedientiam, deseram uos per iustitiam: profecto in ea morte etiam ceterae denuntiatae sunt, quae procul dubio fuerant secuturae. Nam in eo, quod inoboediens motus in carne animae inoboedientis exortus est, propter quem pudenda texerunt, sensa est mors una, in qua deseruit animam Deus. Ea significata est uerbis eius, quando timore dementi sese abscondenti homini dixit: Adam, ubi es? non utique ignorando quaerens, sed increpando admonens, ut adtenderet ubi esset, in quo Deus non esset.

[15] Wherefore, even if in that which was said, By death you shall die, since it was not said, By deaths, we understand that one alone which comes to pass when the soul is deserted by its own life, which for it is God (for it was not deserted in order that it might desert, but it deserted in order that it might be deserted; for to its evil its own will is prior; but to its good the will of its Creator is prior—whether to make it, which was nothing, or to refashion it, because, having fallen, it had perished), — even if, therefore, we understand that God announced this death in that he said, On the day you shall eat of it, by death you shall die; as though he were saying, On the day you desert me through disobedience, I will desert you through justice: surely in that death the others also were denounced, which without doubt were going to follow. For in this, that a disobedient motion arose in the flesh of the disobedient soul, on account of which they covered the pudenda, there was felt that one death in which God deserted the soul. This was signified by his words, when to the man hiding himself in demented fear he said: Adam, where are you? not, to be sure, seeking in ignorance, but chidingly admonishing, that he might attend to where he was, wherein God was not.

Cum uero corpus anima ipsa deseruit aetate corruptum et senectute confectum, uenit in experimentum mors altera, de qua Deus peccatum adhuc puniens homini dixerat: Terra es et in terram ibis; ut ex his duabus mors illa prima, quae totius est hominis, compleretur, quam secunda in ultimo sequitur, nisi homo per gratiam liberetur. Neque enim corpus, quod de terra est, rediret in terram nisi sua morte, quae illi accidit, cum deseritur sua uita, id est anima. Vnde constat inter Christianos ueraciter catholicam tenentes fidem etiam ipsam nobis corporis mortem non lege naturae, qua nullam mortem homini Deus fecit, sed merito inflictam esse peccati, quoniam peccatum uindicans Deus dixit homini, in quo tunc omnes eramus: Terra es et in terram ibis.

When indeed the body is abandoned by the soul itself, worn by age and exhausted by old age, the second death comes into experience, of which God, still punishing sin, had said to the man: You are earth and to earth you shall go; so that from these two that first death, which is of the whole man, might be fulfilled, which the second follows at the last, unless the man is freed by grace. For the body, which is of earth, would not return to earth except by its own death, which befalls it when it is deserted by its own life, that is, the soul. Whence it is established among Christians truly holding the catholic faith that even the death of the body itself has been inflicted on us not by the law of nature—by which God made no death for man—but by the merit (desert) of sin, since, vindicating sin, God said to the man in whom then we all were: You are earth and to earth you shall go.

[XVI] Sed philosophi, contra quorum calumnias defendimus ciuitatem Dei, hoc est eius ecclesiam, sapienter sibi uidentur inridere, quod dicimus animae a corpore separationem inter poenas eius esse deputandam, quia uidelicet eius perfectam beatitudinem tunc illi fieri existimant, cum omni prorsus corpore exuta ad Deum simplex et sola et quodam modo nuda redierit. Vbi si nihil, quo ista refelleretur opinio, in eorum litteris inuenirem, operosius mihi disputandum esset, quo demonstrarem non corpus esse animae, sed corruptibile corpus onerosum. Vnde illud est quod de scripturis nostris in superiore libro commemorauimus: Corpus enim corruptibile adgrauat animam.

[16] But the philosophers, against whose calumnies we defend the City of God, that is, its Church, seem to themselves wisely to mock this: that we say the separation of the soul from the body is to be reckoned among its punishments, because, forsooth, they suppose its perfect beatitude then to come to it, when, stripped of every body altogether, it shall have returned to God simple and alone and, in a certain manner, naked. Where, if I were to find nothing in their writings by which that opinion might be refuted, it would be more laborious for me to argue, in order to demonstrate that the body is not the soul, but that the corruptible body is onerous. Whence is that which we have recalled from our Scriptures in the previous book: For the corruptible body weighs down the soul.

Addendo utique corruptibile non qualicumque corpore, sed quale factum est ex peccato consequente uindicta, animam perhibuit adgrauari. Quod etiamsi non addidisset, nihil aliud intellegere deberemus. Sed cum apertissime Plato deos a summo Deo factos habere inmortalia corpora praedicet eisque ipsum Deum, a quo facti sunt, inducat pro magno beneficio pollicentem, quod in aeternum cum suis corporibus permanebunt nec ab eis ulla morte soluentur: quid est quod isti ad exagitandam Christianam fidem fingunt se nescire quod sciunt, aut etiam sibi repugnantes aduersum se ipsos malunt dicere, dum nobis non desinant contradicere?

By adding, to be sure, “corruptible,” not with just any kind of body, but such as was made from sin with the consequent vengeance, he affirmed that the soul is weighed down. Which, even if he had not added it, we ought to understand nothing else. But since most openly Plato proclaims that the gods, made by the highest God, have immortal bodies, and he introduces the very God by whom they were made as promising, as a great beneficium, that they will remain for eternity with their bodies and will by no death be loosed from them: what is it that these men, in order to harry the Christian faith, feign not to know what they know, or even, in self-contradiction, prefer to speak against themselves, so long as they do not cease to contradict us?

Nempe Platonis haec uerba sunt, sicut ea Cicero in Latinum uertit, quibus inducit summum deum deos quos fecit adloquentem ac dicentem: "Vos, qui deorum satu orti estis, adtendite: quorum operum ego parens effectorque sum, haec sunt indissolubilia me inuito, quamquam omne conligatum solui potest; sed haudquaquam bonum est ratione uinctum uelle dissoluere. Sed quoniam estis orti, inmortales uos quidem esse et indissolubiles non potestis; ne utiquam tamen dissoluemini, neque uos ulla mortis fata periment, nec erunt ualentiora quam consilium meum, quod maius est uinculum ad perpetuitatem uestram quam illa quibus estis <tum, cum gignebamini,> conligati." Ecce deos Plato dicit et corporis animaeque conligatione mortales, et tamen inmortales dei a quo facti sunt uoluntate atque consilio. Si ergo animae poena est in qualicumque corpore conligari, quid est quod eos adloquens deus tamquam sollicitos, ne forte moriantur, id est dissoluantur a corpore, de sua facit inmortalitate securos; non propter eorum naturam, quae sit compacta, non simplex, sed propter suam inuictissimam uoluntatem, qua potens est facere, ut nec orta occidant nec conexa soluantur, sed incorruptibiliter perseuerent?

To wit, these are Plato’s words, as Cicero translated them into Latin, in which he introduces the highest God addressing the gods whom he made and saying: "You, who are sprung from the seed of gods, attend: the works of which I am parent and maker are indissoluble without my consent, although everything con-ligated can be loosed; but it is by no means good to wish to dissolve what has been bound by reason. But since you have been born, you indeed cannot be immortal and indissoluble; nevertheless you will by no means be dissolved, nor will any fates of death destroy you, nor will they be stronger than my counsel, which is a greater bond for your perpetuity than those by which you were con-ligated <then, when you were being begotten,>." Behold, Plato says that the gods are mortal by the con-ligation of body and soul, and yet immortal by the will and counsel of the God by whom they were made. If therefore it is a penalty for the soul to be con-ligated in any kind of body, why is it that God, addressing them as though anxious lest perhaps they die—that is, be dissolved from the body—makes them secure concerning their immortality; not on account of their nature, which is composite, not simple, but on account of his most unconquerable will, by which he is potent to bring it about that neither things arisen perish nor things connected be loosed, but that they persevere incorruptibly?

Et hoc quidem utrum Plato uerum de sideribus dicat, alia quaestio est. Neque enim ei continuo concedendum est globos istos luminum siue orbiculos luce corporea super terras seu die seu nocte fulgentes suis quibusdam propriis animis uiuere eisque intellectualibus et beatis, quod etiam de ipso uniuerso mundo, tamquam uno animali maximo, quo cuncta cetera continerentur animalia, instanter adfirmat. Sed haec, ut dixi, alia quaestio est, quam nunc discutiendam non suscepimus.

And as to whether Plato says the truth about the stars, that indeed is another question. For it is not forthwith to be conceded to him that those globes of lights, or little orbs, shining with corporeal light above the earth whether by day or by night, live by certain proper souls of their own, and that these are intellectual and blessed—something which he also insistently affirms of the universe itself, as though it were one greatest animal, in which all the other animals were contained. But these, as I said, are another question, which we have not undertaken to discuss now.

Hoc tantum contra istos commemorandum putaui, qui se Platonicos uocari uel esse gloriantur, cuius superbia nominis erubescunt esse Christiani, ne commune illis cum uulgo uocabulum uilem faciat palliatorum tanto magis inflatam, quanto magis exiguam paucitatem; et quaerentes, quid in doctrina Christiana reprehendant, exagitant aeternitatem corporum, tamquam haec sint inter se contraria, ut et beatitudinem quaeramus animae et eam semper esse uelimus in corpore, uelut aerumnoso uinculo conligatam; cum eorum auctor et magister Plato donum a deo summo diis ab illo factis dicat esse concessum, ne aliquando moriantur, id est a corporibus, quibus eos conexuit, separentur.

I thought at least this ought to be recalled against those who boast to be called or to be Platonists, who, out of the pride of that name, blush to be Christians, lest an appellation shared with the common crowd make cheap the cloaked-men’s clique—puffed up all the more, the more scant their paucity; and, seeking what they may reprehend in Christian doctrine, they inveigh against the eternity of bodies, as though these were contrary among themselves: that we both seek beatitude for the soul and wish it to be always in the body, as if bound in a toilsome chain; whereas their author and master Plato says that a gift has been granted by the highest God to the gods made by him, that they should never die—that is, be separated from the bodies by which he has bound them.

[XVII] Contendunt etiam isti terrestria corpora sempiterna esse non posse cum ipsam uniuersam terram dei sui, non quidem summi, sed tamen magni, id est totius huius mundi, membrum in medio positum et sempiternum esse non dubitent. Cum ergo deus ille summus fecerit eis alterum quem putant deum, id est istum mundum, ceteris diis, qui infra eum sunt, praeferendum, eundemque esse existiment animantem, anima scilicet, sicut asserunt, rationali uel intellectuali in tam magna mole corporis eius inclusa, ipsiusque corporis tamquam membra locis suis posita atque digesta quattuor constituerit elementa, quorum iuncturam, ne umquam deus eorum tam magnus moriatur, insolubilem ac sempiternam uelint: quid causae est, ut in corpore maioris animantis tamquam medium membrum aeterna sit terra, et aliorum animantium terrestrium corpora, si Deus sicut illud uelit, aeterna esse non possint? Sed terrae, inquiunt, terra reddenda est, unde animalium terrestria sumpta sunt corpora; ex quo fit, inquiunt, ut ea sit necesse dissolui et emori et eo modo terrae stabili ac sempiternae, unde fuerant sumpta, restitui.

[17] These people also contend that terrestrial bodies cannot be sempiternal, while they do not doubt that the earth itself in its entirety, a member of their god—not indeed the highest, yet great, that is, of this whole world—set in the middle, is sempiternal. Since therefore that highest god, as they say, made for them another whom they deem a god, that is, this world, to be preferred to the other gods who are beneath it, and they think this same to be an animate being, namely with a rational or intellectual soul, enclosed within so great a mass of its body, and He constituted the four elements of its body as though members placed and disposed in their proper locations, and they will the junction of these, lest ever their god so great should die, to be insoluble and sempiternal: what reason is there that in the body of the greater animal the earth should be eternal as a kind of middle member, and the terrestrial bodies of other animals, if God so wills as with that, cannot be eternal? But, they say, earth must be rendered back to earth, whence the terrestrial bodies of animals were taken; whence it comes about, they say, that it is necessary for them to be dissolved and to die, and in that way to be restored to the stable and sempiternal earth whence they had been taken.

Si quis hoc et iam de igne similiter adfirmet et dicat reddenda esse uniuerso igni corpora, quae inde sumpta sunt, ut caelestia fierent animalia: nonne inmortalitas, quam talibus diis, uelut deo summo loquente, promisit Plato, tamquam uiolentia disputationis huius intercidet? An ibi propterea non fit, quia Deus non uult, cuius uoluntatem, ut ait Plato, nulla uis uincit? Quid ergo prohibet, ut hoc etiam de terrestribus corporibus Deus possit efficere, quandoquidem, ut nec ea quae orta sunt occidant nec ea quae sunt uincta soluantur nec ea quae sunt ex elementis sumpta reddantur atque ut animae in corporibus constitutae nec umquam ea deserant et cum eis inmortalitate ac sempiterna beatitudine perfruantur, posse Deum facere confitetur Plato?

If someone also should affirm this likewise about fire and say that the bodies which were taken from it must be rendered back to the universal fire, so that celestial animals might be made: would not the immortality which Plato promised to such gods, as though with the supreme God speaking, be, as it were, cut down by the violence of this disputation? Or does it for that reason not occur there, because God does not will it, whose will, as Plato says, no force conquers? What then prevents God from being able to effect this also concerning terrestrial bodies, since Plato acknowledges that God can bring it about that neither the things which have arisen perish, nor the things which are bound be loosed, nor the things taken from the elements be given back, and that souls, established in bodies, never desert them and enjoy with them immortality and sempiternal beatitude?

Cur ergo non possit, ut nec terrestria moriantur? An Deus non est potens quo usque Christiani credunt, sed quo usque Platonici uolunt? Nimirum quippe consilium Dei et potestatem potuerunt philosophi, nec potuerunt nosse prophetae; cum potius e contrario Dei prophetas ad enuntiandam eius, quantum dignatus est, uoluntatem Spiritus eius docuerit, philosophos autem in ea cognoscenda coniectura humana deceperit.

Why then could it not be, that not even the earthly things die? Or is God not powerful as far as Christians believe, but only as far as the Platonists will? No doubt, forsooth, the philosophers were able to grasp the counsel and the power of God, and the prophets were not able to know them; whereas rather, on the contrary, the prophets of God the Spirit of him taught to enunciate his will, insofar as he deigned, but the philosophers he led astray in the knowing of it by human conjecture.

Verum non usque adeo decipi debuerunt, non solum ignorantia, uerum etiam peruicacia, ut et sibi apertissime refragentur magnis disputationum uiribus adserentes animae, ut beata esse possit, non terrenum tantum, sed omne corpus esse fugiendum, et deos rursus dicentes habere beatissimas animas et tamen aeternis corporibus inligatas, caelestes quidem igneis, Iouis autem ipsius animam, quem mundum istum uolunt, omnibus omnino corporeis elementis, quibus haec tota moles a terra in caelum surgit, inclusam. Hanc enim animam Plato ab intimo terrae medio, quod geometrae centron uocant, per omnes partes eius usque ad caeli summa et extrema diffundi et extendi per numeros musicos opinatur, ut sit iste mundus animal maximum beatissimum sempiternum, cuius anima et perfectam sapientiae felicitatem teneret et corpus proprium non relinqueret, cuiusque corpus et in aeternum ex illa uiueret et eam quamuis non simplex, sed tot corporibus tantisque conpactum hebetare atque tardare non posset. Cum igitur suspicionibus suis ista permittant, cur nolunt credere, diuina uoluntate atque potentia inmortalia corpora fieri posse terrena, in quibus animae nulla ab eis morte separatae, nullis eorum oneribus adgrauatae sempiterne ac feliciter uiuant, quod deos suos posse adserunt in corporibus igneis Iouemque ipsum eorum regem in omnibus corporeis elementis?

Yet they ought not to have been deceived to such a degree, not only by ignorance but also by pervicacity, as even to break most plainly against themselves, asserting with great forces of disputations that, for the soul, in order that it may be blessed, not the earthly only, but every body must be fled; and again saying that the gods have most blessed souls and yet are in-ligated to eternal bodies—heavenly ones indeed fiery, but the soul of Jove himself, whom they will this world to be, enclosed within absolutely all the corporeal elements by which this whole mass rises from earth into heaven. For Plato opines that this soul, from the inmost middle of the earth, which the geometers call the center, is diffused and extended through all its parts up to the highest and outermost reaches of the sky through musical numbers, so that this world may be the greatest, most blessed, sempiternal animal, whose soul both would hold the perfected felicity of wisdom and would not leave its own body, and whose body also would live forever from it, nor would it, although not simple but compacted of so many and so great bodies, be able to dull and to retard it. Since therefore they permit these things to their conjectures, why are they unwilling to believe that by divine will and power earthly bodies can be made immortal, in which souls, separated by no death from them, burdened by none of their weights, might live sempiternally and happily—something which they assert their gods are able to do in fiery bodies, and Jove himself, their king, in all the corporeal elements?

Nam si animae, ut beata sit, corpus est omne fugiendum, fugiant dii eorum de globis siderum, fugiat Iuppiter de caelo et terra; aut si non possunt, miseri iudicentur. Sed neutrum isti uolunt, qui neque a corporibus separationem audent dare diis suis, ne illos mortales colere uideantur, nec beatitudinis priuationem, ne infelices eos esse fateantur. Non ergo ad beatitudinem consequendam omnia fugienda sunt corpora; sed corruptibilia molesta, grauia moribunda; non qualia fecit primis hominibus bonitas Dei, sed qualia esse compulit poena peccati.

For if for the soul, in order that it may be blessed, every body is to be fled, let their gods flee from the globes of the stars, let Jupiter flee from heaven and earth; or if they cannot, let them be judged wretched. But those men will neither have the one nor the other, who neither dare to grant to their gods a separation from bodies, lest they seem to worship mortals, nor a privation of beatitude, lest they confess them to be unhappy. Therefore, not all bodies are to be fled for the attaining of beatitude; but the corruptible, troublesome, heavy, moribund ones: not such as the goodness of God made for the first human beings, but such as the penalty of sin has compelled them to be.

[XVIII] Sed necesse est, inquiunt, ut terrena corpora naturale pondus uel in terra teneat uel cogat ad terram et ideo in caelo esse non possint. Primi quidem illi homines in terra erant nemorosa atque fructuosa, quae paradisi nomen obtinuit; sed quia et ad hoc respondendum est uel propter Christi corpus cum quo ascendit in caelum uel propter sanctorum qualia in resurrectione futura sunt, intueantur paulo adtentius pondera ipsa terrena. Si enim ars humana efficit, ut ex metallis, quae in aquis posita continuo submerguntur, quibusdam modis uasa fabricata etiam natare possint: quanto credibilius et efficacius occultus aliquis modus operationis Dei, cuius omnipotentissima uoluntate Plato dicit nec orta interire nec conligata posse dissolui, cum multo mirabilius incorporea corporeis quam quaecumque corpora quibuscumque corporibus copulentur, potest molibus praestare terrenis, ut nullo in ima pondere deprimantur, ipsisque animis perfectissime beatis, ut quamuis terrena, tamen incorruptibilia iam corpora ubi uolunt ponant et quo uolunt agant, situ motuque facillimo!

[18] But, they say, it is necessary that the natural weight of earthly bodies either hold them on the earth or drive them to the earth, and therefore they cannot be in heaven. Those first human beings indeed were on an earth wooded and fruitful, which obtained the name of Paradise; but because this too must be answered, either on account of the body of Christ with which he ascended into heaven, or on account of what kind the bodies of the saints will be in the resurrection, let them look a little more attentively at the weights themselves of earthly things. For if human art brings it about that from metals, which, when placed in waters, are immediately submerged, vessels fashioned by certain methods can even float: how much more credibly and efficaciously can some hidden mode of the operation of God—by whose most omnipotent will Plato says that things which have arisen do not perish, nor can things that have been con-ligated be dissolved—since incorporeal things are joined to corporeal much more wondrously than any bodies are coupled with any bodies whatsoever, bestow upon earthly masses that they be pressed down by no weight into the depths, and upon the souls themselves most perfectly blessed, that, although earthly, nevertheless their bodies now incorruptible may place where they will and drive them where they will, with placement and motion most easy!

An uero si hoc angeli faciant et quaelibet animalia terrestria rapiant unde libet constituantque ubi libet, aut eos non posse aut onera sentire credendum est? Cur ergo sanctorum perfectos et beatos diuino munere spiritus sine ulla difficultate posse ferre quo uoluerint et sistere ubi uoluerint sua corpora non credamus? Nam cum terrenorum corporum, sicut onera in gestando sentire consueuimus, quanto maior est quantitas, tanto sit maior et grauitas, ita ut plura pondo quam pauciora plus premant: membra tamen suae carnis leuiora portat anima cum in sanitate robusta sunt quam in languore cum macra sunt.

An indeed, if angels do this and snatch up whatever terrestrial animals they please from wherever they please and set them wherever they please, must we believe either that they cannot do it, or that they feel the burdens? Why then should we not believe that the spirits of the saints—made perfect and blessed by a divine munus—are able, without any difficulty, to bear their bodies whither they will and to set them where they will? For although, in the case of earthly bodies—as we are accustomed to feel in carrying burdens—the greater the quantity, the greater also the gravity, so that things more by weight press more than fewer, nevertheless the soul carries the members of its own flesh lighter when they are robust in health than in sickness when they are lean.

Et cum aliis gestantibus onerosior sit saluus et ualidus quam exilis et morbidus, ipse tamen ad suum corpus mouendum atque portandum agilior est, cum in bona ualetudine plus habet molis, quam cum in peste uel fame minimum roboris. Tantum ualet in habendis etiam terrenis corporibus, quamuis adhuc corruptibilibus atque mortalibus, non quantitatis pondus, sed temperationis modus. Et quis uerbis explicat, quantum distet inter praesentem quam dicimus sanitatem et inmortalitatem futuram?

And although, when borne by others, a man is more onerous when sound and strong than when thin and morbid, yet he himself is more agile for moving and carrying his own body when in good health he has more mass than when, in pestilence or famine, he has the least strength. So much, even in the having of earthly bodies—although still corruptible and mortal—avails not the weight of quantity but the mode of temperation. And who can unfold in words how far the distance is between the present condition which we call health and the immortality to come?

Non itaque nostram fidem redarguunt philosophi de ponderibus corporum. Nolo enim quaerere, cur non credant terrenum esse posse corpus in caelo, cum terra uniuersa libretur in nihilo. Fortassis enim de ipso medio mundi loco, eo quod in eum coeant quaeque grauiora, etiam argumentatio ueri similior habeatur.

Therefore the philosophers do not refute our faith concerning the weights of bodies. For I do not wish to inquire why they do not believe that a terrestrial body can be in heaven, since the whole earth is balanced upon nothing. For perhaps from the very middle place of the world—because the heavier things converge into it—an argument more verisimilar might be had.

Illud dico: Si dii minores, quibus inter animalia terrestria cetera etiam hominem faciendum commisit Plato, potuerunt, sicut dicit, ab igne remouere urendi qualitatem, lucendi relinquere quae per oculos emicaret: itane Deo summo concedere dubitabimus, cuius ille uoluntati potestatique concessit, ne moriantur quae orta sint, et tam diuersa, tam dissimilia, id est corporea et incorporea, sibimet conexa nulla possint dissolutione seiungi, ut de carne hominis, cui donat inmortalitatem, corruptionem auferat, naturam relinquat, congruentiam figurae membrorumque detineat, detrahat ponderis tarditatem? Sed de fide resurrectionis mortuorum, et de corporibus eorum inmortalibus diligentius, si Deus uoluerit, in fine huius operis disserendum est.

I say this: If the lesser gods, to whom among terrestrial animals also the making of man Plato entrusted, were able, as he says, to remove from fire the quality of burning, to leave of shining that which would flash through the eyes—shall we hesitate to concede to the highest God, to whose will and power he conceded that the things which have arisen should not die, and that things so diverse, so dissimilar, that is, corporeal and incorporeal, being bound together to one another, could by no dissolution be sundered—namely, that from the flesh of man, to which he gives immortality, he remove corruption, leave nature, detain the congruence of form and of the members, and take away the tardiness of weight? But concerning the faith of the resurrection of the dead, and concerning their immortal bodies, more diligently, if God wills, at the end of this work it must be discussed.

[XIX] Nunc de corporibus primorum hominum quod instituimus explicemus; quoniam nec mors ista, quae bona perbibetur bonis nec tantum paucis intellegentibus siue credentibus, sed omnibus nota est, qua fit animae a corpore separatio, qua certe corpus animantis, quod euidenter uiuebat, euidenter emoritur, eis potuisset accidere, nisi peccati meritum sequeretur. Licet enim iustorum ac piorum animae defunctorum quod in requie uiuant dubitare fas non sit, usque adeo tamen eis melius esset cum suis corporibus bene ualentibus uiuere, ut etiam illi, qui omni modo esse sine corpore beatissimum existimant, hanc opinionem suam sententia repugnante conuincant. Neque enim quisquam audebit illorum sapientes homines, siue morituros siue iam mortuos, id est aut carentes corporibus aut corpora relicturos, diis inmortalibus anteponere, quibus Deus summus apud Platonem munus i ngens, indissolubilem scilicet uitam, id est aeternum cum suis corporibus consortium, pollicetur. Optime autem cum hominibus agi arbitratur idem Plato, si tamen hanc uitam pie iusteque peregerint, ut a suis corporibus separati in ipsorum deorum, qui sua corpora numquam deserunt, recipiantur sinum,

[19] Now let us explain what we undertook about the bodies of the first human beings; since not even that death, which is accounted as a good by the good—not only by a few understanding or believing, but is known to all—by which the separation of the soul from the body comes about, whereby surely the body of a living creature, which was evidently alive, evidently dies, could have befallen them, unless the desert of sin had followed. For although it is not lawful to doubt that the souls of the just and pious deceased live in rest, nevertheless it would be so much better for them to live with their own bodies in good health, that even those who in every way think that to be without a body is most blessed confute this opinion of theirs by a judgment that clashes with it. For no one will dare to set those wise men, whether about to die or already dead—that is, either lacking bodies or about to leave their bodies—before the immortal gods, to whom the highest God, in Plato, promises a huge gift, namely an indissoluble life, that is, an eternal consortium with their bodies. And the same Plato judges that it goes best with human beings, if indeed they shall have passed this life piously and justly, that, separated from their bodies, they be received into the bosom of those very gods who never desert their bodies,

Scilicet inmemores supera ut conuexa reuisant

Of course, forgetful, that they may revisit the upper convexities

Rursus et incipiant in corpora uelle reuerti; quod Vergilius ex Platonico dogmate dixisse laudatur (ita quippe animas mortalium nec in suis corporibus semper esse posse existimat, sed mortis necessitate dissolui, nec sine corporibus durare perpetuo, sed alternantibus uicibus indesinenter uiuos ex mortuis et ex uiuis mortuos fieri putat); ut a ceteris hominibus hoc uideantur differre sapientes, quod post mortem feruntur ad sidera, ut aliquanto diutius in astro sibi congruo quisque requiescat atque inde rursus miseriae pristinae oblitus et cupiditate habendi corporis uictus redeat ad labores aerumnasque mortalium; illi uero, qui stultam duxerint uitam, ad corpora suis meritis debita siue hominum siue bestiarum de proximo reuoluantur. In hac itaque durissima condicione constituit etiam bonas atque sapientes animas, quibus non talia corpora distributa sunt, cum quibus semper atque inmortaliter uiuerent, ut neque in corporibus permanere neque sine his possint in aeterna puritate durare. De quo Platonico dogmate iam in libris superioribus diximus Christiano tempori erubuisse Porphyrium et non solum ab, animis humanis remouisse corpora bestiarum, uerum etiam sapientium animas ita uoluisse de corporeis nexibus liberari, ut corpus omne fugientes beatae apud Patrem sine fine teneantur.

Again, they also begin to be willing to return into bodies; which Vergil is praised for having said from the Platonic dogma (for thus he deems that the souls of mortals can neither be able to be always in their own bodies, but are dissolved by the necessity of death, nor endure perpetually without bodies, but, with alternating vicissitudes, unceasingly the living are made from the dead and from the living the dead); so that the wise seem to differ from other men in this, that after death they are borne to the stars, so that each may rest for a somewhat longer time in the star congruent to himself, and from there again, forgetful of former misery and overcome by the desire of having a body, returns to the labors and hardships of mortals; but those who have led a foolish life are rolled back without delay to bodies owed by their deserts, whether of men or of beasts. In this therefore most hard condition he also sets good and wise souls, to whom bodies of such a kind have not been allotted, with which they might live always and immortally, so that they can neither remain in bodies nor be able to endure in eternal purity without them. About which Platonic dogma we have already said in the preceding books that Porphyry was ashamed before the Christian time, and not only removed from human souls the bodies of beasts, but also wished that the souls of the wise be thus freed from corporeal bonds, that, fleeing every body, they may be held blessed with the Father without end.

Itaque ne a Christo uinci uideretur uitam sanctis pollicente perpetuam, etiam ipse purgatas animas sine ullo ad miserias pristinas reditu in aeterna felicitate constituit; et ut Christo aduersaretur, resurrectionem incorruptibilium corporum negans non solum sine terrenis, sed sine ullis omnino corporibus eas adseruit in sempiternum esse uicturas. Nec tamen ista qualicumque opinione praecepit saltem ne diis corporatis religionis obsequio subderentur. Quid ita, nisi quia eas, quamuis nulli corpori sociatas, non credidit illis esse meliores?

Accordingly, lest he should seem to be conquered by Christ, who promises to the saints a perpetual life, he too set the purged souls in eternal felicity without any return to their former miseries; and, so as to oppose Christ, denying the resurrection of incorruptible bodies, he asserted that they would live on in sempiternity not only without terrene bodies, but utterly without any bodies at all. Nor yet, with this opinion of whatever sort it was, did he at least prescribe that they not be subjected, by the service of religion, to corporeal gods. Why so, unless because he did not believe them, although associated with no body, to be better than those?

Quapropter, si non audebunt isti, sicut eos ausuros esse non arbitror, diis beatissimis et tamen in aeternis corporibus constitutis humanas animas anteponere: cur eis uidetur absurdum, quod fides Christiana praedicat, et primos homines ita fuisse conditos, ut, si non peccassent, nulla morte a suis corporibus soluerentur, sed pro meritis oboedientiae custoditae inmortalitate donati cum eis uiuerent in aeternum; et talia sanctos in resurrectione habituros ea ipsa, in quibus hic laborauerunt, corpora, ut nec eorum carni aliquid corruptionis uel difficultatis nec eorum beatitudini aliquid doloris et infelicitatis possit accidere?

Wherefore, if these men will not dare—as I do not suppose they will dare—to set human souls before the most blessed gods, who nevertheless are constituted in eternal bodies: why does that seem absurd to them which the Christian faith preaches, namely, that the first humans were so created that, if they had not sinned, by no death would they be loosed from their bodies, but, endowed with immortality for the merits of obedience kept, they would live with them forever; and that in the resurrection the holy will have such bodies—those very bodies in which they labored here—such that neither to their flesh could anything of corruption or difficulty, nor to their beatitude anything of pain and infelicity befall?

[XX] Proinde nunc sanctorum animae defunctorum ideo non habent grauem mortem, qua separatae sunt a corporibus suis quia caro eorum requiescit in spe, quaslibet sine ullo iam sensu contumelias accepisse uideatur. Non enim, sicut Platoni uisum est, corpora obliuione desiderant, sed potius, quia meminerunt quid sibi ab eo sit promissum, qui neminem fallit, qui eis etiam de capillorum suorum integritate securitatem dedit, resurrectionem corporum, in quibus multa dura perpessi sunt, nihil in eis ulterius tale sensuri desiderabiliter et patienter expectant. Si enim carnem suam non oderant, quando eam suae menti infirmitate resistentem spiritali iure cohercebant, quanto magis eam diligunt etiam ipsam spiritalem futuram!

[20] Accordingly, the souls of the holy departed do not now have a grievous death—that by which they were separated from their bodies—because their flesh rests in hope, however many contumelies it may seem to have received now without any sensation. For the bodies do not, as it seemed to Plato, need oblivion, but rather, because they remember what has been promised to them by Him who deceives no one, who also gave them assurance even concerning the integrity of their hairs, they desirously and patiently await the resurrection of the bodies, in which they endured many hard things, being about to feel nothing further of the sort in them. For if they did not hate their flesh when, resisting their mind by its infirmity, they restrained it by spiritual right, how much more do they love it, it too destined to be spiritual!

Sicut enim spiritus carni seruiens non incongrue carnalis, ita caro spiritui seruiens recte appellabitur spiritalis, non quia in spiritum conuertetur, sicut nonnulli putant ex eo quod scriptum est: Seminatur corpus animale, surget corpus spiritale, sed quia spiritui summa et mirabili obtemperandi facilitate subdetur usque ad implendam inmortalitatis indissolubilis securissimam uoluntatem, omni molestiae sensu, omni corruptibilitate et tarditate detracta. Non solum enim non erit tale, quale nunc est in quauis optima ualetudine, sed nec tale quidem, quale fuit in primis hominibus ante peccatum, qui licet morituri non essent, nisi peccassent, alimentis tamen ut homines utebantur, nondum spiritalia, sed adhuc animalia corpora terrena gestantes. Quae licet senio non ueterescerent, ut necessitate perducerentur ad mortem (qui status eis de ligno uitae, quod in medio paradiso cum arbore uetita simul erat, mirabili Dei gratia praestabatur), tamen et alios sumebant cibos praeter unam arborem, quae fuerat interdicta, non quia ipsa erat malum, sed propter commendandum purae et simplicis oboedientiae bonum, quae magna uirtus est rationalis creaturae sub Creatore Domino constitutae.

For just as a spirit serving the flesh is not incongruously called carnal, so the flesh serving the spirit will rightly be called spiritual, not because it will be converted into spirit, as some think from what is written: “It is sown an animal body, it will rise a spiritual body,” but because it will be subjected to the spirit with the highest and marvelous facility of obeying, even to the fulfilling of the most secure will of indissoluble immortality, with every sense of trouble, all corruptibility and slowness stripped away. For it will not only not be such as it now is in whatever best health, but not even such, indeed, as it was in the first humans before sin, who, although they would not have died unless they had sinned, nevertheless used aliment as humans, bearing not yet spiritual but as yet animal earthly bodies. And although they would not grow old with senility so as to be brought by necessity to death (a state that was afforded them by the tree of life, which was in the middle of paradise together with the forbidden tree, by the wondrous grace of God), nevertheless they also took other foods besides the one tree which had been interdicted, not because it itself was evil, but for the commendation of the good of pure and simple obedience, which is a great virtue of the rational creature set under the Creator Lord.

Nam ubi nullum malum tangebatur, profecto, si prohibitum tangeretur, sola inoboedientia peccabatur. Agebatur ergo aliis quae sumebant, ne animalia corpora molestiae aliquid esuriendo ac sitiendo sentirent; de ligno autem uitae propterea gustabatur, ne mors eis undecumque subreperet uel senectute confecta decursis temporum spatiis interirent; tamquam cetera essent alimento, illud sacramento; ut sic fuisse accipiatur lignum uitae in paradiso corporali, sicut in spiritali, hoc est intellegibili, paradiso sapientia Dei, de qua scriptum est: Lignum uitae est amplectentibus eam.

For where no evil was being touched, assuredly, if what was forbidden were touched, only disobedience would be sinned. They were therefore sustained by the other things which they took, lest their animal bodies should feel any trouble from hungering and thirsting; but of the tree of life they tasted for this reason, lest death should steal upon them from anywhere whatsoever, or, worn out with old age, they should perish after the spans of time had run their course; as though the others were for aliment, that one for sacrament; so that the tree of life is thus to be taken as having been in the bodily paradise, as in the spiritual, that is, the intelligible, paradise—namely the Wisdom of God—concerning which it is written: Tree of life it is to those embracing her.

[XXI] Vnde nonnulli totum ipsum paradisum, ubi primi homines parentes generis humani sanctae scripturae ueritate fuisse narrantur, ad intellegibilia referunt arboresque illas et ligna fructifera in uirtutes uitae moresque conuertunt; tamquam uisibilia et corporalia illa non fuerint, sed intellegibilium significandorum causa eo modo dicta uel scripta sint. Quasi propterea non potuerit esse paradisus corporalis, quia potest etiam spiritalis intellegi; tamquam ideo non fuerint duae mulieres, Agar et Sarra, et ex eis duo filii Abrahae, unus de ancilla, alius de libera, quia duo testamenta in eis figurata dicit apostolus; aut ideo de nulla petra Moyse percutiente aqua defluxerit, quia potest illic figurata significatione etiam Christus intellegi, eodem apostolo dicente: Petra autem erat Christus. Nemo itaque prohibet intellegere paradisum uitam beatorum, quattuor eius flumina quattuor uirtutes, prudentiam, fortitudinem, temperantiam atque iustitiam, et ligna eius omnes utiles disciplinas et lignorum fructus mores piorum et lignum uitae ipsam bonorum omnium matrem sapientiam et lignum scientiae boni et mali transgressi mandati experimentum.

[21] Whence some refer that whole paradise itself, where the first humans, the parents of the human race, are reported by the truth of Holy Scripture to have been, to the intelligibles, and they convert those trees and fruit-bearing woods into virtues of life and morals; as though those things were not visible and corporeal, but had been said or written in that way for the sake of signifying intelligibles. As if for that reason a bodily paradise could not have existed, because a spiritual one can also be understood; as though therefore there had not been two women, Hagar and Sarah, and from them two sons of Abraham, one from the handmaid, the other from the freewoman, because the Apostle says two testaments are figured in them; or therefore that from no rock did water flow when Moses struck, because Christ also can be understood there by a figurative signification, the same Apostle saying: But the Rock was Christ. No one, therefore, forbids understanding paradise as the life of the blessed, its four rivers as the four virtues—prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice—and its trees as all useful disciplines, and the fruits of the trees as the moral habits of the pious, and the tree of life as wisdom itself, the mother of all goods, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as the experience resulting from the transgression of the command.

Poenam enim peccatoribus bene utique, quoniam iuste, constituit Deus, sed non suo bono experitur homo. Possunt haec etiam in ecclesia intellegi, ut ea melius accipiamus tamquam prophetica indicia praecedentia futurorum; paradisum scilicet ipsam eccesiam, sicut de illa legitur in cantico canticorum; quattuor autem paradisi flumina quattuor euangelia, ligna fructifera sanctos, fructus autem eorum opera eorum, lignum uitae sanctum sanctorum utique Christum, lignum scientiae boni et mali proprium uoluntatis arbitrium. Nec se ipso quippe homo diuina uoluntate contempta nisi perniciose uti potest atque ita discit, quid intersit, utrum inhaereat communi omnibus bono an proprio delectetur.

For God has, assuredly, constituted punishment for sinners well, since justly, but man does not experience it to his own good. These things can also be understood in the church, so that we may better receive them as prophetic indicia praecedent of the things to come; paradise, namely, the church itself, as is read of it in the Song of Songs; the four rivers of paradise, moreover, the four Gospels; the fruit-bearing trees the saints, and their fruits their works; the tree of life the Holy of holies, namely Christ; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the free choice of one’s own will. For neither can a man, with the divine will despised, use his very self except perniciously, and thus he learns what difference there is, whether he adhere to the good common to all or take delight in his own.

Se quippe amans donatur sibi, ut inde timoribus maeroribusque ompletus cantet in psalmo, si tamen mala sua sentit: Ad me ipsum turbata est anima mea; correctusque iam dicat: Fortitudinem meam ad te custodiam. Haec et si qua alia commodius dici possunt de intellegendo spiritaliter paradiso nemine prohibente dicantur, dum tamen et illius historiae ueritas fidelissima rerum gestarum narratione commendata credatur.

For indeed, the one loving himself is given over to himself, so that, filled with fears and griefs, he may sing in the psalm—if, however, he perceives his own evils: "My soul is troubled within me"; and, corrected, let him now say: "My strength I will keep for you." Let these things, and if any others can more suitably be said about understanding paradise spiritually, be said with no one forbidding; provided, however, that the truth of that history too, commended by a most faithful narration of things done, be believed.

[XXII] Corpora ergo iustorum, quae in resurrectione futura sunt, neque ullo ligno indigebunt, quo fiat ut nullo morbo uel senectute inueterata moriantur, neque ullis aliis corporalibus alimentis, quibus esuriendi ac sitiendi qualiscumque molestia deuitetur; quoniam certo et omni modo inuiolabili munere inmortalitatis induentur, ut non nisi uelint, possibilitate, non necessitate uescantur. Quod angeli quoque uisibiliter et tractabiliter adparentes, non quia indigebant, sed quia uolebant et poterant, ut hominibus congruerent sui ministerii quadam humanitate, fecerunt (neque enim in phantasmate angelos edisse credendum est, quando eos homines hospitio susceperunt), quamuis utrum angeli essent ignorantibus simili nobis indigentia uesci uiderentur. Vnde est quod ait angelus in libro Tobiae: Videbatis me manducare, sed uisu uestro uidebatis; id est necessitate reficiendi corporis, sicut uos facitis, me cibum sumere putabatis.

[22] The bodies, therefore, of the righteous, which are to be in the resurrection, will neither need any tree, by which it would come to pass that they do not die by any disease or by senescence grown inveterate, nor any other corporeal alimenta, by which any sort of molestation of hungering and thirsting might be avoided; since they will be clothed with the sure and in every way inviolable gift of immortality, so that they may take food only if they will, by possibility, not by necessity. This the angels also, appearing visibly and tangibly, did—not because they needed, but because they wished and were able—in order to be congruent to men by a certain humanity of their ministry (for it is not to be believed that angels ate in a phantasm, when men received them with hospitality), although to those who did not know whether they were angels they seemed to eat with an indigence similar to ours. Whence it is that the angel says in the book of Tobit: You saw me eat, but by your sight you saw; that is, you supposed that I took food from a necessity of refreshing the body, as you do.

Sed si forte de angelis aliud credibilius disputari potest, certe fides Christiana de ipso Saluatore non dubitat, quod etiam post resurrectionem, iam quidem in spiritali carne, sed tamen uera, cibum ac potum cum discipulis sumpsit. Non enim potestas, sed egestas edendi ac bibendi talibus corporibus auferetur. Vnde et spiritalia erunt, non quia corpora esse desistent, sed quia spiritu uiuificante subsistent.

But if perchance concerning angels something else can be argued more credibly, surely the Christian faith does not doubt concerning the Savior himself, that even after the resurrection—already indeed in spiritual flesh, yet nevertheless true—he took food and drink with the disciples. For it is not the power, but the need of eating and drinking that will be taken away from such bodies. Whence they also will be spiritual, not because they will cease to be bodies, but because by the life-giving Spirit they will subsist.

[XXIII] Nam sicut ista, quae habent animam uiuentem, nondum spiritum uiuificantem, animalia dicuntur corpora, nec tamen animae sunt, sed corpora: ita illa spiritalia uocantur corpora; absit tamen ut spiritus ea credamus futura, sed corpora carnis habitura substantiam, sed nullam tarditatem corruptionemque carnalem spiritu uiuificante passura. Tunc iam non terrenus, sed caelestis homo erit; non quia corpus, quod de terra factum est, non ipsum erit; sed quia dono caelesti iam tale erit, ut etiam caelo incolendo non amissa natura, sed mutata qualitate conueniat. Primus autem homo de terra terrenus in animam uiuentem factus est, non in spiritum uiuificantem, quod ei post oboedientiae meritum seruabatur.

[23] For just as those things which have a living soul, not yet a life‑giving spirit, are called animal bodies, and yet they are not souls but bodies: so those will be called spiritual bodies; far be it, however, that we should believe them going to be spirits, but bodies that will have the substance of flesh, yet will suffer no slowness nor carnal corruption, by the life‑giving spirit. Then already man will be not earthly but heavenly; not because the body which was made of earth will not be itself, but because by a heavenly gift it will by then be of such a sort that, even for inhabiting heaven, it will be suitable, not by a nature lost but by a quality changed. But the first man, from the earth, earthy, was made into a living soul, not into a life‑giving spirit, which was being reserved for him after the merit of obedience.

Ideo corpus eius, quod cibo ac potu egebat, ne fame adficeretur ac siti, et non inmortalitate illa absoluta atque indissolubili, sed ligno uitae a mortis necessitate prohibebatur atque in iuuentutis flore tenebatur, non spiritale, sed animale fuisse non dubium est, nequaquam tamen moriturum, nisi in Dei praedicentis minantisque sententiam delinquendo conruisset et alimentis quidem etiam extra paradisum non negatis, a ligno tamen uitae prohibitus traditus esset tempori uetustatique finiendus, in ea dumtaxat uita, quam in corpore licet animali, donec spiritale oboedientiae merito fieret, posset in paradiso nisi peccasset habere perpetuam. Quapropter etiamsi mortem istam manifestam, qua fit animae a corpore separatio, intellegamus simul significatam in eo quod Deus dixerat: Qua die ederitis ex illo, morte moriemini: non ideo debet absurdum uideri, quia non eo prorsus die a corpore sunt soluti, quo cibum interdictum mortiferumque sumpserunt. Eo quippe die mutata in deterius uitiataque natura atque a ligno uitae separatione iustissima mortis in eis etiam corporalis necessitas facta est, cum qua nos necessitate nati sumus.

Therefore his body, which was in need of food and drink lest it be afflicted by hunger and thirst, and which was kept back from the necessity of death not by that absolute and indissoluble immortality, but by the tree of life, and was held in the flower of youth, was, without doubt, not spiritual but animal; yet by no means destined to die, unless by transgressing he had collapsed into the sentence of God who foretold and threatened; and with nourishment indeed not denied even outside paradise, yet, prohibited from the tree of life, he would have been handed over to time and age to be finished, in that life only which, in a body though animal, until by the merit of obedience it should become spiritual, he could have had perpetual in paradise, had he not sinned. Wherefore, even if we understand that manifest death, by which there is made a separation of the soul from the body, to have been signified at the same time in that which God had said: On the day you shall eat from it, you shall surely die: it ought not therefore to seem absurd, because they were not on that very day released from the body on which they took the forbidden and death-bringing food. For on that very day, nature having been changed for the worse and vitiated, and by the separation from the tree of life, the most just necessity of death, even bodily, was established in them—the necessity with which we are born.

Propter quod apostolus non ait: Corpus quidem moriturum est propter peccatum; sed ait: Corpus quidem mortuum est propter peccatum, spiritus autem uita est propter iustitiam. Deinde subiunxit: Si autem spiritus eius, quo suscitauit Christum a mortuis, habitat in uobis: qui suscitauit Christum a mortuis uiuificabit et mortalia corpora uestra per inhabitantem spiritum eius in uobis. Tunc ergo erit corpus in spiritum uiuificantem, quod nunc est in animam uiuentem; et tamen mortuum dicit apostolus, quia iam moriendi necessitate constrictum est.

On account of which the apostle does not say: 'The body indeed will be about to die because of sin'; but he says: 'The body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.' Then he subjoined: 'But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you: he who raised Christ from the dead will vivify even your mortal bodies through his Spirit inhabiting in you.' Then therefore the body will be in a life-giving spirit, whereas now it is in a living soul; and yet the apostle calls it dead, because it is already constrained by the necessity of dying.

Tunc autem <ita> erat in animam uiuentem, quamuis non in spiritum uiuificantem, ut tamen mortuum dici non recte posset, quia nisi perpetratione peccati necessitatem moriendi habere non posset. Cum uero Deus et dicendo: Adam, ubi es? mortem significauerit animae, quae facta est illo deserente, et dicendo: Terra es et in terram ibis mortem significauerit corporis, quae illi fit anima discedente: propterea de morte secunda nihil dixisse credendus est, quia occultam esse uoluit propter dispensationem testamenti noui, ubi secunda mors apertissime declaratur; ut prius ista mors prima, quae communis est omnibus, proderetur ex illo uenisse peccato, quod in uno commune factum est omnibus; mors uero secunda non utique communis est omnibus propter eos, qui secundum propositum uocati sunt, quos ante praesciuit et praedestinauit, sicut ait apostolus, conformes imagines filii sui, ut sit ipse primogenitus in multis fratribus, quos a secunda morte per Mediatorem Dei gratia liberauit.

Then, however, it was <thus> “into a living soul,” although not “into a life‑giving spirit,” such that it could not rightly be called dead, because it could not have the necessity of dying except by the perpetration of sin. But when God, both by saying: Adam, where are you? signified the death of the soul, which came to be by his deserting Him, and by saying: Dust you are and into dust you shall go signified the death of the body, which befalls it when the soul departs: for this reason He is to be believed to have said nothing about the second death, because He willed it to be hidden on account of the dispensation of the New Testament, where the second death is most openly declared; so that first this first death, which is common to all, might be brought to light as having come from that sin, which in one was made common to all; but the second death is not, to be sure, common to all, on account of those who are called according to purpose, whom He foreknew and predestinated, as the apostle says, conformed to the image of His Son, that He Himself might be the firstborn among many brothers, whom He freed from the second death by the grace of God through the Mediator.

In corpore ergo animali primum hominem factum sic apostolus loquitur. Volens enim ab spiritali, quod in resurrectione futurum est, hoc quod nunc est animale discernere: Seminatur, inquit, in corruptione, surget in incorruptione; seminatur in contumelia, surget in gloria; seminatur in infirmitate, surget in uirtute; seminatur corpus animale, surget corpus spiritale. Deinde ut hoc probaret: Si est, inquit, corpus animale, est et spiritale.

In an animal body, therefore, the first man was made—thus the apostle speaks. For, wishing to distinguish this which now is animal from the spiritual which will be in the resurrection, he says: It is sown, he says, in corruption, it will rise in incorruption; it is sown in contumely, it will rise in glory; it is sown in infirmity, it will rise in virtue; it is sown an animal body, it will rise a spiritual body. Then, in order to prove this: If there is, he says, an animal body, there is also a spiritual.

Et ut quid esset animale corpus ostenderet: Sic, inquit, <et> scriptum est: Factus est primus homo in animam uiuentem. Isto igitur modo uoluit ostendere quid sit corpus animale, quamuis scriptura non dixerit de homine primo, qui est appellatus Adam, quando illi anima flatu Dei creata est: Et factus est homo in corpore animali; sed: Factus est homo in animam uiuentem. In eo ergo quod scriptum est: Factus est primus homo in animam uiuentem, uoluit apostolus intellegi corpus hominis animale.

And so that he might show what an animal body was: Thus, he says, <et> it is written: The first man was made into a living soul. In this way, therefore, he wished to show what an animal body is, although Scripture did not say of the first man, who is called Adam, when the soul was created for him by the breath of God: And the man was made in an animal body; but: The man was made into a living soul. Therefore, in that which is written: The first man was made into a living soul, the apostle wished the body of the man to be understood as animal.

Spiritale autem quem ad modum intellegendum esset, ostendit addendo: Nouissimus Adam in spiritum uiuificantem, procul dubio Christum significans, qui iam ex mortuis ita resurrexit, ut mori deinceps omnino non possit. Denique sequitur et dicit: Sed non primum quod spiritale est, sed quod animale, postea spiritale. Vbi multo apertius declarauit se animale corpus insinuasse in eo quod scriptum est factum esse primum hominem in animam uiuentem, spiritale autem in eo quod ait: Nouissimus Adam in spiritum uiuificantem.

But in what manner the spiritual was to be understood, he shows by adding: “the Last Adam into a life-giving spirit,” beyond doubt signifying Christ, who has already risen from the dead in such a way that thereafter he can in no wise die. Finally he follows and says: “But not first what is spiritual, but what is animal; afterward spiritual.” Here he much more plainly declared that he had insinuated an animal body in that which is written, “the first man was made into a living soul,” but a spiritual in that which he says: “the Last Adam into a life-giving spirit.”

Prius est enim animale corpus, quale habuit primus Adam, quamuis non moriturum, nisi peccasset; quale nunc habemus et nos, hactenus eius mutata uitiataque natura, quatenus in illo, postea quam peccauit, effectum est, unde haberet iam moriendi necessitatem (tale pro nobis etiam Christus primitus habere dignatus est, non quidem necessitate, sed potestate); postea uero spiritale, quale iam praecessit in Christo tamquam in capite nostro, secuturum est autem in membris eius ultima resurrectione mortuorum.

For first is the animal body, such as the first Adam had, although not destined to die unless he had sinned; such as we too now have, its nature having been changed and vitiated to this extent, inasmuch as in him, after he sinned, it was brought about that he should now have the necessity of dying (such a body Christ also deigned at the first to have for our sake, not, to be sure, by necessity, but by power); afterwards, however, the spiritual [body], such as has already preceded in Christ as in our head, will follow in his members at the ultimate resurrection of the dead.

Adiungit deinde apostolus duorum istorum hominum euidentissimam differentiam dicens: Primus homo de terra terrenus, secundus homo de caelo. Qualis terrenus, tales et terreni; qualis caelestis, tales et caelestes. Et quo modo induimus imaginem terreni, induamus et imaginem eius, qui de caelo est.

Adjoins then the apostle the most evident difference of these two men, saying: The first man from the earth, terrene; the second man from heaven. Of what sort the terrene, such also the terrene ones; of what sort the celestial, such also the celestial ones. And in like manner as we have put on the image of the terrene, let us also put on the image of him who is from heaven.

Hoc apostolus ita posuit, ut nunc quidem in nobis secundum sacramentum regenerationis fiat, sicut alibi dicit: Quotquot in Christo baptizati estis, Christum induistis; re autem ipsa tunc perficietur, cum et in nobis, quod est animale nascendo, spiritale factum fuerit resurgendo. Vt enim eius itidem uerbis utar: Spe salui facti sumus. Induimus autem imaginem terreni hominis propagatione praeuaricationis et mortis, quam nobis intulit generatio; sed induemus imaginem caelestis hominis gratia indulgentiae uitaeque perpetuae, quod nobis praestat regeneratio, non nisi per mediatorem Dei et hominum, hominem Christum Iesum; quem caelestem hominem uult intellegi, quia de caelo uenit, ut terrenae mortalitatis corpore uestiretur, quod caelesti inmortalitate uestiret.

The apostle has set this thus, that now indeed in us it takes place according to the sacrament of regeneration, as elsewhere he says: As many of you as were baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ; but in the reality itself it will then be perfected, when also in us that which is animal by being born shall have been made spiritual by rising again. For, to use his words likewise: In hope we were saved. We put on the image of the earthly man by the propagation of transgression and of death, which generation brought upon us; but we shall put on the image of the heavenly man by the grace of indulgence (pardon) and of perpetual life, which regeneration affords us, not except through the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus; whom he wishes to be understood as a heavenly man, because he came from heaven, that he might be clothed with a body of earthly mortality, which he would clothe with heavenly immortality.

Caelestes uero ideo appellat et alios, quia fiunt per gratiam membra eius, ut cum illis sit unus Christus, uelut caput et corpus. Hoc in eadem epistula euidentius ita ponit: Per hominem mors, et per hominem resurrectio mortuorum. Sicut enim in Adam omnes moriuntur, sic et in Christo omnes uiuificabuntur.. iam utique in corpore spiritali quod erit in spiritum uiuificantem; non quia omnes, qui in Adam moriuntur, membra erunt Christi (ex illis enim multo plures secunda in aeternum morte plectentur); sed ideo dictum est omnes atque omnes, quia, sicut nemo corpore animali nisi in Adam moritur, ita nemo corpore spiritali nisi in Christo uiuificatur.

He calls “heavenly” also others for this reason, because by grace they become his members, so that with them there is one Christ, as it were head and body. He sets this more plainly in the same epistle thus: Through a man, death; and through a man, resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be vivified.. namely, of course, in the spiritual body which will be in a life-giving spirit; not because all who die in Adam will be members of Christ (for out of them far more will be punished with the second death unto eternity); but it was said “all and all” for this reason, because just as no one with the animal body dies except in Adam, so no one with the spiritual body is vivified except in Christ.

Proinde nequaquam putandum est nos in resurrectione tale corpus habituros, quale habuit homo primus ante peccatum; nec illud, quod dictum est: Qualis terrenus, tales et terreni, secundum id intellegendum, quod factum est admissione peccati. Non enim existimandum est eum prius, quam peccasset, spiritale corpus habuisse et peccati merito in animale mutatum. Vt enim hoc putetur, parum adtenduntur tanti uerba doctoris, qui ait: Si est corpus animale, est et spiritale; sic et scriptum est: Factus est primus homo Adam in animam uiuentem.

Accordingly, by no means ought it to be thought that we shall have in the resurrection such a body as the first man had before sin; nor is that which was said, “As is the terrene, such also are the terrene,” to be understood according to that which was brought about by the admission of sin. For it is not to be supposed that he, before he had sinned, had a spiritual body and by the desert of sin was changed into an animal one. For, for this to be thought, the words of so great a doctor are paid too little heed, who says: “If there is an animal body, there is also a spiritual”; thus also it is written: “The first man Adam was made into a living soul.”

Numquid hoc post peccatum factum est, cum sit ista hominis prima conditio, de qua beatissimus Paulus ad corpus animale monstrandum hoc testimonium legis adsumpsit?

Was this done after the sin, since this is the first condition of man, on account of which the most blessed Paul took up this testimony of the Law to demonstrate the animal body?

[XXIV] Vnde et illud parum considerate quibusdam uisum est, in eo quod legitur: Inspirauit Deus in faciem eius spiritum uitae, et factus est homo in animam uiuentem, non tunc animam primo homini datam, sed eam, quae iam inerat, Spiritu sancto uiuificatam. Mouet enim eos, quod Dominus Iesus, postea quam resurrexit a mortuis, insufflauit dicens discipulis suis: Accipite Spiritum sanctum. Vnde tale aliquid factum existimant, quale tunc factum est, quasi et hic secutus euangelista dixerit: Et facti sunt in animam uiuentem.

[24] Whence also this has seemed to some with too little consideration, in that which is read: “God breathed into his face the spirit of life, and the man was made a living soul,” that not then was the soul given to the first man, but that the soul which already was in him was vivified by the Holy Spirit. For they are moved by the fact that the Lord Jesus, after he had risen from the dead, breathed upon and said to his disciples: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Whence they suppose that something of that sort was done, such as was then done, as if the evangelist here also had added: “And they were made a living soul.”

Quod quidem si dictum esset, hoc intellegeremus, quod animarum quaedam uita sit Spiritus Dei, sine quo animae rationales mortuae deputandae sunt, quamuis earum praesentia uiuere corpora uideantur. Sed non ita factum, quando est conditus homo, satis ipsa libri uerba testantur, quae ita se habent: Et formauit Deus hominem puluerem de terra. Quod quidam planius interpretandum putantes dixerunt: Et finxit Deus hominem de limo terrae, quoniam superius dictum fuerat: Fons autem ascendebat de terra et inrigabat omnem faciem terrae.. ut ex hoc limus intellegendus uideretur, umore scilicet terraque concretus.

If indeed that had been said, we would understand this: that a certain life of souls is the Spirit of God, without which rational souls are to be reckoned dead, although by their presence bodies seem to live. But that it was not done thus when man was created, the very words of the book sufficiently testify, which are as follows: “And God formed man, dust from the earth.” Which some, thinking it should be interpreted more plainly, have said: “And God fashioned man from the clay of the earth,” because it had been said above: “But a spring was ascending from the earth and was irrigating the whole face of the earth..,” so that from this “clay” might be understood, namely concreted by moisture and earth.

Vbi enim hoc dictum est, continuo sequitur: Et formauit Deus hominem puluerem de terra, sicut Graeci codices habent, unde in Latinam linguam scriptura ipsa conuersa est. Siue autem formauit siue finxit quis dicere uoluerit, quod Graece dicitur *e)/plasen, ad rem nihil interest; magis tamen proprie dicitur finxit. Sed ambiguitas uisa est deuitanda eis, qui formauit dicere maluerunt, eo quod in Latina lingua illud magis obtinuit consuetudo, ut hi dicantur fingere, qui aliquid mendacio simulante componunt.

For where this has been said, there immediately follows: “And God formed man, dust from the earth,” as the Greek codices have it, whence the Scripture itself has been converted into the Latin tongue. Whether, however, one should wish to say “formed” or “fashioned,” which in Greek is called *e)/plasen, it makes nothing to the matter; yet more properly it is said “fashioned.” But an ambiguity seemed to be to be avoided by those who preferred to say “formed,” because in the Latin language that custom has more prevalently obtained, that they are said to “feign” who compose something by simulating with a lie.

Hunc igitur formatum hominem de terrae puluere siue limo (erat enim puluis umectus) — hunc, inquam, ut expressius dicam, sicut scriptura locuta est, puluerem de terra animale corpus factum esse docet apostolus, cum animam accepit: "Et factus est iste homo in animam uiuentem", id est, formatus iste puluis factus est in animam uiuentem.

Therefore this man formed from the dust of the earth or from mud (for the dust was moistened) — this man, I say, to speak more expressly, as Scripture has spoken, the apostle teaches that the dust from the earth was made an animal body, when he received the soul: “And this man was made into a living soul,” that is, this dust, having been formed, was made into a living soul.

Iam, inquiunt, habebat animam, alioquin non appellaretur homo, quoniam homo non est corpus solum uel anima sola, sed qui et anima constat et corpore. Hoc quidem uerum est, quod non totus homo, sed pars melior hominis anima est; nec totus homo corpus, sed inferior hominis pars est; sed cum est utrumque coniunctum simul, habet hominis nomen; quod tamen et singula non amittunt, etiam cum de singulis loquimur. Quis enim dicere prohibetur cotidiani quadam lege sermonis: Homo ille defunctus est et nunc in requie est uel in poenis, cum de anima sola possit hoc dici, et: Illo aut illo loco homo ille sepultus est, cum hoc nisi de solo corpore non possit intellegi?

Already, they say, he had a soul, otherwise he would not be called man, since man is not a body alone or a soul alone, but that which consists both of soul and of body. This indeed is true, that not the whole man, but the better part of man is the soul; nor is the whole man the body, but it is the inferior part of man; but when both are conjoined together, it has the name of “man”; which, however, neither of the single parts loses, even when we speak of the single parts. For who is forbidden by a certain quotidian law of speech to say: “That man is defunct and is now in rest or in punishments,” when this can be said only of the soul; and: “In this or that place that man was buried,” when this cannot be understood except of the body alone?

An dicturi sunt sic loqui scripturam non solere diuinam? Immo uero illa ita nobis in hoc adtestatur, ut etiam cum duo ista coniuncta sunt et uiuit homo, tamen etiam singula minis uocabulo appellet, animam scilicet interiorem hominem, corpus autem exteriorem hominem uocans, tamquam duo sint homines, cum simul utrumque sit homo unus. Sed intellegendum est, secundum quid dicatur homo ad imaginem Dei et homo terra atque iturus in terram.

Will they say that the divine Scripture is not accustomed to speak thus? Nay rather, it so attests to us in this, that even when these two are conjoined and man lives, nevertheless it also appellates each singly by the name—calling the soul, to wit, the interior man, but the body the exterior man—as though there were two men, whereas together both are one man. But it must be understood in what respect man is said to be according to the image of God, and man earth and going to the earth.

Illud enim secundum animam rationalem dicitur, qualem Deus insufflando uel, si commodius dicitur, inspirando indidit homini, id est hominis corpori; hoc autem secundum corpus, qualem hominem Deus finxit ex puluere, cui data est anima, ut fieret corpus animale, id est homo in animam uiuentem.

The former, indeed, is said according to the rational soul, such as God by insufflating—or, if it is said more conveniently, by inspiring—instilled into the man, that is, into the man’s body; but the latter according to the body, such as the man whom God fashioned from dust, to whom a soul was given, so that it might become an animal body, that is, man a living soul.

Quapropter in eo, quod Dominus fecit, quando insufflauit dicens: Accipite Spiritum sanctum, nimirum hoc intellegi uoluit, quod Spiritus sanctus non tantum sit Patris, uerum etiam ipsius Vnigeniti Spiritus. Idem ipse quippe Spiritus et Patris et Filii, cum quo est trinitas Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus, non creatura, sed Creator. Neque enim flatus ille Corporeus de carnis ore procedens substantia erat Spiritus sancti atque natura, sed potius significatio, qua intellegeremus, ut dixi, Spiritum sanctum Patri esse Filioque communem, quia non sunt eis singulis singuli, sed unus amborum est.

Therefore, in that which the Lord did, when He breathed upon them, saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit," clearly He wished this to be understood: that the Holy Spirit is not only of the Father, but also the Spirit of the Only-Begotten Himself. For the same Spirit Himself is both the Father’s and the Son’s, with whom there is the Trinity—the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—not a creature, but the Creator. For that corporeal breath proceeding from the mouth of flesh was not the substance and nature of the Holy Spirit, but rather a signification, by which we might understand, as I said, that the Holy Spirit is common to the Father and to the Son, because they do not each have their own several spirits, but there is One of both.

Semper autem iste Spiritus in scripturis sanctis Graeco uocabulo *pneu=ma dicitur, sicut eum et hoc loco Iesus appellauit, quando eum corporalis sui oris flatu significans discipulis dedit; et locis omnibus diuinorum eloquiorum non mihi aliter umquam nuncupatus occurrit. Hic uero, ubi legitur: Et finxit Deus hominem puluerem de terra et insuffiauit siue inspirauit in faciem eius spiritum uitae, non ait Graecus *pneu=ma, quod solet dici Spiritus sanctus, sed *pnoh/n, quod nomen in creatura quam in Creatore frequentius legitur; unde nonnulli etiam Latini propter differentiam hoc uocabulum non spiritum, sed flatum appellare maluerunt. Hoc enim est in Graeco etiam illo loco apud Esaiam, ubi Deus dicit: Omnem flatum ego feci, omnem animam sine dubitatione significans.

But always this Spirit in the holy Scriptures is called by the Greek term *pneu=ma, just as in this place Jesus also named him, when, signifying him by the breath of his bodily mouth, he gave him to the disciples; and in all places of the divine utterances it has never occurred to me as designated otherwise. But here, where it is read: And God formed man, dust from the earth, and insufflated or inspired into his face the spirit of life, the Greek does not say *pneu=ma, which is wont to be said of the Holy Spirit, but *pnoh/n, which name is read more frequently in the creature than in the Creator; whence some Latins also, on account of the difference, have preferred to call this vocable not spirit but breath. For this is the word in Greek also in that passage in Isaiah, where God says: I made every breath, without doubt signifying every soul.

Quod itaque Graece *pnoh\ dicitur, nostri aliquando flatum, aliquando spiritum, aliquando inspirationem uel aspirationem, quando etiam Dei dicitur, interpretati sunt; *pneu=ma uero numquam nisi spiritum, siue hominis (de quo ait apostolus: Quis enim scit hominum quae sunt hominis, nisi spiritus hominis qui in ipso est?) siue pecoris (sicut in Salomonis libro scriptum est: Quis scit si spiritus hominis ascendat sursum in caelum et spiritus pecoris descendat deorsum in terram?) siue istum corporeum, qui etiam uentus dicitur, (nam eius hoc nomen est, ubi in psalmo canitur: Ignis grando, nix glacies, spiritus tempestatis) siue iam non creatum, sed Creatorem, sicut est de quo dicit Dominus in euangelio: Accipite Spiritum sanctum, eum corporei sui oris flatu significans, et ubi ait: Ite, baptizate <omnes> gentes in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti, ubi ipsa trinitas excellentissime et euidentissime commendata est, et ubi legitur: Deus spiritus est, et aliis plurimis sacrarum litterarum locis. In his quippe omnibus testimoniis scripturarum, quantum ad Graecos adtinet, non *pnoh\n uidemus scriptum esse, sed *pneu=ma; quantum autem ad Latinos, non flatum, sed spiritum. Quapropter in eo, quod scriptum est: Inspirauit, uel si magis proprie dicendum est: Insufflauit in faciem eius spiritum uitae, si Graecus non *pnoh/n, sicut ibi legitur, sed *pneu=ma posuisset, nec sic esset consequens, ut Creatorem Spiritum, qui proprie dicitur in trinitate Spiritus sanctus, intellegere cogeremur; quando quidem *pneu=ma, ut dictum est, non solum de Creatore, sed etiam de creatura dici solere manifestum est.

Therefore, what in Greek is called *pnoh\, our people have at times translated as “breath,” at times as “spirit,” at times as “inspiration” or “aspiration,” when it is said also of God; but *pneu=ma never as anything except “spirit,” whether of a man (of whom the apostle says: Who, indeed, knows the things of men, except the spirit of the man which is in him?) or of a beast (as it is written in the book of Solomon: Who knows whether the spirit of man ascends upward into heaven and the spirit of the beast descends downward into the earth?) or that bodily one, which is also called “wind” (for this is its name where in the psalm it is sung: Fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirit of the storm), or now not a created thing, but the Creator, as is that of which the Lord says in the gospel: Receive the Holy Spirit, indicating him by the breath of his bodily mouth; and where he says: Go, baptize nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, where the Trinity itself is most excellently and most manifestly commended; and where it is read: God is spirit; and in very many other places of the sacred letters. In all these testimonies of the Scriptures, as far as concerns the Greeks, we see it written not *pnoh\n but *pneu=ma; and as far as concerns the Latins, not “breath,” but “spirit.” Wherefore, in that which is written: He inspired, or, if it is to be said more properly: He insufflated into his face the spirit of life, if the Greek had set not *pnoh/n, as is read there, but *pneu=ma, not even so would it follow that we should be compelled to understand the Creator Spirit, who in the Trinity is properly called the Holy Spirit; since indeed it is manifest, as has been said, that *pneu=ma is wont to be said not only of the Creator, but also of the creature.

Sed cum dixisset, inquiunt, spiritum, non adderet uitae, nisi illum sanctum <Spiritum> uellet intellegi; et cum dixisset: Factus est homo in animam, non adderet uiuentem, nisi animae uitam significaret, quae illi diuinitus inpertitur dono Spiritus Dei. Cum enim uiuat anima, inquiunt, proprio suae uitae modo, quid opus erat addere uiuentem, nisi, ut ea uita intellegeretur, quae illi per sanctum Spiritum datur? Hoc quid est aliud nisi diligenter pro humana suspicione contendere et scripturas sanctas neglegenter adtendere?

But when he had said, they say, spirit, he would not have added of life, unless he wished that holy <Spirit> to be understood; and when he had said: Man was made into a soul, he would not have added living, unless he signified the soul’s life, which is imparted to it divinely by the gift of the Spirit of God. For since the soul lives, they say, by the proper mode of its own life, what need was there to add living, unless that that life might be understood which is given to it through the Holy Spirit? What is this other than to contend diligently on behalf of a human suspicion and to attend negligently to the holy scriptures?

Quid enim magnum erat non ire longius, sed in eodem ipso libro paulo superius legere: Producat terra animam uiuentem, quando animalia terrestria cuncta creata sunt? Deinde aliquantis interpositis, in eodem tamen ipso libro quid magnum erat aduertere quod scriptum est: Et omnia, quae habent spiritum uitae, et omnis, qui erat super aridam, mortuus est, cum insinuaret omnia quae uiuebant in terra perisse diluuio? Si ergo et animam uiuentem et spiritum uitae etiam in pecoribus inuenimus, sicut loqui diuina scriptura consueuit, et cum hoc quoque loco, ubi legitur: Omnia quae habent spiritum uitae, non Graecus *pneu=ma, sed *pnoh\n dixerit: cur non dicimus: Quid opus erat ut adderet uiuentem, cum anima nisi uiuat esse non possit?

For what great thing was it, not to go farther, but in that very same book to read a little above: “Let the earth bring forth a living soul,” when all terrestrial animals were created? Then, with some matters interposed, yet in that very same book, what great thing was it to advert to what is written: “And all things that have the spirit of life, and every one who was upon the dry land, died,” when it intimated that all things which lived on the earth perished in the deluge? If therefore we find both a living soul and the spirit of life even in cattle, as divine Scripture is wont to speak, and since in this place too, where it is read: “All things that have the spirit of life,” it said not the Greek *pneu=ma, but *pnoh\n, why do we not say: What need was there that he should add “living,” since a soul cannot be unless it live?

aut quid opus erat ut adderet uitae, cum dixisset spiritum? Sed intellegimus animam uiuentem et spiritum uitae scripturam suo more dixisse, cum animalia, id est animata corpora, uellet intellegi, quibus inesset per animam perspicuus iste etiam corporis sensus. In hominis autem conditione obliuiscimur, quem ad modum loqui scriptura consueuerit, cum suo prorsus more locuta sit, quo insinuaret hominem etiam rationali anima accepta, quam non sicut aliarum carnium aquis et terra producentibus, sed Deo flante creatam uoluit intellegi, sic tamen factum, ut in corpore animali, quod fit anima in eo uiuente, sicut illa animalia uiueret, de quibus dixit: Producat terra animam uiuentem, et quae itidem dixit habuisse in se spiritum uitae; ubi etiam in Graeco non dixit *pneu=ma, sed *pnoh/n; non utique Spiritum sanctum, sed eorum animam tali exprimens nomine.

or what need was there to add of life, when he had said spirit? But we understand that living soul and spirit of life Scripture has said in its own manner, when it willed animals, that is, animated bodies, to be understood, in which there would inhere through the soul that perspicuous sense of the body as well. In the case, however, of the creation of man we forget how Scripture has been accustomed to speak, although it has spoken wholly in its own manner, whereby it insinuated that man also, having received a rational soul—which it willed to be understood as created not, like the other kinds of flesh with the waters and the earth producing them, but with God breathing—was nevertheless made in such a way that, in an animal body (which is constituted when the soul is living in it), he might live as those animals live, of which it said: Let the earth bring forth a living soul, and which likewise it said had in themselves the spirit of life; where even in the Greek it did not say *pneu=ma, but *pnoh/n; assuredly not the Holy Spirit, but expressing their soul by such a name.

Sed enim Dei flatus, inquiunt, Dei ore exisse intellegitur, quem si animam crediderimus, consequens erit, ut eiusdem fateamur esse substantiae paremque illius sapientiae, quae dicit: Ego ex ore Altissimi prodii. Non quidem dixit sapientia ore Dei efflatam se fuisse, sed ex eius ore prodisse. Sicut autem nos possumus non de nostra natura, qua homines sumus, sed de isto aere circumfuso, quem spirando ac respirando ducimus ac reddimus, flatum facere cum sufflamus: ita omnipotens Deus non de sua natura neque subiacenti creatura, sed etiam de nihilo potuit facere flatum, quem corpori hominis inserendo inspirasse uel insufflasse conuenientissime dictus est, incorporeus incorporeum, sed inmutabilis mutabilem, quia non creatus creatum.

But indeed the breath of God, they say, is understood to have gone forth from the mouth of God; which, if we should believe to be the soul, it will follow that we must confess it to be of the same substance and equal to that Wisdom which says: “I went forth from the mouth of the Most High.” Wisdom did not, to be sure, say that she was exhaled by the mouth of God, but that she went forth from his mouth. And just as we are able, not from our own nature, by which we are human, but from that surrounding air which by breathing in and breathing out we draw in and give back, to make a breath when we blow: so the omnipotent God, not from his own nature nor from an underlying creation, but even out of nothing, could make a breath, which, by inserting it into the body of man, he is most fittingly said to have inspired or breathed in—he, being incorporeal, an incorporeal [breath]; yet, as immutable, into what is mutable, since, uncreated, into what is created.

uerum tamen ut sciant isti, qui de scripturis loqui uolunt et scripturarum locutiones non aduertunt, non hoc solum dici exire ex ore Dei, quod est aequalis eiusdemque naturae, audiant uel legant quod Deo dicente scriptum est: Quoniam tepidus es et neque calidus neque frigidus, incipiam te reicere ex ore meo.

nevertheless, so that those may know, who wish to speak about the scriptures and do not advert to the locutions of the scriptures, that not only that is said to go out from the mouth of God which is equal and of the same nature, let them hear or read what has been written with God speaking: Because you are tepid and neither hot nor cold, I will begin to reject you out of my mouth.

Nulla itaque causa est, cur apertissime loquenti resistamus apostolo, ubi ab spiritali corpore corpus animale discernens, id est ab illo in quo futuri sumus hoc in quo nunc sumus, ait: Seminatur corpus animale, surget corpus spiritale; si est corpus animale, est et spiritale; sic et scriptum est: Factus est primus humo Adam in animam uiuentem, nouissimus Adam in spiritum uiuificantem. Sed non primum quod spiritale est, sed quod animale, postea spiritale. Primus homo de terra terrenus, secundus homo de caelo.

Therefore there is no cause why we should resist the apostle speaking most plainly, where, distinguishing the animal body from the spiritual body, that is, this body in which we now are from that in which we shall be, he says: It is sown an animal body, it will rise a spiritual body; if there is an animal body, there is also a spiritual; thus also it is written: The first man, Adam, was made into a living soul, the last Adam into a vivifying spirit. But not first that which is spiritual, but that which is animal; afterward, spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second man from heaven.

Qualis terrenus, tales et terreni, et qualis caelestis, tales et caelestes. Et quomodo induimus imaginem terreni, induamus et imaginem eius qui de caelo est. De quibus omnibus apostolicis uerbis superius locuti sumus.

As is the terrestrial one, so also are the terrestrials; and as is the celestial one, so also are the celestials. And just as we have put on the image of the terrestrial, let us also put on the image of him who is from heaven. About all these apostolic words we have spoken above.

Corpus igitur animale, in quo primum hominem Adam factum esse dicit apostolus, sic erat factum, non ut mori omnino non posset, sed ut non moreretur, nisi homo peccasset. Nam illud, quod spiritu uiuificante spiritale erit et inmortale, mori omnino non poterit, sicut anima creata est inmortalis, quae licet peccato mortua perhibeatur carens quadam uita sua, hoc est dei Spiritu, quo etiam sapienter et beate uiuere poterat, tamen propria quadam, licet misera, uita sua non desinit uiuere, quia inmortalis est creata; sicut etiam desertores angeli, licet secundum quendam modum mortui sint peccando, quia fontem uitae deseruerunt, qui Deus est, quem potando sapienter et beate poterant uiuere, tamen non sic mori potuerunt, ut omni modo desisterent uiuere atque sentire, quoniam inmortales creati sunt; atque ita in secundam mortem post ultimum praecipitabuntur iudicium, ut nec illic uita careant, quando quidem etiam sensu, cum in doloribus futuri sunt, non carebunt. Sed homines ad Dei gratiam pertinentes, ciues sanctorum angelorum in beata uita manentium, ita spiritalibus corporibus induentur, ut neque peccent amplius neque moriantur; ea tamen inmortalitate uestiti, quae, sicut angelorum, nec peccato possit auferri; natura quidem manente carnis, sed nulla omnino carnali corruptibilitate uel tarditate remanente.

Therefore the animal body, in which the apostle says the first man Adam was made, was so made, not that it could in no way die, but that it would not die unless man had sinned. For that which by the vivifying Spirit will be spiritual and immortal will be unable to die at all, just as the soul was created immortal, which, although it is held to be dead by sin, lacking a certain life of its own, that is, the Spirit of God, by which also it was able to live wisely and blessedly, nevertheless with a certain life of its own, though wretched, does not cease to live, because it was created immortal; just so also the deserter angels, although in a certain manner they are dead by sinning, because they deserted the fountain of life, who is God, by drinking of whom they could live wisely and blessedly, yet they were not able so to die as to cease in every way to live and to feel, since they were created immortal; and thus into the second death after the last judgment they will be hurled down, so that not even there will they lack life, since indeed they will not lack sensation, when they will be in pains. But men pertaining to the grace of God, citizens of the holy angels abiding in blessed life, will be so clothed with spiritual bodies that they will neither sin any more nor die; yet clothed with that immortality which, like that of the angels, cannot be taken away by sin; with the nature of the flesh indeed remaining, but with no carnally corruptible quality or tardity at all remaining.

Sequitur autem quaestio necessario pertractanda et Domino Deo ueritatis adiuuante soluenda: Si libido membrorum inoboedientium ex peccato inoboedientiae in illis primis hominibus, cum illos diuina gratia deseruisset, exorta est; unde in suam nuditatem oculos aperuerunt, id est eam curiosius aduerterunt, et quia inpudens motus uoluntatis arbitrio resistebat, pudenda texerunt: quo modo essent filios propagaturi, si, ut creati fuerant; sine praeuaricatione mansissent. Sed quia et liber iste claudendus est nec tanta quaestio in sermonis angustias coartanda, in eum qui sequitur commodiore dispositione differtur.

It follows, however, a question necessarily to be tracted and, the Lord God of truth aiding, to be solved: If the libido of the inobedient members arose from the sin of inobedience in those first human beings, when divine grace had deserted them; whence they opened their eyes to their own nudity—that is, they turned their attention to it more curiously—and because the impudent motion resisted the arbitrament of the will, they covered the pudenda: in what way would they have been going to propagate sons, if, as they had been created, they had remained without prevarication. But since this book too must be closed, nor is so great a question to be cramped into the straitness of discourse, it is deferred, with a more commodious disposition, to that which follows.