Blessed Augustine of Hippo

A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin

5th c.

Classic translation Public domain

Dogmatic & Doctrinal · English translation, 1890

Contents

• Title Page
• Extract From Augustin’s Retractations
• Advertisement to the Reader on the Following Treatise
• Treatise on the Soul and Its Origin
• Introduction
• Renatus Had Done Him a Kindness by Sending Him the Books Which Had Been…
• He Receives With a Kindly and Patient Feeling the Books of a Young and…
• The Eloquence of Vincentius, Its Dangers and Its Tolerableness
• The Errors Contained in the Books of Vincentius Victor. He Says That the Soul…
• Another of Victor’s Errors, That the Soul is Corporeal
• Another Error Out of His Second Book, to the Effect, That the Soul Deserved to…
• Victor Entangles Himself in an Exceedingly Difficult Question. God’s…
• Victor’s Erroneous Opinion, That the Soul Deserved to Become Sinful
• Victor Utterly Unable to Explain How the Sinless Soul Deserved to Be Made Sinful
• Another Error of Victor’s, That Infants Dying Unbaptized May Attain to the…
• Martyrdom for Christ Supplies the Place of Baptism. The Faith of the Thief Who…
• Dinocrates, Brother of the Martyr St. Perpetua, is Said to Have Been Delivered…
• The Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ Will Not Avail for Unbaptized…
• Victor’s Dilemma: He Must Either Say All Infants Are Saved, or Else God Slays…
• God Does Not Judge Any One for What He Might Have Done If His Life Had Been…
• Difficulty in the Opinion Which Maintains That Souls Are Not by Propagation
• He Shows That the Passages of Scripture Adduced by Victor Do Not Prove That…
• By ‘Breath’ Is Signified Sometimes the Holy Spirit
• The Meaning of ‘Breath’ In Scripture
• Other Ways of Taking the Passage
• The Second Passage Quoted by Victor
• Victor’s Third Quotation
• His Fourth Quotation
• Whether or No the Soul is Derived by Natural Descent (Ex Traduce), His Cited…
• Just as the Mother Knows Not Whence Comes Her Child Within Her, So We Know Not…
• The Fifth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor
• Augustin Did Not Venture to Define Anything About the Propagation of the Soul
• A Natural Figure of Speech Must Not Be Literally Pressed
• The Sixth Passage of Scripture Quoted by Victor
• The Danger of Arguing From Silence
• The Argument of the Apollinarians to Prove That Christ Was Without the Human…
• The Self-Contradiction of Victor as to the Origin of the Soul
• Augustin Has No Objection to the Opinion About the Propagation of Souls Being…
• The Mistakes Which Must Be Avoided by Those Who Say That Men’s Souls Are Not…
• Conclusion
• Book II
• Introduction (i)
• Depraved Eloquence an Injurious Accomplishment
• He Asks What the Great Knowledge is That Victor Imparts
• The Difference Between the Senses of the Body and Soul
• To Believe the Soul is a Part of God is Blasphemy
• In What Sense Created Beings Are Out of God
• Shall God’s Nature Be Mutable, Sinful, Impious, Even Eternally Damned
• To Think the Soul Corporeal an Error
• The Thirst of the Rich Man in Hell Does Not Prove the Soul to Be Corporeal
• How Could the Incorporeal God Breathe Out of Himself a Corporeal Substance?
• Children May Be Found of Like or of Unlike Dispositions With Their Parents
• Victor Implies That the Soul Had a ‘State’ And ‘Merit’ Before Incarnation
• How Did the Soul Deserve to Be Incarnated?
• Victor Teaches That God Thwarts His Own Predestination
• Victor Sends Those Infants Who Die Unbaptized to Paradise and the Heavenly…
• Victor ‘Decides’ That Oblations Should Be Offered Up for Those Who Die…
• Victor Promises to the Unbaptized Paradise After Their Death, and the Kingdom…
• Disobedient Compassion and Compassionate Disobedience Reprobated. Martyrdom in…
• Victor’s Dilemma and Fall
• Victor Relies on Ambiguous Scriptures
• Victor Quotes Scriptures for Their Silence, and Neglects the Biblical Usage
• Victor’s Perplexity and Failure
• Peter’s Responsibility in the Case of Victor
• Who They Are That Are Not Injured by Reading Injurious Books
• Book III
• Introduction (i, 2)
• Augustin’s Purpose in Writing
• Why Victor Assumed the Name of Vincentius. The Names of Evil Men Ought Never to…
• He Enumerates the Errors Which He Desires to Have Amended in the Books of…
• Victor’s Simile to Show That God Can Create by Breathing Without Impartation of…
• Examination of Victor’s Simile: Does Man Give Out Nothing by Breathing?
• The Simile Reformed in Accordance With Truth
• Victor Apparently Gives the Creative Breath to Man Also
• Victor’s Second Error. (See Above in Book I. 26 [XVI.].)
• His Third Error. (See Above in Book II. 11 [VII.].)
• His Fourth Error. (See Above in Book I. 6 [VI.] and Book II. 11 [VII.].)
• His Fifth Error. (See Above in Book I. 8 [VIII.] and Book II. 12 [VIII.].)
• His Sixth Error. (See Above in Book I. 10-12 [IX., X.], and in Book II. 13, 14…
• His Seventh Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)
• His Eighth Error. (See Above in Book II. 13 [IX.].)
• His Ninth Error. (See Above in Book II. 14 [X.].)
• God Rules Everywhere: and Yet the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ May Not Be Everywhere
• Where the Kingdom of God May Be Understood to Be
• His Tenth Error. (See Above in Book I. 13 [XI.] and Book II. 15 [XI.])
• His Eleventh Error. (See Above in Book I. 15 [XII.] and Book II. 16.)
• Augustin Calls on Victor to Correct His Errors. (See Above in Book II. 22…
• Augustin Compliments Victor’s Talents and Diligence
• A Summary Recapitulation of the Errors of Victor
• Obstinacy Makes the Heretic
• Book IV.
• Introduction (i, 3)
• The Personal Character of This Book
• The Points Which Victor Thought Blameworthy in Augustin
• How Much Do We Know of the Nature of the Body?
• Is the Question of Breath One That Concerns the Soul, or Body, or What?
• God Alone Can Teach Whence Souls Come
• Questions About the Nature of the Body Are Sufficiently Mysterious, and Yet Not…
• We Often Need More Teaching as to What is Most Intimately Ours Than as to What…
• We Have No Memory of Our Creation
• Our Ignorance of Ourselves Illustrated by the Remarkable Memory of One…
• The Fidelity of Memory; The Unsearchable Treasure of Memory; The Powers of a…
• The Apostle Peter Told No Lie, When He Said He Was Ready to Lay Down His Life…
• The Apostle Paul Could Know the Third Heaven and Paradise, But Not Whether He…
• In What Sense the Holy Ghost is Said to Make Intercession for Us
• It is More Excellent to Know That the Flesh Will Rise Again and Live for…
• We Must Not Be Wise Above What is Written
• Ignorance is Better Than Error. Predestination to Eternal Life, and…
• A Twofold Question to Be Treated Concerning the Soul; Is It ‘Body’? and is It…
• The First Question, Whether the Soul is Corporeal; Breath and Wind, Nothing…
• Whether the Soul is a Spirit
• The Body Does Not Receive God’s Image
• Recognition and Form Belong to Souls as Well as Bodies
• Names Do Not Imply Corporeity
• Figurative Speech Must Not Be Taken Literally
• Abraham’s Bosom—What It Means
• The Disembodied Soul May Think of Itself Under a Bodily Form
• St. Perpetua Seemed to Herself, in Some Dreams, to Have Been Turned Into a Man…
• Is the Soul Wounded When the Body is Wounded?
• Is the Soul Deformed by the Body’s Imperfections?
• Does the Soul Take the Body’s Clothes Also Away With It?
• Is Corporeity Necessary for Recognition?
• Modes of Knowledge in the Soul Distinguished
• Inconsistency of Giving the Soul All the Parts of Sex and Yet No Sex
• The Phenix After Death Coming to Life Again
• Prophetic Visions
• Do Angels Appear to Men in Real Bodies?
• He Passes on to the Second Question About the Soul, Whether It is Called Spirit
• Wide and Narrow Sense of the Word 'Spirit.'
• Victor’s Chief Errors Again Pointed Out
• Concluding Admonition