Letter CLXVI.
(a.d. 415.)
A Treatise on the Origin of the Human Soul, Addressed to Jerome.
Chap. I.
1. Unto our God, who hath called us unto His
kingdom and glory, I have prayed, and pray now, that
what I write to you, holy brother Jerome, asking your opinion in
regard to things of which I am ignorant, may by His good pleasure
be profitable to us both. For although in addressing you I consult
one much older than myself, nevertheless I also am becoming old; but I cannot think that it is at anytime of life too late to learn what we need to know, because, although it is more fitting that old men should be teachers than learners, it is nevertheless more fitting for them to learn than to continue ignorant of that which they should teach to others. I assure you that, amid the many disadvantages which I have to submit to in studying very difficult questions, there is none which grieves me more than the circumstance of separation from your Charity by a distance so great that I can scarcely send a letter to you, and scarcely receive one from you, even at intervals, not of days nor of months, but of several years; whereas my desire would be, if it were possible, to have you daily beside me, as one with whom I could converse on any theme. Nevertheless, although I have not been able to do all that I wished, I am not the less bound to do all that I can.
2. Behold, a religious young man has come to me, by
name Orosius, who is in the bond of Catholic peace a brother, in
point of age a son, and in honour a fellow presbyter,—a man, of
quick understanding, ready speech, and burning zeal, desiring to be
in the Lord’s house a vessel rendering useful service in refuting
those false and pernicious doctrines, through which the souls of
men in Spain have suffered much more grievous wounds than have been
inflicted on their bodies by the sword of barbarians. For from the
remote western coast of Spain he has come with eager haste to us, having been prompted to do this by the report that from me he could learn whatever he wished on the subjects on which he desired information. Nor has his coming been altogether in vain. In the first place, he has learned not to believe all that report affirmed of me: in the next place, I have taught him all that I could, and, as for the things in which I could not teach him, I have told him from whom he may learn them, and have exhorted him to go on to you. As he received this counsel or rather injunction of mine with pleasure, and with intention to comply with it, I asked him to visit us on his way home to his own country when he comes from you. On receiving his promise to this effect, I believed that the Lord had granted me an opportunity of writing to you regarding certain things which I wish through you to learn. For I was seeking some one whom I might send to you, and it was not easy to fall in with one qualified both by trustworthiness in performing and by alacrity in undertaking the work, as well as by experience in travelling. Therefore, when I became acquainted with this young man, I could not doubt that he was exactly such a person as I was asking from the Lord.
Chap. II.
3. Allow me, therefore, to bring before you a
subject which I beseech you not to refuse to open up and discuss
with me. Many are perplexed by questions concerning the soul, and I
confess that I myself am of this number. I shall in this letter, in
the first place, state explicitly the things regarding the soul
which I most assuredly believe, and shall, in the next place, bring
forward the things regarding which I am still desirous of
explanation.
The soul of man is in a sense proper to itself
immortal. It is not absolutely immortal, as God is, of whom it is
written that He “alone hath immortality,” for Holy Scripture makes mention
of deaths to which the soul is liable—as in the saying, “Let
the dead bury their dead;” but because when alienated from
the life of God it so dies as not wholly to cease from living in
its own nature, it is found to be from a certain cause mortal, yet
so as to be not without reason called at the same time
immortal.