To Pammachius against John of Jerusalem 21
21 PL 23, 371
21. You say that the soul is not of the essence of God. Well! This is what we might expect, for you condemn the impious Manichæus, to make mention of whose name is pollution. You say that angels are not turned into souls. I agree to some extent, although I know what meaning you give to the words. But, now that we have learnt what you deny, we wish to know what you believe. “Having taken slime of the earth,” you say, “God fashioned man, and through the grace of His own inbreathing bestowed upon him a rational soul, and through the grace of free will, not a portion of His own divine nature (as some impiously maintain), but His own handiwork.” See how he goes out of his way to be eloquent about what we did not ask for. We know that God fashioned man out of the earth; we are aware that He breathed into his face, and man became a living soul; we are not ignorant that the soul is characterized by reason and free choice, and we know that it is the workmanship of God. No one doubts that Manichæus errs in saying that the soul is the essence of God. I now ask: When was that soul made, which is the work of God, which is distinguished by free will and reason, and is not of the essence of the Creator? Was it made at the same time that man was made out of the slime, and the breath of life was breathed into his face? Or, having previously existed, and having associated with reasonable and incorporeal creatures as well as lived, was it afterwards gifted with the inbreathing of God? Here you are silent; here you feign a rustic simplicity, and make scriptural words a cloak for unscriptural tenets. Where you affirm what no one wants to know, that the soul is not a part of God’s own nature (as some impiously maintain), you ought rather to have declared (and this is what we all want to know) that it is not that which previously existed, which He had before created, which had long dwelt among rational, incorporeal, and invisible creatures. You say none of these things; you bring forward Manichæus, and keep Origen out of sight, and, just as when children ask for something to eat their nursemaids put them off with some little joke, so you direct the thoughts of us poor rustics to other matters, so that we may be taken up with the fresh character on the stage, and may not ask for what we want.
Manichaeum nominare pollutio est. --Dicis animam non esse de Dei substantia. Pulchre. Damnas enim impiissimum Manichaeum, quem nominare pollutio est. Dicis ex Angelis animas non fieri. Acquiesco paulisper, licet noverim quo sensu dixeris. Quia ergo didicimus quid neges, volumus scire quid credas. « Accepto, inquis, de terra limo, plasmavit Deus hominem, et per gratiam propriae insufflationis animam donavit rationabilem; et liberi arbitrii, non partem aliquam suae naturae (juxta quosdam, qui hoc impie praedicant), sed propriam conditionem. » Videte quanto circumitu, quod non quaerimus, eloquatur. Scimus quod de terra Deus plasmavit hominem, novimus quod insufflavit in faciem ejus, et factus est in animam viventem: non ignoramus quod anima rationalis sit, et proprii arbitrii, et scimus quod Dei illa conditio sit. Nemo dubitat errare Manichaeum, qui dicit eam esse Dei substantiam. Hoc nunc interrogo: Anima ista Dei conditio, liberi arbitrii, rationalis, neque de substantia Creatoris, quando facta sit: utrum eo tempore quo de limo factus est homo, et insufflatum est spiraculum vitae in faciem ejus: an quae prius fuerat [ Al. antea facta fuerat], et inter rationabiles creaturas et incorporeas erat atque vivebat, Dei postea insufflatione donata sit? Hic taces, hic simplicem ac rusticum te simulas; et sub verbis Scripturae, ea quae Scriptura non sentit, abscondis. In eo loco ubi dicis, quod nullus quaerit, non illam partem aliquam esse suae [ Al. divinae] naturae (juxta quosdam qui hoc impie praedicant) illud magis debueras dicere, quod omnes quaerimus, non eam, quae prius fuerat, non eam quam ante condiderat, quae inter rationabiles atque incorporeas et invisibiles creaturas multo jam tempore versabatur. Nihil horum loqueris, 427 producis nobis Manichaeum, et abscondis Origenem, et sicut parvulis cibum poscentibus, ludicra quaedam offerunt gerulae, ut avocent mentes eorum, sic tu nos rusticos avocas ad alia, ut dum alterius personae novitate tenemur, quod volumus non quaeramus.