{"author":"Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)","date_end":1887,"date_label":"1887 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain)","date_start":1887,"edition_year":1887,"edition_year_basis":"Original NPNF I V title and imprint 1887; physical transcription printing date uncertain; per-work translator allocation unspecified","id":"ws-library-full-note:0c811acf6c5d609e56bd:cite_note-81","is_genuine_commentary_verified":false,"license_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Reusing_Wikisource_content","public_import_allowed":true,"publication_location":"source-library","record_type":"editorial-footnote","references":[],"rights_approved":true,"section":"Chapter uncertain; original source section: Augustin's Part in the Controversy, editorial note cite_note-81","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["Towards the end of the same year (419), Augustin was led to take up again the vexed question of the origin of the soul,—both in a new letter to Optatus, by the zeal of the same monk, Renatus, who had formerly brought Optatus’ inquiries to his notice,—in an elaborate treatise entitled On the Soul and its Origin, by way of reply to a rash adventure of a young man named Vincentius Victor, who blamed him for his uncertainty on such a subject, and attempted to determine all the puzzles of the question, though, as Augustin insists, on assumptions that were partly Pelagian and partly worse. Optatus had written in the hope that Augustin had heard by this time from Jerome, in reply to the treatise he had sent him on this subject. Augustin, in answering his letter, expresses his sorrow that he has not yet been worthy of an answer from Jerome, although five years had passed away since he wrote, but his continued hope that such an answer will in due time come. For himself, he confesses that he has not yet been able to see how the soul can contract sin from Adam and yet not itself be contracted from Adam; and he regrets that Optatus, although holding that God creates each soul for its birth, has not sent him the proofs on which he depends for that opinion, nor met its obvious difficulties. He rebukes Optatus for confounding the question of whether God makes the soul, with the entirely different one of how he makes it, whether ex propagine or sive propagine. No one doubts that God makes the soul, as no one doubts that He makes the body. But when we consider how he makes it, sobriety and vigilance become necessary lest we should unguardedly fall into the Pelagian heresy. Augustin defends his attitude of uncertainty, and enumerates the points as to which he has no doubt: viz., that the soul is spirit, not body; that it is rational or intellectual; that it is not of the nature of God, but is so far a mortal creature that it is capable of deterioration and of alienation from the life of God, and so far immortal that after this life it lives on in bliss or punishment forever; that it was not incarnated because of, or according to, preceding deserts acquired in a previous existence, yet that it is under the curse of sin which it derives from Adam, and therefore in all cases alike needs redemption in Christ."],"source_library_url":"/library/0c811acf6c5d609e56bd/#ws-library-full-note:0c811acf6c5d609e56bd:cite_note-81","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_V/Introductory_Essay/Introductory_Essay/Augustin's_Part_in_the_Controversy#cite_note-81","translator":"Peter Holmes (edition translator credit; work allocation unspecified), Robert Ernest Wallis (edition translator credit; work allocation unspecified), Benjamin B. Warfield (translation reviser and introduction author), Philip Schaff (series editor)","verification":{"proof_file":"raw/review/source-library-note-batch-0061/proof-records.jsonl","proof_file_sha256":"7c4407a5986a306f1eaff33bf3f1bf135fc2e65f72270d1b3381ed0616bfbce3","proof_record_id":"ws-library-full-note:0c811acf6c5d609e56bd:cite_note-81"},"verified":true,"work":"Introductory Essay","work_id":"ws-augustine-antipelagian-npnf1-5-0c811acf6c5d609e56bd"}