Letter 6: ...He is still at work, and I am at work as well.

[...] works still, and do I [also] work? Therefore this working does not pertain to that time alone [a. 498], but throughout all the spans of time that run on, through the rolling courses of the ages. Since they ought also to understand that which is written: he who lives forever created all things together. If therefore, before Scripture should set in order the arrangement and the reasoning through the individual kinds in each several creature, [God worked] potentially (which cannot be denied) and causally in the work pertaining to the creating of all things together, from which, once they were completed, he rested on the seventh day; but now he works visibly in the work pertaining to the course of time even until now: let them therefore acquiesce in sound doctrine, namely that he bestows souls who calls those things which are not as though they were. Chapter II. 5. For let them say, who sent Jacob or Esau into the world, just as the prophet Malachi testifies: was it not he who, before they were born, held the one in hatred and loved the other? [Mal. i, 3.] He who likewise, when a man is about to enter into this mortal life, already acknowledges him in his mother's womb, just as it is said of Jeremiah [Jer. i, 5.]: before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you came forth from the belly, I sanctified you, and I set you as a prophet among the nations. Unless perhaps they betake themselves to the conjectures of the gentiles, who say that there is one vital soul and another rational soul, whereas they ought to look not to certain uncertain dreams but to the example and truth of the divine Scriptures. For since it is most certain that a conception in the womb obtains its spirit at four months, where now the office of the parents has ceased, by whom they suppose that clay of material dregs to be given life, when, as has been said, no delight or work of father or of mother exists here? After how much time is the conception in the womb said by the women themselves to be brought to life? We do not believe that it lies hidden from your prudence, since they ought to be made sufficiently certain in this matter, those who labor under persuasions of this kind, that his is the working and the judgment in the election of the good and the evil, who according to his foreknowledge leads some by grace to the reward, and permits others by a just judgment to bear the punishment that is due. Chapter III. 6. And so, most beloved, I, absent in body but truly present with you in spirit, wish to refute in this way those who are said to have broken forth into a new heresy, so that they assert that souls are handed on to the human race by the parents, just as the body is poured in from material dregs: that they may know, according to the apostolic preaching, that they themselves are indeed already dead. For thus it is said by him [Rom.]: for they who are according to the flesh are wise in the things of the flesh, but they who are according to the spirit are wise in the things of the spirit; for the wisdom of the flesh is death, but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace; for the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be; and they who are in the flesh cannot please God. Let them therefore understand, with their own prudence such as it is, by which flesh, which according to the condemnation of sin died once for all in the first Adam, they suppose the life of men to be contained: that they speak this not as though they were living, since indeed the Apostle himself teaches them that in his transgression and in his offense from the beginning not only did he himself die, but also all the progeny that descended from him and was to come, which these men suppose to minister life to their own offspring, so that they might be able to furnish that life which they do not possess, the life which they themselves lost in Adam. Let them therefore hear this same blessed Apostle saying: just as through one man sin entered into this world and through sin death, and so death passed into all men, in whom all have sinned. What can dead men say to this, so that they may seem to assert reasonably that the life has passed over from the parents, which the teacher of the nations teaches was lost? Chapter IV. 7. It remains therefore that all the progeny is seen to minister to its offspring death alone, coming forth from itself, before it is reborn in Christ; and for this reason the second Adam is received by us in our being reborn, so that the death, which had been taken on through fault in the first Adam, may be shut out. Let dead men therefore understand, if any sense, even a slight one, is in them, that it behooves them to be reborn through baptism, so that they may recover through the second Adam the life which they lost through the first Adam. For let them know also from the beginning, from the reading of Genesis, how well and how mercifully God established all things, so that, with him ever living, life might be given to those being born. And as for that which they perhaps think they say piously and well, namely that they may rightly say souls are handed on by the parents, since they are entangled in sins, this must be distinguished by them with a wise separation: that nothing else can be handed on by them than what was committed by their own evil presumption, that is, the fault and the penalty of sin, which the progeny that follows by transmission plainly displays, so that men are born depraved and distorted. In this alone, assuredly, God is clearly seen to have no fellowship, who, that they might not fall into this necessity of calamity, forbade and foretold it with the twin terror of death. And so it plainly appears that what is handed on by the parents is so handed on by transmission, and it is shown what God has either worked or works from the beginning even to the end.

adhuc operatur, et ego operor? Non ergo ad illius*) temporis soliusa. 498. haec pertinet operatio, sed per omnia spatia quae eurrunt, per volu- mina saeculorum. Cum et illud debeant intelligere quod scriptum est: qui vivit in aeternumj creavit omnia simul. Si igitur antequam^^* Scriptura per species singulas in singulis quibusque creaturis ordi- nem rationemque disponeret, potentialiter quod negari non potest et causaliter in opere pertinente ad creanda omnia simul, a quibus consummatis in die septimo requievit, nunc autem visibiliter in opere pertinente ad temporum cursum usque nunc operatur: sanae igitur doctrinae adquiescant, quod ille indat animas, qui vocat ^«^5?* quae non sunt tamquam sint. Cap. n. 5. Nam dicant, quis ad mundum miserit Jacob vel Esau, sicut Malachias propheta testatur: nonne ille qui, antequam nascerentur, unum odio habuit, alterum dilexit? Qui etiam intraturos hominem^)Mal. i,3. hanc mortalitatem jam ili utero matris agnoscit, sicut de Hieremia Jer. l, 5. dicitur: priusquam te formarcm in utero, novi te, et priusquam exires de vulva, sanctificavi te, et prophetam in gentibus posui te, Nisi forte ad gentilium se conferant suspiciones, qui dicunt animam vitalem alteram rationalem, cum non quibusdam somniis incertis sed divi- narum Scripturarum debent exemplo et veritate respicere. Nam cum quatiior menses in utero conceptum certissimum sit spiritum sortiri, ubi jam parentum desivit officium, a quo putant illum limum materialis faecis animatum, cum, sicut dictum est, nulla hic dele- ctatio vel opus patris vel matris existat? Post quantum temporis dicatur ab ipsis mulieribus conceptus in utero vivificari? Non cre- dimus latere prudentiam vestram, cum satis in hoc certissimi fieri debeant, qui hujusmodi persuasionibus hiborant, quod illius operatio sit adque judicium in electione bonorum malorumque, qui pro prae- seientia sua alios per gratiam deducit ad praemium, alios per justum judicium debitum permittit sustinere supplicium. Cap. III. 6. , Itaque, dilectissimi , ego absens corpore spiritu vero prae- sens vobiscum, ita redargui volo, qui in novam haeresim prorupisse dicuntur, ut a parentibus animas tradi generi humano adserant, quemadmodum ex faece nifiteriali corpus infunditur: ut sciant secun- dum apostolicam praedicationem se quidem jam mortuos. Nam ita ab eo dicitur: qui enim secundum, carncm stmt, quae carnis sunt, sa- Kom. piunt, qui vero secundum spiritum, quae sunt spiritus sapiunt; nam ' ~~ ') Tosius correx. homines, Mox ms, etiam ... cibalem^ quae verba cum Tosio correximus (Jani ... vitalem). sk. ^9H. prudeuiia caniis mors cst^ prudcnlia autem spiriius viia ei pax; qwh 7iiam sapientia carnis inimica csi in Deo, legi enim Dei non st^jicitWy nec enim potest; qui auiem in carne suni^ Deo placere non pmmt. Intellegant igitur cum ttili prudeiitia sua, qua carne, quae secundmn condemnationeui peccati ^) in Adam primo semel mortua est, putani vitam homiiium contineri: se non tamquam viventes hoc loqui*, si- quidem ipse apostohis eos doceat> quod in praevaricatione adque m dehcto suo ab initio non solum ipse mortuus sit, sed omnis quae ab eo descendit futura progenies, quam putant isti vitam proli suae ministrare, ut quam ipsi in Adam perdiderunt, vitam possint prae- stare quam non habent. Audiant igitur hoc eundera beatum apo- r i^* stohim dicentem: sicut per unum homincm in hoc mundo peccatum intravit ci per peccatum mors, ei ita in omnes mors pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt. Quid ad hoc mortui homines loqui possant, ut rationabiliter dicere videantur transisse de parentibus vitam, quam magister gentium docet amissam? (Jap. IV. 7. Restat itaque, ut mortem solam proh ex se venienti, ante- quam renascatur in Christo, progenies omnis ministrare videatur; et idcirco Adain secundus a nobis in renascendo suscipitur, ut mors, quae per culpam in primo Adam suscepta fuerat,'excludatur. In- tellegant igitur mortui homines, si quis sensus vel modicus inest, oportere se renasci per baptismum, ut vitam, quam perdidit per Adam primum, recuperet per secundum. Nam et ab initio ex Ge- neseos lectione cognoscant, qiiam bene et quam clementer Deus universa condiderit, ut et'') vivente semper nascentibus vita dona- retur. Et qua putant fortasse pie ac bene se dicere, ut animas merito dicant a parentibus tradi, cum siiit peccatis implicitae, hac ab ipsis sapienti debent separatione discerni: quod ab illis uihil aliud potest tradi, qutim quod ab ipsorum mala praesumptione com- missum est, id est, culpa poenaque peccati, quam per traducem secuta progenies evidenter ostendit, ut pravi homines distortique nascantur. In quo solo utique Deus nulhim cominuniouem habere perspicue cernitur, qui ne^) in hauc necessibitem calamitatis inci- derent, gemito mortis terrore prohibuit adque praedixit. Itaque per traducem quod a pareiitibus traditur evidenter apparet^ et quid ab initio usque ad finem vel operatus sit Deus vel operetur osten- ditur. ■') Tosius correxit (te, quum ctiam nasci aliquo dicatur. Mox id. quia pmtmd . . . haee ab ipsis. ®) Ms. nee. Mox Tos. correx. gemino (ms. gemito) mortis et parwi. (ms. pm) vohis.