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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Lives of Illustrious Men/Jerome/Philo Judaeus

Chapter XI.
Philo the Jew, an Alexandrian of the priestly class, is placed by us among the ecclesiastical writers on the ground that, writing a book concerning the first church of Mark the evangelist at Alexandria, he writes to our praise, declaring not only that they were there, but also that they were in many provinces and calling their habitations monasteries. From this it appears that the church of those that believed in Christ at first, was such as now the monks desire to imitate, that is, such that nothing is the peculiar property of any one of them, none of them rich, none poor, that patrimonies are divided among the needy, that they have leisure for prayer and psalms, for doctrine also and ascetic practice, that they were in fact as Luke declares believers were at first at Jerusalem. They say that under Caius Caligula he ventured to Rome, whither he had been sent as legate of his nation, and that when a second time he had come to Claudius, he spoke in the same city with the apostle Peter and enjoyed his friendship, and for this reason also adorned the adherents of Mark, Peter’s disciple at Alexandria, with his praises. There are distinguished and innumerable works by this man: On the five books of Moses, one book Concerning the confusion of tongues, one book On nature and invention, one book On the things which our senses desire and we detest, one book On learning, one book On the heir of divine things, one book On the division of equals and contraries, one book On the three virtues, one book On why in Scripture the names of many persons are changed, two books On covenants, one book On the life of a wise man, one book Concerning giants, five books That dreams are sent by God, five books of Questions and answers on Exodus, four books On the tabernacle and the Decalogue, as well as books On victims and promises or curses, On Providence, On the Jews, On the manner of one’s life, On Alexander, and That dumb beasts have right reason, and That every fool should be a slave, and On the lives of the Christians, of which we spoke above, that is, lives of apostolic men, which also he entitled, On those who practice the divine life, because in truth they contemplate divine things and ever pray to God, also under other categories, two On agriculture, two On drunkenness. There are other monuments of his genius which have not come to our hands. Concerning him there is a proverb among the Greeks “Either Plato philonized, or Philo platonized,” that is, either Plato followed Philo, or Philo, Plato, so great is the similarity of ideas and language.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Visited Rome a.d. 40, and must have lived (Edersheim) ten or fifteen years after his return.
* ↑ From this etc. Acts 2. 4; Acts 4. 32
* ↑ desire to imitate the mss.; strive to be Cypr. Fabr. Val., on account of the difficult construction with imitate.
* ↑ CaiusCypr. Fabr. Val.; Gaius all the mss.; omit Her.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Lives of Illustrious Men/Jerome/Photinus the heresiarch

Chapter CVII.
Photinus, of Gallograecia, a disciple of Marcellus, and ordained bishop of Sirmium, attempted to introduce the Ebionite heresy, and afterwards having been expelled from the church by the Emperor Valentinianus, wrote many volumes, among which the most distinguished are Against the nations, and To Valentinianus.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Bishop about 347, deposed 351, died about 376.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Lives of Illustrious Men/Jerome/Polycarp the bishop

Chapter XVII.
Polycarp disciple of the apostle John and by him ordained bishop of Smyrna was chief of all Asia, where he saw and had as teachers some of the apostles and of those who had seen the Lord. He, on account of certain questions concerning the day of the Passover, went to Rome in the time of the emperor Antoninus Pius while Anicetus ruled the church in that city. There he led back to the faith many of the believers who had been deceived through the persuasion of Marcion and Valentinus, and when Marcion met him by chance and said “Do you know us” he replied, “I know the firstborn of the devil.” Afterwards during the reign of Marcus Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus in the fourth persecution after Nero, in the presence of the proconsul holding court at Smyrna and all the people crying out against him in the Amphitheater, he was burned. He wrote a very valuable Epistle to the Philippians which is read to the present day in the meetings in Asia.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Bishop 106 or 7—157–168 (?); 154 sq (Lipsius) Authorities differ as to dates of his death from 147–175. Bishop certainly (Salmon) 110.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Lives of Illustrious Men/Jerome/Philip the bishop

Chapter XXX.
Philip bishop of Crete, that is of the city of Gortina, whom Dionysius mentions in the epistle which he wrote to the church of the same city, published a remarkable book Against Marcion and flourished in the time of Marcus Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Bishop about 160, died about 180.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 8

Chapter 8 [VIII.]—Victor’s Erroneous Opinion, that the Soul Deserved to Become Sinful.
Vainly supposing, then, that he was able to solve this question from the foreknowledge of God, he keeps floundering on, and says: “If the soul deserved to be sinful which could not have been sinful, yet neither did it remain in sin, because, as prefigured in Christ, it was not bound to be in sin, even as it was unable to be.” Now what can he mean when he says, “which could not have been sinful,” or “was unable to be in sin,” except, as I suppose, this, if it did not come into the flesh? For, of course, it could not have been sinful through original sin, or have been at all involved in original sin, except through the flesh, if it is not derived from the parent. We see it, then, liberated from sin through grace, but we do not see how it deserved to be involved in sin. What, then, is the meaning of these words of his, “If the soul deserved to be sinful, yet neither did it remain in sin”? For if I were to ask him, why it did not remain in sin, he would very properly answer, Because the grace of Christ delivered it therefrom. Since, then, he tells us how it came to pass that an infant’s soul was liberated from its sinfulness, let him further tell us how it happened that it deserved to be sinful.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 33

Chapter 33.—Augustin Has No Objection to the Opinion About the Propagation of Souls Being Refuted, and that About Their Insufflation Being Maintained.
As for the opinion, that new souls are created by inbreathing without being propagated, we certainly do not in the least object to its maintenance,—only let it be by persons who have succeeded in discovering some new evidence, either in the canonical Scriptures, in the shape of unambiguous testimony towards the solution of a most knotty question, or else in their own reasonings, such as shall not be opposed to catholic truth, but not by such persons as this man has shown himself to be. Unable to find anything worth saying, and at the same time unwilling to suspend his disputatious propensity, without measuring his strength at all, in order to avoid saying nothing, he boldly affirmed that “the soul deserved to be polluted by the flesh,” and that “the soul deserved to become sinful;” though previous to its incarnation he was unable to discover any merit in it, whether good or evil. Moreover, that “in infants departing from the body without baptism original sin may be remitted, and that the sacrifice of Christ’s body must be offered for them,” who have not been incorporated into Christ through His sacraments in His Church, and that “they, quitting this present life without the laver of regeneration, not only can go to rest, but can even attain to the kingdom of heaven.” He has propounded a good many other absurdities, which it would be evidently tedious to collect together, and to consider in this treatise. If the doctrine of the propagation of souls is false, may its refutation not be the work of such disputants; and may the defence of the rival principle of the insufflation of new souls in every creative act, proceed from better hands.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 35

Chapter 35 [XX.]—Conclusion.
As for this present treatise, which I have thought it proper to address to no other person in preference to yourself, who have taken a kindly and true interest both in our common faith and my character, as a true catholic and a good friend, you will give it to be read or copied by any persons you may be able to find interested in the subject, or may deem worthy to be trusted. In it I have thought proper to repress and confute the presumption of this young man, in such a way, however, as to show that I love him, wishing him to be amended rather than condemned, and to make such progress in the great house which is the catholic Church, whither the divine compassion has conducted him, that he may be therein “a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work,” both by holy living and sound teaching. But I have this further to say: if it behoves me to bestow my love upon him, as I sincerely do, how much more ought I to love you, my brother, whose affection towards me and whose catholic faith I have found by the best of proofs to be cautious and sober! The result of your loyalty has been, that you have, with a brother’s real love and duty, taken care to have the books, which displeased you, and wherein you found my name treated in a way which ran counter to your liking, copied out and forwarded to me. Now, I am so far from feeling offended at this charitable act of yours, because you did it, that I think I should have had a right, on the true claims of friendship, to have been angry with you if you had not done it. I therefore give you my most earnest thanks. Moreover, I have afforded a still plainer indication of the spirit in which I have accepted your service, by instantly composing this treatise for your consideration, as soon as I had read those books of his.

## Footnotes

* ↑ 2 Tim. ii. 21.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 4

Chapter 4 [IV.]—The Errors Contained in the Books of Vincentius Victor. He Says that the Soul Comes from God, But Was Not Made Either Out of Nothing or Out of Any Created Thing.
I will now proceed to point out what things are chiefly to be avoided in his contentious statement. He says that the soul was made, indeed, by God, but that it is not a portion of God or of the nature of God,—which is an entirely true statement. When, however, he refuses to allow that it is made out of nothing, and mentions no other created thing out of which it was made; and makes God its author, in such a sense that He must be supposed to have made it, neither out of any non-existing things, that is, out of nothing, nor out of anything which exists other than God, but out of His very self: he is little aware that in the revolution of his thoughts he has come back to the position which he thinks he has avoided, even that the soul is nothing else than the nature of God; and consequently that there is an actual something made out of the nature of God by the self-same God, for the making of which the material of which He makes it is His own very self who makes it; and that thus God’s nature is changeable, and by being changed for the worse the very nature of God Himself incurs condemnation at the hands of the self-same God! How far all this is from being fit for your intelligent faith to suppose, how alien it is from the heart of a catholic, and how much to be avoided, you can readily see. For the soul is either so made out of the breath, or God’s breath is so made into it, that it was not created out of Himself, but by Himself out of nothing. It is not, indeed, like the case of a human being, when he breathes: he cannot form a breath out of nothing, but he restores to the air the breath which he inhaled out of it. We may in some such manner suppose that certain airs surrounded the Divine Being, and that He inhaled a particle of it by breathing, and exhaled it again by respiration, when He breathed into man’s face, and so formed for him a soul. If this were the process, it could not have been out of His very self, but out of the circumambient airy matter, that what He breathed forth must have arisen. Far be it, however, from us to say, that the Almighty could not have made the breath of life out of nothing, by which man might become a living soul; and to crowd ourselves into such straits, as that we must either think that something already existed other than Himself, out of which He formed breath, or else suppose that He formed out of Himself that which we see was made subject to change. Now, whatever is out of Himself, must necessarily be of the self-same nature as Himself, and therefore immutable: but the soul (as all allow) is mutable. Therefore it is not out of Him, because it is not immutable, as He is. If, however, it was not made of anything else, it was undoubtedly made out of nothing—but by Himself.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 5

Chapter 5 [V.]—Another of Victor’s Errors, that the Soul is Corporeal.
But as regards his contention, “that the soul is not spirit, but body,” what else can he mean to make out, than that we are composed, not of soul and body, but of two or even three bodies? For inasmuch as he says that we consist of spirit, soul and body, and asserts that all the three are bodies; it follows, that he supposes us to be made up of three bodies. How absurd this conclusion is, I think ought rather to be demonstrated to him than to you. But this is not an intolerable error on the part of a person who has not yet discovered that there is in existence a something, which, though it be not corporeal, yet may wear somewhat of the similitude of a body.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 6

Chapter 6 [VI.]—Another Error Out of His Second Book, to the Effect, that the Soul Deserved to Be Polluted by the Body.
But he is plainly past endurance in what he says in his second book, when he endeavours to solve a very difficult question on original sin, how it belongs to body and soul, if the soul is not derived by parental descent but is breathed afresh by God into a man. Striving to explain this troublesome and profound point, he thus expresses his view: “Through the flesh the soul fitly recovers its primitive condition, which it seemed to have gradually lost through the flesh, in order that it may begin to be regenerated by the very flesh by which it had deserved to be polluted.” You observe how this person, having been so bold as to undertake what exceeds his powers, has fallen down such a precipice as to say, that the soul deserved to be defiled by the body; although he could in no wise declare whence it drew on itself this desert, before it put on flesh. For if it first had from the flesh its desert of sin, let him tell us (if he can) whence (previous to sin) it derived its desert to be contaminated by the flesh. For this desert, which projected it into sinful flesh to be polluted by it, it of course had either from itself, or, which is much more offensive to our mind, from God. It certainly could not, previous to its being invested with the flesh, have received from that flesh that ill desert by reason of which it was projected into the flesh, in order to be defiled by it. Now, if it had the ill desert from its own self, how did it get it, seeing that it did no sin previous to its assumption of flesh? But if it be alleged that it had the ill desert from God, then, I ask, who could listen to such blasphemy? Who could endure it? Who could permit it to be alleged with impunity? For the question which arises here, remember, is not, what was the ill desert which adjudged the soul to be condemned after it became incarnate, but what was its ill desert prior to the flesh, which condemned it to the investiture of the flesh, that it might be thereby polluted? Let him explain this to us, if he can, seeing that he has dared to say that the soul deserved to be defiled by the flesh.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 7

Chapter 7 [VII.]—Victor Entangles Himself in an Exceedingly Difficult Question. God’s Foreknowledge is No Cause of Sin.
In another passage, also, on proposing for explanation the very same question in which he had entangled himself, he says, speaking in the person of certain objectors: “Why, they ask, did God inflict upon the soul so unjust a punishment as to be willing to relegate it into a body, when, by reason of its association with the flesh, that begins to be sinful which could not have been sinful?” Now, amidst the reefy sea of such a question, it was surely his duty to beware of shipwreck; nor to commit himself to dangers which he could not hope to escape by passing over them, and where his only chance of safety lay in putting back again—in a word, by repentance. He tries to free himself by means of the foreknowledge of God, but to no purpose. For God’s foreknowledge only marks beforehand those sinners whom He purposes to heal. For if He liberates from sin those souls which He Himself involved in sin when innocent and pure, He then heals a wound which Himself inflicted on us, not which He found in us. May God, however, forbid it, and may it be altogether far from us to say, that when God cleanses the souls of infants by the laver of regeneration, He then corrects evils which He Himself made for them, when He commingled them, which had no sin before, with sinful flesh, that they might be contaminated by its original sin. As regards, however, the souls which this calumniator alleges to have deserved pollution by the flesh, he is quite unable to tell us how it is they deserved so vast an evil, previous to their connection with the flesh.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 31

Chapter 31.—The Argument of the Apollinarians to Prove that Christ Was Without the Human Soul of This Same Sort.
Although, then, this question remains unsolved by these passages of Scripture, which are certainly indecisive so far as pertains to the point before us, yet I am quite sure of this, that those persons who think that the soul of the first woman did not come from her husband’s soul, on the ground of its being only said, “Flesh of my flesh,” and not, “Soul of my soul,” do, in fact, argue in precisely the same manner as the Apollinarians argue, and all such gainsayers, in opposition to the Lord’s human soul, which they deny for no other reason than because they read in the Scripture, “The Word was made flesh.” For if, say they, there was a soul in Him also, it ought to have been said, “The Word was made man.” But the reason why the great truth is stated in the terms in question really is, that under the designation flesh, Holy Scripture is accustomed to describe the entire human being, as in the passage, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” For flesh alone without the soul cannot see anything. Besides, many other passages of the Holy Scriptures go to make it manifest, without any ambiguity, that in the man Christ there is not only flesh, but a human—that is, a reasonable—soul also. Whence they, who maintain the propagation of souls might also understand that a part is put for the whole in the passage, “Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh,” in such wise that the soul, too, be understood as implied in the words, in the same manner as we believe that the Word became flesh, not without the soul. All that is wanted is, that they should support their opinion of the propagation of souls on passages which are unambiguous; just as other passages of Scripture show us that Christ possesses a human soul. On precisely the same principle we advise the other side also, who do away with the opinion of the propagation of souls, that they should produce certain proofs for their assertion that souls are created by God in every fresh case by insufflation, and that they should then maintain the position that the saying, “This is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh,” was not spoken figuratively as a part for the whole, including the soul in its signification, but in a bare literal sense of the flesh alone.

## Footnotes

* ↑ John i. 14.
* ↑ Luke iii. 6, and Isa. xl. 5.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On the Soul and its Origin/Book I/Chapter 32

Chapter 32 [XIX.]—The Self-Contradiction of Victor as to the Origin of the Soul.
Under these circumstances, I find that this treatise of mine must now be closed. It contains, in fact, all that seemed to me chiefly necessary to the subject under discussion. They who peruse its contents will know how to be on their guard against agreeing with the person whose two books you sent me, so as not to believe with him, that souls are produced by the breath of God in such wise as not to be made out of nothing. The man, indeed, who supposes this, however much he may in words deny the conclusion, does in reality affirm that souls have the substance of God, and are His offspring, not by endowment, but by nature. For from whomsoever a man derives the origin of his nature, from him, in all sober earnestness, it must needs be admitted, that he also derives the kind of his nature. But this author is, after all, self-contradictory: at one time he says that “souls are the offspring of God,—not, indeed, by nature, but by endowment;” and at another time he says, that “they are not made out of nothing, but derive their origin from God.” Thus he does not hesitate to refer them to the nature of God, a position which he had previously denied.