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A Treatise on the Soul

Chapter IV.--In Opposition to Plato, the Soul Was Created and Originated at Birth.

After settling the origin of the soul, its condition or state comes up next. For when we acknowledge that the soul originates in the breath of God, it follows that we attribute a beginning to it. This Plato, indeed, refuses to assign to it, for he will have the soul to be unborn and unmade. ¹ We, however, from the very fact of its having had a beginning, as well as from the nature thereof, teach that it had both birth and creation. And when we ascribe both birth and creation to it, we have made no mistake: for being born, indeed, is one thing, and being made is another,--the former being the term which is best suited to living beings. When distinctions, however, have places and times of their own, they occasionally possess also reciprocity of application among themselves. Thus, the being made admits of being taken in the sense of being brought forth; ² inasmuch as everything which receives being or existence, in any way whatever, is in fact generated. For the maker may really be called the parent of the thing that is made: in this sense Plato also uses the phraseology. So far, therefore, as concerns our belief in the souls being made or born, the opinion of the philosopher is overthrown by the authority of prophecy ³ even.

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De Anima

IV. DE INNATA.

[1] Post definitionem census quaestionem status patitur. Consequens enim est, ut ex dei flatu animam professi initium ei deputaremus. Hoc Plato excludit innatam et infectam animam uolens. Et natam autem docemus et factam ex initii constitutione. Nec statim erraimus utrumque dicentes, quia scilicet aliud sit natum, aliud factum utpote , illud animalibus competens. Differentiae autem sua habendo loca et tempora habent aliquando et passiuitatis commercia. Capit itaque et facturam pro in esse poni, siquidem omne quod quoque modo accipit esse generatur. Nam et factor ipse parens facti potest dici; sic et Plato utitur. Igitur quantum ad fidem nostram factae nataeue animae, depulsa est philosophi opinio, auctoritate prophetiae quoque.