Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
One further question that may be raised is this: does the soul come into being from the father, or is it rather the mother's, or does it spring from both together? For my own part, I claim the right to clear this matter of its uncertainty. None of these three options holds true, since souls are sown neither jointly from both nor from either parent alone. A body can indeed be born from bodies, since something is contributed from each; but a soul cannot come from souls, because from a thing so fine and incomprehensible nothing can be given off. And so the sowing of souls lies under the authority of one God alone: we are all, in the end, sprung from heavenly seed, and he is the same father to all, as Lucretius says. For from mortal things nothing but a mortal thing can be generated. Nor should a man be regarded as the father who transmitted, or breathed into a child, a soul of his own — for he has no sense of doing any such thing, and even if he did, he has no grasp in his mind of when or how it happens. From this it becomes evident that souls come not from parents at all, but from the one same God who fathers all, the sole holder of the law and principle governing birth, since he alone accomplishes it. For of the earthly father nothing is required except that, with a sensation of pleasure, he should emit or receive the moisture of the body in which lies the material of birth; beyond this task the man is helpless and can do nothing more, and that is why men wish for children to be born to them — because they themselves do not make them. All the rest belongs to God: namely, the conception itself, the shaping of the body, the breathing-in of the soul, the safe delivery, and whatever else afterward serves to preserve the human being. Our very breathing, our living, our thriving — these are gifts that belong to him. For besides the fact that by his kindness we remain whole in body, and that he furnishes us sustenance through various means, he also grants wisdom to man — something an earthly father can in no way give. That is also why fools are often born of the wise, and wise men of fools — a phenomenon some credit to destiny and the stars. Fate, however, is not a topic to be pursued here; let this much suffice: even if the stars do hold some efficacy over things, still everything is brought about by God, who made and ordered the stars themselves. Foolish, then, are those who strip this power from God and hand it over to his works. This heavenly and glorious gift of God, then — whether we use it or not — he willed to be in our own power; for once this had been granted, man was bound by a solemn pledge of virtue through which he could gain life. Great indeed is the power of man, great his reason, great his pledge: whoever does not fall away from it, and does not betray his own faith and devotion, is blessed — and, to put it briefly, must in the end be like God. For whoever measures man by the flesh is mistaken: this little body we are clothed in is merely man's housing. Man himself can be neither touched nor seen nor grasped, because he lies hidden within what is visible. If, in this life, he is soft and delicate as his lower reason demands — if, scorning virtue, he has surrendered himself to the desires of the flesh — he will fall and be pressed down into the earth. But if he defends readily and steadfastly the upright standing that is properly his, and does not become a slave to the earth he ought rather to tread down and conquer, he will earn everlasting life.
This much, Demetrianus, I have set out to you for now in few words, and perhaps more obscurely than the urgency of the subject and the occasion deserved. With this you must be content for the present, until you read more and better things, if heaven's favor comes to us. Then I shall exhort you to the teaching of true philosophy both more plainly and more truly. For I have resolved to commit to writing as much as I am able that bears on the condition of the blessed life — and indeed against the philosophers, since they are dangerous and formidable in confounding the truth. The astonishing power of their eloquence and the subtlety of their argument and disputation could easily deceive anyone; we shall refute them, partly with weapons of our own, partly with weapons drawn from their own quarrels among themselves, so that it will appear they introduced error rather than removed it. Perhaps you will wonder that I dare so great an undertaking. Shall we then allow the truth to be smothered or suppressed? I, for my part, would rather fall even under this burden. For if Marcus Tullius, the very model of eloquence itself, was often bested by men untrained and unskilled in speech — simply because they were striving for what was true — why should we despair that truth itself will prevail, by its own force and clarity, against deceptive and captious eloquence? Such men, to be sure, like to call themselves the truth's defenders — yet how can anyone argue for a matter he never mastered, or illuminate for others something he himself has failed to grasp? I seem to be promising something great, but it is a task that needs heaven's gift, that the ability and the time to carry through what I have proposed be granted to us. And if a wise man ought to desire life at all, then my one wish to go on living would be this: to achieve something deserving of that life, and something that brings benefit to my readers — if not toward eloquence, since the stream of eloquence in me runs thin, then at least toward living well, which is the thing most needed. Once that is accomplished, I shall reckon that I have lived enough and fulfilled the duty of a man, if my labor has set some men free from their errors and directed them onto the heavenly road.