Letter 163: Some time ago I sent two questions to your Holiness; the first, which was sent, I think, by Jobinus, a servant in the nunnery, related to God and reason, and the second was in regard to the opinion that the body of the Saviour is capable of seeing the substance of the Deity. I now propound a third question: Does the rational soul which our Savi...
Some time ago I sent questions to your Holiness: the first concerning reason and God, I believe through Iobinus who serves the handmaids of God; the second concerning the body of the Savior, from which it is supposed that one might see the substance of God. I now raise a third: the rational soul that the Savior assumed along with his body — does it belong to one of those theories that are proposed when the origin of the soul is investigated, if any of them can be supported by truth? Or, although it is rational, is it not drawn from those categories that are discussed regarding the soul of living creatures, but is held to be of another kind? Fourth, I ask: who are those spirits about whom Peter gives testimony concerning the Lord in his epistle, saying, "Put to death in the flesh, made alive in the spirit, in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison," and so forth — inserting this, that they were in the underworld, and that Christ, descending, preached the gospel to all, and freed all from darkness and punishments by grace, so that from the time of the Lord's resurrection, judgment is awaited now that the underworld has been emptied. What, then, your Holiness thinks on this matter, I desire to know.
Human translation — New Advent (NPNF / ANF series)
Latin / Greek Original
EPISTOLA 163
Scripta a. 414 aut 415.
Evodius Augustino proponit aliquot quaestiones, scl. de anima Christi ac de eius praedicatione spiritibus apud inferos commorantibus.
EVODIUS EPISCOPUS, AUGUSTINO EPISCOPO.
1. Pridem quaestiones misi ad Sanctitatem tuam: unam de ratione et Deo, puto per Iobinum qui servit ancillis Dei; alteram de corpore Salvatoris, de quo aestimatur quod substantiam Dei videat. Tertiam dico nunc: anima rationalis quam Salvator cum corpore assumpsit, utrum in una de opinionibus est illis quae proponuntur cum de animae origine quaeritur, si qua ibi potest veritate fulciri; an quamquam rationalis sit, non tamen ex iis speciebus quae de animalium anima dicuntur, sed in alia habetur. Quartam interrogo: qui sunt illi spiritus, de quibus in Epistola sua ponit Petrus testimonium de Domino, dicens: Mortificatus carne, vivificatus spiritu: in quo et eis qui in carcere erant spiritibus veniens praedicavit 1, et caetera; hoc inserens quod in inferno fuerunt, et descendens Christus omnibus evangelizavit, omnesque a tenebris et poenis per gratiam liberavit, ut a tempore resurrectionis Domini, iudicium exspectetur exinanitis inferis. Quid ergo in hac re Sanctitati tuae videatur, cupio nosse.
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