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| As Free-Will Actuates an Individual So May His Character Change.
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Chapter XXI.—As
Free-Will Actuates an Individual So May His Character
Change.
Now, if the soul possessed this uniform and simple
nature from the beginning in Adam, previous to so many mental
dispositions (being developed out of it), it is not rendered multiform
by such various development, nor by the triple1652
| 1652 i.e., the carnal, the
animal, and the spiritual. Comp. Adv. Valentin. xxv., and De
Resur. Carnis, lv. |
form predicated of it in “the Valentinian trinity”
(that we may still keep the condemnation of that heresy in view), for
not even this nature is discoverable in Adam. What had he that was
spiritual? Is it because he prophetically declared “the great
mystery of Christ and the church?”1653
“This is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be
called Woman. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and he
shall cleave unto his wife; and they two shall be one
flesh.”1654
But this (gift of
prophecy) only came on him afterwards, when God infused into him the
ecstasy, or spiritual quality, in which prophecy consists. If, again,
the evil of sin was developed in him, this must not be accounted as a
natural disposition: it was rather produced by the instigation
of the (old) serpent as far from being incidental to his nature as it
was from being material in him, for we have already excluded
belief in “Matter.”1655
| 1655 See Adv.
Hermog. xiii. | Now, if
neither the spiritual element, nor what the heretics call the material
element, was properly inherent in him (since, if he had been created out of
matter, the germ of evil must have been an integral part of his
constitution), it remains that the one only original element of his
nature was what is called the animal (the principle of vitality,
the soul), which we maintain to be simple and uniform in its condition.
Concerning this, it remains for us to inquire whether, as being called
natural, it ought to be deemed subject to change. (The heretics whom we
have referred to) deny that nature is susceptible of any
change,1656
| 1656 See Adv.
Valentin. xxix. | in order that they
may be able to establish and settle their threefold theory, or
“trinity,” in all its characteristics as to the several
natures, because “a good tree cannot produce evil fruit, nor a
corrupt tree good fruit; and nobody gathers figs of thorns, nor grapes
of brambles.”1657
If so, then
“God will not be able any longer to raise up from the stones
children unto Abraham; nor to make a generation of vipers bring forth
fruits of repentance.”1658
And if so, the
apostle too was in error when he said in his epistle, “Ye were at
one time darkness, (but now are ye light in the Lord:)”1659
and, “We also were by nature children
of wrath;”1660
and, “Such
were some of you, but ye are washed.”1661
The statements, however, of holy Scripture will never be discordant
with truth. A corrupt tree will never yield good fruit, unless the
better nature be grafted into it; nor will a good tree produce evil
fruit, except by the same process of cultivation. Stones also will
become children of Abraham, if educated in Abraham’s faith; and a
generation of vipers will bring forth the fruits of penitence, if they
reject the poison of their malignant nature. This will be the power of
the grace of God, more potent indeed than nature, exercising its sway
over the faculty that underlies itself within us—even the freedom
of our will, which is described as αὐτεξούσιος
(of independent authority); and inasmuch as this faculty is itself also
natural and mutable, in whatsoever direction it turns, it inclines of
its own nature. Now, that there does exist within us naturally this
independent authority (τὸ
αὐτεξούσιον
), we have already shown in opposition both to Marcion1662
| 1662 See our
Anti-Marcion, ii. 5–7. | and to Hermogenes.1663
| 1663 In his work against
this man, entitled De Censu Animæ, not now extant. |
If, then, the natural condition has to be submitted to a definition, it
must be determined to be twofold—there being the category of the
born and the unborn, the made and not-made. Now that which has received
its constitution by being made or by being born, is by nature capable
of being changed, for it can be both born again and re-made; whereas
that which is not-made and unborn will remain for ever immoveable.
Since, however, this state is suited to God alone, as the only Being
who is unborn and not-made (and therefore immortal and unchangeable),
it is absolutely certain that the nature of all other existences which
are born and created is subject to modification and change; so that if
the threefold state is to be ascribed to the soul, it must be supposed
to arise from the mutability of its accidental circumstances, and not
from the appointment of nature.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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