Letter CLXIII.

(a.d. 414.)

To Bishop Augustin, Bishop Evodius Sends Greeting.

Some time ago I sent two questions to your Holiness; the first, which was sent, I think, by Jobinus, a servant in the nunnery,1236    Qui servit ancillis Dei. 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 Saviour assumed along with His body fall under any one of the theories commonly advanced in discussions on the origin of souls (if any theory indeed can be with certainty established on the subject),—or does His soul, though rational, belong not to any of the species under which the souls of living creatures are classified, but to another?

I ask also a fourth question: Who are those spirits in reference to whom the Apostle Peter testifies concerning the Lord in these words: “Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit, in which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison?” giving us to understand that they were in hell, and that Christ descending into hell, preached the gospel to them all, and by grace delivered them all from darkness and punishment, so that from the time of the resurrection of the Lord judgment is expected, hell having then been completely emptied.

What your Holiness believes in this matter I earnestly desire to know.

EPISTOLA CLXIII . Evodius Augustino proponit aliquot quaestiones.

EVODIUS episcopus, AUGUSTINO episcopo.

Pridem quaestiones misi ad Sanctitatem tuam: unam de ratione et Deo, puto per Jobinum 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 quanquam 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» (I Petr. III, 18, 19), 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, judicium exspectetur exinanitis inferis. Quid ergo in hac re Sanctitati tuae videatur, cupio nosse.