Three Opinions on the Origin of Souls

Your Apology says that there are three opinions on the origin of souls: one held by Origen; a second by Tertullian and Lactantius (as for Lactantius, what you say is plainly false); and a third by us simple and foolish men, who do not see that if our opinion is true, it shows God to be unjust. After this you say that you do not know which is the truth. Then tell me, I say: do you think that some truth can be found outside these three opinions, so that all three may be false? Or do you think one of the three is true? If there is some other possibility, why do you hem in the freedom of discussion within so tight a line? And why do you put forward the views that are false and keep silent about the true one? But if one of the three is true and the other two false, why do you lump false and true together in one profession of ignorance? Perhaps you pretend not to know which is true so that it may be safe for you to defend the false one whenever you please. This is the smoke, these are the mists, with which you try to keep the light from people’s eyes. You are the Aristippus of our day. You bring your ship into the port of Rome loaded with merchandise of every kind; you set your professor’s chair up high, and you present yourself to us as Hermagoras and as Gorgias of Leontini. Only, you were in such a hurry to set sail that you left one little piece of goods, one little question, forgotten in the East. And you cry out again and again that you learned, both at Aquileia and at Alexandria, that God is the creator of both our bodies and our souls. So this, of course, is the pressing question: whether our souls were created by God or by the devil! The question is not whether Origen’s opinion is true, that our souls existed before our bodies and committed some sin for which they were tied to these gross bodies; or whether, again, they slept like dormice in torpor and slumber. Everyone is asking this question, but you say nothing about it. Nobody asks the other, but that is the one you answer. [a]