Letter 181

To the Same Person. If a multitude of souls, as you say, fell down through sin from the vault of the heavens to this place at the beginning of human generation, and were embodied, then the great Moses ought to have said that God made many bodies out of the earth, and that into these he cast down the souls that had fallen. But as it is, it is not so: Scripture hands down that one man only, Adam, was molded out of the earth, and that a living soul was breathed into him. "And he made of one blood," as the Apostle says, "every nation of men to dwell upon the face of the earth." [Acts 17:26] For the first man was of the earth, earthy [1 Cor. 15:47] -- not the first crowds of myriads of men of the earth, earthy. "And through one man," he says, "sin entered into the world" [Rom. 5:12] -- for it was certainly not through a multitude of men.

Εἴπερ δῆμος ψυχῶν, καθὼς λέγεις, δι' ἁμαρτίας ἐκπέπτωκεν ἀπὸ τῆς ἀψῖδος τῶν οὐρανῶν ἐνταῦθα κατ' ἀρχὰς τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης γενέσεως, καὶ ἐνεσωματώθη, ἐχρῆν γὰρ τὸν μέγαν Μωσέα, ὅτι πολλὰ ὁ Θεὸς σώματα πεποίηκεν ἐκ τῆς γῆς, καὶ εἰς ταῦτα κατέβαλεν τὰς ἐκπεσούσας ψυχάς. Νῦν δὲ οὐχ οὕτως, ἕνα δὲ ἄνθρωπον μόνον τὸν Ἀδὰμ ἐκ τῆς γῆς πεπλάσθαι, καὶ ψυχὴν ἐμπεφυσῆσθαι ζῶσαν ἡ Γραφὴ παραδίδωσιν· « Ἐποίησέν τε ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς αἵματος, ὥς φησιν ὁ Ἀπόστολος, πᾶν ἔθνος ἀνθρώπων κατοικεῖν ἐπὶ προσώπου τῆς γῆς. » Ὁ γὰρ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος ἐκ γῆς χοϊκός, « οὐχ οἱ πρῶτοι ὄχλοι τῶν μυρίων ἀνθρώπων ἐκ γῆς χοϊκοί. » « Καὶ δι' ἑνός, φησίν, ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον, » οὐ γὰρ δὴ διὰ πλήθους ἀνθρώπων.