Tertullian — On the Soul 20
ON THE NATURAL PROPERTIES. And here we conclude that all the natural properties of the soul, as its substantives, are in it and proceed and advance with it from the time it is enrolled. As our Seneca often says: the seeds of all arts and ages are planted in us, and God the teacher brings forth talents from hiding — from seeds planted and hidden through infancy, which are also intellects. From these, talents are brought forth. Further, crop seeds have one form for each kind, yet their courses vary: some come out whole, some answer even better, some degenerate — by sky and soil, by labor and care, by the turn of seasons, by the license of chance. So the soul too may be uniform in seed, many-formed in the offspring.
How much more will things outside bulk and health be held to sharpen or blunt! Doctrines, disciplines, arts, and the business of experience sharpen; ignorance, sloth, lusts, inexperience, idle vices blunt — and over these, if any powers also stand over us. Indeed they do: according to us, God the Lord and the devil the rival; according to common opinion, providence and fate and necessity and fortune and freedom of choice. For philosophers distinguish these, and we have already vowed them to their own title to be treated according to the faith. It appears how many things have variously placed one nature of the soul, so that they are commonly counted natures, when they are not species but lots of one nature and substance — that which God conferred in Adam and made the matrix of all. And so they will be lots, not species: this moral variety, as great as it now is, was not so great in Adam the head of the race. All these ought to have been in him as in nature's fountain and to have flowed from there with the whole variety, if variety of nature had been.
Latin
DE NATVRALIBVS. [1] Et hic itaque concludimus omnia naturalia animae ut substantiua eius ipsi inesse et cum ipsa procedere atque proficere, ex quo ipsa censetur. Sicut et Seneca saepe noster: insita sunt nobis omnium artium et aetatum semina, magisterque ex occulto deus producit ingenia, ex seminibus scilicet insitis et occultis per infantiam, quae sunt et intellectus. Ex his enim producuntur ingenia. [2] Porro et frugum seminibus una generis cuiusque forma est, processus tamen uarii: alia integro statu euadunt, alia etiam meliora respondent, alia degenerant pro condicione caeli et soli, pro ratione operis et curae, pro temporum euentu, pro licentia casuum; ita et animam licebit semine uniformem, fetu multiformem. Nam et hic etiam de locis interest. [3] Thebis hebetes et brutos nasci relatum est, Athenis sapiendi dicendique acutissimos, ubi penes Colyttum pueri mense citius eloquuntur praecoca lingua, siquidem et Plato in Timaeo Mineruam affirmat, cum urbem illam moliretur, nihil aliud quam regionis naturam prospexisse talia ingenia pollicitam; unde et ipse in Legibus Megillo et Cliniae praecipit condendae ciuitati locum procurare. Sed Empedocles causam argutae indolis et obtusae in sanguinis qualitate constituit, perfectum ac profectum de doctrina disciplinaque deducit. Tamen uulgata iam res est gentilium proprietatum. Comici Phrygas timidos inludunt, Sallustius uanos Mauros et feroces Dalmatus pulsat, mendaces Cretas etiam apostolus inurit. [4] Fortassean et de corpore et ualetudine aliquid accedat. Opimitas sapientiam impedit, exilitas expedit, paralysis mentem prodigit, pthisis seruat. Quanto magis de accidentibus habebuntur quae citra corpulentiam et ualentiam uel acuunt uel obtundunt! Acuunt doctrinae disciplinae artes et experientiae negotia studia; obtundunt inscitiae ignauiae desidiae libidines inexperientiae otia uitia, super haec, si et aliquae praesunt potestates.
[5] Enimuero praesunt, secundum nos quidem deus dominus et diabolus aemulus, secundum communem autem opinionem prouidentia et fatum et necessitas et fortuna et arbitrii libertas. Nam haec et philosophi distinguunt, et nos secundum fidem disserenda suo iam uouimus titulo. [6] Apparet quanta sint quae unam animae naturam uarie collocarint, ut uulgo naturae deputentur, quando non species sint, sed sortes naturae et substantiae unius, illius scilicet quam deus in Adam contulit et matricem omnium fecit; atque adeo sortes erunt, non species substantiae unius, id est uarietas ista moralis, quanta nunc est, tanta non fuerit in ipso principe generis Adam. Debuerant enim fuisse haec omnia in illo ut in fonte naturae atque inde cum tota uarietate manasse, si uarietas naturae fuisset.