“Whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth.”

One of the questions which exercised the minds of the Fathers and the Schoolmen was, whether the soul were created before the body or after it. Origen, following Plato, supposes all souls to have been created at once, and to await their bodies. Thomas Aquinas combats this opinion, Summa Theologica , I Quaest. CXVIII 3, and maintains, that “creation and infusion are simultaneous in regard to the soul.” This seems also to be Dante’s belief. See Purgatorio XXV 70:⁠—