Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul 24

I will not concede that the soul is capable of oblivion. The divinity granted to it is so great that it makes the soul equal to God. That alone — its innateness — would have been enough to testify to its full divinity. On top of that, it is said to be immortal, incorruptible, incorporeal, invisible, ineffable, uniform, principal, rational, intellectual — attributes believed to belong to God. What more could you prescribe for the soul if you were to call it God outright? We, however, attribute nothing to God. Therefore, we estimate the soul to be far inferior to God, because we recognize it as born. Its divinity is therefore diluted, its happiness meager. It is like a breath, not a spirit. Even if it is immortal, that immortality serves its divinity; but it is passible, and that passibility serves its birth. Consequently, it was capable of error from the beginning, and from there also akin to oblivion. That is enough on this point with Hermogenes.

Moreover, whatever can be considered a god by the equality of all divine properties will not be subject to any passion. Thus, it will not be subject to oblivion either, since oblivion is as great an injury as the glory of the one whose injury it is — namely, memory. Plato himself proclaimed memory the salvation of the senses and intellect, and Cicero called it the treasure of all studies. The question now is not whether such a divine soul could have lost memory, but whether, once lost, it can recover it again. For what it should not have forgotten, if it has forgotten, I do not know if it can recall. So both oblivion and recovery fit my soul, not the Platonic one.

Second, I will oppose you on this: you claim the soul is capable of those ideas by nature, do you not? "Indeed, by nature," you say. Then no one will concede that natural knowledge of natural things can fall away. Knowledge of studies, doctrines, disciplines may fall away. Perhaps talents and affections fall away too. These seem natural but are not, because they consist of accidents — institutions, bodily conditions, health, dominant powers, freedoms of the will. But the knowledge of natural things does not even fail in beasts. A lion will forget its ferocity when prevented by training, and with all its pride intact it will become the delight of some queen Berenice, licking her cheeks with its tongue. It will leave behind its beastly ways, yet the knowledge of natural things will remain. That same lion will not forget its natural food, its natural remedies, its natural terrors. Even if offered fish or royal delicacies, it will desire flesh. Even if a remedy is composed for it when sick, it will seek a monkey. And if no hunting spear is presented, it will still fear a rooster. Similarly, in man — perhaps the most forgetful of all — the knowledge of natural things will remain unobliterated, as the only truly natural thing. He will always be mindful of eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, seeing with the eyes, hearing with the ears, smelling with the nose, tasting with the mouth, touching with the hand. These are the senses that philosophy devalues in favor of intellectual things. Therefore, if natural knowledge of sensual things remains, how can intellectual knowledge — considered superior — fall away?

Where, then, does the power of oblivion preceding recollection come from? "From the multitude of time," it is said. That is not well considered. The quantity of time does not pertain to what is said to be innate, and therefore believed to be eternal. What is eternal, because it is innate, admits neither beginning nor end of time, and suffers no mode of time. To what has no mode of time, no change of time applies, and no power of time belongs. If time is the cause of oblivion, why does memory slip away from the moment the soul is introduced into the body — as if the soul, certainly prior to the body, did not exist without time? Once it enters the body, does it immediately forget, or after some time? If immediately, what multitude of time — not yet reckoned — would there be? Clearly, infancy. If after some time, then in that space before the times of oblivion the soul would still be mindful. What kind of thing is it, that it later forgets, and then later recalls again? Whenever oblivion may strike, what mode of time would be involved? I think the whole course of life will not be enough to overturn the memory of so much time before the body.

But again, Plato shifts the cause to the body. As if this too were worthy of faith — that a born substance extinguishes the power of an innate one. There are great and many differences among bodies — by nation, size, condition, age, health. Will the differences of oblivion therefore be estimated? But oblivion is uniform. Therefore, the multiformity of the body cannot be the cause of a uniform exit. Many proofs, with Plato himself as witness, have demonstrated the soul's divination, which we have already proposed to Hermogenes. Not a single human being fails to sometimes feel his own soul as a predictor of things to come — an omen, a warning of danger, a sign of joy. If the body does not hinder divination, I think it will not hinder memory either. In the same body, souls both forget and recall. If some reason of the body incites oblivion, how will it admit the contrary recollection? Recollection after oblivion is a renewed memory. What contradicts the first memory — why does it not also contradict the second? Finally, who would recall more than children — as more recent souls, not yet immersed in domestic and public cares, dedicated solely to studies whose learning becomes recollections? Why do we not all recall equally, since we all forget equally — but only the philosophers? Not even all of them. Clearly, Plato alone, in such a vast multitude of nations, in such a vast field of wise men, was both forgetful and mindful of the ideas. Therefore, if this principal argument does not hold in any way, the whole structure to which it was accommodated is equally overturned — the belief that souls are innate, conversant in heavenly things, conscious of divine things there, thence transferred, and here recalled — providing occasions plainly for heretics.