A by these things which are interwoven with one another into a long and twisted rope, dragging after them the remaining sins? For these, I think, are the three daughters of the blood-sucking leech loved by Solomon, whose suckings drain my vital and living substance. These are what I reproach in the body; these I accuse; for these I have written this discourse, pursuing violence and injustice, because, while [man's] nature is designed to preserve our race and mixes pleasure with both our food and the procreation of offspring—in order that by this, as if by bait, man might be drawn to both food and the lawful marriage bed of a woman, and that he might exist and live, and, when dying, not perish—the body, seizing upon these blameless and natural [things] as if they were some unwritten laws, is carried towards what wantonness? And whose bound of fullness does it not overstep? Now it demands, sated with dishes; now, having gorgeously swallowed the most pleasant and difficult-to-obtain foods, it fails to be satisfied, and again, from the beginning, it lusts; it is displeased with what is present and craves what is absent. Nor is its heart gladdened by local wines, but it slights the native vintage as if it were water flowing by, and it burns with thirst for foreign ones. It does not only seek garments that are commensurate for warmth and cold, but those made from materials that are difficult to obtain, worked over with superfluous skill and in an all-too-delicate manner. On top of this, it forces me to be served by it—by female cooks and bakers, and by certain weavers—and to serve shamefully its endless desires, acting as a tax-collector for provisions beyond necessity, not in order to spend them becomingly and for the purpose intended, but to squander them for the sake of pleasure.
What sort of life, then, do you suppose I lead, O men of God, by conforming to one who is so miserable and by attending upon [the body], or [in] what sort of shameful misdeeds does it not stumble? Are these things moderate? Or do I complain in vain otherwise? For if it were demanding things that are ephemeral, and without which it could not subsist, I would not have groaned. If it were asking for some covering for its nakedness and protection against the excesses of the air, I would have gladly provided them. If it were content with what happens to be available, if it only desired to survive, I would not have considered the necessity of providing such things as violence; nor would I have brought it to judgment and trial, as I now do justly, since it forcibly causes me to set its providence upon pleasure, against the apostolic commandment. For, having once seized upon the motive power of natural use that is beyond [what is] right, it does not stop, running through into every unspeakable pleasure.
For, strictly speaking, what the divine Paul says concerning sin—that “through the written law it wrought in me all manner of coveting; for sin, finding an occasion through the commandment, deceived me and killed me”—this has occurred also in our case. For my own flesh, having found an occasion in the natural law—that of being fed, of course, and kept warm—has wrought in me all manner of coveting, and through the need for the basic necessities, it first draws me out toward B its lawful use, then it gradually leads [me] on from natural use towards abuse and misuse; and from continued abuse it ends in a state of gluttony and luxury, and it kills me by utterly deceiving [me]. For the one who gives himself to dissipation, whether it be a woman or a soul, is dead while alive. For it is my death that, forgetting its own proper activities, one should occupy oneself with the bestial enjoyments of the body, when, according to another apostle, I am dragged away and enticed by fleshly lust; and lust, having conceived, brings forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. For from the breast, having formed a habit of flowing towards what is pleasant and being harsh towards what irritates the sense, it has been trained in the passions of pleasure and pain.
Hence, anger also gains power in the heart, and pleasure in the liver—passions strong because of long-continued exercise and the foremost of the others, and of a kind to persuade the reasoning faculty within me and to lead it, obedient, in one way or another. For either by deceit or by force they drag [it] away. O how often has pleasure stolen my youth! How often—I learn, indeed, what evils I am about to do, but anger is stronger than my plans. C And with anger and pleasure follows the whole throng of passions, and I try to lay hold of the dominion that belongs to me; but I am kept away by this ochlocracy [mob-rule], experiencing the same thing as if a noble orphan girl were left alone, being mistress of many maidservants, but not yet knowing how to rule; she is despised, or even taught to riot together [with them]; but when, late in [the day], she comes to recognize who she is and with what sort of people she is being corrupted, she attempts to take control as a housekeeper and to turn them back to a servile state and discipline them. But they, having long been filled with autonomous and self-mastery-less wantonness, become shameless and rise up, just as some slaves are said to do when their masters have gone and delayed—they [the slaves] become masters of those houses and husbands to the wives—then they even turn to oppose the returning masters, and engage in battle with weapons; just as others, much later, having deserted Rome, fought great battles against those who were pursuing and enslaving them.
Such is the kind of servile war that my naturally servile body stirs up against me, or even something more terrible, in that those others were at least overcome by weapons, if even with difficulty, and together with their servitude they cast off their lives. D Those others indeed for a time held out while fighting, so long as they saw their masters carrying iron and advancing upon them as equals; but when those [masters] decided to lay down their weapons and, bare, brandished only lashes as against slaves—and thus reminded them who they were and against whom they dared to battle—then they returned to themselves and recognized their former mastery. But this domestic and hostile evil of mine is inexhaustible, rising up, departing, not at all being enslaved, and I do not know how I shall prevail. For I am able to overcome it neither by the law of war nor by [the law] of legitimate servitude, but, however I may pursue [to manage] it, I am caught in all the proverbs—sowing rock, beating the air, and...
A whitening the Aethiopian, carding flame, drawing ropes from sand. Oh, what an unbelievable matter! I have been entrusted with a twofold irrationality: one that is internal and directly yoked to me, and another that is further off and external. But the external one is enslaved and has learned the laws of submission. For no irrational creature refuses its appropriate service, but even the ox submits its neck to the yoke, ruptures the fat of the earth with the plow—and this while having the points of its horns projected upon its temples like other spear-heads. Nor has the swift-footed horse escaped its ministry, but though it is haughty, it accepts the bit in its mouth and carries a rider, whether he is bringing peace or waging war. Even the donkey, by nature sluggish, is persuaded when called to carry burdens; and just as I held back the headstrong horse with a bridle, so I have persuaded the most sluggish donkey to travel faster with a small boy and a stick. Why do I speak of these tame beasts and pack animals? Not the bear, nor the leopard, among the wild beasts, is more implacable; not the elephant itself, which towers over the hills in its magnitude; not the lion, the king of the wild beasts, deserts our rule. They love to be led through the marketplace and theaters in the cities, providing a spectacle for the onlookers, filled with astonishment and wonder. Nor did the boundless height of the air suffice for the sky-high birds for escape, just as the deepest depth of the sea did not suffice for the fish for concealment. And the beastly and external irrationality we thus tame, as we are able, and subdue. But the one that lives with us, and that we have been ordered to ride over directly, and to adorn according to reason—we have no way to smile upon it and appease it toward obedience. And yet, that one is deaf by nature to reason, while this one hears and has in some way turned back. But the completely irrational is more persuaded by reason than that which is naturally fitted to be reasoned with and to be regulated in some way. And that one serves and labors together for what is beneficial to the body; but the body, which was given to me as a fellow-worker for the most beautiful works of virtue, is proved to be an adversary and one that opposes me even more, and it compels me to analyze with it faster than it agrees to reason with me. And the cause has been stated before, that since it happened that I did not understand the first things at my creation, as I was in a state of infancy with the newborn flesh—or, to speak in the Chaldean manner, being overwhelmed by the refuse of matter and clothed in a shell—I compare myself and become like the beasts and the senseless powers. But when the unintelligent and foolish mind finally begins to think, I try to claim the rule that is fitting and to preside reasonably over the body and the parts of the body, and to bring back to each its proper service. But they themselves, even as they talk back, nevertheless simply cry out in their deeds, as the citizens of the nobleman in the evangelical parable, who sent an embassy, saying, "We do not wish you to reign over us." For they lead faster than they are led, and they are drawn back to what is customary and friendly to them rather than being pulled toward the best things; and they pull more B and [their] eyes, so that the former may not be filled, according to the Ecclesiastes, with hearing, nor the latter with seeing, since it is not permitted for the former to yoke the doors, as they are always gaping open; while for the latter, the covering of the eyelids is a veil, as is the turning away, and according to the great Job, a covenant not to look upon curious things. But what are these in comparison to their most ready and timeless inclination toward the insatiability of curiosities in a moment? Then also the tongue—that unrestrainable evil, the world of iniquity according to the brother of the Lord, James—which, even before I let go the thought and insist on what ought to be said, leaps forth as a rash messenger, misreporting whatever ought not to be, and this while being entrenched by such great natural dikes. And what of the glutton, the all-receiving duct? What of the raging and foaming sense of touch? Does it know how to listen to reason and to stop its desire? And what of the heart, when it bubbles up and boils for vengeance? Which I marvel that the rhapsody makes like a dog barking, but rather like a lion roaring. Above all, to what might one liken the desire-weaving part of the soul? To the immortal evil, Scylla? Or to the hydra that grows back again? Or to the hundred-headed Typhon? In so many chasms of organs and incisions of members, the habitation of the mind has been eroded, in which strange and irrational powers have nested like all-kinds of snakes in the beastly dens of Libya, which the dignity of the image promises to tame and make gentle—but everything is turned upside down. For those things, for the most part, rather make [it] more wild and beastly. Which you yourselves, suspecting, and guarding against suffering, O blessed ones, you knew to vanish from among men, having seized upon beast-rearing thickets and naturally-formed caves, and having gone down into the sunless recesses of the earth, and wandering through the uninhabited desert, unsheltered, so that through the evil entrances of the bodily-yoked senses, the part of the irrational soul that is becoming beastly might remain without nourishment, and the intellectual part of the rational soul, being at leisure from the disturbances concerning sensible things, might attend without distraction to the contemplations concerning intelligible things. C Well then. I have shown in brief how the ministering body behaves toward me with insolence; but this, even though it is clearly proven to insult in such a way, nonetheless will not endure not to contradict even now, just as it often speaks freely with boldness, not crouching slavishly, since it is concerned to be opposed to me in all things, as a nature that is an enemy, in deeds acting against, in words arguing against, and in general never having anything in common or under a truce. It will therefore say that it does not do wrong, both doing and suffering what it is now accused of, and more so the wretched works concerning the food that perishes, and the ceaseless demand; for being composite and always flowing through both hidden and manifest pores, it necessarily requires the replenishment corresponding to the evacuation—and nature has not devised this in any other way than through food and drink—therefore it does not do any wrong, D
if it is to endure in time and not be in an evil state, and require healing, or even fall completely exhausted and bring about the loss of the works performed through it for the soul. Yet these, O blessed ones, are the usual pretexts of my body, whenever I rein in its tendency to flow or be carried away toward profligacy. For just as infants under the breast cry out when they are snatched away, so it, too, weeps when it is barred from its familiar habits, and, fretting, becomes a phantom of fear, imagining diseases and the snapping of the bond between us, and an irresponsible desertion, and a holiday from the practical life of philosophy hereafter. But that this is mere irony, and a foolish affectation and coyness, is not hidden from you, who have learned by experience and have been taught how a body’s nature, exercised in labors for the sake of the good, is reforged into adamant-like impassibility.
That this objection does not come through the front door is also manifest, yet I shall refute it and prove it simple-minded. We do not complain about simple feeding, nor indeed about enjoying food—O you dullard—on account of the things by which we are ill-treated or wronged. For who that has a mind, and has scrutinized the nature of faculties to some extent, will say evil things of other powers, and indeed of the nutritive ones? We complain about the abuse of food, which is practiced unlawfully for the sake of gluttony and luxury. Yet luxury and food are not the same thing; they are separated by definitions longer than those of the Mysians and Phrygians, even if they have converged for a brief moment in names as neighbors. But you, as if simple-minded or malicious, have taken the accusation regarding misuse as a slander against the natural use; and you have either been ignorant of or cunning about the same thing, just as if you were to slander us for speaking ill of virtuous marriage and sober drinking because we had decried adultery or some drunkenness. Therefore, O my thorn, we do not drag you to court because of the use of necessities, but because, having seized upon this convenient pretext, to say it again in the apostolic manner, you do not cease from working every desire upon me: first using food and drink, then misusing, abusing, maladapting, carrying yourself away into each and every form of pleasure-seeking, and carrying me away with you, and causing me trouble. For you are driven by a twofold spirit—that of gluttony and voracity—or rather a threefold one; for it is said that in abundance, Cypris—for I pass over the legion that follows in their wake—what kind of misery and wretchedness do you not inflict upon me? For when you are being emptied, you seek to be filled; and you have no sooner been filled than you have been emptied, and again you have sought to be filled; and when you are worn out by hunger, you rejoice in the satiety of food; and when it is present to be full, you ask for things of pleasure; or rather, both hungry and full, you know neither the limit of sufficiency nor the satiety of pleasure. A In this I am wretched, having been condemned to sister-labors with the mythical Danaids, to pour out for you to no end as they did into the perforated jar, or as though suffering the same things as divine David, into the mire of this depth— B towards which you are always sinking, being carried down and bottomless. For what final foundation of your appetites has been devised, which would at last stand firm and resist your prior motion? There is nothing else, unless one speaks of death, the silencer of every evil. But in another way, you are much more miserable, in that I know not how I unwittingly cherish a wicked beast under my own bosom, and fatten a wanton colt for my own ruin. For do you not, having been fed and warmed, return to me wicked thanks? Biting like a snake, and kicking with your heels; ignoring me with insolence, and no longer remaining controllable; not being coaxed by the coaxings of persuasion, nor reined in by force, nor touching the labors of virtue? What am I saying, touching them? I would have loved you, had you not opposed me; had you not forcibly snatched away what is friendly to you but most hostile to me; had you not been rolling the lovely beauty of the mind in mud, like the swine with the gold nose-ring in Solomon. But let no one be vexed with me, blessed assembly, if I am thus embittered against this untamable and wicked creature, whose tyrannical insurrection even Paul, so great a man, he who was crucified to the world, he who no longer lived, but carried the living and speaking Christ within himself, had to be on guard against, and was as it were lamenting, calling himself a wretched man, and being in perplexity and seeking him who would deliver him from the body of this death, toward whom even as a noble athlete and crown-bearer, falling more vehemently, he did not cease before, bruising with his fists and wearing down with frequent C chastisements, he brought it into subjection and made it obedient.
"Yes," he says, "but you were also free to discipline me, who am naturally subject, wishing D to make myself a slave, according to the apostolic type, and that wise precept: 'For an ass, fodder and stick; for a slave, bread and blows.'" Alas for the mockery! How he ridicules me! "Now you admit that I am by nature submissive; now you grant me in words the ability to subjugate, while always resisting in deeds. But that I myself ought, as an unreasoning beast, to be beaten with clubs, and as a wicked slave scraped with whips, I have learned too late; nevertheless, come, answer me: at what time and at what age is it permitted to me to enslave you, who are never able to speak apostolic-ally, to be subject to the law of the spirit? Is it during childhood and adolescence? But then, being foolish from folly, I am not capable of using myself, and of understanding how much I have surpassed you; or is it in youth and adulthood? And yet, at that time every evil has erupted, and the war begins from there more fiercely, while I am only just coming to know myself, and am taking hold of the appropriate authority, and am deeming it just to use another life and a better way of living, and to delight in the law of God; while you do not bear to abstain from the familiarity of a friend and contemporary, as one who from birth to the age of twenty had wallowed in autonomy, and had been practiced in gorging, and had exercised only pleasure; and it is not possible to say how he resists
A strongly and, like an innovator and wrongfully, tyrannizes over me; and he uses the custom of time and the natural law to fortify himself against me, and especially since another ally from this new state of life has confederated with him, that passion which holds sway over the loins and the belly. And beyond this, as for the love of gain, the ambition, and if another attendant of these follows—whether of such or such a sort—it stands by and wars against me, and it out-maneuvers and makes me captive by the law of sin, and persuades me to act and to co-act with it in things that I neither desire nor wish. Thus it knows how to be ruled; thus it honors the laws of subjection. Therefore, it would have been profitable, O friends of God, not to strike it with clubs [in a way] inconsistent with its nature—for it is so unnatural and leaps about quite ungovernably, and no longer bellows like a beast, B but howls like a wild animal—nor yet to buffet/humiliate it despotically with whips and fists—[the thing] rising up and patently attacking [me] with tyranny—but rather, as they say, to set upon it with iron and fire, and to undertake one bright battle, and, joining hand-to-hand with the enemy, either to stand having lived gloriously, or to do and suffer the things of the noble Samson, and, I say, destroy the insulter, and to leap rejoicing upon the falling one. But were it to happen to me that I fall into that which is lamented by the proverb: "Alas, what a terrible evil for men, when one knows the good, but does not use it"? For knowing that something so disobedient is not to be whipped, but to be treated as an enemy, nevertheless I do not use my good deliberation. For I am beaten back by a myriad of C passions. What are these? For I will not conceal them from you: reverence, sparing, pity, fear—not secure feelings, but opportune ones. I reverence it as a fellow-servant, and as a one-time collaborator—even if not now—perhaps soon to be, and as one bred with me, and a dear companion and equal in age; I spare it as wretched and miserable and long-suffering; and a terrible kind of pity comes over me, and I do not know how I suffer together with it being oppressed, and grieve together with it being afflicted, and am seized by it suffering. I am still keeping watch, lest by my cruelty it should happen to fall, and might impute to me the blame of a suicide, or of prisoners digging through a jail and escaping, or [of one] destroying his own personal servants by the tension of tortures and torments. For to him who is bold and impudent, the more D well-nourished he is, all the more is he destroyed, being crushed by the misfortune that happens to him. For he is not only sick, but also shivering and sleepless, or being hungry and thirsty he is tossed about upon the earth, failing, and from enemies drawing pity—not to mention from me, his partner in birth and living, and, indeed, in rebirth and re-living.
Wretched one, what shall I suffer or do, yoked to such a multi-suffering companion, and sharing in his very own passions? By whom, being reared as a child, I am dragged down into the same abyss of ignorance, and being vigorous for provocative things, I am carried along with him, and I am angry when he is flourishing and snatching at what is not right; but being long-suffering in turn, I am broken and bend, and I look upon him kindly. What justice, what punishment [1358 A] is worthy of that which is so ungrateful and behaves so insultingly, and is dealt with so leniently by me, and by one pitying so miserably, as even a mother, however fond of her children, would not be to her own inward parts? But thus to act like an adolescent, to be a youth, and to reach manhood—is it not his nature to be unheeding of me? But as it grows old, is it not [now] an instrument skilled and easy to lead toward things that are necessary? Whence? It, whose tendons and ligaments are slackened, and whose innate heat is extinguished, is fettered by a wasting immobility, and resembles a hollow, withered tree. Quickly, indeed, such a thing would be able to participate in important deeds, needing those who support and lead the old man by the hand. I would be content, if it did not wipe its own banes onto me, and fill me with its own elderly evils—I mean B the babbling, and the wandering of mind, and the lethargy. For if something is true—that the mind grows old together with Tithonus, and that old men become children twice over—we are returning, then, to infancy through the cycle of ages; and while the body sees and hears more dully, I myself am darkened by the time-given rheum, and I no longer am able to perceive more sharply; and it [the body], even if it forgets other things, it remembers to be fed always, and though [its] molars are no longer fixed in their sockets, yet it chews with toothless gums as best it can—which also the proverb ascribes as a reward to an old man, [namely] a cane; but I, no longer using learning and memory, nor yet calculating recollections as I learned, am filled only with the water of Lethe; and so, little by little, I walk backward C toward the infant from above. For even if they have been composed of contrary mixtures—both the children and the last-old—for the former are moist and hot, while the latter are dry and cold—yet under both I am cut off from thinking. Therefore, when the childish body bears a watery brain under a soft skull, I think as an uncomprehending infant; when the elderly skull holds up, nothing unlike that which the proverb calls "dried grapes," I think again as an infant. For the extremes of qualities are terrible, and not least [are they] to ruin the nature of the body, and even that of my own [mind], as I reckon. I omit to recount also the other things that attend these ages, the first I say and the last, [as] sisters: I mean the superfluity of excretions, the balding of skulls, the mouth's drool and lack of teeth, the tearful and watery eyes, the running of the nostrils, and the feet—of the one as yet, D of the other no longer, able to walk; and the trembling instability of the limbs, and the shaking of the entire body. But until when shall I contend to go through with all the sorrowful sufferings of the body, through which it drags me down, unhappily, either to feel pain with it, or catches me up, more unhappily, to feel pleasure with it? Therefore, leaving the many things aside, and having run past the swarm of diseases by which—being heated, and shivering, and having twisted joints, and to put it briefly, being in a bad way—I am tortured alongside [it], I will summarize the most wretched of those by which I am wronged. I have shown how it has abused the natural faculties,
to the point of sinful satiety and luxury; and how B it rebels and resists my attempt to govern it toward a more temperate state, putting forward its autonomy as an immutable law, like an untamable calf scorning the yoke of slavery and breathing out insolence, raging like a bull; and what is even more terrible, it leaps over the boundaries fixed by nature. For, although it is ordained to be led by me, as from the more rational and authoritative element, it strives rather to rule over me, forcing me, whether I will or no, to assist in procuring what is to its liking and to act disgracefully, as if held captive by some dual-handedly seized chain, C by the most violent imprisonment and the most persuasive sorcery. I have further tragically described all the burdensome things added to me in both infancy and old age, which, though blameless by nature, increase my misfortune. For as if the evils in that age flourishing and pulsing are not enough for the basest deeds, both sides add their own wrongdoing; and I have moderately pointed out how much outrageous long-suffering this good body of mine pours upon me throughout. Therefore, that the image of God may no longer be so shamefully dishonored by this earthen partnership, and that the mistress not be tyrannized by one under her hand, it is for you henceforth to cast your vote D and to impose the fitting punishment upon the one who commits the outrage—and not to permit me to suffer wrong hereafter. For if that judge in the Gospels, feeling neither awe toward God nor respect toward men, granted vengeance, how much more should you, who are pious regarding divine things and reverent regarding human things! For let no mercy be granted, even if it offers the pitiable and miserable state of its nature as a plea. Rather, having detested its rebellion and manifest tyranny, decide to do one of two things: either give me license to use it however I wish—to rack, to scourge, to starve, to torture with every method, and not be held accountable if I maim or utterly destroy it—or, according to apostolic zeal, deliver it to the common murderer and public executioner, to Satan. For if the vessels of the earth will inhabit the wild beasts according to the saying, and they dwell, indeed, through passion, these also act as the executioners of mortals; thus, struck, the senseless [soul] will come to its senses and will eventually know itself, and will cease from its drunken folly, changing from being a weapon of injustice into a well-disposed instrument of justice. Thus we will not be at conflict hereafter, nor will we be yoked unequally; but in harmonious agreement we shall together perform the things that matter, and we shall heal him who has joined us, and we shall betroth to ourselves the promised blessedness, through you as both mediators and intercessors.
ANOTHER STUDY, AND THIS ONE AN ANTITHETICAL REFUTATION.
What words might a Body say when being judged against a Soul before judges.
How much insolence and slander, and how many mockeries my venerable soul has heaped up and holds against me, in [1360 A] the court of judgment, or rather as if in a theatrical comedy—you have indeed heard, most divine judges. For she has used an unbridled tongue, so that I may not say more, indiscriminately—nor even as if of a fellow-servant, or, as she herself says, sparing a partner, but treating me like a silver-bought slave, and almost even rubbing in frequent knuckle-blows. But I, since your kindness allows me to speak, will say nothing evil; for it is necessary to speak well. But I will attempt to dissolve, as far as possible, the charges she strings together against me. Indeed, having been given the right of equal speech for the present, I shall B request of you to appease my mistress; if indeed she is indignant and listens to what is said with anger, and considers it another insult that I, the start of it all, dare to answer her back, [I ask you] to remind her how neither the divine Job made light of the judgment of his own servants against him, as he himself says somewhere, and he does not lie, clearly. For alongside his other virtues, he has been testified to as a true man. Nor, indeed, was God, when challenged to judgment by Job himself, proven to be blasphemous. For how could He be, who in the divine Isaiah says, “Come, and let us reason together regarding men who have committed transgressions,” C and in the great David is brought forward as being justified, and winning when He is judged? Therefore, let she who is according to the image of God also imitate the goodness of the Archetype, and let her bear magnanimously—whether one should call it a judgment or a discourse—and with what manner of logical arguments he, that adamant and golden statue of courage, accepted the cases of servitude against him. For did not the blessed one say, “Were not my servants also formed in the womb, even as I was?” If, perhaps, she is reluctant to reason and speak similarly to the just Job, yet grant me permission to speak, even if inversely, comparing unlike things to like; for there the master showed kindness to his servants, D but here I speak boldly toward my mistress. For is she not herself created by the hand of God, as I have been fashioned? For she will not deny that she is a creation of God, even if perhaps, being a divine breath as she is, she will not be persuaded by being deceived by malicious men into believing she is an emanation of the divine essence—the very people who, while they were eager to honor her, in the degree they declared her to be of the same nature as God, to that degree they were caught insulting her, until they brought her down to irrational creatures, bushes, and gourds, and not only dishonoring her with disproportionate honor, but also insulting the highest nature. For since God once wished to fashion man—for I must lead the argument back to its proper beginning—He did not command him to be brought forth from the earth and the waters, as He did for the other races of animals, but taking dust, He Himself fashioned him; and as the fashioning is more divine, so is the shape more sovereign. For it is not four-legged and prone, with belly and head stretched toward the earth and always stooping, but upright and wholly aloft, touching the earth only with the small traces of the soles of the feet, but holding the head high and breathing the air, observing the beauties of heaven, and naked indeed with...
a covering and problems A that are base, yet provided with hands as a craftsman’s tool. For it is by these that it is clothed more securely than the wool-spinners and the wiry-haired, and more waterproof than those creatures that are naturally clothed in hides or scales, and more beautifully than the winged birds. And it is armed with man-made defensive weapons more effectively than those warring with hoofs or horns, or teeth and claws. And thus, for me, fashioned with such artistry, God breathed in even the breath of life, and the mixture of both—man—He called His own image, and commanded me to rule over foot-animals, and swimming creatures, and birds. And neither could I do anything whatsoever without the soul, nor, again, the soul without me. For immediately the mark of that which is according to the image, the command to rule over the animals, shows clearly: how could it have been achieved or continued thereafter by a soul without a body? How could a horse have been broken in, had not my hands forged the reins? How could an ox have cut the furrow, had not these hands crafted the yokes and the plows? But if these things were found by the reasoning of the soul—which is what I have also said now—each has need of the other: she conceives, I work out what is conceived. She observes and puts forth technical principles; my hands, by providing workable matter, give form to what is fashioned. And I do not serve this as a slave—if I serve such things as a slave or a tool—but as a partner in the same dignity with the soul, which is B the co-worker according to the image, and I am a fellow-cause of good things. For I might insist, starting from the scriptural physiology of man, that man is not to be called either soul alone or body alone, but the composite, whom God is said to have made according to His image; and indeed, just as I share in the man, so I partake also of the dignity of the human. But the most excellent soul, while describing me as such, marks me out as alien to such nobility, and proclaims me as a bastard, calling me a slave, while calling itself divine breath, and my queen and mistress. And although it was in my power to deal more effectively with this matter, and to persuade it no longer to call its fellow-servant, fellow-ruler, and participant of virtue and of life—both that which is now and that which is laid up in hope—a slave, it is enough to have said even these things among you, for whose sake these noble bodies contributed to the ascetic labors, so that they not only enjoyed the fruit of spiritual gifts as fellow-laborers in the present time, but shall also reign with the blessed spirits in the expected regeneration, and will shine together like the sun. Yet I shall not contend strongly about this. Let it call me as is lawful for it, let it revel in its authority, let it lead, let it carry, let it use me as it wishes; only let it not charge me with unanswerable things, nor accuse me C of being blameless when I am not at fault. For you heard how it has accused me, regarding how I claim to be nourished and clothed, while still remaining psychic, and governed by psychic powers, and not yet transformed into the spiritual. For this belongs to another life and another regimen, as the proverb-makers say; but now…
...as to what I might be at fault for, if I desire natural food and drink? And with what insult does the soul harass me, co-providing these things for me, as if it were not aware of the apostle crying out: "No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it"? For how could it have had a foundation, or have persisted thereafter, had it not been sufficiently nourished, which, as soon as it was being fashioned in the womb, I am nourished through the so-called placenta, or rather the navel, with the menstrual blood, like a plant or a zoophyte? And having come from there, I am suckled by the flow of milk, until I have teeth by nature—but when the life-loving nature provides me with teeth, sharp and flat, so as to cut and grind easily, at that time it also sends over the table the more solid edibles. Thus food and sequence are essential for bodies; and if one should not believe those who say that some even feed on stones, one must believe in reality, that none of the ensouled creatures is without food, such as trees and herbs, and all plants, and animals of every kind. But if even demons and stars—the former feeding on libations and incense, the latter on exhalations, as Greek epic poetry and philosophy say—it is not for me to listen to this. For those (authors) deemed the demonic tribe to be lovers of matter and pleasure-loving, and granted souls to the stars. D Thus, every ensouled body being a thing that must be nourished, it is necessary that everything that is ensouled must by nature also be nourished and live; and if it is not nourished, and does not live, this is not an ensouled thing. In this way, the Savior not only ordered those whom He was bringing back to life to eat when they were dying, but even He Himself, having died and having come back to life, ate and drank, setting the being-nourished as an irrefutable proof of having come back to life. And nature, the savior, thus generates the blood of the body and nourishes it: when it is still mouthless and an embryo, through maternal blood; when it is a baby and toothless, with milk; when it has reached perfection, with a banquet of every kind. And it does not feed and rear it while it is growing, and then abandon it once it has reached its prime and stopped growing; but even until old age and advanced years, like a good nurse, it is present to the one breathing, in no way departing, neither by night nor by day. For the nutritive power does not remain quiet while we sleep; but like a good nurse it is present to the one breathing, without being idle in doing good things. And the things ground through the mouth and placed in the stomach, it breaks down, and turns into juice first, then drawing it up in the liver and turning it into blood, and from there, distributively, it sends it through the veins to every part, and attaches what is suitable to each. And this is again a great grace of the providence concerning us, through which it generated us in the beginning, it also cherishes us thereafter, and does not allow us to fall apart, repairing us with the applications of food. And nature, as has been said, thus fashions, and applies, and composes; but the rational soul, even while in the body, legislates against nature, as another tyrant, and for those things for which I seek daily sustenance, it calls me a glutton and an insatiable jar; and for that with which I rejoice to be nourished, it calls me self-indulgent and pleasure-loving. For it defines luxury as food, by...
A which nature provides a sweet disposition to those who eat and drink, as a sort of seasoning meant to make food more desirable and attractive, and preventing one from being worn out and weary from the daily condiments brought forward. For it innovates both with laws and names, legislating and naming unusual things, as if it were not lawful to be nourished with pleasure, because such food is luxury. But I, ruled by nature and the laws of nature, claim that it is permitted for me to be nourished with the sweet disposition and pleasure that follow by every necessity; and this is not a blameworthy luxury, but an agreeable food that is in accordance with nature. But if someone, overwhelmed by grief, has forgotten to eat bread altogether, or has eaten ashes as if it were bread, and mixed his drink with weeping, this is another matter, not relevant to the broader dispute before us. But if it contends that the natural pleasure in nourishment is love of pleasure, then it will much sooner call the pleasure of procreation something unspeakable. Yet neither marital pleasure nor the pleasure of nourishment is condemned by those who have understanding; rather, they are even admired. For the former replenishes that which flows away from the race by succession, while the latter replenishes what is depleted from the body by food. Therefore, the divine soul does not fall from its own dignity, nor is it insulted at all by yielding to those things thus ordained by nature, while contributing and assisting in the primary things, and especially those necessary for the body, even if it itself boasts of such things, and while accusing others of luxury, it is itself caught indulging in them more. For consider how it prides itself. It says that it is an insult and most shameful slavery to have my rule turned about, and to provide for what is necessary; and it speaks ironically that it is not capable of attending to the superior things, but has been turned toward the inferior, having put on the guise of some serving maid who prepares food, while being a mistress otherwise, and striving to keep its own blessedness B undefiled.
[The argument against the soul that considers itself mistress and the body servant]
But if it were lying while idly debating before others, it perhaps might deceive; but now, pretending nothing sound before you, it is clearly behaving unseemly. For you, even while silent, are the clear refutation of what it is posturing; you, who if any have, have laid claim to the nobility according to the image, and have pursued it without attachment and as if you were somehow elsewhere in mortal flesh, yet you also take thought for your bodies in this regard, working with apostolic zeal, and ministering to what is needed for yourselves, and you have not lamented such a turning away from the bodies as a falling away of your souls from the superior things, nor have you complained of the chain of arguments as if it were a dissolution of another golden chain of virtues, but as all things are just, you have pursued the just things of your bodies, O most blessed ones, according to the divine commandment, and you do not consider yourselves to have become worse than yourselves on account of this, nor to have descended to the rank of cooks and caterers, as you heard of my soul just now. As for me, O friends of God, I do not even see what insult is rubbed onto the soul from the care for me; but rather, if C a pilot is repairing the cargo so that he may sail more safely, or a soldier is scouring and cleaning his weapons, and feeding his war-horse, he will be condemned for failing to go to war, or he will be enrolled as a deserter because of this. Why do you not look to those who have conducted their lives as if bodiless while in bodies, and who were not hostile to their bodies, but rather cared for them as much as was necessary, O you who argue in vain and without cause? Why do you not consider the great apostle, who was caught up into paradise and the third heaven, and heard things ineffable to men; yet returning back here, did he not consider it an insult to cobble and to minister with his own hands to his needs and those who were with him? Let us transcend in discourse Paul and the third heaven that is his; has not God, while being present to His own, withdrawn into Himself and is He not situated above everything? Does He therefore exist without regard for those who are with Him, nor does He provide for the last things and those around us? Or in providing providently, has He lowered His own glory because of this? How then does the soul joined to the body consider the care of its connatural body to be a disgrace to itself, and deem the turning toward secondary things unworthy, having a mindset above you, whose manner of life is in heaven while you still walk on the ground, D above apostles who travel heavenward in the body, above the very self-goodness which gives food to all flesh, while boasting of the nobility according to the image, not likewise turned toward the care of the worse things? And yet the Good, being superabundant and as being entirely unimpeachable, is not in need of anything at all that it provides for, of course; but this soul of mine is in need many times over, both as an instrumental tool, and as a joint cause and collaborator, and without which it will not perform anything noble from the beginning. But perhaps, being silenced by these arguments, it will not say it is suffering insult by those things which it provides along with me for my necessities, but that it is provoked by those things which are beyond need, in part through greed, and in part turned away through love of pleasure, while I bring them forth, causing it to stumble against its will. For this it said directly, when it asserted that it was being led to join in unseemly pleasures and was being deceived by me; but it is easy to refute even this, and to instruct, if it is bold, whether it is from its own judgment, or self-love, that it is ignorant of these things which it accuses me of, which it itself commits! And though it ought to be ashamed, it says: "But I will say nothing of ill-report." But it is worth wondering how, by saying contradictory things, it has escaped its own notice. For was it not, O servants of Christ, above and below in its argument, proposing its own lordly rank, as a divine image and queen of every irrational nature; and calling me its servant, while naming itself mistress? How then, suddenly changing, do the fountains flow upward, and it tries to show me as one leading and dragging it about more as a master, while it is led and carried as a slave, and attributes everything performed amiss by both to me as the primary cause and worker? But if it indeed rules, and I am ruled, what great impudence it is to rub off one's own transgression onto another! For answer me, OA you who were appointed by the Lord over the nurture of your fellow servant, according to the evangelical parable, as a faithful and prudent steward, to give food in due season: how is it that you do not yourself manage the task entrusted to you faithfully and prudently, giving food in due season and measure, and, as a faithful steward, reproving the faithless, and as a prudent one, correcting the senseless, and in general exercising authority over the administration entrusted to you, and arranging things in the best way? But you say that you are carried away by someone under your hand, and that you are brought to the same absurdities as he. Do you think that by offering such excuses you will escape the bifurcation threatened against those who manage things poorly? But such a defense is vain. For the governing power is held to pay the penalty for all that the subordinate does wrong, whether you speak of a general, or a pedagogue, or a father, or a teacher, even if they themselves be otherwise upright and yet are caught by their own. For if a general abandons his army, a pedagogue brings his child to ruin, a father joins in the madness of his sons, or a teacher joins in the profligacy of his pupil, I believe each of these will pay two sets of penalties: the one for ruining those he had received, whom he had promised to make better; the other, for having been caught committing the same transgressions as that person. Just as conversely, those under authority might be judged worthy of double forgiveness by those who judge more strictly than leniently: the first, because their nature always requires one to keep watch and lead them to the good; the second, because they found their guide to the good instead distorting them towards the opposite and inciting them. And nothing so leads a person to virtue and vice as the governing power, which shares in the actions to which one is being stirred on either side and, by its own example, draws them toward what is similar. Just so, the soul dear to me will pay double penalties: as one who did not punish what was disorderly in the human, and as one who herself shared the feeling and together kindled the love of pleasure. And if you say, if the water drowns, why must one drink it? B And I perhaps might obtain any forgiveness whatsoever by following the mistress and being taught to commit the same sins. For it is said, "Such as is the mistress, such is the dog." But in order that it might be more clearly demonstrated that I am not carried away by it to the most shameful deeds, but that it rather snatches at pleasures and draws me along with it, suffer me for a little while to digress in my discourse, and to run back to the cause of the whole tragedy, which the soul is ashamed to speak of.
It is not pure, O men, that the soul within us has obtained a life of intellect and one that has no regard for bodily sensation, but it rides upon the lives subordinate to it, the vegetative and the animal; by which our bodily constitution is also governed and preserved. For we are steered by pain and pleasure; by pain when we are moved or otherwise suffering; by pleasure when we are filled and (so to speak) have a nature, through the providence of the Creator-nature, where such passions are implanted in us for our salvation. For had we not felt pain at things flowing away and decaying, nor felt pleasure when being replenished, we would have received no sensation of those things that wear away and those that save; and we would have perished all the faster. But now, the provident nature, using two hands, toil and pleasure—pricking us with the one and luring us with the other—rouses us to eat and drink, fleeing the pain that comes from hunger, and pursuing the pleasure that comes in eating the food; but primarily for the sake of relief from the pain of hunger, and secondarily for the ease of being satisfied. The rational soul C knows how to feed itself in another way, and to harvest a certain better ambrosia; but since, as we have said, it does not stand apart and mercilessly towards the faculties subordinate to it, it is in a way sympathetic to them when they are suffering, and it grieves with them when they are distressed, and takes pleasure with them when they are pleased; or rather, if one must state the strict truth, and as they say, the "physician's children" [referring to the soul], it is the first to suffer because of its rational perception. Therefore, it is the first to rise up for the relief of what is distressing, especially for its own sake, and then also for the assistance of those subordinate to it, as has been said. And this too was the providence of the wise nature, that the most sovereign soul should not be set above, immune to evil and unfeeling toward the difficulties that befall those of the second rank. For it would have been entirely inattentive to them. For if, even when so needled and suffering with them and sharing in their feelings, you see how it becomes slothful and effeminate, and laments its way of life as a true calamity, it would hardly have turned toward the body if it had remained untouched by physical mishaps. But now, if anything, this too has been most excellently ordained: that it should feel the painful and be persuaded, according to the saying, to join in the labor and to find together with them their common relief from what is distressing. For to those for whom there is a communion of any difficulties, to them also belongs the cure of these in common.
These things having been proven thus, the discourse returns again to the same point, and indeed remember the parable set forth above, in which the Lord appointed His faithful and prudent steward over His household, to give them food in due season. For have we not fittingly understood the faithful and prudent steward to be the rational nature, as one capable of managing the passionate and senseless life with an abundance of prudence? And indeed, having been so established, the Lord blesses it as one managing things prudently and faithfully, and promises to set it over more. But if, forgetting the Lord as one who is coming, it begins to strike the fellow servants, into insult, without turning back, and becomes wholly given to the pleasure of eating and drinking with the drunken—by which I mean the nutritive and nourishing parts, always being filled with the replenishment poured in from without—will the Lord, when He comes, strike it as He did in your case, and by shifting the cause of this debauchery onto us as if we were deceiving and carrying it away, escape the penalties of the wicked servant; or will it be cut in two, and its portion be with the hypocrites, seeing as it is in this life as in a theater, having put on the mask of some noble mistress and D
A of divine appearance, while pretending to be the beginning of all irrational and unreasoning things; and freely serving all irrational pleasures, and acting in a shameful manner like a dissolute maidservant, and getting drunk in a most disgraceful way? For I think this is the case. For she, being in charge of all the faculties, has been entrusted with the task of exercising discernment to foresee what brings grief and to bring the appropriate remedy, as is evident from what follows. For if the soul, ever becoming weary from excessive cares regarding divine things, or seized by a disease that stirs the immovable chords of the mind, should happen to forget me—having no memory of hunger, nor food, nor any other pleasure—at that time I too am unconcerned with the same things. How then, if I am the one who serves as overseer and provider of food for the one who has won the right to govern, and [I] define the time and measure thereof, can I snatch away the pleasures, and then snatch her away toward them, which is even more ridiculous? Thus, she is softened, while I am forced. But that I might not appear contentious and headstrong by resisting in all things, I grant you the favor, first, of letting me delight in pleasures and be filled; and then, that I might be snatched away to join you in the same indulgence. And then you, the mistress and ruler of what is in us, who ought to hold [me] back with scourges, and to be indignant at [the soul's] gluttony, and to rebuke [it] more severely, are instead enslaved along with [it] in the same shameful passion, and by casting down that noble and austere dignity, regarding which you boast and pride yourself, you are dragged away with me, a willing slave to pleasure. And are you not ashamed, saying these things, to be suffering like the mythical dragon? For the story complains that its tail blamed the head, as if the head were always the leader of its creeping motion, while the tail, trailing at the very end of the whole length, was dragged along; yet at some late moment it persuaded [the head] to entrust to it the governance B of that part of the creeping motion; then, being carried blindly over cliffs and rocks, it was destroyed, along with the head itself and the rest of the dragon. But just as the head there would have seemed ridiculous and stupid to blame the tail, having been written off as guilty of the transgression, so also you, here, [act] toward the irrational part of the soul, which leads the way and is blind. For the intellect, it says, sees [when it is] ceding the position of sovereign authority, and entrusting itself to be dragged toward ruin. For those who see lead the blind, not the blind those who see; and an ox pulls a cart, not a cart the ox; and a stone is placed toward a rope, not a rope adjusted toward a stone. And why, contrary to the proverb and this instruction, do you put a sword in the hand of a child? Who, drinking poison along with another who is drinking it, has gained any advantage in terms of a defense or a plea for the mitigation of death? Did the first man, having been fed by the woman who was the first to taste of the deadly plant, have a secondary excuse before God, even though he had been snatched away and was fleeing from death? For desire and anger are yoked to the rational soul, not so that desire, being carried by the downward pull, might drag [the soul] down toward [a life of] ease, and anger, being carried away, might drag [it] toward [a life of] wild beastliness; but so that they might cooperate in the hunt for and acquisition of the Good: desire as a well-bridled horse, lifting it up and lightening it toward those things that are truly to be desired; and anger, as a pup of noble C breed, is able to master the savage and harmful passions, yet [the soul] voluntarily serves pleasure and anger; or, like another champion, the great Samson, being deceived by the same treacherous woman, pleasure, he throws away his own great strength, and being stripped and no longer hairy, he is easily captured by alien passions, and by them his eyes, which see what is beautiful and good, are blinded; and he is bound in a mill, and revolves endlessly, suffering, around the same cycle of pleasures, of which the beginning and, as it were, the center is gluttony, and he is mocked by desire and anger like an undisciplined child. Thus, the soul, willfully doing evil, insults itself, and by clothing itself in misfortunes acts shamefully; then, having ceased to lament itself on account of this voluntary wretchedness, it accuses me, and blames me for the causes of the evils, and as you see, demands payment for its own injuries, and, washing [itself] in insult, what does it not mock at me about, what does it not taunt me with, calling me a tomb and a chain, and a mire of the abyss, and, according to the Chaldean nonsense, the offscouring of matter, a perforated jar, and a thorn? And yet, if I truly am a tomb, why do I not persuade [it], in accordance with the likeness of God, to philosophize on the meditation of death, but rather—it says—I am drawn into luxury? And if I am a chain, why do I not restrain [it] from transgression, but rather drag [it] along towards illicit relaxation? What chain does not prevent one from doing wrong, but instead pushes the prisoner toward it, even against his will? What tomb does not render dead the limbs D upon the earth, and bestow upon the soul a most blessed life, but rather enlivens and arouses it against the soul? Either, then, I am not a tomb or a chain, if I lead [it] into luxury and am dragged along with [it], and such insults against me are made in vain; or I am truly a tomb and a chain, and the soul accuses itself of great incontinence on this account, that even while bound and buried in me, it lives in luxury, and while living is dead, and is puffed up, even though I have been given to it as a thorn; and for this it also deems fit to call me [that], just as [it calls me] a perforated jar, not admitting how many and how great are the good things that I contain, as I shall presently be able to demonstrate through a small taste. And even if I am perforated, yet through the optical senses, which are direct, light-bearing, and messengers of the apprehension of existents, just as this, too, will presently
[GREEK COLUMN] 1369 PROSOPOPOLE. B 1370 will appear, from which, being drawn and filled, it pours over me a stale mixture A and mocks the most shameful things. You speak ill of my senses and the powers within them, naming them gullies and dens of wild beasts, and for that reason, are you not ungrateful, when you have received the greatest benefits through them? Have you not used them as bridges for the crossing over to the intelligible world? How then could you have acquired these in the first place without my senses? Would you have ever possessed arithmetic and musical theory without the existence of hearing, or the proportionality of numbers, or geometry, or astronomy, without the illumination of sight; or the measuring of pulses and medicine without the path-finding of touch and taste? If, then, my senses are destroyed and your bridges are overthrown along with them, what would remain for you but to crawl and grovel in the sensible world, or not to touch these things at all, or perhaps to enjoy nothing more than the visceral life, or at most a vegetative one? And then, indeed, you would be truly buried and imprisoned in a tomb, sunk into the refuse of matter, stuck in the mire of the deep, living a blind life like a mole or some zoophyte, wearing only—as you yourself mock—this starless covering. But now I have opened your eyes, which were sightless from birth, and led you to philosophy, and having let you taste the light, I have given you through it to gaze upon the solidifying of the earth, the surging of the sea, the rotation of the heavens, and all the wonders in heaven; and to listen to the harmonious symphony that resounds through all things, singing with unspeakable tones of the Creator; and through the magnitude and beauty of created things and their rhythmic motion, I have imaged for you the Mover who moves unmoved, the First Good and Beauty-in-itself, and you have become, as it were, a reminder of the archetype. And yet what could be more precious to the soul than to find God through the things apparent to my senses? Not only do the first principles thus ascend to God through me, but even if she falls away from God, she returns again through my mediation. For through me she has found a place for repentance and forgiveness; for if she had been separate from me and bodiless, she would not have had the possibility of repentance from the beginning when she sinned, as is the case for the fallen angels; but now even this, the good, has been granted to her through my union with her. For how many stains, and how many pollutions, are wiped away through my labors, and she is made to shine brighter than snow. For it is purer than any washing of grass, and any sprinkling of hyssop, the outflowing of my own—as she herself would call them, furrows; but as I say, the clear spring of tears, fasting, the hard-sleeping on the ground, the kneeling, the steadfast uprightness in prayers, the breast-beating that strikes the chest, the heavy-breathing smoke escaping from the breast, the signal of the fire within, and all the other things through which the all-powerful medicine of repentance is mixed. Such treasures of good things I know how to store up, I, who am a jar pierced and holding nothing for my soul.
But perhaps I am telling you of these things in an unrefined way, as is the custom of those experienced in such things. It is necessary, therefore, B to gather them together and to set them forth briefly: that for the things for which I am accused by the soul, I am the one who has suffered rather than the one who has acted; but the one who sees according to nature and acts accordingly, these are they. For philosophy, through which we are led up to God, being divided into contemplation and practice, if you love the contemplative life, through me and the works of nature it is seen through, and through mathematical bridges it is carried over to the intelligible, and finally, as it is said, having flown to it, it has rested upon the threshold of theology; but if you set the practical ladder before the contemplative bridges, here even more, while I labor with my own toils to find all the steps of the actions, I find them; to say it all in a word, through me, man, who is a little lower than the angels, has surpassed the angels by a great deal. For what could angels be capable of mimicking—the sufferings of God, and death—as man has been enabled? Through me, surely, being scourged, twisted, torn, and finally put to death, and being conformed to the deified body of the Savior, in which He also condemned sin, so that the ordinance of God might be fulfilled in us. And since my soul also inquires of me, when and at which of the ages am I to be subject, I answer without delay so simply: when am I not able, and at which of the ages am I not obedient to whatever she, whether she deems it noble or base, invites me? As is clear from the arts. Have I received a philological and beauty-loving soul? I follow the pedagogues, I obey the teachers, I attend the lessons. And what of the liberal arts and sciences am I not molded and imprinted with? Again, have I been allotted to a base craft? I am taught in turn to be a carpenter, or a mason, or a smith standing at the anvil with heavy strikes; or to be drenched in the sweat of the earth, C or to be cast against wild winds and raging waves; sometimes I am even carried swimming headlong into the depths, and I endure being pelted and pressured with military force; not to mention how many vain crafts I am forced to be trained in, when I am subjected to chaotic wonder-workers, and I am taught to walk a tightrope on high, and to dance on swords, and to tumble, and to swallow small stones and pieces of iron; and what of such terrible and wretched things, and otherwise difficult tasks, am I not trained in from childhood and brought to completion, and in my prime showing them off? And when I am past my prime, no less do I labor, strengthened in my experience; and when I age, I do not cease learning or devising something wiser than the young; and to speak generally, there is no technical and teachable thing to which I am not brought, with the soul willing and in no way opposing or contradicting; as not even the most obedient of animals and inanimate tools are. And yet, for the works of virtue, which are much sweeter than those, and easy, and fitting to nature, am I the most perverse, and resistant, and hostile, and rebellious? But the victorious martyrs would not believe you if you said this, nor these judging ascetics; they who, through struggles in the body, surpassed the nature of the bodiless. But it is time. D
A to recall summarizingly what has been said, and to traverse the more essential points.
My accusing soul has been convicted, as it brings no sound charge; it clings to me in vain, and like someone else who is fault-finding, it complains of things that have no fault, or of those things which are permitted to me by nature. I have defended myself, also, that I am not at all capable of doing wrong or of insulting that which is therapeutic, that which rules the household, that which is ministerial and supervises, that which is the instrument and which uses it however it wishes; rather, it is the soul itself that is slothful and, becoming soft, turns to evil, and when it should be covering itself with shame, it instead exacts penalties. O wretched and miserable me! Who will spare me, who will have pity? Since even the soul, which is connatural and yoke-mate, shows no mercy, nor is it filled with the evils I suffer; but in addition to what I now suffer, and will suffer hereafter because of it, it further devises something newer—accounts, and penalties, and courts, and executioners, and avenging spirits, as if what I endure, while it sins, were not enough. Inflated, it became enamored of divinity, and straightway I became mortal, and turned back to the mother, the dust; B so as not to speak of the miserable and shameful things in between: the nakedness, the fig-leaf coverings, and the leather garments, the stinging points of the thorns and thistles. I was cursed again, and my face collapsed into a Telchinian wasting; and like the sibling-hating one who dared to fratricide, I too went around trembling and heavy-voiced, and because of the sign bestowed, I was led in triumph. The soul collided with legislation or prophecy, or priesthood, and upon me the retribution of the blasphemy descends, and straightway I have become leprous. It disbelieves the evangelizing angel, and my tongue is bound in silence; it has been deceived by a wicked woman, and I am blinded and turn around the millstone. To summarize the many things, I am yoked to a base soul, and I am stretched tight by toils by night and by day, for the sake of daily and viscous food, and a rough cloak, or a common tunic, or a coarse linen shirt at the shoulders; or while it embraces voluptuous insolence, I am ground down by many evils, at every hour insatiably glutting its stomach, and by immeasurable foods and drinks and lusts being stretched tight and torn asunder. And from this, with how many peoples of diseases do I wrestle! For I am either bedridden in a prostrate heap, or a paralyzed ruin, or I am being fried by fever, or I am twisted in my feet and hands by arthritis; then I am also surrendered to hired doctors, to be medicated and butchered; sometimes even to soul-hating demons as tormentors. Let there sympathize with me the most eloquent of the apostles, regarding how they sin against me, the soul, which loosens every bridle—the horse-whores, and all those who are inflamed towards unnatural uses, so that I might be dishonored; and how those most basely wasting, C when I am a member of God, destroy [me], and make my members, which are members of Christ, members of a harlot. But these things are not sufficient for my soul, which remembers wrongs; but it supplicates and begs you to yield to it, to do with me whatever it wishes—to twist [me], to starve [me], to deliver [me] to Satan for destruction. For the wise soul, in its own estimation, is unaware that it is foolishly—to put it simply—applying the proverb: "I cannot bear a goat, do you heap a cow upon me?" For if it does not philosophically bear the diseases that have sprouted upon us from unformed matter, but is resentful, and thinks it is undergoing terrible things, what would it not have suffered if it were suffering along with me in my calamities of God's wrath? Thus it has been blinded. But these things depend upon your arbitration, and whatever seems best to you, that is acceptable to us as a divine decree—D as well as defining what is to be done and what is not.
THE DECISION OF THE JUDGES
Since we have heard the arguments of both sides in turn—yours, O soul, as you prosecute the subordinate and licentious nature as disobedient; and yours again, O soulless one, as you flee from even sinning, as the intellectual soul falsely accuses you in vain—it is necessary for us to judge the arguments from both sides and to resolve the conflict, so that we may not sit here in vain, having abandoned the contemplative life, which is also our own. We say now what we have learned to be the case, both from long experience and from God-inspired Scriptures; and indeed we say that if you, O soul, were to accuse the mind of the flesh as being hostile to virtuous works and unable to be persuaded by you, you are unaware that you are falling into the opinion of the Manichaeans. For those Cursed ones hold the notion that the intellectual soul is the handiwork of the Good, but the irrational soul is that of the Evil one; and that because of this, it is not even naturally capable of being virtuous, or of thinking things friendly and agreeable to the good handiwork. But if you yourself do not say this, but rather accuse the licentiousness and disobedience—in order that you might not keep blaming the instrumental nature given to you by God, while not governing it wisely—you are blaming the blameless. For is there not a general, a teacher, or any overseer who bears the responsibility for the faults into which those led by them may stumble out of their own negligence? This is not unknown even to the wise among the outsiders; for if one of the philosophers among them saw a boy misbehaving, he did not say anything bad about the boy himself, but he struck the tutor, saying, "Why do you teach such things?" But if you say that the great Paul brings great accusations against the flesh in the Epistle to the Romans, hear what the Apostle intends, and against what he says these things. For before the presence of the Lord, death was terrifying, and the one who had the power of death was terrifying; for this reason it was also said by Isaiah, "Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die."