A he who is godlike in mind, carrying the torch, fulfilled the rites with eloquence. For the crafting of man and his formation required the adornment of beautiful speech. From his mouth, too, liquid oil overflows, pouring forth abundantly, sweet-flowing.
To his brother, Peter, servant of God, Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa.
If it were the custom and habit of men, brother Peter, to honor those who excel in virtue with rewards of wealth, the whole world of riches, as Solomon says, would appear small compared to the value of your virtue; since the kindness owed to your dignity is greater than any reward of wealth. Furthermore, the holy Pascha demands the customary gift of love, which I bring to your magnanimity—a gift, O man of God, less than you deserve to receive, but not lacking in the measure of our ability. This gift B is a discourse, like a poor garment woven not without effort in the meager workshop of our intellect. The subject of this discourse may perhaps appear bold to many, yet it was not thought to be outside of what is fitting. For Basil—our father and teacher, who was in truth created according to God and whose soul was fashioned in the image of the Creator—was the only one who rightly understood the creation of God. He made the lofty arrangement of the universe easy for the many to grasp through his own contemplation, and he made the world, which was established by God in true wisdom, known to those who are drawn to contemplation through his understanding.
We, being unable to admire him as he deserves, have resolved to add to the things contemplated by that great man what was left out, not as if we were adulterating his labors with a bastard production (for it is not right that that sublime [work] be insulted C by being called by our own words), but so that it may not appear that the glory of the teacher is lacking in his disciples. For if, when the contemplation of man is missing from the *Hexaemeron*, none of those who were his disciples had made any effort toward supplying what was missing, the spirit of detraction would have had a valid cause against his great glory, as though he had not wished to cultivate in his hearers any faculty of understanding. But now, as we have dared to the best of our ability to attempt the explanation of what is missing, if anything is found in our work that is not unworthy D of his teaching, the credit for it shall altogether be referred to the teacher; but if our discourse should fail to reach the height of his magnificent contemplation, he shall not be accused, as though he had begrudged his disciples his learning—he who is to be judged as furthest from such a fault—and we shall deservedly be brought to account by those prying critics, [namely those] who, with their narrow hearts, [are unable to comprehend] the wisdom of the master. It is no small matter that is proposed to us for...
we cannot grasp. Indeed, the matter under consideration is not insignificant, nor does it fall short of any of the admirable things this world contains; and I am not sure that it is not the greatest of all those whose knowledge we seek. For nothing else among existing things has been made in the image of God, except this one creature which we call man. Therefore, we trust that our gentle audience will willingly grant us indulgence, even if these things are set forth by us far below their dignity. For in this inquiry of ours, I believe, nothing at all of those things which we believe happened to man in the beginning, and which we expect to happen hereafter, and even those we perceive now, should be omitted. For our zeal would rightly be convicted of being less than our promise if, when man is set before us for consideration, any of the things contributing to the subject were passed over. But even those things about him which seem to be B in conflict—because the same things are not seen now regarding his nature as were in the beginning—must be connected by means of a necessary consequence, both from the scriptural teaching and from the conception found by reasoning, so that the whole subject might result in a sequence and order, with those things which seem to be at odds being brought together to one and the same end, and the divine power thus finding hope for things beyond hope, and a way out for things that are impossible. For the sake of clarity, I have thought it well to set the argument before you in chapters, so that you may be able to know in brief the scope of all the arguments of the entire discourse.
CHAPTER ONE. In which the world is discussed in detail, and those things which preceded the birth of man are pleasantly commemorated.
This, say the holy Scriptures, is the book of the birth of heaven and earth. At that time, of course, everything that is visible was brought to completion; and each of the created things, being separated from the others, departed to its own place, and the celestial body encompassed all things with its orb; while the heavy and downward-tending bodies, earth and water, occupied the middle place in the universe, holding themselves together in mutual embrace. Then a certain divine art and faculty was infused into the nature of things, by which the created things might be perpetuated in stability by a kind of bond, and all things might be governed by a twofold force. For by rest and motion it was brought about D that things not yet existing might come into being, and when created, might be preserved, since around bodies firm in weight and devoid of all motion, like a certain solid axis, the swiftest motion of the pole was carried around like a wheel, and they held themselves together perpetually by a kind of mutual aid; the nature which is driven in a circle, with its swift motion, enveloped the density of the earth on all sides, and conversely, by the firm things that yield in no part, but increase the revolution of the rolling things by their immovable solidity. And since these things are endowed with diverse force and efficacy—that is to say, one nature that is immovable and another devoid of rest—there is an equal excess in both directions. For neither does the earth ever depart from its stability
A according to the wisdom of Him who made it, as a kind of beginning of the whole mechanism of existing things. I believe the great Moses shows this by saying at the beginning that the heaven and the earth were brought into being by God, [signifying] that all things seen in creation, which were brought into being according to the divine will, are the offspring of movement and rest. Since, therefore, the heaven and the earth stand at opposite poles of operation to one another, the creation that lies between these opposites, possessing in part the characteristics of those adjacent to it, mediates through itself to the extremes, so that the connection between the opposites through the medium might be made evident. For the air imitates in a way the ever-moving and subtle nature of the fiery element, both in the lightness of its nature and in its aptitude for movement. Yet it is not of such a kind as to be alienated from kinship with the stable, nor does it remain always motionless or always flowing and dispersing B; but through its affinity with the other element, it becomes a boundary of sorts for the opposition of the operations, mixing and yet distinguishing within itself the things that are separated by nature. By the same reasoning, the liquid substance is also adapted to each of the opposites by a double quality. For, insofar as it is heavy and downward-moving, it has great kinship with the earthy. But insofar as it partakes of a flowing and motive operation, it is not entirely alienated from the moving nature, but there is through this also a mixture and union of the opposites, with the weight being transferred into movement, and the movement not being shackled by the weight, so that it happens that things at the furthest extremes of nature are united to one another through the intermediaries. Nay more, according to the precise argument, not even the nature of the opposites themselves is entirely unmixed in its properties with the other, so that, I believe, all things visible in the world might incline toward one another, and creation, being found in the properties of opposites, might breathe together toward itself C. For since movement is understood not only in terms of displacement in space, but also in terms of change and alteration; and conversely, since the immutable nature does not admit that movement which is according to alteration; the wisdom of God, having exchanged the properties, bestowed immutability upon the ever-moving [heavens], and changeability upon the motionless [earth], perhaps having ordained this with a certain providence, so that what is proper to nature—which is to be unchangeable and immutable—might not cause the creature, as seen in some of the things of the creation, to be thought to be God. For that which happens to be moved or altered would no longer possess a reputation for divinity. For this reason, the earth is stationary and not unchangeable, while the heaven, having no share in the changeability of its opposite, possesses no stability either, so that by nature the divine power, having entangled the change with the standing and the movement with the unchanging, might make both familiar to each other by the exchange of their properties, and might estrange those who perceive it from D the reputation of divinity.
[Latin column, continued from previous page] liable to change. Heaven, on the other hand, since it is A entirely devoid of change, never rests. God surely willed, by joining movement to an immutable nature and, conversely, to that which is exempt from change, to bind them both together through this exchange of properties, in a kind of kinship, and also to prevent these things from being thought to possess divinity. For, as we have just set forth, neither that which is entirely devoid of rest nor that which is subject to change can be considered to have any part of divinity. And in this way, the universe attained its completion. For so Moses speaks: "And the heaven and the earth and all things contained between them were perfected," and all things were adorned with a beauty suitable to each: the heaven with the brilliance of shining stars, the sea and the air with animals moving through them by swimming and flying, and finally the earth with the variety of plants and pastures of every kind—producing all these things abundantly in what was as it were a single moment, the benevolent will of God confirming its power. Thus, there was no lack of an abundance of most beautiful things, as it brought forth both flowers and fruits at once. There was also in the meadows a wealth of those things which grow in them. B Furthermore, one could see high crags and mountain peaks, and places on their sides that were either sloping or flat, and finally the valleys themselves, most gracefully adorned with herbs that had just then sprung up, and with the varied elegance of trees—which, although they had but recently emerged from the earth, had nevertheless immediately grown to an exquisite beauty. And without a doubt, all the herds, to which God had granted life at His nod, were rejoicing, affected with singular pleasure, and were wandering gregariously with others of their own kind through the woods. Added to this was the song of musical birds, with which all places, both covered and shaded, resounded. The aspect of the sea, too, was naturally such as to be composed toward rest and tranquility, especially in those places where there were frequent hollow bays; and harbors and marine stations, spontaneously impressed upon the shores by the nod of God, joined the sea, as if tamed, to the mainland. The very movements of the waves, being very calm, corresponded to the beauty of the meadows, with soft and harmless breezes raising them slightly at the surface. Finally, the entire treasure of created things was now prepared on land and sea, when only he who could enjoy it was lacking.
CHAPTER II. Why, after the other things were created, man was created last of all.
C Not yet did that exquisite and most valuable creation, which we call man, dwell in this most ornate home of the universe. For it was not fitting that the ruler should appear before those over whom he was to rule with authority. For once the empire had been prepared before all things, it was then next in order that the king should be appointed. Therefore, the creator of this universe prepared a certain royal seat for him who was to rule. This was the earth, and the islands, and the sea, and the heaven itself, under which all things are vaulted as under a roof. And in these palaces, riches of every kind were stored. D For [index: entries preserved]
world. By the name of created things I understand both plants and germinating seeds, as well as everything endowed with sense, life, and soul. And if there be other things among these riches that deserve to be counted, which human eyes deem of great price for their C elegance—for example, gold, silver, and the stones which men so greatly covet—these also He hid away in the deepest recesses of the earth, as if in royal treasuries. He then designated man as part spectator, part master of these miracles of the world, that by the enjoyment of them he might recognize the wisdom of Him who provided them, and by their beauty and magnitude, might trace out the power of the Creator, which can neither be comprehended by reason nor expressed in words. These, therefore, are the reasons why man was created after the other things. For it must not be thought that he was cast aside to the very end because he was base, but because it was fitting that he should be king of all the rest, as of his own subjects, from the very moment of his birth. And just as a good host does not bring a guest into his house before the food is prepared, but first, having elegantly furnished everything—the rooms, the dining hall, the table splendidly adorned, and finally, all the necessities for the meal having been prepared—then receives his guest: so too does our wealthy and generous host, having first elegantly adorned the house with various things and set out a great banquet containing delicacies of every kind, then finally introduce man, whose task it was not to prepare what was missing, but to enjoy what was provided. And for this reason, He foundations the structure of man in a twofold way, having mingled the divine with the earthly, so that by both he might have a kinship and fitness for the enjoyment of either: enjoying God D through the more divine nature, and the goods of the earth through his sense, which is of the same nature.
CHAPTER III.
That the nature of man is more excellent than all visible creation.
It is also worthy of our consideration that when this world, so great and such as it is, and all its parts, had been brought together in order to compose the machine of the universe, the nature of things was created by God without, so to speak, any toil, and it existed immediately at His beck. But a deliberation precedes the fabrication of man, and the form of the future work is sketched out by the Artificer by means of the account—namely, what kind of man he should be, what kind of image of the archetype he should bear, for what purpose he was to be created, what the actions of the created being were to be, and over what he should exercise command; of all these things, the account deliberates, so that man might obtain his preeminence and dignity, and might possess the lordship over all things even before he was born. Therefore Moses says that God spoke in this manner: «Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let there be for men dominion over the fish of the sea, and the beasts of the earth, and the birds of the heaven, and the cattle, and all the earth.» O the miracle! The sun is fashioned, and no deliberation precedes it; the heavens likewise, to which nothing among the things in creation is equal,
A …merely by the Word is such a marvel established, neither whence, nor how, nor any other such thing has the explanation indicated. Thus even all things severally—the ether, the stars, the air between, the sea, the earth, animals, plants—everything is led into being by the Word. But to the making of man alone does the Creator of all things approach with deliberation, so as to have prepared beforehand both the matter for his constitution, and to have fashioned his form to a certain archetypal beauty, and, having set before Himself the purpose for which he should come to be, to have created a nature appropriate and congenial to him for his operations, possessing fitness for the work set before it.
CAPUT IV.
That the constitution of man signifies through all things a certain royal authority.
For just as in human life the artisans fashion the instrument B in a manner appropriate to the need; so too did the master-artisan create our nature as a kind of vessel fit for the exercise of kingship, having prepared it to be such, by the endowments of the soul and the very form of the body itself, as to be fit for kingship. For the soul shows its royal and exalted nature from the start, separated far from the lowliness of a private station, in that it is masterless and self-willed, governed by its own independent volition in an imperial manner. For to whom else does this belong, if not to a king? C And furthermore, that it should be an image of the nature that sways all things is nothing else than that human nature should be created straightway royal. For just as in human custom those who make images of rulers both copy the character of the form, and by the covering of the purple mark out the royal dignity, and the image is in common parlance called "king," so too human nature, since it was created for the rule of others, through its likeness to the King of all, was set up as a sort of living image, partaking with the archetype both of the dignity and of the name; not clothed in purple, nor marking its dignity with scepter and diadem D (for not even the archetype consists in these things), but clad in virtue instead of the purple, which is the most royal of all garments; and instead of the scepter, resting upon the blessedness of immortality; and instead of the royal diadem, adorned with the crown of righteousness; so that through all things it is shown in the dignity of kingship to be accurately likened to the archetypal beauty.
CHAPTER V. That man is an image of the divine kingdom.
A But that divine beauty does not shine forth with any shape or comeliness of form, nor is it glorified by any hue, but is contemplated in an ineffable blessedness according to virtue. Just as, therefore, painters transfer human forms onto panels by means of certain colors, applying the proper and appropriate dyes to the imitation so that the archetypal beauty may be accurately transferred to the likeness, so must you consider that our Maker, by bestowing the virtues as if they were colors, decorated the image with the beauty proper to Himself, so that the image of His sovereignty might be discerned in us.
B The colors of this image, through which the native form of God is vividly expressed, are manifold and various: these are not redness, or brightness, or a mixing of these one with another according to the proportion of their qualities, nor is it the use of black ink for decoration, with which eyebrows or eyes are painted in order to shade, through a certain tempering, the hollows of the features, or whatever else of this kind the industry of painters has devised. Rather, in place of these, there is purity, freedom from passion, blessedness, alienation from all evil, and everything of this kind through which the likeness to the Divine is formed in men. With such flowers did the Creator decorate our nature as His own image.
If you further examine the other attributes by which the divine beauty is characterized, you will find that the likeness is accurately preserved in our image as regards those traits as well. The Divinity is Mind and Word; for in the beginning was the Word. And the prophets, according to Paul, have the mind of Christ speaking within them. The human element is not far from these. You see in yourself both word and intellect, an image of the truly existing Mind and Word.
Again, God is love, and the source of love. For this is what the great John says, that "Love is from God," and, "God is love." C This, too, the Maker of our nature has fashioned into our person. "For by this," He says, "everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Therefore, if this love is absent in us, the entire character of the image is altered. The divine Being sees all things, hears all things, and searches out all things. You, too, have the perception of existing things through sight and hearing, and a mind that is searching and investigating of things.
CHAPTER VI. An investigation of the kinship that the mind has with nature, in which the doctrine of the Anomoeans is also incidentally refuted.
Let no one imagine, however, that I am saying this as if I suggest that God acts in the way we see man use different faculties in his operations. For it is not permitted to think regarding God, whose nature is simple, that He is endowed with a various and manifold faculty of acting. For even if in us there are many faculties through which we act, although we use them in diverse ways...
all things through the senses. For there is in us one certain power and faculty, namely the mind, which, by passing through each of the seats of the senses, effects all things. It sees whatever is offered to the eyes; it perceives through the aid of the ears whatever is said. This it is that embraces what is pleasing and turns away from what is unpleasant; this uses the hand as a minister for whatever object it decides, and by the aid of this tool, it either holds or rejects things, according to what it has determined to be useful. If, therefore, there is one and the same thing in man, which acts and moves through all things by its own power and faculty, and in turn uses now this sense and now that, and which does not change its own nature on account of the variety of actions, however different the instruments of the senses may be as created by nature: how could any man be so demented as to imagine the nature of God, by reason of His various faculties, to be quasi-multimembered (if I may so speak)? For "He who fashioned the eye," as the Prophet says, "and who planted the ear," imprinted these faculties upon the nature of men as certain marks by which we, as creatures made in His image, might be recognized. Therefore He says: "Let us make man in our image." But where now are the Anomoeans to us? What at last will they say to these things? How will they defend their absurd doctrine against those things which have been handed down by us? Will they respond to this, that it is possible for one and the same image to correspond to diverse forms? But truly, if the Son is dissimilar in nature to the Father, how is the same image the effect of diverse natures? For when it is said, "Let us make man in our image," and the sacrosanct Trinity is indicated by the number of the plural, mention should not have been made of the image in the singular number, if indeed they were dissimilar to whose archetype it was being conformed. For it could by no means happen that dissimilar and diverse things could be represented among themselves by one and the same image; and so if the natures were diverse, it would also have been necessary to establish diverse images of them, each one of which would correspond to its own exemplar. But since there is only one image, though not one archetype of the one image: who would be so devoid of sense as to be ignorant that things which are similar to one and the same thing are also necessarily similar to each other? For this reason He speaks thus, perhaps so that in the very creation of man He might cut off their perverse heresy: "Let us make man in our image and likeness."
CHAPTER VII. Why man is made by nature without arms or coverings.
What, then, is the meaning of the upright figure in man? Or why are certain powers necessary for the protection of life not as if conjoined to the body? Man is created so unprepared, devoid of all of nature’s safeguards, unarmed, poor, and needy of all things necessary for the use of life, appearing more worthy of pity than of being called blessed. He is not armed with the fortification of horns, nor the sharpness of claws, nor with teeth, nor hoofs, nor a venomous sting, of the kind thatA many animals possess for defense against those who would harm them; nor is his body covered with a growth of hair. And yet, one would perhaps think that he who was appointed to head all others ought to have been fortified by nature with his own proper weapons, so as not to have need of assistance from others for his own safety. But as it is, the lion, the boar, the tiger, the leopard, and whatever other creature there may be, possess a power sufficient for their preservation from nature. To the bull, his horns; to the hare, its swiftness; to the gazelle, its leaping and keenness of sight; to another animal, its size; to others, a trunk; to birds, wings; to the bee, its sting—to all of them, in one way or another, nature has imparted something for their survival. B Man alone of all is slower than the swift-footed, smaller than the bulky, and weaker than those shielded by natural weapons. How then, one might say, has such a being been allotted rule over all? But I think it is not difficult to show that what seems to be a deficiency in our nature is the very occasion for our mastery over those things we hold in subjection. For if man possessed such strength that he could outrun the horse in speed, and had feet of such hardness that they could not be injured, protected by solid hoofs or claws, and furthermore lacked neither horns nor sting nor talons in himself, he would first of all have been a kind of savage and untamable beast, with such things naturally attached to his body. C Then, he would have disregarded the rule over others, having no need of the cooperation of those in subjection. As it is, however, for this very reason, the needs of life have been distributed among each of the beings subject to us, so as to make our governance over them necessary. The slowness and heavy mobility of our body led us to procure and tame the horse for our use. The bareness of our flesh made the management of sheep a necessity, since the annual yield of their wool fills the lack in our own nature. The fact that the resources for our life have to be fetched from various places caused us to yoke to such tasks those animals suited for carrying burdens. Moreover, it being impossible for us to feed upon grass and herbage after the manner of cattle, this necessity D made the ox a subject in our life, lightening it for us through its own labors. And since there was also need of teeth and biting to contend with some of the other animals, the dog, with its speed and its jaws, was provided for our use, having become, as it were, a living sword for man. For the projection of horns and the sharpness of talons, iron has been devised by men, being stronger and sharper; not always attached to us as those are to the beasts, but acting as an ally when the occasion demands, and for the rest of the time remaining by itself. And in place of the crocodilian hide, it is possible to make even that an armor by wearing the skin at the appropriate time. If not, iron is also shaped by art for this purpose; and when it has served in war at the required time, it again leaves the soldier free from the burden in times of peace. The wing of birds also serves human life, as through ingenuity even the speed of the winged creature
be A desired by us. For some birds have been made tame, and are of use to hunters; for by their agency we catch others. Moreover, art has devised winged arrows, and has imitated in the bow that winged swiftness for our own needs. And the fact that our soles are not adapted for performing journeys, seeing that they are very easily injured, causes us to seek a remedy for this too, and to fit shoes to our feet.
CHAPTER VIII.
Why the figure of man is upright, and that the hands also were made for the sake of speech: finally, discourse is held concerning the distinction of souls.
These points also agree with the imperial and royal dignity, that an upright figure has been bestowed upon man, whereby he tends toward heaven and looks upward. For the fact that man alone among other created things is of this kind, while the bodies of all the rest incline downward, B clearly demonstrates how much higher the power of nature is above the other things that submit themselves to his command. For the anterior members of the bodies of all the others are feet, because that which is bent downward required, by all means, a support. But in the construction of man, hands were made in place of these. For in an upright figure, one base was sufficient for the need, supporting him firmly as he stands upon both feet. Furthermore, the ministry of the hands is necessary for aiding the power of speech. And so, if one were to say that by nature hands were given to one who speaks for the sake of speech, he would not entirely wander from the truth. In which one must not turn the mind only to this, which can come into the mind of anyone—namely, that speech is wont to be expressed by us in writing through the skill of our hands: although this itself C is not a product of little excellence of reason, that men should speak through letters, and, in a certain manner, almost converse with one another by their hands, as the marks of letters comprehend the very sounds. But when I say that the hands bring some assistance to the expressing of speech, I have something else in view. And before we inquire into this, it is pleasing to consider a certain thing which has been omitted by us. For it was very little short of our forgetting that which, in the order of things as they were created, precedes: Wherefore the things springing from the earth were said to have sprouted first, then the animals devoid of reason to have arisen: and in the third place, finally, these having been created, man to have existed D first. Perhaps from this, not only that which any man might gather can be understood—that it seemed useful to the Creator to produce herbs and grasses for the food of animals, and animals for the use of man; and therefore before the herds of animals, their food, and that which was to serve the life of man, existed before man. But I maintain that Moses has in these things handed down something profound, and has treated in arcane words of the philosophy which concerns the soul: a philosophy which was indeed dimly perceived even by those who were not included in the chosen assembly of God on earth as teachers, but was certainly obscured. For from these words it is to be understood that the living power and the faculty of the soul are to be set down as triple; and that the first of these is that by which things only
A grow and thrive, being fitted for drawing in the nourishment of those things that are nourished, from which they take some increase. This is called the natural faculty, and it is observed in plants. For it is possible to perceive that a certain faculty of living exists even in plants, though it is devoid of all sensation. Besides this, there is another kind of life, which, having taken up the first into itself, is also endowed with the power of sensation. This is the life of irrational animals, which do not only thrive and grow, but also possess the sentient energy and perception. Finally, the perfect life in a body is that which is seen in the rational, B that is, the human nature, which is nourished and senses, and participates in reason, and is governed by the mind.
It might be useful for us to make such a division of the account: of existing things, some are such as are comprehended by the mind and intelligence, while others are entirely corporeal. But regarding the intelligible, let the division according to its proper nature be put aside for now, for this is not what the discourse is about. Of the corporeal, some is altogether devoid of life, while some participates in vital activity. Again, of the living body, some lives by sensation, while some lacks sensation. Then, again, the sentient is divided into the rational and the irrational. For this reason, the lawgiver says that natural life—as a sort of foundation of the form of animate things—was first brought into being, having pre-existed in the growth of plants, after the lifeless matter; and then he introduces the generation of those things that are governed by sensation. C And since it is consistent that those things that draw their life through flesh are partly sentient, and can exist in themselves apart from the intellectual nature, but the rational part could not otherwise exist in a body unless it were mixed with the sentient—for this reason, man was fashioned last, after the plants and beasts, nature proceeding in a certain order toward that which is completely perfect. For this rational animal, which we call man, is tempered from every form of the soul. For he is nourished according to the natural form of the soul, and to the growing power is attached the sentient, having a middle position, according to its own nature, between the intellectual and the more material substance; it being as much coarser than the latter as it is purer than the former. Then, the approach and commingling of the intellectual substance with the subtle and light nature of the sentient takes place, D so that man has his constitution in these three, just as we learned of such a thing from the Apostle, where, writing to the Ephesians, he prays that the wholeness of body, and soul, and spirit be preserved at the coming of the Lord; by the naming of the body signifying the nutritive part, by the soul the sentient, and by the spirit the intellectual. In the same way, the Lord also teaches the scribe through the Gospel to prefer the love of God before all other commandments, to be worked out from the whole heart, and soul, and mind. For here, too, the discourse seems to me to explain the same difference, naming the heart as the more corporeal state, the soul as the middle, and the mind as the higher nature, the
soulish, which stands in a middle state regarding virtue and vice, rising above vice, yet not purely partaking of virtue; and the spiritual, which contemplates the perfection of the life according to God. Therefore, he says to the Corinthians, reproaching their self-indulgent and passionate behavior, that they are "fleshly" and incapable of more perfect doctrines. Elsewhere, making a comparison between the middle state and the complete state, he says: "The soulish man does not accept the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him; but the spiritual man judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one." As, therefore, the soulish man has risen above the fleshly, in the same proportion the spiritual man has risen above him. If, then, Scripture says that man was made last after every living creature, the Lawgiver is philosophizing to us about nothing other than the soul, viewing the perfect as last in a certain necessary sequence of order. For in the rational, the others are included; and in the sensitive, the natural form is entirely present. But the latter is considered only in relation to the material, the intellectual, and the productive power. From which also three A differences of choice are known to the Apostle, naming the fleshly, which is occupied with the belly and the pleasures surrounding it; the soulish, which stands midway toward virtue and vice, rising above the latter, but not purely partaking of the former; and the spiritual, which contemplates the perfection of the life according to God. Hence he says to the Corinthians, reproaching their self-indulgent and passionate nature, that they are "fleshly" and incapable of more perfect doctrines. And elsewhere, making a comparison of the middle state with the perfect one, he says: "The soulish man does not accept the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him; but the spiritual man judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one." As, therefore, the soulish man has ascended above the fleshly, in the same proportion the spiritual man has risen above him. If, then, the Scripture says that man was made last, after every other living creature, the Lawgiver is philosophizing to us about nothing other than the soul, looking toward the perfect in the last place, according to a certain necessary sequence of order. For in the rational, the others are included; and in the sensitive, the natural form is entirely contained. But the latter is considered only in relation to the material.
Caput IX: That man was so created as to possess instruments necessary for speech
B Therefore, it is fitting that nature, as if by degrees—by which I mean the characteristics of life—makes its ascent from the lesser to the perfect. Since, therefore, man is a certain rational animal, it was necessary for the instrument of the body to be fashioned in a way suitable to the need of speech. Just as we can see musicians practicing their art with instruments, and neither playing the flute through a lyre nor plucking the cithara with a flute, in the same way it was necessary for the structure of the instruments to be suitable for speech, so that it might fittingly resonate for the need of words, being shaped by the vocal organs. For this reason, the hands were joined to the body. For even if it is possible to enumerate a myriad of needs in life, for which these handy and versatile instruments of the hands are useful for every craft and every energy, moving nimbly in both war and peace; yet, before all else, nature added them to the body primarily for the sake of speech. For if man were C devoid of hands, he would certainly have had the parts of his face fashioned like those of quadrupeds, in a manner suited to the need of nourishment, so that his form would be elongated, and narrowed and pressed at the nostrils, and the lips of the mouth would be protruding, callous, firm, and thick, being fitted for the grazing of grass, and the tongue would lie among the teeth, some other such organ, massive, resistant, and rough, working together with the teeth for whatever is done beneath the tooth—either moist or...
spread to the sides, such as that of dogs and other carnivorous animals, flowing between the intervals of the teeth, which are like saws—if, I say, hands had not been added to the human body, how could an articulated voice have been produced, given that the parts of the mouth were not aptly shaped to assist in sound? Assuredly, it would have been necessary for man either to bleat, to goat-like cry, to bark, to neigh, to bellow, to bray, or to emit some bestial lowing after the manner of animals. But now that hands have been given to man, the mouth is reserved and occupied solely for the expression of speech. Therefore, it is rightly established that the hands are, as it were, the proper instrument of a nature endowed with the faculty of speech, created above all for this end, that by their labor the use of speech in us might be more expeditious. A
CHAPTER IX. That man was so created that he possesses the instruments necessary for speech.
Therefore, the Creator of all things bestowed a certain divine grace upon our formed creature, implanting in the image goods similar to his own proper goods. And indeed, He granted the other goods of human nature out of pure magnificence; but as for mind and prudence, we shall not say he strictly "gave" them, but rather that He communicated them, desiring, for the sake of the decorum due to nature, to surround His image with its own special ornament. Furthermore, since the mind is perceived only as the intelligence of the soul, and is devoid of corporeal matter, it was clearly destined to have the gifts of its own excellence in such a way that they would remain uncommunicated to anything else, unless some method were invented by which the movement of the mind itself might be made manifest. B C Therefore, there was need of an artificial structure of instruments, by which the mind, striking the parts destined to form the voice like a plectrum, might disclose its own internal movement through sounds expressed in a certain manner. And just as one who is skilled in music, if he happens to be destitute of voice due to some defect, but nonetheless wishes to display his art—and thus uses borrowed voices, playing elegantly upon a lyre or a flute, demonstrating how great his skill is—so too the human mind, the inventor of manifold thoughts, since it cannot disclose to the soul the designs of its own thoughts (which apprehends things through the external senses), acts like an industrious craftsman D who strikes living instruments and, through the sound produced by them, reveals its own hidden thoughts. Moreover, in this instrument of man, there is a certain musical mixture analogous to a flute and a lyre, no differently than if these two were resounding in mutual concert. For the spirit, driven upward through the windpipe from the containers of breath, when the impulse of the speaker strains the part in order to utter a voice, and it is dashed against the internal joints that contain that passage like a flute on every side, it imitates in a certain way the sound produced through a flute, agitated on all sides by certain membranous striations. Then the palate, receiving with its hollow vault the sound tending upward from below,
A finally terminates in a point. These things all together represent in a varied and manifold way the motion of a plectrum on a string, and with great speed, as the occasion demands, they change the tones of the voice. Finally, by the parting of the lips and their subsequent compression, we use them just as musicians use the work of their fingers to moderate the breath in the pipes and the harmony of the song.
Chapter X. That the mind acts through the senses.
By this method, therefore, with the mind, as it were, composing within us through this organic construction, we have obtained the faculty of speech. We would have been deprived of this famous gift if the heavy and burdensome business of providing nourishment for the human body had been assigned to the lips. Now that this duty has fallen to the hands, there is no need for the mouth to be occupied with any other matter than to fashion B speech as aptly as possible. This organ has a twofold use: one in eliciting sound, the other in receiving those things which we consider as outside of ourselves. Neither of these faculties is mixed with the other, but each performs the function for which it was destined by nature. For this reason, neither does the hearing speak, nor does the voice hear, nor does one of these disturb the other. For the voice is always emitting something, while the hearing, although it receives perpetually, is never filled, just as Solomon says somewhere. C This seems to me to be especially worthy of wonder in us: what is the breadth of that interior capacity, into which all things poured through the hearing flow; who are the scribes of the discourses brought into it; what are the vessels for the thoughts deposited in the hearing; and how, when many and various things are cast together, does neither confusion nor disorder occur in the arrangement of the things placed one upon another? One would wonder at the same thing regarding the faculty of sight. For in a similar way, the mind reaches out through these to things outside the body, and draws to itself the likenesses of those things which appear, D depicting within itself the characters of visible objects. And just as if there were a city with many spaces receiving from different entrances those who flock to it, not all of them running to the same spot in the city, but some visible in the forum, others in their houses, others heading toward public assemblies, squares, alleys, or theaters, each according to his own intent; so I see also the city of the mind built within us, which the different entrances through the senses fill. The mind, however, judging each of the things that enter and inquiring into each, then places them in the proper seats of knowledge. And just as it can happen in the case of the model of the city (for it is pleasant to use the same comparison we began with, taken from the city) that some, even though they are kin and related, do not even enter through the same gate, having run in through different entrances as it chanced, yet nonetheless, once they are within the enclosure of the wall, they are again together,
are related to one another; and the opposite of this also occurs. For people who are strangers and unknown to each other often use the same entrance to a city, but the communion of the entrance does not unite them with one another; for even when they have entered, they can remain separated from their fellow-creatures. I see something similar in the spaciousness of the mind. For often, a single piece of knowledge is gathered for us from different sense organs, as the same object distributes itself A in various ways among the senses. On the other hand, the opposite is also true: it is possible to learn many and diverse things from one sense, which have no natural relationship with each other. For example (since it is better to clarify the argument with an example), suppose we wish to inquire into the quality of flavors, as to what is sweet to the sense of taste and what is disagreeable to those who taste it. Thus, it is discovered by B experience that bile is bitter, while honey has a certain pleasant quality. Although these things are different from one another, a single knowledge of the object is brought in, insinuating itself into the understanding in various ways: by taste, or by smell, or by hearing, and often too by touch and by sight. For when someone sees honey, and hears its name, and receives it by taste, and identifies the vapor through smell, and examines it by touch, he has known the same object through each of the senses. Again, we learn various and manifold things through a single sense; for the hearing receives all kinds of sounds, and the perception through the eyes has an undistinguishable action C upon the contemplation of things that are heterogeneous. For example, it reaches out to white, and black, and to all colors that are opposed to one another. Thus taste, thus smell, thus the understanding through touch, each one, by its own proper perception, implants knowledge of all kinds of things.
CHAPTER XI
That the nature of man cannot be fully contemplated.
What then is the mind in its own nature, which divides itself among the sensory faculties and, through each of them, receives the knowledge of existing things accordingly? For that it is something other than the senses, I do not believe any man of sense would doubt. For if it were the same as sense, it would necessarily have an affinity with only one of those things D that operate according to sense, because it is simple, and nothing complex can be contemplated in what is simple. But since all these are composite, and touch is one thing, and smell is another, and the others are similarly disposed, being incommunicable and unmixed with each other—since each is present in its own way—it must necessarily be assumed that the mind is a different nature from the sensible, so that no complexity might be mixed into the intelligible nature. "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" says the Apostle. But I, for this reason, say: Who has understood his own mind? Let those who place the nature of God within their own
have a clear view of their own mind? Let them answer us, they who imagine that the nature of God can be encompassed by the cogitations of the mind, have they thoroughly contemplated themselves? Have they explored and attained the knowledge of the nature of their own mind? You will perhaps say that it consists of many diverse A things. But how can it happen that what is understood by the mind should be composite? Or what, pray, could be the rationale for a mixture of diverse things in this? If, on the contrary, you maintain that the nature of the mind is something simple and not at all composite, by what rationale will you say that the same thing is dispersed into various senses, how can the varied exist within the one, and how can the one exist within the varied? But truly, note how we may explain what is obscure within you. "Let us make man," says God, "according to our image and likeness." If an image is lacking in no part in which the things in the archetype are observed, it will rightly be called an image; but if it does not share the likeness of the exemplar to which it is conformed in some part, then according to that part it is not an image. Since, therefore, this is one of those things which are known to exist in God—namely, that the nature of God cannot be encompassed by any power of reason—it will be altogether necessary that the image of God in man should correspond to its archetype in this part as well. For if the nature of the image could be understood, while the archetype remained beyond understanding, this very diversity would be a sign of how far the image itself had departed from the archetype. Now, since the power of the intellect cannot attain the nature of our mind, which was made to the image of the Creator, it bears an accurate likeness of that nature which is above us, and in the very fact that it cannot be investigated itself, it manifests the express marks of that incomprehensible nature.
CHAPTER XII. In what part the governing faculty of the soul is to be thought to reside. The cause of tears and laughter is explained. Finally, a physical theorem concerning the connection between matter, nature, and the mind.
C Therefore, let the curious vanity of men at last depart from the conjectures of their visions, they who do not deem it true that the faculty of the mind, which is encompassed by the intellect, is included in certain members of the body. For to some of them it has seemed proper to place the governing power of the soul in the heart, while others say that the mind dwells in the brain; and they confirm these opinions of theirs with reasons that are indeed trivial, yet not entirely abhorrent from the appearance of truth. For those who assign the D primacy to the heart make use of the position of the place itself as a rationale for their argument. For the heart seems to occupy a place almost in the middle of the entire human body, so that motion, having proceeded from the counsel, might easily spread from this center into the whole body, and thus proceed to action. They also think that the fact that human emotions—whether sad or angry—seem to move this part of the body most of all, so that it is affected by them, serves to support this opinion. Those who consecrate the power of reasoning to the brain affirm that the head was constructed by nature as a kind of citadel of the entire body. They say that the dwelling of the mind, like that of a king, is in this citadel, and that it is fortified on all sides by the organs of the senses as if by a retinue of attendants and guards. They also use, to establish their own opinion, the fact that the reasoning of those whose membranes are afflicted is led astray, and that [they are] in ignorance of [the...]
proper way of behaving], such as happens to those who are heavy-headed from drunkenness. Each of those who side with these opinions also brings forward certain more natural causes for such notions regarding the regent faculty. For the one says that the movement arising from the intellect is akin to the fiery element, because both fire and the intellect are ever-moving. And since it is agreed that heat springs from the part of the heart, for this reason, A saying that the movement of the mind is tempered with the ease of movement of the heat, he claims that the heart is the vessel of the intellectual nature, in which the heat is contained. The other says that the membrane (for that is what they call the covering of the brain) is, as it were, a base and root for all the sensory organs; and they confirm their own argument by this, [asserting] that the intellectual activity is established nowhere else but in that part to which the ears, being firmly applied, transmit the voices that strike against them. Also, the sight, being fixed by nature at the foundation of the B seat of the eyes, makes its impression inwards by means of the images entering the pupils. And the qualities of the vapors are distinguished in it through the attraction of the sense of smell. And the perception according to the sense of taste is tested by the judgment of the membrane, since it inserts certain nervous outgrowths from itself, which are sensory, through the cervical vertebrae to the ethmoid passage and the muscles located there. But I say that it is true that the intellectual part of the soul is often disturbed by the prevalence of [bodily] passions, and that the reason is blunted in its natural activity by some C bodily circumstance; and that the heart is a kind of fountain of the heat in the body, being moved in sympathy with the impassioned impulses. And furthermore, regarding the membrane being set under the sense organs, as the argument of those who naturalize about such things goes, enveloping the brain within itself and being anointed by the vapors arising from there, I, when I hear such things from those who have occupied themselves with anatomical studies, do not reject what is said. D However, I do not make this a proof that the incorporeal nature is contained within certain local boundaries. For we have learned that derangements do not arise from drunkenness alone; but those who are skilled in the art of medicine determine that the intellectual faculty becomes sick in the same way also in those whose membranes underlying the ribs are affected by disease, calling the affliction "phrenitis" (phrenitis), since "phrenes" is the name for these membranes. And the sensation that arises from grief toward the heart is erroneously conjectured. For it is not the heart, but the orifice of the stomach that is pained, [but] through ignorance they refer the affliction to the heart. Those who have examined the passions with accuracy say something of this sort: that because of the collapse of the passages and the closing [that occurs] in sorrowful dispositions naturally about all [the body...
everything that is obstructed in its respiration is forced towards the cavities in the depths. Whence, because the respiratory viscera are hemmed in by what surrounds them, the drawing in of breath by nature often becomes more violent, as it widens what has been narrowed to allow for the expansion of those [organs] that have collapsed. Such asthmatic struggling we deem to be a symptom of grief, calling it sighing and groaning. And that which seems to weigh down the pericardial region is not an affliction of the heart, but rather a discomfort of the orifice of the stomach, arising from the same cause—I mean, from the collapse of the passages, which causes that sharp and biting humor of the bile-duct to be poured out by the constriction onto the orifice of the stomach. The proof of this is that the complexion of those who are grieving becomes pale and jaundiced, as the excess of constriction causes the bile to spill its own humor into the veins. But the contrary affection—that is to say, joy and laughter—rather confirms our account. For B by pleasure, the passages of the body are in some way opened and relaxed, [the passages] of those who have been relaxed by some pleasant sound. For as in that case, through grief, the fine and invisible transpirations of the passages are closed, and having constricted the disposition within the viscera, they drive that moist vapor up to the head and the membranes; and this [vapor], being gathered in large quantities in the cavities of the head, is pushed out through the passages at the base toward the eyes, and by the contraction of the eyebrows, the moisture is squeezed out drop by drop (which drops are called tears): so in the same way, conceive that from the contrary disposition, the passages being widened somewhat more than is customary, some breath is drawn in through them to the depths, and from there is again pushed out by nature through the passage at the mouth, as all the viscera, and especially the liver (as they say), C drive out such breath by a certain shaking and boiling motion. Therefore nature, in order to construct an easy exit for this breath, widens the passage at the mouth, stretching out the cheeks on both sides, through which the breath must needs go out. A name has been given to this phenomenon: laughter.
Neither, therefore, for this should the seat of the ruling faculty be attributed to the liver, nor, because of the boiling of the blood about the heart—which affection arises more vehemently in the soul—should one think the seat of the mind to be in the heart. But the causes of these are to be attributed to the make-up of the body’s structure. We must believe the mind to be present in every member equally, according to that principle of blending which cannot be explained in words. But if there are those who oppose us with the Holy Scriptures, testifying that this ruling power is in the heart, we shall not assent to their argument without first examining it. For when in one of the sacred books mention is made of the heart, the kidneys are added there as well; for the words are of this sort: D "God, who searches hearts and kidneys," so that they include the intellectual faculty either in both or in neither. As for the fact that the intellectual energies are dulled or altogether inactive in the particular disposition of the body...
I do not consider this a sufficient proof A that the power of the mind is confined to a certain place, as if limited in its own range by the inflammations that happen to occur in the parts of the body. For such an opinion is of a material nature—namely, the inability to find room in it for another thing because the vessel is already occupied by one of the objects intruded into it. For an intellectual nature neither dwells within the vacancies of bodies, nor is it pushed out by an excess of flesh. But since the entire body has been fashioned as a musical instrument, just as it often happens with those who are skilled in playing but unable to demonstrate their art—because the uselessness of their instruments does not allow the art to be displayed (for that which has decayed with time, or has been broken by a fall, or has been rendered worthless by rust and mold, remains voiceless and inoperative, even if blown by one who seems to excel in the art of flute-playing); so too the mind, passing through the whole instrument and suitably applying itself to the intellectual energies, as is its nature, by attaching itself to each of the parts, performs its proper function in those parts that are disposed according to nature, but remains ineffective and inoperative in those that are weak and unable to receive B its artistic impulse. For the mind is naturally disposed, in a way, to have an affinity with that which is ordered according to nature, but to be alienated from that which has been diverted from it.
B It seems to me that there is a more natural theory regarding this part, from which one may learn one of the more elegant doctrines. Since God Himself is the most beautiful and supreme good of all, toward which all things that have a desire for the good are turned, for this reason we say that the mind also, having been made in the image of the Most Beautiful, continues in that beauty for as long as it participates in the likeness to the archetype, so far as is possible; but if it should in any way fall away from this, it is stripped of the beauty in which it was. And just as we said that the mind is adorned by the likeness of the primordial beauty—being formed like a mirror by the features of what is reflected in it—so by the same analogy we consider that the nature which is governed by the mind also possesses that same mind, and is adorned by the beauty placed near it, becoming, as it were, a mirror of a mirror; and that the material of the C substance, in which the nature is contemplated, is held and sustained by it. As long, therefore, as the one clings to the other, the communion of the truly Beautiful passes through all things proportionally, adorning the adjacent through the superior. But when there is a severance of this good connaturality, or if, conversely, the superior follows the inferior, then the ugliness of the material—when it is bereft of the nature (for matter is something formless and unarranged in itself)—is made manifest, and with this formlessness of matter, the beauty of the nature, which is adorned through the mind, is also destroyed. And thus, upon this mind [the weight of] that which is by matter...
the diffusion of ugliness comes about, since the image of God is no longer discerned in the character of the created being. For when the mind has made itself like a mirror turned backward toward the idea of the Good, it casts away the impressions of the radiance of the Good, but it stamps the formlessness of the whole of matter onto itself. And in this way the birth of evil comes about, subsisting through the removal of the Good. Now everything is good which happens to be in a fitting relationship to the primary Good; whatever exists outside of the relationship to and likeness of this is utterly devoid of the Good. If, therefore, that which is authentically good exists in accordance with the discussed principle, and the mind—because it was brought into being according to the image of the Good—itself possesses the state of being good, while nature is held together by the mind, being as it were an image of an image; it is shown through these things that our material element stands fast and is held firm whenever it is ordered by nature, but it is dissolved and falls away again whenever it is separated from that which holds it firm and contains it, and is torn from the affinity it has toward the Good. Such a thing does not happen otherwise than when the turning of nature becomes the opposite, with the desire not leaning toward the Good, but toward that which is in need of being adorned. For it is entirely necessary that matter, being destitute of its own form, should be transformed into that which is formless and ugly, becoming like it. But these things have been examined by us as a consequence, having entered [our discourse] through the contemplation of the subject at hand. For the question asked was whether the intellectual power is seated in some part of us, or whether it extends equally through all things. For [against] those who enclose the mind in local parts, and who bring forward to confirm this conjecture of theirs the fact that the mind is not successful in its reasoning in the case of those whose meninges are in a condition contrary to nature; the argument demonstrated that in every part of the human composite, where each is naturally disposed to act, the power of the soul remains inactive whenever that part does not abide in [its proper] nature. And for this reason, the theorem proposed fell into the discourse, by which we learn that in the human composite the mind is governed by God, and by it our material life is governed, so long as it remains in [its proper] nature; but if it should turn aside from nature, it is also alienated from the activity which is according to the mind. C But let us return again to where we turned aside, [to the fact] that the mind obtains its efficacy in those parts whose natural condition is not vitiated by some disease, being robust in robust members, but languid in those which are not capable of its actions. And it is not difficult to provide grounds of belief for this opinion by other arguments as well. If it will not be troublesome to those who are almost exhausted by the previous discourse, it is pleasing to touch upon those [arguments] also, as briefly as it is possible for this to be done. D
Chapter XIII: The causes of sleep, yawning, and dreams are indicated
A This coarser and fluid life of our bodies, always proceeding by way of motion, possesses its power to exist in the fact that it never stands still from motion. Just as a river, flowing according to its own impulse, shows the channel through which it happens to be carried to be full, yet it does not stay in one and the same place with the same water—but as one part flows down, another flows in—so too this coarser life of ours upon earth is changed through a certain motion and flow by the continuity of the succession of opposites, so that it can never stand still from change, but through the power of being at rest, it possesses motion uninterruptedly, B having it mingled in by means of similar things. But if it were ever to cease moving, it would necessarily also cease to be; for example, evacuation succeeds repletion, and conversely, repletion succeeds vacuity. Sleep relaxes the tension of waking, and then waking tightens what has been relaxed. Neither of these remains perpetually, but both give way to the presence of the other, nature thus renewing itself through these exchanges, so that it partakes of each in its turn and passes from one to the other without interruption. For the animal to be continually stretched in its activities causes a certain rupture and tearing of the parts that are overextended; and the continuous relaxation of the body brings about a certain collapse and dissolution of its constitution. C But the timely attainment of each in moderation is a power for the preservation of nature, as it rests itself from one state in the other through the continuous passage to opposites. Thus, therefore, the body, having been tightened through waking, finds release through sleep, having rested the sensory faculties from their activities for a time, like horses released after the contest of the chariot races. A timely relaxation is necessary for the constitution of the body, so that nourishment may be distributed without hindrance through the entire body by the pores within it, with no tension obstructing the path. For just as misty vapors are drawn up from the depths of watered ground when the sun shines with warmer rays, something similar happens in our earth as well, when food within us is set to boiling by the natural heat. D These vapors, being naturally upward-tending and aeriform, and breathing toward what lies above, arrive in the regions of the head like smoke passing into the joints of a wall; then, evaporating from there, they are dispersed toward the pores of the sense organs, through which the senses necessarily lie idle, withdrawing before the passage of those vapors. For the sight is covered by the eyelids, as if by a leaden machine—by which weight, I mean, the eyelid is hung over the eyes. Hearing, becoming thickened by these same vapors, as if a door had been placed upon the auditory passages, remains at rest from its natural activity; and such an affection of the body is called sleep, with the sense at rest in the body and abstaining from all motion, so that nourishment may be distributed in an easy manner and penetrate together with those vapors through the individual passages.
A And for this reason, if the arrangement around the sense-organs is constricted by internal exhalations, and yet sleep is hindered by some necessity, the nerve-filled part, becoming full of vapors, naturally stretches itself out of its own accord, so that by this extension the part made thick by the vapors may be thinned out; just as those who wring the water out of wet garments by twisting them very strongly do. And since the parts around the throat are circular, and the nerve-filled substance abounds in them, when it is also necessary for the thickness of the vapors to be expelled from these parts (since it is impossible for a circular part to be stretched in a straight line, unless it be stretched according to a circular shape), for this reason, when the breath is taken in during a yawn, and the chin is depressed downwards towards the throat so as to create a cavity, and all the inner parts are stretched into a circular shape, that smoky thickness which had settled in the members is exhaled together with the passage of the breath. B And often this is known to happen even after sleep, whenever some of those vapors remain in certain places, not yet sufficiently digested or dissipated.
From these things, therefore, the human mind clearly shows that it remains in accordance with its nature when it is composed and awake, being itself a co-worker and moved; but when it is relaxed in sleep, it remains unmoved, unless perhaps one were to suppose that the dream-like fantasy is a movement of the mind active during sleep. We, however, say that only the wise and composed activity of the intellect should be attributed to the mind, while the imaginative trifles that occur during sleep are, in our opinion, merely shadows of the intellect’s activity, fashioned by the less rational part of the soul as a matter of coincidence. For it necessarily comes about that when the soul is released from the senses through sleep, it is also outside the activities of the mind. For it is through these that the blending of the mind with the human being occurs; therefore, when the senses have ceased, the intellect must also be at rest. A proof of this is that the dreamer often seems to be involved in absurd and impossible situations, which would not happen if the soul were then governed by reason and intellect. C But it seems to me that while the most excellent faculties of the soul are at rest (by which I mean the activities pertaining to the intellect and the senses), only that part of it which possesses the power of nourishment remains active during sleep, and in this part certain images and echoes of what occurred while awake—and of those things processed by sense and intellect, which were impressed upon it through the mnemonic faculty of the soul—are formed at random, as these echoes of memory happen to be painted anew, persisting in such a part of the soul.
In these images, therefore, the sleeping man dwells, not led in any orderly sequence to the things that appear, but wandering among various confused and inconsistent errors. D Just as in bodily activities,
A when each part acts uniquely according to the power naturally inherent within it, there exists a certain sympathetic relationship of the resting part toward that which is in motion; analogously, this also happens in the soul, for even if one part of it happens to be at rest and another in motion, the whole is affected in sympathy with the part. For it is impossible for the natural unity to be entirely broken apart, while one of the powers within it prevails in action over another. B Just as when men are awake and busy, the mind prevails and the senses serve, while the power that administers the body is not absent (for the mind provides the food for the need, the sense receives what has been provided, and the nutritive power of the body appropriates what has been given to itself); so too, during sleep, the governance of these powers within us is in a way shifted. When the less rational part is in control, the activity of the others ceases, yet it is not entirely extinguished. Since at that time the nutritive power, through sleep, is hastening toward the digestion of food and occupies the entire nature with itself, the power of sense is neither entirely torn away (for it is impossible for things that have once grown together to be severed), nor is its activity able to shine forth, having been hampered by the inactivity of the sensory organs during sleep. By the same logic, since the mind is conjoined to the sentient aspect of the soul, it would follow that when the latter is moved, the mind is also moved with it, and when the latter is at rest, it also rests. A clear indication of this is what happens with fire: when it is hidden on all sides by chaff, and no breath of air fans the flame, it neither feeds on the things laid beside it nor is it entirely extinguished, but instead of a flame, a certain vapor passes through the chaff into the air; C if, however, it should receive some breath of air, it produces a flame from the smoke. In the same way, the mind, enveloped by the inactivity of the senses during sleep, is unable to shine through them effectively, nor is it entirely extinguished; rather, it moves in a smoky fashion, partly acting, and partly unable to do so. And just as a musician, striking the strings of a lyre that have been loosened, does not produce a melody according to rhythm—for that which is not taut cannot resound—but his hand moves skillfully many times, bringing the plectrum to the spatial position of the notes, while the sound does not exist, unless it be some indistinct and disordered humming that resounds in the movement of the strings; so too, through sleep, the organic structure of the senses having been loosened, D either the artist is completely at rest, if the instrument undergoes a total loosening from a certain repletion and weight, or it acts sluggishly and dimly, because the sensory organ does not receive the art with precision. For this reason, memory is confused, and the power of prophecy, nodding as it were in ambiguous veils, is fashioned in images of the things pursued during the waking hours, and has often signified some of the things that were to come to pass. For through the subtleness of its nature, it has something more than the bodily coarseness to be able to perceive something of the things that are. Yet not through any direct power
does it declare the future, nor does it teach us clearly and openly about these things. Instead, there is only a certain oblique and ambiguous signification of a future event, which those who busy themselves with the interpretation of such things call an enigma. A Thus, the cupbearer dreams he is pressing the cluster into Pharaoh’s cup; thus, the baker imagined he was carrying a basket. Because both were greatly concerned with these matters while awake, they thought these things were happening even in their sleep. For the images of the pursuits and the life to which they were accustomed, being impressed upon that part of the soul which looks toward the future, caused them to divine for themselves something to which the event would correspond by this presage of the mind.
That indeed which Daniel and Joseph and others like them possessed—that they were instructed in the knowledge of future things by a certain divine power, without their senses being disturbed in the least—has nothing to do with the matter at hand. For no one would rightly attribute these things to the power of dreams, unless perhaps one were to maintain that, by that same reasoning, divine apparitions which offer themselves to some while awake are not special visions, but a natural development, working automatically by the power of nature. Just as, therefore, while all men are governed by their own minds, there are yet a few to whom God speaks in a way that is almost manifest, so, although the power of imagining during sleep is given by nature to all equally and without distinction, there are a few from the whole assembly of men to whom more divine visions of dreams offer themselves. B As for all the rest, if they know anything of future things from the conjectures of dreams, it must be considered that the whole thing happens in the way that has been described.
But as to the fact that the Egyptian and the Assyrian tyrant were led by the nod of God to the knowledge of future things, this also occurred with God looking to a different end. For it was necessary in that way that the wisdom of certain holy men should become known to all, so that it might be useful to the life of men. C For how could it have happened that the power of prophecy was detected in Daniel, unless the enchanters and magi had failed to find and interpret the king’s dream? How could the Egyptian nation have been preserved, with Joseph hidden and shut up in prison, if the explanation of the dream had not provided the occasion by which he was brought into the midst of the whole nation? Therefore, it must be concluded that the reason for these cases is different, and does not correspond to common visions.
The customary visions of dreams, however, which are common to all, are formed in very various ways. For either, as has been said, the echoes of daily activities remain, as it were, in the remembering part of the soul, or the state of the dreams is modeled according to D how the body is affected. This is clear from the fact that those who are thirsty think they are at springs, those who are hungry are at banquets, and a young man, lascivious by virtue of his age, imagines things consistent with his own lust. I have indeed learned of another cause for things that happen in sleep, while treating one of my acquaintances who had fallen into a frenzy; he, being burdened by food in greater quantity than his strength could bear, cried out, blaming those standing around, that they had filled his intestines with waste and laid [it] upon him.
A And when his body was already hastening toward a sweat, he accused those present of having water ready to sprinkle upon him as he lay there; he did not cease his shouting until the outcome interpreted the cause of these accusations. For a copious sweat suddenly broke out from his body, and his belly, being loosened, signaled the heaviness [that had been] in his intestines. Therefore, since the senses are dulled by disease, nature—being affected together with the suffering of the body—is not unaware of what is troubling it, but because of the mental disturbance caused by the illness, it is unable to express clearly what is causing the pain. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that if the intellectual faculty of the soul had not been lulled by a natural sleep, but rather by infirmity, a dream would have occurred to one so affected, in which the flow of sweat was signified by water, and the heaviness of food by the weight in the intestines. B Many skilled in medicine hold the same view, affirming that the different types of dreams occur to the sick according to the nature of their ailments: for instance, some [dreams occur] to those suffering from stomach disorders, others to those whose brain membranes are damaged, others to those in fevers, and again different ones to those suffering from bile or phlegm, others to those [suffering from] plethora, and others still to those who are wasting away. From these instances, one can see that the nutritive and growth-producing power of the soul has something of the intellectual faculty mingled within it through the commingling [of soul and body]; this faculty is in a certain way assimilated to the specific disposition of the body, and the prevailing suffering is adapted into fantasies. Furthermore, dreams are also shaped according to the states of a person’s character. C The fantasies of the brave man are of one kind, and those of the coward another; the dreams of the licentious are different from those of the temperate; in one [person] the generous man is envisioned, and in another the greedy man. D It is nowhere the reasoning mind, but rather the more irrational disposition in the soul which imprints such fantasies, fashioning images in dreams of those things to which a person has been accustomed through practice during his waking life.
CHAPTER XIV. That the mind does not exist in one part of the body. In which there is also a distinction between bodily and psychic movements.
But we have wandered far from our proposed subject. For our argument had intended to show that the mind is not bound to any one part of the body, but is equally joined to the whole, producing movement in the members of each part in a manner consistent with their nature. And it happens at times that the mind, as if it were a servant, obeys the passions of nature. For often the nature of the body usurps the office of leader, such that it arouses both the sense of what is harmful and the desire for what is pleasant and agreeable. And so it happens that the body provides the occasion for desirable things, and instills in us the longing for food or some other pleasure; the mind, however, receiving these desires, [frames] the [paths] toward the desired...
providing the body with motives and counsels, so that by its own industry it may find what it seeks. A This, however, does not hold true for all men, but is the case only for those who are in a state more akin to slavery, who, having enslaved the reason to the impulses of nature, servilely flatter the pleasure of the senses through the assistance of the mind. But with those who are more perfect, this does not happen. For the mind leads the way, choosing what is beneficial by reason and not by passion; and nature follows in the tracks of her leader. Since, however, the argument has discovered three differences in the vital faculty—one that nourishes without sense, another that both nourishes and senses but is devoid of rational activity, and a third that is rational and perfect, extending through the whole power, so that it is present in those others while also possessing the intellectual faculty in greater measure—let no one, on account of these things, imagine that three souls are joined together in the human composition, considered within their own distinctive boundaries, so as to think that human nature is a composite of many souls. But the true and perfect soul is one in nature, intellectual and immaterial, which is mixed with the material nature through the senses. For everything material, being subject to change and transformation, if it partakes of the animating power, will be moved by way of growth; but if it should fall away from the vital activity, it will dissolve its motion into decay. B Thus, there is neither sense without material substance, nor does the activity of sense occur without the intellectual power.
CAPUT XV. That the soul which uses reason is properly what it is, and is so called; the others share the name only by equivocation. In which it is also shown that the power of the mind extends throughout the entire body, being joined to each part in a suitable manner.
If, therefore, anyone imagines on this account that there are many souls, because some creatures are endowed with a nourishing faculty, others with a sensitive one—while the former lacks sense, and the latter lacks intelligence—he does not declare the difference between souls with sufficient clarity. For whatever exists in the nature of things, if it is perfectly what it ought to be, correctly and properly obtains its own name, by which it is called; but if something is not absolutely and entirely what it is said to be, the name itself is attributed to it improperly. If anyone, for example, points out true bread, we say that such a person properly applies the name to the thing before him. But if, along with this, he were to point out another, made by art from stone, of the same form, equal in magnitude, and similar in color, so that in most respects it appears to be the same as the prototype, but only one thing is missing—namely, that it cannot serve to nourish man—then we would affirm that the name of "bread" was not correctly given to this stone, but was applied through an abuse of language. In the same way, whatever is not in every respect what it is said to be, we misuse terms in referring to it. Thus, therefore, also in regard to the soul, in that which is intellectual and rational, the perfection
and the life of the soul, anything that is not this may indeed share the name with the soul, but it is not truthfully soul; rather, it is a vital energy, circumscribed by the title of soul. Therefore, the Creator, having established by law the particular character of each thing, also gave the nature of irrational creatures, as not being far removed from this vital energy of nature, for the use of man, as if they were herbs to those who partake of them. For, He says, "eat all flesh as you eat the green herbs." For the sensory energy in other animals appears to have only a small advantage over things that are fed and grow without it. Let this teach those who are carnal not to run excessively toward things that appear to the senses, but to busy themselves with the superior gifts of the soul, since the true soul is contemplated in these, whereas the senses are possessed equally by irrational creatures. But our discourse has been led to another matter. B For it was not the intention of this investigation to show that the energy according to the intellect is more precious than the material of our substance, but rather that the intellect is not contained in any one part of us, but is equally in all and through all; neither enclosing from without nor being held within. For such things are properly said of jars or other bodies placed within one another. But the communion of the intellect with the body has an ineffable and inconceivable union; it is not inside (for the incorporeal is not restrained by a body), nor does it surround from without (for incorporeal beings do not encompass anything). But, in a way that is altogether impossible and beyond understanding, the intellect draws near to the nature, and attaches itself, and is perceived in it and around it, neither sitting within nor wrapping itself around; but just as it is impossible to speak of or conceive, except that according to the proper order of the nature itself, when it is faring well, the intellect also becomes active. But if any flaw happens to that nature, the movement of the intellect also falters in that part.
CHAPTER XVI
Accurate consideration of that divine utterance: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness," in which is examined what the principle of the image is, and whether that which is subject to suffering and mortality can be similar to the blessed and impassible nature, and how in the image there is male and female, when these do not exist in the prototype.But let us return again to the divine voice: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness." D Some of the external philosophers have imagined, as they thought, that they were magnifying human nature by comparing it to this world, as if the greatness of man were small and unworthy of his true magnificence, for they suppose man to be a "microcosm," composed of the same elements as the whole. For those who, by the boastfulness of the name...
A with which they sought to bestow great praise upon human nature, were unaware that they were adorning man with nothing other than those same ornaments which he has in common with the gnat and the mouse. For even those things consist of the temperaments of the four elements, since it is understood from the study of living creatures that in any given thing there are many or few portions of the elements. For it is impossible for anything endowed with sense to consist of anything other than the elements. What greatness is there, then, if man is considered to be the character and likeness of the world—of a heaven that revolves, of an earth that is subject to change, and of all the things contained within these, which move along with the passing of the one that encompasses B them? But in what, according to the ecclesiastical word, does human greatness consist? It does not consist in the likeness to the created world, but in having been made according to the image of the nature of the Creator. What, then, is the rationale of this image? Perhaps you will say: how is the incorporeal likened to the body? How is the temporary likened to the eternal? How is that which is changed through alteration likened to that which is immutable? How is that which is subject to passion and corruption likened to that which is passionless and incorruptible? How is that which always dwells and co-exists with vice likened to that which is entirely free from all vice? For there is a great distance between that which is understood according to the archetype and that which is made according to the image. For if an image truly bears a likeness to its prototype, it is properly called by that name. But if the representation deviates from the object it is intended to represent, it is something else, and such a thing is no longer its image. How, then, is man, being mortal, subject to passion, and short-lived, an image of that nature which is unblemished, pure, and eternal? C But the true word concerning this only the Truth itself could clearly know. We, however, insofar as we are able, tracing out the truth with certain conjectures and thoughts, assume the following concerning these matters of inquiry. Neither is the divine word lying when it says that man was made in the image of God, nor is the pitiable wretchedness of human nature likened to the blessedness of that passionless life. For it is necessary to acknowledge one of two things if one compares our nature to God: either that the Divine is subject to passion, or that human nature is passionless, so that the rationale of the likeness might be grasped in both equally. But if the divine is not subject to passion, nor is that which is of us free from passion, then some other rationale must remain according to which we say that the divine voice is true, which says that man was made in the image of God. Therefore, we must return to the divine Scriptures themselves, to see if perhaps there might be some guidance to fulfill our inquiry through the written word. After saying, "Let us make man according to the image," and specifying toward which things we should make him, it adds this word: "And God made D man, and according to the image of God he made him; male and female he made them." It has indeed been said already in the preceding passage that such a word was proclaimed beforehand for the refutation of heretical impiety, so that, having been taught that the only-begotten God made man according to the image of God, we should not, by any reasoning, distinguish the divinity of the Father and the Son, since the holy Scripture equally calls each one God—both the one who made man, and the one according to whose image he was made.
B But let the argument concerning these matters be dismissed, and let us turn our inquiry back to the subject before us: why is the human being, who is pitiable, called by the Scripture to be like the divine, which is blessed? Therefore, we must examine the words with precision. For we shall find that what was made A according to the image is one thing, and what is now being revealed in misery is another. "God made," he says, "the man; according to the image of God he made him." The creation of the being made "according to the image" has reached its end. Then he makes a repetition of the account concerning the construction, and says: "Male and female he made them." For I think it is known to everyone that this is understood as being outside of the archetype. For "in Christ Jesus," as the Apostle says, "there is neither male nor female." Yet the account says that the human being has been divided into these. Therefore, there is a certain duality in the construction of our nature: one part likened to the divine, the other divided according to this difference. For the account hints at something like this from the arrangement of what is written, first by saying that "God made the man; according to the image of God he made him," and again by adding to what was said that "male and female he made them," which is foreign to those things understood concerning God. For I believe that a certain great and sublime doctrine is handed down through these things said by the divine Scripture. The doctrine is this: the human exists as a medium between two things that are at the greatest possible distance from each other—the divine and incorporeal nature, and the irrational and beastly life. For it is possible to perceive the share of each of those mentioned in the human composition: of the divine, the rational and intellectual part, which does not admit of the difference according to male and female; and of the irrational, the bodily structure and formation divided into male and female. For each of these is certainly in everyone who partakes of human life. But the rational part takes precedence, as we learned from the one who set forth the genealogy of the human in order, and the association and kinship with the irrational is secondary for the human. For he says first that "God made the man according to the image of God," demonstrating through the things said, as the Apostle says, that in such a one there is neither male nor female. Then he adds the properties of human nature, that "male and female he made them." What, then, do we learn from this? And let no one blame me for C reaching out far... [The English translation continues from the bottom of 182]
consideration of the matter. God by His nature is such and so great a good that He can be comprehended by no thought; or rather, He transcends every good that is thought of or understood. He creates human life for no other reason than that He is good. Being such, when He set Himself to the creation of human nature, He would not have shown a partial power of goodness—giving some of the things that belong to Him, while begrudging others, as if hindered by envy. He showed Himself to be perfectly good by creating man from nothing and furnishing him with an abundance of every good. Since these are so many in number that it is difficult to enumerate them one by one, for this reason they are all briefly summed up in these words, by which it is said that man was made in the image of God. For those words are equivalent to saying that God made human nature a participant in every good. For if the Divine is the fullness of goods, and this is its image, then in being the fullness of every good, the image has its likeness to the archetype. Therefore, there is in us an idea of every beauty, every virtue and wisdom, and whatever else is understood as superior. And among all these, there is in us freedom, C which is held by no law of necessity, subject to the yoke of no power in nature, but which chooses what it wills by a sure and most free judgment. For virtue is something subject to its own authority, and enslaved to no one’s command; but what is compelled and forced by some necessity cannot be virtue. Since, therefore, the image bears the character of the archetypal beauty in all things, if it did not have a difference in some respect, it would no longer be a likeness, but that same thing would be shown to be identical in every way, the one unchanged in all things. What, then, is the difference we perceive between the Divine itself and that which is made in the likeness of the Divine? It is in the fact that the one is uncreated, while the other came into being through creation. But the difference of such a property again produces a sequence of other characteristics. For it is confessed by all, absolutely and in every way, that the uncreated nature is immutable and always remains the same, but that the created nature cannot exist without constant change. For the very transition from non-being to being is a kind of motion and a change, by which that which was not D among things in nature begins to exist by the decree of the divine will. And just as the Gospel speaks of the image of Caesar expressed in copper—from which we learn that it is an imitation of the one who was formed according to Caesar in external appearance, but has a difference in the underlying subject—so too, by the present argument, having considered the tokens that are contemplated in the divine nature and in the human, in which the likeness consists, we find the difference in the underlying subject, which is seen in the uncreated and the created. Since, therefore, the former remains the same and always, while the latter, having come into being through creation, began from a change of its being, and has an affinity toward such a change; therefore...
He who, according to the prophet, knows all things before their birth, having followed, or rather, having anticipated by His foreknowing power towards what motion the movement of human free will and self-determination would incline, since He foresaw what was to be, added the distinction of male and female to the image—a distinction which no longer looks toward the divine archetype, but, as has been said, is accommodated to the less rational nature. B The cause of such a contrivance only those who are eyewitnesses of the truth and servants of the Word could know. We, however, having imagined the truth through certain conjectures and images, as far as is possible, do not set forth what has come to mind as a dogmatic assertion, but, as in an exercise, we offer it to the discernment of our hearers. What, then, is it that we have thought concerning these things? When the text says that God made man, by the indefinite nature of the expression, the entire human nature is signified. For the name of Adam is not now joined to the creature, as the history says in what follows; but the name given to the created man is not that of some individual, but of the universal. C Therefore, by this universal calling of the nature, we are led to suspect something of this sort: that by the divine foreknowledge and power, the whole of humanity was encompassed in the first creation. For one must not think that anything of those things brought into existence by God is indefinite, but that for each of the beings there is a certain limit and measure, bounded by the wisdom of the Creator. Just as, therefore, a certain man is bounded by his bodily quantity, and the measure of his subsistence is the size that is brought together by the surface of his body, so I think that in one body, the whole fullness of humanity was encompassed by the divine foreknowing power of the God of all, and that this is what the text teaches when it says D that God created man, and in the image of God He created him. For the image is not in a part of the nature, nor is the grace in some one of those things observed in himself; but such a power extends equally to the whole race. And the sign of this is that the mind is established in all in the same way; all have the power to reason and to deliberate, and all the other things through which the divine nature is imaged in that which has come into being according to it. It is the same for the man who was brought into light at the first creation of the world, and for him who is to be born at the consummation of all things; they bear the divine image equally in themselves. For this reason, the whole was named one man, because by the power of God, neither has anything passed away, nor will it, but what is expected is equally held fast by the all-encompassing energy of God, together with that which is present. The whole of nature, therefore, extending from the first to the last, is one image of the One who is; but the distinction of the race into male and female was added last to the creation for this reason, as I think.
CHAPTER XVII.
AWhat response should be given to those who ask how human souls would have come into being if the first humans had remained undefiled by the stain of sin; seeing that we observe that it was only after this defilement that man began the work of the procreation of offspring.But before we examine this, perhaps it would be better to explain something that is objected to by our adversaries. They say that before the sin there is no mention in man either of procreation, or of parturition, or even of the desire for procreating. But after the first humans had sinned and were cast out of paradise, and the penalty of the pains of childbirth was imposed upon the woman, then, they claim, Adam came to know his spouse in the manner of marriage, and only then did procreation begin. If, therefore, they say, there was no marriage in paradise, nor birth, nor procreation, it is necessary to conclude that the multitude of human souls would never have come to be, unless the gift of immortality had been exchanged for mortality, and posterity, B aroused through marriage, had replaced those departing from this life, and by this means had preserved the nature of the race. And thus, in a certain way, sin might even appear to be a benefit to human life. For the human race would not have increased beyond the number of the two who first existed, had not the fear of death moved nature to consider its perpetual succession. Indeed, on this point too, I maintain that the truth, whatever it may be, is known and understood only by those who, like Paul, have been initiated into the mysteries of paradise which it is not lawful to express in words. Our answer, however, is this: When the Sadducees opposed the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and mentioned that woman who had been married to many, and even to seven brothers, putting this forward to establish their own opinion, and then asked whose C she would be after the resurrection, the Lord answers the question not only to instruct the Sadducees, but also to manifest to all men thereafter the mystery of the life that we shall receive in the resurrection. “In the resurrection,” He says, “they neither marry nor are given in marriage; for they cannot die anymore; for they are equal to the angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” But the grace of the resurrection promises us nothing else than the restoration of the fallen to their original state. For the grace which we expect is a return to the first life, leading man back to that from which he was cast out of paradise. If, therefore, the life of those who are restored D is akin to that of the angels, it is evident that the life before the transgression was something angelic; and for this reason our return to the original life is likened to the angels. But indeed, as has been said, marriage
γάμου A παρ' αὐτοῖς οὐκ ὄντος, ἐν μυριάσιν ἀπείροις αἱ στρατιαὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων εἰσίν· οὕτω γὰρ ἐν ταῖς ὀπτασίαις ὁ Δανιὴλ διηγήσατο. Οὐκοῦν κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον, εἴπερ μηδεμία παρατροπή τε καὶ ἔκστασις ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγγελικῆς ὁμοτιμίας ἐξ ἁμαρτίας ἡμῖν ἐγένετο, οὐκ ἂν οὐδὲ ἡμεῖς τοῦ γάμου πρὸς τὸν πληθυσμὸν ἐδεήθημεν. Ἀλλ' ὅστις ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ φύσει τῶν ἀγγέλων τοῦ πλεονασμοῦ τρόπος, ἄῤῥητος μὲν καὶ ἀνεπινόητος στοχασμοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις, πλὴν ἀλλὰ πάντως ἐστίν· οὗτος ἂν καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν βραχύ τι παρ' ἀγγέλους ἠλαττωμένων ἀνθρώπων ἐνήργησεν, εἰς τὸ ὡρισμένον ὑπὸ τῆς βουλῆς τοῦ πεποιηκότος μέτρον τὸ ἀνθρώπινον αὐξῶν. Εἰ δὲ στενοχωρεῖται τις ἐπιζητῶν τὸν τῆς γενέσεως τῶν ἀνθρώπων τρόπον, εἰ μὴ προσεδεήθη τῆς διὰ τοῦ γάμου συνεργίας ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ἀντερωτήσομεν καὶ ἡμεῖς τὸν τῆς ἀγγελικῆς ὑποστάσεως τρόπον, πῶς ἐν ἀπείροις μυριάσιν ἐκεῖνοι, καὶ μία οὐσία ὄντες, καὶ ἐν πολλοῖς ἀριθμούμενοι. Τοῦτο γὰρ προσφόρως ἀποκρινούμεθα τῷ προφέροντι, Πῶς ἂν ἦν δίχα τοῦ γάμου ὁ ἄνθρωπος; εἰπόντες, ὅτι καθὼς εἰσι γάμου χωρὶς οἱ ἄγγελοι· τὸ γὰρ ὅμοιον ἐκείνοις τὸν ἄνθρωπον εἶναι πρὸς τῆς παραβάσεως, δείκνυσιν ἡ εἰς ἐκεῖνο πάλιν ἀποκατάστασις.
Τούτων οὖν ἡμῖν οὕτω διευκρινηθέντων, ἐπανιτέον ἐπὶ τὸν πρότερον λόγον· πῶς μετὰ τὴν κατασκευὴν τῆς εἰκόνος, τὴν κατὰ τὸ ἄῤῥεν καὶ θῆλυ διαφορὰν ὁ Θεὸς ἐπιτεχνᾶται B τῷ πλάσματι. Πρὸς τοῦτο γάρ φημι χρήσιμον εἶναι τὸ προδιηνυσμένον ἡμῖν θεώρημα. Ὁ γὰρ τὰ πάντα παραγαγὼν εἰς τὸ εἶναι, καὶ ὅλον ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ θελήματι τὸν ἄνθρωπον πρὸς τὴν θείαν εἰκόνα διαμορφώσας, οὗ ταῖς κατ' ὀλίγον προσθήκαις τῶν ἐπιγινομένων ἀνέμεινεν ἰδεῖν ἐπὶ τὸ ἴδιον πλήρωμα τὸν ἀριθμὸν τῶν ψυχῶν τελειούμενον· ἀλλ᾽ ἀθρόως αὐτῷ πληρώματι πᾶσαν τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν διὰ τῆς προγνωστικῆς ἐνεργείας κατανοήσας, καὶ τῇ ὑψηλῇ τε καὶ ἰσαγγέλῳ λήξει τιμήσας, ἐπειδὴ προείδε τῇ ὁρατικῇ δυνάμει μὴ εὐθυποροῦσαν πρὸς τὸ καλὸν τὴν προαίρεσιν, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τῆς ἀγγελικῆς ζωῆς ἀποπίπτουσαν· ὡς ἂν μὴ κολοβωθείη τὸ τῶν ψυχῶν τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων πλῆθος, ἐκπεσὸν ἐκείνου τοῦ τρόπου, καθ᾽ ἂν οἱ ἄγγελοι πρὸς τὸ πλῆθος ηὐξήθησαν· διὰ τοῦτο τὴν κατάλληλον τοῖς εἰς ἁμαρτίαν κατολισθήσασι τῆς αὐξήσεως ἐπίνοιαν ἐγκατασκευάζει τῇ φύσει, ἀντὶ τῆς ἀγγελικῆς μεγαλοφυΐας τὸν κτηνώδη τε καὶ ἄλογον τῆς ἐξ ἀλλήλων διαδοχῆς τρόπον ἐμφυτεύσας τῇ ἀνθρωπότητι. C Ἐντεῦθεν μοι δοκεῖ καὶ ὁ μέγας Δαβὶδ κατοικτιζόμενος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τὴν ἀθλιότητα, τοιούτοις λόγοις καταθρηνῆσαι τὴν φύσιν· ὅτι «Ἄνθρωπος ἐν τιμῇ ὢν οὐ συνῆκε»· τιμὴν λέγων, τὴν πρὸς τοὺς ἀγγέλους ὁμοτιμίαν. Διὰ τοῦτο, φησί, παρεσυνεβλήθη τοῖς κτήνεσι τοῖς ἀνοήτοις, καὶ ὡμοιώθη αὐτοῖς. Ὄντως γὰρ κτηνώδης ἐγένετο ὁ τὴν ῥοώδη (Ps. XLVIII, 21).
...in dignity, did not perceive it; he understood by the status of dignity that man was by condition equal to the angels. A He adds, however: "Therefore he is compared to the brute animals, and is become like unto them." For he truly became brutish after he began to propagate after the manner of brutes, his excellence degenerating, and he himself sinking down to the condition of a coarser nature.
CHAPTER XVIII. That perturbations of the soul, alien to reason, arise from this kinship with the nature of brutes.
For I truly believe that from this very origin all perturbations of the soul, both collectively and individually, flowing as if from a fountain, overflow into human nature. And that this is correctly stated is proven by the fact that the very perturbations which exist alike in us and in the brutes are in some sort akin. For it is surely not right to say that the origin of the perturbations B by which we are afflicted is to be referred to human nature, since it is fashioned in the image of God; but because brute animals, with whom man has (as has been explained) something in common—namely, the mode of birth—existed in this world beforehand, for that reason certain other things pertaining to the nature of brutes began to be common to men as well. For man does not reflect the image of God in that he is endowed with irascibility; nor ought pleasure to be considered a mark of a most excellent nature, just as cowardice, and audacity, and the desire for greater things, and hatred of a lower state, and other things like these are far removed from that divine character. Wherefore, human nature began to assume these things, received from the brutes. For the things by which the life of brutes is fortified for its own preservation, C when transferred to the life of man, become those very things of which we speak—perturbations, or affections. Irascibility protects the wilder beasts from destruction; a fruitful appetite for pleasure preserves the animals that are prolific; timidity protects the unwarlike; fear protects those who cannot defend themselves against the stronger; and gluttony sustains the gluttonous. And conversely, if they are unable to obtain anything that is pleasant, it excites pain in them. All these things and others similar to them occupied the workshop of man along with his animal birth. D Permit me, however, in this place, after the manner of excellent sculptors, to describe the image of man by the power of discourse. For just as one may see certain effigies in which a double form is expressed—the craftsmen who fashion them with great effort carving twin facial forms upon one head, so that the spectators behold them with a certain astonishment—so to me there seems to be a double likeness in man, the one of which differs far from the other. For as regards the divine gift of the mind, it reflects that beauty which is in God; but as regards the appetites which are inherent in it, born of the diseases of the soul, it is held by a kinship with the brute nature. And thus sometimes reason itself becomes so brutish that, vanquished by the affection toward the brute part, that which is most excellent in man is overwhelmed by the force of the inferior part. For if anyone draws the faculty of the mind to this point, that he compels reason to serve the diseases of the soul, he then...
A reduces the universal nature, as it were, into another form, and there occurs a transformation of that excellent shape into a brutish image, while reason cultivates those very diseases, making, in a short time, a great abundance of them from a few. For by bestowing upon them all its labor, as it were, it causes a certain large and dense mass of irrational things to arise. Thus, while the pursuit of pleasure has its beginning in us from the likeness by which we resemble brute animals, it has nevertheless grown so much through the sins of men that such forms of pleasure are in no way to be found in animals devoid of reason as the wicked lust of voluptuous men has devised. So also the stirring of the soul toward anger has indeed something related to the desire of brute beasts, but it is increased in the highest degree by the help of reason. For from this proceeds the long-lasting bitterness of an angry mind, envy, falsehood, deceit, and simulation.
All these things are to be ascribed to the evil cultivation of the mind. For if B this passion—which we call anger—were stripped of the help and association of the faculty of reason, it would undoubtedly be something momentary and languid, which would arise and perish at the same time, like a bubble. Thus, in imitation of the gluttony of swine, men began to be gripped by the desire of avarice; thus, in horses, high-spiritedness provided an occasion for pride. Finally, all the perturbations of the soul and each one of them, having arisen from brute beasts, have become the origin of vices through the evil use of the mind. On the contrary, if reason transfers the empire over these emotions of the soul to itself, each one of them takes on the form of virtue. For courage arises from irascibility; timidity causes us to protect ourselves with a sure defense; fear makes us C willing to obey; hatred is changed into an aversion to vices; charity excites in us a love of true virtue; high-spiritedness causes us to raise ourselves above all perturbations and preserves a greatness of soul, so that it is less easily overcome by vices to serve in slavery. This kind of elation of soul is certainly heralded by that great Apostle, who frequently exhorts us to set our minds on things that are above. From which it can now be understood that every movement of the soul, raising itself together with the exalted faculty of the mind, is conformed to the beauty of the divine image. But since vices incline downward by a certain gravity of their own, it happens more frequently that the opposite occurs. For the sovereign faculty of the mind is much more quickly weighed down, being pushed by the weight of a brutish nature, than that which is heavy and earthly is raised on high D together with the mind. Therefore, the excellence of the divine gift is often not sufficiently perceived in us, our misery hindering it; and it comes to pass that the beauty corresponding to the divine image is covered over, as though by a most base mask, by the diseases of the flesh. Therefore, they somehow deserve pardon if any, looking at such things, do not easily concede that the image of God can exist in them. That beauty is surely seen in those who have accurately regulated their life according to the norm of virtue. But if you do not believe that one who is subject to the diseases of the soul and given over to the flesh is adorned with divine beauty, then look upon another, whose...
excels virtue, and who is pure from the defilement of sins, will easily confirm you in thinking more kindly of human nature. Some who are noble by their iniquities—Jechoniah, for example, or another famous for his evil deeds—have extinguished the beauty of their nature (for this is more accurately explained by the indication of examples) through the pollution of sins. But Moses, on the contrary, and others like him, have kept the form of the divine image pure. Therefore, in those in whom beauty is not obscured, it is clearly understood to be true that man was made to be the image of God. Perhaps there is someone who deems it a shameful thing that the life of man must be sustained by the use of food, just as that of the brutes, and therefore concludes that it is unworthy of him who is believed to have been made in the image of God. But let him assure himself with a certain hope that in the life which we await, immunity from this duty of nourishing the body will be granted to human nature. For the kingdom of God, as the Apostle says, does not consist in food and drink. And the Lord has declared that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Furthermore, since the resurrection promises us a life equal to that of the angels, and the angels use no food, it must plainly be concluded that man will undoubtedly be freed from this burden one day, if indeed he is to live in the manner of the angels.
Chapter XIX. Against those who assert that the enjoyment of the goods we expect in the next life will consist only of food and drink; and this because it is recorded in Holy Scripture that at the beginning of the world, man sustained his life in Paradise with these same things.
Someone might perhaps object to us at this point that man is not to return to the state of his former life, since that previous life required the use of food, whereas in the future we shall be rid of this labor once and for all. But when I hear what is handed down in the sacred Scriptures, I do not understand it to be merely food for the body, nor do I think of the pleasure of the flesh, but I recognize also some other nourishment, which in a certain way corresponds to that bodily nourishment, yet whose enjoyment pertains only to the soul. "Eat of my bread," Wisdom says to those who hunger; and the Lord likewise declares them happy who long for such food. He also adds this: "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." Likewise, the great Isaiah commands all who are able to grasp his excellent teaching to drink in gladness. There is also a prophetic threat against those who deserve to be subjected to punishment, in which it is foretold that they shall perish by hunger. But this hunger by no means signifies a lack of bread and water, but a deficiency of the divine word. For it says not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but a hunger for hearing the words of the Lord. Therefore, it is fitting to think of the fruit of the divine plantation in Eden (and "Eden" is interpreted as "delights") as corresponding to the character of that place, and to have no doubt that man was nourished by this; and we should by no means think of this transitory and perishable food as being that which existed in the life of paradise. "Of every tree," it says, "that is in the paradise, you shall eat." Who will grant to the one who hungers in a healthy way that tree, the one in paradise, that which is inclusive of every good, whose name is...
which the Word grants to man the participation? For in the universal and transcendent Word, every idea of good exists naturally in itself, and all is one whole. And who shall deliver me from the mingled and ambivalent taste of that tree? For it is by no means hidden from those with sharper vision, what that "all" is, the fruit of which is life, and again, what that mixed thing is, the end of which is death. For He who generously set forth the enjoyment of the whole, by a certain word and providence also keeps man away from the participation of things that are common A to both. And it seems to me fitting to take the great David and the wise Solomon as teachers for the explanation of this Word. For both reckon that the grace of permitted delight is one, the Good itself, which is also the "all" of good. David says, "Delight thyself in the Lord," while Solomon names Wisdom herself, who is the Lord, the tree of life. Therefore, the same is the "all" tree as the tree of life, the eating of which the Word grants to him who was fashioned according to God. But there is set against this tree another tree, the eating of which is a knowledge of good and evil, not that it bears as fruit each of those things signified by the opposite in part, but that it brings forth a certain confused and mixed fruit, blended with opposite qualities, the eating of which the Author of life forbids, but the serpent counsels, that he might prepare the entrance for death. And he becomes a persuasive counselor, adorning the fruit with a certain beauty and pleasure, so that it might be looked upon with delight, and might over-stimulate the appetite for its taste.
CAPUT XX.
What life was in paradise, and what the forbidden tree is.
What then is that which holds the knowledge of good and evil mingled together, and is adorned with the pleasures of the senses? Shall I depart far from the truth if I conjecture, using my understanding of what is known as B an occasion for contemplation? For I think that "knowledge" is not here understood by Scripture as scientific knowledge, but I discover a certain distinction in scriptural usage between knowledge and discernment. For the Apostle says that to discern knowledgeably the good from the evil is a mark of a more perfect state, and of senses that have been exercised; C wherefore he also issues a command to prove all things, and says that to discern is the property of the spiritual man. But "knowledge" does not everywhere signify science and information, as the word itself seems to denote, but a certain affection of the soul toward that which is pleasing to us; as, "The Lord knew those who were his"; and to Moses He says, "I have known thee above all"; and concerning those convicted of wickedness, He who knows all things says, "I never knew you." Therefore, the tree from which
A the fruit of promiscuous knowledge is gathered, is among those things which are forbidden. And that fruit is mixed by means of contraries, having the serpent as an advocate for itself, perhaps for this reason: that evil does not lie out naked, appearing by itself according to its own nature. For otherwise wickedness would be ineffectual, joined to no good that might draw the deceived one toward desire for it. But as it is, the nature of evil is somehow mixed, having destruction in the depths, hidden like some snare, while in the appearance it presents a kind of fantasy of the good. To the greedy, the luster of material wealth seems good; but greed becomes the root of all evils. And who would have slipped into the foul mire of intemperance, if one who is dragged down by this bait toward the passion did not think pleasure to be something good and desirable? In the same way, the other sins also, though they conceal certain ruin, seem at first to be desirable, and insinuate themselves into the minds of the imprudent as something good. B Since, therefore, the greater part of mankind judges that to be good which delights the senses—and since there is a homonymy between what is and what seems to be good—for this reason, the desire directed toward evil as if toward the good was named by Scripture "the knowledge of good and evil," interpreting a certain disposition and blending of this knowledge. It is neither absolutely evil, because it is garlanded with the good, nor purely good, because evil is hidden underneath; but it says that the fruit of the forbidden tree is mixed by both, the tasting of which it declared to lead those who touched it unto death, shouting the doctrine aloud, so to speak, that the truly good is simple and uniform by nature, estranged from all duplicity and any combination of mutually opposed things. But evil is varied and disguised, appearing to be one thing, but being found through experience to be another; it is the knowledge—that is to say, the reception through experience—that becomes the beginning and basis of death and corruption. For this reason the serpent displays the wicked fruit of sin, not by showing the evil as it was by nature in an open manner (for the man would not have been deceived by an obviously manifest evil); but having made it appear attractive for a time, and having infused a certain pleasure according to the senses into the taste, it appeared plausible C to the woman, as Scripture says: "And the woman saw," it says, "that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes to behold, and fair to look upon; and taking of its fruit, she ate." And that eating became the mother of death to men. This, therefore, is that mixed fruit-bearing, with the discourse clearly interpreting the understanding of why that tree was named "of the knowledge of good and evil"—namely, that according to the wickedness of poisons blended with honey, insofar as it sweetens the sense, it seems to be good, but insofar as it destroys the one who touches it, it becomes the ultimate of all evil. Since, therefore, the wicked poison had worked against the life of the human being, then the D
fruit: for the Holy Scriptures clearly declare in what sense they called this the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For indeed, just as poisons mixed with honey are pleasant to the senses because of their sweetness, and are thus deemed a good thing, yet they kill the one who uses them, and are therefore considered the most extreme of all evils. This poison, then, as soon as it assailed human life, caused that noble work and name of man—and thus the image of the divine nature—to put on, as the Prophet says, the likeness of vanity. Therefore, the image must now be referred to those parts in us that are more excellent. Whatever things are troublesome and sad in life must, of course, be far removed from the likeness of the divine nature. A
CHAPTER XXI
That the resurrection from the dead is to be expected not so much because of the prediction of the Holy Scriptures as because of the necessary order of things.
But in truth, the strength of evil is not such that it can overcome the power of the good, nor is our nature's imprudence either superior or more constant than the wisdom of God. For it cannot be that what is changed and altered by turns should be more firm and durable than that which is always disposed in the same way and is fixed and stable in the good; for the counsel of God holds its immutability perpetually in all things: but our nature, being subject to change, does not even persist constantly in evil. For that which is always moving, if it makes its progress toward the good, because of the infinity of the object which it tries, as it were, to traverse, never ceases to reach forward. For it will find no end of the good it seeks, such that, having grasped it, it might ever cease from its motion. B But if it should turn its course toward the opposite, when it has finished the path of evil and arrived at the ultimate measure of evil, then that perpetual motion of the impulse, finding no rest by nature, must, when it has run through the interval of evil, necessarily turn its motion back toward the good. For since evil is in no way infinite, but is bounded by certain definite limits, it must necessarily follow that the extremity of evil is succeeded by the good. And thus, as has been said, the perpetual motion of our nature will at last return to the path of the good, being corrected by the memory of our previous distresses, so that we may take every care not to fall again into similar miseries. We shall therefore dwell again at some time in the course of the good, since it is certain that the nature of evil is bounded by certain necessary limits. For just as those who are learned in the things above us tell us that the whole universe is full of light, and they affirm that darkness occurs from the shadow of the earthly body turning itself away from the sun, when indeed, behind it, according to the shape of the round body, the shadow is enclosed in the likeness of a cone. For the sun, being many times larger than the earth, embraces it on all sides with its rays, and at the extremity of the cone joins together the junctures of the light, so that, by way of hypothesis, if one could have the power to traverse the measure of distance into which the shadow extends, he would by all means be in the light, which is not interrupted by the darkness; C so, I think, we should also conceive of ourselves: that having passed through the limit of evil, when we have arrived at the extreme D
and we have passed the boundary of evil, and have come to the furthest shadow of sin, then we shall surely live in the light again, when the nature of good, compared to the magnitude of evil, surpasses it by infinite degrees. Wherefore we shall again be sent into the possession of paradise; we shall again enjoy that wood, which is even the wood of life. The excellence of the image and the dignity of the dominion shall be restored to us. I do not speak of dominion over those things which are subjected to men for the use of this life, but I establish that there is another kind of kingdom to be expected by us, the whole account of which is among those things that cannot be told by speaking. A
Chapter XXII. Refutation of those who object: Why has the human race not already been raised from death long ago, and why is the resurrection awaited after certain intervals of time, if indeed it is to be thought a good thing?
B Let us hold fast to the continuous sequence of the things being explained. For perhaps someone, with his mind lifted on the wings of sweetest hope, will think it a heavy and grievous thing that those goods are not immediately attained, which far exceed human sense and understanding, and will deem the intermediate delay of time, whereby we are kept from the enjoyment of the most longed-for thing, to be vehemently unwelcome. But let no one be afflicted for this reason, or take it ill in a childish manner that the enjoyment of pleasant things is deferred for a short interval. For since all things are governed by certain reason and wisdom, it is absolutely necessary to confess that none of the things that happen occur without reason, and that the wisdom which is in that reason is at work. But what, you will ask, is this reason, on account of which the change from this sad life does not happen into the desirable life, but is deferred to certain definite spaces of time, and this burdensome life in the body awaits the end of the completion of all things, so that then, as if liberated from a certain bridle and made, as it were, its own master, it might run its course toward the blessed life that is free from all diseases? Whether our discourse in this exposition is consistent with the truth, Truth itself clearly understands; to me, however, that which comes to mind is of this kind. I repeat, therefore, first what was indicated above: “Let us make,” says God, “man after our image and likeness; and God made man, and after the image of God He made him.” Hitherto the image of God in the whole human nature must be understood to be absolute and perfect in its own numbers. But Adam had not yet been made; for Adam, according to the etymology of the name, signifies C “earth-born,” D as those skilled in the Hebrew tongue hand down. Therefore the Apostle, excellently educated in his native language, calls the man made from the earth “dusty,” as it were turning the term “Adam” into the Greek language. Man, therefore, was made according to the image of God, namely, the whole nature of men, that divine work. And he was made by the omnipotent wisdom of God not as a part of the whole, but as the entire fullness of the nature at once. He who has encompassed all the ends saw—as Scripture says, which says, “In His hand are the ends of the earth”—He saw, knowing all things even before their creation, [containing...]
to what number the human race would have to be multiplied in the individual instances. And since He observed our inclination toward the worse in our formation, and that we would voluntarily fall away from the equal honor we shared with the angels, and attach ourselves to communion with the lowly, for this reason He mingled something of the irrational with His own image. For there is no difference of male and female in the divine and blessed nature; but by transferring to man the peculiarity of the irrational structure, He did not bestow the multiplication upon our race while it was in the high state of its creation. For He did not add the power to increase and multiply to man at the time He made him in His image, but when He had B distinguished him by the difference of male and female, then He says: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” For such a thing is not characteristic of the divine nature, but of the irrational, just as the history indicates by recounting that these things were said by God first to the irrational creatures; so that if He had added to man the power through this voice to increase before He had imposed upon our nature the difference of male and female, we would not have had need of that kind of birth through which the irrational creatures are born.
Now, this having been foreseen by the prognostic energy, as the fullness of men was destined to pass into life through a more animal-like generation, God, who governs all things with a certain order and sequence, since He made this kind of generation absolutely necessary for humanity because of the inclination of our nature toward the low, which He saw before it came to be, who sees the future as clearly as the present—for this reason He also C foresaw a time commensurate with the formation of men, so that the extension of time might be completed in correspondence with the passage of the determined souls, and that then the flowing motion of time might stand still, when the human race should no longer be produced through it; and when the generation of men is completed, time should end together with its conclusion, and thus the reconstitution of the whole should take place, and by the change of the whole, the human element should also be exchanged from the corruptible and earthy to that which is impassible and eternal. And this, it seems to me, the divine Apostle also understood, when he foretold through his Epistle to the Corinthians the sudden cessation of time and the reversal of things that were previously moving, in which he says: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in an atom, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” D For when the fullness of human nature, as I suppose, had reached its end according to the foreknown measure, because there would no longer be anything lacking to the number of souls nor any further need for increase, he taught that the interchange of existing things would take place in an indivisible point of time, naming that indivisible—
A and ultimate limit of time—so that there is no longer any possibility of reaching that final and topmost peak of the age, since no part of the summit remains, nor of undergoing that periodic change through death—but only if the trumpet of the resurrection were to sound, awakening the dead, and suddenly transforming those left behind in life, in the likeness of those changed by the resurrection, toward incorruption, so that the weight of the flesh no longer presses downward nor pins the heavy mass to the earth, but being raised on high it traverses the very air. For the Apostle added: "We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord." Therefore, let one await the time that of necessity extends along with the growth of humanity. For even the patriarchs around Abraham had the desire to see those good things, and did not cease seeking the heavenly fatherland, as the Apostle says; but nonetheless they are still in the state of hoping for the grace, God having foreseen something better concerning us, according to the voice of Paul: "Lest," he says, "they should be made perfect without us."
If, therefore, those who preceded us by many ages bear this delay willingly, seeing the good things only by faith and hope, and embracing them, as the Apostle testifies, since they placed the certainty of the enjoyment of the things hoped for in the trustworthiness of Him who promised—what must perform those of us, the majority, for whom perhaps there is not even the hope of the better things arising from our past lives? Even the soul of the Prophet failed from intense desire, and he confesses this passionate love through the psalmody, saying that his soul longs and fails to be in the courts of the Lord, even if he were to be thrown among the lowest; as it is a greater and more preferable thing to be the lowest in those places than to have the first rank in the tents of sinners throughout life. Nevertheless, he endured the delay, while calling that life blessed, and preferring a brief participation in it to thousands of years. "Better," he says, "is one day in thy courts than thousands," yet he was not vexed by the necessary ordering of things, and deemed it sufficient for the blessedness of men to hold the good things by hope. Wherefore he says at the end of the psalmody: "O Lord God of hosts, blessed is the man who puts his hope in Thee." Therefore, we too should not be distressed concerning the brief delay of the things hoped for, but should make it our care that we C do not become excluded from the things hoped for. For just as if someone were to announce to those who are less experienced that the gathering of fruits will take place at the season of harvest, and that the storehouses will be full, and the table full of food in the season of abundance; one would be foolish to hasten the arrival of the time D
since it is necessary first to sow the seed and with great industry to prepare the fruits yourselves. The time indeed will arrive, whether you wish it or not, when the order of things requires it. But the arrival of that time will find A in a different state the man who has managed with diligence to prepare for himself a rich store of fruits, compared with him who has been left by the hour devoid of any preparation. Thus I think, since it is evident to all through the divine proclamation that the time of this change will come, that we should not busy ourselves with the times (for He did not say it is for us to know the times and seasons), nor seek out any reasonings through which one might weaken the soul regarding the hope of the resurrection; but rather, leaning firmly upon the faith of the things hoped for, he should, through a good way of life, anticipate that future grace.
CHAPTER XXIII. That he who confesses that the world has an origin must necessarily also concede that it will have an end.
If anyone, observing the current course of the world proceeding in a certain order by which the interval of time is observed, were to say that it is in no way possible that the things now in motion should ever cease according to the divine oracles, such a one clearly does not even believe that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. For he who grants a beginning to motion B certainly does not doubt concerning an end; and he who does not expect the end has not acknowledged the beginning either. But just as we understand the ages to have been framed by the word of God, believing, as the Apostle says, that things which are seen were made of things which do not appear, we shall use the same faith regarding the word of God, which has necessarily predicted the cessation of all existing things from their motion. As for the "how," we must exclude curiosity; for in that case, too, we accepted by faith that what is seen was framed from things not yet appearing, passing over the investigation of what is beyond our reach. And yet, the matter suggested that we should be at a loss about many things, offering no small grounds for doubting what we believe. For it would have been possible for contentious men C to use plausible arguments to overturn our faith, so as to make us not believe as true the account of the creation of matter, which holy Scripture upholds, asserting that the genesis of all existing things is from God. For those who stand in opposition to this doctrine try to prove that matter is co-eternal with God, and to confirm their opinion they use arguments of this kind: If God is simple by nature, and immaterial, and without quality, and without magnitude, and incomposite, and free from the boundaries of form; but all matter is grasped in a spatial extension D and does not escape the comprehension of the senses, being known in color, and shape, and mass, and size, and resistance, and the other things observed concerning it, of which there is nothing in the divinenature: how A can it be that matter was created by that which is entirely devoid of matter? And from that in which there are no dimensions, a nature which possesses all of these? For if we must believe that all things have proceeded from God, they surely came into being in an inexplicable way, existing within God himself. But if there was something "material" within Him, how can He be immaterial, possessing matter within Himself? Similarly, the same can be said of all other things through which the material nature is characterized. If quantity exists in God, how is God without quantity? If composite substance exists in Him, how is He simple, indivisible, and incomposite? Thus, reason B forces us to one of two conclusions: either we must confess that God consists of matter, since the matter of all things originated from Him; or, if one rejects this, we must maintain that God created matter outside of Himself, from which He then fashioned this universe. If, then, matter existed outside of God, it was undoubtedly something else other than God, coeternal with the Unbegotten in the sense of being beginningless; and thus two things are established which are both beginningless and unborn, recognized by reason as existing together—the one working with technical skill, the other receiving this scientific activity. And if, because of this necessity, anyone should suppose that matter lay before the Creator of all things from eternity, how much support will the Manichæans find for their own dogmas, seeing that they oppose a material C cause as being equally unbegotten to the good nature! Indeed, we believe that all things are from God, as we hear the sacred Scriptures affirming; yet how they were in God, since this exceeds the understanding of our reason, we do not think should be investigated, being persuaded that God is able to do all things—both to create something from nothing, and to imbue what is created with such qualities as He sees fit. From this it necessarily follows that just as we establish that the power of the divine will alone suffices for the creation of that which does not exist, so also, if we leave the restoration of things already created to the same power, we will believe nothing that is inconsistent with the truth. Although, perhaps, we might even be able to satisfy those who contend about matter in this way by an investigation of certain reasons, so that we might not appear to have wished to say nothing about it at all.
CAPUT XXIV. Refutation of those who say that matter and God are coeternal.
For the D opinion concerning matter, which maintains that it originated from that which is beyond nature and free from all matter, and which is grasped only by the intelligence of the mind, must not be removed from the number of those things which are investigated by reason. For all matter is endowed with certain qualities, and if it were to be stripped of these in reality, it could no longer be grasped by reason. While reason can indeed separate the different kinds of qualities from the underlying matter, the reason of the mind is a certain proper contemplation, not a physical action of the body. For instance, let there be proposed for our consideration some animal, or wood, or any other thing which has a material constitution; we have observed many things concerning the subject through intellectual division, each of which, in relation to the things considered with it,
lacks any real combination A. For the definition of color is one thing, that of weight is another, that of quantity is another, and that of the quality perceived by touch is yet another. Indeed, softness, the two-cubit measurement, and the rest of the things mentioned, are not associated with one another, nor with the body according to reason. For as regards each of these, its own distinctive definition is conceived, which shares nothing with any other quality viewed in the underlying subject. If, therefore, color is intelligible, and tangibility, quantity, and the rest of such properties are likewise intelligible, and if the removal of each of these from the underlying subject dissolves the whole definition of the body, it would be logical to conclude that it is the concurrence of these things that brings forth material nature. For just as there is no body in which color, figure, tangibility, extension, B weight, and the rest of the properties are not present—and yet each of these is not a body, but is found to be something else apart from the body according to its specific trait—so in reverse, wherever the aforementioned things concur, they bring about the bodily subsistence. But surely, if the understanding of these properties is intellectual, and the Divine is by nature intellectual, it is not inconsistent to say that these rational, formative principles for the genesis of bodies have subsisted from the incorporeal nature, with the intellectual nature establishing the intelligible powers, and the material nature bringing those things—by their concurrence with one another—into generation. But let these points be examined by us as matters on the side. We must return our argument C to the faith, through which we have accepted that the universe came into being from non-existence, and, having been taught by Scripture that it is to be transformed again into another state, we do not doubt.
CAPUT XXV.
How one who is even an outsider might be persuaded to believe in the Scripture which teaches concerning the resurrection.
But perhaps someone, looking at bodies that have been dissolved and measuring the Divine by the standard of his own power, says that the account of the resurrection is impossible, and that it is not possible for things that are currently moving to stop, nor for those not currently moving to be raised up. But let such a person make the trustworthiness of its proclamation D the first and greatest proof of the truth concerning the resurrection. For the conviction of those things that are said has its security from the outcome of the other things that have been foretold. For since the divine Scripture has set forth many and various accounts, it is possible for those who observe how the rest of the things said have fared—whether in falsehood or truth—to comprehend through them the doctrine concerning the resurrection. For if in other matters the accounts are proved false and straying from the truth, this too is by no means free of falsehood. But if all other things have experience as a witness to their truth, it would be logical to deem the prediction concerning the resurrection also as true through them. Therefore, let us bring to our memory one or another of those things which have been foretold—
divinely announced, and compare the outcome with the predictions, so that we may know by these things if the discourse looks toward the truth. Who is there who does not know how the Israelite nation once flourished in abundance of all things, even when it rose up against the other empires of the world? How splendid were the palaces at Jerusalem! The walls! The towers! What magnificence of the temple! It is clear that the disciples of the Lord themselves considered these things worthy of admiration. For, affected by a certain astonishment at the sight of them, they even invited the Lord to contemplation with these words, as is set forth in the sacred Gospel: "What manner of stones and what buildings are here!" But He points out to those who then admired the place, the desolation that was to be there and that the entire elegance of the structure was to perish in such a way that he predicted that not long after, nothing would remain of the things which were then seen. And at the time of His own passion, when some women following Him lamented that an unjust sentence had been passed against the innocent—for they did not yet discern the causes of the divine counsel by which these things were happening—He warned them not to lament His own lot, which it was not right to lament, but to defer their complaints and lamentations to that time which was truly destined for tears, when enemies would surround the city with a siege and would attack it; and because the Israelite nation would be overtaken by such miseries in a continuous series, that they would pronounce those happy who had brought forth no offspring. And I determine that by those words, in which He prophesies that at that time they would consider a barren womb happy, that great crime of the woman is indicated, who is said to have satiated herself with the flesh of her own son. Where, therefore, are those splendid palaces now? Where is the temple? Where are the walls? Where are the battlements of the towers? Where is the republic of the Israelites? Do we not see them scattered, I might almost say, throughout the entire world? Have not the palaces been overturned along with them? And to me, indeed, the Lord seems to have predicted these things not for the sake of the things themselves, since the hearers would have had no advantage from a prediction of things which they were destined to know for certain even by experience itself, though they had not been predicted, but so that from these things He might further instill a certain persuasion in their minds concerning far greater matters. For because the outcome of these things corresponded to the prediction, it demonstrates that the rest will also certainly come to pass. D For just as, if someone happens to be unskilled in agriculture when a farmer explains the power of seeds and does not have faith, the farmer thinks it sufficient for the indication of the truth to show the force and power in one grain of all those which the measure contains, and to promise that what he affirms of the one is also true of the others. For he who has seen that from one grain of wheat, or barley, or some other grain contained in a full measure, once cast into the clod, an ear of corn is born, it is necessary that he no longer doubt about the rest because of the one. Thus, the truth, corresponding in other divine oracles, also seems to win faith for this arcane doctrine concerning the resurrection. Although
A the marvel concerning the resurrection was great and beyond belief, the Lord, beginning with the lower miracles, gradually accustomed our faith to the greater ones. For just as a mother, nursing her infant in a manner appropriate to its state, at first puts milk into its mouth through the nipple while it is soft and liquid; but when it is already teething and growing, she brings it bread—not rough and unprocessed, lest the soft and untrained gums be injured by the hardness of the food, but having softened it with her own teeth, making it proportionate and suitable to the strength of the one being nourished; then, as its strength increases by degrees, having accustomed the infant to softer things, she gradually brings it to firmer food—so also does the Lord, nourishing and nursing our human faint-heartedness as if it were an immature infant by means of miracles. First, he initiates the power of the resurrection during an incurable illness—a feat great in its accomplishment, yet not such that it would be deemed unbelievable when spoken of. For after rebuking the fever that was fiercely burning the mother-in-law of Simon, he wrought such a B change in the malady that she immediately had sufficient strength to serve those present, though she had been expected just before to die. Then, he adds a little to the power, and he raises the son of the royal official who was lying in an acknowledged danger (for so the history says, that he was about to die, with the father crying out: "Come down before the child dies!")—again performing [the rising] of one believed to have died, having accomplished the miracle with greater power, in that he did not even approach the place, but sent life from afar by the strength of a command. Again, by sequence, he ascends to higher miracles. For when he set out toward the daughter of the synagogue leader, he intentionally gave time to the journey, making public the healing of the woman with the flow of blood that had gone unnoticed, so that in that interval death might gain mastery over the sick girl. Now, therefore, just as the soul had been separated from the body, and while people were making an uproar with the mournful wail of those lamenting the calamity, he raises the girl back to life as if from sleep with a commanding word, in a way and by a sequence leading human weakness toward the greater thing. C Then, beyond these, he transcends with a miracle and by a higher power prepares the way for men toward faith in the resurrection. The Scripture records a certain city in Judea, Nain. There was in it an only son of a certain widow, no longer such a child as one might find among youths, but one already graduating from childhood to manhood. The narrative calls him a young man; the history relates many things in few. The narrative is a lamentation outright. A widow, it says, was the mother of the one who had died. You see the gravity of the calamity, how the account trag D icizes the pathos in few words. Rursus hoc etiam alio quodam miraculo superat, et potestate excelsiore viam hominibus struit, ut fore ex mortuis resurrectionem crederent. Proditum est enim sacris Litteris, Naim oppidum Judææ quoddam fuisse. In eo viduæ mulieri filius erat unicus, non jam amplius ætate puer, sed qui ex ephebis excessisset, et virorum in numero censeretur. Historia quidem sacra juvenem appellat: atque paucis ea profecto verbis multa complectitur: ipsa narratio tantum non lamentatio est. Erat, inquit mater ho-
of a man who had passed from life, a widowed woman. Do you see how heavy that affliction was? How tragically words not many in number declare a most sad matter? For what else do you think could be said, than that there was no hope left for her of bearing children, by which she could have consoled this sad event? She was, of course, a widow; there was no one to whom she could look except him who had already passed his final day on earth; and he was also an only child; anyone who does not wander in nature like an unknown guest understands how much evil there is in that. A When she brought this one alone into the light, she had experienced the pains of childbirth, to him alone she had offered her breasts; he alone cheered his mother at the table; he alone was as the material of all joy in the house, whether he played, or handled serious matters, or exercised his body, or was given to hilarity, or went out in public, or engaged in a struggle with someone, or was in a gathering of youths: nothing could be pleasant or excellent to the mother's eyes except him alone. He was already of a suitable age for taking a wife, being otherwise the stock of the whole family, the branch that would propagate posterity, the support of old age. Even the indication of age increases the mourning. For the very flower of beauty is signified to have withered when we say a youth is dead, whose beard had not yet grown to its proper thickness, but the first down had only just begun to bloom, as it were, with the beauty of his cheeks still showing their brightness. What do you think was the state of mind of that miserable woman who was losing such a son? It is necessary that her very vitals were consumed as if by some fire. B Therefore, she afflicted herself with bitter lamentation, when she embraced the corpse of the dead, and remained in mourning for as long as possible: she was by no means hastening to perform the rites for the deceased, but desiring to be sated with grief. Then it is added: that Jesus, when He had looked upon her, was moved by an inner stirring of the bowels to be touched with compassion for her. Therefore, when He had approached, He touched the bier: and immediately those who were carrying it stopped. There then to the dead man, He says, Young man, I say to you, arise. And in this way, restored to life, He gives him to his mother. Therefore, He restored life to this one who had been dead for no small interval, when he was all but buried. Which miracle is now greater than the former, although it was effected by the same command of speech. Indeed, the Lord proceeds to an even higher prodigy, so that we might rather approach the miracle of resurrection through manifest affections, which is otherwise difficult to believe. C A certain man, a friend and acquaintance of the Lord, was afflicted with illness, whose name was Lazarus. D Although he was dear to Him, the Lord did not wish to visit him, while He was far away from him: so that there might be enough of both place and opportunity for death in the absence of life, to effect that which is proper to it by the aid of disease. He indicates to the disciples what had happened to Lazarus while they were in Galilee: and also His journey to him, so that He might wake him as he lay. But they, fearful for their own affairs because of the ferocity of the Jews, judged that it would be grave and dangerous for them if they returned to Judea at such a time, and offered themselves to be slaughtered by murderers. Therefore, weaving delay from delay, they finally return late from Galilee. For the Lord's power was superior to their will. And so the disciples were led by Him, so that at Bethany the beginnings of the mystery concerning the resurrection, by which
hominis postremum decus. A Since all the customary funeral rites had been performed for the deceased, the body was hidden in the tomb. It had already swelled, as is natural, and was dissolving into decay, turning to liquid in the rot of the earth, and the body was necessarily falling apart. It was a loathsome sight, as nature was compelled to restore to life that which had already been dissolved into stench. At that point, the work of the universal resurrection, which is so hard to believe, was brought to proof by an even more manifest miracle. For it is not the case that someone is raised from a severe illness, nor is one who is drawing his last breath restored to life, nor is a child newly dead brought back to life, nor is a young man about to be carried to the tomb released from his bier; rather, a man of advanced age, dead, stale, already swollen and decomposed—to the point that even his own kin thought it unendurable for the Lord to approach the tomb because of the foul stench of the decaying body—was restored to life by a single call, and thereby B confirms the proclamation of the resurrection; that is, that which is awaited for the whole human race, we have learned by experience in a particular case.
For as the Apostle says, that at the time of the restoration of all things, the Lord himself will descend at a command, at the voice of the archangel, and will raise the dead to immortality by the trumpet-blast, so now, too, treating death as a kind of sleep, the one in the tomb, shaking off the weight and shedding the decay that had come upon his corpse, leaps forth from the tomb, whole and sound, not even hindered in his exit by the bands of the burial cloths that wrapped his feet and hands.
Are these things small in comparison to the proof of the resurrection of the dead? If you seek to have your judgment regarding this confirmed by other means, it does not seem to me to have been in vain that the Lord spoke to the citizens of Capernaum, as if he were putting words into the mouths of men, saying: "You will surely quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself.'" For it was fitting that, having accustomed men to the wonder of the resurrection in other bodies, he should verify the word in the body he had taken from us. C You have seen the proclamation effectively declared and confirmed in others. Those who were about to die, the child who had just stopped living, the young man being carried to his tomb, and finally the corpse already putrefied—you saw all of them, at the command of a single voice, abandon death and return to life.
Do you seek also those who met death through wounds and blood, lest anyone think that in these cases the power of the life-giving force might be too weak to grant the grace? Look upon him whose hands were pierced with nails. Look upon him whose side was pierced by a spear. Pass your fingers through the marks of the nails. Insert your hand into the wound from the spear. You will surely estimate to what depth the point penetrated, D calculating the path inward by the breadth of the gash. For the wound that was wide enough to accommodate the entry of a human hand, how deep does it show the iron to have gone? If, therefore, he has been raised...
a violent thrust of a spear, you may form a conjecture. For how deeply must the iron have penetrated when the wound itself could receive a man's uncertain hand! Since, therefore, he has been raised from the dead, with no one, I suppose, gainsaying it, we may use these words of the Apostle: "How do some dare to say that there is no resurrection of the dead?" Since, then, it is clear that the Lord's prophecies regarding this are true, and that the event has corresponded to the rest of His oracles; and since He has declared that the resurrection will occur, not just in words but in deed itself, having brought some back to life through the resurrection, what remaining excuse have those who do not believe? Shall we, having said "Be steadfast" to those who are led astray by philosophy and vain deceit, merely content ourselves with simple confession and possess nothing more? Having learned in a few words through the Prophet the manner of the grace, where he says: "You shall take away their spirit, and they will fail, and return to their dust. You shall send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, and A you will renew the face of the earth." At that time, too, the Prophet adds that the Lord will take pleasure in His works, when wicked men are removed from the earth. For how could anyone be called by that name if the very reality were completely removed and abolished?
CHAPTER XXVI.
That the resurrection is not contrary to reason.
But there are some who, because of the weakness of human reasoning, are led to measure the divine power by our own standards, stating that what our mental capacity cannot grasp cannot be performed by God. For they bid us look to those who have long since died and been reduced to nothing, and whose bodies have been placed on pyres and burned. Their discourse objects to us the mention of carnivorous beasts, and even fish that have swallowed the flesh of shipwrecked men. They add that it happens that men, in turn, feed on these and, once digested, convert them into their own flesh. C They recite many such things, which are truly trivial and unworthy of the great power and authority of God, in order to overturn our doctrine of the resurrection. As if God were unable to restore to each person that which is his own, returning it to its former state by the same paths, as it were. But let us cut short their long-winded, inept, and sophistical declamations; let us acknowledge that the body of a man is resolved into those parts of which it consists, and that not only is the earth, according to the divine word, returned to the earth, but also that air and moisture betake themselves to the things of the same kind, with all the parts in us tending toward their kindred things—whether the human body is devoured by carnivorous birds, or by wild beasts, or by fish, or D finally, if it is placed on a pyre, reduced to smoke and ashes. In whatever place, however, we may posit the human body to be, it will certainly be established, I think, that it is undoubtedly contained within this world. Furthermore, the world is in the hand of God, as the divinely inspired voice teaches. If, therefore, you are not ignorant of anything that is in your own palm, do you suppose that your own power...
of discernment is of a higher order than God’s, as if He were not able to perceive the accuracy A of all things which His hand encompasses?
CHAPTER XXVII
That it is possible, when the human body is scattered into the elements of the universe, that what is proper to each individual is nevertheless restored from that commonality.
That it is possible for the human body, once dissolved into the elements of the universe, to be restored from that common store to each individual as their own.
But perhaps when you look at the elements of the universe, you think it very difficult for that which is proper to each individual body to flow back again from the common mass, once the spirit in us has been dispersed into the kindred element, and the heat, and moisture, and earthly parts have likewise become intermingled with the things of their own kind. Why, I pray, do you not reason from human examples, and conclude that this does not exceed the bounds of divine power? You have surely seen, B at some point in human settlements, a common herd of animals gathered together. Yet, when it is later distributed back to its owners, both the habit of returning to their homes and the marks imprinted upon them restore to each person their own. If you think of yourself in this same way, you will by no means stray from the truth. For since the soul, by a certain natural relationship and affection, pursues the body with which it once lived, there is in it a certain hidden affection or recognition, stemming from that former union, with nature as if imprinting marks upon each individual, so that the things we speak of are not confounded in that common mass, but a certain distinction of the individuals remains.
Since, therefore, the soul draws back to itself what is akin and proper to it, what toil is there, I ask you, for the divine power to prevent the intermingling C of things related to one another, when they are carried toward their own by a certain ineffable attraction of nature? For that certain signs of our composition remain with the soul even after dissolution, is shown by the dialogue in Hades, where the bodies had been consigned to the tomb, yet a certain bodily mark remained with the souls, by which Lazarus was recognized, and the rich man was not unknown. Therefore, it is nothing contrary to what is likely to believe that the dissolution of the bodies being raised occurs from the common back to the proper, especially by one who examines our nature with greater diligence. For we are not entirely subject to decay and change. D For otherwise, we would be entirely incomprehensible, having no stability by nature. But according to more accurate reasoning, part of what is in us stands firm, while part passes on through change. For the body is changed through growth and decrease, much like garments, putting on succeeding ages. Yet through every change, the form remains itself, unchanged, not departing from the marks once imprinted upon it by nature, but appearing through all the turns of the body with its own proper characteristics. Let us, however, exclude from this account the change caused by suffering, which happens to the form; for the deformity of sickness occupies the form like a strange mask.
A that, when it is removed by the word [of God], just as in the case of the Syrian Naaman, or those mentioned in the Gospel, the form hidden by the affliction again appears in its own proper characteristics through the restoration of health. Therefore, to the God-like part of the soul, it is not that which flows and changes in the alteration that clings, but rather that which is permanent and unchanging in our composition. And since the various differences in temperament transform the qualitative characteristics of the form—and "temperament" is nothing other than the mixture of the elements (by "elements" we mean those things underlying the construction of the universe, from which the human body also consists)—of necessity, since the form remains in the soul like the impression of a seal, the elements that have been imprinted by the seal are not ignored by it. Rather, at the time of the reconstitution, it receives back into itself those things that will harmonize with the pattern of the form; and those things will certainly harmonize which were originally imprinted upon the form.
Therefore, it is not at all outside the bounds of probability that what is proper to each individual should return from the common store to the individual again. It is said that quicksilver, if poured out upon a flat, dusty surface, breaks up into fine globules and disperses into the earth, without mixing with any of the things it encounters. But if one were to collect again what has been widely dispersed, the particles of the same kind would, of their own accord, flow together, with no intervening substance capable of hindering this mixture. I believe that something of this kind must also be supposed concerning the human composition: that as soon as the signal is given by God, the capacity is granted for the parts to be united to their proper and kindred elements of their own accord, without any labor or difficulty being created for the Restorer of nature by these things. B Indeed, even in the things that grow from the earth, we do not see nature put to any labor, such as when wheat, or millet, or any other of the cereal or leguminous seeds C are converted into stalks, beards, and ears. For the nutriment appropriate to each seed is transferred from the common supply to the use of individuals by their own impulse, without any effort on the part of nature. If, therefore, there is a common moisture for all things that grow, and each of the things nourished by it draws out what is appropriate for its own increase, what is strange if, in the doctrine of the resurrection, it also happens that each of those rising again, just as in the case of seeds, draws to itself its own proper material? So that it is possible to learn from all these things that the proclamation of the resurrection contains nothing outside of those things known by experience. Yet we have remained silent about the most familiar of our own experiences: I mean the very first origin of our formation. For who does not know the miracle of nature, D what the maternal womb receives, and what it produces?
Do you not see how simple, in a certain way, and homogeneous is that which is deposited into the inward parts as the source of the body’s formation? And who can describe in words the variety of the structure that is being fashioned? Who, unless he had learned such a thing from the common nature, would deem it possible that what is small and, as it were, of no account, is the beginning of such a great thing? I speak of something great, not only looking at the formation of the body, but also—and this is more worthy of admiration—looking at the soul itself, and the things contemplated concerning it. A
CHAPTER XXVIII
B *Against those who maintain that souls exist before bodies, or, on the contrary, that bodies were created before souls. The doctrine concerning the migrations of souls, which is consistent with such fables, is also overturned.*For perhaps it would not be foreign to the discussion before us to examine the matter concerning the soul and the body which is debated everywhere in the churches. For it seems to some of the teachers of earlier memory, who wrote commentaries *On Principles*, that the souls of men exist as a kind of nation, living in a commonwealth of their own, long before their bodies. There, they say, examples of both vice and virtue are set before them. And those souls which are constantly devoted to the pursuit of virtue and what is honorable do not at all unite with bodies. But if they fall away from the enjoyment and fellowship of the good, then, they claim, they slide down into this life and are thus sent into bodies. C Others, on the contrary, adhering to the order of the creation of man as described by Moses, say that the soul is later in time than the body. For they recall that Moses says God first fashioned man by taking dust from the earth, and then imbued him with life through the inbreathing. And by this reasoning they attempt to prove that the flesh is more excellent than the soul, since the soul is inserted into flesh that has already been created. For they say that the soul was created for the sake of the body, so that the work of God might not be without breath and motion. But whatever is made for the sake of another thing is, without doubt, baser than that for the sake of which it is instituted. And they urge that there is a reasoning of this kind in the Gospel, when the soul is said to be D more than food, and the body more than clothing: for the latter were established for the sake of the former. For the soul was not made for the sake of food, nor were bodies prepared for the sake of clothing, but since these things already existed, those were devised for their use. Since, therefore, the argument is culpable in both these suppositions—both in that of those who invent the fable that souls live beforehand in a state of their own, and in that of those who imagine them to be formed after bodies—it would be necessary not to leave any of the things said in these doctrines unexamined. But to exercise the arguments from both sides with precision, and to expose all the absurdities inherent in these suppositions, would require a long time and much discourse; yet, as briefly as is possible, let us examine each of those points mentioned. For indeed, carefully, against the reasons
A that are put forward, we shall again take up the subjects set before us. Those who dogmatize that the life of souls in the flesh is of a prior state, do not seem to me to be free from those Greek doctrines that have been mythologized among them concerning the migration of souls. For if anyone were to examine this accurately, he would find that their argument is, by necessity, dragged along into that which one of their wise men is said to have uttered, affirming that he himself was once a man, and then donned the body of a woman, and flew about with birds, and grew as a bush, and chose a life in the waters. He who says these things about himself, in my judgment, was far from the truth. For he prattled like frogs or daws, or in the folly of fishes or the insensibility of oaks, and propagated a doctrine worthy of such things, to say that one soul has passed through so many states. And the cause of such absurdity is the supposition that souls existed beforehand. B For from this starting point, the course of such a doctrine proceeds by consequence to the next and adjacent points, extending until it reaches such monstrosities. For if, through some vice, the soul has been torn away from the higher life, and after—as they say—having once tasted of bodily life, it becomes a man again—though it is admitted that the life in the flesh is entirely more prone to passion than the eternal and incorporeal one—it is a matter of necessity that anyone existing in such a life, in which there are more occasions for sinning, should become stained with more vices, and be more disposed to passion than before. But the passion of the human soul is its likeness to the irrational; and having become habituated to this, it flows down into a brutish nature. And once having entered upon the path of vice, even when it has come to be in an irrational creature, it never finds a stop in its progress toward evil. For the cessation of evil is the beginning of the impulse toward virtue; but virtue does not exist in irrational beings. Therefore, it will of necessity always be altered toward the worse, always proceeding toward what is more base, and always finding something worse than the nature in which it finds itself. And as the sensible has fallen below the rational, so also from this, the transition occurs toward that which is insensible. C But the argument, while proceeding thus far for them, even if it is carried outside the limits of truth, at least derives the absurd from the absurd by a certain sequence. But from this point on, their doctrine is woven from mere fables, with things that in no way cohere even with themselves. For it furthermore follows that the soul entirely perishes. For he who has once fallen, as it were, from that excellent state, will never be able to reach any goal in the course of his vices where he might subsequently rest; but because of the soul’s own affection toward diseases and perturbations, by nature D and because the argument for them, even if it is carried outside the limits of truth, at least derives the absurd from the absurd by a certain sequence. But from this point on, their doctrine is woven from mere fables, with things that in no way cohere even with themselves. For it furthermore follows that the soul entirely perishes. For he who has once fallen, as it were, from that excellent state, will never be able to reach any goal in the course of his vices where he might subsequently rest; but because of the soul’s own affection toward diseases and perturbations, it will move from the rational to the irrational; and from that, it will be transferred to the insensibility of plants; and to the insensible...
as the inanimate; and to this follows that which has no existence at all. Thus, by a general logical consequence, the soul will pass on into non-existence. Therefore, it will be impossible for it, by any necessity, to return to a better state. But furthermore, they bring the soul back from a shrub to a human being. Consequently, from these premises, they demonstrate that life in a shrub is more desirable than an incorporeal existence. For it has been demonstrated that the progress of the soul, which occurs toward the worse, proceeds according to probability toward what is lower. Now, the inanimate is lower than the nature that is destitute of sense—that to which the principle of their doctrine leads the soul by logical consequence. But since they do not desire this, or are shutting up the soul within the senseless, or if they should lead it up thence into human life, they will be proving the life of wood to be more desirable (as has been said) than the first state, if indeed the decline into vice occurred thence, and the return toward virtue happens from thence. Therefore, such an argument is shown to be headless and incomplete, which constructs the view that souls live by themselves B before life in the flesh, and are bound to bodies through vice. And as for those, indeed, who say that the soul is younger than the body, the absurdity has been set forth by what follows. Therefore, the argument from both sides is equally to be rejected. But I think our own doctrine should be set forth in truth by middle way of these assumptions. And this is: neither to suppose, according to the Greek deception, that souls—burdened by some vice of weightiness from accompanying the swiftness of the sphere's motion—fall down to the earth; nor, again, to say that the soul comes into being for the sake of the human being, as if he were a clay statue molded beforehand by the Word. For thus the intellectual nature would be proved to be more dishonorable than the clay formation.
Chapter XXIX.
That the principle of existence is one and the same for both soul and body, is proved.
But since the human being is one, he who consists of soul and body, we maintain that one and a common C principle of his constitution must be assumed, so that he may not be older and younger than himself, with the bodily part being prior in him, and the other part being subsequent. We maintain that, according to the foreknowing power of God—as has been argued a little before—the whole fullness of humanity subsisted beforehand, with the prophecy bearing witness to this, which says that God knows all things before their coming into being. But in the creation of each individual, we must not place one before the other, neither the soul before the body, nor the reverse; so that the human being may not be at variance with himself by being divided in time
A For since our nature is understood, according to the apostolic teaching, as twofold—that is, the visible human being and the hidden one—if the one were to pre-exist and the other were to come later, the power of him who creates would be shown to be imperfect, not being sufficient for the entire work at a single stroke, but dividing the work and being occupied piecemeal with each of the halves. But just as we say that in a grain of wheat or in any other seed, the entire form of the ear—the grass, the stalk, the internodes, the fruit, the awns—is contained potentially (as we say), and yet we do not say that any of these pre-exists in the rationale of nature or is produced by the nature of the seed, but rather that the power inherent in the seed is manifested in a certain natural order, and not that another nature is introduced; by the same logic, we have assumed that human seed contains, at the first moment of its constitution, the power of human nature sown within it. It unfolds and becomes manifest as it proceeds toward perfection through a certain natural sequence, not receiving anything from without to serve as a beginning of perfection, but leading itself toward perfection through that sequence. Thus it is not correct to say that the soul is before the body, nor that the body is without the soul, but that there is one beginning for both: according to the higher rationale, it is founded upon the first counsel of God as upon a bedrock; but according to the other rationale, it is established in the beginnings of our birth. B For just as it is impossible to see the articulation of the limbs in what is deposited in the maternal womb for the conception of the body before it is formed, so neither is it possible to perceive the properties of the soul in the same before it advances to its operations. And just as no one would doubt that that same thing is fashioned into the various limbs and different viscera—with no external power entering in to accomplish this, but with the power naturally inherent in it applying itself to its own work and effect—in the same way we must think of the soul, that even if it offers no signs of itself through certain affections in the external and apparent part of the human being, it is nonetheless present. For the form of the future human being also exists potentially in the seed, and therefore lies hidden; because, being as it were brought into the light, it cannot be seen before the necessary order of things permits. So it is with the soul C in it, even if it does not appear; for it will finally be revealed when, with the body having increased through accretion, it shows itself by its own proper and naturally inherent operation. For since the power for conception is not separated from a dead body, but from one ensouled and living, it is therefore reasonable to think that what is emitted from a living body to initiate life is not dead and inanimate. For that which is in the flesh is indeed of itself something inanimate and dead. But mortality is nothing else than the privation of the soul. Yet no one, I suppose, would say, D
A that that which is inanimate can be established as such by these things. If, however, anyone should seek a still clearer proof of that part—which is the starting point of the animal being fashioned—that it is endowed with life, it is possible to demonstrate this by other signs also, by which the living is distinguished from the dead. For we posit as a proof of life in human beings the fact that it is warm, active, and moving. But that which is cold and motionless in bodies signifies nothing else than death. Since, therefore, we perceive that this thing, regarding which we are speaking, is both warm and active, we conclude from these facts that it is not inanimate. Just as we say that in its bodily part it is not flesh, nor bones, nor hair, nor all those things which are observed in a human being, but rather that it is each of these in potentiality, though not yet appearing according to what is visible, so also in the case of the soul's part: we say that although the rational, the appetitive, B and the irascible faculties, and all that is observed concerning the soul, do not yet have their place in it, nevertheless, relative to the construction and completion of the body, the energies of the soul increase along with the underlying subject. For just as a human being, having achieved maturity in the larger things, has the energy of the soul clearly visible, so in the beginning of its formation, the soul manifests its energy that is suitable and proportionate to the present need, in that it constructs for itself, by means of the provided matter, its own fitting dwelling-place. For we do not consider it possible for the soul to be fitted into foreign structures, just as it is impossible for an impression in wax to be fitted to a different carving. For as the body advances from a very C tiny state toward perfection, so also the energy of the soul, being implanted proportionately to the underlying subject, increases and develops along with it. For in its first construction, the augmenting and nutritive faculty alone takes the lead, like a root hidden in the earth; for the smallness of that which receives it does not admit of anything greater. Then, when the plant has come into the light and shown its growth to the sun, the grace of perception blossoms. And when it has already matured and grown to a proportionate height, the rational faculty begins to shine forth like a fruit—not appearing all at once, but increasing through the perfection of the instrument D by careful development, producing fruit only as far as the capacity of the underlying subject allows. But if you seek the energies of the soul in the forming of the body, "Take heed to yourself," says Moses, and you will read the history of the works of the soul as in a book. For nature itself will narrate to you, more clearly than any speech, the varied activities of the soul within the body, both in the general structure and in the formation of its parts. But I think it superfluous to describe in speech the things that concern ourselves, as if we were recounting some foreign wonders. For who is there, looking at himself,
would desire to learn from another's discourse what his own nature is? For he who understands how we live, and has learned how apt the body is for all the activities proper to life, can also very easily estimate the work of the soul in the first formation of man. Thus also, it is clear A to those who are not unobservant that what is deposited in the workshop of nature for the planting, as it were, of a living being, is not dead and soulless when it is torn from the living body. For we do not entrust to the ground seeds of fruits or shoots of roots that have had the vital faculty implanted in them by nature extinguished; but only when they still preserve the proper power of those from which they have sprung—a power indeed hidden and concealed, yet entirely alive. And such a force is not drawn from the earth as something external (for otherwise dead wood would necessarily flourish by budding), but it is a power already implanted in things, which is merely brought out into the open through the earth, which supplies its own juice; from this the plant, being increased by root, bark, marrow, and the shoots of its branches, is finally fully formed in all its parts. For the same thing could not happen if no natural faculty had been implanted in it, by which, B having drawn to itself related and suitable nourishment from the surrounding parts, either a bush, or a tree, or an ear of corn, or any kind of sprout might be born.
CHAPTER XXX. A somewhat deeper contemplation of human bodily structure, briefly revisited from the perspective of medicine.
C But indeed, each one of us, with nature herself as our mistress and guide, can accurately understand the structure of the body from what he sees and lives and perceives. Or one may take up the history of these matters, laboriously explained in books by men of great learning, and learn everything with precision. Some have investigated how the positioning of each individual part within us is arranged; others have explored the purpose for which all the members of the body were made, and have explained them to us, so that studious persons can now gain from their commentaries a rich knowledge of the human workmanship, lacking in no part. But if one should also desire to learn all these things from the doctrine proper to the assembly of God on earth, so that we may not seem to be in need of any external discipline D (since the law is proposed to the spiritual sheep, as the Lord says, that they should not listen to the voice of another except that of the shepherd), let us briefly discuss these matters as well. There are altogether three things in the nature of the body, for the sake of which the individual members have been made in us. For some were founded so that we might live; others, that we might live well; and others, so that there might be a perpetual succession of posterity in the human race. And those that are of such a kind that, if one were without them, man would not live, are comprised in three members: the brain, the heart, and the liver. As for those which are an addition of good things and a munificence of nature, granting to man a life of well-being, those are the organs of sensation. For things of that kind do not sustain life
A that he does not see things which are, as it were, additions to our good, proceeding from the bountiful generosity of nature, which makes it so that a human being may live pleasantly? These are the instruments of the senses. For our life does not consist in them, since it is possible for a human being to live even when most of these are lost; but it is impossible, without the functions of these, to enjoy the pleasure of the things that are pleasant in human life. The third division proposed relates to the perpetuity of the species. Besides these, there are other members which likewise, along with the others, preserve the life of a human being and provide certain additions consonant with their nature, among which are the stomach and the lungs, of which the latter excites the heat of the heart by air-intake, while the former provides nourishment to the viscera. In this way, the whole structure of our body being divided, it is clearly to be seen that the faculty by which life is contained does not proceed from one member; but nature, having distributed the resources for our constitution among many parts, makes the contribution of each necessary to the whole. And so, those things also which nature has artfully fashioned for the safety and beauty of life are more numerous, and have great differences between them.
But I think that we ought first to distinguish briefly the primary principles of those things which contribute to our life’s constitution. Let the matter of the whole body, which is common to the individual limbs, be passed over in silence for the moment; for to our purpose, the general physiology will contribute nothing toward the particular examination. Since it is agreed by all that there is in us a share of all the elements considered in the world—of the hot and the cold, and of the other couplet understood as the moist and the dry—we must examine each in turn. B
We see, therefore, three administrative powers of life, of which the first cherishes the whole with its heat; the second moistens what has been heated with its moisture, so that by an equitable tempering of qualities opposed to one another, the animal is preserved in a certain mean, neither the moisture being withered away by the excess of heat, nor the heat being extinguished by the predominance of the moistening element. The third power holds together by its own agency, through a certain contribution and harmony, the distinct members with its own ligaments, joining them together most fittingly, and imparts to all the power of moving itself and the power of choice; when this is lacking, the end comes, and the part becomes as if dead, lacking the spirit that moves by choice. C
It would be worth the effort at this point to consider the artifice of nature in the very creation of the body. For since things that are hard and resistant do not admit the activities of the senses, as is to be seen in the bones of our body and in the plants of the earth—in which we understand a certain species of life, in that they grow and are nourished, yet the hardness of the underlying substance does not receive sensation—it was necessary for a certain wax-like structure to be placed under the activities of the senses, one capable of receiving the impression of the sensory forms, and yet not being confounded by an excessive moistness; for not D
A should not the material being molded remain in the fluid state, neither resisting too much in the excess of its solidification—for that which does not yield makes no impression—nor being too soft, but possessing a mean between softness and hardness, so that the animal might not be deprived of the finest of nature’s operations, I mean sensory motion? Since, then, the soft and yielding, having no power from the solid, would have been entirely motionless and unarticulated, like the sea-lungs, for this reason nature blends with the body the hardness of bones. Having united these to one another through a fitting harmony and having tightened their joinings with the ligatures of the nerves, she thus grew around them flesh capable of receiving sensations, and being distributed over the surface, made it both more resistant to injury and more vigorous.
B Having thus placed the whole weight of the body upon this solid nature of the bones, as upon certain load-bearing columns, she did not make the bone for the whole being as one undivided piece. For then man would have remained motionless and incapable of action, if he had been fashioned in such a state, like some tree remaining in one place, neither having the succession of the legs to advance motion forward, nor the utility of the hands available for life. But as it is, she engineered the organ to be capable of transition and action through this design, by instilling into the body the impulse and power for movements through the voluntary spirit that passes through the nerves. Hence comes the ministry of the hands, varied and manifold, and adaptable to every intent. Hence the rotations of the neck, the inclinations and elevations of the head, the activity of the jaws, the opening of the eyelids occurring simultaneously with a nod, and the movements of the remaining joints are performed as if by some machine, through certain nerves being pulled or relaxed. C But the power passing through these has a certain self-commanding impulse, acting in each instance through the voluntary spirit according to a certain economy of nature. The root and principle of the movements according to the nerves has been demonstrated to be the nervous membrane surrounding the brain. We no longer, therefore, deem it necessary to inquire minutely concerning the individual vital parts, since within this the motive energy has been shown.
That the brain contributes the greatest thing to life is clearly shown by what happens from the opposite. For if the membrane surrounding it suffers any wound or rupture, death immediately follows the injury, nature not being able to resist the wound even for a moment; just as when some foundation is pulled out, the whole building is shattered along with the part. Therefore, the part whose affliction makes the destruction of the entire animal evident, this must be acknowledged to hold the cause of life as its primary function. And since, in those who have departed from life, the heat implanted by nature having been extinguished, that which has been deadened...
ψύχεται, διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἐν τῷ θερμῷ τὴν ζωτικὴν A αἰτίαν κατενοήσαμεν. Οὐ γὰρ ἐπιλελοιπότος τῆς νεκρότητος ἐπηκολούθησεν, ἀνάγκη πᾶσα τῇ παρουσίᾳ τούτου συνεστάναι τὸ ζῶον ὁμολογεῖσθαι. Τῆς δὲ τοιαύτης δυνάμεως οἷον πηγήν τινα καὶ ἀρχὴν τὴν καρδίαν κατενοήσαμεν, ἀφ’ ἧς αὐλοειδεῖς πόροι πολυσχιδῶς, ἄλλος ἐξ ἄλλου διαφυόμενοι, παντὶ τῷ σώματι τὸ πυρώδες καὶ θερμὸν διαχέουσι πνεῦμα. Ἐπεὶ δὲ πάντως καὶ τροφὴν ἔδει τινὰ τῷ θερμῷ συμπαρεῖναι παρὰ τῆς φύσεως· οὐ γὰρ ἐνδέχεται τὸ πῦρ ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ μένειν, μὴ διὰ τοῦ καταλλήλου τρεφόμενον· διὰ τοῦτο οἱ τοῦ αἵματος ὀχετοί, καθάπερ ἐκ πηγῆς τινος τοῦ ἤπατος ἀφορμηθέντες, τῷ θερμῷ πνεύματι πανταχῇ κατὰ τὸ σῶμα συμπαροδεύουσιν, ὡς ἂν μὴ μονωθὲν τοῦ ἑτέρου τὸ ἕτερον, διαφθείρῃ τὴν φύσιν, πάθος γενόμενον. Παιδευέτω τοῦτο τοὺς ἀταχτοῦντας περὶ τὸ ἴσον, διδαχθέντας παρὰ τῆς φύσεως, ὅτι ἡ πλεονεξία φθοροποιόν τι πάθος ἐστίν. Ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ μόνον ἀπροσδεές ἐστι τὸ θεῖον, ἡ δὲ ἀνθρωπίνη πτωχεία τῶν ἔξωθεν πρὸς τὴν ἰδίαν σύστασιν ἐπιδέεται, διὰ τοῦτο ταῖς τρισὶ ταύταις δυνάμεσι, δι’ ὧν ἔφαμεν ἅπαν οἰκονομεῖσθαι τὸ σῶμα, ἐπίῤῥυτον ἔξωθεν ἐπεισάγει τὴν ὕλην, διαφόροις εἰσόδοις τὸ κατάλληλον αὐταῖς εἰσοιχίζουσα. Τῇ μὲν γὰρ πηγῇ τοῦ αἵματος, ἥτις τὸ ἧπαρ ἐστι, τὴν διὰ τῆς τροφῆς χορηγίαν ὑπέθηκε. Τὸ γὰρ ἐπεισαγόμενον ἀεὶ διὰ ταύτης, τὰς τοῦ αἵματος πηγὰς βρύειν διὰ τοῦ ἤπατος παρασκευάζει, καθάπερ ἡ ἐπὶ τοῦ ὄρους χιὼν διὰ τῆς οἰκείας ἰκμάδος τὰς κατὰ τὴν ὑπώρειαν αὔξει πηγὰς, διὰ τοῦ βάθους τὸ οἰκεῖον ὑγρὸν ἐπὶ τὰς κάτω φλέβας συνθλίβουσα. B Τὸ δὲ ἐγκάρδιον πνεῦμα διὰ τοῦ γείτονος ἐπεισάγεται σπλάγχνου, ὃ καλεῖται μὲν πνεύμων, ἐστὶ δὲ τοῦ ἀέρος δοχεῖον, διὰ τῆς ἐγκειμένης ἀρτηρίας τῆς ἐπὶ τὸ στόμα διηκούσης, τὸ ἔξωθεν πνεῦμα ταῖς ἀναπνοαῖς ἐφελκόμενον. ῇ κατὰ τὸ μέσον ἡ καρδία ἐνειλημμένη, κατὰ μίμησιν τῆς τοῦ ἀεικινήτου πυρὸς ἐνεργείας, ἀδιαλείπτως καὶ αὐτὴ κινουμένη, οἷόν τι ποιοῦσιν ἐν τοῖς χαλκείοις αἱ φύσαι, ἕλκει τε πρὸς ἑαυτὴν ἐκ τοῦ παρακειμένου πνεύμονος πληροῦσα τῇ διαστολῇ τὰς κοιλότητας, καὶ τὸ πυρώδες ἑαυτῆς ἐκριπίζουσα, ταῖς ἐχομέναις ἀρτηρίαις ἐμπνεῖ. Καὶ τοῦτο ποιοῦσα οὐ διαλείπει, τὸ μὲν ἔξωθεν διὰ τῆς διαστολῆς εἰς τὰς ἰδίας κοιλότητας ἕλκουσα, τὸ δὲ παρ’ ἑαυτῆς διὰ τῆς συμπτώσεως ταῖς ἀρτηρίαις εἰσκρίνουσα. Ὅ μοι δοκεῖ καὶ τῆς αὐτομάτου ταύτης ἀναπνοῆς αἴτιον ἡμῖν γίνεσθαι. Πολλάκις γὰρ ὁ μὲν νοῦς ἄσχολός ἐστι πρὸς ἑτέρους C ἢ καὶ παντάπασιν ἠρεμεῖ, λυθέντος ἐν τῷ ὕπνῳ τοῦ σώματος, ἡ δὲ ἀναπνοὴ τοῦ ἀέρος οὐ διαλείπει, μηδ’ ὁτιοῦν συνεργούσης εἰς τοῦτο τῆς προαιρέσεως. Οἶμαι γάρ, ἐπειδὴ περιείληπται τῷ πνεύμονι ἡ καρδία, καὶ προσπέφυκεν αὐτῷ κατὰ τὸ ὀπίσθιον ἑαυτῆς μέρος, ταῖς ἰδίαις διαστολαῖς καὶ συμπτώσεσι συγκινοῦσα τὸ σπλάγχνον, τὴν τοῦ ἀέρος ὀλκήν τε καὶ ἐμπνοὴν ἐκμηχανᾶσθαι τῷ πνεύμονι. Ἀραιός γάρ τις ὢν καὶ πολύπορος, καὶ πάσας τὰς ἐν αὐτῷ κοιλότητας πρὸς τὸν πυθμένα τῆς ἀρτηρίας ἀνεστομω- D
the lung. For as it is something porous and full of holes, and all the cavities within it are flattened A when it contracts and collapses, the breath left in its hollows is necessarily squeezed out. But by withdrawing and opening up, in its distension it draws in air through the suction into the space that has been vacated. And this is the cause of this involuntary respiration, namely the inability of the igneous element to remain at rest. Since, then, it is proper to heat to produce motion, and we have understood the principle of this to be in the heart, the continuity of the movement in this part produces the uninterrupted impulse of the air and the breathing in through the lung. For this reason, also, when the igneous element is increased beyond nature, the panting becomes more frequent in those suffering from fever, as if the heart were hastening to extinguish the fire latent within it with fresher breath. B But since our nature is needy, and destitute of everything required for its own constitution, it lacks not only air and that breath which stirs the heat—which is continuously imported from without for the preservation of the animal—but it also possesses food as an acquired necessity to support the bulk of the body. For this reason it replenishes what is lacking with food and drink, having infused into the body a faculty of attracting what is absent and pushing away what is redundant; and in this matter, too, the heat of the heart provides no small assistance to nature. For since the heart, as has been indicated, is the most sovereign of the vital organs, being that which keeps the body warm with its heated breath, our Creator caused it to be active on all sides with the power of its agency, so that no part of it might be left idle and useless for the economy of the whole. For this reason, C lying behind the lung, through its perpetual motion, by drawing the organ toward itself, it widens the pores for the intake of air, and by relaxing, causes the trapped air to be exhaled again. But in its anterior part, it is attached to the chamber of the upper stomach, making it warm and causing it to be moved toward its own proper activities; not by stirring it for the intake of breath, but for the reception of appropriate nourishment. For the entrances for both breath and food are naturally near to each other; and as they run along the length one beside the other, they are matched at the top in such a way that they meet, and their pores terminate at a single opening, whence for the one, food, and for the other, breath, finds its entry. But in the depths, the connection of the joined passages does not remain D throughout. For the heart, lying in the middle between the stomach and the lung, imparts the faculties—to the one for respiration, to the other for nutrition. For it is natural for the igneous element to seek out the fuel that sustains it, which indeed also happens by necessity around the receptacle of food. For the more it is kindled by the proximity of the heat, the more greedily it attracts those things that nourish the heat; and this impulse is what we call appetite.
A Yet even if the organ that contains the food has sufficiently grasped the material, the activity of the fire does not cease. Rather, as in a crucible, it melts the material, and having broken down and liquefied the solid components, it pours them, as if through a funnel, into the adjacent passages. Then, having separated the thicker from the pure, it leads the thin part through certain conduits to the ports of the liver, while it thrusts the earthy sediment of the food into the broader passages of the intestines; and by turning it through their winding contortions, it retains the food in the viscera for a time B so that, if it were not easily cast out through the straightness of the passage, it would immediately stir the animal to appetite, and man would never cease from this occupation, after the manner of the irrational nature.
Since the liver required the cooperation of this heat for the sanguification of the liquids, and since this organ is far removed from the heart in its position (for it was not possible, I think, for any principle and root that is a source of vital power to be cramped around the other principle), in order that nothing of the economy might be damaged by the distance of the heating substance, a nervous passage—which those skilled in these matters call an artery—has taken up the fiery spirit from the heart, and carries it to the liver; it is inserted into the liver somewhere near the entrance of the liquids and, having heated the moisture through the heat, it deposits something of the fire's kinship into the moisture, staining the appearance of the blood with a fiery color. C Then, from there, twin conduits, each container of its own pipe-like spirit and blood, setting out—so that the passage may be easy, the liquid moving along with the movement of the heat and being lightened—are scattered in many ways throughout the entire body, dividing into ten thousand beginnings and branches of ducts in every part.
When the two principles of vital powers are mixed together—the one sending heat throughout the body and the other sending moisture—they pay, as it were, a necessary tribute from their own resources to the power that is more sovereign in the vital economy. This is the power observed in the membranes and the brain, from which every movement of a joint, every contraction of muscles, and every voluntary spirit sent to the individual parts, make our earthen statue active and moving, as if by some mechanism. D For the purest part of the heat and the thinnest part of the moisture, having been united by a certain mixing and tempering of both powers, nourish and sustain the brain by means of vapors. From this, again, the supply from it, having been refined into the purest state, moistens the membrane enveloping the brain, which, extending from above downwards in a tube-like fashion through the consecutive vertebrae, and leading itself and the marrow contained within it, ends at the base of the spine; to all the joints of the bones and the connections and the beginnings of the muscles, it, like some charioteer, itself imparts the impulse and the power of each movement and rest.
A For this reason, it seems to me that it deserves the safest guard; and in the head, it is encompassed by a double circuit of bone, while in the vertebrae, protected by the projections of the spines and the interlinked configuration of its joinings—by means of which it is preserved in total immunity, possessing safety through the guard that surrounds it.
Similarly, one might also conjecture with regard to the heart B that, just like a secure house, it has been fitted well on all sides, fortified by the most solid of bone circumferences. For at the back is the spine, secured on either side by the shoulder blades. On either flank, the placement of the ribs, enclosing the central part, ensures that it suffers no harm. In the front, the chest and the junction of the collarbones afford protection, so that in this way it might be safe on all sides against everything that might cause it trouble or even harm.
Just as in agriculture we see the earth being irrigated by rain or the infusion of channels (for let there be proposed to us a certain garden, in which there are various trees in the greatest number and every kind of species of things growing from the earth, which individually differ greatly in form, quality, and color: although so many things are nourished by the moisture of the same place, yet this power, irrigating everything with its own juice, is one and the same by nature, while the things themselves that are nourished transform the imbibed juice into diverse qualities. C For the very same juice becomes bitterness in wormwood, but in hemlock it is transformed into a deadly humor; and it becomes one thing in one plant and another in another—in saffron, in balsam, in poppy; for in some it acquires a hot quality, in others a cold one, in others a tempered one. In the laurel, in the fragrant reed, and in others of this kind, it has fragrance; in the fig and pear, sweetness. In the vine, it is transformed into a grape cluster and wine. It is also transformed into the juice of the apple, into the redness of the rose, into the splendid whiteness of the lily, into the blue of the violet, and into the purple color of the hyacinth. Finally, everything that the earth brings forth, although they come from one and the same moisture, are nonetheless rendered most diverse, whether you consider the form, the species, or the qualities of each).
A certain work of this kind, D and one most admirable, is observed in our field—that animate field, I say: the field of nature? Nay rather, of the very Lord of nature. Bones, cartilages, veins, arteries, nerves, ligaments, flesh, skin, fat, hair, muscles, nails, eyes, nostrils, ears, and all such things, in number nearly infinite, though distinguished from one another by diverse properties, are nonetheless nourished by one and the same species of food, according as their nature dictates; so that when the food is near each of the members, it is converted into the nature to which it has attached itself. If it is carried to the eye, it is tempered to the nature of the eye; and according as the various tunics in the eye are
A distributed in a manner suitable to each. If it flows down toward the parts destined for hearing, it is mixed with the nature of the auditory faculty; and becoming lip, it becomes lip; it hardens in bone, and softens in the marrow; it is stretched out with the nerve, and is spread around the other parts at the surface; it penetrates into the nails, and is refined into the generation of hairs by the appropriate vapors. If through winding passages it should be brought forward, it produces curled and twisted hairs; but if the passage of the hair-producing vapors should be straight, it brings forth straight and stretched hairs. But our discourse has wandered far from the matters proposed, as it delves deeply into the works of nature, and attempts to describe how and from what elements the individual parts consist-both those things for living, and those for living well—and whatever other things we conceived of in our first division along with these. B For the proposition was to demonstrate the seminal cause of our constitution, that the soul is neither incorporeal, nor the body soulless; but that a living and ensouled animal is generated from the beginning from ensouled and living bodies, and that human nature, having received it, nurtures it as if by some food through its own powers; and that it is nourished in accordance with both parts, and has growth visible in each part correspondingly. For immediately from the beginning, through this technical and scientific formation, the power of the soul intertwined with it is revealed, appearing indeed rather dimly at the beginning, but successively shining forth with the perfection of the organ.
It is possible to see this in the case of stone-carvers. For it is proposed to the craftsman to represent the form of some animal in stone; and having proposed this, first he strikes off from the stone the material with which it is connatural; then, having cut away what is superfluous, he leads it forward in a certain way through the first outline by mimicry according to his design, so that C even a person ignorant of the objective of the art might conjecture what work he has intended. Again, working over it, he draws closer to the resemblance of the thing being sought. Then, having applied the perfect and exact form to the material, he carries the art to its completion; and what was a short while before a shapeless stone, is now a lion, or whatever it may chance to be that is made by the craftsman; not that the material has been changed into the form, but that the form has been artificially brought upon the material.
If we think of something similar also regarding the soul, we will not altogether stray from the truth. For the craftsman of all things, having taken from the connatural material the part that is of man, fashions, so to speak, a statue. And just as in the comparison proposed, the form of the stone is carved out by a light effort at first, which is rather dim at the beginning, but more perfect once the work is finished: so also in the carving of this our instrument, D according to the proportion of the subject matter, just as it is perfected, the soul also shines forth more and more, revealing itself as imperfect while that is still imperfect, and then perfect in the perfect. But it would have been perfect from the beginning, had not nature been curtailed by vice. Therefore, the [original state] toward the
A association with an emotional and animal birth, did not cause the divine image to shine forth immediately in the creature, but leads man to perfection by a certain way and succession, through the material and more animal-like properties of the soul. The great Apostle teaches this doctrine in his epistle to the Corinthians, saying: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Not that a different soul enters the man than the one conceived of in the youth, by which the more childish mind is abolished B and the adult mind arises; but the same soul, in the one showing what is imperfect, and in the other demonstrating what is perfect. For just as we say that things that are born and grow are alive, and no one would call those that possess life and natural motion inanimate, yet it cannot be said that such life participates in a perfect soul. For the psychic activity that occurs in plants does not reach as far as sensory movements. Again, a certain psychic power added to irrational creatures C does not reach the goal, as it does not contain within itself the faculty of reason and intellect. For this reason we say that the true and perfect soul is human, recognized by its every activity. If anything else participates in life, we call it animate in a metaphorical sense, and not because the soul is perfect in such things, but rather that we see in them certain parts of psychic activity—which we have learned from the mystical account of Moses on the creation of man were added to man because of his affinity for the passions. D For this reason, Paul, advising those who wish to attain perfection, and suggesting the way by which they might obtain what they seek, says that it is necessary to put off the old man and put on the new, who is being renewed after the image of him who created him. But let us all return to that God-like grace in which God created man at the beginning, saying: "Let us make man in our image and likeness," to whom be glory and power for ages of ages. Amen.