12. But if Daniel and Joseph and others like them were instructed by Divine power, without any confusion of perception, in the knowledge of things to come, this is nothing to the present statement; for no one would ascribe this to the power of dreams, since he will be constrained as a consequence to suppose that those Divine appearances also which took place in wakefulness were not a miraculous vision but a result of nature brought about spontaneously. As then, while all men are guided by their own minds, there are some few who are deemed worthy of evident Divine communication; so, while the imagination of sleep naturally occurs in a like and equivalent manner for all, some, not all, share by means of their dreams in some more Divine manifestation: but to all the rest even if a foreknowledge of anything does occur as a result of dreams, it occurs in the way we have spoken of.
13. And again, if the Egyptian and the Assyrian king were guided by God to the know- ledge of the future, the dispensation wrought by their means is a different thing: for it was 1640 should be made known, that each of them might not pass his life without profit to the state. For how could Daniel have been necessary that the hidden wisdom of the holy men known for what he was, if the soothsayers and magicians had not been unequal to the task of discovering the dream? And how could Egypt have been preserved while Joseph was shut up in prison, if his interpretation of the dream had not brought him to notice? Thus we must reckon these cases as exceptional, and not class them with common dreams.
1639 Reading émid10t&Govoa with several of Forbes’ mss. 1640 “The holy men,” Joseph and Daniel, who were enabled, by the authority they obtained through their interpretation of dreams, to benefit the state.
TA5 A Rationale of sleep, of yawning, and of dreams.
14. But this ordinary seeing of dreams is common to all men, and arises in our fancies in different modes and forms: for either there remain, as we have said, in the reminiscent part of the soul, the echoes of daily occupations; or, as often happens, the constitution of dreams is framed with regard to such and such a condition of the body: for thus the thirsty man seems to be among springs, the man who is in need of food to be at a feast, and the young man in the heat of youthful vigour is beset by fancies corresponding to his passion.
15. I also knew another cause of the fancies of sleep, when attending one of my relations attacked by frenzy; who being annoyed by food being given him in too great quantity for his strength, kept crying out and finding fault with those who were about him for filling intestines with dung and putting them upon him: and when his body was rapidly tending to perspire he blamed those who were with him for having water ready to wet him with as he lay: and he did not cease calling out till the result showed the meaning of these complaints: for all at once a copious sweat broke out over his body, and a relaxation of the bowels ex- plained the weight in the intestines. The same condition then which, while his sober judgment was dulled by disease, his nature underwent, being sympathetically affected by the condition of the body—not being without perception of what was amiss, but being unable clearly to express its pain, by reason of the distraction resulting from the disease—this, probably, if the intelligent principle of the soul were lulled to rest, not from infirmity but by natural sleep, might appear as a dream to one similarly situated, the breaking out of perspiration being expressed by water, and the pain occasioned by the food, by the weight of intestines.
16. This view also is taken by those skilled in medicine, that according to the differences of complaints the visions of dreams appear differently to the patients: that the visions of those of weak stomach are of one kind, those of persons suffering from injury to the cerebral membrane of another, those of persons in fevers of yet another; that those of patients suffering from bilious and from phlegmatic affections are diverse, and those again of plethoric patients, and of patients in wasting disease, are different; whence we may see that the nutritive and vegetative faculty of the soul has in it by commixture some seed of the intelligent element, which is in some sense brought into likeness to the particular state of the body, being adapted in its fancies according to the complaint which has seized upon it.
17. Moreover, most men’s dreams are conformed to the state of their character: the brave man’s fancies are of one kind, the coward’s of another; the wanton man’s dreams of one kind, the continent man’s of another; the liberal man and the avaricious man are subject to different fancies; while these fancies are nowhere framed by the intellect, but by the less rational disposition of the soul, which forms even in dreams the semblances of those things to which each is accustomed by the practice of his waking hours.
That the mind is not in a part of the body; wherein also is a distinction...
XIV. That the mind is not in a part of the body; wherein also is a distinction of the movements of the body and of the soul'®", 1. But we have wandered far from our subject, for the purpose of our argument was to show that the mind is not restricted to any part of the body, but is equally in touch with the whole, producing its motion according to the nature of the part which is under its influence. There are cases, however, in which the mind even follows the bodily impulses, and becomes, as it were, their servant; for often the bodily nature takes the lead by introducing either the sense of that which gives pain or the desire for that which gives pleasure, so that it may be said to furnish the first beginnings, by producing in us the desire for food, or, generally, the impulse towards some pleasant thing; while the mind, receiving such an impulse, furnishes the body by its own intelligence with the proper means towards the desired object. Such a condition, indeed, does not occur in all, save in those of a somewhat slavish disposition, who bring the reason into bondage to the impulses of their nature and pay servile homage to the pleasures of sense by allowing them the alliance of their mind; but in the case of more perfect men this does not happen; for the mind takes the lead, and chooses the expedient course by reason and not by passion, while their nature follows in the tracks of its leader.
2. But since our argument discovered in our vital faculty three different varieties—one which receives nourishment without perception, another which at once receives nourishment and is capable of perception, but is without the reasoning activity, and a third rational, perfect, and co-extensive with the whole faculty—so that among these varieties the advantage belongs to the intellectual,—let no one suppose on this account that in the compound nature of man there are three souls welded together, contemplated each in its own limits, so that one should think man’s nature to bea sort of conglomeration of several souls. The true and perfect soul is naturally one, the intellectual and immaterial, which mingles with our mater- ial nature by the agency of the senses; but all that is of material nature, being subject to mutation and alteration, will, if it should partake of the animating power, move by way of growth: if, on the contrary, it should fall away from the vital energy, it will reduce its motion to destruction.
3. Thus, neither is there perception without material substance, nor does the act of perception take place without the intellectual faculty.
1641 This is chapter xv. in the Latin version and some Greek mss. The Bodleian ms. of the Latin gives the title:-—“That the mind is sometimes in servitude to the body, and of its three differences, vital, spiritual, and rational.”
That the soul proper, in fact and name, is the rational soul, while the...
XV. That the soul proper, in fact and name, is the rational soul, while the others are called so equivocally; wherein also is this statement, that the power of the mind extends throughout the whole body in fitting contact with every part!©”.
1. Now, if some things in creation possess the nutritive faculty, and others again are regulated by the perceptive faculty, while the former have no share of perception nor the latter of the intellectual nature, and if for this reason any one is inclined to the opinion of a plurality of souls, such a man will be positing a variety of souls in a way not in accordance with their distinguishing definition. For everything which we conceive among existing things, if it be perfectly that which it is, is also properly called by the name it bears: but of that which is not every respect what it is called, the appellation also is vain. For instance:—if one were to show us true bread, we say that he properly applies the name to the subject: but if one were to show us instead that which had been made of stone to resemble the natural bread, which had the same shape, and equal size, and similarity of colour, so as in most points to be the same with its prototype, but which yet lacks the power of being food, on this account we say that the stone receives the name of “bread,” not properly, but by a mis- nomer, and all things which fall under the same description, which are not absolutely what they are called, have their name from a misuse of terms.
2. Thus, as the soul finds its perfection in that which is intellectual and rational, everything that is not so may indeed share the name of “soul,” but is not really soul, but a 11643» And for this reason also certain vital energy associated with the appellation of “sou He Who gave laws on every matter, gave the animal nature likewise, as not far removed from this vegetative life, for the use of man, to be for those who partake of it instead of herbs:—for He says, “Ye shall eat all kinds of flesh even as the green herb'™°;” for the per- ceptive energy seems to have but a slight advantage over that which is nourished and grows without it. Let this teach carnal men not to bind their intellect closely to the phenomena of sense, but rather to busy themselves with their spiritual advantages, as the true soul is found in these, while sense has equal power also among the brute creation.
3. The course of our argument, however, has diverged to another point: for the subject of our speculation was not the fact that the energy of mind is of more dignity among the attributes we conceive in man than the material element of his being, but the fact that the 1642 Otherwise chap. xvi. The Bodleian ms. of the Latin version gives the title:—“That the vital energy of the irrational creatures is not truly but equivocally called ‘soul’, and of the unspeakable communion of body and soul.”
1643 ti TH Wuxtis KAroel ovyKeKpevn. The meaning is apparently something like that given; but if we might read ovykexpnpevn the sense of the passage would be much plainer.
1644 Reading putixri¢ for pvoixiis as before, ch. 8, $4 (where see note).
1645 Cf. Gen. ix. 3. The quotation, except the last few words, is not verbally from the LXX.
That the soul proper, in fact and name, is the rational soul, while the...mind is not confined to any one part of us, but is equally in all and through all, neither surrounding anything without, nor being enclosed within anything: for these phrases are properly applied to casks or other bodies that are placed one inside the other; but the union of the mental with the bodily presents a connection unspeakable and inconceivable,—not being within it (for the incorporeal is not enclosed in a body), nor yet surrounding it without (for that which is incorporeal does not include!©*° anything), but the mind approaching our nature in some inexplicable and incomprehensible way, and coming into contact with it, is to be regarded as both in it and around it, neither implanted in it nor enfolded with it, but in a way which we cannot speak or think, except so far as this, that while the nature prospers according to its own order, the mind is also operative; but if any misfortune befalls the former, the movement of the intellect halts correspondingly.
1646 It does not seem of much consequence whether we read meptAaubd&vetor with Forbes and the mss., and treat it as of the middle voice, or meptAaupbdvet t1 with the Paris Editt. The reading nepiAapBdveta, taken passively, obscures the sense of the passage.
A contemplation of the Divine utterance which said-- “Let us make man after...XVI. A contemplation of the Divine utterance which said—“Let us make man after our image and likeness”; wherein is examined what is the definition of the image, and how the passible and mortal is like to the Blessed and Impassible, and how in the image there are male and female, seeing these are not in the prototype”.
1. Let us now resume our consideration of the Divine word, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness!®.” How mean and how unworthy of the majesty of man are the fancies of some heathen writers, who magnify humanity, as they supposed, by their compar- ison of it to this world! for they say that man is a little world, composed of the same elements with the universe. Those who bestow on human nature such praise as this by a high- sounding name, forget that they are dignifying man with the attributes of the gnat and the mouse: for they too are composed of these four elements,—because assuredly about the animated nature of every existing thing we behold a part, greater or less, of those elements without which it is not natural that any sensitive being should exist. What great thing is there, then, in man’s being accounted a representation and likeness of the world,—of the heaven that passes away, of the earth that changes, of all things that they contain, which pass away with the departure of that which compasses them round?
2. In what then does the greatness of man consist, according to the doctrine of the Church? Not in his likeness to the created world, but in his being in the image of the nature of the Creator.
3. What therefore, you will perhaps say, is the definition of the image? How is the incor- poreal likened to body? how is the temporal like the eternal? that which is mutable by change like to the immutable? that which is subject to passion and corruption to the impassible and incorruptible? that which constantly dwells with evil, and grows up with it, to that which is absolutely free from evil? there is a great difference between that which is conceived in the archetype, and a thing which has been made in its image: for the image is properly so called ifit keeps its resemblance to the prototype; but if the imitation be perverted from its subject, the thing is something else, and no longer an image of the subject.
4, How then is man, this mortal, passible, shortlived being, the image of that nature which is immortal, pure, and everlasting? The true answer to this question, indeed, perhaps only the very Truth knows: but this is what we, tracing out the truth so far as we are capable by conjectures and inferences, apprehend concerning the matter. Neither does the word of God lie when it says that man was made in the image of God, nor is the pitiable suffering of man’s nature like to the blessedness of the impassible Life: for if any one were to compare 1647 Otherwise chap. xvii. The title in the Bodleian ms. of the Latin Version is:—“That the excellence of man does not consist in the fact that, according to philosophers, he is made after the image of the world, but in the fact that he is made in the image of God, and how he is made in the image of God.”
A contemplation of the Divine utterance which said-- “Let us make man after...our nature with God, one of two things must needs be allowed in order that the definition of the likeness may be apprehended in both cases in the same terms,—either that the Deity is passible, or that humanity is impassible: but if neither the Deity is passible nor our nature free from passion, what other account remains whereby we may say that the word of God speaks truly, which says that man was made in the image of God?
5. We must, then, take up once more the Holy Scripture itself, if we may perhaps find some guidance in the question by means of what is written. After saying, “Let us make man in our image,” and for what purposes it was said “Let us make him,” it adds this saying: —“and God created man; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them!°?.” We have already said in what precedes, that this saying was uttered for the de- struction of heretical impiety, in order that being instructed that the Only-begotten God made man in the image of God, we should in no wise distinguish the Godhead of the Father and the Son, since Holy Scripture gives to each equally the name of God,—to Him Who made man, and to Him in Whose image he was made.
6. However, let us pass by our argument upon this point: let us turn our inquiry to the question before us,—how it is that while the Deity is in bliss, and humanity is in misery, the latter is yet in Scripture called “like” the former?
7. We must, then, examine the words carefully: for we find, if we do so, that that which was made “in the image” is one thing, and that which is now manifested in wretchedness is another. “God created man,” it says; “in the image of God created He him!©”°.” There is an end of the creation of that which was made “in the image”: then it makes a resumption of the account of creation, and says, “male and female created He them.” I presume that every one knows that this is a departure from the Prototype: for “in Christ Jesus,” as the apostle says, “there is neither male nor female!®°!.” Yet the phrase declares that man is thus divided.
8. Thus the creation of our nature is in a sense twofold: one made like to God, one divided according to this distinction: for something like this the passage darkly conveys by its arrangement, where it first says, “God created man, in the image of God created He him)®?,” and then, adding to what has been said, “male and female created He them)®*,” —a thing which is alien from our conceptions of God.
9. I think that by these words Holy Scripture conveys to us a great and lofty doctrine; and the doctrine is this. While two natures—the Divine and incorporeal nature, and the irrational life of brutes—are separated from each other as extremes, human nature is the mean A contemplation of the Divine utterance which said-- “Let us make man after...between them: for in the compound nature of man we may behold a part of each of the natures I have mentioned,—of the Divine, the rational and intelligent element, which does not admit the distinction of male and female; of the irrational, our bodily form and structure, divided into male and female: for each of these elements is certainly to be found in all that partakes of human life. That the intellectual element, however, precedes the other, we learn as from one who gives in order an account of the making of man; and we learn also that his community and kindred with the irrational is for man a provision for reproduction. For he says first that “God created man in the image of God” (showing by these words, as the Apostle says, that in such a being there is no male or female): then he adds the peculiar at- tributes of human nature, “male and female created He them!°*.”
10. What, then, do we learn from this? Let no one, I pray, be indignant if I bring from far an argument to bear upon the present subject. God is in His own nature all that which our mind can conceive of good;—rather, transcending all good that we can conceive or comprehend. He creates man for no other reason than that He is good; and being such, and having this as His reason for entering upon the creation of our nature, He would not exhibit the power of His goodness in an imperfect form, giving our nature some one of the things at His disposal, and grudging it a share in another: but the perfect form of goodness is here to be seen by His both bringing man into being from nothing, and fully supplying him with all good gifts: but since the list of individual good gifts is a long one, it is out of the question to apprehend it numerically. The language of Scripture therefore expresses it concisely by a comprehensive phrase, in saying that man was made “in the image of God”: for this is the same as to say that He made human nature participant in all good; for if the Deity is the fulness of good, and this is His image, then the image finds its resemblance to the Archetype in being filled with all good.
11. Thus there is in us the principle of all excellence, all virtue and wisdom, and every higher thing that we conceive: but pre-eminent among all is the fact that we are free from necessity, and not in bondage to any natural power, but have decision in our own power as we please; for virtue is a voluntary thing, subject to no dominion: that which is the result of compulsion and force cannot be virtue.
12. Now as the image bears in all points the semblance of the archetypal excellence, if it had not a difference in some respect, being absolutely without divergence it would no longer be a likeness, but will in that case manifestly be absolutely identical with the Prototype. What difference then do we discern between the Divine and that which has been made like to the Divine? We find it in the fact that the former is uncreate, while the latter has its being from creation: and this distinction of property brings with it a train of other properties; for it is very certainly acknowledged that the uncreated nature is also immutable, and always A contemplation of the Divine utterance which said-- “Let us make man after...remains the same, while the created nature cannot exist without change; for its very passage from nonexistence to existence is a certain motion and change of the non-existent transmuted by the Divine purpose into being.
13. As the Gospel calls the stamp upon the coin “the image of Czsar!®>,” whereby we learn that in that which was fashioned to resemble Czesar there was resemblance as to outward look, but difference as to material, so also in the present saying, when we consider the attri butes contemplated both in the Divine and human nature, in which the likeness consists, to be in the place of the features, we find in what underlies them the difference which we behold in the uncreated and in the created nature.
14. Now as the former always remains the same, while that which came into being by creation had the beginning of its existence from change, and has a kindred connection with the like mutation, for this reason He Who, as the prophetical writing says, “knoweth all things before they be!®°,” following out, or rather perceiving beforehand by His power of foreknowledge what, in a state of independence and freedom, is the tendency of the motion of man’s will,—as He saw, I say, what would be, He devised for His image the distinction of male and female, which has no reference to the Divine Archetype, but, as we have said, is an approximation to the less rational nature.
15. The cause, indeed, of this device, only those can know who were eye-witnesses of the truth and ministers of the Word; but we, imagining the truth, as far as we can, by means of conjectures and similitudes, do not set forth that which occurs to our mind authoritatively, but will place it in the form of a theoretical speculation before our kindly hearers.
16. What is it then which we understand concerning these matters? In saying that “God created man” the text indicates, by the indefinite character of the term, all mankind; for was not Adam here named together with the creation, as the history tells us in what follows!®7? yet the name given to the man created is not the particular, but the general name: thus we are led by the employment of the general name of our nature to some such view as this—that in the Divine foreknowledge and power all humanity is included in the first creation; for it 1657 The punctuation followed by Forbes here does not seem to give a good sense, and also places S. Gregory in the position of formally stating that one passage of Genesis contradicts another. By substituting an interrog- ation after 1 iotopta protv, the sense given is this:—we know from a later statement in Genesis that the name Adam was given “in the day that they were created” (Gen. v. 2), but here the name given is general, not particular. There must be a reason for this, and the reason is, that the race of man, and not the individual, is that spoken of as “created in the image of God.” With this view that all humanity is included in the first creation may be compared a passage near the end of the De Anima, where the first man is compared to a full ear of corn, afterwards “divided into a multitude of bare grain.”
A contemplation of the Divine utterance which said-- “Let us make man after...is fitting for God not to regard any of the things made by Him as indeterminate, but that each existing thing should have some limit and measure prescribed by the wisdom of its Maker.
17. Now just as any particular man is limited by his bodily dimensions, and the peculiar size which is conjoined with the superficies of his body is the measure of his separate exist- ence, so I think that the entire plenitude of humanity was included by the God of all, by His power of foreknowledge, as it were in one body, and that this is what the text teaches us which says, “God created man, in the image of God created He him.” For the image is not in part of our nature, nor is the grace in any one of the things found in that nature, but this power extends equally to all the race: and a sign of this is that mind is implanted alike in all: for all have the power of understanding and deliberating, and of all else whereby the Divine nature finds its image in that which was made according to it: the man that was manifested at the first creation of the world, and he that shall be after the consummation of all, are alike: they equally bear in themselves the Divine image! ee 18. For this reason the whole race was spoken of as one man, namely, that to God’s power nothing is either past or future, but even that which we expect is comprehended, equally with what is at present existing, by the all-sustaining energy. Our whole nature, then, extending from the first to the last, is, so to say, one image of Him Who is; but the distinction of kind in male and female was added to His work last, as I suppose, for the reason which follows!®°?.
1658 With this passage, again, may be compared the teaching of the De Animd on the subject of the Resurrec- tion.
1659 The explanation of the reason, however, is deferred; see xvii. 4.
What we must answer to those who raise the question-- “If procreation is...XVII. What we must answer to those who raise the question—“TIf procreation is after sin, how would souls have come into being if the first of mankind had remained sinless 1. It is better for us however, perhaps, rather to inquire, before investigating this point, the solution of the question put forward by our adversaries; for they say that before the sin there is no account of birth, or of travail, or of the desire that tends to procreation, but when they were banished from Paradise after their sin, and the woman was condemned by the sentence of travail, Adam thus entered with his consort upon the intercourse of married life, and then took place the beginning of procreation. If, then, marriage did not exist in Paradise, nor travail, nor birth, they say that it follows as a necessary conclusion that human souls would not have existed in plurality had not the grace of immortality fallen away to mortality, and marriage preserved our race by means of descendants, introducing the off- spring of the departing to take their place, so that in a certain way the sin that entered into the world was profitable for the life of man: for the human race would have remained in the pair of the first-formed, had not the fear of death impelled their nature to provide succession.
2. Now here again the true answer, whatever it may be, can be clear to those only who, like Paul, have been instructed in the mysteries of Paradise; but our answer is as follows. When the Sadducees once argued against the doctrine of the resurrection, and brought forward, to establish their own opinion, that woman of many marriages, who had been wife to seven brethren, and thereupon inquired whose wife she will be after the resurrection, our Lord answered their argument so as not only to instruct the Sadducees, but also to reveal to all that come after them the mystery of the resurrection-life: “for in the resurrection,” He says, “they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrec- tion!©°! » Now the resurrection promises us nothing else than the restoration of the fallen to their ancient state; for the grace we look for is a certain return to the first life, bringing back again to Paradise him who was cast out from it. If then the life of those restored is closely related to that of the angels, it is clear that the life before the transgression was a kind of angelic life, and hence also our return to the ancient condition of our life is compared to the angels. Yet while, as has been said, there is no marriage among them, the armies of the angels are in countless myriads; for so Daniel declared in his visions: so, in the same way, if there had not come upon us as the result of sin a change for the worse, and removal from equality with the angels, neither should we have needed marriage that we might multiply; but whatever the mode of increase in the angelic nature is (unspeakable and inconceivable by human conjectures, except that it assuredly exists), it would have operated also in the 1660 Otherwise Chap. xviii. The Bodleian ms. of the Latin version has the title:—“Against those who say that sin was a useful introduction for the propagation of the human race; and that by sin it deserved animal generation.”
What we must answer to those who raise the question-- “If procreation is...case of men, who were “made a little lower than the angels'©°”,” to increase mankind to the measure determined by its Maker.
3. But if any one finds a difficulty in an inquiry as to the manner of the generation of souls, had man not needed the assistance of marriage, we shall ask him in turn, what is the mode of the angelic existence, how they exist in countless myriads, being one essence, and at the same time numerically many; for we shall be giving a fit answer to one who raises the question how man would have been without marriage, if we say, “as the angels are without marriage;” for the fact that man was in a like condition with them before the transgression is shown by the restoration to that state.
4. Now that we have thus cleared up these matters, let us return to our former point,—how it was that after the making of His image God contrived for His work the dis- tinction of male and female. I say that the preliminary speculation we have completed is of service for determining this question; for He Who brought all things into being and fashioned Man as a whole by His own will to the Divine image, did not wait to see the number of souls made up to its proper fulness by the gradual additions of those coming after; but while looking upon the nature of man in its entirety and fulness by the exercise of His foreknow- ledge, and bestowing upon it a lot exalted and equal to the angels, since He saw beforehand by His all-seeing power the failure of their will to keep a direct course to what is good, and its consequent declension from the angelic life, in order that the multitude of human souls might not be cut short by its fall from that mode by which the angels were increased and multiplied,—for this reason, I say, He formed for our nature that contrivance for increase which befits those who had fallen into sin, implanting in mankind, instead of the angelic majesty of nature, that animal and irrational mode by which they now succeed one another.
5. Hence also, it seems to me, the great David pitying the misery of man mourns over his nature with such words as these, that, “man being in honour knew it not” (meaning by “honour” the equality with the angels), therefore, he says, “he is compared to the beasts that have no understanding, and made like unto them!©®,” For he truly was made like the beasts, who received in his nature the present mode of transient generation, on account of his in- clination to material things.
That our irrational passions have their rise from kindred with irrational...XVIII. That our irrational passions have their rise from kindred with irrational nature.1°©4