wine with water."' Some of them deny the immortality of the soul; others afifirm that it is immortal, and something more. Some raise disputes about its substance; others about its form; others, again, respecting each of its several faculties. One school of philosophers derives its state from various sources, while another ascribes its departure to different destinations. The various schools reflect the character of their masters, according as they have received their impressions from the dig- nity^ of Plato, or the vigour ^ of Zeno, or the equanimity" of Aristotle, or the stupidity ^ of Epicurus, or the sadness* of Heraclitus, or the madness' of Empedocles. The fault, I suppose, of the divine doctrine lies in its springing from Judaea* rather than from Greece. Christ made a mistake, too, in send- ing forth fishermen to preach, rather than the sophist. Whatever noxious vapours, accord- ingly, exhaled from philosophy, obscure the clear and wholesome atmosphere of truth, it will be for Christians to clear away, both by shattering to pieces the arguments which are drawn from the principles of things — I mean those of the philosophers — and by opposing to them the maxims of heavenly wisdom — that is, such as are revealed by the Lord; in order that both the pitfalls wherewith philosophy captivates the heathen may be removed, and the means employed by heresy to shake the faith of Christians may be repressed. We have already decided one point in our con- troversy with Hermogenes, as we said at the beginning of this treatise, when we claimed the soul to be formed by the breathing » of God, and not out of matter. We relied even there on the clear direction of the inspired statement which informs us how that "the Lord God breathed on man's face the breath of life, so that man became a living soul " '° — by that inspiration of God, of course. On this point, therefore, nothing further need be investigated or advanced by us. It has its own treatise," and its own heretic. I shall regard it as my introduction to the other branches of the subject.
CHAP. IV. — IN OPPOSITION TO PLATO, THE SOUL WAS CREATED AND ORIGINATED AT BIRTH.
After settling the origin of the soul, its con- dition or state comes up next. For when we = Honor.
3 Vigor. Another reading has " rigor " (oxATjponjs), harshness.
* Tenor. 5 Stupor.
* McEror.
7 Furor.
a Flatu.
acknowledge that the soul originates in the breath of God, it follows that we attribute a beginning to it. This Plato, indeed, refuses to assign to it, for he will have the soul to be unborn and unmade." We, however, from the very fact of its having had a beginning, as well as from the nature thereof, teach that it had both birth and creation. And when we ascribe both birth and creation to it, we have made no mistake: for being born, indeed, is one thing, and being fnade is another, — the former being the term which is best suited to living beings. When distinctions, however, have places and times of their own, they oc- casionally possess also reciprocity of applica- tion among themselves. Thus, the being made admits of being taken in the sense of being brought forth; '^ inasmuch as everything which receives being or existence, in any way whatever, is in fact generated. For the maker may really be called the parent of the thing that is made: in this sense Plato also uses the phraseology. So far, therefore, as concerns our belief in the souls being made or born, the opinion of the philosopher is overthrown by the authority of prophecy'* even.
CHAP. v. — PROBABLE VIEW OF THE STOICS, THAT THE SOUL HAS A CORPOREAL NATURE.
Suppose one summons a Eubulus to his assistance, and a Critolaus, and a Zenocrates, and on this occasion Plato's friend Aristotle. They may very possibly hold themselves ready for stripping the soul of its corporeity^ unless they happen to see other philosophers opposed to them in their purpose — and this, too, in greater numbers — asserting for the soul a corporeal nature. Now I am not re- ferring merely to those who mould the soul out of manifest bodily substances, as Hip- parchus and Heraclitus (do) out of fire; as Hippon and Thales (do) out of water; as Empedocles and Critias (do) out of blood; as Epicurus (does) out of atoms, since even atoms by their coherence form corporeal masses; as Critolaus and his Peripatetics (do) out of a certain indescribable quintessence,^^ if tliat may be called a body which rather in- cludes and embraces bodily substances; — but I call on the Stoics also to help me, who, while declaring almost in our own terms that the soul is a spiritual essence (inasmuch as breath and spirit are in their nature very near akin to each other), will yet have no difficulty in persuading (us) that tlie soul is a corporeal "2 See his Phcrdriis, c. xxiv.
'3 Capit it.-tque et facturam provenisse poni.
'4 Or, " inspiration."
'S Ex quinta nescio qua substantia. Comp. Cicero's Tuscul. i. 10, HHAP. VI.J A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
substance. Indeed, Zeno, defining the soul to be a spirit generated with (the body,') con- structs his argument in this way: That sub- stance which by its departure causes the living being to die is a corporeal one.- Now it is by the departure of the spirit, which is gene- rated with (the body,) that the living being dies; therefore the spirit which is generated with (the body) is a corporeal substance. But this spirit which is generated with (the body) is the soul: it follows, then, that the soul is a corporeal substance. Cleanthes, too, will have it that family likeness passes from parents to their children not merely in bod- ily features, but in characteristics of the soul; as if it were out of a mirror of (a man's) manners, and faculties, and- affec- tions, that bodily likeness and unlikeness are caught and reflected by the soul also. It- is therefore as being corporeal that it is suscep- tible of likeness and unlikeness. Again, there is nothing in common between things corporeal and things incorporeal as to their susceptibility. But the soul certainly sympa- thizes with the body, and shares in its pain, whenever it is injured by bruises, and wounds, and sores: the body, too, suffers with the soul, and is united with it (whenever it is afflicted with anxiety, distress, or love) in the loss' of vigour which its companion sustains, whose shame and fear it testifies by its own blushes and paleness. The soul, therefore, is (proved to be) corporeal from this inter- communion of susceptibility. Chrysippus also joins hands in fellowship with Cleanthes, when he lays it down that it is not at all pos- sible for things which are endued with body to be separated from things which have not body; because they have no such relation as mutual contact or coherence. Accordingly Lucretius says: = " Tangere enim et tangi nisi coqjus nulla potest res."
' ' For nothing but body is capable of touching or of being touched."
(Such severance, however, is quite natural between the soul and the body); for when the body is deserted by the soul, it is overcome by death. The soul, therefore, is endued with a body; for if it were not corporeal, it could not desert the body.
CHAP. VI. THE ARGUMENTS OF THE PLATON- ISTS FOR THE SOUL's INCORPOREALITV, OP- POSED, PERHAPS FRIVOLOUSLY.
These conclusions the Platonists disturb more by subtilty than by truth. Every body, they say, has necessarily either an animate ft ' Consitum.
nature 3 or an inanimate one.* If it has the inanimate nature, it receives motion exter- nally to itself; if the animate one, internally. Now the soul receives motion neither exter- nally nor internally: not externally, since it has not the inanimate nature; nor internally, because it is itself rather the giver of motion to the body. It evidently, then, is not a bodily substance, inasmuch as it receives mo- tion neither way, according to the nature and law of corporeal substances. Now, what first surprises us here, is the unsuitableness of a definition which appeals to objects which have no affinity with the soul. For it is impossible for the soul to be called either an animate body or an inanimate one, inasmuch as it is the soul itself which makes the body either animate, if if be present to it, or else inani- mate, if it be absent from it. That, therefore, which produces a result, cannot itself be the result, so as to be entitled to the designation of an animate thing or an inanim.ate one. The soul is so called in respect of its own substance. If, then, that which is the soul admits not of being called an animate body or an inanimate one, how can it challenge comparison with the nature and law of ani- mate and inanimate bodies? Furthermore, since it is characteristic of a body to be moved externally by something else, and as we have already shown that the soul receives motion from some other thing when it is swayed (from the outside, of course, by some- thing else) by prophetic influence or by mad- ness, therefore I must be right in regarding that as bodily substance which, according to the examples we have quoted, is moved by some other object from without. Now, if to receive motion from some other thing is char- acteristic of a body, how much more is it so to impart motion to something else! But the soul moves the body, all whose efforts are apparent externally, and from without. It is the soul which gives motion to the feet for walking, and to the hands for touching, and to the eyes for sight, and to the tongue for speech — a sort of internal image which moves and animates the surface. Whence could accrue such power to the soul, if it were in- corporeal? How could an unsubstantial thing propel solid objects? But in what way do the senses in man seem to be divisible into the corporeal and the intellectual classes? They tell is that the qualities of things cor- poreal, such as earth and fire, are indicated by the bodily senses — of touch and sight; whilst (the qualities) of incorporeal things — for instance, benevolence and malignity — are 3 Aniinale, " having the nature of soul.
4 Inanimale.
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
[CHA?. VIT.
discovered by the intellectual faculties. And from this (they deduce what is to them) the manifest conclusion, that the soul is incor- poreal, its properties being comprehended by the perception not of bodily organs, but of intellectual faculties. Well, (I shall be much surprised) if I do not at once cut away the very ground on which their argument stands. For I show them how incorporeal things are commonly submitted to the bodily senses — sound, for instance, to the organ of hearing; colour, to the organ of sight; smell, to the olfactory organ. And, just as in these in- stances, the soul likewise has its contact with ' the body; not to say that the incorporeal ob- jects are reported to us through the bodily organs, for the express reason that they come into contact with the said organs. Inasmuch, then, as it is evident that even incorporeal objects are embraced and comprehended by corporeal ones, why should not the soul, which is corporeal, be equally comprehended and understood by incorporeal faculties? It is thus certain that their argument fails. Among their more conspicuous arguments will be found this, that in their judgment every bodily substance is nourished by bodily substances; whereas the soul, as being an in- corporeal essence, is nourished by incorporeal aliments — for instance, by the studies of wis- dom. But even this ground has no stability in it, since Soranus, who is a most accom- plished authority in medical science, affords us as answer, when he asserts that the soul is even nourished by corporeal aliments; that in fact it is, when failing and weak, actually refreshed oftentimes by food. Indeed, when deprived of all food, does not the soul en- tirely remove from the body? Soranus, then, after discoursing about the soul in the am- plest manner, filling four volumes with his dissertations, and after weighing well all the opinions of the philosophers, defends the cor- poreality of the soul, although in the process he has robbed it of its immortality. For to all men it is not given to believe the truth which Christians are privileged to hold. As, therefore, Soranus has shown us from facts that the soul is nourished by corporeal ali- ments, let the philosopher (adopt a similar mode of proof, and) show that it is sustained by an incorporeal food. But the fact is, that no one has even been able to quench this man's =■ doubts and difificulties about the condi- tion of the soul with the honey-water of Plato's subtle eloquence, nor to surfeit them with the crumbs from the minute nostrums of • Accedit.
2 We follow Oehler's view of this obscure passage, in preference to Rigaltius'.
Aristotle. But what is to become of the souls of all those robust barbarians, which have had no nurture of philosopher's lore indeed, and yet are strong in untaught practical wis- dom, and which although very starvelings in philosophy, without your Athenian academies and porches, and even the prison of Socrates, do yet contrive to live? For it is not the soul's actual substance which is benefited by the aliment of learned study, but only its con- duct and discipline; such ailment contributing nothing to increase its bulk, but only to en- hance its grace. It is, moreover, a happy circumstance that the Stoics affirm that even the arts have corporeality; since at the rate the soul too must be corporeal, since it is commonly supposed to be nourished by the arts. Such, however, is the enormous pre- occupation of the philosophic mind, that it is generally unable to see straight before it. Hence (the story of) Thalee falling into the well. 3 It very commonly, too, through not understanding even its own opinions, sus- pects a failure of its own health. Hence (the story of) Chrysippus and the hellebore. Some such hallucination, I take it, must have occurred to him, when he asserted that two ] bodies could not possibly be contained in j one: he must have kept out of mind and sight the case of those pregnant women who, day after day, bear not one body, but even two and three at a time, within the embrace of a single womb. One finds likewise, in the records of the civil law, the instance of a cer- tain Greek woman who gave birth to a quint * of children, the mother of all these at one parturition, the manifold parent of a single brood, the prolific produce from a single womb, who, guarded by so many bodies — I had almost said, a people — was herself no less then the sixth person! The whole crea- tion testifies how that those bodies which are naturally destined to issue from bodies, are already (included) in that from which they proceed. Now that which proceeds from some other thing must needs be second to it. Nothing, however, proceeds out of an- other thing except by the process of genera- tion; but then they are two (things).
CHAP, VII. THE soul's CORPOREALITY DEMON- STRATED OUT OF THE GOSPELS.
So far as the philosophers are concerned, we have said enough. As for our own teach- ers, indeed, our reference to them is ex abun- danti — a surplusage of authority: in the Gos- pel itself they will be found to have the 3 Sec Tertullian's Ad Nafionrs (our translation), p. 33, Sitfira. ^Quinioncm.
ciiAr. vin.]
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
clearest evidence for the corporeal nature of the soul. In hell the soul of a certain man is in torment, punished in flames, suffering ex- cruciating thirst, and imploring from the finger of a happier soul, for his tongue, the solace of a drop of water.' Do you suppose that this end of the blessed poor man and the miserable rich man is only imaginary? Then why the name of Lazarus in this narrative, if the circumstance is not in (the category of) a real occurrence? But even if it is to be re- garded as imaginary, it will still be a testi- mony to truth and reality. For unless the soul possessed corporeality, the image of a soul could not possibly contain a finger of a bodily substance; nor would the Scripture feign a statement about the limbs of a body, if these had no existence. But what is that which is removed to Hades = after the separa- tion of the body; which is there detained; which is reserved until the day of judgment; to which Christ also, on dying, descended? I imagine it is the souls of the patriarchs. But wherefore (all this), if the soul is nothing in 1 its subterranean abode? For notJiing it cer- I tainly is, if it is not a bodily substance. For whatever is incorporeal is incapable of being kept and guarded in any way; it is also ex- empt from either punishment or refreshment.
^ That must be a body, by which punishment \ and refreshment can be experienced. Of this I shall treat more fully in a more fitting place. Therefore, whatever amount of punishment or refreshment the soul tastes in Hades, in its prison or lodging,^ in the fire or in Abraham's bosom, it gives proof thereby of its own cor- poreality. For an incorporeal thing suffers nothing, not having that which makes it capa- ble of suffering; else, if it has such capacity, it must be a bodily substance. For in as far as every corporeal thing is capable of suffering, / in so far is that which is capable of suffering [ also corporeal.* CHAP. VIII. OTHER PLATONIST ARGUMENTS CONSIDERED.
Besides, it would be a harsh and absurd proceeding to exempt anything from the class of corporeal beings, on the ground that it is not exactly like the other constituents of that class. And where individual creatures pos- sess various properties, does not this variety in works of the same class indicate the great- 3 Diversorio.
4 Compare De Resur. Carnis, xvii. There is, however, some variation in Tertullian's language on this subject. In his Apol. xlviii. he speaks as if the soul could not suffer when separated from the body. See also his De Testimonio Anima, ch. iv., p. 177, supra; and see Bp. Kaye, p. 183.
ness of the Creator, in making them at the same time different and yet like, amicable yet rivals? Indeed, the philosophers them- selves agree in saying that the universe con- sists of harmonious oppositions, according to Empedocles' (theory of) friendship and en- mity. Thus, then, although corporeal es- sences are opposed to incorporeal ones, they yet differ from each other in such sort as to amplify their species by their variety, with- out changing their genus, remaining all alike corporeal; contributing to God's glory in their manifold existence by reason of their variety; so various, by reason of their differ- encs; so diverse, in that some of them pos- sess one kind of perception, others another; some feeding on one kind of aliment, others on another; some, again, possessing visibility, while others are invisible; some being weighty, others light. They are in the habit of saying that the soul must be pronounced incorporeal on this account, because the bodies of the dead, after its departure from them, become heavier, whereas they ought to be lighter, being deprived of the weight of a body — since the soul is a bodily substance. But what, says Soranus (in answer to this argument), if men should deny that the sea is a bodily sub- stance, because a ship out of the water becomes a heavy and motionless mass? How much truer and stronger, then, is the soul's corporeal essence, which carries about the body, which eventually assumes so great a weight with the nimblest motion! Again, even if the soul is invisible, it is only in strict accordance with the condition of its own cor- poreality, and suitably to the property of its own essence, as well as to the nature of even those beings to which its destiny made it to be invisible. The eyes of the owl cannot en- dure the sun, whilst the eagle is so well able to face his glory, that the noble character of its young is determined by the unblinking strength of their gaze; while the eaglet, which turns away its eye from the sun's ray, is ex- pelled from the nest as a degenerate crea- ture! So true is it, therefore, than to one eye an object is invisible, which maybe quite plainly seen by another, — without implying any incorporeality in that which is not en- dued with an equally strong power (of vision). The sun is indeed a bodily substance, because it is (composed of) fire; the object, however, which the eaglet at once admits the existence of, the owl denies, without any prejudice, nevertheless, to the testimony of the eagle. There is the selfsame difference in respect of the soul's corporeality, which is (perhaps) invisible to the flesh, but perfectly visible to the spirit. Thus John, being *' in the Spirit '* A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
[chap. IX.
of God,* beheld plainly the souls of the mar- tyrs. = CHAP. IX. PARTICULARS OF THE ALLEGED COMMUNICATION TO A MONTANIST SISTER.
When we aver that the soul has a body of a quality and kind peculiar to itself, in this spe- cial condition of it we shall be already sup- plied with a decision respecting all the other accidents of its corporeity; how that they belong to it, because we have shown it to be a body, but that even they have a quality peculiar to themselves, proportioned to the special nature of the body (to which they belong); or else, if any accidents (of a body) are remarkable in this instance for their ab- sence, then this, too, results from the pecul- iarity of the condition of the soul's corpo- reity, from which are absent sundry quali- ties which are present to all other corporeal beings. And yet, notwithstanding all this, we shall not be at all inconsistent if we de- clare that the more usual characteristics of a body, such as invariably accrue to the cor- poreal condition, belong also to the soul — such as form 3 and limitation; and that triad of dimensions* — I mean length, and breadth, and height — by which philosophers gauge all bodies. What now remains but for us to give the soul a figure?5 Plato refuses to do this, as if it endangered the soul's immor- tality.* For everything which has figure is, according to him, compound, and composed of parts; 7 whereas the soul is immortal; and being immortal, it is therefore indissoluble; and being indissoluble, it is figureless: for if, on the contrary, it had figure, it would be of a composite and structural formation. He, however, in some other manner frames for the soul- an effigy of intellectual forms, beau- tiful for its just symmetry and tuitions of philosophy, but misshapen by some contrary qualities. As for ourselves, indeed, we in- scribe on the soul the lineaments of corpo- reity, not simply from the assurance which reasoning has taught us of its corporeal na- ture, but also from the firm conviction which divine grace impresses on us by revelation. For, seeing that we acknowledge spiritual charismata, or gifts, we too have merited the attainment of the prophetic gift, although coming after John (the Baptist). We have now amongst us a sister whose lot it has been to be favoured with sundry gifts of revelation.
» Rev. i. lo.
3 Habitum.
4 lUud trifariam aistantivum (Tpix<u« fiiatrnj/ixaTiKoi/) Fr. Junius.
5 Effigiem.
~ Sfructile.