looked upon with our eyes, and our hands ' Sensus istos.
2 Deliberetur.
5 Matt. viii. 15.
7 Matt. xxvi. 27, 28; Luke xxii. 19, ao; i Cor. xi. 23.
8 Matt. xvii. J-8.
9 John ii. i-io.
have handled, of the Word of life." " False, of course, and deceptive must have been that testimony, if the witness of our eyes, and ears, and hands be by nature a lie.
CHAP. XVIIl. — PLATO SUGGESTED CERTAIN ER- RORS TO THE GNOSTICS. FUNCTIONS OF THE SOUL.
I turn now to the department of our intel- lectual faculties, such as Plato has handed it over to the heretics, distinct from our bodily functions, having obtained the knowledge of them before death. '== He asks in the PImdo, What, then, (do you think) concerning the actual possession of knowledge? Will the body be a hindrance to it or not, if one shall admit it as an associate in the search after knowledge? I have a similar question to ask: Have the faculties of their sight and hearing any truth and reality for human beings or not? Is it not the case, that even the 'poets are always muttering against us, that we can never hear or see anything for certain? He remembered, no doubt, what Epicharmus the comic poet had said: "It is the mind which sees, the mind that hears — all else is blind and deaf." To the same purport he says again, that that man is the wisest whose mental power is the clearest; who never applies the sense of sight, nor adds to his mind the help of any such faculty, but employs the intellect itself in unmixed se- renity when he indulges in contemplation for the purpose of acquiring an unalloyed insight into the nature of things; divorcing himself with all his might from his eyes and ears and (as one must express himself) from the whole of his body, on the ground of its disturbing the soul, and not allowing it to possess either truth or wisdom, whenever it is brought into communication with it. We see, then, that in opposition to the bodily senses another faculty is provided of a much more serviceable character, even the powers of the soul, which produce an understanding of that truth whose realities are not palpable nor open to the bodily senses, but are very remote from men's everyday knowledge, lying in secret — in the heights above, and in the presence of God Himself. For Plato maintains that there are certain invisible substances, incorporeal, ce- lestial,'^ divine, and eternal, which they call ideas, that is to say, (archetypal) forms, which are the patterns and causes of those objects of nature which are manifest to us, and lie under our corporeal senses: the former, (ac- cording to Plato,) are the actual verities, and '2 Said ironicalUy, as if rallying Plato for inconsistency betweea his theory here and the fact.
'3.Supermundiales " placed above this world."
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
[chap. XXMT.
the latter the images and likenesses of them. Well, now, are there not here gleams of the heretical principles of the Gnostics and the Valentinians? It is from this philosophy that they eagerly adopt the difference between the bodily senses and the intellectual faculties, — a distinction which they actually apply to the parable of the ten virgins: making the five foolish virgins to symbolize the five bodily senses, seeing that these are so silly and so easy to be deceived; and the wise virgin to express the meaning of the intellectual facul- ties, which are so wise as to attain to that mysterious and supernal truth, which is placed in the pleroma. (Here, then, we have) the mystic original of the ideas of these heretics. For in this philosophy lie both their ^ons and their genealogies. Thus, too, do they divide sensation, both into the intellectual powers from their spiritual seed, and the sen- suous faculties from the animal, which cannot by any means comprehend spiritual things. From the former germ spring invisible things; from the latter, visible things which are grov- elling and temporary, and which are obvious to the senses, placed as they are in palpable forms.' It is because of these views that we have in a former passage stated as a preliminary fact, that the mind is nothing else than an apparatus or instrument of the soul,^ and that the spirit is no other faculty, separate from the soul, but is the soul itself exercised in respiration; although that influence which either God on the one hand, or the devil on the other, has breathed upon it, must be re- garded in the light of an additional element. ^ And now, with respect to the difference be- tween the intellectual powers and the sensu- ous faculties, we only admit it so far as the natural diversity between them requires of us. (There is, of course, a difference) be- tween things corporeal and things spiritual, between visible and invisible beings, between objects which are manifest to the view and those which are hidden from it; because the one class are attributed to sensation, and the other to the intellect. But yet both the one and the other must be regarded as inherent in the soul, and as obedient to it, seeing that it embraces bodily objects by means of the body, in exactly the same way that it conceives incorporeal objects by help of the mind, except that it is even exercising sensa- tion when it is employing the intellect. For is it not true, that to employ the senses is to use the intellect? And to employ the intel- lect amounts to a use of the senses?* What « Iraaginibus.
* Intelligcre sentire est.
indeed can sensation be, but the understand- ing of that which is the object of the sensa- tion? And what can the intellect or under- standing be, but the seeing of that which is the object understood? Why adopt such ex- cruciating means of torturing simple knowl- edge and crucifying the truth? Who can show me the sense which does not understand the object of its sensation, or the intellect which perceives not the object which it un- derstands, in so clear away as to prove to me that the one can do without the other? If corporeal things are the objects of sense, and incorporeal ones objects of the intellect, it is the classes of the objects which are different, not the domicile or abode of sense and intel- lect; in other words, not the soul (ammo) and the mind (animus). By what, in short, are corporeal things perceived? If it is by the soul, 5 then the mind is a sensuous faculty, and not merely an intellectual power; for whilst it understands, it also perceives, because with- out the perception there is no understanding. If, however, corporeal things are perceived by the soul, then it follows that the soul's power is an intellectual one, and not merely a sensuous faculty; for while it perceives it also understands, because without understanding there is no perceiving. And then, again, by what are incorporeal things understood? If it is by the mind,^ where will be the soul? If it is by the soul, where will be the mind? For things which differ ought to be mutually absent from each other, when they are occu- pied in their respective functions and duties. It must be your opinion, indeed, that the mind is absent from the soul on certain occa- sons; for (you suppose) that we are so made and constituted as not to know that we have seen or heard something, on the hypothesis^ that the mind was absent at the time. I must therefore maintain that the very soul itself neither saw nor heard, since it was at the given moment absent with its active power — that is to say, the mind. The truth is, that whenever a man is out of his mind,^ it is his soul that is demented — not because the mind is absent, but because it is a fellow-sufferer (with the soul) at the time.' Indeed, it is the soul which is principally affected by casu- alties of such a kind. Whence is this fact confirmed? It is confirmed from the follow- 5 Oehler has "anima;" we should rather have expected " anirao," which is another reading.
6 " Anirao " this time.
7 Subjunctive verb, " fueiit."
8 Dementit.
9 The opposite opinion was held by Tertullian's opponents, who distinguished between the mind and the soul. They said, that when a man was out of his mind, his mind left him, but that his soul remained. (Lactantius, £>e Opt/, xviii.; Instil. Div. vii. 12; La Cerda), CHAP. XIX.]
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
ing consideration: that after the soul's de- parture, the mind is no longer found in a man: it always follows the soul; nor does it at last remain behind it alone, after death. Now, since it follows the soul, it is also indis- solubly attached to it; just as the under- standing is attached to the soul, which is fol- lowed by the mind, with which the under- standing is indissolubly connected. Granted now that the understanding is superior to the senses, and a better discoverer of mysteries, what matters it, so long as it is only a pecul- iar faculty of the soul, just as the senses themselves are? It does not at all affect my argument, unless the understanding were held to be superior to the senses, for the pur- pose of deducing from the allegation of such superiority its separate condition likewise. After thus combating their alleged difference, I have also to refute this question of superi- ority, previous to my approaching the belief (which heresy propounds) in a superior god. On this point, however, of a (superior) god, we shall have to measure swords with the heretics on their own ground.' Our present subject concerns the soul, and the point is to prevent the insidious ascription of a superi- ority to the mtellect or understanding. Now, although tne objects which are touched by the intellect are of a higher nature, since they are spiritual, than those which are embraced by the senses, since these are corporeal, it will still be only a superiority in the objects — as of lofty ones contrasted with humble — not in the faculties of the intellect against the senses. For how can the intellect be superior to the senses, when it is these which educate it for the discovery of various truths? It is a fact, that these truths are learned by means of pal- pable forms; in other words, invisible things are discovered by the help of visible ones, even as the apostle tells us in his epistle: ** For the invisible things of Him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made;"'' and as Plato too might inform our heretics: " The things which appear are the image ^ of the things which are concealed from view," " whence it must needs follow that this world is by all means an image of some other: so that the intellect evidently uses the senses for its own guidance, and authority, and main- stay; and without the senses truth could not be attained. How, then, can a thing be su- perior to that which is instrumental to its ex- istence, which is also indispensable to it, and • See his treatise, Against Marcion.
3 Fades.
to whose help it owes everything which it ac- quires? Two conclusions therefore follow from what we have said: (i) That the intellect is not to be preferred above the senses, on the (supposed) ground that the agent through which a thing exists is inferior to the thing itself; and (2) that the intellect must not be separated from the senses, since the instru- ment by which a thing's existence is sustained is associated with the thing itself.
CHAP. XIX. — THE INTELLECT COEVAL WITH THE SOUL IN THE HUMAN BEING. AN EX- 1 AMPLE FROM ARISTOTLE CONVERTED INTO \eV1DENCE favourable to THESE VIEWS.
Nor must we fail to notice those writers who deprive the soul of the intellect even for a short period of time. They do this in order to prepare the way of introducing the intellect — and the mind also — at a subsequent time of life, even at the time when intelligence appears in a man. They maintain that the stage of infancy is supported by the soul alone, simply to promote vitality, without any intention of acquiring knowledge also, because not all things have knowledge which possess life. Trees, for instance, to quote Aristotle's example, 5 have vitality, but have not knowl- edge; and with him agrees every one who gives a share to all animated beings of the animal substance, which, according to our view, exists in man alone as his special prop- erty,— not because it is the work of God, which all other creatures are likewise, but because it is the breath of God, which this (human soul) alone is, which we say is born with the full equipment of its proper faculties. Well, let them meet us with the example of the trees: we will accept their challenge, (nor shall we find in it any detriment to our own argument;) for it is an undoubted fact, that whilst trees are yet but twigs and sprouts, and before they even reach the sapling stage, there is in them their own proper faculty of life, as soon as they spring out of their native beds. But then, as time goes on, the vigour of the tree slowly advances, as it grow and hardens into its woody trunk, until it mature age completes the condition which nature destines for it. Else what resources would trees pos- sess in due course for the inoculation of grafts, and the formation of leaves, and the swelling of their buds, and the graceful shedding of their blossom, and the softening of their sap, were there not in them the quiet growth of the full provision of their nature, and the dis- tribution of this life over all their branches for the accomplishment of their maturity?
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
[chap. XX.
Trees, therefore, have ability or knowledge; and they derive it from whence they also de- rive vitality — that is, from the one source of vitality and knowledge which is peculiar to their nature, and that from the infancy which tiiey, too, begin with. For I observe that even the vine, although yet tender and im- mature, still understands its own natural busi- ness, and strives to cling to some support, that, leaning on it, and lacing through it,' it may so attain its growth. Indeed, without waiting for the husbandman's training, with- out an espalier, without a prop, whatever its tendrils catch, it will fondly cling to,^ and em- brace with really greater tenacity and force by its own inclination than by your volition. It longs and hastens to be secure. Take also ivy-plants, never mind how young: I observe their attempts from the very first to grasp objects above them, and outrunning every- thing else, to hang on to the highest thing, preferring as they do to spread over walls with their leafy web and woof rather than creep on the ground and be trodden under by every foot that likes to crush them. On the other hand, in the case of such trees as receive injury from contact with a building, how do they hang off as they grow and avoid what injures them! You can see that their branches were naturally meant to take the opposite direction, and can very well under- stand the vital instincts = of such a tree from its avoidance of the wall. It is contented (if it be only a little shrub) with its own insig- nificant destiny, which it has in its foreseeing instinct thoroughly been aware of from its infancy, only it still fears even a ruined build- ing. On my side, then, why should I not contend for these wise and sagacious natures of trees? Let them have vitality, as the phi- losophers permit it; but let them have knowl- edge too, although the philosophers disavow it. Even the infancy of a log, then, may have an intellect (suitable to it): how much more may that of a human being, whose soul (which may be compared with the nascent sprout of a tree) has been derived from Adam as its root, and has been propagated amongst his posterity by means of woman, to whom it has been entrusted for transmission, and thus has sprouted into life with all its natural ap- paratus, both of intellect and of sense! I am much mistaken if the human person, even from his infancy, when he saluted life with his infant cries, does not testify to his actual possession of the faculties of sensation and intellect by the fact of his birth, vindicating ■ Innixa et inncxa.
- Amabit.
' ADimalionem. The possession and use of an " aoiina.''
at one and the same time the use of all his senses — that of seeing by the light, that of hearing by sounds, that of taste by liquids, that of smell by the air, that of touch by the ground. This earliest voice of infancy, then, is the first effort of the senses, and the initial impulse of «iental perceptions.'* There is also the further fact, that some persons un- derstand this plaintive cry of the infant to be an augury of affliction in the prospect of our tearful life, whereby from the very mo- ment of birth (the soul) has to be regarded as endued with prescience, much more with intelligence. Accordingly by this intuition s the. babe knows his mother, discerns the nurse, and even recognises the waiting-maid; refusing the breast of another woman, and the cradle that is not his own, and longing only for the arms to which he is accustomed. Now from what source does he acquire this discernment of novelty and custom, if not from instinctive knowledge? How does it happen that he is irritated and quieted, if not by help of his initial intellect? It would be very strange indeed that infancy were natu- rally so lively, if it had not mental power; and naturally so capable of impression and affection, if it had no intellect. But (we hold the contrary): for Christ, by "accepting praise out of the mouth of babes and suck- lings,"* has declared that neither childhood nor infancy is without sensibility,^ — the for- mer of which states, when meeting Him with approving shouts, proved its ability to offer Him testimony;^ while the other, by being slaughtered, for His sake of course, knew what violence meant. ' CHAP. XX. — THE SOUL, AS TO ITS NATURE UNI- FORM, BUT ITS FACULTIES VARIOUSLY DEVEL- OPED. VARIETIES ONLY ACCIDENTAL.
And here, therefore, we draw our conclu- sion, that all the natural properties of the soul are inherent in it as parts of its substance; and that they grow and develope along with it, from the very moment of its own origin at birth. Just as Seneca says, whom we so often find on our side:'° "There are implanted within us the seeds of all the arts and periods of life. And God, our Master, secretly pro- duces our mental dispositions; " that is, from the germs which are implanted and hidden in us by means of infancy, and these are the intel- lect: for from these our natural dispositions are 4 Intellectuam.
s Spiritu. The mental instinct, just oittatiooed.
7 Hebetes.
'o Sxpe aoster.
CHAP. XXI.} A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
evolved. Now, even the seeds of plants have one form in each kind, but their development varies: some open and expand in a healtliy and perfect state, while others either improve or degenerate, owing to the conditions of weather and soil, and from the appliance of labour and care; also from the course of the seasons, and from the occurrence of casual circumstances. In like manner, the soul may well be ' uniform in its seminal origin, al- though multiform by the process of nativity. = And here local influences, too, must be taken into account. It has been said that dull and brutish persons are born at Thebes; and the most accomplished in wisdom and speech at Athens, where in the district of Colythus ^ children speak — such is the precocity of their tongue — before they are a month old. In- deed, Plato himself tells us, in the Tif/urus, that Minerva, when preparing to found her great city, only regarded the nature of the country which gave promise of mental dispo- sitions of this kind; whence he himself in The Laws instructs Megillus and Clinias to be careful in their selection of a site for building a city. Empedocles, however, places the cause of a subtle or an obtuse intellect in the quality of the blood, from which he derives progress and perfection in learning and science. The subject of national peculiarities has grown by this time into proverbial noto- riety. Comic poets deride the Phrygians for their cowardice; Sallust reproaches the Moors for their levity, and the Dalmatians for their cruelty; even the apostle brands the Cretans as " liars." ^ Very likely, too, something must be set down to the score of bodily con- dition and the state of the health. Stoutness hinders knowledge, but a spare form stimu- lates it; paralysis prostrates the mind, a de- cline preserves it. How much more will those accidental circumstances have to be noticed, which, in addition to the state of one's body or one's health, tend to sharpen or to dull the intellect! It is sharpened by learned pursuits, by the sciences, the arts, by experimental knowledge, business habits, and studies; it is blunted by ignorance, idle habits, inactivity, lust, inexperience, listlessness, and vicious pursuits. Then, besides these influences, there must perhaps s be added the supreme powers. Now these are the supreme powers: according to our (Christian) notions, the)'' are the Lord God and His adversary the devil; but according to men's general opinion about