3 See below, ch. liv.
to the exuberance of the brain. You have medical men (to attest the fact). But not a. particle of the soul can possibly remain in the I body, which is itself destined to disappear' when time shall have abolished the entire: scene on which the body has played its part. I And yet even this partial survival of the soul finds a place in the opinions of some men; and on this account they will not have the body consumed at its funeral by fire, because they would spare the small residue of the soul. There is, however, another way of accounting for this pious treatment, not as if it meant to favour the relics of the soul, but as if it would avert a cruel custom m the interest even of the body; since, being human, it is itself un- deserving of an end which is also inflicted upon murderers. The truth is, the soul is indivisible, because it is immortal; (and this fact) compels us to believe that death itself is \ an indivisible process, accruing indivisibly to the soul, not indeed because it is immortal, but because it is indivisible. Death, however, would have to be divided in its operation, if the soul were divisible into particles, any one of which has to be resei-ved for a later stage of death. At this rate, a part of death will have to stay behind for a portion of the soul. I am not ignorant that some vestige of this opinion still exists. I have found it out from one of my own people. I am acquainted with the case of a woman, the daughter of Chris- tian parents, 5 who in the very flower of her age and beauty slept peacefully (in Jesus), after a singularly happy though brief married life. Before they laid her in her grave, and when the priest began the appointed office, at the very first breath of his prayer she withdrew her hands from her side, placed them in an attitude of devotion, and after the holy ser- vice was concluded restored them to their lateral position. Then, again, there is that well-known story among our own people, that a body voluntarily made way in a certain ceme- tery, to afford room for another body to be placed near to it. If, as is the case, similar stories are told amongst the heathen, (we can only conclude that) God everywhere manifests signs of His own power — to His own people for their comfort, to strangers for a testimony unto them. I would indeed much rather j suppose that a portent of this kind happened | form the direct agency of God than from any relics of the soul: for if there were a residue of these, they would be certain to move the other limbs; and even if they moved the hands, this still would not have been for the purpose of a prayer. Nor would the corpse hav been simply content to have made way 5 Vemaculam ecclesiae.
CHAP. Llll.]
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
for its neighbour: it would, besides, have benefited its own self also by the change of its position. But from whatever cause proceeded these phenomena, which you must put down amongst signs and portents, it is impossible that they should regulate nature. Death, if it once falls short of totality in operation, is not death. If any fraction of the soul remain, it makes a living state. Death will no more mix with life, than will night with day.
CHAP. LII. ALL KINDS OF DEATH A VIOLENCE TO NATURE, ARISING FROM SIN. SIN AN IN- TRUSION UPON NATURE AS GOD CREATED IT.
Such, then, is the work of death — the sepa- ration of the soul from the body. Putting out of the question fates and fortuitous cir- cumstances, it has been, according to men's views, distinguished in a twofold form — the ordinary and the e.xtraordinary. The ordinary they ascribe to nature, exercising its quiet in- fluence in the case of each individual decease; the extraordinary is said to be contrary to nature, happening in every violent death. As for our own views, indeed, we know what was man's origin, and we boldly assert and per- sistently maintain that death happens not by way of natural consequence to man, but owing to a fault and defect which is not itself natu- ral; although it is easy enough, no doubt, to apply the term natural to faults and circum- stances which seem to have been (though from the emergence of an external cause ') insepa- rable to us from our very birth. If man had been directly appointed to die as the condition of his creation,^ then of course death must be imputed to nature. Now, that he was not thus appointed to die, is proved by the very law which made his condition depend on a warning, and death result from man's arbitrary choice. Indeed, if he had not sinned, he cer- tainly would not have died. That cannot be nature which happens by the exercise of voli- tion after an alternative has been proposed to it, and not by necessity — the result of an in- flexible and unalterable condition. Conse- quently, although death has various issues, in- asmuch as its causes are manifold, we cannot say that the easiest death is so gentle as not to happen by violence (to our nature). The very law which produces death, simple though it be, is yet violence. How can it be other- wise, when so close a companionship of soul and body, so inseparable a growth together from their very conception of two sister sub- stances, is sundered and divided? For al- though a man may breathe his last for joy, ' Ex accidentia.
2 In mortem directo institutus est. [See p. 227, supra.l like the Spartan Chilon, while embracing his son who had just concjuered in the Olympic games; or for glory, like the Athenian Clide- mus, while receiving a crown of gold for the excellence of his historical writings; or in a dream, like Plato; or in a fit of laughter, like Publius Crassus, — yet death is much too vio- lent, coming as it does upon us by strange and alien means, expelling the soul by a method all its own, calling on us to die at a moment when one might live a jocund life in joy and honour, in peace and pleasure. That is still a violence to ships: although far away from the Capharean rocks, assailed by no storms, without a billow to shatter them, with favour- ing gale, in gliding course, with merry crews, they founder amidst entire security, suddenly, owing to some internal shock. Not dissimilar are the shipwrecks of life, — the issues of even a tranquil death. It matters not whether the vessel of the human body goes with unbroken timbers or shattered with storms, if the navi- gation of the soul be overthrown.
CHAP. LIII. THE ENTIRE SOUL BEING INDI- VISIBLE REMAINS TO THE LAST ACT OF VITAL- ITY; NEVER PARTIALLY OR FRACTIONALLY WITHDRAWN FROM THE BODY.
But where at last will the soul have to lodge, when it is bare and divested of the body? We must certainly not hesitate to follow it thither, in the order of our inquiry. We must, how- ever, first of all fully state what belongs to the topic before us, in order that no one, because we have mentioned the various issues of death, may expect from us a special description of these, which ought rather to be left to medical men, who are the proper judges of the inci- dents which appertain to death, or its causes- and the actual conditions of the human body. Of course, with the view of preserving the truth of the soul's immortality, whilst treating this topic, I shall have, on mentioning death, to introduce phrases about dissolution of such a purport as seems to intimate that the soul escapes by degrees, and piece by piece; for it withdraws (from the body) with all the circum- stances of a decline, seeming to suffer con- sumption, and suggests to us the idea of being annihilated by the slow process of its depart- ure. But the entire reason of this phenome- non is in the body, and arises from the body. For whatever be the kind of death (which operates on man), it undoubtedly produces the destruction either of the matter, or of the re- gion, or of the passages of vitality: of the matter, such as the gall and the blood; of the region, such as the heart and the liver; of the passages, such as the veins and the ar- A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
[chap. LIV.
teries. Inasmuch, then, as these parts of the body are severally devastated by an injury proper to each of them, even to the very last ruin and annulling of the vital powers — in other words, of the ends, the sites, and the functions of nature — it must needs come to pass, amidst the gradual decay of its instru- ments, domiciles, and spaces, that the soul also itself, being driven to abandon each suc- cessive part, assumes the appearance of being lessened to nothing; in some such manner as a charioteer is assumed to have himself failed, when his horses, through fatigue, withdraw from him their energies. But this assumption applies only to the circumstances of the de- spoiled person, not to any real condition of suffering. Likewise the body's charioteer, the animal spirit, fails on account of the fail- ure of its vehicle, not of itself — abandoning its work, but not its vigour — languishing in operation, but not in essential condition — bankrupt in solvency, not in substance — be- cause ceasing to put in an appearance, but not ceasing to exist. Thus every rapid death — such as a decapitation, or a breaking of the neck,' which opens at once a vast outlet for the soul; or a sudden ruin, which at a stroke crushes every vital action, like that inner ruin apoplexy — retards not the soul's escape, nor painfully separates its departure into succes- sive moments. Where, however, the death is a lingering one, the soul abandons its position in the way in which it is itself abandoned. And yet it is not by this process severed in fractions: it is slowly drawn out; and whilst thus extracted, it causes the last remnant to seem to be but a part of itself. No portion, however, must be deemed separable, because it is the last; nor, because it is a small one, must it be regarded as susceptible of dissolu- tion. Accordant with a series is its end, and the middle is prolonged to the extremes; and the remnants cohere to the mass, and are waited for, but never abandoned by it. And I will even venture to say, that the last of a whole is the whole; because while it is less, and the latest, it yet belongs to the whole, and completes it. Hence, indeed, many times it happens that the soul in its actual separation is more powerfully agitated with a more anxious gaze, and a quickened loquacity; whilst from the loftier and freer position in which it is now placed, it enunciates, by means of its last remnant still lingering in the flesh, what it sees, what it hears, and what it is beginning to know. In Platonic phrase, indeed, the body is a prison, ^^ but in the apos- • We have made Tertullian's " cervicum messis " include both these modes of instautaneous death.
tedly,.
is re- I I, it is I tie's it is "the temple of God," 3 because it is in Christ. Still, (as must be admitted,) by reason of its enclosure it obstructs and ob- scures the soul, and sullies it by the concre- tion of the flesh; whence it happens that the light which illumines objects comes in upon the soul in a more confused manner, as if through a window of horn. Undoubtedly, when the soul, by the power of death, i leased from its concretion with the flesh by the very release cleansed and purified: it ' is, moreover, certain that it escapes from the veil of the flesh into open space, to its clear, and pure, and intrinsic light; and then finds itself enjoying its enfranchisement from mat- ter, and by virtue of its liberty it recovers its divinity, as one who awakes out of sleep passes from images to verities. Then it tells out what it sees; then it exults or it fears, accord- ing as it finds what lodging is prepared for it, as soon as it sees the very angel's face, that arraigner of souls, the Mercury of the poets.
CHAP. LIV. — WHITHER DOES THE SOUL RETIRE WHEN IT QUITS THE BODY? OPINIONS OF PHILOSOPHERS ALL MORE OR LESS ABSURD. THE HADES OF PLATO.
To the question, therefore, whither the soul is withdrawn, we now give an answer. Al- most all the philosophers, who hold the soul's immortality, notwithstanding their special views on the subject, still claim for it this (eternal condition), as Pythagoras, and Em- pedocles, and Plato, and as they who indulge it with some delay from the time of its quit- ting the flesh to the conflagration of all things, and as the Stoics, who place only their own souls, that is, the souls of the wise, in the mansions above. Plato, it is true, does not allow this destination to all the souls, indis- criminately, of even all the philosophers, but only of those who have cultivated their phi- losophy out of love to boys. So great is the privilege which impurity obtains at the hands of philosophers! In his system, then, the souls of the wise are carried up on high into the ether: according to Arius,* into th^ air: according to the Stoics, into the moon. I wonder, indeed, that they abandon to the earth the souls of the unwise, when they affirm that even these are instructed by the wise, so much their superiors. For where is the school where they can have been instructed in the vast space which divides them? By what means can the pupil-souls have resorted to their teachers, when they are parted from each other by so distant an interval? What 3 I Cor. iii. 16, vi. 19; 2 Cor. vi. 16. An Alexandrian philosopher in great repute with the Km- peror Augustus.
CHAP. LVI.]
A TREATISE ON THE SOUL.
profit, too, can any instruction afford them at all in their posthumous state, when they are on the brink of perdition by the universal fire? All other souls they thrust down to Hades, which Plato, in his Fhcedo,^ describes as the bosom of the earth, where all the filth of the world accumulates, settles, and exhales, and where every separate draught of air only renders denser still the impurities of the seething mass.
CHAP. LV. — THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF THE POSI- TION OF hades; THE BLESSEDNESS OF PAR- ADISE IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH. THE PRIVILEGE OF THE MARTYRS.
By ourselves the lower regions (of Hades) are not supposed to be a bare cavity, nor some subterranean sewer of the world, but a vast deep space in the interior of the earth, and a concealed recess in its very bowels; inasmuch as we read that Christ in His death spent three days in the heart of the earth,' that is, in the secret inner recess which is hidden in the earth, and enclosed by the earth, and superimposed on the abysmal depths which lie still lower down. Now although Christ is God, yet, being also man, " He died ac- cording to the Scriptures," 3 and "accord- ing to the same Scriptures was buried."" With the same law of His being He fully complied, by remaining in Hades in the form and condition of a dead man; nor did He as- cend into the heights of heaven before de- scending into the lower parts of the earth, that He might there make the patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself.^ (This being the case), you must suppose Hades to be a subterranean region, and keep at arm's length those who are too proud to believe that the souls of the faithful deserve a place in the lower regions.* These persons, who are " ser- vants above their Lord, and disciples above their Master," ^ would no doubt spurn to re- ceive the comfort of the resurrection, if they must expect it in Abraham's bosom. But it was for this purpose, say they, that Christ descended into hell, that we might not our- selves have to descend thither. Well, then, what difference is there between heathens and Christians, if the same prison awaits them all when dead? How, indeed, shall the soul mount up to heaven, where Christ is already sitting at the Father's right hand, when as yet the archangel's trumpet has not been heard 6 See Irensus, adv. Hares, v. [Vol. I. p. 566, this Series.]
by the command of God,"— when as yet those whom the coming of the Lord is to find on the earth, have not been caught up into the air to meet Him at His coming,' in company with the dead in Christ, who shall be the first to arise?'° To no one is heaven opened; the earth is still safe for him, I would not say it is shut against him. When the world, indeed, shall pass away, then the kingdom of heaven shall be opened. Shall we then have to sleep high up in ether, with the boy-loving worthies of Plato; or in the air with Arius; or around the moon with the Endymions of the Stoics? No, but in Paradise, you tell me, whither already the patriarchs and prophets have removed from Hades in the retinue of the Lord's resurrection How is it, then, that the region of Paradise, which as revealed to John in the Spirit lay under the altar," dis- plays no other souls as in it besides the souls of the martyrs? How is it that the most heroic martyr Perpetua on the day of her pas- sion saw only her fellow-martyrs there, in the revelation which she received of Paradise, if it were not that the sword which guarded the entrance permitted none to go in thereat, ex- cept those who had died in Christ and not in Adam? A new death for God, even the extraordinary one for Christ, is admitted into the reception-room of mortality, specially altered and adapted to receive the new-comer. Observe, then, the difference between a heathen and a Christian in their death: if you have to lay down your life for God, as the Comforter'^ counsels, it is not in gentle fevers and on soft beds, but in the sharp pains of martyrdom: you must take up the cross and bear it after your Master, as He has Him- self instructed you.'^ The sole key to unlock Paradise is your own life's blood.'*' You have a treatise by us,'s (on Paradise), in which we have established the position that every soul is detained in safe keeping in Hades until the day of the Lord.
CHAP. LVI. REFUTATION OF THE HOMERIC VIEW OF THE soul's DETENTION FROM HADES OWING TO THE BODY's BEING UNBURIED. THAT souls PREMATURELY SEPARATED FROM THE BODY HAD TO WAIT FOR ADMISSION INTO HADES ALSO REFUTED.
There arises the question, whether this takes place immediately after the soul's de- *= I Cor. XV. 52 and i Thess. iv. 16.
^' Paracletus.
'4 The souls of the martyrs were, according to Tertullian, at once removed to Paradise (Bp. Kaye, p. 249). ^S De Paradise. [Compare, p. 216, note 9, suf>ra.'\ A TREATISE ON THE SOUL [chap. lvi.
parture from the body; whether some souls are detained for special reasons in the mean- time here on earth; and whether it is permitted them of their own accord, or by the interven- tion of authority, to be removed from Hades ' at some subsequent time? Even such opin- ions as these are not by any means lacking persons to advance them with confidence. It was believed that the unburied dead were not admitted into the infernal regions before they had received a proper sepulture; as in the case of Homer's Patroclus, who earnestly asks for a burial of Achilles in a dream, on the ground that he could not enter Hades through any other portal, since the souls of the sepulchred dead kept thrusting him away.= We know that Homer exhibited more than a poetic licence here; he had in view the rights of the dead. Proportioned, indeed, to his care for the just honours of the tomb, was his censure of that delay of burial which was injurious to souls. (It was also his purpose to add a warning), that no man should, by detaining in his house the corpse of a friend, only expose himself, along with the deceased, to increased injury and trouble, by the irreg- ularity ^ of the consolation which he nourishes with pain and grief. He has accordingly kept a twofold object in view in picturing the complaints of an unburied soul: he wished to maintain honour to the dead by promptly at- tending to their funeral, as well as to moderate the feelings of grief which their memory ex- cited. But, after all, how vain is it to suppose that the soul could bear the rites and require- ments of the body, or carry any of them away to the infernal regions! And how much vainer still is it, if injury be supposed to accrue to the soul from that neglect of burial which it ought to receive rather as a favour! For surely the soul which had no willingness to die might well prefer as tardy a removal to Hades as possible. It will love the undutiful heir, by whose means it still enjoys the light. If, however, it is certain that injury accrues to the soul from a tardy interment of the body — and the gist of the injury lies in the neglect of the burial — it is yet in the highest degree unfair, that that should receive all the injury to which the faulty delay could not possibly be imputed, for of course all the fault rests on the nearest relations of the dead. They also say that those souls which are taken away by a premature death wander about hither and thither until they have completed the residue of the years which they would have lived through, had it not been for their untimely I Ab inferis.
^I/iati^ xxiii. 72, etc.
3 Knormitate.
fate. Now either their days are appointed to all men severally, and if so appointed, I can- not suppose them capable of being shortened; or if, notwithstanding such appointment, they may be shortened by the will of God, or some other powerful influence, then (I say) such shortening is of no validity, if they still may be accomplished in some other way. If, on the other hand, they are not appointed, there cannot be any residue to be fulfilled for un- appointed periods. I have another remark to make. Suppose it be an infant that dies yet hanging on the breast; or it may be an im- mature boy; or it may be, once more, a youth arrived at puberty: suppose, 'moreover, that the life in each case ought to have reached full eighty years, how is it possible that the soul of either could spend the whole of the shortened years here on earth after losing the body by death? One's age cannot be passed without one's body, it being by help of the body that the period of life has its duties and labours transacted. Let our own people, moreover, bear this in mind, that souls are to receive back at the resurrection the self-same bodies in which they died. Therefore our bodies must be expected to resume the same condi- tions and the same ages, for it is these particulars which impart to bodies their especial modes. By what means, then, can the soul of an infant so spend on earth its residue of years, that it should be able at the resurrec- tion to assume the state of an octogenarian, although it had barely lived a month? Or if it shall be necessary that the appointed days of life be fulfilled here on earth, must the same course of life in all its vicissitudes, which has been itself ordained to accompany the ap- pointed days, be also passed through by the soul along with the days? Must it employ itself in school studies in its passage from in- fancy to boyhood; play the soldier in the ex- citement and vigour of youth and earlier man- hood; and encounter serious and judicial responsibilities in the graver years between ripe manhood and old age? Must it ply trade for profit, turn up the soil with hoe and plough, go to sea, bring actions at law, g'et married, toil and labour, undergo illnesses, and what- ever casualties of weal and woe await it in the lapse of years? Well, but how are all these