On the State of the Soul 1 part 8/11

Whence I greatly marvel that Jerome was cited by you as a witness, since, being the chief of expositors, he could by no means dispute either for the soul or against the soul; although the things you have set down from him against us—not having understood them—serve us so far that you seem to have been not so much an adversary as cunningly a suborned prevaricator, who, as if by collusive assent, have made us conquer by your very own witnesses. Indeed it is a glorious kind of victory to take up arms from him with whom you contend, and to obtain a witness who stands on that side and yet speaks for this side.

Yet, lest you should think me slow in repaying the exchange, as the occasion permits, I advise you that Hilary of Poitiers could have been more agreeable to you regarding your opinion—who indeed, among many of his most lofty disputations, perceiving something amiss, set forth these two things contrary to the truth: one, by which he said nothing incorporeal was created; the other, by which he said Christ felt nothing of pain in His passion—and if His passion was not true, neither could our redemption be true. But since blessed Hilary blotted out the fault of this opinion by the virtue of his confession, he so sustains the pen of reproof that it does not suffer the loss of his merits.

Wherefore it is right that credence be given to the expounders of the divine Scriptures only so far as they keep step with the tenor of truth. But although I have necessarily passed over certain disputants who ought to be brought forward—since I rightly hasten to the divine oracles, on which the authority of these very men depends—nevertheless I should by no means pass over Eucherius, who lived in my own time.

—a man known to me by his teaching and by present face-to-face disputations, not merely learned of by report or by reading; one indeed who, green in age but mature in mind, spurning the earth and aspiring to heaven, humble in spirit yet lofty in merit, and likewise most subtle of intellect, full of knowledge, fluent in eloquence, by far the greatest of the great bishops of his age, having published in the cause of the faith many manifold volumes of various works—he too preached to the people concerning the state of the soul: "Some," he says, "are wont to ask how, in Christ, man and God could be mingled. They seek the reason of this mystery, which was done once, when they can in no way render the reason of that thing which is done always—how the soul is joined to the body, so that man comes into being.

Therefore, just as a corporeal thing and an incorporeal one are conjoined, and soul is mingled with body so that man is made, so man is joined to God and Christ came to be. And yet, that Christ might come to be, those two incorporeal things—that is, soul and God—could more easily be conjoined and intermingled than one incorporeal and one corporeal—that is, soul and body—are mingled, so that the person of a man exists." Now hand over to me those who, equally instructed in such matters, have degenerated from these teachings, ruining their own wholesome doctrines and binding themselves over to the harms of others, by an unjust hatred of those who love them slipping down so far that they would rather choose strangers with falsehood and condemn Eucherius with truth.

You may see here some weighing a matter with sluggish judgment, others either, in their stupidity, praising that very thing with foolish proclamation, or, as smatterers, laughing at it with sly assent; among these the man pleases himself whom none but the ignorant has praised or the crafty. Here now verdicts are passed on individuals not according to the quality of their merits but according to that of men's wishes; for the sake of the praise of certain present-day brawlers, the greatest authors by far are condemned. There that praised man, lest he seem to stand below the judgment of his praisers, plucks out certain little rags from the varied reading of divers writers and sews these same onto his own cheap stuff like so many tow-patches; uglier than the naked in his tattered garb, mute without thievish premeditation, he struts cloaked in another's eloquence.

You may discern here another, amid the stench of his foul mustiness, breathing out from his own dunghills and shadows the cesspool of his belly and the bilge of his mouth, and, while he belches, stammering out certain little jeers; praised in parasitic fashion by another who has squandered his own dole in various gluttonies. Amid these and trash of this sort, would you safely say anything sober? Furthermore you will run some great risk from the sluggish mob. How so? Because nothing is more unjust than the ignorant man. Yet these and such as these I myself do not dread; and, if there is now any place for warning, I warn and forewarn:

Whoever these are, and whoever the others are who, against great men, mutter reproaches, or, concerning the highest matters, mutter certain ravings with their drinking-companions—let them either speak openly or be silent. For indeed they shall be dug out by me and dragged forth, even by name, from the obscure little shadows where they have hitherto lurked. It may be foreknown that I shall not be silent about the deeds whose names I will not keep silent. Yet let these men do what would please them, and spurn wholesome warnings—not with impunity, of course; but I, for my part, would sooner choose to be rejected by these men along with Eucherius, than to be condemned along with these men by the truth.

But here now is the place and time that, just as from the philosophers to the expositors, so from the expositors to the authentic Scriptures we may, by a consequent course, advance—reason now urging it, with most of the witnesses, of course, passed over in silence. X. HE USES THE VERY DIVINE WISDOM AS WITNESS, BY TESTIMONIES FROM THE SCRIPTURES. Let us hear, then, what the divine Wisdom pronounces to the enemies of His own image: "The ungodly," He says, "thinking not aright, said: Brief and full of weariness is the time of our life, and when it is extinguished our body shall be ashes, and the spirit shall be diffused like soft air." The ungodly therefore said these things; concerning which, a little after, the same Scripture speaks thus:

"For their own malice blinded them, since God created man imperishable, and made him to the image of His own likeness." Here I believe you yourself must be the more keenly stirred up in your own defense, and, as the merit of the cause warrants, you would make against me words almost of this sort: "Why do you use testimonies gathered from anywhere whatever, which yet by no means strike at the sincere truth of our conscience? And what does it matter to me, what indeed pertains to me, that the ungodly are divinely smitten for detracting from the dignity of the divine image, since I know myself not to be held in the snares of this impiety? Therefore I warn you to be gone, and not lyingly to brand me with the infamy of such an opinion."

Now, unless you refuse, I return to your own words with you, from which you may judge whether that oracle of the prophetic discourse is stretched out against the ungodly or against you—you, indeed; whether it grips you the more, who, putting forward the privilege of knowledge, are devoted to reputation against your conviction, and anxious for reputation against your conviction, defending over there as if your own the very thing which here you refuse as if another's. Yet, lest there be any room either for me to interpret otherwise or perhaps for you to deny, let us in the present case look at both the things about which we are dealing. The prophet, to be sure, says that the ungodly say: "When it is extinguished our body shall be ashes, and the spirit shall be diffused like soft air." But you—what do you say?

"There are," you say, "certain spiritual natures, such as angels, archangels, and the other powers, and our very soul too, or at least this subtle air—yet they are by no means to be reckoned incorporeal." Attend, I beg, with your mind, you who are an arbiter of each of us, and pass judgment whether there be any difference between these declarations: the ungodly said concerning the human spirit—that is, concerning the human soul—that the spirit is diffused like soft air. Our necessary friend here adds that the human soul and this subtle air are alike spiritual, but are nonetheless not incorporeal.

Now weigh these same words and their sense; for what is there called "the human spirit," here is called "soul," so that they agree perfectly, as if each had said "soul" or each had said "spirit": for the one which there is said to be poured out into soft air, is likewise here compared to subtle air. So then, that the spirit is said to be diffused like soft air is the same as if it were said: the spirit is that which soft air is. And likewise, our soul is spiritual, and this subtle air is so—it is as if it were said:

our soul is that which this subtle air is. And since, of these two statements, the one stated before is the blasphemy of the ungodly, and the one set after is your opinion, and since these two are so far unified that they are, in matter, in sense, and in word, indistinguishable—what most especially follows, except that either, by reason of the likeness of your opinion (if you believe it must be defended), the opinion of the ungodly too is praiseworthy; or, because that one is punishable, yours too, by reason of its parity with it, is condemnable? But why do we go on for so long hallucinating in our arguing, since concerning this the prophet has given his verdict: "The ungodly," he says, "thinking within themselves not aright, said:

Brief is the time of our life, and when it is extinguished our body shall be ashes, and the spirit shall be diffused like soft air'; and a little after, with an intervening disputation, he also subjoins the verdict: "These things," he says, "they thought, and they erred; for their own malice blinded them." And as though you should say: "What blame is here turned upon them, what error?"—he answers: "They thought man to be a corporeal soul, and they erred." And as if one should ask, redoubling, [and] what truth is involved in this, that someone should perceive the soul to be a body—the prophet repeats the answer: "They erred—erred indeed—because God created man imperishable, and made him to the image of His own likeness"; that is to say:

the soul is so far from being a body, that it is the divine image. Is there anything by which from this point you may anywhere advance—betrayed by your own evidence, captured by the powers of truth, convicted by the prophet's testimony? But let everyone see for himself what he perceives: yet, as my opinion holds, this at least is sound—that what we have thus far discoursed against the corporealists on behalf of the spirituals would be enough, were I not to deem it equally fitting that apostolic and even evangelical testimonies too be applied to the matter of the present controversy. XI. HE WILL USE THE APOSTLE PAUL AS WITNESS FOR THE NON-SPATIALITY OF THE SOUL. Therefore, although in some places, wherever it has served, I have used testimonies of some of these Scriptures, yet it is right, in manifold fashion, that the little neck of the false-tongued be cut down by the sword of truth with a wholesome severing.

Paul, the teacher of the nations, a chosen vessel, says: "Every sin is outside the body, but he who fornicates sins against his own body." If, with the crime of fornication excepted, every sin is outside the body, then it is in the soul. Furthermore, if it is in the soul and the soul is a body, then every sin is not outside the body. But the Apostle says that, apart from fornication, every sin is outside the body. The soul, therefore, is incorporeal, that there may be something in which sin can be outside the body. Likewise, to the Corinthians, about to promulgate sentence against the one who, polluted by the crime of incest, had as a violator wantonly abused the marriage-bed of his stepmother, all but of his mother, he speaks thus: "Though absent in body, yet present in spirit, I have already judged him who has done this deed."

What is this, Apostle Paul, what is this? How are you absent in body, where your spirit is present? If the spirit is a body, why do you not rather say that, composed of two bodies, you are by the one absent and by the other present? Or, if you are wholly one body, why do you not declare that you are absent in part of your body and present in part of your body? For, that you should call yourself absent in body from the Corinthians, you can be carried to this conclusion, namely because you are wholly corporeal in your whole self; but inasmuch as you are wholly corporeal, and on this account, being absent in body, are wholly absent, you say that you are present by some "you" (I know not what) which you are not: either you convict yourself of a lie, or you convince these corporealists concerning the incorporeality of the soul.

Is there here anything dubious or perhaps obscure—he who, insofar as he is corporeal, is absent from the Corinthians, is either present by nothing of himself, or present through the incorporeal? The human spirit, therefore, is incorporeal, through which Paul the Apostle, absent in his whole corporeal self, was able to be made present to the Corinthians. These and such things we could bring forward countless from almost the whole body of the authentic volumes. XII. CONCERNING THAT WHICH THE APOSTLE SAYS, THAT HE WAS CAUGHT UP EVEN TO THE THIRD HEAVEN.

The sound doctrine of the catholic faith, with an intervening gradation, thus ascends from the lowest to the middle, from the middle to the highest, so that, by a fixed judgment subjecting the corporeal creature to the incorporeal creature, and subjecting this same incorporeal creature, together with its inferior, to the supreme incorporeal Creator, it may catch up to the third heaven those who follow Paul's footsteps—those who have transmitted the solid mass of the sensible world by a penetrating mind, and, fixing their intent gaze from the lowest back of heaven, with their strength renewed, have swum across every created incorporeal thing by a more potent effort according to the dignity of a more excellent substance, and here, with their strength a little restored by the breathing-space of a pause, have come to a stand in the supreme recognition of the incorporeal Creator.

Wherefore now at this point I should like diligently to question those corporealists, what generally is their view on this apostolic statement. For when the Apostle says that he was caught up even to the third heaven, I first ask whether he was caught up locally or non-locally, and who these three heavens are: whether there are more of them, whether they are corporeal, or whether they are some incorporeal things—so that, since the order of disputation has carried us down even to this place, we may, with truth consulted, see what is to be followed by us in this matter. And first, let us ventilate a little more scrupulously the not altogether easy question about the number of the heavens. For indeed we read:

"Praise the Lord, ye heavens of heavens." But this can be understood both of many and of two, so that both "plural heavens of plural heavens" and "two heavens of two heavens" may seem capable of being taken, the precise article of number being left unspoken. Behold: from the things adjoining the earth, up to the air, is the element of waters; thence the deep of air, up to the nearest light of the lunar star; from there, the spaces of the ethereal fires, up to the outermost, beyond the world, where the world is enclosed by the globe of the sphere. Where now, when the universality of bodies has been exhausted, shall we seek a heaven beyond all that is of the world? But in this dark cloud of dimming things, let us seek counsel again from the inner sanctuaries of the supercelestial teachings. "In the beginning," says the beginning of Genesis, "God created heaven and earth."

If, with opinions dismissed, we seek the assurance of truth, behold for you, as witness of the creatures, the very Author of creation, who, when He had created heaven and earth before all time, and afterward on the one day had made light, and on the second day had likewise founded the firmament and had by a misapplied name called this "heaven"—beneath which, with fixed boundaries of intervals as to place or as to measure, He wove the ornaments of the varying stars—it is easy to observe that this visible firmament yields to the invisible heaven by so great an interval of substance as it likewise pre-eminently surpasses the lowest places of the earth by their separating distance. Wherefore by an alien and transferred name this firmament can be called "heaven," although truly to be heaven belongs properly to that heaven created before the times.

For indeed that star-bearing thing which we call heaven is, in the Scripture of Genesis, called the firmament of heaven, since there, where it relates the creation of the lights, it says: 'God made two great lights and set them in the firmament of heaven.' By this authority, plainly, we are permitted to believe that one true heaven existed before all that is temporal, although we are not forbidden to call that firmament of which we are treating 'heaven,' precisely because God called the firmament 'heaven.' But again there arises a difficulty, that in the authentic volumes the heavens are often named not merely in the dual but in the plural number; and against this it is urged that the body of the earth is said in the Scriptures to be one—that there is a single 'circle of the lands.'

Perhaps, then, in this way the heavens are called many, though they be two, just as the earths are said to be many, though there be but one. To which third heaven, therefore, was Paul caught up? Come now, if you please, step forth, and—having shaken loose the masses of the elements and laid the weights of bodies upon the scales of judgment—weigh the world: perhaps some heavens will leap out for us from somewhere or other. Or if a single world has no further heavens beyond, then let the tiny atoms with Epicurus bring forth for you some worlds, so that Paul may find a third heaven. But what bearing has it upon blessedness, that anyone should ascend from one corporeal thing to another, or from this to a third equally corporeal, since that is not by merit the more blessed which is loftier in place?

Otherwise men would yield place to little birds, and each one would journey toward eternity not by spiritual progress but by paces. Wherefore, since neither does precedence in place make one blessed, nor does a corporeal soul find three heavens such that, having at last failed amid bodies, it may yield to incorporeal ones, let us, according to the principle already touched upon, examine by silent inquiry the threefold number of the heavens and its difference. For since the difference of dignities is a distance of places, if between the first and second heaven they stand apart more than they differ, I ask: what is the matter there? Either there is substance there, or there is nothing. If nothing, no cause will underlie a created heaven, since not even in the lowest things of earth has anything come to exist except by causes preceding it in eternity.

But if there is there a certain multitude of living beings more excellent than those of earth, then this super-celestial substance lies beneath heaven, drawing from above, plainly, the flames of its more vibrant stars and the more liquid breezes of the air, whose element fills the hollow of the inter-celestial void—that void which other peoples of living beings, and other depths of the interposed air, mark off from the third heaven. Now therefore, if through these the apostle was caught up and came even to the third heaven, what above all did he find there which, if it had to be sought locally, could not have been found in the first heaven? But he himself says that, caught up even to the third heaven, he heard some divine thing which a man may not utter.

Is it then so at last, O apostle, that God is sought through places, or that truth is found only in a place? If that is so, then God too will be local, and you lose locally the God whom you find locally; and if He is only in the third heaven, then He is left behind for you there, where He was found. But since you are made blessed not by the corporeal heaven but by the Lord of heaven, and since the Lord of heaven is wholly everywhere—He who is neither sought locally nor found locally—this assuredly will be given as the true cause of your ascension: if you ascend from a heaven of inferior substance to a heaven of more excellent substance. For to those who seek God there is no ascent from corporeal things to corporeal things; whither now shall enclosed corporeality flee away?

Behold, both that Paul was caught up even to the third heaven is true, and again that there are three corporeal heavens is not true. Therefore either you will confess that something incorporeal was created, or you will deny that there are three heavens. But since either an indisputable authority teaches, or manifest reason proves, that there are three heavens and that not all are corporeal, then, by the help of the one Truth, just as we have dispelled the deceptive notions, so let us seek the true. We read in the prophet: 'He who made heaven and earth: heaven to the Lord of heaven, but the earth He gave to the sons of men.' Here it must be noted that 'heaven' is one thing and 'the heaven of heaven' another; for when it is called 'the heaven of heaven,' it is just as if it were said 'heaven and earth.'

For the lowest part of the starry heaven is this earth; but since before all that is temporal God created heaven and earth, and on the second day made this visible heaven, heaven is therefore later in age than the earth, though it is so much more excellent in quality. But since the momentary creation of the world admits no successions and spans of times nor delays of days—for now there is no time to discourse on the number of the six days rather than on any span—understand this: that the prophet made between heaven and the heaven of heaven as great a difference as there is, roughly, between this heaven and earth; so that, just as the earth of this heaven is this earth, so this heaven is in turn the earth of that other heaven.

Whence it is to be inferred that the whole body of the world is by divine speech called 'earth,' and that which was given to the Lord is by its own proper name called 'heaven.' For Scripture speaks thus: 'heaven to the Lord of heaven'... 'but the earth He gave to the sons of men.' What then shall we say?

Was not this visible heaven given to men—the splendor and heat of the sun, or the variation of the lunar globe through its waxings and wanings, or the wandering yet fixed circuit of the stars, or the conjunctions of the heavenly bodies through their great orbits and their appointed progression—whether they vary the alternations of days and nights, or whether by the alternate warmth of heat and cold they temper the world, or whether by measured boundaries they mark the joints of the seasons and, by the same endless track of their lines, bring back again to that very point things that return without end along the same paths of their circles, or whether with their numerously distinguished choirs and musical intervals they paint the aether? Are not all these things either of beneficial use to the race of mortals, or pleasant to behold?

And on this account the corporeal heaven, in so far as it was given to men, is called 'earth,' just as the bodies of waters and of air—not indeed of the same density as the earth—are nevertheless called 'earth' because they were given to the sons of men, with this added: that the touch of all things that live sensibly is principally derived from earth. Moreover, just as nothing can be seen without fire, so nothing can be touched without earth; for since fire too is subject to touch, and the aether is fire, it is not absurd that there be something earthly there. Wherefore, since the name 'earth' includes everything corporeal, and by a settled judgment everything composed among corporeal things is called 'earth,' since this sensible world together with the visible heaven is the earth that was given to the sons of men.

What shall we say of that heaven which was given to the Lord, not to the sons of men? Therefore let us again have recourse to the divine words. For the same psalmist says: 'Confess to the Lord, who made the heavens in understanding.' Wherefore, if the heavens which God inhabits are in understanding, and only that heaven is incorporeal which was given to the Lord—to whom, plainly, everything corporeal is 'earth'—it shines forth clearly that everything which understands is not corporeal. Now the human mind understands substantially; therefore the human mind is incorporeal. Lo, here you have 'earth'—every corporeal creature; lo, here you have 'heaven'—the incorporeal and intellectual substance.

Now therefore, that you may be able to be caught up through two heavens even to the third heaven, with Paul going a little before, transmit through your incorporeal part all that is corporeal in you; and afterward also transcend even the created incorporeal which is likewise mutable, with a yet keener effort and a swifter flight; and from there, in the third heaven, rest in the most blessed contemplation of the very Immutable Incorporeal; and know yourself, O human soul, to be incorporeal, to whom, by the excellence of your nature, it is both ready and fitting—as it were a mediating substance between your lowest and highest—either to look down below upon the lowest body, or to look up above upon the highest God.

Now I myself inquire whether you can bring us some other account of the threefold number and diversity of the heavens—which indeed I should desire; but it is clear that this can in no way be given by anyone, unless between body and God the nature of an incorporeal substance interpose itself. For if there is nothing apart from God except body, then there are not three heavens but two, so that all body is, as it were, one heaven, and the Creator of body is the other. But since Paul was caught up not beyond the third heaven but into the third heaven, every corporeal and incorporeal creature must be passed through as though two heavens; but to the Creator, as into a third heaven, one must come not for the sake of passing through (which is impossible), nor of returning (which one ought not), but of standing and abiding.

But this 'running' and 'standing' is progress and perfection—which belongs, namely, to the virtues, not to places; for he who makes progress runs, and he who attains perfection arrives. But now, since we have traversed the most ample fields of a most wide-ranging question by a very short path, having given some indications (as I think) by which the byways of errors are distinguished from the straight track of truth, I inquire what that means which the apostle says—that he was caught up 'whether in the body or out of the body.' For he speaks thus: 'I know a man caught up, whether in the body or out of the body I know not,' and the rest, concerning which we have said what was pertinent. And first, let us by careful inquiry see what the blessed apostle here declares to be certain, and what he confesses to be uncertain.

That a man was caught up, he knows; whether in the body or out of the body, he knows not. Now observe that one thing here is called 'man,' another 'body.' Behold, however—it is distinguished what the apostle says he does not know, and what he says he knows. Let us therefore sift out whether he is ignorant in this manner—whether it was of the incorporeal or the corporeal, or of both—just as he does not know whether he was caught up with the body or without the body. 'I know,' he says, 'a man caught up, but whether in the body or out of the body I know not.' Here now it may be observed that he who was caught up, and who knew that he had been caught up, nevertheless perceiving that he himself was not his own body, and so hesitating whether he was caught up with it or without it, yet does not doubt that he himself was caught up.

And when by this everything obscure is laid open—namely, that he who is uncertain whether he was caught up with the body or without the body, is nevertheless certain that he is incorporeal and has a body—for if he was not caught up without the body, then the body too was caught up with him, and yet he himself is not that thing which is the body with which he was caught up. If he was caught up without the body, much rather is it understood that that is not body which can exist without the body. 'I know,' he says, 'a man caught up, but whether in the body or out of the body I know not,' which is just as if he were saying: 'I know that I was caught up, but whether with the body or without the body I know not.' Therefore, even if you were caught up with the body, you could nevertheless have been caught up without the body.