ON VIRGINITY -- INTRODUCTION

THE object of this treatise is to create in its readers a passion for the

life according to excellence. There are many distractions(1), to use the word

of the Divine Apostle, incident to the secular life; and so this treatise

would suggest, as a necessary door of entrance to the holier life, the calling

of Virginity; seeing that, while it is not easy in the entanglements of this

secular life to find quiet for that of Divine contemplation, those on the

other hand who have bid farewell to its troubles can with promptitude, and

without distraction, pursue, assiduously their higher studies. Now, whereas

all advice is in itself weak, and mere words of exhortation will not make the

task of recommending what is beneficial easier to any one, unless he has first

given a noble aspect to that which he urges on his hearer, this discourse will

accordingly begin with the praises of Virginity; the exhortation will come at

the end; moreover, as the beauty in anything gains lustre by the contrast with

its opposite, it is requisite that some mention should be made of the

vexations of everyday life. Then it will be quite in the plan of this work to

introduce a sketch of the contemplative life, and to prove the impossibility

of any one attaining it who feel's the world's anxieties. In the devotee

bodily desire has become weak; and so there will follow an inquiry as to the

true object of desire, for which (and which only) we have received from our

Maker our power of desiring. When this has received all possible illustration,

it will seem to follow naturally that we should consider some method to attain

it; and the true, virginity, which is free from any stain of sin, will be

found to fit such a purpose. So all the intermediate part of the discourse,

while it seems to look elsewhere, will be really tending to the praises of

this virginity. All the particular rules obeyed by the followers of this high

calling will, to avoid prolixity, be omitted here; the exhortation in the

discourse will be introduced

only in general terms, and for cases of wide application; but, in a way,

particulars will be here included, and so nothing important will be

overlooked, while prolixity is avoided. Each of us, too, is inclined to

embrace some course of life with the greater enthusiasm, when he sees

personalities who have already gained distinction in it; we have therefore

made the requisite mention of saints who have gained their glory in celibacy.

But further than this; the examples we have in biographies cannot stimulate to

the attainment of excellence, so much as a living voice and an example which

is still working for good; and so we have alluded to that most godly

bishop(2), our father in God, who himself alone could be the master in such

instructions. He will not indeed be mentioned by name, but by certain

indications we shall say in cipher that he is meant. Thus, too, future readers

will not think our advice unmeaning, when the candidate for this life is told

to school himself by recent masters. But let them first fix their attention

only on this: what such a master ought to be; then let them choose for their

guidance those who have at any time by God's grace been raised up to be

champions of this system of excellence; for either they will find what they

seek, or at all events will be no longer ignorant what it ought to be.

CHAPTER I.

THE holy look of virginity is precious indeed in the judgment of all who

make purity the test of beauty; but it belongs to those alone whose struggles

to gain this object of a noble love are favoured and helped by the grace of

God. Its praise is heard at once in the very name which goes with it;

"Uncorrupted(3)" is the word

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commonly said of it, and this shows the kind of purity that is in it; thus we

can measure by its equivalent term the height of this gift, seeing that

amongst the many results of virtuous endeavour this alone has been honoured

with the title of the thing that is uncorrupted. And if we must extol with

laudations this gift from the great God, the words of His Apostle are

sufficient in its praise; they are few, but they throw into the background all

extravagant laudations; he only styles as "holy and without blemish(4)" her

who has this grace for her ornament. Now if the achievement of this saintly

virtue consists in making one "without blemish and holy," and these epithets

are adopted in their first and fullest force to glorify the incorruptible

Deity, what greater praise of virginity can there be than thus to be shown in

a manner deifying those who share in her pure mysteries, so that they become

partakers of His glory Who is in actual truth the only Holy and Blameless One;

their purity and their incorruptibility being the means of bringing them into

relationship with Him ? Many who write lengthy laudations in detailed

treatises, with the view of adding something to the wonder of this grace,

unconsciously defeat, in my opinion, their own end; the fulsome manner in

which they amplify their subject brings its credit into suspicion. Nature's

greatnesses have their own way of striking with admiration; they do not need

the pleading of words: the sky, for instance, or the sun, or any other wonder

of the universe. In the business of this lower world words certainly act as a

basement, and the skill of praise does impart a look of magnificence; so much

so, that mankind are apt to suspect as the result of mere art the wonder

produced by panegyric. So the one sufficient way of praising virginity will be

to show that that virtue is above praise, and to evince our admiration of it

by our lives rather than by our words. A man who takes this theme for

ambitious praise has the appearance of supposing that one drop of his own

perspiration will make an appreciable increase of the boundless ocean, if

indeed he believes, as he does, that any human words can give more dignity to

so rare a grace; he must be ignorant either of his own powers or of that which

he attempts to praise.

CHAPTER II.

DEEP indeed will be the thought necessary to understand the surpassing

excellence of this grace. It is comprehended in the idea of the

Father incorrupt; and here at the outset is a paradox, viz. that virginity is

found in Him, Who has a Son and yet without passion has begotten Him. It is

included too in the nature of this Only-begotten God, Who struck the first

note of all this moral innocence; it shines forth equally in His pure and

passionless generation. Again a paradox; that the Son should be known to us by

virginity. It is seen, too, in the inherent and incorruptible purity of the

Holy Spirit; for when you have named the pure and incorruptible you have named

virginity. It accompanies the whole supramundane existence; because of its

passionlessness it is always present with the powers above; never separated

from aught that is Divine, it never touches the opposite of this. All whose

instinct and will have found their level in virtue are beautified with this

perfect purity of the uncorrupted state; all who are ranked in the opposite

class of character are what they are, and are called so, by reason of their

fall from purity. What force of expression, then, will be adequate to such a

grace? How can there be no cause to fear lest the greatness of its intrinsic

value should be impaired by the efforts of any one's eloquence? The estimate

of it which he will create will be less than that which his hearers had

before. It will be well, then, to omit all laudation in this case; we cannot

lift words to the height of our theme. On the contrary, it is possible to be

ever mindful of this gift of God; and our lips may always speak of this

blessing; that, though it is the property of spiritual existence and of such

singular excellence, yet by the love of God it has been bestowed on those who

have received their life from the will of the flesh and from blood; that, when

human nature has been based by passionate inclinations, it stretches out its

offer of purity like a hand to raise it up again and make it look above. This,

I think, was the reason why our Master, Jesus Christ Himself, the Fountain of

all innocence, did not come into the world by wedlock. It was, to divulge by

the manner of His Incarnation this great secret; that purity is the only

complete indication(5) of the presence of God and of His coming, and that no

one can in reality secure this for himself, unless he has altogether estranged

himself from the passions of the flesh. What happened in the stainless Mary

when the fulness of the Godhead which was in Christ shone out through her,

that happens in every soul that leads by rule the virgin life. No longer

indeed does the Master come with bodily presence; "we know Christ no longer

accord-

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ing to the flesh 6"; but, spiritually, He dwells in us and brings His Father

with Him, as the Gospel somewhere(7) tells. Seeing, then, that virginity means

so much as this, that while it remains m Heaven with the Father of spirits,

and moves in the dance of the celestial powers, it nevertheless stretches out

hands for man's salvation; that while it is the channel which draws down the

Deity to share man's estate, it keeps wings for man's desires to rise to

heavenly things, and is a bond of union between the Divine and human, by its

mediation bringing into harmony these existences so widely divided--what words

could be discovered powerful enough to reach this wondrous height? But still,

it is monstrous to seem like creatures without expression and without feeling;

and we must choose (if we are silent) one of two things; either to appear

never to have felt the special beauty of virginity, or to exhibit ourselves as

obstinately blind to all beauty: we have consented therefore to speak briefly

about this virtue, according to the wish of him who has assigned us this task,

and whom in all things we must obey. But let no one expect from us any display

of style; even if we wished it, perhaps we could not produce it, for we are

quite unversed in that kind of writing. Even if we possessed such power, we

would not prefer the favour of the few to the edification of the many. A

writer of sense should have, I take it, for his chiefest object not to be

admired above all other writers, but to profit both himself and them, the

many.

CHAPTER III.

WOULD indeed that some profit might come to myself from this effort! I

should have undertaken this labour with the greater readiness, if I could have

hope of sharing, according to the Scripture, in the fruits of the plough and

the threshing-floor; the toil would then have been a pleasure. As it is, this

my knowledge of the beauty of virginity is in some sort vain and useless to

me, just as the corn is to the muzzled ox that treads(8) the floor, or the

water that streams from the precipice to a thirsty man when he cannot reach

it. Happy they who have still the power of choosing the better way, and have

not debarred themselves from it by engagements of the secular life, as we

have, whom a gulf now divides from glorious virginity: no one can climb up to

that who has once planted his foot upon the secular life. We are but

spectators of others' blessings and witnesses to the happiness of another(9)

class. Even if we strike out some fitting thoughts about virginity, we shall

not be better than the cooks and scullions who provide sweet luxuries for the

tables of the rich, without having any portion themselves in What they

prepare. What a blessing if it had been otherwise, if we had not to learn the

good by after-regrets! Now they are the enviable ones, they succeed even

beyond their prayers and their desires, who have not put out of their power

the enjoyment of these delights. We are like those who have a wealthy society

with which to compare their own poverty, and so are all the more vexed and

discontented with their present lot. The more exactly we understand the riches

of virginity, the more we must bewail the other life; for we realize by this

contrast with better things, how poor it is. I do not speak only of the future

rewards in store for those who have lived thus excellently, but those rewards

also which they have while alive here; for if any one would make up his mind

to measure exactly the difference between the two courses, he would find it

well-nigh as great as that between heaven and earth. The truth of this

statement may be known by looking at actual facts.

But in writing this sad tragedy what will be a fit beginning? How shall we

really bring to view the evils common to life? All men know them by

experience, but somehow nature has contrived to blind the actual sufferers so

that they willingly ignore their condition. Shall we begin with its choicest

sweets? Well then, is not the sum total of all that is hoped for in marriage

to get delightful companionship? Grant this obtained; let us sketch a marriage

in every way most happy; illustrious birth, competent means, suitable ages,

the very flower of the prime of life, deep affection, the very best that each

can think of the other(1), that sweet rivalry of each wishing to surpass the

other in loving; in addition, popularity, power, wide reputation, and

everything else. But observe that even beneath this array of blessings the

fire of an inevitable pain is smouldering. I do not speak of the envy that is

always springing up against those of distinguished rank, and the liability to

attack which hangs over those who seem prosperous, and that natural hatred of

superiors shown by those who do not share equally in the good fortune, which

make these seemingly favoured ones pass an anxious time more full of pain than

pleasure. I omit that from the picture, and will suppose that envy against

them is asleep; although it would not be easy to find a single life in which

both these blessings were joined, i.e. happiness above the common, and

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escape from envy. However, let us, if so it is to be, suppose a married life

free from all such trials; and let us see if it is possible for those who live

with such an amount of good fortune to enjoy it. Why, what kind of vexation is

left, you will ask, when even envy of their happiness does not reach them? I

affirm that this very, thing, this sweetness that surrounds their lives is the

spark which kindles pain. They are human all the time, things weak and

perishing they have to look upon the tombs of their progenitors; and so pain

is inseparably bound up with their existence, if they have the least power of

reflection. This continued expectancy of death, realized by no sure tokens,

but hanging over them the terrible uncertainty of the future, disturbs their

present joy, clouding it over with the fear of what is coming. If only, before

experience comes, the results of experience could be learnt, or if, when one

has entered on this course, it were possible by some other means of conjecture

to survey the reality, then what a crowd of deserters would run from

marriage into the virgin life; what care and eagerness never to be entangled

in that retentive snare, where no one knows for certain how the net galls till

they have actually entered it! You would see there, if only you could do it

without danger, many contraries uniting; smiles melting into tears, pain

mingled with pleasure, death always hanging by expectation over the children

that are born, and putting a finger upon each of the sweetest joys. Whenever

the husband looks at the beloved face, that moment the fear of separation

accompanies the look. If he listens to the sweet voice, the thought comes into

his mind that some day he will not hear it. Whenever he is glad with gazing on

her beauty, then he shudders most with the presentiment of mourning her loss.

When he marks all those charms which to youth are so precious and which the

thoughtless seek for, the bright eyes beneath the lids, the arching eyebrows,

the cheek with its sweet and dimpling smile, the natural red that blooms upon

the lips, the gold-bound hair shining in many-twisted masses on the head, and

all that transient grace, then, though he may be little given to reflection,

he must have this thought also in his inmost soul that some day all this

beauty will melt away and become as nothing, turned after all this show into

noisome and unsightly bones, which wear no trace, no memorial, no remnant of

that living bloom. Can he live delighted when he thinks of that? Can he trust

in these treasures which he holds as if they would be always his? Nay, it is

plain that he will stagger as if he were mocked by a dream, and will have his

faith in life shaken, and will look upon what he sees as no longer his. You

will understand, if you have a comprehensive view of things as they are, that

nothing in this life looks that which it is. It shows to us by the illusions

of our imagination one thing, instead of something else. Men gaze open-mouthed

at it, and it mocks them with hopes; for a while it hides itself beneath this

deceitful show; then all of a sudden in the reverses of life it is revealed as

something different from that which men's hopes, conceived by its fraud in

foolish hearts, had pictured. Will life's sweetness seem worth taking delight

in to him who reflects on this? Will he ever be able really to feel it, so as

to have joy in the goods he holds? Will he not, disturbed by the constant fear

of some reverse, have the use without the enjoyment? I will but mention the

portents, dreams, omens, and such-like things which by a foolish habit of

thought are taken notice of, and always make men fear the worst. But her time

of labour comes upon the young wife; and the occasion is regarded not as the

bringing of a child into the world, but as the approach of death; in bearing

it is expected that she will die; and, indeed, often this sad presentiment is

true, and before they spread the birthday feast, before they taste any of

their expected joys, they have to change their rejoicing into lamentation.

Still in love's fever, still at the height of their passionate affection, not

yet having grasped life's sweetest gifts, as in the vision of a dream, they

are suddenly torn away from all they possessed. But what comes next?

Domestics, like: conquering foes, dismantle the bridal chamber; they deck it

for the funeral, but it is death's(2) room now; they make the useless

wailings(3) and beatings of the hands. Then there is the memory of former

days, curses on those who advised the marriage, recriminations against friends

who did not stop it; blame thrown on parents whether they be alive or dead,

bitter outbursts against human destiny, arraigning of the whole course of

nature, complaints and accusations even against the Divine government; war

within the man himself, and fighting with those who would admonish; no

repugnance to the most shocking words and acts. In some this state of mind

continues, and their reason is more completely swallowed up by grief; and

their tragedy has a sadder ending, the victim not enduring to survive the

calamity. But rather than this let us suppose a happier case. The danger of

childbirth is past; a child is born to them, the very image of its parents'

beauty. Are the occasions for grief at all lessened thereby? Rather they are

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increased; for the parents retain all their former fears, and feel in addition

those on behalf of the child, lest anything should happen to it in its

bringing up; for instance a bad accident, or by some turn of misfortunes a

sickness, a fever(4), any dangerous disease. Both parents share alike in

these; but who could recount the special anxieties of the wife? We omit the

most obvious, which all can understand, the weariness of pregnancy, the danger

in childbirth, the cares of nursing, the tearing of her heart in two for her

offspring, and, if she is the mother of many, the dividing of her soul into as

many parts as she has children; the tenderness with which she herself feels

all that is happening to them. That is well understood by every one. But the

oracle of God tells us that she is not her own mistress, but finds her

resources only in him whom wedlock has made her lord; and so, if she be for

ever so short a time left alone, she feels as if she were separated from her

head and can ill bear it; she even takes this short absence of her husband to

be the prelude to her widowhood; her fear makes her at once give up all hope;

accordingly her eyes, filled with terrified suspense, are always fixed upon

the door; her ears are always busied with what others are whispering; her

heart, stung with her fears, is well-nigh bursting even before any bad(5) news

has arrived; a noise in the doorway, whether fancied or real, acts as a

messenger of ill, and on a sudden shakes her very soul; most likely all

outside is well, and there is no cause to fear at all; but her fainting spirit

is quicker than any message, and turns her fancy from good tidings to despair.

Thus even the most favoured live, and they are not altogether to be envied;

their life is not to be compared to the freedom of virginity. Yet this hasty

sketch has omitted many of the more distressing details. Often this young wife

too, just wedded, still brilliant in bridal grace, still perhaps blushing when

her bridegroom enters, and shyly stealing furtive glances at him, when passion

is all the more intense because modesty prevents it being shown, suddenly has

to take the name of a poor lonely widow and be called all that is pitiable.

Death comes in an instant and changes that bright creature in her white and

rich attire into a black-robed mourner. He takes off the bridal ornaments and

clothes her with the colours of bereavement. There is darkness in the once

cheerful room, and the waitingwomen sing their long dirges. She hates her

friends when they try to soften her grief; she will not take food, she wastes

away, and her soul's deep dejection has a strong longing only for her death,

a longing which often lasts till it comes. Even supposing that time puts an

end to this sorrow, still another comes, whether she has children or not. If

she has, they are fatherless, and, as objects of pity themselves, renew the

memory of her loss. If she is childless, then the name of her lost husband is

rooted up, and this grief is greater than the seeming consolation. I will say

little of the other special sorrows of widowhood; for who could enumerate them

all exactly? She finds her enemies in her relatives. Some actually take

advantage of her affliction. Others exult over her loss, and see with

malignant joy the home failing to pieces, the insolence of the servants, and

the other distresses visible in such a case, of which there are plenty. In

consequence of these, many women are compelled to risk once more the trial of

the same things, not being able to endure this bitter derision. As if they

could revenge insults by increasing their own sufferings! Others, remembering

the past, will put up with anything rather than plunge a second time into the

like troubles. If you wish to learn all the trials of this married life,

listen to those women who actually know it. How they congratulate those who

have chosen from the first the virgin life, and have not had to learn by

experience about the better way, that virginity is fortified against all these

ills, that it has no orphan state, no widowhood to mourn; it is always in the

presence of the undying Bridegroom; it has the offspring of devotion always to

rejoice in; it sees continually a home that is truly its own, furnished with

every treasure because the Master always dwells there; in this case death does

not bring separation, but union with Him Who is longed for; for when (a soul)

departs(6), then it is with Christ, as the Apostle says. But it is time, now

that we have examined on the one side the feelings of those whose lot is

happy, to make a revelation of other lives, where poverty and adversity and

all the other evils which men have to suffer are a fixed condition;

deformities, I mean, and diseases, and all other lifelong afflictions. He

whose life is contained in himself either escapes them altogether or can bear

them easily, possessing a collected mind which is not distracted from itself;

while he who shares himself with wife and child often has not a moment to

bestow even upon regrets for his own condition, because anxiety for his dear

ones fills his heart. But it is superfluous to dwell upon that which every one

knows. If to What seems prosperity

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such pain and weariness is bound, what may we not expect of the opposite

condition? Every description which attempts to represent it to our view will

fall short of the reality. Yet perhaps we may in a very few words declare the

depths of its misery. Those whose lot is contrary to that which passes as

prosperous receive their sorrows as well from causes contrary to that.

Prosperous lives are marred by the expectancy, or the presence, of death; but

the misery of these is that death delays his coming. These lives then are

widely divided by opposite feelings; although equally without hope, they

converge to the same end. So many-sided, then, so strangely different are the

ills with which marriage supplies the world. There is pain always, whether

children are born, or can never be expected, whether they live, or die. One

abounds in them but has not enough means for their support; another feels the

want of an heir to the great fortune he has toiled for, and regards as a

blessing the other's misfortune each of them, in fact, wishes for that very

thing which he sees the other regretting. Again, one man loses by death a

much-loved(7) son; another has a reprobate son alive; both equally to be

pitied, though the one mourns over the death, the other over the life, of his

boy. Neither will I do more than mention how sadly and disastrously family

jealousies and quarrels, arising from real or fancied causes, end. Who could

go completely into all those details? If you would know what a network of

these evils human life is, you need not go back again to those old stories

which have furnished subjects to dramatic poets. They are regarded as myths on

account of their shocking extravagance there are in them murders and eating of

children husband-murders, murders of mothers and brothers, incestuous unions,

and every sort of disturbance of nature; and yet the old chronicler begins the

story which ends in such horrors with marriage. But turning from all that,

gaze only upon the tragedies that are being enacted on this life's stage; it

is marriage that supplies mankind with actors there. Go to the lawcourts and

read through the laws there; then you will know the shameful secrets of

marriage. Just as when you hear a physician explaining various diseases, you

understand the misery of the human frame by learning the number and the kind

of sufferings it is liable to, so when you peruse the laws and read there the

strange variety of crimes in marriage to which their penalties are attached,

you will have a pretty accurate idea of its properties; for the law does not

provide remedies for evils which do not exist, any more than a physician has a

treatment for diseases which are never known.

CHAPTER IV.

BUT we need no lodger show in this narrow way the drawback of this life,

as if the number of its ills was limited to adulteries, dissensions, and

plots. I think we should take the higher and truer view, and say at once that

none of that evil in life, which is visible in all its business and in all its

pursuits, can have any hold over a man, if he will not put himself in the

fetters of this course. The truth of what we say will be clear thus. A man

who, seeing through the illusion with the eye of his spirit purged, lifts

himself above the struggling world, and, to use the words of the Apostle,

slights it all as but dung, in a way exiling himself altogether from human

life by his abstinence from marriage,--that man has no fellowship whatever

with the sins of mankind, such as avarice, envy, anger, hatred, and everything

of the kind. He has an exemption from all this, and is in every way free and

at peace; there is nothing in him to provoke his neighbours' envy, because he

clutches none of those objects round which envy in this life gathers. He has

raised his own life above the world, and prizing virtue as his only precious

possession he will pass his days in painless peace and quiet. For virtue is a

possession which, though all according to their capacity should share it, yet

will be always in abundance for those who thirst after it; unlike the

occupation of the lands on this earth, which men divide into sections, and the

more they add to the one the more they take from the other, so that the one

person's gain is his fellow's loss; whence arise the fights for the lion's

share, from men's hatred of being cheated. But the larger owner of this

possession is never envied; he who snatches the lion's share does no damage to

him who claims equal participation; as each is capable each has this noble

longing satisfied, while the wealth of virtues in those who are already

occupiers(8) is not exhausted. The man, then, who, with his eyes only on such

a life, makes virtue, which has no limit that man can devise, his only

treasure, will surely never brook to bend his soul to any of those low courses

which multitudes tread. He will not admire earthly riches, or human power, or

any of those things which folly seeks. If, indeed, his mind is still pitched

so low, he is outside our band of novices, and our words

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do not apply to him. But if his thoughts are above, walking as it were with

God, he will be lifted out of the maze of all these errors; for the

predisposing cause of them all, marriage, has not touched him. Now the wish to

be before others is the deadly sin of pride, and one would not be far wrong in

saying that this is the seed-root of all the thorns of sin; but it is from

reasons connected with marriage that this pride mostly begins. To show what I

mean, we generally find the grasping man throwing the blame on his nearest

kin; the man mad after notoriety and ambition generally makes his family

responsible for this sin: "he must not be thought inferior to his forefathers;

he must be deemed a great man by the generation to come by leaving his

children historic records of himself": so also the other maladies of the soul,

envy, spite, hatred and such-like, are connected with this cause; they are to

be found amongst those who are eager about the things of this life. He who has

fled from it gazes as from some high watch-tower on the prospect of humanity,

and pities these slaves of vanity for their blindness in setting such a value

on bodily well-being. He sees some distinguished person giving himself airs

because of his public honours, and wealth, and power, and only laughs at the

folly of being so puffed up. He gives to the years of human life the longest

number, according to the Psalmist's computation, and then compares this

atom-interval with the endless ages, and pities the vain glory of those who

excite themselves for such low and petty and perishable things. What, indeed,

amongst the things here is there enviable in that which so many strive

for,--honour? What is gained by those who win it? The mortal remains mortal

whether he is honoured or not. What good does the possessor of many acres gain

in the end? Except that the foolish man thinks his own that which never

belongs to him, ignorant seemingly in his greed that "the earth is the Lord's,

and the fulness thereof(9)," for "God is king of all the earth(9)." It is the

passion of having which gives men a false title of lordship over that which

can never belong to them. "The earth," says the wise Preacher, "abideth for

ever(1)," ministering to every generation, first one, then another, that is

born upon it; but men, though they are so little even their own masters, that

they are brought into life without knowing it by their Maker's will, and

before they wish are withdrawn from it, nevertheless in their excessive vanity

think that they are her lords; that they, now born, now dying, rule that which

remains continually. One who reflecting on this holds cheaply all that mankind

prizes, whose only love is the divine life, because "all flesh is grass, and

all the glory of man as the flower of grass(2)," can never care for this grass

which "to-day is and to-morrow is not"; studying the divine ways, he knows not

only that human life has no fixity, but that the entire universe will not keep

on its quiet course for ever; he neglects his existence here as an alien and a

passing thing; for the Saviour said, "Heaven and earth shall. pass away(3),"

the whole of necessity awaits its refashioning. As long as he is "in this

tabernacle(4)." exhibiting mortality, weighed down with this existence, he

laments the lengthening of his sojourn in it; as the Psalmist-poet says in his

heavenly songs. Truly, they live in darkness who sojourn in these living

tabernacles; wherefore that preacher, groaning at the continuance of this

sojourn, says, "Woe is me that my sojourn is prolonged(5)," and he attributes

the cause of his dejection to "darkness"; for we know that darkness is called

in the Hebrew language "kedar." It is indeed a darkness as of the night which

envelops mankind, and prevents them seeing this deceit and knowing that all

which is most prized by the living, and moreover all which is the reverse,

exists only in the conception of the unreflecting, and is in itself nothing;

there is no such reality anywhere as obscurity of birth, or illustrious birth,

or glory, or splendour, or ancient renown, or present elevation, or power

over others, or subjection. Wealth and comfort, poverty and distress, and all

the other inequalities of life, seem to the ignorant, applying the test of

pleasure, vastly different from each other. But to the higher understanding

they are all alike; one is not of greater value than the other; because life

runs on to the finish with the same speed through all these opposites, and in

the lots of either class there remains the same power of choice to live welt

or ill, "through armour on the right hand and on the left, through evil report

and good report(6)." Therefore the clearseeing mind which measures reality

will journey on its path without turning, accomplishing its appointed time

from its birth to its exit; it is neither softened by the pleasures nor beaten

down by the hardships; but, as is the way with travellers, it keeps advancing

always, and takes but little notice of the views presented. It is the

travellers' way to press on to their journey's end', no matter whether they

are passing through meadows and cultivated farms, or through wilder and more

rugged spots; a smiling landscape does not detain them; nor a gloomy one check

their speed. So, too, that lofty mind will press straight on to its

self-imposed end,

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not turning aside to see anythIng on the way. It passes through life, but its

gaze is fixed on heaven; it is the good steersman directing the bark to some

landmark there. But the grosser mind looks down; it bends its energies to

bodily pleasures as surely as the sheep stoop to their pasture; it lives for

gorging and still lower pleasures(7); it is alienated from the life of God(8),

and a stranger to the promise of the Covenants; it recognizes no good but the

gratification of the body. It is a mind such as this that "walks in

darkness(9)," and invents all the evil in this life of ours; avarice, passions

unchecked, unbounded luxury, lust of power, vain-glory, the whole mob of moral

diseases that invade men's homes. In these vices, one somehow holds closely to

another; where one has entered all the rest seem to follow, dragging each

other in a natural order, just as in a chain, when you have jerked the first

link, the others cannot rest, and even the link at the other end feels the

motion of the first, which passes thence by virtue of their contiguity through

the intervening links; so firmly are men's vices linked together by their very

nature; when one of them has gained the mastery of a soul, the rest of the

train follow. If you want a graphic picture of this accursed chain, suppose a

man who because of some special pleasure it gives him is a victim to his

thirst for fame; then a desire to increase his fortune follows close upon this

thirst for fame; he becomes grasping; but only because the first vice leads

him on to this. Then this grasping after money and superiority engenders

either anger with his kith and kin, or pride towards his inferiors, or envy of

those above him; then hypocrisy comes in after this envy; a soured temper

after that; a misanthropical spirit after that; and behind them all a state of

condemnation which ends in the dark fires of hell. You see the chain; how all

follows from one cherished passion. Seeing, then, that this inseparable train

of moral diseases has entered once for all into the world, one single way of

escape is pointed out to us in the exhortations of the inspired writings; and

that is to separate ourselves from the life which involves this sequence of

sufferings. If we haunt Sodom, we cannot escape the rain of fire; nor if one

who has fled out of her looks back upon her desolation, can he fail to become

a pillar of salt rooted to the spot. We cannot be rid of the Egyptian bondage,

unless we leave Egypt, that is, this life that lies under water(1), and pass,

not that Red Sea, but this black and gloomy Sea of life. But suppose we remain

in this evil bondage, and, to use the Master's words, "the truth shall not

have made us free;" how can one who seeks a lie and wanders in the maze of

this world ever come to the truth? How can one who has surrendered his

existence to be chained by nature run away from this captivity? An

illustration will make our meaning. clearer. A winter torrent(2), which,

impetuous in itself, becomes swollen and carries down beneath its stream trees

and boulders and anything that comes in its way, is death and danger to those

alone who live along its course; for those who have got well out of its way it

rages in vain. Just so, only the man who lives in the turmoil of life has to

feel its force; only he has to receive those sufferings which nature's stream,

descending in a flood of troubles, must, to be true to its kind, bring to

those who journey on its banks. But if a man leaves this torrent, and these

"proud waters(3)," he will escape from being "a prey to the teeth" of this

life, as the Psalm goes on to say, and, as "a bird from the snare," on

virtue's wings. This simile, then, of the torrent holds; human life is a

tossing and tumultuous stream sweeping down to find its natural level; none of

the objects sought for in it last till the seekers are satisfied; all that is

carried to them by this stream comes near, just touches them, and passes on;

so that the present moment in this impetuous flow eludes enjoyment, for the

after-current snatches it from their view. It would be our interest therefore

to keep far away from such a stream, lest, engaged on temporal things, we

should neglect eternity. How can a man keep for ever anything here, be his

love for it never so passionate? Which of life's most cherished objects

endures always? What flower of prime? What gift of strength and beauty? What

wealth, or fame, or power? They all have their transient bloom, and then melt

away into their opposites. Who can continue in life's prime? Whose strength

lasts for ever? Has not Nature made the bloom of beauty even more shortlived

than the shows of spring? For they blossom in their season, and after

withering for a while again revive: after another shedding they are again in

leaf, and retain their beauty of to-day to a late prime. But Nature exhibits

the human bloom only in the spring of early life; then she kills it; it is

vanished in the frosts of age. All other delights also deceive the bodily eye

for a time, and then pass behind the veil of oblivion. Nature's inevitable

changes are many; they agonize him whose love is passionate. One way of escape

is open: it is, to be attached to none of these things, and to get as far away

as

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possible from the society of this emotional and sensual world; or rather, for

a man to go outside the feelings which his own body gives rise to. Then, as he

does not live for the flesh, he will not be subject to the troubles of the

flesh. But this amounts to living for the spirit only, and imitating all we

can the employment of the world of spirits. There they neither marry, nor are

given in marriage. Their work and their excellence is to contemplate the

Father of all purity, and to beautify the lines of their own character from

the Source of all beauty, so far as imitation of It is possible.

CHAPTER V.

Now we declare that Virginity is man's "fellow-worker" and helper in

achieving the aim of this lofty passion. In other sciences men have devised

certain practical methods for cultivating the particular subject; and so, I

take it, virginity is the practical method in the science of the Divine life,

furnishing men with the power of assimilating themselves with spiritual

natures. The constant endeavour in such a course is to prevent the nobility of

the soul from being lowered by those sensual outbreaks, in which the mind no

longer maintains its heavenly thoughts and upward gaze, but sinks down to the

emotions belonging to the flesh and blood. How can the soul which is

riveted(4) to the pleasures of the flesh and busied with merely human longings

turn a disengaged eye upon its kindred intellectual light? This evil,

ignorant, and prejudiced bias towards material things will prevent it. The

eyes of swine, turning naturally downward, have no glimpse of the wonders of

the sky; no more can the soul whose body drags it down look any longer upon

the beauty above; it must pore perforce upon things which though natural are

low and animal. To look with a free devoted gaze upon heavenly delights, the

soul will turn itself from earth; it will not even partake of the recognized

indulgences of the secular life; it will transfer all its powers of affection

from material objects to the intellectual contemplation of immaterial beauty.

Virginity of the body is devised to further such a disposition of the soul; it

aims at creating in it a complete forgetfulness of natural emotions; it would

prevent the necessity of ever descending to the call of fleshly needs. Once

freed from such, the soul runs no risk of becoming, through a growing habit of

indulging in that which seems to a certain extent conceded by nature's law,

inattentive and ignorant of Divine and undefiled delights. Purity of the

heart, that master of our lives, alone can capture them.

CHAPTER VI.

THIS, I believe, makes the greatness of the prophet Elias, and of him who

afterwards appeared in the spirit and power of Elias, than whom "of those that

are born of women there was none greater(5)." If their history conveys any

other mystic lesson, surely this above all is taught by their special mode of

life, that the man whose thoughts are fixed upon the invisible is necessarily

separated from all the ordinary events of life; his judgments as to the True

Good cannot be confused and led astray by the deceits arising from the senses.

Both, from their youth upwards, exiled themselves from human society, and in a

way from human nature, in their neglect of the usual kinds of meat and drink,

and their sojourn in the desert. The wants of each were satisfied by the

nourishment that came in their way, so that their taste might remain simple

and unspoilt, as their ears were free from any distracting noise, and their

eyes from any wandering look. Thus they attained a cloudless calm of soul, and

were raised to that height of Divine favour which Scripture records of each.

Elias, for instance; became the dispenser of God's earthly gifts; he had

authority to close at will the uses of the sky against the sinners and to open

them to the penitent. John is not said indeed to have done any miracle; but

the gift in him was pronounced by Him Who sees the secrets of a man greater

than any prophet's. This was so, we may presume, because both, from beginning

to end, so dedicated their hearts to the Lord that they were unsullied by any

earthly passion; because the love of wife or child, or any other human call,

did not intrude upon them, and they did not even think their daily sustenance

worthy of anxious thought; because they showed themselves to be above any

magnificence(6) of dress, arid made shift with that which chance offered them,

one clothing himself in goat-skins, the other with camel's hair. It is my

belief that they would not have reached to this loftiness of spirit, if

marriage had softened them. This is not simple history only; it is "written

for our admonition(7)," that we might direct our lives by theirs. What, then,

do we learn thereby? This: that the man who longs for union with God must,

like those saints, detach his mind from all worldly business. It is impossible

for the mind which is poured into many channels to win its way to the

knowledge and the love of God.

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CHAPTER VII.

AN illustration will make our teaching on this subject clearer. Imagine a

stream flowing from a spring and dividing itself off into a number of

accidental channels. As long as it proceeds so it will be useless for any

purpose of agriculture, the dissipation of its waters making each particular

current small and feeble, and therefore slow. But if one were to mass these

wandering and widely dispersed rivulets again into one single channel, he

would have a full and collected stream for the supplies which life demands.

Just so the human mind(so it seems to me), as long as its current spreads

itself in all directions over the pleasures of the sense, has no power that is

worth the naming of making its way towards the Real Good; but once call it

back and collect it upon itself, so that it may begin to move without

scattering and wandering towards the activity which is congenital and natural

to it, it will find no obstacle in mounting to higher things, and in grasping

realities. We often see water contained in a pipe bursting upwards through

this constraining force, which will not let it leak; and this, in spite of its

natural gravitation: in the same way, the mind of man, enclosed in the compact

channel of an habitual continence, and not having any side issues, will be

raised by virtue of its natural powers of motion to an exalted love. In fact,

its Maker ordained that it should always move, and to stop is impossible to

it; when therefore it is prevented employing this power upon trifles, it

cannot be but that it will speed toward the truth, all improper exits being

closed. In the case of many turnings we see travellers can keep to the direct

route, when they have learnt that the other roads are wrong, and so avoid

them; the more they keep out of these wrong directions, the more they will

preserve the straight course; in like manner the mind in turning from vanities

will recognize the truth. The great prophets, then, whom we have mentioned

seem to teach this lesson, viz. to entangle ourselves with none of the objects

of this world's effort; marriage is one of these, or rather it is the primal

root of all striving after vanities.

CHAPTER VIII.

LET no one think however that herein we depreciate marriage as an

institution. We are well aware that it is not a stranger to God's blessing.

But since the common instincts of mankind can plead sufficiently on its

behalf, instincts which prompt by a spontaneous bias to take the high road of

marriage for the procreation of children, whereas Virginity in a way thwarts

this natural impulse, it is a superfluous task to compose formally an

Exhortation to marriage. We put forward the pleasure of it instead, as a most

doughty champion on its behalf. It may be however, notwithstanding this, that

there is some need of such a treatise, occasioned by those who travesty the

teaching of the Church. Such persons(8) "have their conscience seared with a

hot iron," as the Apostle expresses it; and very truly too, considering that,

deserting the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the "doctrines of devils," they

have some ulcers and blisters stamped upon their hearts, abominating God's

creatures, and calling them "foul," "seducing," "mischievous," and so on. "But

what have I to do to judge them that are without(9)?" asks the Apostle. Truly

those persons are outside the Court in which the words of our mysteries are

spoken; they are not installed under God's roof, but in the monastery of the

Evil One. They "are taken captive by him at his will(1)." They therefore do

not understand that all virtue is found in moderation, and that any declension

to either side(2) of it becomes a vice. He, in fact, who grasps the middle

point between doing too little and doing too much has hit the distinction

between vice and virtue. Instances will make this clearer. Cowardice and

audacity are two recognized vices opposed to each other; the one the defect,

the other the excess of confidence; between them lies courage. Again, piety is

neither atheism nor superstition; it is equally impious to deny a God and to

believe in many gods. Is there need of more eXamples to bring this principle

home? The man who avoids both meanness and prodigality will by this shunning

of extremes form the moral habit of liberality; for liberality is the thing

which is neither inclined to spend at random vast and useless sums, nor yet to

be closely calculating in necessary expenses. We need not go into details in

the case of all good qualities. Reason, in all of them, has established virtue

to be a middle state between two extremes. Sobriety itself therefore is a

middle state, and manifestly involves the two declensions on either side

towards vice; he, that is, who is wanting in firmness of soul, and is so

easily worsted in the combat with pleasure as never even to have approached

the path of a virtuous and sober life, slides into shameful indulgence; while

he who goes beyond the safe ground of sobriety and overshoots the moderation

of this virtue, falls as it were

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from a precipice into the "doctrines of devils," "having his conscience seared

with a hot iron." In declaring marriage abominable he brands himself with such

reproaches; for "if the tree is corrupt" (as the Gospel says), "the fruit also

of the tree will be like it(3)"; if a man is the shoot and fruitage of the

tree of marriage, reproaches cast on that turn upon him who casts them(4).

These persons, then, are like branded criminals already; their conscience is

covered with the stripes of this unnatural teaching. But our view of marriage

is this; that, while the pursuit of heavenly things should be a man's first

care, yet if he can use the advantages of marriage with sobriety and

moderation, he need not despise this way of serving the state. An example

might be found in the patriarch Isaac. He married Rebecca when he was past the

flower of his age and his prime was well-nigh spent, so that his marriage was

not the deed of passion, but because of God's blessing that should be upon his

seed. He cohabited with her till the birth of her only children(5), and then,

closing the channels of the senses, lived wholly for the Unseen; for this is

what seems to be meant by the mention in his history of the dimness of the

Patriarch's eyes. But let that be as those think who are skilled in reading

these meanings, and let us proceed with the continuity of our discourse. What

then, were we saying? That in the cases where it is possible at once to be

true to the diviner love, and to embrace wedlock, there is no reason for

setting aside this dispensation of nature and misrepresenting as abominable

that which is honourable. Let us take again our illustration of the water and

the spring. Whenever the husbandman, in order to irrigate a particular spot,

is bringing the stream thither, but there is need before it gets there of a

small outlet, he will allow only so much to escape into that outlet as is

adequate to supply the demand, and can then easily be blended again with the

main stream. If, as an inexperienced and easy-going steward, he opens too wide

a channel, there will be danger of the whole stream quitting its direct bed

and pouring itself sideways. In the same way, if (as life does need a mutual

succession) a man so treats this need as to give spiritual things the first

thought, and because of the shortness(6) of the time indulges but sparingly

the sexual passion and keeps it under restraint, that man would realize the

character of the prudent husband man to which the Apostle exhorts us. About

the details of paying these trifling debts of nature he will not be

over-calculating, but the long hours of his prayers(7) will secure the purity

which is the key-note of his life. He will always fear lest by this kind of

indulgence he may become nothing but flesh and blood; for in them God's Spirit

does not dwell. He who is of so weak a character that he cannot make a manful

stand against nature's impulse had better(8) keep himself very far away from

such temptations, rather than descend into a combat which is above his

strength. There is no small danger for him lest, cajoled in the valuation of

pleasure, he should think that there exists no other good but that which is

enjoyed along with some sensual emotion, and, turning altogether from the love

of immaterial delights, should become entirely of the flesh, seeking always

his pleasure only there, so that his character will be a Pleasure-lover, not a

God-lover. It is not every man's gift, owing to weakness of nature, to hit the

due proportion in these matters; there is a danger of being carried far beyond

it, and "sticking fast in the deep mire(9)," to use the Psalmist's words. It

would therefore be for our interest, as our discourse has been suggesting, to

pass through life without a trial of these temptations, lest under cover of

the excuse of lawful indulgence passion should gain an entrance into the

citadel of the soul.

CHAPTER IX.

CUSTOM is indeed in everything hard to resist. It possesses an enormous

power of attracting and seducing the soul. In the cases where a man has got

into a fixed state of sentiment, a certain imagination of the good is created

in him by this habit; and nothing is so naturally vile but it may come to be

thought both desirable and laudable, once it has got into the fashion(1). Take

mankind now living on the earth. There are many nations, and their ambitions

are not all the same. The standard of beauty and of honour is different in

each, the custom of each regulating their enthusiasm and their aims. This

unlikeness is seen not only amongst nations where the pursuits of the one are

in no

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repute with the other, but even in the same nation, and the same city, and the

same family; we may see in those aggregates also much difference existing

owing to customary feeling. Thus brothers born from the same throe are

separated widely from each other in the aims of life. Nor is this to be

wondered at, considering that each single man does not generally keep to the

same opinion about the same thing, but alters it as fashion influences him.

Not to go far from our present subject, we have known those who have shown

themselves to be in love with chastity all through the early years of puberty;

but in taking the pleasures which men think legitimate and allowable they

make them the startingpoint of an impure life, and when once they have

admitted these temptations, all the forces of their feeling are turned in that

direction, and, to take again our illustration of the stream, they let it rush

from the diviner channel into low material channels, and make within

themselves a broad path for passion; so that the stream of their love leaves

dry the abandoned channel of the higher way(2) and flows abroad in indulgence.

It would be well then, we take it, for the weaker brethren to fly to virginity

as into an impregnable fortress, rather than to descend into the career of

life's consequences and invite temptations to do their worst upon them,

entangling themselves in those things which through the lusts of the flesh war

against the law of our mind; it would be well for them to consider(3) that

herein they risk not broad acres, or wealth, or any other of this life's

prizes, but the hope which has been their guide. It is impossible that one who

has turned to the world and feels its anxieties, and engages his heart in the

wish to please men, can fulfil that first and great commandment of the Master,

"Thou shall love God with all thy heart and with all thy strength(4)." How can

he fulfil that, when he divides his heart between God and the world, and

exhausts the love which he owes to Him alone in human affections? "He that is

unmarried careth for the things of the Lord; but he that is married careth for

the things that are of the world(5)." If the combat with pleasure seems

wearisome, nevertheless let all take heart. Habit will not fail to produce,

even in the seemingly most fretful(6), a feeling of pleasure through the very

effort of their perseverance; and that pleasure will be of the noblest and

purest kind; which the intelligent may well be enamoured of, rather than allow

themselves, with aims narrowed by the lowness of their objects, to be

estranged from the true greatness which goes beyond all thought.

CHAPTER X.

WHAT words indeed could possibly express the greatness of that loss in

falling away from the possession of real goodness? What consummate power of

thought would have to be employed! Who could produce even in outline that

which speech cannot tell, nor the mind grasp? On the one hand, if a man has

kept the eye of his heart so clear that he can in a way behold the promise of

our Lord's Beatitudes realized, he will condemn all human utterance as

powerless to represent that which he has apprehended. On the other hand, if a

man from the atmosphere of material indulgences has the weakness of passion

spreading like a film over the keen vision of his soul, all force of

expression will be wasted upon him; for it is all one whether you understate

or whether you magnify a miracle to those who have no power whatever of

perceiving it(7). Just as, in the case of the sunlight, on one who has never

from the day of his birth seen it, all efforts at translating it into words

are quite thrown away; you cannot make the splendour of the ray shine(8)

through his ears; in like manner, to see the beauty of the true and

intellectual light, each man has need of eyes of his own; and he who by a gift

of Divine inspiration can see it retains his ecstasy unexpressed in the depths

of his consciousness; while he who sees it not cannot be made to know even the

greatness of his loss. How should he? This good escapes his perception, and it

cannot be represented to him; it is unspeakable, and cannot be delineated. We

have not learnt the peculiar language expressive of this beauty. An example of

what we want to say does not exist in the world; a comparison for it would at

least be very difficult to find. Who compares the Sun to a little spark? or

the vast Deep to a drop? And that tiny drop and that diminutive spark bear the

same relation to the Deep and to the Sun, as any beautiful object of man's

admiration does to that real beauty on the features of the First Good, of

which we catch the glimpse beyond any other good. What words could be invented

to show the greatness of this loss to him who suffers it? Well does the great

David seem to me to express the impossibility of doing this. He has been

lifted by the power of the Spirit out of himself, and sees in a blessed state

of ecstacy the boundless and incomprehensible Beauty; he sees it as fully as a

mortal can see who has quitted his fleshly envelopments and entered, by the

mere power of thought, upon the contemplation of the spiritual and

intellectual

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world, and in his longing to speak a word worthy of the spectacle he bursts

forth with that cry, which all re-echo, "Every man a liar(9)!" I take that to

mean that any man who entrusts to language the task of presenting the

ineffable Light is really and truly a liar; not because of any hatred on his

part of the truth, but because of the feebleness of his instrument for

expressing the thing thought of(1). The visible beauty to be met with in this

life of ours, showing glimpses of itself, whether in inanimate objects or in

animate organisms in a certain choiceness of colour, can be adequately admired

by our power of aesthetic feeling. It can be illustrated and made known to

others by description; it can be seen drawn in the language as in a picture.

Even a perfect type(2) of such beauty does not baffle our conception. But how

can language illustrate when it finds no media for its sketch, no colour, no

contour(3), no majestic size, no faultlessness of feature; nor any other

commonplace of art? The Beauty which is invisible and formless, which is

destitute of qualities and far removed from everything which we recognize in

bodies by the eye, can never be made known by the traits which require nothing

but the perceptions of our senses in order to be grasped. Not that we are to

despair of winning this object of our love, though it does seem too high for

our comprehension. The more reason shows the greatness of this thing which we

are seeking, the higher we must lift our thoughts and excite them with the

greatness of that object; and we must fear to lose our share in that

transcendent Good. There is indeed no small amount of danger lest, as we can

base the apprehension of it on no knowable qualities, we should slip away from

it altogether because of its very height and mystery. We deem it necessary

therefore, owing to this weakness of the thinking faculty, to lead it towards

the Unseen by stages through the cognizances of the senses. Our conception of

the case is as follows.

CHAPTER XI.

Now those who take a superficial and unreflecting view of things observe

the outward appearance of anything they meet, e.g. of a man, and then trouble

themselves no more about him. The view they have taken of the bulk of his body

is enough to make them think that they know all about him. But the penetrating

and scientific mind will not trust to the eyes alone the task of taking the

measure of reality; it will not stop at appearances, nor count that which is

not seen amongst unrealities. It inquires into the qualities of the man's

soul. It takes those of its characteristics which have been developed by his

bodily constitution, both in combination and singly; first singly, by

analysis, and then in that living combination which makes the personality of

the subject. As regards the inquiry into the nature of beauty, we see, again,

that the man of half-grown intelligence, when he observes an object which is

bathed in the glow of a seeming beauty, thinks that that object is in its

essence beautiful, no matter what it is that so prepossesses him with the

pleasure of the eye. He will not go deeper into the subject. But the other,

whose mind's eye is clear, and who can inspect such appearances, will neglect

those elements which are the material only upon which the Form of Beauty

works; to him they will be but the ladder by which he climbs to the prospect

of that Intellectual Beauty, in accordance with their share in which all other

beauties get their existence and their name. But for the majority, I take it,

who live all their lives with such obtuse faculties of thinking, it is a

difficult thing to perform this feat of mental analysis and of discriminating

the material vehicle from the immanent beauty, and thereby of grasping the

actual nature of the Beautiful; and if any one wants to know the exact source

of all the false and pernicious conceptions of it, he would find it in nothing

else but this, viz. the absence, in the soul's faculties of feeling, of that

exact training which would enable them to distinguish between true Beauty and

the reverse. Owing to this men give up all search after the true Beauty. Some

slide into mere sensuality. Others incline in their desires to dead metallic

coin. Others limit their imagination of the beautiful to worldly honours,

fame, and power. There is another class which is enthusiastic about art and

science. The most debased make their gluttony the test of what is good. But he

who turns from all grosser thoughts and all passionate longings after what is

seeming, and explores the nature of the beauty which is simple, immaterial,

formless, would never make a mistake like that when he has to choose between

all the objects of desire; he would never be so misled by these attractions as

not to see the transient character of their pleasures and not to win his way

to an utter contempt for every one of them. This, then, is the path to lead us

to the discovery of the Beautiful. All other objects that attract men's love,

be they never so fashionable, be they prized never so much and embraced never

so eagerly, must be

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left below us, as too low, too fleeting, to employ the powers of loving which

we possess; not indeed that those powers are to be locked up within us unused

and motionless; but only that they must first be cleansed from all lower

longings; then we must lift them to that height to which sense can never

reach. Admiration even of the beauty of the heavens, and of the dazzling

sunbeams, and, indeed, of any fair phenomenon, will then cease. The beauty

noticed there will be but as the hand to lead us to the love of the supernal

Beauty whose glory the heavens and the firmament declare, and whose secret the

whole creation sings. The climbing soul, leaving all that she has grasped

already as too narrow for her needs, will thus grasp the idea of that

magnificence which is exalted far above the heavens. But how can any one reach

to this, whose ambitions creep below? How can any one fly up into the heavens,

who has not the wings of heaven and is not already buoyant and lofty-minded by

reason of a heavenly calling? Few can be such strangers to evangelic mysteries

as not to know that there is but one vehicle on which man's soul can mount

into the heavens, viz. the self-made likeness in himself to the descending

Dove, whose wings(4) David the Prophet also longed for. This is the

allegorical name used in Scripture for the power of the Holy Spirit; whether

it be because not a drop of gall s is found in that bird, or because it cannot

bear any noisome smell, as close observers tell us. He therefore who keeps

away from all bitterness and all the noisome effluvia of the flesh, and raises

himself on the aforesaid wings above all low earthly ambitions, or, more than

that, above the whole universe itself, will be the man to find that which is

alone worth loving, and to become himself as beautiful as the Beauty which he

has touched and entered, and to be made bright and luminous himself in the

communion of the real Light. We are told by those who have studied the

subject, that those gleams which follow each other so fast through the air at

night and which some call shooting stars(6), are nothing but the air itself

streaming into the upper regions of the sky under stress of some particular

blasts. They say that the fiery track is traced along the sky when those

blasts ignite in the ether. In like manner, then, as this air round the earth

is forced upwards by some blast and changes into the pure splendour of the

ether, so the mind of man leaves this murky miry world, and under the stress

of the spirit becomes pure and luminous in contact with the true and supernal

Purity; in such an atmosphere it even itself emits light, and is so filled

with radiance, that it becomes itself a Light, according to the promise of our

Lord that "the righteous should shine forth as the sun(7)." We see this even

here, in the case of a mirror, or a sheet of water, or any smooth surface that

can reflect the light; when they receive the sunbeam they beam themselves; but

they would not do this if any stain marred their pure and shining surface. We

shall become then as the light, in our nearness to Christ's true light, if we

leave this dark atmosphere of the earth and dwell above; and we shall be

light, as our Lord says somewhere to His disciples(8), if the true Light that

shineth in the dark comes down even to us; unless, that is, any foulness of

sin spreading over our hearts should dim the brightness of our light. Perhaps

these examples have led us gradually on to the discovery that we can be

changed into something better than ourselves; and it has been proved as well

that this union of the soul with the incorruptible Deity can be accomplished

in no other way but by herself attaining by her virgin state to the utmost

purity possible,--a state which, being like God, will enable her to grasp that

to which it is like, while she places herself like a mirror beneath the purity

of God, and moulds her own beauty at the touch and the sight of the Archetype

of all beauty. Take a character strong enough to turn from all that is human,

from persons, from wealth, from the pursuits of Art and Science, even from

whatever in moral practice and in legislation is viewed as right (for still in

all of them error in the apprehension of the Beautiful comes in, sense being

the criterion); such a character will feel as a passionate lover only towards

that Beauty which has no source but Itself, which is not such at one

particular time or relatively only, which is Beautiful from, and through, and

in itself, not such at one moment and in the next ceasing to be such, above

all increase and addition, incapable of change and alteration. I venture to

affirm that, to one who has cleansed all the powers of his being from every

form of vice, the Beauty which is essential, the source of every beauty and

every good, will become visible. The visual eye, purged from its blinding

humour, can clearly discern objects even on the

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distant sky(9); so to the soul by virtue of her innocence there comes the

power of taking in that Light; and the real Virginity, the real zeal for

chastity, ends in no other goal than this, viz. the power thereby of seeing

God. No one in fact is so mentally blind as not to understand that without

telling; viz. that the God of the Universe is the only absolute, and primal,

and unrivalled(1) Beauty and Goodness. All, maybe, know that; but there are

those who, as might have been expected, wish besides this to discover, if

possible, a process by which we may be actually guided to it. Well, the Divine

books are full of such instruction for our guidance; and besides that many of

the Saints cast the refulgence of their own lives, like lamps, upon the path

for those who are "walking with God(2).'' But each may gather in abundance for

himself suggestions towards this end out of either Covenant in the inspired

writings; the Prophets and the Law are full of them; and also the Gospel and

the Traditions of the Apostles. What we ourselves have conjectured in

following out the thoughts of those inspired utterances is this.

CHAPTER XII.

THIS reasoning and intelligent creature, man, at once the work and the

likeness of the Divine and Imperishable Mind (for so in the Creation it is

written of him that "God made man in His image(3)"), this creature, I say, did

not in the course of his first production have united to the very essence of

his nature the liability to passion and to death. Indeed, the truth about the

image could never have been maintained if the beauty reflected in that image

had been in the slightest degree opposed(4) to the Archetypal Beauty. Passion

was introduced afterwards, subsequent to man's first organization; and it was

in this way. Being the image and the likeness, as has been said, of the Power

which rules all things, man kept also in the matter of a Free-Will this

likeness to Him whose Will is over all. He was enslaved to no outward

necessity whatever; his feeling towards that which pleased him depended only

on his own private judgment; he was free to choose whatever he liked; and so

he was a free agent, though circumvented with cunning, when he drew upon

himself that disaster which now overwhelms humanity. He became himself the

discoverer of evil, but he did not therein discover what God had made; for God

did not make death. Man became, in fact, himself the fabricator, to a certain

extent, and the craftsman of evil. All who have the faculty of sight may enjoy

equally the sunlight; and any one can if he likes put this enjoyment from him

by shutting his eyes: in that case it is not that the sun retires and produces

that darkness, but the man himself puts a barrier between his eye and the

sunshine; the faculty of vision cannot deed, even in the closing of the eyes,

remain inactive(5), and so this operative sight necessarily becomes an

operative darkness(6) rising up in the man from his own free act in ceasing to

see. Again, a man in building a house for himself may omit to make in it any

way of entrance for the light; he will necessarily be in darkness, though he

cuts himself off from the light voluntarily. So the first man on the earth, or

rather he who generated evil in man, had for choice the Good and the Beautiful

lying all around him in the very nature of things; yet he wilfully cut out a

new way for himself against this nature, and in the act of turning away from

virtue, which was his own free act, he created the usage of evil. For, be it

observed, there is no such thing in the world as evil irrespective of a will,

and discoverable in a substance apart from that. Every creature of God is

good, and nothing of His "to be rejected"; all that God made was "very

good(7)." But the habit of sinning entered as we have described, and with

fatal quickness, into the life of man; and from that small beginning spread

into this infinitude of evil. Then that godly beauty of the soul which was an

imitation of the Archetypal Beauty, like fine steel blackened(8) with the

vicious rust, preserved no longer the glory of its familiar essence, but was

disfigured with the ugliness of sin. This thing so great and precious(9), as

the Scripture calls him, this being man, has fallen from his proud birthright.

As those who have slipped and fallen heavily into mud, and have all their

features so besmeared with it, that their nearest friends do not recognize

them, so this creature has fallen into the mire of sin and lost the blessing

of being an image of the imperishable Deity; he has clothed himself instead

with a perishable and foul resemblance to something else; and this Reason

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counsels him to put away again by washing it off in the cleansing water of

this calling(1). The earthly envelopment once removed, the soul's beauty will

again appear. Now the putting off of a strange accretion is equivalent to the

return to that which is familiar and natural; yet such a return cannot be but

by again becoming that which in the beginning we were created. In fact this

likeness to the divine is not our work at all; it is not the achievement of

any faculty of man; it is the great gift of God bestowed upon our nature at

the very moment of our birth; human efforts can only go so far as to clear

away the filth of sin, and so cause the buried beauty of the soul to shine

forth again. This truth is, I think, taught in the Gospel, when our Lord says,

to those who can hear what Wisdom speaks beneath a mystery, that "the Kingdom

of God is within you(2)." That word(3) points out the fact that the Divine

good is not something apart from our nature, and is not removed far away from

those who have the will to seek it; it is in fact within each of us, ignored

indeed, and unnoticed while it is stifled beneath the cares and pleasures of

life, but found again whenever we can turn our power of conscious thinking

towards it. If further confirmation of what we say is required, I think it

will be found in what is suggested by our Lord in the searching for the Lost

Drachma(4). The thought, there, is that the widowed soul reaps no benefit from

the other virtues (called drachmas in the Parable) being all of them found

safe, if that one other is not amongst them. The Parable therefore suggests

that a candle should first be lit, signifying doubtless our reason which

throws light on hidden principles; then that in one's own house, that is,

within oneself, we should search for that lost coin; and by that coin the

Parable doubtless hints at the image of our King, not yet hopelessly lost, but

hidden beneath the dirt; and by this last we must understand the impurities of

the flesh, which, being swept and purged away by carefulness of life, leave

clear to the view the object of our search. Then it is meant that the soul

herself who finds this rejoices over it, and with her the neighbours, whom she

calls in to share with her in this delight. Verily, all those powers which are

the housemates of the soul, and which the Parable names her neighbours for

this occasion(5), when so be that the image of the mighty King is revealed in

all its brightness at last (that image which the Fashioner of each individual

heart of us has stamped upon this our Drachma(6)), will then be converted to

that divine delight and festivity, and will gaze upon the ineffable beauty of

the recovered one. "Rejoice with me," she says, "because I have found the

Drachma which I had lost." The neighbours, that is, the soul's familiar

powers, both the reasoning and the appetitive, the affections of grief and of

anger, and all the rest that are discerned in her, at that joyful feast which

celebrates the finding of the heavenly Drachma are well called her friends

also; and it is meet that they should all rejoice in the Lord when they all

look towards the Beautiful and the Good, and do everything for the glory of

God, no longer instruments of sin(7). If, then, such is the lesson of this

Finding of the lost, viz. that we should restore the divine image from the

foulness which the flesh wraps round it to its primitive state, let us become

that which the First Man was at the moment when he first breathed. And what

was that? Destitute he was then of his covering of dead skins, but he could

gaze without shrinking upon God's countenance. He did not yet judge of what

was lovely by taste or sight; he found in the Lord alone all that was sweet;

and he used the helpmeet given him only for this delight, as Scripture

signifies when it said that "he knew her not(8)" till he was driven forth

from the garden, and till she, for the sin which she was decoyed into

committing, was sentenced to the pangs of childbirth. We, then, who in our

first ancestor were thus ejected, are allowed to return to our earliest state

of blessedness by the very same stages by which we lost Paradise. What are

they? Pleasure, craftily offered, began the Fall, and there followed after

pleasure shame, and fear, even to remain longer in the sight of their Creator,

so that they hid themselves in leaves and shade; and after that they covered

themselves with the skins of dead animals; and then were sent forth into this

pestilential and exacting land where, as the compensation for having to die,

marriage was instituted(9). Now if we are destined "to depart hence, and be

with Christ(1),'' we must begin at the end of the route of departure (which

ties nearest to ourselves); just as those who have travelled far from their

friends at home, when they turn to reach again the place from which they

started, first leave that district which they reached at the end of their

outward journey. Marriage, then, is the last stage of our separation from the

life that was led in Paradise; marriage therefore, as our discourse has been

suggesting, is the first thing to be left; it is the first station as it were

for our departure to Christ. Next, we must retire from all anxious toil upon

the land, such as man was

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bound to after his sin. Next we must divest ourselves of those coverings of

our nakedness, the coats of skins, namely the wisdom of the flesh; we must

renounce all shameful things done in secret(2), and be covered no longer with

the fig-leaves of this bitter world; then, when we have torn off the coatings

of this life's perishable leaves, we must stand again in the sight of our

Creator; and repelling all the illusion of taste and sight, take for our guide

God's commandment only, instead of the venom-spitting serpent. That

commandment was, to touch nothing but what was Good, and to leave what was

evil untasted; because impatience to remain any longer in ignorance of evil

would be but the beginning of the long train of actual evil. For this reason

it was forbidden to our first parents to grasp the knowledge of the opposite

to the good, as well as that of the good itself; they were to keep themselves

from "the knowledge of good and evil(3)," and to enjoy the Good in its purity,

unmixed with one particle of evil: and to enjoy that, is in my judgment

nothing else than to be ever with God, and to feel ceaselessly and continually

this delight, unalloyed by aught that could tear us away from it. One might

even be bold to say that this might be found the way by which a man could be

again caught up into Paradise out of this world which lieth in the Evil, into

that Paradise where Paul was when he saw the unspeakable sights which it is

not lawful for a man to talk of(4).

CHAPTER XIII.

BUT seeing that Paradise is the home of living spirits, and will not admit

those who are dead in sin, and that we on the other hand are fleshly, subject

to death, and sold under sin(5), how is it possible that one who is a subject

of death's empire should ever dwell in this land where all is life? What

method of release from this jurisdiction can be devised? Here too the Gospel

teaching is abundantly sufficient. We hear our Lord saying to Nicodemus, "That

which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is

spirit(6).'' We know too that the flesh is subject to death because of sin,

but the Spirit of God is both incorruptible, and life-giving, and deathless.

As at our physical birth there comes into the world with us a potentiality of

being again turned to dust, plainly the Spirit also imparts a life-giving

potentiality to the children begotten by Himself. What lesson, then, results

from these remarks? This: that we should wean ourselves from this life in the

flesh, which has an inevitable follower, death; and that we should search for

a manner of life which does not bring death in its train. Now the life of

Virginity is such a life. We will add a few other things to show how true this

is. Every one knows that the propagation of mortal frames is the work which

the intercourse of the sexes has to do; whereas for those who are joined to

the Spirit, life and immortality instead of children are produced by this

latter intercourse; and the words of the Apostle beautifully suit their case,

for the joyful mother of such children as these "shall be saved in

child-bearing(7);" as the Psalmist in his divine songs thankfully cries, "He

maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of

children(8)." Truly a joyful mother is the virgin mother who by the operation

of the Spirit conceives the deathless children, and who is called by the

Prophet barren because of her modesty only. This life, then, which is stronger

than the power of death, is, to those who think, the preferable one. The

physical bringing of children into the world--I speak without wishing to

offend--is as much a starting-point of death as of life; because from the

moment of birth the process of dying commences. But those who by virginity

have desisted from this process have drawn within themselves the boundary line

of death, and by their own deed have checked his advance; they have made

themselves, in fact, a frontier between life and death, and a barrier too,

which thwarts him. If, then, death cannot pass beyond virginity, but finds his

power checked and shattered there, it is demonstrated that virginity is a

stronger thing than death; and that body is rightly named undying which does

not lend its service to a dying world, nor brook to become the instrument of a

succession of dying creatures. In such a body the long unbroken career of

decay and death, which has intervened between(9) the first man and the lives

of virginity which have been led, is interrupted. It could not be indeed that

death should cease working as long as the human race by marriage was working

too; he walked the path of life with all preceding generations; he started

with every new-born child and accompanied it to the end: but he found in

virginity a barrier, to pass which was an impossible feat. Just as, in the age

of Mary the mother of God, he who had reigned from Adam to her time found,

when he came to her and dashed his forces against the fruit of her virginity

as against a

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rock, that he was shattered to pieces upon her, so in every soul which passes

through this life in the flesh under the protection of virginity, the strength

of death is in a manner broken and annulled, for he does not find the places

upon which he may fix his sting. If you do not throw into the fire wood, or

straw, or grass, or something that it can consume, it has not the force to

last by itself; so the power of death cannot go on working, if marriage does

not supply it with material and prepare victims for this executioner. If you

have any doubts left, consider the actual names of those afflictions which

death brings upon mankind, and which were detailed in the first part of this

discourse. Whence do they get their meaning? "Widowhood," "orphanhood," "loss

of children," could they be a subject for grief, if marriage did not precede?

Nay, all the dearly-prized blisses, and transports, and comforts of marriage

end in these agonies of grief, The hilt of a sword is smooth and handy, and

polished and glittering outside; it seems to grow to the outline of the

hand(1); but the other part is steel and the instrument of death, formidable

to look at, more formidable still to come across. Such a thing is marriage. It

offers for the grasp of the senses a smooth surface of delights, like a hilt

of rare polish and beautiful workmanship; but when a man has taken it up and

has got it into his hands, he finds the pain that has been wedded to it is in

his hands as well; and it becomes to him the worker of mourning and of loss.

It is marriage that has the heartrending spectacles to show of children left

desolate in the tenderness of their years, a mere prey to the powerful, yet

smiling often at their misfortune from ignorance of coming woes. What is the

cause of widowhood but marriage? And retirement from this would bring with it

an immunity from the whole burden of these sad taxes on our hearts. Can we

expect it otherwise? When the verdict that was pronounced on the delinquents

in the beginning is annulled, then too the mothers' "sorrows(2)" are no longer

"multiplied," nor does "sorrow" herald the births of men; then all calamity

has been removed from life and "tears wiped from. off all faces(3);"

conception is no more an iniquity, nor child-bearing a sin; and births shall

be no more "of bloods," or "of the will of man," or "of the will of the

flesh(4)", but of God alone. This is always happening whenever any one in a

lively heart conceives all the integrity of the Spirit, and brings forth

wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption too. It is

possible for any one to be the mother of such a son; as our Lord says, "He

that doeth my will is my brother, my sister, and my mother(5)." What room is

there for death in such parturitions? Indeed in them death is swallowed up by

life. In fact, the Life of Virginity seems to be an actual representation of

the blessedness in the world to come, showing as it does in itself so many

signs of the presence of those expected blessings which are reserved for us

there. That the truth of this statement may be perceived, we will verify it

thus. It is so, first, because a man who has thus died once for all to sin

lives for the future to God; he brings forth no more fruit unto death; and

having so far as in him lies made an end(6) of this life within him according

to the flesh, he awaits thenceforth the expected blessing of the

manifestation(7) of the great God, refraining from putting any distance

between himself and this coming of God by an intervening posterity: secondly,

because he enjoys even in this present life a certain exquisite glory of all

the blessed results of our resurrection. For our Lord has announced that the

life after our resurrection shall be as that of the angels. Now the

peculiarity of the angelic nature is that they are strangers to marriage;

therefore the blessing of this promise has been already received by him who

has not only mingled his own glory with the halo of the Saints, but also by

the stainlessness of his life has so imitated the purity of these incorporeal

beings. If virginity then can win us favours such as these, what words are fit

to express the admiration of so great a grace? What other gift of the soul can

be found so great and precious as not to suffer by comparison with this

perfection ?

CHAPTER XIV.

BUT if we apprehend at last the perfection of this grace, we must

understand as well what necessarily follows from it; namely that it is not a

single achievement, ending in the subjugation of the body, but that in

intention it reaches to and pervades everything that is, or is considered, a

right condition of the soul. That soul indeed which in virginity cleaves to

the true Bridegroom will not remove herself merely from all bodily defilement;

she will make that abstension only the beginning of her purity, and will carry

this security from failure equally into everything else upon her path. Fearing

lest, from a too partial heart, she should by contact with evil in any one

direction give occasion for the least weakness of unfaithfulness (to suppose

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such a case: but I will begin again what I was going to say), that soul which

cleaves to her Master so as to become with Him one spirit, and by the compact

of a wedded life has staked the love of all her heart and all her strength on

Him alone--that soul will no more commit any other of the offences contrary to

salvation, than imperil her union with Him by cleaving to fornication; she

knows that between all sins there is a single kinship of impurity, and that if

she were to defile herself with but one(8), she could no longer retain her

spotlessness. An illustration will show what we mean. Suppose all the water in

a pool remaining smooth and motionless, while no disturbance of any kind comes

to mar the peacefulness of the spot; and then a stone thrown into the pool;

the movement in that one part(9) will extend to the whole, and while the

stone's weight is carrying it to the bottom, the waves that are set in motion

round it pass in circles(1) into others, and so through all the intervening

commotion are pushed on to the very edge of the water, and the whole surface

is ruffled with these circles, feeling the movement of the depths. So is the

broad serenity and calm of the soul troubled by one invading passion, and

affected by the injury of a single part. They tell us too, those who have

investigated the subject, that the virtues are not disunited from each other,

and that to grasp the principle of any one virtue will be impossible to one

who has not seized that which underlies the rest, and that the man who shows

one virtue in his character will necessarily show them all. Therefore, by

contraries, the depravation of anything in our moral nature will extend to the

whole virtuous life; and in very truth, as the Apostle tells us, the whole is

affected by the parts, and "if one member(2) suffer, all the members suffer

with it," "if one be honoured, all rejoice."

CHAPTER XV.

BUT the ways in our life which turn aside towards sin are innumerable; and

their number is told by Scripture in divers manners. "Many are they that

trouble me and persecute," and "Many are they that fight against me from on

high(3)"; and many other texts like that. We may affirm, indeed, absolutely,

that many are they who plot in the adulterer's fashion to destroy this truly

honourable marriage, and to defile this inviolate bed; and if we must name

them one by one, we charge with this adulterous spirit anger, avarice, envy,

revenge, enmity, malice, hatred, and whatever the Apostle puts in the class of

those things which are contrary to sound doctrine. Now let us suppose a lady,

prepossessing and lovely above her peers, and on that account wedded to a

king, but besieged because of her beauty by profligate lovers. As long as she

remains indignant at these would-be seducers and complains of them to her

lawful husband, she keeps her chastity and has no one before her eyes but her

bridegroom; the profligates find no vantage ground for their attack upon her.

But if she were to listen to a single one of them, her chastity with regard to

the rest would not exempt her from the retribution; it would he sufficient to

condemn her, that she had allowed that one to defile the marriage bed. So the

soul whose life is in God will find her pleasure(4) in no single one of those

things which make a beauteous show to deceive her. If she were, in some. fit

of weakness, to admit the defilement to her heart, she would herself have

broken the covenant of her spiritual marriage; and, as the Scripture tells us,

"into the malicious soul Wisdom cannot come(5)." It may, in a word, be truly

said that the Good Husband cannot come to dwell with the soul that is

irascible, or malice-bearing, or harbours any other disposition which jars

with that concord. No way has been discovered of harmonizing things whose

nature is antagonistic and which have nothing in common. The Apostle tells us

there is "no communion of light with darkness(6)," or of righteousness with

iniquity, or, in a word, of all the qualities which we perceive and name as

the essence of God's nature, with all the opposite which are perceived in

evil. Seeing, then, the impossibility of any union between mutual repellents,

we understand that the vicious soul is estranged from entertaining the company

of the Good. What then is the practical lesson from this? The chaste and

thoughtful virgin must sever herself from any affection which can in any way

impart contagion to her soul; she must keep herself pure for the Husband who

has married her, "not having spot or blemish or any such thing(7)."

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CHAPTER XVI.

THERE is only one right path. It is narrow and contracted. It has no

turnings either on the one side or the other. No matter how we leave it, there

is the same danger of straying hopelessly away. This being so, the habit which

many have got into must be as far as possible corrected; those, I mean, who

while they fight strenuously against the baser pleasures, yet still go on

hunting for pleasure m the shape of worldly honour and positions which will

gratify their love of power. They act like some domestic who longed for

liberty, but instead of exerting himself to get away from slavery proceeded

only to change his masters, and thought liberty consisted in that change. But

all alike are slaves, even though they should not all go on being ruled by the

same masters, as long as a dominion of any sort, with power to enforce it, is

set over them. There are others again who after a long battle against all the

pleasures(8), yield themselves easily on another field, where feelings of an

opposite kind come in; and in the intense exactitude of their lives fall a

ready prey to melancholy and irritation, and to brooding over injuries, and to

everything that is the direct opposite of pleasurable feelings; from which

they are very reluctant to extricate themselves. This is always happening,

whenever any emotion, instead of virtuous reason, controls the course of a

life. For the commandment of the Lord is exceedingly far-shining, so as to

"enlighten the eyes" even of "the simple(9)," declaring that good cleaveth

only unto God. But God is not pain any more than He is pleasure; He is not

cowardice any more than boldness; He is not fear, nor anger, nor any other

emotion which sways the untutored soul, but, as the Apostle says, He is Very

Wisdom and Sanctification, Truth and Joy and Peace, and everything like that.

If He is such, how can any one be said to cleave to Him, who is mastered by

the very opposite? Is it not want of reason in any one to suppose that when he

has striven successfully to escape the dominion of one particular passion, he

will find virtue in its opposite? For instance, to suppose that when he has

escaped pleasure, he will find virtue in letting pain have possession of him;

or when he has by an effort remained proof against anger, in crouching with

fear. It matters not whether we miss virtue, or rather God Himself Who is the

Sum of virtue, in this way, or in that. Take the case of great bodily

prostration; one would say that the sadness of this failure was just the same,

whether the cause has been excessive under-feeding, or immoderate eating; both

failures to stop in time end in the same result. He therefore who watches over

the life and the sanity of the soul will confine himself to the moderation of

the truth; he will continue without touching either of those opposite states

which run along-side virtue. This teaching is not mine; it comes from the

Divine lips. It is clearly contained in that passage where our Lord says to

His disciples, that they are as sheep wandering amongst wolves(1), yet are not

to be as doves only, but are to have something of the serpent too in their

disposition; and that means that they should neither carry to excess the

practice of that which seems praiseworthy in simplicity(2), as such a habit

would come very near to downright madness, nor on the other hand should deem

the cleverness which most admire to be a virtue, while unsoftened by any

mixture with its opposite; they were in fact to form another disposition, by a

compound of these two seeming opposites, cutting off its silliness from the

one, its evil cunning from the other; so that one single beautiful character

should be created from the two, a union of simplicity of purpose with

shrewdness. "Be ye," He says, "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."

CHAPTER XVII.

LET that which was then said by our Lord be the general maxim for every

life; especially let it be the maxim for those who are coming nearer God

through the gateway of virginity, that they should never in watching for a

perfection in one direction present an unguarded side in another and contrary

one; but should in all directions realize the good, so that they may guarantee

in all things their holy life against failure. A soldier does not arm himself

only on some points, leaving the rest of his body to take its chance

unprotected. If he were to receive his death-wound upon that, what would have

been the advantage of this partial armour? Again, who would call that feature

faultless, which from some accident had lost one of those requisites which go

to make up the sum of beauty? The disfigurement of the mutilated part mars the

grace of the part untouched. The Gospel im-

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plies that he who undertakes the building of a tower, but spends all his

labour upon the foundations without ever reaching the completion, is worthy of

ridicule; and what else do we learn from the Parable of the Tower, but to

strive to come to the finish of every lofty purpose, accomplishing the work of

God in all the multiform structures of His commandments? One stone, indeed, is

no more the whole edifice of the Tower, than one commandment kept will raise

the soul's perfection to the required height. The foundation must by all means

first be laid but over it, as the Apostle says(3), the edifice of gold and

precious gems must be built; for so is the doing of the commandment put by the

Prophet who cries, "I have loved Thy commandment above gold and many a

precious stone(4)." Let the virtuous life have for its substructure the love

of virginity; but upon this let every result of virtue be reared. If virginity

is believed to be a vastly precious thing and to have a divine look (as indeed

is the case, as well as men believe of it), yet, if the whole life does not

harmonize with this perfect note, and it be marred by the succeeding s discord

of the soul, this thing becomes but "the jewel of gold in the swine's

snout(6)," or "the pearl that is trodden under the swine's feet." But we have

said enough upon this.

CHAPTER XVIII.

IF any one supposes that(7) this want of mutual harmony between his life

and a single one of its circumstances is quite unimportant, let him be taught

the meaning of our maxim by looking at the management of a house. The master

of a private dwelling will not allow any untidiness or unseemliness to be seen

in the house, such as a couch upset, or the table littered with rubbish, or

vessels of price thrown away into dirty corners, while those which serve

ignobler uses are thrust forward for entering guests to see. He has everything

arranged neatly and in the proper place, where it stands to most advantage;

and then he can welcome his guests, without any misgivings that he be ashamed

of opening the interior of his house to receive them. The same duty, I take

it, is incumbent on that master of our "tabernacle," the mind; it has to

arrange everything within us, and to put each particular faculty of the soul,

which the Creator has fashioned to be our implement or our vessel, to fitting

and noble uses. We will now mention in detail the way in which any one might

manage his life, with its present advantages, to his improvement, hoping that

no one will accuse us of trifling(8), or over-minuteness. We advise, then,

that love's passion be placed in the soul's purest shrine, as a thing chosen

to be the first fruits of all our gifts, and devoted(9) entirely to God; and

when once this has been done, to keep it untouched and unsullied by any

secular defilement. Then indignation, and anger, and hatred must be as

watch-dogs to be roused only against attacking sins; they must follow their

natural impulse only against the thief and the enemy who is creeping in to

plunder the divine treasure-chamber, and who comes only for that, that he may

steal, and mangle, and destroy. Courage and confidence are to be weapons in

our hands to baffle any sudden surprise and attack of the wicked who advance.

Hope and patience are to be the staffs to lean upon, whenever we are weary

with the trials of the world. As for sorrow, we must have a stock of it ready

to apply, if need should happen to arise for it, in the hour of repentance for

our sins; believing at the same time that it is never useful, except to

minister to that. Righteousness will be our rule of straightforwardness,

guarding us from stumbling either in word or deed, and guiding us in the

disposal of the faculties of our soul, as well as in the due consideration for

every one we meet. The love of gain, which is a large, incalculably large,

element in every soul, when once applied to the desire for God, will bless the

man who has it; for he will be violent z where it is right to be violent.

Wisdom and prudence will be our advisers as to our best interests; they will

order our lives so as never to suffer from any thoughtless folly. But suppose

a man does not apply the aforesaid faculties of the soul to their proper use,

but reverses their intended purpose; suppose he wastes his love upon the

basest objects, and stores up his hatred only for his own kinsmen; suppose he

welcomes iniquity, plays the man only against his parents, is bold only in

absurdities, fixes his hopes on emptiness, chases prudence and wisdom from his

company, takes gluttony and folly for his mistresses, and uses all his other

opportunities in the same fashion, he would indeed be a strange and unnatural

character to a degree beyond any one's power to express. If we could imagine

any one putting his armour on all the wrong way, reversing the helmet so as to

cover his face while the plume nodded backward, putting his feet into the

cuirass, and fitting the greaves on to his

364

breast, changing to the right side all that ought to go on the left and vice

versa, and how such a hoplite would be likely to fare in battle, then we

should have an idea of the fate in life which is sure to await him whose

confused judgment makes him reverse the proper uses of his soul's faculties.

We must therefore provide this balance in all feeling; the true sobriety of

mind is naturally able to supply it; and if one had to find an exact

definition of this sobriety, one might declare absolutely, that it amounts to

our ordered control, by dint of wisdom and prudence, over every emotion of the

soul. Moreover, such a condition in the soul will be no longer in need of any

laborious method to attain to the high and heavenly realities; it will

accomplish with the greatest ease that which erewhile seemed so unattainable;

it will grasp the object of its search as a natural consequence of rejecting

the opposite attractions. A man who comes out of darkness is necessarily in

the light; a man who is not dead is necessarily alive. Indeed, if a man is not

to have received his soul to no purpose(2), he will certainly be upon the path

of truth; the prudence and the science employed to guard against error will be

itself a sure guidance along the right road. Slaves who have been freed and

cease to serve their former masters, the very moment they become their own

masters, direct all their thoughts towards themselves so, I take it, the soul

which has been freed from ministering to the body becomes at once cognizant of

its own inherent energy. But this liberty consists, as we learn from the

Apostle(3), in not again being held in the yoke of slavery, and in not being

bound again, like a runaway or a criminal, with the fetters of marriage. But I

must return here to what I said at first; that the perfection of this liberty

does not consist only in that one point of abstaining from marriage. Let no

one suppose that the prize of virginity is so insignificant and so easily won

as that; as if one little observance of the flesh could settle so vital a

matter. But we have seen that every man who doeth a sin is the servant of

sin(4); so that a declension towards vice in any act, or in any practice

whatever, makes a slave, and still more, a branded slave, of the man, covering

him through sin's lashes with bruises and seared spots. Therefore it behoves

the man who grasps at the transcendent aim of all virginity to be true to

himself in h every respect, and to manifest his purity equally c in every

relation of his life. If any of the inspired words are required to aid our

pleading, the Truth s Itself will be sufficient to corroborate the truth when

It inculcates this very kind of teaching in the veiled meaning of a Gospel

Parable: the good and eatable fish are separated by the fishers' skill from

the bad and poisonous fish, so that the enjoyment of the good should not be

spoilt by any of the bad getting into the "vessels" with them. The work of

true sobriety is the same; from all pursuits and habits to choose that which

is pure and improving, rejecting in every case that which does not seem likely

to be useful, and letting it go back into the universal and secular life,

called "the sea(6)," in the imagery of the Parable. The Psalmist(7) also, when

expounding the doctrine of a full confession(8), calls this restless suffering

tumultuous life, "waters coming in even unto the soul," "depths of waters,"

and a "hurricane"; in which sea indeed every rebellious thought sinks, as the

Egyptian did, with a stone's weight into the deeps(9). But all in us that is

dear to God, and has a piercing insight into the truth (called "Israel" in the

narrative), passes, but that alone, over that sea as if it were dry land, and

is never reached by the bitterness and the brine of life's billows. Thus,

typically, under the leadership of the Law (for Moses was a type of the Law

that was coming) Israel passes unwetted over that sea, while the Egyptian who

crosses in her track is overwhelmed. Each fares according to the disposition

which he carries with him; one walks lightly enough, the other is dragged into

the deep water. For virtue is a light and buoyant thing, and all who live in

her way "fly like clouds(1)," as Isaiah says, "and as doves with their young

ones"; but sin is a heavy affair, "sitting," as another of the prophets says,

"upon a talent of lead(2)." If, however, this reading of the history appears

to any forced and inapplicable, and the miracle at the Red Sea does not

present itself to him as written for our profit, let him listen to the

Apostle: "Now all these things happened unto them for types, and they are

written for our admonition(3)."

CHAPTER XIX.

BUT besides other things the action of Miriam the prophetess also gives

rise to these surmisings of ours. Directly the sea was crossed she took in her

hand a dry and sounding timbrel and conducted the women's dance(4). By this

timbrel

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the story may mean to imply virginity, as first perfected by Miriam; whom

indeed I would believe to be a type of Mary the mother of God(5). Just as the

timbrel emits a loud sound because it is devoid of all moisture and reduced to

the highest degree of dryness, so has virginity a clear and ringing report

amongst men because it repels from itself the vital sap of merely physical

life. Thus, Miriam's timbrel being a dead thing, and virginity being a

deadening of the bodily passions, it is perhaps not very far removed from the

bounds of probability(6) that Miriam was a virgin. However, we can but guess

and surmise, we cannot clearly prove, that this was so, and that Miriam the

prophetess led a dance of virgins, even though many of the learned have

affirmed distinctly that she was unmarried, from the fact that the history

makes no mention either of her marriage or of her being a mother; and surely

she would have been named and known, not as "the sister of Aaron(7)," but from

her husband, if she had had one; since the head of the woman is not the

brother but the husband. But if, amongst a people with whom motherhood was

sought after and classed as a blessing and, regarded as a public duty, the

grace of virginity, nevertheless came to be regarded as a precious thing, how

does it behove us to feel towards it, who do not "judge" of the Divine

blessings(8) "according to the flesh"? Indeed it has been revealed in the

oracles of God, on what occasion to conceive and to bring forth is a good

thing, and what species of fecundity was desired by God's saints; for both the

Prophet Isaiah and the divine Apostle have made this clear and certain. The

one cries, "From fear of Thee, O Lord, have I conceived(9);" the other boasts

that he is the parent of the largest family of any, bringing to the birth

whole cities and nations; not the Corinthians and Galatians only whom by his

travailings he moulded for the Lord, but all in the wide circuit from

Jerusalem to Illyricum; his children filled the world, "begotten" by him in

Christ through the Gospel(1). In the same strain the womb of the Holy Virgin,

which ministered to an Immaculate Birth, is pronounced blessed in the

Gospel(2); for that birth did not annul the Virginity, nor did the Virginity

impede so great a birth. When the "spirit of salvation(3)," as Isaiah names

it, is being born, the willings of the flesh are useless. There is also a

particular teaching of the Apostle, which harmonizes with this; viz. each man

of us is a double man(4); one the outwardly visible, whose natural fate it is

to decay; the other perceptible only in the secret of the heart, yet capable

of renovation. If this teaching is true,--and it must be true s because Wisdom

is speaking there,--then there is no absurdity in supposing a double marriage

also which answers in every detail to either man; and, maybe, if one was to

assert boldly that the body's virginity was the co-operator and the agent of

the inward marriage, this assertion would not be much beside the probable

fact.

CHAPTER XX.

Now it is impossible, as far as manual exercise goes, to ply two arts at

once; for instance, husbandry and sailing, or tinkering and carpentering. If

one is to be honestly taken in hand, the other must be left alone. Just so,

there are these two marriages for our choice, the one effected in the flesh,

the other in the spirit; and preoccupation m the one must cause of necessity

alienation from the other. No more is the eye able to look at two objects at

once; but it must concentrate its special attention on one at a time; no more

can the tongue effect utterances in two different languages, so as to

pronounce, for instance, a Hebrew word and a Greek word in the same moment: no

more can the ear take in at one and the same time a narrative of facts, and a

hortatory discourse; if each special tone is heard separately, it will impress

its ideas upon the hearers' minds; but if they are combined and so poured into

the ear, an inextricable confusion of ideas will be the result, one meaning

being mutually lost in the other: and no more, by analogy, do our emotional

powers possess a nature which can at once pursue the pleasures of sense and

court the spiritual union; nor, besides, can both those ends be gained by the

same courses of life; continence, mortification of the passions, scorn of

fleshly needs, are the agents of the one union; but all that are the reverse

of these are the agents of bodily habitation. As, when two masters are before

us to choose between, and we cannot be subject to both, for "no man can serve

two masters(6)," he who is wise will choose the one most useful to himself,

so, when two marriages are before us to choose between, and we cannot contract

both, for "he that is unmarried cares for the things of

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the Lord, but he that is married careth for the things of the world(7)," I

repeat that it would be the aim of a sound mind not to miss choosing the more

profitable one; and not to be ignorant either of the way which will lead it to

this, a way which cannot be learnt but by some such comparison as the

following. In the case of a marriage of this world a man who is anxious to

avoid appearing altogether insignificant pays the greatest attention both to

physical health, and becoming adornment, and amplitude of means and the

security from any disgraceful revelations as to his antecedents or his

parentage; for so he thinks things will be most likely to turn out as he

wishes. Now just in the same way the man who is courting the spiritual

alliance will first of all display himself, by the renewal of his mind(8), a

young man, without a single touch of age upon him; next he will reveal a

lineage rich in that in which it is a noble ambition to be rich, not priding

himself on worldly wealth, but luxuriating only in the heavenly treasures. As

for family distinction, he will not vaunt that which comes by the mere routine

of devolution even to numbers of the worthless, but that which is gained by

the successful efforts of his own zeal and labours; a distinction which only

those can boast of who are "sons of the light" and children of God, and are

styled "nobles from the sunrise(9)" because of their splendid deeds. Strength

and health he will not try to gain by bodily training and feeding, but by all

that is the contrary of this, perfecting the spirit's strength in the body's

weakness. I could tell also of the suitor's gifts to the bride in such a

wedding(1); they are not procured by the money that perishes, but are

contributed out of the wealth peculiar to the soul. Would you know their

names? You must hear from Paul, that excellent adorner of the Bride(2), in

what the wealth of those consists who in everything commend themselves. He

mentions much else that is priceless in it, and adds, "in chastity(3)"; and

besides this all the recognized fruits of the spirit from any quarter whatever

are gifts of this marriage. If a man is going to carry out the advice of

Solomon and take for helpmate and life-companion that true Wisdom of which he

says, "Love her, and she shall keep thee," "honour her, that she may embrace

thee(4)," then he will prepare himself in a manner worthy of such a love, so

as to feast with all the joyous wedding guests in spotless raiment, and not be

cast forth, while claiming to sit at that feast, for not having put on the

wedding garment. It is plain moreover that the argument applies equally to men

and women, to move them towards such a marriage. "There is neither male nor

female(5)," the Apostle says; "Christ is all, and in all(6)"; and so it is

equally reasonable that he who is enamoured of wisdom should hold the Object

of his passionate desire, Who is the True Wisdom; and that the soul which

cleaves to the undying Bridegroom should have the fruition of her love for the

true Wisdom, which is God. We have now sufficiently revealed the nature of the

spiritual union, and the Object of the pure and heavenly Love.

CHAPTER XXI.

IT is perfectly clear that no one can come near the purity of the Divine

Being who has not first himself become such; he must therefore place between

himself and the pleasures of the senses a high strong wall of separation, so

that in this his approach to the Deity the purity of his own heart may not

become soiled again. Such an impregnable wall will be found in a complete

estrangement from everything wherein passion operates.

Now pleasure is one in kind, as we learn from the experts; as water parted

into various channels from one single fountain, it spreads itself over the

pleasure-lover through the various avenues of the senses; so that it has been

on his heart that the man, who through any one particular sensation succumbs

to the resulting pleasure, has received a wound from that sensation. This

accords with the teaching given from the Divine lips, that "he who has

satisfied the lust of the eyes has received the mischief already in his

heart(7)"; for I take it that our Lord was speaking in that particular example

of any of the senses; so that we might well carry on His saying, and add, "He

who hath heard, to lust after," and what follows, "He who hath touched to lust

after," "He who hath lowered any faculty within us to the service of pleasure,

hath sinned in his heart."

To prevent this, then, we want to apply to our own lives that rule of all

temperance, never to let the mind dwell on anything wherein pleasure's bait

is hid; but above all to be specially watchful against the pleasure of taste.

For that seems in a way the most deeply rooted, and to be the mother as it

were of all forbidden enjoyment. The pleasures of eating and drinking, leading

to boundless excess, inflict upon the body the doom of the most

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dreadful sufferings(8); for over-indulgence is the parent of most of the

painful diseases. To secure for the body a continuous tranquillity, unstirred

by the pains of surfeit, we must make up our minds to a more sparing regimen,

and constitute the need of it on each occasion not the pleasure of it, as the

measure and limit of our indulgence. If the sweetness will nevertheless mingle

itself with the satisfaction of the need (for hunger knows how to sweeten

everything(9), and by the vehemence of appetite she gives the zest of pleasure

to every discoverable supply of the need), we must not because of the

resulting enjoyment reject the satisfaction, nor yet make this latter our

leading aim. In everything we must select the expedient quantity, and leave

untouched what merely feasts the senses(1).

CHAPTER XXII.

WE see how the husbandmen have a method for separating the chaff, which is

united with the wheat, with a view to employ each for its proper purpose, the

one for the sustenance of man, the other for burning and the feeding of

animals. The labourer in the field of temperance will in like manner

distinguish the satisfaction from the mere delight, and will fling this latter

nature to savages(2) "whose end is to be burned(3)," as the Apostle says, but

will take the other, in proportion to the actual need, with thankfulness,

Many, however, slide into the very opposite kind of excess, and unconsciously

to themselves, in their over-preciseness, laboriously thwart their own design;

they let their soul fall down the other side from the heights of Divine

elevation to the level of dull thoughts and occupations, where their minds are

so bent upon regulations which merely affect the body, that they can no longer

walk in their heavenly freedom and gaze above; their only inclination is to

this tormenting and afflicting of the flesh. It would be well, then, to give

this also careful thought, so as to be equally on our guard against either

over-amount(4), neither stifling the mind beneath the wound of the flesh, nor,

on the other hand, by gratuitously inflicted weakenings sapping and lowering

the powers, so that it can have no thought but of the body's pain(5); and let

every one remember that wise precept, which warns us from turning to the right

hand or to the left. I have heard a certain physician of my acquaintance, in

the course of explaining the secrets of his art, say that our body consists of

four elements, not of the same species, but disposed to be conflicting: yet

the hot penetrated the cold, and an equally unexpected union of the wet and

the dry took place, the contradictories of each pair being brought into

contact by their relationship to the intervening pair. He added an extremely

subtle explanation of this account of his studies in nature. Each of these

elements was in its essence diametrically(6) opposed to its contradictory; but

then it had two other qualities lying on each side of it, and by virtue of its

kinship with them it came into contact with its contradictory; for example,

the cold and the hot each unite with the wet, or the dry; and again, the wet

and the dry each unite with the hot, or the cold: and so this sameness of

quality, when it manifests itself in contradictories, is itself the agent

which affects the union of those contradictories. What business of mine,

however, is it to explain exactly the details of this change from this mutual

separation and repugnance of nature, to this mutual union through the medium

of kindred qualities, except for the purpose for which we mentioned it? And

that purpose was to add that the author of this analysis of the body's

constitution advised that all possible care be taken to preserve a balance

between these properties, for that in fact health consisted in not letting any

one of them gain the mastery within us. If his doctrine has truth in it, then,

for our health's continuance, we must secure such a habit, and by no

irregularity of diet produce either an excess or a defect in any member of

these our constituent elements. The chariot-master, if the young horses which

he has to drive will not work well together, does not urge a fast one with the

whip, and rein in a slow one; nor, again, does he let a horse that

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shies in the traces or is hard-mouthed gallop his own way to the confusion of

orderly driving; but he quickens the pace of the first, checks the second,

reaches the third with cuts of his whip, till he has made them all breathe

evenly together in a straight career. Now our mind in like manner holds in its

grasp the reins of this chariot of the body; and in that capacity it will not

devise, in the time of youth, when heat of temperament is abundant, ways of

heightening that fever; nor will it multiply the cooling and the thinning

things when the body is already chilled by illness or by time; and in the case

of all these physical qualities it will be guided by the Scripture, so as

actually to realize it: "He that gathered much had nothing over; and he that

had gathered little had no lack(7)." It will curtail immoderate lengths in

either direction, and so will be careful to replenish where there is much

lack. The inefficiency of the body from either cause will be that which it

guards against; it will train the flesh, neither making it wild and

ungovernable by excessive pampering, nor sickly and unstrung and nerveless for

the required work by immoderate mortification. That is temperance's highest

aim; it looks not to the afflicting of the body, but to the peaceful action of

the soul's functions.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Now the details of the life of him who has chosen to live in such a

philosophy as this, the things to be avoided, the exercises to be engaged in,

the rules of temperance, the whole method of the training, and all the daily

regimen which contributes towards this great end, has been dealt with in

certain written manuals of instruction for the benefit of those who love

details. Yet there is a plainer guide to be found than verbal instruction; and

that is practice: and there is nothing vexatious in the maxim that when we are

undertaking a long journey or voyage we should get an instructor. "But," says

the Apostle(3), "the word is nigh thee;"the grace begins at home; there is the

manufactory of all the virtues; there this life has become exquisitely refined

by a continual progress towards consummate perfection; there, whether men are

silent or whether they speak, there is large opportunity for being instructed

in this heavenly citizenship through the actual practice of it. Any theory

divorced from living examples, however admirably it may be dressed out, is

like the unbreathing statue, with its show of a blooming complexion impressed

in tints and colours; but the man who acts as well as teaches, as the Gospel

tells us, he is the man who is truly living, and has the bloom of beauty, and

is efficient and stirring. It is to him that we must go, if we mean, according

to the saying(9) of Scripture, to "retain" virginity. One who wants to learn a

foreign language is not a competent instructor of himself; he gets himself

taught by experts, and can then talk with foreigners. So, for this high life,

which does not advance in nature's groove, but is estranged from her by the

novelty of its course, a man cannot be instructed thoroughly unless he puts

himself into the hands of one who has himself led it in perfection; and indeed

in all the other professions of life the candidate is more likely to achieve

success if he gets from tutors a scientific knowledge of each part of the

subject of his choice, than if he undertook to study it by himself; and this

particular profession(1) is not one where everything is so clear that judgment

as to our best course in it is necessarily left to ourselves; it is one where

to hazard a step into the unknown at once brings us into danger. The science

of medicine once did not exist; it has come into being by the experiments

which men have made, and has gradually been revealed through their various

observations; the healing and the harmful drug became known from the

attestation of those who had tried them, and this distinction was adopted into

the theory of the art, so that the close observation of former practitioners

became a precept for those who succeeded; and now any one who studies to

attain this art is under no necessity to ascertain at his own peril the power

of any drug, whether it be a poison or a medicine; he has only to learn from

others the known facts, and may than practise with success. It is so also with

that medicine of the soul, philosophy, from which we learn the remedy for

every weakness that can touch the soul. We need not hunt after a knowledge of

these remedies by dint of guess-work and surmisings; we have abundant means of

learning them from him who by a long and rich experience has gained the

possession which we seek. In any matter youth is generally a giddy(2) guide;

and it would not be easy to

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find anything of importance succeeding, in which gray hairs have not been

called in to share in the deliberations. Even in all other undertakings we

must, in proportion to their greater importance, take the more precaution

against failure; for in them too the thoughtless designs of youth have brought

loss; on property, for instance; or have compelled the surrender of a position

in the world, and even of renown. But in this mighty and sublime ambition it

is not property, or secular glory lasting for its hour, or any external

fortune, that is at stake;--of such things(3), whether they settle themselves

well or the reverse, the wise take small account ;--here rashness can affect

the soul itself; and we run the awful hazard, not of losing any of those other

things whose recovery even may perhaps be possible, but of ruining our very

selves and making the soul a bankrupt. A man who has spent or lost his

patrimony does not despair, as long as he is in the land of the living, of

perchance coming again through contrivances into his former competence; but

the man who has ejected himself from this calling, deprives himself as well of

all hope of a return to better things. Therefore, since most embrace virginity

while still young and unformed in understanding, this before anything else

should be their employment, to search out a fitting guide and master of this

way, lest, in their present ignorance, they should wander from the direct

route, and strike out new paths of their own in trackless wilds(4). "Two are

better than one," says the Preacher(5); but a single one is easily vanquished

by the foe who infests the path which leads to God; and verily "woe to him

that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up(6)."

Some ere now in their enthusiasm for the stricter life have shown a dexterous

alacrity; but, as if in the very moment of their choice they had already

touched perfection, their pride has had a shocking fall(7), and they have been

tripped up from madly deluding themselves into thinking that that to which

their own mind inclined them was the true beauty. In this number are those

whom Wisdom calls the "slothful ones(8)," who bestrew their "way" with

"thorns"; who think it a moral loss to be anxious about keeping the

commandments; who erase from their own minds the Apostolic teaching, and

instead of eating the bread of their own honest earning fix on that of others,

and make their idleness itself into an art of living. From this number, too,

come the Dreamers, who put more faith in the illusions of their dreams(9) than

in the Gospel teaching, and style their own phantasies "revelations." Hence,

too, those who "creep into the houses "; and again others who suppose virtue

to consist in savage bearishness, and have never known the fruits of

long-suffering and humility of spirit. Who could enumerate all the pitfalls

into which any one might slip, from refusing to have recourse to men of godly

celebrity? Why, we have known ascetics of this class who have persisted in

their fasting even unto death, as if "with such sacrifices God were well

pleased(1);" and, again, others who rush off into the extreme diametrically

opposite, practising celibacy in name only and leading a life in no way

different from the secular; for they not only indulge in the pleasures of the

table, but are openly known to have a woman in their houses(2); and they call

such a friendship a brotherly affection, as if, forsooth, they could veil

their own thought, which is inclined to evil, under a sacred term. It is owing

to them that this pure and holy profession of virginity is "blasphemed amongst

the Gentiles(3)."

CHAPTER XXIV.

IT would therefore be to their profit, for the young to refrain from

laying down(4) for themselves their future course in this profession; and

indeed, examples of holy lives for them to follow are not wanting in the

living generation(5). Now, if ever before, saintliness abounds and penetrates

our world; by gradual advances it has reached the highest mark of perfectness;

and one who follows such footsteps in his daily rounds may catch this halo;

one who tracks the scent of this preceding perfume may be drenched in the

sweet odours of Christ Himself. As, when one torch has been fired, flame is

transmitted to all the neighbouring candlesticks, without either the first

light being lessened or blazing with unequal brilliance on the other points

where it has been caught; so the saintliness of a life is transmitted from him

who has achieved it, to those who come within his circle; for there

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is truth in the Prophet's saying(6), that one who lives with a man who is

"holy" and "clean" and "elect," will become such himself. If you would wish to

know the sure signs, which will secure you the real model, it is not hard to

take a sketch from life. If you see a man so standing between death and life,

as to select from each helps for the contemplative course, never letting

death's stupor paralyze his zeal to keep all the commandments, nor yet placing

both feet in the world of the living, since he has weaned himself from secular

ambitions;--a man who remains more insensate than the dead themselves to

everything that is found on examination to be living for the flesh, but

instinct with life and energy and strength in the achievements of virtue,

which are the sure marks of the spiritual life;--then look to that man for the

rule of your life; let him be the leading light of your course of devotion, as

the constellations that never set are to the pilot; imitate his youth and his

gray hairs: or, rather, imitate the old man and the stripling who are joined

in him; for even now in his declining years time has not blunted the keen

activity of his soul, nor was his youth active in the sphere of youth's

well-known employments; in both seasons of life he has shown a wonderful

combination of opposites, or rather an exchange of the peculiar qualities of

each; for in age he shows, in the direction of the good, a young man's energy,

while, in the hours of youth, in the direction of evil, his passions were

powerless. If you wish to know what were the passions of that glorious youth

of his, you will have for your imitation the intensity and glow of his godlike

love of wisdom, which grew with him from his childhood, and has continued with

him into his old age. But if you cannot gaze upon him, as the weak-sighted

cannot gaze upon the sun, at all events watch that band of holy men who are

ranged beneath him, and who by the illumination of their lives are a model for

this age. God has placed them as a beacon for us who live around; many among

them have been young men there in their prime, and have grown gray in the

unbroken practice of continence and temperance; they were old in

reasonableness before their time, and in character outstripped their years.

The only love they tasted was that of wisdom; not that their natural instincts

were different from the rest; for in all alike "the flesh lusteth against the

spirit(7);" but they listened to some purpose to him who said that Temperance

"is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her(8);" and they sailed across

the swelling billows of existence upon this tree of life, as upon a skiff; and

anchored in the haven of the will of God; enviable now after so fair a voyage,

they rest their souls in that sunny cloudless calm. They now ride safe

themselves at the anchor of a good hope, far out of reach of the tumult of the

billows; and for others who will follow they radiate the splendour of their

lives as beacon-fires on some high watch-tower. We have indeed a mark to guide

us safely over the ocean of temptations; and why make the too curious inquiry,

whether some with such thoughts as these have not fallen nevertheless, and why

therefore despair, as if the achievement was beyond your reach? Look on him

who has succeeded, and boldly launch upon the voyage with confidence that it

will be prosperous, and sail on under the breeze of the Holy Spirit with

Christ your pilot and with the oarage of good cheer(9). For those who "go down

to the sea in ships and occupy their business in great waters" do not let the

shipwreck that has befallen some one else prevent their being of good cheer;

they rather shield their hearts in this very, confidence, and so sweep on to

accomplish their successful feat. Surely it is the most absurd thing in the

world to reprobate him who has slipped in a course which requires the greatest

nicety, while one considers those who all their lives have been growing old in

failures and in errors, to have chosen the better part. If one single approach

to sin is such an awful thing that you deem it safer not to take in hand at

all this loftier aim, how much more awful a thing it is to make sin the

practice of a whole life, and to remain thereby absolutely ignorant of the

purer course! How can you in your full life obey the Crucified? How can you,

hale in sin, obey Him Who died to sin? How can you, who are not crucified to

the world, and will not accept the mortification of the flesh, obey Him Who

bids you follow after Him, and Who bore the Cross in His own body, as a trophy

from the foe? How can you obey Paul when he exhorts you "to present your body

a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God(1)," when you are "conformed to

this world," and not transformed by the renewing of your mind, when you are

not "walking" in this "newness of life," but still pursuing the routine of

"the old man"? How can you be a priest unto God(2), anointed though you are

for this very office, to offer a gift to God; a gift in no way another's, no

counterfeited gift from sources outside yourself, but a gift that is really

your own, namely, "the inner man(3)," who must be perfect and blameless, as it

is required of a lamb to be without spot or blemish? How can you offer this to

God, when you do not listen to the law forbidding the

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unclean to offer sacrifices? If you long for God to manifest Himself to you,

why do you not hear Moses, when he commands the people to be pure from the

stains of marriage, that they may take in the vision of God(4)? If this all

seems little in your eyes, to be crucified with Christ, to present yourself a

sacrifice to God, to become a priest unto the most high God, to make yourself

worthy of the vision of the Almighty, what higher blessings than these can we

imagine for you, if indeed you make light of the consequences of these as

well? And the consequence of being crucified with Christ is that we shall live

with Him, and be glorified with Him, and reign with Him; and the consequence

of presenting ourselves to God is that we shall be changed from the rank of

human nature and human dignity to that of Angels; for so speaks Daniel, that

"thousand thousands stood before him(5)." He too who has taken his share in

the true priesthood and placed himself beside the Great High Priest remains

altogether himself a priest for ever, prevented for eternity from remaining

any more in death. To say, again, that one makes oneself worthy to see God,

produces no less a result than this; that one is made worthy to see God.

Indeed, the crown of every hope, and of every desire, of every blessing, and

of every promise of God, and of all those unspeakable delights which we

believe to exist beyond our perception and our knowledge,--the crowning result

of them all, I say, is this. Moses longed earnestly to see it, and many

prophets and kings have desired to see the same: but the only class deemed

worthy of it are the pure in heart, those who are, and are named "blessed,"

for this very reason, that "they shall see God(6)." Wherefore we would that

you too should become crucified with Christ, a holy priest standing before

God, a pure offering in all chastity, preparing yourself by your own holiness

for God's coming; that you also may have a pure heart in which to see God,

according to the promise of God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, to Whom be

glory for ever and ever. Amen.

ON INFANTS' EARLY DEATHS

Every essayist and every pamphleteer will have you, most Excellent, to

display his eloquence upon; your wondrous qualities will be a broad

race-course wherein he may expatiate. A noble and suggestive subject in able

hands has indeed a way of making a grander style, lifting it to the height of

the great reality. We, however, like an aged horse, will remain outside this

proposed race-course, only turning the ear to listen for the contest waged in

celebrating your praises, if the sound of any literary car careering in full

swing through such wonders may reach us. But though old age may compel a horse

to remain away from the race, it may often happen that the din of the

trampling racers rouses him into excitement, that he lifts his head with eager

looks, that he shows his spirit in his breathings, and prances and paws the

ground frequently, though this eagerness is all that is left to him, and time

has sapped his powers of going. In the same way our pen remains outside the

combat, and age compels it to yield the course to the professors who flourish

now; nevertheless its eagerness to join the contest about you survives, and

that it can still evince, even though these stylists who flourish now are at

the height of their powers(2). But none of this display of my enthusiasm for

you has anything to do with sounding your own praises: no style, however

nervous and well-balanced, would easily succeed there; so that any one, who

attempted to describe that embarrassing yet harmonious mixture of opposites in

your character, would inevitably be left far behind your real worth. Nature,

indeed, by throwing out the shade of the eyelashes before the glaring rays,

brings to the eyes themselves a weaker light, and so the sunlight becomes

tolerable to us, mingling as it does, in quantities proportionate to our need,

with the shadows which the lashes cast. Just so the grandeur and the greatness

of your character, tempered by your modesty and humbleness of mind, instead of

blinding the beholder's eye, makes the sight on the contrary a pleasurable

one; wherein this humbleness of mind does not occasion the splendour of the

greatness to be dimmed, and its latent force to be overlooked; but the one is

to be noticed in the other, the humility of your character in its elevation,

and the grandeur reversely in the lowliness. Others must describe all this;

and extol, besides, the many-sightedness of your mind. Your intellectual eyes

are indeed as numerous, it may perhaps be said, as the hairs of the head;

their keen unerring gaze is on everything alike; the distant is foreseen; the

near is not unnoticed; they do not wait for experience to teach expedience;

they see with Hope's insight, or else with that of Memory; they scan the

present all over; first on one thing, then on another, but without confusing

them, your mind works with the same energy and with the amount of attention

that is required. Another, too, must record his admiration of the way in which

poverty is made rich by you; if indeed any one is to be found in this age of

ours who will make that a subject of praise and wonder. Yet surely now, if

never before, the love of poverty will through you abound, and your ingotten

wealth(3) will be envied above the ingots of Croesus. For whom has sea and

land, with all the dower of their natural produce, enriched, as thy rejection

of worldly abundance has enriched thee? They wipe the stain from steel and so

make it shine like silver: so has the gleam of thy life grown brighter, ever

carefully cleansed from the rust of wealth. We leave that to those who can

enlarge upon it, and also upon your excellent knowledge of the things in which

it is more glorious to gain than to abstain from gain. Grant me, however,

leave to say, that you do

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not despise all acquisitions; that there are some which, though none of your

predecessors has been able to clutch, yet you and you alone have seized with

both your hands; for, instead of dresses and slaves and money, you have and

hold the very souls of men, and store them in the treasure-house of your love.

The essayists and pamphleteers, whose glory comes from such laudations, will

go into these matters. But our pen, veteran as it now is, is to rouse itself

only so far as to go at a foot's pace through the problem which your wisdom

has proposed; namely, this--what we are to think of those who are taken

prematurely, the moment of whose birth almost coincides with that of their

death. The cultured heathen Plato spoke, in the person of one who had come to

life again(4), much philosophy about the judgment courts in that other world;

but he has left this other question a mystery, as ostensibly too great for

human conjecture to be employed upon. If, then, there is anything in these

lucubrations of ours that is of a nature to clear up the obscurities of this

question, you will doubtless welcome the new account of it if otherwise, you

will at all events excuse this in old age, and accept, if nothing else, our

wish to afford you some degree of pleasure. History(5) says that Xerxes, that

great prince who had made almost every land under the sun into one vast camp,

and roused with his own designs the whole world, when he was marching against

the Greeks received with delight a poor man's gift; and that gift was water,

and that not in a jar, but carried in the hollow of the palm of his hand. So

do you, of your innate generosity, follow his example; to him the will made

the gift, and our gift may be found in itself but a poor watery thing. In the

case of the wonders in the heavens, a man sees their beauty equally, whether

he is trained to watch them, or whether he gazes upwards with an unscientific

eye; but the feeling towards them is not the same in the man who comes from

philosophy to their contemplation, and in him who has only his senses of

perception to commit them to; the latter may be pleased with the sunlight, or

deem the beauty of stars worthy of his wonder, or have watched the stages of

the moon's course throughout the month; but the former, who has the

soul-insight, and whose training has enlightened him so as to comprehend the

phenomena of the heavens, leaves unnoticed all these things which delight the

senses of the more unthinking, and looks at the harmony of the whole,

inspecting the concert which results even from opposite movements in the

circular revolutions; how the inner circles of these turn the contrary way to

that in which the fixed stars are carried round(6); how those of the heavenly

bodies to be observed in these inner circles are variously grouped in their

approachments and divergements, their disappearances behind each other and

their flank movements, and yet effect always precisely in the same way that

notable and never-ending harmony; of which those are conscious who do not

overlook the position of the tiniest star, and whose minds, by training

domiciled above, pay equal attention to them all. In the same way do you, a

precious life to me, watch the Divine economy; leaving those objects which

unceasingly occupy the minds of the crowd, wealth, I mean, and luxury(7) and

vainglory--things which like sunbeams flashing in their faces dazzle the

unthinking--you will not pass without inquiry the seemingly most trivial

questions in the world; for you do most carefully scrutinize the inequalities

in human lives; not only with regard to wealth and penury, and the differences

of position and descent (for you know that they are as nothing, and that they

owe their existence not to any intrinsic reality, but to the foolish estimate

of those who are struck with nonentities, as if they were actual things; and

that if one were only to abstract from somebody who glitters with glory the

blind adoration(8) of those who gaze at him, nothing would be left him after

all the inflated pride which elates him, even though the whole mass of the

world's riches were buried in his cellars), but it is one of your anxieties to

know, amongst the other intentions of each detail of the Divine government,

wherefore it is that, while the life of one is lengthened into old age,

another has only so far a portion of it as to breathe the air with one gasp,

and die. If nothing in this world happens without God, but all is linked tO

the Divine will, and if the Deity is skilful and prudential, then it follows

necessarily that there is some plan in these things bearing the mark of His

wisdom, and at the same time of His providential care. A blind unmeaning

occurrence can never be the work of God; for it is the property of God, as the

Scripture says(9), to "make all things in wisdom." What wisdom, then, can we

trace in the following? A human being enters on the scene of life, draws in

the air, beginning the process of living with a cry of pain, pays the tribute

of a tear to Nature(1), just tastes life's sorrows, before any of its sweets

have been his, before his feelings have gained

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any strength; still loose in all his joints, tender, pulpy, unset; in a word,

before he is even human (if the gift of reason is man's peculiarity, and he

has never had it in him), such an one, with no advantage over the embryo in

the womb except that he has seen the air, so short-lived, dies and goes to

pieces again; being either exposed or suffocated, or else of his own accord

ceasing to live from weakness. What are we to think about him? How are we to

feel about such deaths? Will a soul such as that behold its Judge? Will it

stand with the rest before the tribunal? Will it undergo its trial for deeds

done in life? Will it receive the just recompense by being purged, according

to the Gospel utterances, in fire, or refreshed with the dew of blessing(2)?

But I do not see how we can imagine that, in the case of such a soul. The word

"retribution "implies that something must have been previously given; but he

who has not lived at all has been deprived of the material from which to give

anything. There being, then, no retribution, there is neither good nor evil

left to expect. "Retribution" purports to be the paying back of one of these

two qualities; but that which is to be found neither in the category of good

nor that of bad is in no category at all; for this antithesis between good and

bad is an opposition that admits no middle; and neither will come to him who

has not made a beginning with either of them. What therefore falls under

neither of these heads may be said not even to have existed. But if some one

says that such a life does not only exist, but exists as one of the good ones,

and that God gives, though He does not repay, what is good to such, we may ask

what sort of reason he advances for this partiality; how is justice apparent

in such a view; how will he prove his idea in concordance with the utterances

in the Gospels? There (the Master) says, the acquisition of the Kingdom comes

to those who are deemed worthy of it, as a matter of exchange. "When ye have

done such and such things, then it is fight that ye get the Kingdom as a

reward." But in this case there is no act of doing or of willing beforehand,

and so what occasion is there for saying that these will receive from God any

expected recompense? If one unreservedly accepts a statement such as that, to

the effect that any so passing into life will necessarily be classed amongst

the good, it will dawn upon him then that not partaking in life at all will be

a happier state than living, seeing that in the one case the enjoyment of good

is placed beyond a doubt even with barbarian parentage, or a conception from a

union not legitimate; but he who has lived the span ordinarily possible to

Nature gets the pollution of evil necessarily mingled more or less with his

life, or, if he is to be quite outside this contagion, it will be at the price

of much painful effort. For virtue is achieved by its seekers not without a

struggle; nor is abstinence from the paths of pleasure a painless process to

human nature. So that one of two probations must be the inevitable fate of him

who has had the longer lease of life; either to combat here on Virtue's

toilsome field, or to suffer there the painful recompense of a life of evil.

But in the case of infants prematurely dying there is nothing of that sort;

but they pass to the blessed lot at once, if those who take this view of the

matter speak true. It follows also necessarily from this that a state of

unreason is preferable to having reason, and virtue will thereby be revealed

as of no value: if he who has never possessed it suffers no loss, so, as

regards the enjoyment of blessedness, the labour to acquire it will be useless

folly; the unthinking condition will be the one that comes out best from God's

judgment. For these and such-like reasons you bid me sift the matter, with a

view to our getting, by dint of a closely-reasoned inquiry, some firm ground

on which to rest our thoughts about it.

For my part, in view of the difficulties of the subject proposed, I think

the exclamation of the Apostle very suitable to the present case, just as he

uttered it over unfathomable questions: "O the depth of the riches both of the

wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways

past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord(3)?" But seeing on

the other hand that that Apostle declares it to be a peculiarity of him that

is spiritual to "judge all things(4)," and commends those who have been

"enriched(5)" by the Divine grace "in all utterance and in all knowledge," I

venture to assert that it is not right to omit the

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examination which is within the range of our ability, nor to leave the

question here raised without making any inquiries, or having any ideas about

it; lest, like the actual subject of our proposed discussion, this essay

should have an ineffectual ending, spoilt before its maturity by the fatal

indolence of those who will not nerve themselves to search out the truth, like

a new-born infant ere it sees the light and acquires any strength. I assert,

too, that it is not well at once to confront and meet objections, as if we

were pleading in court, but to introduce a certain order into the discussion

and to lead the view on from one point to another. What, then, should this

order be? First, we want to know the whence of human nature, and the wherefore

of its ever having come into existence. If we hit the answer to these

questions, we shall not fail in getting the required explanation. Now, that

everything that exists, after God, in the intellectual or sensible world of

beings owes that existence to Him, is a proposition which it is superfluous to

prove; no one, with however little insight into the truth of things, would

gainsay it. For every one agrees that the Universe is linked to one First

Cause; that nothing in it owes its existence to itself, so as to be its own

origin and cause; but that there is on the other hand a single uncreate

eternal Essence, the same for ever, which transcends all our ideas of

distance, conceived of as without increase or decrease, and beyond the scope

of any definition; and that time and space with all their consequences, and

anything previous to these that thought can grasp in the intelligible

supramundane world, are all the productions of this Essence. Well, then, we

affirm that human nature is one of these productions; and a word of the

inspired Teaching helps us in this, which declares that when God had brought

all things else upon the scene of life, man was exhibited upon the earth, a

mixture from Divine sources, the godlike intellectual essence being in him

united with the several portions of earthly elements contributed towards his

formation, and that he was fashioned by his Maker to be the incarnate likeness

of Divine transcendent Power. It would be better however to quote the very

words: "And God created man, in the image of God created He him(6)." Now the

reason of the making of this animate being has been given by certain writers

previous to us as follows. The whole creation is divided into two parts; that

"which is seen," and that "which is not seen," to use the Apostle's words (the

second meaning the intelligible and immaterial, the first, the sensible and

material); and being thus divided, the angelic and spiritual natures, which

are among "the things not seen," reside in places above the world, and above

the heavens, because such a residence is in correspondence with their

constitution; for an intellectual nature is a fine, clear, unencumbered, agile

kind of thing, and a heavenly body is fine and light, and perpetually moving,

and the earth on the contrary, which stands last in the list of things

sensible, can never be an adequate and congenial spot for creatures

intellectual to sojourn in. For what correspondence can there possibly be

between that which is light and buoyant, on the one hand, and that which is

heavy and gravitating on the other? Well, in order that the earth may not be

completely devoid of the local indwelling of the intellectual and the

immaterial, man (these writers tell us) was fashioned by the Supreme

forethought, and his earthy parts moulded over the intellectual and godlike

essence of his soul; and so this amalgamation with that which has material

weight enables the soul to live on this element of earth, which possesses a

certain bond of kindred with the substance of the flesh. The design of all

that is being born(7), then, is that the Power which is above both the

heavenly and the earthly universe may in all parts of the creation be

glorified by means of intellectual natures, conspiring to the same end by

virtue of the same faculty in operation in all, I mean that of looking upon

God. But this operation of looking upon God is nothing less than the

life-nourishment appropriate, as like to like, to an intellectual nature. For

just as these bodies, earthy as they are, are preserved by nourishment that is

earthy, and we detect in them all alike, whether brute or reasoning, the

operations of a material kind of vitality, so it is right to assume that there

is an intellectual life-nourishment as well, by which such natures(8) are

maintained in existence. But if bodily food, coming and going as it does in

circulation, nevertheless imparts a certain amount of vital energy to those

who get it, how much more does the partaking of the real thing, always

remaining and always the same, preserve the eater in existence? If, then, this

is the life-nourishment of an intellectual nature, namely, to have a part in

God, this part will not be gained by that which is of an opposite quality; the

would-be partaker must m some degree be akin to that which is to be partaken

of. The eye enjoys the light by virtue of having light within itself to seize

its

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kindred light, and the finger or any other limb cannot effect the act of

vision because none of this natural light is organized in any of them. The

same necessity requires that in our partaking of God there should be some

kinship in the constitution of the partaker with that which is partaken of.

Therefore, as the Scripture says, man was made in the image of God; that like,

I take it, might be able to see like; and to see God is, as was said above,

the life of the soul. But seeing that ignorance of the true good is like a

mist that obscures the visual keenness of the soul, and that when that mist

grows denser a cloud is formed so thick that Truth's ray cannot pierce through

these depths of ignorance, it follows further that with the total deprivation

of the light the soul's life ceases altogether; for we have said that the real

life of the soul is acted out in partaking of the Good; but when ignorance

hinders this apprehension of God, the soul which thus ceases to partake of

God, ceases also to live. But no one can force us to give the family

history(9) of this ignorance, asking whence and from what father it is; let

him be given to understand from the word itself that "ignorance" and

"knowledge" indicate one of the relations of the soul;(1) but no relation,

whether expressed or not, conveys the idea of substance; a relation and a

substance are quite of different descriptions. If, then, knowledge is not a

substance, but a perfected(2) operation of the soul, it must be conceded that

ignorance must be much farther removed still from anything in the way of

substance; but that which is not in that way does not exist at all; and so it

would be useless to trouble ourselves about where it comes from. Now seeing

that the Word(3) declares that the living in God is the life of the soul, and

seeing that this living is knowledge according to each man's ability, and that

ignorance does not imply the reality of anything, but is only the negation of

the operation of knowing, and seeing that upon this partaking in God being no

longer effected there follows at once the cancelling of the soul's life, which

is the worst of evils,--because of all this the Producer of all Good would

work in us the cure of such an evil. A cure is a good thing, but one who does

not look to the evangelic mystery would still be ignorant of the manner of the

cure. We have shown that alienation from God, Who is the Life, is an evil; the

cure, then, of this infirmity is, again to be made friends with God, and so to

be in life once more. When such a life, then, is always held up in hope before

humanity, it cannot be said that the winning of this life is absolutely a

reward of a good life, and that the contrary is a punishment (of a bad one);

but what we insist on resembles the case of the eyes. We do not say that one

who has clear eyesight is rewarded as with a prize by being able to perceive

the objects of sight; nor on the other hand that he who has diseased eyes

experiences a failure of optic activity as the result of some penal sentence.

With the eye in a natural state sight follows necessarily; with it vitiated by

disease failure of sight as necessarily follows. In the same way the life of

blessedness is as a familiar second nature to those who have kept clear the

senses of the soul; but when the blinding stream of ignorance prevents our

partaking in the real light, then it necessarily follows that we miss that,

the enjoyment of which we declare to be the life of the partaker.

Now that we have laid down these premisses, it is time to examine in the

light of them the question proposed to us. It was somewhat of this kind. "If

the recompense of blessedness is assigned according to the principles of

justice, in what class shall he be placed who has died in infancy without

having laid in this life any foundation, good or bad, whereby any return

according to his deserts may be given him?" To this we shall make answer, with

our eye fixed upon the consequences of that which we have already laid down,

that this happiness in the future, while it is in its essence a heritage of

humanity, may at the same time be called in one sense a recompense; and we

will make clear our meaning by the same instance as before. Let us suppose two

persons suffering from an affection of the eyes; and that the one surrenders

himself most diligently to the process of being cured, and undergoes all that

Medicine can apply to him, however painful it may be; and that the other

indulges without restraint in baths(4) and wine-drinking, and listens to no

advice whatever of his doctor as to the healing of his eyes. Well, when we

look to the end of each of these we say that each duly receives in requital

the fruits Of his choice, the one in deprivation of the light, the other in

its enjoyment; by a misuse of the word we do actually call trial which

necessarily follows, a recompense. We may speak, then, in this way also as

regards this question of the infants: we may say that the enjoyment of that

future life does indeed belong of right to the human being, but that, seeing

the plague of ignorance has seized almost all now living in the flesh, he who

has purged himself of it by means of the necessary courses of treatment

receives the due reward of his diligence, when he enters on the life that is

truly

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natural; while he who refuses Virtue's purgatives and renders that plague of

ignorance, through the pleasures he has been entrapped by, difficult in his

case to cure, gets himself into an unnatural state, and so is estranged from

the truly natural life, and has no share in the existence which of right

belongs to us and is congenial to us. Whereas the innocent babe has no such

plague before its soul's eyes obscuring(5) its measure of light, and so it

continues to exist in that natural life; it does not need the soundness which

comes from purgation, because it never admitted the plague into its soul at

all. Further, the present life appears to me to offer a sort of analogy to the

future life we hope for, and to be intimately connected with it, thus; the

tenderest infancy is suckled and reared with milk from the breast; then

another sort of food appropriate to the subject of this fostering, and

intimately adapted to his needs, succeeds, until at last he arrives at full

growth. And so I think, in quantities continually adapted to it, in a sort of

regular progress, the soul partakes of that truly natural life; according to

its capacity and its power it receives a measure of the delights of the

Blessed state; indeed we learn as much from Paul, who had a different sort of

food for him who was already grown in virtue and for the imperfect "babe." For

to the last he says, "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for

hitherto ye were not able to bear it(6).'' But to those who have grown to the

full measure of intellectual maturity he says, "But strong meat belongeth to

those that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses

exercised....(7)" Now it is not right to say that the man and the infant are

in a similar state however free both may be from any contact of disease (for

how can those who do not partake of exactly the same things be in an equal

state of enjoyment?); on the contrary, though the absence of any affliction

from disease may be predicated of both alike as long as both are out of the

reach of its influence, yet, when we come to the matter of delights, there is

no likeness in the enjoyment, though the percipients are in the same

condition. For the man there is a natural delight in discussions, and in the

management of affairs, and in the honourable discharge of the duties of an

office, and in being distinguished for acts of help to the needy; in living,

it may be, with a wife whom he loves, and ruling his household; and in all

those amusements to be found in this life in the way of pastime, in musical

pieces and theatrical spectacles, in the chase, in bathing, in gymnastics, in

the mirth of banquets, and anything else of that sort. For the infant, on the

contrary, there is a natural delight in its milk, and in its nurse's arms, and

in gentle rocking that induces and then sweetens its slumber. Any happiness

beyond this the tenderness of its years naturally prevents it from feeling. In

the same manner those who in their life here have nourished the forces of

their souls by a course of virtue, and have, to use the Apostle's words, had

the "senses" of their minds "exercised," will, if they are translated to that

life beyond, which is out of the body, proportionately to the condition and

the powers they have attained participate in that divine delight; they will

have more or they will have less of its riches according to the capacity

acquired. But the soul that has never felt the taste of virtue, while it may

indeed remain perfectly free from the sufferings which flow from wickedness

having never caught the disease of evil at all, does nevertheless in the first

instance s partake only so far in that life beyond (which consists, according

to our previous definition, in the knowing and being in God) as this nursling

can receive; until the time comes that it has thriven on the contemplation of

the truly Existent as on a congenial diet, and, becoming capable of receiving

more, takes at will more from that abundant supply of the truly Existent which

is offered.

Having, then, all these considerations in our view, we hold that the soul

of him who has reached every virtue in his course, and the soul of him whose

portion of life has been simply nothing, are equally out of the reach of those

sufferings which flow from wickedness. Nevertheless we do not conceive of the

employment of their lives as on the same level at all. The one has heard those

heavenly announcements, by which, in the words of the Prophet, "the glory of

God is declared(9)," and, travelling through creation, has been led to the

apprehension of a Master of the creation; he has taken the true Wisdom for his

teacher, that Wisdom which the spectacle of the Universe suggests; and when he

observed the beauty of this material sunlight he had grasped by analogy the

beauty of the real sunlight(1); he saw in the solid firm-

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ness of this earth the unchangeableness of its Creator; when he perceived the

immensity of the heavens he was led on the road towards the vast Infinity of

that Power which encompasses the Universe; when he saw the rays of the sun

reaching from such sublimities even to ourselves he began to believe, by the

means of such phenomena, that the activities of the Divine Intelligence did

not fail to descend from the heights of Deity even to each one of us; for if a

single luminary can occupy everything alike that lies beneath it with the

force of light, and, more than that, can, while lending itself to all who can

use it, still remain self-centred and undissipated, how much more shall the

Creator of that luminary become "all in all," as the Apostle speaks, and come

into each with such a measure of Himself as each subject of His influence can

receive! Nay, look only at an ear of corn, at the germinating of some plant,

at a ripe bunch of grapes, at the beauty of early autumn, whether in fruit or

flower, at the grass springing unbidden, at the mountain reaching up with its

summit to the height of the ether, at the springs on its slopes bursting from

those swelling breasts, and running in rivers through the glens, at the sea

receiving those streams from every direction and yet remaining within its

limits, with waves edged by the stretches of beach and never stepping beyond

those fixed boundaries of continent: look at these and such-like sights, and

how can the eye of reason fail to find in them all that our education for

Realities requires? Has a man who looks at such spectacles procured for

himself only a slight power for the enjoyment of those delights beyond? Not to

speak of the studies which sharpen the mind towards moral excellence geometry,

I mean, and astronomy, and the knowledge of the truth that the science of

numbers gives, and every method that furnishes a proof of the unknown and a

conviction of the known, and, before all these, the philosophy contained in

the inspired Writings, which affords a complete purification to those who

educate themselves thereby in the mysteries of God. But the man who has

acquired the knowledge of none of these things and has not even been conducted

by the material cosmos to the perception of the beauties above it, and passes

through life with his mind in a kind of tender, unformed, and untrained state,

he is not the man that is likely to be placed amongst the same surroundings as

our argument has indicated that other man, before spoken of, to be placed; so

that, in this view, it can no longer be maintained that, in the two supposed

and completely opposite cases, the one who has taken no part in life is more

blessed than the one who has taken a noble part in it. Certainly, in

comparison with one who has lived all his life in sin, not only the innocent

babe but even one who has never come into the world at all will be blessed. We

learn as much too in the case of Judas, from the sentence pronounced upon him

in the Gospels(2); namely, that when we think of such men, that which never

existed is to be preferred to that which has existed in such sin. For, as to

the latter, on account of the depth of the ingrained evil, the chastisement in

the way of purgation will be extended into infinity(3); but as for what has

never existed, how can any torment touch it?--However, notwithstanding that,

the man who institutes a comparison between the infantine immature life and

that of perfect virtue, must himself be pronounced immature for so judging of

realities. Do you, then, in consequence of this, ask the reason why so and so,

quite tender in age, is quietly taken away from amongst the living? Do you ask

what the Divine wisdom contemplates in this? Well, if you are thinking of all

those infants who are proofs of illicit connections, and so are made away with

by their parents, you are not justified in calling to account, for such

wickedness, that God Who will surely bring to judgment the unholy deeds done

in this way. In the case, on the other hand, of any infant who, though his

parents have nurtured him, and have with nursing and supplication spent

earnest care upon him, nevertheless does not continue in this world, but

succumbs to a sickness even unto death, which is unmistakably the sole cause

of it, we venture upon the following considerations. It is a sign of the

perfection of God's providence, that He not only heals maladies(4) that have

come into existence, but also provides that some should be never mixed up at

all in the things which He has forbidden; it is reasonable, that is, to expect

that He Who knows the future equally with the past should check the advance of

an infant to complete maturity, in order that the evil may not be developed

which His foreknowledge has detected in his future life, and in order that a

lifetime granted to one whose evil dispositions will be lifelong may not

become the actual

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material for his vice. We shall better explain what we are thinking of by an

illustration. Suppose a banquet of very varied abundance, prepared for a

certain number of guests, and let the chair be taken by one of their number

who is gifted to know accurately the peculiarities of constitution in each of

them, and what food is best adapted to each temperament, what is harmful and

unsuitable; in addition to this let him be entrusted with a sort of absolute

authority over them, whether to allow as he pleases so and so to remain at the

board or to expel so and so, and to take every precaution that each should

address himself to the viands most suited to his constitution, so that the

invalid should not kill himself by adding the fuel of what he was eating to

his ailment, while the guest in robuster health should not make himself ill

with things not good for him s and fall into discomfort from over-feeding(6).

Suppose, amongst these, one of those inclined to drink is conducted out in the

middle of the banquet or even at the very beginning of it; or let him remain

to the very end, it all depending on the way that the president can secure

that perfect order shall prevail, if possible, at the board throughout, and

that the evil sights of surfeiting, tippling, and tipsiness shall be absent.

It is just so, then, as when that individual is not very pleased at being torn

away from all the savoury dainties and deprived of his favourite liquors, but

is inclined to charge the president with want of justice and judgment, as

having turned him away from the feast for envy, and not for any forethought

for him; but if he were to catch a sight of those who were already beginning

to misbehave themselves, from the long continuance of their drinking, in the

way of vomitings and putting their heads on the table and unseemly talk, he

would perhaps feel grateful to him for having removed him, before he got into

such a condition, from a deep debauch. If our illustration(7) is understood,

we can easily apply the rule which it contains to the question before us.

What, then, was that question? Why does God, when fathers endeavour their

utmost to preserve a successor to their line, often let the son and heir be

snatched away in earliest infancy(8)? To those who ask this, we shall reply

with the illustration of the banquet; namely, that Life's board is as it were

crowded with a vast abundance and variety of dainties; and it must, please, be

noticed that, true to the practice of gastronomy, all its dishes are not

sweetened with the honey of enjoyment, but in some cases an existence has a

taste of some especially harsh mischances(9) given to it: just as experts in

the arts of catering desire how they may excite the appetites of the guests

with sharp, or briny, or astringent dishes. Life, I say, is not in all its

circumstances as sweet as honey; there are circumstances in it in which mere

brine is the only relish, or into which an astringent, or vinegary, or sharp

pungent flavour has so insinuated itself, that the rich sauce becomes very

difficult to taste: the cups of Temptation, too, are filled with all sorts of

beverages; some by the error of pride(1) produce the vice of inflated vanity;

others lure on those who drain them to some deed of rashness; whilst in other

cases they excite a vomiting in which all the ill-gotten acquisitions of years

are with shame surrendered(2). Therefore, to prevent one who has indulged in

the carousals to an improper extent from lingering over so profusely furnished

a table, he is early taken from the number of the banqueters, and thereby

secures an escape out of those evils which unmeasured indulgence procures for

gluttons. This is that achievement of a perfect Providence which I spoke of;

namely, not only to heal evils that have been committed, but also to forestall

them before they have been committed; and this, we suspect, is the cause of

the deaths of new-born infants. He Who does all things upon a Plan withdraws

the materials for evil in His love to the individual, and, to a character

whose marks His Foreknowledge has read, grants no time to display by a

pre-eminence in actual vice what it is when its propensity to evil gets free

play. Often, too, the Arranger of this Feast of Life exposes by such-like

dispensations the cunning device of the "constraining cause" of

money-loving(3), so that this vice comes to the light bared of all specious

pretexts, and no longer obscured by any misleading screen(4). For most declare

that they give play s to their cravings for more, in order that they may make

their offspring all the richer; but that their vice belongs to their nature,

and is not caused by any external necessity, is proved by that inexcusable

avarice which is observed in childless persons. Many who have no heir, nor any

hope of one, for the great wealth which they have laboriously gained, rear a

countless brood within themselves of wants instead of children, and they are

left without a channel into which to convey this incurable disease, though

they cannot find an excuse in any necessity for this failing(6). But take the

case of some who, during their sojourn in life, have been fierce and

domineering

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in disposition, slaves to every kind of lust, passionate to madness,

refraining from no act even of the most desperate wickedness, robbers and

murderers, traitors to their country, and, more execrable still, patricides,

mother-killers, child-murderers, mad after unnatural intercourse; suppose such

characters grow old in this wickedness; how, some one may ask, does this

harmonize with the result of our previous investigations? If that which is

taken away before its time in order that it may not continuously glut itself,

according to our illustration of the banquet, with Life's indulgences, is

providentially removed from that carouse, what is the special design in so and

so, who is of that disposition, being allowed to continue his revels(7) to old

age, steeping both himself and his boon companions in the noxious fumes of his

debauchery? In fine, you will ask, wherefore does God in His Providence

withdraw one from life before his character can be perfected in evil, and

leave another to grow to be such a monster that it had been better for him if

he had never been born? In answer to this we will give, to those who are

inclined to receive it favourably, a reason such as follows: viz. that

oftentimes the existence of those whose life has been a good one operates to

the advantage of their offspring; and there are hundreds of passages

testifying to this in the inspired Writings, which clearly teach us that the

tender care shown by God to those who have deserved it is shared in by their

successors, and that even to have been an obstruction, in the path to

wickedness, to any one who is sure to live wickedly, is a good result(8). But

seeing that our Reason in this matter has to grope in the dark, clearly no one

can complain if its conjecturing leads our mind to a variety of conclusions.

Well, then, not only one might pronounce that God, in kindness to the Founders

of some Family, withdraws a member of it who is going to live a bad life from

that bad life, but, even if there is no antecedent such as this in the case of

some early deaths, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that they would have

plunged into a vicious life with a more desperate vehemence than any of those

who have actually become notorious for their wickedness. That nothing happens

without God we know from many sources; and, reversely, that God's

dispensations have no element of chance and confusion in them every one will

allow, who realizes that God is Reason, and Wisdom, and Perfect Goodness, and

Truth, and could not admit of that which is not good and not consistent with

His Truth(9). Whether, then, the early deaths of infants are to be attributed

to the aforesaid causes, or whether there is some further cause of them beyond

these, it befits us to acknowledge that these things happen for the best. I

have another reason also to give which I have learnt from the wisdom of an

Apostle; a reason, that is, why some of those who have been distinguished for

their wickedness have been suffered to live on in their self-chosen course.

Having expanded a thought of this kind at some length in his argument to the

Romans(1), and having retorted upon himself with the counter-conclusion, which

thence necessarily follows, that the sinner could no longer be justly blamed,

if his sinning is a dispensation of God, and that he would not have existed at

all, if it had been contrary to the wishes of Him Who has the world in His

power, the Apostle meets this conclusion and solves this counter-plea by means

of a still deeper view of things. He tells us that God, in rendering to every

one his due, sometimes even grants a scope to wickedness for good in the end.

Therefore He allowed the King of Egypt, for example, to be born and to grow up

such as he was; the intention was that Israel, that great nation exceeding all

calculation by numbers, might be instructed by his disaster. God's omnipotence

is to be recognized in every direction; it has strength to bless the

deserving; it is not inadequate to the punishment of wickedness(2); and so, as

the complete removal of that peculiar people out of Egypt was necessary in

order to prevent their receiving any infection from the sins of Egypt in a

misguided way of living, therefore that God-defying and infamous Pharaoh rose

and reached his maturity in the lifetime of the very people who were to be

benefited, so that Israel might acquire a just knowledge of the two-fold

energy of God, working as it did in either direction; the more beneficent they

learnt in their own persons, the sterner by seeing it exercised upon those who

were being scourged for their wickedness; for in His consummate wisdom God can

mould even evil into co-operation with good. The artisan (if the Apostle's

argument may be confirmed by any words of ours)--the artisan who by his skill

has to fashion iron to some instrument for daily use, has need not only of

that which owing to its natural ductility lends itself to his art, but, be the

iron never so hard, be it never so difficult to soften it in the fire, be it

even impossible owing to its adamantine resistance to mould it into any useful

implement, his art requires the co-operation even of this; he will use it for

an anvil, upon which the soft

381

workable iron may be beaten and formed into something useful. But some one

will say, "It is not all who thus reap in this life the fruits of their

wickedness, any more than all those whose lives have been virtuous profit

while living by their virtuous endeavours; what then, I ask, is the advantage

of their existence in the case of these who live to the end unpunished?" I

will bring forward to meet this question of yours a reason which transcends

all human arguments. Somewhere in his utterances the great David declares that

some portion of the blessedness of the virtuous will consist in this; in

contemplating side by side with their own felicity the perdition of the

reprobate. He says, "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance;

he shall wash his hands in the blood of the ungodly(3)"; not indeed as

rejoicing over the torments of those sufferers, but as then most completely

realizing the extent of the well-earned rewards of virtue. He signifies by

those words that it will be an addition to the felicity of the virtuous and an

intensification of it, to have its contrary set against it. In saying that "he

washes his hands in the blood of the ungodly" he would convey the thought that

"the cleanness of his own acting in life is plainly declared in the perdition

of the ungodly." For the expression "wash" represents the idea of cleanness;

but no one is washed, but is rather defiled, in blood; whereby it is clear

that it is a comparison with the harsher forms of punishment that puts in a

clearer light the blessedness of virtue. We must now summarize our argument,

in order that the thoughts which we have expanded may be more easily retained

in the memory. The premature deaths of infants have nothing in them to suggest

the thought that one who so terminates his life is subject to some grievous

misfortune, any more than they are to be put on a level with the deaths of

those who have purified themselves in this life by every kind of virtue; the

more far-seeing Providence of God curtails the immensity of sins in the case

of those whose lives are going to be so evil. That some of the wicked have

lived on(4) does not upset this reason which we have rendered; for the evil

was in their case hindered in kindness to their parents; whereas, in the case

of those whose parents have never imparted to them any power of calling upon

God, such a form of the Divine kindness(5), which accompanies such a power, is

not transmitted to their own children; otherwise the infant now prevented by

death from growing up wicked would have exhibited a far more desperate

wickedness than the most notorious sinners, seeing that it would have been

unhindered. Even granting that some have climbed to the topmost pinnacle of

crime, the Apostolic view supplies a comforting answer to the question; for He

Who does everything with Wisdom knows how to effect by means of evil some

good. Still further, if some occupy a pre-eminence in crime, and yet for all

that have never been a metal, to use our former illustration, that God's skill

has used for any good, this is a case which constitutes an addition to the

happiness of the good, as the Prophet's words suggest; it may be reckoned as

not a slight element in that happiness, nor, on the other hand, as one

unworthy of God's providing.

ON PILGRIMAGES

Since, my friend, you ask me a question in your letter, I think that it is

incumbent upon me to answer you in their proper order upon all the points

connected with it. It is, then, my opinion that it is a good thing for those

who have dedicated themselves once for all to the higher life to fix their

attention continually upon the utterances in the Gospel, and, just as those

who correct their work in any given material by a rule, and by means of the

straightness of that rule bring the crookedness which their hands detect to

straightness, so it is right that we should apply to these questions a strict

and flawless measure as it were,--I mean, of course, the Gospel rule of

life(2),--and in accordance with that, direct ourselves in the sight of God.

Now there are some amongst those who have entered upon the monastic and hermit

life, who have made it a part of their devotion to behold those spots at

Jerusalem where the memorials of our Lord's life in the flesh are on view; it

would be well, then, to look to this Rule, and if the finger of its precepts

points to the observance of such things, to perform the work, as the actual

injunction of our Lord; but if they lie quite outside the commandment of the

Master, I do not see what there is to command any one who has become a law of

duty to himself to be zealous in performing any of them. When the Lord invites

the blest to their inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, He does not include a

pilgrimage to Jerusalem amongst their good deeds; when He announces the

Beatitudes, He does not name amongst them that sort of devotion. But as to

that which neither makes us blessed nor sets us in the path to the kingdom,

for what reason it should be run after, let him that is wise consider. Even if

there were some profit in what they do, yet even so, those who are perfect

would do best not to be eager in practising it; but since this matter, when

closely looked into, is found to inflict upon those who have begun to lead the

stricter life a moral mischief, it is so far from being worth an earnest

pursuit, that it actually requires the greatest caution to prevent him who has

devoted himself to God from being penetrated by any of its hurtful influences.

What is it, then, that is hurtful in it? The Holy Life is open to all, men and

women alike. Of that contemplative Life the peculiar mark is Modesty(3). But

Modesty is preserved in societies that live distinct and separate, so that

there should be no meeting and mixing up of persons of opposite sex; men are

not to rush to keep the rules of Modesty in the company of women, nor women to

do so in the company of men. But the necessities of a journey are continually

apt to reduce this scrupulousness to a very indifferent observance of such

rules. For instance, it is impossible for a woman to accomplish so long a

journey without a conductor; on account of her natural weakness she has to be

put upon her horse and to be lifted down again; she has to be supported(4) in

difficult situations. Whichever we suppose, that she has an acquaintance to do

this yeoman's service, or a hired attendant to perform it, either way the

proceeding cannot escape being reprehensible; whether she leans on the help of

a stranger, or on that of her own servant, she fails to keep the law of

correct conduct; and as the inns and hostelries and cities of the East present

many examples of licence and of indifference to vice, how will it be possible

for one passing through such smoke to escape

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without smarting eyes? Where the ear and the eye is defiled, and the heart

too, by receiving all those foulnesses through eye and ear, how will it be

possible to thread without infection such seats of contagion? What advantage,

moreover, is reaped by him who reaches those celebrated spots themselves? He

cannot imagine that our Lord is living, in the body, there at the present day,

but has gone away from us foreigners; or that the Holy Spirit is in abundance

at Jerusalem, but unable to travel as far as us. Whereas, if it is really

possible to infer God's presence from visible symbols, one might more justly

consider that He dwelt in the Cappadocian nation than in any of the spots

outside it. For how many Altars s there are there, on which the name of our

Lord is glorified! One could hardly count so many in all the rest of the

world. Again, if the Divine grace was more abundant about Jerusalem than

elsewhere, sin would not be so much the fashion amongst those that live there;

but as it is, there is no form of uncleanness(6) that is not perpetrated

amongst them; rascality, adultery, theft, idolatry, poisoning, quarrelling,

murder, are rife; and the last kind of evil is so excessively prevalent, that

nowhere in the world are people so ready to kill each other as there; where

kinsmen attack each other like wild beasts, and spill each other's blood,

merely for the sake of lifeless plunder. Well, in a place where such things go

on, what proof, I ask, have you of the abundance of Divine grace? But I know

what many will retort to all that I have said; they will say, "Why did you not

lay down this rule for yourself as well? If there is no gain for the godly

pilgrim in return for having been there, for what reason did you undergo the

toil of so long a journey?" Let them hear from me my plea for this. By the

necessities of that office in which I have been placed by the Dispenser of my

life to live, it was my duty, for the purpose of the correction which the Holy

Council had resolved upon, to visit the places where the Church in Arabia is;

secondly, as Arabia is on the confines of the Jerusalem district, I had

promised that I would confer also with the Heads of the Holy Jerusalem

Churches, because matters with them were in confusion, and needed an arbiter;

thirdly, our most religious Emperor had granted us facilities for the journey,

by postal conveyance, so that we had to endure none of those inconveniences

which in the case of others we have noticed; our waggon was, in fact, as good

as a church or monastery to us, for all of us were singing psalms and fasting

in the Lord during the whole journey. Let our own case therefore cause

difficulty to none; rather let our advice be all the more listened to, because

we are giving it upon matters which came actually before our eyes. We

confessed that the Christ Who was manifested is very God, as much before as

after our sojourn at Jerusalem; our faith in Him was not increased afterwards

any more than it was diminished. Before we saw Bethlehem we knew His being

made man by means of the Virgin; before we saw His Grave we believed in His

Resurrection from the dead; apart from seeing the Mount of Olives, we

confessed that His Ascension into heaven was real. We derived only thus much

of profit from our travelling thither, namely that we came to know by being

able to compare them, that our own places are far holier than those abroad.

Wherefore, O ye who fear the Lord, praise Him in the places where ye now are.

Change of place does not effect any drawing nearer unto God, but wherever thou

mayest be, God will come to thee, if the chambers of thy soul be found of such

a sort that He can dwell in thee and walk in thee. But if thou keepest thine

inner man full of wicked thoughts, even if thou wast on Golgotha, even if thou

wast on the Mount of Olives, even if thou stoodest on the memorial-rock of the

Resurrection, thou wilt be as far away from receiving Christ into thyself, as

one who has not even begun to confess Him. Therefore, my beloved friend,

counsel the brethren to be absent from the body to go to our Lord, rather than

to be absent from Cappadocia to go to Palestine; and if any one should adduce

the command spoken by our Lord to His disciples that they should not quit

Jerusalem, let him be made to understand its true meaning. Inasmuch as the

gift and the distribution of the Holy Spirit had not yet passed upon the

Apostles, our Lord commanded them to remain in the same place, until they

should have been endued with power from on high. Now, if that which happened

at the beginning, when the Holy Spirit was dispensing each of His gifts under

the appearance of a flame, continued until now, it would be right for all to

remain in that place where that dispensing took place; but if the Spirit

"bloweth" where He "listeth," those, too, who have become believers here are

made partakers of that gift; and that according to the proportion of their

faith, not in consequence of their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

III. PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS

NOTE ON THE TREATISE "ON THE MAKING OF MAN."

THIS work was intended to supplement and complete the Hexaemeron of S.

Basil, and presupposes an acquaintance with that treatise. The narrative of

the creation of the world is not discussed in detail: it is referred to, but

chiefly in order to insist on the idea that the world was prepared to be the

sphere of man's sovereignty. On the other hand, Gregory shows that man was

made "with circumspection," fitted by nature for rule over the other

creatures, made in the likeness of God in respect of various moral attributes,

and in the possession of reason, while differing from the Divine nature in

that the human mind receives its information by means of the senses and is

dependent on them for its perception of external things. The body is fitted to

be the instrument of the mind, adapted to the use of a reasonable being: and

it is by the possession of the "rational soul," as well as of the "natural" or

"vegetative" and the "sensible" soul, that man differs from the lower animals.

At the same time, his mind waves by means of the senses: it is

incomprehensible in its nature (resembling in this the Divine nature of which

it is the image), and its relation to the body is discussed at some length

(chs. 12--15). The connection between mind and body is ineffable: it is not to

be accounted for by supposing that the mind resides in any particular part of

the body: the mind acts upon and is acted upon by the whole body, depending on

the corporeal and material nature for one element of perception, so that

perception requires both body and mind. But it is to the rational element that

the name of "soul" properly belongs: the nutritive and sensible faculties only

borrow the name from that which is higher than themselves. Man was first made

"in the image of God:" and this conception excludes the idea of distinction of

sex. In the first creation of man all humanity is included, according to the

Divine foreknowledge: "our whole nature extending from the first to the last"

is "one image of Him Who is." But for the Fall, the increase of the human race

would have taken place as the increase of the angelic race takes place, in

some way unknown to us. The declension of man from his first estate made

succession by generation necessary: and it was because this declension and its

consequences were present to the Divine mind that God "created them male and

female." In this respect, and in respect of the need of nourishment by food,

man is not "in the image of God," but shows his kindred with the lower

creation. But these necessities are not permanent: they will end with the

restoration of man to his former excellence (chs. 16--18). Here Gregory is led

to speak (chs. 19--20) of the food of man in Paradise, and of the "tree of the

knowledge of good and evil." And thus, having made mention of the Fall of man,

he goes on to speak of his Restoration. This, in his view, follows from the

finite nature of evil: it is deferred until the sum of humanity is complete.

As to the mode in which the present state of things will end, we know nothing:

but that it will end is inferred from the non-eternity of matter (chs.

21--24). The doctrine of the Resurrection is supported by our knowledge of the

accuracy with which other events have been predicted in Scripture, by the

experience given to us of like events in particular cases, in those whom our

Lord raised to life, and especially in His own resurrection. The argument that

such a restoration is impossible is met by an appeal to the unlimited

character of the Divine power, and by inferences from parallels observed in

nature (chs. 25--27). Gregory then proceeds to deal with the question of the

pre-existence of the soul, rejecting that opinion, and maintaining that the

body and the soul come into existence together, potentially, in the Divine

will, actually at the moment when each individual man comes into being by

generation (chs. 28--29). In the course of his argument on this last point, he

turns aside to discuss at some length, in the last chapter, the structure of

the human body: but he returns once more, in conclusion, to his main position,

that man "is generated as a living and animated being," and that the power of

the soul is gradually manifested in, and by means of, the material substratum

of the body; so that man is brought to perfection by the aid of the lower

attributes of the soul. But the true perfection of the soul is not in these,

which will ultimately be "put away," but in the higher attributes which

constitute for man "the image of God."

ON THE MAKING OF MAN

Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, to his brother Peter, THE SERVANT OF GOD.

If we had to honour with rewards of money those who excel in virtue, the

whole world of money, as Solomon says(1), would seem but small to be made

equal to your virtue in the balance. Since, however, the debt of gratitude due

to your Reverence is greater than can be valued in money, and the holy

Eastertide demands the accustomed gift of love, we offer to your greatness of

mind, O man of God, a gift too small indeed to be worthy of presentation to

you, yet not falling short of the extent of our power. The gift is a

discourse, like a mean garment, woven not without toil from our poor wit, and

the subject of the discourse, while it will perhaps be generally thought

audacious, yet seemed not unfitting. For he alone has worthily considered the

creation of God who truly was created after God, and whose soul was fashioned

in the image of Him Who created him,--Basil, our common father and

teacher,--who by his own speculation made the sublime ordering of the universe

generally intelligible, making the world as established by God in the true

Wisdom known to those who by means of his understanding are led to such

contemplation: but we, who fall short even of worthily admiring him, yet

intend to add to the great writer's speculations that which is lacking in

them, not so as to interpolate his work by insertion(2) (for it is not to be

thought of that that lofty mouth should suffer the insult of being given as

authority for our discourses), but so that the glory of the teacher may not

seem to be failing among his disciples.

For if, the consideration of man being lacking in his Hexaemeron, none of

those who had been his disciples contributed any earnest effort to supply the

defect, the scoffer would perhaps have had a handle against his great fame, on

the ground that he had not cared to produce in his hearers any habit of

intelligence. But now that we venture according to our powers upon the

exposition of what was lacking, if anything should be found in our work such

as to be not unworthy of his teaching, it will surely be referred to our

teacher: while if our discourse does not reach the height of his sublime

speculation, he will be free from this charge and escape the blame of seeming

not to wish that his disciples should have any skill at all, though we perhaps

may he answerable to our censurers as being unable to contain in the

littleness of our hear the wisdom of our instructor.

The scope of our proposed enquiry is not small: it is second to none of

the wonders of the world,--perhaps even greater than any of those known to us,

because no other existing thing, save the human creation, has been made like

to God: thus we shall readily find that allowance will be made for what we say

by kindly readers, even if our discourse is far behind the merits of the

subject. For it is our business, I suppose, to leave nothing unexamined of all

that concerns man,--of what we believe to have taken place previously, of what

we now see, and of the results which are expected afterwards to appear (for

surely our effort would be convicted of failing of its promise, if, when man

is proposed for contemplation, any of the questions which bear upon the

subject were to be omitted); and, moreover, we must fit together, according to

the explanation of Scripture and to that derived from reasoning, those

statements concerning him which seem, by a kind of necessary sequence, to be

opposed, so that our whole subject may be consistent in train of thought and

in order, as the Statements that seem to be contrary are brought (if the

Divine power so discovers a hope for what is beyond hope, and a way for what

is inextricable) to one and the same end: and for clearness' sake I think it

well to set forth to you the discourse by chapters, that you may be able

briefly to know the force of the several arguments of the whole work.

I. Wherein is a partial inquiry into the nature of the world, and a more

minute exposition of the things which preceded the genesis of man.

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2. Why man appeared last, after the creation.

3. That the nature of man is more precious than all the visible creation.

4. That the construction of man throughout signifies his ruling power.

5. That man is a likeness of the Divine sovereignty.

6. An examination of the kindred of mind to nature: wherein by way of

digression is refuted the doctrine of the Anomoeans.

7. Why man is destitute of natural weapons and covering.

8. Why man's form is upright, and that hands were given him because of

reason; wherein also is a speculation on the difference of souls.

9. That the form of man was framed to serve as an instrument for the use

of reason.

10. That the mind works by means of the senses.

11. That the nature of mind is invisible.

12. An examination of the question where the ruling principle is to be

considered to reside; wherein also is a discussion of tears and laughter, and

a physiological speculation as to the interrelation of matter, nature, and

mind.

13. A rationale of sleep, of yawning, and of dreams.

14. That the mind is not in a part of the body; wherein also is a

distinction of the movements of the body and of the soul.

15. That the soul proper, in fact and name, is the rational soul, while

the others are called so equivocally: wherein also is this statement, that the

power of the mind extends throughout the whole body in fitting contact with

every part.

16. A contemplation of the Divine utterance which said,--"Let us make man

after our image and likeness;" wherein is examined what is the definition of

the image, and how the passible and mortal is like to the Blessed and

Impassible, and how in the image there are male and female, seeing these are

not in the Prototype.

17. What we must answer to those who raise the question--"If procreation

is after sin, how would souls have come into being if the first of mankind had

remained sinless?"

18. That our irrational passions have their rise from kindred with

irrational nature.

19. To those who say that the enjoyment of the good things we look for

will again consist in meat and drink, because it is written that by these

means man at first lived in Paradise.

20. What was the life in Paradise, and what was the forbidden tree.

21. That the resurrection is looked for as a consequence, not so much from

the declaration of Scripture as from the very necessity of things.

22. To those who say, "If the resurrection is a thing excellent and good,

how is it that it has not happened already, but is hoped for in some periods

of time?"

23. That he who confesses the beginning of the world's existence must

necessarily agree also as to its end.

24. An argument against those who say that matter is co-eternal with God.

25. How one even of those who are without may be brought to believe the

Scripture when teaching of the resurrection.

26. That the resurrection is not beyond probability.

27. That it is possible, when the human body is dissolved into the

elements of the universe, that each should have his own body restored from the

common source.

28. To those who say that souls existed before bodies, or that bodies were

formed before souls: wherein there is also a refutation of the fables

concerning transmigrations of souls.

29. An establishment of the doctrine that the cause of existence of soul

and body is one and the same.

30. A brief consideration of the construction of our bodies from a medical

point of view.

I. Wherein is a partial inquiry into the nature of the world, and a more

minute exposition of the things which preceded the genesis of man(3).

1. "This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth(4)," saith the

Scripture, when all that is seen was finished, and each of the things that are

betook itself to its own separate place, when the body of heaven compassed all

things round, and those bodies which are heavy and of downward tendency, the

earth and the water, holding each other in, took the middle place of the

universe; while, as a sort of bond and stability for the things that were

made, the Divine power and skill was implanted in the growth of things,

guiding all things with the reins of a double operation (for it was by rest

and motion that it devised the genesis of the things that were not, and the

continuance of the things that are), driving around, about the heavy and

changeless element contributed by the creation that does not move, as about

some fixed path, the exceedingly rapid motion of the sphere, like a wheel, and

preserving the indissolubility of both by their mutual action, as the circling

substance by its rapid motion compresses the compact body of the earth round

about, while that which is firm and unyielding,

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by reason of its unchanging fixedness, continually augments the whirling

motion of those things which revolve round it, and intensity s is produced in

equal measure in each of the natures which thus differ in their operation, in

the stationary nature, I mean, and in the mobile revolution; for neither is

the earth shifted from its own base, nor does the heaven ever relax in its

vehemence, or slacken its motion.

2. These, moreover, were first framed before other things, according to

the Divine wisdom, to be as it were a beginning of the whole machine, the

great Moses indicating, I suppose, where he says that the heaven and the earth

were made by God "in the beginning(6)" that all things that are seen in the

creation are the offspring of rest and motion, brought into being by the

Divine will. Now the heaven and the earth being diametrically opposed to each

other in their operations, the creation which lies between the opposites, and

has in part a share in what is adjacent to it, itself acts as a mean between

the extremes, so that there is manifestly a mutual contact of the opposites

through the mean; for air in a manner imitates the perpetual motion and

subtlety of the fiery substance, both in the lightness of its nature, and in

its suitableness for motion; yet it is not such as to be alienated from the

solid substance, for it is no more in a state of continual flux and dispersion

than in a permanent state of immobility, but becomes, in its affinity to each,

a kind of borderland of the opposition between operations, at once uniting in

itself and dividing things which are naturally distinct.

3. In the same way, liquid substance also is attached by double qualities

to each of the opposites; for in so far as it is heavy and of downward

tendency it is closely akin to the earthy; but in so far as it partakes of a

certain fluid and mobile energy it is not altogether alien from the nature

which is in motion; and by means of this also there is effected a kind of

mixture and concurrence of the opposites, weight being transferred to motion,

and motion finding no hindrance in weight, so that things most extremely

opposite in nature combine with one another, and are mutually joined by those

which act as means between them.

4. But to speak strictly, one should rather say that the very nature of

the contraries themselves is not entirely without mixture of properties, each

with the other, so that, as I think, all that we see in the world mutually

agree, and the creation, though discovered in properties of contrary natures,

is yet at union with itself. For as motion is not conceived merely as local

shifting, but is also contemplated in change and alteration, and on the other

hand the immovable nature does not admit motion by way of alteration, the

wisdom of God has transposed these properties, and wrought unchangeableness in

that which is ever moving, and change in that which is immovable; doing this,

it may be, by a providential dispensation, so that that property of nature

which constitutes its immutability and immobility might not, when viewed in

any created object, cause the creature to be accounted as God; for that which

may happen to move or change would cease to admit of the conception of

Godhead. Hence the earth is stable without being immutable, while the heaven,

on the contrary, as it has no mutability, so has not stability either, that

the Divine power, by interweaving change in the stable nature and motion with

that which is not subject to change, might, by the interchange of attributes,

at once join them both closely to each other, and make them alien from the

conception of Deity; for as has been said, neither of these (neither that

which is unstable, nor that which is mutable) can be considered to belong to

the more Divine nature.

5. Now all things were already arrived at their own end: "the heaven and

the earth(7)," as Moses says, "were finished," and all things that lie between

them, and the particular things were adorned with their appropriate beauty;

the heaven with the rays of the stars, the sea and air with the living

creatures that swim and fly, and the earth with all varieties of plants and

animals, to all which, empowered by the Divine will, it gave birth together;

the earth was full, too, of her produce, bringing forth fruits at the same

time with flowers; the meadows were full of all that grows therein, and all

the mountain ridges, and summits, and every hillside, and slope, and hollow,

were crowned with young grass, and with the varied produce of the trees, just

risen from the ground, yet shot up at once into their perfect beauty; and all

the beasts that had come into life at God's command were rejoicing, we may

suppose, and skipping about, running to and for in the thickets in herds

according to their kind, while every sheltered and shady spot was ringing with

the chants of the songbirds. And at sea, we may suppose, the sight to be seen

was of the like kind, as it had just settled to quiet and calm in the

gathering together of its depths, where havens and harbours spontaneously

hollowed out on the coasts made the sea reconciled with the land; and the

gentle motion of the waves vied in beauty with the meadows,

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rippling delicately with light and harmless breezes that skimmed the surface;

and all the wealth of creation by land and sea was ready, and none was there

to share it.

II. Why man appeared last, after the creation

1. For not as yet had that great and precious thing, man, come into the

world of being; it was not to be looked for that the ruler should appear

before the subjects of his rule; but when his dominion was prepared, the next

step was that the king should be manifested. When, then the Maker of all had

prepared beforehand, as it were, a royal lodging for the future king (and this

was the land, and islands, and sea, and the heaven arching like a roof over

them), and when all kinds of wealth had been stored in this palace (and by

wealth I mean the whole creation, all that is in plants and trees, and all

that has sense, and breath, and life; and--if we are to account materials also

as wealth--all that for their beauty are reckoned precious in the eyes of men,

as gold and silver, and the substances of your jewels which men delight

in--having concealed, I say, abundance of all these also in the bosom of the

earth as in a royal treasure-house), he thus manifests man in the world, to be

the beholder of some of the wonders therein, and the lord of others; that by

his enjoyment he might have knowledge of the Giver, and by the beauty and

majesty of the things he saw might trace out that power of the Maker which is

beyond speech and language.

2. For this reason man was brought into the world last after the creation,

not being rejected to the last as worthless, but as one whom it behoved to be

king over his subjects at his very birth. And as a good host does not bring

his guest to his house before the preparation of his feast, but, when he has

made all due preparation, and decked with their proper adornments his house,

his couches, his table, brings his guest home when things suitable for his

refreshment are in readiness, rain the same manner the rich and munificent

Entertainer of our nature, when He had decked the habitation with beauties of

every kind, and prepared this great and varied banquet, then introduced man,

assigning to him as his task not the acquiring of what was not there, but the

enjoyment of the things which were there; and for this reason He gives him as

foundations the instincts of a twofold organization, blending the Divine with

the earthy, that by means of both he may be naturally and properly disposed to

each enjoyment, enjoying God by means of his more divine nature, and the good

things of earth by the sense that is akin to them.

III. That the nature of man is more precious than all the visible creation(9).

1. But it is right that we should not leave this point without

consideration, that while the world, great as it is, and its parts, are laid

as an elemental foundation for the formation of the universe, the creation is,

so to say, made offhand by the Divine power, existing at once on His command,

while counsel precedes the making of man; and that which is to be is

fore-shown by the Maker in verbal description, and of what kind it is fitting

that it should be, and to what archetype it is fitting that it should bear a

likeness, and for what it shall be made, and what its operation shall be when

it is made, and of what it shall be the ruler, wall these things the saying

examines beforehand, so that he has a rank assigned him before his genesis,

and possesses rule over the things that are before his coming into being; for

it says, "God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let

them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the beasts of the earth, and

the fowls of the heaven, and the cattle, and all the earth(1)"

2. O marvellous! a sun is made, and no counsel precedes; a heaven

likewise; and to these no single thing in creation is equal. So great a wonder

is formed by a word alone, and the saying indicates neither when, nor how, nor

any such detail. So too in all particular cases, the aether, the stars, the

intermediate air, the sea, the earth, the animals, the plants,--all are

brought into being with a word, while only to the making of man does the Maker

of all draw near with circumspection, so as to prepare beforehand for him

material for his formation, and to liken his form to an archetypal beauty,

and, setting before him a mark for which he is to come into being, to make for

him a nature appropriate and allied to the operations, and suitable for the

object in hand.

IV. That the construction of man throughout signifies his ruling power(2).

1. For as in our own life artificers fashion a tool in the way suitable to

its use, so the best Artificer made our nature as it were a formation fit for

the exercise of royalty, preparing it at once by superior advantages of soul,

and by the very form of the body, to be such as to be

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adapted for royalty: for the soul immediately shows its royal and exalted

character, far removed as it is from the lowliness of private station, in that

it owns no lord, and is self-governed, swayed autocratically by its own will;

for to whom else does this belong than to a king? And further, besides these

facts, the fact that it is the image of that Nature which rules over all means

nothing else than this, that our nature was created to be royal from the

first. For as, in men's ordinary use, those who make images(3) of princes both

mould the figure of their form, and represent along with this the royal rank

by the vesture of purple, and even the likeness is commonly spoken of as "a

king," so the human nature also, as it was made to rule the rest, was, by its

likeness to the King of all, made as it were a living image, partaking with

the archetype both in rank and in name, not vested in purple, nor giving

indication of its rank by sceptre and diadem (for the archetype itself is not

arrayed with these), but instead of the purple robe, clothed in virtue, which

is in truth the most royal of all raiment, and in place of the sceptre,

leaning on the bliss of immortality, and instead of the royal diadem, decked

with the crown of righteousness; so that it is shown to be perfectly like to

the beauty of its archetype in all that belongs to the dignity of royalty.

V. That man is a likeness of the Divine sovereignty(4).

1. It is true, indeed, that the Divine beauty is not adorned with any

shape or endowment of form, by any beauty of colour, but is contemplated as

excellence in unspeakable bliss. As then painters transfer human forms to

their pictures by the means of certain colours, laying on their copy the

proper and corresponding tints, so that the beauty of the original may be

accurately transferred to the likeness, so I would have you understand that

our Maker also, painting the portrait to resemble His own beauty, by the

addition of virtues, as it were with colours, shows in us His own sovereignty:

and manifold and varied are the tints, so to say, by which His true form is

portrayed: not red, or white(5), or the blending of these, whatever it may be

called, nor a touch of black that paints the eyebrow and the eye, and shades,

by some combination, the depressions in the figure, and all such arts which

the hands of painters contrive, but instead of these, purity, freedom from

passion, blessedness, alienation from all evil, and all those attributes of

the like kind which help to form in men the likeness of God: with such hues as

these did the Maker of His own image mark our nature.

2. And if you were to examine the other points also by which the Divine

beauty is expressed, you will find that to them too the likeness in the image

which we present is perfectly preserved. The Godhead is mind and word: for "in

the beginning was the Word(6)" and the followers of Paul "have the mind of

Christ" which "speaks" in them(7): humanity too is not far removed from these:

you see in yourself word and understanding, an imitation of the very Mind and

Word. Again, God is love, and the fount of love: for this the great John

declares, that "love is of God," and "God is love(8)" : the Fashioner of our

nature has made this to be our feature too: for "hereby," He says, "shall all

men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another(9)" :--thus, if this

be absent, the whole stamp of the likeness is transformed. The Deity beholds

and hears all things, and searches all things out: you too have the power of

apprehension of things by means of sight and hearing, and the understanding

that inquires into things and searches them out.

VI. An examination of the kindred of mind to nature: wherein, by way

of digression, is refuted the doctrine of the Anomoeans(1).

1. And let no one suppose me to say that the Deity is in touch with

existing things in a manner resembling human operation, by means of different

faculties. For it is impossible to conceive in the simplicity of the Godhead

the varied and diverse nature of the apprehensive operation: not even in our

own case are the faculties which apprehend things numerous, although we are in

touch with those things which affect our life in many ways by means of our

senses; for there is one faculty, the implanted mind itself, which passes

through each of the organs of sense and grasps the things beyond: this it is

that, by means of the eyes, beholds what is seen; this it is that, by means of

hearing, understands what is said; that is content with what is to our taste,

and turns from what is unpleasant; that uses the hand for whatever it wills,

taking hold or rejecting

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by its means, using the help of the organ for this purpose precisely as it

thinks expedient.

2. If in men, then, even though the organs formed by nature for purposes

of perception may be different, that which operates and moves by means of all,

and uses each appropriately for the object before it, is one and the same, not

changing its nature by the differences of operations, how could any one

suspect multiplicity of essence in God on the ground of His varied powers? for

"He that made the eye," as the prophet says, and "that planted the ear(2),"

stamped on human nature these operations to be as it were significant

characters, with reference to their models in Himself: for He says, "Let us

make man in our image(3).

3. But what, I would ask, becomes of the heresy of the Anomoeans? what

will they say to this utterance? how will they defend the vanity of their

dogma in view of the words cited? Will they say that it is possible that one

image should be made like to different forms? if the Son is in nature unlike

the Father, how comes it that the likeness He forms of the different natures

is one? for He Who said, "Let us make after our image," and by the plural

signification revealed the Holy Trinity, would not, if the archetypes were

unlike one another, have mentioned the image in the singular: for it would be

impossible that there should be one likeness displayed of things which do not

agree with one another: if the natures were different he would assuredly have

begun their images also differently, making the appropriate image for each:

but since the image is one, while the archetype is not one, who is so far

beyond the range of understanding as not to know that the things which are

like the same thing, surely resemble one another? Therefore He says (the word,

it may be, cutting short this wickedness at the very formation of human life),

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

VII. Why man is destitute of natural weapons and covering(4).

1. But what means the uprightness of his figure? and why is it that those

powers which aid life do not naturally belong to his body? but man is brought

into life bare of natural covering, an unarmed and poor being, destitute of

all things useful, worthy, according to appearances, of pity rather than of

admiration, not armed with prominent horns or sharp claws, nor with hoofs nor

with teeth, nor possessing by nature any deadly venom in a sting,--things such

as most animals have in their own power for defence against those who do them

harm: his body is not protected with a covering of hair: and yet possibly it

was to be expected that he who was promoted to rule over the rest of the

creatures should be defended by nature with arms of his own so that he might

not need assistance from others for his own security. Now, however, the lion,

the boar, the tiger, the leopard, and all the like have natural power

sufficient for their safety: and the bull has his horn, the hare his speed,

the deer his leap and the certainty of his sight, and another beast has bulk,

others a proboscis, the birds have their wings, and the bee her sting, and

generally in all there is some protective power implanted by nature: but man

alone of all is slower than the beasts that are swift of foot, smaller than

those that are of great bulk, more defenceless than those that are protected

by natural arms; and how, one will say, has such a being obtained the

sovereignty over all things?

2. Well, I think it would not be at all hard to show that what seems to be

a deficiency of our nature is a means for our obtaining dominion over the

subject creatures. For if man had had such power as to be able to outrun the

horse in swiftness, and to have a foot that, from its solidity, could not be

worn out, but was strengthened by hoofs or claws of some kind, and to carry

upon him horns and stings and claws, he would be, to begin with, a

wild-looking and formidable creature, if such things grew with his body: and

moreover he would have neglected his rule over the other creatures if he had

no need of the co-operation of his subjects; whereas now, the needful services

of our life are divided among the individual animals that are under our sway,

for this reason--to make our dominion over them necessary.

3. It was the slowness and difficult motion of our body that brought the

horse to supply our need, and tamed him: it was the nakedness of our body that

made necessary our management of sheep, which supplies the deficiency of our

nature by its yearly produce of wool: it was the fact that we import from

others the supplies for our living which subjected beasts of burden to such

service: furthermore, 'it was the fact that we cannot eat grass like cattle

which brought the ox to render service to our life, who makes our living easy

for us by his own labour; and because we needed teeth and biting power to

subdue some of the other animals by grip of teeth, the dog gave, together with

his swiftness, his own jaw to supply our need, becoming like a live sword for

man; and there has been discovered by men iron, stronger and more penetrating

than prominent horns or sharp

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claws, not, as those things do with the beasts, always growing naturally with

us, but entering into alliance with us for the time, and for the rest abiding

by itself: and to compensate for the crocodile's scaly hide, one may make that

very hide serve as armour, by putting it on his skin upon occasion: or,

failing that, art fashions iron for this purpose too, which, when it has

served him for a time for war, leaves the man-at-arms once more free from the

burden in time of peace: and the wing of the birds, too, ministers to our

life, so that by aid of contrivance we are not left behind even by the speed

of wings: for some of them become tame and are of service to those who catch

birds, and by their means others are by contrivance subdued to serve our

needs:. moreover art contrives to make our arrows feathered, and by means of

the bow gives us for our needs the speed of wings: while the fact that our

feet are easily hurt and worn in travelling makes necessary the aid which is

given by the subject animals: for hence it comes that we fit shoes to our

feet.

VIII. Why man's form is upright; and that hands were given him because of

reason; wherein also is a speculation on the difference of souls 5.

1. But man's form is upright, and extends aloft towards heaven, and looks

upwards: and these are marks of sovereignty which show his royal dignity. For

the fact that man alone among existing things is such as this, while all

others bow their bodies downwards, clearly points to the difference of dignity

between those which stoop beneath his sway and that power which rises above

them: for all the rest have the foremost limbs of their bodies in the form of

feet, because that which stoops needs something to support it: but in the

formation of man these limbs were made hands, for the upright body found one

base, supporting its position securely on two feet, sufficient for its needs.

2. Especially do these ministering hands adapt themselves to the

requirements of the reason: indeed if one were to say that the ministration of

hands is a special property of the rational nature, he would not be entirely

wrong; and that not only because his thought turns to the common and obvious

fact that we signify our reasoning by means of the natural employment of our

hands in written characters. It is true that this fact, that we speak by

writing, and, in a certain way, converse by the aid of our hands, preserving

sounds by the forms of the alphabet, is not unconnected with the endowment of

reason; but I am referring to something else when I say that the hands

co-operate with the bidding of reason.

3. Let us, however, before discussing this point, consider the matter we

passed over (for the subject of the order of created things almost escaped our

notice), why the growth of things that spring from the earth takes precedence,

and the irrational animals come next, and then, after the making of these,

comes man: for it may be that we learn from these facts not only the obvious

thought, that grass appeared to the Creator useful for the sake of the

animals, while the animals were made because of man, and that for this reason,

before the animals there was made their food, and before man that which was to

minister to human life.

4. But it seems to me that by these facts Moses reveals a hidden doctrine,

and secretly delivers that wisdom concerning the soul, of which the learning

that is without had indeed some imagination, but no clear comprehension. His

discourse then hereby teaches us that the power of life and soul may be

considered in three divisions. For one is only a power of growth and nutrition

supplying what is suitable for the support of the bodies that are nourished,

which is called the vegetative(6) soul, and is to be seen in plants; for we

may perceive in growing plants a certain vital power destitute of sense; and

there is another form of life besides this, which, while it includes the form

above mentioned, is also possessed in addition of the power of management

according to sense; and this is to be found in the nature of the irrational

animals: for they are not only the subjects of nourishment and growth, but

also have the activity of sense and perception. But perfect bodily life is

seen in the rational (I mean the human) nature, which both is nourished and

endowed with sense, and also partakes of reason and is ordered by mind.

5. We might make a division of our subject in some such way as this. Of

things existing, part are intellectual, part corporeal. Let us leave alone for

the present the division of the intellectual according to its properties, for

our argument is not concerned with these. Of the corporeal, part is entirely

devoid of life, and part shares in vital energy. Of a living body, again, part

has sense conjoined with life, and part is without sense: lastly, that which

has

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sense is again divided into rational and irrational. For this reason the

lawgiver says that after inanimate matter (as a sort of foundation for the

form of animate things), this vegetative life was made, and had earlier(7)

existence in the growth of plants: then he proceeds to introduce the genesis

of those creatures which are regulated by sense: and since, following the same

order, of those things which have obtained life in the flesh, those which have

sense can exist by themselves even apart from the intellectual nature, while

the rational principle could not be embodied save as blended with the

sensitive,--for this reason man was made last after the animals, as nature

advanced in an orderly course to perfection. For this rational animal, man, is

blended of every form of soul; he is nourished by the vegetative kind of soul,

and to the faculty of growth was added that of sense, which stands midway, if

we regard its peculiar nature, between the intellectual and the more material

essence being as much coarser than the one as it is more refined than the

other: then takes place a certain alliance and commixture of the intellectual

essence with the subtle and enlightened element of the sensitive nature: so

that man consists of these three: as we are taught the like thing by the

apostle in what he says to the Ephesians(8), praying for them that the

complete grace of their "body and soul and spirit" may be preserved at the

coming of the Lord; using, the word "body" for the nutritive part, and

denoting the sensitive by the word "soul," and the intellectual by "spirit."

Likewise too the Lord instructs the scribe in the Gospel that he should set

before every commandment that love to God which is exercised with all the

heart and soul and mind(9): for here also it seems to me that the phrase

indicates the same difference, naming the more corporeal existence "heart,"

the intermediate "soul," and the higher nature, the intellectual and mental

faculty, "mind."

6. Hence also the apostle recognizes three divisions of dispositions,

calling one "carnal," which is busied with the belly and the pleasures

connected with it, another "natural(1)," which holds a middle position with

regard to virtue and vice, rising above the one, but without pure

participation in the other; and another "spiritual," which perceives the

perfection of godly life: wherefore he says to the Corinthians, reproaching

their indulgence in pleasure and passion, "Ye are carnal(2)," and incapable of

receiving the more perfect doctrine; while elsewhere, making a comparison of

the middle kind with the perfect, he says, "but the natural man receiveth not

the things of the Spirit: for they are foolishness unto him: but he that is

spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man(3)." As,

then, the natural man is higher than the carnal, by the same measure also the

spiritual man rises above the natural.

7. If, therefore, Scripture tells us that man was made last, after every

animate thing, the lawgiver is doing nothing else than declaring to us the

doctrine of the soul, considering that what is perfect comes last, according

to a certain necessary sequence in the order of things: for in the rational

are included the others also, while in the sensitive there also surely exists

the vegetative form, and that again is conceived only in connection with what

is material: thus we i may suppose that nature makes an ascent as it were by

steps--I mean the various properties of life--from the lower to the perfect

form.

8 4. Now since man is a rational animal, the instrument of his body must

be made suitable for the use of reason(5); as you may see musicians producing

their music according to the form of their instruments, and not piping with

harps nor harping upon flutes, so it must needs be that the organization of

these instruments of ours should be adapted for reason, that when struck by

the vocal organs it might be able to sound properly for the use of words. For

this reason the hands were attached to the body; for though we can count up

very many uses in daily life for which these skilfully contrived and helpful

instruments, our hands, that easily follow every art and every operation,

alike in war and peace(6), are serviceable, yet nature added them to our body

pre-eminently for the sake of reason. For if man were destitute of hands, the

various parts of his face would certainly have been arranged like those of the

quadrupeds, to suit the purpose of his feeding: so that its form would have

been lengthened out and pointed towards the nostrils, and his lips would have

projected from his mouth, lumpy, and stiff, and thick, fitted for taking up

the grass, and his tongue would either have lain between his teeth, of a kind

to match his lips, fleshy, and hard, and rough, assisting his teeth to deal

with what came under his grinder, or it would have been moist and hanging out

at the side like that of dogs and other carnivorous beasts, projecting through

the gaps in

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his jagged row of teeth. If, then, our body had no hands, how could articulate

sound have been implanted in it, seeing that the form of the parts of the

mouth would not have had the configuration proper for the use of speech, so

that man must of necessity have either bleated, or "baaed," or barked, or

neighed, or bellowed like oxen or asses, or uttered some bestial sound? but

now, as the hand is made part of the body, the mouth is at leisure for the

service of the reason. Thus the hands are shown to be the property of the

rational nature, the Creator having thus devised by their means a special

advantage for reason.

IX. That the form of man was framed to serve as an instrument for the use of

reason(7).

1. Now since our Maker has bestowed upon our formation a certain Godlike

grace, by implanting in His image the likeness of His own excellences, for

this reason He gave, of His bounty, His other good gifts to human nature; but

mind and reason we cannot strictly say that He gave, but that He imparted

them, adding to the image the proper adornment of His own nature. Now since

the mind is a thing intelligible and incorporeal, its grace would have been

incommunicable and isolated, if its motion were not manifested by some

contrivance. For this cause there was still need of this instrumental

organization, that it might, like a plectrum, touch the vocal organs and

indicate by the quality of the notes struck, the motion within.

2. And as some skilled musician, who may have been deprived by some

affection of his own voice, and yet wish to make his skill known, might make

melody with voices of others, and publish his art by the aid of flutes or of

the lyre, so also the human mind being a discoverer of all sorts of

conceptions, seeing that it is unable, by the mere soul, to reveal to those

who hear by bodily senses the motions of its understanding, touches, like some

skilful composer, these animated instruments, and makes known its hidden

thoughts by means of the sound produced upon them.

3. Now the music of the human instrument is a-sort of compound of flute

and lyre, sounding together in combination as in a concerted piece of music.

For the breath, as it is forced up from the air-receiving vessels through the

windpipe, when the speaker's impulse to utterance attunes the harmony to

sound, and as it strikes against the internal protuberances which divide this

flute-like passage in a circular arrangement, imitates in a way the sound

uttered through a flute, being driven round and round by the membranous

projections. But the palate receives the sound from below in its own

concavity, and dividing the sound by the two passages that extend to the

nostrils, and by the cartilages about the perforated bone, as it were by some

scaly protuberance, makes its resonance louder; while the cheek, the tongue,

the mechanism of the pharynx by which the chin is relaxed when drawn in, and

tightened when extended to a point--all these in many different ways answer to

the motion of the plectrum upon the strings, varying very quickly, as occasion

requires, the arrangement of the tones; and the opening and closing of the

lips has the same effect as players produce when they check the breath of the

flute with their fingers according to the measure of the tune.

X. That the mind works by means of the senses.

1. As the mind then produces the music of reason by means of our

instrumental construction, we are born rational, while, as I think, we should

not have had the gift of reason if we had had to employ our lips to supply

the need of the body--the heavy and toilsome part of the task of providing

food. As things are, however, our hands appropriate this ministration to

themselves, and leave the mouth available for the service of reason.

2(8). The operation of the instrument(9), however, is twofold; one for the

production of sound, the other for the reception of concepts from without; and

the one faculty does not blend with the other, but abides in the operation for

which it was appointed by nature, not interfering with its neighbour either by

the sense of hearing undertaking to speak, or by the speech undertaking to

hear; for the latter is always uttering something, while the ear, as Solomon

somewhere says, is not filled with continual hearing(1).

3. That point as to our internal faculties which seems to me to be even in

a special degree matter for wonder, is this :--what is the extent of that

inner receptacle into which flows everything that is poured in by our hearing?

who are the recorders of the sayings that are brought in by it? what sort of

storehouses are there for the concepts that are being put in by our hearing?

and how is it, that when many of them, of varied kinds, are pressing one upon

another, there arises no confusion and error in the relative position of the

things

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that are laid up there? And one may have the like feeling of wonder also with

regard to the operation of sight; for by it also in like manner the mind

apprehends those things which are external to the body, and draws to itself

the images of phenomena, marking in itself the impressions of the things which

are seen.

4. And just as if there were some extensive city receiving all comers by

different entrances, all will not congregate at any particular place, but some

will go to the market, some to the houses, others to the churches, or the

streets, or lanes, or the theatres, each according to his own

inclination,--some such city of our mind I seem to discern established in us,

which the different entrances through the senses keep filling, while the mind,

distinguishing and examining each of the things that enters, ranks them in

their proper departments of knowledge.

5. And as, to follow the illustration of the city, it may often be that

those who are of the same family and kindred do not enter by the same gate,

coming in by different entrances, as it may happen, but are none the less,

when they come within the circuit of the wall, brought together again, being

on close terms with each other (and one may find the contrary happen; for

those who are strangers and mutually unknown often take one entrance to the

city, yet their community of entrance does not bind them together; for even

when they are within they can be separated to join their own kindred);

something of the same kind I seem to discern in the spacious territory of our

mind; for often the knowledge which we gather from the different organs of

sense is one, as the same object is divided into several parts in relation to

the senses; and again, on the contrary, we may learn from some one sense many

and varied things which have no affinity one with another.

6. For instance--for it is better to make our argument clear by

illustration--let us suppose that we are making some inquiry into the property

of tastes--what is sweet to the sense, and what is to be avoided by tasters.

We find, then, by experience, both the bitterness of gall and the pleasant

character of the quality of honey; but when these facts are known, the

knowledge is one which is given to us (the same thing being introduced to our

understanding in several ways) by taste, smell, hearing, and often by touch

and sight. For when one sees honey, and hears its name, and receives it by

taste, and recognizes its odour by smell, and tests it by touch, he recognizes

the same thing by means of each of his senses.

7. On the other hand we get varied and multiform information by some one

sense, for as hearing receives all sorts of sounds, and our visual perception

exercises its operation by beholding things of different kinds--for it lights

alike on black and white, and all things that are distinguished by contrariety

of colour,--so with taste, with smell, with perception by touch; each implants

in us by means of its own perceptive power the knowledge of things of every

kind.

XI. That the nature of mind is invisible(2)

1. What then is, in its own nature, this mind that distributes itself into

faculties of sensation, and duly receives, by means of each, the knowledge of

things? That it is something else besides the senses, I suppose no reasonable

man doubts; for if it were identical with sense, it would reduce the proper

character of the operations carried on by sense to one, on the the ground that

it is itself simple, and that in what is simple no diversity is to be found.

Now however, as all agree that touch is one thing and smell another, and as

the rest of the senses are in like manner so situated with regard to each

other as to exclude intercommunion or mixture, we must surely suppose, since

the mind is duly present in each case, that it is something else besides the

sensitive nature, so that no variation may attach to a thing intelligible.

2. "Who hath known the mind of the Lord(3)?" the apostle asks; and I ask

further, who has understood his own mind? Let those tell us who consider the

nature of God to be within their comprehension, whether they understand

themselves--if they know the nature of their own mind. "It is manifold and

much compounded." How then can that which is intelligible be composite? or

what is the mode of mixture of things that differ in kind? Or, "It is simple,

and incomposite." How then is it dispersed into the manifold divisions of the

senses? how is there diversity in unity? how is unity maintained in diversity?

3. But I find the solution of these difficulties by recourse to the very

utterance of God; for He says, "Let us make man in our image, after our

likeness(4)." The image is properly an image so long as it fails in none of

those attributes which we perceive in the archetype; but where it falls from

its resemblance to the prototype it ceases in that respect to be an image;

therefore, since one of the attributes we contemplate in the Divine nature is

incomprehensibility of essence, it is clearly necessary that in this point the

image should be able to show its imitation of the archetype.

4. For if, while the archetype transcends

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comprehension, the nature of the image were comprehended, the contrary

character of the attributes we behold in them would prove the defect of the

image; but since the nature of our mind, which is the likeness of the Creator

evades our knowledge, it has an accurate resemblance to the superior nature,

figuring by its own unknowableness the incomprehensible Nature.

XII. An examination of the question where the ruling principle is to be

considered to reside; wherein also is a discussion of tears and laughter, and

a physiological speculation as to the interrelation of matter, nature, and

minds.

1. Let there be an end, then, of all the vain and conjectural discussion

of those who confine the intelligible energy to certain bodily organs; of

whom some lay it down that the ruling principle is in the heart, while others

say that the mind resides in the brain, strengthening such opinions by some

plausible superficialities. For he who ascribes the principal authority to the

heart makes its local position evidence of his argument (because it seems that

it somehow occupies the middle position in the body(6)), on the ground that

the motion of the will is easily distributed from the centre to the whole

body, and so proceeds to operation; and he makes the troublesome and

passionate disposition of man a testimony for his argument, because such

affections seem to move this part sympathetically. Those, on the other hand,

who consecrate the brain to reasoning, say that the head has been built by

nature as a kind of citadel of the whole body, and that in it the mind dwells

like a king, with a bodyguard of senses surrounding it like messengers and

shield-bearers. And these find a sign of their opinion in the fact that the

reasoning of those who have suffered some injury to the membrane of the brain

is abnormally distorted, and that those whose heads are heavy with

intoxication ignore what is seemly.

2. Each of those who uphold these views puts forward some reasons of a

more physical character on behalf of his opinion concerning the ruling

principle. One declares that the motion which proceeds from the understanding

is in some way akin to the nature of fire, because fire and the understanding

are alike in perpetual motion; and since heat is allowed to have its source in

the region of the heart, he says on this ground that the motion of mind is

compounded with the mobility of heat, and asserts that the heart, in which

heat is enclosed, is the receptacle of the intelligent nature. The other

declares that the cerebral membrane (for so they call the tissue that

surrounds the brain) is as it were a foundation or root of all the senses, and

hereby makes good his own argument, on the ground that the intellectual energy

cannot have its seat save in that part where the ear, connected with it, comes

into concussion with the sounds that fall upon it, and the sight (which

naturally belongs to the hollow of the place where the eyes are situated)

makes its internal representation by means of the images that fall upon the

pupils, while the qualities of scents are discerned in it by being drawn in

through the nose, and the sense of taste is tried by the test of the cerebral

membrane, which sends down from itself, by the veterbrae of the neck,

sensitive nerve-processes to the isthmoidal passage, and unites them with the

muscles there.

3. I admit it to be true that the intellectual part of the soul is often

disturbed by prevalence of passions; and that the reason is blunted by some

bodily accident so as to hinder its natural operation; and that the heart is a

sort of source of the fiery element in the body, and is moved in

correspondence with the impulses of passion; and moreover, in addition to

this, I do not reject (as I hear very much the same account from those who

spend their time on anatomical researches) the statement that the cerebral

membrane (according to the theory of those who take such a physiological

view), enfolding in itself the brain, and steeped in the vapours that issue

from it, forms a foundation for the senses; yet I do not hold this for a proof

that the incorporeal nature is bounded by any limits of place.

4. Certainly we are aware that mental aberrations do not arise from

heaviness of head alone, but skilled physicians declare that our intellect is

also weakened by the membranes that underlie the sides being affected by

disease, when they call the disease frenzy, since the name given to those

membranes is <greek>frenes</greek>. And the sensation resulting from sorrow is

mistakenly supposed to arise at the heart; for while it is not the heart, but

the entrance of the belly that is pained, people ignorantly refer the

affection to the heart. Those, however, who have carefully studied the

affections in question give some such account as follows:--by a compression

and closing of the pores, which naturally takes place over the whole body in a

condition of grief, everything that meets a hindrance in its passage is driven

to the cavities in the interior of the body, and hence also (as the

respiratory organs too are pressed by what surrounds them), the drawing

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of breath often becomes more violent under the influence of nature

endeavouring to widen what has been contracted, so as to open out the

compressed passages; and such breathing we consider a symptom of grief and

call it a groan or a shriek. That, moreover, which appears to oppress the

region of the heart is a painful affection, not of the heart, but of the

entrance of the stomach, and occurs from the same cause (I mean, that of the

compression of the pores), as the vessel that contains the bile, contracting,

pours that bitter and pungent juice upon the entrance of the stomach; and a

proof of this is that the complexion of those in grief becomes sallow and

jaundiced, as the bile pours its own juice into the veins by reason of

excessive pressure.

5. Furthermore, the opposite affection, that, I mean, of mirth and

laughter, contributes to establish the argument; for the pores of the body, in

the case of those who are dissolved in mirth by hearing something pleasant,

are also somehow dissolved and relaxed. Just as in the former case the slight

and insensible exhalations of the pores are checked by grief, and, as they

compress the internal arrangement of the higher viscera, drive up towards the

head and the cerebral membrane the humid vapour which, being retained in

excess by the cavities of the brain, is driven out by the pores at its

base(7), while the closing of the eyelids expels the moisture in the form of

drops (and the drop is called a tear), so I would have you think that when the

pores, as a result of the contrary condition, are unusually widened, some air

is drawn in through them into the interior, and thence again expelled by

nature through the passage of the mouth, while all the viscera (and

especially, as they say, the liver) join in expelling this air by a certain

agitation and throbbing motion; whence it comes that nature, contriving to

give facility for the exit of the air, widens the passage of the mouth,

extending the cheeks on either side round about the breath; and the result is

called laughter.

6. We must not, then, on this account ascribe the ruling principle any

more to the liver than we must think, because of the heated state of the

blood about the heart in wrathful dispositions, that the seat of the mind is

in the heart; but we must refer these matters to the character of our bodily

organization, and consider that the mind is equally in contact with each of

the parts according to a kind of combination which is indescribable.

7. Even if any should allege to us on this point the Scripture which

claims the ruling principle for the heart, we shall not receive the statement

without examination; for he who makes mention of the heart speaks also of the

reins, when he says, "God trieth the hearts and reins"(8); so that they must

either confine the intellectual principle to the two combined or to neither.

8. And although I am aware that the intellectual energies are blunted, or

even made altogether ineffective in a certain condition of the body, I do not

hold this a sufficient evidence for limiting the faculty of the mind by any

particular place, so that it should be forced out of its proper amount of free

space by any inflammations that may arise in the neighbouring parts of the

body(9) (for such an opinion is a corporeal one, that when the receptacle is

already occupied by something placed in it, nothing else can find place

there); for the intelligible nature neither dwells in the empty spaces of

bodies, nor is extruded by encroachments of the flesh; but since the whole

body is made like some musical instrument, just as it often happens in the

case of those who know how to play, but are unable, because the unfitness of

the instrument does not admit of their art, to show their skill (for that

which is destroyed by time, or broken by a fall, or rendered useless by rust

or decay, is mute and inefficient, even if it be breathed upon by one who may

be an excellent artist in flute-playing); so too the mind, passing over the

whole instrument, and touching each of the parts in a mode corresponding to

its intellectual activities, according to its nature, produces its proper

effect on those parts which are in a natural condition, but remains

inoperative and ineffective upon those which are unable to admit the movement

of its art; for the mind is somehow naturally adapted to be in close relation

with that which is in a natural condition, but to be alien from that which is

removed from nature.

9.(1) And here, I think there is a view of the matter more close to

nature, by which we may learn something of the more refined doctrines. For

since the most beautiful and supreme good of all is the Divinity Itself, to

which incline all things that have a tendency towards what is beautiful and

good(2), we therefore say that the

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mind, as being in the image of the most beautiful, itself also remains in

beauty and goodness so long as it partakes as far as is possible in its

likeness to the archetype; but if it were at all to depart from this it is

deprived of that beauty in which it was. And as we said that the mind was

adorned(3) by the likeness of the archetypal beauty, being formed as though it

were a mirror to receive the figure of that which it expresses, we consider

that the nature which is governed by it is attached to the mind in the same

relation, and that it too is adorned by the beauty that the mind gives, being,

so to say, a mirror of the mirror; and that by it is swayed and sustained the

material element of that existence in which the nature is contemplated.

10. Thus so long as one keeps in touch with the other, the communication

of the true beauty extends proportionally through the whole series,

beautifying by the superior nature that which comes next to it; but when there

is any interruption of this beneficent connection, or when, on the contrary,

the superior comes to follow the inferior, then is displayed the misshapen

character of matter, when it is isolated from nature (for in itself matter is

a thing without form or structure), and by its shapelessness is also destroyed

that beauty of nature with which(4) it is adorned through the mind; and so the

transmission of the ugliness of matter reaches through the nature to the mind

itself, so that the image of God is no longer seen in the figure expressed by

that which was moulded according to it; for the mind, setting the idea of good

like a mirror behind the back, turns off the incident rays of the effulgence

of the good, and it receives into itself the impress of the shapelessness of

matter.

11. And in this way is brought about the genesis of evil, arising through

the withdrawal of that which is beautiful and good. Now all is beautiful and

good that is closely related to the First Good; but that which departs from

its relation and likeness to this is certainly devoid of beauty and goodness.

If, then, according to the statement we have been considering, that which is

truly good is one, and the mind itself also has its power of being beautiful

and good, in so far as it is in the image of the good and beautiful, and the

nature, which is sustained by the mind, has the like power, in so far as it is

an image of the image, it is hereby shown that our material part holds

together, and is upheld when it is controlled by nature; and on the other hand

is dissolved and disorganized when it is separated from that which upholds and

sustains it, and is dissevered from its conjunction with beauty and goodness.

12. Now such a condition as this does not arise except when there takes

place an overturning of nature to the opposite state, in which the desire has

no inclination for beauty and goodness, but for that which is in need of the

adorning element; for it must needs be that that which is made like to matter,

destitute as matter is of form of its own, should be assimilated to it in

respect of the absence alike of form and of beauty.

13. We have, however, discussed these points m passing, as following on

our argument, since they were introduced by our speculation on the point

before us; for the subject of enquiry was, whether the intellectual faculty

has its seat in any of the parts of us, or extends equally over them all; for

as for those who shut up the mind locally in parts of the body, and who

advance for the establishment of this opinion of theirs the fact that the

reason has not free course in the case of those whose cerebral membranes are

in an unnatural condition, our argument showed that in respect of every part

of the compound nature of man, whereby every man has some natural operation,

the power of the soul remains equally ineffective if the part does not

continue in its natural condition. And thus there came into our argument,

following out this line of thought, the view we have just stated, by which we

learn that in the compound nature of man the mind is governed by God, and that

by it is governed our material life, provided the latter remains in its

natural state, but if it is perverted from nature it is alienated also from

that operation which is carried on by the mind.

14. Let us return however once more to the point from which we

started--that in those who are not perverted from their natural condition by

some affection, the mind exercises its own power, and is established firmly in

those who are in sound health, but on the contrary is powerless in those who

do not admit its operation; for we may confirm our opinion on these matters by

yet other arguments: and if it is not tedious for those to hear who are

already wearied with our discourse, we shall discuss these matters also, so

far as we are able, in a few words.

XIII. A Rationale of sleep, of yawning, and of dreams(5).

1. This life of our bodies, material and subject to flux, always advancing

by way of motion,

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finds the power of its being in this, that it never rests from its motion: and

as some river, flowing on by its own impulse, keeps the channel in which it

runs well filled, yet is not seen in the same water always at the same place,

but part of it glides away while part comes flowing on, so, too, the material

element of our life here suffers change in the continuity of its succession of

opposites by way of motion and flux, so that it never can desist from change,

but in its inability to rest keeps up unceasingly its motion alternating by

like ways(6): and if it should ever cease moving it will assuredly have

cessation also of its being.

2. For instance, emptying succeeds fulness, and on the other hand after

emptiness comes in turn a process of filling: sleep relaxes the strain of

waking, and, again, awakening braces up what had become slack: and neither of

these abides continually, but both give way, each at the other's coming;

nature thus by their interchange so renewing herself as, while partaking of

each in turn, to pass from the one to the other without break. For that the

living creature should always be exerting itself in its operations produces a

certain rupture and severance of the overstrained part; and continual

quiescence of the body brings about a certain dissolution and laxity in its

frame: but to be in touch with each of these at the proper times in a moderate

degree is a staying-power of nature, which, by continual transference to the

opposed states, gives herself in each of them rest from the other. Thus she

finds the body on the strain through wakefulness, and devises relaxation for

the strain by means of sleep, giving the perceptive faculties rest for the

time from their operations, loosing them like horses from the chariots after

the race.

3. Further, rest at proper times is necessary for the framework of the

body, that the nutriment may be diffused over the whole body through the

passages which it contains, without any strain to hinder its progress. For

just as certain misty vapours are drawn up from the recesses of the earth when

it is soaked with rain, whenever the sun heats it with rays of any

considerable warmth, so a similar result happens in the earth that is in us,

when the nutriment within is heated up by natural warmth; and the vapours,

being naturally of upward tendency and airy nature, and aspiring to that which

is above them, come to be in the region of the head like smoke penetrating the

joints of a wall: then they are dispersed thence by exhalation to the passages

of the organs of sense, and by them the senses are of course rendered

inactive, giving way to the transit of these vapours. For the eyes are pressed

upon by the eyelids when some leaden instrument(7), as it were (I mean such a

weight as that I have spoken of), lets down the eyelid upon the eyes; and the

hearing, being dulled by these same vapours, as though a door were placed upon

the acoustic organs, rests from its natural operation: and such a condition is

sleep, when the sense is at rest in the body, and altogether ceases from the

operation of its natural motion, so that the digestive processes of nutriment

may have free course for transmission by the vapours through each of the

passages.

4. And for this reason, if the apparatus of the organs of sense should be

closed and sleep hindered by some occupation, the nervous system, becoming

filled with the vapours, is naturally and spontaneously extended so that the

part which has had its density increased by the vapours is rarefied by the

process of extension, just as those do who squeeze the water out of clothes by

vehement wringing: and, seeing that the parts about the pharynx are somewhat

circular, and nervous tissue abounds there, whenever there is need for the

expulsion from that part of the density of the vapours-- since it is

impossible that the part which is circular in shape should be separated

directly, but only by being distended in the outline of its circumference--for

this reason, by checking the breath m a yawn the chin is moved downwards so as

to leave a hollow to the uvula, and all the interior parts being arranged in

the figure of a circle, that smoky denseness which had been detained in the

neighbouring parts is emitted together with the exit of the breath. And often

the like may happen even after sleep when any portion of those vapours remains

in the region spoken of undigested and unexhaled.

5. Hence the mind of man clearly proves its claim s to connection with his

nature, itself also co-operating and moving with the nature in its sound and

waking state, but remaining unmoved when it is abandoned to sleep, unless any

one supposes that the imagery of dreams is a motion of the mind exercised in

sleep. We for our part say that it is only the conscious and sound action of

the intellect which we ought to refer to mind; and as to the fantastic

nonsense which occurs to us in sleep, we suppose that some appearances of the

operations of the mind are accidentally moulded in the less rational part of

the soul; for the soul, being

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by sleep dissociated from the senses, is also of necessity outside the range

of the operations of the mind; for it is through the senses that the union of

mind with man takes place; therefore when the senses are at rest, the

intellect also must needs be inactive; and an evidence of this is the fact

that the dreamer often seems to be in absurd and impossible situations, which

would not happen if the soul were then guided by reason and intellect.

6. It seems to me, however, that when the soul is at rest so far as

concerns its more excellent faculties (so far, I mean, as concerns the

operations of mind and sense), the nutritive part of it alone is operative

during sleep, and that some shadows and echoes of those things which happen in

our waking moments--of the operations both of sense and of intellect--which

are impressed upon it by that part of the soul which is capable of memory,

that these, I say, are pictured as chance will have it, some echo of memory

still lingering in this division of the soul.

7. With these, then, the man is beguiled, not led to acquaintance with the

things that present themselves by any train of thought, but wandering among

confused and inconsequent delusions. But just as in his bodily operations,

while each of the parts individually acts in some way according to the power

which naturally resides in it, there arises also in the limb that is at rest a

state sympathetic with that which is in motion, similarly in the case of the

soul, even if one part is at rest and another in motion, the whole is affected

in sympathy with the part; for it is not possible that the natural unity

should be in any way severed, though one of the faculties included in it is in

turn supreme in virtue of its active operation. But as, when men are awake and

busy, the mind is supreme, and sense ministers to it, yet the faculty which

regulates the body is not dissociated from them (for the mind furnishes the

food for its wants, the sense receives what is furnished, and the nutritive

faculty of the body appropriates to itself that which is given to it), so in

sleep the supremacy of these faculties is in some way reversed in us, and

while the less rational becomes supreme, the operation of the other ceases

indeed, yet is not absolutely extinguished; but while the nutritive faculty is

then busied with digestion during sleep, and keeps all our nature occupied

with itself, the faculty of sense is neither entirely severed from it (for

that cannot be separated which has once been naturally joined), nor yet can

its activity revive, as it is hindered by the inaction during sleep of the

organs of sense; and by the same reasoning (the mind also being united to the

sensitive part of the soul) it would follow that we should say that the mind

moves with the latter when it is in motion, and rests with it when it is

quiescent.

8. As naturally happens with fire when it is heaped over with chaff, and

no breath fans the flame it neither consumes what lies beside it, nor is

entirely quenched, but instead of flame it rises to the air through the chaff

in the form of smoke; yet if it should obtain any breath of air, it turns the

smoke to flame--in the same way the mind when hidden by the inaction of the

senses in sleep is neither able to shine out through them, nor yet is quite

extinguished, but has, so to say, a smouldering activity, operating to a

certain extent, but unable to operate farther.

9. Again, as a musician, when he touches with the plectrum the slackened

strings of a lyre, brings out no orderly melody (for that which is not

stretched will not sound), but his hand frequently moves skilfully, bringing

the plectrum to the position of the notes so far as place is concerned, yet

there is no sound, except that he produces by the vibration of the strings a

sort of uncertain and indistinct hum; so in sleep the mechanism of the senses

being relaxed, the artist is either quite inactive, if the instrument is

completely relaxed by satiety or heaviness; or will act slackly and faintly,

if the instrument of the senses does not fully admit of the exercise of its

art.

10. For this cause memory is confused, and foreknowledge, though rendered

doubtful(9) by uncertain veils, is imaged in shadows of our waking pursuits,

and often indicates to us something of what is going to happen: for by its

subtlety of nature the mind has some advantage, in ability to behold things,

over mere corporeal grossness; yet it cannot make its meaning clear by direct

methods, so that the information of the matter in hand should be plain and

evident, but its declaration of the future is ambiguous and doubtful,--what

those who interpret such things call an "enigma."

11. So the butler presses the cluster for Pharaoh's cup: so the baker

seemed to carry his baskets; each supposing himself in sleep to be engaged in

those services with which he was busied when awake: for the images of their

customary occupations imprinted on the prescient element of their soul, gave

them for a time the power of foretelling, by this sort of prophecy on the part

of the mind, what should come to pass.

12. But if Daniel and Joseph and others like them were instructed by

Divine power, without any confusion of perception, in the knowledge of things

to come, this is nothing to the present

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statement; for no one would ascribe this to the power of dreams, since he will

be constrained as a consequence to suppose that those Divine appearances also

which took place in wakefulness were not a miraculous vision but a result of

nature brought about spontaneously. As then, while all men are guided by their

own minds, there are some few who are deemed worthy of evident Divine

communication; so, while the imagination of sleep naturally occurs in a like

and equivalent manner for all, some, not all, share by means of their dreams

in some more Divine manifestation: but to all the rest even if a foreknowledge

of anything does occur as a result of dreams, it occurs in the way we have

spoken of.

13. And again, if the Egyptian and the Assyrian king were guided by God to

the knowledge of the future, the dispensation wrought by their means is a

different thing: for it was necessary that the hidden wisdom of the holy

men(1) should be made known, that each of them might not pass his life without

profit to the state. For how could Daniel have been known for what he was, if

the soothsayers and magicians had not been unequal to the task of discovering

the dream? And how could Egypt have been preserved while Joseph was shut up in

prison, if his interpretation of the dream had not brought him to notice? Thus

we must reckon these cases as exceptional, and not class them with common

dreams.

14. But this ordinary seeing of dreams is common to all men, and arises in

our fancies in different modes and forms: for either there remain, as we have

said, in the reminiscent part of the soul, the echoes of daily occupations;

or, as often happens, the constitution of dreams is framed with regard to such

and such a condition of the body: for thus the thirsty man seems to be among

springs, the man who is in need of food to be at a feast, and the young man in

the heat of youthful vigour is beset by fancies corresponding to his passion.

15. I also knew another cause of the fancies of sleep, when attending one

of my relations attacked by frenzy; who being annoyed by food being given him

in too great quantity for his strength, kept crying out and finding fault with

those who were about him for filling intestines with dung and putting them

upon him: and when his body was rapidly tending to perspire he blamed those

who were with him for having water ready to wet him with as he lay: and he did

not cease calling out till the result showed the meaning of these complaints:

for all at once a copious sweat broke out over his body, and a relaxation of

the bowels explained the weight in the intestines. The same condition then

which, while his sober judgment was dulled by disease, his nature underwent,

being sympathetically affected by the condition of the body--not being without

perception of what was amiss, but being unable clearly to express its pain, by

reason of the distraction resulting from the disease--this, probably, if the

intelligent principle of the soul were lulled to rest, not from infirmity but

by natural sleep, might appear as a dream to one similarly situated, the

breaking out of perspiration being expressed by water, and the pain occasioned

by the food, by the weight of intestines.

16. This view also is taken by those skilled in medicine, that according

to the differences of complaints the visions of dreams appear differently to

the patients: that the visions of those of weak stomach are of one kind, those

of persons suffering from injury to the cerebral membrane of another, those of

persons in fevers of yet another; that those of patients suffering from

bilious and from phlegmatic affections are diverse, and those again of

plethoric patients, and of patients in wasting disease, are different; whence

we may see that the nutritive and vegetative faculty of the soul has in it by

commixture some seed of the intelligent element, which is in some sense

brought into likeness to the particular state of the body, being adapted in

its fancies according to the complaint which has seized upon it.

17. Moreover, most men's dreams are conformed to the state of their

character: the brave man's fancies are of one kind, the coward's of another;

the wanton man's dreams of one kind, the continent man's of another; the

liberal man and the avaricious man are subject to different fancies; while

these fancies are nowhere framed by the intellect, but by the less rational

disposition of the soul, which forms even in dreams the semblances of those

things to which each is accustomed by the practice of his waking hours.

XIV. That the mind is not in a part of the body; wherein also is a distinction

of the movements of the body and of the soul(2).

1. But we have wandered far from our subject, for the purpose of our

argument was to show that the mind is not restricted to any part of the body,

but is equally in touch with the whole, producing its motion according to the

nature of the part which is under its influence.

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There are cases, however, in which the mind even follows the bodily impulses,

and becomes, as it were, their servant; for often the bodily nature takes the

lead by introducing either the sense of that which gives pain or the desire

for that which gives pleasure, so that it may be said to furnish the first

beginnings, by producing in us the desire for food, or, generally, the impulse

towards some pleasant thing; while the mind, receiving such an impulse,

furnishes the body by its own intelligence with the proper means towards the

desired object. Such a condition, indeed, does not occur in all, save in those

of a somewhat slavish disposition, who bring the reason into bondage to the

impulses of their nature and pay servile homage to the pleasures of sense by

allowing them the alliance of their mind; but in the case of more perfect men

this does not happen; for the mind takes the lead, and chooses the expedient

course by reason and not by passion, while their nature follows in the tracks

of its leader.

2. But since our argument discovered in our vital faculty three different

varieties--one which receives nourishment without perception, another which at

once receives nourishment and is capable of perception, but is without the

reasoning activity, and a third rational, perfect, and co-extensive with the

whole faculty--so that among these varieties the advantage belongs to the

intellectual,--let no one suppose on this account that in the compound nature

of man there are three souls welded together, contemplated each in its own

limits, so that one should think man's nature to be a sort of conglomeration

of several souls. The true and perfect soul is naturally one, the intellectual

and immaterial, which mingles with our material nature by the agency of the

senses; but all that is of material nature, being subject to mutation and

alteration, will, if it should partake of the animating power, move by way of

growth: if, on the contrary, it should fall away from the vital energy, it

will reduce its motion to destruction.

3. Thus, neither is there perception without material substance, nor does

the act of perception take place without the intellectual faculty.

XV. That the soul proper, in fact and name, is the rational soul, while the

others are called so equivocally ; wherein also is this statement, that the

power of the mind extends throughout the whole body in fitting contact with

every part 3.

1. Now, if some things in creation possess the nutritive faculty, and

others again are regulated by the perceptive faculty, while the former have no

share of perception nor the latter of the intellectual nature, and if for this

reason any one is inclined to the opinion of a plurality of souls, such a man

will be positing a variety of souls in a way not in accordance with their

distinguishing definition. For everything which we conceive among existing

things, if it be perfectly that which it is, is also properly called by the

name it bears: but of that which is not every respect what it is called, the

appellation also is vain. For instance:--if one were to show us true bread, we

say that he properly applies the name to the subject: but if one were to show

us instead that which had been made of stone to resemble the natural bread,

which had the same shape, and equal size, and similarity of colour, so as in

most points to be the same with its prototype, but which yet lacks the power

of being food, on this account we say that the stone receives the name of

"bread," not properly, but by a misnomer, and all things which fall under the

same description, which are not absolutely what they are called, have their

name from a misuse of terms.

2. Thus, as the soul finds its perfection in that which is intellectual

and rational, everything that is not so may indeed share the name of "soul,"

but is not really soul, but a certain vital energy associated with the

appellation of "soul(4)." And for this reason also He Who gave laws on every

matter, gave the animal nature likewise, as not far removed from this

vegetative life(5), for the use of man, to be for those who partake of it

instead of herbs:--for He says, "Ye shall eat all kinds of flesh even as the

green herb(6);" for the perceptive energy seems to have but a slight advantage

over that which is nourished and grows without it. Let this teach carnal men

not to bind their intellect closely to the phenomena of sense, but rather to

busy themselves with their spiritual advantages, as the true soul is found in

these, while sense has equal power also among the brute creation.

3. The course of our argument, however, has diverged to another point: for

the subject of our speculation was not the fact that the energy of mind is of

more dignity among the attributes we conceive in man than the material element

of his being, but the fact that the mind is not confined to any one part of

us, but is equally in all and through all, neither surrounding anything

without, nor being enclosed within any-

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thing: for these phrases are properly applied to casks or other bodies that

are placed one inside the other; but the union of the mental with the bodily

presents a connection unspeakable and inconceivable,--not being within it (for

the incorporeal is not enclosed in a body), nor yet surrounding it without

(for that which is incorporeal does not include(7) anything), but the mind

approaching our nature in some inexplicable and incomprehensible way, and

coming into contact with it, is to be regarded as both in it and around it,

neither implanted in it nor enfolded with it, but in a way which we cannot

speak or think, except so far as this, that while the nature prospers

according to its own order, the mind is also operative; but if any misfortune

befalls the former, the movement of the intellect halts correspondingly.

XVI. A contemplation of the Divine utterance which said--"Let us make man

after our image and likeness"; wherein is examined what is the definition of

the image, and how the passible and mortal is like to the Blessed and

Impassible, and how in the image there are male and female, seeing these are

not in the Prototype(8).

1. Let us now resume our consideration of the Divine word, "Let us make

man in our image, after our likeness(9)." How mean and how unworthy of the

majesty of man are the fancies of some heathen writers, who magnify humanity,

as they supposed, by their comparison of it to this world! for they say that

man is a little world, composed of the same elements with the universe. Those

who bestow on human nature such praise as this by a high-sounding name, forget

that they are dignifying man with the attributes of the gnat and the mouse:

for they too are composed of these four elements,--because assuredly about the

animated nature of every existing thing we behold a part, greater or less, of

those elements without which it is not natural that any sensitive being should

exist. What great thing is there, then, in man's being accounted a

representation and likeness of the world,--of the heaven that passes away, of

the earth that changes, of all things that they contain, which pass away with

the departure of that which compasses them round?

2. In what then does the greatness of man consist, according to the

doctrine of the Church? Not in his likeness to the created world, but in his

being in the image of the nature of the Creator.

3. What therefore, you will perhaps say, is the definition of the image?

How is the incorporeal likened to body? how is the temporal like the eternal?

that which is mutable by change like to the immutable? that which is subject

to passion and corruption to the impassible and incorruptible? that which

constantly dwells with evil, and grows up with it, to that which is absolutely

free from evil? there is a great difference between that which is conceived in

the archetype, and a thing which has been made in its image: for the image is

properly so called if it keeps its resemblance to the prototype; but if the

imitation be perverted from its subject, the thing is something else, and no

longer an image of the subject.

4. How then is man, this mortal, passible, shortlived being, the image of

that nature which is immortal, pure, and everlasting? The true answer to this

question, indeed, perhaps only the very Truth knows: but this is what we,

tracing out the truth so far as we are capable by conjectures and inferences,

apprehend concerning the matter. Neither does the word of God lie when it says

that man was made in the image of God, nor is the pitiable suffering of man's

nature like to the blessedness of the impassible Life: for if any one were to

compare our nature with God, one of two things must needs be allowed in order

that the definition of the likeness may be apprehended in both cases in the

same terms,--either that the Deity is passible, or that humanity is

impassible: but if neither the Deity is passible nor our nature free from

passion, what other account remains whereby we may say that the word of God

speaks truly, which says that man was made in the image of God?

5. We must, then, take up once more the Holy Scripture itself, if we may

perhaps find some guidance in the question by means of what is written. After

saying, "Let us make man in our image," and for what purposes it was said "Let

us make him," it adds this saying:--"and God created man; in the image of God

created He him; male and female created He them(1)." We have already said in

what precedes, that this saying was uttered for the destruction of heretical

impiety, in order that being instructed that the Only-begotten God made man in

the image of God, we should in no wise distinguish the Godhead of the Father

and the Son, since Holy Scripture gives to each equally the name of God,--to

Him Who made man, and to Him in Whose image he was made.

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6. However, let us pass by our argument upon this point: let us turn our

inquiry to the question before us,--how it is that while the Deity is in

bliss, and humanity is in misery, the latter is yet in Scripture called "like"

the former?

7. We must, then, examine the words carefully: for we find, if we do so,

that that which was made "in the image" is one thing, and that which is now

manifested in wretchedness is another. "God created man," it says; "in the

image of God created He him(3)." There is an end of the creation of that which

was made "in the image": then it makes a resumption of the account of

creation, and says, "male and female created He them." I presume that every

one knows that this is a departure from the Prototype: for "in Christ Jesus,"

as the apostle says, "there is neither male nor female(2)." Yet the phrase

declares that man is thus divided.

8. Thus the creation of our nature is in a sense twofold: one made like to

God, one divided according to this distinction: for something like this the

passage darkly conveys by its arrangement, where it first says, "God created

man, in the image of God created He him(3)," and then, adding to what has been

said, "male and female created He them 3,"--a thing which is alien from our

conceptions of God.

9. I think that by these words Holy Scripture conveys to us a great and

lofty doctrine; and the doctrine is this. While two natures--the Divine and

incorporeal nature, and the irrational life of brutes--are separated from each

other as extremes, human nature is the mean between them: for in the compound

nature of man we may behold a part of each of the natures I have

mentioned,--of the Divine, the rational and intelligent element, which does

not admit the distinction of male and female; of the irrational, our bodily

form and structure, divided into male and female: for each of these elements

is certainly to be found in all that partakes of human life. That the

intellectual element, however, precedes the other, we learn as from one who

gives in order an account of the making of man; and we learn also that his

community and kindred with the irrational is for man a provision for

reproduction. For he says first that "God created man in the image of God"

(showing by these words, as the Apostle says, that in such a being there is no

male or female): then he adds the peculiar attributes of human nature, "male

and female created He them(3)."

10. What, then, do we learn from this? Let no one, I pray, be indignant if

I bring from far an argument to bear upon the present subject. God is in His

own nature all that which our mind can conceive of good;--rather, transcending

all good that we can conceive or comprehend. He creates man for no other

reason than that He is good; and being such, and having this as His reason for

entering upon the creation of our nature, He would not exhibit the power of

His goodness in an imperfect form, giving our nature some one of the things at

His disposal, and grudging it a share in another: but the perfect form of

goodness is here to be seen by His both bringing man into being from nothing,

and fully supplying him with all good gifts: but since the list of individual

good gifts is a long one, it is out of the question to apprehend it

numerically. The language of Scripture therefore expresses it concisely by a

comprehensive phrase, in saying that man was made "in the image of God": for

this is the same as to say that He made human nature participant in all good;

for if the Deity is the fulness of good, and this is His image, then the image

finds its resemblance to the Archetype in being filled with all good.

11. Thus there is in us the principle of all excellence, all virtue and

wisdom, and every higher thing that we conceive: but pre-eminent among all is

the fact that we are free from necessity, and not in bondage to any natural

power, but have decision in our own power as we please; for virtue is a

voluntary thing, subject to no dominion: that which is the result of

compulsion and force cannot be virtue. 12. Now as the image bears in all

points the semblance of the archetypal excellence, if it had not a difference

in some respect, being absolutely without divergence it would no longer be a

likeness, but will in that case manifestly be absolutely identical with the

Prototype. What difference then do we discern between the Divine sad that

which has been made like to the Divine? We find it in the fact that the former

is uncreate, while the latter has its being from creation: and this

distinction of property brings with it a train of other properties; for it is

very certainly acknowledged that the uncreated nature is also immutable, and

always remains the same, while the created nature cannot exist without change;

for its very passage from nonexistence to existence is a certain motion and

change of the non-existent transmuted by the Divine purpose into being.

13. As the Gospel calls the stamp upon the coin "the image of Caesar(4),"

whereby we learn that in that which was fashioned to resemble Caesar there was

resemblance as to outward look, but difference as to material, so also in the

present saying, when we consider the attri-

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butes contemplated both in the Divine and human nature, in which the likeness

consists, to be in the place of the features, we find in what underlies them

the difference which we behold in the uncreated and in the created nature.

14. Now as the former always remains the same, while that which came into

being by creation had the beginning of its existence from change, and has a

kindred connection with the like mutation, for this reason He Who, as the

prophetical writing says, "knoweth all things before they be(5)," following

out, or rather perceiving beforehand by His power of foreknowledge what, in a

state of independence and freedom, is the tendency of the motion of man's

will,--as He saw, I say, what would be, He devised for His image the

distinction of male and female, which has no reference to the Divine

Archetype, but, as we have said, is an approximation to the less rational

nature.

15. The cause, indeed, of this device, only those can know who were

eye-witnesses of the truth and ministers of the Word; but we, imagining the

truth, as far as we can, by means of conjectures and similitudes, do not set

forth that which occurs to our mind authoritatively, but will place it in the

form of a theoretical speculation before our kindly hearers.

16. What is it then which we understand concerning these matters? In

saying that "God created man" the text indicates, by the indefinite character

of the term, all mankind; for was not Adam here named together with the

creation, as the history tells us in what follows(6)? yet the name given to

the man created is not the particular, but the general name: thus we are led

by the employment of the general name of our nature to some such view as

this--that in the Divine foreknowledge and power all humanity is included in

the first creation; for it is fitting for God not to regard any of the things

made by Him as indeterminate, but that each existing thing should have some

limit and measure prescribed by the wisdom of its Maker.

17. Now just as any particular man is limited by his bodily dimensions,

and the peculiar size which is conjoined with the superficies of his body is

the measure of his separate existence, so I think that the entire plenitude of

humanity was included by the God of all, by His power of foreknowledge, as it

were in one body, and that this is what the text teaches us which says, "God

created man, in the image of God created He him." For the image is not in part

of our nature, nor is the grace in any one of the things found in that nature,

but this power extends equally to all the race: and a sign of this is that

mind is implanted alike in all: for all have the power of understanding and

deliberating, and of all else whereby the Divine nature finds its image in

that which was made according to it: the man that was manifested at the first

creation of the world, and he that shall be after the consummation of all, are

alike: they equally bear in themselves the Divine image(7).

18. For this reason the whole race was spoken of as one man, namely, that

to God's power nothing is either past or future, but even that which we expect

is comprehended, equally with what is at present existing, by the

all-sustaining energy. Our whole nature, then, extending from the first to the

last, is, so to say, one image of Him Who is; but the distinction of kind in

male and female was added to His work lash as I suppose, for the reason which

follows(8).

XVII. What we must answer to those who raise the question--"If procreation is

after sin, how would souls have came into being if the first of mankind had

remained sinless(9)?"

1. It is better for us however, perhaps, rather to inquire, before

investigating this point, the solution of the question put forward by our

adversaries; for they say that before the sin there is no account of birth, or

of travail, or of the desire that tends to procreation, but when they were

banished from Paradise after their sin, and the woman was condemned by the

sentence of travail, Adam thus entered with his consort upon the intercourse

of married life, and then took place the beginning of procreation. If, then,

marriage did not exist in Paradise, nor travail, nor birth, they say that it

follows as a necessary conclusion that human souls would not have existed in

plurality had not the grace of immortality fallen away to mortality, and

marriage preserved our race by means of descendants, introducing the offspring

of the departing to take their place, so that in a certain way the sin that

entered into the world was for the life of man: for the human

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race would have remained in the pair of the first-formed, had not the fear of

death impelled their nature to provide succession.

2. Now here again the true answer, whatever it may be, can be clear to

those only who, like Paul, have been instructed in the mysteries of Paradise;

but our answer is as follows. When the Sadducees once argued against the

doctrine of the resurrection, and brought forward, to establish their own

opinion, that woman of many marriages, who had been wife to seven brethren,

and thereupon inquired whose wife she will be after the resurrection, our Lord

answered their argument so as not only to instruct the Sadducees, but also to

reveal to all that come after them the mystery of the resurrection-life: "for

in the resurrection," He says, "they neither marry, nor are given in marriage

neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels, and are the

children of God, being the children of the resurrection(1)." Now the

resurrection promises us nothing else than the restoration of the fallen to

their ancient state; for the grace we look for is a certain return to the

first life, bringing back again to Paradise him who was cast out from it. If

then the life of those restored is closely related to that of the angels, it

is clear that the life before the transgression was a kind of angelic life,

and hence also our return to the ancient condition of our life is compared to

the angels. Yet while, as has been said, there is no marriage among them, the

armies of the angels are in countless myriads; for so Daniel declared in his

visions: so, in the same way, if there had not come upon us as the result of

sin a change for the worse, and removal from equality with the angels, neither

should we have needed marriage that we might multiply but whatever the mode of

increase in the angelic nature is (unspeakable and inconceivable by human

conjectures, except that it assuredly exists), it would have operated also in

the case of men, who were "made a little lower than the angels(2)," to

increase mankind to the measure determined by its Maker.

3. But if any one finds a difficulty in an inquiry as to the manner of the

generation of souls, had man not needed the assistance of marriage, we shall

ask him in turn, what is the mode of the angelic existence, how they exist in

countless myriads, being one essence, and at the same time numerically many;

for we shall be giving a fit answer to one who raises the question how man

would have been without marriage, if we say, "as the angels are without

marriage;" for the fact that man was in a like condition with them before the

transgression is shown by the restoration to that state.

4. Now that we have thus cleared up these matters, let us return to our

former point,--how it was that after the making of His image God contrived for

His work the distinction of male and female. I say that the preliminary

speculation we have completed is of service for determining this question; for

He Who brought all things into being and fashioned Man as a whole by His own

will to the Divine image, did not wait to see the number of souls made up to

its proper fulness by the gradual additions of those coming after; but while

looking upon the nature of man in its entirety and fulness by the exercise of

His foreknowledge, and bestowing upon it a lot exalted and equal to the

angels, since He saw beforehand by His all-seeing power the failure of their

will to keep a direct course to what is good, and its consequent declension

from the angelic life, in order that the multitude of human souls might not be

cut short by its fall from that mode by which the angels were increased and

multiplied,--for this reason, I say, He formed for our nature that contrivance

for increase which befits those who had fallen into sin, implanting in

mankind, instead of the angelic majesty of nature, that animal and irrational

mode by which they now succeed one another.

5. Hence also, it seems to me, the great David pitying the misery of man

mourns over his nature with such words as these, that, "man being in honour

knew it not" (meaning by "honour" the equality with the angels), therefore, he

says, "he is compared to the beasts that have no understanding, and made like

unto them(3)." For he truly was made like the beasts, who received in his

nature the present mode of transient generation, on account of his inclination

to material things.

XVIII. That our irrational passions have their rise from kindred with

irrational nature.(4)

1. For I think that from this beginning all our passions issue as from a

spring, and pour their flood over man's life; and an evidence of my words is

the kinship of passions which appears alike in ourselves and in the brutes;

for it is not allowable to ascribe the first beginnings of our constitutional

liability to passion to that human nature which was fashioned in the Divine

likeness; but as brute life first entered into the world, and man, for the

reason already mentioned, took something of their nature (I mean the mode of

generation), he accordingly took at the same time a share of the other

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attributes contemplated in that nature; for the likeness of man to God is not

found in anger, nor is pleasure a mark of the superior nature; cowardice also,

and boldness, and the desire of gain, and the dislike of loss, and all the

like, are far removed from that stamp which indicates Divinity.

2. These attributes, then, human nature took to itself from the side of

the brutes; for those qualities with which brute life was armed for

self-preservation, when transferred to human life, became passions; for the

carnivorous animals are preserved by their anger, and those which breed

largely by their love of pleasure cowardice preserves the weak, fear that

which is easily taken by more powerful animals, and greediness those of great

bulk; and to miss anything that tends to pleasure is for the brutes a matter

of pain. All these and the like affections entered man's composition by reason

of the animal mode of generation.

3. I may be allowed to describe the human image by comparison with some

wonderful piece of modelling. For, as one may see in models those carved(5)

shapes which the artificers of such things contrive for the wonder of

beholders, tracing out upon a single head two forms of faces; so man seems to

me to bear a double likeness to opposite things--being moulded in the Divine

element of his mind to the Divine beauty, but bearing, in the passionate

impulses that arise in him, a likeness to the brute nature; while often even

his reason is rendered brutish, and obscures the better element by the worse

through its inclination and disposition towards what is irrational; for

whenever a man drags down his mental energy to these affections, and forces

his reason to become the servant of his passions, there takes place a sort of

conversion of the good stamp in him into the irrational image, his whole

nature being traced anew after that design, as his reason, so to say,

cultivates the beginnings of his passions, and gradually multiplies them; for

once it lends its co-operation to passion, it produces a plenteous and

abundant crop of evils.

4. Thus our love of pleasure took its beginning from our being made like

to the irrational creation, and was increased by the transgressions of men,

becoming the parent of so many varieties of sins arising from pleasure as we

cannot find among the irrational animals. Thus the rising of anger in us is

indeed akin to the impulse of the brutes; but it grows by the alliance of

thought: for thence come malignity, envy, deceit, conspiracy, hypocrisy; all

these are the result of the evil husbandry of the mind; for if the passion

were divested of the aid it receives from thought, the anger that is left

behind is short-lived and not sustained, like a bubble, perishing straightway

as soon as it comes into being. Thus the greediness of swine introduces

covetousness, and the high spirit of the horse becomes the origin of pride;

and all the particular forms that proceed from the want of reason in brute

nature become vice by the evil use of the mind.

5. So, likewise, on the contrary, if reason instead assumes sway over such

emotions, each of them is transmuted to a form of virtue; for anger produces

courage, terror caution, fear obedience, hatred aversion from vice, the power

of love the desire for what is truly beautiful; high spirit in our character

raises our thought above the passions, and keeps it from bondage to what is

base; yea, the great Apostle, even, praises such a form of mental elevation

when he bids us constantly to "think those things that are above(6);" and so

we find that every such motion, when elevated by loftiness of mind, is

conformed to the beauty of the Divine image.

6. But the other impulse is greater, as the tendency of sin is heavy and

downward; for the ruling element of our soul is more inclined to be dragged

downwards by the weight of the irrational nature than is the heavy and earthy

element to be exalted by the loftiness of the intellect; hence the misery that

encompasses us often causes the Divine gift to be forgotten, and spreads the

passions of the flesh, like some ugly mask, over the beauty of the image.

7. Those, therefore, are in some sense excusable, who do not admit, when

they look upon such cases, that the Divine form is there; yet we may behold

the Divine image in men by the medium of those who have ordered their lives

aright. For if the man who is subject to passion, and carnal, makes it

incredible that man was adorned, as it were, with Divine beauty, surely the

man of lofty virtue and pure from pollution will confirm you in the better

conception of human nature.

8. For instance (for it is better to make our argument clear by an

illustration), one of those noted for wickedness--some Jechoniah, say, or some

other of evil memory--has obliterated the beauty of his nature by the

pollution of wickedness; yet in Moses and in men like him the form of the

image was kept pure. Now where the beauty of the form has not been obscured,

there is made plain the faithfulness of the saying that man is an image of

God.

9. It may be, however, that some one feels

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shame at the fact that our life, like that of the brutes, is sustained by

food, and for this reason deems man unworthy of being supposed to have been

framed in the image of God; but he may expect that freedom from this function

will one day be bestowed upon our nature in the life we look for; for, as the

Apostle says, "the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink(7);" and the Lord

declared that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that

proceedeth out of the mouth of God(8)." Further, as the resurrection holds

forth to us a life equal with the angels, and with the angels there is no

food, there is sufficient ground for believing that man, who will live in like

fashion with the angels, will be released from such a function.

XIX. To those who say that the enjoyment of the good things we look for will

again consist in meat and drink, because it is written that by these means man

at first lived in Paradise(9).

1. But some one perhaps will say that man will not be returning to the

same form of life, if as it seems, we formerly existed by eating, and shall

hereafter be free from that function. I, however, when I hear the Holy

Scripture, do not understand only bodily meat, or the pleasure of the flesh;

but I recognize another kind of food also, having a certain analogy to that of

the body, the enjoyment of which extends to the soul alone: "Eat of my

bread(1)," is the bidding of Wisdom to the hungry; and the Lord declares those

blessed who hunger for such food as this, and says, "If any man thirst, let

him come unto Me, and drink": and "drink ye joy(2)," is the great Isaiah's

charge to those who are able to hear his sublimity. There is a prophetic

threatening also against those worthy of vengeance, that they shall be

punished with famine; but the "famine" is not a lack of bread and water, but a

failure of the word:-"not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a

famine of hearing the word of the Lord."

2. We ought, then, to conceive that the fruit in Eden was something worthy

of God's planting(and Eden is interpreted to mean "delight"), and not to doubt

that man was hereby nourished: nor should we at all conceive, concerning the

mode of life in Paradise, this transitory and perishable nutriment: "of every

tree of the garden," He says, "thou mayest freely eat(4)."

3. Who will give to him that has a healthful hunger that tree that is in

Paradise, which includes all good, which is named "every tree," in which this

passage bestows on man the right to share? for in the universal and

transcendent saying every form of good is in harmony with itself, and the

whole is one. And who will keep me back from that tasting of the tree which is

of mixed and doubtful kind? for surely it is clear to all who are at all

keen-sighted what that "every" tree is whose fruit is life, and what again

that mixed tree is whose end is death: for He Who presents ungrudgingly the

enjoyment of" every" tree, surely by some reason and forethought keeps man

from participation in those which are of doubtful kind.

4. It seems to me that I may take the great David and the wise Solomon as

my instructors in the interpretation of this text: for both understand the

grace of the permitted delight to be one,--that very actual Good, which in

truth is "every" good;--David, when he says, "Delight thou in the Lords," and

Solomon, when he names Wisdom herself (which is the Lord) "a tree of life(6)."

5. Thus the "every" tree of which the passage gives food to him who was

made in the likeness of God, is the same with the tree of life; anti there is

opposed to this tree another tree, the food given by which is the knowledge of

good and evil:--not that it bears in turn as fruit each of these things of

opposite significance, but that it produces a fruit blended and mixed with

opposite qualities, the eating of which the Prince of Life forbids, and the

serpent counsels, that he may prepare an entrance for death: and he obtained

credence for his counsel, covering over the fruit with a fair appearance and

the show of pleasure, that it might be pleasant to the eyes and stimulate the

desire to taste.

XX. What was the life in Paradise, and what was the forbidden tree(7)?

1. What then is that which includes the knowledge of good and evil blended

together, and is decked with the pleasures of sense? I think I am not aiming

wide of the mark in employing, as a starting-point for my speculation, the

sense of "knowable(8)." It is not, I think, "science" which the Scripture here

means by "knowledge"; but I find a certain distinction, according to

Scriptural use, between "knowledge "and "discernment": for to "dis-

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cern" skilfully the good from the evil, the Apostle says is a mark of a more

perfect condition and of "exercised senses(9)," for which reason also he bids

us "prove all things(1)," and says that "discernment "belongs to the spiritual

man(2): but "knowledge" is not always to be understood of skill and

acquaintance with anything, but of the disposition towards what is

agreeable,--as "the Lord knoweth them that are His(3)"; and He says to Moses,

"I knew thee above all(4)"; while of those condemned in their wickedness He

Who knows all things says, "I never knew you(5)."

2. The tree, then, from which comes this fruit of mixed knowledge, is

among those things which are forbidden; and that fruit is combined of opposite

qualities, which has the serpent to commend it, it may be for this reason,

that the evil is not exposed in its nakedness, itself appearing in its own

proper nature--for wickedness would surely fail of its effect were it not

decked with some fair colour to entice to the desire of it him whom it

deceives--but now the nature of evil is in a manner mixed, keeping destruction

like some snare concealed in its depths, and displaying some phantom of good

in the deceitfulness of its exterior. The beauty of the substance seems good

to those who love money: yet "the love of money is a root of all evil(6)": and

who would plunge into the unsavoury mud of wantonness, were it not that he

whom this bait hurries into passion thinks pleasure a thing fair and

acceptable? so, too, the other sins keep their destruction hidden, and seem at

first sight acceptable, and some deceit makes them earnestly sought after by

unwary men instead of what is good.

3. Now since the majority of men judge the good to lie in that which

gratifies the senses, and there is a certain identity of name between that

which is, and that which appears to be "good,"--for this reason that desire

which arises towards what is evil, as though towards good, is called by

Scripture "the knowledge of good and evil;" "knowledge," as we have said,

expressing a certain mixed disposition. It speaks of the fruit of the

forbidden tree not as a thing absolutely evil (because it is decked with

good), nor as a thing purely good (because evil is latent in it), but as

compounded of both, and declares that the tasting of it brings to death those

who touch it; almost proclaiming aloud the doctrine that the very actual good

is in its nature simple and uniform, alien from all duplicity or conjunction

with its opposite, while evil is many-coloured and fairly adorned, being

esteemed to be one thing and revealed by experience as another, the knowledge

of which (that is, its reception by experience) is the beginning and

antecedent of death and destruction.

4. It was because he saw this that the serpent points out the evil fruit

of sin, not showing the evil manifestly in its own nature (for man would not

have been deceived by manifest evil), but giving to what the woman beheld the

glamour of a certain beauty, and conjuring into its taste the spell of a

sensual pleasure, he appeared to her to speak convincingly: "and the woman

saw," it says, "that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to

the eyes to behold, and fair to see; and she took of the fruit thereof and did

eat(7)," and that eating became the mother of death to men. This, then, is

that fruit-bearing of mixed character, where the passage clearly expresses the

sense in which the tree was called "capable of the knowledge of good and

evil," because, like the evil nature of poisons that are prepared with honey,

it appears to be good in so far as it affects the senses with sweetness: but

in so far as it destroys him who touches it, it is the worst of all evil. Thus

when the evil poison worked its effect against man's life, then man, that

noble thing and name, the image of God's nature, was made, as the prophet

says, "like unto vanity(8)."

5. The image, therefore, properly belongs to the better part of our

attributes; but all in our life that is painful and miserable is far removed

from the likeness to the Divine.

XXI. That the resurrection is looked for as a

consequence, not so much from the declaration of Scripture as from the very

necessity of things(9).

1. Wickedness, however, is not so strong as to prevail over the power of

good; nor is the folly of our nature more powerful and more abiding than the

wisdom of God: for it is impossible that that which is always mutable and

variable should be more firm and more abiding than that which always remains

the same and is firmly fixed in goodness: but it is absolutely certain that

the Divine counsel possesses immutability, while the changeableness of our

nature does not remain settled even in evil.

2. Now that which is always in motion, if its progress be to good, will

never cease moving onwards to what lies before it, by reason of the infinity

of the course to be traversed:--for it will not find any limit of its object

such that when it has apprehended it, it will at last cease

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its motion: but if its bias be in the opposite direction, when it has finished

the course of wickedness and reached the extreme limit of evil, then that

which is ever moving, finding no halting point for its impulse natural to

itself when it has run through the lengths that can be run in wickedness, of

necessity turns its motion towards good: for as evil does not extend to

infinity, but is comprehended by necessary limits, it would appear that good

once more follows in succession upon the limit of evil and thus, as we have

said, the ever-moving character of our nature comes to run its course at the

last once more back towards good, being taught the lesson of prudence by the

memory of its former misfortunes, to the end that it may never again be in

like case.

3. Our course, then, will once more lie in what is good, by reason of the

fact that the nature of evil is bounded by necessary limits. For just as those

skilled in astronomy tell us that the whole universe is full of light, and

that darkness is made to cast its shadow by the interposition of the body

formed by the earth; and that this darkness is shut off from the rays of the

sun, in the shape of a cone, according to the figure of the sphere-shaped

body, and behind it; while the sun, exceeding the earth by a size many times

as great as its own, enfolding it round about on all sides with its rays,

unites at the limit of the cone the concurrent streams of light; so that if

(to suppose the case) any one had the power of passing beyond the measure to

which the shadow extends, he would certainly find himself in light unbroken by

darkness ;--even so I think that we ought to understand about ourselves, that

on passing the limit of wickedness we shall again have our conversation in

light, as the nature of good, when compared with the measure of wickedness, is

incalculably superabundant.

4. Paradise therefore will be restored, that tree will be restored which

is in truth the tree of life;--there will be restored the grace of the image,

and the dignity of rule. It does not seem to me that our hope is one for those

things which are now subjected by God to man for the necessary uses of life,

but one for another kingdom, of a description that belongs to unspeakable

mysteries.

XXII. To those who say, "If the resurrection is a thing excellent and good,

how is it that it has not happened already, but is hoped far in some periods

of time ? "(1)

1. Let us give our attention, however, to the next point of our

discussion. It may be that some one, giving his thought wings to soar towards

the sweetness of our hope, deems it a burden and a loss that we are not more

speedily placed in that good state which is above man's sense and knowledge,

and is dissatisfied with the extension of the time that intervenes between him

and the object of his desire. Let him cease to vex himself like a child that

is discontented at the brief delay of something that gives him pleasure; for

since all things are governed by reason and wisdom, we must by no means

suppose that anything that happens is done without reason itself and the

wisdom that is therein.

2. You will say then, What is this reason, in accordance with which the

change of our painful life to that which we desire does not take place at

once, but this heavy and corporeal existence of ours waits, extended to some

determinate time, for the term of the consummation of all things, that then

man's life may be set free as it were from the reins, and revert once more,

released and free, to the life of blessedness and impassibility?

3. Well, whether our answer is near the truth of the matter, the Truth

Itself may clearly know; but at all events what occurs to our intelligence is

as follows. I take up then once more in my argument our first text :--God

says, " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and God created man,

in the image of God created He him(2)." Accordingly, the Image of God, which

we behold in universal humanity, had its consummation then(3); but Adam as yet

was not; for the thing formed from the earth is called Adam, by etymological

nomenclature, as those tell us who are acquainted with the Hebrew

tongue--wherefore also the apostle, who was specially learned in his native

tongue, the tongue of the Israelites, calls the man "of the earth(4)"

<greek>koikos</greek>, as though translating the name Adam into the Greek

word.

4. Man, then, was made in the image of God; that is, the universal nature,

the thing like God; not part of the whole, but all the fulness of the nature

together was so made by omnipotent wisdom. He saw, Who holds all limits in His

grasp, as the Scripture tells us which says, "in His hand are all the corners

of the earth(5),"He saw, "Who knoweth all things" even "before they be(6),"

comprehending them in His knowledge, how great in number humanity will be in

the sum of its individuals. But as He perceived in our created nature the bias

towards evil, and the fact that after its voluntary fall from equality with

the angels it would acquire a fellowship with the lower

412

nature, He mingled, for this reason, with His own image, an element of the

irrational (for the distinction of male and female does not exist in the

Divine and blessed nature);--transferring, I say, to man the special attribute

of the irrational formation, He bestowed increase upon our race not according

to the lofty character of our creation; for it was not when He made that which

was in His own image that He bestowed on man the power of increasing and

multiplying; but when He divided it by sexual distinctions, then He said,

"Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth(7)." For this belongs not to

the Divine, but to the irrational element, as the history indicates when it

narrates that these words were first spoken by God in the case of the

irrational creatures; since we may be sure that, if He had bestowed on man,

before imprinting on our nature the distinction of male and female, the power

for increase conveyed by this utterance, we should not have needed this form

of generation by which the brutes are generated.

5. Now seeing that the full number of men pre-conceived by the operation

of foreknowledge will come into life by means of this animal generation, God,

Who governs all things in a certain order and sequence,--since the inclination

of our nature to what was beneath it (which He Who beholds the future equally

with the present saw before it existed) made some such form of generation

absolutely necessary for mankind,--therefore also foreknew the time

coextensive with the creation of men, so that the extent of time should be

adapted for the entrances of the pre-determined souls, and that the flux and

motion of time should halt at the moment when humanity is no longer produced

by means of it; and that when the generation of men is completed, time should

cease together with its completion, and then should take place the restitution

of all things, and with the World-Reformation humanity also should be changed

from the corruptible and earthly to the impassible and eternal.

6. And this it seems to me the Divine apostle considered when he declared

in his epistle to the Corinthians the sudden stoppage of time, and the change

of the things that are now moving on back to the opposite end where he says,

"Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be

changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump(8)." For

when, as I suppose, the full complement of human nature has reached the limit

of the pre-determined measure, because there is no longer anything to be made

up in the way of increase to the number of souls, he teaches us that the

change in existing things will take place in an instant of time, giving to

that limit of time which has no parts or extension the names of "a moment,"

and "the twinkling of an eye"; so that it will no more be possible for one who

reaches the verge of time (which is the last and extreme point, from the fact

that nothing is lacking to the attainment of its extremity) to obtain by death

this change which takes place at a fixed period, but only when the trumpet of

the resurrection sounds, which awakens the dead, and transforms those who are

left in life, after the likeness of those who have undergone the resurrection

change, at once to incorruptibility; so that the weight of the flesh is no

longer heavy, nor does its burden hold them down to earth, but they rise aloft

through the air--for, "we shall be caught up," he tells us, "in the clouds to

meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord(9)."

7. Let him therefore wait for that time which is necessarily made

co-extensive with the development of humanity. For even Abraham and the

patriarchs, while they had the desire to see the promised good things, and

ceased not to seek the heavenly country, as the apostle says, are yet even now

in the condition of hoping for that grace, "God having provided some better

thing for us," according to the words of Paul, "that they without us should

not be made perfect(1)." If they, then, bear the delay who by faith only and

by hope saw the good things "afar off" and "embraced them(2)," as the apostle

bears witness, placing their certainty of the enjoyment of the things for

which they hoped in the fact that they "judged Him faithful Who has

promised(3)," what ought most of us to do, who have not, it may be, a hold

upon the better hope from the character of our lives? Even the prophet's soul

fainted with desire, and in his psalm he confesses this passionate love,

saying that his "soul hath a desire and longing to be in the courts of the

Lord(4)," even if he must needs be rejected(5) to a place amongst the lowest,

as it is a greater and more desirable thing to be last there than to be first

among the ungodly tents of this life; nevertheless he was patient of the

delay, deeming, indeed, the life there blessed, and accounting a brief

participation in it more desirable than "thousands" of time--for he says, "one

day in Thy courts is better than thousands(6) "--yet he did not repine at the

necessary dispensation concerning existing things, and thought it sufficient

bliss for man to have those good things even by way of hope; wherefore he says

at the end of the

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Psalm, "O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that hopeth in Thee(7)."

8. Neither, then, should we be troubled at the brief delay of what we hope

for, but give diligence that we may not be cast out from the object of our

hopes; for just as though, if one were to tell some inexperienced person

beforehand, "the gathering of the crops will take place in the season of

summer, and the stores will be filled, and the table abundantly supplied with

food at the time of plenty," it would be a foolish man who should seek to

hurry on the coming of the fruit-time, when he ought to be sowing seeds and

preparing the crops for himself by diligent care; for the fruit-time will

surely come, whether he wishes or not, at the appointed time; and it will be

looked on differently by him who has secured for himself beforehand abundance

of crops, and by him who is found by the fruit-time destitute of all

preparation. Even so I think it is one's duty, as the proclamation is clearly

made to all that the time of change will come, not to trouble himself about

times (for He said that "it is not for us to know the times and the

seasons(8)"), nor to pursue calculations by which he will be sure to sap the

hope of the resurrection in the soul; but to make his confidence in the things

expected as a prop to lean on, and to purchase for himself, by good

conversation, the grace that is to come.

XXIII. That he who confesses the beginning of the world's existence must

necessarily also agree as to its end(9).

But if some one, beholding the present course of the world, by which

intervals of time are marked, going on in a certain order, should say that it

is not possible that the predicted stoppage of these moving things should take

place, such a man clearly also does not believe that in the beginning the

heaven and the earth were made by God; for he who admits a beginning, of

motion surely does not doubt as to its also having an end; and he who does not

allow its end, does not admit its beginning either; but as it is by believing

that "we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God," as the

apostle says, "so that things which are seen were not made of things which do

appear(1)," we must use the same faith as to the word of God when He foretells

the necessary stoppage of existing things.

2. The question of the "how" must, however, be put beyond the reach of our

meddling; for even in the case mentioned it was "by faith" that we admitted

that the thing seen was framed from things not yet apparent, omitting the

search into things beyond our reach. And yet our reason suggests difficulties

on many points, offering no small occasions for doubt as to the things which

we believe.

3. For in that case too, argumentative men might by plausible reasoning

upset our faith, so that we should not think that statement true which Holy

Scripture delivers concerning the material creation, when it asserts that all

existing things have their beginning of being from God. For those who abide by

the contrary view maintain that matter is co-eternal with God, and employ in

support of their own doctrine some such arguments as these. If God is in His

nature simple and immaterial, without quantity(2), or size, or combination,

and removed from the idea of circumscription by way of figure, while all

matter is apprehended in extension measured by intervals, and does not escape

the apprehension of our senses, but becomes known to us in colour, and figure,

and bulk, and size, and resistance, and the other attributes belonging to it,

none of which it is possible to conceive in the Divine nature,--what method is

there for the production of matter from the immaterial, or of the nature that

has dimensions from that which is unextended? for if these things are believed

to have their existence from that source, they clearly come into existence

after being in Him in some mysterious way; but if material existence was in

Him, how can He be immaterial while including matter in Himself? and similarly

with all the other marks by which the material nature is differentiated; if

quantity exists in God, how is God without quantity? if the compound nature

exists in Him, how is He simple, without parts and without combination? so

that the argument forces us to think either that He is material, because

matter has its existence from Him as a source; or, if one avoids this, it is

necessary to suppose that matter was imported by Him ab extra for the making

of the universe.

4. If, then, it was external to God, something else surely existed besides

God, conceived, in respect of eternity, together with Him Who exists

ungenerately; so that the argument supposes two eternal and unbegotten

existences, having their being concurrently with each other

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--that of Him Who operates as an artificer, and that of the thing which admits

this skilled operation; and if any one under pressure of this argument should

assume a material substratum for the Creator of all things, what a support

will the Manichaean find for his special doctrine, who opposes by virtue of

ungenerateness a material existence to a Good Being. Yet we do believe that

all things are of God, as we hear the Scripture say so; and as to the question

how they were in God, a question beyond our reason, we do not seek to pry into

it, believing that all things are within the capacity of God's power--both to

give existence to what is not, and to implant qualities at His pleasure in

what is.

5. Consequently, as we suppose the power of the Divine will to be a

sufficient cause to the things that are, for their coming into existence out

of nothing, so too we shall not repose our belief on anything beyond

probability in referring the World-Reformation to the same power. Moreover, it

might perhaps be possible, by some skill in the use of words, to persuade

those who raise frivolous objections on the subject of matter not to think

that they can make an unanswerable attack on our statement.

XXIV. An argument against those who say that matter is co-eternal with God(3).

1. For after all that opinion on the subject of matter does not turn out

to be beyond what appears consistent, which declares that it has its existence

from Him Who is intelligible and immaterial. For we shall find all matter to

be composed of certain qualities, of which if it is divested it can, in

itself, be by no means grasped by idea. Moreover in idea each kind of quality

is separated from the substratum; but idea is an intellectual and not a

corporeal method of examination. If, for instance, some animal or tree is

presented to our notice, or any other of the things that have material

existence we perceive in our mental discussion of it many things concerning

the substratum, the idea of each of which is clearly distinguished from the

object we contemplate: for the idea of colour is one, of weight another; so

again that of quantity and of such and such a peculiar quality of touch: for

"softness," and "two cubits long," and the rest of the attributes we spoke of,

are not connected in idea either with one another or with the body: each of

them has conceived concerning it its own explanatory definition according to

its being, having nothing in common with any other of the qualities that are

contemplated in the substratum.

2.(4) If, then, colour is a thing intelligible, and resistance also is

intelligible, and so with quantity and the rest of the like properties, while

if each of these should be withdrawn from the substratum, the whole idea of

the body is dissolved; it would seem to follow that we may suppose the

concurrence of those things, the absence of which we found to be a cause of

the dissolution of the body, to produce the material nature: for as that is

not a body which has not colour, and figure, and resistance, and extension,

and weight, and the other properties, while each of these in its proper

existence is found to be not the body but something else besides the body, so,

conversely, whenever the specified attributes concur they produce bodily

existence. Yet if the perception of these properties is a matter of intellect,

and the Divinity is also intellectual in nature, there is no incongruity in

supposing that these intellectual occasions for the genesis of bodies have

their existence from the incorporeal nature, the intellectual nature on the

one hand giving being to the intellectual potentialities, and the mutual

concurrence of these bringing to its genesis the material nature.

3. Let this discussion, however, be by way of digression: we must direct

our discourse once more to the faith by which we accept the statement that the

universe took being from nothing, and do not doubt, when we are taught by

Scripture, that it will again be transformed into some other state.

XXV. How one even of those who are without may be brought to believe the

Scripture when teaching of the resurrection(5).

1. Some one, perhaps, having regard to the dissolution of bodies, and

judging the Deity by the measure of his own power, asserts that the idea of

the resurrection is impossible, saying that it cannot be that both those

things which are now in motion should become stationary, and those things

which are now without motion should rise again.

2. Let such an one, however, take as the first and greatest evidence of

the truth touching the resurrection the credibility of the herald who

proclaims it. Now the faith of what is said derives its certainty from the

result of the other predictions: for as the Divine Scripture delivers

statements many and various, it is possible by examining how the rest of the

utterances stand in the matter of falsehood and truth to survey also, in the

light of them, the doctrine concerning the resurrection. For if in the other

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matters the statements are found to be false and to have failed of true

fulfilment, neither is this out of the region of falsehood; but if all the

others have experience to vouch for their truth, it would seem logical to

esteem as true on their account, the prediction concerning the resurrection

also. Let us therefore recall one or two of the predictions that have been

made and compare the result with what was foretold, so that we may know by

means of them whether the idea has a truthful aspect.

3. Who knows not how the people of Israel flourished of old, raised up

against all the powers of the world; what were the palaces in the city of

Jerusalem, what the walls, the towers, the majestic structure of the Temple?

things that seemed worthy of admiration even to the disciples of the Lord, so

that they asked the Lord to take notice of them, in their disposition to

marvel, as the Gospel history shows us, saying, "What works, and what

buildings(6)!" But He indicates to those who wondered at its present state the

future desolation of the place and the disappearance of that beauty, saying

that after a little while nothing of what they saw should be left. And, again,

at the time of His Passion, the women followed, bewailing the unjust sentence

against Him,--for they could not yet see into the dispensation of what was

being done:--but He bids them be silent as to what is befalling Him, for it

does not demand their tears, but to reserve their wailing and lamentation for

the true time for tears, when the city should be compassed by besiegers, and

their sufferings reach so great a strait that they should deem him happy who

had not been born: and herein He foretold also the horrid deed of her who

devoured her child, when He said that in those days the womb should be

accounted blest that never bare(7). Where then are those palaces? where is the

Temple? where are the walls? where are the defences of the towers? where is

the power of the Israelites? were not they scattered in different quarters

over almost the whole world? and in their overthrow the palaces also were

brought to ruin.

4. Now it seems to me that the Lord foretold these things and others like

them not for the sake of the matters themselves--for what great advantage to

the hearers, at any rate, was the prediction of what was about to happen? they

would have known by experience, even if they had not previously learnt what

would come;--but in order that by these means faith on their part might follow

concerning more important matters: for the testimony of facts in the former

cases is also a proof of truth in the latter.

5. For just as though, if a husbandman were explaining the virtue of

seeds, it were to happen that some person inexperienced in husbandry should

disbelieve him, it would be sufficient as proof of his statement for the

agriculturist to show him the virtue existing in one seed of those in the

bushel and make it a pledge of the rest--for he who should see the single

grain of wheat or barley, or whatever might chance to be the contents of the

bushel, grow into an ear after being cast into the ground, would by the means

of the one cease also to disbelieve concerning the others--so the truthfulness

which confessedly belongs to the other statements seems to me to be sufficient

also for evidence of the mystery of the resurrection.

6. Still more, however, is this the case with the experience of actual

resurrection which we have learnt not so much by words as by actual facts: for

as the marvel of resurrection was great and passing belief, He begins

gradually by inferior instances of His miraculous power, and

7. For as a mother who nurses her babe with due care for a time supplies

milk by her breast to its mouth while still tender and soft; and when it

begins to grow and to have teeth she gives it bread, not hard or such as it

cannot chew, so that the tender and unpractised gums may not be chafed by

rough food; but softening it with her own teeth, she makes it suitable and

convenient for the powers of the eater; and then as its power increases by

growth she gradually leads on the babe, accustomed to tender food, to more

solid nourishment; so the Lord, nourishing and fostering with miracles the

weakness of the human mind, like some babe not fully grown, makes first of all

a prelude of the power of the resurrection in the case of a desperate

disease, which prelude, though it was great in its achievement, yet was not

such a thing that the statement of it would be disbelieved: for by "rebuking

the fever." which was fiercely consuming Simon's wife's mother, He produced so

great a removal of the evil as to enable her who was already expected to be

near death, to "minister(8)" to those present.

8. Next He makes a slight addition to the power, and when the nobleman's

son lies in acknowledged danger of death (for so the history tells us, that he

was about to die, as his father cried, "come down, ere my child die(9)"), He

again brings about the resurrection of one who was believed about to die;

accomplishing the miracle with a greater act of power in that He did not even

approach the place, but sent life from afar off by the force of His command.

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9. Once more in what follows He ascends to higher wonders. For having set

out on His way to the ruler of the synagogue's daughter, he voluntarily made a

halt in His way, while making public the secret cure of the woman with an

issue of blood, that in this time death might overcome the sick. When, then,

the soul had just been parted from the body, and those who were wailing over

the sorrow were making a tumult with their mournful cries, He raises the

damsel to life again, as if from sleep, by His word of command, leading on

human weakness, by a sort of path and sequence, to greater things.

10. Still in addition to these acts He exceeds them in wonder, and by a

more exalted act of power prepares for men the way of faith in the

resurrection. The Scripture tells us of a city called Nain in Judaea: a widow

there had an only child, no longer a child in the sense of being among boys,

but already passing from childhood to man's estate: the narrative calls him "a

young man." The story conveys much in few words: the very recital is a real

lamentation: the dead man's mother, it says, "was a widow." See you the weight

of her misfortune, how the text briefly sets out the tragedy of her suffering

? for what does the phrase mean? that she had no more hope of bearing sons, to

cure the loss she had just sustained in him who had departed; for the woman

was a widow: she had not in her power to look to another instead of to him who

was gone; for he was her only child; and how great a grief is here expressed

any one may easily see who is not an utter stranger to natural feeling. Him

alone she had known in travail him alone she had nursed at her breast; he

alone made her table cheerful, he alone was the cause of brightness in her

home, in play, in work, in learning, in gaiety, at processions, at sports, at

gatherings of youth; he alone was all that is sweet and precious in a mother's

eyes. Now at the age of marriage, he was the stock of her race, the shoot of

its succession, the staff of her old age. Moreover, even the additional detail

of his time of life is another lament: for he who speaks of him as "a young

man" tells of the flower of his faded beauty, speaks of him as just covering

his face with down, not yet with a full thick beard, but still bright with the

beauty of his cheeks. What then, think you, were his mother's sorrows for him?

how would her heart be consumed as it were with a flame; how bitterly would

she prolong her lament over him, embracing the corpse as it lay before her,

lengthening out her mourning for him as far as possible, so as not to hasten

the funeral of the dead, but to have her fill of sorrow! Nor does the

narrative pass this by: for Jesus "when He saw her," it says, "had

compassion"; "and He came and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood

still;" and He said to the dead, "Young man, I say unto thee, arise(1)" "and

He delivered him to his mother alive. Observe that no short time had

intervened since the dead man had entered upon that state, he was all but laid

in the tomb; the miracle wrought by the Lord is greater, though the command is

the same.

11. His miraculous power proceeds to a still more exalted act, that its

display may more closely approach that miracle of the resurrection which men

doubt. One of the Lord's companions and friends is ill (Lazarus is the sick

man's name); and the Lord deprecates any visiting of His friend, though far

away from the sick man, that in the absence of the Life, death might find

room and power to do his own work by the agency of disease. The Lord informs

His disciples in Galilee of what has befallen Lazarus, and also of his own

setting out to him to raise him up when laid low. They, however, were

exceedingly afraid on account of the fury of the Jews, thinking it a difficult

and dangerous matter to turn again towards Judaea, in the midst of those who

sought to slay Him: and thus, lingering and delaying, they return slowly from

Galilee: but they do return, for His command prevailed, and the disciples were

led by the Lord to be initiated at Bethany in the preliminary mysteries of the

general resurrection. Four days had already passed since the event; all due

rites had been performed for the departed; the body was hidden in the tomb: it

was probably already swollen and beginning to dissolve into corruption, as the

body mouldered in the dank earth and necessarily decayed: the thing was one

to turn from, as the dissolved body under the constraint of nature changed to

offensiveness(2). At this point the doubted fact of the general resurrection

is brought to proof by a more manifest miracle; for one is not raised from

severe sickness, nor brought back to life when at the last breath--nor is a

child just dead brought to life, nor a young man about to be conveyed to the

tomb released from his bier; but a man past the prime of life, a corpse,

decaying, swollen, yea already in a state of dissolution, so that even his own

kinsfolk could not suffer that the Lord should draw near the tomb by reason of

the offensiveness of the decayed body there enclosed, brought into life by a

single call, confirms the proclamation of the resurrection, that is to say,

that expectation of it as universal, which we learn by a par-

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ticular experience to entertain. For as in the regeneration of the universe

the Apostle tells us that "the Lord Himself will descend with a shout, with

the voice of the archangel(3)," and by a trumpet sound raise up the dead to

incorruption--so now too he who is in the tomb, at the voice of command,

shakes off death as if it were a sleep, and ridding himself from the

corruption that had come upon his condition of a corpse, leaps forth from the

tomb whole and sound, not even hindered in his egress by the bonds of the

grave-cloths round his feet and hands.

12. Are these things too small to produce faith in the resurrection of the

dead? or dost thou seek that thy judgment on this point should be confirmed by

yet other proofs? In truth the Lord seems to me not to have spoken in vain to

them of Capernaum, when He said to Himself, as in the person of men, "Ye will

surely say unto me this proverb, 'Physician, heal thyself(4).'" For it behoved

Him, when He had accustomed men to the miracle of the resurrection in other

bodies, to confirm His word in His own humanity. Thou sawest the thing

proclaimed working in others--those who were about to die, the child which had

just ceased to live, the young man at the edge of the grave, the putrefying

corpse, all alike restored by one command to life. Dost thou seek for those

who have come to death by wounds and bloodshed? does any feebleness of

life-giving power hinder the grace in them? Behold Him Whose hands were

pierced with nails: behold Him Whose side was transfixed with a spear; pass

thy fingers through the print of the nails thrust thy hand into the

spear-wound(5); thou canst surely guess how far within it is likely the point

would reach, if thou reckonest the passage inwards by the breadth of the

external scar; for the wound that gives admission to a man's hand, shows to

what depth within the iron entered. If He then has been raised, well may we

utter the Apostle's exclamation, "How say some that there is no resurrection

of the dead(6)?"

13. Since, then, every prediction of the Lord is shown to be true by the

testimony of events, while we not only have learnt this by His words, but also

received the proof of the promise in deed, from those very persons who

returned to life by resurrection, what occasion is left to those who

disbelieve? Shall we not bid farewell to those who pervert our simple faith by

"philosophy and vain deceit(7)," and hold fast to our confession in its

purity, learning briefly through the prophet the mode of the grace, by his

words, "Thou shalt take away their breath and they shall fail, and turn to

their dust. Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created, and

Thou shalt renew the face of the earth(8);" at which time also he says that

the Lord rejoices in His works, sinners having perished from the earth: for

how shall any one be called by the name of sin, when sin itself exists no

longer?

XXVI. That the resurrection is not beyond probability(9).

1. There are, however, some who, owing to the feebleness of human

reasoning, judging the Divine power by the compass of our own, maintain that

what is beyond our capacity is not possible even to God. They point to the

disappearance of the dead of old time, and to the remains of those who have

been reduced to ashes by fire; and further, besides these, they bring forward

in idea the carnivorous beasts, and the fish that receives in its own body the

flesh of the shipwrecked sailor, while this again in turn becomes food for

men, and passes by digestion into the bulk of him who eats it: and they

rehearse many such trivialities, unworthy of God's great power and authority,

for the overthrow of the doctrine, arguing as though God were not able to

restore to man his own, by return(1) through the same ways.

2. But we briefly cut short their long circuits of logical folly by

acknowledging that dissolution of the body into its component parts does take

place, and not only does earth, according to the Divine word, return to earth,

but air and moisture also revert to the kindred element, and there takes place

a return of each of our components to that nature to which it is allied; and

although the human body be dispersed among carnivorous birds, or among the

most savage beasts by becoming their food, and although it pass beneath the

teeth of fish, and although it be changed by fire into vapour and dust,

wheresoever one may in argument suppose the man to be removed, he surely

remains in the world; and the world, the voice of inspiration tells us, is

held by the hand of God. If thou, then, art not ignorant of any of the things

in thy hand, dost thou deem the knowledge of God to be feebler than thine own

power, that it should fail to discover the most minute of the things that are

within the compass of the Divine span?

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XXVII. That it is possible, when the human body is dissolved into the elements

of the universe, that each should have his own body restored from the common

source(2).

1. Yet it may be thou thinkest, having regard to the elements of the

universe, that it is a hard thing when the air in us has been resolved into

its kindred element, and the warmth, and moisture, and the earthy nature have

likewise been mingled with their own kind, that from the common source there

should return to the individual what belongs to itself.

2. Dost thou not then judge by human examples that even this does not

surpass the limits of the Divine power? Thou hast seen surely somewhere among

the habitations of men a common herd of some kind of animals collected from

every quarter: yet when it is again divided among its owners, acquaintance

with their homes and the marks put upon the cattle serve to restore to each

his own. If thou conceivest of thyself also something like to this thou wilt

not be far from the right way: for as the soul is disposed to cling to and

long for the body that has been wedded to it, there also attaches to it in

secret a certain close relationship and power of recognition, in virtue of

their commixture, as though some marks had been imprinted by nature, by the

aid of which the community remains unconfused, separated by the distinctive

signs. Now as the soul attracts again to itself that which is its own and

properly belongs to it, what labour, I pray you, that is involved for the

Divine power, could be a hindrance to concourse of kindred things when they

are urged to their own place by the unspeakable attraction of nature, whatever

it may be? For that some signs of our compound nature remain in the soul even

after dissolution is shown by the dialogue in Hades(3), where the bodies had

been conveyed to the tomb, but some bodily token still remained in the souls

by which both Lazarus was recognized and the rich man was not unknown.

3. There is therefore nothing beyond probability in believing that in the

bodies that rise again there will be a return from the common stock to the

individual, especially for any one who examines our nature with careful

attention. For neither does our being consist altogether in flux and

change--for surely that which had by nature no stability would be absolutely

incomprehensible--but according to the more accurate statement some one of our

constituent parts is stationary while the rest goes through a process of

alteration: for the body is on the one hand altered by way of growth and

diminution, changing, like garments, the vesture of its successive statures,

while the form, on the other hand, remains in itself unaltered through every

change, not varying from the marks once imposed upon it by nature, but

appearing with its own tokens of identity in all the changes which the body

undergoes.

4. We must except, however, from this statement the change which happens

to the form as the result of disease: for the deformity of sickness takes

possession of the form like some strange mask, and when this is removed by the

word(4), as in the case of Naaman the Syrian, or of those whose story is

recorded in the Gospel, the form that had been hidden by disease is once more

by means of health restored to sight again with its own marks of identity.

5. Now to the element of our soul which is in the likeness of God it is

not that which is subject to flux and change by way of alteration, but this

stable and unalterable element in our composition that is allied: and since

various differences of combination produce varieties of forms (and combination

is nothing else than the mixture of the elements--by elements we mean those

which furnish the substratum for the making of the universe, of which the

human body also is composed), while the form necessarily remains in the soul

as in the impression of a seal, those things which have received from the seal

the impression of its stamp do not fail to be recognized by the soul, but at

the time of the World-Reformation, it receives back to itself all those things

which correspond to the stamp of the form: and surely all those things would

so correspond which in the beginning were stamped by the form; thus it is not

beyond probability that what properly belongs to the individual should once

more return to it from the common source(5).

6. It is said also that quicksilver, if poured out from the vessel that

contains it down a dusty slope, forms small globules and scatters itself over

the ground, mingling with none of those bodies with which it meets: but if one

should collect at one place the substance dispersed in many directions, it

flows back to its kindred substance, if not hindered by anything intervening

from mixing with its own kind. Something of the same sort, I think, we ought

to understand also of the composite nature of

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man, that if only the power were given it of God, the proper parts would

spontaneously unite with those belonging to them, without any obstruction on

their account arising to Him Who reforms their nature.

7. Furthermore, in the case of plants that grow from the ground, we do not

observe any labour on the part of nature spent on the wheat or millet or any

other seed of grain or pulse, in changing it into stalk or spike or ears; for

the proper nourishment passes spontaneously, without trouble, from the common

source to the individuality of each of the seeds. If, then, while the moisture

supplied to all the plants is common, each of those plants which is nourished

by it draws the due supply for its own growth, what new thing is it if in the

doctrine of the resurrection also, as in the case of the seeds, it happens

that there is an attraction on the part of each of those who rise, of what

belongs to himself?

8. So that we may learn on all hands, that the preaching of the

resurrection contains nothing beyond those facts which are known to us

experimentally.

9. And yet we have said nothing of the most notable point concerning

ourselves; I mean the first beginning of our existence. Who knows not the

miracle of nature, what the maternal womb receives--what it produces? Thou

seest how that which is implanted in the womb to be the beginning of the

formation of the body is in a manner simple and homogeneous: but what langUage

can express the variety of the composite body that is framed? and who, if he

did not learn such a thing in nature generally, would think that to be

possible which does take place--that that small thing of no account is the

beginning of a thing so great? Great, I say, not only with regard to the

bodily formation, but to what is more marvellous than this, I mean the soul

itself, and the attributes we behold in it.

XXVIII. To those who say that souls existed before bodies, or that bodies were

formed before souls; wherein there is also a refutation of the fables

concerning transmigration of souls(6).

1. For it is perhaps not beyond our present subject to discuss the

question which has been raised in the churches touching soul and body. Some of

those before our time who have dealt with the question of "principles" think

it right to say that souls have a previous existence as a people in a society

of their own, and that among them also there are standards of vice and of

virtue, and that the soul there, which abides in goodness, remains without

experience of conjunction with the body; but if it does depart from its

communion with good, it falls down to this lower life, and so comes to be in a

body. Others, on the contrary, marking the order of the making of man as

stated by Moses, say, that the soul second to the body in order of time, since

God first took dust from the earth and formed man, and then animated the being

thus formed by His breath(7): and by this argument they prove that the flesh

is more noble than the soul; that which was previously formed than that which

was afterwards infused into it: for they say that the soul was made for the

body, that the thing formed might not be without breath and motion; and that

everything that is made for something else is surely less precious than that

for which it is made, as the Gospel tells us that "the soul is more than meat

and the body than raiment(8)," because the latter things exist for the sake of

the former--for the soul was not made for meat nor our bodies for raiment, but

when the former things were already in being the latter were provided for

their needs.

2. Since then the doctrine involved in both these theories is open to

criticism--the doctrine alike of those who ascribe to souls a fabulous

pre-existence in a special state, and of those who think they were created at

a later time than the bodies, it is perhaps necessary to leave none of the

statements contained in the doctrines without examination: yet to engage and

wrestle with the doctrines on each side completely, and to reveal all the

absurdities involved in the theories, would need a large expenditure both of

argument and of time; we shall, however, briefly survey as best we can each of

the views mentioned, and then resume our subject.

3. Those who stand by the former doctrine, and assert that the state of

souls is prior to their life in the flesh, do not seem to me to be clear from

the fabulous doctrines of the heathen which they hold on the subject of

successive incorporation: for if one should search carefully, he will find

that their doctrine is of necessity brought down to this. They tell us that

one of their sages said that he, being one and the same person, was born a

man, and afterwards assumed the form of a woman, and flew about with the

birds, and grew as a bush, and obtained the life of an aquatic creature;--and

he who said these things of himself did not, so far as I can judge, go far

from the truth: for such doctrines as this of saying that one soul passed

through so many changes are really fitting for the chatter of frogs or

jackdaws, or the stupidity of fishes, or the insensibility of trees.

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4. And of such absurdity the cause is this--the supposition of the

pre-existence of souls for the first principle of such doctrine leads on the

argument by consequence to the next and adjacent stage, until it astonishes us

by reaching this point. For if the soul, being severed from the more exalted

state by some wickedness after having once, as they say, tasted corporeal

life, again becomes a man, and if the life in the flesh is, as may be

presumed, acknowledged to be, in comparison with the eternal and incorporeal

life, more subject to passion, it naturally follows that that which comes to

be in a life such as to contain more occasions of sin, is both placed in a

region of greater wickedness and rendered more subject to passion than before

(now passion in the human soul is a conformity to the likeness of the

irrational); and that being brought into close connection with this, it

descends to the brute nature: and that when it has once set out on its way

through wickedness, it does not cease its advance towards evil even when found

in an irrational condition: for a halt in evil is the beginning of the impulse

towards virtue, and in irrational creatures virtue does not exist. Thus it

will of necessity be continually changed for the worse, always proceeding to

what is more degraded and always finding out what is worse than the nature in

which it is: and just as the sensible nature is lower than the rational, so

too there is a descent from this to the insensible.

5. Now so far in its course their doctrine, even if it does overstep the

bounds of truth, at all events derives one absurdity from another by a kind

of logical sequence: but from this point onwards their teaching takes the form

of incoherent fable. Strict inference points to the complete destruction of

the soul; for that which has once fallen from the exalted state will be unable

to halt at any measure of wickedness, but will pass by means of its relation

with the passions from rational to irrational, and from the latter state will

be transferred to the insensibility of plants; and on the insensible there

borders, so to say, the inanimate; and on this again follows the non-existent,

so that absolutely by this train of reasoning they will have the soul to pass

into nothing: thus a return once more to the better state is impossible for

it: and yet they make the soul return from a bush to the man: they therefore

prove that the life in a bush is more precious than an incorporeal state(9).

6. It has been shown that the process of deterioration which takes place

in the soul will probably be extended downwards; and lower than the

insensible we find the inanimate, to which, by consequence, the principle of

their doctrine brings the soul: but as they will not have this, they either

exclude the soul from insensibility, or, if they are to bring it back to human

life, they must, as has been said, declare the life of a tree to be preferable

to the original state--if, that is, the fall towards vice took place from the

one, and the return towards virtue takes place from the other.

7. Thus this doctrine of theirs, which maintains that souls have a life by

themselves before their life in the flesh, and that they are by reason of

wickedness bound to their bodies, is shown to have neither beginning nor

conclusion: and as for those who assert that the soul is of later creation

than the body, their absurdity was already demonstrated above(1).

8. The doctrine of both, then, is equally to be rejected; but I think that

we ought to direct our own doctrine in the way of truth between these

theories: and this doctrine is that we are not to suppose, according to the

error of the heathen that the souls that revolve with the motion of the

universe weighed down by some wickedness, fall to earth by inability to keep

up with the swiftness of the motion of the spheres.

XXIX. A establishment of the doctrine that the cause of the existence of soul

and body is one and the same.(2)

1. Nor again are we in our doctrine to begin by making up man like a clay

figure, and to say that the soul came into being for the sake of this; for

surely in that case the intellectual nature would be shown to be less precious

than the clay figure. But as man is one, the being consisting of soul and

body, we are to suppose that the beginning of his existence is one, common to

both parts, so that he should not be found to be antecedent and posterior to

himself, if the bodily element were first in point of time, and the other were

a later addition; but we are to say that in the power of God's foreknowledge

(according to the doctrine laid down a little earlier in our discourse), all

the fulness of human nature had pre-existence (and to this the prophetic

writing bears witness, which says that God "knoweth all things before they

be(3)"), and in the creation of individuals not to place the one element

before the other, neither the soul before the

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body, nor the contrary, that man may. not be at strife against himself, by

being divided by the difference in point of time.

2. For as our nature is conceived as twofold, according to the apostolic

teaching, made up of the visible man and the hidden man, if the one came first

and the other supervened, the power of Him that made us will be shown to be in

some way imperfect, as not being completely sufficient for the whole task at

once, but dividing the work, and busying itself with each of the halves in

turn.

3. But just as we say that in wheat, or in any other grain, the whole form

of the plant is potentially included--the leaves, the stalk, the joints, the

grain, the beard--and do not say in our account of its nature that any of

these things has pre-existence, or comes into being before the others, but

that the power abiding in the seed is manifested in a certain natural order,

not by any means that another nature is infused into it--in the same way we

suppose the human germ to possess the potentiality of its nature, sown with it

at the first start of its existence, and that it is unfolded and manifested by

a natural sequence as it proceeds to its perfect state, not employing anything

external to itself as a stepping-stone to perfection, but itself advancing its

own self in due course to the perfect state; so that it is not true to say

either that the soul exists before the body, or that the body exists without

the soul, but that there is one beginning of both, which according to the

heavenly view was laid as their foundation in the original will of God;

according to the other, came into existence on the occasion of generation.

4. For as we cannot discern the articulation of the limbs in that which is

implanted for the conception of the body before it begins to take form, so

neither is it possible to perceive in the same the properties of the soul

before they advance to operation; and just as no one would doubt that the

thing so implanted is fashioned into the different varieties of limbs and

interior organs, not by the importation of any other power from without, but

by the power which resides in it transforming(4) it to this manifestation of

energy,--so also we may by like reasoning equally suppose in the case of the

soul that even if it is not visibly recognized by any manifestations of

activity it none the less is there; for even the form of the future man is

there potentially, but is concealed because it is not possible that it should

be made visible before the necessary sequence of events allows it; so also the

soul is there, even though it is not visible, and will be manifested by means

of its own proper and natural operation, as it advances concurrently with the

bodily growth.

5. For since it is not from a dead body that the potentiality for

conception is secreted, but from one which is animate and alive, we hence

affirm that it is reasonable that we should not suppose that what is sent

forth from a living body to be the occasion of life is itself dead and

inanimate; for in the flesh that which is inanimate is surely dead; and the

condition of death arises by the withdrawal of the soul. Would not one

therefore in this case be asserting that withdrawal is antecedent to

possession--if, that is, he should maintain that the inanimate state which is

the condition of death is antecedent to the soul(5)? And if any one should

seek for a still clearer evidence of the life of that particle which becomes

the beginning of the living creature in its formation, it is possible to

obtain an idea on this point from other signs also, by which what is animate

is distinguished from what is dead. For in the case of men we consider it an

evidence of life that one is warm and operative and in motion, but the chill

and motionless state in the case of bodies is nothing else than deadness.

6. Since then we see that of which we are speaking to be warm and

operative, we thereby draw the further inference that it is not inanimate; but

as, in respect of its corporeal part, we do not say that it is flesh, and

bones, and hair, and all that we observe in the human being, but that

potentially it is each of these things, yet does not visibly appear to be so;

so also of the part which belongs to the soul, the elements of rationality,

and desire, and anger, and all the powers of the soul are not yet visible; yet

we assert that they have their place in it, and that the energies of the soul

also grow with the subject in a manner similar to the formation and perfection

of the body.

7. For just as a man when perfectly developed has a specially marked

activity of the soul, so at the beginning of his existence he shows in himself

that co-operation of the soul which is suitable and conformable to his

existing need, in its preparing for itself its proper dwelling-place by means

of the implanted matter; for we do not suppose it possible that the soul is

adapted to a strange building, just as it is not possible that the seal

impressed on wax should be fitted to an engraving that does not agree with it.

8. For as the body proceeds from a very small original to the perfect

state, so also the operation of the soul, growing in correspondence with the

subject, gains and increases with it.

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For at its first formation there comes first of all its power of growth and

nutriment alone, as though it were some root buried in the ground; for the

limited nature of the recipient does not admit of more; then, as the plant

comes forth to the light and shows its shoot to the sun, the gift of

sensibility blossoms in addition, but when at last it is ripened and has grown

up to its proper height, the power of reason begins to shine forth like a

fruit, not appearing in its whole vigour all at once, but by care increasing

with the perfection of the instrument, bearing always as much fruit as the

powers of the subject allow.

9. If, however, thou seekest to trace the operation of the soul in the

formation of the body, "take heed to thyself(6)," as Moses says, and thou wilt

read, as in a book, the history of the works of the soul; for nature itself

expounds to thee, more clearly than any discourse, the varied occupations of

the soul in the body, alike in general and in particular acts of construction.

10. But I deem it superfluous to declare at length in words what is to be

found in ourselves, as though we were expounding some wonder that lay beyond

our boundaries:--who that looks on himself needs words to teach him his own

nature? For it is possible for one who considers the mode of his own life, and

learns how closely concerned the body is in every vital operation, to know in

what the vegetative(7) principle of the soul was occupied on the occasion of

the first formation of that which was beginning its existence; so that hereby

also it is clear to those who have given any attention to the matter, that the

thing which was implanted by separation from the living body for the

production of the living. being was not a thing dead or inanimate m the

laboratory of nature.

11. Moreover we plant in the ground the kernels of fruits, and portions

torn from roots, not deprived by death of the vital power which naturally

resides in them, but preserving in themselves, hidden indeed, yet surely

living, the property of their prototype; the earth that surrounds them does

not implant such a power from without, infusing it from itself (for surely

then even dead wood would proceed to growth), but it makes that manifest which

resides in them, nourishing it by its own moisture, perfecting the plant into

root, and bark, and pith, and shoots of branches, which could not happen were

not a natural power implanted with it, which drawing to itself from its

surroundings its kindred and proper nourishment, becomes a bush, or a tree, or

an ear of grain, or some plant of the class of shrubs.

XXX. A brief examination of the construction of our bodies from a medical

point of view(8).

1. NOW the exact structure of our body each man teaches himself by his

experiences of sight and light and perception, having his own nature to

instruct him; any one too may learn everything accurately who takes up the

researches which those skilled in such matters have worked out in books. And

of these writers some learnt by dissection the position of our individual

organs; others also considered and expounded the reason for the existence of

all the parts of the body; so that the knowledge of the human frame which

hence results is sufficient for students. But if any one further seeks that

the Church should be his teacher on all these points, so that he may not need

for anything the voice of those without (for this is the wont of the spiritual

sheep, as the Lord says, that they hear not a strange voice(9)), we shall

briefly take in hand the account of these matters also.

2. We note concerning our bodily nature three things, for the sake of

which our particular pans were formed. Life is the cause of some, good life of

others, others again are adapted with a view to the succession of descendants.

All things in us which are of such a kind that without them it is not possible

that human life should exist, we consider as being in three parts; in the

brain, the heart, and the liver. Again, all that are a sort of additional

blessings, nature's liberality, whereby she bestows on man the gift of living

well, are the organs of sense; for such things do not constitute our life,

since even where some of them are wanting man is often none the less in a

condition of life; but without these forms of activity it is impossible to

enjoy participation in the pleasures of life. The third aim regards the

future, and the succession of life. There are also certain other organs

besides these, which help, in common with all the others, to subserve the

continuance of life, importing by their own means the proper supplies, as the

stomach and the lungs, the latter fanning by respiration the fire at the

heart, the former introducing the nourishment for the internal organs.

3. Our structure, then, being thus divided, we have carefully to mark that

our faculty for life is not supported in any one way by some single organ, but

nature, while distributing the means for our existence among several parts,

makes the contribution of each individual necessary for the whole; just as the

things which nature contrives for the security and beauty of life are also

numerous, and differ much among themselves.

423

4. We ought, however, I think, first to discuss briefly the first

beginnings of the things which contribute to the constitution of our life. As

for the material of the whole body which serves as a common substratum for the

particular members, it may for the present be left without remark; for a

discussion as to natural substance in general will not be of any assistance to

Our purpose with regard to the consideration of the parts.

5. As it is then acknowledged by all that there is in us a share of all

that we behold as elements in the universe--of heat and cold, and of the other

pair of qualities of moisture and dryness--we must discuss them severally.

6. We see then that the powers which control life are three, of which the

first by its heat produces general warmth, the second by its moisture keeps

damp that which is warmed, so that the living being is kept in an intermediate

condition by the equal balance of the forces exerted by the quality of each of

the opposing natures (the moist element not being dried up by excess of heat,

nor the hot element quenched by the prevalence of moisture); and the third

power by its own agency holds together the separate members in a certain

agreement and harmony, connecting them by the ties which it itself furnishes,

and sending into them all that self-moving and determining force, on the

failure of which the member becomes relaxed and deadened, being left destitute

of the determining spirit.

7. Or rather, before dealing with these, it is right that we should mark

the skilled workmanship of nature in the actual construction of the body. For

as that which is hard and resistent does not admit the action of the senses

(as we may see in the instance of our own bones, and in that of plants in the

ground, where we remark indeed a certain form of life in that they grow and

receive nourishment, yet the resistent character of their substance does not

allow them sensation), for this reason it was necessary that some wax-like

formation, so to say, should be supplied for the action of the senses, with

the faculty of being impressed with the stamp of things capable of striking

them, neither becoming confused by excess of moisture (for the impress would

not remain in moist substance), nor resisting by extraordinary solidity (for

that which is unyielding would not receive any mark from the impressions), but

being in a state between softness and hardness, in order that the living being

might not be destitute of the fairest of all the operations of nature--I mean

the motion of sense.

8. Now as a soft and yielding substance, if it had no assistance from the

hard parts, would certainly have, like molluscs, neither motion nor

articulation, nature accordingly mingles in the body the hardness of the

bones, and uniting these by close connection one to another, and knitting

their joints together by means of the sinews, thus plants around them the

flesh which receives sensations, furnished with a somewhat harder and more

highly-strung surface than it would otherwise have had.

9. While resting, then, the whole weight of the body on this substance of

the bones, as on some columns that carry a mass of building, she did not

implant the bone undivided through the whole structure: for in that case man

would have remained without motion or activity, if he had been so constructed,

just like a tree that stands on one spot without either the alternate motion

of legs to advance its motion or the service of hands to minister to the

conveniences of life: but now we see that she contrived that the instrument

should be rendered capable of walking and working by this device, after she

had implanted in the body, by the determining spirit which extends through the

nerves, the impulse and power for motion. And hence is produced the service of

the hands, so varied and multiform, and answering to every thought. Hence are

produced, as though by some mechanical contrivance, the turnings of the neck,

and the bending and raising of the head, and the action of the chin, and the

separation of the eyelids, that takes place with a thought, and the movements

of the other joints, by the tightening or relaxation of certain nerves. And

the power that extends through these exhibits a sort of independent impulse,

working with the spirit of its will by a sort of natural management, in each

particular part; but the root of all, and the principle of the motions of the

nerves, is found in the nervous tissue that surrounds the brain.

10. We consider, then, that we need not spend more time in inquiring in

which of the vital members such a thing resides, when the energy of motion is

shown to be here. But that the brain contributes to life in a special degree

is shown clearly by the result of the opposite conditions: for if the tissue

surrounding it receives any wound or lesion, death immediately follows the

injury, nature being unable to endure the hurt even for a moment; just as,

when a foundation is withdrawn, the whole building collapses with the part;

and that member, from an injury to which the destruction of the whole living

being clearly follows, may properly be acknowledged to contain the cause of

life.

11. But as furthermore in those who have ceased to live, when the heat

that is implanted in our nature is quenched, that which has become dead grows

cold, we hence recognize the

424

vital cause also in heat: for we must of necessity acknowledge that the living

being subsists by the presence of that, which failing, the condition of death

supervenes. And of such a force we understand the heart to be as it were the

fountain-head and principle, as from it pipe-like passages, growing one from

another in many ramifications, diffuse in the whole body the warm and fiery

spirit.

12. And since some nourishment must needs also be provided by nature for

the element of heat--for it is not possible that the fire should last by

itself, without being nourished by its proper food--therefore the channels of

the blood, issuing from the liver as from a fountainhead, accompany the warm

spirit everywhere in its way throughout the body, that the one may not by

isolation from the other become a disease and destroy the constitution. Let

this instruct those who go beyond the bounds of fairness, as they learn from

nature that covetousness is a disease that breeds destruction.

13. But since the Divinity alone is free from needs, while human poverty

requires external aid for its own subsistence, nature therefore, in addition

to those three powers by which we said that the whole body is regulated,

brings in imported matter from without, introducing by different entrances

that which is suitable to those powers.

14. For to the fount of the blood, which is the liver, she furnishes its

supply by food: for that which from time to time is imported in this way

prepares the springs of blood to issue from the liver, as the snow on the

mountain by its own moisture increases the springs in the low ground, forcing

its own fluid deep down to the veins below.

15. The breath in the heart is supplied by means of the neighbouring

organ, which is called the lungs, and is a receptacle for air, drawing the

breath from without through the windpipe inserted in it, which extends to the

mouth. The heart being placed in the midst of this organ (and itself also

moving incessantly in imitation of the action of the ever-moving fire), draws

to itself, somewhat as the bellows do in the forges, a supply from the

adjacent air, filling its recesses by dilatation, and while it fans its own

fiery element, breathes upon the adjoining tubes; and this it does not cease

to do, drawing the external air into its own recesses by dilatation, and by

compression infusing the air from itself into the tubes.

16. And this seems to me to be the cause of this spontaneous respiration

of ours; for often the mind is occupied in discourse with others, or is

entirely quiescent when the body is relaxed in sleep, but the respiration of

air does not cease, though the will gives no co-operation to this end. Now I

suppose, since the heart is surrounded by the lungs, and in the back part of

its own structure is attached to them, moving that organ by its own

dilatations and compressions, that the inhaling and exhaling(1) of the air is

brought about by the lungs: for as they are a lightly built and porous body,

and have all their recesses opening at the base of the windpipe, when they

contract and are compressed they necessarily force out by pressure the air

that is left in their cavities; and, when they expand and open, draw the air,

by their distention, into the void by suction.

17. This then is the cause of this involuntary respiration--the

impossibility that the fiery element should remain at rest: for as the

operation of motion is proper to heat, and we understand that the principle of

heat is to be found in the heart, the continual motion going on in this organ

produces the incessant inspiration and exhalation of the air through the

lungs: wherefore also when the fiery element is unnaturally augmented, the

breathing of those fevered subjects becomes more rapid, as though the heart

were endeavouring to quench the flame implanted in it by more violent(2)

breathing.

18. But since our nature is poor and in need of supplies for its own

maintenance from all quarters, it not only lacks air of its own, and the

breath which excites heat, which it imports from without for the preservation

of the living being, but the nourishment it finds to fill out the proportions

of the body is an importation. Accordingly, it supplies the deficiency by food

and drink, implanting in the body a certain faculty for appropriating that

which it requires, and rejecting that which is superfluous, and for this

purpose too the fire of the heart gives nature no small assistance.

19. For since, according to the account we have given, the heart which

kindles by its warm breath the individual parts, is the most important of the

vital organs, our Maker caused it to be operative with its efficacious power

at all points, that no part of it might be left ineffectual or unprofitable

for the regulation of the whole organism. Behind, therefore, it enters the

lungs, and, by its continuous motion, drawing that organ to itself, it expands

the passages to inhale the air, and compressing them again it brings about the

exspiration of the imprisoned air; while in front, attached to the space at

the upper extremity of the stomach, it warms it and makes it respond by motion

to its own activity, rousing it, not to inhale air, but to receive its

appropriate food: for the entrances for breath

425

and food are near one another, extending lengthwise one alongside the other,

and are terminated in their upper extremity by the same boundary, so that

their mouths are contiguous and the passages come to an end together in one

mouth, from which the entrance of food is effected through the one, and that

of the breath through the other.

20. Internally, however, the closeness of the connection of the passages

is not maintained throughout; for the heart intervening between the base of

the two, infuses in the one the powers for respiration, and in the other for

nutriment. Now the fiery element is naturally inclined to seek for the

material which serves as fuel, and this necessarily happens with regard to the

receptacle of nourishment; for the more it becomes penetrated by fire through

the neighbouring warmth, the more it draws to itself what nourishes the heat.

And this sort of impulse we call appetite.

21. But if the organ which contains the food should obtain sufficient

material, not even so does the activity of the fire become quiescent: but it

produces a sort of melting of the material just as in a foundry, and,

dissolving the solids, pours them out and transfers them, as it were from a

funnel, to the neighbouring passages: then separating the coarser from the

pure substance, it passes the fine part through certain channels to the

entrance of the liver, and expels the sedimentary matter of the food to the

wider passages of the bowels, and by turning it over in their manifold

windings retains the food for a time in the intestines, lest if it were easily

got rid of by a straight passage it might at once excite the animal again to

appetite, and man, like the race of irrational animals, might never cease from

this sort of occupation.

22. As we saw, however, that the liver has especial need of the

co-operation of heat for the conversion of the fluids into blood, while this

organ is in position distant from the heart (for it would, I imagine, have

been impossible that, being one principle or root of the vital power, it

should not be hampered by vicinity with another such principle), in order that

the system may suffer no injury by the distance at which the heat-giving

substance is placed, a muscular passage (and this, by those skilled in such

matters, is called the artery) receives the heated air from the heart and

conveys it to the liver, making its opening there somewhere beside the point

at which the fluids enter, and, as it warms the moist substance by its heat,

blends with the liquid something akin to fire, and makes the blood appear red

with the fiery tint it produces.

23. Issuing thence again, certain twin channels, each enclosing its own

current like a pipe, disperse air and blood (that the liquid substance may

have free course when accompanied and lightened by the motion of the heated

substance) in divers directions over the whole body, breaking at every part

into countless branching channels; while as the two principles of the vital

powers mingle together (that alike which disperses heat, and that which

supplies moisture to all parts of the body), they make, as it were, a sort of

compulsory contribution from the substance with which they deal to the supreme

force in the vital economy.

24. Now this force is that which is considered as residing in the cerebral

membranes and the brain, from which it comes that every movement of a joint,

every contraction of the muscles, every spontaneous influence that is exerted

upon the individual members, renders our earthen statue active and mobile as

though by some mechanism. For the most pure form of heat and the most subtle

form of liquid, being united by their respective forces through a process of

mixture and combination, nourish and sustain by their moisture the brain, and

i hence in turn, being rarefied to the most pure condition, the exhalation

that proceeds from that organ anoints the membrane which encloses the brain,

which, reaching from above downwards like a pipe, extending through the

successive vertebrae, is (itself and the marrow which is contained in it)

conterminous with the base of the spine, itself giving like a charioteer the

impulse and power to all the meeting-points of bones and joints, and to the

branches of the muscles, for the motion or rest of the particular parts.

25. For this cause too it seems to me that it has been granted a more

secure defence, being distinguished, in the head, by a double shelter of bones

round about, and in the vertebrae of the neck by the bulwarks formed by the

projections of the spine as well as by the diversified interlacings of the

very form of those vertebrae, by which it is kept in freedom from all harm,

enjoying safety by the defence that surrounds it.

26. So too one might suppose of the heart, that it is itself like some

safe house fitted with the most solid defences, fortified by the enclosing

walls of the bones round about; for in rear there is the spine, strengthened

on either side by the shoulder-blades, and on each flank the enfolding

position of the ribs makes that which is in the midst between them difficult

to injure; while in front the breast-bone and the juncture of the collar-bone

serve as a defence, that its safety may be guarded at all points from external

causes of danger.

27. As we see in husbandry, when the rain fall from the clouds or the

overflow from the river channels causes the land beneath it to be saturated

with moisture (let us suppose for

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our argument a garden, nourishing within its own compass countless varieties

of trees, and all the forms of plants that grow from the ground, and whereof

we contemplate the figure, quality, and individuality in great variety of

detail); then, as these are nourished by the liquid element while they are in

one spot, the power which supplies moisture to each individual among them is

one in nature; but the individuality of the plants so nourished changes the

liquid element into different qualities; for the same substance becomes bitter

in wormwood, and is changed into a deadly juice in hemlock, and becomes

different in different other plants, in saffron, in balsam, in the poppy: for

in one it becomes hot, in another cold, in another it obtains the middle

quality: and in laurel and mastick it is scented, and in the fig and the pear

it is sweetened, and by passing through the vine it is turned into the grape

and into wine; while the juice of the apple, the redness of the rose, the

radiance of the lily, the blue of the violet, the purple of the hyacinthine

dye, and all that we behold in the earth, arise from one and the same

moisture, and are separated into so many varieties in respect of figure and

aspect and quality; the same sort of wonder is wrought in the animated soil of

our being by Nature, or rather by Nature's Lord. Bones, cartilages, veins,

arteries, nerves, ligatures, flesh, skin, fat, hair, glands, nails, eyes,

nostrils; ears,--all such things as these, and countless others in addition,

while separated from one another by various peculiarities, are nourished by

the one form of nourishment in ways proper to their own nature, in the sense

that the nourishment, when it is brought into close relation with any of the

subjects, is also changed according to that to which it approaches, and

becomes adapted and allied to the special nature of the part. For if it should

be in the neighbourhood of the eye, it blends with the visual part and is

appropriately distributed by the difference of the coats round the eye, among

the single parts; or, if it flow to the auditory parts, it is mingled with the

auscultatory nature, or if it is in the lip, it becomes lip; and it grows

solid in bone, and grows soft in marrow, and is made tense with the sinew, and

extended with the surface, and passes into the nails, and is fined down for

the growth of the hair, by correspondent exhalations, producing hair that is

somewhat curly or wavy if it makes its way through winding passages, while, if

the course of the exhalations that go to form the hair lies straight, it

renders the hair stiff and straight.

28. Our argument, however, has wandered far from its purpose, going deep

into the works of nature, and endeavouring to describe how and from what

materials our particular organs are formed, those, I mean, intended for life

and for good life, and any other class which we included with these in our

first division.

29. For our purpose was tO show that the seminal cause of our constitution

is neither a soul without body, nor a body without soul, but that, from

animated and living bodies, it is generated at the first as a living and

animate being, and that our humanity takes it and cherishes it like a nursling

with the resources she herself possesses, and it thus grows on both sides and

makes its growth manifest correspondingly in either part:--for it at once

displays, by this artificial and scientific process of formation, the power of

soul that is interwoven in it, appearing at first somewhat obscurely, but

afterwards increasing in radiance concurrently with the perfecting of the

work.

30. And as we may see with stone-carvers-- for the artist's purpose is to

produce in stone the figure of some animal; and with this in his mind, he

first severs the stone from its kindred matter, and then, by chipping away the

superfluous parts of it, advances somehow by the intermediate step of his

first outline to the imitation which he has in his purpose, so that even an

unskilled observer may, by what he sees, conjecture the aim of his art; again,

by working at it, he brings it more nearly to the semblance of the object he

has in view; lastly, producing in the material the perfect and finished

figure, he brings his art to its conclusion, and that which a little before

was a shapeless stone is a lion, or a man, or whatsoever it may be that the

artist has made, not by the change of the material into the figure, but by the

figure being wrought upon the material. If one supposes the like in the case

of the soul he is not far from probability; for we say that Nature, the

all-contriving, takes from its kindred matter the part that comes from the

man, and moulds her statue within herself. And as the form follows upon the

gradual working of the stone, at first somewhat indistinct, but more perfect

after the completion of the work, so too in the moulding of its instrument the

form of the soul is expressed in the substratum, incompletely in that which is

still incomplete, perfect in that which is perfect; indeed it would have been

perfect from the beginning had our nature not been maimed by evil. Thus our

community in that generation which is subject to passion and of animal nature,

brings it about that the Divine image does not at once shine forth at our

formation, but brings man to perfection by a certain method and sequence,

through those attributes of the soul which are material, and belong rather to

the animal creation.

31. Some such doctrine as this the great apostle also teaches us in his

Epistle to the

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Corinthians, when he says, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I

understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put

away childish things(3)"; not that the soul which arises in the man is

different from that which we know to be in the boy, and the childish intellect

fails while the manly intellect takes its being in us; but that the same soul

displays its imperfect condition in the one, its perfect state in the other.

32. For we say that those things are alive which spring up and grow, and

no one would deny that all things that participate in life and natural motion

are animate, yet at the same time one cannot say that such life partakes of a

perfect soul,--for though a certain animate operation exists in plants, it

does not attain to the motions of sense; and on the other hand, though a

certain further animate power exists in the brutes, neither does this attain

perfection, since it does not contain in itself the grace of reason and

intelligence.

33. And even so we say that the true and perfect soul is the human soul,

recognized by every operation; and anything else that shares in life we call

animate by a sort of customary misuse of language, because in these cases the

soul does not exist in a perfect condition, but only certain parts of the

operation of the soul, which in man also (according to Moses' mystical account

of man's origin) we learn to have accrued when he made himself like this

sensuous world. Thus Paul, advising those who were able to hear him to lay

hold on perfection, indicates also the mode in which they may attain that

object, telling them that they must "put off the old man," and put on the man

"which is renewed after the image of Him that created him 4."

34. Now may we all return to that Divine grace in which God at the first

created man, when He said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness"; to

Whom be glory and might for ever and ever. Amen.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION

ARGUMENT

THE mind, in times of bereavement, craves a certainty gained by reasoning

as to the existence of the soul after death.

First, then: Virtue will be impossible, if deprived of the life of

eternity, her only advantage.

But this is a moral argument. The case calls for speculative and

scientific treatment.

How is the objection that the nature of the soul, as of real things, is

material, to be met?

Thus; the truth of this doctrine would involve the truth of Atheism;

whereas Atheism is refuted by the fact of the wise order that reigns in the

world. In other words, the spirituality of God cannot be denied: and this

proves the possibility of spiritual or immaterial existence: and therefore,

that of the soul.

But is God, then, the same thing as the soul?

No: but man is "a little world in himself;" and we may with the same right

conclude from this Microcosm to the actual existence of an immaterial soul, as

from the phenomena of the world to the reality of God's existence.

A Definition of the soul is then given, for the sake of clearness in the

succeeding discussion. It is a created, living, intellectual being, with the

power, as long as it is provided with organs, of sensuous perception. For "the

mind sees," not the eye; take, for instance, the meaning of the phases of the

moon. The objection that the "organic machine" of the body produces all

thought is met by the instance of the water-organ. Such machines, if thought

were really an attribute of matter, ought to build themselves spontaneously:

whereas they are a direct proof of an invisible thinking power in man. A work

of Art means mind: there is a thing perceived, and a thing not perceived.

But still, what is this thing not perceived?

If it has no sensible quality whatever--Where is it?

The answer is, that the same question might be asked about the Deity (Whose

existence is not denied).

Then the Mind and the Deity are identical?

Not so: in its substantial existence, as separable from matter, the soul is

like God; but this likeness does not extend to sameness; it resembles God as a

copy the original.

As being "simple and uncompounded" the soul survives the dissolution of

the composite body, whose scattered elements it will continue to accompany, as

if watching over its property till the Resurrection, when it will clothe

itself in them anew.

The soul was defined "an intellectual being." But anger and desire are not

of the body either. Are there, then, two or three souls?--Answer. Anger and

desire do not belong to the essence of the soul, but are only among its

varying states; they are not originally part of ourselves, and we can and must

rid ourselves of them, and bring them, as long as they continue to mark our

community with the brute creation, into the service of the good. They are the

"tares" of the heart, while they serve any other purpose.

But where will the soul "accompany its elements"?--Hades is not a

particular spot; it means the Invisible; those passages in the Bible in which

the regions under the earth are alluded to are explained as allegorical,

although the partizans of the opposite interpretation need not be combated.

But how will the soul know the scattered elements of the once familiar

form? This is answered by two illustrations (not analogies). The skill of the

painter, the force that has united numerous colours to form a single tint,

will, if (by some miracle) that actual tint was to fall back into those

various colours, be cognizant of each one of these last, e. g. the tone and

size of the

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drop of gold, of red, &c.; and could at will recombine them. The owner of a

cup of clay would know its fragments (by their shape) amidst a mass of

fragments of clay vessels of other shapes, or even if they were plunged again

into their native clay. So the soul knows its elements amidst their "kindred

dust"; or when each one has flitted back to its own primeval source on the

confines of the Universe.

But how does this harmonize with the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus?

The bodies of both were in the grave: and so all that is said of them is

in a spiritual sense. But the soul can suffer still, being cognizant, not only

of the elements of the whole body, but of those that formed each member, e. g.

the tongue. By the relations of the Rich Man are meant the impressions made on

his soul by the things of flesh and blood.

But if we must have no emotions in the next world, how shall there be

virtue, and how shall there be love of God? For anger, we saw, contributed to

the one, desire to the other.

We shall be like God so far that we shall always contemplate the

Beautiful in Him. Now, God, in contemplating Himself, has no desire and hope,

no regret and memory. The moment of fruition is always present, and so His

Love is perfect, without the need of any emotion. So will it be with us. God

draws "that which belongs to Him" to this blessed passionlessness; and in this

very drawing consists the torment of a passion-laden soul. Severe and

long-continued pains in eternity are thus decreed to sinners, not because God

hates them, nor for the sake alone of punishing them; but "because what

belongs to God must at any cost be preserved for Him." The degree of pain

which must be endured by each one is necessarily proportioned to the measure

of the wickedness.

God will thus be "all in all"; yet the loved one's form will then be

woven, though into a more ethereal texture, of the same elements as before.

(This is not Nirvana.)

Here the doctrine of the Resurrection is touched. The Christian

Resurrection and that of the heathen philosophies coincide in that the soul is

reclothed from some elements of the Universe. But there are fatal objections

to the latter under its two forms

Transmigration pure and simple;

The Platonic Soul-rotation.

The first--1. Obliterates the distinction between the mineral or vegetable,

and the spiritual, world.

2. Makes it a sin to eat and drink.

Both--3. Confuse the moral choice.

4. Make heaven the cradle of vice, and earth of virtue.

5. Contradict the truth that they assume, that there is no change

in heaven.

6. Attribute every birth to a vice, and therefore are either

Atheist or Manichaean.

7. Make a life a chapter of accidents.

8. Contradict facts of moral character. God is the cause of our

life, both in body and soul. But when and how does the soul come into

existence? The how we can never know.

There are objections to seeking the material for any created thing either

in God, or outside God. But we may regard the whole Creation as the realized

thoughts of God. (Anticipation of Malebranche.)

The when may be determined. Objections to the existence of soul before

body have been given above. But soul is necessary to life, and the embryo

lives.

Therefore soul is not born after body. So body and soul are born together.

As to the number of souls, Humanity itself is a thought of God not yet

completed, as these continual additions prove. When it is completed, this

"progress of Humanity" will cease, by there being no more births: and no

births, no deaths.

Before answering objections to the Scriptural doctrine of the

Resurrection, the passages that contain it are mentioned: especially Psalm

cxviii. 27 (LXX.).

The various objections to it, to the Purgatory to follow, and to the

Judgment, are then stated; especially that

A man is not the same being (physically) two days together. Which phase of

him, then, is to rise again, be tortured (if need be), and judged?

They are all answered by a Definition of the Resurrection, i.e. the

restoration of man to his original state. In that, there is neither age nor

infancy; and the "coats of skins" are laid aside. When the process of

purification has been completed, the better attributes of the soul

appear--imperishability, life, honour, grace, glory, power, and, in short, all

that belongs to human nature as the image of Deity.

ON THE SOUL AND THE RESURRECTION

BASIL, great amongst the saints, had departed from this life to God; and

the impulse to mourn for him was shared by all the churches. But his sister

the Teacher was still living; and so I journeyed to her(1), yearning for an

interchange of sympathy over the loss of her brother. My soul was fight

sorrow-stricken by this grievous blow, and I sought for one who could feel it

equally, to mingle my tears with. But when we were in each other's presence

the sight of the Teacher awakened all my pain; for she too was lying in a

state of prostration even unto death. Well, she gave in to me for a little

while, like a skilful driver, in the ungovernable violence of my grief; and

then she tried to cheek me by speaking, and to correct with the curb of her

reasonings the disorder of my soul. She quoted the Apostle's words about the

duty of not being "grieved for them that sleep" because only "men without

hope" have such feelings. With a heart still fermenting with my pain, I

asked--

(2)How can that ever be practised by mankind?

There is such an instinctive and deep-seated abhorrence of death in all! Those

who look on a death-bed can hardly bear the sight; and those whom death

approaches recoil from him all they can. Why, even the law that controls us

puts death highest on the list of crimes, and highest on the list of

punishments. By what device, then, can we bring ourselves to regard as nothing

a departure from life even in the case of a stranger, not to mention that of

relations, when so be they cease to live? We see before us the whole course of

human life aiming at this one thing, viz. how we may continue in this life;

indeed it is for this that houses have been invented by us to live in; in

order that our bodies may not be prostrated in their environments by cold or

heat. Agriculture, again, what is it but the providing of our sustenance? In

fact all thought about how we are to go on living is occasioned by the fear of

dying. Why is medicine so honoured amongst men? Because it is thought to carry

on the combat with death to a certain extent by its methods. Why do we have

corslets, and long shields, and greaves, and helmets, and all the defensive

armour, and inclosures of fortifications, and ironbarred gates, except that we

fear to die? Death then being naturally so terrible to us, how can it be easy

for a survivor to obey this command to remain unmoved over friends departed?

Why, what is the especial pain you feel, asked the Teacher, in the mere

necessity itself of dying? This common talk of unthinking persons is no

sufficient accusation.

What! is there no occasion for grieving, I replied to her, when we see one

who so lately lived and spoke becoming all of a sudden lifeless and

motionless, with the sense of every bodily organ extinct, with no sight or

hearing in operation, or any other faculty of apprehension that sense

possesses; and if you apply

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fire or steel to him, even if you were to plunge a sword into the body, or

cast it to the beasts of prey, or if you bury it beneath a mound, that dead

man is alike unmoved at any treatment? Seeing, then, that this change is

observed in all these ways, and that principle of life, whatever it might be,

disappears all at once out of sight, as the flame of an extinguished lamp

which burnt on it the moment before neither remains upon the wick nor passes

to some other place, but completely disappears, how can such a change be borne

without emotion by one who has no clear ground to rest upon? We hear the

departure of the spirit, we see the shell that is left; but of the part that

has been separated we are ignorant, both as to its nature, and as to the place

whither it has fled; for neither earth, nor air, nor water, nor any other

element can show as residing within itself this force that has left the body,

at whose withdrawal a corpse only remains, ready for dissolution.

Whilst I was thus enlarging on the subject, the Teacher signed to me with

her hand(4), and said: Surely what alarms and disturbs your mind is not the

thought that the soul, instead of lasting for ever, ceases with the body's

dissolution!

I answered rather audaciously, and without due consideration of what I

said, for my passionate grief had not yet given me back my judgment. In fact,

I said that the Divine utterances seemed to me like mere commands compelling

us to believe that the soul lasts for ever; not, however, that we were led by

them to this belief by any reasoning. Our mind within us appears slavishly to

accept the opinion enforced, but not to acquiesce with a spontaneous impulse.

Hence our sorrow over the departed is all the more grievous; we do not exactly

know whether this vivifying principle is anything by itself; where it is, or

how it is; whether, in fact, it exists in any way at all anywhere. This

uncertainty(5) about the real state of the case balances the opinions on

either side; many adopt the one view, many the other; and indeed there are

certain persons, of no small philosophical reputation amongst the Greeks, who

have held and maintained this which I have just said.

Away, she cried, with that pagan nonsense!

For therein the inventor of lies fabricates false theories only to harm the

Truth. Observe this, and nothing else; that such a view about the soul amounts

to nothing less than the abandoning of virtue, and seeking the pleasure of the

moment only; the life of eternity, by which alone virtue claims the advantage,

must be despaired of.

And pray how, I asked, are we to get a firm and unmovable belief in the

soul's continuance? I, too, am sensible of the fact that human life will be

bereft of the most beautiful ornament that life has to give, I mean virtue,

unless an undoubting confidence with regard to this be established within us.

What, indeed, has virtue to stand upon in the case of those persons who

conceive of this present life as the limit of their existence, and hope for

nothing beyond?

Well, replied the Teacher, we must seek where we may get a beginning for

our discussion upon this point; and if you please, let the defence of the

opposing views be undertaken by yourself; for I see that your mind is a little

inclined to accept such a brief. Then, after the conflicting belief has been

stated, we shall be able to look for the truth.

When she made this request, and I had deprecated the suspicion that I was

making the objections in real earnest, instead of only wishing to get a firm

ground for the belief about the soul by calling into court(6) first what is

aimed against this view, I began--

Would not the defenders of the opposite belief say this: that the body,

being composite, must necessarily be resolved into that of which it is

composed? And when the coalition of elements in the body ceases, each of those

elements naturally gravitates towards its kindred element with the

irresistible bias of like to like; the heat in us will thus unite with heat,

the earthy with the solid, and each of the other elements also will pass

towards its like. Where, then, will the soul be after that? If one affirm that

it is in those elements, one will be obliged to admit that it is identical

with them, for this fusion could not possibly take place between two things of

different natures. But this being granted, the soul must necessarily be viewed

as a complex thing, fused as it is with qualities so opposite. But the complex

is not simple, but must be classed with the composite, and the composite is

necessarily dissoluble; and

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dissolution means the destruction of the compound; and the destructible is not

immortal, else the flesh itself, resolvable as it is into its constituent

elements, might so be called immortal. If, on the other hand, the soul is

something other than these elements, where can our reason suggest a place for

it to be, when it is thus, by virtue of its alien nature, not to be discovered

in those elements, and there is no other place in the world, either, where it

may continue, in harmony with its own peculiar character, to exist? But, if a

thing can be found nowhere, plainly it has no existence.

The Teacher sighed gently at these words of mine, and then said; Maybe

these were the objections, or such as these, that the Stoics and Epicureans

collected at Athens made in answer to the Apostle. I hear that Epicurus

carried his theories in this very direction. The framework of things was to

his mind a fortuitous(7) and mechanical affair, without a Providence

penetrating its operations; and, as a piece with this, he thought that human

life was like a bubble, existing only as long as the breath within was held in

by the enveloping substance(8), inasmuch as our body was a mere membrane, as

it were, encompassing a breath; and that on the collapse of the inflation the

imprisoned essence was extinguished. To him the visible was the limit of

existence; he made our senses the only means of our apprehension of things; he

completely dosed the eyes of his soul, and was incapable of seeing anything in

the intelligible and immaterial world, just as a man, who is imprisoned in a

cabin whose walls and roof obstruct the view outside, remains without a

glimpse of all the wonders of the sky. Verily, everything in the universe that

is seen to be an object of sense is as an earthen wall, forming in itself a

barrier between the narrower souls and that intelligible world which is ready

for their contemplation; and it is the earth and water and fire alone that

such behold; whence comes each of these elements, in what and by what they are

encompassed, such souls because of their narrowness cannot detect. While the

sight of a garment suggests to any one the weaver of it, and the thought of

the shipwright comes at the sight of the ship, and the hand of the builder is

brought to the mind of him who sees the building, these little souls gaze upon

the world, but their eyes are blind to Him whom all this that we see around us

makes manifest; and so they propound their clever and pungent doctrines about

the soul's evanishment;--body from elements, and elements from body, and,

besides, the impossibility of the soul's self-existence (if it is not to he

one of these elements, or lodged in one); for if these opponents suppose that

by virtue of the soul not being akin to the elements it is nowhere after

death, they must propound, to begin with, the absence of the soul from the

fleshly life as well, seeing that the body itself is nothing but a concourse

of those elements; and so they must not tell us that the soul is to be found

there either, independently vivifying their compound. If it is not possible

for the soul to exist after death, though the elements do, then, I say,

according to this teaching our life as well is proved to be nothing else but

death. But if on the other hand they do not make the existence of the soul now

in the body a question for doubt, how can they maintain its evanishment when

the body is resolved into its elements? Then, secondly, they must employ an

equal audacity against the God in this Nature too. For how can they assert

that the intelligible and immaterial Unseen can be dissolved and diffused into

the wet and the soft, as also into the hot and the dry, and so hold together

the universe in existence through being, though not of a kindred nature with

the things which it penetrates, yet not thereby incapable of so penetrating

them? Let them, therefore, remove from their system the very Deity Who upholds

the world.

That is the very point, I said, upon which our adversaries cannot fail to

have doubts; viz. that all things depend on God and are encompassed by Him,

or, that there is any divinity at all transcending the physical world.

It would be more fitting, she cried, to be silent about such doubts, and

not to deign to make any answer to such foolish and wicked propositions; for

there is a Divine precept forbidding us to answer a fool in his folly; and he

must be a fool, as the Prophet declares, who says that there is no God. But

since one needs must speak, I will urge upon you an argument which is not mine

nor that of any human being (for it would then be of small value, whosoever

spoke it), but an argument which the whole Creation enunciates by the medium

of its wonders to the audience(9) of the eye, with a

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skilful and artistic utterance that reaches the heart. The Creation proclaims

outright the Creator; for the very heavens, as the Prophet says, declare the

glory of God with their unutterable words. We see the universal harmony in the

wondrous sky and on the wondrous earth; how elements essentially opposed to

each other are all woven together in an ineffable union to serve one common

end, each contributing its particular force to maintain the whole; how the

unmingling and mutually repellent do not fly apart from each other by virtue

of their peculiarities, any more than they are destroyed, when compounded, by

such contrariety; how those elements which are naturally buoyant move

downwards, the heat of the sun, for instance, descending in the rays, while

the bodies which possess weight are lifted by becoming rarefied in vapour, so

that water contrary to its nature ascends, being conveyed through the air to

the upper regions; how too that fire of the firmament so penetrates the earth

that even its abysses feel the heat; how the moisture of the rain infused into

the soil generates, one though it be by nature, myriads of differing germs,

and animates in due proportion each subject of its influence; how very swiftly

the polar sphere revolves, how the orbits within it move the contrary way,

with all the eclipses, and conjunctions, and measured intervals(1) of the

planets. We see all this with the piercing eyes of mind, nor can we fail to be

taught by means of such a spectacle that a Divine power, working with skill

and method, is manifesting itself in this actual world, and, penetrating each

portion, combines those portions with the whole and completes the whole by the

portions, and encompasses the universe with a single all-controlling force,

self-centred and self-contained, never ceasing from its motion, yet never

altering the position which it holds.

And pray how, I asked, does this belief in the existence of God prove

along with it the existence of the human soul? For God, surely, is not the

same thing as the soul, so that, if the one were believed in, the other must

necessarily be believed in.

She replied: It has been said by wise men that man is a little world(2) in

himself and contains all the elements which go to complete the universe. If

this view is a true one (and so it seems), we perhaps shall need no other ally

than it to establish the truth of our conception

of the soul. And our conception of it is this; that it exists, with a rare and

peculiar nature of its own, independently of the body with its gross texture.

We get our exact knowledge of this outer world from the apprehension of our

senses, and these sensational operations themselves lead us on to the

understanding of the super-sensual world of fact and thought, and our eye thus

becomes the interpreter of that almighty wisdom which is visible in the

universe, and points in itself to the Being Who encompasses it. Just so, when

we look to our inner world, we find no slight grounds there also, in the

known, for conjecturing the unknown; and the unknown there also is that which,

being the object of thought and not of sight, eludes the grasp of sense.

I rejoined, Nay, it may be very possible to infer a wisdom transcending

the universe from the skilful and artistic designs observable in this

harmonized fabric of physical nature; but, as regards the soul, what knowledge

is possible to those who would trace, from any indications the body has to

give, the unknown through the known?

Most certainly, the Virgin replied, the soul herself, to those who wish

to follow the wise proverb and know themselves, is a competent(3)

instructress; of the fact, I mean, that she is an immaterial and spiritual

thing, working and moving in a way corresponding to her peculiar nature, and

evincing these peculiar emotions through the organs of the body. For this

bodily organization exists the same even in those who have just been reduced

by death to the state of corpses, but it remains without motion or action

because the force of the soul is no longer in it. It moves only when there is

sensation in the organs, and not only that, but the mental force by means of

that sensation penetrates with its own impulses and moves whither it will all

those organs of sensation.

What then, I asked, is the soul? Perhaps there may be some possible means

of delineating its nature; so that we may have some comprehension of this

subject, in the way of a sketch.

Its definition, the Teacher replied, has been attempted in different ways

by different writers, each according to his own bent; but the following is our

opinion about it. The soul is an essence created, and living, and

intellectual, transmitting from itself to an organized and sentient body the

power of living and of grasping objects of sense, as long as a natural

constitution capable of this holds together.

Saying this she pointed to the physician(4)

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who was sitting to watch her state, and said There is a proof of what I say

close by us. How, I ask, does this man, by putting his fingers to feel the

pulse, hear in a manner, through this sense of touch, Nature calling loudly to

him and telling him of her peculiar pain; in fact, that the disease in the

body is an inflammatory one(5), and that the malady originates in this or that

internal organ; and that there is such and such a degree of fever? How too is

he taught by the agency of the eye other facts of this kind, when he looks to

see the posture of the patient and watches the wasting of the flesh? As, too,

the state of the complexion, pale somewhat and bilious, and the gaze of the

eyes, as is the case with those in pain, involuntarily inclining to sadness,

indicate the internal condition, so the ear gives information of the like,

ascertaining the nature of the malady by the shortness of the breathing and by

the groan that comes with it. One might say that even the sense of smell in

the expert is not incapable of detecting the kind of disorder, but that it

notices the secret suffering of the vitals in the particular quality of the

breath. Could this be so if there were not a certain force of intelligence

present in each organ of the senses? What would our hand have taught us of

itself, without thought conducting it from feeling to understanding the

subject before it? What would the ear, as separate from mind, or the eye or

the nostril or any other organ have helped towards the settling of the

question, all by themselves? Verily, it is most true what one of heathen

culture is recorded to have said, that it is the mind that sees and the mind

that hears(6). Else, if you will not allow this to be true, you must tell me

why, when you look at the sun, as you have been trained by your instructor to

look at him, you assert that he is not in the breadth of his disc of the size

he appears to the many, but that he exceeds by many times the measure of the

entire earth. Do you not confidently maintain that it is so, because you have

arrived by reasoning through phenomena at the conception of such and such a

movement, of such distances of time and space, of such causes of eclipse? And

when you look at the waning and waxing moon you are taught

other truths by the visible figure of that heavenly body, viz. that it is in

itself devoid of light, and that it revolves in the circle nearest to the

earth, and that it is lit by light from the sun; just as is the case with

mirrors, which, receiving the sun upon them, do not reflect rays of their own,

but those of the sun, whose light is given back from their smooth flashing

surface. Those who see this, but do not examine it, think that the light comes

from the moon herself. But that this is not the case is proved by this; that

when she is diametrically facing the sun she has the whole of the disc that

looks our way illuminated; but, as she traverses her own circle of revolution

quicker from moving in a narrower space, she herself has completed this more

than twelve times before the sun has once travelled round his; whence it

happens that her substance is not always covered with light. For her position

facing him is not maintained in the frequency of her revolutions; but, while

this position causes the whole side of the moon which looks to us to be

illumined, directly she moves sideways her hemisphere which is turned to us

necessarily becomes partially shadowed, and only that which is turned to him

meets his embracing rays; the brightness, in fact, keeps on retiring from that

which can no longer see the sun to that which still sees him, until she passes

right across the sun's disc and receives his rays upon her hinder part; and

then the fact of her being in herself totally devoid of light and splendour

causes the side turned to us to be invisible while the further hemisphere is

all in light; and this is called the completion(7) of her waning. But when

again, in her own revolution, she has passed the sun and she is transverse to

his rays, the side which was dark just before begins to shine a little, for

the rays move from the illumined part to that so lately invisible. You see

what the eye does teach; and yet it would never of itself have afforded this

insight, without something that looks through the eyes and uses the data of

the senses as mere guides to penetrate from the apparent to the unseen. It is

needless to add the methods of geometry that lead us step by step through

visible delineations to truths that lie out of sight, and countless other

instances which all prove that apprehension is the work of an intellectual

essence deeply seated in our nature, acting through the operation of our

bodily senses.

But what, I asked, if, insisting on the great

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differences which, in spite of a certain quality of matter shared alike by all

elements in their visible form, exist between each particular kind of matter

(motion, for instance, is not the same in all, some moving up, some down; nor

form, nor quality either), some one were to say that there was in the same

manner incorporated in, and belonging to, these elements a certain force(8) as

well which effects these intellectual insights and operations by a purely

natural effort of their own (such effects, for instance, as we often see

produced by the mechanists, in whose hands matter, combined according to the

rules of Art, thereby imitates Nature, exhibiting resemblance not in figure

alone but even in motion, so that when the piece of mechanism sounds in its

resonant part it mimics a human voice, without, however, our being able to

perceive anywhere any mental force working out the particular figure,

character, sound, and movement); suppose, I say, we were to affirm that all

this was produced as well in the organic machine of our natural bodies,

without any intermixture of a special thinking substance but owing simply to

an inherent motive power of the elements within us accomplishing(9) by itself

these operations--to nothing else, in fact, but an impulsive movement working

for the cognition of the object before us; would not then the fact stand

proved of the absolute nonexistence(1) of that intellectual and impalpable

Being, the soul, which you talk of?

Your instance, she replied, and your reasoning upon it, though belonging

to the counter-argument, may both of them be made allies of our statement, and

will contribute not a little to the confirmation of its truth.

Why, how can you say that?

Because, you see, so to understand, manipulate, and dispose the soulless

matter, that the art which is stored away in such mechanisms becomes almost

like a soul to this material, in all the various ways in which it mocks

movement, and figure, and voice, and so on, may be turned into a proof of

there being something in man whereby he shows an innate fitness to think out

within himself, through the contemplative and inventive faculties, such

thoughts, and having prepared such mechanisms in theory, to put them into

practice by manual skill, and exhibit in matter the product of his mind.

First, for instance, he saw, by dint of thinking, that to produce any sound

there is need of some wind; and then, with a view to produce wind in the

mechanism, he previously ascertained by a course of reasoning and close

observation of the nature of elements, that there is no vacuum at all in the

world, but that the lighter is to be considered a vacuum only by comparison

with the heavier; seeing that the air itself, taken as a separate subsistence,

is crowded quite full. It is by an abuse of language that a jar is said to be

"empty"; for when it is empty of any liquid it is none the less, even in this

state, full, in the eyes of the experienced. A proof of this is that a jar

when put into a pool of water is not immediately filled, but at first floats

on the surface, because the air it contains helps to buoy up its rounded

sides; till at last the hand of the drawer of the water forces it down to the

bottom, and, when there, it takes in water by its neck; during which process

it is shown not to have been empty even before the water came; for there is

the spectacle of a sort of combat going on in the neck between the two

elements, the water being forced by its weight into the interior, and

therefore streaming in; the imprisoned air on the other hand being straitened

for room by the gush of the water along the neck, and so rushing in the

contrary direction; thus the water is checked by the strong current of air,

and gurgles and bubbles against it. Men observed this, and devised in

accordance with this property of the two elements a way of introducing air to

work their mechanism(2). They made a kind of cavity of some hard stuff, and

prevented the air in it from escaping in any direction; and then introduced

water into this cavity through its mouth, apportioning the quantity of water

according to requirement; next they allowed an exit in the opposite direction

to the air, so that it passed into a pipe placed ready to hand, and in so

doing, being violently constrained by the water, became a blast; and this,

playing on the structure of the pipe, produced a note. Is it not clearly

proved by such visible results that there is a mind of some kind in man,

something other than that which is visible, which, by virtue of an invisible

thinking nature of its own, first prepares by inward invention such devices,

and then, when they have been so matured, brings them to the light and

exhibits them in the subservient matter? For if

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it were possible to ascribe such wonders, as the theory of our opponents does,

to the actual constitution of the elements, we should have these mechanisms

building themselves spontaneously; the bronze would not wait for the artist,

to be made into the likeness of a man, but would become such by an innate

force; the air would not require the pipe, to make a note, but would sound

spontaneously by its own fortuitous flux and motion; and the jet of the water

upwards would not be, as it now is the result of an artificial pressure

forcing it to move in an unnatural direction, but the water would rise into

the mechanism of its own accord, finding in that direction a natural channel.

But if none of these results are produced spontaneously by elemental force,

but, on the contrary, each element is employed at will by artifice; and if

artifice is a kind of movement and activity of mind, will not the very

consequences of what has been urged by way of objection show us Mind as

something other than the thing perceived?

That the thing perceived, I replied, is not the same as the thing not

perceived, I grant; but I do not discover any answer to our question in such a

statement; it is not yet dear to me what we are to think that thing

not-perceived to be; all I have been shown by your argument is that it is not

anything material; and I do not yet know the fitting name for it. I wanted

especially to know what it is, not what it is not.

We do learn, she replied, much about many things by this very same method,

inasmuch as, in the very act of saying a thing is "not so and so," we by

implication interpret the very nature of the thing in question(3). For

instance, when we say a "guileless," we indicate a good man; when we say

"unmanly," we have expressed that a man is a coward; and it is possible to

suggest a great many things in like fashion, wherein we either convey the idea

of goodness by the negation of badness(4), or vice versa. Well, then, if one

thinks so with regard to the matter now before us, one will not fail to gain a

proper conception of it. The question is,--What are we to think of Mind in its

very essence? Now granted that the inquirer has had his doubts set at rest as

to the existence of the thing in question, owing to the activities which it

displays to us, and only wants to know what it is, he will have adequately

discovered it by being told that it is not that which our senses perceive,

neither a colour, nor a form, nor a hardness, nor a weight, nor a quantity,

nor a cubic dimension, nor a point, nor anything else perceptible in matter;

supposing, that is,(5) that there does exist a something beyond all these.

Here I interrupted her discourse: If you leave all these out of the

account I do not see how you can possibly avoid cancelling along with them the

very thing which you are in search of. I cannot at present conceive to what,

as apart from these, the perceptive activity is to cling. For on all occasions

in investigating with the scrutinizing intellect the contents of the world, we

must, so far as we put our hand(6) at all on what we are seeking, inevitably

touch, as blind men feeling along the walls for the door, some one of those

things aforesaid; we must come on colour, or form, or quantity, or something

else on your list; and when it comes to saying that the thing is none of them,

our feebleness of mind induces us to suppose that it does not exist at all.

Shame on such absurdity! said she, indignantly interrupting. A fine

conclusion this narrow-minded, grovelling view of the world brings us to! If

all that is not cognizable by sense is to be wiped out of existence, the

all-embracing Power that presides over things is admitted by this same

assertion not to be; once a man has been told about the non-material and

invisible nature of the Deity, he must perforce with such a premise reckon it

as absolutely non-existent. If, on the other hand, the absence of such

characteristics in His case does not constitute any limitation of His

existence, how can the Mind of man be squeezed out of existence along with

this withdrawal one by one of each property of matter?

Well, then, I retorted, we only exchange one paradox for another by

arguing in this way; for our reason will be reduced to the conclusion that the

Deity and the Mind of man are identical, if it be true that neither can be

thought of, except by the withdrawal of alI the data of sense.

Say not so, she replied; to talk so also is blasphemous. Rather, as the

Scripture tells you, say that the one is like the other. For that which is

"made in the image" of the Deity necessarily possesses a likeness to its

prototype in every respect; it resembles it in being intellectual, immaterial,

unconnected

437

with any notion of weight(7), and in eluding any measurement of its

dimensions(8); yet as regards its own peculiar nature it is something

different from that other. Indeed, it would be no longer an "image," if it

were altogether identical with that other; but(9) where we have A in that

uncreate prototype we have a in the image; just as in a minute particle of

glass, when it happens to face the light, the complete disc of the sun is

often to be seen, not represented thereon in proportion to its proper size,

but so far as the minuteness of the particle admits of its being represented

at all. Thus do the reflections of those ineffable qualities of Deity shine

forth within the narrow limits of our nature; and so our reason, following the

leading of these reflections, will not miss grasping the Mind in its essence

by clearing away from the question all corporeal qualities; nor on the other

hand will it bring the pure(1) and infinite Existence to the level of that

which is perishable and little; it will regard this essence of the Mind as an

object of thought only, since it is the "image" of an Existence which is such;

but it will not pronounce this image to be identical with the prototype. Just,

then, as we have no doubts, owing to the display of a Divine mysterious wisdom

in the universe, about a Divine Being and a Divine Power existing in it all

which secures its continuance (though if you required a definition of that

Being you would therein find the Deity completely sundered from every object

in creation, whether of sense or thought, while in these last, too, natural

distinctions are admitted), so, too, there is nothing strange in the soul's

separate existence as a substance (whatever we may think that substance to be)

being no hindrance to her actual existence, in spite of the elemental atoms of

the world not harmonizing with her in the definiton of her being. In the case

of our living bodies, composed as they are from the blending of these atoms,

there is no sort of communion, as has been just said, on the score of

substance, between the simplicity and invisibility of the soul, and the

grossness of those bodies; but, notwithstanding that, there is not a doubt

that there is in them the soul's vivifying influence exerted by a law which

it as beyond the human understanding to comprehend(1). Not even then, when

those atoms have again been dissolved(3) into themselves, has that bond of a

vivifying influence vanished; but as, while the framework of the body still

holds together, each individual part is possessed of a soul which penetrates

equally every component member, and one could not call that soul hard and

resistent though blended with the solid, nor humid, or cold, or the reverse,

though it transmits life to all and each of such parts, so, when that

framework is dissolved, and has returned to its kindred elements, there is

nothing against probability that that simple and incomposite essence which has

once for all by some inexplicable law grown with the growth of the bodily

framework should continually remain beside the atoms with which it has been

blended, and should in no way be sundered from a union once formed. For it

does not follow that because the composite is dissolved the incomposite must

be dissolved with it(4).

That those atoms, I rejoined, should unite and again be separated, and

that this constitutes the formation and dissolution of the body, no one would

deny. But we have to consider this. There are great intervals between these

atoms; they differ from each other, both in position, and also in qualitative

distinctions and peculiarities. When, indeed, these atoms have all converged

upon the given subject, it is reasonable that that intelligent and

undimensional essence which we call the soul should cohere with that which is

so united; but once these atoms are separated from each other, and have gone

whither their nature impels them, what is to become of the soul when her

vessel s is thus scattered in many directions? As a sailor, when his ship has

been wrecked and gone to pieces, cannot float upon all the pieces at once(6)

which have been scattered this way

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and that over the surface of the sea (for he seizes any bit that comes to

hand, and lets all the rest drift away), in the same way the soul, being by

nature incapable of dissolution along with the atoms, will, if she finds it

hard to be parted from the body altogether, cling to some one of them; and if

we take this view, consistency will no more allow us to regard her as immortal

for living in one atom than as mortal for not living in a number of them.

But the intelligent and undimensional, she replied, is neither contracted

nor diffused(7) (contraction and diffusion being a property of body only); but

by virtue of a nature which is formless and bodiless it is present with the

body equally in the contraction and in the diffusion of its atoms, and is no

more narrowed by the compression which attends the uniting of the atoms than

it is abandoned by them when they wander off to their kindred, however wide

the interval is held to be which we observe between alien atoms. For instance,

there is a great difference between the buoyant and light as contrasted with

the heavy and solid; between the hot as contrasted with the cold; between the

humid as contrasted with its opposite; nevertheless it is no strain to an

intelligent essence to be present in each of those elements to which it has

once cohered; this blending with opposites does not split it up. In locality,

in peculiar qualities, these elemental atoms are held to be far removed from

each other; but an undimensional nature finds it no labour to cling to what is

locally divided, seeing that even now it is possible for the mind at once to

contemplate the heavens above us and to extend its busy scrutiny beyond the

horizon, nor is its contemplative power at all distracted by these excursions

into distances so great. There is nothing, then, to hinder the soul's presence

in the body's atoms, whether fused in union or decomposed in dissolution. Just

as in the amalgam of gold and silver a certain methodical force is to be

observed which has fused the metals, and if the one be afterwards smelted

out of the other, the law of this method nevertheless continues to reside in

each, so that while, the amalgam is separated this method does not suffer

division along with it (for you cannot make fractions out of the

indivisible), in the same way this intelligent essence of the soul is

observable in the concourse of the atoms, and does not undergo division when

they are dissolved; but it remains with them, and even in their separation it

is co-extensive with them, yet not itself dissevered nor discounted(8) into

sections to accord with the number of the atoms. Such a condition belongs to

the material and spacial world, but that which is intelligent and

undimensional is not liable to the circumstances of space. Therefore the soul

exists in the actual atoms which she has once animated, and there is no force

to tear her away from her cohesion with them. What cause for melancholy, then,

is there herein, that the visible is exchanged for the invisible; and

wherefore is it that your mind has conceived such a hatred of death?

Upon this I recurred to the definition which she had previously given of

the soul, and I said that to my thinking her definition had not indicated(9)

distinctly enough all the powers of the soul which are a matter of

observation. It declares the soul to be an intellectual essence which imparts

to the organic body a force of life by which the senses operate. Now the soul

is not thus operative only in our scientific and speculative intellect; it

does not produce results in that world only, or employ the organs of sense

only for this their natural work. On the contrary, we observe in our nature

many emotions of desire and many of anger; and both these exist in us as

qualities of our kind, and we see both of them in their manifestations

displaying further many most subtle differences. There are many states, for

instance, which are occasioned by desire; many others which on the other hand

proceed from anger; and none of them are of the body; but that which is not of

the body is plainly intellectual. Now(1) our definition exhibits the soul as

something intellectual; so that one of two alternatives, both absurd, must

emerge when we follow out this

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view to this end; either anger and desire are both second souls in us, and a

plurality of souls must take the place of the single soul, or the thinking

faculty in us cannot be regarded as a soul either (if they are not), the

intellectual element adhering equally to all of them and stamping them all as

souls, or else excluding every one of them equally from the specific qualities

of soul.

You are quite justified, she replied, in raising this question, and it has

ere this been discussed by many elsewhere; namely, what we are to think of the

principle of desire and the principle of anger within us. Are they

consubstantial with the soul, inherent in the soul's very self from her first

organization(2), or are they something different, accruing to us afterwards?

In fact, while all equally allow that these principles are to be detected in

the soul, investigation has not yet discovered exactly what we are to think of

them so as to gain some fixed belief with regard to them. The generality of

men still fluctuate in their opinions about this, which are as erroneous as

they are numerous. As for ourselves, if the Gentile philosophy, which deals

methodically with all these points, were really adequate for a demonstration,

it would certainly be superfluous to add(3) a discussion on the soul to those

speculations, But while the latter proceeded, on the subject of the soul, as

far in the direction of supposed consequences as the thinker pleased, we are

not entitled to such licence, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make

the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily

fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize

with the intention of those writings. We must therefore neglect the Platonic

chariot and the pair of horses of dissimilar forces yoked to it, and their

driver, whereby the philosopher allegorizes these facts about the soul; we

must neglect also all that is said by the philosopher who succeeded him and

who followed out probabilities by rules of art(4), and diligently investigated

the very question now before us, declaring that the soul was mortal s by

reason of these two principles; we must neglect all before and since their

time, whether they philosophized in prose or in verse, and we will adopt, as

the guide of our reasoning, the Scripture, which lays it down as an axiom that

there is no excellence in the soul which is not a property as well of the

Divine nature. For he who declares the soul to be God's likeness asserts that

anything foreign to Him is outside the limits of the soul; similarity cannot

be retained in those qualities which are diverse from the original. Since,

then, nothing of the kind we are considering is included in the conception of

the Divine nature, one would be reasonable in surmising that such things are

not consubstantial with the soul either. Now to seek to build up our doctrine

by rule of dialectic and the science which draws and destroys conclusions,

involves a species of discussion which we shall ask to be excused from, as

being a weak and questionable way of demonstrating truth. Indeed, it is clear

to every one that that subtle dialectic possesses a force that may be turned

both ways, as well for the overthrow of truth(6) as for the detection of

falsehood; and so we begin to suspect even truth itself when it is advanced in

company with such a kind of artifice, and to think that the very ingenuity of

it is trying to bias our judgment and to upset the truth. If on the other hand

any one will accept a discussion which is in a naked unsyllogistic form, we

will speak upon these points by making our study of them so far as we can

follow the chain(7) of Scriptural tradition. What is it, then, that we assert?

We say that the fact of the reasoning animal man being capable of

understanding and knowing is most surely(8) attested by those outside our

faith; and that this definition would never have sketched our nature so, if it

had viewed anger and desire and all such-like emotions as consubstantial with

that nature. In any other case, one would not give a definition of the subject

in hand by putting a generic instead of a specific quality; and so, as the

principle of desire and the principle of anger are observed equally in

rational and irrational natures, one could not

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rightly mark the specific quality by means of this generic one. But how can

that which, in defining a nature, is superfluous and worthy of exclusion be

treated as a part of that nature, and, so, available for falsifying the

definition? Every definition of an essence looks to the specific quality of

the subject in hand; and whatever is outside that speciality is set aside as

having nothing to do with the required definition. Yet, beyond question, these

faculties of anger and desire are allowed to be common to all reasoning and

brute natures anything common is not identical with that which is peculiar; it

is imperative therefore that we should not range these faculties amongst those

whereby humanity is exclusively meant: but just as one may perceive the

principle(9) of sensation, and that of nutrition and growth in man, and yet

not shake thereby the given definition of his soul (for the quality A being in

the soul does not prevent the quality B being in it too), so, when one detects

in humanity these emotions of anger and desire, one cannot on that account

fairly quarrel with this definition, as if it fell short of a full indication

of man's nature.

What then, I asked the Teacher, are we to think about this? For I cannot

yet see how we can fitly repudiate faculties which are actually within us.

You see, she replied, there is a battle of the reason with them and a

struggle to rid the soul of them; and there are men in whom this struggle has

ended in success; it was so with Moses, as we know; he was superior both to

anger and to desire; the history testifying of him in both respects, that he

was meek beyond all men (and by meekness it indicates the absence of all anger

and a mind quite devoid of resentment), and that he desired none of those

things about which we see the desiring faculty in the generality so active.

This could not have been so, if these faculties were nature, and were

referable to the contents of man's essence(1). For it is impossible for one

who has come quite outside of his nature to be in Existence at all. But if

Moses was at one and the same time in Existence and not in these conditions,

then(2) it follows that these conditions are something other than nature and

not nature itself. For if, on the one hand, that is truly nature in which the

essence of the being is found, and, on the other, the removal of these

conditions is in our power, so that their removal not only does no harm, but

is even beneficial to the nature, it is clear that these conditions are to be

numbered amongst externals, and are affections, rather than the essence, of

the nature; for the essence is that thing only which it is. As for anger, most

think it a fermenting of the blood round the heart; others an eagerness to

inflict pain in return for a previous pain; we would take it to be the impulse

to hurt one who has provoked us. But none of these accounts of it tally with

the definition of the soul. Again, if we were to define what desire is in

itself, we should call it a seeking for that which is wanting, or a longing

for pleasurable enjoyment, or a pain at not possessing that upon which the

heart is set, or a state with regard to some pleasure which there is no

opportunity of enjoying. These and such-like descriptions all indicate desire,

but they have no connection with the definition of the soul. But it is so with

regard to all those other conditions also which we see to have some relation

to the soul, those, I mean, which are mutually opposed to each other, such as

cowardice and courage, pleasure and pain, fear and contempt, and so on; each

of them seems akin to the principle of desire or to that of anger, while they

have a separate definition to mark their own peculiar nature. Courage and

contempt, for instance, exhibit a certain phase of the irascible impulse; the

dispositions arising from cowardice and fear exhibit on the other hand a

diminution and weakening of that same impulse. Pain, again, draws its material

both from anger and desire. For the impotence of anger, which consists in not

being able to punish one who has first given pain, becomes itself pain; and

the despair of getting objects of desire and the absence of things upon which

the heart is set create in the mind this same sullen state. Moreover, the

opposite to pain, I mean the sensation of pleasure(3), like pain, divides

itself between anger and desire; for pleasure is the leading motive of them

both. All these conditions, I say, have some relation to the soul, and yet

they are not the soul(4), but only like warts growing out of the soul's

thinking part, which are reckoned as parts of it because they adhere to it,

and yet are not that actual thing which the soul is in its essence.

And yet, I rejoined to the virgin, we see no slight help afforded for

improvement to the

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virtuous from all these conditions. Daniel's desire was his glory; and

Phineas' anger pleased the Deity. We have been told, too, that fear is the

beginning of wisdom, and learnt from Paul that salvation is the goal of the

"sorrow after a godly sort." The Gospel bids us have a contempt for danger;

and the "not being afraid with any amazement" is nothing else but a describing

of courage, and this last is numbered by Wisdom amongst the things that are

good. In all this Scripture shows that such conditions are not to be

considered weaknesses; weaknesses would not have been so employed for putting

virtue into practice.

I think, replied the Teacher, that I am myself responsible for this

confusion arising from different accounts of the matter; for I did not state

it as distinctly as I might have, by introducing a certain order of

consequences for our consideration. Now, however, some such order shall, as

far as it is possible, be devised, so that our essay may advance in the way of

logical sequence and so give no room for such contradictions. We declare,

then, that the speculative, critical, and world-surveying faculty of the soul

is its peculiar property by virtue of its very nature(5), and that thereby the

soul preserves within itself the image of the divine grace; since our reason

surmises that divinity itself, whatever it may be in its inmost nature, is

manifested in these very things,--universal supervision and the critical

discernment between good and evil. But all those elements of the soul which

lie on the border-land(6) and are capable from their peculiar nature of

inclining to either of two opposites (whose eventual determination to the good

or to the bad depends on the kind of use they are put to), anger, for

instance, and fear, and any other such-like emotion of the soul divested of

which human nature(7) cannot be studied--all these we reckon as accretions

from without, because in the Beauty which is man's prototype no such

characteristics are to be found. Now let the following statement s be offered

as a mere exercise (in interpretation). I pray that it may escape the sneers

of cavilling hearers. Scripture informs us that the Deity proceeded by a sort

of graduated and ordered advance to the creation of man. After the foundations

of the universe were laid, as the history records, man did not appear on the

earth at once; but the creation of the brutes preceded his, and the plants

preceded them. Thereby Scripture shows that the vital forces blended with the

world of matter according to a gradation; first, it infused itself into

insensate nature; and in continuation of this advanced into the sentient

world; and then ascended to intelligent and rational beings. Accordingly,

while all existing things must be either corporeal or spiritual, the former

are divided into the animate and inanimate. By animate, I mean possessed of

life: and of the things possessed of life, some have it with sensation, the

rest have no sensation. Again, of these sentient things, some have reason, the

rest have not. Seeing, then, that this life of sensation could not possibly

exist apart from the matter which is the subject of it, and the intellectual

life could not be embodied, either, without growing in the sentient, on this

account the creation of man is related as coming last, as of one who took up

into himself every single form of life, both that of plants and that which is

seen in brutes. His nourishment and growth he derives from vegetable life; for

even in vegetables such processes are to be seen when aliment is being drawn

in by their roots and given off in fruit and leaves. His sentient organization

he derives from the brute creation. But his faculty of thought and reason is

incommunicable(9), and is a peculiar gift in our nature, to be considered by

itself. However, just as this nature has the instinct acquisitive of the

necessaries to material existence--an instinct which, when manifested in us

men, we call Appetite--and as we admit this appertains to the vegetable form

of life, since we can notice it there too like so many impulses working

naturally to satisfy themselves with their kindred aliment and to issue in

germination, so all the peculiar conditions of the brute creation are blended

with the intellectual part of the soul. To them, she continued, belongs anger;

to them belongs fear; to them all those other opposing activities within us;

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everything except the faculty of reason and thought. That alone, the choice

product, as has been said, of all our life, bears the stamp of the Divine

character. But since, according to the view which we have just enunciated, it

is not possible for this reasoning faculty to exist in the life of the body

without existing by means of sensations, and since sensation is already found

subsisting in the brute creation, necessarily as it were, by reason of this

one condition, our soul has touch with the other things which are knit up with

it(1); and these are all those phaenomena within us that we call "passions";

which have not been allotted to human nature for any bad purpose at all (for

the Creator would most certainly be the author of evil, if in them, so deeply

rooted as they are in our nature, any necessities of wrong-doing were found),

but according to the use which our free will puts them to, these emotions of

the soul become the instruments of virtue or of vice. They are like the iron

which is being fashioned according to the volition of the artificer, and

receives whatever shape the idea which is in his mind prescribes, and becomes

a sword or some agricultural implement. Supposing, then, that our reason,

which is our nature's choicest part, holds the dominion over these imported

emotions (as Scripture allegorically declares in the command to men to rule

over the brutes), none of them will be active in the ministry of evil; fear

will only generate within us obedience(2), and anger fortitude, and cowardice

caution; and the instinct of desire will procure for us the delight that is

Divine and perfect. But if reason drops the reins and is dragged behind like a

charioteer who has got entangled in his car, then these instincts are changed

into fierceness, just as we see happens amongst the brutes. For since reason

does not preside over the natural impulses that are implanted(3) in them, the

more irascible animals, under the generalship of their anger, mutually destroy

each other; while the bulky and powerful animals get no good themselves from

their strength, but become by their want of reason slaves of that which has

reason. Neither are the activities of their desire for pleasure employed on

any of the higher objects; nor does any other instinct to be observed in them

result in any profit to themselves. Thus too, with ourselves, if these

instincts are not turned by reasoning into the fight direction, and if our

feelings get the mastery of our mind, the man is changed from a reasoning into

an unreasoning being, and from godlike intelligence sinks by the force of

these passions to the level of the brute.

Much moved by these words, I said: To any one who reflects indeed, your

exposition, advancing as it does in this consecutive manner, though plain and

unvarnished, bears sufficiently upon it the stamp of correctness and hits the

truth. And to those who are expert only in the technical methods of proof a

mere demonstration suffices to convince; but as for ourselves, we were

agreed(4) that there is something more trustworthy than any of these

artificial conclusions, namely, that which the teachings of Holy Scripture

point to: and so I deem that it is necessary to inquire, in addition to what

has been said, whether this inspired teaching harmonizes with it all.

And who, she replied, could deny that truth is to be found only in that

upon which the seal of Scriptural testimony is set? So, if it is necessary

that something from the Gospels should be adduced in support of our view, a

study of the Parable of the Wheat and Tares will not be here out of place. The

Householder there sowed good seed; (and we are plainly the "house"). But the

"enemy," having watched for the time when men slept, sowed that which was

useless in that which was good for food, setting the tares in the very middle

of the wheat. The two kinds of seed grew up together; for it was not possible

that seed put into the very middle of the wheat should fail to grow up with

it. But the Superintendent of the field forbids the servants to gather up the

useless crop, on account of their growing at the very root of the contrary

sort; so as not to root up s the nutritious along with that foreign growth.

Now we think that Scripture means by the good seed the corresponding impulses

of the soul, each one of which, if only they are cultured for good,

necessarily puts forth the fruit of virtue within us. But since there has been

scattered(6) amongst these the bad seed of the error of judgment as to the

true Beauty which is alone in its intrinsic nature such, and since this last

has been thrown into the shade by the growth of delusion which springs up

along with it (for the active principle

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of desire does not germinate and increase in the direction of that natural

Beauty which was the object of its being sown in us, but it has changed its

growth so as to move towards a bestial and unthinking states this very error

as to Beauty carrying its impulse towards this result; and in the same way the

seed of anger does not steel us to be brave, but only arms us to fight with

our own people; and the power of loving deserts its intellectual objects and

becomes completely mad for the immoderate enjoyment of pleasures of sense; and

so in like manner our other affections put forth the worse instead of the

better growths),--on account of this the wise Husbandman leaves this growth

that has been introduced amongst his seed to remain there, so as to secure our

not being altogether stripped of better hopes by desire having been rooted out

along with that good-for-nothing growth. If our nature suffered such a

mutilation, what will there be to lift us up to grasp the heavenly delights?

If love is taken from us, how shall we be united to God? If anger is to be

extinguished, what arms shall we possess against the adversary? Therefore the

Husbandman leaves those bastard seeds within us, not for them always to

overwhelm the more precious crop, but in order that the land itself (for so,

in his allegory, he calls the heart) by its native inherent power, which is

that of reasoning, may wither up the one growth and may render the other

fruitful and abundant: but if that is not done, then he commissions the fire

to mark the distinction in the crops. If, then, a man indulges these

affections in a due proportion and holds them in his own power instead of

being held in theirs, employing them for an instrument as a king does his

subjects' many hands, then efforts towards excellence more easily succeed for

him. But should he become theirs, and, as when any slaves mutiny against their

master, get enslaved (7) by those slavish thoughts and ignominiously bow

before them; a prey to his natural inferiors, he will be forced to turn to

those employments which his imperious masters command. This being so, we shall

not pronounce these emotions of the soul, which lie in the power of their

possessors for good or ill, to be either virtue or vice. But, whenever their

impulse is towards what is noble, then they become matter for praise, as his

desire did to Daniel, and his anger to Phineas, and their grief to those who

nobly mourn. But if they incline to baseness, then these are, and they are

called, bad passions.

She ceased after this statement and allowed the discussion a short

interval, in which I reviewed mentally all that had been said; and reverting

to that former course of proof in her discourse, that it was not impossible

that the soul after the body's dissolution should reside in its atoms, I again

addressed her. Where is that much-talked-of and renowned Hades(8), then? The

word is in frequent circulation both in the intercourse of daily life, and in

the writings of the heathens and in our own; and all think that into it, as

into a place of safe-keeping, souls migrate from here. Surely you would not

call your atoms that Hades.

Clearly, replied the Teacher, you have not quite attended to the argument.

In speaking of the soul's migration from the seen to the unseen, I thought I

had omitted nothing as regards the question about Hades. It seems to me that,

whether in the heathen or in the Divine writings, this word for a place in

which souls are said to be means nothing else but a transition to that Unseen

world of which we have no glimpse.

And how, then, I asked, is it that some think that by the underworld(9) is

meant an actual place, and that it harbours within itself(1) the souls that

have at last flitted away from human life, drawing them towards itself as the

right receptacle for such natures?

Well, replied the Teacher, our doctrine will be in no ways injured by such

a supposition. For if it is true, what you say(2), and also that the vault of

heaven prolongs itself so uninterruptedly that it encircles all things with

itself, and that the earth and its surroundings are poised in the middle, and

that the motion of all the revolving bodies(3) is round this fixed and solid

centre, then, I say, there is an absolute necessity that, whatever may happen

to each one of the atoms on the upper side of the earth, the same will happen

on the opposite side, seeing that one single substance encompasses its entire

bulk. As, when the sun shines above the earth, the shadow is spread over its

lower part, because its spherical shape makes it impossible for it to be

clasped all round at one and the same time by the rays, and necessarily, on

whatever side the sun's rays may fall on some particular point of the globe,

if we follow a straight diameter, we shall find shadow upon the opposite

point, and so, continuously, at the opposite end of the direct line of the

rays

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shadow moves round that globe, keeping pace with the sun, so that equally in

their turn both the upper half and the under half of the earth are in light

and darkness; so, by this analogy, we have reason to be certain that, whatever

in our hemisphere is observed to befall the atoms, the same will befall them

in that other. The environment of the atoms being one and the same on every

side of the earth, I deem it right neither to contradict nor yet to favour

those who raise the objection that we must regard either this or the lower

region as assigned to the souls released. As long as this objection does not

shake our central doctrine of the existence of those souls after the life in

the flesh, there need be no controversy about the whereabouts to our mind,

holding as we do that place is a property of body only, and that soul, being

immaterial, is by no necessity of its nature detained in any place.

But what, I asked, if your opponent should shield himself(4) behind the

Apostle, where he says that every reasoning creature, in the restitution of

all things, is to look towards Him Who presides over the whole? In that

passage in the Epistle to the Philippians(5) he makes mention of certain

things that are "under the earth" "every knee shall bow" to Him "of things in

heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth."

We shall stand by our doctrine, answered the Teacher, even if we should

hear them adducing these words. For the existence of the soul (after death) we

have the assent of our opponent, and so we do not make an objection as to the

place, as we have just said.

But if some were to ask the meaning of the Apostle in this utterance, what

is one to say? Would you remove all signification of place from the passage?

I do not think, she replied, that the divine Apostle divided the

intellectual world into localities, when he named part as in heaven, part as

on earth, and part as under the earth. There are three states in which

reasoning creatures can be: one from the very first received an immaterial

life, and we call it the angelic: another is in union with the flesh, and we

call it the human: a third is released by death from fleshly entanglements,

and is to be found in souls pure and simple. Now I think that the divine

Apostle in his deep wisdom looked to this, when he revealed the future concord

of all these reasoning beings in the work of goodness; and that he puts the

unembodied angel-world "in heaven," and that still involved with a body "on

earth," and that released from a body "under the earth"; or, indeed, if there

is any other world to be classed under that which is possessed of reason (it

is not left out); and whether any one choose to call this last "demons" or

"spirits," or anything else of the kind, we shall not care. We certainly

believe, both because of the prevailing opinion, and still more of Scripture

teaching, that there exists another world of beings besides, divested of such

bodies as ours are, who are opposed to that which is good and are capable of

hurting the lives of men, having by an act of will lapsed from the nobler

view(6), and by this revolt from goodness personified in themselves the

contrary principle; and this world is what, some say, the Apostle adds to the

number of the "things under the earth," signifying in that passage that when

evil shall have been some day annihilated in the long revolutions of the ages,

nothing shall be left outside the world of goodness, but that even from those

evil spirits(7) shall rise in harmony the confession of Christ's Lordship. If

this is so, then no one can compel us to see any spot of the underworld in the

expression, "things under the earth"; the atmosphere spreads equally over

every part of the earth, and there is not a single corner of it left unrobed

by this circumambient air.

When she had finished, I hesitated a moment, and then said: I am not yet

satisfied about the thing which we have been inquiring into; after all that

has been said my mind is still in doubt; and I beg that our discussion may be

allowed to revert to the same line of reasoning as before(8), omitting only

that upon which we are thoroughly agreed. I say this, for I think that all but

the most stubborn controversialists will

445

have been sufficiently convinced by our debate not to consign the soul after

the body's dissolution to annihilation and nonentity, nor to argue that

because it differs substantially from the atoms it is impossible for it to

exist anywhere in the universe; for, however much a being that is intellectual

and immaterial may fail to coincide with these atoms, it is in no ways

hindered (so far) from existing in them; and this belief of ours rests on two

facts: firstly, on the soul's existing in our bodies in this present life,

though fundamentally different from them: and secondly, on the fact that the

Divine being, as our argument has shown, though distinctly something other

than visible and material substances, nevertheless pervades each one amongst

all existences, and by this penetration of the whole keeps the world in a

state of being; so that following these analogies we need not think that the

soul, either, is out of existence, when she passes from the world of forms to

the Unseen. But how, I insisted, after the united whole of the atoms has

assumed(9), owing to their mixing together, a form quite different--the form

in fact with which the soul has been actually domesticated--by what mark, when

this form, as we should have expected, is effaced along with the resolution of

the atoms, shall the soul follow along (them), now that that familiar form

ceases to persist?

She waited a moment and then said: Give me leave to invent a fanciful

simile in order to illustrate the matter before us: even though that which I

suppose may be outside the range of possibility. Grant it possible, then, in

the art of painting not only to mix opposite colours, as painters are always

doing, to represent a particular tint(1), but also to separate again this

mixture and to restore to each of the colours its natural dye. If then white,

or black, or red, or golden colour, or any other colour that has been mixed to

form the given tint, were to be again separated from that union with another

and remain by itself, we suppose that our artist will none the less remember

the actual nature of that colour, and that in no case will he show

forgetfulness, either of the red, for instance, or the black, if after having

become quite a different colour by composition with each other they each

return to their natural dye. We suppose, I say, that our artist remembers the

manner of the mutual blending of these colours, and so knows what sort of

colour was mixed with a given colour and what sort of colour was the result,

and how, the other colour being ejected from the composition, (the original

colour) in consequence of such release resumed its own peculiar hue; and,

supposing it were required to produce the same result again by composition,

the process will be all the easier from having been already practised in his

previous work. Now, if reason can see any analogy in this simile, we must

search the matter in hand by its light. Let the soul stand for this Art of the

painter(2); and let the natural atoms stand for the colours of his art; and

let the mixture of that tint compounded of the various dyes, and the return of

these to their native state (which we have been allowed to assume), represent

respectively the concourse, and the separation of the atoms. Then, as we

assume in the simile that the painter's Art tells him the actual dye of each

colour, when it has returned after mixing to its proper hue, so that he has an

exact knowledge of the red, and of the black, and of any other colour that

went to form the required tint by a specific way of uniting with another

kind--a knowledge which includes its appearance both in the mixture, and now

when it is in its natural state, and in the future again, supposing all the

colours were mixed over again in like fashion--so, we assert, does the soul

know the natural peculiarities of those atoms whose concourse makes the frame

of the body in which it has itself grown, even after the scattering of those

atoms. However far from each other their natural propensity and their inherent

forces of repulsion urge them, and debar each from mingling with its opposite,

none the less will the soul be near each by its power of recognition, and will

persistently cling to the familiar atoms, until their concourse after this

division again takes place in the same way, for that fresh formation of the

dissolved body which will properly be, and be called, resurrection.

You seem, I interrupted, in this passing remark to have made an excellent

defence of the faith in the Resurrection. By it, I think, the opponents of

this doctrine might be gradually led to consider it not as a thing absolutely

impossible that the atoms should again coalesce and form the same man as

before.

That is very true, the Teacher replied. For we may hear these opponents

urging the following difficulty. "The atoms are resolved, like

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to like, into the universe; by what device, then, does the warmth, for

instance, residing in such and such a man, after joining the universal warmth,

again dissociate itself from this connection with its kindred(3), so as to

form this man who is being 'remoulded'? For if the identical individual

particle does not return and only something that is homogeneous but not

identical is fetched, you will have something else in the place of that first

thing, and such a process will cease to be a resurrection and will be merely

the creation of a new man. But if the same man is to return into himself, he

must be the same entirely, and regain his original formation in every single

atom of his elements."

Then to meet such an objection, I rejoined, the above opinion about the

soul will, as I said, avail; namely, that she remains after dissolution in

those very atoms in which she first grew up, and, like a guardian placed over

private property, does not abandon them when they are mingled with their

kindred atoms, and by the subtle ubiquity of her intelligence makes no mistake

about them, with all their subtle minuteness, but diffuses herself along with

those which belong to herself when they are being mingled with their kindred

dust, and suffers no exhaustion in keeping up with the whole number of them

when they stream back

into the universe, but remains with them, no matter in what direction or in

what fashion Nature may arrange them. But should the signal be given by the

All-disposing Power for these scattered atoms to combine again, then, just as

when every one of the various ropes that hang from one block answer at one and

the same moment(4) to the pull from that centre, so, following this force of

the soul which acts upon the various atoms, all these, once so familiar with

each other, rush simultaneously together and form the cable of the body by

means of the soul, each single one of them being wedded to its former

neighbour and embracing an old acquaintance.

The following illustration also, the Teacher went on, might be very

properly added to those already brought forward, to show that the soul has not

need of much teaching in order to distinguish its own from the alien amongst

the atoms. Imagine a potter with a supply of clay; and let the supply be a

large one; and let part of it have been already moulded to form finished

vessels, while the rest is still waiting to be moulded; and suppose the

vessels themselves not to be all of similar shape, but one to be a jug, for

instance, and another a wine-jar, another a plate, another a cup or any other

useful vessel; and further, let not one owner possess them all, but let us

fancy for each a special owner. Now as long as these vessels are unbroken they

are of course recognizable by their owners, and none the less so, even should

they be broken in pieces; for from those pieces each will know, for instance,

that this belongs to a jar(5), and, again, what sort of fragment belongs to a

cup. And if they are plunged again into the unworked clay, the discernment

between what has been already worked and that clay will be a more unerring one

still. The individual man is as such a vessel; he has been moulded out of the

universal matter, owing to the concourse of his atoms; and he exhibits in a

form peculiarly his own a marked distinction from his kind; and when that form

has gone to pieces the soul that has been mistress of this particular vessel

will have an exact knowledge of it, derived even from its fragments; nor will

she leave this property, either, in the common blending with all the other

fragments, or if it be plunged into the still formless part of the matter from

which the atoms have come(6); she always remembers her own as it was when

compact in bodily form, and after dissolution she never makes any mistake

about it, led by marks still clinging to the remains.

I applauded this as well devised to bring out the natural features of the

case before us; and I said: It is very well to speak like this and to believe

that it is so; but suppose some one were to quote against it our Lord's

narrative about those who are in hell, as not harmonizing with the results of

our inquiry, how are we to be prepared with an answer?

The Teacher answered: The expressions of that narrative of the Word are

certainly material; but still many hints are interspersed in it to rouse the

skilled inquirer to a more discriminating study of it. I mean that He Who

parts the good from the bad by a great gulf, and makes the man in torment

crave for a drop to be conveyed by a finger, and the man who has been

ill-treated in this life rest on a patriarch's bosom, and Who relates their

previous death and consignment to the tomb, takes an intelligent searcher of

His meaning far beyond a superficial interpretation. For what sort of eyes has

the

447

Rich Man to lift up in hell, when he has left his bodily eyes in that tomb?

And how can a disembodied spirit feel any flame? And what sort of tongue can

he crave to be cooled with the drop of water, when he has lost his tongue of

flesh? What is the finger that is to convey to him this drop? What sort of

place is the "bosom" of repose? The bodies of both of them are in the tomb,

and their souls are dis-embodied, and do not consist of parts either; and so

it is impossible to make the framework of the narrative correspond with the

truth, if we understand it literally; we can do that only by translating each

detail into an equivalent in the world of ideas. Thus we must think of the

gulf as that which parts ideas which may not be confounded from running

together, not as a chasm of the earth. Such a chasm, however vast it were,

could be traversed with no difficulty by a disembodied intelligence; since

intelligence can in no time (7) be wherever it will.

What then, I asked, are the fire and the gulf and the other features in the

picture? Are they not that which they are said to be?

I think, she replied, that the Gospel signifies by means of each of them

certain doctrines with regard to our question of the soul. For when the

patriarch first says to the Rich Man, "Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy

good things," and in the same way speaks of the Poor Man, that he, namely, has

done his duty in bearing his share of life's evil things, and then, after

that, adds with regard to the gulf that it is a barrier between them, he

evidently by such expressions intimates a very important truth; and, to my

thinking, it is as follows. Once man's life had but one character; and by that

I mean that it was to be found only in the category of the good and had no

contact with evil. The first of God's commandments attests the truth of this;

that, namely, which gave to man unstinted enjoyment of all the blessings of

Paradise, forbidding only that which was a mixture of good and evil and so

composed of contraries, but making death the penalty for transgressing in that

particular. But man, acting freely by a voluntary impulse, deserted the lot

that was unmixed with evil, and drew upon himself that which was a mixture of

contraries. Yet Divine Providence did not leave that recklessness of ours

without a corrective. Death indeed, as the fixed penalty for breaking the law,

necessarily fell upon its transgressors; but God divided the life of man into

two parts, namely, this present life, and that "out of the body" hereafter;

and He placed on the first a limit of the briefest possible time, while He

prolonged the other into eternity; and in His love

for man He gave him his choice, to have the one or the other of those things,

good or evil, I mean, in which of the two parts he liked: either in this short

and transitory life, or in those endless ages, whose limit is infinity. Now

these expressions "good" and "evil are equivocal; they are used in two

senses, one relating to mind and the other to sense; some classify as good

whatever is pleasant to feeling: others are confident that only that which is

perceptible by intelligence is good and deserves that name. Those, then, whose

reasoning powers have never been exercised and who have never had a glimpse of

the better way soon use up on gluttony in this fleshly life the dividend of

good which their constitution can claim, and they reserve none of it for the

after life; but those who by a discreet and sober-minded calculation economize

the powers of living are afflicted by things painful to sense here, but they

reserve their good for the succeeding life, and so their happier lot is

lengthened out to last as long as that eternal life. This, in my opinion, is

the "gulf"; which is not made by the parting of the earth, but by those

decisions in this life which result in a separation into opposite characters.

The man who has once chosen pleasure in this life, and has not cured his

inconsiderateness by repentance, places the land of the good beyond his own

reach; for he has dug against himself the yawning impassable abyss of a

necessity that nothing can break through. This is the reason, I think, that

the name of Abraham's bosom is given to that good situation of the soul in

which Scripture makes the athlete of endurance repose. For it is related of

this patriarch first, of all up to that time born, that he exchanged the

enjoyment of the present for the hope of the future; he was stripped of all

the surroundings in which his life at first was passed, and resided amongst

foreigners, and thus purchased by present annoyance future blessedness. As

then figuratively (8) we call a particular circuit of the ocean a "bosom," so

does Scripture seem to me to express the idea of those measureless blessings

above by the word "bosom," meaning a place into which all virtuous voyagers of

this life are, when they have put in from hence, brought to anchor in the

waveless harbour of that gulf of blessings (9). Meanwhile the denial of these

blessings which they witness becomes in the others a flame, which burns the

soul and causes the craving for the refreshment of one drop out of that ocean

of blessings wherein the saints are affluent; which nevertheless they do not

get. If, too,

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you consider the "tongue," and the "eye," and the "finger," and the other

names of bodily organs, which occur in the conversation between those

disembodied souls, you will be persuaded that this conjecture of ours about

them chimes in with the opinion we have already stated about the soul. Look

closely into the meaning of those words. For as the concourse of atoms forms

the substance of the entire body, so it is reasonable to think that the same

cause operates to complete the substance of each member of the body. If, then,

the soul is present with the atoms of the body when they are again mingled

with the universe, it will not only be cognizant of the entire mass which once

came together to form the whole body, and will be present with it, but,

besides that, will not fail to know the particular materials of each one of

the members, so as to remember by what divisions amongst the atoms our limbs

were completely formed. There is, then, nothing improbable in supposing that

what is present in the complete mass is present also in each division of the

mass. If one, then, thinks of those atoms in which each detail of the body

potentially inheres, and surmises that Scripture means a "finger" and a

"tongue" and an "eye" and the rest as existing, after dissolution, only in the

sphere of the soul, one will not miss the probable truth. Moreover, if each

detail carries the mind away from a material acceptation of the story, surely

the "hell" which we have just been speaking of cannot reasonably be thought a

place so named; rather we are there told by Scripture about a certain unseen

and immaterial situation in which the soul resides. In this story of the Rich

and the Poor Man we are taught another doctrine also, which is intimately

connected with our former discoveries. The story makes the sensual

pleasure-loving man, when he sees that his own case is one that admits of no

escape, evince forethought for his relations on earth; and when Abraham tells

him that the life of those still in the flesh is not unprovided with a

guidance, for they may find it at hand, if they will, in the Law and the

Prophets, he still continues entreating that Just x Patriarch, and asks that a

sudden and convincing message, brought by some one risen from the dead, may be

sent to them.

What then, I asked, is the doctrine here? Why, seeing that Lazarus' soul is

occupied (2) with his present blessings and turns round to look at nothing

that he has left, while the rich man is still attached, with a cement as it

were, even after death, to the life of feeling, which he does not divest

himself of even when he has

ceased to live, still keeping as he does flesh and blood in his thoughts (for

in his entreaty that his kindred may be exempted from his sufferings he

plainly shows that he is not freed yet from fleshly feeling), -- in such

details of the story (she continued) I think our Lord teaches us this; that

those still living in the flesh must as much as ever they can separate and

free themselves in a way from its attachments by virtuous conduct, in order

that after death they may not need a second death to cleanse them from the

remnants that are owing to this cement (3) of the flesh, and, when once the

bonds are loosed from around the soul, her soaring (4) up to the Good may be

swift and unimpeded, with no anguish of the body to distract her. For if any

one becomes wholly and thoroughly carnal in thought, such an one, with every

motion and energy of the soul absorbed in fleshly desires, is not parted from

such attachments, even in the disembodied state; just as those who have

lingered long in noisome places do not part with the unpleasantness contracted

by that lengthened stay, even when they pass into a sweet atmosphere. So (5)

it is that, when the change is made into the impalpable Unseen, not even then

will it be possible for the lovers of the flesh to avoid dragging away with

them under any circumstances some fleshly foulness; and thereby their torment

will be intensified, their soul having been materialized by such surroundings.

I think too that this view of the matter harmonizes to a certain extent with

the assertion made by some persons that around their graves shadowy phantoms

of the departed are often seen 6. If this is really so, an inordinate

attachment of that particular soul to the life in the flesh is proved to have

existed, causing it to be unwilling, even when expelled from the flesh, to fly

clean away and to admit the corn-

449

plete change of its form into the impalpable; it remains near the frame even

after. the dissolution of the frame, and though now outside it, hovers

regretfully over the place where its material is and continues to haunt it.

Then, after a moment's reflection on the meaning of these latter words, I

said: I think that a contradiction now arises between what you have said and

the result of our former examination of the passions. For if, on the one hand,

the activity of such movements within us is to be held as arising from our

kinship with the brutes, such movements I mean as were enumerated in our

previous discussion (7), anger, for instance, and fear, desire of pleasure,

and so on, and, on the other hand, it was affirmed that virtue consists in the

good employment of these movements, and vice in their bad employment, and in

addition to this we discussed the actual contribution of each of the other

passions to a virtuous life, and found that through desire above all we are

brought nearer God, drawn up, by its chain as it were, from earth towards Him,

-- I think (I said) that that part of the discussion is in a way opposed to

that which we are now aiming at.

How so? she asked.

Why, when every unreasoning instinct is quenched within us after our

purgation, this principle of desire will not exist any more than the other

principles; and this being removed, it looks as if the striving after the

better way would also cease, no other emotion remaining in the soul that can

stir us up to the appetence of Good.

To that objection, she replied, we answer this. The speculative and

critical faculty is the property of the soul's godlike part; for it is by

these that we grasp the Deity also. If, then whether by forethought here, or

by purgation hereafter, our soul becomes free from any emotional connection

with the brute creation, there will be nothing to impede its contemplation of

the Beautiful; for this last is essentially capable of attracting in a certain

way every being that looks towards it. If, then, the soul is purified of every

vice, it will most certainly be in the sphere of Beauty. The Deity is in very

substance Beautiful; and to the Deity the soul will in its state of purity

have affinity, and will embrace It as like itself. Whenever this happens,

then, there will be no longer need of the impulse of Desire to lead the way to

the Beautiful. Whoever passes his time in darkness, he it is who will be

under the influence of a desire for the light; but whenever he comes into the

light, then enjoyment takes the place of desire, and the power to enjoy

renders desire useless

and out of date. It will therefore be no detriment to our participation in the

Good, that the soul should be free from such emotions, and turning back upon

herself should know herself accurately what her actual nature is, and should

behold the Original Beauty reflected in the mirror and in the figure of her

own beauty. For truly herein consists the real assimilation to the Divine;

viz. in making our own life in some degree a copy of the Supreme Being. For a

Nature like that, which transcends all thought and is far removed from all

that we observe within ourselves, proceeds in its existence in a very

different manner to what we do in this present life. Man, possessing a

constitution whose law it is to be moving, is carried in that particular

direction whither the impulse of his will directs: and so his soul is not

affected in the same way towards what lies before it (8), as one may say, as

to what it has left behind; for hope leads the forward movement, but it is

memory that succeeds that movement when it has advanced to the attainment of

the hope; and if it is to something intrinsically good that hope thus leads on

the soul, the print that this exercise of the will leaves upon the memory is a

bright one; but if hope has seduced the soul with some phantom only of the

Good, and the excellent Way has been missed, then the memory that succeeds

what has happened becomes shame, and an intestine war is thus waged in the

soul between memory and hope, because the last has been such a bad leader of

the will. Such in fact is the state of mind that shame gives expression to;

the soul is stung as it were at the result; its remorse for its ill-considered

attempt is a whip that makes it feel to the quick, and it would bring in

oblivion to its aid against its tormentor. Now in our case nature, owing to

its being indigent of the Good, is aiming always at this which is still

wanting to it, and this aiming at a still missing thing is this very habit of

Desire, which our constitution displays equally, whether it is baulked of the

real Good, or wins that which it is good to win. But a nature that surpasses

every idea that we can form of the Good and transcends all other power, being

in no want of anything that can be regarded as good, is itself the plenitude

of every good; it does not move in the sphere of the good by way of

participation in it only, but if is itself the substance of the Good (whatever

we imagine the Good to be); it neither gives scope for any rising hope (for

hope manifests activity in the direction of something absent; but "what a man

has, why doth he yet hope for?" as the Apostle asks), nor is it in want of the

activity of the memory for the knowledge

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of things; that which is actually seen has no need of being remembered. Since,

then, this Divine nature is beyond any particular good (9), and to the good

the good is an object of love, it follows that when It looks within Itself

(1), It wishes for what It contains and contains that which It wishes, and

admits nothing external. Indeed there is nothing external to It, with the sole

exception of evil, which, strange as it may seem to say, possesses an

existence in not existing at all. For there is no other origin of evil except

the negation of the existent, and the truly-existent forms the substance of

the Good. That therefore which is not to be found in the existent must be in

the non-existent. Whenever the soul, then, having divested itself of the

multifarious emotions incident to its nature, gets its Divine form and,

mounting above Desire, enters within that towards which it was once incited by

that Desire, it offers no harbour within itself either for hope or for memory.

It holds the object of the one; the other is extruded from the consciousness

by the occupation in enjoying all that is good: and thus the soul copies the

life that is above, and is conformed to the peculiar features of the Divine

nature; none of its habits are left to it except that of love, which clings by

natural affinity to the Beautiful. For this is what love is; the inherent

affection towards a chosen object. When, then, the soul, having become simple

and single in form and so perfectly godlike, finds that perfectly simple and

immaterial good which is really worth enthusiasm and love (2), it attaches

itself to it and blends with it by means of the movement and activity of love,

fashioning itself according to that which it is continually finding and

grasping. Becoming by this assimilation to the Good all that the nature of

that which it participates is, the soul will consequently, owing to there

being no lack of any good in that thing itself which it participates, be

itself also in no lack of anything, and so will expel from within the activity

and the habit of Desire; for this arises only when the thing missed is not

found. For this teaching we have the authority of God's own Apostle, who

announces a subduing (3) and a ceasing of all other activities, even for the

good, which are within us, and finds no limit for love alone. Prophecies, he

says, shall fail; forms of knowledge shall cease; but "charity never

faileth;" which is equivalent to its being always as it is: and though (4) he

says that

faith and hope have endured so far by the side of love, yet again he prolongs

its date beyond theirs, and with good reason too; for hope is in operation

only so long as the enjoyment of the things hoped for is not to be had; and

faith in the same way is a support (5) in the uncertainty about the things

hoped for; for so he defines it -- " the substance (6) of things hoped for";

but when the thing hoped for actually comes, then all other faculties are

reduced to quiescence (7), and love alone remains active, finding nothing to

succeed itself. Love, therefore, is the foremost of all excellent achievements

and the first of the commandments of the law. If ever, then, the soul reach

this goal, it will be in i no need of anything else; it will embrace that

plenitude of things which are, whereby alone (8) it seems in any way to

preserve within itself the stamp of God's actual blessedness. For the life of

the Supreme Being is love, seeing that the Beautiful is necessarily lovable to

those who recognize it, and the Deity does recognize it, and so this

recognition becomes love, that which He recognizes being essentially

beautiful. This True Beauty the insolence of satiety cannot touch (9); and no

satiety interrupting this continuous capacity to love the Beautiful, God's

life will have its activity in love; which life is thus in itself beautiful,

and is essentially of a loving disposition towards the Beautiful, and receives

no check to this activity of love. In fact, in the Beautiful no limit is to be

found so that love should have to cease with any limit of 'the Beautiful. This

last can be ended only by its opposite; but when you have a good, as here,

which is in its essence incapable of a change for the worse, then that good

will go on unchecked into infinity. Moreover, as every being is capable of

attracting its like, and humanity is, in a way, like God, as bearing within

itself some resemblances to its Prototype, the soul is by a strict necessity

attracted to the kindred Deity. In fact what belongs to God must by all means

and at any cost be preserved

451

for Him. If, then, on the one hand, the soul is unencumbered with

superfluities and no trouble connected with the body presses it down, its

advance towards Him Who draws it to Himself is sweet and congenial. But

suppose (1), on the other hand, that it has been transfixed with the nails of

propension (2) so as to be held down to a habit connected with material

things, -- a case like that of those in the ruins caused by earthquakes,

whose bodies are crushed by the mounds of rubbish; and let us imagine by way

of illustration that these are not only pressed down by the weight of the

ruins, but have been pierced as well with some spikes and splinters discovered

with them in the rubbish. What then, would naturally be the plight of those

bodies, when they were being dragged by relatives from the ruins to receive

the holy rites of burial, mangled and torn entirely, disfigured in the most

direful manner conceivable, with the nails beneath the heap harrowing them by

the very violence necessary to pull them out? Such I think is the plight of

the soul as well when the Divine force, for God's very love of man, drags that

which belongs to Him from the ruins of the irrational and material. Not in

hatred or revenge for a wicked life, to my thinking, does God bring upon

sinners those painful dispensations; He is only claiming and drawing to

Himself whatever, to please Him, came into existence. But while He for a noble

end is attracting the soul to Himself, the Fountain of all Blessedness, it is

the occasion necessarily to the being so attracted of a state of torture. Just

as those who refine gold from the dross which it contains not only get this

base alloy to melt in the fire, but are obliged to melt the pure gold along

with the alloy, and then while this last is being consumed the gold remains,

so, while evil is being consumed in the purgatorial (3) fire, the soul that is

welded to this evil must inevitably be in the fire too, until the spurious

material alloy is consumed and annihilated by this fire. If a clay of the more

tenacious kind is deeply plastered round a rope, and then the end of the rope

is put through a narrow hole, and then some one on the further side violently

pulls it by that end, the result must be that, while the rope itself obeys the

force exerted, the clay that has been plastered upon it is scraped off it with

this violent pulling and is left outside the hole, and, moreover, is the cause

why the rope does not run easily through the passage, but has to undergo a

violent tension at the hands of the puller. In such a manner, I think, we may

figure to ourselves the agonized struggle of that soul which has wrapped

itself up in earthy material passions, when God is drawing it, His own one, to

Himself, and the foreign matter, which has somehow grown into its substance,

has to be scraped from it by main force, and so occasions it that keen

intolerable anguish.

Then it seems, I said, that it is not punishment chiefly and principally

that the Deity, as Judge, afflicts sinners with; but He operates, as your

argument has shown, only to get the good separated from the evil and to

attract it into the communion of blessedness.

That, said the Teacher, is my meaning; and also that the agony will be

measured by the amount of evil there is in each individual. For it would not

be reasonable to think that the man who has remained so long as we have

supposed in evil known to be forbidden, and the man who has fallen only into

moderate sins, should be tortured to the same amount in the judgment upon

their vicious habit; but according to the quantity of material will be the

longer or shorter time that that agonizing flame will be burning; that is, as

long as there is fuel to feed it. In the case of the man who has acquired a

heavy weight of material, the consuming fire must necessarily be very

searching; but where that which the fire has to feed upon (4) has spread less

far, there the penetrating fierceness of the punishment is mitigated, so far

as the subject itself, in the amount of its evil, is diminished. In any and

every case evil must be removed out of existence, so that, as we said above,

the absolutely non-existent should cease to be at all. Since it is not in its

nature that evil should exist outside the will, does it not follow that when

it shall be that every will rests in God, evil will be reduced to complete

annihilation, owing to no receptacle being left for it?

But, said I, what help can one find in this devout hope, when one

considers the greatness of the evil in undergoing torture even for a single

year; and if that intolerable anguish be prolonged for the interval of an age,

what grain of comfort is left from any subsequent expectation to him whose

purgation is thus commensurate with an entire age? (5)

452

Why (6), either we must plan to keep the soul absolutely untouched and

free from any stain of evil; or, if our passionate nature makes that quite

impossible, then we must plan that our failures in excellence consist only in

mild and easily-curable derelictions. For the Gospel in its teaching

distinguishes between (7) a debtor of ten thousand talents and a debtor of

five hundred pence, and of fifty pence and of a farthing (8), which is "the

uttermost" of coins; it proclaims that God's just judgment reaches to all, and

enhances the payment necessary as the weight of the debt increases, and on the

other hand does not overlook the very smallest debts. But the Gospel tells us

that this payment of debts was not effected by the refunding of money, but

that the indebted man was delivered to the tormentors until he should pay the

whole debt; and that means nothing else than paying in the coin of torment (9)

the inevitable recompense, the recompense, I mean, that consists in taking the

share of pain incurred during his lifetime, when he inconsiderately chose mere

pleasure, undiluted with its opposite; so that having put off from him all

that foreign growth which sin is, and discarded the shame of any debts, he

might stand in liberty and fearlessness. Now liberty is the coming up to a

state which owns no master and is self-regulating (1); it is that with which

we were gifted by God at the beginning, but which has been obscured by the

feeling of shame arising from indebtedness. Liberty too is in all cases one

and the same essentially; it has a natural attraction to itself. It follows,

then, that as everything that is free will be united with its like, and as

virtue is a thing that has no master, that is, is free, everything that is

free will be united with virtue. But, further, the Divine Being is the

fountain of all virtue.

Therefore, those who have parted with evil will be united with Him; and so, as

the Apostle says, God will be "all in all (2)"; for this utterance seems to me

plainly to confirm the opinion we have already arrived at, for it means that

God will be instead of all other things, and in all. For while our present

life is active amongst a variety of multiform conditions, and the things we

have relations with are numerous, for instance, time, air, locality, food and

drink, clothing, sunlight, lamplight, and other necessities of life, none of

which, many though they be, are God, -- that blessed state which we hope for

is in need of none of these things, but the Divine Being will become all, and

instead of all, to us, distributing Himself proportionately to every need of

that existence. It is plain, too, from the Holy Scripture that God becomes, to

those who deserve it, locality, and home, and clothing, and food, and drink,

and light, and riches, and dominion, and everything thinkable and nameable

that goes to make our life happy. But He that becomes "all" things will be "in

all" things too; and herein it appears to me that Scripture teaches the

complete annihilation of evil (3). If, that is, God will be "in all" existing

things, evil; plainly, will not then be amongst them; for if any one was to

assume that it did exist then, how will the belief that God will be "in all"

be kept intact? The excepting of that one thing, evil, mars the

comprehensiveness of

453

the term "all." But He that will be "in all" will never be in that which does

not exist.

What then, I asked, are we to say to those whose hearts fail at these

calamities (4)?

We will say to them, replied the Teacher, this. "It is foolish, good

people, for you to fret and complain of the chain of this fixed sequence of

life's realities; you do not know the goal towards which each single

dispensation of the universe is moving. You do not know that all things have

to be assimilated to the Divine Nature in accordance with the artistic plan of

their author, in a certain regularity and order. Indeed, it was for this that

intelligent beings came into existence; namely, that the riches of the Divine

blessings should not lie idle. The All-creating Wisdom fashioned these souls,

these receptacles with free wills, as vessels as it were, for this very

purpose, that there should be some capacities able to receive His blessings

and become continually larger with the inpouring of the stream. Such are the

wonders (5) that the participation in the Divine blessings works: it makes him

into whom they come. larger and more capacious ; from his capacity to receive

it gets for the receiver an actual increase in bulk as well, and he never

stops enlarging. The fountain of blessings wells up unceasingly, and the

partaker's nature, finding nothing superfluous and without a use in that which

it receives, makes the whole influx an enlargement of its own proportions, and

becomes at once more wishful to imbibe the nobler nourishment and more capable

of containing it; each grows along with each, both the capacity which is

nursed in such abundance of blessings and so grows greater, and the nurturing

supply which comes on in a flood answering to the growth of those increasing

powers. It is likely, therefore, that this bulk will mount to such a magnitude

as (6) there is no limit to check, so that we should not grow into it. With

such a prospect before us, are you angry that our nature is ad-

vancing to its goal along the path appointed for us? Why, our career cannot be

run thither-ward, except that which weighs us down, I mean this encumbering

load of earthiness, be shaken off the soul; nor can we be domiciled in Purity

with the corresponding part of our nature, unless we have cleansed ourselves

by a better training from the habit of affection which we have contracted in

life towards this earthiness. But if there be in you any clinging to this body

(7), and the being unlocked from this darling thing give you pain, let not

this, either, make you despair. You will behold this bodily envelopment, which

is now dissolved in death, woven again out of the same atoms, not indeed into

this organization with its gross and heavy texture, but with its threads

worked up into something more subtle and ethereal, so that you will not only

h.ave near you that which you love, but it will be restored to you with a

brighter and more entrancing beauty (8)."

But it somehow seems to me now, I said, that the doctrine of the

Resurrection necessarily comes on for our discussion; a doctrine which I think

is even at first sight true as well as credible (9), as it is told us in

Scripture; so that that will not come in question between us: but since the

weakness of the human understanding is strengthened still farther by any

arguments that are intelligible to us, it would be well not to leave this part

of the subject, either, without philosophical examination. Let us consider,

then, what ought to be said about it.

As for the thinkers, the Teacher went on, outside our own system of

thought, they have, with all their diverse ways of looking at things, one in

one point, another in another, approached and touched the doctrine of the

Resurrection: while they none of them exactly coincide with us, they have in

no case wholly abandoned such an expectation. Some indeed make human nature

vile in their comprehensiveness, maintaining that a soul becomes alternately

that of a man and of something irrational; that it trans-migrates into various

bodies, changing at pleasure from the man into fowl, fish, or beast, and then

returning to human kind. While some extend this absurdity even to trees (1)

and shrubs,

454

so that they consider their wooden life as corresponding and akin to humanity,

others of them hold only thus much--that the soul exchanges one man for

another man, so that the life of humanity is continued always by means of the

same souls, which, being exactly the same in number, are being born

perpetually first in one generation, then in another. As for ourselves, we

take our stand upon the tenets of the Church, and assert that it will be well

to accept only so much of these speculations as is sufficient to show that

those who indulge in them are to a certain extent in accord with the doctrine

of the Resurrection. Their statement, for instance, that the soul after its

release from this body insinuates itself into certain other bodies is not

absolutely out of harmony with the revival which we hope for. For our view,

which maintains that the body, both now, and again in the future, is composed

of the atoms of the universe, is held equally by these heathens. In fact, you

cannot imagine any constitution of the body independent of a concourse (2) of

these atoms. But the divergence lies in this: we assert that the same

bodyagainas before, composed of the same atoms, is compacted around the soul;.

they suppose that the soul alights on other bodies, not only rational, but

irrational and even insensate; and while all are agreed that these bodies

which the soul resumes derive their substance from the atoms of the universe,

they part company from us in thinking that they are not made out of

identically the same atoms as those which in this mortal life grew around the

soul. Let then, this external testimony stand for the fact that it is not

contrary to probability that the soul should again inhabit a body; after that

however, it is incumbent upon us to make a survey of the inconsistencies of

their position, and it will be easy thus, by means of the consequences that

arise as we follow out the consist-

ent view, to bring the truth to light. What, then, is to be said about these

theories? This that those who would have it that the soul migrates into

natures divergent from each other seem to me to obliterate all natural

distinctions; to blend and confuse together, in every possible respect, the

rational, the irrational, the sentient, and the insensate; if, that is, all

these are to pass into each other, with no distinct natural order (3)

secluding them from mutual transition. To say that one and the same soul, on

account of a particular environment of body, is at one time a rational and

intellectual soul, and that then it is caverned along with the reptiles, or

herds with the birds, or is a beast of burden, or a carnivorous one, or swims

in the deep; or even drops down to an insensate thing, so as to strike out

roots or become a complete tree, producing buds on branches, and from those

buds a flower, or a thorn, or a fruit edible or noxious--to say this, is

nothing short of making all things the same and believing that one single

nature runs through all beings; that there is a connexion between them which

blends and confuses hopelessly all the marks by which one could be

distinguished from another. The philosopher who asserts that the same thing

may be born in anything intends no less than that all things are to be one;

when the observed differences in things are for him no obstacle to mixing

together things which are utterly incongruous. He makes it necessary that,

even when one sees one of the creatures that are venom-darting or carnivorous,

one should regard it, in spite of appearances, as of the same tribe, nay even

of the same family, as oneself. With such beliefs a man will look even upon

hemlock as not alien to his own nature, detecting, as he does, humanity in the

plant. The grape-bunch itself (4), produced though it be by cultivation for

the purpose of sustaining life, he will not regard without suspicion; for it

too comes from a plant (5): and we find even the fruit of the ears of corn

upon which we live are plants; how, then, can one put in the sickle to cut

them down; and how can one squeeze the bunch, or pull up the thistle from the

field, or gather flowers, or hunt birds, or set fire to the logs of the

funeral pyre: it being all the while

455

uncertain whether we are not laying violent hands on kinsmen, or ancestors, or

fellow-country-men, and whether it is not through the medium of some body of

theirs that the fire is being kindled, and the cup mixed, and the food

prepared? To think that in the case of any single one of these things a soul

of a man has become a plant or animal (6), while no marks are stamped upon

them to indicate what sort of

plant or animal it is that has been a man, and what sort has sprung from other

beginnings,-such a conception as this will dispose him who has entertained it

to feel an equal amount of interest in everything: he must perforce either

harden himself against actual human beings who are in the land of the living,

or, if his nature inclines him to love his kindred, he will feel alike towards

every kind of life, whether he meet it in reptiles or in wild beasts. Why, if

the holder of such an opinion go into a thicket of trees, even then he will

regard the trees as a crowd of men. What sort of life will his be, when he has

to be tender towards everything on the ground of kinship, or else hardened

towards mankind on account of his seeing no difference between them and the

other creatures? From what has been already said, then, we must reject this

theory: and there are many other considerations as well which on the grounds

of mere consistency lead us away from it. For I have heard persons who hold

these opinions (7) saying that whole nations of souls are hidden away

somewhere in a realm of their own, living a life analogous to that of the

embodied soul; but such is the fineness and buoyancy of their substance that

they themselves' roll round along with the revolution of the universe; and

that these souls, having individually lost their wings through some

gravitation towards evil, become embodied; first this takes place in men; and

after that, passing from a human life, owing to brutish affinities of their

passions, they are reduced (8) to the level of brutes; and, leaving that, drop

down to this insensate life of pure nature (9) which you have been hearing so

much of; so that that inherently fine and buoyant thing that the soul is first

becomes weighted and downward tending in consequence of some vice, and so

migrates to a human body; then its reasoning powers are extinguished, and it

goes on

living in some brute; and then even this gift of sensation is withdrawn, and

it changes into the insensate plant life; but after that mounts up again by

the same gradations until it is restored to its place in heaven. Now this

doctrine will at once be found, even after a very cursory survey, to have no

coherency with itself. For, first, seeing that the soul is to be dragged down

from its life in heaven, on account of evil there, to the condition of a tree,

and is then from this point, on account of virtue exhibited there, to return

to heaven, their theory will be unable to decide which is to have the

preference, the life in heaven, or the life in the tree. A circle, in fact, of

the same sequences will be perpetually traversed, where the soul, at whatever

point it may be, has no resting-place. If it thus lapses from the disembodied

state to the embodied, and thence to the insensate, and then springs back to

the disembodied, an inextricable confusion of good and evil must result in the

minds of those who thus teach. For the life in heaven will no more preserve

its blessedness (since evil can touch heaven's denizens), than the life in

trees will be devoid of virtue (since it is from this, they say, that the

rebound of the soul towards the good begins, while from there it begins the

evil life again). Secondly (1), seeing that the soul as it moves round in

heaven is there entangled with evil and is in consequencedragged down to live

in mere matter, from whence, however, it is lifted again into its residence on

high, it follows that those philosophers establish the very contrary (2) of

their own views; they establish, namely, that the life in matter is the

purgation of evil, while that undeviating revolution along with the stars (3)

is the foundation and cause of evil in every soul: if it is here that the soul

by means of virtue grows its wing and then soars upwards, and there that those

wings by reason of evil fall off, so that it descends and clings to this lower

world and is commingled with the grossness of material nature. But the

untenableness of this view does not stop even in this,

456

namely, that it contains assertions diametrically opposed to each other.

Beyond this, their fundamental conception (4) itself cannot stand secure on

every side. They say, for instance, that a heavenly nature is unchangeable.

How then, can there be room for any weakness in the unchangeable? If, again, a

lower nature is subject to infirmity, how in the midst of this infirmity can

freedom from it be achieved? They attempt to amalgamate two things that can

never be joined together: they descry strength in weakness, passionlessness in

passion. But even to this last view they are not faithful throughout; for they

bring home the soul from its material life to that very place whence they had

exiled it because of evil there, as though the life in that place was quite

safe and uncontaminated; apparently quite forgetting the fact that the soul

was weighted with evil there, before it plunged down into this lower world.

The blame thrown on the life here below, and the praise of the things in

heaven, are thus interchanged and reversed; for that which was once blamed

conducts in their opinion to the brighter life, while that which was taken for

the better state gives an impulse to the soul's propensity to evil. Expel,

therefore, from amongst the doctrines of the Faith all erroneous and shifting

suppositions about such matters! We must not follow, either, as though they

had bit the truth those who suppose that souls pass from women's bodies to

live in men (5), or, reversely (6), that souls that have parted with men's

bodies exist in women: or even if they only say that they pass from men into

men, or from women into women. As for the former theory (7), not only has it

been rejected for being shifting and illusory, and for landing us in opinions

diametrically opposed to each other; but it must be rejected also because it

is a godless theory, maintaining as it does that nothing amongst the things in

nature is brought into existence without deriving its peculiar constitution

from evil as its source. If, that is, neither men nor plants nor cattle can be

born unless some soul from above has fallen into them, and if this fall is

owing to

some tendency to evil, then they evidently think that evil controls the

creation of all beings. In some mysterious way, too, both events are to occur

at once; the birth of the man in consequence of a marriage, and the fall of

the soul (synchronizing as it must with the proceedings at that marriage). A

greater absurdity even than this is involved: if, as is the fact, the large

majority of the brute creation copulate in the spring, are we, then, to say

that the spring brings it about that evil is engendered in the revolving world

above, so that, at one and the same moment, there certain souls are

impregnated with evil and so fall, and here certain brutes conceive? And what

are we to say about the husbandman who sets the vine-shoots in the soil? How

does his hand manage to have covered in a human soul along with the plant, and

how does the moulting of wings last simultaneously with his employment in

planting? The same absurdity, it is to be observed, exists in the other of the

two theories as well; in the direction, I mean, of thinking that the soul must

be anxious about the intercourses of those living in wedlock, and must be on

the look-out for the times of bringing forth, in order that it may insinuate

itself into the bodies then produced. Supposing the man refuses the union, or

the woman keeps herself clear of the necessity of becoming a mother, will evil

then fail to weigh down that particular soul? Will it be marriage, in

consequence, that sounds up above the first note of evil in the soul, or will

this reversed state invade the soul quite independently of any marriage? But

then, in this last case, the soul will have to wander about in the interval

like a houseless vagabond, lapsed as it has from its heavenly surroundings,

and yet, as it may happen in some cases, still without a body to receive it.

But how, after that, can they imagine that the Deity exercises any

superintendence over the world, referring as they do the beginnings of human

lives to this casual and meaningless descent of a soul. For all that follows

must necessarily accord with the beginning; and so, if a life begins in

consequence of a chance accident, the whole course of it (8) becomes at once a

chapter of accidents, and the attempt to make the whole world depend on a

Divine power is absurd, when it is made by these men, who deny to the

individualities in it a birth from the fiat of the Divine Will and refer the

several origins of beings to encounters that come of evil, as though there

could never have existed such a thing as a human life, unless a vice had

struck, as it were, its leading note. If the beginning is like that, a sequel

will most certainly be set in motion in accord-

457

ance with that beginning. None would dare to maintain that what is fair can

come out of what is foul, any more than from good can come its opposite. We

expect fruit in accordance with the nature of the seed. Therefore this blind

movement of chance is to rule the whole of life, and no Providence is any more

to pervade the world.

Nay, even the forecasting by our calculations will be quite useless;

virtue will lose its value; and to turn from evil will not be worth the while.

Everything will be entirely under the control of the driver, Chance; and our

lives will differ not at all from vessels devoid of ballast, and will drift on

waves of unaccountable circumstances, now to this, now to that incident of

good or of evil. The treasures of virtue will never be found in those who owe

their constitution to causes quite contrary to virtue. If God really

superintends our life, then, confessedly, evil cannot begin it. But if we do

owe our birth to evil, then we must go on living in complete uniformity with

it. Thereby it will be shOWn that it is folly to talk about the "houses of

correction" which await us after this life is ended, and the "just

recompenses," and all the other things there asserted, and believed in too,

that tend to the suppression of vice: for how can a man, owing, as he does,

his birth to evil, be outside its pale? How can he, whose very nature has its

rise in a vice, as they assert, possess any deliberate impulse towards a life

of virtue? Take any single one of the brute creation; it does not attempt to

speak like a human being, but in using the natural l kind of utterance sucked

in, as it were, with its mother's milk (9), it deems it no loss to be deprived

of articulate speech. Just in the same way those who believe that a vice was

the origin and the cause of their being alive will never bring themselves to

have a longing after virtue, because it will be a thing quite foreign to their

nature. But, as a fact (1), they who by reflecting have cleansed the vision of

their soul do all of them desire and strive after a life of virtue. Therefore

it is by that fact clearly proved that vice is not prior in time to the act of

beginning to live, and that our nature did not thence derive its source, but

that the all-disposing wisdom of God was the Cause of it: in short, that the

soul issues on the stage of life in the manner which is pleasing to its

Creator, and then (but not before), by virtue of its power of willing, is free

to choose that which is to its mind, and so, whatever it may wish to be,

becomes that very thing. We may understand this truth by the example of the

eyes. To see

is their natural state; but to fail to see results to them either from choice

or from disease. This unnatural state may supervene instead of the natural,

either by wilful shutting of the eyes or by deprivation of their sight through

disease. With the like truth we may assert that the soul derives its

constitution from God, and that, as we cannot conceive of any vice in Him, it

is removed from arty necessity of being vicious; that nevertheless, though

this is the condition in which it came into being, it can be attracted of its

own free will in a chosen direction, either wilfully shutting its eyes to the

Good, or letting them he damaged (2) by that insidious foe whom we have taken

home to live with us, and so passing through life in the darkness of error;

or, reversely, preserving un-dimmed its sight of the Truth and keeping far

away from all weaknesses that could darken it. --But then some one will ask,

"When and how did it come into being?'" Now as for the question, how any

single thing came into existence, we must banish it altogether from our

discussion. Even in the case of things which are quite within the grasp of our

understanding and of which we have sensible perception, it would be impossible

for the speculative reason (3) to grasp the "how" of the production of the

phenomenon; so much so, that even inspired and saintly men have deemed such

questions insoluble. For instance, the Apostle says, "Through faith we

understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things

which are seen are not made of things which do appear (4)." He would not, I

take it, have spoken like that, if he had thought that the question could be

settled by any efforts of the reasoning powers. While the Apostle affirms that

it is an object of his faith s that it was by the will of God that the world

itself and all which is therein was framed (whatever this "world" be that

involves the idea of the whole visible and invisible creation), he has on the

other hand left out of the investigation the "how" of this framing. Nor do I

think that this point can ever be reached by any inquirers. The question

presents, on the face of it, many insuperable difficulties. How, for instance,

can a world of movement come from one that is at rest? how from the simple and

undimensional that which shows dimension and compositeness? Did it come

actually out of the Supreme Being? But the fact that this world presents a

difference in kind to that Being militates against (6) such a

4

58

supposition. Did it then come from some other quarter? Yet Faith (7) can

contemplate nothing as quite outside the Divine Nature; for we should have to

believe in two distinct and separate Principles, if outside the Creative Cause

we are to suppose something else, which the Artificer, with all His skill, has

to put under contribution for the formative processes of the Universe. Since,

then, the Cause of all things is one, and one only, and yet the existences

produced by that Cause are not of the same nature as its transcendent quality,

an inconceivability of equal magnitude (5) arises in both our suppositions,

i.e. both that the creation comes straight out of the Divine Being, and that

the universe owes its existence to some cause other than Him; for if created

things are to be of the same nature as God, we must consider Him to be

invested with the properties belonging to His creation; or else a world of

matter, outside the circle of God's substance, and equal, on the score of the

absence in it of all beginning, to the eternity of the Self-existent One, will

have to be ranged against Him: and this is in fact what the followers of

Manes, and some of the Greek philosophers who held opinions of equal boldness

with his, did imagine; and they raised this imagination into a system. In

order, then, to avoid falling into either of these absurdities, which the

inquiry into the origin of things involves, let us, following the example of

the Apostle, leave the question of the "how" in each created thing, without

meddling with it at all, but merely observing incidentally that the movement t

of God's Will becomes at any moment that He pleases a fact, and the intention

becomes at once realized in Nature (9); for Omnipotence does not leave the

plans of its fa-seeing skill in the state of unsubstantial wishes: and the

actualizing of a wish is Substance. In short, the whole world of existing

things falls into two divisions: i.e. that of the intelligible, and that of

the corporeal: and the intelligible creation does not, to begin with, seem to

be in any way at variance with a spiritual Being, but on the contrary to verge

closely upon Him, exhibiting as it does that absence of tangible form and of

dimension which we rightly attribute to His transcendent nature. The corporeal

creation (1),

on the other hand, must certainly be classed amongst specialities that have

nothing in common with the Deity; and it does offer this supreme difficulty to

the Reason; namely, that the Reason cannot see how the visible comes out of

the invisible, how the hard solid comes out of the intangible, how the finite

comes out of the infinite, how that which is circumscribed by certain

proportions, where the idea of quantity comes in, can come from that which has

no size, no proportions, and so on through each single circumstance of body.

But even about this we can say so much: i.e. that not one of those things

which we attribute to body is itself body; neither figure, nor colour, nor

weight, nor extension, nor quantity, nor any other qualifying notion whatever;

but every one of them is a category; it is the combination of them all into a

single whole that constitutes body. Seeing, then, that these several

qualifications which complete the particular body are grasped by thought

alone, and not by sense, and that the Deity is a thinking being, what trouble

can it be to such a thinking agent to produce the thinkables whose mutual

combination generateS for us the substance of that body? All this discussion,

however, lies outside our present business. The previous question was,-If

some souls exist anterior to their bodies, when and how do they come into

existence? and of this question (2), again, the part about the how, has been

left out of our examination and has not been meddled with, as presenting

impenetrable difficulties. There remains the question of the when of the

soul's commencement of existence: it follows immediately on that which we have

already discussed. For if we were to grant that the soul has lived previous to

its body (3) in some place of resort peculiar to itself, then we cannot avoid

seeing some force in all that fantastic teaching lately discussed, which

would explain the soul's habitation of the body as a consequence of some vice.

Again, on the other hand, no one who can reflect will imagine an after-birth

of the soul, i.e. that it is younger than the moulding of the body; for every

one can see for himself that not one amongst all the things that are inanimate

or

459

soulless possesses any power of motion or of growth; whereas there is no

question about that which is bred in the uterus both growing and moving from

place to place. It remains therefore that we must think that the point of

commencement of existence is one and the same for body and soul. Also we

affirm that, just as the earth receives the sapling from the hands of the

husbandman and makes a tree of it, without itself imparting the power of

growth to its nursling, but only lending it, when placed within itself, the

impulse to grow, in this very same way that which is secreted from a man for

the planting of a man is itself to a certain extent a living being as much

gifted with a soul and as capable of nourishing itself as that from which it

comes (4). If this offshoot, in its diminutiveness, cannot contain at first

all the activities and the movements of the soul, we need not be surprised;

for neither in the seed of corn is there visible all at once the ear. How

indeed could anything so large be crowded into so small a space? But the earth

keeps on feeding it with its congenial aliment, and so the grain becomes the

ear, without changing its nature while in the clod, but only developing it and

bringing it to perfection under the stimulus of that nourishment. As, then, in

the case of those growing seeds the advance to perfection is a graduated one

(5), so in man's formation the forces of his soul show themselves in

proportion to the size to which his body has attained. They dawn first in the

foetus, in the shape of the power of nutrition and of development: after that,

they introduce into the organism that has come into the light the gift of

perception: then, when this is reached, they manifest a certain measure of the

reasoning faculty, like the fruit of some matured plant, not growing all of

it at once, but in a continuous progress along with the shooting up of that

plant. Seeing, then, that that which is secreted from one living being to lay

the foundations of another living being cannot itself be dead (for a state of

deadness arises from the privation of life, and it cannot be that privation

should precede the having), we grasp from these considerations the fact that

in the compound which results from the joining of both (soul and body) there

is a simultaneous passage of both into existence; the one does not come first,

any more than the other comes after. But as to the number of souls, our reason

must necessarily contemplate a stopping some day of its increase; so that

Nature's stream may not flow on for ever, pouring forward in her successive

births and never staying that onward movement. The reason for our race having

some day to come to a

standstill is as follows, in our opinion: since every intellectual reality is

fixed in a plenitude of its own, it is reasonable to expect that humanity (6)

also will arrive at a goal (for in this respect also humanity is not to be

parted from the intellectual world (7)); so that we are to believe that it

will not be visible for ever only in defect, as it is now: for this continual

addition of after generations indicates that there is something deficient in

our race.

Whenever, then, humanity shall have reached the plenitude that belongs to

it, this on-streaming movement of production will altogether cease; it will

have touched its destined bourn, and a new order of things quite distinct from

the present precession of births and deaths will carry on the life of

humanity. If there is no birth, it follows necessarily that there will be

nothing to die. Composition must precede dissolution (and by composition I

mean the coming l into this world by being born); necessarily, therefore, if

this synthesis does not precede, no dissolution will follow. Therefore, if we

are to go upon probabilities, the life after this is shown to us beforehand as

something that is fixed and imperishable, with no birth and no decay to change

it.

The Teacher finished her exposition; and to the many persons sitting by

her bedside the whole discussion seemed now to have arrived at a fitting

conclusion. Nevertheless, fearing that if the Teacher's illness took a fatal

turn (such as did actually happen), we should have no one amongst us to answer

the objections of the unbelievers to the Resurrection (8), I still insisted.

The argument has not yet touched the most vital of all the questions

relating to our Faith. I mean, that the inspired Writings, both in the New and

in the Old Testament, declare most emphatically not only that, when our race

has completed the ordered chain of its existence as the ages lapse through

their complete circle (9), this current streaming onward as generation

succeeds generation will cease altogether, but also that then, when the

completed Universe no longer admits of further increase, all the souls in

their entire number will come back out of their invisible and scattered

condition into tangibility and light, the identical

460

atoms (belonging to each soul) reassembling together in the same order as

before; and this reconstitution of human life is called, in these Writings

which contain God's teaching, the Resurrection, the entire movement of the

atoms receiving the same term as the raising up of that which is actually

prostrate on the ground (1).

But, said she, which of these points has been left unnoticed in what has

been said?

Why, the actual doctrine of the Resurrection, I replied.

And yet, she answered, much in our long and detailed discussion pointed to

that.

Then are you not aware, I insisted, of all the objections, a very swarm of

them, which our antagonists bring against us in connection with that hope of

yours?

And I at once tried to repeat all the devices hit upon by their captious

champions to upset the doctrine of the Resurrection.

She, however, replied, First, I think, we must briefly run over the

scattered proclamations of this doctrine in Holy Scripture; they shall give

the finishing touch to our discourse. Observe, then, that I can hear David, in

the midst of his praises in the Divine Songs, saying at the end of the hymnody

of the hundred and third (104th) Psalm, where he has taken for his theme God's

administration of the world, "Thou shalt take away their breath, and they

shall die, and return to their dust: Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit, and

they shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth." He says

that a power of the Spirit which works in all vivifies the beings into whom it

enters, and deprives those whom He abandons of their life. Seeing, then, that

the dying is declared to occur at the Spirit's departure, and the renewal of

these dead ones at His appearance, and seeing moreover that in the order of

the statement the death of those who are to be thus renewed comes first, we

hold that in these words that mystery of the Resurrection is proclaimed to the

Church, and that David in the spirit of prophecy expressed this very gift

which you are asking about. You will find this same prophet in another place

(2) also saying

that "the God of the world, the Lord of everything that is, hath showed

Himself to us, that we may keep the Feast amongst the decorators;" by that

mention of "decoration" with boughs, he means the Feast of Tabernacle-fixing,

which, in accordance with Moses' injunction, has been observed from of old.

That lawgiver, I take it, adopting a prophet's spirit, predicted therein

things still to come; for though the decoration was always going on it was

never finished. The truth indeed was foreshadowed under the type and riddle of

those Feasts that were always occurring, but the true Tabernacle-fixing was

not yet come; and on this account "the God and Lord of the whole world,"

according to the Prophet's declaration, "hath showed Himself to us, that the

Tabernacle-fixing of this our tenement that has been dissolved may be kept for

human kind"; a material decoration, that is, may be begun again by means of

the concourse of our scattered atoms. For that word <greek>pukaomos</greek> in

its peculiar meaning signifies the Temple-circuit and the decoration which

completes it. Now this passage from the Psalms runs as follows: "God and Lord

hath showed Himself to us; keep the Feast amongst the decorators even unto the

horns of the altar;" and this seems to me to proclaim in metaphors the fact

that one single feast is to be kept by the whole rational creation, and that

in that assembly of the saints tire inferiors are to join the dance with their

superiors. For in the case of the fabric of that Temple which was the Type it

was not allowed to all who were on the outside of its circuit (3) to come

within, but everything that was Gentile and alien was prohibited from

entering; and of those, further, who had entered, all were not equally

privileged to advance towards the centre; but only those who had consecrated

themselves by a holier manner of life, and by certain sprinklings; and, again,

not every one amongst these last might set foot within the interior of the

Temple; the priests alone had the right of entering within the Curtain, and

that only for the service of the sanctuary; while even to the priests the

darkened shrine of the Temple, where stood the beautiful Altar with its

jutting horns, was forbidden, except to one of them, who held the highest

office of the

461

priesthood, and who once a year, on a stated day, and unattended, passed

within it, carrying an offering more than usually sacred and mystical. Such

being the differences in connection with this Temple which you know of, it was

clearly (4) a representation and an imitation of the condition of the

spirit-world, the lesson taught by these material observances being this, that

it is not the whole of the rational creation that can approach the temple of

God, or, in other words, the adoration of the Almighty; but that those who are

led astray by false persuasions are outside the precinct of the Deity; and

that from the number of those who by virtue of this adoration have been

preferred to the rest and admitted within it, some by reason of sprinklings

and purifications have still further privileges; and again amongst these last

those who have been consecrated priests have privileges further still, even to

being admitted to the mysteries of the interior. And, that one may bring into

still clearer light the meaning of the allegory, we may understand the Word

here as teaching this, that amongst all the Powers endued with reason some

have been fixed like a Holy Altar in the inmost shrine of the Deity; and that

again of these last some jut forward like horns, for their eminence, and that

around them others are arranged first or second, according to a prescribed

sequence of rank; that the race of man, on the contrary, on account of

indwelling evil was excluded from the Divine precinct, but that purified with

lustral water it re-enters it; and, since all the further barriers by which

our sin has fenced us off from the things within the veil are in the end to be

taken down, whenever the time comes that the tabernacle of our nature is as it

were to be fixed up again in the Resurrection, and all the inveterate

corruption of sin has vanished from the world, then a universal feast will be

kept around the Deity by those who have decorated themselves in the

Resurrection; and one and the same banquet will be spread for all, with no

differences cutting off any rational creature from an equal participation in

it; for those who are now excluded by reason of their sin will at last be

admitted within the Holiest places of God's blessedness, and will bind

themselves to the horns of the Altar there, that is, to the most excellent of

the transcendental Powers. The Apostle says the same thing more plainly when

he indicates the final accord of the whole Universe with the Good: "That" to

Him "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and

things under the earth: And that every tongue

should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father":

instead of the "horns," speaking of that which is angelic and "in heaven," and

by the other terms signifying ourselves, the creatures whom we think of next

to that; one festival of united voices shall occupy us all; that festival

shall be the confession and the recognition of the Being Who truly Is. One

might (she proceeded) select many other passages of Holy Scripture to

establish the doctrine of the Resurrection. For instance, Ezekiel leaps in the

spirit of prophecy over all the intervening time, with its vast duration; he

stands, by his powers of foresight, in the actual moment of the Resurrection,

and, as if he had really gazed on what is still to come, brings it in his

description before our eyes. He saw a mighty plain (5), unfolded to an endless

distance before him, and vast heaps of bones upon it flung at random, some

this way, some that; and then under an impulse from God these bones began to

move and group themselves with their fellows that they once owned, and adhere

to the familiar sockets, and then clothe themselves with muscle, flesh, and

skin (which was the process called "decorating" in the poetry of the Psalms);

a Spirit in fact was giving life and movement to everything that lay there.

But as regards our Apostle's description of the wonders of the Resurrection,

why should one repeat it, seeing that it can easily be found and read? how,

for instance, "with a shout" and the "sound of trumpets" (in the language of

the Word) all dead and prostrate things shall be "changed (6) in the twinkling

of an eye" into immortal beings. The expressions in the Gospels also I will

pass over; for their meaning is quite clear to every one; and our Lord does

not declare in word alone that the bodies of the dead shall be raised up

again; but He shows in action the Resurrection itself, making a beginning of

this work of wonder from things more within our reach and less capable of

being doubted. First, that is, He displays His life-giving power in the case

of the deadly forms of disease, and chases those maladies by one word of

command; then He raises a little girl just dead; then He makes a young man,

who is already being carried out, sit up on his bier, and delivers him to his

mother; after that He calls forth from his tomb the four-days-dead and already

decomposed Lazarus, vivifying the prostrate body with His commanding voice;

then after three days He raises from the dead His own human body, pierced

though it was

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with the nails and spear, and brings the print of those nails and the

spear-wound to witness to the Resurrection. But I think that a detailed

mention of these things is not necessary; for no doubt about them lingers in

the minds of those who have accepted the written accounts of them.

But that, said I, was not the point in question. Most of your hearers will

assent to the fact that there will some day be a Resurrection, and that man

will be brought before the incorruptible tribunal (7); on account both of the

Scripture proofs, and also of our previous examination of the question. But

still the question remains (8): Is the state which we are to expect to be like

the present state of the body? Because if so, then, as I was saying (9), men

had better avoid hoping for any Resurrection at all. For if our bodies are to

be restored to life again in the same sort of condition as they are in when

they cease to breathe, then all that man can look forward to in the

Resurrection is an unending calamity. For what spectacle is more piteous than

when in extreme old age our bodies shrivel up (1) and change into something

repulsive and hideous, with the flesh all wasted in the length of years, the

skin dried up about the bones till it is all in wrinkles, the muscles in a

spasmodic state from being no longer enriched with their natural moisture, and

the whole body consequently shrunk, the hands on either side powerless to

perform their natural work, shaken with an involuntary trembling? What a sight

again are the bodies of persons in a long consumption! They differ from bare

bones only in giving the appearance of being covered with a worn-out veil of

skin. What a sight too are those of persons swollen with the disease of

dropsy! What words could describe the unsightly disfigurement of sufferers

from leprosy (2)? Gradually over all their limbs and organs of sensation

rottenness spreads and devours them. What words could describe that of persons

who have been mutilated in earthquake, battle, or by any other visitation, and

live on in such a plight for a long time before their natural deaths? Or of

those who from an injury have grown up from infancy with their limbs awry!

What can one say of them? What is one to think about the bodies of newborn

infants who have been either exposed, or strangled, or died a natural death,

if they are to be brought to life again just such as they were? Are they to

continue in that infantine state? What condition could be more miserable than

that? Or are they to come to the flower of their age? Well, but what sort of

milk has Nature got to suckle them again with? It comes then to this: that, if

our bodies are to live again in every respect the same as before, this thing

that we are expecting is simply a calamity; whereas if they are not the same,

the person raised up will be another than he who died. If, for instance, a

little boy was buried, but a grown man rises again, or reversely, how can we

say that the dead in his very self is raised up, when he has had some one

substituted for him by virtue of this difference in age? Instead of the child,

one sees a grown-up man. Instead of the old man, one sees a person in his

prime. In fact, instead of the

one person another entirely. The cripple is changed into the able-bodied man;

the consumptive sufferer into a man whose flesh is firm; and so on of all

possible cases, not to enumerate them for fear of being prolix. If, then, the

body will not come to life again just such in its attributes as it was when it

mingled with the earth, that dead body will not rise again; but on the

contrary the earth will be formed into another man. How, then, will the

Resurrection affect myself, when instead of me some one else will come to

life? Some one else, I say; for how could I recognize myself when, instead of

what was once myself, I see some one not myself? It cannot really be I, unless

it is in every respect the same as myself. Suppose, for instance, in this life

I had in my memory the traits of some one; say he was bald, had prominent

lips, a somewhat flat nose, a fair complexion, grey eyes, white hair, wrinkled

skin; and then went to look for such an one, and met a young man with a fine

head of hair, an aquiline nose, a dark complexion, and in all other respects

quite different in his type of countenance; am I likely in seeing the latter

to think of the former? But why dwell longer on these the less forcible

objections to the Resurrection, and neglect the strongest one of all? For who

has not heard that human life is like a stream, moving from birth to death at

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a certain rate of progress, and then only ceasing from that progressive

movement when it ceases also to exist? This movement indeed is not one of

spacial change; our bulk never exceeds itself; but it makes this advance by

means of internal alteration; and as long as this alteration is that which its

name implies, it never remains at the same stage (from moment to moment); for

how can that which is being altered be kept in any sameness? The fire on the

wick, as far as appearance goes, certainly seems always the same, the

continuity of its movement giving it the look of being an uninterrupted and

self-centred whole; but in reality it is always passing itself along and never

remains the same; the moisture which is extracted by the heat is burnt up and

changed into smoke the moment it has burst into flame and this alterative

force effects the movement of the flame, working by itself the change of the

subject-matter into smoke; just, then, as it is impossible for one who has

touched that flame twice on the same place, to touch twice the very same flame

(3) (for the speed of the alteration is too quick; it does not wait for that

second touch, however rapidly it may be effected; the flame is always fresh

and new; it is always being produced, always transmitting itself, never

remaining at one and the same place), a thing of the same kind is found to be

the case with the constitution of our body. There is influx and afflux going

on in it in an alterative progress until the moment that it ceases to live; as

long as it is living it has no stay; for it is either being replenished, or it

is discharging in vapour, or it is being kept in motion by both of these

processes combined. If, then, a particular man is not the same even as he was

yesterday (4), but is made different by this transmutation, when so be that

the Resurrection shall restore our body to life again, that single man will

become a crowd of human beings, so that with his rising again there will be

found the babe, the child, the boy, the youth, the man, the father, the old

man, and all the intermediate persons that he once was.

But further (5); chastity and profligacy are both carried on in the flesh;

those also who endure the most painful tortures for their religion, and those

on the other hand who shrink from such, both one class and the other reveal

their character in relation to fleshly sensations; how, then, can justice be

done at the Judgment (6)? Or take the case of one and the same man first

sinning and then cleansing himself by repentance, and then, it might so

happen, relapsing into his sin; in such a case both the defiled and the

undefiled body alike undergoes a change, as his nature changes, and neither of

them continue to the end the same; which body, then, is the profligate to be

tortured in? In that which is stiffened with old age and is near to death? But

this is not the same as that which did the sin. In that, then, which defiled

itself by giving way to passion? But where is the old man, in that case? This

last, in fact, will not rise again, and the Resurrection will not do a

complete work; or else he will rise, while the criminal will escape. Let me

say something else also from amongst the objections made by unbelievers to

this doctrine. No part, they urge, of the body is made by nature without a

function. Some parts, for instance, are the efficient causes within us of our

being alive; without them our life in the flesh could not possibly be carried

on; such are the heart, liver, brain, lungs, stomach, and the other vitals;

others are assigned to the activities of sensation; others to those of handing

and walking (7); others are adapted for the transmission of a posterity. Now

if the life to come is to be in exactly the same circumstances as this, the

supposed change in us is reduced to nothing; but if the report is true, as

indeed it is, which represents marriage as forming no part of the economy of

that after-life, and eating and drinking as not then preserving its

continuance, what use will there be for the members of our body, when we are

no longer to expect in that existence any of the activities for which our

members now exist? If, for the sake of marriage, there are now certain organs

adapted for marriage, then, whenever the latter ceases to be, we shall not

need those organs: the same may be said of the

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hands for working with, the feet for running with, the mouth for taking food

with, the teeth for grinding it with, the organs of the stomach for digesting,

the evacuating ducts for getting rid of that which has become superfluous.

When therefore, all those operations will be no more how or wherefore will

their instruments exist? So that necessarily, if the things that are not going

to contribute in any way to that other life are not to surround the body, none

of the parts which at present constitute the body would (8) exist either. That

life (9), then, will be carried on by other instruments; and no one could call

such a state of things a Resurrection, where the particular members are no

longer present in the body, owing to their being useless to that life. But if

on the other hand our Resurrection will be represented in every one of these;

then the Author of the Resurrection will fashion things in us of no use and

advantage to that life. And yet we must believe, not only that there is a

Resurrection, but also that it will not be an absurdity. We must, therefore,

listen attentively to the explanation of this, so that, for every part of this

truth we may have its probability saved to the last (10).

When I had finished, the Teacher thus replied, You have attacked the

doctrines connected with the Resurrection with some spirit, in the way of

rhetoric as it is called; you have coursed round and round the truth with

plausibly subversive arguments; so much so, that those who have not very

carefully considered this mysterious truth might possibly be affected in their

view of it by the likelihood of those arguments, and might think that the

difficulty started against what has been advanced was not altogether beside

the point. But, she proceeded, the truth does not lie in these arguments, even

though we may find it impossible to give a rhetorical answer to them, couched

in equally strong language. The true explanation of all these questions is

still stored up in the hidden treasure-rooms of Wisdom, and will not come to

the light until that moment when we shall be taught the mystery of the

Resurrection by the reality of it; and then there will be no more need of

phrases to explain the things which we

now hope for. Just as many questions might be started for debate amongst

people sitting up at night as to the kind of thing that sunshine is, and then

the simple appearing of it in all its beauty would render any verbal

description superfluous, so every calculation that tries to arrive

conjecturally at the future state will be reduced to nothingness by the object

of our hopes, when it comes upon us. But since it is our duty not to leave

the arguments brought against us in any way unexamined, we will expound the

truth as to these points as follows. First let us get a clear notion as to the

scope of this doctrine; in other words, what is the end that Holy Scripture

has in view in promulgating it and creating the belief in it. Well, to sketch

the outline of so vast a truth and to embrace it in a definition, we will say

that the Resurrection is "the reconstitution of our nature in its original

form (1)." But in that form of life, of which God Himself was the Creator, it

is reasonable to believe that there was neither age nor infancy nor any of the

sufferings arising from our present various infirmities, nor any kind of

bodily affliction whatever. It is reasonable, I say, to believe that God was

the Creator of none of these things, but that man was a thing divine before

his humanity got within reach of the assault of evil; that then, however, with

the inroad of evil, all these afflictions also broke in upon him. Accordingly

a life that is free from evil is under no necessity whatever of being passed

amidst the things that result from evil. It follows that when a man travels

through ice he must get his body chilled; or when he walks in a very hot sun

that he must get his skin darkened; but if he has kept clear of the one or the

other, he escapes these results entirely, both the darkening and the chilling;

no one, in fact, when a particular cause was removed, would be justified in

looking for the effect of that particular cause. Just so our nature, becoming

passional, had to encounter all the necessary results of a life of passion:

but when it shall have started back to that state of passionless blessedness,

it will no longer encounter the inevitable results of evil tendencies. Seeing,

then, that all the infusions of the life of the brute into our nature were not

in us before our humanity descended through the touch of evil into passions,

most certainly, when we abandon those passions, we shall abandon all their

visible results. No one, therefore, will be justified in seeking in that other

life for the consequences in us of any passion. Just as if a man, who, clad in

a ragged tunic, has divested himself of the garb, feels no

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more its disgrace upon him, so we too, when we have cast off that dead

unsightly tunic made from the skins of brutes and put upon us (for I take the

"coats of skins" to mean that conformation belonging to a brute nature with

which we were clothed when we became familiar with passionate indulgence),

shall, along with the casting off of that tunic, fling from us all the

belongings that were round us of that skin of a brute; and such accretions are

sexual intercourse, conception, parturition, impurities, suckling, feeding,

evacuation, gradual growth to full size, prime of life, old age, disease, and

death. If that skin is no longer round us, how can its resulting consequences

be left behind within us? It is folly, then, when we are to expect a different

state of things in the life to come, to object to the doctrine of the

Resurrection on the ground of something that has nothing to do with it. I

mean, what has thinness or corpulence, a state of consumption or of plethora,

or any other condition supervening in a nature that is ever in a flux, to do

with the other life, stranger as it is to any fleeting and transitory passing

such as that? One thing, and one thing only, is required for the operation of

the Resurrection; viz. that a man should have lived, by being born; or, to use

rather the Gospel words, that "a man should be born (2) into the world"; the

length or briefness of the life, the manner, this or that, of the death, is an

irrelevant subject of inquiry in connection with that operation. Whatever

instance we take, howsoever we suppose this to have been, it is all the same;

from these differences in life there arises no difficulty, any more than any

facility, with regard to the Resurrection. He who has once begun to live must

necessarily go on having once lived (3), after his intervening dissolution in

death has been repaired in the Resurrection. As to the how and the when of his

dissolution, what do they matter to the Resurrection? Consideration of such

points belongs to another line of inquiry altogether. For instance, a man may

have lived in bodily comfort, or in affliction, virtuously or viciously,

renowned or disgraced; he may have passed his days miserably, or happily.

These and such-like results must be obtained from the length of his life and

the manner of his living; and to be able to pass a judgment on the things done

in his life, it will be necessary for the judge to scrutinize his indulgences,

as the case may be, or his losses, or his disease, or his old age, or his

prime, or his youth, or his wealth, or his poverty: how well

or ill a man, placed in either of these, concluded his destined career;

whether he was the recipient of many blessings, or of many ills in a length of

life; or tasted neither of them at all, but ceased to live before his mental

powers were formed. But whenever the time come that God shall have brought our

nature back to the primal state of man, it will be useless to talk of such

things then, and to imagine that objections based upon such things can prove

God's power to be impeded in arriving at His end. His end is one, and one

only; it is this: when the complete whole of our race shall have been

perfected from the first man to the last, -- some having at once in this

life been cleansed from evil, others having afterwards in the necessary

periods been healed by the Fire, others having in their life here been

unconscious equally of good and of evil, -- to offer to every one of us

participation in the blessings which are in Him, which, the Scripture tells

us, "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," nor thought ever reached. But this is

nothing else, as I at least understand it, but to be in God Himself; for the

Good which is above hearing and eye and heart must be that Good which

transcends the universe. But the difference between the virtuous and the

vicious life led at the present time (4) will be illustrated in this way; viz.

in the quicker or more tardy participation of each in that promised

blessedness. According to the amount of the ingrained wickedness of each will

be computed the duration of his cure. This cure consists in the cleansing of

his soul, and that cannot be achieved without an excruciating condition, as

has been expounded in our previous discussion. But any one would more fully