42. For example in Book V11, 15,21—21,31 above, especially 27-31. See also77ie Trinity
424 The Literal Meaning of Genesis
An admonition never to think of the soul as being a material body
24, 40. Certainly I have an admonition, which I would make as forceful as I can, for those who rather fancy this opinion, and believe that souls are propa gated from parents, that they should take a good look at themselves to the best of their ability and should in the meantime be fully aware that their souls are not bodies. There is no nature, you see, closer to God than the one that was made to his image, one therefore of which a thorough examination will make it possible for God also to be thought of in a non-bodily way, God who remains unchanged and unchangeable above all his creation; and there is nothing you are nearer to. once you believe that the soul is a body, or nothing which will more inevitably follow, than your believing that God too is a body.
You see, there are people who have gotten into the habit of limiting their conscious awareness to what they perceive with the senses of the body; and the reason they give for refusing to believe that the soul is anything different from a body is that if it were not a body it would be nothing. And thus they shrink even more fearfully from believing that God is not a body, because they are terrified of having to believe that God is nothing. Their attention, you see, is so concen trated on the fancies and pictures in the imagination which are turned out by thought about bodies that they are terrified, if these are set aside, ofperishing in a vacuum. Thus they are under the necessity of painting both justice and wisdom in their minds with shapes and colors, which cannot be thought ofas incorporeal; and yet they do not say, when prompted by justice or wisdom either to praise them or to do something in line with them, what color, what stature, what features41 they have been contemplating.
But we have already had much to say about these people,42 and God willing, if the subject ever seems to require it, we shall say more. For the nonce, as l had started off saying, ifsome people have no doubts about the transmission of souls from parents that that is how it is, while others do doubt whether that is in fact how it is; still, let them at least never presume to believe or say that the soul is a body—especially for the reason I gave, that they might then be drawn to opine that God himself is also nothing but a body, even if the most excellent one there is, even ifof a special nature far surpassing all the rest—but still a body nonethe less.
4 1 . Here the Maurists add: "or what sort of shapes." 42. For example in Book V11, 15,21—21,31 above, especially 27-31. See also77ie Trinity X.6.8— 10,16.