1 4. 1t is intriguing that Messrs Lewis & Short do list the word mentalis, as late Latin, giving as their
Book XII All what they are. l mean, a man or a tree or the sun or any other bodies, celestial or terrestrial, can both be seen when present in their own shapes, and be thought about when absent in their images impressed upon the spirit, and so they give rise to the first two sorts of vision: one through the senses of the body, the other through the spirit in which those images are held. But is love seen in one way, in its proper appearance, when present, and in another way when absent, in some image that is like it? Of course not. Insofar, though, as it can be discerned by the mind, it is being discerned as it is in itself, more by one person, less by another; if however some kind of bodily image is being thought about, it is not love itself that is being discerned.
7, 16. These are the three kinds of vision, about which we have said something in earlier books as the subject matter seemed to require, though we did not mention their number.13 But now that we have done this, and having raised the question are constrained to give it more copious consideration, we ought to label them with definite and suitable names, or repeated description will hold us up in our discussion of them. So let us call the first kind of vision "bodily," because it is perceived through the body, and presented to the senses of the body. The second one "spiritual"; anything, you see, that is not body and for all that is still something can now correctly be called spirit, and the image of an absent body, though like a body, is of course not itself a body, and neither is the glance or gaze by which it is perceived. The third one, finally, "intellectual" from the intellect, because if we call it mental from mens, mind, the very novelty of the word will render it disagreeable to the ear.14
17. Were I to give a more detailed explanation of these words, it would mean a more long-drawn-out and complicated treatment, for which there is really no need—certainly no urgent need. So then it is enough to know that something is called bodily either properly, when one is dealing with bodies, or in a transferred sense, as when it says: because in him dwells thefullness ofdivinity in a bodily way. Divinity, after all, is not something bodily; but because he also calls the sacraments of the Old Testament shadows ofwhat is to come (Col 2:9. 17), it was in comparison with shadows that he said the fullness of divinity dwells in Christ in a bodily way, because in him are fulfilled all those things that were repre sented by those shadows; and thus Christ is himself somehow the body of those shadows, that is to say he is the truth represented by those figures. So just as those figures are called shadows in a significantly transferred sense, and not properly, so too in saying that the fullness of divinity dwells in him in a bodily way, the apostle is using the word in a transferred sense.
13. The only place 1 have managed to locate is Book 1X.2,3-4.
1 4. 1t is intriguing that Messrs Lewis & Short do list the word mentalis, as late Latin, giving as their reference Pseudo-Augustine, "Sermon 19, to the Brethren in the Desert," but not referring to this passage of ours here.