body, as it is going to be in the resurrection of the saints, is called spiritual by the
472 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis
18. The word "spiritual," however, is used in several ways. l mean even the body, as it is going to be in the resurrection of the saints, is called spiritual by the apostle, where he says: // is sown an ensouled body, it is raised a spiritual body15 (1 Cor 15:44), because in marvelous ways it will be subject to the spirit and thereby rendered both capable of doing anything and imperishable, so that without any need of bodily nourishment it will be kept alive solely by spirit; not because it is going to have an incorporeal, immaterial nature. After all, this body such as we now have does not have the same nature as the soul, is not what the soul is, just because it is called "ensouled."
Again, this air, or at least its movement or blowing, is called spirit, as where it says: Fire, hail, snow, ice, spirit of the storm (Ps 148:8). The soul too, whether of cattle or ofhuman beings, is called spirit, as where it is written: And who knows if the spirit of the sons of man ascends upwards, and ifthe spirit ofcattle descends downward into the earth? (Sir 3:21). The rational mind also is called spirit, where there is a sort ofeye of the soul, where the image and recognition of God is to be found. In this sense the apostle says: Be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new man, who has been created in accordance with God (Eph 4:23-24), while elsewhere he also says about the interior man: Who is being renewed in recognition of God in accordance with the image of him who created him (Col 3:10). Again, after saying: lmyselftherefore serve the law of God in the mind but the law of sin in the flesh (Rom 7:25), he refers to the same idea in another place where he says: The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against theflesh, so that you do not do what you wish (Gal 5:17). Thus what he called "mind" he also named "spirit." God too is called spirit, as the Lord said in the gospel: God is spirit, and those who worship him ought to worship in spirit and truth (Jn 4:24).
8, 1 9. lt is not on any of these ways we have listed of using the word "spirit" that we have drawn in order to call this kind of vision we are now dealing with "spiritual," but on this one way which we find in the first letter to the Corin thians, in which "spirit" is distinguished from "mind" in the clearest possible terms. For if l pray, he says, in a tongue my spirit is praying, but my mind is withoutfruit ( 1 Cor 14:14). The tongue in this place is to be understood as talking in mysterious utterances of obscure significance; take away from these the mind's understanding, and nobody is built up or edified by hearing what they do not understand. This is why he also says: For the one who talks in a tongue is not speaking to human beings but to God;for nobody hears, but the spirit is uttering
15. See Book X1, 18,24 above, and note 21 there for these difficult words, animalis and spiritalis. The way 1 have myself translated this text is: "When it is sown it embodies the soul, when it is raised it embodies the spirit," and have gone on to render the next sentence: "1f the soul has its own embodiment, so does the spirit have its own embodiment." But here 1 have to keep the word "spiritual." because that is what he is explaining.