a head of gold and feet of clay, and then interprets it.
474 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis opened up to him what it signified.17 The bodily images were evidently imprinted on his spirit, while their meaning was revealed to his mind.
So it is on this way ofdistinguishing spirit from mind, as when the apostle said: / willpray in spirit, but l will alsopray with the mind ( 1 Cor 14: 15), so that the signs of things might be molded in his spirit, and the understanding of them blaze in his mind; it is in accordance with this distinction, I repeat, that we are now labeling as "spiritual" that kind ofvision in which we think upon the images ofabsent bodies.
The difference, ifany, between intellectual and intelligible
10, 21. The intellectual vision, however, which is proper to the mind, is the more excellent kind. And it has never occurred to me at all that "intellect" can be said in several ways, as we have seen that "spirit" can be; whether we say "intel lectual" though, or "intelligible," we mean the same thing. lt is true that quite a few people do make a distinction, whereby it is the thing itself which can be perceived only by the intellect that is intelligible, while the mind or intelligence which understands is intellectual. But whether there is some real thing that can be discerned by the intellect alone, and that does not itself have intelligence and understanding, that is a big and difficult question.
On the other hand l do not suppose there is anyone who will either think or say that there is a real thing which enjoys intellectual perception and cannot also be intellectually perceived; mind, of course, cannot be seen except by mind. So because it can be seen it is intelligible, while it is intellectual because it can also see, according to this distinction. For this reason we shall put to one side that extremely difficult question, whether there is anything that is only intelligible and lacks intelligence, and from now on treat "intellectual" and "intelligible" as meaning the same thing.
The three kinds of vision to be considered one by one n, 22. These three kinds of vision, therefore, bodily, spiritual, intellectual, must now be considered one by one, to enable the reason to climb up from the lower to the higher. We have already in fact put forward an example above, where all three can be seen together in one sentence;18 when one reads, you see, You shall love your neighbor as yourself(Mk 12:31), the letters are seen with bodily vision, the neighbor thought about spiritually, love observed intellectu ally. But when the letters are not there in front of you they can also be thought about spiritually, and when your neighbor is present he can be seen with bodily vision, while love in its proper nature can neither be discerned with the eyes of
17. See Dn 2: 1 -45, where Daniel both tells King Nebuchadnezzar his dream of the great statue with a head of gold and feet of clay, and then interprets it. 18. See 6,15 above.