strings21 being lowered from heaven, full of a variety of animals, when he also
Book XII 475 the body, nor thought about in spirit by means of an image resembling a body, but only known and perceived by the mind, that is, the intellect.
Clearly, bodily vision does not preside over either of the other kinds, but what is observed by it is brought to the notice of the spiritual vision as its presiding officer, because when anything is noted with the eyes its image is straightaway produced in the spirit. But its production is not discerned unless we lift our eyes from what we were seeing with them, and then find its image still in the spirit.19 And if indeed the spirit is non-rational, like an animal's, that is as far as the eyes pass on their message; while if the soul is rational, the message is also passed on to the intellect which also presides over the spirit. Thus if what the eyes have drunk in and passed on to the spirit, for its image to be produced there, is also the sign of something; what it signifies will either be understood straightaway or be investigated, since meaning can neither be understood nor inquired about except by the functioning of the mind.
23. King Belshazzar saw the fingers of a hand writing on a wall,20 and straight away through a sense of the body the image of the thing done in a bodily way was imprinted on his spirit, and when the thing seen was done and finished with, the image remained in his thoughts. It was being seen in spirit and not being under stood—nor was this sign understood earlier on when it was being produced in a bodily way and being manifested to his bodily eyes; but still he already understood it to be a sign, it being the mind's task to tell him so. And because he was inquiring what it signified, it was of course his mind that was engaged in the inquiry. With its meaning still undisclosed, Daniel came forward, and as his mind was enlightened by the spirit of prophecy he revealed to the anxious king what that sign portended. Thus it was he who was really the prophet by this kind ofvision, proper to the mind, rather than the man who both saw with bodily vision the sign produced in a bodily way, and when it was finished still perceived its image in his spirit by thinking about it, and yet was able to do nothing with his intellect except know that it was a sign and inquire what it signified.
24. Peter in a state of mental alienation saw a container tied up by four strings21 being lowered from heaven, full of a variety of animals, when he also
19. Here, once more, in animo. 20. See Dan 5:1-30. 2 1 . See Acts 1 0: 1 01 1 . Since Peter was in Joppa (Jaffa) on the roof of a house overlooking the harbor, what he saw was most likely a sail; the text goes on to describe it just as being like a great cloth, using the same word in the Greek and Latin as the one employed for the grave clothes in which the body of Jesus was wrapped and laid in the tomb, Jn 19:40, 20:5. 1n Acts 27:40, where the crew of the ship taking Paul to Rome are about to beach it on the coast of Malta, Luke has them hoisting the foresail, anemon; but presumably what Peter saw was much bigger than that, the mainsail of a sea-going vessel; so perhaps "cloth" or "sheet" was the only appropriate word here. Sails are mentioned, in a rather unusual context, in 1s 33:23; but the word used there in the Greek LXX would not have been suitable here, as in the singular it means "mast" or "weaver's beam," and only in the plural can it be used for what hangs from a weaver's beam, or is attached to a mast.