7. On the Soul
6. ON RATIONAL NATURES will hold him in destruction, that will by which he had also created the whole world. Had he willed it, he could have annihilated Lucifer immediately (for it is hard to escape the anger ofGod). Yet it is not that he left my enemy in total freedom. Rather did he dismiss him to a midpoint between good and evil men. He provoked a dreadful struggle between Lucifer and humanity, that he might incur further awful shame, inasmuch as he was warring against a weaker opponent, whereas his human adversaries, striving through the exercise of goodness, might gain their everlasting glory, being purified like gold in the melting-pots of life. Perhaps also might Lucifer, for all his stubborn resistance, hereafter pay his penalty, his substance consumed, when there is requital by fire, though indeed he was to a great degree subdued before in the persons of his harried minions. These truths the Spirit has taught me concerning the radiance of angels, whether in first or later state.
| have discovered even in this world a standard, and that standard, moreover, is God. The closer a man comes to the King, the more he is light and represents a corresponding glory.
7. On the Soul THE soul is a breath of God and, for all its heavenly form, it has endured mingling with that which is earthly, light hidden in a cave, yet divine and immortal. For it is not right for the image of the mighty
God to be dissolved in an unbecoming way, as happens with reptiles and senseless beasts, though sin has tried its hardest to render this image mortal. Nor is the soul's nature that of raging fire. For it is not plausible to suppose that that which consumes should be the core of what is consumed. Nor is its nature that of air exhaled or breathed in, for ever unstable. Nor again is the soul a flow of blood coursing through the flesh, nor yet the harmony ofbodily parts coming together
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Q] twa xtxAov L Cosmas, xtixAotow I 40 drarye: L 42 ot Gduvov L 44 dexis] duyy L 7. ON THE SOUL to form a unity. For flesh does not have the same nature as an immortal form. But, we may ask, what raises the better above the worse, ifit is only the process ofmixing which has pieced together evil and superior people? Why do not irrational beasts also have rational nature? For the harmony which belongs to mortal flesh and form is present no less in irrational creatures. According to this account, those of good temperament make up all who are superior.
Such are the versions these people produce. They reason that what departs when life leaves the body is soul. Never was your soul a fodder without which it is incredible that a human being could live at all, as food is the source of his strength.
I know of yet another account, though again not one I shall ever accept myself. For I could not believe in some common soul separated into parts for me and everyone else, a soul which wanders restlessly through the air. It would thus have to be the same for everyone, breathed in and out. All who live by the process of breathing would be present in all the others. It is the nature of air to flow at different times from one to another. But if the soul is permanent, what has it occupied, what is it that was already alive in my mother's womb, if she drew me in from outside? If you suppose a mother to have several children, the reward you give her is more souls in process ofdestruction. This is the fantasy offoolish men, the kind of trifling found in books. These people allot to the soul the fate of a constantly changing succession of bodies to correspond with their former lives, whether good or bad, either as a reward for virtue or as some form of punishment for wrong-doing. It was as if in an undignified way they were changing a man's clothes, exerting themselves pointlessly in putting them on and taking them off. Dragging in some wheel like the arch-sinner Ixion's, they have concocted tales about a wild beast, a plant, a mortal, a bird, a snake, a dog, and a fish. Often each state comes round twice, when the cycle requires it. How long can this go on? I have never heard the discourse of a wise beast nor listened to a bush talking. For ever the crow does nothing but caw and always in silence the fish swims through the flowing sea. But ifthere is a final punishment for the soul, as this view asserts, this circular
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49 téd€] rade L 51 paxpis TIL] paxpas Q 53 uérepos Ls dives TIL] diorveQ = dpeote L §5 mor' éqv Q]) wore dv TIL 56 véw matpés ITIL] maTpds vow G2 58 otpavds] odpavoi MaN™ 60 768" €ccvev QL] ride eizev IT 64 8é€ ro: MaN 65 fvvdy ex Eveds L 67 7 TIL] om. 2 pion ex podor L 7! xeipecow L 76 Aiétwv QL] Bioror M1 77 poipny QL] poipay I 7. ON THE SOUL motion of souls becomes pointless. Punishment of a soul devoid of flesh would be a great surprise. But ifthe soul is punished along with the flesh, then which of the several manifestations will you assign to the flames? Now this would be the most surprising point. Since you have bound me to a considerable number ofbodies and this binding has given me awareness of a great many, why is it that the one thing that escapes my mind is consciousness of the skin in which I was previously contained, which comes next, in how many bodies have I died? For the power which binds me would seem not to have such a wealth ofsouls as ofbags to put them in. It is surely a great aberration to suppose that I undergo forgetfulness of a previous life.
Now I want you, picking up at this point, to hear my excellent account of the soul, and I shall mix a little enjoyment with my poem.
There was a point in time when the lofty Word ofMind, following the intention of the mighty Father, framed the structure of the world which before did not exist. He spoke, and his whole will was accomplished. When everything, earth, heaven, and sea, cohered to form the world, he sought a being to be acquainted with wisdom, mother of all that is, to be also a godlike ruler of earthly affairs, speaking these words: "Already pure and eternal servants inhabit the broad heaven, holy minds, singing hymns they celebrate my unending glory. But earth as yet rejoices in nothing more than senseless creatures. It is my will to compact from both sides a race partaking alike ofthings mortal and immortal, a man endowed with a mind set between the two worlds, taking pleasure in my works, an intelligent initiate of the heavenly realm, a great power upon earth, another kind of angel coming from earth, to sing the praise of my mighty purposes and my
Mind.' With these words he took a portion of the new-formed earth and established with his immortal hands my shape, bestowing upon it a share in his own life. He infused Spirit, which is a fragment of the Godhead without form. From dust and breath was formed the mortal image of the immortal. For it is the nature of mind to rule over both parts. Thus I have affection for one of the ways of life because of my earthly component, while I have in my heart a longing for the other life through the divine part in me.
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7. ON THE SOUL This is how the parts were bound together in the original mortal.
But thereafter body comes directly from flesh, while the soul is mingled in an unseen way, falling from outside into the form originally moulded from dust. It is he that mingled the elements who knows how first he imparted breath and bound the image to earth, unless some one, seeking to assist my exposition, should boldly propose a view which he has derived from many others. This claims that, as the body first mixed for us from earth later became the means by which human life flows on, constantly producing a succession of mortals from the source originally formed, so also soul, breathed in by God, is thenceforward joined to human forms as a newborn entity, being distributed to many recipients from the first origin, maintaining a continuing form while enclosed in human frames. In this way it has been granted intellectual sovereignty. Just as a powerful breath sounds pinched and out of tune on a small flute, however skilled the player may be, yet when an instrument of wide bore comes into his hands it then pours out a more acceptable sound, in the same way the soul is weak when housed in weak limbs. When they achieve strength, the soul shines along with them and displays the whole intellect.
But when the eternal Son created mortal man as a new creature, in order that he might have a new glory and, exchanging earth, might in the last days travel hence as God to God, he did not send him out entirely free nor yet did he totally bind him. Placing law in his nature, writing good injunctions in his heart, the Son set man in the vales of an ever-flowering paradise, waiting to see how this being who wavered in the balance might incline, one who was naked and devoid of evil and deceptive appearance. The life of heaven is, I think, paradise. Here the Son set him as a labouring farmer to perform divine commands. He forbade him only the one more perfect tree which contained perfect discrimination between good and evil. For perfect judgement is truly valuable to those who are growing up, but not to those who are merely at the start of their lives.
Itwould be harmful in the way in which more adult food is indigestible to infants. But when through the tricks of his murderous, envious
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