The Essential Augustine
est place, yet is within the range of existence, and which occupies the middle place, greater than the lowest, but coming short of the highest. That highest is essential blessedness; the lowest, that which cannot be either blessed or wretched; and the intermediate nature lives in wretchedness when it stoops towards that which is lowest, and in blessedness when it turns towards that which is highest. He who believes in Christ does not sink his affections in that which is lowest, is not proudly self-sufficient in that which is intermediate, and thus he is qualified for union and fellowship with that which is highest; and this is the sum of the active life to which we are commanded, admonished, and by holy zeal impelled to aspire.
SOUL, RULED BY GOD, RULES ITS BODY*
These operations are either used with the preced12. ing passions of the body—such as when forms break in upon the light of our eyes, or sound flows into our ears, or fumes to the nose, tastes to the palate and to the rest of the body whatever solid and corporeal things are moved toward it from the outside. Or these operations occur when in the body itself something migrates or moves from one spot to another spot, or the whole body itself is moved by its own or another's weight.
These are the operations which the soul uses in 13. the preceding feelings of the body, which please the soul agreeing with them, offend the soul resisting them. When, however, the soul suffers anything from these feelings, its own operations, it suffers from itself, not from the body. Plainly this happens when it adjusts itself to the body. Therefore, it is less with itself because the body is always less than the soul itself,
And therefore the soul, being turned from its Lord to its slave, necessarily weakens; and again, being turned from its slave to its Lord, necessarily progresses and gives to this same slave a most easy life and therefore a life very little toilsome and troublesome, to which no attention is forced on account of its great quiet. Thus there exists that disposition of
On Music, VI, 5, 12-13; trans. Tafford P. Maher, S.J:, The De Musica VI of St. Augustine, Translated and Philosophically
Annotated (St. Louis University Master's Thesis, 1939), pp. 87-89. Used with permission,
THREE LEVELS OF REALITY 47 the body which is called health. Here again it has no need of our intention, not because then the soul does nothing in the body, but because it does nothing more easily. Now in all of our works we work in so far more attentively as we work with more difficulty. This health, moreover, will be more firm and certain when, in its own time and order, the body will have been restored to its former stability. (a) And this resurrection of the body, before it is most fully understood, is wholesomely believed. For it is necessary that the soul be ruled by a Superior and rule the inferior. That Superior is God alone; that inferior is the body alone—if you look to all in the whole and entire soul. Therefore, as the entire soul cannot be without its Lord, so it cannot excel without its slave. But, as the Lord is greater than the soul, so the slave is less. And so, intent upon its Lord, the soul understands His eternal things, and then more fully is. The more also its slave is, in its kind, through the soul. However, on the other hand, neglecting the Lord, the soul, intent upon its carnal slave by which it is led into concupiscence, feels its movements which the slave offers to it and it is less: not so much less, however, than its slave is less, even when it most is in its proper nature. But through the fault of its mistress, the body is less than it was since the soul was greater before its fall.
SOUL: ABOVE THE SENSIBLE, BELOW GOD*
But in spite of all those who cling tenaciously to 3.3. the writings of these philosophers, I will say most confidently that, in these Christian times, no one can doubt what religion ought to be embraced most readily, or which is the sure path to truth and happiness. Suppose that Plato himself were alive and did not disdain my questions, or, better still, suppose that one of his disciples during his actual life had addressed him somewhat as follows: "You have persuaded me that truth cannot be perceived by bodily eyes, but by the intelligence alone; that every soul which clings to the truth becomes happy and complete; that nothing keeps us farther from the truth than a life given over to the pleasures of the flesh and a mind
The True Religion, 3.3; trans. C.A. Hangartner, S.J., De vera religione (Chapters I-17) (St. Louis University Master's Thesis, 1945), pp. 9, 11. Used with permission.