The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
BOOK TWELVE 181 prophet;® it is obvious that he could have been unable to determine whether he saw Paradise in the body or out of the body.
CHAPTER 3
St. Paul was certain that he saw the third heaven but uncertain as to how he saw it.
6. But if the vision took place out of the body, and the objects of the vision were not bodies, it may still be asked whether they were images of bodies or whether they were a substance' that bears no resemblance to body: as, for example, God; or the mind, intelligence, or reason of man; or the virtues, such as prudence, justice, chastity, charity, piety, and so forth. These are objects that we perceive with intellectual knowledge, when we enumerate, distinguish, and define them, not by a perception of their outlines, colors, sounds, odors, or tastes, their degrees of heat or cold, their hardness or softness, or their smoothness or roughness, but by another vision, another light,* and another evidence far more excellent and certain than any other.
7. Again, then, let us return to the words of St. Paul himself and examine them more carefully, agreeing first of all without any hesitation that his understanding of corporeal and incorporeal nature was immeasurably more perfect than what we have been able to arrive at in our feeble attempts. Hence, if he knew that it was utterly impossible for spiritual things to be seen through the body, or bodily things to be seen out of the body, why did he not determine, through the objects that he saw, the manner in which he was able to see them? For if he was certain that they were spiritual things, why was he not equally sure that he saw them out of the body? But if he knew they were corporeal, why did he not also know that they could have been seen only through the body?
Why, then, does he doubt whether he saw them in the body or out of the body, unless perhaps he also doubts whether they were bodies or likenesses of bodies? Hence let us first see what