The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK TWELVE 205
But whatever the nature of these images may be, it is certainly not corporeal. Whoever is not satisfied with this knowledge may enquire about their origin from others. I confess my ignorance.
CHAPTER
The causes of visions.
41. The point I wish to make can easily be established from an examination of examples.88 Such bodily states as pallor, blushing, trembling, and even sickness are caused sometimes by the body, sometimes by the soul. They are caused by the body when a humor or some food or other matter entering the body from without diffuses itself. But they are caused by the soul when it is disturbed by fear or confused by shame or moved by anger or love or any other emotion; and this is natural inasmuch as the animating and ruling force in man even stirs him rather deeply at times when it itself is deeply moved.
And similarly, when the soul directs its gaze to objects which are presented to it, not through the bodily senses but through an incorporeal substance, and when on these occasions it cannot decide whether it beholds bodies or the likenesses of bodies, its state is attributable sometimes to the body®? and sometimes to a spirit. It can be ascribed to the body either because of a natural phenomenon such as the dreams that come in sleep, for sleep is a function of the body, or because of ill-health. Now in the latter state the senses are sometimes afflicted with a disorder, as when delirious people see bodies as well as visions that appear like bodies and seem present before their eyes; and sometimes the senses cease operating altogether, as often has happened in the case of people suffering from a serious and prolonged illness, who were without sensation for some time, though present in their bodies, and who later, returning, have stated that they saw many objects.
But these visions can be attributed to the action of a spirit when sound and healthy people are transported, whether through the senses of the body they see real bodies, and in the spirit, likenesses indistinguishable from bodies, or completely carried out of their senses and perceiving nothing at all through them, they dwell by this spiritual vision amidst the likenesses of bodies. But when an evil spirit transports men thus, he either possesses them or makes them frenzied or false prophets. When, on the contrary, a good spirit transports them, he inspires them to give a reliable account of mysteries; or if understanding is also imparted,?! he either makes them true prophets or for the moment aids them in seeing and narrating the vision that must be revealed through them.??
Impediments to sense perception.
42, But when the body is the cause of these visions, it does not present the object, for it has not the power to fashion anything spiritual. Rather, when the pathway of attention,?> which proceeds from the brain and regulates sensation, is dormant or disturbed or blocked, the soul itself (which cannot of itself give up this function), being entirely or partially hindered by the body from sensing corporeal objects or directing the force of its attention to such objects, gathers together in the spirit the likenesses of bodies or gazes upon those that are presented to it. If it gathers them together itself, they are simply images of objects once seen; whereas, if it gazes upon images presented to it, they are the images of a vision.
Finally, when the eyes are suffering from some ailment or have ceased to function altogether (because there no longer exists in the brain the cause that co-operates in directing the attention of sensation), ocular vision ceases; but it is the body that hinders corporeal vision. Blind people see objects while asleep rather than while awake. In the brain of the sleeper the path of sensation that leads the attention to the eyes is dormant, and so the attention, turning elsewhere, beholds dream images as if they were the forms of bodies present to the eyes. The upshot is that the sleeper, thinking he is awake, fancies that he beholds