The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
BOOK TWELVE PU
standers that he had had no extraordinary or clairvoyant experience at all but had made the statement in a light and playful mood. His own amazement at what happened was all the greater because he was more keenly aware of the spirit in which he had said the words.
48. How do these things enter the spirit of man? Are they fashioned there? Or are they implanted fully formed and seen as a consequence of some sort of union, so that angels reveal to men their own thoughts and the likenesses of bodies which they fashion beforehand in their own spirit through their knowledge of future events? In such a way the angels see our thoughts;! not, of course, with eyes, because they see not by body but by spirit. But there is this difference: they know our thoughts whether we will it or not, whereas we cannot know theirs unless they reveal them. For they have the power, I believe, of hiding their thoughts by spiritual means, just as we can hide our bodies from the eyes of others by setting up some obstacle to obstruct their view. And what takes place in our spirit to allow a man sometimes to see only images that have a meaning, while he is unaware of the fact that they do mean something; and at other times to allow him to perceive that such images have some meaning, while he is left in ignorance of what they mean; and at still other times to allow the human soul through some sort of fuller revelation to see these images with the spirit and understand their meaning with the mind? It is extremely difficult to find an answer to these questions; and even if I had the knowledge, it would be a great task to discuss and explain the matter.
CHAPTER 23
Summary of the ways in which the likenesses of bodies are seen in the spirit.
49. But I think it is sufficient now to demonstrate this one fact, namely, that there exists in us a spiritual nature in which the likenesses of bodily things are formed. This spiritual nature pis! THE LITERAL MEANING OF GENESIS functions when we come into contact with a body by means of our bodily senses, and the image of it is immediately formed in our spirit and stored in our memory; or when we think of bodies previously known but now absent, in order to form from them a spiritual vision of those things that were already in our spirit even before we began to think of them;'°* or when we behold likenesses of bodies which we do not know but whose existence we do not doubt, not as they are in themselves but as they happen to present themselves to us; or when we arbitrarily and fancifully think of other objects that do not exist or whose existence is unknown to us; or when various forms of the likenesses of bodies come into our minds from any source whatever without our concurrence and against our will.
Again, it is the spiritual nature in us that operates when we are about to perform some bodily action and we order beforehand the stages of it, first going through it all in thought; or when in an act itself, whether we are speaking or going through some bodily motion, all the movements of the body are anticipated through their likenesses in our spirit in order that they may be executed (for no syllable, however short, could be pronounced in its proper place unless previously planned in thought). It is the spiritual nature of the soul also that is affected when dreams come in sleep, either with or without a meaning; or when, because of ill-health, the inner pathways of sensation are disturbed and the spirit so confuses images of bodies with real bodies that it is impossible or nearly impossible to distinguish between them (and this may happen whether the images have a meaning or not); or when, under the impact of some serious illness or bodily suffering that obstructs the interior paths by which the attention of the soul is sent forth and goes out to perceive its object through the sense organs, images of bodies having some meaning, or appearing without any meaning, arise or are presented while the spirit is in a state of unconsciousness more profound than sleep.
Finally, it is the spiritual nature of the soul that is acted upon when, without any bodily cause, the soul is seized by a spirit and is raised up to view such likenesses of bodies, using meanwhile