The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK TWELVE 213 the senses of the body also and confusing the images with the objects of the senses; or when the soul is taken hold of by a spirit and is so completely removed from the bodily senses that it is engaged by nothing but the likenesses of bodies in spiritual vision—in which state I am inclined to doubt whether there can be a vision of something that has no meaning.
CHAPTER 24
Spiritual vision 1s more excellent than corporeal vision, intellectual more excellent than spiritual.
50. Hence this spiritual nature, in which are produced not bodies but the likenesses of bodies, enjoys visions of a kind inferior to those which the mind or intelligence! with its light beholds. For it is by this latter power that objects of a lower order are judged and those realities are beheld which are not bodies and have no forms similar to bodies: such as the mind itself and every good affection of the soul (to which are opposed its vices, which are rightly censured and condemned in men). How else can the intellect itself be seen except by intellection? In this way also we see charity, joy, peace, longanimity, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, continency,!°® and the rest, by which we draw near to God, and finally God Himself,!°'? from whom are all things, through whom are all things, and in whom are all things. 198
51. In one and the same soul, then, there are different visions: by means of the body it perceives objects such as the corporeal heaven and earth and everything that can be known in them in the degree that they are capable of being known; with the spirit it sees likenesses of bodies—a matter that I have already discussed at length;!°? and with the mind it understands those realities that are neither bodies nor the likenesses of bodies. But there is, of course, a hierarchy in these visions, one being superior to another. For spiritual vision is more excellent than corporeal, and intellectual vision more excellent than spiritual.