The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
obvious, wise men live in the midst of it, clinging with greater surety to the world beyond bodily forms and beyond the likenesses of bodies, the world which they see with the intellect according to their measure, although they are not able to behold it in the mind so vividly as they do these other objects with the senses of the body.
But the holy angels, whose office it is to judge and administer the corporeal world, are not more intimately drawn to it, as if it were closer to them. And in the spirit they see its symbolic likenesses, and these they handle with such effectiveness that they can, by a revelation, introduce them even into the spirits of men. All the while they behold the immutable essence of the Creator with such clarity that because of this vision and the love it inspires they prefer the divine essence to all else, according to it judge everything, are directed towards it in all their impulses, and by it direct all the actions they perform.
Finally, although St. Paul was carried out of the senses of the body into the third heaven and Paradise, he was wanting in one point the full and perfect knowledge of things that the angels have: he did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body. But this knowledge will not be wanting to us when we shall be reunited to our bodies at the resurrection of the dead and when this corruptible body will put on incorruption and this mortal body will put on immortality.!°? For everything will be clear without any error and without any ignorance, all things occupying their proper place, the corporeal, the spiritual, and the intellectual, in untainted nature and perfect beatitude.
CHAPTER 37
A different terminology used by other interpreters.
70. I know, of course, that some highly esteemed Catholic interpreters of Sacred Scripture before the present time have explained St. Paul's statement about the third heaven as implying a distinction between corporeal, animal, and spiritual men;!% and they add that Paul was carried off to contemplate in a won-
BOOK TWELVE 231 derfully clear vision the realm of the incorporeal, which spiritual men, even in this life, love beyond all else and long to enjoy. My reasons for designating as spiritual and intellectual what they apparently have called animal and spiritual (and I have simply used different terms for the same things), I have sufficiently explained in the earlier part of this book.!% If I have presented my explanation clearly in spite of my limited ability, the reader who is spiritual will approve it, or with the help of the Holy Spirit he will gain some profit from reading this book in order to become spiritual. And with this wish we at length bring our treatise of twelve books to a close.
aul 4PA-~Oeei
jig les Geis
tome ad
NOTES
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Agaésse-Solignac
P. Agaésse and A. Solignac (eds.), La Genése au sens littéral en douze livres (BA, Oeuvres de s. Augustin, 48-49, Bruges-Paris 1972) Augustinus Magister, Congrés international
Aug. Mag. augustinien, Paris, 21-24 Septembre 1954 (3 vols. Paris 1954-55) Codex Berolinensis 24 (Meerman-Phillipps Collection 1651), 9th-10th cent. Bibliothéque augustinienne, Oeuvres de saint
Augustin (Paris 1941-) Codex Bodleianus, Laud. Misc. 141, Bodleian
Bod
Library, Oxford, 8th—9th cent. Gerald Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo: Life
Bonner and Controversies (London 1963) Vernon J. Bourke, Augustine's Quest of Wis-
Bourke dom: Life and Philosophy of the Bishop of H1ppo (Milwaukee 1945) A. E. Brooke and N. McLean (eds.), The Old
Brooke-McLean
Testament in Greek, Vol. 1, The Octateuch (Cambridge 1906) Codex Bruxellensis 1051 (10791), Bibliothéque
Octateuch
Royale de Belgique, Brussels, 11th cent. Codex Coloniensis 61, 12th cent. Corpus christianorum, series latina (Turnhout-Paris 1953-) Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum _latinorum (Vienna 1866-) Ch. Daremberg and E. Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines d apres les textes et les monuments (Paris 1877-1919)
NOTES
Hermannus Dessau (ed.), Jnscriptiones latinae
Dessau ILS selectae (3 vols. in 5. Berlin 1892-1916, reprint 1954-55) F. Vigouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible (5 vols.
Dict. Bibl.
Paris 1895-1912). Supplement, ed. Pirot (1928-) Hermann Diels (ed.), Die Fragmente der Vor-
Diels Vorsokr. sokratiker (3 vols. 6th ed. Berlin 1951-52) Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris 1903-
DTC
72) Codex Sessorianus 13, Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele 2094, Rome, 6th cent. Eugyppius, Excerpta ex operibus s. Augustini,
Eug ed. P. Knoell (CSEL 9.1, Vienna 1885) B. Fischer (ed.), Genesis, in Vetus latina 2 (Freiburg 1951) The Fathers of the Church: A New Transla-
Fischer VL
FOC
tion (New York—Washington, D.C. 1947-) Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller
GCS
der ersten Jahrhunderte (Leipzig 1897-) Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of
Gilson
Saint Augustine, tr. L. E. M. Lynch (New York 1960) from Introduction a l'étude de saint Augustin (Etudes de philosophie mé- diévale 11, 2nd ed. Paris 1943) James Hastings et al., 4 Dictionary of the Bible
Hastings DB
(4 vols. Edinburgh 1898-1902) The Hebrew text of the Old Testament International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh, London, New York 1895-) The Jerome Biblical Commentary, eds. R. E.
Hebr. ICG
JBC
Brown, J. A. Fitzmyer, and R. E. Murphy
(2 vols. in 1. Englewood Cliffs 1968) P. Bernard Kalin, Die Ebrkenntnislebre des bl.
Kalin
Augustinus (Beilage zum Jahresbericht der kantonalen Lehranstalt Sarnen, 1920-21, Sarnen 1921)
ABBREVIATIONS
Lau
Codex Laurentianus, S. Marco 658, Laurentian
Library, Florence, 9th cent. The Loeb Classical Library (London, New
LCL
York, and Cambridge, Mass. 1912-) H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, 4 Greek-English
Lexicon, rev. by H. S. Jones (Oxford 1940) Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche (2nd ed. Freiburg 1957-67) The text of De Gen. ad litt. in Vol. 3, part 1 of Augustine's works edited by the Benedictines of S. Maur, Paris 1680, reprinted in Migne, Patrologia latina 34, Paris 1841 J. P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia graeca (Paris
1857-66) C. H. Milne, A Reconstruction of the Old-Latin
Milne Recon-
Text or Texts of the Gospels Used by Saint Augustine (Cambridge 1926) Miscellanea agostiniana (2 vols. Rome 1930- struction
Misc. Ag.
31) J. P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia latina (Paris 1844-55) Codex Novariensis 83 (5), Biblioteca Capitolare, Novara, Italy, 9th cent. Philip Schaff (ed.), A Select Library of the N1- cene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (New York 1886-89) Nouvelle revue théologique (Tournai 1869-) The New Testament
The Oxford Classical Dictionary, eds. N. G. L.
Hammond and H. H. Scullard (2nd ed. Oxford 1970) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, eds. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (2nd ed. London 1974) The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford 1933) The Old Latin text or texts of the Bible The Old Testament
NOTES
Codex Parisinus 2706 (Colbertinus 5150), Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, 7th-8th cent. Codex Palatinus latinus 234, Vatican Library, 9th cent. Codex Parisinus, Nouv. Acq. Lat. 1572, Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, 9th cent. Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart 1893-) Eugéne Portalié, 4 Guide to the Thought of
Pauly-Wissowa-
Kroll
Portalié
Saint Augustine, tr. Ralph J. Bastian (Chicago 1960) from art. "Augustin (Saint),"' Dictionnaire de théologie catholique | (Paris 1903) 2268-2472 Biblia sacra juxta latinam vulgatam versionem
Quentin Gen.
1, Liber Genesis, ed. H. Quentin (Rome
1926) Codex Parisinus 1804 (Colbertinus 894), Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, 9th cent. Revue des études augustiniennes (Paris 1955-)
REAug RSV S
The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Codex Sangallensis 161, St. Gall, Switzerland, 9th cent. Sources chrétiennes (Paris 1940-) The Septuagint translation of the Old Testa-
SC LXX
ment H. von Arnim (ed.), Stoicorum veterum frag-
SVF
menta (4 vols. Leipzig 1903-24; reprint Stuttgart 1964) John H. Taylor, "The Text of Augustine's
Taylor "Text"
De Genesi ad litteram," Speculum 25 (1950) 87-93 Thesaurus linguae latinae (Leipzig 1900-) Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte
TLL TU
der altchristlichen Literatur (Berlin 1882-) Codex Vaticanus 449, Vatican Library, 13th-
Val
14th cent. .
Codex Vaticanus 657, Vatican Library, 13th-
Vat
14th cent.
VChr Mie Vulg. Waszink
Vigiliae christianae (Amsterdam 1947-) Vetus latina: see Fischer VL The Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible J. H. Waszink (ed.), Tertulliant De anima (Amsterdam 1947) The text of De Gen. ad litt., ed. J. Zycha, CSEL 28.1 (Vienna 1894) Zeitschrift fir die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZNTW
(Berlin 1881 -)
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berthold Altaner, "Augustinus und Origenes," Historisches Jabrbuch 70 (1951) 15-41; reprinted in B. Altaner, Kleine patristische Schriften (TU 83, Berlin 1967) 224-52. , Berthold Altaner, "Eustathius, der lateinische Ubersetzer der
Hexaemeron-Homilien Basilius des Grossen," ZNTW 39 (1940) 161-70; reprinted in B. Altaner, Kleine patristische Schriften (TU 83, Berlin 1967) 437-47. Gerald Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies (London 1963). Vernon J. Bourke, Augustine's Quest of Wisdom: Life and Philosophy of the Bishop of Hippo (Milwaukee 1945); especially pp.
22447. Charles Boyer, "La théorie augustinienne des raisons séminales," Misc. Ag. 2 (Rome 1931) 795-819; reprinted in C. Boyer, Essais sur la doctrine de saint Augustin (2nd ed. Paris 1932) 97— E37. Charles Boyer, L 'Idée de vérité dans la philosophie de saint Augustin (2nd ed. Paris 1940); especially pp. 128-78. Cuthbert Butler, Western Mysticism: The Teaching of SS. Augustine, Gregory and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life (2nd ed. London 1926); especially pp. 50-02. William A. Christian, ""The Creation of the World," in 4 Companion to the Study of St. Augustine, ed. Roy W. Battenhouse (New York 1955) 315-42; originally published under the title, "Augustine on the Creation of the World," Harvard Theological Review 46 (1953) 1-25. Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine, tr. L.
E. M. Lynch (New York 1960) from Jntroduction a l'étude de saint Augustin (Etudes de philosophie médiévale 11, 2nd ed.
Paris 1943). Bernard Kalin, Die Erkenntnislebre des bl. Augustinus (Beilage'zum
BIBLIOGRAPHY 241
Jahresbericht der kantonalen Lehranstalt Sarnen, 1920-21, Sarnen 1921). Matthias E. Korger, "Grundprobleme der augustinischen Erkenntnislehre: Erlautert am Beispiel von de Genesi ad litteram XII," Recherches augustiniennes, Supp. 4 la REAug 2 (Paris
1962) 33-57. Matthias E. Korger and Hans Urs von Balthasar, Aurelius Augustinus, Psychologie und Mystik (De Genesi ad Litteram 12), introduction, translation, and notes (Sigillum 18, Einsiedeln 1960). Joseph Maréchal, Etudes sur la psychologie des mystiques (2 vols.
Bruges and Paris 1924, 1937); especially Vol. 2, pp. 165-88. Michael J. McKeough, The Meaning of the Rationes Seminales in St.
Augustine (Catholic University of America Dissertation, Washington, D.C. 1926). F. van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop: The Life and Work of a Father of the Church, tr. Brian Battershaw and G. R. Lamb (London and New York 1961). Ernest C. Messenger, Evolution and Theology: The Problem of Man's Origin (New York 1932); especially pp. 40-55, 160-78, 260-65. W. Montgomery, St. Augustine: Aspects of His Life and Thought (London 1914); especially pp. 99-147. W. Montgomery, "St. Augustine's Attitude to Psychic Phenomena," Hibbert Journal 25 (1926) 92-102. Christopher J . O'Toole, The Philosophy of Creation in the Writings of. St. Augustine (Dissertation, The Catholic University of America Philosophical Series, Washington, D.C. 1944). Gilles Pelland, Cing études d'Augustin sur le début de la Genese (Tournai and Montreal 1972). Jean Pépin, "Recherches sur le sens et les origines de l'expression 'Caelum caeli' dans le livre XII des Confessions de saint Augustin," Archivum latinitatis medi aevi (Bulletin du Cange) 23 (1953) 185-274. Jean Pépin, "Une curieuse déclaration idéaliste du 'De Genesi ad litteram' (XII, 10, 21) de saint Augustin, et ses origines plotiniennes ('Ennéade' 5, 3, 1-9 et 5, 5, 1-2)," Revue d'bistotre et de philosophie religieuses 34 (1954) 373400. Eugéne Portalié, 4 Guide to the Thought of Saint Augustine, tr.
242 NOTES
Ralph J. Bastian (Chicago 1960) from art. "Augustin (Saint)," DTC 1 (Paris 1903) 2268-2472. Athanase Sage, "Le péché originel dans la pensée de saint Augustin, de 412 a 430," REAug 15 (1969) 75-112. Athanase Sage, "Péché originel: Naissance d'un dogme," REAug 13 (1967) 211-48. John H. Taylor, "The Meaning of Spiritus in St. Augustine's De
Genesi, XII," Modern Schoolman 26 (1949) 211-18. John H. Taylor, "The Text of Augustine's De Genesi ad Iitteram," Speculum 25 (1950) 87-93. G. Verbeke, L'Evolution de la doctrine du pneuma du stoicisme a s. Augustin (Bibliothéque de l'Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, Université de Louvain, Paris 1945). Henry Woods, Augustine and Evolution: A Study in the Saint's De
Genesi ad Litteram and De Trinitate (New York 1924). J. Wytzes, "Bemerkungen zu dem neuplatonischen Einfluss in Augustins 'de Genesi ad litteram,' "" ZNTW 39 (1940) 137-51.
NOTES
BOOK SEVEN
1Gen. 2.7. ?Flavit vel sufflavit in faciem eius flatum vitae. The LXX reads: EVEOUTICEY Elc TO THOT wTOV AVTOD TVOHV Laws.
3Spiravit vel inspiravit in faciem eius. 4See De civ. Det 13.24, where Aug. discusses at greater length his interpretation of the words in Gen. 2.7. He is of the opinion that the correct translation of the LXX text (see n. 2 supra) is Insufflavit Deus in faciem eius flatum vitae, not Inspiravit Deus in faciem eius spiritum vitae; and that this statement means that God by this act gave man a soul, not that He imparted the Holy Spirit to him.
6.12.20 supra. Aug. has in mind the Manichees. See De Gen. c. Man. 2.8.11 (ML 34.201-2), where he refutes this opinion. He may also have in mind the Priscillianists, who held that angels and human souls are emanations from the divine substance: see G. Bardy, DTC 13.1 (1936) s.v. "Priscillien," 395.
7On the testimony of B, Pal, and m, I take quae as the more likely reading rather than qua.
8Isa. 57.16-17. Augustine's version is based on the LXX. The Hebr. text is translated differently in various ways. The RSV reads: For from me proceeds the spirit, and I have made the breath of life. Because of the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry, I smote bim.... In any case, breath=soul created by God: see T. K. Cheyne, The Prophecies of Isaiah (London 1880-81) 2.74; and this is Augustine's point.
9In De civ. Det 7.6 Aug. mentions the Stoic doctrine on the world soul as propounded by Varro, and ibid. 10.2 the Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrine as set forth by Plotinus. He does not 244 NOTES make the doctrine of the world soul his own here: the first sentence of ch. 4 is contrary-to-fact.
10] follow the text of z and of the majority of the MSS he collated, in addition to that of Bod, in omitting feczsset.
11The dilemma which faces Aug. is a result of his understanding that God does not create any new beings after having finished His works at the end of the six days of creation. He has argued that the works created in the narrative of the six days were in reality created simultaneously, basing his position on Eccli. (Sirach) 18.1: He who lives forever created all things together (according to Augustine's Latin text). Moreoever, since Gen. 2.2 tells us that God finished His works on the sixth day and rested on the seventh, the inference seems to be that His rest from the works of creation continues through all subsequent ages and that He cannot be said to create any new beings. The statement in John 5.17, My Father is working still, refers therefore to God's administration of the world He created, not to any new creation. The continual appearance of new beings in the visible world is therefore explained by the unfolding of causal reasons, those seminal principles which God in the original creation placed in the womb of nature. Thus Aug. explains the genesis of plants, trees, shrubs, animals, even the body of man. His problem now is to see whether we can say that God in the original creation created spiritual causal reasons of all the human souls that would come into being in the course of the ages.
12Cf. Gen. 1.5: God called the light Day. This was the first day of creation, the day on which God created and illuminated the angels. Aug. holds that there was only one day, six times repeated (see 5.3.6 supra), and that each "day," without any passage of time, signifies a revelation of part of creation to the angels '3See Conf. 12.6.6: "The mutability of mutable things is itself able to receive all the forms into which mutable things are changed," and Conf. 12.19.28, where he says that "everything mutable makes us recognize a certain formlessness by which it receives form or by which it is changed and altered." There is, then, spiritual as well as corporeal matter, as Aug. has explained above in 1.4.9 to 1.5.11. His account is a Christian adaptation of
BOOK SEVEN
the teaching of Plotinus: see A. H. Armstrong, "Spiritual or Intelligible Matter in Plotinus and St. Augustine," Aug. Mag.
1.277-83. Here, however, he is dealing with a different though related problem, namely, the possibility that God placed in the original creation some spiritual material out of which He would later form souls. The former problem dealt with formless matter, concreated with form and serving as the substratum of change. The problem here, however, deals with a possible material of the spiritual order, created as a substance with its own matter and form, from which the soul might be said to be formed just as the body was formed from the slime of the earth.
14Emanation: defluxio. Etymologically the word means an effluence, and it implies a substance decidedly inferior to the source from which it flowed.
15For the senses as messengers, see 7.14.21 and n. 35 ibid. Aug. throughout his life consistently holds an active theory of sensation. See Kalin 13-14 and 31, and Bourke 110-12.
16Aug. is apparently thinking of the views of Plato and Plotinus corrected by Porphyry. Plato, Tim. 42c and Phaedo 81d82b, and Plot., Enn. 3.4.2, say that human souls are condemned to inhabit bodies of beasts in punishment for transgressions. Porphyry disagrees with this doctrine. See Aug., The City of God
10.30, tr. by Henry Bettenson (Penguin Books 1972) 417: "If it is considered improper to correct Plato on any point, why did Porphyry himself offer a number of important corrections? For it is an established fact that Plato wrote that after death the souls of men return to earth, and even enter into the bodies of beasts. The same belief was held also by Plotinus, the teacher of Porphyry. Nevertheless, Porphyry refused to accept it, quite rightly." But nowhere in the quotations from Porphyry found in Aug. or elsewhere in Porphyry's extant writings is there a reinterpretation of the meaning of Plato or Plotinus in the benign sense suggested by Aug. here in De Gen. ad litt. (see Agaésse-Solignac 48.707-8). Aug., however, may have had available some such text of Porphyry no longer extant.
17Ps. 48.13. A EEA E 19Ps..48.13:
246 NOTES
OP SETI: 21Matt. 7.15. 22P es ORS. 23Cf. Plato, Phaedo 81d-82b. 247 follow the reading adserunt (or asserunt) found in z and all his MSS as well as in Bod and Pal. The reading of m, afferunt, seems to be an inadvertent error.
25"Which they have fashioned": quam finxerunt. I follow the reading of P, R. S, Bod, Pal, m. The reading of E, B, z is pinxerunt. Fabulam fingere ('to fashion a fable") is a common Latin idiom, but fabulam pingere ("to paint a fable') is strange Latin.
26This conclusion brings the reader suddenly back to ch. 9, where Aug. considered the possibility of an irrational soul being the material out of which God might make a rational soul. The discussion on transmigration was a digression.
27Farthly and humid": i.e., made up of earth and water, two of the four elements. In the next paragraph Aug. considers the other two elements, air and fire.
28Cf. Gen. 1.20-22. 29See 7.4.6 supra. 30Zeno the Stoic held that the fifth substance (or element), which he identified with fire, was the source of reason and intellect. See Cic., De fin. 4.5.12. Aetius, De placitis reliquiae 4.3.3 (SVF 2.779), says: "The Stoics hold that the soul is a fiery, intellectual spirit." See 7.21.27 and n. 50 tbid.
31QOn the mutual transformation of the elements, see n. 11 to Book 3 supra.
32Frasistratus (3rd c. B.C.), following the tradition of Greek medicine, held that the air which is breathed into the lungs is taken by the pulmonary veins to the heart, where it becomes the vital pneuma. From the heart it finds its way through the carotid arteries to the brain, where it is transformed into a finer substance called the psychic pneuma, which is distributed throughout the body by the nerves, thus making sensation and motion possible. Galen (2nd c. A.D.) corrected this account in several details, especially by his observation that the arteries contain blood as well as the pneuma. See Margaret Tallmadge May in her introduction to Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (Ithaca, N.Y. 1968) 1.46-48. Augustine's familiarity with the opinions of medical writers should not seem strange, for in the Empire there were many medical writers writing in Latin, among whom were Celsus, Scribonius Longus, Pliny, Priscianus, Vindicianus, Caelius Aurelianus. When Aug. was a young man in Carthage, he knew Vindicianus personally. He refers to V. as a "shrewd man" (Conf. 4.3.5) and an "intelligent old man" (Conf. 7.6.8). Vindicianus' writings were of some importance at the time: see Martin Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur (2nd ed. Munich 1914) 4.1,203-4. For further evidence of Augustine's interest in anatomy and physiology, see his De anima et etus origine 4.5.6 (ML 44.527-28) and H.-I. Marrou, Saint Augustine et la fin de la culture antique (4th ed. Paris 1958) 141-
33In 3.5.7 supra, Aug. explains that the element of fire in the body in one form or another, according to the nature of each of the five senses, makes sensation possible.
34This theory of rays going forth from the eyes occurs also in 1.16.31, 4.34.54, and 12.16.32. See n. 51 to Book 1 supra. 35In maintaining that the soul is not acted upon by material objects perceived in sensation, Aug. frequently uses the metaphor of the senses as messengers. Thus in 12.24.51 infra he says: "".. the soul uses the body as a sort of messenger in order to form within itself the object that is called to its attention from the outside world." The metaphor is found in Cic., De leg. 1.9.26 and De nat. deor. 2.56.140, but it does not there imply an active theory of sensation.
36Augustine's notion that light and air mediate between soul and body is not only founded on the opinions of the medical writers (as he states in ch. 13 supra) but it owes much to the concept of pneuma as found in Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists. Aristotle, De gen. animal. 736b, holds that pneuma is a matter more divine that the four elements, mediating between soul and body. Pneuma, according to the Stoics (SVF 2.442), is a composite of air and fire. Plotinus (Enn. 1.6.3) says that fire is the most subtle of all bodies and is close to the incorporeal,; but he says that light is incorporeal. Aug. does not look upon light as incorporeal, but in De lib. arb. 3.16.58 or 3.5.16 (CSEL
248 NOTES
74.103,28 Green; ML 32.1279) he says: "In the world of bodies, light is of the highest excellence." But he has already (3.4.7 supra) reminded the reader that the corporeal and incorporeal are worlds apart: "Now, the finer the nature of anything in the corporeal world, the closer its affinity to the spiritual; but these two realms are vastly different in kind, for the one is body and the other is not." See W. R. Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus (3rd ed. London 1929) 1.219-20; A. H. Armstrong, The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus (Cambridge
1940, reprint Amsterdam 1967) 54-55; G. Verbeke, L'Evolution de la doctrine du pneuma (Paris 1945) 505. Cf. also 12.16.32 infra.
37The notion that air and fire are the more active elements and water and earth the more passive is found also in Cic., Acad.
L726: aSene 2.1 39The phrase living being is used for the lower animals in Gen.
1.21 in the Vulg. text but not in Augustine's version. 40See 7.13.20 supra. 41¢sen. 227% 42In 7.15.21 supra, Aug. speaks of "light and air" as a subtle substance mediating between soul and body, and then he refers to this substance as "fire, or rather light and air" (ignis, vel potius lux et aer). The concept was suggested by the Neoplatonic pneuma: see n. 36 on 7.15.21.
43For the senses as messengers, see 7.14.20 and n. 35 on that chapter and also n. 16 to Book 3.
44See 7.13.20 supra. 45See 7.18.24 supra. 46Attention: intentio. The Latin intentio here, as in 12.13.27 infra, means the attention of the soul to what is happening in the body. It is also used by Aug. in the phrase vita/is intentio, meaning the activity or influence by which the soul vivifies the body: see Epist. 166 (De orig. animae hominis ad Hieron.) 2.4 (CSEL 44.551,7-12 Goldbacher; ML 33.722). 47See 7.18.24 supra, and n. 35 on 7.14.20. 48See n. 36 on 7.15.21 supra, and n. 42 on 7.19.25. *°For a discussion of theories concerning the possibility of one element changing into another, see 3.3.4 supra and the notes on that section.
Tusc. disp. 10.22, wrongly attributes this theory of the nature of the soul to Aristotle. See the comment of Max Pohlenz (ed.), Ciceronis Tusculanarum disputationum libri V (Sth ed., reprint, Stuttgart 1957) 53 n. 22. This theory was in reality held by the Stoics: see n. 30 on 7.12.19 supra.
51Cf. Epist. 166, ibid. (see n. 46 supra; CSEL 44.551,3-7): "If a body is a substance that is stationary or moving in space with a certain length, breadth, and height, in such a way that a greater part of it occupies a greater part of space, and a smaller part of it a smaller part of space, and less of it is in a part than in the whole, the soul is not a body."
52Cf. Aug., De quant. an. 6.10 (ML 32.1041). 53Tertullian, following the Stoics, held that all reality is corporeal: see a summary of his doctrine, with texts cited, in Ernest Evans (ed.), Tertullian's Treatise against Praxeas (London 1948) 234-36. The Stoic position on the corporeality of the soul is set forth by Tert., De anima 5 (CCL 2.786-87; ML 2.693-94), and is reaffirmed by Tert. in De an. 7 and 22.
54Cf. Epist. 166, ibid. (see n. 46 supra; CSEL 44.550,10-13), where the same difficulty about the meaning of corpus (''body'') is mentioned.
55Seneca, Naturales quaestiones 5.13.4: "It is the amount of force that distinguishes spirit (spiritum) from wind (a vento): a wind is a violent spirit, and conversely a spirit is air gently blowing."
56Aug. has already satisfied himself, from a comparison of Gen. 1.27-29 with Gen. 2.7 and from an examination of other Scripture texts, that God created the causal reason of man's body on the sixth day and that this causal reason lay hidden in the earth until God, making use of it, formed Adam's body from the dust of the earth. It is, then, only reasonable to suppose that there was a causal reason also of man's soul (or men's souls) stored away somewhere in the works of the six days. But this causal reason, being the cause of an immaterial being, could not be laid away in the earth, as was the case with the formative principle of man's body. Was it, then, laid away in some imma-