Chapter XV.—As the Flesh is a Partaker with the Soul in All Human Conduct, So Will It Be in the Recompense of Eternity.

Come now, let our opponents sever the connection of the flesh with the soul in the affairs of life, that they may be emboldened to sunder it also in the recompense of life. Let them deny their association in acts, that they may be fairly able to deny also their participation in rewards. The flesh ought not to have any share in the sentence, if it had none in the cause of it.  Let the soul alone be called back, if it alone went away. But (nothing of the kind ever happened); for the soul alone no more departed from life, than it ran through alone the course from which it departed—I mean this present life. Indeed, the soul alone is so far from conducting (the affairs of) life, that we do not withdraw from community with the flesh even our thoughts, however isolated they be, however unprecipitated into act by means of the flesh; since whatever is done in man’s heart is done by the soul in the flesh, and with the flesh, and through the flesh. The Lord Himself, in short, when rebuking our thoughts, includes in His censures this aspect of the flesh, (man’s heart), the citadel of the soul: “Why think ye evil in your hearts?”87    Matt. ix. 4. and again: “Whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.”88    Matt. v. 28. So that even the thought, without operation and without effect, is an act of the flesh.  But if you allow that the faculty which rules the senses, and which they call Hegemonikon,89    The leading power. has its sanctuary in the brain, or in the interval between the eyebrows, or wheresoever the philosophers are pleased to locate it, the flesh will still be the thinking place of the soul. The soul is never without the flesh, as long as it is in the flesh. There is nothing which the flesh does not transact in company with the soul, when without it it does not exist. Consider carefully, too, whether the thoughts are not administered by the flesh, since it is through the flesh that they are distinguished and known externally. Let the soul only meditate some design, the face gives the indication—the face being the mirror of all our intentions.  They may deny all combination in acts, but they cannot gainsay their co-operation in thoughts. Still they enumerate the sins of the flesh; surely, then, for its sinful conduct it must be consigned to punishment. But we, moreover, allege against them the virtues of the flesh; surely also for its virtuous conduct it deserves a future reward. Again, as it is the soul which acts and impels us in all we do, so it is the function of the flesh to render obedience. Now we are not permitted to suppose that God is either unjust or idle.  Unjust, (however He would be,) were He to exclude from reward the flesh which is associated in good works; and idle, were He to exempt it from punishment, when it has been an accomplice in evil deeds: whereas human judgment is deemed to be the more perfect, when it discovers the agents in every deed, and neither spares the guilty nor grudges the virtuous their full share of either punishment or praise with the principals who employed their services.

CAPUT XV.

Age jam, scindant adversarii nostri carnis animaeque contextum, prius in vitae administratione, ut ita audeant scindere illud etiam in vitae remuneratione. Negent operarum societatem, ut merito possint etiam mercedem negare. Non sit particeps in sententia caro, si non fuerit et in caussa. Sola anima revocetur, si sola decedit . Atenim non magis sola decedit, quam sola decucurrit illud unde decedit: 0813C vitam hanc dico. Adeo autem non sola anima transigit vitam, ut nec cogitatus, licet solos, licet non ad effectum per carnem deductos, auferamus a collegio carnis. Siquidem in carne, et cum carne, et per carnem agitur ab anima, quod agitur in corde. Hanc denique carnis speciem, arcem animae, etiam Dominus in sugillationem cogitatuum taxat: Quid cogitatis in cordibus vestris nequam (Matth. IX)? et: Qui conspexerit mulierem ad concupiscendum, jam adulteravit in corde (Matth. V). Adeo et sine opere et 0814A sine effectu cogitatus, carnis est actus. Sed etsi in cerebro, vel in medio superciliorum discrimine, vel ubi ubi philosophis placet, principalitas sensuum consecrata est, quod hegemonicon appellatur, caro erit omne animae cogitatorium. Nunquam anima sine carne est, quamdiu in carne est. Nihil non cum illa agit, sine qua non est. Quaere adhuc an cogitatus quoque per carnem administrentur , qui per carnem dinoscuntur extrinsecus. Volutet aliquid anima, vultus operatur indicium : facies intentionum omnium speculum est . Negent factorum societatem, cui negare non possunt cogitatorum. Et illi quidem delinquentias carnis enumerant: ergo peccatrix tenebitur supplicio. Nos vero etiam virtutes carnis opponimus: ergo et bene operata tenebitur praemio 0814B Et si anima est quae agit et impellit in omnia, carnis obsequium est, Deum non licet aut injustum judicem credi, aut inertem: injustum, si sociam bonorum operum a praemiis arcet; inertem, si sociam malorum a suppliciis secernat: cum humana censura eo perfectior habeatur, quo etiam ministros facti cujusque deposcit, nec parcens, nec invidens illis, quominus cum auctoribus, aut poenae, aut gratiae communicent fructum.