On the Soul and the Resurrection.
With a heart still fermenting with my pain, I asked— How can that ever be practised by mankind? There is such an instinctive and deep-seated abhorrenc
Why, what is the especial pain you feel, asked the Teacher, in the mere necessity itself of dying? This common talk of unthinking persons is no suffic
What! is there no occasion for grieving, I replied to her, when we see one who so lately lived and spoke becoming all of a sudden lifeless and motionl
Whilst I was thus enlarging on the subject, the Teacher signed to me with her hand , and said: Surely what alarms and disturbs your mind is not the th
I answered rather audaciously, and without due consideration of what I said, for my passionate grief had not yet given me back my judgment. In fact, I
Away, she cried, with that pagan nonsense! For therein the inventor of lies fabricates false theories only to harm the Truth. Observe this, and nothin
And pray how, I asked, are we to get a firm and unmovable belief in the soul’s continuance? I, too, am sensible of the fact that human life will be be
Well, replied the Teacher, we must seek where we may get a beginning for our discussion upon this point and if you please, let the defence of the opp
When she made this request, and I had deprecated the suspicion that I was making the objections in real earnest, instead of only wishing to get a firm
Would not the defenders of the opposite belief say this: that the body, being composite, must necessarily be resolved into that of which it is compose
The Teacher sighed gently at these words of mine, and then said Maybe these were the objections, or such as these, that the Stoics and Epicureans col
That is the very point, I said, upon which our adversaries cannot fail to have doubts viz. that all things depend on God and are encompassed by Him,
It would be more fitting, she cried, to be silent about such doubts, and not to deign to make any answer to such foolish and wicked propositions for
And pray how, I asked, does this belief in the existence of God prove along with it the existence of the human soul? For God, surely, is not the same
She replied: It has been said by wise men that man is a little world in himself and contains all the elements which go to complete the universe. If th
I rejoined, Nay, it may be very possible to infer a wisdom transcending the universe from the skilful and artistic designs observable in this harmoniz
Most certainly, the Virgin replied, the soul herself, to those who wish to follow the wise proverb and know themselves, is a competent instructress o
What then, I asked, is the soul? Perhaps there may be some possible means of delineating its nature so that we may have some comprehension of this su
Its definition, the Teacher replied, has been attempted in different ways by different writers, each according to his own bent but the following is o
But what, I asked, if, insisting on the great differences which, in spite of a certain quality of matter shared alike by all elements in their visible
Your instance, she replied, and your reasoning upon it, though belonging to the counter-argument, may both of them be made allies of our statement, an
Why, how can you say that?
Because, you see, so to understand, manipulate, and dispose the soulless matter, that the art which is stored away in such mechanisms becomes almost l
That the thing perceived, I replied, is not the same as the thing not perceived, I grant but I do not discover any answer to our question in such a s
We do learn, she replied, much about many things by this very same method, inasmuch as, in the very act of saying a thing is “not so and so,” we by im
Here I interrupted her discourse: If you leave all these out of the account I do not see how you can possibly avoid cancelling along with them the ver
Shame on such absurdity! said she, indignantly interrupting. A fine conclusion this narrow-minded, grovelling view of the world brings us to! If all t
Well, then, I retorted, we only exchange one paradox for another by arguing in this way for our reason will be reduced to the conclusion that the Dei
Say not so, she replied to talk so also is blasphemous. Rather, as the Scripture tells you, say that the one is like the other. For that which is “ma
That those atoms, I rejoined, should unite and again be separated, and that this constitutes the formation and dissolution of the body, no one would d
But the intelligent and undimensional, she replied, is neither contracted nor diffused (contraction and diffusion being a property of body only) but
Upon this I recurred to the definition which she had previously given of the soul, and I said that to my thinking her definition had not indicated dis
You are quite justified, she replied, in raising this question, and it has ere this been discussed by many elsewhere namely, what we are to think of
What then, I asked the Teacher, are we to think about this? For I cannot yet see how we can fitly repudiate faculties which are actually within us.
You see, she replied, there is a battle of the reason with them and a struggle to rid the soul of them and there are men in whom this struggle has en
And yet, I rejoined to the virgin, we see no slight help afforded for improvement to the virtuous from all these conditions. Daniel’s desire was his g
I think, replied the Teacher, that I am myself responsible for this confusion arising from different accounts of the matter for I did not state it as
Much moved by these words, I said: To any one who reflects indeed, your exposition, advancing as it does in this consecutive manner, though plain and
And who, she replied, could deny that truth is to be found only in that upon which the seal of Scriptural testimony is set? So, if it is necessary tha
She ceased after this statement and allowed the discussion a short interval, in which I reviewed mentally all that had been said and reverting to tha
Clearly, replied the Teacher, you have not quite attended to the argument. In speaking of the soul’s migration from the seen to the unseen, I thought
And how, then, I asked, is it that some think that by the underworld is meant an actual place, and that it harbours within itself
Well, replied the Teacher, our doctrine will be in no ways injured by such a supposition. For if it is true, what you say above
But what, I asked, if your opponent should shield himself behind the Apostle, where he says that every reasoning creature, in the restitution of all t
We shall stand by our doctrine, answered the Teacher, even if we should hear them adducing these words. For the existence of the soul (after death) we
But if some were to ask the meaning of the Apostle in this utterance, what is one to say? Would you remove all signification of place from the passage
I do not think, she replied, that the divine Apostle divided the intellectual world into localities, when he named part as in heaven, part as on earth
When she had finished, I hesitated a moment, and then said: I am not yet satisfied about the thing which we have been inquiring into after all that h
She waited a moment and then said: Give me leave to invent a fanciful simile in order to illustrate the matter before us: even though that which I sup
You seem, I interrupted, in this passing remark to have made an excellent defence of the faith in the Resurrection. By it, I think, the opponents of t
That is very true, the Teacher replied. For we may hear these opponents urging the following difficulty. “The atoms are resolved, like to like, into t
Then to meet such an objection, I rejoined, the above opinion about the soul will, as I said, avail namely, that she remains after dissolution in tho
The following illustration also, the Teacher went on, might be very properly added to those already brought forward, to show that the soul has not nee
I applauded this as well devised to bring out the natural features of the case before us and I said: It is very well to speak like this and to believ
The Teacher answered: The expressions of that narrative of the Word are certainly material but still many hints are interspersed in it to rouse the s
What then, I asked, are the fire and the gulf and the other features in the picture? Are they not that which they are said to be?
I think, she replied, that the Gospel signifies by means of each of them certain doctrines with regard to our question of the soul. For when the patri
What then, I asked, is the doctrine here?
Why, seeing that Lazarus’ soul is occupied with his present blessings and turns round to look at nothing that he has left, while the rich man is still
Then, after a moment’s reflection on the meaning of these latter words, I said: I think that a contradiction now arises between what you have said and
How so? she asked.
Why, when every unreasoning instinct is quenched within us after our purgation, this principle of desire will not exist any more than the other princi
To that objection, she replied, we answer this. The speculative and critical faculty is the property of the soul’s godlike part for it is by these th
Then it seems, I said, that it is not punishment chiefly and principally that the Deity, as Judge, afflicts sinners with but He operates, as your arg
That, said the Teacher, is my meaning and also that the agony will be measured by the amount of evil there is in each individual. For it would not be
But, said I, what help can one find in this devout hope, when one considers the greatness of the evil in undergoing torture even for a single year an
Why , either we must plan to keep the soul absolutely untouched and free from any stain of evil or, if our passionate nature makes that quite impossi
What then, I asked, are we to say to those whose hearts fail at these calamities ?
We will say to them, replied the Teacher, this. “It is foolish, good people, for you to fret and complain of the chain of this fixed sequence of life’
But it somehow seems to me now, I said, that the doctrine of the Resurrection necessarily comes on for our discussion a doctrine which I think is eve
As for the thinkers, the Teacher went on, outside our own system of thought, they have, with all their diverse ways of looking at things, one in one p
The Teacher finished her exposition and to the many persons sitting by her bedside the whole discussion seemed now to have arrived at a fitting concl
But, said she, which of these points has been left unnoticed in what has been said?
Why, the actual doctrine of the Resurrection, I replied.
And yet, she answered, much in our long and detailed discussion pointed to that.
Then are you not aware, I insisted, of all the objections, a very swarm of them, which our antagonists bring against us in connection with that hope o
She, however, replied, First, I think, we must briefly run over the scattered proclamations of this doctrine in Holy Scripture they shall give the fi
But that, said I, was not the point in question. Most of your hearers will assent to the fact that there will some day be a Resurrection, and that man
When I had finished, the Teacher thus replied, You have attacked the doctrines connected with the Resurrection with some spirit, in the way of rhetori
Say not so, she replied; to talk so also is blasphemous. Rather, as the Scripture tells you, say that the one is like the other. For that which is “made in the image” of the Deity necessarily possesses a likeness to its prototype in every respect; it resembles it in being intellectual, immaterial, unconnected with any notion of weight25 weight(ὄγκου). This is a Platonic word: it means the weight, and then (morally) the burden, of the body: not necessarily connected with the idea of swelling, even in Empedocles, v. 220; its Latin equivalent is “onus” in both meanings. Cf. Heb. xii. 1; ὄγκον ἀποθέμενοι πάντα, “every weight,” or “all cumbrance.”, and in eluding any measurement of its dimensions26 Reading διαστηματικὴν. Cf. 239 A.; yet as regards its own peculiar nature it is something different from that other. Indeed, it would be no longer an “image,” if it were altogether identical with that other; but27 ἀλλ᾽ ἐν οἷς…ἐκεῖνο…τοῦτο. where we have A in that uncreate prototype we have a in the image; just as in a minute particle of glass, when it happens to face the light, the complete disc of the sun is often to be seen, not represented thereon in proportion to its proper size, but so far as the minuteness of the particle admits of its being represented at all. Thus do the reflections of those ineffable qualities of Deity shine forth within the narrow limits of our nature; and so our reason, following the leading of these reflections, will not miss grasping the Mind in its essence by clearing away from the question all corporeal qualities; nor on the other hand will it bring the pure28 pure(ἀκηράτῳ). perishable (ἐπίκηρον). The first word is a favourite one with the Platonists; such as Plotinus, and Synesius. Gregory uses it in his funeral speech over Flacilla, “she passes with a soul unstained to the pure and perfect life”; and both in his treatise De Mortuis, “that man’s grief is real, who becomes conscious of the blessings he has lost; and contrasts this perishing and soiled existence with the perfect blessedness above.” and infinite Existence to the level of that which is perishable and little; it will regard this essence of the Mind as an object of thought only, since it is the “image” of an Existence which is such; but it will not pronounce this image to be identical with the prototype. Just, then, as we have no doubts, owing to the display of a Divine mysterious wisdom in the universe, about a Divine Being and a Divine Power existing in it all which secures its continuance (though if you required a definition of that Being you would therein find the Deity completely sundered from every object in creation, whether of sense or thought, while in these last, too, natural distinctions are admitted), so, too, there is nothing strange in the soul’s separate existence as a substance (whatever we may think that substance to be) being no hindrance to her actual existence, in spite of the elemental atoms of the world not harmonizing with her in the definition of her being. In the case of our living bodies, composed as they are from the blending of these atoms, there is no sort of communion, as has been just said, on the score of substance, between the simplicity and invisibility of the soul, and the grossness of those bodies; but, notwithstanding that, there is not a doubt that there is in them the soul’s vivifying influence exerted by a law which it is beyond the human understanding to comprehend29 λόγῳ τινὶ κρείττονι τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης κατάνοήσεως. So just below ἀῤῥήτῳ τινὶ λόγω. The mode of the union of soul and body is beyond our comprehension. To refer these words to the Deity Himself (“incomprehensible cause”), as Oehler, would make of them, as Schmidt well remarks, a “mere showy phrase.”. Not even then, when those atoms have again been dissolved30 ἀναλυθέντων. Krabinger reads ἀναλυσάντων, i.e. “returning”; as frequently in this treatise, and in N.T. usage. into themselves, has that bond of a vivifying influence vanished; but as, while the framework of the body still holds together, each individual part is possessed of a soul which penetrates equally every component member, and one could not call that soul hard and resistent though blended with the solid, nor humid, or cold, or the reverse, though it transmits life to all and each of such parts, so, when that framework is dissolved, and has returned to its kindred elements, there is nothing against probability that that simple and incomposite essence which has once for all by some inexplicable law grown with the growth of the bodily framework should continually remain beside the atoms with which it has been blended, and should in no way be sundered from a union once formed. For it does not follow that because the composite is dissolved the incomposite must be dissolved with it31 i.e.as we have already seen (p. 433). The fact of the continuity of the soul was there deduced from its being incomposite. So that the γὰρ here does not give the ground for the statement immediately preceding. Gregory (p. 431) had suggested two alternatives:—1. That the soul dissolves with the body. This is answered by the soul’s “incompositeness.” 2. That the union of the immaterial soul with the still material atoms after death cannot be maintained. This is answered by the analogy given in the present section, of God’s presence in an uncongenial universe, and that of the soul in the still living body. The γὰρ therefore refers to the answer to 1, without which the question of the soul continuing in the atoms could not have been discussed at all..
_Μ. Μὴ ταὐτὸν εἴπῃς, φησὶν ἡ διδάσκαλος (ἀσεβὴς γὰρ καὶ οὗτος ὁ λόγος), ἀλλ' ὡς ἐδιδάχθης παρὰ τῆς θείας Γραφῆς, ὅμοιον εἰπὲ τοῦτο ἐκείνῳ. Τὸ γὰρ κατ' εἰκόνα γενόμενον διὰ πάντων ἔχει πάντως τὴν πρὸς τὸ ἀρχέτυπον ὁμοιότητα, νοερὰν τοῦ νοεροῦ, καὶ τοῦ ἀσωμάτου ἀσώματον, ὄγκου τε παντὸς ἀπηλλαγμένον ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνο, καὶ πᾶσαν ἐκφεῦγον διὰ σημαντικὴν καταμέτρησιν ὁμοίως ἐκείνῳ: ἄλλο δέ τι παρ' ἐκεῖνο κατὰ τὴν τῆς φύσεως ἰδιότητα. Οὐκέτι γὰρ ἂν εἴη εἰκὼν, εἰ ἐκείνῳ δι' ἁπάντων εἴη ταὐτὸν, ἀλλ' ἐν οἷς ἐν τῇ ἀκτίστῳ φύσει καθορᾶται ἐκεῖνο, ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἡ κτιστὴ φύσις δείκνυσι τοῦτο: καὶ ὥσπερ πολλάκις ἐν μικρῷ ψήγματι ὑελίνῃ, ὅταν τύχῃ πρὸς ἀκτῖνα κείμενον, ὅλος ἐνορᾶται τοῦ ἡλίου ὁ κύκλος, οὐ κατὰ τὸ ἴδιον μέγεθος αὐτῷ ἐμφαινόμενος, ἀλλ' ὡς χωρεῖ βραχύτης τοῦ ψήγματος τοῦ κύκλου τὴν ἔμφασιν: οὕτως ἐν τῇ βραχύτητι τῆς ἡμετέρας φύσεως τῶν ἀφράστων ἐκείνων τῆς θεότητος ἰδιωμάτων αἱ εἰκόνες ἐκλάμπουσιν, ὥστε διὰ τούτων τὸν λόγον χειραγωγούμενον, μήτε ἀποπίπτειν τῆς κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν τοῦ νοῦ καταλήψεως, ἀποκαθαιρομένης ἐν τῇ ἐξετάσει τοῦ σκέμματος τῆς σωματικῆς ἰδιότητος: μηδ' αὖ πάλιν εἰς ἶσον ἄγειν τῇ ἀορίστῳ τε καὶ ἀκηράτῳ φύσει, τὴν μικρὰν καὶ ἐπίκηρον: ἀλλὰ νοητὴν μὲν οἴεσθαι τὴν οὐσίαν: ἐπειδὴ καὶ νοητῆς οὐσίας ἐστὶν εἰκὼν, μὴ μέντοι τὴν αὐτὴν τῷ ἀρχετύπῳ τὴν εἰκόνα λέγειν.
Ὥσπερ οὖν διὰ τῆς ἀποῤῥήτου σοφίας τοῦ Θεοῦ τῆς τῷ παντὶ ἐμφαινομένης τὴν θείαν φύσιν τε καὶ δύναμιν ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς οὖσιν εἶναι οὐκ ἀμφιβάλλομεν, ὡς ἂν ἐν τῷ εἶναι τὰ πάντα μένοι: καί τοί γε εἰ τὸν τῆς φύσεως ἀπαιτοίης λόγον, παμπλήθως ἀπέχει οὐσία Θεοῦ πρὸς τὰ καθ' ἕκαστον ἐν τῇ κτίσει δεικνύμενά τε καὶ νοούμενα: ἀλλ' ὅμως ἐν τούτοις εἶναι τὸ διεστὸς κατὰ τὴν φύσιν ὁμολογεῖται: οὕτως οὐδὲν ἄπιστον καὶ τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς οὐσίαν, ἄλλο τι καθ' ἑαυτὴν οὖσαν, ὅ τί ποτε καὶ εἶναι εἰκάζεται, μὴ ἐμποδίζεσθαι πρὸς τὸ εἶναι, τῶν στοιχειωδῶς ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ θεωρουμένων οὐ συμβαινόντων αὐτῇ κατὰ τὸν λόγον τῆς φύσεως: οὐδὲ ἐπὶ τῶν ζώντων σωμάτων, καθὼς ἤδη προείρηται, οἷς ἡ ὑπόστασις ἐκ τῆς τῶν στοιχείων ἐστὶ συγκράσεως, κοινωνία τις κατὰ τὸν τῆς οὐσίας λόγον ἐστὶ τῷ ἁπλῷ τε καὶ ἀειδεῖ τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς τὴν σωματικὴν παχυμερίαν: ἀλλ' ὅμως τὸ ἐν τούτοις εἶναι τὴν ζωτικὴν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐνέργειαν, οὐκ ἀμφιβάλλεται, λόγῳ τινὶ κρείττονι τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης κατανοήσεως ἀνακραθεῖσαν. Οὐκοῦν οὐδὲ ἀναλυσάντων πρὸς ἑαυτὰ τῶν ἐν τοῖς σώμασι στοιχείων, τὸ συνδέον αὐτὰ διὰ τῆς ζωτικῆς ἐνεργείας ἀπόλωλεν. Ἀλλ' ὥσπερ συνεστῶτος ἔτι τοῦ τῶν στοιχείων συγκρίματος ψυχοῦται καὶ τὰ καθ' ἕκαστον, ἴσως τε καὶ ὁμοίως πᾶσι τοῖς μέρεσι τοῖς συμπληροῦσι τὸ σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς ἐνδυομένης, καὶ οὐκ ἄν τις εἴποι, οὔτε στεῤῥὰν αὐτὴν καὶ ἀντίτυπον εἶναι, τῷ γεώδει συγκεκραμένην, οὔτε ὑγρὰν, ἢ ψυχρὰν ἢ τὴν τῷ ψυχρῷ ἀντικειμένην ποιότητα, τὴν ἐν πᾶσιν οὖσαν τούτοις, καὶ ἑκάστῳ τὴν ζωτικὴν δύναμιν ἐνιοῦσαν: οὕτω, καὶ λυθέντος τοῦ συγκρίματος, καὶ εἰς τὰ οἰκεῖα πάλιν ἀναδραμόντος, τὴν ἁπλῆν ἐκείνην καὶ ἀσύνθετον φύσιν ἑκάστῳ παρεῖναι τῶν μερῶν, καὶ μετὰ τὴν διάλυσιν οἴεσθαι, οὐδὲν τοῦ εἰκότος ἐστίν: ἀλλὰ τὴν ἅπαξ ἀῤῥήτῳ τινὶ συμφυεῖσαν λόγῳ τῷ τῶν στοιχείων συγκρίματι, καὶ εἰσαεὶ παραμένειν, οἷς κατεμίχθη, μηδενὶ τρόπῳ τῆς γινομένης ἅπαξ αὐτῇ συμφυΐας ἀποσπωμένην. Οὐ γὰρ ἐπειδὴ λύεται τὸ συγκείμενον, κινδυνεύει συνδιαλυθῆναι τῷ συνθέτῳ τὸ μὴ συγκείμενον.
