Chapter XLIII.—Sleep a Natural Function as Shown by Other Considerations, and by the Testimony of Scripture.

Let us therefore first discuss the question of sleep, and afterwards in what way the soul encounters273    Decurrat. death. Now sleep is certainly not a supernatural thing, as some philosophers will have it be, when they suppose it to be the result of causes which appear to be above nature. The Stoics affirm sleep to be “a temporary suspension of the activity of the senses;”274    So Bp. Kaye, p. 195. the Epicureans define it as an intermission of the animal spirit; Anaxagoras and Xenophanes as a weariness of the same; Empedocles and Parmenides as a cooling down thereof; Strato as a separation of the (soul’s) connatural spirit; Democritus as the soul’s indigence; Aristotle as the interruption275    Marcorem, “the decay.” of the heat around the heart. As for myself, I can safely say that I have never slept in such a way as to discover even a single one of these conditions.  Indeed, we cannot possibly believe that sleep is a weariness; it is rather the opposite, for it undoubtedly removes weariness, and a person is refreshed by sleep instead of being fatigued.  Besides, sleep is not always the result of fatigue; and even when it is, the fatigue continues no longer. Nor can I allow that sleep is a cooling or decaying of the animal heat, for our bodies derive warmth from sleep in such a way that the regular dispersion of the food by means of sleep could not so easily go on if there were too much heat to accelerate it unduly, or cold to retard it, if sleep had the alleged refrigerating influence. There is also the further fact that perspiration indicates an over-heated digestion; and digestion is predicated of us as a process of concoction, which is an operation concerned with heat and not with cold.  In like manner, the immortality of the soul precludes belief in the theory that sleep is an intermission of the animal spirit, or an indigence of the spirit, or a separation of the (soul’s) connatural spirit. The soul perishes if it undergoes diminution or intermission. Our only resource, indeed, is to agree with the Stoics, by determining the soul to be a temporary suspension of the activity of the senses, procuring rest for the body only, not for the soul also. For the soul, as being always in motion, and always active, never succumbs to rest,—a condition which is alien to immortality: for nothing immortal admits any end to its operation; but sleep is an end of operation. It is indeed on the body, which is subject to mortality, and on the body alone, that sleep graciously bestows276    Adulatur. a cessation from work. He, therefore, who shall doubt whether sleep is a natural function, has the dialectical experts calling in question the whole difference between things natural and supernatural—so that what things he supposed to be beyond nature he may, (if he likes,) be safe in assigning to nature, which indeed has made such a disposition of things, that they may seemingly be accounted as beyond it; and so, of course, all things are natural or none are natural, (as occasion requires.) With us (Christians), however, only that can receive a hearing which is suggested by contemplating God, the Author of all the things which we are now discussing. For we believe that nature, if it is anything, is a reasonable work of God.  Now reason presides over sleep; for sleep is so fit for man, so useful, so necessary, that were it not for it, not a soul could provide agency for recruiting the body, for restoring its energies, for ensuring its health, for supplying suspension from work and remedy against labour, and for the legitimate enjoyment of which day departs, and night provides an ordinance by taking from all objects their very colour.  Since, then, sleep is indispensable to our life, and health, and succour, there can be nothing pertaining to it which is not reasonable, and which is not natural. Hence it is that physicians banish beyond the gateway of nature everything which is contrary to what is vital, healthful, and helpful to nature; for those maladies which are inimical to sleep—maladies of the mind and of the stomach—they have decided to be contrariant to nature, and by such decision have determined as its corollary that sleep is perfectly natural.  Moreover, when they declare that sleep is not natural in the lethargic state, they derive their conclusion from the fact that it is natural when it is in its due and regular exercise. For every natural state is impaired either by defect or by excess, whilst it is maintained by its proper measure and amount.  That, therefore, will be natural in its condition which may be rendered non-natural by defect or by excess.  Well, now, what if you were to remove eating and drinking from the conditions of nature? if in them lies the chief incentive to sleep. It is certain that, from the very beginning of his nature, man was impressed with these instincts (of sleep).277    Gen. ii. 21. If you receive your instruction from God, (you will find) that the fountain of the human race, Adam, had a taste of drowsiness before having a draught of repose; slept before he laboured, or even before he ate, nay, even before he spoke; in order that men may see that sleep is a natural feature and function, and one which has actually precedence over all the natural faculties. From this primary instance also we are led to trace even then the image of death in sleep. For as Adam was a figure of Christ, Adam’s sleep shadowed out the death of Christ, who was to sleep a mortal slumber, that from the wound inflicted on His side might, in like manner (as Eve was formed), be typified the church, the true mother of the living. This is why sleep is so salutary, so rational, and is actually formed into the model of that death which is general and common to the race of man.  God, indeed, has willed (and it may be said in passing that He has, generally, in His dispensations brought nothing to pass without such types and shadows) to set before us, in a manner more fully and completely than Plato’s example, by daily recurrence the outlines of man’s state, especially concerning the beginning and the termination thereof; thus stretching out the hand to help our faith more readily by types and parables, not in words only, but also in things. He accordingly sets before your view the human body stricken by the friendly power of slumber, prostrated by the kindly necessity of repose immoveable in position, just as it lay previous to life, and just as it will lie after life is past: there it lies as an attestation of its form when first moulded, and of its condition when at last buried—awaiting the soul in both stages, in the former previous to its bestowal, in the latter after its recent withdrawal. Meanwhile the soul is circumstanced in such a manner as to seem to be elsewhere active, learning to bear future absence by a dissembling of its presence for the moment. We shall soon know the case of Hermotimus. But yet it dreams in the interval. Whence then its dreams? The fact is, it cannot rest or be idle altogether, nor does it confine to the still hours of sleep the nature of its immortality. It proves itself to possess a constant motion; it travels over land and sea, it trades, it is excited, it labours, it plays, it grieves, it rejoices, it follows pursuits lawful and unlawful; it shows what very great power it has even without the body, how well equipped it is with members of its own, although betraying at the same time the need it has of impressing on some body its activity again. Accordingly, when the body shakes off its slumber, it asserts before your eye the resurrection of the dead by its own resumption of its natural functions.  Such, therefore, must be both the natural reason and the reasonable nature of sleep. If you only regard it as the image of death, you initiate faith, you nourish hope, you learn both how to die and how to live, you learn watchfulness, even while you sleep.

CAPUT XLIII.

De somno prius disputemus; post, mortem qualiter anima decurrat. Non utique extranaturale est somnus, ut quibusdam philosophis placet, cum ex his eum deputant causis, quae praeter naturam haberi videntur. Stoici somnum resolutionem sensualis vigoris affirmant, Epicurei deminutionem spiritus animalis, Anaxagoras cum Xenophane defetiscentiam, Empedocles et Parmenides refrigerationem; Strato 0721C segregationem consati spiritus, Democritus indigentiam spiritus, Aristoteles marcorem circumcordialis caloris. Ego me nunquam ita dormisse praesumo, ut ex his aliquid agnoscam. Neque enim credendum est, 0722A defetiscentiam esse somnum, contrarium potius defetiscentiae, quam scilicet tollit. Siquidem homo somno magis reficitur, quam fatigatur. Porro, nec semper ex fatigatione concipitur somnus, et tamen cum ex illa est, illa jam non est. Sed nec refrigescentiam admittam, aut marcorem aliquem caloris, cum adeo corpora somno concalescant, ut dispensatio ciborum per somnum non facile procederet calore properabili, et rigore tardabili, si somno refrigeraremur. Plus est, quod etiam sudor digestionis aestuantis est index. Denique, concoquere dicimur, quod caloris, non frigoris operatio est. Proinde, deminutionem animalis spiritus, aut indigentiam spiritus, aut segregationem consati spiritus, immortalitas animae non sinit credi. Perit anima si minoratur. Superest, si forte, cum Stoicis, resolutionem sensualis vigoris somnum determinemus, quia corporis solius quietem procuret, non et animae. Animam enim ut semper mobilem 0722B et semper exercitam, nunquam succidere quieti, alienae scilicet a statu immortalitatis: nihil enim immortale finem operis sui admittit; somnus autem finis est operis. Denique corpori cui mortalitas competit, ei soli quies finem operis adulatur. Qui ergo de somni naturalitate dubitabit, habet quidem dialecticos in dubium deducentes totam naturalium et extranaturalium discretionem, ut quae putaverit citra naturam esse, naturae vindicari sciat posse, a qua ita esse sortita sunt, ut citra eam haberi videantur, et utique aut natura omnia, aut nulla natura. Apud nos autem id poterit audiri, quod Dei contemplatio suggerit, auctoris omnium de quibus quaeritur. Credimus enim si quid est natura, rationale aliquod opus Dei esse. Porro, somnum ratio praeit, tam aptum, tam utilem, 0722C tam necessarium, ut absque illo nulla anima sufficiat: recreatorem corporum, redintegratorem virium, probatorem valetudinum, pacatorem operum, medicum laborum; cui legitime fruendo dies cedit, nox 0723A legem facit, auferens rerum etiam colorem. Quod si vitale, salutare, auxiliare somnus, nihil ejusmodi non rationale, nihil non naturale . Sic et medici omne contrarium vitali, salutari, auxiliari, extra naturae cardines relegant. Nam et aemulas somno valetudines, phreneticam atque cardiacam, praeter naturam judicando, naturalem somnum praejudicaverunt; etiam in lethargo non naturalem notantes, testimonio naturali respondent, cum in suo temperamento est. Omnis enim natura, aut defraudatione, aut enormitate rescinditur, proprietate mensurae conservatur, ita naturale erit statu, quod non naturale effici potest decessu vel excessu. Quid si et esum et potum de naturae sortibus eximas? nam et in his plurima somni praeparatura est. Certe his a primordio naturae suae 0723B homo imbutus est. Si apud Deum discas , ille fons generis Adam, ante ebibit soporem, quam sitiit quietem; ante dormiit, quam laboravit; imo, quam et edit; imo, quam et profatus est; ut videant naturalem indicem somnum omnibus naturalibus principaliorem. Inde deducimur etiam imaginem mortis jam tunc eum recensere. Si enim Adam de Christo figuram dabat , somnus Adae mors erat Christi dormituri in mortem, ut de injuria perinde lateris ejus vera mater viventium figuraretur Ecclesia. Ideo et somnus tam salutaris, tam rationalis, etiam in publicae et communis jam mortis effingitur exemplar. Voluit enim Deus, et alias nihil sine exemplaribus in sua dispositione molitus, paradigmate platonico plenius humani vel maxime initii ac finis lineas quotidie 0723C agere nobiscum, manum porrigens fidei, facilius adjuvandae per imagines et parabolas, sicut sermonum, ita et rerum. Proponit igitur tibi corpus amica vi soporis elisum, blanda quietis necessitate prostratum, immobile situ, quale ante vitam jacuit, et quale 0724A post vitam jacebit, ut testationem plasticae et sepulturae exspectans animam, quasi nondum conlatam, et quasi jam ereptam. Sed et illa sic patitur, ut alibi agere videatur, dissimulatione praesentiae futuram absentiam ediscens; et tamen interim somniat, nec quiescit, nec ignavescit omnino, nec naturam immortalitatis servam sopori addicit: probat se mobilem semper; terra, mari, peregrinatur, negotiatur, agitatur, laborat, ludit, dolet, gaudet, licita atque inlicita persequitur: ostendit quod sine corpore etiam plurimum possit, quod et suis instructa sit membris, sed nihilominus necessitatem habeat rursus corporis agitandi. Ita cum evigilaverit corpus, redditum officiis ejus, resurrectionem mortuorum tibi affirmat. Haec erit somni, et ratio naturalis, 0724B et natura rationalis. Etiam per imaginem mortis, fidem initiaris, spem meditaris, discis mori et vivere, discis vigilare dum dormis.