Chapter XLV.—Dreams, an Incidental Effect of the Soul’s Activity.  Ecstasy.

We are bound to expound at this point what is the opinion of Christians respecting dreams, as incidents of sleep, and as no slight or trifling excitements of the soul, which we have declared to be always occupied and active owing to its perpetual movement, which again is a proof and evidence of its divine quality and immortality. When, therefore, rest accrues to human bodies, it being their own especial comfort, the soul, disdaining a repose which is not natural to it, never rests; and since it receives no help from the limbs of the body, it uses its own.  Imagine a gladiator without his instruments or arms, and a charioteer without his team, but still gesticulating the entire course and exertion of their respective employments: there is the fight, there is the struggle; but the effort is a vain one. Nevertheless the whole procedure seems to be gone through, although it evidently has not been really effected. There is the act, but not the effect. This power we call ecstasy, in which the sensuous soul stands out of itself, in a way which even resembles madness.278    We had better give Tertullian’s own succinct definition: “Excessus sensûs et amentiæ instar.” Thus in the very beginning sleep was inaugurated by ecstasy: “And God sent an ecstasy upon Adam, and he slept.”279    Gen. ii. 21. The sleep came on his body to cause it to rest, but the ecstasy fell on his soul to remove rest: from that very circumstance it still happens ordinarily (and from the order results the nature of the case) that sleep is combined with ecstasy. In fact, with what real feeling, and anxiety, and suffering do we experience joy, and sorrow, and alarm in our dreams! Whereas we should not be moved by any such emotions, by what would be the merest fantasies of course, if when we dream we were masters of ourselves, (unaffected by ecstasy.) In these dreams, indeed, good actions are useless, and crimes harmless; for we shall no more be condemned for visionary acts of sin, than we shall be crowned for imaginary martyrdom. But how, you will ask, can the soul remember its dreams, when it is said to be without any mastery over its own operations? This memory must be an especial gift of the ecstatic condition of which we are treating, since it arises not from any failure of healthy action, but entirely from natural process; nor does it expel mental function—it withdraws it for a time. It is one thing to shake, it is another thing to move; one thing to destroy, another thing to agitate. That, therefore, which memory supplies betokens soundness of mind; and that which a sound mind ecstatically experiences whilst the memory remains unchecked, is a kind of madness. We are accordingly not said to be mad, but to dream, in that state; to be in the full possession also of our mental faculties,280    Prudentes. if we are at any time. For although the power to exercise these faculties281    Sapere. may be dimmed in us, it is still not extinguished; except that it may seem to be itself absent at the very time that the ecstasy is energizing in us in its special manner, in such wise as to bring before us images of a sound mind and of wisdom, even as it does those of aberration.

CAPUT XLV.

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Tenemur hic de somnis quoque christianam sententiam expromere, ut de accidentibus somni; et non modicis jactationibus animae, quam ediximus negotiosam, et exercitam semper ex perpetuitate motationis, quod divinitatis et immortalitatis est ratio. Igitur, cum quies corporibus evenit, quorum solatium proprium est, vacans illa a solatio alieno, non quiescit; et si caret opera membrorum corporalium, suis utitur. Concipe gladiatorem sine armis, vel aurigam sine curriculis, gesticulantes omnem habitum artis suae atque conatum. Pugnatur, certatur; sed vacua jactatio est. Nihilominus tamen fieri videntur, quae fieri tamen non videntur; actu enim fiunt, effectu vero non fiunt. Hanc vim 0725C ecstasin dicimus, excessum sensus, et amentiae instar. Sic et in primordio, somnus cum ecstasi dedicatus (Gen. II): et misit Deus ecstasin in Adam, et obdormivit. Somnus enim corpori provenit in quietem; ecstasis animae accessit adversus quietem; et inde 0726A jam forma, somnum ecstasi miscens, et natura de forma. Denique, et oblectamur, et contristamur, et conterremur in somniis, quam adfecte, et anxie, et passibiliter! cum in nullo permoveremur, a vacuis seilicet imaginibus, si compotes somniaremus. Denique et bona facta gratuita sunt in somnis, et delicta secura; non magis enim ob stupri visionem damnabimur, quam ob martyrii coronabimur. Et quomodo, inquis, memor est somniorum anima, scilicet quam compotem esse non licet? Hoc erit proprietas amentiae hujus, quia non fit ex corruptela bonae valetudinis, sed ex ratione naturae. Nec enim exterminat, sed avocat mentem. Aliud est concutere, aliud movere; aliud evertere, aliud agitare. Igitur quod memoria suppetit, sanitas mentis est; quod sanitas 0726B mentis salva memoria stupet, amentiae genus est. Ideo non dicimur furere, sed somniare: ideo et prudentes, si quando sumus: sapere enim nostrum licet obumbretur, non tamen exstinguitur. Nisi quod et ipsum potest videri vacare tunc; ecstasin autem hoc quoque operari de suo proprio, ut sic nobis sapientiae imagines inferat, quemadmodum et erroris.