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seem pleasant, but also on those considered painful. But we should not yet discuss this; for it is proper for our discourse to preserve the harmony of its arrangement. We say, therefore, that the body was formed from the four elements. For it has its heat from fire, its coldness from air, its dryness from earth, and its moistness from water. But the soul, we say, is simple and rational and immortal, but not pre-existent to the body. For Pythagoras and Plato and Plotinus, and those of his company, having agreed that souls are immortal, said that they pre-exist their bodies, and that there is a certain population of countless souls, and that those who sin are sent down into bodies, so that having been purified by such an education, they might return again to their own place; but those who embrace a lawless life even in bodies are sent down into irrational animals; the bitter and venomous into reptiles, the rapacious into wolves, the bold into lions, and the deceitful into foxes; and they fabricated certain such nonsensical myths. But they say the Peripatetics also deny in their reasoning the immortality of souls. But the wisest of the physicians called the good temperament of the body the soul, having taken this opinion from the afflictions that happen to the body, I mean epilepsy, and apoplexy, and frenzy. For since each of these afflictions maims the rational faculty, and makes it vanish, they supposed the soul to be the good temperament of the body. But they ought to have understood that just as a lyre-player, when the lyre is not well-tuned, does not display his own skill. For the 83.481 strings, when they are overstretched, and indeed also when they become slack, ruin the harmony. And if some are even cut, they render the musician completely idle. This can also be seen with flutes and with other instruments. So a waterlogged ship, or one constructed contrary to the principle of the art, harms the skill of the pilot. And lame horses, or ones slow by nature, and indeed the defects of the chariots, are a detriment to the charioteers. So, indeed, some bodily afflictions do not permit the soul to show the activity of the rational faculty. But when the affliction occurs in the tongue, speech is checked; and in the eyes the power of optical activity no longer passes through the member. But if the disease should fall upon the meninges, the malignity of the vapors and humors harms the brain, and being overwhelmed by these, it does not receive the activity of the soul, but seems to have become like someone underwater, moving both hands and feet and the other members of the body at random. Therefore, the good temperament of the body is not the essence of the soul, but in the good temperament of the body the essence of the soul shows its own wisdom. These men, then, fell into this irrationality. But the impious heretics, Carpocrates, and Epiphanes, and Prodicus, and the Cainites, and the Antitactae, and the Eutychites, acquired a much more unholy foolishness than these; for they said that souls are sent down into bodies, so that having committed in them every intemperance and lawlessness, they might propitiate the world-making angels with their pursuits of impiety. But the Church, obeying the divine oracles, especially abominates the doctrine of these men, and also rejects the myths of the others; but obeying the divine Scripture it says that the soul is created together with the body, not having the origins of its creation from the matter of the seed, but by the will of the maker, being formed together after the fashioning of the body. For indeed the most divine Moses said that Adam’s body was fashioned first, and then God breathed the soul into him. "For God took dust from the earth, and formed man, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and became the
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δοκοῦσι τερπνοῖς, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς νομιζομένοις ἀνιαροῖς. Ἀλλ' οὔπω περὶ τούτου διαληπτέον· τὴν γὰρ τῆς συντάξεως ἁρμονίαν προσήκει φυλάξαι τὸν λόγον. Φαμὲν τοίνυν, ἀπὸ μὲν τῶν τεσσάρων στοιχείων διαπλασθῆναι τὸ σῶμα. Ἔχει γὰρ ἀπὸ μὲν τοῦ πυρὸς τὴν θερμότητα, ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ ἀέρος τὴν ψυχρότητα, τὴν ξηρότητα δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ὕδατος τὴν ὑγρότητα. Τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν, ἁπλῆν εἶναί φαμεν καὶ λογικὴν καὶ ἀθάνατον, οὐ μὴν προϋπάρχειν τοῦ σώματος. Πυθαγόρας, μὲν γὰρ καὶ Πλάτων, καὶ Πλωτῖνος, καὶ οἱ τῆς ἐκεί νου συμμορίας, ἀθανάτους εἶναι συνομολογήσαντες τὰς ψυχὰς, προϋπάρχειν ταύτας ἔφασαν τῶν σωμά των, καὶ δῆμον εἶναί τινα ψυχῶν ἀναρίθμων, καὶ τὰς πλημμελούσας εἰς σώματα καταπέμπεσθαι, ὥστε τῇ τοιᾷδε καθαρθείσας παιδείᾳ, πάλιν ἐπανελθεῖν εἰς τὸν ἴδιον χῶρον· τὰς δὲ κἀν τοῖς σώμασι παράνομον βίον ἀσπασαμένας, εἰς τὰ ἄλογα καταπέμπεσθαι ζῶα· τοὺς μὲν πικροὺς καὶ ἰοβόλους, εἰς ἑρπετὰ, τοὺς δὲ ἁρπακτικοὺς εἰς λύκους, τοὺς δὲ θρασεῖς εἰς λέον τας, εἰς ἀλώπεκας δὲ τοὺς δολερούς· καὶ τοιούτους ληρώδεις τινὰς ἀνέπλασαν μύθους. Τοὺς δὲ Περιπα τητικούς φασι καὶ τὴν ἀθανασίαν τῶν ψυχῶν ἀφαι ρεῖσθαι τῷ λόγῳ. Οἱ δὲ σοφώτατοι τῶν ἰατρῶν, τὴν τοῦ σώματος εὐκρασίαν ψυχὴν προσηγόρευσαν, ἐκ τῶν συμβαινόντων τῷ σώματι παθημάτων, ἐπιλη ψίας, φημὶ, καὶ ἀποπληξίας, καὶ φρενίτιδος, ταύτην εἰληφότες τὴν δόξαν. Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ τῶνδε τῶν παθη μάτων ἕκαστον λωβᾶται τῷ λογικῷ, καὶ φροῦδον τοῦτο ποιεῖ, ὑπέλαβον τοῦ σώματος τὴν εὐκρασίαν εἶναι ψυχήν. Ἔδει δὲ αὐτοὺς συνιδεῖν, ὡς καὶ ὁ λυρ ωδὸς, τῆς λύρας οὐκ εὖ ἠσκημένης, τὴν οἰκείαν οὐκ ἐπιδείκνυσιν ἐπιστήμην. Ὑπερταθεῖσαι γὰρ αἱ χορ 83.481 δαὶ, καὶ μέντοι καὶ χαλαραὶ γινόμεναι, τὴν ἁρμονίαν λυμαίνονται. Εἰ δὲ καὶ διατμηθῶσί τινες, ἀργὸν παν τελῶς τὸν μουσικὸν ἀποφαίνουσι. Τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ αὐ λῶν ἔστιν ἰδεῖν, καὶ ἐπὶ ἄλλων ὀργάνων. Οὕτως σκά φος διάβροχον, ἢ παρὰ τὸν λόγον κατεσκευασμένον τῆς τέχνης, πημαίνει τοῦ κυβερνήτου τὴν τέχνην. Καὶ ἵπποι χωλεύοντες, ἢ φύσει βραδεῖς, καὶ μέντοι τῶν ἁρμάτων τὰ πάθη, τοῖς ἡνιόχοις λυμαίνεται. Οὕτω δῆτα καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἔνια τῶν σωματικῶν πα θημάτων οὐκ ἐᾷ δεῖξαι τοῦ λογικοῦ τὴν ἐνέργειαν. Ἀλλὰ ἐν μὲν τῇ γλώττῃ γενομένου τοῦ πάθους, ὁ λόγος ἐπέχεται· ἐν δὲ τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς τῆς ὀπτικῆς ἐνεργείας ἡ δύναμις οὐκέτι διὰ τοῦ μορίου χωρεῖ. Εἰ δὲ τῇ μήνιγγι προσπέσοι τὸ νόσημα, σίνεται μὲν τὸν ἐγκέφαλον ἡ τῶν ἀτμῶν καὶ τῶν χυμῶν μοχθη ρία, ὑπὸ δὲ τούτων περικλυζόμενος, οὐ δέχεται τῆς ψυχῆς τὴν ἐνέργειαν, ἀλλ' ἔοικεν ὑποβρυχίῳ τινὶ γε νομένῳ, καὶ ὡς ἔτυχε καὶ χεῖρας κινοῦντι καὶ πό δας, καὶ τὰ ἄλλα τοῦ σώματος μόρια. Οὐ τοίνυν οὐσία τῆς ψυχῆς, ἡ τοῦ σώματος εὐκρασία, ἀλλ' ἐν τῇ τοῦ σώματος εὐκρασίᾳ τῆς ψυχῆς ἡ οὐσία δείκνυσι τὴν οἰκείαν σοφίαν. Οὗτοι μὲν οὖν εἰς ταύτην τὴν ἀλογίαν ἐξέπεσον. Οἱ δὲ δυσσεβεῖς αἱρετικοὶ, Καρπο κράτης, καὶ Ἐπιφάνης, καὶ Πρόδικος, καὶ Καϊανοὶ, καὶ Ἀντιτάκται, καὶ Εὐτυχῖται, πολὺ τούτων ἀνοσιώτερον ἐκτήσαντο φλήναφον· ἔφασαν γὰρ εἰς σώματα καταπέμπεσθαι τὰς ψυχὰς, ὥστε πᾶσαν ἐν τούτοις ἀκολασίαν καὶ παρανομίαν ἐργασαμένας, τοὺς κοσμοποιοὺς ἀγγέλους θεραπεῦσαι τοῖς τῆς ἀσεβείας ἐπιτηδεύμασιν. Ἡ δὲ Ἐκκλησία, τοῖς θείοις πειθομένη λόγοις, τὸν μὲν τούτων διαφερόντως μυσάττεται λόγον, ἀποστρέφεται δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τοὺς μύθους· τῇ δὲ θείᾳ πειθομένη Γραφῇ λέγει, τὴν ψυχὴν συνδη μιουργεῖσθαι τῷ σώματι, οὐκ ἐκ τῆς ὕλης τοῦ σπέρ ματος ἔχουσαν τῆς δημιουργίας τὰς ἀφορμὰς, ἀλλὰ τῇ βουλήσει τοῦ ποιητοῦ μετὰ τὴν τοῦ σώματος συνισταμένην διάπλασιν. Καὶ γὰρ ὁ θειότατος Μωϋ σῆς πρότερον ἔφησε τοῦ Ἀδὰμ διαπλασθῆναι τὸ σῶμα, εἶθ' οὕτως ἐμφυσῆσαι τὸν Θεὸν τὴν ψυχήν. "Ἔλαβε γὰρ ὁ Θεὸς χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἔπλασε τὸν ἄνθρω πον, καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ