Chap. XI.—Of the Last Times, and of the Soul and Body.

Therefore, when the times which God has appointed for death shall be completed, death itself shall be ended. And because temporal death follows temporal life, it follows that souls rise again to everlasting life, because temporal death has received an end. Again, as the life of the soul is everlasting, in which it receives the divine and unspeakable fruits of its immortality; also its death must be eternal, in which it suffers perpetual punishments and infinite torments for its faults. Therefore things are in this position, that they who are happy in this life, pertaining to the body and the earth, are about to be miserable for ever, because they have already enjoyed the good things which they preferred, which happens to those who adore false gods and neglect the true God. In the next place, they who, following righteousness, have been miserable, and despised, and poor in this life, and have often been harassed with insults and injuries on account of righteousness itself, because virtue cannot otherwise be attained, are about to be always happy, that since they have already endured evils, they may also enjoy goods. Which plainly happens to those who, having despised gods of the earth and frail goods, follow the heavenly religion of God, whose goods are everlasting, as He Himself who gave them. What shall I say of the works of the body and soul? Do not they show that the soul is not subject to death? For, as to the body, since it is itself frail and mortal, whatever works it contrives are equally perishable. For Tullius says that there is nothing which is wrought by the hands of man which is not at some time reduced to destruction, either through injury caused by men, or through length of time, which is the destroyer of all things.  

But truly we see that the productions of the mind are immortal. For as many as, devoting themselves to the contempt of present things, have handed down to memory the monuments of their genius and great deeds, have plainly gained by these an imperishable name for their mind and virtue. Therefore, if the deeds of the body are mortal for this reason, because the body itself is mortal, it follows that the soul is shown to be immortal from this, because we see that its productions are not mortal. In the same manner also, the desires of the body and of the soul declare that the one is mortal, the other everlasting. For the body desires nothing except what is temporal, that is, food, drink, clothing, rest, and pleasure; and it cannot desire or attain to these very things without the assent and assistance1349    Sine nutu et adminiculo animi.   of the soul. But the soul of itself desires many things which do not extend1350    Redundent.   to the duty or enjoyment of the body; and those are not frail, but eternal, as the fame of virtue, as the remembrance of the name. For the soul even in opposition to the body desires the worship of God, which consists in abstinence from desires and lusts, in the enduring of pain, in the contempt of death. From which it is credible that the soul does not perish, but is separated from the body, because the body can do nothing without the soul, but the soul can do many and great things without the body. Why should I mention that those things which are visible to the eyes, and capable of being touched by the hand, cannot be eternal, because they admit of external violence; but those things which neither come under the touch nor under the sight, but are apparent only in their force and method and effect, are eternal because they suffer no violence from without? But if the body is mortal on this account, because it is equally open to the sight and to the touch, therefore the soul is immortal for this reason, because it can be neither touched nor seen.  

CAPUT XI. De temporibus postremis, atque de anima et corpore.

Impletis igitur temporibus, quae Deus morti statuit, terminabitur ipsa mors. Et quia temporalem vitam 0769B temporalis mors sequitur; consequens est, ut resurgant animae ad vitam perennem, quia finem mors temporalis accepit. Rursum, sicut vita animi sempiterna est, in qua divinos et ineloquibiles immortalitatis suae fructus capit: ita et mors ejus perpetua sit necesse est, in qua perennes poenas et infinita tormenta pro peccatis suis pendet. Ergo in ea conditione res posita est, ut qui beati sunt in hac vita corporali atque terrena, semper miseri sint futuri; quia jam bonis, quae maluerunt, potiti sunt: quod iis evenit, qui deos adorant, ac Deum negligunt. Deinde qui justitiam sequentes, in hac vita miseri fuerunt et contempti, et inopes, et ob ipsam justitiam contumeliis et injuriis saepe vexati, quia nec aliter virtus teneri potest, semper beati sunt futuri; ut, quia mala jam pertulerunt, 0769C etiam bonis fruantur. Quod his utique contingit, qui contemptis terrestribus diis et fragilibus bonis, coelestem 0770A religionem Dei sequuntur; cujus bona, sicut ipse qui tribuit, sempiterna sunt. Quid opera corporis atque animi? nonne indicant esse animam mortis expertem? Nam corpus, quia ipsum fragile est atque mortale, quaecumque opera molitur, aeque caduca sunt. Nihil enim Tullius ait esse, quod sit manibus humanis laboratum, quod non aliquando ad interitum redigatur, vel injuria hominum, vel ipsa confectrice rerum omnium vetustate.

At vero animi opera videmus aeterna. Nam quicumque contemptui praesentium studentes, in memoriam monimenta ingeniorum factorumque magnorum reliquerunt, ii plane mentis ac virtutis suae nomen indelebile quaesierunt. Ergo si opera corporis ideo mortalia sunt, quia ipsum mortale est, sequitur ut anima 0770B ex eo immortalis appareat, quia videmus opera ejus non esse mortalia. Eodem modo desideria quoque corporis animique declarant, alterum esse mortale, alterum sempiternum. Corpus enim nihil nisi temporale desiderat, id est, cibum, potum, indumentum, quietem, voluptatem; et tamen haec ipsa sine nutu et adminiculo animi nec cupere, nec assequi potest. Animus autem per se multa desiderat, quae ad officium fructumve corporis non redundent; eaque non fragilia, sed aeterna sunt, ut fama virtutis, ut memoria nominis. Nam cultum Dei, qui constat abstinentia cupiditatum ac libidinum, patientia doloris, contemptu mortis, etiam contra corpus anima concupiscit. Unde credibile est, non interire animam, sed dissociari a corpore; quia corpus sine anima nihil 0770C potest, animus vero potest multa et magna sine corpore. Quid, quod ea, quae visibilia sunt oculis, et tangibilia 0771A manu, quia externam vim pati possunt, aeterna esse non possunt. Ea vero quae 0771A neque sub tactum, neque sub visum veniunt, sed tantummodo vis eorum et ratio, et effectus apparet, aeterna sunt, quia nullam vim patiuntur extrinsecus. Corpus autem si ideo mortale est, quia visui pariter et tactui subjacet; ergo et anima idcirco immortalis est, quia nec tangi potest, nec videri.