Tertullian: de Anima

Q. SEPTIMII FLORENTIS TERTVLLIANI CARTHAGINENSIS DE ANIMA LIBER. DE IMMORTALITATE ANIMAE. Si substantia animae, et an corporalis, et an effigiata, unum esse animam et spiritum, non separari animam et animum, an sit, ubi sit quod dicitur hegemonicon, de quinque sensibus corporalibus, quod philosophi et haeretici distinguunt inter sensualia et intellectualia.

Q. SEPTIMIUS FLORENS TERTULLIANUS OF CARTHAGE, BOOK ON THE SOUL. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Whether the substance of the soul, and whether it is corporal, and whether effigiated; that the soul and the spirit are one; that the soul and the mind are not separated; whether there is, and where there is, what is called the hegemonicon; on the five bodily senses; that philosophers and heretics distinguish between the sensualia and the intellectualia.

Intellectum semper animae inesse, De caeteris naturalibus animae, Vnde anima aduersus haereticos qui eam de coelis deferunt: Aduersus argumentum Platonis, quod discentias reminiscentias dicat: De contemptu animae aduersus eos qui post partum corpori eam inducunt: Aduersus Platonicum dogma, quod non ex mortuis fiant uiui: Ad Pythagorae et Empedoclis opiniones de metempsychosi et metensomatisimo: Aduersus Simonis opinionem et Carpocratis haereticorum: De sexu animae et carnis, quod simul in utero formentur, in eum: De aetate carnis et animae: De cibis, quomodo ad animam pertinere uideantur: Nullam pene animam sine daemonio esse: Quomodo caro peccatrix dicatur: De bono et malo animae: De morte: De somno pertinente ad tractatum mortis: Et de anima Hermotimi: De Hermotimo: De somniis, quomodo ea patiatur anima, et unde eueniant: De ui mortis, et de Menandro haeretico: Nihil animae in corpore manere post mortem, ut uidetur quibusdam: De animae excessu, De receptu, De inferis, et an illuc omnes animae compellentur: An commorentur hic animae post mortem, uel ab inferis commeent, An aliquid interim animae patiantur apud inferos.

Understanding is always inhereing in the soul, On the other natural properties of the soul, Whence the soul is, against the heretics who ferry it down from the heavens: Against Plato’s argument, which says that learnings are reminiscences: On the conception of the soul, against those who introduce it into the body after birth: Against the Platonic dogma, that the living do not come to be from the dead: On the opinions of Pythagoras and Empedocles concerning metempsychosis and metensomatosis: Against the opinion of Simon and of the heretic Carpocrates: On the sex of the soul and of the flesh, that they are formed together in the womb, likewise: On the age of the flesh and of the soul: On foods, how they seem to pertain to the soul: That hardly any soul is without a demon: How the flesh is called sinful: On the good and the evil of the soul: On death: On sleep, pertaining to the tractate on death: And on the soul of Hermotimus: On Hermotimus: On dreams, how the soul undergoes them, and whence they come: On the force of death, and on Menander the heretic: That nothing of the soul remains in the body after death, as it seems to some: On the soul’s departure, On its reception, On the lower regions, and whether all souls are compelled thither: Whether souls tarry here after death, or go to and fro from the lower regions, Whether in the meantime souls suffer anything among
the dead.

[1] De solo censu animae congressus Hermogeni, quatenus et istum ex materiae potius suggestu quam ex dei flatu constitisse praesumpsit, nunc ad reliquas conuersus quaestiones plurimum uidebor cum philosophis dimicaturus.

[1] After my engagement with Hermogenes on the mere appraisal of the soul—inasmuch as he presumed that this thing too had been constituted from the suggestion of matter rather than from the breath of God—now, turning to the remaining questions, I shall seem for the most part to be doing battle with the philosophers.

[2] Etiam in carcere Socratis de animae statu uelitatum est, nescio iam hoc primum, an oportuno in tempore magistri, etsi nihil de loco interest. Quid enim liquido saperet anima tunc Socratis, iam sacro nauigio regresso, iam cicutis damnationis exhaustis, iam morte praesente utique consternata ad aliquem motum secundum naturam, aut exsternata, si non secundum naturam? Quamuis enim placida atque tranquilla, quam nec coniugis fletus statim uiduae nec liberorum conspectus exinde pupillorum lege pietatis inflexerat, uel in hoc tamen mota, ne moueretur, ipsa constantia concussa est aduersus inconstantiae concussionem.

[2] Even in the prison of Socrates there was skirmishing about the status of the soul; I do not know now whether this was first, or at a seasonable time of the master, although it makes nothing of the place to matter. For what could the soul of Socrates have clearly savored then—when already the sacred ship had returned, already the hemlock of his condemnation had been drained, already, with death present, of course consternated into some movement according to nature, or else dazed out of itself, if not according to nature? Although placid and tranquil, which neither the tears of his wife, straightway a widow, nor the sight of his children, thenceforth orphans, had bent by the law of pietas, yet even in this it was moved, in order not to be moved: its very constancy was shaken against the shock of inconstancy.

Quid autem aliud saperet uir quilibet iniuria damnatus praeter iniuriae solamen, nedum philosophus, gloriae animal, cui nec consolanda est iniuria, sed potius insultanda?

But what else would any man condemned by injustice savor, except the solace of the injustice—let alone the philosopher, an animal of glory—for whom the injustice is not to be consoled but rather to be insulted?

[3] Denique post sententiam obuiae coniugi et muliebriter inclamanti: 'iniuste damnatus es, Socrates!' iam et de gratulatione responderat: 'uolebas autem iuste?' Quo nihil mirandum, si et in carcere inuiscatas Anyti et Meliti palmas gestiens infringere ipsa morte coram immortalitatem uindicat animae necessaria praesumptione ad iniuriae frustrationem.

[3] Finally, after the sentence, to his wife meeting him and crying out in a womanly way: 'Unjustly you have been condemned, Socrates!' he had already replied, even by way of congratulation: 'But did you want (it) justly?' Wherefore nothing is to be wondered at, if also in prison, eager to shatter the glued-together palms of Anytus and Meletus, with death itself before him he vindicates the immortality of the soul by a necessary presumption, for the frustration of the injustice.

[4] Adeo omnis illa tunc sapientia Socratis de industria uenerat consultae aequanimitatis, non de fiducia compertae ueritatis. Cui enim ueritas comperta sine deo? Cui deus cognitus sine Christo?

[4] So much so that all that wisdom of Socrates at that time had come by deliberate industry from a considered equanimity, not from the confidence of ascertained truth. For to whom is truth ascertained without God? To whom is God known without Christ?

Cui Christus exploratus sine spiritu sancto? Cui spiritus sanctus accommodatus sine fidei sacramento? Sane Socrates facilius diuerso spiritu agebatur, siquidem aiunt daemonium illi a puero adhaesisse, pessimum reuera paedagogum, etsi post deos et cum deis daemonia deputantur penes poetas et philosophos.

To whom is Christ ascertained without the Holy Spirit? To whom is the Holy Spirit accommodated without the sacrament of faith? Truly, Socrates was more easily actuated by a diverse spirit, since they say a daemon clung to him from boyhood—a very worst pedagogue indeed—although after the gods and along with the gods daemons are reckoned in the view of the poets and philosophers.

[5] Nondum enim Christianae potestatis documenta processerant, quae uim istam perniciosissimam nec unquam bonam, atquin omnis erroris artificem, omnis ueritatis auocatricem sola traducit. Quodsi idcirco sapientissimus Socrates secundum Pythii quoque daemonis suffragium scilicet negotium nauantis socio suo, quanto dignior atque constantior Christianae sapientiae adsertio, cuius adflatui tota uis daemonum cedit?

[5] For as yet the documents of Christian power had not advanced, which alone traduces that most pernicious force, never at any time good, rather the artificer of every error, the avocatrix of all verity. But if therefore the most wise Socrates, even according to the suffrage of the Pythian daemon—namely, plying his business with his own associate—, how much more worthy and more constant is the assertion of Christian wisdom, at whose afflatus the whole force of daemons yields?

[6] Haec sapientia de schola caeli deos quidem saeculi negare liberior, quae nullum Aesculapio gallinaceum reddi iubens praeuaricetur, nec noua inferens daemonia, sed uetera depellens, nec adulescentiam uitians, sed omni bono pudoris informans, ideoque non unius urbis, sed uniuersi orbis iniquam sententiam sustinens pro nomine ueritatis tanto scilicet et perosioris quanto plenioris, ut et mortem non de poculo per habitum iocunditatis absorbeat, sed de patibulo et uiuicomburio per omne ingenium crudelitatis exhauriat, interea in isto tenebrosiore carcere saeculi inter suos Cebetas et suos Phaedonas, si quid de anima examinandum est, ad dei regulas diriget, certa nullum alium potiorem animae demonstratorem quam auctorem. A deo discat quod a deo habeat, aut nec ab alio, si nec a deo. Quis enim reuelabit quod deus texit?

[6] This wisdom, from the school of heaven, is freer indeed to deny the gods of the age, which, by bidding that no cock be paid back to Aesculapius, does not prevaricate, bringing in no new daemons, but driving out the old, not vitiating adolescence, but shaping it with every good of modesty; and therefore, bearing the unjust sentence not of one city but of the whole world for the name of truth—plainly the more odious in proportion as it is more full—so that it does not quaff down death from a cup under the habit of cheerfulness, but drains it from the gibbet and live-burning through every contrivance of cruelty; meanwhile, in this darker prison of the age, among its own Cebetes and its own Phaedons, if anything about the soul is to be examined, it will direct it to the rules of God, being certain that there is no other preferable demonstrator of the soul than its Author. Let it learn from God what it is to have from God, or else not from another, if not from God. For who will reveal what God has covered?

Vnde sciscitandum est? Vnde et ignorare tutissimum est. Praestat per deum nescire, quia non reuelauerit, quam per hominem scire, quia ipse praesumpserit.

Whence is one to inquire? Whence also it is safest to be ignorant. It is preferable through God not to know, because He has not revealed, than through man to know, because he himself has presumed.

II.

[1] Plane non negabimus aliquando philosophos iuxta nostra sensisse; testimonium est etiam ueritatis euentus ipsius. Nonnunquam et in procella confusis uestigiis caeli et freti aliqui portus offenditur prospero errore, nonnunquam et in tenebris aditus quidam et exitus deprehenduntur caeca felicitate, sed et natura pleraque suggeruntur quasi de publico sensu, quo animam deus dotare dignatus est.

[1] Clearly, we shall not deny that sometimes the philosophers have sensed in accord with ours; the very event of truth itself is testimony. Sometimes even in a storm, with the vestiges of sky and sea confused, some harbor is encountered by a prosperous error; sometimes too in darkness certain entrances and exits are discovered by blind felicity; and many things as well are suggested by nature as if from the public sense, with which sense God deigned to endow the soul.

[2] Hunc nacta philosophia ad gloriam propriae artis inflauit prae studio (non mirum, si istud ita dixerim) eloquii quiduis struere atque destruere eruditi magisque dicendo persuadentis quam docendo. Formas rebus imponit, eas nunc peraequat, nunc priuat, de certis incerta praeiudicat, prouocat ad exempla, quasi comparanda sint omnia, omnia praescribit, proprietatibus etiam inter similia diuersis, nihil diuinae licentiae seruat, leges naturae opiniones suas fecit; ferrem, si naturalis ipsa, ut compos naturae de condicionis consortio probaretur.

[2] Having gotten hold of this, philosophy, for the glory of her own art, inflated it out of zeal (no marvel, if I speak thus), with an eloquence trained to construct and to deconstruct anything whatsoever, and more persuading by speaking than by teaching. It imposes forms upon things, them now it equalizes, now it deprives; from certainties it prejudges uncertainties; it calls upon examples, as though all things were to be compared; it prescribes everything, even with properties diverse among similar things; it reserves nothing to divine license; it has made the laws of nature its own opinions; I would endure it, if she herself were natural, so that, as a participant in nature, she might be approved by a fellowship of condition.

[3] Visa est quidem sibi et ex sacris, quas putant, litteris hausisse, quia plerosque auctores etiam deos existimauit antiquitas, nedum diuos, ut Mercurium Aegyptium, cui praecipue Plato adsueuit, ut Silenum Phrygem, cui a pastoribus perducto ingentes aures suas Midas tradidit, ut Hermotimum, cui Clazomenii mortuo templum contulerunt, ut Orpheum, ut Musaeum, ut Pherecydem Pythagorae magistrum. Quid autem, si philosophi etiam illa incursauerunt, quae penes nos apocryphorum confessione damnantur, certos nihil recipiendum quod non conspiret germanae et ipso iam aeuo pronatae propheticae paraturae, quando et pseudoprophetarum meminerimus et multo prius apostatarum spirituum, qui huiusmodi quoque ingeniorum calliditate omnem faciem saeculi instruxerint?

[3] She even seemed to herself to have drawn from sacred, as they suppose, letters, because antiquity reckoned most authors as even gods, let alone divinized men: as the Egyptian Mercury, to whom Plato especially was accustomed; as Silenus the Phrygian, to whom, when he had been brought by shepherds, Midas handed over his huge ears; as Hermotimus, to whom the Clazomenians, when he died, bestowed a temple; as Orpheus, as Musaeus, as Pherecydes, the teacher of Pythagoras. But what, if the philosophers also made incursions into those things which among us are condemned by the confession of the apocrypha—that surely nothing is to be received which does not conspire with the genuine and, in that very age already born, prophetic apparatus—since we should remember both the pseudo-prophets and, much earlier, the apostate spirits, who by the cunning of such ingenia have also equipped the whole face of the age?

[4] Postremo si etiam ad ipsos prophetas adisse credibile est indagatorem quemque sapientiae ex negotio curiositatis, tamen plus diuersitatis inuenias inter philosophos quam societatis, cum et in ipsa societate diuersitas eorum deprehendatur, siquidem uera quaeque et consonantia prophetis aut aliunde commendant aut aliorsum subornant cum maxima iniuria ueritatis, quam efficiunt aut adiuuari falsis aut patrocinari.

[4] Finally, even if it is believable that every investigator of wisdom, by the business of curiosity, has approached the prophets themselves, nevertheless you find more diversity among philosophers than society, since even within the very society their diversity is detected, inasmuch as whatever truths and things consonant with the prophets they either commend from elsewhere or suborn in another direction, with the greatest injury to truth, which they make either to be aided by falsities or to patronize them.

[5] Hoc itaque commiserit nos et philosophos in ista praesertim materia, quod interdum communes sententias propriis argumentationibus uestiant, contrariis alicubi regulae nostrae, interdum sententias proprias communibus argumentationibus muniant, consentaneis alicubi regulae illomm, ut prope exclusa sit ueritas a philosophia per ueneficia in illam sua; et ideo utroque titulo societatis aduersario ueritatis urgemur et communes sententias ab argumentationibus philosophorum liberare et communes argumentationes a sententiis eorum separare, reuocando quaestiones ad dei litteras, exceptis plane quae sine laqueo alicuius praeiudicii ad simplex testimonium licebit adsumere, quia et ex aemulis nonnunquam testimonium necessarium, si non aemulis prosit.

[5] This, then, has brought us and the philosophers into contention, especially in this material, that sometimes they clothe common opinions with their own argumentations, which are in some places contrary to our rule; sometimes they fortify their own opinions with common argumentations, which are in some places consonant with their rule, so that truth has been almost excluded from philosophy by its own witchcrafts against it; and therefore under both titles of society we are pressed by the adversary of truth both to free common opinions from the argumentations of the philosophers and to separate common argumentations from their opinions, by calling the questions back to God’s letters, plainly excepting those which it will be permitted to take up for simple testimony without the noose of any prejudice, since even from rivals there is sometimes necessary testimony, provided it not profit the rivals.

[6] Nec ignoro, quanta sit silua materiae istius apud philosophos pro numero etiam ipsorum commentatorum, quot uarietates sententiarum, quot palaestrae opinionum, quot propagines quaestionum, quot implicationes expeditionum. Sed et medicinam inspexi, sororem, ut aiunt, philosophiae, sibi quoque hoc negotium uindicantem. Quidni?

[6] Nor am I unaware how great a forest of this material there is among the philosophers, even in proportion to the number of their own commentators—how many varieties of opinions, how many palestras of views, how many offshoots of questions, how many entanglements of solutions. But I have also inspected medicine, the sister, as they say, of philosophy, claiming this business for itself as well. Why not?

ad quam magis animae ratio pertinere uideatur per corporis curam. Vnde et plurimum sorori refragatur, quod animam quasi coram in domicilio suo tractando magis norit. Sed uiderit utriusque praestantiae ambitio.

to which the rationale of the soul seems rather to pertain through the care of the body. Whence also it very much opposes its sister, because, by handling the soul as if face-to-face in its own domicile, it knows it better. But let the ambition for pre-eminence of each see to it.

Habuit et philosophia libertatem ingenii et medicina necessitatem artificii ad extendendos de anima retractatus: late quaeruntur incerta, latius disputantur praesumpta. Quanta difficultas probandi, tanta operositas suadendi, ut merito Heraclitus ille tenebrosus uastiores caligines animaduertens apud examinatores animae taedio quaestionum pronuntiarit terminos animae nequaquam inuenisse omnem uiam ingrediendo.

Both philosophy had the freedom of ingenium and medicine the necessity of artificium for extending the reconsiderations concerning the soul: uncertainties are sought broadly, presumptions are debated more broadly. As great as the difficulty of proving, so great the laboriousness of persuading, so that deservedly that tenebrous Heraclitus, observing vaster caligines, among the examiners of the soul, out of the tedium of questions, declared that he had by no means found the boundaries of the soul, even by entering upon every way.

[7] Christiano autem paucis ad scientiam huius rei opus est. Nam et certa semper in paucis, et amplius illi quaerere non licet quam quod inueniri licet; infinitas enim quaestiones apostolus prohibet. Porro non amplius inueniri licet quam quod a deo discitur; quod autem a deo discitur, totum est.

[7] However, for the Christian, few things are needed for the knowledge of this matter. For the certainties are always in a few points, and it is not permitted to him to seek more than what it is permitted to find; for the Apostle forbids infinite questions. Moreover, it is not permitted that more be found than what is learned from God; but what is learned from God is the whole.

III.

[1] Atque utinam nullas haereses oportuisset existere, ut probabiles quique emicarent. Nihil omnino cum philosophis super anima quoque experiremur, patriarchis, ut ita dixerim, haereticorum, siquidem et ab apostolo iam tunc philosophia concussio ueritatis prouidebatur; Athenis enim expertus linguatam ciuitatem cum omnes illic sapientiae atque facundiae caupones degustasset, inde concepit praemonitorium illud edictum.

[1] And would that no heresies had had to exist, so that the approved might flash forth. We would absolutely have had nothing at all to do with the philosophers, on the soul as well—patriarchs, so to speak, of the heretics—since even by the Apostle already then philosophy was being foreseen as an upheaval of the truth; for at Athens, having experienced the loquacious city, when he had tasted all the hucksters of wisdom and eloquence he conceived from there that premonitory edict.

[2] Proinde enim et animae ratio per philosophatas doctrinas hominum miscentes aquas uino: alii immortalem negant animam, alii plus quam immortalem adfirmant, alii de substantia, alii de forma, alii de unaquaque dispositione disceptant; hi statum eius aliunde ducunt, hi exitum aliorsum abducunt, prout aut Platonis honor aut Zenonis uigor aut Aristotelis tenor aut Epicuri stupor aut Heracliti maeror aut Empedoclis furor persuaserunt.

[2] Accordingly the rationale concerning the soul has been as well by the philosophized doctrines of men, mixing waters with wine: some deny the soul to be immortal, others affirm it to be more than immortal; some dispute about substance, others about form, others about each several disposition; these derive its status from elsewhere, these divert its exit elsewhere, as either the honor of Plato or the vigor of Zeno or the tenor of Aristotle or the stupor of Epicurus or the mourning of Heraclitus or the fury of Empedocles have persuaded.

[3] Deliquit, opinor, diuina doctrina ex Iudaea potius quam ex Graecia oriens. Errauit et Christus piscatores citius quam sophistam ad praeconium emittens. Si qua igitur in hunc modum de nidoribus philosophiae candidum et purum aerem ueritatis infuscant, ea erunt Christianis enubilanda et percutientibus argumentationes originales, id est philosophicas, et opponentibus definitiones caelestes, id est dominicas, ut et illa quibus ethnici a philosophia capiuntur, destruantur, et haec quibus fideles ab haeresi concutiuntur, retundantur.

[3] The divine doctrine, I suppose, went astray by arising from Judea rather than from Greece. Christ too erred, sending forth fishermen sooner than a sophist for the proclamation. If therefore in this way things from the reek of philosophy darken the bright and pure air of truth, these are to be unclouded by Christians, by striking down original—that is, philosophical—argumentations, and by opposing heavenly—that is, dominical—definitions, so that both those things by which the Gentiles are captured by philosophy may be destroyed, and those things by which the faithful are shaken by heresy may be blunted.

[4] Vna iam congressione decisa aduersus Hermogenen, ut praefati sumus, quia animam ex dei flatu, non ex materia uindicamus, muniti et illic diuinae determinationis inobscurabili regula: et flauit, inquit, deus flatum uitae in faciem hominis, et factus est homo in animam uiuam, utique ex dei flatu, de isto nihil amplius reuoluendum; habet suum titulum et suum haereticum. Ceteris hinc exordium inducam.

[4] With one encounter already decided against Hermogenes, as we have prefaced, since we vindicate the soul as from the breath of God, not from matter, fortified there also by the inobscurable rule of divine determination: “And God breathed,” he says, “the breath of life into the face of the man, and the man became a living soul”—assuredly from God’s breath; about this there is nothing further to be turned over; it has its own title and its own heretic. For the rest I will introduce the exordium from here.

IV. DE INNATA.

4. ON THE INNATE.

[1] Post definitionem census quaestionem status patitur. Consequens enim est, ut ex dei flatu animam professi initium ei deputaremus. Hoc Plato excludit innatam et infectam animam uolens.

[1] After the definition, the question admits an assessment of status. For it is consequent that, having professed the soul from the breath of God, we should assign to it a beginning. Plato excludes this, wishing the soul to be innate and unfabricated.

Et natam autem docemus et factam ex initii constitutione. Nec statim erra<b>imus utrumque dicentes, quia scilicet aliud sit natum, aliud factum utpote <istud inanimalibus>, illud animalibus competens. Differentiae autem sua habendo loca et tempora habent aliquando et passiuitatis commercia.

And moreover we teach it to be both born and made, from the constitution of the beginning. Nor do we straightaway err<b> in saying both, because clearly one thing is what is born, another what is made, inasmuch as <this for inanimate things>, that fitting for animate beings. Moreover, the differences, having their own places and times, have at times also interchanges of passivity.

Capit itaque et facturam pro in esse poni, siquidem omne quod quoque modo accipit esse generatur. Nam et factor ipse parens facti potest dici; sic et Plato utitur. Igitur quantum ad fidem nostram factae nataeue animae, depulsa est philosophi opinio, auctoritate prophetiae quoque.

Accordingly it admits also that “making” can be put in place of “into being,” since everything that in whatever way receives being is generated. For even the maker himself can be called the parent of the thing made; thus too Plato uses it. Therefore, so far as our faith concerning the soul as made or as born, the philosopher’s opinion has been repelled, by the authority of prophecy as well.

[1] Accerserit Eubulum aliquem et Critolaum et Xenocraten et isto in loco amicum Platonis Aristotelen. Fortassean extruentur magis ad auferendam animae corpulentiam, si non alios e contrario inspexerint, et quidem plures, corpus animae uindicantes.

[1] Let them summon some Eubulus and Critolaus and Xenocrates, and in this place Aristotle, Plato’s friend. Perhaps then they will be marshaled more for taking away the soul’s corporeality, if they do not look upon others to the contrary—and indeed more numerous—who vindicate a body for the soul.

[2] Nec illos dico solos qui eam de manifestis corporalibus effingunt, ut Hipparchus et Heraclitus ex igni, ut Hippon et Thales ex aqua, ut Empedocles et Critias ex sanguine, ut Epicurus ex atomis (si et atomi corpulentias de coitu suo cogunt), ut Critolaus et Peripatetici eius ex quinta nescio qua substantia (si et illa corpus, quia corpora includit), sed etiam Stoicos allego, qui spiritum praedicantes animam paene nobiscum, qua proxima inter se flatus et spiritus, tamen corpus animam facile persuadebunt.

[2] Nor do I speak only of those who fashion it from manifest corporals, as Hipparchus and Heraclitus from fire, as Hippon and Thales from water, as Empedocles and Critias from blood, as Epicurus from atoms (if even atoms compel corpulencies from their coitus), as Critolaus and his Peripatetics from some fifth I-know-not-what substance (if that too is a body, because it includes bodies), but I also cite the Stoics, who, proclaiming spirit as the soul almost with us—since breath (flatus) and spirit (spiritus) are next to one another—will nevertheless easily persuade that the soul is a body.

[3] Denique Zeno consitum spiritum definiens animam hoc modo instruit. Quo, inquit, digresso animal emoritur, corpus est; consito autem spiritu digresso animal emoritur, ergo consitus spiritus corpus est; ergo corpus est anima.

[3] Finally, Zeno, defining the soul as a “composed (consitus) spirit,” sets it out in this way. “That, upon whose departure the animal dies, is a body; but with the composed spirit departed the animal dies; therefore the composed spirit is a body; therefore the soul is a body.”

[4] Vult et Cleanthes non solum corporis lineamentis, sed et animae notis similitudinem parentibus in filiis respondere, de speculo scilicet morum et ingeniorum et adfectuum, corporis autem similitudinem et dissimilitudinem capere et animam, itaque corpus similitudini uel dissimilitudini obnoxium.

[4] Cleanthes too wishes likeness to correspond to parents in children, not only by the lineaments of the body, but also by the marks of the soul, namely from the mirror of mores and ingenuities and affections; and that the soul also take on the body’s similarity and dissimilarity; therefore both soul and body are subject to similarity or dissimilarity.

[5] Item corporalium et incorporalium passiones inter se non communicare; porro et animam compati corpori, cui laeso ictibus uulneribus ulceribus condolescit, et corpos animae, cui afflictae cura angore amore coaegrescit per detrimentum socii uigoris, cuius pudorem et pauorem rubore atque pallore testetur. Igitur anima corpus ex corporalium passionum communione.

[5] Likewise the passions of corporal and incorporal things do not communicate among themselves; moreover, the soul co-suffers with the body, at whose injury by blows, wounds
ulcers it co-grieves, and the body with the soul, which, when afflicted, co-sickens through care, anguish, love, by the detriment of their common vigor, whose shame and fear it attests by redness and paleness. Therefore the soul is a body, from the communion of corporal passions.

[6] Sed et Chrysippus manum ei porrigit constituens corporalia ab incorporalibus derelinqui omnino non posse, quia nec contingantur ab eis (unde et Lucretius: tangere enim et tangi nisi corpus nulla potest res), derelicto autem corpore ab anima affici morte. Igitur corpus anima, quae nisi corporalis corpus non derelinquet.

[6] But even Chrysippus extends a hand to it, establishing that corporeals cannot at all be abandoned by incorporeals, since they are not even touched by them (whence also Lucretius: for to touch and to be touched no thing can, unless it be a body), whereas, the body having been abandoned, it is affected with death by the soul. Therefore the soul is a body, which, unless it be corporeal, will not abandon a body.

VI.

[1] Haec Platonici subtilitate potius quam ueritate conturbant. Omne, inquiunt, corpus aut animale sit necesse est aut inanimale. Et si quidem inanimale est, extrinsecus mouebitur, si uero animale, intrinsecus.

[1] These things the Platonists disturb rather by subtlety than by truth. “Every body,” they say, “must be either animate or inanimate. And if indeed it is inanimate, it will be moved from without; but if it is animate, from within.”

Anima autem nec extrinsecus mouebitur, ut quae non sit inanimalis, nec intrinsecus, ut quae ipsa potius moueat corpus. Itaque non uideri eam corpus, quae non corporalium forma ex aliqua regione moueatur.

But the soul will be moved neither from without, since it is not inanimate, nor from within, since it rather itself moves the body. Accordingly, it does not appear to be a body, which is not moved, in the fashion of corporeal things, from some region.

[2] Ad hoc nos mirabimur incongruentiam primo definitionis prouocantis ad ea quae in animam non conueniunt. Non enim potest anima animale corpus dici aut inanimale, cum ipsa sit quae aut faciat corpus animale, si adsit, aut inanimale, si absit ab illo. Itaque quod facit non potest esse ipsa, ut dicatur animale uel inanimale.

[2] To this we shall marvel at the incongruity, first, of the definition that provokes toward things which do not pertain to the soul. For the soul cannot be called an animate body or an inanimate one, since it is itself that either makes the body animate, if it is present, or inanimate, if it is absent from it. Therefore, what it makes it cannot itself be, so that it be called animate or inanimate.

Anima enim dicitur substantiae suae nomine. (3.) Quodsi non capit animale corpus dici aut inanimale, quod est anima, quomodo prouocabitur ad animalium et inanimalium corporum formam?

For the soul is called by the name of its own substance. (3.) But if that which is the soul does not admit of being called an animate body or an inanimate one, how will it be called to the form of animate and inanimate bodies?

[3] Dehinc si corporis est moueri extrinsecus ab aliquo, ostendimus autem supra moueri animam et ab alio, cum uaticinatur, cum furit, utique extrinsecus, cum ab alio, merito quod mouebitur extrinsecus ab alio secundum exempli propositionem corpus agnoscam. Enimuero si ab alio moueri corporis est, quanto magis mouere aliud? Anima autem mouet corpus, et conatus eius extrinsecus foris parent.

[3] Then, if it belongs to body to be moved extrinsically by someone, but we have shown above that the soul too is moved by another—when it vaticinates, when it raves—assuredly extrinsically, since by another, with good reason I will acknowledge as a body that which will be moved extrinsically by another, according to the example’s proposition, I will acknowledge it as a body. Indeed, if to be moved by another is of the body, how much more to move another? Now the soul moves the body, and its conations appear outside, extrinsically.

Ab illa est enim impingi et pedes in incessum et manus in contactum et oculos in conspectum et linguam in effatum, uelut sigillario motu superficiem intus agitante. Vnde haec uis incorporalis animae? Vnde uacuae rei solida propellere?

For from it comes the being-impelled: the feet into walking, the hands into contact, the eyes into conspect, and the tongue into utterance, as by a sigillary motion, the surface being stirred within. Whence this incorporeal power of the soul? Whence the ability of a vacant thing to propel solid things?

[4] Sed quomodo diuisi uidentur in homine sensus corporales et intellectuales? Corporalium aiunt rerum qualitates, ut terrae, ut ignis, corporalibus sensibus renuntiari, ut tactui, ut uisui, incorporalium uero intellectualibus conueniri, ut benignitatis, ut malignitatis. Itaque incorporalem esse animam constat cuius qualitates non corporalibus, sed intellectualibus sensibus comprehendantur.

[4] But how do the bodily and intellectual senses seem to be divided in a human being? They say the qualities of corporeal things, as of earth, as of fire, are reported to the bodily senses, as to touch, as to sight; but of incorporeal things, they are suited to the intellectual senses, as of benignity, as of malignity. And so it is agreed that the soul is incorporeal, whose qualities are apprehended not by bodily, but by intellectual senses.

[5] Plane, si non huius definitionis gradum exclusero. Ecce enim incorporalia ostendo corporalibus sensibus subici, sonum auditui, colorem conspectui, odorem odoratui, quorum exemplo etiam anima corpori accedit, ne dicas idcirco ea per corporales renuntiari sensus, quia corporalibus accedant. Igitur si constat incorporalia quoque a corporalibus comprehendi, cur non et anima, quae corporalis, ab incorporalibus renuntietur?

[5] Plainly, unless I exclude the step of this definition. For behold, I show that incorporeals are subjected to corporeal senses—sound to hearing, color to sight, odor to the sense of smell—by whose example even the soul accedes to the body, lest you say that on that account they are reported through corporeal senses, because they accede to corporeal things. Therefore, if it is established that incorporeals also are comprehended by corporeals, why should not the soul also, which is corporeal, be reported by incorporeals?

Certe definitio exclusa sit.

Surely let the definition be excluded.

[6] De insignioribus argumentationibus erit etiam illa, quod omne corpus corporalibus ali iudicant, animam uero, ut incorporalem, incorporalibus, sapientiae scilicet studiis. Sed nec hic gradus stabit etiam Sorano methodicae medicinae instructissimo auctore respondente animam corporalibus quoque ali, denique deficientem a cibo plerumque fulciri. Quidni?

[6] Among more notable argumentations there will also be this, that they judge every body to be nourished by corporeal things, but the soul, as incorporeal, by incorporeals, namely the studies of sapience. But not even this step will stand, with Soranus, a most instructed author of Methodic medicine, responding that the soul also is nourished by corporeal things—indeed, when failing from food, it is often supported. Why not?

quo adempto in totum dilabitur ex corpore. Ita etiam ipse Soranus plenissime super anima commentatus quattuor uoluminibus et cum omnibus philosophorum sententiis expertus corporalem animae substantiam uindicat, etsi illam immortalitate fraudauit. Non enim omnium est credere quod Christianorum est.

with this taken away, it wholly slips out of the body. Thus even Soranus himself, having commented most fully on the soul in four volumes and experienced in all the opinions of the philosophers, claims a corporeal substance for the soul, although he defrauded it of immortality. For it is not everyone’s to believe that which of the Christians is.

[7] Sicut ergo Soranus ipse rebus ostendit animam corporalibus ali, proinde et philosophus exhibeat illam incorporalibus pasci. Sed nemo unquam cunctanti de exitu animae mulsam aquam de eloquio Platonis infudit aut micas de minutiloquio Aristotelis infersit. Quid autem facient tot ac tantae animae rupicum et barbarorum, quibus alimenta sapientiae desunt, et tamen indoctae prudentia pollent, et sine academiis et porticibus Atticis et carceribus Socratis, denique ieiunantes a philosophia, nihilominus uiuunt?

[7] Just as therefore Soranus himself shows by realities that the soul is nourished by corporeal things, so too let the philosopher exhibit that it is fed on incorporeals. But no one ever, to one hesitating about the exit of the soul, poured honey-water from the eloquence of Plato, or inserted crumbs from the minutiloquy of Aristotle. But what will so many and such souls of rock-dwellers and barbarians do, for whom the aliments of wisdom are lacking, and yet, unlearned, they excel in prudence, and without academies and Attic porticoes and the prisons of Socrates—finally, fasting from philosophy—nonetheless they live?

Non enim substantiae ipsi alimenta proficiunt studiorum, sed disciplinae, quia nec opimiorem animam efficiunt, sed ornatiorem. Bene autem quod et artes Stoici corporales affirmant. Adeo sic quoque anima corporalis, si et artibus ali creditur.

For the aliments of studies do not profit the substance itself, but the discipline, since they make the soul not more opulent, but more ornate. It is good, moreover, that the Stoics also affirm the arts to be corporeal. To that extent, thus also the soul is corporeal, if it is believed also to be nourished by the arts.

[8] Sed enormis intentio philosophiae solet plerumque nec prospicere pro pedibus (sic Thales in puteum), solet et sententias suas non intellegendo ualetudinis corruptelam suspicari (sic Chrysippus ad elleborum). Tale aliquid, opinor, ei accidit, cum duo in unum corpora negauit, alienata a prospectu et recogitatu praegnantum, quae non singula cotidie corpora, sed et bina et terna in unius uteri ambitu perferunt. Inuenitur etiam in iure ciuili Graeca quaedam quinionem enixa, filiorum semel omnium mater, unici fetus parens multiplex, unici uteri puerpera numerosa, quae tot stipata corporibus, paene dixerim populo, sextum ipsa corpus fuit.

[8] But the inordinate intentness of philosophy is for the most part wont not even to look out before its feet (thus Thales into the well), and it is wont, by not understanding its own sentences, to suspect a corruption of health (thus Chrysippus to hellebore). Something of this sort, I think, befell him, when he denied two bodies in one, being alienated from the outlook and re-cogitation of pregnant women, who carry not single bodies only day by day, but also pairs and triplets within the ambit of a single womb. It is found also in the civil law that a certain Greek woman bore a quinion, five at one birth, the mother of all her sons at once, a manifold parent from a single conception, a numerous parturient of a single womb, who, packed with so many bodies—almost I would say a people—was herself a sixth body.

[9] Vniuersa conditio testabitur corpora de corporibus processura iam illic esse unde procedunt. Secundum sit necesse est quod ex alio est. Nihil porro exalio est, nisi, dum gignitur, duo sunt.

[9] The universal condition will bear witness that bodies, about to proceed from bodies, are already there whence they proceed. What is from another must needs be second. Moreover, nothing is from another, unless, while it is being begotten, they are two.

VII.

[1] Quantum ad philosophos satis haec, quia quantum ad nostros ex abundanti; quibus corporalitas animae in ipso euangelio relucebit. Dolet apud inferos anima cuiusdam et punitur in flamma et cruciatur in lingua et de digito animae felicioris implorat solacium roris.

[1] As regards the philosophers, these things are enough, since as regards our own, more than enough; for whom the corporeality of the soul will shine forth in the Gospel itself. The soul of a certain man suffers among the infernal regions and is punished in flame and is tormented in the tongue, and from the finger of a happier soul it implores the solace of dew.

[2] Imaginem existimas exitum illum pauperis laetantis et diuitis maerentis? Et quid illic Eleazari nomen, si non in ueritate res est? Sed et si imago credenda est, testimonium erit ueritatis.

[2] Do you think that that exit of the rejoicing poor man and the grieving rich man is an image? And what there is the name of Eleazar, if the matter is not in truth? But even if it is to be believed as an image, it will be a testimony of truth.

Si enim non haberet anima corpus, non caperet imago animae imaginem corporis, nec mentiretur de corporalibus membris scriptura, si non erant.

For if the soul did not have a body, the image of the soul would not take on the image of a body, nor would Scripture lie about corporeal members, if they were not.

[3] Quid est autem illud quod ad inferna transfertur post diuortium corporis, quod detinetur illic, quod in diem iudicii reseruatur, ad quod et Christus moriendo descendit (puto, ad animas patriarcharum), si nthil anima sub terris? Nihil enim, si non corpus; incorporalitas enim ab omni genere custodiae libera est, immunis et a poena et a fouella. Per quod enim punitur aut fouetur, hoc erit corpus; reddam de isto plenius et oportunius.

[3] But what is that which is transferred to the infernal regions after the divorce from the body, which is detained there, which is reserved for the day of judgment, to which also Christ by dying descended (I suppose, to the souls of the patriarchs), if the soul is nothing beneath the earth? For it is nothing, if it is not body; for incorporeality is free from every kind of custody, immune both from punishment and from a warming-place. For that by which one is punished or is cherished—this will be body; I will render an account of this more fully and more opportunely.

[4] Igitur si quid tormenti siue solacii anima praecerpit in carcere seu deuersorio inferum, in igni uel in sinu Abrahae, probata erit corporalitas animae. Incorporalitas enim nihil patitur, non habens per quod pati possit; aut si habet, hoc erit corpus. In quantum enim omne corporale passibile est, in tantum quod passibile est corporale est.

[4] Therefore, if the soul pre-tastes any torment or solace in the prison or lodging-place of the underworld, in the fire or in the bosom of Abraham, the corporeality of the soul will be proved. For incorporeality suffers nothing, not having that by which it could suffer; or if it has it, this will be body. For inasmuch as every corporeal thing is passible, so far as something is passible, it is corporeal.

VIII.

[1] Abruptum alioquin et absurdum idcirco quid de corporalium eximere censu, quia ceteris corporalibus exemplis non adaequet. Et ubi proprietatum priuata discrimina, per quae magnificentia auctoris ex operum eorundem diuersitate signatur, ut sint tam discreta quam paria, tam amica quam et aemula? Siquidem et ipsi philosophi ex contrariis uniuersa constare condicunt secundum amicitiam et inimicitiam Empedoclis.

[1] Therefore it is abrupt and absurd to remove something from the census of corporeals, because it does not equal the other corporeal examples. And where are the private discriminations of properties, through which the magnificence of the author is signified from the diversity of those same works, so that they may be as discrete as equal, as friendly as also emulous? For indeed even the philosophers themselves declare that the universe consists from contraries, according to Empedocles’ Friendship and Enmity.

[2] Sic igitur etsi corporalia incorporalibus obiacent, ipsa quoque ita inter se differunt, ut differentia species eorum ampliet, non genus mutet, ut sint corporalia, sic multa in dei gloria, dum uaria, sic uaria, dum diuersa, sic diuersa, dum his alii qualitatum sensus, alii illis, dum his alia alimenta, alia illis, dum haec inuisibilia, illa uisibilia, dum haec grauia, illa leuia.

[2] Thus, therefore, although the corporeal lie subject to the incorporeal, they also differ among themselves in such a way that the difference amplifies their species, does not change their genus: that, being corporeal, they are thus manifold in the glory of God—so manifold, while variegated; so variegated, while diverse; so diverse, while to these belong some senses of qualities, to those others; while to these belong certain aliments, to those others; while these are invisible, those visible; while these heavy, those light.

[3] Aiunt enim et idcirco animam incorporalem renuntiandam, quia digressa ea grauiora efficiantur corpora defunctorum, cum leuiora esse deberent, unius corporis pondere exempto, si anima corpus. Quid enim, inquit Soranus, si mare negent corpus, quia extra mare immobilis et grauis nauis efficitur? Quanto ergo ualidius corpus animae, quod tanti postea ponderis corpus leuissima mobilitate circumfert!

[3] For they say, and on that account the soul must be declared incorporeal, because when it has departed the bodies of the deceased are made heavier, whereas they ought to be lighter, with the weight of a single body removed, if the soul is a body. “For what,” says Soranus, “if they should deny the sea to be a body, because outside the sea a ship becomes immobile and heavy?” How much more robust, then, is the body of the soul, which afterwards carries around a body of so great a weight with most light mobility!

[4] Ceterum etsi inuisibilis anima, et pro condicione corporis sui et proprietate substantiae et pro natura etiam eorum quibus inuisibilis esse sortita est. Solem noctuae nesciunt oculis; aquilae ita sustinent, ut natorum suorum generositatem de pupillarum audacia iudicent; alioquin non educabunt, ut degenerem, quem solis radius auerterit.

[4] Moreover, the soul, although invisible, is so both by the condition of its own body and the property of its substance, and also by the nature of those to whom it has been allotted to be invisible. Owls do not know the sun with their eyes; eagles endure it in such a way that they judge the nobility of their offspring by the audacity of their pupils; otherwise they will not rear as degenerate the one whom the ray of the sun has made turn away.

[5] Est adeo alteri quid inuisibile, alteri non, quod non ideo incorporale sit, quia non ex aequo uis ualet. Sol enim corpus, siquidem ignis; sed quod aquila confiteatur, neget noctua, non tamen praeiudicans aquilae. Tantundem et animae corpus inuisibile carni, si forte, spiritui uero uisibile est.

[5] There is, to be sure, something invisible to one and not to another, which is not on that account incorporeal, because the power of sight does not prevail equally. For the sun is a body, since indeed it is fire; but what the eagle acknowledges, the owl denies—yet without prejudicing the eagle. In like manner, too, the body of the soul is invisible to the flesh, perhaps, but visible to the spirit.

Sic Iohannes in spiritu dei factus animas martyrum conspicit.

Thus John, made in the Spirit of God, beholds the souls of the martyrs.

IX. DE EFFIGIE.

9. ON THE EFFIGY.

[1] Cum animae corpus adserimus propriae qualitatis et sui generis, iam haec condicio proprietatis de ceteris accidentibus corpulentiae praeiudicabit aut haec adesse, quam corpus ostendimus, sed et ipsa sui generis pro corporis proprietate, aut etsi non adsint, hoc esse proprietatis, non adesse corpori animae quae corporibus ceteris adsint. Et tamen non inconstanter profitebimur sollemniora quaeque et omnimodo debita corpulentiae adesse animae quoque, ut habitum, ut terminum, ut illud trifariam distantiuum, longitudinem dico et latitudinem et sublimitatem, quibus metantur corpora philosophi.

[1] When we assert for the soul a body of its own proper quality and of its own genus, already this condition of peculiarity will prejudge, concerning the other accidents of corporeity, either that these are present—since we have shown it to be a body—and that they too are of their own genus in keeping with the property of a body, or, even if they are not present, that this belongs to its peculiarity: that there are not present to the body of the soul those things which are present to other bodies. And yet we shall not inconsistently profess that the more solemn and in every way due attributes of corporeity are present to the soul also: such as habitus (form), such as terminus (boundary), such as that threefold distantiative—I mean length and breadth and height—by which the philosophers measure bodies.

[2] Quid nunc, quod et effigiem animae damus, Platone nolente, quasi periclitetur de animae immortalitate? Omne enim effigiatum compositum et structile affirmat; dissolubile autem omne compositicium et structile; sed animam immortalem, igitur indissolubilem, qua immortalem, et ineffigiatam, qua indissolubilem, ceterum compositiciam et structilem, si effigiatam, tamquam alio eam modo effigians intellectualibus formis, pulchram iustitia et disciplinis philosophiae, deformem uero contrariis artibus.

[2] What now, that we also give the soul an effigy/figure, Plato being unwilling, as though the soul’s immortality were put in peril? For he affirms that everything effigiated (given a figure) is composite and structile; but every composite and structile thing is dissoluble; yet the soul is immortal, therefore indissoluble, inasmuch as immortal, and un‑effigiated, inasmuch as indissoluble; otherwise composite and structile, if effigiated—just as though he were effigiating it in another mode by intellectual forms—beautiful through justice and the disciplines of philosophy, but deformed by the contrary arts.

[3] Sed nos corporales quoque illi inscribimus lineas, non tantum ex fiducia corporalitatis per aestimationem, uerum et ex constantia gratiae per reuelationem. Nam quia spiritalia charismata agnoscimus, post Iohannem quoque prophetiam meruimus consequi.

[3] But we too inscribe upon it corporeal lines, not only from confidence in corporality through estimation, but also from the constancy of grace through revelation. For since we recognize spiritual charismata, we have, after John, also merited to attain prophecy.

[4] Est hodie soror apud nos reuelationum charismata sortita, quas in ecclesia inter dominica sollemnia per ecstasin in spiritu patitur; conuersatur cum angelis, aliquando etiam cum domino, et uidet et audit sacramenta et quorundam corda dinoscit et medicinas desiderantibus sumit. Iamuero prout scripturae leguntur aut psalmi canuntur aut allocutiones proferuntur aut petitiones delegantur, ita inde materiae uisionibus subministrantur. Forte nescio quid de anima disserueramus, cum ea soror in spiritu esset.

[4] Today there is among us a sister who has obtained the charismata of revelations, which she undergoes in the church among the Lord’s solemnities through ecstasy in the Spirit; she converses with angels, sometimes even with the Lord, and she both sees and hears sacraments, and she discerns the hearts of certain persons and receives medicines for those who desire them. And indeed, just as the Scriptures are read or the Psalms are sung or allocutions are brought forth or petitions are presented, so from that point materials are supplied to the visions. By chance we had discussed I know not what about the soul, when that sister was in the Spirit.

Post transacta sollemnia dimissa plebe, quo usu solet nobis renuntiare quae uiderit (nam et diligentissime digeruntur, ut etiam probentur), 'inter cetera', inquit, 'ostensa est mihi anima corporaliter, et spiritus uidebatur, sed non inanis et uacuae qualitatis, immo quae etiam teneri repromitteret, tenera et lucida et aerii coloris, et forma per omnia humana. Hoc uisio'. Et deus testis et apostolus charismatum in ecclesia futurorum idoneus sponsor; tunc et si res ipsa de singulis persuaserit, credas.

After the solemnities were completed, the people having been dismissed, as is the usage by which she is wont to report back to us what she has seen (for they are also most diligently set down, so that they may even be proved), 'among the rest,' she says, 'the soul was shown to me corporeally, and the spirit appeared, but not of empty and vacant quality; rather one which even would promise to be grasped, delicate and lucid and of an aerial color, and in form in all respects human. This was the vision.' And God is witness, and the apostle a suitable sponsor of the charismata in the church with regard to things to come; then also, if the matter itself shall have persuaded concerning the particulars, you may believe.

[5] Si enim corpus anima, sine dubio inter illa quae supra sumus professi, proinde et coloris proprietas omni corpori aderit. Quem igitur alium animae aestimabis colorem quam aerium ac lucidum? Non, ut aer sit ipsa substantia eius, etsi hoc Aenesidemo uisum est et Anaximeni, puto secundum quosdam et Heraclito, nec ut lumen, etsi hoc placuit Pontico Heraclidi

[5] For if the soul is a body, without doubt among those things which above we have professed, accordingly the property of color will be present to every body. What other color, then, will you estimate for the soul than airy and lucid? Not, as though air were its very substance, although this seemed so to Aenesidemus and to Anaximenes, I think according to some also to Heraclitus, nor as though it were light, although this pleased Heraclides Ponticus

[6] ---- nam et cerauniis gemmis non ideo substantia ignita est, quod coruscent rutilato rubore, nec berullis ideo aquosa materia est, quod fluctuent colato nitore (quanta enim et alia color sociat, natura dissociat) ----, sed quoniam omne tenue atque perlucidum aeris aemulum est, hoc erit anima, qua flatus et spiritus tradux, siquidem prae ipsa tenuitatis subtilitate de fide corporalitatis periclitatur.

[6] ---- for neither is the substance of the Ceraunian gems therefore ignited, because they coruscate with a rutilant redness, nor is the material of beryls therefore watery, because they undulate with a filtered splendor (for how many other things color associates, nature dissociates) ----, but since everything thin and pellucid is an emulator of air, such will the soul be, as the conduit by which breath and spirit are transmitted, since indeed, by the very subtlety of its tenuity, the credibility of its corporeality is endangered.

[7] Sic et effigiem de sensu iam tuo concipe non aliam animae humanae deputandam praeter humanam, et quidem eius corporis quod unaquaeque circumtulit. Hoc nos sapere interim primordii contemplatio inducat. Recogita enim, cum deus flasset in faciem homini flatum uitae, et factus esset homo in animam uiuam, totus utique, per faciem statim flatum illum in interiora transmissum et per uniuersa corporis spatia diffusum simulque diuina aspiratione densatum omni intus linea expressum esse, quam densatus impleuerat, et uelut in forma gelasse.

[7] Thus also conceive from your own sense that no other effigy is to be deputed to the human soul than a human one, and indeed of that body which each has borne about. Let the contemplation of the beginning meanwhile induce us to be wise in this. For recollect that, when God had blown into the face of the man the breath of life, and the man had become a living soul, the whole man, to be sure, with that breath straightway through the face into the inner parts transmitted and diffused through all the spaces of the body, and at the same time, by the divine aspiration, condensed, was expressed along every inner line which, being condensed, it had filled, and as if congealed in a form (mold).

[8] Inde igitur et corpulentia animae ex densatione solidata est et effigies ex impressione formata. Hic erit homo interior, alius exterior, dupliciter unus, habens et ille oculos et aures suas, quibus populus dominum audire et uidere debuerat, habens et ceteros artus, per quos et in cogitationibus utitur et in somniis fungitur. Sic et diuiti apud inferos lingua est, et pauperi digitus, et sinus Abrahae.

[8] Hence therefore both the corpulence of the soul has been solidified from condensation, and the effigy has been formed from impression. This will be the inner man, the other the outer, doubly one, that one too having his eyes and his ears, by which the people ought to have heard the Lord
and to have seen, having also the other limbs, through which he both makes use in cogitations and discharges functions in dreams. Thus too the rich man in Hades has a tongue, and the poor man a finger, and the bosom of Abraham.

Per has lineas et animae martyrum sub altari intelleguntur. A primordio enim in Adam concreta et configurata corpori anima, ut totius substantiae, ita et condicionis istius semen effecit.

Through these lines even the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar are understood. For from the beginning in Adam the soul, concreted and configured to the body, made the seed as much of the whole substance as also of this condition.

X. DE SIMPLICITATE SVBSTANTIAE QVOD ET SPIRITVS IPSA SIT.

10. ON THE SIMPLICITY OF SUBSTANCE, THAT IT IS THE SPIRIT ITSELF.

[1] Pertinet ad statum fidei simplicem animam determinare secundum Platonem, id est uniformem, dumtaxat substantiae nomine. Viderint artes et disciplinae, uiderint et effigies.

[1] It pertains to the status of faith to determine the soul as simple, according to Plato—that is, uniform—only under the name of substance. Let the arts and the disciplines see to it; let the effigies see to it as well.

[2] Quidam enim uolunt aliam illi substantiam naturalem inesse spiritum, quasi aliud sit uiuere, quod uenit ab anima, aliud spirare, quod fiat a spiritu. Nam et animalibus non omnibus utrumque adesse; pleraque enim uiuere solummodo, non etiam spirare, eo quod non habeant organa spiritus, pulmones et arterias.

[2] For certain people want another natural substance to inhere in it—the spirit—as though to live, which comes from the soul, were one thing, and to breathe, which is made by the spirit, another. For also in animals not all have both present; for most live only, not also breathe, because they do not have the organs of the spirit, the lungs and the arteries.

[3] Quale est autem in examinatione humanae animae culicis atque formicae argumenta respicere, quando et uitalia pro cuiusque generis dispositione omnibuspropria animalibus temperauerit artifex deus, ut nulla inde coniectura captanda sit? Nam neque homo, si pulmonibus et arteriis structus est, idcirco aliunde spirabit, aliunde uiuet, neque formica, si membris huiusmodi caret, idcirco negabitur spirare, quasi solummodo uiuens.

[3] But what sort of thing is it, in the examination of the human soul, to regard the arguments of the gnat and the ant, when the artificer God has tempered the vital things, proper to all animalsaccording to the disposition of each kind, so that no conjecture is to be captured from that? For neither will a man, if he is constructed with lungs and arteries, for that reason breathe from elsewhere and live from elsewhere, nor will an ant, if it lacks members of this sort, for that reason be denied to breathe, as though merely living.

[4] Cui uero tantum patuit in dei opera, ut alicui haec deesse praesumpserit? Herophilus ille medicus aut lanius, qui sexcentos exsecuit, ut naturam scrutaretur, qui hominem odiit, ut nosset, nescio an omnia interna eius liquido explorarit, ipsa morte mutante quae uixerant, et morte non simplici, sed ipsa inter artificia exsectionis errante.

[4] To whom indeed have the works of God lain so open that he has presumed that these are lacking to anyone? That Herophilus, physician or butcher, who cut up six hundred in order to scrutinize nature, who hated man that he might know him—I do not know whether he clearly explored all his internals, death itself altering the things that had lived, and a death not simple, but itself wandering among the very artifices of exsection.

[5] Philosophi pro certo renuntiauerunt culicibus et formicis et tineis deesse pulmones et arterias. Dic mihi, inspector curiosissime, oculos habent ad uidendum? Atquin et pergunt quo uolunt, et uitant et appetunt quae uidendo sciunt: designa oculos, denota pupulas.

[5] Philosophers have reported as certain that gnats and ants and moths lack lungs and arteries. Tell me, most curious inspector, do they have eyes for seeing? And yet indeed they also go where they wish, and they avoid and they seek the things which by seeing they know: designate the eyes, denote the pupils.

Sed et exedunt tineae: demonstra mandibulas, deprome genuinos. Sed et personant culices, ne in tenebris quidem aurium caeci: tubam pariter et lanceam oris illius ostende. Quoduis animal, unius licet puncti, aliquo alatur necesse est: exhibe pabuli transmittendi decoquendi defaecandique membra.

Sed the moths also eat away: point out the mandibles, bring forth the molars. And the gnats resound, not even in darkness ear-blind: show alike the trumpet and the lance of that mouth. Whatever animal, though of a single point, must needs be nourished by something: exhibit the members for transmitting, decocting, and defecating the food.

(6.) Quid ergo dicemus? Si per haec uiuitur, erunt haec in omnibus utique quae uiuent, etsi non uidentur, etsi non apprehenduntur pro mediocritate. Hoc magis credas, si deum recogites tantum artificem in modicis quantum et in maximis.

(6.) What, then, shall we say? If by these things one lives, these things will assuredly be in all that live, even if they are not seen, even if they are not apprehended by reason of their mediocrity. This you should believe all the more, if you recollect God to be as great an artificer in small things as in the greatest.

[6] Si uero non putas capere tam minuta corpuscula dei ingenium, sic quoque magnificentiam eius agnoscas, quod modicis animalibus sine necessariis membris nihilominus uiuere instruxerit, saluo etiam uisu sine oculis et esu sine denticulis et digestu sine alueis, quemadmodum et incedunt quaedam sine pedibus manante impetu, quod angues, et insurgente conatu, quod uermes, et spumante reptatu, quod limaces.

[6] If indeed you do not think the ingenuity of God to encompass such minute little bodies, thus also recognize his magnificence: that he has equipped small animals to live nonetheless without necessary members, with sight intact even without eyes and with eating without denticles and with digestion without channels, just as certain creatures also advance without feet by a flowing impetus, as serpents, and by an upsurging endeavor, as worms, and by a foaming reptation, as slugs.

[7] Ita et spirari cur non putes sine pulmonum follibus et sine fistulis arteriarum, ut pro magno amplectaris argumento idcirco animae humanae spiritum accedere, quia sint quae spiritu careant, et idcirco ea spiritu carere, quia de flaturalibus artibus structa non sint? Viuere sine spiritu existimas aliquid, spirare sine pulmonibus non putas? Quid est, oro te, spirare?

[7] Thus too, why do you not suppose that breathing can occur without the bellows of the lungs and without the pipes of the arteries, so that you embrace as a great argument this: that therefore the spirit of the human soul accedes, because there are things which lack spirit, and that therefore they lack spirit because they are not constructed with pneumatic arts? Do you think anything lives without spirit; do you not suppose one could breathe without lungs? What is, I beg you, to breathe?

Flatum, opinor, ex semetipso agere. Quid est uiuere? Flatum, opinor, ex semetipso non agere.

To breathe, I opine, is to drive breath from oneself. What is it to live? Not, I opine, to drive breath from oneself.

Hoc enim respondere debebo, si non idem est spirare quod uiuere. Sed mortui erit non agere flatum: ergo uiuentis est agere flatum. Sed et spirantis est agere flatum: ergo et spirare uiuentis est.

For this I shall have to answer, if to breathe is not the same as to live. But it will be the dead’s not to drive breath; therefore it is the living’s to drive breath. But it is also the breather’s to drive breath; therefore to breathe is also the living’s.

Vtrumque si sine anima decurrere potuisset, non fuisset animae spirare, sed solummodo umere. At enim uiuere spirare est et spirare uiuere est. Ergo totum hoc et spirare et uiuere eius est cuius et uiuere, id est animae.

If both could have run their course without the soul, it would not have been the soul’s to breathe, but only to be moist. But indeed to live is to breathe, and to breathe is to live. Therefore this whole thing, both to breathe and to live, belongs to that to which living belongs—that is, to the soul.

[8] Denique si separas spiritum natura, separa et opera: agant in discreto aliquid ambo, seorsum anima, seorsum spiritus; anima sine spiritu uiuat, spiritus sine anima spiret; alterum relinquat corpora, alterum remaneat, mors et uita conueniant. Si enim duo sunt anima et spiritus, diuidi possunt, ut diuisione eorum alterius discedentis, alterius inmanentis, mortis et uitae concursus eueniat. Sed nullo modo eueniet; ergo duo non erunt, quae diuidi non possunt, quae diuidi possent, si fuissent.

[8] Finally, if you separate the spirit by nature, separate also the works: let them both do something in discreto, the soul apart, the spirit apart; let the soul live without the spirit, let the spirit breathe without the soul; let the one leave the bodies, let the other remain, let death and life come together. For if soul and spirit are two, they can be divided, so that by their division—of the one departing, of the other remaining—the concursus of death and life may occur. But in no way will it occur; therefore they will not be two, since they cannot be divided—things which could be divided, if they had been.

[9] 'Sed licet et duo esse concreta'. Sed non erunt concreta, si aliud est uiuere, aliud spirare: distinguunt substantias opera. Et quanto nunc firmius est, ut unum credas, cum distantiam non das, ut ipsa sit anima spiritus, dum ipsius est spirare cuius et uiuere? Quid enim, si diem aliud haberi uelis, aliud lucem, quae accedat diei, cum dies ipsa lux sit?

[9] 'But let it also be permitted that the two be concreted.' But they will not be concreted, if to live is one thing and to breathe another: operations distinguish substances. And how much more firmly now is it, that you should believe it to be one, since you grant no distinction, that the soul itself is spirit, seeing that to breathe is of the very one to whom to live is? For what then, if you should wish day to be held as one thing, and light as another, which accedes to the day, whereas the day itself is light?

Plane erunt et alia genera lucis, ut ex ignium ministerio. Erunt enim et aliae spiritus species, ut ex deo, ut ex diabolo. Ita cum de anima et spiritu agitur, ipsa erit anima spiritus, sicut ipsa dies lux.

Plainly there will also be other genera of light, as from the ministry of fires. For there will also be other species of spirit, as from God, as from the Devil. Thus, when it is a matter of the soul and the spirit, the soul itself will be spirit, just as the day itself is light.

Ipsum est enim quid, per quod est quid.

For it itself is that by which a thing is what it is.

XI.

11.

[1] Sed ut animam spiritum dicam, praesentis quaestionis ratio compellit, quia spirare alii substantiae adscribitur. Hoc dum animae uindicamus, quam uniformem et simplicem agnoscimus, spiritum necesse est certa condicione dicamus, non status nomine, sed actus, nec substantiae titulo, sed operae, quia spirat, non quia spiritus proprie est. Nam et flare spirare est.

[1] But that I may call the soul a spirit, the rationale of the present question compels me, because to breathe is ascribed to another substance. While we claim this for the soul, which we acknowledge as uniform and simple, it is necessary that we call “spirit” under a certain condition, not by the name of status, but of act, nor under the title of substance, but of operation, because it breathes, not because it is properly a spirit. For to blow also is to breathe.

Ita et animam, quam flatum ex proprietate defendimus, spiritum nunc ex necessitate pronuntiamus, ceterum aduersus Hermogenen, qui eam ex materia, non ex dei flatu contendit, flatum proprie tuemur.

Thus also the soul, which we defend as breath in its proper sense, we now pronounce to be spirit out of necessity; however, against Hermogenes, who contends that it is from matter, not from the breath of God, we properly uphold breath.

[2] Ille enim aduersus ipsius scripturae fidem flatum in spiritum uertit, ut, dum incredibile est spiritum dei in delictum et mox in iudicium deuenire, ex materia potius anima credatur quam ex dei spiritu. Idcirco nos et illic flatum eam defendimus, non spiritum, secundum scripturam et secundum spiritus distinctionem, et hic spiritum ingratis pronuntiamus secundum spirandi et flandi communionem. Illic de substantia quaestio est; spirare enim substantiae actus est.

[2] For he, against the faith of the Scripture itself, turns breath into spirit, so that, since it is unbelievable that the Spirit of God should come into delict and soon into judgment, the soul be believed rather to be from matter than from the Spirit of God. Therefore we also there defend it as breath, not as spirit, according to Scripture and according to the distinction of spirit, and here we pronounce it “spirit” against our will, according to the commonality of breathing and blowing. There the question is about substance; for to breathe is an act of substance.

[3] Nec diutius de isto, nisi propter haereticos, qui nescio quod spiritale semen infulciunt animae de Sophiae matris occulta liberalitate conlatum ignorante factore, cum scriptura factoris magis dei sui conscia nihil amplius promulgauerit quam deum flantem in faciem hominis flatum uitae et hominem factum in animam uiuam, per quam exinde et uiuat et spiret, satis declarata differentia spiritus et animae in sequentibus instrumentis, ipso deo pronuntiante: spiritus ex me prodiuit, et flatum omnem ego feci. Et anima enim flatus factus ex spiritu. Et rursus: qui dedit flatum populo super terram et spiritum calcantibus eam.

[3] Nor any longer on this, except on account of the heretics, who cram I know not what spiritual seed into the soul, said to be conferred from the hidden liberality of Mother Sophia, the Maker being ignorant, whereas the scripture of the Maker, more conscious of its own God, has published nothing more than God breathing into the face of man the breath of life and man made into a living soul, by which thereafter he both lives and breathes, the difference of spirit and soul having been sufficiently declared in the subsequent instruments, God himself proclaiming: the spirit went forth from me, and every breath I made. And for the soul is a breath, made from spirit. And again: who gave breath to the people upon the earth and spirit to those who tread it.

Prirno enim anima, id est flatus, populo in terra incedenti, id est in carne carnaliter agenti, postea spiritus eis qui terram calcant, id est opera carnis subigunt, quia et apostolus non primum quod spiritale, sed quod animale, postea spiritale.

For first the soul, that is, the breath, to the people walking upon the earth, that is, acting carnally in the flesh; afterwards the spirit to those who tread the earth, that is, subdue the works of the flesh, because even the apostle: not first what is spiritual, but what is animal; afterwards the spiritual.

[4] Nam etsi Adam statim prophetauit magnum illud sacramentum in Christum et ecclesiam: hoc nunc os ex ossibus meis et caro ex carne mea; propter hoc relinquet homo patrem et matrem et agglutinabit se mulieri suae, et erunt duo in unam carnem, accidentiam spiritus passus est: cecidit enim ecstasis super illum, sancti spiritus uis operatrix prophetiae.

[4] For although Adam immediately prophesied that great sacrament concerning Christ and the church: “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; for this cause a man will leave father and mother and will cleave to his wife, and the two shall be into one flesh,” he suffered an incidence of the Spirit: for an ecstasy fell upon him, the operative power of the Holy Spirit of prophecy.

[5] Nam et malus spiritus accidens res est. Denique Saulem tam dei spiritus postea uertit in alium uirum, id est in propheten, cum dictum est: quid hoc filio Cis? an et Saul in prophetis?

[5] For even an evil spirit is an accidental thing. Finally, the Spirit of God afterwards turned Saul into another man, that is, into a prophet, when it was said: What is this to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?

quam et mali spiritus postea uertit in alium uirum, in apostatam scilicet. Iudam quoque aliquamdiu cum electis deputatum usque ad loculorum officium, etsi iam fraudatorem, traditorem tamen nondum, postea diabolus intrauit.

whom also an evil spirit afterwards turned into another man, namely into an apostate. Judas likewise, for some time appointed with the elect even to the office of the purse, although already a defrauder, yet not yet a traitor, afterwards the Devil entered into him.

[6] Igitur si neque dei neque diaboli spiritus ex natiuitate conseritur animae, solam eam constat ante euentum spiritus utriusque; si solam, et simplicem et uniformem substantiae nomine, atque ita non aliunde spirantem quam ex substantiae suae sorte.

[6] Therefore, if neither the spirit of God nor of the devil is sown into the soul by nativity, it is evident that it is alone before the event of either spirit; if alone, then simple and uniform by the name of substance, and thus breathing from no other source than from the lot of its own substance.

XII. DE ANIMO.

12. ON THE SOUL.

[1] Proinde et animum siue mens estnou~j apud Graecos, non aliud quid intellegimus quam suggestum animae ingenitum et insitum et natiuitus proprium, quo agit, quo sapit, quem secum habens ex semetipsa secum moueat in semetipsa, atque ita moueri uideatur ab illo tamquam substantia alio, ut uolunt qui etiam uniuersitatis motatorem animum decernunt, illum deum Socratis, illum Valentini Vnigenitum ex patre ΒΥΘΩΙ et matre ΣΙΓΗΙ.

[1] Accordingly, both “animus,” or “mens,” is thenou~j among the Greeks; we understand nothing other than the soul’s seat, inborn and implanted and natively its own, by which it acts, by which it is wise; which, having with itself, from itself it moves with itself within itself, and thus it seems to be moved by it as though a substance by another—as those wish who also decree the mind to be the mover of the universe, that god of Socrates, that Only‑Begotten of Valentinus from the father ΒΥΘΩΙ and the mother ΣΙΓΗΙ.

[2] Quam Anaxagorae turbata sententia est! Initium enim omnium commentatus animum et uniuersitatis oscillum de illius axe suspendens purumque eum affirmans et simplicem et incommiscibilem, hoc uel maxime titulo segregat ab animae commixtione et tamen eundem alibi animam edicit.

[2] How disturbed is Anaxagoras’s sententia! For, having contrived Mind as the initium of all things and suspending the universe’s oscillation from its axis, and affirming it to be pure and simple and incommiscible, by this very title he segregates it from commixture with soul, and yet elsewhere he proclaims the same to be soul.

[3] Hoc etiam Aristoteles denotauit, nescio an sua paratior implere quam aliena inanire. Denique et ipse definitionem animi cum differret, interim alterum animi genus pronuntiauit, illum diuinum, quem rursus et inpassibilem subostendens abstulit et ipse eum a consortio animae. Cum enim animam passibilem constet eorum quae sortita est pati, aut per animum et cum animo patietur, si concreta est animo, non poterit animus inpassibilis induci, aut si non per animum nec cum animo patietur anima, non erit concreta illi, cum quo nihil et cui nihil patitur.

[3] This also Aristotle denoted—I know not whether readier to fulfill his own than to make void others’. Finally, even he, while he was deferring the definition of the mind, meanwhile proclaimed another kind of mind, that divine one; and showing it in turn as impassible, he himself removed it from consortium with the soul. For since it is agreed that the soul is passible to suffer the things which it has been allotted to suffer, either it will suffer through the mind and with the mind, if it is concreted with the mind—then an impassible mind cannot be introduced—or, if the soul will suffer neither through the mind nor with the mind, it will not be concreted to it, with which and to which it suffers nothing.

Porro si nihil per illum et cum illo anima patietur, iam nec sentiet nec sapiet nec mouebitur per illum, ut uolunt.

Furthermore, if the soul will suffer nothing through him and with him, then it will neither sense nor be wise nor be moved through him, as they wish.

[4] Nam et sensus passiones facit Aristoteles. Quidni? Et sentire enim pati est, quia pati sentire est.

[4] For Aristotle also makes sense-perception passions. Why not? For to sense is to suffer, since to suffer is to sense.

Proinde et sapere sentire est et moueri sentire est. Ita totum pati est. Videmus autem nihil istorum animam experiri, ut non et animo deputetur, quia per illum et cum illo transigatur.

Accordingly both to be wise is to sense and to be moved is to sense. Thus the whole is to suffer. We see, however, that the soul experiences none of these, so that it is not also reckoned to the mind, because it is transacted through it and with it.

[5] Iam ergo et commiscibilis est animus aduersus Anaxagoran et passibilis aduersus Aristotelen. Ceterum si discretio admittitur, ut substantia duae res sint animus atque anima, alterius erit et passio et sensus et sapor omnis et actus et motus, alterius autem otium et quies et stupor et nulla iam causa, et aut animus uacabit aut anima.

[5] Now therefore the mind is also commiscible against Anaxagoras and passible against Aristotle. Otherwise, if a distinction is admitted, so that in substance mind and soul are two things, then to the one will belong both passion and sense and every savor and act and motion, but to the other leisure and rest and stupor and now no cause at all; and either the mind will be vacant or the soul.

[6] Quodsi constat ambobus haec omnia reputari, ergo unum erunt utrumque et Democritus obtinebit differentiam tollens et quaeretur, quomodo unum utrumque, ex duarum substantiarum confusione, an ex unius dispositione. Nos autem animum ita dicimus animae concretum, non ut substantia alium, sed ut substantiae officium.

[6] But if it is agreed that all these things are to be reckoned to both, then both will be one, and Democritus will obtain, removing the difference; and it will be asked how both are one: from a confusion of two substances, or from the disposition of one. We, however, say that the mind is thus concreted to the soul, not as another substance, but as an office of the substance.

XIII.

13.

[1] Ad hoc dispicere superest, principalitas ubi sit, id est, quid cui praeest, ut cuius principalitas apparuerit, illa sit substantiae massa, id autem, cui massa substantiae praeerit, in officium naturale substantiae deputetur. Enimuero quis non animae dabit summam omnem, cuius nomine totius hominis mentio titulata est?

[1] To this it remains to discern where the principality lies, that is, what presides over what, so that that whose principality shall have appeared be the mass of the substance, but that over which the mass of the substance shall preside be deputed to the natural office of the substance. Indeed, who will not grant to the soul the entire primacy, in whose name the mention of the whole man is entitled?

[2] Quantas animas pasco, ait diues, non ait animos, et animas saluas optat gubernator, non animos, et rusticus in opere et in proelio miles animam se, non animum, ponere affirmat. Cuius nominatiora pericula aut uota sunt, animi an animae? Quid autem agere dicuntur moribundi, animum an animam?

[2] “How many souls I feed,” says the rich man; he does not say “minds.” And the pilot wishes the souls safe, not the minds; and the rustic in his toil and the soldier in battle affirms that he lays down his life (animam), not his mind (animum). Whose dangers or vows are more notable, the mind’s or the soul’s? And what are the dying said to give up—the mind or the soul?

Ipsi postremo philosophi ipsique medici, quamuis de animo quoque disputaturi, faciem tamen operis frontemque materiae de anima unusquisque proscripsit.

The philosophers themselves, and the physicians themselves, finally—although about the mind too they are going to dispute—nevertheless each one has inscribed the face of the work and the front of the material with ‘On the Soul.’

[3] Vt autem et a deo discas, animam semper deus alloquitur, animam compellat atque aduocat, ut animum sibi aduertat. Illam saluam uenit facere Christus, illam perdere in gehennam comminatur, illam pluris fieri uetat, iilam et ipse bonus pastor pro pecudibus suis ponit. Habes animae principalitatem, habes in illa et substantiae unionem, cuius intellegas instrumentum esse animum, non patrocinium.

[3] And so that you may learn from God as well, God always addresses the soul, he accosts and calls it, so that the mind may turn itself toward him. That one Christ came to save; that one he threatens to destroy in Gehenna; that one he forbids to be appraised at a higher price; and that one the Good Shepherd himself lays down for his sheep. You have the soul’s principality; you have in it also the union of substance, of which understand that the mind is the instrument, not the patronage.

XIV.

14.

[1] Singularis alioquin et simplex et de suo tota est, non magis structilis aliunde quam diuisibilis ex se, quia nec dissolubilis. Si enim structilis et dissolubilis, iam non immortalis. Itaque quia non mortalis, neque dissolubilis neque diuisibilis.

[1] Otherwise it is singular and simple and entirely of its own, no more constructed from elsewhere than divisible from itself, because it is not dissoluble. For if constructed and dissoluble, then no longer immortal. And so, because it is not mortal, neither dissoluble nor divisible.

Nam et diuidi dissolui est et dissolui mori est.

For even to be divided is to be dissolved, and to be dissolved is to die.

[2] Diuiditur autem in partes, nunc in duas a Platone, nunc in tres a Zenone, nunc in quinque ab Aristotele et in sex a Panaetio, in septem a Sorano, etiam in octo penes Chrysippum, etiam in nouem penes Apollophanen, sed et in duodecim apud quosdam Stoicorum, et in duas amplius apud Posidonium, qui a duobus exorsus titulis, principali, quod aiunth(gemoniko&n, et a rationali, quod aiunt logiko&n, in decem septem exinde prosecuit; ita aliae ex aliis species diuidunt animam.

[2] However, it is divided into parts, now into two by Plato, now into three by Zeno, now into five by Aristotle and into six by Panaetius, into seven by Soranus, even into eight with Chrysippus, even into nine with Apollophanes, but also into twelve among certain of the Stoics, and further into two with Posidonius, who, having begun from two titles—the principal, which they callh(gemoniko&n, and the rational, which they call logiko&n, from there extended it to seventeen; thus one set of species out of others divide the soul.

[3] Huiusmodi autem non tam partes animae habebuntur quam uires et efficaciae et operae, sicut de quibusdam et Aristoteles iudicauit. Non enim membra sunt substantiae animalis, sed ingenia, ut motorium, ut actorium, ut cogitatorium, et si qua in hunc modum distinguunt, ut et ipsi illi quinque notissimi sensus, uisus auditus gustus tactus odoratus. Quibus omnibus etsi certa singulis domicilia in corpore determinauerunt, non idcirco haec quoque distributio animae ad animae sectiones pertinebit, quando ne ipsum quidem corpus ita diuidatur in membra, ut isti uolunt animam.

[3] But things of this kind will be accounted not so much parts of the soul as powers and efficacies and operations, as even Aristotle judged concerning some. For they are not members of the animal substance, but endowments, such as the motory, the actory, the cogitatory, and whatever else they distinguish in this manner, as also those five most well‑known senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. Although they have determined certain domiciles in the body for each of all these, not for that reason will this distribution of the soul also pertain to sections of the soul, since not even the body itself is divided into members in the way that these men want the soul to be.

[4] Atquin ex multitudine membrorum unum corpus efficitur, ut concretio sit potius ipsa diuisio. Specta portentosissimam Archimedis munificentiam, organum hydraulicum dico, tot membra, tot partes, tot compagines, tot itinera uocum, tot compendia sonorum, tot commercia modorum, tot acies tibiarum, et una moles erunt omnia. Sic et spiritus, qui illic de tormento aquae anhelat, non ideo separabitur in partes, quia per partes administratur, substantia quidem solidus, opera uero diuisus.

[4] And yet out of a multitude of members one body is made, so that the concretion is rather the very division. Behold the most portentous munificence of Archimedes—I mean the hydraulic organ: so many members, so many parts, so many joinings, so many pathways of voices, so many compendia of sounds, so many commerces of modes, so many arrays of pipes—and all will be one mass. Thus also the breath which there pants from the water-engine will not on that account be separated into parts, because it is administered through parts—solid in substance, but divided in operation.

[5] Non longe hoc exemplum est a Stratone et Aenesidemo et Heraclito; nam et ipsi unitatem animae tuentur, quae in totum corpus diffusa et ubique ipsa, uelut flatus in calamo per cauernas, ita per sensualia uariis modis emicet, non tam concisa quam dispensata. Haec omnia quibus titulis nuncupentur et quibus ex se diuisionibus detineantur et quibus in corpore metationibus sequestrentur, medici potius cum philosophis considerabunt; nobis pauca conuenient.

[5] This example is not far from Strato and Aenesidemus and Heraclitus; for they too maintain the unity of the soul, which, diffused into the whole body and itself everywhere, like breath in a reed through the hollows, thus through the sense-organs flashes forth in various modes, not so much cut up as dispensed. All these things—by what titles they are denominated, and by what divisions from themselves they are detained, and by what metations in the body they are sequestered—physicians rather, together with philosophers, will consider; for us a few points will be suitable.

XV. DE HEGEMONICO.

15. ON THE HEGEMONIC.

[1] Inprimis an sit aliqui summus in anima gradus uitalis et sapientialis, quodh(gemoniko&n appellant, id est principale, quia si negetur, totus animae status periclitatur. Denique qui negant principale, ipsam prius animam nihil censuerunt.

[1] In the first place, whether there is some supreme degree in the soul, vital and sapiential, whichh(gemoniko&n they call, that is, the principal, because if it be denied, the whole status of the soul is imperiled. Indeed, those who deny the principal had previously deemed the soul itself nothing.

[2] Messenius aliqui Dicaearchus, ex medicis autem Andreas et Asclepiades ita abstulerunt principale, dum in animo ipso uolunt esse sensus, quorum uindicatur principale. Asclepiades etiam illa argumentatione uectatur, quod pleraque anirnalia ademptis eis partibus corporis, in quibus plurimum existimatur principale consistere, et insuper uiuant aliquatenus et sapiant nihilominus, ut muscae et uespae et lucustae, si capita decideris, ut caprae et testudines et anguillae, si corda detraxeris; itaque principale non esse, quo, si fuisset, amisso cum suis sedibus uigor animae non perseueraret.

[2] The Messenian Dicaearchus, and among physicians Andreas and Asclepiades, thus took away the principal, inasmuch as they hold that the senses are in the soul itself, for which a principal is claimed. Asclepiades also is carried along by this line of argument: that most animals, with those parts of the body removed in which the principal is thought chiefly to reside, still live to some extent and have perception nonetheless, as flies and wasps and locusts, if you cut off their heads, and as goats and tortoises and eels, if you take out their hearts; and so, that there is no principal—since, if it had existed, once lost together with its proper seats, the vigor of the soul would not have persisted.

[3] Sed plures et philosophi aduersus Dicaearchum, Plato Strato Epicurus Democritus Empedocles Socrates Aristoteles, et medici aduersus Andrean et Asclepiaden, Herophilus Erasistratus Diocles Hippocrates et ipse Soranus, iamque omnibus plures Christiani, qui apud deum de utroque deducimur, et esse principale in anima et certo in corporis recessu consecratum.

[3] But more—and philosophers against Dicaearchus, Plato, Strato, Epicurus, Democritus, Empedocles, Socrates, Aristotle, and physicians against Andrew and Asclepiades, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Diocles, Hippocrates, and Soranus himself—and now, more than all, Christians, who with God are led to a conclusion concerning both, that there is a principale in the soul and that it is consecrated in a certain recess of the body.

[4] Si enim scrutatorem et dispectorem cordis deum legimus, si etiam prophetes eius occulta cordis traducendo probatur, si deus ipse recogitatus cordis in populo praeuenit: quid cogitatis in cordibus uestris nequam? si et Dauid: cor mundum conde in me deus, et Paulus corde ait credi in iustitiam, et Iohannes corde ait suo unumquemque reprehendi, si postremo qui uiderit feminam ad concupiscendum, iam adulterauit in corde, simul utrumque dilucet, et esse principale in anima, quod intentio diuina conueniat, id est uim sapientialem atque uitalem (quod enim sapit, uiuidum est), et in eo thesauro corporis haberi, ad quem deus respicit,

[4] For if we read God as the scrutinizer and inspector of the heart, if also his prophet is proved by translating/exposing the occult things of the heart, if God himself anticipates the reconsiderations of the heart in the people: Why do you cogitate wicked things in your hearts? if even David: create a clean heart in me, O God, and Paul says that one believes with the heart unto justice, and John says that each one is reproved by his own heart, if finally he who has looked at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery in the heart, at once both things shine clear, both that there is the principal in the soul, which the divine intention agrees with, that is, a sapiential and vital force (for what has savor is vivid), and that it is held in that treasury of the body, to which God looks,

[5] ut neque extrinsecus agitari putes principale istud secundum Heraclitum, neque per totum corpus uentilari secundum Moschionem, neque in capite concludi secundum Platonem, neque in uertice potius praesidere secundum Xenocraten, neque in cerebro cubare secundum Hippocraten, sed nec circa cerebri fundamentum, ut Herophilus, nec in membranulis, ut Strato et Erasistratus, nec in superciliorum meditullio, ut Strato Physicus, nec in tota lorica pectoris, ut Epicurus, sed quod et Aegyptii renuntiauerunt et qui diuinarum commentatores uidebantur, ut et ille uersus Orphei uel Empedoclis: namque homini sanguis circumcordialis est sensus.

[5] so that you may think neither that this governing principle is agitated from without, according to Heraclitus, nor wafted through the whole body, according to Moschion, nor shut up in the head, according to Plato, nor rather presiding in the crown, according to Xenocrates, nor lying in the brain, according to Hippocrates, but neither around the foundation of the brain, as Herophilus, nor in the little membranes, as Strato and Erasistratus, nor in the mid-point of the eyebrows, as Strato the Physicist, nor in the whole cuirass of the chest, as Epicurus, but rather what both the Egyptians declared and those who seemed commentators on divine things, as also that verse of Orpheus or Empedocles: for to man the circumcordial blood is sensation.

[6] Etiam Protagoras, etiam Apollodorus et Chrysippus haec sapiunt, ut uel ab istis retusus Asclepiades capras suas quaerat sine corde balantes et muscas suas abigat sine capite uolitantes, et omnes iam sciant se potius sine corde et cerebro uiuere, qui dispositionem animae humanae de condicione bestiarum praeiudicarint.

[6] Even Protagoras, even Apollodorus and Chrysippus are of this understanding, so that Asclepiades, blunted by these, may look for his goats bleating without a heart and drive off his flies flitting without a head, and that all may now know that they themselves rather are living without heart and brain, who have prejudged the disposition of the human soul from the condition of beasts.

XVI.

16.

[1] Est et illud ad fidem pertinens, quod Plato bifariam partitur animam, per rationale et inrationale. Cui definitioni et nos quidem applaudimus, sed non ut naturae deputetur utrumque. Naturale enim rationale credendum est, quod animae a primordio sit ingenitum, a rationali uidelicet auctore.

[1] There is also this pertaining to faith, that Plato divides the soul in a twofold way, through the rational and the irrational. To which definition we too indeed applaud, but not so that both be assigned to nature. For the rational is to be believed natural, since it is ingenerate in the soul from the beginning, namely from a rational author.

Quid enim non rationale, quod deus iussu quoque ediderit, nedum id quod proprie afflatu suo emiserit? Inrationale autem posterius intellegendum est, ut quod acciderit ex serpentis instinctu, ipsum illud transgressionis admissum, atque exinde inoleuerit et coadoleuerit in anima ad instar iam naturalitatis, quia statim in naturae primordio accidit.

For what is not rational, which God has produced even by a command, to say nothing of that which he has sent forth properly by his own afflatus? But the irrational is to be understood as later, as that which befell from the serpent’s instinct—the very commission of transgression—and thereafter has taken root and co-grown in the soul after the pattern now of naturalness, because it happened immediately in the primordial beginning of nature.

[2] Ceterum cum idem Plato solum rationale dicat, ut in anima dei ipsius, si nos etiam inrationale naturae adscribimus, quam a deo anima nostra sortita est, aeque inrationale de deo erit, utpote naturale, quia naturae deus auctor est. Sed enim a diabolo immissio delicti, inrationale autem omne delictum; igitur a diabolo inrationale, a quo et delictum, extraneum a deo, a quo est inrationale alienum. Proinde delicti diuersitas horum ex distantia auctorum.

[2] However, since the same Plato says that only is rational, as in the soul of God himself, if we also ascribe the irrational to nature, which our soul has obtained by lot from God, the irrational will likewise be from God, as being natural, because God is the author of nature. But indeed the infusement of transgression is from the devil, and every transgression is irrational; therefore the irrational is from the devil, from whom also is the transgression, foreign to God, from whom the irrational is alien. Accordingly, the diversity of the offense between these comes from the remoteness of their authors.

[3] Proinde cum Plato soli deo segregans rationale duo genera subdiuidit ex inrationali, indignatiuum, quod appellantqumiko&n, et concupiscentiuum, quod uocant e0piqumhtiko&n, ut illud quidem commune sit nobis et leonibus, istud uero cum muscis, rationale porro cum deo, uideo et de hoc mihi esse retractandum propter ea quae in Christo deprehenduntur.

[3] Accordingly, since Plato, segregating the rational to God alone, subdivides two genera out of the irrational, the indignative (irascible), which they callqumiko&n, and the concupiscible, which they call e0piqumhtiko&n, so that the former is common to us and to lions, the latter indeed with flies, but the rational, moreover, with God, I see that this too must be reconsidered by me on account of the things which are discovered in Christ.

[4] Ecce enim tota haec trinitas et in domino: et rationale, quo docet, quo disserit, quo salutis uias sternit, et indignatiuum, quo inuehitur in scribas et Pharisaeos, et concupiscentiuum, quo pascha cum discipulis suis edere concupiscit.

[4] Behold, for this whole trinity is also in the Lord: both the rational, by which he teaches, by which he discourses, by which he paves the ways of salvation, and the indignative, by which he inveighs against the scribes and Pharisees, and the concupiscitive, by which he longs to eat the Passover with his disciples.

[5] Igitur apud nos non semper ex inrationali censenda sunt indignatiuum et concupiscentiuum, quae certi sumus in domino rationaliter decucurrisse. Indignabitur deus rationaliter, quibus scilicet debet, et concupiscet deus rationaliter, quae digna sunt ipso. Nam et malo indignabitur et bono concupiscet salutem.

[5] Therefore among us the irascible and the concupiscible are not always to be reckoned as from the irrational, since we are certain that in the Lord they have proceeded rationally. God will be indignant rationally, namely toward those to whom he ought, and God will desire rationally those things that are worthy of himself. For he will be indignant at the wicked man and will desire salvation for the good man.

[6] Dat et apostolus nobis concupiscentiam: si quis episcopatum concupiscit, bonum opus concupiscit; et bonum opus dicens rationalem concupiscentiam ostendit. Concedit et indignationem. Quidni, quam et ipse suscepit?

[6] The Apostle also gives to us concupiscence: if anyone concupisces the episcopate, he concupisces a good work; and by saying “good work” he shows a rational concupiscence. He grants indignation as well. Why not, since he himself also assumed it?

Vtinam et praecidantur, inquit, qui uos subuertunt. Rationalis et indignatio quae ex affectu disciplinae est.

Would that they also be cut off, he says, who subvert you. Rational too is the indignation which is from the affect of discipline.

[7] At cum dicit: fuimus aliquando natura filii irae, inrationale indignatiuum suggillat, quod non sit ex ea natura quae a deo est, sed ex illa quam diabolus induxit, dominus et ipse dictus sui ordinis: non potestis duobus dominis seruire, pater et ipse cognominatus: uos ex diabolo patre estis, ne timeas et illi proprietatem naturae alterius adscribere, posterioris et adulterae, quem legis auenarum superseminatorem et frumentariae segetis nocturnum interpolatorem.

[7] But when he says: we were once by nature children of wrath, he stigmatizes the irrational indignative faculty, because it is not from that nature which is from God, but from that which the devil introduced, he too himself being called lord of his own order: you cannot serve two lords, and he too is surnamed father: you are from your father the devil, do not fear to ascribe to him also the property of another nature, later and adulterous, whom you read as the oversower of oats and the nocturnal interpolator of the grain-crop.

XVII. DE QVINQVE SENSIBVS.

17. ON THE FIVE SENSES.

[1] Contingit nos illorum etiam quinque sensuum quaestio, quos in primis litteris discimus, quoniam et hinc aliquid haereticis procuratur. Visus est et auditus et odoratus et gustus et tactus.

[1] The question of those five senses also concerns us, which we learn in our first letters, since from here too something is procured for the heretics. Sight, and hearing, and smell, and taste, and touch.

[2] Horum fidem Academici durius damnant, secundum quosdam et Heraclitus et Diocles et Empedocles, certe Plato in Timaeo inrationalem pronuntians sensualitatem et opinioni coimplicitam. Itaque mendacmm uisui obicitur, quod remos in aqua inflexos uel infractos adseuerat aduersus conscientiam integritatis, quod turrem quadrangulatam de longinquo rotundam persuadeat, quod aequalissimam porticum angustiorem in ultimo infamet, quod caelum tanta sublimitate suspensum mari iungat.

[2] The Academics more harshly condemn the credibility of these, and, according to some, so do Heraclitus and Diocles and Empedocles; certainly Plato in the Timaeus pronounces sense‑perception irrational and entangled with opinion. And so a lie is imputed to sight, because it asserts that oars in water are bent or broken against the consciousness of their integrity; because it persuades that a four‑cornered tower from a distance is round; because it declares a most perfectly equal colonnade to be narrower at the far end; because it joins the heaven, suspended at such height, to the sea.

[3] Perinde auditus fallaciae reus, ut cum caeleste murmur putamus et plaustrum est, uel tonitru meditante pro certo de plaustro credimus sonitum. Sic et odoratus et gustus arguuntur, siquidem eadem unguenta eademque uina posteriore quoque usu depretiantur. Sic et tactus reprehenditur, siquidem eadem pauimenta manibus asperiora, pedibus leuiora creduntur, et in lauacris idem calidae lacus feruentissimus primo, dehinc temperatissimus renuntiatur.

[3] Likewise hearing is guilty of fallacy, as when we suppose a heavenly murmur and it is a wagon, or, with thunder only meditating, we believe for certain that the sound is from a wagon. Thus both smelling and taste are accused, since the same unguents and the same wines are depreciated even upon subsequent use. So too touch is reprehended, since the same pavements are thought rougher to the hands, smoother to the feet, and in the baths the same pool of hot water is reported as most boiling at first, thereafter most temperate.

[4] Adeo, inquiunt, sic quoque fallimur sensibus, dum sententias uertimus. Moderantus Stoici non omnem sensum, nec semper, de mendacio onerant. Epicurei constantius parem omnibus atque perpetuam defendunt ueritatem, sed alia uia.

[4] To such a degree, they say, in this way too we are deceived by the senses, while we are turning judgments. The more moderate Stoics do not burden every sense, nor at all times, with mendacity. The Epicureans more consistently defend an equal and perpetual truth for all, but by another way.

Non enim sensum mentiri, sed opinionem. Sensum enim pati, non opinari; animam enim opinari. Absciderunt et opinionem a sensu et sensum ab anima.

For it is not the sense that lies, but the opinion. For the sense suffers/undergoes, it does not opine; for the soul opines. And they have cut off both opinion from sense and sense from the soul.

[5] Et unde opinio, si non a sensu? Denique nisi uisus rotundam senserit turrem, nulla opinio rotunditatis. Et unde sensus, si non ab anima?

[5] And whence opinion, if not from sense? Indeed, unless sight has perceived a round tower, there is no opinion of rotundity. And whence sense, if not from the soul?

Denique carens anima corpus carebit et sensu. Ita et sensus ex anima est et opinio ex sensu et anima totum. Ceterum optime proponetur esse utique aliquid quod efficiat aliter quid a sensibus renuntiari quam sit in rebus.

Finally, a body lacking a soul will also lack sense. Thus both sense is from the soul and opinion from sense, and the soul is the whole. Moreover, it will be most properly proposed that there is assuredly something which brings it about that what is reported by the senses is otherwise than as it is in the things.

Porro si potest id renuntiari quod non sit in rebus, cur non perinde possit per id renuntiari quod non sit in sensibus, sed in eis rationibus quae interueniant suo nomine?

Moreover, if that can be reported which is not in the things, why cannot it equally be reported through that which is not in the senses, but in those reasons which intervene in their own right?

[6] Atque adeo licebit eas recognosci. Nam ut in aqua remus inflexus uel infractus appareat, aqua in causa est; denique extra aquam integer uisui remus. Teneritas autem substantiae illius, qua speculum ex lumine efficitur, prout icta seu mota est, ita et imaginem uibrans euertit lineam recti.

[6] And indeed it will be possible to recognize them. For just as in water an oar appears bent or broken, the water is the cause; finally, outside the water the oar is entire to the sight. But the tenderness of that substance, whereby a mirror is effected from light, according as it is struck or moved, so too, by vibrating the image, overturns the line of straightness.

Item ut turris habitus eludat, interualli condicio compellit in aperto; aequalitas enim circumfusi aeris pari luce uestiens angtilos oblitterat lineas. Sic et uniformitas porticus acuitur in fine, dum acies in concluso stipata illic tenuatur, quo et extenditur. Sic et caelum mari unitur, ubi uisio absumitur, quae quamdiu uiget, tamdiu diuidit.

Likewise, that the appearance of a tower eludes (deceives), the condition of the interval in the open compels; for the equality of the circumfused air, clothing the angles with equal light, obliterates their lines. Thus too the uniformity of a portico is sharpened at the end, while the line of sight, packed within the enclosed space, is there attenuated, whereby it is also extended. Thus also the sky is united with the sea where vision is consumed; and as long as it has vigor, so long it divides.

[7] Auditum uero quid aliud decipiet quam sonorum similitudo? Et si postea minus spirat unguentum et minus sapit uinum et minus lacus feruet, in omnibus ferme prima uis tota est. Ceterum de scabro ac leui merito manus ac pedes tenera scilicet et callosa membra dissentiunt.

[7] But what else will deceive the hearing than the similitude of sounds? And if afterward the unguent breathes less, and the wine tastes less, and the vat seethes less, in almost all things the prime force is entire. Moreover, about the rough and the smooth, hands and feet—with good reason, namely the tender and the calloused members—disagree.

[8] Igitur hoc modo nulla sensuum frustratio causa carebit. Quodsi causae fallunt sensus et per sensus opiniones, iam nec in sensibus constituenda fallacia est, qui causas sequuntur, nec in opinionibus, quae a sensibus diriguntur sequentibus causas.

[8] Therefore in this way no deception of the senses will be without a cause. But if causes deceive the senses, and through the senses the opinions, then neither is fallacy to be established in the senses, which follow causes, nor in the opinions, which are directed by the senses following causes.

[9] Qui insaniunt, alios in aliis uident, ut Orestes matrem in sorore et Aiax Vlixen in armento, ut Athamas et Agaue in filiis bestias. Oculisne hoc mendacium exprobrabis, an furiis? Qui redundantia fellis auruginant, amara sunt omnia.

[9] Those who are insane see others in others, as Orestes his mother in his sister and Ajax Ulysses in a herd, as Athamas and Agave beasts in their sons. Will you reproach this lie to the eyes, or to the Furies? Those who, with a redundancy of gall, grow jaundiced, find everything bitter.

Num ergo gustui praeuaricationem exprobrabis, an ualetudini? Omnes itaque sensus euertuntur uel circumueniuntur ad tempus, ut proprietate fallaciae careant.

Will you then reproach taste with prevarication, or the valetude (health)? Therefore all the senses are overturned or circumvented for a time, so that they lack the property of fallacy.

[10] Immo iam ne ipsis quidem causis adscribendum est fallaciae elogium. Si enim ratione haec accidunt, ratio fallacia perhiberi non meretur. Quod sic fieri oportet, mendacium non est.

[10] Nay rather, now not even to the causes themselves should the encomium of fallacy be ascribed. For if these things happen by reason, reason does not deserve to be held a fallacy. What ought thus to come to pass is not a lie.

Itaque si et ipsae causae infamia liberantur, quanto magis sensus, quibus iam et causae libere praeeunt, cum hinc potissimum et ueritas et fides et integritas sensibus uindicanda sit, quod non aliter renuntient quam quod illa ratio mandauit, quae efficiat aliter quid a sensibus renuntiari quam sit in rebus!

Therefore, if even the causes themselves are freed from infamy, how much more the senses, before which the causes themselves now also freely go, since from here especially both truth and faith and integrity are to be vindicated for the senses, because they do not report otherwise than what that reason has mandated, which would bring it about that something be reported by the senses otherwise than it is in reality!

[11] Quid agis, Academia procacissima? Totum uitae statum euertis, omnem naturae ordinem turbas, ipsius dei prouidentiam excaecas, qui cunctis operibus suis intellegendis incolendis dispensandis fruendisque fallaces et mendaces dominos praefecerit sensus. An non istis uniuersa conditio subministratur?

[11] What are you about, most brazen Academy? You overturn the whole state of life, you throw into turmoil all the order of nature, you blind the providence of God himself, who would have appointed the senses—fallacious and mendacious—as masters set over all his works for being understood, inhabited, administered, and enjoyed. Or is not the whole constitution supplied by these?

An non per istos secunda quoque mundo instructio accessit, tot artes, tot ingenia, tot studia negotia officia commercia remedia consilia solacia uictus cultus ornatus, quae omnia totum uitae saporem condierunt, dum per hos sensus solus omnium homo animal rationale dinoscitur intellegentiae et scientiae capax, et ipsius Academiae?

Or is it not through these that there also acceded to the world a second equipment, so many arts, so many talents, so many studies, businesses, duties, commerce, remedies, counsels, solaces, sustenance, culture, adornment—things which have seasoned the entire savor of life—while through these senses man alone of all is discerned to be the rational animal, capable of intelligence and science, and of the Academy itself?

[12] Sed enim Plato, ne quod testimonium sensibus signet, propterea et in Phaedro ex Socratis persona negat se cognoscere posse semetipsum, ut monet Delphica inscriptio, et in Theaeteto adimit sibi scire atque sentire et in Phaedro post mortem differt sententiam ueritatis, postumam scilicet; et tamen nondum mortuus philosophabatur.

[12] But indeed Plato, lest he affix any testimony to the senses, for that reason both in the Phaedrus, in the persona of Socrates, denies that he is able to know himself, as the Delphic inscription warns; and in the Theaetetus he deprives himself of knowing and sensing; and in the Phaedrus he defers the judgment of truth to after death, posthumous, of course; and yet, not yet dead, he was philosophizing.

[13] Non licet, non licet nobis in dubium sensus istos deuocare, ne et in Christo de fide eorum deliberetur, ne forte dicatur quod falso satanan prospectarit de caelo praecipitatum aut falso uocem patris audierit de ipso testificatam aut deceptus sit, cum Petri socrum tetigit, aut alium postea unguenti senserit spiritum, quod in sepulturam suam acceptauit, alium postea uini saporem, quod in sanguinis sui memoriam consecrauit.

[13] It is not permitted, it is not permitted for us to call these senses into doubt, lest even in Christ the faith in them be deliberated—lest perhaps it be said that falsely he had beheld Satan precipitated from heaven, or had falsely heard the voice of the Father attesting concerning himself, or was deceived when he touched Peter’s mother-in-law, or afterwards sensed another odor of the ointment, which he accepted for his sepulture, or afterwards another savor of the wine, which he consecrated in remembrance of his own blood.

[14] Sic enim et Marcion phantasma eum maluit credere, totius corporis in illo dedignatus ueritatem. Atquin ne in apostolis quidem eius ludificata natura est; fidelis fuit et uisus et auditus in monte, fidelis et gustus uini illius, licet aquae ante, in nuptiis Galilaeae, fidelis et tactus exinde creduli Thomae. Recita Johannis testationem: quod uidimus, inquit, quod audiuimus, oculis nostris uidimus, et manus nostrae contrectauerunt de sermone uitae.

[14] For so too did Marcion prefer to believe him a phantasm, disdaining in him the truth of the whole body. But indeed not even in his apostles was nature made sport of; faithful were both sight and hearing on the mountain, faithful too the taste of that wine—though water before—at the nuptials of Galilee, and faithful thereafter the touch of credulous Thomas. Recite John’s testimony: what we have seen, he says, what we have heard, with our own eyes we have seen, and our hands have handled concerning the Word of life.

Falsa utique testatio, si oculorum et aurium et manuum sensus natura mentitur.

Assuredly false testimony, if the nature of the senses of the eyes and ears and hands lies.

XVIII. DE INTELLECTVALIBVS.

18. ON INTELLECTUAL MATTERS.

[1] Conuertor ad intellectualium partem, quemadmodum illam Plato a corporalibus separatam haereticis commendauerit agnitionem ante mortem consecutus. Ait enim in Phaedone: 'Quid tum erga ipsam prudentiae possessionem? Vtrumne impedimentum erit corpus, an non, si quis illud socium assumpserit in quaestionem?

[1] I turn to the intellectual part, how Plato, having obtained agnition before death, commended it, as separated from corporeals, to the heretics. For he says in the Phaedo: 'What then with respect to prudence’s very possession? Will the body be an impediment, or not, if someone
has taken it as a companion into the inquiry?

Tale quid dico: habetne ueritatem aliquam uisio et auditio hominibus? An non etiam poetae haec nobis semper obmussant, quod neque audiamus certum neque uideamus?' Meminerat scilicet et Epicharmi Comici: animus cernit, animus audit, reliqua surda et caeca sunt.

I say something of this sort: do vision and hearing have any truth for human beings? Or do not even the poets always mutter this to us, that we neither hear anything certain nor see?' He had remembered, of course, Epicharmus the Comic as well: the mind discerns, the mind hears; the rest are deaf and blind.

[2] Itaque rursus illum ergo ait supersapere qui mente maxime sapiat, neque uisionem proponens neque ullum eiusmodi sensum attrahens animo, sed ipsa mente sincera utens in recogitando ad capiendum sincerum quodque rerum, si egressus potissimum ab oculis et auribus et, quod dicendum sit, a toto corpore ut turbante et non permittente animae possidere ueritatem atque prudentiam, quando communicat.

[2] Therefore again, he says that he is over‑wise who is most wise by mind, neither proposing vision nor drawing into the mind any sense of that sort, but using the very mind, sincere, in re‑cogitating so as to grasp the sincere and each thing of realities, if he has gone forth especially from the eyes and ears and, which must be said, from the whole body, as being a disturber and not permitting the soul to possess truth and prudence, whenever it communicates with it.

[3] Videmus igitur aduersus sensus corporales aliam portendi paraturam ut multo idoniorem, uires scilicet animae, intellectum operantes eius ueritatis, cuius res non sint coram nec subiaceant corporalibus sensibus, sed absint longe a communi conscientia in arcano et in superioribus et apud ipsum deum. Vult enim Plato esse quasdam substantias inuisibiles incorporales supermundiales, diuinas et aeternas, quas appellat ideas, id est formas, exempla et causas naturalium istorum manifestorum et subiacentium corporalibus sensibus, et illas quidem esse ueritates, haec autem imagines earum.

[3] We see, therefore, that against the bodily senses another apparatus is portended as much more suitable—namely the powers of the soul, operating the intellect of that truth, whose realities are not before us nor lie under the bodily senses, but are far absent from common consciousness, in the arcane and in higher things and with God himself. For Plato wishes there to be certain invisible, incorporeal, supramundane substances, divine and eternal, which he calls ideas—that is, forms, exemplars, and causes of those natural things that are manifest and subjacent to the bodily senses—and that those indeed are the truths, but these the images of them.

[4] Relucentne iam haeretica semina Gnosticorum et Valentinianorum? Hinc enim arripiunt differentiam corporalium sensuum et intellectualium uirium, quam etiam parabolae decem uirginum adtemperant, ut quinque stultae sensus corporales figurauerint, stultos uidelicet, quia deceptui faciles, sapientes autem intellectualium uirium notam expresserint, sapientium scilicet, quia contingentium ueritatem illam arcanam et supernam et apud pleroma constitutam, haereticarum idearum sacramenta; hoc enim sunt et aeones et genealogiae illorum.

[4] Do the heretical seeds of the Gnostics and the Valentinians already gleam forth? For from here they seize upon the distinction of bodily senses and intellectual powers, which they even accommodate to the parable of the ten virgins, so that the five foolish have figured the bodily senses—foolish, to wit, because easy to be deceived—while the wise have expressed the mark of the intellectual powers—the wise, namely, because they make contact with that secret and supernal truth, established at the pleroma, the mysteries of heretical ideas; for such indeed are their aeons and their genealogies.

[5] Itaque et sensum diuidunt et intellectualibus quidem a spiritali suo semine, sensualibus uero ab animali, quia spiritalia nullo modo capiat; et illius quidem esse inuisibilia, huius uero uisibilia et humilia et temporalia, quae sensu conueniantur in imaginibus constituta. Ob haec ergo praestruximus neque animum aliud quid esse quam animae suggestum et structum, neque spiritum extraneum quid quam quod et ipsa per flatum, ceterum accessioni deputandum quod aut deus postea aut diabolus adspiraret.

[5] Accordingly, they also divide sense, assigning the intellectual indeed to its spiritual seed, but the sensual to the animal, because the latter in no way grasps spiritual things; and that the things of the former are invisible, but of the latter visible and lowly and temporal, which are encountered by sense, constituted in images. On account of these things, therefore, we have previously set forth that neither is the mind anything other than the soul’s platform and structure, nor the spirit something extraneous, except what the soul itself has by breath; but, for the rest, it must be assigned to an accession—whatever either God afterwards or the devil should breathe upon.

[6] Et nunc ad differentiam sensualium et intellectualium non aliud admittimus quam rerum diuersitates, corporalium et spiritalium, uisibilium et inuisibilium, publicatarum et arcanarum, quod illae sensui, istae intellectui attribuantur, apud animam tamen et istis et illis obsequio deputatis, quae perinde per corpus corporalia sentiat, quemadmodum per animum incorporalia intellegat, saluo eo, ut etiam sentiat, dum intellegit.

[6] And now, as to the differentiation of the sensual and the intellectual, we admit nothing other than diversities of things—of corporeal and spiritual, of visible and invisible, of publicized and arcane—inasmuch as those are attributed to sense, these to intellect; yet with respect to the soul both these and those are deputed to its service, such that through the body it senses the corporeal, just as through the mind it understands the incorporeal, saving this point, that it also senses while it understands.

[7] Non enim et sentire intellegere est et intellegere sentire est? Aut quid erit sensus, nisi eius rei quae sentitur intellectus? Quid erit intellectus, nisi eius rei quae intellegitur sensus? Vnde ista tormenta cruciandae simplicitatis et suspendendae ueritatis?

[7] For is not sensing understanding, and is not understanding sensing? Or what will sense be, if not the intellect of that thing which is sensed? What will intellect be, if not the sense of that thing which is understood? Whence these torments for the crucifying of simplicity and the suspending of truth?

Quis mihi exhibebit sensum non intellegentem quod sentit aut intellectum non sentientem quod intellegit, ut probet alterum sine altero posse?

Who will present to me a sense not understanding what it senses, or an intellect not sensing what it understands, so as to prove that the one can exist without the other?

[8] Si corporalia quidem sentiuntur, incorporalia uero intelleguntur, rerum genera diuersa sunt, non domicilia sensus et intellectus, id est, non anima et animus. Denique a quo sentiuntur corporalia? Si ab animo, ergo iam et sensualis est animus, non tantum intellectualis, nam dum intellegit, sentit, quia si non sentit, nec intellegit; si uero ab anima corporalia sentiuntur, iam ergo et intellectualis est uis animae, non tantum sensualis, nam dum sentit, intellegit, quia si non intellegit, nec sentit.

[8] If indeed corporeal things are sensed, but incorporeal things are understood, the genera of things are diverse, not the dwelling-places of sense and intellect, that is, not soul and mind. Then by what are corporeal things sensed? If by the mind, then already the mind is also sensory, not only intellectual; for while it understands, it senses, because if it does not sense, neither does it understand; but if corporeal things are sensed by the soul, then already the power of the soul is also intellectual, not only sensory, for while it senses, it understands, because if it does not understand, neither does it sense.

Proinde a quo intelleguntur incorporalia? Si ab animo, ubi erit anima? Si ab anima, ubi erit animus?

Accordingly, by what are incorporeals understood? If by the mind, where will the soul be? If by the soul, where will the mind be?

Quae enim distant, abesse inuicem debent, cum suis muneribus operantur.

For those things which are distant ought to be absent from one another, when they operate with their own offices.

[9] Putabis quidem abesse animum ab anima, si quando, nam ita effici, ut nesciamus uidisse quid uel audisse, quia alibi fuerit animus. Adeo contendam immo ipsam animam nec uidisse nec audisse, quia alibi fuerit cum sua ui, id est animo. Nam et cum dementit homo, anima dementit non peregrinante, sed conpatiente tunc animo ---- ceterum animae principaliter casus est.

[9] You will indeed suppose the mind (animus) to be absent from the soul (anima) at times; for it thus comes about that we do not know that we have seen or heard something, because the mind was elsewhere. I will even contend, rather, that the soul itself neither saw nor heard, because it was elsewhere with its own force, that is, with the mind. For even when is demented the man, the soul is demented, not peregrinating, but compatient then with the mind ---- otherwise, the case belongs principally to the soul.

[10] Hoc unde firmatur? Quod anima digressa nec animus in homine inueniatur; ita illam ubique sequitur, a qua nec in fine subremanet. Cum uero sequitur et addicitur, perinde intellectus animae addicitur quam sequitur animus, cui addicitur intellectus.

[10] Whence is this confirmed? From the fact that, once the soul has departed, neither is the mind found in the man; thus it follows her everywhere, from whom it does not remain behind even at the end. And when indeed it follows and is bound over, in like manner the intellect is bound to the soul which the mind follows, to which the intellect is bound.

Sit nunc et potior sensu intellectus et potior cognitor sacramentorum, dummodo et ipse propria uis animae, quod et sensus. Nihil mea interest, nisi cum idcirco praefertur sensui intellectus, ut ex hoc quoque separatior habeatur quo potior affirmatur. Tunc mihi post differentiam etiam praelatio retundenda est peruentura quoque usque ad potioris dei persuasionem.

Let now the intellect be superior to sense and the superior knower of the sacraments, provided that it too is a proper power of the soul, as sense is as well. Nothing concerns me, except when on that account the intellect is preferred to sense, so that from this too it may be held the more separate, inasmuch as it is affirmed to be the superior. Then for me, after the distinction, even the prelation must be blunted, since it would also come as far as the persuasion of a superior god.

[11] Sed de deo suo quoque campo experiemur cum haereticis. Nunc de anima titulus et de intellectu non insidiose praeferendo locus. Nam etsi potiora sunt quae intellectu attinguntur ut spiritalia quam quae sensu ut corporalia, rerum erit praelatio, sublimiorum scilicet aduersus humiliores, non intellectus aduersus sensum.

[11] But we will also make trial about God on their own field with the heretics. Now the title is about the soul, and the topic is about not insidiously preferring the intellect. For even if the things that are reached by intellect, as spiritual things, are preferable to those that are by sense, as corporeal things, the prelation will be of the things—namely, of the more sublime against the more humble—not of the intellect against the sense.

Quomodo enim praeferatur sensui intellectus, a quo informatur ad cognitionem ueritatum?

For how indeed should the intellect be preferred to sense, by which it is informed unto the cognition of truths?

[12] Si enim ueritates per imagines apprehenduntur, id est inuisibilia per uisibilia noscuntur, quia et apostolus nobis scribit: inuisibilia enim eius a conditione mundi de factitamentis intellecta uisuntur, et Plato haereticis: facies occultorum ea quae apparent, et: necesse est omnino hunc mundum imaginem quandam esse alterius alicuius, ecquid tibi uidetur intellectus duce uti sensu et auctore et principali fundamento nec sine illo ueritates posse contingi? Quomodo ergo potior erit eo per quem est, quo eget, cui debet totum quod attingit?

[12] For if verities are apprehended through images, that is, the invisibles are known through visibles, since even the apostle writes to us: for his invisibles, from the foundation of the world, are seen, being understood from the things that have been made; and Plato to the heretics: the faces of hidden things are the things which appear; and: it is altogether necessary that this world be some image of some other; does it seem to you that the intellect uses sense as leader, author, and principal foundation, and that without it verities cannot be touched? How, then, will it be superior to that by which it is, which it needs, to which it owes the whole of what it attains?

[13] Ita utrumque concluditur, neque praeferendum sensui intellectum (per quod enim quid constat, inferius ipso est) neque separandum a sensu (per quod enim quid est, cum ipso est).

[13] Thus both are concluded: neither is the intellect to be preferred to sense (for that by which something stands established is inferior to it) nor to be separated from sense (for that by which something is, is with it).

XIX. INTELLECTVM SEMPER ANIMAE INESSE.

19. THE INTELLECT IS ALWAYS IN THE SOUL.

[1] Sed ne illi quidem praetereundi qui uel modico temporis uiduant animam intellectu. Proinde enim uiam sternunt postea inducendi eius, sicut et animi, a quo scilicet proueniat intellectus.

[1] But not even those are to be passed over who, even for a small portion of time, deprive the soul of intellect. For in this way they pave the way for introducing it later on — just as they do in the case of the mind — from which, of course, the intellect proceeds.

[2] Volunt infantiam sola anima contineri, qua tantummodo vivat, non ut pariter sapiat, quia nec omnia sapiant quae umant. Denique arbores uiuere nec tamen sapere secundum Aristotelen et si quis alius substantiam animalem in unmersa communicat, quae apud nos in homine priuata res est, non modo ut dei opus, quod et cetera, sed ut dei flatus, quod haec sola, quam dicimus cum omni instructu suo nasci.

[2] They want infancy to be contained by the soul alone, by which it merely lives, not so that it likewise is sapient, since not all things that live are sapient. Finally, that trees live and yet are not sapient, according to Aristotle and whoever else communicates the animate substance to the universe—which with us is in man a private thing—not only as God’s work (which the others also are), but as God’s breath, which this alone is, which we say is born with all its equipment.

[3] Et si ad arbores prouocamur, amplectemur exemplum, siquidem et illis necdum arbusculis, sed stipitibus adhuc et surculis etiamnunc, simul de scrobibus oriuntur, inest propria uis animae. Verum pro temporis ratione remoratur coalescens et coadulescens robori suo, donec aetas adimpleat habitum, quo natura fungatur. Aut unde mox illis et frutices inoculantur et folia formantur et germina inflantur et flosculi inornantur et succi condiuntur, si non in ipsis omnis paratura generis quiescit et partibus promota grandescit?

[3] And if we are appealed to the trees, we will embrace the example, since even in them—no longer mere saplings, but as yet trunks and still shoots, as soon as they arise from the pits—there is inherent the proper force of soul. But in proportion to the reckoning of time, coalescing and co-adulescing toward its own robustness is delayed, until age fills out the habitus by which nature discharges its function. Or whence presently for them both grafts are inoculated and leaves are formed and buds are swollen and little flowers are adorned and juices are concocted, if not because in them the entire preparation of the kind rests and, advanced by parts, grows great?

[4] Inde igitur et sapiunt unde uiuunt, tam uiuendi quam sapiendi proprietate, et quidem ab infantia et ipsae sua. Video enim et uitem adhuc teneram et inpuberem intellegentem tamen iam opera sua et uolentem alicui adhaerere, cui innixa et innexa proficiat. Denique non expectata rustica disciplina, sine arundine, sine ceruo, si quid attigerit, ultro amabit, et quidem uiriosius amplexabitur de suo ingenio quam de tuo arbitrio.

[4] From that source, therefore, they both have understanding whence they live, with the property both of living and of understanding, and indeed from infancy they too have their own. For I see even a vine, still tender and immature, yet already discerning its own operations and wishing to cling to something, upon which, leaning and entwined, it may make progress. Finally, without awaiting rustic discipline, without a reed, without a stake, if it has touched anything, it will of its own accord love it, and indeed it will embrace it more vigorously by its own native disposition than by your choice.

Properat esse secura.

It hastens to be secure.

[5] Video et hederas, quantum uelis premas, statim ad superna conari et nullo praeeunte suspendi, quod malint parietibus inuehi textili silua quam humi teri uoluntaria iniuria. Contra quibus de aedificio male est, ut crescendo recedunt, ut refugiunt? Sentias ramos aliorsum destinatos, et animationem arboris de diuortio parietis intellegas.

[5] I also see the ivies, however much you press them, straightway strive toward the heights and, with no one going before, hang themselves, because they prefer to be carried upon walls, a textile woodland, rather than to be worn on the ground by self-chosen injury. On the contrary, those for whom it goes ill with the building—as they grow they draw back, they flee? You would sense branches destined elsewhere, and you would understand the animation of the tree from its divorce from the wall.

Contenta est paruitate quam ex primordio prouidentissimi fructicis edidicit, timens etiam ruinam.

She is content with the parvity which from the beginning she has thoroughly learned from the most provident shrub, fearing also ruin.

[6] Has ego sapientias et scientias arborum cur non contendam? Viuant ut philosophi uolunt, sapiant ut philosophi nolunt, intellegat et infantia ligni, quo magis hominis, cuius anima uelut surculus quidam ex matrice Adam in propaginem deducta et genitalibus feminae foueis commendata cum omni sua paratura pullulauit tam intellectu quam et sensu.

[6] Why should I not contend for these wisdoms and sciences of trees? Let them live as philosophers will, let them be wise as philosophers will not; and let even the infancy of the wood understand—how much more that of man—whose soul, as a certain scion drawn from the matrix of Adam into propagation and commended to the genital pits of the female, has budded forth with all its apparatus, both in intellect and also in sense.

[7] Mentior, si non statim infans, ut uitam uagitu salutauit, hoc ipsum se testatur sensisse atque intellexisse quod natus est, omnes simul ibidem dedicans sensus, et luce uisum et sono auditum et umore gustum et aere odoratum et terra tactum. Ita prima illa uox de primis sensuum motibus et de primis intellectuum pulsibus cogitur.

[7] I lie, if not immediately the infant, as he saluted life with a wail, bears witness that he has felt and also understood this very thing—that he has been born—dedicating all the senses at once there in the same place, sight by light and hearing by sound and taste by moisture and smell by air and touch by earth. Thus that first voice is compelled from the first motions of the senses and from the first pulses of the intellects.

[8] Plus est quod de prospectu lacrimabilis uitae quidam augurem incommodorum uocem illam flebilem interpretantur, quod etiam praesciens habenda sit ab ingressu natiuitatis, nedum intellegens. Exinde et matrem spiritu probat et nutricem spiritu examinat et gerulam spiritu agnoscit, fugiens extranea ubera et recusans ignota cubilia , neminem appetens nisi ex usu.

[8] What is more, from the prospect of a lachrymable life certain people interpret that weeping voice as an augury of incommodities, namely that even a prescience is to be had from the entrance of nativity, not to say understanding. Thereafter he also proves the mother by spirit, examines the nurse by spirit, and recognizes the nursemaid by spirit, fleeing alien breasts and refusing unknown beds , desiring no one except by use.

[9] Vnde illi iudicium nouitatis et moris, si non sapit? Vnde illi et offendi et demulceri, si non intellegit? Mirum satis, ut infantia naturaliter animosa sit non habens animum et naturaliter affectiosa sit non habens intellectum.

[9] Whence has he the judgment of novelty and of custom, if he has no sense? Whence has he both to be offended and to be soothed, if he does not understand? Marvelous enough, that infancy is naturally spirited while not having an animus, and naturally affective while not having intellect.

At enim Christus ex ore lactantium et paruulorum experiendo laudem nec pueritiam nec infantiam hebetes pronuntiauit, quarum altera cum suffragio occurrens testimonium ei potuit offerre, altera pro ipso trucidata utique uim sensit.

But indeed Christ from the mouth of sucklings and little children, having experienced praise, pronounced neither boyhood nor infancy dull; of which the one, coming to meet with suffrage, was able to offer him testimony, the other, slaughtered on his account, surely felt force.

XX. DE NATVRALIBVS.

20. ON NATURAL THINGS.

[1] Et hic itaque concludimus omnia naturalia animae ut substantiua eius ipsi inesse et cum ipsa procedere atque proficere, ex quo ipsa censetur. Sicut et Seneca saepe noster: insita sunt nobis omnium artium et aetatum semina, magisterque ex occulto deus producit ingenia, ex seminibus scilicet insitis et occultis per infantiam, quae sunt et intellectus. Ex his enim producuntur ingenia.

[1] And here, therefore, we conclude that all the naturalia of the soul, as its substantives, inhere in it and proceed and make progress along with it, from the moment it itself is reckoned. Just as also our Seneca often [says]: the seeds of all arts and ages are implanted in us, and God, as teacher from the hidden, brings forth ingenuities, namely from the seeds implanted and hidden through infancy, which also are intellects. For from these, indeed, ingeniuities are brought forth.

[2] Porro et frugum seminibus una generis cuiusque forma est, processus tamen uarii: alia integro statu euadunt, alia etiam meliora respondent, alia degenerant pro condicione caeli et soli, pro ratione operis et curae, pro temporum euentu, pro licentia casuum; ita et animam licebit semine uniformem, fetu multiformem. Nam et hic etiam de locis interest.

[2] Moreover, in the seeds of crops the form of each genus is one, yet the processes are various: some emerge in an integral condition, others prove even better, others degenerate according to the condition of sky and soil, according to the method of work and of care, according to the event of the seasons, according to the license of accidents; thus also it will be allowable to regard the soul uniform in seed, multiform in offspring. For here too, it also depends on places.

[3] Thebis hebetes et brutos nasci relatum est, Athenis sapiendi dicendique acutissimos, ubi penes Colyttum pueri mense citius eloquuntur praecoca lingua, siquidem et Plato in Timaeo Mineruam affirmat, cum urbem illam moliretur, nihil aliud quam regionis naturam prospexisse talia ingenia pollicitam; unde et ipse in Legibus Megillo et Cliniae praecipit condendae ciuitati locum procurare. Sed Empedocles causam argutae indolis et obtusae in sanguinis qualitate constituit, perfectum ac profectum de doctrina disciplinaque deducit. Tamen uulgata iam res est gentilium proprietatum.

[3] At Thebes, it has been reported that dull and brutish people are born; at Athens, the most acute for wisdom and speaking, where, in the district of Collytus, boys speak a month sooner with a precocious tongue, since even Plato in the Timaeus affirms that Minerva, when she was constructing that city, had regard to nothing other than the nature of the region, promising such talents; whence he himself in the Laws instructs Megillus and Clinias to procure a site for a city to be founded. But Empedocles establishes the cause of a sharp and of a dull disposition in the quality of the blood, and derives perfection and progress from doctrine and discipline. Yet by now the matter of the properties of the nations is commonplace.

Comici Phrygas timidos inludunt, Sallustius uanos Mauros et feroces Dalmatus pulsat, mendaces Cretas etiam apostolus inurit.

The comic poets mock the timid Phrygians, Sallust assails the vain Moors and the ferocious Dalmatians, and the apostle also brands the mendacious Cretans.

[4] Fortassean et de corpore et ualetudine aliquid accedat. Opimitas sapientiam impedit, exilitas expedit, paralysis mentem prodigit, pthisis seruat. Quanto magis de accidentibus habebuntur quae citra corpulentiam et ualentiam uel acuunt uel obtundunt!

[4] Perhaps also something is added from the body and from health. Corpulence impedes wisdom, leanness expedites it; paralysis squanders the mind, phthisis preserves it. How much more will those things be held among the accidents which, apart from corpulence and vigor, either sharpen or blunt!

Acuunt doctrinae disciplinae artes et experientiae negotia studia; obtundunt inscitiae ignauiae desidiae libidines inexperientiae otia uitia, super haec, si et aliquae praesunt potestates.

Doctrines, disciplines, arts, and the enterprises of experience, the studies, sharpen; ignorance, sluggishness, idleness, lusts, inexperience, leisures, vices, blunt, over and above these, if even certain powers are presiding.

[5] Enimuero praesunt, secundum nos quidem deus dominus et diabolus aemulus, secundum communem autem opinionem prouidentia et fatum et necessitas et fortuna et arbitrii libertas. Nam haec et philosophi distinguunt, et nos secundum fidem disserenda suo iam uouimus titulo.

[5] Indeed, there preside—according to us, to be sure—God the Lord and the devil the emulous rival; but according to the common opinion, Providence and Fate and Necessity and Fortune and the liberty of arbitrium. For these things the philosophers also distinguish, and we, according to the faith, have already vowed that they are to be discussed under their own title.

[6] Apparet quanta sint quae unam animae naturam uarie collocarint, ut uulgo naturae deputentur, quando non species sint, sed sortes naturae et substantiae unius, illius scilicet quam deus in Adam contulit et matricem omnium fecit; atque adeo sortes erunt, non species substantiae unius, id est uarietas ista moralis, quanta nunc est, tanta non fuerit in ipso principe generis Adam. Debuerant enim fuisse haec omnia in illo ut in fonte naturae atque inde cum tota uarietate manasse, si uarietas naturae fuisset.

[6] It appears how many are the things that have variously placed the one nature of the soul, so that they are commonly assigned to natures, since they are not species, but lots of the nature and of a single substance, of that to wit which God conferred upon Adam and made the matrix of all; and thus they will be lots, not species, of a single substance, that is, this moral variety, as great as it is now, was not so great in Adam himself, the prince of the race. For all these ought to have been in him as in the fount of nature and from there to have flowed forth with the whole variety, if the variety had been of nature

XXI.

21.

[1] Quodsi uniformis natura animae ab initio in Adam ante tot ingenia, ergo non multiformis, quia uniformis, per tot ingenia, nec triformis, ut adhuc trinitas Valentiniana caedatur, quae nec ipsa in Adam recognoscitur.

[1] But if the uniform nature of the soul was from the beginning in Adam before so many dispositions, therefore it is not multiform—because uniform—through so many dispositions, nor triform, so that even now the Valentinian Trinity may be cut down, which itself is not recognized in Adam.

[2] Quid enim spiritale in illo? Si quia prophetauit magnum illud sacramentum in Christum et ecclesiam: hoc os ex ossibus meis et caro ex carne mea uocabitur mulier; propterea relinquet homo patrem et matrem et agglutinabitur mulieri suae et erunt duo in carnem unam, hoc postea obuenit, cum in illum deus amentiam immisit, spiritalem uim, qua constat prophetia.

[2] For what was spiritual in him? If because he prophesied that great sacrament concerning Christ and the Church: 'This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman; therefore a man will leave father and mother and will be glued to his wife, and the two will be into one flesh,' this befell afterward, when God sent into him an ecstasy, a spiritual force by which prophecy consists.

[3] Si et malum eo in apparuit transgressionis admissum, nec hoc naturale deputandum est, quod instinctu serpentis operatus est, tam non naturale quam nec materiale, quia et materiae fidem iam exclusimus. Quodsi nec spiritale nec quod dicitur materiale proprium in illo fuit (etsi ex materia fuisset mali semen), superest, ut solum in illo et unicum fuerit naturale quod censetur animale, quod statu simplex et uniforme defendimus.

[3] If also the evil admitted by the transgression appeared in him, neither is this to be reckoned natural, since it was wrought by the instigation of the serpent—no more natural than it is material, because we have already excluded credit to matter. But if neither the spiritual nor what is called the material was proper in him (even if the seed of evil were from matter), it remains that the only and unique thing in him that was natural was what is reckoned animal, which in its state we defend as simple and uniform.

[4] De hoc plane relinquitur quaeri, an demutabile debeat credi, quod naturale dicatur. Idem enim conuertibilem negant naturam, ut trinitatem suam in singulis proprietatibus figant, quia arbor bona malos non ferat fructus nec mala bonos, et nemo de spinis metat ficus et de tribulis uuas. Ergo si ita est, neque de lapidibus filios Abrahae suscitare poterit deus nec genimina uiperarum facere paenitentiae fructus et errauit apostolus scribens: eratis et uos aliquando tenebrae et: fuimus et nos aliquando natura filii irae et: in his uos quoque fuistis, sed abluti estis.

[4] Concerning this, plainly, it remains to be asked whether what is called natural ought to be believed mutable. For the same people deny nature to be convertible, so that they may fix their trinity in individual properties, since a good tree does not bear bad fruits nor a bad one good, and no one reaps figs from thorns and grapes from thistles. Therefore, if it is so, neither will God be able to raise up from stones children to Abraham, nor will the brood of vipers produce fruits of repentance, and the apostle erred in writing: you too were once darkness; and: we also were once by nature children of wrath; and: in these things you also were, but you have been washed.

[5] Sed nunquam discordabunt sententiae sanctae. Non dabit enim arbor mala bonos fructus, si non inseratur, et bona malos dabit, si non colatur, et lapides filii Abrahae fient, si in fidem Abrahae formentur, et genimina uiperarum fructum paenitentiae facient, si uenena malignitatis exspuerint.

[5] But the holy sentences will never be discordant. For an evil tree will not give good fruits, unless it be grafted, and a good [tree] will give bad fruits, unless it be cultivated; and stones will become sons of Abraham, if they be formed into the faith of Abraham; and the offspring of vipers will make the fruit of penitence, if they spit out the poisons of malignity.

[6] Haec erit uis diuinae gratiae, potentior utique natura, habens in nobis subiacentem sibi liberam arbitrii potestatem quodau)tecou&sion dicitur, quae cum sit et ipsa naturalis atque mutabilis, quoquo uertitur, natura conuertitur. Inesse autem nobis to_ au)tecou&sion naturaliter iam et Marcioni ostendimus et Hermogeni.

[6] This will be the force of divine grace, more powerful, to be sure, than nature, having in us the free power of choice subject to itself, which is calledau)tecou&sion ; and since this itself also is natural and mutable, wherever it is turned, nature is turned. But that to_ au)tecou&sion is in us naturally, we have already shown both to Marcion and to Hermogenes.

[7] Quid nunc, si et naturae condicio sic erit definienda, ut duplex determinetur, natorum et innatorum, factorum et infectorum? Atque ita quod natum factumque constiterit, eius natura capiet demutationem: et renasci enim poterit et refici. Innatum autem et infectum immobile stabit.

[7] What now, if even the condition of nature is to be defined thus, that it be determined as twofold: of the born and the inborn, of the made and the unmade? And thus, whatever shall be established as born and made, its nature will take on a demutation; for it will be able to be reborn and refashioned. But the inborn and the unmade will stand immobile.

Quod cum soli deo conpetat, ut soli innato et infecto et idcirco immortali et inconuertibili, absolutum est ceterorum omnium natorum atque factorum conuertibilem et demutabilem esse naturam, ut, etsi trinitas animae adscribenda esset. ex mutatione accidentiae, non ex institutione naturae deputaretur.

Since this belongs to God alone, as to the only one unbegotten and unmade and therefore immortal and inconvertible, it is settled that the nature of all the rest, of things born and made, is convertible and demutable, so that, even if a trinity of the soul had to be ascribed, it would be reckoned from a change of accident, not from the constitution of nature.

XXII.

22.

[1] Cetera animae naturalia iam a nobis audiit Hermogenes cum ipsorum defensione et probatione, per quae dei potius quam materiae propinqua cognoscitur. Hic solummodo nominabuntur, ne praeterita uideantur. Dedimus enim illi et libertatem arbitrii, ut supra scripsimus, et dominationem rerum et diuinationem interdum, seposita quae per dei gratiam obuenit ex prophetia.

[1] The other naturalia of the soul Hermogenes has already heard from us, along with their defense and probation, through which it is known as nearer to God rather than to matter. Here they will only be named, lest they seem to have been passed over. For we have given to it both the liberty of arbitrium (free choice), as we wrote above, and dominion over things, and at times divination, setting aside that which comes by the grace of God from prophecy.

Itaque iam ab isto dispositionis retractatu recedam, ut ordinem eius expungam.

Therefore now I will recede from that retractation of the disposition, so that I may expunge its order.

[2] Definimus animam dei flatu natam, immortalem, corporalem, effigiatam, substantia simplicem, de suo sapientem, uarie procedentem, liberam arbitrii, accidentis obnoxiam, per ingenia mutabilem, rationalem, dominatricem, diuinatricem, ex una redundantem. Sequitur nunc ut quomodo ex una redundet consideremus, id est, unde et quando et qua ratione sumatur.

[2] We define the soul as born from the breath of God, immortal, corporal, effigiated, simple in substance, wise from its own resources, proceeding in various ways, free in choice, liable to the accidental, changeable through inborn dispositions, rational, dominating, divinatory, overflowing from one. It now follows that we consider how it overflows from one, that is, whence and when and by what rationale it is taken.

XXIII. VNDE ANIMA.

23. WHENCE THE SOUL.

[1] Quidam de caelis deuenisse se credunt tanta persuasione quanta et illuc indubitate regressuros repromittunt, ut Saturninus Menandri Simoniani discipulus induxit, hominem affirmans ab angelis factum primoque opus futtile et inualidum et instabile in terra uermis instar palpitasse, quod consistendi uires deessent, dehinc ex misericordia summae potestatis, ad cuius effigiem, nec tamen plene perspectam, temere structus fuisset, scintillulam uitae consecutum, quae illud exsuscitarit et erexerit et constantius animarit et post decessum uitae ad matricem relatura sit.

[1] Some believe that they have descended from the heavens with as great a persuasion as they also promise that they will undoubtedly return thither, as Saturninus, a disciple of Menander the Simonian, introduced, affirming that man was made by angels and that at first the work, futile and feeble and unstable, palpitated on the earth like a worm, because the powers for standing were lacking; then, from the mercy of the supreme Power, to whose effigy—yet not fully beheld—he had been rashly constructed, he obtained a little scintilla of life, which awakened it and raised it up and animated it more steadily, and after the departure of life is to return it to the matrix.

[2] Sed et Carpocrates tantundem sibi de superioribus uindicat, ut discipuli eius animas suas iam et Christo, nedum apostolis, et peraequent et cum uolunt praeferant, quas perinde de sublimi uirtute conceperint despectrices mundipotentium principatuum.

[2] But Carpocrates likewise lays claim for himself to just as much from the supernal realms, so that his disciples both make their souls equal now even to Christ—let alone to the apostles—and, whenever they wish, prefer them, souls which likewise they have conceived from sublime virtue, disdainful of the principalities of the world-powers.

[3] Apelles sollicitatas refert animas terrenis escis de supercaelestibus sedibus ab igneo angelo, deo Israelis et nostro, qui exinde illis peccatricem circumfinxerit carnem.

[3] Apelles reports that souls, enticed by terrestrial foods, from supercelestial seats, by a fiery angel, the God of Israel and ours, who thereafter has fashioned around them sinful flesh.

[4] Examen Valentini semen Sophiae infulcit animae, per quod historias atque milesias aeonum suorum ex imaginibus uisibilium recognoscunt.

[4] Valentinus’s touchstone rams the seed of Sophia into the soul, through which they recognize the histories and Milesian tales of their Aeons from the images of visible things.

[5] Doleo bona fide Platonem omnium haereticorum condimentarium factum. Illius est enim et in Phaedone, quod animae hinc euntes sint illuc, et inde huc ; item in Timaeo, quod genimina dei delegata sibi mortalium genitura accepto initio animae immortali mortale ei circumgelauerint corpus; tum, quod mundus hic imago sit alterius alicuius.

[5] I grieve in good faith that Plato has been made the seasoner of all heretics. For it is his too, in the Phaedo, that souls going from here go there, and from there to here ; likewise in the Timaeus, that the offspring of god, to whom the begetting of mortals had been delegated, after receiving the beginning of the soul—immortal—congealed around it a mortal body; then, that this world is the image of some other.

[6] Quae omnia ut fidei commendet, et animam retro in superioribus cum deo egisse in commercio idearum et inde huc transuenire et hic quae retro norit de exemplaribus recensere, nouum elaborauit argumentum,maqh&seij a)namnh&seij, id est discentias reminiscentias esse; uenientes enim inde huc animas obliuisci eorum in quibus prius fuerint, dehinc ex his uisibilibus edoctas recordari. Cum igitur huiusmodi argumento illa insinuentur a Platone quae haeretici mutuantur, satis haereticos repercutiam, si argumentum Platonis elidam.

[6] In order to commend all these things to belief, and that the soul formerly up above had conducted itself with God in a commerce of ideas and from there crosses over to here and here reviews from the exemplars what formerly it knew, he elaborated a new argument,maqh&seij a)namnh&seij, that is, that learnings are reminiscences; for the souls coming from there to here forget the things in which they previously were, then, instructed by these visible things, recall. Therefore, since by an argument of this sort those points are insinuated by Plato which the heretics borrow, I shall sufficiently beat back the heretics, if I dash to pieces Plato’s argument.

XXIV. ADVERSVS PLATONIS maqh&seij kai\ a)namnh&seij.

24. AGAINST PLATO’S LEARNINGS AND RECOLLECTIONS.

[1] Primo quidem obliuionis capacem animam non cedam, quia tantam illi concessit diuinitatem, ut deo adaequetur. Innatam eam facit, quod et solum armare potuissem ad testimonium plenae diuinitatis; adicit immortalem, incorruptibilem, incorporalem, quia hoc et deum credidit, inuisibilem, ineffigiabilem, uniformem, principalem, rationalem, intellectualem. Quid amplius proscriberet animam, si eam deum nuncuparet?

[1] First indeed I will not yield that the soul is capable of oblivion, because he has granted to it such divinity that it is equated to God. He makes it innate—which alone I might have been able to arm as testimony of full divinity; he adds that it is immortal, incorruptible, incorporeal, because he believed this also of God; invisible, ineffigurable, uniform, principal, rational, intellectual. What more would he ascribe to the soul, if he were to name it God?

[2] Nos autem, qui nihil deo adpendimus, hoc ipso animam longe infra deum expendimus, quod natam eam agnoscimus ac per hoc dilutioris diuinitatis et exilioris felicitatis, ut flatum, non ut spiritum; et si immortalem, ut hoc sit diuinitatis, tamen passibilem, ut hoc sit natiuitatis, ideoque et a primordio exorbitationis capacem et inde etiam obliuionis affinem. Satis de isto cum Hermogene.

[2] But we, who append nothing to God, by this very fact reckon the soul far beneath God, in that we acknowledge it as born, and thereby of a more diluted divinity and a more exiguous felicity, as breath, not as spirit; and if immortal, inasmuch as this is of divinity, yet passible, inasmuch as this is of nativity, and therefore from the beginning capable of exorbitation and from that also akin to oblivion. Enough on this with Hermogenes.

[3] Ceterum quae, ut haberi merito possit ex peraequatione omnium proprietatum deus, nulli passioni subiacebit, ita nec obliuioni, cum tanta sit iniuria obliuio quanta est gloria eius cuius iniuria est, memoria scilicet, quam et ipse Plato sensuum et intellectuum salutem et Cicero thesaurum omnium studiorum praedicauit. Nec hoc iam in dubium deducetur, an tam diuina anima memoriam potuerit amittere, sed an quam amiserit recuperare denuo possit. Quae enim non debuit obliuisci, si oblita sit, nescio an ualeat recordari.

[3] Moreover, that which, in order that it may deservedly be held God by the equalization of all properties, will be subject to no passion—so neither to oblivion, since so great an injury is oblivion as is the glory of that of which it is the injury, namely memory, which Plato himself proclaimed the salvation of the senses and of the intellects, and Cicero the treasury of all studies. Nor will this now be brought into doubt, whether so divine a soul could have been able to lose memory, but whether it can recover anew that which it has lost. For that which it ought not to have forgotten, if it has forgotten it, I do not know whether it has the strength to recollect.

Ita utrumque meae animae, non Platonicae congruet.

Thus both will be congruent with my soul, not with the Platonic one.

[4] Secundo gradu opponam: natura compotem animam facis idearum illarum, an non? 'Immo natura', inquis. Nemo ergo concedet naturalem scientiam naturalium excidere; artium excidet, studiorum; excidet doctrinarum, disciplinarum; excidet fortasse et ingeniorum et affectuum, quae naturae uidentur, non tamen sunt, quia, ut praemisimus, et pro locis et pro institutionibus et pro corpulentiis ac ualetudinibus et pro potestatibus dominatricibus et pro libertatibus arbitrii ex accidentibus constant.

[4] In a second step I will object: do you make the soul by nature a sharer in those Ideas, or not? “Nay rather, by nature,” you say. No one, therefore, will concede that natural knowledge of things natural falls away; it will fall away in the case of the arts, of studies; it will fall away in the case of doctrines, of disciplines; it will perhaps also fall away of ingenuities and affections, which seem to be of nature, yet are not, because, as we premised, both according to places and according to institutions and according to corpulences and valetudines and according to dominating powers and according to the liberties of free choice they consist of accidents.

[5] Naturalium uero scientia ne in bestiis quidem deficit. Plane obliuiscetur feritatis leo mansuetudinis eruditione praeuentus et cum toto suggestu iubarum delicium fiet Berenices alicuius reginae lingua genas eius emaculans. Mores bestiam relinquent, scientia naturalium permanebit.

[5] Yet the science of natural things does not fail even in beasts. Clearly the lion, forestalled by the erudition of mansuetude, will forget ferocity, and, with the whole display of his manes, will become the pet of some queen Berenice, cleansing her cheeks with his tongue. Mores will leave the beast; the science of natural things will remain.

Non obliuiscetur idem naturalium pabulorum, naturalium remediorum, naturalium terrorum; et si de piscibus et si de placentis regina ei obtulerit, carnem desiderabit, et si languenti theriacam composuerit, simiam leo requiret, et si nullum illi uenabulum obfirmabit, gallum tamen formidabit.

He will not forget the same natural foods, natural remedies, natural terrors; and even if a queen should offer him fish and cakes, he will desire flesh, and if she should compound theriac for him when he is languishing, the lion will seek a monkey, and even if she should fasten no hunting-spear against him, nevertheless he will dread a cock.

[6] Perinde et homini omnium forsitan obliuiosissimo inoblitterata perseuerabit sola scientia naturalium, ut sola scilicet naturalis, memor semper manducandi in esurie et bibendi in siti, et oculis uidendum et auribus audiendum et naribus odorandum et ore gustandum et manu contrectandum. Hi sunt certe sensus, quos philosophia depretiat intellectualium praelatione.

[6] Likewise for man, perhaps the most oblivious of all, the sole science of natural things will persevere unobliterated, as the only one, namely natural, always mindful of eating in hunger and drinking in thirst, and for the eyes to see and for the ears to hear and for the nostrils to smell and for the mouth to taste and for the hand to handle. These are certainly the senses, which philosophy depreciates by the prelation of intellectual things.

[7] Igitur si naturalis scientia sensualium permanet, quomodo intellectualium, quae potior habetur, intercidet? Vnde nunc ipsa uis obliuionis antecedentis recordationem? 'Ex multitudine', ait, 'temporis'. Satis improspecte!

[7] Therefore, if the natural knowledge of the sensuals endures, how will that of the intellectuals, which is held as the superior, perish? Whence now the very force of oblivion against antecedent recollection? 'From the multitude,' he says, 'of time.' Quite unadvisedly!

Quantitas enim temporis non pertinebit ad eam rem quae innata dicatur ac per hoc potissimum aeterna credatur. Quod enim aeternum est, eo quia et innatum est, neque initium neque finem temporis admittendo nullum modum temporis patitur; cui temporis modus nullus est, nec ulla demutatione tempori subest nec ea de multitudine temporis uis est.

For the quantity of time will not pertain to that thing which is said to be innate and for this very reason is believed to be most of all eternal. For that which is eternal, because it is also innate, by admitting neither a beginning nor an end of time, suffers no measure or mode of time; for that to which there is no mode of time, neither is it subject to any mutation with respect to time, nor is there upon it any force from the multitude of time.

[8] Si tempus in causa est obliuionis, cur ex quo anima corpori inducitur, memoria delabitur, quasi exinde tempus anima sustineat, quae sine dubio prior corpore non fuit utique sine tempore? Ingressa uero corpus statimne obliuiscitur, an aliquanto post? Si statim, et quae erit temporis nondum subputandi multitudo?

[8] If time is in the cause of oblivion, why, from the moment the soul is introduced into the body, does memory lapse, as though from then the soul were sustaining time, which, without doubt, prior to the body was not, assuredly, without time? But upon entering the body does it at once forget, or somewhat after? If at once, then what will be the multitude of time not yet to be computed?

[Infantia scilicet.] Si aliquanto post, ergo illo in spatio ante tempora obliuionis memor adhuc aget anima. Et quale est, ut postea obliuiscatur et rursus postea recordetur? Quoque autem tempore illam obliuio inruerit, quantus hic etiam habebitur modus temporis?

[Infancy, namely.] If somewhat later, then in that interval before the times of oblivion the soul will still act as mindful. And what sort of thing is it, that afterward it should forget and then afterward remember again? And at whatever time oblivion rushes upon it, what measure of time even here will be held?

Tota, opinor, uitae decursio satis non erit ad euertendam memoriam tanti ante corpus aeui.

The whole course of life, I suppose, will not be sufficient to overturn the memory of so great an age before the body.

[9] Sed rursus Plato causam demutat in corpus, quasi et hoc fide dignum, ut nata substantia innatae uim extinguat. Magnae autem ac multae differentiae corporum pro gentilitate, pro magnitudine, pro habitudine, pro aetate, pro ualetudine. Num ergo et obliuionum differentiae aestimabuntur?

[9] But again Plato shifts the cause into the body, as though this too were worthy of credence: that a born substance should extinguish the power of the innate. Moreover, there are great and many differences of bodies by nationality, by magnitude, by habitude, by age, by health. Are then even the differences of oblivions to be assessed?

Sed uniformis obliuio est; ergo non erit corporalitas multiformis in causa exitus uniformis.

But oblivion is uniform; therefore multiform corporeality will not be in the cause of a uniform outcome.

[10] Multa item documenta teste ipso Platone diuinationem animae probauerunt, quae proposuimus iam Hermogeni. Sed nec quisquam hominum non et ipse aliquando praesagam animam suam sentit, aut ominis aut periculi aut gaudii augurem. Si diuinationi non obstrepit corpus, nec memoriae, opinor, officiet.

[10] Many likewise documents, with Plato himself as witness, have proved the soul’s divination, which we have already set forth to Hermogenes. But neither is there any human who does not himself at some time feel his soul presaging, an augur of omen or of peril or of joy. If the body does not clamor against divination, neither, I suppose, will it hinder memory.

In eodem certe corpore et obliuiscuntur animae et recordantur. Si qua corporis ratio incutit obliuionem, quomodo contrariam eius admittet recordationem (quia et ipsa post obliuionem recordatio memoria recidiua est)? Quod primae memoriae aduersatur, cur non et secundae refragatur?

Certainly, in the same body souls both forget and remember. If some condition of the body instills forgetfulness, how will it admit its contrary, recordation (since recordation itself after forgetfulness is a recidivous memory)? That which is adverse to the first memory—why does it not also gainsay the second?

[11] Postremo, qui magis reminiscerentur quam pueruli, ut recentiores animae, ut nondum immersae domesticis ac publicis curis, ut ipsis solis debitae studiis, quorum discentiae reminiscentiae fiunt? Immo cur non ex aequo omnes recordamur, cum ex aequo omnes obliuiscamur? Sed tantummodo philosophi; ne hi quidem omnes.

[11] Finally, who would more reminisce than little children, as more recent souls, as not yet immersed in domestic and public cares, as owed to studies themselves alone, whose learnings become reminiscences? Nay, why do we not all recall equally, since we all forget equally? But only philosophers; nor even all of these.

Plato scilicet solus in tanta gentium silua, in tanto sapientium prato, idearum et oblitus et recordatus est.

Plato, to be sure, alone, in so great a forest of peoples, in so great a meadow of the wise, both forgot and remembered ideas.

[12] Igitur et si nullo modo consistit argumentatio ista praecipua, totum illud pariter euersum est, cui accommodata est, ut animae et innatae et in caelestibus conuersatae et consciae diuinorum illic et inde delatae et hic recordatae crederentur, ad occasiones plane haereticis subministrandas.

[12] Therefore, if in no way does that principal argumentation stand, that whole thing is likewise overturned, to which it was accommodated, namely that souls should be believed both innate and to have dwelt in the heavens and to be conscious of divine things there, and from there to have been brought down, and here to have been remembered, plainly for occasions to be supplied to heretics.

XXV. ANIMAM ET CARNEM SIMVL CONCIPI.

25. THE SOUL AND THE FLESH ARE CONCEIVED TOGETHER.

[1] Iam nunc regrediar ad causam huius excessus, uti reddam, quomodo animae ex una redundent, quando et ubi et qua ratione sumantur; de qua specie nihil refert, a philosopho an ab haeretico an a uulgo quaestio occurrat.

[1] Now then I will regress to the cause of this excursus, so that I may render how souls overflow from one, when and where and by what rationale they are taken up; concerning which kind it matters nothing whether the question occurs from a philosopher or from a heretic or from the common crowd.

[2] Nulla interest professoribus ueritatis de aduersariis eius, maxime tam audacibus quam sunt primo isti, qui praesumunt non in utero concipi animam nec cum carnis figulatione compingi atque produci, sed et effuso iam partu nondum uiuo infanti extrinsecus inprimi; ceteram semen ex concubitu muliebribus locis sequestratum motuque naturali uegetatum compinguescere in solam substantiam carnis; eam editam et de uteri fornace fumantem et calore solutam, ut ferrum ignitum et ibidem frigidae immersum, ita aeris rigore percussam et uim animalem rapere et uocalem sonum reddere. Hoc Stoici cum Aenesidemo et ipse interdum Plato, cum dicit perinde animam extraneam alias et extorrem uteri prima adspiratione nascentis infantis adduci, sicut exspiratione nouissima educi. Videbimus an ex sententia finxerit.

[2] It makes no difference to the professors of truth regarding its adversaries, especially such audacious ones as those first, who presume that the soul is not conceived in the womb nor compounded and produced together with the figulation of the flesh, but that, with the birth now poured out, it is imprinted from without upon the not-yet-living infant; whereas the seed from intercourse, sequestered in the womanly places and quickened by natural motion, thickens into the sole substance of flesh; that, once it has been brought forth and is smoking from the furnace of the womb and loosened by heat, as iron ignited and then thereupon plunged into cold, thus, struck by the rigor of the air, it snatches animal force and renders a vocal sound. This the Stoics together with Aenesidemus, and even Plato himself at times, when he says that in like manner an extraneous soul, and sometimes one exiled from the womb, is brought in by the first inspiration of the infant being born, just as by the latest expiration it is led out. We shall see whether he has fashioned this to good sense.

Ne ex medicis quidem defuit Hicesius, et naturae et artis suae praeuaricator.

Nor was Hicesius lacking even among the physicians, a prevaricator of both nature and his own art.

[3] Puduit, opinor, illos id statuere quod feminae agnoscerent. Et quanto ruboratior exitus a feminis reuinci quam probari! In ista namque specie nemo tam idoneus magister arbiter testis quam sexus ipsius.

[3] It shamed them, I suppose, to establish that which women would recognize. And how much more blush‑inducing is the outcome, to be refuted by women rather than approved! For in this very matter no one is so fit a master, arbiter, and witness as the sex itself.

Respondete, matres, uos quae praegnantes, uos quae puerperae, steriles et masculi taceant, uestrae naturae ueritas quaeritur, uestrae passionis fides conuenitur, an aliquam in fetu sentiatis uiuacitatem alienam de uestro, de quo palpitent ilia, micent latera, tota uentris ambitio pulsetur, ubique ponderis regio mutetur; an hi motus gaudia uestra sint et certa securitas, quod ita infantem et uiuere confidatis et ludere; an si desierit inquies eius, illi prius pertimescatis; an et audiat iam in uobis, cum ad nouum sonum excutitur; an et ciborum uanitates illi desideretis, illi etiam fastidiatis; an et ualetudinibus inuicem communicetis, ille quidem usque et contusionibus uestris, quibus et ipse intus per eadem membra signatur, rapiens sibi iniurias matris.

Respond, mothers, you who are pregnant, you who are in childbed; let the sterile and the males be silent: the truth of your nature is sought, the trustworthiness of your experience is summoned—whether you feel in the fetus some liveliness alien to your own, from which the flanks palpitate, the sides quiver, the whole ambit of the belly is beaten, everywhere the region of weight is shifted; whether these motions are your joys and a sure security, because thus you are confident that the infant both lives and plays; or, if his restlessness ceases, you first grow afraid for him; and whether he already hears within you, when he is stirred at a new sound; and whether you desire for him even the vanities (whims) of foods, and also feel aversions for him; and whether you share illnesses mutually, he indeed even your contusions, by which he too within is marked through the same members, snatching to himself the injuries of the mother.

[4] Si liuor ac rubor sanguinis passio est, sine anima non erit sanguis; si ualetudo omnis accessio est, sine anima non erit ualetudo; si alimonia inedia crementa decrementa pauor motus tractatio est animae, his qui fungitur uiuet. Denique desinit uiuere qui desinit fungi. Denique et mortui eduntur; quomodo, nisi et uiui?

[4] If lividity and the redness of blood are a passion, without
a soul there will not be blood; if the state of health is wholly an accession, without a soul there will not be a state of health; if alimentation, fasting, increments, decrements, fear, motions, handling are an operation of the soul, whoever discharges these will live. In fine, he ceases to live who ceases to discharge them. Finally, even the dead are brought forth; how, unless also while living?

Qui autem et mortui, nisi qui prius uiui? Atquin et in ipso adhuc utero infans trucidatur necessaria crudelitate, cum in exitu obliquatus denegat partum, matricida, ni moriturus.

But who are even the dead, if not those who were first living? And yet even in the womb itself the infant is butchered by necessary cruelty, when, askew in the exit, he denies parturition—a matricide, unless he is about to die.

[5] Itaque est inter arma medicorum et cum organo, ex quo prius patescere secreta coguntur tortili temperamento, cum anulocultro, quo intus membra caeduntur anxio arbitrio, cum hebete unco, quo totum facinus extrahitur uiolento puerperio. Est etiam aeneum spiculum, quo iugulatio ipsa dirigitur caeco latrocinio;e0mbruosfa&kthn appellant de infanticidii officio, utique uiuentis infantis peremptorium. Hoc et Hippocrates habuit et Asclepiades et Erasistratus et maiorum quoque prosector Herophilus et mitior ipse Soranus, certi animal esse conceptum atque ita miserti infelicissimae huiusmodi infantiae, ut prius occidatur, ne uiua lanietur.

[5] And so, among the arms of physicians there is also the instrument, by which the secrets are first compelled to lie open by a twisted adjustment; the ring-knife, by which the limbs within are hewn at an anxious discretion; the blunt hook, by which the whole crime is drawn out in a violent childbirth. There is also a brazen little-spike, by which the very jugulation is directed with blind latrociny;e0mbruosfa&kthn they call it from the office of infanticide, indeed a destroyer of a living infant. This both Hippocrates had and Asclepiades and Erasistratus and Herophilus too, the prosector of the ancients, and even Soranus himself, gentler though he be—being certain that the conceived is a living being, and thus taking pity on this most unfortunate sort of infancy, that it be killed first, lest it be torn to pieces alive.

[6] De qua sceleris necessitate nec dubitabat, credo, Hicesius, iam natis animam superducens ex aeris frigidi pulsu, quia et ipsum uocabulum animae penes Graecos de refrigeratione respondens. Num ergo barbarae Romanaeque gentes aliter animantur, quia animam aliud quid quamyuxh&n cognominauerunt? Quantae uero nationes sub feruentissimo axe censentur colorem quoque excoctae?

[6] About which necessity of wickedness Hicesius, I believe, did not doubt, superinducing the soul to those already born from the stroke of cold air, because even the very vocabulary for the soul among the Greeks corresponds to refrigeration. Therefore do the barbarian and Roman peoples get animated otherwise, because they have surnamed the soul something other thanyuxh&n ? And how many nations beneath the most fervent axis are deemed to have even their color baked out?

Vnde illis animam, quibus aeris rigor nullus? Taceo cubiculares aestus et omnem illic caloris paraturam enitentibus necessariam, quas afflari uel maxime periculum est. In ipsis paene balneis fetus elabitur, et statim uagitus auditur.

Whence for them is a soul, for whom there is no rigor of the air? I pass over the cubicular heats and every preparation of heat there necessary for women in labor, for whom it is most especially dangerous to be breathed upon. The fetus slips out almost in the baths themselves, and immediately the wail is heard.

[7] Ceterum si aeris rigor thesaurus est animae, extra Germanias et Scythias et Alpes et Argaeos nemo debuit nasci. Atquin et populi frequentiores apud orientalem et meridialem temperaturam et ingenia expeditiora, omnibus Sarmatis etiam mente torpentibus. Et animi enim de rigoribus scitiores prouenirent, si animae de frigusculis euenirent; cum substantia enim et uis.

[7] But if the rigor of the air is a treasure of the soul, outside the Germanias and the Scythias and the Alps and Argaeus no one ought to have been born. And yet both the peoples are more numerous under an eastern and southern temperateness, and the talents are more unencumbered, while all the Sarmatians are torpid even in mind. For minds too would come forth more knowing from rigors, if souls arose from little chills; since then the substance and the force would correspond.

[8] His ita praestructis possumus illos quoque recogitare qui exsecto matris utero uiui aerem hauserunt, Liberi aliqui et Scipiones. Quodsi qui, ut Plato, perinde non putat duas animas in unum conuenire, sicut nec corpora, ego illi non modo duas animas in unum congestas ostendissem, sicut et corpora, in fetibus, uerum et alia multa cum anima conserta, daemonis scilicet , nec unius, ut in Socrate ipso, uerum et septenarii spiritus, ut in Magdalena, et legionarii numeri, ut in Geraseno, quo facilius anima cum anima conseretur ex societate substantiae quam spiritus nequam ex diuersitate naturae.

[8] With these things thus prearranged we can also reconsider those who, with the mother’s womb cut out, drank in the air alive—certain Liberi and Scipios. But if anyone, as Plato, likewise thinks that two souls do not come together into one, just as neither do bodies, I would have shown him not only two souls heaped together into one, as also bodies, in fetuses, but even many other things interwoven with the soul—namely the demon’s —and not of one, as in Socrates himself, but also a septenary of spirits, as in the Magdalene, and a legionary number, as in the Gerasene; whereby soul with soul will more easily be stitched together from a fellowship of substance than an evil spirit from a diversity of nature.

[9] At idem in sexto Legum monens cauere, ne uitiatio seminis ex aliqua uilitate concubitus labem corpori et animae supparet, nescio de pristina magis an de ista sententia sibi exciderit. Ostendit enim animam de semine induci, quod curari monet, non de prima aspiratione nascentis. Vnde, oro, similitudine animae quoque parentibus de ingeniis respondemus secundum Cleanthis testimonium, si non et ex animae semine educimur?

[9] But the same man, in the sixth Book of the Laws, warning to beware lest a vitiation of seed, from some vileness of coitus, should superinduce a stain upon body and soul, I know not whether he has fallen away more from his former opinion or from this one. For he shows that the soul is induced from seed—which he urges to be cared for—not from the first aspiration of the one being born. Whence, I pray, do we also, in the likeness of the soul, answer to our parents in endowments, according to the testimony of Cleanthes, if we are not also educed from the seed of the soul?

Cur autem et ueteres astrologi genituram hominis ab initio conceptus dirigebant, si non exinde et anima est, ad quam aeque pertinet, si quid est, flatus?

Why moreover did even the ancient astrologers direct a man’s geniture from the beginning of conception, if the soul is not from that point as well, to which the breath—if it is anything—equally pertains?

XXVI.

26.

[1] Sed omnis inaequalitas sententiae humanae usque ad dei terminos. In nostras iam lineas gradum colligam, ut quod philosophis medicisque respondi, Christiano probem. De tuo, frater, fundamento fidem aedifica; aspice uiuentes uteros sanctissimarum feminarum nec modo spirantes iam illic infantes, uerum etiam prophetantes.

[1] But every inequality of human judgment goes only as far as the boundaries of God. I will now gather my step back within our own lines, so that what I have answered to philosophers and to physicians I may prove to the Christian. On your own foundation, brother, build faith; look upon the living wombs of most holy women, and not only infants already breathing therein, but even prophesying.

[2] Ecce uiscera Rebeccae inquietantur et longe adhuc partus et aeris nullus impulsus. Ecce duplex fetus in locis matris tumultuatur et nusquam adhuc populi duo. Portentosa forsitan petulantia infantiae ante certantis quam umentis, ante animosae quam animatae, si tantummodo matrem subsultando turbasset.

[2] Behold the viscera of Rebecca are disturbed, and the birth is still far off, and there is no impulse of air. Behold a double fetus makes tumult in the mother’s places, and nowhere as yet are there two peoples. A portentous, perhaps, petulance of infancy, contending before being moist, high-spirited before being animated, if it had only disturbed the mother by leaping.

At cum partus aperitus et numerus inspicitur et auguratus recognoscitur, puto, iam non animae solummodo probantur infantum, sed et pugnae.

But when the birth is laid open and the number is inspected and the augury is recognized, I think that now not only the souls of the infants are proved, but also the combats.

[3] Detinebatur qui praeuenerat nasci a praeuento necdum plenius edito, tantum manu nato. Et si ipse animam de prima aspiratione potabat Platonico more aut de aeris rigore carpebat Stoica forma, quid ille qui expectabatur, qui adhuc intus detinebatur et foris iam detinebat? Nondum, opinor, spirans plantam fratris inuaserat, etiamnunc calens matre se priorem prodisse cupiebat.

[3] He who had anticipated being born was being detained by the preempted one, not yet more fully brought forth, with only his hand born. And even if he himself was drinking in soul from the first aspiration in the Platonic manner, or in the Stoic form was plucking from the rigor of the air, what of the one who was being expected, who was still detained within and was already detaining without? Not yet, I suppose, breathing, he had seized the sole of his brother; even now warm from the mother he was desiring to have come forth prior.

O infantem et aemulum et ualidum et olim contentiosum, credo, quia uiuum.

O infant, emulous and valid and long since contentious, I believe, because living.

[4] Aspice etiam singulares conceptus et quidem monstrosiores, sterilis et uirginis, quae uel hoc ipso imperfectos edere potuissent pro euersione naturae, ut altera seminis stupida, altera intacta. Decebat, si forte, sine anima nasci, qui fuerant non rite concepti, sed et illi uiuunt in suo quisque utero. Exsultat Elizabeth, Johannes intus impulerat; glorificat dominum Maria.

[4] Consider also the singular conceptions, and indeed the more monstrous ones, of a sterile woman and of a virgin, who even by this very fact might have brought forth imperfect offspring, to the overthrow of nature—since the one was insensible to seed, the other untouched. It would have been fitting, perhaps, that those who had not been duly conceived be born without a soul; yet even they live, each in his own womb. Elizabeth exults—John had stirred within; Mary glorifies the Lord.

Christus intus instinxerat. Agnoscunt matres suos inuicem fetus, agnitae mutuo ab ipsis utique uiuentibus, qui non tantum animae erant, uenim et spiritus.

Christ had prompted from within. The mothers recognize each other’s offspring in turn, themselves in turn recognized by them, assuredly as living—who were not only souls, but indeed spirit as well.

[5] Sic et ad Hieremiam legis dei uocem: priusquam te in utero fingerem, noui te. Si fingit deus in utero, et afflat ex primordii forma: et finxit deus hominem et flauit in eum flatum uitae. Nec nosset autem hominem deus in utero nisi totum: et priusquam exires de uulua, sanctificaui te. Et mortuum adhuc corpus? Vtique nequaquam: deus enim uiuorum, non mortuorum.

[5] Thus also to Jeremiah you read the voice of God: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” If God fashions in the womb, and breathes from the primordial form: “and God formed man and breathed into him the breath of life.” Nor would God know man in the womb except as a whole; “and before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you.” And would the body be still dead? Assuredly by no means: for God is the God of the living, not of the dead.

XXVII.

27.

[1] Quomodo igitur animal conceptum? Simulne conflata utriusque substantia corporis animaeque an altera earum praecedente? Immo simul ambas et concipi et confici, perfici dicimus, sicut et promi, nec ullum interuenire momentum in conceptu quo locus ordinetur.

[1] How, then, is the animate being conceived? Is the substance of both body and soul fused at once, or does one of them precede? Rather, we say that both together are conceived and fashioned, perfected, just as also to be brought forth, and that no moment intervenes in conception in which place is ordered.

[2] Recogita enim de nouissimis prima: si mors non aliud determinatur quam disiunctio corporis animaeque, contrarium morti uita non aliud definietur quam coniunctio corporis animaeque; si disiunctio simul utrique substantiae accidit per mortem, hoc debet coniunctionis forma mandasse pariter obuenientis per uitam utrique substantiae.

[2] Reconsider, then, the first things from the last: if death is determined as nothing other than the disjunction of body and soul, the contrary of death, life, will be defined as nothing other than the conjunction of body and soul; if the disjunction befalls both substances at the same time through death, this the form of conjunction, equally coming through life to both substances, ought to have mandated.

[3] Porro uitam a conceptu agnoscimus, quia animam a conceptu uindicamus; exinde enim uita, quo anima. Pariter ergo in uitam compinguntur quae pariter in mortem separantur. Tunc si alteri primatum damus, alteri secundatum, seminis quoque discernenda sunt tempora pro statu ordinis.

[3] Moreover, we recognize life from conception, because we vindicate the soul from conception; for from that point life is, where the soul is. Therefore, into life alike are compacted the things which alike are separated into death. Then, if we grant primacy to one and secondary rank to the other, the times of the seed also must be discerned according to the state of the order.

Et quando collocabitur corporis semen, quando animae?

And when will the seed of the body be placed, when that of the soul?

[4] Immo si tempora seminum diuidentur, et materiae diuersae habebuntur ex distantia temporam. Nam etsi duas species confitebimur seminis, corporalem et animalem, indiscretas tamen uindicamus et hoc modo contemporales eiusdemque momenti. Ne itaque pudeat necessariae interpretationis.

[4] Nay rather, if the times of the seeds are divided, then diverse materials will be had from the distance of the times. For even if we will confess two species of seed, the corporal and the animal, nevertheless we vindicate them as indiscrete and thus contemporaneous and of the same moment. Let us not, therefore, be ashamed of the necessary interpretation.

Natura ueneranda est, non erubescenda. Concubitum libido, non condicio foedauit. Excessus, non status est impudicus, siquidem benedictus status apud deum: crescite et in multitudinem proficite, excessus uero maledictus, adulteria et stupra et lupanaria.

Nature is to be venerated, not to be blushed at. It was lust that defiled intercourse, not the condition. It is excess, not the state, that is immodest, since the state is blessed with God: “increase and multiply”; but excess is accursed—adulteries and debaucheries and brothels.

[5] In hoc itaque sollemni sexuum officio quod marem ac feminam miscet, in concubitu dico communi, scimus et animam et carnem simul fungi, animam concupiscentia, carnem opera, animam instinctu, carnem actu. Vnico igitur impetu utriusque toto homine concusso despumatur semen totius hominis habens ex corporali substantia humorem, ex animali calorem. Et si frigidum nomen est anima Graecorum, quare corpus exempta ea friget?

[5] In this therefore solemn office of the sexes which mixes male and female, I mean in common concubitus, we know that both soul and flesh perform together—the soul by concupiscence, the flesh by works; the soul by instinct, the flesh by act. With a single impulse of both, the whole human being being shaken, the seed of the whole human being is frothed off, having from the corporeal substance moisture, from the animate substance heat. And if “soul” is a cold name among the Greeks, why does the body, with it taken out, grow cold?

[6] Denique ut adhuc uerecundia magis pericliter quam probatione, in illo ipso uoluptatis ultimae aestu quo genitale uinis expellitur, nonne aliquid de anima quoque sentimus exire atque adeo marcescimus et deuigescimus cum lucis detrimento? Hoc erit semen animale, protinus ex animae destillatione, sicut et uirus illud corporale semen ex carnis defaecatione.

[6] Finally, so that even now I may hazard more under modesty than by proof, in that very surge of ultimate pleasure in which the genital virus is expelled, do we not feel that something of the soul as well goes out, and indeed we wither and grow enervated with a loss of light? This will be the animate seed, straightway from the distillation of the soul, just as that bodily virus, the corporeal seed, is from the clarification of the flesh.

[7] Fidelissima primordii exempla. De limo caro in Adam. Quid aliud limus quam liquor opimus?

[7] Most faithful exemplars of the primordium. From slime, flesh in Adam. What else is slime than a rich liquor?

Inde erit genitale uirus. Ex afflatu dei anima. Quid aliud afflatus dei quam uapor spiritus?

Thence there will be the genital fluid. From the afflatus of God, the soul. What else is the afflatus of God than the vapor of the Spirit?

Inde erit quod per uirus illud efflamus.

Hence there will be what we exhale through that semen.

[8] Cum igitur in primordio duo diuersa atque diuisa, limus et flatus, unum hominem coegissent, confusae substantiae ambae iam in uno semina quoque sua miscuerunt atque exinde generi propagando formam tradiderunt, ut et nunc duo, licet diuersa, etiam unita pariter effluant pariterque insinuata sulco et aruo suo pariter hominem ex utraque substantia effruticent, in quo rursus semen suum insit secundum genus, sicut omni condicioni genitali praestitutum est.

[8] Since therefore in the beginning two things, different and divided—slime and breath—had combined to make one man, the two commingled substances, now in one, also mixed their own seeds and from that point handed down a form for propagating the race, so that even now the two, although different, even when united, flow forth together and, insinuated into their own furrow and field, likewise fructify a human being out of both substances, in whom in turn his own seed is inserted according to kind, as has been pre-appointed for every generative condition.

[9] Igitur ex uno homine tota haec animarum redundantia, obseruante scilicet natura dei edictum: crescite et in multitudinem proficite. Nam et in ipsa praefatione operis unius, faciamus hominem, uniuersa posteritas pluraliter praedicata est: et praesint piscibus maris. Nihil mirum repromissio segetis in semine.

[9] Therefore from one man this whole abundance of souls, nature, to be sure, observing the edict of God: grow and advance into a multitude. For even in the very preface of the single work, let us make man, the entire posterity was proclaimed in the plural: and let them preside over the fishes of the sea. Nothing wondrous: the promise of the crop is in the seed.

XXVIII. ADVERSVS PLATONEM, NON EX MORTVIS FIERI VIVOS.

28. AGAINST PLATO, THAT THE LIVING ARE NOT MADE FROM THE DEAD.

[1] Quis ille nunc uetus sermo apud memoriam Platonis de animarum reciproco discursu, quod hinc abeuntes sint illuc et rursus huc ueniant et fiant et dehinc ita habeat rursus ex mortuis effici umos? Pythagoricus, ut uolunt quidam; diuinum Albinus existimat, Mercurii forsitan Aegyptii. Sed nullus sermo diuinus nisi dei unius, quo prophetae, quo apostoli, quo ipse Christus intonuit.

[1] What is that now old discourse in the remembrance of Plato about the reciprocal course of souls, that those departing from here are there, and again come back here and are made, and thereafter thus holds that again out of the dead the living are brought to be? Pythagorean, as some would have it; Albinus esteems it divine, perhaps of the Egyptian Mercury. But no discourse is divine except that of the one God, with which the prophets, with which the apostles, with which Christ himself thundered.

Multo antiquior Moyses etiam Saturno, nongentis circiter annis, nedum pronepotibus eius, certe diuinior multo, qui decursus generis humani ab exordio mundi quoque per singulas natiuitates nominatim temporatimque digessit, satis probatus diuinitatem operis ex diuinatione uocis.

Much more ancient is Moses even Saturn, by about 900 years, not to mention his great-grandsons; certainly much more divine, he who digested the course of the human race from the exordium of the world also through each nativity, by name and by time, the divinity of the work being sufficiently proved from the divination of the voice.

[2] Si uero Samius sophista Platoni auctor est de animarum recidiuatu reuolubili semper ex alterna mortuorum atque uiuentium suffectione, certe ille Pythagoras, etsi bonus cetera, tamen ut hanc sententiam exstrueret, non turpi modo, uerum etiam temerario mendacio incubuit. Cognosce, qui nescis, et crede nobiscum. Mortem simulat, subterraneo latitat, septennio illic patientiam damnat; interea quae de posteris defunctis ad fidem rerum esset relaturus ab unica conscia et ministra matre cognoscit.

[2] If indeed the Samian sophist is Plato’s authority on the recidivation of souls, ever revoluble through the alternating suffection of the dead and the living, certainly that Pythagoras—though good in other respects—yet, in order to erect this opinion, leaned not only upon a shameful but even upon a reckless falsehood. Learn, you who do not know, and believe with us. Death he simulates, he lurks underground, for seven years there he sentences himself to endurance; meanwhile he learns from his sole confidante and attendant, his mother, what he was going to report, for the credibility of the affair, about those later deceased.

Vt satis sibi uisus est corpulentiam interpolasse ad omnem mortui ueteris horrorem, de adytis fallaciae emergit ut ab inferis redditus.

When he seemed to himself to have interpolated his corpulence to every horror of an ancient corpse, he emerges from the adyta of fallacy as if returned from the infernal regions.

[3] Quis non crederet reuixisse quem crediderat obisse, audiens praesertim ab eo, quae de posteris mortuis nisi apud inferos non uideretur cognoscere potuisse? Sic ex mortuis uiuos effici senior sermo est. Quid enim, si et iunior?

[3] Who would not believe that he had revived whom he had believed to have died, hearing especially from him things about the later dead which he would not seem to have been able to know except in the infernal regions? Thus by a senior tale the living are made out of the dead. What then, if it be a junior one too?

Neque ueritas desiderat uetustatem neque mendacium deuitat nouellitatem. Teneo plane falsum, antiquitate generosum; quidni falsum, cuius testimonium quoque ex falso est? Quomodo credam non mentiri Pythagoran, qui mentitur, ut credam?

Neither verity desires antiquity nor mendacity shuns novelty. I plainly hold it a falsehood, noble by antiquity; why should it not be false, whose testimony also is from falsehood? How am I to believe Pythagoras does not lie, who lies in order that I may believe?

Quomodo mihi persuadebit Aethalidem et Euphorbum et Pyrrhum piscatorem et Hermotimum se retro ante Pythagoran fuisse, ut persuadeat uiuos ex mortuis effici, qui iterum se Pythagoran peierauit? Quanto enim credibilius ipse ex semetipso semel redisset in uitam quam totiens alius atque alius, tanto et in durioribus fefellit, qui molliora mentitus est.

How will he persuade me that Aethalides and Euphorbus and Pyrrhus the fisherman and Hermotimus were formerly, before Pythagoras, so as to persuade that the living are made out of the dead—he who again forswore himself as Pythagoras? For inasmuch as it would have been more credible that he himself, from his very self, had once returned into life than that so many times one man after another did, by so much he has also deceived in the harder points, who lied about the easier.

[4] 'Sed clipeum Euphorbi olim Delphis consecratum recognouit et suum dixit et de signis uulgo ignotis probauit'. Respice ad hypogeum eius et, si capit, crede. Nam qui talem commentus est stropham, cum iniuria bonae ualetudinis, cum fraude (uitae septennio excruciatae infra terram inedia ignauia umbra, cui tanti fuit fastidium caeli, quam non accesserit temeritatem, quam non temptauerit curiositatem, ut ad notam clipei illius perueniret?

[4] 'But he recognized Euphorbus’s shield, once consecrated at Delphi, and said it was his own, and he proved it from tokens commonly unknown.' Look to his hypogeum, and, if it fits, believe. For he who concocted such a strophe, with an injury to good health, with a fraud (a life for a seven-year period tortured underground by fasting, idleness, shadow, to whom loathing of the sky was worth so much—what rashness did he not approach, what curiosity did he not attempt, so as to arrive at the identifying mark of that shield?

[5] Quid autem, si in historiis aliquibus occultioribus repperit? Quid, si defectae iam traditionis superstites aliquas famae aurulas hausit? Quid, si ab aedituo redempta clam inspectione cognouit?

[5] What moreover, if he found it in some more occult histories? What, if he imbibed some little breezes of rumor surviving from a tradition now defunct? What, if, from the temple-warden, a clandestine inspection having been bought, he learned it?

Scimus etiam magiae licere explorandis occultis per catabolicos et paredros et pythonicos spiritus. Non enim et Pherecydes, Pythagorae magister, his forsitan artibus diuinabat, ne dicam somniabat? Quid, si idem daemon in illo fuit qui et in Euphorbo res sanguinis gessit?

We know also that it is permitted to magic to explore occult things through catabolics and paredri and pythonic spirits. For did not Pherecydes, the teacher of Pythagoras, perhaps divine by these arts—not to say, dream? What if the same daemon was in him as the one who in Euphorbus carried on deeds of blood?

Denique qui se Euphorbum ex argnmento clipei probarat, cur neminem Troianorum commilitonum aeque recognouit? Nam et illi iam reuixissent, si uiui ex mortuis fierent.

Finally, he who had proved himself to be Euphorbus by the argument of the shield, why did he recognize none of the comrades-in-arms of the Trojans as well? For they too would by now have revived, if the living were made out of the dead.

XXIX.

29.

[1] Mortuos quidem ex uiuis effici constat, non ideo tamen et ex mortuis uiuos. Ab initio enim uiui priores, unde ab initio aeque mortui posteriores, non aliunde quam ex uiuis. Illi habuerunt unde potius orirentur, dum ne ex mortuis.

[1] It is established that the dead are indeed made from the living; not therefore, however, are the living also from the dead. For from the beginning the living are prior, whence from the beginning likewise the dead are posterior—from no other source than from the living. Those had whence they might rather arise, provided only that it be not from the dead.

Isti non habuerunt unde magis deducerentur, nisi ex uiuis.

These did not have whence they might more be deduced, except from the living.

[2] Igitur si ab initio uiui non ex mortuis, cur postea ex mortuis? Defecerat ille, quicumque est origini fons? An formae paenituit?

[2] Therefore, if from the beginning the living were not from the dead, why afterwards from the dead? Had that one failed, whoever is the fountain of origin? Or did he repent of the form?

Et quomodo in mortuis salua est? Non, quia ab initio mortui ex uiuis, idcirco semper ex uiuis? Aut enim in utraque parte forma initii perseuerasset aut in utraque mutasset, ut si uiuos ex mortuis postea fieri oportuerat, perinde oporteret etiam non ex uiuis effici mortuos.

And how is it preserved among the dead? Is it not that, because from the beginning the dead are from the living, therefore always from the living? Or indeed either on both sides the form of the beginning would have persevered, or on both it would have changed, so that, if afterwards it had been necessary for the living to be made from the dead, in like manner it would also be necessary that the dead be effected not from the living.

[3] Si non peraequare deberet fides institutionis, (3.) non usquequaque contraria ex contrariis reformari alternant. Et nos enim opponemus contrarietates nati et innati, uisualitatis et caecitatis, iuuentae et senectae, sapientiae et insipientiae; nec tamen ideo innatum de nato prouenire, quia contrarium ex contrario fiat, nec uisualitatem iterum ex caecitate, quia de uisualitate caecitas accidat, nec iuuentam rursus de senecta reuiuescere, quia ex iuuenta senecta marcescat, nec insipientiam ex sapientia denuo obtundi, quia de insipientia sapientia acuatur.

[3] If the faith of the institution ought not to equalize, (3.) contraries do not everywhere alternate in being re-formed from contraries. For we too will set in opposition the contrarieties of the born and the unborn, of visuality (sight) and blindness, of youth and old age, of sapience and insipience; and yet not therefore does the unborn come from the born, because the contrary comes from the contrary, nor visuality again from blindness, because from visuality blindness befalls, nor does youth revive again from old age, because from youth old age withers, nor is insipience dulled anew from sapience, because from insipience sapience is sharpened.

[4] Haec et Albinus Platoni suo ueritus subtiliter quaerit contrarietatum genera distinguere, quasi non et haec tam absolute in contrarietatibus posita sint quam et illa quae ad sententiam magistri sui interpretatur, uitam dico et mortem. Nec tamen ex morte uita reddatur, quia ex uita mors deferatur.

[4] Albinus too, revering his Plato, seeks subtly to distinguish the genera of contrarieties, as though these were not set just as absolutely among contrarieties as those which he interprets according to the opinion of his master—I mean life and death. Nor, however, is life rendered back from death, because death is borne from life.

XXX.

30.

[1] Quid autem ad cetera respondebimus? Primo enim, si ex mortuis uiui, sicut mortui ex uiuis, unus omnino et idem numerus semper haesisset omnium hominum, ille scilicet numerus qui primus uitam introisset. Priores enim mortuis uiui, dehinc mortui ex uiuis et rursus ex mortuis uiui.

[1] But what, moreover, shall we respond to the rest? For first, if from the dead came the living, just as the dead from the living, one single and the same number would altogether always have adhered for all human beings, namely that number which first had entered life. For first the living prior to the dead, thereafter the dead from the living, and again from the dead the living.

Et dum hoc semper ex iisdem, ita totidem semper, qui ex iisdem. Nam neque plures aut pauciores exissent quam redirent.

And if this were always from the same ones, then always just so many as those from the same; for neither more nor fewer would exit than would return.

[2] Inuenimus autem apud commentarios etiam humanarum antiquitatum paulatim humanum genus exuberasse, dum Aborigines uel uagi uel extorres uel gloriosi quique occupant terras, ut Scythae Parthicas, ut Temenidae Peloponnesum, ut Athenienses Asiam, ut Phryges Italiam, ut Phoenices Africam, dum sollemnes etiam amigrationes, quasa)poiki/aj uocant, consilio exonerandae popularitatis in alios fines examina gentis eractant. Nam et origines nunc in suis sedibus permanent et alibi amplius gentilitatem fenerauerunt.

[2] We find, moreover, in the commentaries of human antiquities as well, that the human race has little by little waxed exuberant, while the Aborigines — whether wanderers or exiles or the vainglorious — each seize lands, as the Scythians [seized] Parthian [lands], as the Temenidae the Peloponnese, as the Athenians Asia, as the Phrygians Italy, as the Phoenicians Africa; while even solemn emigrations, which they calla)poiki/aj , by a plan of unburdening the populousness, draw forth swarms of the clan into other borders. For both the original stocks now remain in their own seats and elsewhere have further multiplied their kindred.

[3] Certe quidem ipse orbis in promptu est cultior de die et instructior pristino. Omnia iam peruia, omnia nota, omnia negotiosa, solitudines famosas retro fundi amoenissimi oblitterauenint, siluas arua domuerunt, feras pecora fugauerunt, harenae seruntur, saxa panguntur, paludes eliquantur, tantae urbes quantae non casae quondam. Iam nec insulae horrent nec scopuli terrent; ubique domus, ubique populus, ubique respublica, ubique uita.

[3] Surely indeed the world itself is plainly more cultivated by the day and better provided than formerly. Everything now is passable, everything known, everything busy with business; the famous solitudes of the past the most pleasant estates have effaced, ploughed fields have tamed forests, herds have put wild beasts to flight, sands are sown, stones are set, marshes are drained, cities so great as there were not even cottages once. Now neither islands bristle nor crags terrify; everywhere a home, everywhere a people, everywhere a republic, everywhere life.

[4] Summum testimonium frequentiae humanae: onerosi sumus mundo, uix nobis elementa sufficiunt, et necessitates artiores, et querellae apud omnes, dum iam nos natura non sustinet. Reuera lues et fames et bella et uoragines ciuitatum pro remedio deputanda, tamquam tonsura insolescentis generis humani; et tamen, cum eiusmodi secures maximam mortalium uim semel caedant, nunquam restitutionem eius uiuos ex mortuis reducentem post mille annos semel orbis expauit. Et hoc enim sensibile fecisset aequa uis amissionis et restitutionis, si uiui ex mortuis fierent.

[4] The highest testimony of human frequency: we are burdensome to the world, scarcely do the elements suffice for us, necessities are more strait, and there are complaints among all, since now nature no longer sustains us. In truth, plagues and famines and wars and the engulfments of cities are to be deputed for a remedy, as a tonsure of the insolent human race; and yet, although axes of this sort cut down at a single stroke the greatest force of mortals, never has the world shuddered at its restoration bringing the living back from the dead once after a thousand years. For an equal force of loss and restitution would have made this perceptible, if the living were made out of the dead.

[5] Cur autem mille annis post et non statim ex mortuis uiui, cum, si non statim supparetur quod erogatum, in totum absumi periclitetur praeueniente restitutionem defectione, quia nec pariasset commeatus hic uitae miliario tempori longe scilicet breuior et idcirco facilior ante extingui quam redaccendi? Igitur quae hoc modo intercidisset, si uiui ex mortuis fierent, quando non intercidit, non erit credendum uiuos ex mortuis fieri.

[5] But why after 1,000 years and not straightway the living from the dead, since, if what had been disbursed were not immediately brought to parity, it would be in peril of being wholly consumed, a defection preempting the restitution, because the supply-train of this life would not have matched the milestone of time, plainly briefer, and on that account more facile to be extinguished before than to be re-enkindled? Therefore, that which in this way would have perished, if the living were made from the dead—since it has not perished—it is not to be believed that the living are made from the dead.

XXXI.

31.

[1] Iam uero si ex mortuis uiui, utique singuli ex singulis. Singulorum ergo corporum animas ut singulas in singula corpora reuerti oportuerat. Porro si et binae et trinae et quinae usque uno utero resumuntur, non erunt ex mortuis uiui, quia non singuli ex singulis.

[1] Now indeed, if the living are from the dead, assuredly individuals from individuals. Therefore the souls of individual bodies ought, as individual, to revert into individual bodies. Furthermore, if pairs and triplets and even quintuplets are re-assumed in one womb, they will not be living from the dead, because they are not individuals from individuals.

Et hoc autem modo primordii forma signatur, cum et nunc plures animae de una proferuntur.

And also in this manner the form of the beginning is signified, since even now several souls are brought forth from one.

[2] Item cum uaria aetate discedant animae, cur una reuertuntur? Omnes enim ab infantia imbuuntur, qua infans reuertatur. Quale est autem, ut senex defunctus infans reuertatur?

[2] Likewise, since souls depart at various ages, why do they return at one? For all are imbued from infancy, in which age the infant returns. What sort of thing is it, moreover, that an old man, deceased, should return as an infant?

Si decrescit foris anima retrograda aetate, quanto magis erat ut progressior reuerteretur mille post annis, certe uel coaetanea suae mortis, ut aeuum quod reliquisset iterum recepisset?

If the soul decreases outwardly with retrograde age, how much more ought it to have returned more progressed after a thousand years, surely at least coeval with its own death, so that it might again have received the age which it had left behind?

[3] Sed etsi eaedem semper reuoluerentur, licet non corporum quoque formas easdem, licet non fatorum quoque sortes easdem, tamen uel ingeniorum et studiorum et affectionum pristinas proprietates secum referre deberent, quoniam temere eaedem haberentur carentes his per quae eaedem probarentur. Vnde scias, inquis, an ita quidem fiat occulte, sed condicio miliarii aeui interimat facultatem recensendi, quia ignotae tibi reuertuntur? Atquin scio non ita fieri, cum Pythagoran Euphorbum mihi opponis.

[3] But even if the same ones were always revolving back, although not the same forms of bodies, although not the same lots of fates, nevertheless they ought at least to carry with them the pristine properties of their talents, studies, and affections, since they would be reckoned the same rashly, lacking those things by which they would be proved the same. “Whence do you know,” you say, “whether indeed it thus happens secretly, but the condition of a millenary age does away with the faculty of recognizing, because they return unknown to you?” And yet I know it does not happen thus, since you set Pythagoras forth to me as Euphorbus.

[4] Ecce enim Euphorbum militarem et bellicam animam satis constat uel de ipsa gloria clipeorum consecratorum. Pythagoran uero tam residem et inbellem, ut proelia tunc Graeciae uitans Italiae maluerit quietem geometriae et astrologiae et musicae deuotus, alienus studio et affectu Euphorbi. Sed et Pyrrhus ille fallendis piscibus agebat, Pythagoras contra nec edendis, utanimalibus abstinens.

[4] Behold then, that Euphorbus had a military and bellicose soul, it is sufficiently agreed, even from the very glory of the consecrated shields. But Pythagoras, so sedentary and unwarlike that, shunning at that time the battles of Greece, he preferred the quiet of Italy, devoted to geometry and astrology and music, was alien in zeal and affection from Euphorbus. But even that Pyrrhus spent his time on deceiving fish, whereas Pythagoras, on the contrary, not even on eating them, asabstaining from animals.

Aethalides autem et Hermotimus fabam quoque in pabulis communibus inruerat, Pythagoras uero ne per fabalia quidem transeundum discipulis suis tradidit.

But Aethalides and Hermotimus had even rushed upon the bean among common fodders, whereas Pythagoras, on the contrary, handed down to his disciples that one must not even pass through bean-fields.

[5] Quomodo ergo eaedem animae recuperantur, quae nec ingeniis nec institutis iam nec uictibus eaedem probabuntur? Iam nunc de tanto Graeciae censu quattuor solae animae recensentur. Sed et quid utique de solo Graeciae censu, ut non ex omni gente et ex omni aetate ac dignitate, ex omni denique sexu, et metempsychosis et metensomatosis cotidie existant, cur solus Pythagoras alium atque alium se recognoscat, non et ego?

[5] How then are the same souls recovered, which will no longer be proved the same either by talents or by institutes or by victuals? Already now, out of so great a census of Greece, only four souls are reckoned. But indeed, why from the census of Greece alone—as if from every nation and from every age and rank, and finally from every sex, metempsychoses and metensomatoses did not arise daily—why does Pythagoras alone recognize himself now as one person and now as another, and not I as well?

[6] Aut si priuilegium philosophorum est, et utique Graecorum, quasi non et Scythae et Indi philosophentur, cur neminem se retro meminit Epicurus, neminem Chrysippus, neminem Zeno, ne ipse quidem Plato, quem forsitan Nestorem credidissemus ob mella facundiae?

[6] Or if it is a privilege of philosophers, and assuredly of the Greeks, as though Scythians and Indians did not also philosophize, why did Epicurus remember himself formerly as no one, Chrysippus as no one, Zeno as no one, not even Plato himself, whom perhaps we would have believed to be Nestor on account of the honeys of eloquence?

XXXII. AD METEMPSYCHOSIS ET METENSOMATOSIS.

32. AGAINST METEMPSYCHOSIS AND METENSOMATOSIS.

[1] Sed enim Empedocles, quia se deum delirarat, idcirco, opinor, dedignatus aliquem se heroum recordari, thamnus et piscis fui, inquit. Cur non magis et pepo, tam insulsus, et chamaeleon, tam inflatus? Plane ut piscis, ne aliqua sepultura conditiore putesceret, assum se maluit in Aetnam praecipitando.

[1] But indeed Empedocles, because he had deliriously claimed himself to be a god, therefore, I suppose, disdaining to recall himself as any one of the heroes, said, “I was a shrub and a fish.” Why not rather also a gourd, so insipid, and a chameleon, so inflated? Clearly, like a fish, lest he should putrefy in some more choice sepulture, he preferred to be roasted by precipitating himself into Etna.

Atque exinde in illo finita est metensomatosis, ut aestiua cena post assum.

And thereafter in that man the metensomatosis was finished, like a summer supper after the roast.

[2] Perinde igitur et hic dimicemus necesse est aduersus portentosiorem praesumptionem bestias ex hominibus et homines ex bestiis reuoluentem. Viderint thamni, licebit et lapathi, ne plus ridere quam docere cogamur. Dicimus animam humanam nullo modo in bestias posse transferri, etiamsi secundum philosophos ex elementiciis substantiis censetur.

[2] Accordingly, it is necessary that we also do battle here against the more monstrous presumption revolving beasts out of humans and humans out of beasts. Let the thorn-bushes look to it, and the dock-weeds as well, lest we be compelled to laugh more than to teach. We say that the human soul can in no way be transferred into beasts, even if, according to the philosophers, it is reckoned from elemental substances censured.? Wait the Latin ends with censetur.

[3] Siue enim ignis anima, siue aqua, siue sanguis, siue spiritus, siue aer, siue lumen, recogitare debemus contraria quaeque singulis speciebus animalia; igni quidem ea quae rigent, colubros stelliones salamandras, etiam quaecumque de aemulo producentur elemento, de aqua scilicet; perinde contraria aquae illa quae arida et exsuccida: denique siccitatibus gaudent lucustae papiliunculi chamaeleontes; item contraria sanguini quae carent purpura eius, cochleas uermiculos et maiorem piscium censuum; spiritui uero contraria quae spirare non uidentur, carentia pulmonibus et arteriis, culices formicas tineas et hoc genus minutalia; item aeri contraria quae sernper subterraneum et subaquaneum uiuentia carent haustu eius (res magis quam nomina noueris); item contraria lumini quae caeca in totum uel solis tenebris habent oculos, talpas uesperugines noctuas. Haec ut ex apparentibus et manifestis substantiis doceam.

[3] Whether the soul be fire, or water, or blood, or spirit, or air, or light, we ought to reconsider the contraries to each several species of animals; to fire, indeed, those which are rigid: snakes, stellions, salamanders, and likewise whatever are brought forth from the rival element, namely from water; in like manner, contrary to water, those which are dry and juice-less: in fine, locusts, little butterflies, chameleons, rejoice in dryings; likewise, contrary to blood, those which lack its purple—snails, little worms, and the greater ranks of fishes; but contrary to spirit, those which do not seem to breathe, lacking lungs and arteries—gnats, ants, moths, and minute things of this kind; likewise, contrary to air, those which, always living subterranean and subaquanean, lack its draught (you may know the things rather than the names); likewise, contrary to light, those which are altogether blind, or have eyes only for darkness—moles, bats, owls. These things, that I may teach from apparent and manifest substances.

[4] Ceterum si et atomos Epicuri tenerem et numeros Pythagorae uiderem et ideas Platonis offenderem et entelechias Aristotelis occuparem, inuenirem fors his quoque speciebus animalia quae nomine contrarietatis opponerem. Contendo enim ex quacumque substantia supra dicta constitisset humana anima, non potuisse eam in tam contraria unicuique substantiae animalia reformari et censum eis de sua translatione conferre, a quibus excludi ac respui magis haberet quam admitti et capi nomine huius primae contrarietatis, quae substantiui status diuersitatem committit, tunc et reliquae per consequentem ordinem cuiusque naturae.

[4] But even if I grasped the atoms of Epicurus, and beheld the numbers of Pythagoras, and encountered the ideas of Plato, and seized upon the entelechies of Aristotle, I should perhaps also find for these kinds animals which I might set in opposition under the name of contrariety. For I contend that from whatever of the aforesaid substances the human soul had been constituted, it could not be re-formed into animals so contrary to each substance and confer upon them a census, as it were, by its translation—by which it ought rather to be excluded and rejected than admitted and received, under the title of this primary contrariety, which brings into conflict the diversity of a substantive status; then likewise the remaining ones, in the consequent order of each nature.

[5] Nam et sedes alias humana anima sortita est et uictus et instructus et sensus et affectus et concubitus et fetus, item ingenia, tum opera gaudia taedia uitia cupidines uoluptates ualetudines medicinas, suos postremo et uitae modos et exitus mortis.

[5] For the human soul too has been allotted other seats and victuals and equipment and senses and affections and coitus and fetus, likewise dispositions, then works, joys, tediums, vices, cupidities, voluptuities, illnesses, medicines, and, finally, its own modes of life and the exits of death.

[6] Quomodo igitur illa anima quae terris inhaerebat, nullius sublimitatis, nullius profunditatis intrepida, ascensu etiam scalarum fatigabilis, submersu etiam piscinarum strangulabilis, aeri postea insultabit in aquila aut mari postea desultabit in anguilla? Quomodo item pabulis liberalibus et delicatis atque curatis educata, non dico paleas, sed spinas et agrestes amaritudines frondium et bestias sterquilinioram [uermium], etiam uenena ruminabit, si in capram transierit uel in coturnicem, immo et cadauerinam, immo et humanam, sui utique memor, in urso et leone? Sic et cetera ad incongruentiam rediges.

[6] How then will that soul which was cleaving to the earth, not undaunted by any loftiness, not undaunted by any depth, fatigable even by the ascent of stairs, strangulable even by submersion of pools, afterward spring upon the air in an eagle, or afterward vault upon the sea in an eel? Likewise, how—nourished on liberal and delicate and carefully prepared foods—will it ruminate, I do not say straw, but thorns and the wild bitternesses of leaves and the beasts of dung-heaps [worms], and even poisons, if it has passed into a she-goat or into a quail; nay even carrion, nay even human flesh—being, to be sure, mindful of itself—in the bear and the lion? Thus too you will reduce the rest to incongruity.

Ne singulis perorandis immoremur, ipsius animae humanae quisquis modus, quaecumque mensura, quid faciet in amplioribus longe uel minutioribus animalibus? Necesse est enim et corpus omne anima compleri et animam omnem corpore obduci. Quomodo ergo anima hominis complebit elephantum?

Lest we linger in perorating each case singly, whatever the mode of the human soul itself, whatever its measure, what will it do in animals far more ample or more minute? For it is necessary that every body be filled by a soul, and that every soul be overlaid with a body. How, then, will a man’s soul fill an elephant?

Quomodo item obducetur in culice? Si tantum extendetur aut contrahetur, profecto periclitabitur.

How likewise will it be enclosed in a gnat? If it is extended so much or contracted, surely it will be imperiled.

[7] Et ideo adicio: si nulla ratione capax est huiusmodi translationis in animalia nec modulis corporum nec ceteris naturae suae legibus adaequantia, numquid ergo demutabitur secundum qualitates generum et uitam eorum contrariam humanae uitae, facta et ipsa contraria humanae per demutationem? Enimuero si demutationem capit amittens quod fuit, non erit quae fuit; et si quae fuit non erit, soluta est metensomatosis, non adscribenda scilicet ei animae quae, si demutabitur, non erit. Illius enim metensomatosis dicetur quaecumque eam in suo statu permanendo pateretur.

[7] And therefore I add: if by no account is it capable of a translation of this sort into animals, neither by the measures (moduli) of bodies nor by the other laws of its own nature being made adequate, will it then be changed according to the qualities of the genera and to their life contrary to human life, itself too made contrary to the human by demutation? Indeed, if it admits demutation, losing what it was, it will not be what it was; and if what it was will not be, metensomatosis is dissolved, not, namely, to be ascribed to that soul which, if it is changed, will not be. For the metensomatosis of that one will be said to be whatever it would undergo while remaining in its own state.

[8] Igitur si nec mutari potest, ne non sit ipsa, nec permanere in statu, quia contraria non capit, quaero adhuc causam aliquam fide dignam huiusmodi translationis. Nam etsi quidam homines bestiis adaequantur pro qualitatibus morum et ingeniorum et affectuum, quia et deus: assimilatus est, inquit, homo inrationalibus iumentis, non ideo milui ex rapacibus fient et canes ex spurcis et pantherae ex acerbis aut oues ex probis et hirundines ex garrulis et columbae ex pudicis, quasi eadem substantia animae ubique naturam suam in animalium proprietatibus repetat. Aliud est autem substantia, aliud natura substantiae, siquidem substantia propria est rei cumsque, natura uero potest esse communis.

[8] Therefore, if it can neither be changed, lest it not be itself, nor remain in its state, because it does not admit contraries, I still seek some cause worthy of faith for a translation of this sort. For although certain men are equated to beasts according to the qualities of their morals, dispositions, and affections, since even God: “Man,” he says, “has been assimilated to irrational beasts of burden,” not therefore will kites be made from the rapacious, and dogs from the filthy, and panthers from the harsh, or sheep from the upright, and swallows from the garrulous, and doves from the modest, as though the same substance of the soul everywhere were to resume its own nature in the properties of animals. But substance is one thing, the nature of the substance another; since substance is the proper possession of a thing and of each individual, while nature can be common.

[9] Suscipe exemplum. Substantia est lapis, ferrum; duritia lapidis et ferri natura substantiae est. Duritia communicat, substantia discordat.

[9] Take an example. Stone, iron, are substance; the hardness of stone and of iron is the nature of the substance. Hardness is common; substance is discordant.

Mollitia lanae, mollitia plumae: pariant naturalia earum, substantiua non pariant. Sic et, si saeua bestia uel proba uocetur homo, sed non eadem anima: nam et tunc naturae similitudo notatur, cum substantiae dissimilitudo conspicitur. Ipsum enim quod hominem similem bestiae iudicas, confiteris animam non eandem, similem dicendo, non ipsam.

Softness of wool, softness of feather: let their natural properties beget, let not the substances beget. So too, if a man be called a savage beast or an upright one, yet it is not the same soul; for even then the likeness of nature is noted, when the dissimilarity of substance is beheld. For in the very fact that you judge the man similar to the beast, you acknowledge the soul is not the same—by saying similar, not the selfsame.

[10] Sic et diuina pronuntiatio sapit, pecudibus adaequans hominem natura, non substantia. Ceterum nec deus hominem hoc modo notasset et ipse, si pecudem de substantia nosset.

[10] Thus too the divine pronouncement has its savor, equating man with cattle by nature, not by substance. Moreover, nor would God himself have noted man in this way, if he had known the beast in respect of substance.

XXXIII.

CHAPTER 33.

[1] Etiam cum iudicii nomine uindicatur hoc dogma, quod animae humanae pro uita et meritis genera animalium sortiantur, iugulandae quaeque in occisoriis et subigendae quaeque in famulatoriis et fatigandae in operariis et foedandae in immundis, perinde honorandae et diligendae et curandae et appetendae in speciosissimis et probissimis et utilissimis et delicatissimis, et hic dicam: si demutantur, non ipsae dispungentur quae merebuntur.

[1] Even when, under the name of judgment, this dogma is vindicated—that human souls, according to life and merits, are allotted genera of animals: some to be jugulated in the slaughterhouses, some to be subdued in servitorial places, some to be wearied in workhouses, and some to be defiled among the unclean; likewise to be honored and cherished and cared for and desired in the most beautiful, the most upright, the most useful, and the most delicate—here too I will say: if they are transmuted, it will not be they themselves who are called to account for what they will have deserved.

[2] Euacuabitur ratio iudicii, si meritorum deerit sensus. Deerit autem sensus meritorum, si status uerterit animarum. Vertit autem status animarum, si non eaedem perseuerauerint.

[2] The rationale of judgment will be evacuated, if the sense of merits is lacking. Moreover, the sense of merits will be lacking, if the status of souls is changed. But the status of souls is changed, if the same have not persevered.

Aeque si perseuerauerint in iudicium, quod et Mercurius Aegyptius nouit, dicens animam digressam a corpore non refundi in animam uniuersi, sed manere determinatam, uti rationem, inquit, patri reddat eorum quae in corpore gesserit, uolo iudicii utique diuini iustitiam grauitatem maiestatem dignitatem recensere, si non sublimiore fastigio praesidet humana censura, pleniorutriusque sententiae honore, poenarum et gratiarum, seuerior in ulciscendo et liberalior in largiendo.

Likewise, if they have persevered unto judgment, which even the Egyptian Mercury knows, saying that a soul gone forth from the body is not poured back into the soul of the universe, but remains determined, so that, he says, it may render an account to the Father of the things which it has done in the body, I wish to recount the justice, gravity, majesty, dignity of the judgment—assuredly divine—unless with a loftier summit there presides a human censure, fuller with the honor of each sentence, of penalties and of graces, more severe in avenging and more liberal in largessing.

[3] Quid putas futuram animam homicidae? Aliquod, credo, pecus lanienae et macello destinatum, ut perinde iuguletur, quia et ipsa iugulauerit, perinde decorietur, quia et ipsa despoliauerit, perinde in pabulum proponatur, quia et ipsa bestiis fecerit eos quos in siluis et auiis trucidauerit.

[3] What do you think will be the soul of a murderer? Some, I believe, beast destined for the shambles and the butcher’s market, to be likewise jugulated, because it too has jugulated; likewise flayed, because it too has despoiled; likewise set forth as provender, because it too has made for the beasts those whom it butchered in forests and in pathless wilds.

[4] Si ita iudicabitur, nonne illa anima plus solacii quam supplicii relatura est, quod funus inter cocos pretiosissimos inuenit, quod condimentis Apicianis et Lurconianis humatur, quod mensis Ciceronianis infertur, quod lancibus splendidissimis Sullanis effertur, quod exsequias conuiuium patitur, quod a coaequalibus deuoratur potius quam a miluis et lupis, ut in hominis corpore tumulata et in suum genus regressa resurrexisse uideatur, exsultans aduersus humana iudicia, si ea experta est?

[4] If it will be judged thus, will not that soul be bringing back more solace than punishment, that it finds its funeral among the most precious cooks, that it is interred with Apician and Lurconian condiments, that it is carried in to Ciceronian tables, that it is borne out on the most splendid Sullan platters, that it suffers as funeral rites a banquet, that it is devoured by its coequals rather than by kites and wolves, so that, entombed in a human body and returned to its own kind, it seems to have risen again, exulting against human judgments, if it has experienced them?

[5] Namque illa sicarium uariis et exquisitis et iam praeter naturam eruditis feris dissipant, et quidem uiuentem, immo facile nec morientem curata mora finis ad plenitudinem poenae. Sed et si anima praefugerit ultimo gladio, ne corpus quoque euaserit ferrum, nihilominus iugulo utroque confossis costisque transfixis compensatio proprii facinoris exigitur. Inde in ignem datur, ut et sepultura puniatur.

[5] For they tear the assassin apart with various and exquisite, and now beyond nature erudite, beasts, and indeed while living—nay, by a carefully contrived delay of the end, not easily dying—to the plenitude of punishment. But even if the soul has fled before the ultimate sword, lest the body also have escaped the steel, nonetheless, with both jugulars pierced and the ribs transfixed, a compensation for his own crime is exacted. Then into the fire it is given, so that sepulture also may be punished.

Aliter denique non licet. Nec tamen tanta est rogi cura, ut reliquias aliae bestiae inueniant; certe nec ossibus parcitur nec cineribus indulgetur nuditate plectendis.

In short, it is not permitted otherwise. Nor, however, is there such care for the pyre, so that other beasts find the relics; assuredly neither are the bones spared nor is indulgence shown to the ashes, to be punished by exposure.

[6] Tanta est apud homines homicidii uindicta quanta ipsa quae uindicatur natura. Quis non praeferat saeculi iustitiam, quam et apostolus non frustra gladio armatam contestatur, quae pro homine saeuiendo religiosa est? Si ceterorum quoque scelerum mercedem cogitemus, patibula et uiuicomburia et culleos et uncos et scopulos, cui non expediat apud Pythagoran et Empedoclen sententiam pati?

[6] So great among men is the vengeance for homicide as the very nature that is avenged is itself. Who would not prefer the justice of the age, which even the apostle attests is not armed with the sword in vain, which, by being savage for the sake of man, is devout? If we also consider the recompense of the other crimes—gibbets and live-burnings and sacks and hooks and crags—who would not find it expedient to suffer the sentence according to Pythagoras and Empedocles?

[7] Nam et qui laboribus atque seruitiis puniendi in asinos utique et mulos recorporabuntur, quantum sibi de pistrinis et aquilegis rotis gratulabuntur, si metallorum et ergastulorum et operum publicorum ipsorumque carcerum, licet otiosorum, recordentur! Perinde qui integre morati commendauerint iudici uitam, quaero praemia, sed potius inuenio supplicia. Nimirum magna merces bonis in animalia quaecumque restitui.

[7] For even those who, to be punished by labors and servitudes, will be re-incorporated into asses and mules, how greatly will they congratulate themselves on the millhouses and the water-drawing wheels, if they recall the mines and the ergastula and the public works and the prisons themselves, though idle! Likewise, as for those who have conducted themselves with integrity and have commended their life to the Judge, I look for rewards, but I find rather punishments. Plainly, a great wage for the good, to be restored into whatever animals.

[8] Pauum se meminit Homerus Ennio somniante; sed poetis nec uigilantibus credam. Et si pulcherrimus pauus et quo uelit colore cultissimus, sed tacent pennae, sed displicet uox, et poetae nihil aliud quam cantare malunt. Damnatus est igitur Homeras in pauum, non honoratus.

[8] Homer remembers himself a peacock, Ennius dreaming; but I would not believe poets even when awake. And even if the peacock is most beautiful and most cultivated with whatever color he wishes, yet the feathers are silent, yet the voice displeases, and poets prefer nothing other than to sing. Therefore Homer has been condemned into a peacock, not honored.

Plus de saeculi remuneratione gaudebit, pater habitus liberalium disciplinarum, ut malit famae suae ornamenta quam caudae.

He will rejoice more from the remuneration of the age, held as the father of the liberal disciplines, so that he prefers the ornaments of his fame rather than of a tail.

[9] Age nunc, ut poetae in pauos uel in cycnos transeant, si uel cycnis decora uox est, quod animal indues uiro iusto Aeaco? Quam bestiam integrae feminae Didoni? Quam uolucrem patientia, quam pecudem sanctimonia, quem piscem innocentia sortientur?

[9] Come now, supposing that poets pass into peacocks or into swans, if even swans have a decorous voice, what animal will you assign to the just man Aeacus? What beast to Dido, a chaste woman? What bird will patience draw by lot, what herd-beast will sanctity, what fish will innocence obtain?

Omnia famula sunt hominis, omnia subiecta, omnia mancipata. Si quid horum futurus est, diminoratur illic ille cui ob merita uitae imagines, statuae et tituli, honores publici, priuilegia rependuntur, cui curia, cui populus suffragiis immolat.

All things are servants of man, all subject, all mancipated. If he is going to be any of these, there that man is diminished, he to whom, on account of the merits of life, images, statues and titles, public honors, privileges are repaid, to whom the curia, to whom the people with suffrages offers sacrifice.

[10] O iudicia diuina post mortem humanis mendaciora, contemptibilia de poenis, fastidibilia de gratiis, quae nec pessimi metuant nec optimi cupiant, ad quae magis scelesti quam sancti quique properabunt, illi, ut iustitiam saeculi citius euadant, isti, ut tardius eam capiant! Bene philosophi docetis, utiliter suadetis leuiora post mortem supplicia uel praemia, cum, si quod iudicium animas manet, grauius debet credi in dispunctione uitae quam in administratione, quia nihil plenius quam quod extremius, nihil autem extremius quam quod diuinius.

[10] O divine judgments after death, more mendacious than human ones, contemptible as to penalties, to be scorned as to graces, which neither the worst fear nor the best desire, toward which the wicked will hasten rather than the holy—those, that they may more quickly escape the justice of the age, these, that they may take hold of it more slowly! Well do you philosophers teach, usefully do you advise lighter penalties or rewards after death, since, if any judgment awaits souls, it ought to be believed graver at the reckoning of life than in its administration, because nothing is fuller than what is ultimate, and nothing more ultimate than what is more divine.

[11] Deus itaque iudicabit plenius, quia extremius, per sententiam aeternam tam supplicii quam refrigerii nec in bestias, sed in sua corpora reuertentibus animabus, et hoc semel et in eum diem quem solus pater nouit, ut pendula expectatione sollicitudo fidei probetur, semper diem obseruans, dum semper ignorat, cotidie timens, quod cotidie sperat.

[11] Therefore God will judge more fully, because more finally, by an eternal sentence both of punishment and of refreshment, not with souls into beasts, but with souls returning into their own bodies; and this once, and on that day which the Father alone knows, so that by a pendulous expectation the solicitude of faith may be proved, always observing the day, while it always is ignorant, daily fearing, that which it daily hopes.

XXXIV. ADVERSVS OPINIONEM SIMONIS HERETICI.

34. AGAINST THE OPINION OF SIMON THE HERETIC.

[1] Nulla quidem in hodiernum dementiae huiusmodi sententia erupit sub nomine haeretico, quae humanas animas refingat in bestias, sed necessarie hanc quoque speciem intulimus et exclusimus ut superioribus cohaerentem, quo perinde in pauo retunderetur Homerus sicut in Pythagora Euphorbus atque ita hac etiam metempsychosi siue metensomatosi repercussa illa rursus caederetur quae aliquid haereticis sumministrauit.

[1] No opinion of such dementia has, to this day, erupted under a heretical name that would refashion human souls into beasts; but of necessity we have introduced and excluded this species also, as cohering with the foregoing, in order that Homer might be blunted in the peacock just as Euphorbus in Pythagoras, and thus, with this metempsychosis or metensomatosis too repelled, that other thing might in turn be smitten which has supplied something to the heretics.

[2] Nam et Simon Samarites in actis apostolorum redemptor spiritus sancti, posteaquam damnatus ab ipso cum pecunia sua in interitum frustra fleuit, conuersus ad ueritatis expugnationem quasi pro solacio ultionis, fultus etiam artis suae uiribus, ad praestrigias uirtutis alicuius Helenam quandam Tyriam de loco libidinis publicae eadem pecunia redemit, dignam sibi mercedem pro spiritu sancto;

[2] For Simon the Samaritan, in the Acts of the Apostles the would‑be purchaser of the Holy Spirit, after he had been condemned by him and had wept in vain for destruction along with his money, turned to the assault of the truth as a solace of vengeance; and, supported also by the powers of his art, for the prestidigitation of some “virtue,” he redeemed with the same money a certain Helena, a Tyrian, from the place of public lust (a brothel), a wage worthy to himself in place of the Holy Spirit;

[3] et se quidem fingit summum patrem, illam uero iniectionem suam primam, qua iniecerat angelos et archangelos condere; huius eam propositi compotem exilisse de patre et in inferiora desultasse atque illic praeuento patris proposito angelicas potestates genuisse ignaras patris, artifices mundi huius; ab his non perinde animo retentam, ne digressa ea alterius genimina uiderentur, et idcirco omni contumeliae addictam, ut nusquam discedere depretiatam liberet, humanae quoque formae succidisse uelut uinculis carnis coercendam;

[3] and he indeed feigns himself the highest father, but her as his first injection, by which he had injected to found angels and archangels; that she, being participant of this purpose, leapt out from the Father and bounded down into the lower regions, and there, forestalling the Father’s purpose, begot angelic powers ignorant of the Father, the artificers of this world; by these she was not retained in goodwill, lest, if she departed, her offspring should seem to belong to another, and therefore she was consigned to every contumely, so that, being depreciated, it might not allow her to depart anywhere, and that she also had sunk into a human form, as if to be restrained by the chains of flesh;

[4] ita multis aeuis per alios atque alios habitus femininos uolutatam etiam illam Helenam fuisse exitiosissimam Priamo et Stesichori postea oculis, quem excaecasset ob conuicium carminis, dehinc reluminasset ob satisfactionem laudis; proinde migrantem eam de corporibus in corpora postrema dedecoratione sub titulo prostitisse Helenam uiliorem. Hanc igitur esse ouem perditam, ad quam descenderit pater summus, Simon scilicet, et primum recuperata ea et reuecta, nescio umeris an feminibus, exinde ad hominum respexerit salutem quasi per uindicatam liberandorum ex illis angelicis potestatibus, quibus fallendis et ipse configuratus aeque et hominibus hominem ementitus in Iudaea quidem filium, in Samaria uero patrem gesserit.

[4] thus, through many ages, rolled through one after another feminine habit, that Helena too had been most ruinous to Priam and later to the eyes of Stesichorus, whom she had blinded on account of the contumely of a poem, then relumined on account of the satisfaction of praise; accordingly, as she migrated from bodies into bodies, with a final de-decoration, under the title of a “cheaper Helena,” she prostituted herself. Therefore this is the lost sheep, to whom the supreme Father descended—Simon, to wit—and, she having first been recovered and carried back, I know not whether on shoulders or on thighs, from then on he looked to the salvation of men, as through the vindicated one, to free those to be liberated from those angelic powers, for the deceiving of whom he too was conformed likewise and, to men, pretended a man: in Judea indeed he bore (the role of) the Son, in Samaria, however, the Father.

[5] O Helenam inter poetas et haereticos laborantem, tunc adulterio, nunc stupro infamen, nisi quod de Troia gloriosius eruitur quam de lupanari, mille nauibus de Troia, nec mille denariis forsitan de lupanari. Erubesce, Simon, tardior in requirendo, inconstantior in retrahendo. At Menelaus statim insequitur amissam, statim repetit ereptam, decenni proelio extorquet, non latens, non fallens, non cauillabundus.

[5] O Helen, toiling between poets and heretics, then infamous for adultery, now for debauchery, except that she is extracted more gloriously from Troy than from a lupanary, by a thousand ships from Troy, and perhaps not by a thousand denarii from a lupanary. Blush, Simon, slower in seeking, more inconstant in bringing back. But Menelaus at once pursues the one lost, at once demands back the one snatched, by a ten-year war he wrests her back, not hiding, not deceiving, not cavilling.

Vereor, ne ille magis pater fuerit qui circa Helenae recuperationem et uigilantius et audentius et diutius laborauerit.

I fear that the more proper father was he who, concerning the recovery of Helen, labored more vigilantly, more audaciously, and for a longer time.

XXXV. AD CARPOCRATIS OPINIONEM.

35. TO THE OPINION OF CARPOCRATES.

[1] Sed non tibi soli metempsychosis hanc fabulam instruxit: inde etiam Carpocrates utitur, pariter magus, pariter fornicarius, etsi Helena minus. Quidni? cum propter omnimodam diuinae et humanae disciplinae euersionem constituendam recorporari animas asseuerauerit; nulli enim uitam istam rato fieri, nisi uniuersis quae arguunt eam expunctis, quia non natura quid malum habeatur, sed opinione.

[1] But not for you alone has metempsychosis constructed this fable: from there Carpocrates also makes use of it, equally a magus, equally a fornicator, though less than Helena. Why not? since, for the purpose of establishing the all‑around eversion of divine and human discipline, he has asseverated that souls are to be re‑corporated; for this life is ratified for no one, unless all the things which arraign it have been expunged, because what is evil is held not by nature, but by opinion. nisi uniuersis quae arguunt eam expunctis, quia non natura quid malum habeatur, sed opinione.

Itaque metempsychosin necessarie imminere, si non in primo quoque uitae huius commeatu omnibus inlicitis satisfiat (scilicet facinora tributa sunt uitae!), ceterum totiens animam reuocari habere quotiens minus quid intulerit, reliquatricem delictorum, donec exsoluat nouissimum quadrantem detrusa identidem in carcerem corporis.

Therefore metempsychosis is necessarily impending, if, not in the very first passage of this life, satisfaction be made to all illicit things (to be sure, crimes are the tributes owed to life!); otherwise the soul has to be called back as many times as often as it has brought in something less, a leaver-behind of delicts, until it pays the very last quadrans, thrust time and again into the prison of the body.

[2] Huc enim temperat totam illam allegorian domini certis interpretationibus relucentem et primo quidem simpliciter intellegendam. Nam et ethnicus homo aduersarius noster est, incedens in eadem uia uitae communis. Ceterum oportebat nos de mundo exire, si cum illis conuersari non liceret.

[2] For to this point he tempers that whole allegory of the Lord, shining forth with sure interpretations, and at the first indeed to be understood simply. For even the pagan man is our adversary, walking on the same way of the common life. Otherwise, we ought to go out of the world, if it were not permitted to converse with them.

Huic ergo boni animi praestes iubet (diligite enim inimicos uestros, inquit, et orate pro maledicentibus uos), ne aliquo commercio negotiorum iniuria prouocatus abstrahat te ad suum iudicem, et ad custodiam delegatus ad exsolutionem totius debiti arteris.

Therefore he bids you show good spirit to this man (for “love your enemies,” he says, “and pray for those who curse you”), lest, provoked by some commerce of affairs into an injury, he drag you off to his judge, and, having been consigned to custody, you be constrained to the discharge of the whole debt.

[3] Tum si in diabolum transfertur aduersarii mentio ex obseruatione comitante, cum illo quoque moneris eam inire concordiam quae deputetur ex fidei conuentione; pactus es enim renuntiasse ipsi et pompae et angelis eius. Conuenit inter uos de isto. Haec erit amicitia obseruatione sponsionis, ne quid eius postea resumas ex his quae eierasti, quae illi reddidisti, ne te ut fraudatorem, ut pacti transgressorem iudici deo obiciat, sicut eum legimus alibi sanctorum criminatorem et de ipso etiam nomine diaboli delatorem, et iudex te tradat angelo exsecutionis, et ille te in carcerem mandet infernum, unde non dimittaris nisi modico quoque delicto mora resurrectionis expenso.

[3] Then, if the mention of the adversary is transferred to the Devil from the accompanying observation, you are also admonished with respect to him to enter that concord which is reckoned from a convention of faith; for you have stipulated to have renounced him and his pomp and his angels. It has been agreed between you about this. This will be friendship by the observance of the sponsion, lest you afterwards take back anything of his from those things which you have abjured, which you have returned to him, lest he set you before God the judge as a defrauder, as a transgressor of the pact, just as we read him elsewhere an accuser of the saints and, even from the very name “diabolus,” a delator; and the judge hand you over to the angel of execution, and he commit you into the infernal prison, whence you will not be released unless, even for a slight offense, the delay of the resurrection has been paid.

Quid his sensibus aptius? Quid his interpretationibus uerius?

What is more apt to these senses? What is truer than these interpretations?

[4] Ceterum ad Carpocraten: si omnium facinorum debitrix anima est, quis erit inimicus et aduersarius eius intellegendus? Credo, mens melior, quae illam in aliquid innocentiae inpegerit adigendam rursus ac rursus in corpus, donec in nullo rea deprehendatur bonae uitae. Hoc est ex malis fructibus bonam arborem intellegi, id est, ex pessimis praeceptis doctrinam ueritatis agnosci.

[4] Moreover, as to Carpocrates: if the soul is a debtor of all crimes, who is to be understood as its enemy and adversary? I believe, the better mind, which has impelled it into some measure of innocence, so that it be driven again and again into a body, until it is found guilty in nothing as regards a good life. This is to understand a good tree from evil fruits, that is, to recognize the doctrine of truth from the worst precepts.

[5] Spero huiusmodi haereticos Heliae quoque inuadere exemplum, tamquam in Iohanne sic repraesentati, ut metempsychosi patrocinetur pronuntiatio domini: Helias iam uenit, et non cognouerunt eum, et alibi: et si uultis audire, hic est Helias, qui uenturus est. Numquid ergo et Iudaei ex opinione Pythagorica consulebant Iohannem: tu es Helias? et non ex praedicatione diuina: et ecce mittam uobis Helian Thesbiten?

[5] I suppose heretics of this sort also assail the example of Elijah, as though thus represented in John, so that the Lord’s pronouncement might offer patronage to metempsychosis: “Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him,” and elsewhere: “and if you wish to hear, this is Elijah who is to come.” Was it then that the Jews too, from a Pythagorean opinion, were consulting John: “are you Elijah?” and not from the divine proclamation: “and behold, I will send to you Elijah the Tishbite”?

[6] Sed enim metempsychosis illorum reuocatio est animae iam pridem morte functae et in aliud corpus iteratae, (6) Helias autem non ex decessione uitae, sed ex translatione uenturus est, nec corpori restituendus, de quo non est exemptus, sed mundo reddendus, de quo est translatus, non ex postliminio uitae, sed ex supplemento prophetiae, idem et ipse, et sui nominis et sui hominis. Sed quomodo Helias Johannes? Habes angeli uocem: et ipse, inquit, praecedet coram populo in uirtute et in spiritu Heliae, non in anima eius nec in carne.

[6] But indeed, the metempsychosis of those people is a recalling of a soul long since done with death and repeated into another body; (6) Elijah, however, will come not from a departure of life, but from a translation, nor to be restored to a body, from which he has not been removed, but to be given back to the world, from which he was translated, not by postliminy of life, but by a supplement of prophecy, the same himself, both of his name and of his person. But how is Elijah John? You have the voice of the angel: “and he,” he says, “will go before before the people in the power and in the spirit of Elijah, not in his soul nor in flesh.”

Hae enim substantiae sui cuiusque sunt hominis, spiritus uero et uirtus extrinsecus conferuntur ex dei gratia; ita et transferri in alteram possunt ex dei uoluntate, ut factum est retro de Mosei spiritu.

For these are the substances of each individual man, but spirit and power are conferred from without by the grace of God; thus they too can be transferred to another by the will of God, as was done aforetime from the spirit of Moses.

XXXVI. DE SEXU ANIMAE ET CARNIS PARITER ORIENTE.

36. ON THE SEX OF THE SOUL AND THE FLESH ARISING ALIKE.

[1] In has quaestiones inde, opinor, excessimus quo nunc reuertendum est. Constitueramus animam in ipso et ex ipso seri homine et unum esse a primordio semen, sicut et carnis, in totum generis examen, propter aemulas scilicet opiniones philosophorum et haereticorum et illum sermonem Platonis ueternosum. Nunc ordinem sequentium exinde tractatuum teximus.

[1] Into these questions we have, I suppose, gone forth, whence now it must be returned. We had established that the soul is sown in the man himself and from himself, and that there is one seed from the beginning semen, just as also of the flesh, for the whole array of the race, namely on account of the rival opinions of the philosophers and the heretics, and that drowsy discourse of Plato. Now we weave the order of the subsequent discussions from thence.

[2] Anima in utero seminata pariter cum carne pariter cum ipsa sortitur et sexum, ita pariter, ut in causa sexus neutra substantia teneatur. Si enim in seminibus utriusque substantiae aliquam intercapedinem eorum conceptus admitteret, ut aut caro aut anima prior seminaretur, esset etiam sexus proprietatem alteri substantiae adscribere per temporalem intercapedinem seminum, ut aut caro animae aut anima carni insculperet sexum,

[2] The soul, sown in the womb together with the flesh, together with it likewise acquires also the sex, so equally that, in the cause of sex, neither substance is held. For if in the seeds of both substances their conception were to admit some interval, so that either flesh or soul were first sown, it would also be to ascribe the property of sex to the other substance through the temporal interval of the seeds, so that either the flesh would imprint sex upon the soul or the soul upon the flesh,

[3] quoniam et Apelles, non pictor, sed haereticus, ante corpora constituens animas uiriles ac muliebres, sicut a Philumena didicit, utique carnem ut posteriorem ab anima facit accipere sexum. Et qui animam post partum carni superducunt utique ante formatae, marem aut feminam de carne sexum praeiudicant animae.

[3] since even Apelles, not the painter, but the heretic, placing souls, male and female, before bodies, as he learned from Philumena, of course makes the flesh, as posterior to the soul, receive sex. And those who superinduce the soul to the flesh after birth, of course to flesh already formed, prejudge for the soul from the flesh the sex, male or female.

[4] Vtriusque autem substantiae indiscreta semina et unita suffusio eorum communem subeunt generis euentum, qua lineas duxerit quaecumque illa est ratio naturae. Certe et hic se primordiorum forma testatur, cum masculus temperius effingitur (prior enim Adam), femina aliquanto serius (posterior enim Eua). Ita diu caro informis est, qualis ex Adae latere decerpta est, animal tamen et ipsa iam, quia et illam tunc Adae portionem animam agnoscam. Ceterum et ipsam dei afflatus animasset, si non ut carnis, ita et animae ex Adam tradux fuisset in femina.

[4] But the indiscrete seeds of each substance and their united suffusion undergo the common event of the genus, along whatever lines that rationale of nature has drawn them. Surely even here the form of the primordials bears witness of itself, since the male is fashioned earlier (for Adam is prior), the female somewhat later (for Eve is posterior). Thus for a long time the flesh is formless, such as was cut from Adam’s side, yet she too is already animate, since I acknowledge that even that portion of Adam at that time had a soul. Otherwise God’s afflatus also would have animated her, if there had not been in the female, from Adam, a tradux of the soul just as of the flesh.

XXXVII. DE AETATE ANIMAE.

37. ON THE AGE OF THE SOUL.

[1] Omnem autem hominis in utero serendi struendi fingendi paraturam aliqua utique potestas diuinae uoluntatis ministra modulatur, quamcumque illam rationem agitare sortita. Haec aestimando etiam superstitio Romana deam finxit Alemonam alendi in utero fetus et Nonam et Decimam a sollicitioribus mensibus et Partulam, quae partum gubernet, et Lucinam, quae producat in lucem. Nos officia diuina angelos credimus.

[1] But certainly some power, minister of the divine will, modulates the whole preparation for sowing, structuring, and fashioning the human in the womb, having been allotted to manage whatever that rationale is. In appraising this, Roman superstition even fashioned a goddess Alemonam for nourishing the fetus in the womb, and Nona and Decima from the more anxious months, and Partula, who governs the birth, and Lucina, who brings forth into the light. We believe angels to be the divine officials.

[2] Ex eo igitur fetus in utero homo, a quo forma completa est. Nam et Mosei lex tunc aborsus reum talionibus iudicat, cum iam hominis est causa, cum iam illi uitae et mortis status deputatur, cum et fato iam inscribitur, etsi adhuc in matre uiuendo cum matre plurimum communicat sortem.

[2] Therefore, from that point the fetus in the womb is a human, from which point the form has been completed. For even the Mosaic law then judges the aborter liable to talionic penalties, when it is already a case of a human being, when already there is assigned to it a status of life and death, when also it is already inscribed to fate, although, still in the mother, by living it shares very greatly its lot with the mother.

[3] Dicam aliquid et de temporibus animae nascentis, ut ordinem decurram. Legitima natiuitas ferme decimi mensis ingressus est. Qui numeros ratiocinantur, et decurialem numerum ut exinde reliquorum parentem colunt, denique perfectorem natiuitatis humanae.

[3] I will also say something about the times of the soul being born, so that I may run through the order. Legitimate nativity is roughly the entry of the tenth month. Those who ratiocinate about numbers also cultivate the decurial number as thence the parent of the remaining ones, and, in fine, the perfecter of human nativity.

[4] Ego ad deum potius argumentabor hunc modum temporis, ut decem menses decalogo magis inaugurent hominem, ut tanto temporis numero nascamur quanto disciplinae numero renascimur. Sed et cum septimo mense natiuitas plena est facilius quam octauo, honorem sabbati agnoscam, ut quo die dedicata est dei conditio, eo mense interdum producatur dei imago. Concessum est properare natiuitati et tamen idonee occurrere in hebdomadem, in auspicia resurrectionis et requietis et regni.

[4] I will argue this mode of time rather with reference to God, that ten months inaugurate man more by the Decalogue, that we are born by as great a number of time as we are reborn by the number of discipline. But also since in the seventh month birth is full more easily than in the eighth, I will acknowledge the honor of the Sabbath, that on the day on which God’s creation was dedicated, in that month the image of God is sometimes brought forth. It is granted to hasten to birth and yet to meet suitably with the hebdomad, under the auspices of resurrection and rest and kingdom.

Ideo ogdoas nos non creat; tunc enim nuptiae non erunt.

Therefore the ogdoad does not create us; for then marriages will not be.

[5] Societatem carnis atque animae iamdudum commendauimus a congregatione seminum ipsorum usque ad figmenti perfectionem; perinde nunc et a natiuitate defendimus, inprimis quod simul crescunt, sed diuisa ratione pro generum condicione, caro modulo, anima ingenio, caro habitu, anima sensu. Ceterum animam substantia crescere negandum est, ne etiam decrescere substantia dicatur atque ita et defectura credatur; sed uis eius, in qua naturalia peculia consita retinentur, saluo substantiae modulo, quo a primordio inflata est, paulatim cum carne producitur.

[5] We have long since commended the society of flesh and soul from the congregation of their own seeds up to the perfection of the forming; likewise now also from birth we defend it—especially that they grow at the same time, but with a divided rationale according to the condition of their kinds: the flesh by measure (modulus), the soul by natural disposition (ingenium), the flesh by habitus, the soul by sense. Moreover, it must be denied that the soul grows in substance, lest it also be said to decrease in substance and thus be believed to be liable to defect; but its power (vis), in which the natural peculiar endowments planted are retained, with the measure of substance intact, with which from the beginning it was breathed in, is little by little brought forth along with the flesh.

[6] Constitue certum pondus auri uel argenti, rudem adhuc massam: collectus habitus est illi et futuro interim minor, tamen continens intra lineam moduli totum quod natura est auri uel argenti. Dehinc cum in laminam massa laxatur, maior efficitur initio suo per dilatationem ponderis certi, non per adiectionem, dum extenditur, non, dum augetur; etsi sic quoque augetur, dum extenditur: licet enim habitu augeri, cum statu non licet.

[6] Set a fixed weight of gold or of silver, a mass still raw: it has a collected habit, and is meanwhile smaller than it will be in the future, yet containing within the line of its modulus the whole that is the nature of gold or of silver. Thereafter, when the mass is loosened into a lamina, it becomes greater than its beginning by dilatation of the fixed weight, not by addition—while it is extended, not while it is increased; although in this way too it is increased, while it is extended: for it is permitted to be increased in habit, since in status it is not permitted.

[7] Tunc et splendor ipse prouehitur auri uel argenti, qui fuerat quidem et in massa, sed obscurior, non tamen nullus. Tunc et alii atque alii habitus accedunt pro facilitate materiae, qua duxerit eam qui aget, nihil conferens modulo nisi effigiem. Ita et animae crementa reputanda, non substantiua, sed prouocatiua.

[7] Then too the very splendor of the gold or silver is advanced, which indeed had been even in the mass, but more obscure, yet not none. Then also other and yet other forms accede according to the facility of the material, whither he who works leads it, contributing nothing to the module except the effigy. Thus too the soul’s increments are to be reckoned, not substantive, but provocative.

XXXVIII. DE CIBIS QVOMODO AD ANIMAM PERTINEANT.

38. ON FOODS HOW THEY PERTAIN TO THE SOUL.

[1] Quamquam autem et retro praestruxerimus, omnia naturalia animae ipsi substantiae inesse pertinentia ad sensum et intellectum ex ingenito animae censu, sed paulatim per aetatis spatia procedere et uarie per accidentia euadere pro artibus, pro institutis, pro locis, pro dominatricibus potestatibus, quod tamen faciat ad carnis animaeque propositam nunc societatem, pubertatem quoque animalem cum carnali dicimus conuenire pariterque et illam suggestu sensuum et istam processu membrorum exsurgere a quarto decimo fere anno, non quia Asclepiades inde sapientiam supputat, nec quia iura ciuilia abhinc agendis rebus attemperant, sed quoniam et haec a primordio ratio est.

[1] Although, moreover, we have also pre-structured above that all the naturalia of the soul, pertaining to sense and intellect, inhere in the substance itself from the inborn endowment of the soul, yet they proceed little by little through the spaces of age and variously emerge through accidents—according to arts, according to institutes, according to places, according to dominant powers—which nevertheless makes for the now-proposed society of flesh and soul; we say that the animal puberty also agrees with the carnal, and that the former rises by the suggestion of the senses and the latter by the progression of the members, from about the fourteenth year, not because Asclepiades computes wisdom from that point, nor because the civil laws from then adapt to matters to be transacted, but because this too is the rationale from the beginning.

[2] Si enim Adam et Eua ex agnitione boni et mali pudenda tegere senserunt, ex quo id ipsum sentimus, agnitionem boni et mali profitemur. Ab his autem annis et suffusior et uestitior sexus est, et concupiscentia oculis arbitris utitur et communicat placitum et intellegit quae sint et fines suos ad instar ficulneae contagionis prurigine accingit et hominem de paradiso integritatis educit, exinde scabida etiam in ceteras culpas et delinquendi non naturales, cum iam non ex instituto naturae, sed ex uitio.

[2] For if Adam and Eve, from the recognition of good and evil, felt that the pudenda ought to be covered, from which we ourselves feel that very thing, we profess the recognition of good and evil. But from these years the sex is both more suffused and more clothed, and concupiscence uses the eyes as arbiters and communicates the agreed pleasure, and understands what things are, and girds its own bounds with itching after the manner of the fig‑leaf contagion, and leads man out of the paradise of integrity, thereafter scabby also into the other faults and into delinquencies not natural, since now not from the institution of nature, but from vice.

[3] Ceterum proprie naturalis concupiscentia unica est alimentorum solummodo, quam deus et in primordio contulit: ex omni ligno, inquit, edetis, et secundae post diluuium geniturae supermensus est: ecce dedi uobis omnia in escam tamquam olera faeni, prospectam non tam animae quam carni, etsi propter animam. Auferenda est enim argumentatoris occasio, qui quod anima desiderare uideatur alimenta, hinc quoque mortalem eam intellegi cupit, quae cibis sustineatur, denique derogatis eis euigescat, postremo subtractis intercidat.

[3] But properly the unique natural concupiscence is solely of aliments, which God also bestowed in the primordium: “from every tree,” he says, “you shall eat”; and to the second geniture after the Deluge he measured out beyond measure: “behold, I have given you all things for food, as the herbs of the grass,” a provision not so much for the soul as for the flesh, though on account of the soul. For the disputant’s occasion is to be removed, who, because the soul seems to desire aliments, wants from this too that it be understood as mortal—inasmuch as it is sustained by foods, then, with these curtailed, grows faint, and at last, when they are withdrawn, is cut off.

[4] Porro non solum proponendum est quisnam ea desideret, sed et cui; et si propter se, sed et cur et quando et quonam usque; tum quod aliud natura desideret, aliud necessitate, aliud secundum proprietatem, aliud in causam. Desiderabit igitur cibos anima sibi quidem ex causa necessitatis, carni uero ex natura proprietatis. Certe enim domus animae caro est, et inquilinus carnis anima.

[4] Moreover, it must be set forth not only who it is that desires these things, but also for whom; and whether on its own account, and also why and when and to what extent; then that one thing nature desires, another by necessity, another according to propriety, another for a cause. Therefore the soul will desire foods for itself indeed by reason of necessity, but for the flesh by the nature of propriety. For assuredly the flesh is the house of the soul, and the soul is the tenant of the flesh.

[5] Desiderabit itaque inquilinus ex causa et necessitate huius nominis profutura domui toto inquilinatus sui tempore, non ut ipse substruendus nec ut ipse loricandus nec ut ipse tibicinandus, sed tantummodo continendus, quia non aliter contineri possit quam domo fulta.

[5] The tenant, therefore, will desire, by reason and necessity of this designation, things that will be of use to the house for the whole time of his tenancy, not that he himself be underpinned, nor that he himself be loricated, nor that he himself be propped with struts, but only that he be kept in, since he cannot be kept in otherwise than with the house shored up.

[6] Alioquin licebit animae dilapsa domo ex destitutione priorum subsidiorum incolumi abire, habenti sua firmamenta et propriae condicionis alimenta, immortalitatem rationalitatem sensualitatem intellectualitatem arbitrii libertatem.

[6] Otherwise it will be permitted for the soul, the house having fallen to pieces through the desertion of former supports, to depart unscathed, since it has its own firmaments and the aliment of its proper condition—immortality, rationality, sensuality, intellectuality, the liberty of arbitrium.

XXXIX.

39.

[1] Quae omnia natiuitus animae conlata idem, qui in primordio inuidit, nunc quoque obumbrat atque deprauat, quominus aut ultro prospiciantur aut qua oportet administrentur. [NVLLAM FERE ANIMAM SINE DAEMONIO ESSE.] Cui enim hominum non adhaerebit spiritus nequam ab ipsa etiam ianua natiuitatis animas aucupabundus, uel qua inuitatus tota illa puerperii superstitione?

[1] All which things, conferred upon the soul by birth, the same one who envied in the beginning now also overshadows and depraves, so that they are neither of their own accord provided for nor administered as is fitting. [ALMOST NO SOUL IS WITHOUT A DAEMON.] For to whom among humans will not an evil spirit adhere, from the very doorway of birth itself, lying in wait for souls, or invited by all that puerperal superstition?

[2] Ita omnes idololatria obstetrice nascuntur, dum ipsi adhuc uteri infulis apud idola confectis redimiti genimina sua daemoniorum candidata profitentur, dum in partu Lucinae et Dianae eiulatur, dum per totam hebdomadem Iunoni mensa proponitur, dum ultima die Fata Scribunda aduocantur, dum prima etiam constitutio infantis super terram Statinae deae sacrum est.

[2] Thus all are born with idolatry as obstetric midwife, while they themselves, still, the wombs wreathed with fillets fashioned at the idols, proclaim their offspring candidates of demons, while in childbirth there is wailing to Lucina and Diana, while throughout the whole week a table is set before Juno, while on the last day the Writing Fates are summoned, while even the first setting of the infant upon the ground is a sacred rite of the goddess Statina.

[3] Quis non exinde aut totum filii caput reatui uouet aut aliquem excipit crinem aut totum nouacula prosecat aut sacrificio obligat aut sacro obsignat, pro gentica, pro auita, pro publica aut priuata deuotione? Sic igitur et Socraten puerum adhuc spiritus daemonicus inuenit; sic et omnibus genii deputantur, quod daemonum nomen est. Adeo nulla ferme natiuitas munda est, utique ethnicorum.

[3] Who from then on does not either vow the whole head of his son under liability (reatus), or take off some lock of hair, or shave it all with a razor, or bind him by a sacrifice or seal him with a sacred mark, for gentile, for ancestral, for public or private devotion? Thus, then, even Socrates, still a boy, a daemonic spirit found; thus, too, to all are genii assigned, which is the name of daemons. To such a degree scarcely any nativity is clean, especially that of the pagans.

[4] Hinc enim et apostolus ex sanctificato alterutro sexu sanctos procreari ait, tam ex seminis praerogatiua quam ex institutionis disciplina. Ceterum, inquit, immundi nascerentur, quasi designatos tamen sanctitatis ac per hoc etiam salutis intellegi uolens fidelium filios, ut huius spei pignore matrimoniis, quae retinenda censuerat, patrocinaretur. Alioquin meminerat dominicae definitionis: nisi quis nascetur ex aqua et spiritu, non inibit in regnum dei, id est, non erit sanctus.

[4] Hence indeed the apostle says that, from either sex being sanctified, saints are procreated, as much by the prerogative of the seed as by the discipline of institution. Otherwise, he says, they would be born unclean, wishing the sons of the faithful to be understood as, as it were, designated for sanctity and through this also for salvation, so that by the pledge of this hope he might patronize matrimonies, which he had judged were to be retained. Otherwise he had remembered the Lord’s definition: unless one shall be born of water and Spirit, he will not enter into the kingdom of God, that is, he will not be holy.

XL. QVOMODO CARO PECCATRIX DICATVR.

40. HOW THE FLESH MAY BE CALLED A SINNER.

[1] Ita omnis anima eo usque in Adam censetur, donec in Christo recenseatur, tamdiu immunda, quamdiu recenseatur, peccatrix autem, quia immunda, recipiens ignominiam et carnis ex societate.

[1] Thus every soul is counted in Adam up to that point, until it is re-censused in Christ, unclean for so long as it is so reckoned; a sinner, moreover, because unclean, receiving ignominy—and that of the flesh—from association.

[2] Nam etsi caro peccatrix, secundum quam incedere prohibemur, cuius opera damnantur concupiscentis aduersus spiritum, ob quam carnales notantur, non tamen suo nomine caro infamis. Neque enim de proprio sapit quid aut sentit ad suadendam uel imperandam peccatelam. Quidni?

[2] For although the flesh is peccant, according to which we are forbidden to walk, whose works of concupiscence against the spirit are condemned, on account of which people are marked as carnal, nevertheless the flesh is not infamous in its own name. For neither does it, from its own self, have any sense or perception to suggest or to command a peccadillo. Why not?

quae ministerium est, et ministerium non quale seruus uel minor amicus, animalia nomina, sed quale calix uel quid aliud eiusmodi corpus, non anima. Nam et calix ministerium sitientis est; nisi tamen qui sitit calicem sibi accommodarit, nihil calix ministrabit.

which is a ministry, and a ministry not such as a slave or a lesser friend—animal names—but such as a cup or some other body of that sort, not a soul. For a cup too is the ministry of the thirsty; yet unless the one who thirsts fits the cup to himself, the cup will minister nothing.

[3] Adeo nulla proprietas hominis in choico, nec ita caro homo tamquam alia uis animae et alia persona, sed res est alterius plane substantiae et alterius condicionis, addicta tamen animae ut suppellex, ut instrumentum in officia uitae. Caro igitur increpatur in scripturis, quia nihil anima sine carne in operatione libidinis gulae uinulentiae saeuitiae idololatriae ceterisque carnalibus non sensibus, sed effectibus.

[3] To such a degree there is no property of the man in the choic (earthy), nor is flesh thus the man, as though there were one power of the soul and another person, but it is a thing of quite another substance and of another condition, yet assigned to the soul as furnishings, as an instrument for the offices of life. Therefore the flesh is rebuked in the Scriptures, because the soul does nothing without the flesh in the operation of libido, gluttony, vinolence (drunkenness), savagery, idolatry, and the other carnal—not senses, but effects.

[4] Denique sensus delictorum etiam sine effectibus imputari solent animae. Qui uiderit ad concupiscentiam, iam adulterauit in corde. Ceterum quid caro sine anima perinde in operatione probitatis iustitiae tolerantiae pudicitiae?

[4] Finally, the sense of delicts, even without effects, is wont to be imputed to the soul. Whoever has looked unto concupiscence has already committed adultery in the heart. For the rest, what can flesh without the soul do likewise in the operation of probity, justice, tolerance, chastity?

Porro quale est, ut cui nec bona documenta propria subscribas, ei crimina adpingas? Sed ea per quam delinquitur conuenitur, ut illa a qua delinquitur oneretur, etiam in ministerii accusationem. Grauior inuidia est in praesidem, cum officia pulsantur; plus caeditur qui iubet, quando nec qui obsequitur excusatur.

Moreover, what sort of thing is it, that to one to whom you do not even subscribe proper good documents, you attach crimes? But that by which delinquency is committed is convened, so that that by which delinquency is committed is burdened, even to the accusation of the ministry. A graver odium is upon the president, when the offices are struck; he who commands is smitten more, when not even he who is obsequious is excused.

XLI. DE MALO ET BONO ANIMAE.

41. ON THE EVIL AND THE GOOD OF THE SOUL.

[1] Malum igitur animae, praeter quod ex obuentu spiritus nequam superstruitur, ex originis uitio antecedit, naturale quodammodo. Nam, ut diximus, naturae corruptio alia natura est, habens suum deum et patrem, ipsum scilicet corruptionis auctorem, ut tamen insit et bonum animae, illud principale, illud diuinum atque germanum et proprie naturale.

[1] Therefore the evil of the soul, besides that which is superadded by the advent of a wicked spirit, proceeds from the vice of origin, in a certain manner natural. For, as we have said, the corruption of nature is another nature, having its own god and father, namely the very author of corruption; yet so that there is also in the soul a good, that principal one, that divine and germane and properly natural.

[2] Quod enim a deo est, non tam extinguitur quam obumbratur. Potest enim obumbrari, quia non est deus, extingui non potest, quia a deo est. Itaque sicut lumen aliquo obstaculo impeditum manet, sed non comparet, si tanta densitas obstaculi fuerit, ita et bonum in anima a malo oppressum pro qualitate eius aut in totum uacat occulta salute aut qua datur radiat inuenta libertate.

[2] For what is from God is not so much extinguished as overshadowed. For it can be overshadowed, because it is not God; it cannot be extinguished, because it is from God. And so, just as light, impeded by some obstacle, remains but does not appear, if the density of the obstacle is so great, so too the good in the soul, oppressed by evil, according to its quality, either wholly lies idle with hidden salvation, or, where it is granted, it shines forth, liberty having been found.

[3] Sic pessimi et optimi quidam, et nihilominus unum omnes animae genus; sic et in pessimis aliquid boni et in optimis nonnihil pessimi. Solus enim deus sine peccato et solus homo sine peccato Christus, quia et deus Christus. Sic et diuinitas animae in praesagia erumpit ex bono priore et conscientia dei in testimonium prodit: 'deus bonus' et 'deus uidet' et 'deo commendo'. Propterea nulla anima sine crimine, quia nulla sine boni semine.

[3] Thus some are the worst and some the best, and nonetheless all are one genus of souls; thus also in the worst there is something of good, and in the best not a little of the worst. For God alone is without sin, and the only man without sin is Christ, because Christ is also God. Thus too the divinity of the soul erupts into presages from its prior good and the conscience of God comes forth as testimony: 'God is good' and 'God sees' and 'I commend to God.' For this reason no soul is without guilt, because none is without the seed of good.

[4] Proinde cum ad fidem peruenit reformata per secundam natiuitatem ex aqua et superna uirtute, detracto corruptionis pristinae aulaeo totam lucem suam conspicit. Excipitur etiam a spiritu sancto, sicut in pristina natiuitate a spiritu profano. Sequitur animam nubentem spiritui caro, ut dotale mancipium, et iam non animae famula, sed spiritus.

[4] Accordingly, when it comes to faith, having been reformed through the second nativity from water and supernal virtue, with the curtain of former corruption drawn away, it beholds all its own light. It is also received by the Holy Spirit, just as in the former nativity by a profane spirit. The flesh follows the soul wedding the Spirit, as a dowry-chattel, and now is a handmaid not of the soul, but of the Spirit.

O beatum conubium, si non admiserit adulterium!

O blessed connubium, if it does not admit adultery!

XLII. DE MORTE.

42. ON DEATH.

[1] De morte iam superest, ut illic materia ponat, ubi ipsa anima consummat. Quamquam Epicurus uulgari satis opinione negarit mortem ad nos pertinere. Quod enim dissoluitur, inquit, sensu caret; quod sensu caret, nihil ad nos.

[1] On death it now remains, that the subject-matter be set there where the soul itself consummates. Although Epicurus, by a sufficiently common opinion, has denied that death pertains to us. For that which is dissolved, he says, lacks sense; and that which lacks sense has nothing to do with us.

Dissoluitur autem et caret sensu non ipsa mors, sed homo qui eam patitur. At ille ei dedit passionem, cuius est actio. Quodsi hominis est pati mortem dissolutricem corporis et peremptricem sensus, quam ineptum, ut tanta uis ad hominem non pertinere dicatur!

But it is not death itself that is dissolved and bereft of sense, but the man who suffers it. Yet he assigned to it passion, whereas its property is action. And if it is man’s to suffer death—the dissolver of the body and the destroyer of sensation—how inept, that so great a force should be said not to pertain to man!

[2] Multo coactius Seneca post mortem, ait, omnia finiuntur, etiam ipsa. Hoc si ita est, iam et mors ad semetipsam pertinebit, si et ipsa finitur; eo magis ad hominem, in quo inter omnia finiendo et ipsa finitur. Mors nihil ad nos, ergo et uita nihil ad nos.

[2] Much more tersely, Seneca says, after death all things are finished, even it itself. If this is so, then even death will pertain to itself, if it too is finished; all the more to the man, in whom, while finishing all things, it too is finished. Death is nothing to us, therefore life too is nothing to us.

Si enim quo dissoluimur praeter nos, etiam quo compingimur extra nos. Si ademptio sensus nihil ad nos, nec adeptio sensus quicquam ad nos.

For if that by which we are dissolved is beyond us, then that also by which we are compacted is outside us. If the ademption of sense is nothing to us, neither is the acquisition of sense anything to us.

[3] Sed mortem quoque interimat qui et animam; a nobis ut de postuma uita et de alia prouincia animae, ita de morte tractabitur, ad quam uel ipsi pertinemus, si ad nos illa non pertinet. Denique nec speculum eius somnus aliena materia est.

[3] But let him also abolish death who also abolishes the soul; by us, just as about the posthumous life and about another province of the soul, so will death be treated, to which we ourselves even pertain, if that does not pertain to us. Finally, sleep, its mirror, is not alien matter.

XLIII. DE SOMNO.

43. ON SLEEP.

[1] 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 uidentur.

[1] On sleep let us first dispute; afterward, how the soul runs its course through death. Sleep is assuredly not extra-natural, as it pleases certain philosophers, since they assign it to those causes which seem to be held beyond nature.

[2] Stoici somnum resolutionem sensualis uigoris affirmant, Epicurei deminutionem spiritus animalis, Anaxagoras cum Xenophane defetiscentiam, Empedocles et Parmenides refrigerationem, Strato 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 defetiscentiam esse somnum, contrarium potius defetiscentiae, quam scilicet tollit, siquidem homo somno magis reficitur quam fatigatur.

[2] The Stoics assert sleep to be a dissolution of sensory vigor, the Epicureans a diminution of the animal spirit, Anaxagoras with Xenophanes a weariness, Empedocles and Parmenides a refrigeration, Strato a segregation of the packed spirit, Democritus a want of spirit, Aristotle a torpor of the circumcardial heat. I for my part do not presume that I have ever slept in such a way as to recognize anything of these. Nor indeed is it to be believed that sleep is weariness; rather it is the contrary of weariness, which it clearly removes, since a man is more refreshed by sleep than fatigued.

Porro nec semper ex fatigatione concipitur somnus, et tamen cum ex illa est, illa iam non est.

Moreover, sleep is not always conceived from fatigue, and yet when it is from that, that is now no longer present.

[3] Sed nec refrigescentiam admittam aut marcorem aliquem caloris, cum adeo corpora somno concalescant et 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.

[3] But neither will I admit a refrigerescence nor any torpor of heat, since to such a degree bodies grow warm with sleep; and the dispensation of foods during sleep would not easily proceed, with heat apt to hasten and rigor apt to delay, if we were cooled by sleep. What is more, even sweat is an index of a seething digestion. Finally, we are said to concoct, which is an operation of heat, not of cold.

[4] Perinde deminutionem animalis spiritus aut indigentiam spiritus aut segregationem consati spiritus immortalitas animae non sinit credi. Perit anima, si minoratur.

[4] Likewise the immortality of the soul does not permit a diminution of the animal spirit, or an indigence of spirit, or a segregation of the conjoined spirit to be believed. The soul perishes, if it is diminished.

[5] Superest, si forte, cum Stoicis resolutionem sensualis uigoris somnum determinemus, quia corporis solius quietem procuret, non et animae. Animam enim ut semper mobilem 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.

[5] It remains, perhaps, that, with the Stoics, we determine sleep to be a resolution of sensuous vigor, since it provides the rest of the body alone, and not of the soul. For the soul, as ever mobile and ever exercised, never sinks down to rest—rest being, of course, alien to the status of immortality; for nothing immortal admits the end of its work, whereas sleep is the end of work. Finally, for the body, to which mortality pertains, to it alone does rest flatter the end of work.

[6] Qui ergo de somni naturalitate dubitabit, habet quidem dialecticos in dubium deducentes totam naturalium et extranaturalium discretionem, ut et quae putauerit citra naturam esse naturae uindicari sciat posse, a qua ita esse sortita sunt, ut citra eam haberi uideantur, et utique aut natura omnia aut nulla natura; apud nos autem id poterit audiri quod dei contemplatio suggerit, auctoris omnium de quibus quaeritur.

[6] Therefore, whoever will doubt about the naturalness of sleep has indeed the dialecticians leading into doubt the whole distinction of things natural and extra-natural, so that he may know that even those things which he will have thought to be outside nature can be vindicated to nature, by which they have been so allotted as to seem to be held outside it; and assuredly either all things are by nature or nothing is by nature. But with us there can be heard that which the contemplation of God suggests, of the author of all the things about which inquiry is made.

[7] Credimus enim, si quid est natura, rationale aliquod opus dei esse. Porro somnum ratio praeit, tam aptum, tam utilem, tam necessarium, ut absque illo nulla anima sufficiat, recreatorem corporum, redintegratorem uirium, probatorem ualetudinum, pacatorem operum, medicum laborum, cui legitime fruendo dies cedit, nox legem facit auferens rerum etiam colorem. Quodsi uitale salutare auxiliare somnus, nihil eiusmodi non rationale, nihil non naturale, quod rationale.

[7] For we believe, if there is anything that is Nature, it is some rational work of God. Moreover, Reason takes the lead regarding sleep—so apt, so useful, so necessary—that without it no soul suffices: the restorer of bodies, the re-integrator of strengths, the prover of health, the pacifier of works, the physician of labors; to the lawful enjoyment of which the day yields, night lays down the law, removing even the color of things. And if sleep is vital, salutary, and auxiliary, then nothing of this sort is non-rational, nothing that is rational is non-natural.

[8] Sic et medici omne contrarium uitali salutari auxiliari extra naturales cardines relegant. Nam et aemulas somno ualetudines, phreneticam atque cardiacam, praeter naturam iudicando naturalem somnum praeiudicauenint; etiam in lethargo non naturalem notantes testimonio naturali respondent, cum in suo temperamento est. Omnis enim natura aut defraudatione aut enormitate rescinditur, proprietate mensurae conseruatur.

[8] Thus too physicians relegate whatever is contrary to the vital, salutary, and auxiliary beyond natural bounds. For by judging as contrary to nature the ailments rivaling sleep—the phrenetic and the cardiac—they have prejudged in favor of natural sleep; even in lethargy, marking it as non-natural, they reply with a natural testimony, when it is in its own temperament. For every nature is cut off either by defraudation or by enormity; it is conserved by the property of measure.

Ita naturale erit statu, quod non naturale effici potest decessu uel excessu.

Thus it will be natural in its state, that which can be made non-natural by deficiency or by excess.

[9] Quid, si et esum et potum de naturae sortibus eximas? Nam et in his plurima somni praeparatura est. Certe his a primordio naturae suae homo inbutus est.

[9] What, if you also remove both food and drink from nature’s allotments? For even in these there is very much of a preparation for sleep. Surely with these, from the primordium of his nature, man has been imbued.

Si apud deum discas, ille fons generis, Adam, ante ebibit soporem quam sitiit quietem, ante dormiit quam laborauit, immo quam et edit, immo quam et profatus est, ut uideant naturalem indicem somnum omnibus naturalibus principaliorem.

If you learn from God, that fountain of the race, Adam drank down sleep before he thirsted for rest, slept before he labored, nay, before he even ate, nay, before he even uttered speech, so that they may see sleep, the natural index, sleep, to be more principal than all natural things.

[10] Inde deducimur etiam imaginem mortis iam tunc eum recensere. Si enim Adam de Christo figuram dabat, somnus Adae mors erat Christi dormituri in mortem, ut de iniuria perinde lateris eius uera mater uiuentium figuraretur ecclesia. Ideo et somnus tam salutaris, tam rationalis etiam in publicae et communis iam mortis effingitur exemplar.

[10] Thence we are led also to infer that he was already then rehearsing the image of death. For if Adam was giving a figure of Christ, the sleep of Adam was the death of Christ, who would sleep into death, so that from the injury likewise of his side the Church might be figured, the true mother of the living. Therefore also sleep, so salutary, so rational, is fashioned as an exemplar even of the now public and common death.

[11] Voluit enim deus, et alias nihil sine exemplaribus in sua dispositione molitus, paradigmate Platonico plenius humani uel maxime initii ac finis lineas cotidie agere nobiscum, manum porrigens fidei facilius adiuuandae per imagines et parabolas sicut sermonum, ita et rerum. Proponit igitur tibi corpus amica ui soporis elisum, blanda quietis necessitate prostratum, immobile situ, quale ante uitam iacuit et quale post uitam iacebit, ut testationem plasticae et sepulturae, expectans animam quasi nondum conlatam et quasi iam ereptam.

[11] For God willed—who otherwise in his disposition undertook nothing without exemplars—to enact with us more fully by the Platonic paradigm, day by day, the lines of the human, or rather most especially of the beginning and the end, stretching out a hand to aid faith more easily through images and parables, as of words, so also of things. Therefore he sets before you a body struck down by the friendly force of sleep, laid low by the coaxing necessity of rest, motionless in its position, such as it lay before life and such as it will lie after life, as a testimony of the plastic shaping and of sepulture, awaiting the soul as if not yet conferred and as if already snatched away.

[12] Sed et illa sic patitur, ut alibi agere uideatur, dissimulatione praesentiae futuram absentiam ediscens (de Hermotimo sciemus), et tamen interim somniat: unde tunc somnia? Nec quiescit nec ignauescit omnino nec naturam immortalitatis seruam soporis 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.

[12] But that too thus experiences, so that it seems to act elsewhere, by a dissimulation of its presence learning its future absence (we shall know about Hermotimus), and yet meanwhile it dreams: whence then dreams? It neither rests nor grows slothful at all, nor does it subject the nature of immortality as a slave to sleep. It proves itself ever mobile; by land and sea it peregrinates, negotiates, is agitated, labors, plays, grieves, rejoices, pursues things licit and illicit; it shows that even without the body it can do very much indeed, that it is also equipped with its own members, but nonetheless has the necessity of setting the body in motion again.

Ita cum euigilauerit corpus, redditum officiis eius resurrectionem mortuorum tibi affirmat. Haec erit somni et ratio naturalis et natura rationalis. Etiam per imaginem mortis fidem initiaris, spem meditaris, discis mori et uiuere, discis uigilare, dum dormis.

Thus, when the body has awakened, restored to its offices, it affirms to you the resurrection of the dead This will be the natural rationale of sleep and the rational nature. Even through the image of death you are initiated into faith, you meditate hope, you learn to die and to live, you learn to keep vigil, while you sleep.

XLIV. DE HERMOTIMO.

44. ON HERMOTIMUS.

[1] Ceterum de Hermotimo. Anima, ut aiunt, in somno carebat, quasi per occasionem uacaturi hominis proficiscente de corpore. Vxor hoc prodidit.

[1] But as for Hermotimus. The soul, as they say, was absent in sleep, as if, on the occasion of the man about to be vacant, setting forth from the body. His wife made this known.

Inimici dormientem nacti pro defuncto cremauerunt. Regressa anima tardius, credo, homicidium sibi imputauit. Ciues Clazomenii Hermotimum templo consolantur.

Enemies, having found him sleeping, cremated him as if deceased. The soul, returning later—too late, I think—imputed the homicide to itself. The citizens of Clazomenae console Hermotimus with a temple.

Mulier non adit ob notam uxoris.

A woman does not enter on account of the wife's stigma.

[2] Quorsum istud? Ne, quia facile est uulgo existimare secessionem animae esse somnum, hoc quoque Hermotimi argumento credulitas subornetur. Genus fuerat grauioris aliquanto soporis, ut de incubone praesumptio est uel de ea ualetudinis labe quam Soranus opponit excludens incubonem, aut tale quid uitii quod etiam Epimeniden in fabulam impegit quinquaginta paene annos somniculosum.

[2] To what end is that? Lest, because it is easy for the common crowd to suppose that a secession of the soul is sleep, credulity be suborned by this argument of Hermotimus also. It was a kind of somewhat graver sleep, as the presumption is concerning the incubus, or from that taint of health which Soranus puts forward, excluding the incubus, or some such sort of defect which also drove Epimenides into fable as drowsy for almost fifty years.

Sed et Neronem Suetonius et Thrasymeden Theopompus negant unquam somniasse, nisi uix Neronem in ultimo exitu post pauores suos.

But also Suetonius denies that Nero ever dreamed, and Theopompus [denies it of] Thrasymedes—unless scarcely Nero did at his ultimate exit, after his own panics.

[3] Quid, si et Hermotimus ita fuit, ut otium animae nihil operantis in somnis diuortium crederetur? Omnia magis coniectes quam istam licentiam animae sine morte fugitiuae, et quidem ex forma continuam. Si enim tale quid semel accidere dicatur, ut deliquium solis aut lunae, ita et animae, sane persuaderer deuinitus factum; congruere enim hominem seu moneri seu terreri a deo, uelut fulgure rapido, momentaneae mortis ictu ---- si non magis [ in proximo esset somnium credi, quod uigilanti potius accidere deberet, si non somnium magis credi oporteret.

[3] What if Hermotimus also was such, that the leisure of the soul, doing nothing in dreams, was believed to be a divorce? You would conjecture everything rather than that license of a soul fugitive without death, and indeed continuous according to its form. For if such a thing were said to happen once, like an eclipse of the sun or moon, so also to a soul, I would indeed be persuaded it was done divinely; for it is congruent that a man be either admonished or terrified by God, as by a swift lightning-bolt, by the stroke of momentary death ---- unless rather [ it were more at hand to be believed a dream, which ought rather to befall one awake, if not a dream ought rather to be believed.

XLV. DE SOMNIS.

45. ON DREAMS.

[1] Tenemur hic de somniis quoque Christianam sententiam expromere, ut de accidentibus somni et non modicis iactationibus animae, quam ediximus negotiosam et exercitam semper ex perpetuitate motationis, quod diuinitatis et immortalitatis est ratio. Igitur cum quies corporibus euenit, quorum solacium proprium est, uacans illa a solacio alieno non quiescit et, si caret opera membrorum corporalium, suis utitur.

[1] We are held here to set forth a Christian judgment also about dreams, namely about the accidents of sleep and the no small agitations of the soul, which we have declared to be busy and always exercised by the perpetuity of motion, which is the rationale of divinity and immortality. Therefore, when rest befalls bodies, for which it is the proper solace, that soul, being void of an alien solace, does not rest, and, if it lacks the operation of the bodily members, it makes use of its own.

[2] Concipe gladiatorem sine armis uel aurigam sine curriculis, gesticulantes omnem habitum artis suae atque conatum: pugnatur, certatur, sed uacua iactatio est. Nihilominus tamen fieri uidentur quae fieri tamen non uidentur; actu enim fiunt, effectu uero non fiunt.

[2] Conceive a gladiator without arms or a charioteer without chariots, going through every posture of his art and its endeavor: there is fighting, there is contesting, but it is empty vaunting. Nevertheless, things seem to be done which, however, are not seen to be done; for in act they are done, but in effect they are not done.

[3] Hanc uim ecstasin dicimus, excessum sensus et amentiae instar. Sic et in primordio somnus cum ecstasi dedicatus: et misit deus ecstasin in Adam et dormiit. Somnus enim corpori prouenit in quietem, ecstasis animae accessit aduersus quietem, et inde iam forma somnum ecstasi miscens et natura de forma.

[3] We call this force ecstasy, a going-beyond of sense and in the likeness of amentia (madness). Thus also in the beginning sleep was instituted with ecstasy: “and God sent an ecstasy upon Adam, and he slept.” For sleep comes to the body for rest; an ecstasy of the soul has come in addition as a counter to rest; and from there on the form now mixes sleep with ecstasy, and nature from the form.

[4] Denique et oblectamur et contristamur et conterremur in somniis, quam affecte et anxie, passibiliter, cum in nullo permoueremur, a uacuis scilicet imaginibus, si compotes somniaremus. Denique et bona facta gratuita sunt in somnis et delicta secura; non magis enim ob stupri uisionem damnabimur quam ob martyrii coronabimur.

[4] Finally, we are both delighted and saddened and thoroughly terrified in dreams, how affectively and anxiously, passibly, though we would in no way be moved by empty images, of course, if we were compos as we dreamed. Finally, both good deeds are gratuitous in dreams and delicts secure; for we shall no more be condemned on account of the vision of fornication than we shall be crowned on account of martyrdom.

[5] Et quomodo, inquis, memor est somniorum anima, scilicet quam compotem esse non licet? Hoc erit proprietas amentiae huius, quia non fit ex corruptela bonae ualetudinis, sed ex ratione naturae; nec enim exterminat, sed auocat mentem. Aliud est concutere, aliud mouere, aliud euertere, aliud agitare.

[5] And how, you ask, is the soul mindful of dreams, namely one which is not permitted to be in possession of itself? This will be the property of this amentia, because it does not come about from the corruption of good health, but from the rationale of nature; for it does not drive out, but calls away the mind. It is one thing to shake violently, another to move, another to overturn, another to agitate.

[6] Igitur quod memoria suppetit, sanitas mentis est; quod sanitas mentis salua memoria stupet, amentiae genus est. Ideoque non dicimur furere, sed somniare; ideo et prudentes, si quando, sumus. Sapere enim nostnim licet obumbretur, non tamen extinguitur, nisi quod et ipsum potest uideri uacare tunc, ecstasin autem hoc quoque operari de suo proprio, ut sic nobis sapientiae imagines inferat, quemadmodum et erroris.

[6] Therefore, that memory is at hand is sanity of mind; but that the sanity of mind, with memory safe, is stupefied, is a kind of amentia (madness). And so we are not said to rave, but to dream; therefore even prudent, if ever, we are. For our being wise, although it is overshadowed, is not extinguished, except that it too can then seem to be vacant; but ecstasy also operates this from its own proper nature, so as thus to bring in to us images of wisdom, just as also of error.

XLVI.

46.

[1] Ecce rursus urgemur etiam de ipsorum somniorum retractatu quibus anima iactatur exprimere. Et quando perueniemus ad mortem? Et hic dixerim: cum deus dederit; nullae longae morae eius quod eueniet.

[1] Behold, again we are pressed even about the reconsideration of the dreams themselves, in the expression of which the soul is tossed about. And when shall we arrive at death? And here I would say: when God shall grant; there are no long delays for that which will come to pass.

[2] Vana in totum somnia Epicurus iudicauit liberans a negotiis diuinitatem et dissoluens ordinem rerum et in passiuitate omnia spargens, ut euentui exposita et fortuita. Porro si ita est, ergo erit aliquis et ueritatis euentus, quia non capit solam eam euentui omnibus debito eximi. Homerus duas portas diuisit somniis, corneam ueritatis, fallaciae eburneam; respicere est enim, inquiunt, per cornu, ebur autem caecum est.

[2] Epicurus judged dreams altogether vain, freeing divinity from affairs and dissolving the order of things, and scattering everything into passivity, as exposed to event and fortuitous. But if it is so, then there will be some occurrence of truth as well, because it does not stand that it alone be exempted from the event due to all. Homer divided for dreams two gates: the horn one of truth, the ivory one of fallacy; for to look through is, they say, by horn, but ivory is blind.

[3] Aristoteles maiorem partem mendacio reputans agnoscit et uerum. Telmessenses nulla somnia euacuant, imbecillitatem coniectationis incusant. Quis autem tam extraneus humanitatis, ut non aliquam aliquando uisionem fidelem senserit?

[3] Aristotle, reckoning the greater part to mendacity, also recognizes the true. The Telmessians nullify no dreams; they accuse the imbecility of conjecture. Who, however, is so alien to humanity as not to have at some time felt some faithful vision?

Pauca de insignioribus perstringens Epicuro pudorem imperabo.

Touching on a few of the more notable, I shall impose shame upon Epicurus.

[4] Astyages Medorum regnator quod filiae Mandanae adhuc uirginis uesicam in diluuionem Asiae fluxisse somnio uiderit, Herodotus refert; item anno post nuptias eius ex isdem locis uitem exortam toti Asiae incubasse. Hoc etiam Charon Lampsacenus Herodoto prior tradit. Qui filium eius tanto operi interpretati sunt, non fefellerunt, siquidem Asiam Cyrus et mersit et pressit.

[4] Astyages, ruler of the Medes, because he saw in a dream that the bladder of his daughter Mandane, still a virgin, had flowed out into a deluge over Asia, Herodotus reports; likewise, a year after her marriage, from the same parts a vine had sprung up and brooded over all Asia. This too Charon of Lampsacus, earlier than Herodotus, transmits. Those who interpreted her son as the author of so great a work were not mistaken, since Cyrus both drowned and pressed Asia.

[5] Philippus Macedo nondum pater Olympiadis uxoris naturam obsignasse uiderat anulo: leo erat signum; crediderat praeclusam genituram, opinor, quia leo semel pater est. Aristodemus uel Aristophon coniectans immo nihil uacuum obsignari, filium, et quidem maximi impetus, portendi. Alexandrum qui sciunt, leonem anuli recognoscunt.

[5] Philip the Macedonian, not yet a father, had seen that he had sealed the nature of his wife Olympias with a ring: a lion was the sign; he had believed generation to be precluded, I suppose, because the lion is a father only once. Aristodemus or Aristophon, conjecturing rather that nothing empty is sealed, that a son—and indeed of the greatest impetus—is portended. Those who know Alexander recognize the lion of the ring.

Ephorus scribit.

Ephorus writes.

[6] Sed et Dionysii Siciliae tyrannidem Himeraea quaedam somniauit. Heraclides prodidit. Et Seleuco regnum Asiae Laodice mater nondum eum enixa praeuidit.

[6] But also a certain Himeraean woman dreamed of the tyranny of Dionysius of Sicily. Heraclides has reported it. And for Seleucus, Laodice his mother, not yet having borne him, foresaw the kingdom of Asia.

Euphorion pro mulgauit. Mithridaten quoque ex somnio Ponti potitum a Strabone cognosco, et Baraliren Illyricum a Molossis usque Macedoniam ex somnio dominatum de Callisthene disco.

Euphorion promulgated it. I learn from Strabo that Mithridates too, by a dream, obtained possession of Pontus, and from Callisthenes I learn that Baraliren, by a dream, held dominion over Illyricum from the Molossians up to Macedonia.

[7] Nouerunt et Romani ueritatis huiusmodi somnia. Reformatorem imperii, puerulum adhuc et priuatum loci, et Iulium Octauium tantum et sibi ignotum Marcus Tullius iam et Augustum et ciuilium turbinum sepultorem de somnio norat. In Vitelliis commentariis conditum est.

[7] The Romans too knew dreams of this sort of verity. Marcus Tullius, from a dream, knew the reformer of the empire—still a little boy and of private station—only as Julius Octavius and unknown to himself; yet he already knew him as Augustus and as the burier of civil whirlwinds. It is recorded in the Vitellian commentaries.

[8] Nec haec sola species erit summarum praedicatrix potestatum, sed et periculorum et exitiorum: ut cum Caesar in praelio perduellium Bruti et Cassii Philippis aeger, alias maius tamen discrimen ab hostibus relaturus, de Artorii uisione destituto tabernaculo euadit; ut cum Polycrati Samio filia crucem prospicit de solis unguine et lauacro Iouis.

[8] Nor will this form alone be a predictress of supreme powers, but also of dangers and destructions: as when Caesar, in the battle at Philippi against the traitors Brutus and Cassius, ill, yet otherwise about to incur a greater peril from the enemies, on Artorius’s vision escaped, his tent left deserted; as when the daughter of Polycrates the Samian foresees the cross from the sun’s unguent and the bath of Jove.

[9] Reuelantur et honores et ingenia per quietem, praestantur et medellae, produntur et furta, conferuntur et thesauri. Ciceronis denique dignitatem paruuli etiamnunc gerula iam sua inspexerat. Cycnus de sinu Socratis demulcens homines discipulus Plato est.

[9] Both honors and talents are revealed in sleep, remedies are also provided, thefts are betrayed, and treasures are conferred. Cicero’s dignity, finally, his own nurse had already discerned while he was still a very little child. The swan from the bosom of Socrates, soothing men, is the disciple Plato.

Leonymus pyctes ab Achille curatur in somniis. Coronam auream cum ex arce Athenae perdidissent, Sophocles tragicus somniando redinuenit. Neoptolemus tragoedus apud Rhoeteum Troiae sepulcrum Aiacis monitus in somnis ab ipso ruina liberat, et cum lapidum senia deponit, diues inde auro redit.

Leonymus the pugilist is healed by Achilles in dreams. When they had lost the golden crown from the citadel of Athena, Sophocles the tragic poet rediscovered it by dreaming. Neoptolemus the tragedian, at Rhoeteum of Troy, the tomb of Ajax—warned in dreams by Ajax himself—frees it from ruin, and when he removes a heap of stones, he returns from there rich in gold.

[10] Quanti autem commentatores et affirmatores in hanc rem? Artemon Antiphon Strato Philochorus Epicharmus Serapion Cratippus Dionysius Rhodius Hermippus, tota saeculi litteratura. Solum, si forte, ridebo qui se existimauit persuasurum, quod prior omnibus Saturnus somniarit, nisi si et prior omnibus uixit.

[10] And how many commentators and affirmers on this matter? Artemon Antiphon Strato Philochorus Epicharmus Serapion Cratippus Dionysius Rhodius Hermippus, the whole literature of the age. Only, perhaps, I shall laugh at the one who supposed he would persuade that Saturn dreamed before all others, unless indeed he also lived before all others.

Aristoteles, ignosce ridenti.

Aristotle, pardon my laughing.

[11] Ceterum Epicharmus etiam summum apicem inter diuinationes somniis extulit cum Philochoro Atheniensi. Nam et oraculis hoc genus stipatus est orbis, ut Amphiarai apud Oropum, Amphilochi apud Mallum, Sarpedonis in Troade, Trophonii in Boeotia, Mopsi in Cilicia, Hermionae in Macedonia, Pasiphaae in Laconica. Cetera cum suis et originibus et ritibus et relatoribus, cum omni deinceps historia somniorum, Hermippus Berytensis quinione uoluminum satiatissime exhibebit.

[11] Moreover, Epicharmus too exalted dreams to the very highest apex among divinations, together with the Athenian Philochorus. For the world is also packed with oracles of this kind: those of Amphiaraus at Oropus, of Amphilochus at Mallus, of Sarpedon in the Troad, of Trophonius in Boeotia, of Mopsus in Cilicia, of Hermione in Macedonia, of Pasiphae in Laconia. The rest, with their origins, rites, and reporters, together with the entire subsequent history of dreams, Hermippus of Berytus will most satisfyingly set forth in a quinion of volumes.

Sed et Stoici deum malunt prouidentissimum humanae institutioni inter cetera praesidia diuinatricum artium et disciplinarum somnia quoque magis indidisse, peculiare solacium naturalis oraculi.

But the Stoics also prefer that God, most provident for human institution, has, among the other safeguards of the divinatory arts and disciplines, also more especially implanted dreams, a peculiar solace of the natural oracle.

[12] Haec quantum ad fidem somniorum a nobis quoque consignandam et aliter interpretandam. Nam de oraculis etiam ceteris, apud quae nemo dormitat, quid aliud pronuntiabimus quam daemonicam esse rationem eorum spirituum qui iam tunc in ipsis hominibus habitauerint uel memorias eorum affectauerint ad omnem malitiae suae scenam, in ista aeque specie diuinitatem mentientes eademque industria etiam per beneficia fallentes medicinarum et admonitionum, praenuntiationum, quo magis laedant iuuando, dum per ea quae iuuant ab inquisitione uerae diuinitatis abducunt ex insinuatione falsae?

[12] These things, as far as concerns the faith/credibility of dreams to be by us also sealed and otherwise interpreted. For as to the other oracles too, at which no one naps, what else shall we pronounce but that the rationale is daemonic, of those spirits who even then dwelt in those very men or laid claim to their memories for every stage-scene of their malice, in this guise likewise feigning divinity, and with the same industry deceiving even through benefactions of medicines and admonitions, pre-announcements, so that they may wound the more by helping, while through those things which help they lead away from the inquiry into the true divinity by the insinuation of the false?

[13] Et utique non clausa uis est nec sacrariorum circumscribitur terminis; uaga et peruolatica et interim libera est. Quo nemo dubitauerit domus quoque daemoniis patere nec tantum in adytis, sed in cubiculis homines imaginibus circumueniri.

[13] And assuredly the power is not enclosed nor is it circumscribed by the boundaries of shrines; it is wandering and flitting-about and meanwhile free. Wherefore let no one doubt that houses too are open to daemons, and that men are circumvented by images not only in the adyta, but in their bedchambers.

XLVII.

47.

[1] Definimus enim a daemoniis plurimum incuti somnia, etsi interdum uera et gratiosa, sed, de qua industria diximus, affectantia atque captantia, quanto magis uana et frustratoria et turbida et ludibriosa et immunda. Nec mirum, si eorum sunt imagines quorum et res.

[1] We define, in fact, that dreams are for the most part instilled by demons, even if at times true and ingratiating; yet—by that industry of which we have spoken—aiming and captatory, how much more vain and frustratory and turbid and mocking and unclean. Nor is it a marvel, if the images are theirs whose realities are as well.

[2] A deo autem, pollicito scilicet et gratiam spiritus sancti in omnem carnem et sicut prophetaturos, ita et somniaturos seruos suos et ancillas suas, ea deputabuntur quae ipsi gratiae comparabuntur, si qua honesta sancta prophetica reuelatoria aedificatoria uocatoria, quorum liberalitas soleat et in profanos destillare, imbres etiam et soles suos peraequante deo iustis et iniustis, siquidem et Nabuchodonosor diuinitus somniat et maior paene uis hominum ex uisionibus deum discunt. Sicut ergo dignatio dei et in ethnicos, ita et temptatio mali et in sanctos, a quibus nec interdiu absistit, ut uel dormientibus obrepat qua potest, si uigilantibus non potest.

[2] But from God—who, to be sure, has promised both the grace of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh, and that, just as his male servants and maidservants will prophesy, so also they will dream—there will be reckoned those [dreams] which will be comparable to that very grace: whatever are honest, holy, prophetic, revelatory, edificatory, vocatory; the liberality of which is wont even to distill into the profane, God as well equalizing his rains and his suns to the just and the unjust, since even Nebuchadnezzar dreams divinely, and almost the greater multitude of men learn God from visions. Accordingly, as the condescension of God is also toward the gentiles, so too the temptation of evil is toward the saints, from whom it does not desist even by day, so that it may creep upon them even when they are sleeping in whatever way it can, if it cannot when they are awake.

[3] Tertia species erunt somnia quae sibimet ipsa anima uidetur inducere ex intentione circumstantiarum. Porro quam non est ex arbitrio somniare (nam et Epicharmus ita sentit), quomodo ipsa erit sibi causa alicuius uisionis? Num ergo haec species naturali formae relinquenda est seruans animae etiam in ecstasi res suas perpeti?

[3] The third kind will be dreams which the soul itself seems to induce upon itself from the intention of circumstances. Moreover, since it is not by arbitrary discretion to dream (for Epicharmus also thinks thus), how will it itself be the cause to itself of any vision? Is this kind, then, to be left to a natural form, preserving that the soul even in ecstasy endures its own affairs?

[4] Ea autem, quae neque a deo neque a daemonio neque ab anima uidebuntur accidere, et praeter opinionem et praeter interpretationem et praeter enarrationem facultatis, ipsi proprie ecstasi et rationi eius separabuntur.

[4] But those things which will seem to happen neither from god nor from a daemonic being nor from the soul, and which are beyond opinion and beyond interpretation and beyond the faculty’s enarration, will be set apart to ecstasy itself and to its rationale.

XLVIII.

48.

[1] Certiora et colatiora somniari affirmant sub extimis noctibus, quasi iam emergente animarum uigore prodacto sopore. Ex temporibus autem anni uerno magis quieta, quod aestas dissoluat animas et hiems quodammodo obduret et autumnus, temptator alias ualetudinum, succis pomorum uinosissimis diluat.

[1] They affirm that more certain and more distilled things are dreamed in the farthest watches of the nights, as if now, with the vigor of souls emerging after a protracted slumber. But, among the seasons of the year, dreams are calmer in spring, because summer dissolves the spirits and winter in some way hardens them, and autumn—otherwise a tempter of illnesses—dilutes them with the most winy juices of fruits.

[2] Item ex ipsius quietis situ, si neque resupina neque dextero latere decumbat neque conresupinatis internis, quasi refusis loculis, statio sensuum fluitet aut conpressa iecoris sagina sit mentis. Sed haec ingeniose aestimari potius quam constanter probari putem, etsi Plato est qui ea aestimauit; et fortassean casu procedant. Alioquin ex arbitrio erunt somnia, si dirigi poterunt.

[2] Likewise from the very posture of sleep itself, if one lies neither supine nor on the right side, nor with the internals co-supinated, as if the little compartments were poured back, the station of the senses may waver, or the of the mind may be, compressed by the glut of the liver. But I would think these things to be ingeniously assessed rather than consistently proved, although it is Plato who assessed them; and perhaps even they proceed by chance. Otherwise dreams will be arbitrary, if they can be directed.

[3] Nam quod et de cibis distinguendis uel derogandis nunc praesumptio nunc superstitio disciplinam somniis praescribit, examinandum est: superstitio, ut cum apud oracula incubaturis ieiunium indicitur, ut castimoniam inducat, praesumptio, ut cum Pythagorici ob hanc quoque speciem fabam respuunt onerosum et inflatui pabulum. Atquin trina illa cum Daniele fraternitas legumine solo contenti, ne regiis ferculis contaminarentur, praeter sapientiam reliquam somniorum praecipue gratiam a deo redemerunt et impetrandorum et disserendorum.

[3] For the fact that, concerning foods to be distinguished or curtailed, now presumption now superstition prescribes a discipline for dreams, must be examined: superstition, as when a fast is enjoined upon those who are going to incubate at oracles, in order to induce chastity; presumption, as when the Pythagoreans, for this very type as well, spurn the bean, a burdensome food and fodder for bloat. And yet that threefold fraternity with Daniel, content with legume alone, lest they be contaminated by the royal courses, besides their remaining wisdom, redeemed from God especially the favor in matters of dreams—both of obtaining and of expounding them.

[4] Ieiunus autem nescio an ego solus plurimum ita somniem, ut me somniasse non sentiam. Nihil ergo sobrietas, inquis, ad hanc partem? Immo tanto magis ad hanc, quantum et ad omnem; si et ad superstitionem, multo amplius ad religionem.

[4] While fasting, however, I do not know whether I alone for the most part thus dream, that I do not perceive that I have dreamed. So then, sobriety, you say, has nothing to do with this part? On the contrary, so much the more with this, as with every part; if with superstition, much more with religion.

Sic enim et daemonia expostulant eam a suis somniatoribus ad lenocinium scilicet diuinitatis, quia familiarem dei norunt, quia et Daniel rursus trium hebdomadum statione aruit uictu, sed ut deum inliceret humiliationis officiis, non ut animae somniaturae sensum et sapientiam strueret, quasi non in ecstasi acturae. Ita non ad ecstasin summouendam sobrietas proficiet, sed ad ipsam ecstasin commendandam, ut in deo fiat.

Thus also the demons demand it from their dreamers—namely, as a pandering to divinity—because they know it to be familiar to God, since Daniel likewise, by a station of three weeks, grew lean in sustenance, but in order to entice God by the offices of humiliation, not to build up the sense and wisdom of a soul about to dream, as though it were not going to act in ecstasy. Thus sobriety will not profit for removing ecstasy, but for commending ecstasy itself, that it may be done in God.

XLIX.

49.

[1] Infantes qui non putant somniare, cum omnia animae pro modo aetatis expungantur in uita, animaduertant succussus et nutus et renidentias eorum per quietem, ut ex re comprehendant motus animae somniantis facile per carnis teneritatem erumpere in superficiem.

[1] Those who think that infants do not dream, since all the soul’s activities, according to the measure of their age, are worked out in life, should notice their startlings and nods and beaming smiles during rest, so that from the fact they may comprehend that the motions of a dreaming soul easily burst forth to the surface through the tenderness of the flesh.

[2] Sed et quod Libyca gens Atlantes caeco somno transigere dicuntur, animae utique natura taxantur. Porro aut Herodoto fama mentita est nonnunquam in barbaros calumniosa aut magna uis eiusmodi daemonum in illo climate dominatur. Si enim et Aristoteles heroem quendam Sardiniae notat incubatores fani sui uisionibus priuantem, erit et hoc in daemonum libidinibus, tam auferre somnia quam inferre, ut Neronis quoque seri somniatoris et Thrasymedis insigne inde processerit.

[2] But also the fact that the Libyan nation, the Atlantes, are said to pass their time in blind sleep, is assuredly to be accounted for by the soul’s nature. Moreover, either the report to Herodotus has lied, sometimes slanderous against barbarians, or a great force of daemons of this sort rules in that climate. For if even Aristotle notes a certain hero of Sardinia depriving the incubators of his own shrine of visions, this too will belong among the passions of daemons, both to take away dreams and to bring them in, so that the distinction of Nero too, a tardy dreamer, and of Thrasymedes proceeded from that source.

[3] Sed et a deo deducimus somnia. Quid ergo nec a deo Atlantes somniarent, uel quia nulla iam gens dei extranea est in omnem terram et in terminos orbis euangelio coruscante? Num ergo aut fama mentita est Aristoteli aut daemonum adhuc ratio est?

[3] But we also derive dreams from God. Why then should not the Atlantes dream from God as well—perhaps because no nation is now alien to God, with the gospel flashing into all the earth and to the ends of the world? Is it, then, either that rumor lied to Aristotle, or that the rationale of the daemons still stands?

Dum ne animae aliqua natura credatur immunis somniorum.

Provided only that the soul not be believed to be by any nature immune from dreams.

L. DE MORTIS VI ET DE MENANDRO HAERETICO.

50. ON THE FORCE OF DEATH AND ON MENANDER THE HERETIC.

[1] Satis de speculo mortis, id est de somno, cum etiam de negotiis somni, id est de somniis; nunc ad originem huius excessus, id est ad ordinem mortis, quia nec ipsam sine quaestionibus, licet finem omnium quaestionum.

[1] Enough about the mirror of death, that is, about sleep, since also about the affairs of sleep, that is, about dreams; now to the origin huius excessus, that is, to the order of death, for not even it is without questions, although it is the end of all questions.

[2] Publica totius generis humani sententia mortem naturae debitum pronuntiamus. Hoc stipulata est dei uox, hoc spopondit omne quod nascitur, ut iam hinc non Epicuri stupor suffundatur negantis debitum istud ad nos pertinere, sed haeretici magi Menandri Samaritani furor conspuatur dicentis mortem ad suos non modo non pertinere, uerum nec peruenire: in hoc scilicet se a superna et arcana potestate legatum, ut immortales et incorruptibiles et statim resurrectionis compotes fiant, qui baptisma eius induerint.

[2] By the public sentence of the whole human race we pronounce death the debt of nature. This the voice of God has stipulated; this everything that is born has pledged, so that from here on the stupor of Epicurus be not poured over us, denying that that debt pertains to us, but rather let the fury of the heretical magus Menander the Samaritan be spat upon, saying that death not only does not pertain to his own, but indeed does not even come to them: in that, namely, he avers himself a legate from a supernal and arcane power, so that those who shall have put on his baptism become immortals and incorruptible and straightway partakers of resurrection.

[3] Legimus quidem pleraque aquarum genera miranda, sed aut ebriosos reddit Lyncestarum uena uinosa aut lymphaticos efficit Colophonis scaturigo daemonica aut Alexandrum occidit Nonacris Arcadiae uenenata. Fuit et Iudaeae lacus medicus ante Christum. Plane Stygias paludes poeta tradidit mortem diluentes, sed et Thetis filium planxit.

[3] We do read indeed that several kinds of waters are marvelous: but the vinous vein of the Lyncestae makes men inebriated, the demonic spring of Colophon makes them lymphatic, and the poisonous water of Nonacris in Arcadia killed Alexander. There was also in Judaea a medicinal lake before Christ. Clearly the poet has handed down that the Stygian marshes wash away death; but Thetis also lamented her son.

Quamquam si et Menander in Stygem mergit, moriendum erit nihilominus, ut ad Stygem uenias; apud inferos enim dicitur.

Although even if Menander too plunges into the Styx, it will be necessary to die nonetheless, so that you may come to the Styx; for it is said in the underworld.

[4] Quaenam et ubinam ista felicitas aquarum, quas nec Iohannes baptizator praeministrauit nec Christus ipse discipulis demonstrauit? Quod hoc Menandri balneum? Comicum credo.

[4] What and where, pray, is this felicity of the waters, which neither John the baptizer pre-administered nor Christ himself demonstrated to the disciples? What is this Menander’s bath? Comic, I believe.

Sed cur tam infrequens, tam occultum, quo paucissimi lauant? Suspectam enim faciam tantam raritatem securissimi atque tutissimi sacramenti, apud quod nec pro deo ipso mori lex est, cum contra omnes iam nationes ascendant in montem domini et in aedem dei Iacob mortem per martyrium quoque flagitantis, quam de Christo etiam suo exegit. Nec magiae tantum dabit quisquam, ut eximat mortem aut repastinet uitis modo uitam aetate renouata.

But why is it so infrequent, so occult, wherein very few wash? For I will indeed make suspect so great a rarity of a most secure and most safe sacrament, at which there is not even a law to die for God himself, whereas, on the contrary, already all nations ascend to the mountain of the Lord and to the temple of the God of Jacob, he demanding death even through martyrdom, which he exacted also from his own Christ. Nor will anyone grant so much to magic as to remove death or to re-dig, in the manner of the vine, life renovated in age.

Hoc enim ne Medeae quidem licuit in hominem, etsi licuit in ueruecem.

For indeed this was not permitted even to Medea upon a human being, though it was permitted upon a wether.

[5] Translatus est Enoch et Helias nec mors eorum reperta est, dilata scilicet; ceterum morituri reseruantur, ut antichristum sanguine suo extinguant. Obiit et Iohannes, quem in aduentum domini remansurum frustra fuerat spes. Fere enim haereses ad nostra exempla prosiliunt inde sumentes praesidia quo pugnant.

[5] Enoch and Elijah were translated, and nor was their death found, deferred, to wit; however, they are reserved as destined to die, that they may extinguish the Antichrist with their own blood. John also died, for whom there had been a hope in vain that he would remain until the advent of the Lord. For almost always heresies leap forth upon our examples, taking from there the defenses with which they fight.

Postremo compendium est: ubi sunt illi quos Menander ipse perfudit, quos in Stygem suam mersit? Apostoli perennes ueniant, adsistant; uideat illos meus Thomas, audiat contrectet et credidit.

Finally, the compendium is: where are those whom Menander himself perfused, whom he plunged into his own Styx? Let the perennial Apostles come, let them stand by; let my Thomas see them, let him hear, let him handle, and he believed.

LI. NIHIL ANIMAE IN CORPORE SVBREMANERE.

51. NO PART OF THE SOUL IN THE BODY REMAINS.

[1] Opus autem mortis in medio est, discretio corporis animaeque. Sed quidam ad immortalitatem animae, quam quidem non a deo edocti infirme tuentur, ita argumentation es emendicant, ut uelint credi etiam post mortem quasdam animas adhaerere corporibus.

[1] However, the work of death is the separation of body and soul. But certain people, for the immortality of the soul—which indeed, not taught by God, they defend feebly—so beg their argumentations that they wish it believed that even after death certain souls adhere to bodies.

[2] Ad hoc enim et Plato, etsi quas uult animas ad caelum statim expedit, in Politia tamen cuiusdam insepulti cadauer opponit longo tempore sine ulla labe prae animae scilicet indiuiduitate seruatum. Ad hoc et Democritus crementa unguium et comarum in sepulturis aliquanti temporis denotat.

[2] For to this end even Plato, although he dispatches straightway to heaven such souls as he wishes, yet in the Polity he sets forth the corpse of a certain unburied man preserved for a long time without any stain—namely, by the soul’s indivision. To this end also Democritus notes the growths of nails and of hair in burials for some time.

[3] Porro et aeris qualitas corpori illi potuit tutela fuisse. Quid enim, si aridior aer et solum salsius? Quid, si et ipsius corporis substantia exsuccior?

[3] Furthermore, even the quality of the air could have been a safeguard for that body. For what if the air were more arid and the soil more saline? What if the very substance of the body itself were more desiccated?

Quid, si et genus mortis ante iam corruptelae materias erogarat? Vngues autem cum exodia neruorum sint, merito neruis resolutione porrectis prouectiores et cotidie deficiente carne expelli uidentur. Comae quoque alimenta de cerebro, quod aliquamdiu durare praestat secreta munitio.

What if even the kind of death had already expended the materials of corruption? The nails, moreover, since they are the exodia of the nerves, rightly, with the nerves stretched forth by a resolution, are borne farther and seem to be expelled as the flesh fails day by day. The hairs likewise have nourishment from the brain, which a secret fortification provides to endure for some time.

Denique in uiuentibus etiam pro cerebri ubertate uel affluit capillago uel deserit. Habes medicos.

Finally, even in the living, in proportion to the brain’s abundance, the capillature either overflows or deserts; you have the physicians.

[4] Sed nec modicum quid animae subsidere in corpore est decessurum quandoque et ipsum, cum totam corporis scenam tempus aboleuerit. Et hoc enim in opinione quorundam est; propterea nec ignibus funerandum aiunt parcentes superfluo animae. Alia est autem ratio pietatis istius, non reliquiis animae adulatrix, sed crudelitatis etiam corporis nomine auersatrix, quod et ipsum homo non utique mereatur poenali exitu impendi.

[4] But nor will some small portion of the soul’s subsiding in the body fail to depart someday, when time shall have abolished the whole scene of the body. And this indeed is in the opinion of certain people; therefore they say it is not to be consigned to the funeral fires, sparing what is superfluous of the soul. But the rationale of that piety is another: not an adulatrix of the soul’s relics, but an averse-to-cruelty stance even in the body’s very name, since a human by no means deserves to have even the body itself expended by a penal exit.

[5] Ceterum anima indiuisibilis, ut immortalis, etiam mortem indiuisibilem exigit credi, non quasi immortali, sed quasi indiuisibili animae indiuisibiliter accidentem. Diuidetur autem et mors, si et anima, superfluo scilicet animae quandoque morituro; ita portio mortis cum animae portione remanebit.

[5] Moreover, the soul, indivisible, as immortal, also demands that death be believed indivisible—not as if to an immortal soul, but as to an indivisible soul, befalling it indivisibly. But death too would be divided, if the soul were (divided), namely with the superfluous of the soul destined someday to die; thus a portion of death will remain with a portion of the soul.

[6] Nec ignoro aliquod esse uestigium opinionis istius. De meo didici. Scio feminam quandam uernaculam ecclesiae, forma et aetate integra functam, post unicum et breue matrimonium cum in pace dormisset et morante adhuc sepultura interim oratione presbyteri componeretur, ad primum halitum orationis manus a lateribus dimotas in habitum supplicem conformasse rursumque condita pace situi suo reddidisse.

[6] Nor am I ignorant that there is some vestige of that opinion. From my own I have learned. I know a certain homeborn woman of the church, having fulfilled her course with form and age intact, after a single and brief matrimony, when she had slept in peace and, the burial still delaying, in the meantime was being composed by the presbyter’s oration, at the first breath of the oration she conformed her hands, moved away from her sides, into a supplicant habit, and again, peace having been sealed, she restored them to their own site.

[7] Est et illa relatio apud nostros, in coemeterio corpus corpori iuxta collocando spatium accessui communicasse. Si et apud ethnicos tale quid traditur, ubique deus potestatis suae signa proponit, suis in solacium, extraneis in testimonium. Magis enim credam in testimonium ex deo factum quam ex ullis animae reliquiis, quae si inessent, alia quoque membra mouissent, et si manus tantum, sed non in causam orationis.

[7] There is also that relation among our people, that, in the cemetery, by placing a body beside a body, space for access was communicated. If also among the pagans such a thing is handed down, everywhere God sets forth signs of his power, for his own as a solace, for outsiders as a testimony. For I would more readily believe it done as a testimony from God than from any remnants of the soul, which, if they were present, would have moved other limbs as well—and if only the hand, yet not into the posture of prayer.

Corpus etiam illud non modo fratri cessisset, uerum et alias mutatione situs sibimet ipsi refrigerasset.

That body too would not only have yielded to its brother, but also at other times, by a change of position, would have refreshed itself for itself.

[8] Certe undeunde sunt ista, signis potius et ostentis deputanda, naturam facere non possunt. Mors, si non semel tota est, non est; si quid animae remanserit, uita est; non magis uitae miscebitur mors quam diei et nox.

[8] Surely, from wherever these things are, they are rather to be assigned to signs and ostents; they cannot be effected by nature. Death, if it is not once for all and entire, is not; if anything of the soul has remained, it is life; no more will death be mingled with life than day with night.

LII.

52.

[1] Hoc igitur opus mortis: separatio carnis atque animae; seposita quaestione fatorum et fortuitorum bifariam distinxit humanus affectus, in ordinariam et extraordinariam formam, ordinariam quidem naturae deputans, placidae cuiusque mortis, extraordinariam uero praeter naturam iudicans, uiolenti cuiusque finis.

[1] Therefore this is the work of death: the separation of flesh and soul; with the question of fates and of fortuitous things set aside, it has in a twofold manner been distinguished by human affect, into an ordinary and an extraordinary form, assigning the ordinary indeed to nature, of each placid death, but judging the extraordinary as beyond nature, of each violent end.

[2] Qui autem primordia hominis nouimus, audenter determinamus mortem non ex natura secutam hominem, sed ex culpa, ne ipsa quidem naturali; facile autem usurpari naturae nomen in ea quae uidentur a natiuitate ex accidentia adhaesisse. Nam si homo in mortem directo institutus fuisset, tunc demum mors naturae adscribereretur. Porro non in mortem institutum eum probat ipsa lex condicionali comminatione suspendens et arbitrio hominis addicens mortis euentum.

[2] But we, who know the primordia of man, boldly determine that death did not follow man from nature, but from fault—nor indeed is that fault itself natural; yet the name of nature is easily usurped for those things which seem, from nativity, to have adhered by accident. For if man had been instituted, directed straight into death, then at length death would be ascribed to nature. Moreover, the law itself proves that he was not instituted into death, suspending it with a conditional commination and adjudging the event of death to the arbitrium of man.

Denique si non deliquisset, nequaquam obisset. Ita non erit natura quod ex oblationis potestate accidit per uoluntatem, non ex instituti auctoritate per necessitatem.

Finally, if he had not transgressed, by no means would he have died. Thus, that which happens from the power of an offered choice, by will, and not from the authority of the institution, by necessity, will not be nature.

[3] Proinde etsi uarii exitus mortis, ut est multimoda condicio causarum, nullum ita dicimus lenem, ut non ui agatur. Ipsa illa ratio operatrix mortis, simplex licet, uis est. Quid enim?

[3] Accordingly, although the outcomes of death are various, as the condition of causes is multiform, we say that none is so gentle as not to be driven by force. That very rationale operative of death, though simple, is force. What, indeed?

quae tantam animae et carnis societatem, tantam a conceptu concretionem sororum substantiarum diuellit ac dirimit. Nam etsi prae gaudio quis spiritum exhalet, ut Chilon Spartanus, dum uictorem Olympiae filium amplectitur, etsi prae gloria, ut Clidemus Atheniensis, dum ob historici stili praestantiam auro coronatur, etsi per somnium, ut Plato, etsi per risum, ut P. Crassus, multo uiolentior mors quae per aliena grassatur, quae animam per commoda expellit, quae tunc mori affert, cum iocundius uiuere est in exultatione in honore in requie in uoluptate.

which sunders and separates so great a society of soul and flesh, so great a concretion from conception of sister substances. For even if someone exhales his spirit out of joy, as Chilon the Spartan, while he embraces his son, victor at Olympia; even if out of glory, as Clidemus the Athenian, while he is crowned with gold on account of the excellence of his historical style; even if through a dream, as Plato; even if through laughter, as P. Crassus—far more violent is the death which rampages through external things, which expels the soul through comforts, which then brings dying when it is more pleasant to live: in exultation, in honor, in repose, in voluptuous pleasure.

[4] Vis est et illa nauigiis, cum longe a Caphereis saxis, nullis depugnata turbinibus, nullis quassata decumanis, adulante flatu, labente cursu, laetante comitatu, intestino repente perculsu cum tota securitate desidunt. Non secus naufragia sunt uitae etiam tranquillae mortis euentus. Nihilo refert integram abire corporis nauem an dissipatam, dum animae nauigatio euertatur.

[4] There is violence also in sea‑voyages, when, far from the Capherean rocks, engaged by no whirlwinds, shaken by no decuman billows, with a flattering breeze, a gliding course, the company rejoicing, by a sudden internal concussion, they, with total security, sink down. No otherwise are the shipwrecks of life events of even a tranquil death. It makes no difference whether the ship of the body departs intact or shattered, so long as the navigation of the soul is overturned.

LIII. DE ANIMARVM EXCESSV.

53. ON THE DEPARTURE OF SOULS.

[1] Sed quo deinde anima nuda et explosa deuertit, sine dubio prosequemur ex ordine; prius tamen quod est loci huius explebimus, ne, quia uarios exitus mortis ediximus, expectet quis a nobis rationes singulorum medicis potras relinquendas, propriis arbitris omnium letalium rerum siue causarum et ipsarum corporalium condicionum.

[1] But whither then the naked and expelled soul turns aside, we will without doubt pursue in order; first, however, we will complete what pertains to this place, lest, because we have declared the various exits of death, someone expect from us the explanations of each—explanations to be left to the physicians, the proper arbiters of all lethal things or causes and of the corporal conditions themselves.

[2] Plane ad immortalitatem animae hic quoque protegendam in mentione mortis aliquid de eiuscemodi exitu interstruam, in quo paulatim ac minutatim anima dilabitur; habitum enim sustinens defectionis abducitur, dum absumi uidetur, et coniecturam praestat interitus de excessus temperatura. Tota autem in corpore et ex corpore est ratio. Nam quisquis ille exitus mortis, sine dubio aut materiarum aut regionum aut uiarum uitalium euersio est: materiarum, ut fellis, ut sanguinis; regionum, ut cordis, ut iecoris; uiarum, ut uenarum, ut arteriarum.

[2] Clearly, with the immortality of the soul here too to be safeguarded in the mention of death, I will intersperse something about an exit of such a kind, in which the soul slips away little by little and bit by bit; for, sustaining a habit of failure, it is drawn off, while it seems to be consumed, and it furnishes a conjecture of the end from the temperament of the egress. Moreover, the whole rationale is in the body and from the body. For whatever that exit of death is, it is without doubt an overthrow either of the materials or of the regions or of the vital ways: of the materials, as of bile, as of blood; of the regions, as of the heart, as of the liver; of the ways, as of the veins, as of the arteries.

[3] Dum igitur haec ex propria quaque iniuriae causa uastantur in corpore ad usque ultimam euersionem et rescissionem uitalium, id est naturalium, finium situum officiorum, necessario et anima dilabentibus paulatim instrumentis et domiciliis et spatiis suis paulatim et ipsa migrare compulsa deducitur in deminutionis effigiem, non alio modo quam quo et aurigam ipsum quoque defecisse praesumitur, cum uires equorum defatigatio denegauit, quantum de dispostione destituti hominis, non de passionis ueritate. Perinde auriga corporis, spiritus animalis, deficiens uectaculi nomine, non suo deficit, opere decedens, non uigore, actu elanguens, non statu, constantiam, non substantiam decoquens, quia comparere cessat, non quia esse.

[3] While therefore these things, from each one’s own cause of injury, are laid waste in the body up to the final overthrow and cutting-off of the vital, that is, natural, limits of sites and offices, necessarily also the soul, as its instruments and domiciles and spaces gradually slip away, is itself likewise compelled gradually to migrate and is led down into a likeness of diminution, not otherwise than as even the charioteer himself is presumed to have failed when the fatigue of the horses has denied their powers—so far as concerns the disposition of the man left destitute, not the truth of the passion. Likewise the charioteer of the body, the animal spirit, failing under the title of its vehicle, does not fail by its own [nature], departing in operation, not in vigor, growing faint in act, not in state, wasting down constancy, not substance, because it ceases to appear, not to be.

[4] Sic et rapida quaeque mors, ut ceruicum messis, semel ac tantam ianuam pandens, ut ruinae uis semel omnia uitalia elidens, ut apoplexis, interior ruina, nullam animae moram praestat nec discessum eius in momenta discruciat, at ubi longa mors, prout deseritur anima, ita et deserit; non tamen conciditur hac facie, sed extrahitur, et dum extrahitur, postremitatem suam partem uideri facit. Non omnis autem pars statim et abscisa est, quia postera est, nec quia exigua est, statim et ipsa peritura est. Sequitur seriem suus finis et mediocritas trahitur a summa et reliquiae uniuersitati cohaerentes expectantur ab illa, non derelinquuntur.

[4] Thus too every swift death, like a harvest of necks, once-for-all opening so great a gate; like the force of a ruin once-for-all crushing all the vital things; like apoplexy, an interior ruin, affords no delay to the soul and does not torment its departure into moments; but where death is long, in proportion as the soul is deserted, so too it deserts; yet it is not felled in this fashion, but drawn out, and while it is drawn out, it makes its own last part to be seen. Not every part, moreover, is at once also cut off because it is subsequent, nor, because it is slight, is it at once itself going to perish. Its own end follows the series, and the mean is drawn from the sum, and the remnants adhering to the universality are awaited by it, not left behind.

Atque ita ausim dicere: totius ultimum totum est, quia, licet minus atque posterius sit, ipsius est.

And so I would dare to say: the ultimate of the whole is a whole, because, although it is lesser and later, it is its own.

[5] Hinc denique euenit saepe animam in ipso diuortio potentius agitari sollicitiore obtutu, extraordinaria loquacitate, dum ex maiore suggestu iam in libero constituta per superfluum quod adhuc cunctatur in corpore enuntiat quae uidet, quae audit, quae incipit nosse. Si enim corpus istud Platonica sententia carcer, ceterum apostolica dei templum, cum in Christo est, sed interim animam consepto suo obstruit et obscurat et concretione carnis infaecat, unde illi, uelut per corneum specular, obsoletior lux rerum est.

[5] Hence, in fine, it often comes about that the soul, at the very divorce, is stirred more powerfully, with a more solicitous gaze, with extraordinary loquacity, while, from a higher platform, now established in freedom, through the surplus that still lingers in the body, it declares what it sees, what it hears, what it begins to know. For if this body, by Platonic opinion, is a prison, but by Apostolic [teaching] God’s temple when it is in Christ, yet meanwhile it blocks up the soul by its enclosure and obscures it and befouls it by the concretion of flesh, whence to it, as through a horn window, the light of things is more faded.

[6] Procul dubio cum ui mortis exprimitur de concretione carnis et ipsa expressione colatur, certe de oppanso corporis erumpit in apertum ad meram et puram et suam lucem, statim semetipsam in expeditione substantiae recognoscit et in diuinitatem ipsa libertate resipiscit, ut de somnio emergens ab imaginibus ad ueritates. Tunc et enuntiat et uidet, tunc exultat aut trepidat, prout paraturam deuorsorii sui sentit, de ipsius statim angeli facie, euocatoris animarum, Mercurii poetarum.

[6] Without doubt, when by the force of death she is pressed out from the concretion of flesh and by that very expression is strained, surely from the opposing bulk of the body she bursts into the open, to the mere and pure and her own light; at once she recognizes herself in the expedition of her substance, and into divinity by that very liberty she comes back to her senses, as one emerging from sleep from images to realities. Then she both declares and sees; then she exults or trembles, according as she perceives the preparation of her lodging, from the very face of the angel straightway, the summoner of souls, the Mercury of the poets.

LIV. DE RECEPTV.

54. ON THE RECEPTION.

[1] Quo igitur deducetur anima, iam hinc reddimus. Omnes ferme philosophi, qui immortalitatem animae, qualiterqualiter uolunt, tamen uindicant, ut Pythagoras, ut Empedocles, ut Plato, quique aliquod illi tempus indulgent ab excessu usque in conflagrationem uniuersitatis, ut Stoici, suas solas, id est sapientium, animas in supernis mansionibus collocant.

[1] To where, therefore, the soul will be led, from now we render our answer. Almost all philosophers, who, however they will, yet vindicate the immortality of the soul, as Pythagoras, as Empedocles, as Plato, and those who grant to it some time from departure up to the conflagration of the universe, as the Stoics, place only their own—that is, the souls of the wise—in supernal mansions.

[2] Plato quidem non temere philosophorum animabus hoc praestat, sed eorum qui philosophiam scilicet exornauerint amore puerorum. Adeo etiam inter philosophos magnum habet priuilegium impuritas. Itaque apud illum in aetherem sublimantur animae sapientes, apud Arium in aerem, apud Stoicos sub lunam.

[2] Plato indeed does not rashly bestow this upon the souls of philosophers, but upon those who, to wit, have adorned philosophy with the love of boys. To such a degree even among philosophers impurity has a great privilege. And so with him the souls of the wise are raised up into the aether, with Arius into the air, with the Stoics beneath the moon.

[3] Quos quidem miror, quod imprudentes animas circa terram prosternant, cum illas a sapientibus multo superioribus erudiri affirment. Vbi erit scholae regio in tanta distantia deuersoriorum? Qua ratione discipulae ad magistras conuentabunt tanto discrimine absentes?

[3] I indeed marvel at them, that they cast the imprudent souls around the earth, when they affirm that those are instructed by sages far superior. Where will the region of the school be, with the lodgings at such a distance? By what means will the pupils convene with their instructresses, being absent by so great a separation?

Quis autem illis postumae eruditionis usus ac fructus iamiam conflagratione perituris?

But what use and fruit of posthumous erudition will there be for those who, even now, are about to perish in the conflagration?

[4] Reliquas animas ad inferos deiciunt. Hos Plato uelut gremium terrae describit in Phaedone, quo omnes labes mundialium sordium confluendo et ibi desidendo exhalent et quasi caeno immunditiarum suarum grossiorem haustum et priuatum illic aerem stipent.

[4] They cast the remaining souls down to the underworld. This Plato describes, in the Phaedo, as the bosom of the earth, where all the taints of mundane filth, by flowing together and by settling there, exhale, and, as it were with the mud of their own uncleannesses, they cram the air there, making the draught thicker and stifled.

LV.

55.

[1] Nobis inferi non nuda cauositas nec subdiualis aliqua mundi sentina creduntur, sed in fossa terrae et in alto uastitas et in ipsis uisceribus eius abstrusa profunditas, siquidem Christo in corde terrae triduum mortis legimus expunctum, id est in recessu intimo et interno et in ipsa terra operto et intra ipsam clauso et inferioribus adhuc abyssis superstructo.

[1] To us the underworld is not believed to be a naked cavity nor some open‑air bilge of the world, but a vastness in the trench of the earth and in the deep, and a hidden profundity in its very bowels, since we read that for Christ the three days of death were completed in the heart of the earth—that is, in the most intimate and inner recess, and covered in the earth itself and shut within it, and with yet lower abysses superimposed.

[2] Quodsi Christus deus, quia et homo, mortuus secundum scripturas et sepultus secundum easdem, huic quoque legisatisfecit forma humanae mortis apud inferos functus, nec ante ascendit in sublimiora caelorum quam descendit in inferiora terrarum, ut illic patriarchas et prophetas compotes sui faceret, habes et regionem inferum subterraneam credere et illos cubito pellere qui satis superbe non putent animas fidelium inferis dignas, serui super dominum et discipuli super magistrum, aspernati, si forte, in Abrahae sinu expectandae resurrectionis solacium capere.

[2] But if Christ God, since he is also man, having died according to the Scriptures and having been buried according to the same, likewise satisfied this law, having performed the form of human death among the infernal regions, nor did he ascend to the more sublime places of the heavens before he descended to the lower parts of the earth, in order there to make the patriarchs and prophets partakers of himself, you have both to believe the region of the dead to be subterranean and to elbow with the forearm those who quite arrogantly do not deem the souls of the faithful worthy of the underworld—servants over the Lord and disciples over the Master—having spurned, perhaps, to take consolation in Abraham’s bosom while awaiting the resurrection.

[3] 'Sed in hoc', inquiunt, 'Christus inferos adiit, ne nos adiremus. Ceterum quod discrimen ethnicorum et Christianorum, si carcer mortuis idem?' Quo ergo animam exhalabis in caelum Christo illic adhuc sedente ad dexteram patris, nondum dei iussu per tubam archangeli audito, nondum illis quos domini aduentus in saeculo inuenerit, obuiam ei ereptis in aerem, cum his qui mortui in Christo primi resurgent? Nulli patet caelum terra adhuc salua, ne dixerim clausa.

[3] 'But in this,' they say, 'Christ went to the infernal regions, lest we should go. Otherwise, what distinction of the ethnics and the Christians, if the prison for the dead is the same?' Whither then will you breathe out your soul—into heaven—while Christ is still sitting there at the right hand of the Father, the command of God not yet heard by the trumpet of the archangel, not yet those whom the Lord’s advent shall find in the world having been snatched up into the air to meet him, together with those who have died in Christ who shall rise first? Heaven stands open to no one, the earth still being intact, not to say closed.

Cum transactione enim mundi reserabuntur regna caelorum.

For with the passing of the world the kingdoms of the heavens will be unbarred.

[4] Sed in aethere dormitio nostra cum puerariis Platonis aut in aere cum Ario aut circa lunam cum Endymionibus Stoicorum? Immo, inquis, in paradiso, quo iam tunc et patriarchae et prophetae appendices dominicae resurrectionis ab inferis migrauerint. Et quomodo Iohanni in spiritu paradisi regio reuelata, quae subicitur altari, nullas alias animas apud se praeter martyrum ostendit?

[4] But is our dormition in the aether with Plato’s boy-lovers, or in the air with Arius, or around the moon with the Stoics’ Endymions? Nay, you say, in paradise, to which even then both the patriarchs and the prophets, appendices of the Lord’s resurrection, have migrated from the infernal regions. And how is it that to John, in spirit, the region of paradise revealed, which is set beneath the altar, showed with it no souls other than those of the martyrs?

Quomodo Perpetua, fortissima martyr, sub die passionis in reuelatione paradisi solos illic martyras uidit, nisi quia nullis romphaea paradisi ianitrix cedit nisi qui in Christo decesserint, non in Adam?

How is it that Perpetua, most brave martyr, on the day of her passion, in a revelation of paradise, saw only martyrs there, unless because to none does the romphaea, the doorkeeper of paradise, yield except to those who have deceased in Christ, not in Adam?

[5] Noua mors pro deo et extraordinaria pro Christo alio et priuato excipitur hospitio. Agnosce itaque differentiam ethnici et fidelis in morte, si pro deo occumbas, ut paracletus monet, non in mollibus febribus et in lectulis, sed in martyriis, si crucem tuam tollas et sequaris dominum, ut ipse praecepit. Tota paradisi clauis tuus sanguis est.

[5] A new death for God, and an extraordinary one for Christ, is received with another and private hospitality. Recognize, therefore, the difference between the pagan and the faithful in death, if you fall for God, as the Paraclete admonishes—not in soft fevers and on little couches, but in martyrdoms—if you take up your cross and follow the Lord, as he himself commanded. The entire key of paradise is your blood.

Habes etiam de paradiso a nobis libellum, quo constituimus omnem animam apud inferos sequestrari in diem domini.

You have also a little book from us concerning paradise, in which we constitute that every soul is sequestered in the underworld until the day of the Lord.

LVI. AN COMMORENTVR HIC ANIMAE POST MORTEM.

56. WHETHER SOULS LINGER HERE AFTER DEATH.

[1] Occurrit disceptatio, an hoc ab excessu statim fiat, an quasdam animas aliqua ratio detineat hic interim, an etiam receptas liceat postea ab inferis ex arbitrio uel ex imperio interuenire.

[1] A dispute arises, whether this happens immediately upon the departure, or whether some souls some rationale detains here in the interim, or whether even those received in the underworld are permitted thereafter, from the underworld, to intervene either by choice or by command.

[2] Nec harum enim opinionum suasoriae desunt. Creditum est insepultos non ad inferos redigi quam iusta perceperint, secundum Homericum Patroclum funus in somniis de Achille flagitantem, quod non alias adire portas inferum posset arcentibus eum longe animabus sepultorum. Nouimus autem praeter poeticae iura pietatis quoque Homericae industriam.

[2] Nor, indeed, are the suasories of these opinions lacking. It has been believed that the unburied are not conveyed to the underworld until they have received their due rites, in accordance with the Homeric Patroclus, demanding from Achilles in dreams a funeral, because he could not otherwise approach the gates of the underworld, the souls of the buried keeping him far away. We know, however, besides the prerogatives of poetry, the industry of Homeric pietas as well.

Tanto magis enim curam sepulturae collocauit, quanto etiam moram eius iniuriosam animabus incusauit, simul et ne quis defunctum domi detinens ipse amplius cum illo maceretur enormitate solacii dolore nutriti. Ita querellas animae insepultae ad utrumque confinxit, ut instantia funeris et honor corporum seruetur et memoria affectuum temperetur.

For so much the more did he place the care of sepulture, as he also accused the delay of it as injurious to souls, and at the same time lest anyone, detaining the deceased at home, should himself be further wasted along with him by the excess of a solace nourished by grief. Thus he contrived the complaints of the unburied soul for both ends, so that by the urgency of the funeral both the honor of bodies may be preserved and the memory of affections may be tempered.

[3] Ceterum quam uanum, ut anima corporis iusta sustineat, quasi aliquid ex illis ad inferos auehat? Multo uanius, si iniuria deputabitur animae cessatio sepulturae, quam pro gratia deberet amplecti. Vtique enim tardius ad inferos abstrahi malet, quae nec mori uoluit: amabit impium heredem, per quem adhuc pascitur luce.

[3] But how vain, that the soul should sustain the just dues of the body, as if it carried any of those down to the infernal regions? Much more vain, if the cessation of sepulture be accounted an injury to the soul, which it ought to embrace as a favor. Surely she will prefer to be dragged off to the infernal regions more slowly, she who did not even wish to die: she will love the impious heir, through whom she is still nourished by the light.

Aut si qua pro certo iniuria est tardius sub terram detrudi, titulus autem iniuriae cessatio est sepulturae, perquam iniquum eam iniuria affici, cui non imputabitur cessatio sepulturae ad proximos scilicet pertinens.

Or if there is any injury for certain in being thrust under the earth too slowly, but the title of the injury is the cessation of burial, it is exceedingly iniquitous for the soul to be affected by injury, to whom the cessation of burial—clearly pertaining to the next of kin—will not be imputed.

[4] Aiunt et immatura morte praeuentas eo usque uagari istic, donec reliquatio compleatur aetatum, quacum peruixissent, si non intempestiue obissent. Porro aut constituta sunt tempora unicuique, et constituta praeripi posse non credam, aut si constituta sunt quidem, dei tamen uoluntate uel aliqua potestate mutilantur, frustra mutilantur, si iam impleri sustinentur, aut si non sunt constituta, nulla erit reliquatio temporum non constitutorum.

[4] They say also that those forestalled by an immature death wander here up to that point until the remainder of the ages be completed, with which they would have lived on, if they had not died untimely. Moreover, either times are constituted for each, and I would not believe that what is constituted can be snatched away; or if indeed they are constituted, yet by God’s will or by some power they are mutilated—mutilated in vain, if they are already being held for fulfillment; or if they are not constituted, there will be no remainder of times not constituted.

[5] Adhuc addam: ecce obiit uerbi gratia infans sub uberum fontibus, puta nunc puer inuestis, puta uesticeps, qui tamen octoginta annos uicturus fuisset. Hos praereptos ut anima eius hic post mortem transigat, quale est? Aetatem enim non potest capere sine corpore, quia per corpora operantur aetates.

[5] I will add still: behold, for example, an infant has died under the fountains of the breasts; say now a boy un-vested, say one vested (one who has assumed the garment), who nonetheless would have lived eighty years. That these years, snatched away, his soul should spend here after death—what sort of thing is that? For he cannot take on age without a body, because ages operate through bodies.

Nostri autem illud quoque recogitent, corpora eadem recepturas in resurrectione animas in quibus discesserunt.

But let our people also consider this, that the souls will receive in the resurrection the same bodies from which they departed.

[6] Idem ergo sperabuntur et corporum modi et eaedem aetates, quae corporum modos faciunt. Quo ergo pacto potest infantis anima hic transigere praerepta tempora, ut octogenaria resurgat in corpore mensis unius? Aut si hic necesse erit ea tempora impleri quae fuerant destinata, num et ordinem uitae, quem sortita sunt tempora pariter cum illis hic destinatum, pariter hic anima decurret, ut et studeat ab infantia pueritiae delegata et militet ab adulescentia iuuentae excitata et censeat a iuuenta senectae ponderata, et fenus exprimat et agrum urgeat, nauiget litiget nubat laboret aegritudines obeat et quaecumque illam cum temporibus manebant tristia ac laeta?

[6] Therefore the same modes of bodies will be hoped for, and the same ages which make the modes of bodies. In what way, then, can the soul of an infant here pass the times snatched away, so that as an octogenarian it should rise again in a body of one month? Or if here it will be necessary that those times which had been destined be fulfilled, surely the order of life, which the times, together with them, had been allotted as destined here—will the soul likewise run through it here, so that it also study from infancy, delegated to boyhood, and soldier from adolescence, stirred to youth, and be assessed from youth, weighed for old age, and squeeze out interest and press a field, sail, litigate, marry, toil, undergo sicknesses, and whatever sad and joyful things along with the times were awaiting her?

[7] Sed haec sine corpore quomodo transigentur? Vita sine uita? Sed uacua erunt tempora solo decursu adimplenda.

[7] But how will these things be transacted without a body? Life without life? But the times will be empty, to be fulfilled by the mere course.

Quid ergo prohibet apud inferos ea impleri, ubi perinde nullus est usus illorum? Ita dicimus omnem animam quaqua aetate decesserit, in ea stare ad eum diem usque, quo perfectum illud repromittitur ad angelicae plenitudinis mensuram temperatum.

What then prevents those things from being fulfilled in the infernal regions, where likewise there is no use of them? Thus we say that every soul, at whatever age it has departed, stands in that same age until that day on which that perfected thing is promised again, tempered to the measure of angelic plenitude.

[8] Proinde extorres inferum habebuntur quas ui ereptas arbitrantur, praecipue per atrocitates suppliciorum, crucis dico et securis et gladii et ferae; nec isti porro exitus uiolenti quos iustitia decernit, uiolentiae uindex. Et ideo, inquies, scelestae quaeque animae inferis exulant. Alteram ergo constituas, compello, aut bonos aut malos inferos: si malos placet, etiam praecipitari illuc animae pessimae debent; si bonos, cur idem animas immaturas et innuptas et pro condicione aetatis puras et innocuas interim indignas inferis iudicas?

[8] Accordingly, those will be held as exiles from the underworld whom they suppose to have been snatched away by force, especially through the atrocities of punishments—I mean of the cross and of the axe and of the sword and of the beast; nor, moreover, are those violent exits which justice, the avenger of violence, decrees, acts of violence. And therefore, you will say, every wicked soul is exiled from the underworld. Set one alternative then, I compel you: either a good or a bad underworld. If a bad one pleases, then the worst souls too ought to be precipitated down thither; if a good one, why do you meanwhile judge immature and unwed souls, and, in keeping with the condition of their age, pure and innocuous, unworthy of the underworld?

LVII.

57.

[1] Aut optimum est hic retineri secundum ahoros aut pessimum secundum biaeothanatos, ut ipsis iam uocabulis utar quibus auctrix opinionum istarum magia sonat, Ostanes et Typhon et Dardanus et Damigeron et Nectabis et Berenice.

[1] Either it is best to be retained here according to the ahoros, or worst according to the biaeothanatos, so that I may now use the very terms with which Magic, the authoress of those opinions, proclaims—Ostanes and Typhon and Dardanus and Damigeron and Nectabis and Berenice.

[2] Publica iam litteratura est quae animas etiam iusta aetate sopitas, etiam proba morte disiunctas, etiam prompta humatione dispunctas euocaturam se ab inferum incolatu pollicetur. Quid ergo dicemus magian? Quod omnes paene, fallaciam.

[2] It is now public literature that promises it will evoke souls—even those laid to rest at a due age, even those parted by an honest death, even those duly dispatched by prompt inhumation—from the infernal dwelling. What then shall we say of magic? That which almost all [say]: a fallacy.

Sed ratio fallaciae solos non fugit Christianos, qui spiritalia nequitiae, non quidem socia conscientia, sed inimica scientia nouimus, nec inuitatoria operatione, sed expugnatoria dominatione tractamus multiformem luem mentis humanae, totius erroris artificem, salutis pariter animaeque uastatorem; sic etiam magiae, secundae scilicet idololatriae, in qua se daemones perinde mortuos fingunt, quemadmodum in illa deos. Quidni? cum et dii mortui.

But the rationale of the fallacy does not escape Christians alone, who know the spiritual things of wickedness, not indeed with a companion conscience, but with a hostile science, nor by an invitatory operation, but by a storming domination, we handle the multiform pestilence of the human mind, the artificer of all error, the devastator alike of salvation and of the soul; so also in the case of magic, namely the second idolatry, in which the demons feign themselves dead, just as in that other they [feign themselves] gods. Why not? since even the gods are dead.

[3] Itaque inuocantur quidem ahori et biaeothanati sub illo fidei argumento, quod credibile uideatur eas potissimum animas ad uim et iniuriam facere quas per uim et iniuriam saeuus et immaturus finis extorsit, quasi ad uicem offensae.

[3] Accordingly, there are invoked, indeed, the aoroi and biaeothanati under that argument of faith, that it seems credible that those souls especially commit force and injury whom a savage and untimely end wrenched away by force and wrong, as if in requital of the offense.

[4] Sed daemones operantur sub ostentu earum, et hi uel maxime qui in ipsis tunc fuerunt, cum aduiuerent, quique illas in huiusmodi impegerant exitus. Nam et suggessimus nullum paene hominem carere daemonio, et pluribus notum est daemoniorum quoque opera et immaturas et atroces effici mortes, quas incursibus deputant.

[4] But demons operate under the show of them, and those most of all who were then in them, when they were alive, and who had driven them into such ends. For we have also suggested that scarcely any human being lacks a demon, and to many it is known that by the operations of demons also both untimely and atrocious deaths are effected, which they assign to their incursions.

[5] Hanc quoque fallaciam spiritus nequam sub personis defunctorum delitescentis, nisi fallor, etiam rebus probamus, cum in exorcismis interdum aliquem se ex parentibus hominis sui affirmat, interdum gladiatorem uel bestiarium, sicut et alibi deum, nihil magis curans quam hoc ipsum excludere quod praedicamus, ne facile credamus animas uniuersas ad inferos redigi, ut et iudicii et resurrectionis fidem turbent. Et tamen ille daemon, postquam circumstantes circumuenire temptauit, instantia diuinae gratiae uictus id quod in uero est inuitus confitetur.

[5] We also, unless I am mistaken, prove this fallacy of the wicked spirit lurking under the personae of the departed by facts as well, since in exorcisms he sometimes affirms himself to be one of the man’s parents, sometimes a gladiator or a beast-fighter, as elsewhere a god, caring for nothing more than to exclude this very thing which we proclaim: lest we easily believe that all souls are brought down to the infernal regions—so that they may disturb the faith of judgment and resurrection. And yet that demon, after he has tried to circumvent those standing around, conquered by the insistence of divine grace, unwillingly confesses that which is in the truth.

[6] Sic et in illa alia specie magiae, quae iam quiescentes animas euellere ab inferis creditur et conspectui exhibere, non alia fallaciae uis est: operatior plane, quia et phantasma praestatur, quia et corpus affingitur; nec magnum illi exteriores oculos circumscribere, cui interiorem mentis aciem excaecare perfacile est.

[6] Thus also in that other species of magic, which is now believed to wrench souls at rest from the underworld and to exhibit them to sight, there is no other force of fallacy: more operative, plainly, because both a phantasm is furnished, and because a body is feigned; nor is it any great matter for him to circumvent the outward eyes, for whom it is very easy to blind the inner acuity of the mind.

[7] Corpora denique uidebantur Pharaoni et Aegyptiis magicarum uirgarum dracones; sed Mosei ueritas mendacium deuorat. Multa utique et aduersus apostolos Simon et Elymas magi; sed plaga caecitatis de praestigiis non fuit. Quid noui aemulatio ueritatis a spiritu immundo?

[7] In bodily form the dragons of the magicians’ rods appeared to Pharaoh and the Egyptians; but the truth of Moses devours the lie. Many things indeed did Simon and Elymas the magi also against the apostles; but the blow of blindness was not from illusions. What is new in the emulation of the truth by an unclean spirit?

Ecce hodie eiusdem Simonis haeretici tanta praesumptio se artis extollit, ut etiam prophetarum animas ab inferis mouere se spondeant.

Behold, today the presumption of that same heretic Simon’s art exalts itself so greatly that they even pledge to move the souls of the prophets up from the underworld.

[8] Et credo, quia mendacio possunt; nec enim pythonico tunc spiritui minus licuit animam Samuelis effingere post deum mortuos consulente Saule. Absit alioquin, ut animam cuiuslibet sancti, nedum prophetae, a daemonio credamus extractam, edocti quod ipse satanas transfiguretur in angelum 1ucis, nedum in hominem lucis, etiam deum se asseueraturus in fine signaque portentosiora editurus ad euertendos, si fieri possit, electos. Dubitauit, si forte, tunc prophetam se dei asseuerare et utique Sauli, in quo iam ipse morabatur,

[8] And I believe it, because by mendacity they can; for it was not less permitted then to the pythonic spirit to counterfeit the soul of Samuel, when Saul, after God, was consulting the dead. Far be it otherwise, that we should believe the soul of any saint, much less of a prophet, extracted by a daemon, having been taught that Satan himself is transfigured into an angel of light—much less into a man of light—being even about to asseverate himself a god at the end and to produce more portentous signs to overturn, if it be possible, the elect. He hesitated, perhaps, then to asseverate himself a prophet of God, and assuredly to Saul, in whom he already was dwelling,

[9] ne putes alium fuisse qui phantasma administrabat, alium qui commendabat, sed eundem spiritum et in pseudoprophetide et in apostata facile mentiri quod fecerat credi, per quem Sauli thesaurus illic erat ubi et cor ipsius, ubi scilicet deus non erat. Et ideo per quem uisurum se credidit uidit, quia per quem uidit et credidit.

[9] do not think there was one who administered the phantasm and another who commended it, but that it was the same spirit, both in the pseudoprophetess and in the apostate, easily to lie what he had caused to be believed, through whom Saul’s treasure was there where also his heart was—namely, where God was not. And therefore by the one through whom he believed he would see, he saw, because by the one through whom he saw he also believed.

[10] Si et de nocturnis imaginibus opponitur saepe non frustra mortuos uisos (nam et Nasamonas propria oracula apud parentum sepulcra mansitando captare, ut Heraclides scribit uel Nymphodorus uel Herodotus, et Celtas apud uirorum fortium busta eadem de causa abnoctare, ut Nicander affirmat), non magis mortuos uere patimur in somnis quam uiuos, sed eadem ratione mortuos qua et uiuos et omnia quae uidentur. Non enim quia uidentur uera sunt, sed quia adimplentur. Fides somniorum de effectu, non de conspectu renuntiatur.

[10] If, too, from nocturnal images it is often objected that the dead have been seen not in vain (for the Nasamones, as Heraclides or Nymphodorus or Herodotus writes, try to catch their own oracles by lingering at their parents’ tombs, and the Celts, for the same cause, spend the night at the burial-mounds of brave men, as Nicander affirms), we no more truly experience the dead in dreams than the living, but by the same rationale the dead as the living, and all things that are seen. For it is not because they are seen that they are true, but because they are fulfilled. The credit of dreams is reported from the effect, not from the sight.

[11] Nulli autem animae omnino inferos patere satis dominus in argumento illo pauperis requiescentis et diuitis ingemiscentis ex personaAbrahae sanxit, non posse inde relegari renuntiatorem dispositionis infernae, quod uel tunc licere potuisset, ut Moysi et prophetis crederetur.

[11] But that the infernal regions are in no way open to any soul at all the Lord sufficiently sanctioned in that parable of the poor man resting and the rich man groaning, in the person of Abraham, namely, that a reporter of the infernal dispensation cannot be sent back from there—which even then might have been permitted—in order that Moses and the prophets might be believed.

[12] Sed etsi quasdam reuocauit in corpora dei uirtus in documenta iuris sui, non idcirco communicabitur fidei et audaciae magorum et fallaciae somniorum et licentiae poetarum. Atquin in resurrectionis exemplis, cum dei uirtus siue per prophetas siue per Christum siue per apostolos in corpora animas repraesentat, solida et contrectabili et satiata ueritate praeiudicatum est hanc esse formam ueritatis, ut omnem mortuorum exhibitionem incorporalem praestrigias iudices.

[12] But even if the power of God has called certain persons back into bodies as documents of its own right, not on that account will it be made common with the credit and audacity of magicians, the fallacy of dreams, and the license of poets. Nay rather, in the exemplars of resurrection, when the power of God—whether through the prophets or through Christ or through the apostles—re-presents souls into bodies, with truth solid, tangible, and satisfying, it has been prejudged that this is the form of truth, so that you may judge every incorporeal exhibition of the dead to be conjurers’ tricks.

LVIII. AN PVNIANTVR APVD INFEROS ANIMAE.

58. ARE SOULS PUNISHED IN THE UNDERWORLD.

[1] Omnis ergo anima penes inferos? inquis. Velis ac nolis, et supplicia iam illic et refrigeria: habes pauperem et diuitem.

[1] So then, is every soul in the underworld? you ask. Whether you will or not, there are already both punishments there and reliefs (refrigeria): you have the poor man and the rich man.

Et quia distuli nescio quid ad hanc partem, iam oportune in clausula reddam.

And since I deferred I-know-not-what to this part, now I will opportunely render it in the conclusion.

[2] Cur enim non putes animam et puniri et foueri in inferis interim sub expectatione utriusque iudicii in quadam usurpatione et candida eius? Quia saluum debet esse, inquis, in iudicio diuino negotium suum sine ulla praelibatione sententiae; tum quia et carnis opperienda est restitutio ut consortis operarum atque mercedum.

[2] For why should you not suppose the soul both to be punished and to be cherished in the lower regions meanwhile, under the expectation of both judgments, in a certain usurpation and prelibation of it? Because, you say, in the divine judgment its case ought to be kept safe without any prelibation of the sentence; then because the restitution of the flesh also must be awaited, as the partner in works and in wages.

[3] Quid ergo fiet in tempore isto? Dormiemus? At enim animae nec in uiuentibus dormiunt; corporum enim est somnus, quorum et ipsa mors cum speculo suo somno.

[3] What then will happen in that time? Shall we sleep? But indeed souls do not sleep even in the living; for sleep is of bodies, of which death itself also is, with its mirror, sleep.

Aut nihil uis agi illic, quo uniuersa humanitas trahitur, quo spes omnis sequestratur? Delibari putas iudicium an incipi? Praecipitari an praeministrari?

Or do you wish that nothing be done there, whither universal humanity is drawn, where all hope is sequestered? Do you think the judgment is to be sampled, or to be begun? To be precipitated, or to be pre-administered?

Iam uero quam iniquissimum otium apud inferos, si et nocentibus adhuc illic bene est et innocentibus nondum! Quid amplius uis esse post, mortem confusa spe et incerta expectatione ludentem an uitae recensum iam et ordinationem iudicii inhorrentem?

Now indeed how most iniquitous a repose among the Underworld, if both for the guilty it is still well there and for the innocent not yet! What more do you wish to be thereafter—death playing with hope confounded and expectation uncertain, or a review of life now and an ordination of judgment that makes one shudder?

[4] Semper autem expectat anima corpus, ut doleat aut gaudeat? Nonne et de suo sufficit sibi ad utrumque titulum passionis? Quotiens inlaeso corpore anima sola torquetur bile ira taedio plerumque nec sibi noto?

[4] Does the soul always await the body, so that it may grieve or rejoice? Does it not also from its own suffice for itself for either title of passion? How often, with the body unharmed, is the soul alone tormented by bile, by ire, by tedium—most often not even known to itself?

Quotiens item corpore afflicto furtiuum sibi anima gaudium exquirit et a corporis tunc importuna societate secedit?

How often likewise, with the body afflicted, does the soul seek out a furtive joy for itself and then secede from the body’s importunate companionship?

[5] Mentior, si non de ipsis cruciatibus corporis et gloriari et gaudere sola consueuit. Respice ad Mucii animam, cum dexteram suam ignibus soluit; respice ad Zenonis, cum illam Dionysii tormenta praetereunt. Morsus ferarum ornamenta sunt iuuentutis, ut in Cyro ursi cicatrices.

[5] I lie, if the soul alone is not accustomed both to glory and to rejoice from those very torments of the body. Look to the soul of Mucius, when he committed his right hand to the flames; look to that of Zeno, when the torments of Dionysius pass it by. The bites of wild beasts are ornaments of youth, as in Cyrus the cicatrices of a bear.

Adeo nouit et apud inferos anima et gaudere et dolere sine carne, quia et in carne et inlaesa si uelit dolet et laesa si uelit gaudet. Hoc si ex arbitrio suo in uita, quanto magis ex iudicio dei post mortem?

So well does the soul know, even among the infernal regions, both to rejoice and to grieve without flesh, because even in the flesh, uninjured if it wills it suffers pain, and injured if it wills it rejoices. If this is by its own arbitrament in life, how much more by the judgment of God after death?

[6] Sed nec omnia opera [optima] cum carnis ministerio anima partitur; nam et solos cogitatus et nudas uoluntates censura diuina persequitur. Qui uiderit ad concupiscendum, iam adulterauit in corde. Ergo uel propter haec congruentissimum est animam, licet non expectata carne, puniri, quod non sociata carne commisit.

[6] But neither does the soul share all [best] works with the ministry of the flesh; for the divine censure also prosecutes mere thoughts and naked wills. Whoever has looked to lust, has already committed adultery in the heart. Therefore even on account of these things it is most congruent that the soul, though the flesh be not awaited, be punished, because it committed what it did without the flesh as associate.

Sic et ob cogitatus pios et beniuolos, in quibus carne non eguit, sine carne recreabitur.

Thus also on account of pious and benevolent thoughts, in which it had no need of the flesh, it will be refreshed without the flesh.

[7] Quid nunc, si et in carnalibus prior est quae concipit, quae disponit, quae mandat, quae impellit? Et si quando inuita, prior tamen tractat quod per corpus actura est; nunquam denique conscientia posterior erit facto. Ita huic quoque ordini competit eam priorem pensare mercedes cui priori debeantur.

[7] What now, if even in carnal matters she who conceives, who disposes, who commands, who impels, is prior? And even if at times unwilling, yet she first handles what she is going to do through the body; never, finally, will conscience be posterior to the deed. Thus to this order also it is fitting to weigh out the recompenses first to her to whom, as the prior, they are owed.

[8] In summa, cum carcerem illum, quem euangelium demonstrat, inferos intellegimus et nouissimum quadrantem modicum quoque delictum mora resurrectionis illic luendum interpretamur, nemo dubitabit animam aliquid pensare penes inferos salua resurrectionis plenitudine per carnem quoque. Hoc etiam paracletus frequentissime commendauit, si qui sermones eius ex agnitione promissorum charismatum admiserit.

[8] In sum, since we understand that that prison which the gospel points out is the underworld, and we interpret the last farthing to mean that even a slight delict is to be paid for there by a delay of the resurrection, no one will doubt that the soul pays something among the underworld, with the plenitude of the resurrection through the flesh also kept safe. This too the Paraclete has most frequently commended, if anyone has admitted his discourses from the recognition of the promised charismata.

[9] Ad omnem, ut arbitror, humanam super anima opinionem ex doctrina fidei congressi iustae dumtaxat ac necessariae curiositati satisfecimus; enormi autem et otiosae tantum deerit discere quantum libuerit inquirere.

[9] With respect to every, as I judge, human opinion concerning the soul, having engaged it from the doctrine of faith, we have satisfied only a just and necessary curiosity; but to an inordinate and otiose one there will be lacking to learn just as much as it has pleased to inquire.