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A Treatise on the Soul

Chapter IX.--Particulars of the Alleged Communication to a Montanist Sister.

When we aver that the soul has a body of a quality and kind peculiar to itself, in this special condition of it we shall be already supplied with a decision respecting all the other accidents of its corporeity; how that they belong to it, because we have shown it to be a body, but that even they have a quality peculiar to themselves, proportioned to the special nature of the body (to which they belong); or else, if any accidents (of a body) are remarkable in this instance for their absence, then this, too, results from the peculiarity of the condition of the soul's corporeity, from which are absent sundry qualities which are present to all other corporeal beings. And yet, notwithstanding all this, we shall not be at all inconsistent if we declare that the more usual characteristics of a body, such as invariably accrue to the corporeal condition, belong also to the soul--such as form ¹ and limitation; and that triad of dimensions ² --I mean length, and breadth and height--by which philosophers gauge all bodies. What now remains but for us to give the soul a figure? ³ Plato refuses to do this, as if it endangered the soul's immortality. ⁴ For everything which has figure is, according to him, compound, and composed of parts; ⁵ whereas the soul is immortal; and being immortal, it is therefore indissoluble; and being indissoluble, it is figureless: for if, on the contrary, it had figure, it would be of a composite and structural formation. He, however, in some other manner frames for the soul an effigy of intellectual forms, beautiful for its just symmetry and tuitions of philosophy, but misshapen by some contrary qualities. As for ourselves, indeed, we inscribe on the soul the lineaments of corporeity, not simply from the assurance which reasoning has taught us of its corporeal nature, but also from the firm conviction which divine grace impresses on us by revelation. For, seeing that we acknowledge spiritual charismata, or gifts, we too have merited the attainment of the prophetic gift, although coming after John (the Baptist). We have now amongst us a sister whose lot it has been to be favoured with sundry gifts of revelation, which she experiences in the Spirit by ecstatic vision amidst the sacred rites of the Lord's day in the church: she converses with angels, and sometimes even with the Lord; she both sees and hears mysterious communications; ⁶ some men's hearts she understands, and to them who are in need she distributes remedies. Whether it be in the reading of Scriptures, or in the chanting of psalms, or in the preaching of sermons, or in the offering up of prayers, in all these religious services matter and opportunity are afforded to her of seeing visions. It may possibly have happened to us, whilst this sister of ours was rapt in the Spirit, that we had discoursed in some ineffable way about the soul. After the people are dismissed at the conclusion of the sacred services, she is in the regular habit of reporting to us whatever things she may have seen in vision (for all her communications are examined with the most scrupulous care, in order that their truth may be probed). "Amongst other things," says she, "there has been shown to me a soul in bodily shape, and a spirit has been in the habit of appearing to me; not, however, a void and empty illusion, but such as would offer itself to be even grasped by the hand, soft and transparent and of an etherial colour, and in form resembling that of a human being in every respect." This was her vision, and for her witness there was God; and the apostle most assuredly foretold that there were to be "spiritual gifts" in the church. ⁷ Now, can you refuse to believe this, even if indubitable evidence on every point is forthcoming for your conviction? Since, then, the soul is a corporeal substance, no doubt it possesses qualities such as those which we have just mentioned, amongst them the property of colour, which is inherent in every bodily substance. Now what colour would you attribute to the soul but an etherial transparent one? Not that its substance is actually the ether or air (although this was the opinion of AEnesidemus and Anaximenes, and I suppose of Heraclitus also, as some say of him), nor transparent light (although Heraclides of Pontus held it to be so). "Thunder-stones," ⁸ indeed, are not of igneous substance, because they shine with ruddy redness; nor are beryls composed of aqueous matter, because they are of a pure wavy whiteness. How many things also besides these are there which their colour would associate in the same class, but which nature keeps widely apart! Since, however, everything which is very attenuated and transparent bears a strong resemblance to the air, such would be the case with the soul, since in its material nature ⁹ it is wind and breath, (or spirit); whence it is that the belief of its corporeal quality is endangered, in consequence of the extreme tenuity and subtilty of its essence. Likewise, as regards the figure of the human soul from your own conception, you can well imagine that it is none other than the human form; indeed, none other than the shape of that body which each individual soul animates and moves about. This we may at once be induced to admit from contemplating man's original formation. For only carefully consider, after God hath breathed upon the face of man the breath of life, and man had consequently become a living soul, surely that breath must have passed through the face at once into the interior structure, and have spread itself throughout all the spaces of the body; and as soon as by the divine inspiration it had become condensed, it must have impressed itself on each internal feature, which the condensation had filled in, and so have been, as it were, congealed in shape, (or stereotyped). Hence, by this densifying process, there arose a fixing of the soul's corporeity; and by the impression its figure was formed and moulded. This is the inner man, different from the outer, but yet one in the twofold condition. ¹⁰ It, too, has eyes and ears of its own, by means of which Paul must have heard and seen the Lord; ¹¹ it has, moreover all the other members of the body by the help of which it effects all processes of thinking and all activity in dreams. Thus it happens that the rich man in hell has a tongue and poor (Lazarus) a finger and Abraham a bosom. ¹² By these features also the souls of the martyrs under the altar are distinguished and known. The soul indeed which in the beginning was associated with Adam's body, which grew with its growth and was moulded after its form proved to be the germ both of the entire substance (of the human soul) and of that (part of) creation.

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De Anima

IX. DE EFFIGIE.

[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. [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. [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. [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. 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. [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 [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. [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. [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. 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.