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The City of God

Chapter 2.--Of that Death Which Can Affect an Immortal Soul, and of that to Which the Body is Subject.

But I see I must speak a little more carefully of the nature of death. For although the human soul is truly affirmed to be immortal, yet it also has a certain death of its own. For it is therefore called immortal, because, in a sense, it does not cease to live and to feel; while the body is called mortal, because it can be forsaken of all life, and cannot by itself live at all. The death, then, of the soul takes place when God forsakes it, as the death of the body when the soul forsakes it. Therefore the death of both--that is, of the whole man--occurs when the soul, forsaken by God, forsakes the body. For, in this case, neither is God the life of the soul, nor the soul the life of the body. And this death of the whole man is followed by that which, on the authority of the divine oracles, we call the second death. This the Saviour referred to when He said, "Fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." ¹ And since this does not happen before the soul is so joined to its body that they cannot be separated at all, it may be matter of wonder how the body can be said to be killed by that death in which it is not forsaken by the soul, but, being animated and rendered sensitive by it, is tormented. For in that penal and everlasting punishment, of which in its own place we are to speak more at large, the soul is justly said to die, because it does not live in connection with God; but how can we say that the body is dead, seeing that it lives by the soul? For it could not otherwise feel the bodily torments which are to follow the resurrection. Is it because life of every kind is good, and pain an evil, that we decline to say that that body lives, in which the soul is the cause, not of life, but of pain? The soul, then, lives by God when it lives well, for it cannot live well unless by God working in it what is good; and the body lives by the soul when the soul lives in the body, whether itself be living by God or no. For the wicked man's life in the body is a life not of the soul, but of the body, which even dead souls--that is, souls forsaken of God--can confer upon bodies, how little so-ever of their own proper life, by which they are immortal, they retain. But in the last damnation, though man does not cease to feel, yet because this feeling of his is neither sweet with pleasure nor wholesome with repose, but painfully penal, it is not without reason called death rather than life. And it is called the second death because it follows the first, which sunders the two cohering essences, whether these be God and the soul, or the soul and the body. Of the first and bodily death, then, we may say that to the good it is good, and evil to the evil. But, doubtless, the second, as it happens to none of the good, so it can be good for none.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput II: De ea morte, quae animae semper utcumque uicturae accidere potest, et ea, cui corpus obnoxium est.

Sed de ipso genere mortis uideo mihi paulo diligentius disserendum. quamuis enim anima humana ueraciter inmortalis perhibeatur, habet tamen quandam etiam ipsa mortem suam. nam ideo dicitur inmortalis, quia modo quodam quantulocumque non desinit uiuere atque sentire; corpus autem ideo mortale, quoniam deseri omni uita potest nec per se ipsum aliquatenus uiuit. mors igitur animae fit, cum eam deserit deus, sicut corporis, cum id deserit anima. ergo utriusque rei, id est totius hominis, mors est, cum anima deo deserta deserit corpus. ita enim nec ex deo uiuit ipsa nec corpus ex ipsa. huiusmodi autem totius hominis mortem illa sequitur, quam secundam mortem diuinorum eloquiorum appellat auctoritas. hanc saluator significauit, ubi ait: eum timete qui habet potestatem et corpus et animam perdere in gehennam. quod cum ante non fiat, quam cum anima corpori sic fuerit copulata, ut nulla diremptione separentur, mirum uideri potest quomodo corpus ea morte dicatur occidi, qua non anima deseritur, sed animatum sentiens que cruciatur. nam in illa ultima poena ac sempiterna, de qua suo loco diligentius disserendum est, recte mors animae dicitur, quia non uiuit ex deo; mors autem corporis quonam modo, cum uiuat ex anima? non enim aliter potest ipsa corporalia, quae post resurrectionem futura sunt, sentire tormenta. an quia uita qualiscumque aliquod bonum est, dolor autem malum, ideo nec uiuere corpus dicendum est, in quo anima non uiuendi causa est, sed dolendi? uiuit itaque anima ex deo, cum uiuit bene; non enim potest bene uiuere nisi deo in se operante quod bonum est; uiuit autem corpus ex anima, cum anima uiuit in corpore, seu uiuat ipsa seu non uiuat ex deo. inpiorum namque in corporibus uita non animarum, sed corporum uita est; quam possunt eis animae etiam mortuae, hoc est deo deserente, quantulacumque propria uita, ex qua et inmortales sunt, non desistente, conferre. uerum in damnatione nouissima quamuis homo sentire non desinat, tamen, quia sensus ipse nec uoluptate suauis nec quiete salubris, sed dolore poenalis est, non inmerito mors est potius appellata quam uita. ideo autem secunda, quia post illam primam est, qua fit cohaerentium diremptio naturarum, siue dei et anima siue animae et corporis. de prima igitur corporis morte dici potest, quod bonis bona sit, malis mala; secunda uero sine dubio sicut nullorum bonorum est, ita nulli bona.