Praeparatio Evangelica 15 part 3/5

But the chief point and authority of Plato's school—the ordering of doctrine concerning the intelligibles—has been dishonored and utterly maligned, and, as far as it lay in Aristotle's power, altogether insulted in every way. For being unable to comprehend that great, divine, and extraordinary matters require, for their apprehension, a power of a similar kind, and trusting instead in his own subtle and lowly acuity—which was capable of penetrating earthly matters and seeing the truth in them, but was not able to survey the field of true reality—he used himself as the standard and judge of things beyond himself, and denied that there exist certain special natures such as Plato recognized, and dared to call the highest of realities nonsense, twaddle, and idle chatter.

The highest and furthest point, then, of Plato's philosophical teachings is that concerning this intelligible and eternal substance of the Ideas, where indeed the ultimate labor and contest is set before the soul. For the one who partakes of it and attains to it is altogether blessed, while the one who is left behind and unable to become a beholder of it is left altogether without a share in happiness.

And for this reason Plato contends everywhere, demonstrating the power of these natures. For he says that no one can render a good account of anything at all unless he shares in these, nor gain true knowledge of anything unless by reference to these, nor indeed can anyone partake of reason at all, unless one should acknowledge the being of these.

And in turn those who have resolved to uphold the doctrines of Plato quite necessarily place the greatest struggle of their arguments upon this point. For nothing Platonic is left remaining, unless one shall concede to them, on Plato's behalf, these first and most primary natures. For it is in these above all that he surpasses the rest.

For having conceived God, in relation to these natures, as the father, craftsman, master, and guardian of all things, and recognizing that a craftsman first conceives in his mind, from his works, that which he intends to fashion, and then thus afterward brings the likeness to bear upon the things made in accordance with what has been conceived — in the same way, the thoughts of God are older than the things made, being the patterns of the things that have come into being: incorporeal and intelligible, ever remaining in the same state and in like manner; being themselves chiefly and primarily what they are, and being the joint causes to other things of each being such as it is, according to their likeness to these — Plato, perceiving that these beings are not most easily seen, nor indeed can be clearly made plain by reason, himself spoke and reasoned about them as far as was possible, and prepared those who were to follow after him, having laboured over these matters, and having arranged the whole of his own philosophy with a view to this, says that it is concerning these things, and the understanding of them, that wisdom and knowledge consist, through which the end of man and the blessed life come about.

So much for Atticus. It would have been possible to cite still more than this from the man's aforementioned writing; but being content with what has been set forth, we shall pass on also to the sect of the Stoics.

Now Antisthenes became a hearer of Socrates — a man of Heraclean temperament — who said that madness was better than pleasure; wherefore he also used to counsel his acquaintances never, for pleasure's sake, to stretch out a finger.

A hearer of this man became Diogenes the Dog, who, himself too seeming to think in the most beastly manner, drew many after him. Crates succeeded him; and from Crates came Zeno of Citium, who established himself as the founder of the sect of the Stoic philosophers.

Zeno was succeeded by Cleanthes, Cleanthes by Chrysippus, this man by the other Zeno, and by those in succession after him. All these are said to have devoted themselves exceptionally both to a rigorous life and to dialectic. As for the doctrines of the philosophy according to them, they stand as follows.

They say that fire is the element of existing things, just as Heraclitus held; and that the principles of this are matter and God, as Plato held. But this one [Zeno] says that both are bodies — both the acting and the acted-upon — whereas that one [Plato] says that the primary active cause is incorporeal.

Then also, at certain fated times, the whole cosmos is consumed by fire, and then in turn is set in order anew. The primary fire, however, is like a certain seed, containing the rational principles and the causes of the things that have come to be, that are coming to be, and that shall be; and the interweaving and sequence of these is fate, and knowledge, and truth, and a law of existing things that is inescapable and unavoidable. By this all things throughout the cosmos are administered exceedingly well, just as in some most well-governed commonwealth.

The whole cosmos, together with its own parts, they call God; and they say that this is one alone, finite, a living being, eternal, and God. For in it all bodies are contained, and nothing void exists within it. For that which is qualified out of the whole substance is so named, having this arrangement in accordance with the ordering.

Wherefore, according to the first sense, they say the cosmos is eternal; but according to the ordering, it is generated and subject to change, through cycles without number, both past and to come.

And that which is qualified out of the whole substance is the cosmos, eternal and God; and the cosmos is also called the system composed of heaven and air and earth and sea and the natures within them; and the cosmos is also called the dwelling-place of gods and men, and of the things that have come to be for their sake.

For in the manner that 'city' is spoken of in two senses — both the dwelling-place, and the system composed of the inhabitants together with the citizens — so also the cosmos is, as it were, a city composed of gods and men, the gods holding the leadership and the men being subordinated.

And there exists a fellowship between them with one another, because they share in reason, which is by nature law; and all other things have come to be for the sake of these. In keeping with this, one must believe that the God who administers all things provides for men, being beneficent and good and benevolent to mankind, and just, and possessing all the virtues.

Wherefore indeed the cosmos is also called Zeus, since he is for us the cause of living. And insofar as he administers all things by an unbroken chain of reason, inviolably, from eternity, he is named Fate; and Adrasteia, because there is no escaping him; and Providence, because he manages each thing with a view to what is useful.

As for the ruling faculty of the cosmos, it pleased Cleanthes to hold that it is the sun, because it is the greatest of the stars, and contributes the most to the administration of the whole, producing day and year and the other seasons.

But to some of those from this sect it seemed that the earth is the ruling faculty of the cosmos. And to Chrysippus it seemed to be the aether, the purest and most unmixed, inasmuch as it is the most easily moved of all things, and carries around the whole revolution of the cosmos.

Let these things, then, be set forth from the Epitome of Arius Didymus. But against the Stoic opinion concerning God, it suffices to cite the words of Porphyry, in his reply written against Boethus, 'On the Soul,' which run in this manner.

They do not hesitate to say that God is an intelligent fire, and eternal, and to leave the matter there, and to say that it consumes all things and devours them, being such a fire as is known to us — and to contradict Aristotle, who rejects saying that the aether is composed of such a fire.

But when pressed as to how such fire can persist, they do not say it is a different kind of fire; and having simply asserted that it is such, and having demanded that one believe them on this bare assertion, they append to this irrational belief the further claim that this fire is also eternal, while positing that the ethereal fire too is in part extinguished and in part kindled. But as for their blindness toward themselves, and their carelessness and contempt toward the ancients, why should one go on and dwell upon it at greater length?

But what, then, is Being? Is it these four elements — earth and fire and the two other natures in between? Are, then, the existing things these, either taken together, or each one of them individually? And how could this be, seeing that they are generated and revert back again, if indeed one may see them coming to be out of one another, and interchanging, and being neither ultimate elements nor mere compounds?

Body, then, in this sense would not be Being. But then, though these are not, could matter be Being? But this too is, of all things, most impossible, by reason of its weakness in remaining stable. For matter is a flowing river, swift-shifting, unbounded and unending in depth and breadth and length.

And after a few words he adds: 'So that the argument has rightly said, in asserting that if matter is infinite it is indeterminate; and if indeterminate, irrational; and if irrational, unknowable. And being unknowable, it must necessarily be disordered; for things that are ordered, presumably, would be quite easy to know; but the disordered has no stability; and that which has no stability could not be Being.'

And this was what we ourselves had already agreed among ourselves earlier — that it is unwarranted for all these things to be brought together as identical with Being. Let this be resolved, chiefly by all, but if not, at least by me. I therefore assert that neither matter itself, nor bodies, are Being.

What then? Do we have, besides these, anything else in the nature of the universe? Yes — and this is nothing complicated to state, if first of all we should try, discussing it together, to find it within ourselves.

Since, then, bodies are by nature dead and lifeless and borne about and do not even remain in the same state, is there not need of something to hold them together? Most certainly.

But if it should not obtain this, would it then remain? Least of all. What then is it that shall hold it together? If indeed this too should be a body, it seems to me it would itself need a saviour Zeus, being as it is dissolved and scattered.

If, however, it must be free from the affection of bodies, in order that it may be able to ward off corruption from those very things which are, as it were, pregnant with decay, and to hold them together — to me it seems to be nothing other than the incorporeal alone. For this alone, of all natures, stands fast and is firmly established, and is in no way corporeal. It neither comes to be, nor increases, nor is moved by any other motion at all; and for these reasons it appeared right and just to give the incorporeal precedence of honour.

It is the opinion of the oldest members of this sect that all things are turned into ether, all things being resolved, at certain greatest cycles, into ethereal fire. And next he adds:

From these things it is clear that Chrysippus did not intend, with regard to substance, this kind of confusion — for that is impossible — but rather the term used instead of 'change.' For those who lay down as doctrine the resolution of all things into fire — which indeed they call the conflagration — do not take 'destruction' strictly with reference to the greatest periodic destruction of the cosmos, but they use the term 'destruction' in place of natural change.

For it is the doctrine of the Stoic philosophers that the whole substance changes into fire, as it were into a seed, and that from this, in turn, the ordered world is again brought to completion, just as it was before. And this doctrine was accepted by the first and oldest of this sect — Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus. But they say that his pupil and successor in the school, the other Zeno, suspended judgment concerning the conflagration of all things.

And the common reason, having advanced this far, and the common nature having become greater and more extensive, at last, having dried up all things and taken them back into itself, comes to be present in the whole substance, having returned to the reason first spoken of, and to that 'resurrection' which produces the greatest year, according to which, from itself alone, the restoration back into itself again takes place.

And having returned according to the same order from which it likewise began to set the world in array, it once again, according to reason, runs through the very same course, such cycles occurring ceaselessly from eternity. For it is not possible that there be a cause of the [absolute] beginning common to all things, nor of that which administers them.

For there must underlie the things that come to be a substance, by nature able to receive all changes, together with that which fashions them, out of that same substance. For such, in our own case, is a certain nature which fashions, being of necessity such, and ungenerated, even within the cosmos; for it is not possible for there to be a beginning of generation with respect to this nature. And in the manner in which it is ungenerated, it is likewise impossible for it to be destroyed — neither by itself out of itself, nor by anything external destroying it.

Zeno says that the seed is that which man emits — breath together with moisture, a part and fragment of the soul, and a blending and mixture of the seed of ancestors, compounded of parts of the soul; for having the same rational principles as the whole, this seed, when it is released into the womb, being received by another breath, and becoming a part of the female's soul and grown together with it, and being hidden there, grows, being moved and fanned by that breath, ever taking on more of the moisture, and increasing of itself.

And after a little he adds: 'Concerning the soul, Cleanthes, setting forth Zeno's doctrines for comparison with the other natural philosophers, says that Zeno calls the soul a perception, or an exhalation, just as Heraclitus did. For wishing to make clear that souls, by exhaling, ever become intelligent, he likened them to rivers, speaking thus: On those who step into the same rivers, different and yet different waters flow; and souls, too, are exhaled from moist things.'

Zeno, then, declares the soul to be an exhalation, similarly to Heraclitus; and he says it is capable of perception for this reason: that its ruling part can be impressed by existing and present things through the sense-organs, and can receive these impressions. For these are properties peculiar to the soul.

And after other things: 'They say that there is a soul in the whole — that which they call aether — and air encircling the earth and sea, and exhalations arising from these; and that the remaining souls, both those in living beings and those in the surrounding air, have grown attached to this one; for the souls of the dead persist.'

But some say that the soul of the whole is eternal, while the remaining souls, at their end, are mingled with it. And they say that every soul has within itself a certain ruling part, which is indeed life, and sensation, and impulse.

And yet a little further: 'They say that the soul is both generated and perishable; but that, once released from the body, it does not perish immediately, but continues for certain periods of time by itself — the soul of the virtuous until the resolution of all things into fire, but that of the foolish only for a certain limited time.'

And they explain the persistence of souls in this way: that we ourselves persist, becoming souls, when the body has been separated from us and the substance of the soul has changed into something lesser. But the souls of foolish men and of irrational animals perish together with their bodies.

Such, then, are the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy, gathered from the Epitomes of Arius Didymus. But against the absurd opinion of these men concerning the soul, it suffices to cite what has been briefly argued in opposition by Longinus, our contemporary, in the following words.

To speak concisely, all those in succession who have declared the soul to be a body seem to me to stand far removed from reasoning rightly about what is necessary. For how is it possible at all to posit that which pertains to the soul as similar to any one of the elements? And where can one refer it to blendings and mixtures? These, occurring in many ways, are by nature able to generate the forms of countless other bodies, in which, even if not continuously, still from a distance one can discern the causal role of the elements and the point of departure from the primary things toward the secondary and tertiary. But of the properties belonging to the soul, no trace nor evidence whatever is found in bodies, even should someone, like Epicurus and Chrysippus, be eager to leave no stone unturned and to search out every power of body for the generation of the activities pertaining to the soul.

For of what use to us, toward images and reasonings, would the fineness of breath be? And what? Does the shape of atoms possess, beyond all other things, such power and turning as to generate intelligence, whenever it is mixed into the mould of another body? I think not — not even if one should happen to be one of the tripods or handmaidens of Hephaestus (of which Homer says that some move of their own accord into the contest by themselves, and others work together with their master, and are left lacking none of the advantages which living beings possess) — much less, then, would this hold for particles produced by mere chance, which in turn resemble the stones upon the seashore, so as to be able to accomplish anything extraordinary with regard to perception.

For one might justly reproach Zeno and Cleanthes for having discoursed about the soul so exceedingly outrageously, and for both alike asserting that the soul is an exhalation of the solid body. For, in the name of the gods, what at all does exhalation have in common with soul? And where is there room, once one has supposed that our own being and that of other living creatures resembles this, to explain that it is capable of preserving lasting images and memories on the one hand, and, on the other, impulses and wishes concerning matters advantageous for understanding? Shall we, then, reduce even the gods, and that power which pervades all things alike, both earthly and heavenly, to exhalation and smoke and such nonsense, and are we not even ashamed before the poets, who, although they do not possess an exact understanding of the gods, have nevertheless spoken of them more solemnly — partly out of the common conception shared by mankind, partly by the inspiration of the Muses, which by nature moves them to such things — and not described them as exhalations, nor airs, nor breaths and follies? Such were the words of Longinus to you. But hear also Plotinus directing arguments of this kind against these same men.

Whether each of us is immortal, or each altogether perishes, or whether part of him departs into dispersion and corruption while part remains forever what it is — one might learn this for oneself by examining the matter according to nature, in the following way.

Man, then, would not be something simple, but there is in him a soul, and he also has a body — whether as an instrument for us, or attached in some other manner; but at any rate, let it be divided in this way, and the nature and substance of each must be examined.

The body, then, being itself composite, cannot remain stable according to reason, and perception too sees it being dissolved and melting away and receiving all manner of destructions, since each of the things within it is borne toward its own proper place, one destroying another and changing it into something else and ruining it — and most of all whenever the soul, which makes them friendly to one another, is not present to these masses.

And even if each part, when it becomes isolated, is not truly one, since it is undergoing dissolution into form and matter, out of which even the simple bodies must of necessity have their composition. And, having magnitude, inasmuch as they are bodies, they are cut and broken into small pieces, and in this way too they would undergo destruction.

So that if this is a part of us, we are not immortal as a whole; but if it is an instrument, it would need, for the time given to it, to be of such a temporary nature. But the most authoritative part, and man himself, would stand either in the relation of form to matter — the body being the matter — or in the relation of user to instrument. In either case, the soul is the man himself.

What nature, then, does this have? If it is a body, it must in every case be analyzed, for every body whatsoever is composite. But if it should not be a body, but of another nature, that too must be examined, either in the same manner or in another. First, however, one must examine into what this body, which they call soul, must be resolved.

For since life necessarily belongs to soul, it is necessary that this body, namely the soul, if it should consist of two bodies or more, either each of them, or every one, should have life inherent in it by nature; or that one should have it and the other not, or that neither should have it. If, then, life should belong to one of them, this very one would be the soul.

What, then, could a body be that has life of itself? For fire, air, water, and earth are lifeless in themselves; and whatever among these has soul present to it employs a borrowed life, and there are no other bodies besides these. But as for the things which some suppose to be elements, other bodies distinct from these, they too have been said not to be souls, nor to possess life. But if, none of them having life, their combination has produced life, that is absurd.

But if each has life, then even one would suffice; rather, it is impossible for a mere heaping-together of bodies to produce life, and for mindless things to beget mind. And indeed they will say that these did not come to be mixed in just any manner whatsoever. There must, then, be something that orders them and is the cause of their mixture; so that this would hold the rank of soul.

For not only would there be no composite body among existing things, but not even a simple one, if soul were not present in the universe — since it is a formative principle (logos) coming to matter that makes body, and this logos could come from nowhere else than from soul.

But if someone should say — not in this way — that atoms or partless bodies coming together produce soul, he would be refuted by the unity and mutual sympathy of soul, as opposed to mere juxtaposition: for in mere juxtaposition there is no unity throughout the whole, nor does anything sympathetic arise from things impassible to one another, nor from bodies that are incapable of being unified; but soul is sympathetic with itself. Moreover, from partless things neither body nor even magnitude could come to be.

Moreover, if the body is simple, they will not say that, insofar as it is material, it has life of itself — for matter is without quality — but that it is the element arranged according to form that brings the life. Now if they say that this form is a substance in its own right, and not the combination of matter and form, then soul will be one or the other of these; and in that case it is in turn not a body, for it is not itself composed of matter — or else we shall again analyze it in the same manner.

But if they say that this is a modification (pathēma) of matter, not a substance, they must state whence the modification and the life came into matter. For matter surely does not shape itself, nor does it implant soul in itself. There must, then, be something that supplies life — whether the supply be to matter, or to any body whatsoever — which is outside and beyond corporeal nature, since no body at all would exist if there were no psychic power.

For the nature of body flows, and is in a state of flux, and would perish as swiftly as possible, if all things were bodies — even if someone should apply the name 'soul' to one of them. For it would suffer the same fate as the other bodies, since their matter is one and the same. Rather, nothing would even come to be at all, but all things would come to a halt in matter, there being nothing to give it form.

Indeed, perhaps matter itself would not even exist at all. And this universe too would be dissolved, if someone should entrust it to the mere cohesion of body, assigning to it the rank of soul only in name — to air and to the most easily dispersed of all things, breath (pneuma), which does not even have its unity from itself. For how, when all bodies are by nature divisible, could anyone who attributes this universe to any one of them fail to make it mindless and driven at random?

For what order could there be in a pneuma that itself needs order, or logos, or mind from soul? Rather, if soul exists, all these elements serve it in the constitution of each living being, one power contributing to the whole from another; but if soul were not present in the wholes, these bodily elements would be nothing at all, let alone be in order.

They themselves, too, led by the truth, bear witness that there must be, prior to bodies, a form of soul superior to them, when they posit an intelligent pneuma and a rational fire — as though the better portion could not exist among beings without fire or pneuma, and needed to seek a place in which to be established — whereas they ought rather to seek where the bodies themselves will find their foundation, since it is these that must be established in the powers of soul.

But if they posit life and soul as nothing beyond pneuma, then what becomes of that much-repeated phrase of theirs, to which they take refuge when compelled to posit some active nature other than bodies? For if not every pneuma is soul — since there are countless pneumas that are soulless — but they will say it is pneuma disposed in a certain way; then this 'being disposed in a certain way,' and this disposition, will they say it is something among beings, or nothing at all?

But if it is nothing, then there would be only pneuma, and 'being disposed in a certain way' would be a mere name; and thus it will follow for them that they are saying nothing else exists but matter — and that soul and god and everything are mere names, and that matter alone exists. But if this disposition is something among beings, and something other than the substrate and matter — existing in matter, yet itself immaterial, in that it is not in turn composed of matter — then it would be a certain logos, and not a body, and a different nature from body.

Moreover, from the following considerations too it appears no less impossible that the soul should be any body whatsoever. For every body is either hot or cold, hard or soft, liquid or solid, black or white, and has all the other qualities of bodies, different qualities in different bodies. And if it is hot, it will only heat; if cold, it will only cool; and what is light will make things light by its addition and presence, and what is heavy will make heavy, and what is black will blacken, and what is white will make white.

For it is not the nature of fire to cool, nor of the cold to make hot. But soul, in different animals, produces different things, and in one and the same animal produces opposite effects — solidifying some parts, liquefying others; making some dense, others rarefied; black, white, light, heavy — and yet, according to the body's single quality and color, it ought to produce only one effect; but in fact it produces many.

But how could the soul's movements be various, and not a single one, given that every body has but a single kind of movement? And if they will say that different things move because of choice (proairesis), well, choice does not belong to body, nor do the various reasoning-principles (logoi) belong to it, since the body is one and simple, and no such principle belongs to it, except only what has been given to it by its maker, namely to be hot or cold.

But whence would the power to make things grow in time, and up to such-and-such a measure, come to a body itself? For that which properly belongs to it is to be grown, while it itself has no share in the power of making-grow, except insofar as it might be taken up into a mass of matter, serving that which effects the growth through it. Indeed, if soul, being a body, were to cause growth, it would necessarily itself grow too, evidently by the addition of a similar body, if it is to keep pace with that which is growing under its influence. And what is added will be either soul or a soulless body.

And if it is soul, whence does it come, and how does it enter, and how is it added? But if what is added is soulless, how will this become ensouled, and come to be of one mind with the former soul, and become one with it, and share the same opinions as the first? Rather, will not this new part, like an alien soul, be in ignorance of what the other knows? And just as the rest of our bodily mass has part of it flowing away, and part coming in anew, and nothing remains the same —

How then would we have memories? And how would we have knowledge of familiar things, if we are never using the same soul? Moreover, if soul is a body, and it is the nature of body, when divided into several parts, that each of the parts is not the same as the whole; then if soul is of such-and-such a magnitude, whatever is smaller than that will not be soul — just as anything quantitative, by subtraction, changes from what it was before.

But if some among things possessing magnitude, though diminished in mass, remains the same in quality, then insofar as it is body, and insofar as it is quantity, it is different; but insofar as quality is other than quantity, it is able to preserve its sameness in that respect.

What, then, will those who say soul is a body have to say? First, concerning each part of the soul in the same body, they must say whether each part is soul, of the same kind as the whole; and again, whether the part of the part is likewise soul.

Then magnitude contributes nothing to its substance (and yet it should, since it is some definite quantity); and soul is whole in many places at once — which is impossible for a body: for the same whole to be in many places, and for the part to be what the whole is.

But if they say that each of the parts is not soul, then soul will exist for them as composed out of soulless things. And furthermore, if the magnitude of each soul is fixed in both directions, then whatever is either smaller or larger than that fixed measure will not be soul.