On the Soul and the Resurrection 1 part 2/7

{Gregory:} And I said: I too affirm that this is so—that the unseen is not the same as what appears;

yet I do not see in this argument what is being sought, for it is not yet clear to me what one must suppose that unseen thing to be. That it is not anything material, I have been taught by the argument;

but I have not yet learned what it is fitting to say about it.

And this is precisely what I most needed to learn—not what it is not, but what it actually is.

{The Teacher:} She replied: We learn many things, and about many subjects, in this way—by saying what the very being of the thing sought is not, while interpreting what it actually is.

For by calling the good man 'free from vice' we have set him before us, and by naming the coward 'unmanly' we have made him known; and many other expressions of like manner can be cited.

By such means we either grasp the more wholesome notion through the denial of what is base, or, conversely, we turn in our suppositions toward the worse, indicating the bad by the removal of the good.

So then, if one applies this same understanding to the present argument, he would not fail to reach the proper conception concerning what is sought.

Now what is sought is this: what one must suppose the mind to be according to its very essence.

Therefore the one who does not doubt that this thing under discussion exists—because of the activity it displays to us—but wishes to know what it is, would do well enough if he learns that it is not the very thing which sense perception grasps;

that it is not color, not shape, not resistance to touch, not weight, not magnitude, not extension in three dimensions, not position in place, nor anything at all of the things apprehended in matter—then, seeing none of these, [he asks] what else besides these it is.

And as she was going through this, I interrupted: {Gregory:} I do not understand, I said, how it is possible, when all these are taken away from the account, that the very thing we seek is not blotted out together with them.

For to what could the searching, apprehending faculty attach itself apart from these things? At least according to my own supposition, this is not yet to be seen.

For everywhere in the search for existing things, by means of the investigating intellect, however great the object sought may be, we—like blind men groping along walls to the door, led by the hand—inevitably touch upon some one of the things mentioned: either finding color, or shape, or magnitude, or some other of the things you have just enumerated;

but when it is said that the thing is none of these, then, out of faintheartedness, we are led around to supposing that it is nothing at all.

{The Teacher:} But she, breaking in upon the argument with vexation, said: Alas, what absurdity! To what an end does this petty, earth-bound judgment about existing things bring us!

For if everything that is not recognized by sense perception is excluded from existence, then the one who says this would surely not even acknowledge that Power itself which presides over the universe and holds all things in its grasp; rather, having been taught that the divine nature is incorporeal and formless, he would by such a chain of reasoning conclude that it does not exist at all.

But if in that case 'the absence of these (sensible) properties' does not amount to a denial of existence, how is it that the human mind is squeezed out of existence, being consumed along with the removal of bodily characteristics? {Gregory:} I said: So then, by this chain of reasoning we exchange one absurdity for another.

For our argument is reduced to supposing that our mind is identical with the divine nature, if indeed each of them is conceived by the removal of what is found through sense perception.

{The Teacher:} Do not say 'identical,' said the Teacher (for this too is an impious statement), but, as you were taught by the divine Scripture, say that the one is 'like' the other.

For that which came into being 'according to the image' surely has in all respects a likeness to its archetype: intellectual to the intellectual, incorporeal to the incorporeal, freed from all bulk just as that is, and escaping every measurement by quantity, like that one;

yet it is something other than that one according to the distinctiveness of its nature.

For it would no longer be an image, if it were identical with that one in all respects; but in those very respects in which that one is beheld in the uncreated nature, in the same respects does the created nature display this image;

and just as often in a small fragment of glass, when it happens to lie facing a sunbeam, the whole disk of the sun is seen reflected—not appearing in it according to its own magnitude, but only so far as the smallness of the fragment can contain the image of the disk;

so in the smallness of our nature the images of those ineffable characteristics of the Godhead shine forth, so that reason, led by the hand through these, neither falls away from the apprehension of the mind according to its essence—the bodily property being purged away in the examination of the inquiry—

nor again, on the other hand, raises the small and perishable [nature] to equality with the boundless and undefiled nature;

but rather supposes the essence [of the soul] to be intelligible,

since it is also the image of an intelligible essence—yet not calling the image the same as the archetype.

Just as, then, through the ineffable wisdom of God which is reflected in the universe, we do not doubt that the divine nature and power are present in all existing things, so that all may abide in being;

and yet, if you should demand the account of its nature, the essence of God stands utterly remote from each of the things shown and conceived in creation;

but nevertheless he confesses that God is present in these things, though separated from them by nature;

so likewise it is in no way incredible that the essence of the soul—being something other in itself, whatever it may be conjectured to be—is not hindered from existing, even though those things which are observed in the world according to the elements do not pertain to it according to the account of its nature;

nor, in the case of living bodies (as has already been said before)—whose subsistence is from the mixture of the elements—is there any fellowship, according to the account of essence, between [the elements] and the simple and formless nature of the soul …

...the bodily density and grossness.

Nevertheless, that the soul's life-giving activity is present in these elements is not to be doubted, having been blended with them by some principle higher than human understanding.

Therefore, even when the elements within bodies dissolve back into themselves, that which binds them together through the life-giving activity does not perish.

But just as, while the composite of elements still holds together, the soul gives life to each part—being present perhaps equally and alike in all the parts that make up the body—and one could not say that the soul is hard and resistant because mingled with the earthy element, nor moist, nor cold, nor of the quality opposite to cold, even though it is present in all of these and infuses life-giving power into each;

so too, even when the composite is dissolved and the elements run back again to their own kindred, it is in no way contrary to reason to suppose that, even after the dissolution, that simple and non-composite nature remains present to each of the parts.

Rather, that nature which was once joined—by some ineffable principle—to the composite of the elements remains forever present with those things into which it was blended, in no way being torn away from the union once formed with it.

For it does not follow that, because the compound is dissolved, the non-compound is in danger of being dissolved along with the composite.

And I (Gregory) said: That the elements come together with one another and are separated from one another, and that this constitutes the formation and dissolution of the body—no one would dispute this.

But since a great distance is perceived between each of these things, which are of different kinds in relation to one another—both in their positions in space and in the difference and peculiarity of their qualities—while the elements have run together with one another around the substrate, this intelligent and dimensionless nature, which we call the soul, holds together by natural affinity with what is unified;

but if these elements should be separated from one another, and each should go off wherever its nature draws it, what will the soul suffer when its vehicle has been scattered in many directions?

Just as a sailor, when his ship has been broken up in a shipwreck, cannot swim while clinging to all the pieces of the vessel scattered here and there over the sea (for, grasping whatever comes to hand, he must leave the rest to be carried off by the waves), in the same way the soul, being unable to be split apart along with the division of the elements—if indeed it is hard to detach it from the body—will cling to some one of the elements and be torn away from the others; and the consequence of the argument leads one to suppose that the soul is no more immortal because it lives in one element than mortal because it does not exist in the many.

But (said Macrina, the Teacher), that which is intelligible and dimensionless neither contracts nor disperses (for contraction and diffusion are proper to bodies); rather, in accordance with its own formless and incorporeal nature, it is present equally both to the composition of the elements around the body and to their separation, neither being cramped and confined when the elements are pressed together in the composite, nor, when they depart to their kindred, being left behind contrary to their nature—even though the difference observed between the elements may seem very great.

For great is the difference between what tends upward and is light and what is heavy and earthy, between the hot and the cold, and between the moist and its opposite;

but nevertheless it is no labor for the intelligent nature to be present to each of those things into which it was once implanted, not being split apart through the contrariety of the elements by reason of its blending. For it is not because these elements, in their spatial separation and their particular qualities, are reckoned to be far from one another, that the dimensionless nature grows weary in being joined to things that are spatially separated; since even now it is possible for the mind at one and the same time both to contemplate heaven and, in its inquiries, to reach out to the ends of the cosmos;

and the contemplative power of our soul, stretching out over such great distances, is not torn apart.

Therefore there is no hindrance to the soul's being present in equal measure to the elements of the body, both when they are mingled together through their concurrence and when they are released through their dissolution.

For just as, when gold and silver have been fused together, a certain skilled power is observed in them—the power that fused the materials together;

and if the one should again be melted apart from the other, the principle of the craft remains no less in each;

and the material was divided, but the craft was not cut apart along with the material;

for how could that which is indivisible be divided? By the same principle, the intelligent nature of the soul both is observed in the concurrence of the elements and, when they are dissolved, is not separated off; but it remains in them and, stretching alongside them in their separation, is not cut through, nor is it broken up into partial pieces corresponding to the number of the elements.

For this is proper to a corporeal and extended nature;

but the intelligent and dimensionless nature does not admit of the affections that arise from extension.

Therefore the soul is present in those very things in which it once came to be, no necessity tearing it away from its natural affinity with them.

(Macrina:) What, then, is there gloomy in this, if the formless is exchanged for the visible? And on what account is your mind so set against death? And I (Gregory), recalling to my mind the definition of the soul which she had made in the discourses preceding this, said that the argument did not, in my view, sufficiently demonstrate the powers that are observed in the soul;

the definition which says that the soul is an intelligent essence, and that it instills into the organic body a life-giving power for the activity of the senses;

for our soul is active not only in scientific and contemplative thought, working out such things in the intelligent part of its essence, nor does it merely order the sense-organs toward their natural activity;

but there is also observed in this nature much movement in the way of desire, and much also in the way of anger;

and since each of these is present in us generically, we see the movement of both proceeding, in its operations, into many and varied differences.

For many things can be seen of which the desiring faculty takes the lead;

and many again that spring from the cause that belongs to anger; and none of this is body, while the incorporeal is altogether intelligent;

and the definition declared the soul to be something intelligent. Hence, from the logical consequence of the argument, one of two absurdities arises: either that anger and desire are other souls within us, and a multitude of souls is to be seen instead of one; or that we must not consider even the reasoning faculty within us to be the soul.

For the term 'intelligent,' if applied equally to all of these, will either prove them all to be souls, or will, on the same ground, exclude each of them from the proper character of the soul.

And she (Macrina) said: This is a question that has already been investigated by many others, and you are consequently inquiring into it as well—namely, what one ought to suppose these things to be, the desiring and the irascible faculties: whether they are co-essential with the soul and present in it from the very moment of its constitution, or whether they are something other than it and come to be in us at a later time.

For that these are observed in the soul is admitted by all alike;

but as to what one ought to think concerning them, reason has not yet found out with accuracy,

so as to hold a firm conviction concerning these matters; rather, the many are still in doubt, with wandering and divergent opinions about them.

Now, for us, if the philosophy outside (the Scriptures), which has treated of these matters with technical skill, were truly sufficient for demonstration, it would perhaps be superfluous to put forward the discourse concerning the soul for our inquiry.

But since for them the theory concerning the soul advanced freely, according to what seemed plausible and in keeping with their own authority;

while we are without this license—I mean, the license of saying whatever we please—using as the rule and law of every doctrine the Holy Scripture;

of necessity looking to this, we accept only that which is in harmony with the aim of the things written.

Therefore, leaving aside the Platonic chariot, and the team of colts yoked to it—which are not alike in their impulses toward one another—and the charioteer set over them, by means of all which Plato philosophizes about such matters concerning the soul in an enigmatic way;

and likewise all that the philosopher after him—the one who follows appearances with technical skill, and who examines with care the very matters now set before us—declared by these means, namely that the soul is mortal; and leaving behind all who came before these and all who followed,

both those who philosophized in prose and those who did so in some rhythm and meter—leaving all these behind, let us make the God-inspired Scripture the goal of our discourse, which lays down as law that nothing is to be reckoned distinctive of the soul which is not also proper to the divine nature.

For he who declared the soul to be a likeness of God thereby declared that whatever is alien to God lies outside the definition of the soul.

For the likeness could not be preserved in things that differ.

Therefore, since nothing of this kind is contemplated together with the divine nature, neither would one reasonably suppose these things (desire and anger) to be co-essential with the soul.

Now, as for confirming our own doctrines by the dialectical art, through the science of syllogism and analysis, we shall decline this kind of discourse as unsound and suspect for the demonstration of truth.

For it is plain to all that the intricate craft of dialectic has equal force in both directions—both toward the overthrow of truth and toward the accusation of falsehood.

Hence, even truth itself, whenever it is advanced by means of such an art, we often regard with suspicion, as though the cleverness about this art were deceiving our understanding and leading it astray from the truth.

But if anyone will accept the argument that is unadorned and stripped of all elaborate embellishment, we shall speak as best we can, bringing forward the contemplation concerning these matters in accordance with the sequence of the scriptural instruction.

What, then, is it that we affirm? That man, this rational living being, is capable of mind and knowledge—this is attested even by those outside our own teaching. They would not have outlined our nature in such a definition if they had observed anger and desire and all such things to be co-essential with the nature.

For in no other case would anyone give a definition of the subject by stating what is common to it instead of what is proper to it.

Since, then, the faculties of desire and of spirited anger are observed equally in both the irrational and the rational nature, no one could reasonably characterize what is proper by appeal to what is common.

But that which is superfluous and to be cast aside in the outline of our nature—how can it, as though a part of the nature, have the power to overturn the definition? For every definition of an essence looks to what is proper to the subject.

And whatever lies outside what is proper is disregarded by the definition as something foreign to it.

But it is agreed that the activity expressed through anger and desire is common to every nature, both rational and irrational.

And everything that is common is not the same as that which is proper.

It is therefore necessary, on these grounds, to reckon that these things do not reside among those things by which human nature is distinctively characterized.

But just as one who observes the faculties of sense-perception, nourishment, and growth in us does not on that account dissolve the definition already given of the soul (for the presence of the one in the soul does not mean the absence of the other), so too one who has considered the movements of our nature that concern anger and desire would not reasonably quarrel with the definition as though it had set forth our nature deficiently.

{Gregory} "What, then, ought one to think about this?" I said to the teacher. "For I am not yet able to perceive how it is fitting to disown, as foreign to our nature, the very things that are within us."

{Macrina} "You see," she said, "that there is a kind of struggle of the reasoning faculty against these things, and an effort to isolate the soul from them so far as it can."

"And indeed there are some in whom this effort has succeeded—as we hear concerning Moses, that he was superior to both anger and desire. For Scripture testifies both things of him: that he was meek beyond all men (and meekness indicates a lack of wrath, and an estrangement from anger), and that he did not desire any of those things in regard to which we see the desiring faculty at work among the many."

"Now this could not have happened if these things were nature and were to be referred to the account of the essence."

"For it is not possible for one who has come to be outside his nature to remain in existence."

"But if Moses both remained in existence and yet was not subject to these things, then these things are something other than the nature, and not nature itself."

"For if that is truly nature in which the being of the essence is grasped, while the estrangement from these things lies within our power—so as to be not merely without loss, but even profitable to the nature..."

"It is clear, then, that these passions belong to the things observed from outside the nature, and are not the essence."

"For nature is just that which it is."

"Now to most people anger seems to be a boiling of the blood about the heart."

"Others take it to be a craving to give grief in return to the one who first caused it."

"But as we would suppose, anger is an impulse to do harm to the one who has provoked us."

"None of these, however, accords with the definition of the soul."

"And even if we define desire in itself, we shall call it a reaching out toward what is lacking, or a longing for the enjoyment of pleasure, or a grief over a thing desired that is not within one's power to obtain;"

"or a certain disposition toward what is pleasant, the enjoyment of which is not present."

"For all these and the like point to desire, but do not attach to the definition concerning the soul."

"But so also with all the other things observed about the soul—those seen as opposites to one another, such as cowardice and boldness, grief and pleasure, fear and contempt, and the like—each of these seems to be akin to the desiring or the spirited faculty, yet by its own proper definition it sketches out its own distinct nature."

"For boldness and contempt indicate a certain appearance of the spirited impulse;"

"while the disposition that arises in cowardice and fear is a kind of diminution and slackening of this very same thing."

"Grief, however, draws its material from both."

"For the slackness of anger, in the inability to take vengeance on those who have caused grief, becomes grief;"

"and the despairing of things desired, and the deprivation of things longed for, produce this gloomy disposition in the mind."

"And that which is viewed as the opposite of grief—I mean the notion of pleasure—is likewise apportioned between anger and desire."

"For pleasure governs each of these equally."

"All of these are about the soul, yet are not the soul; rather they are like certain warts sprouting out from the intellectual part of the soul."

"Because they are attached to it, they are reckoned to be parts of it; yet they are not that which the soul is according to its essence."

{Gregory} "And yet," I said to the virgin, "we see that from these things no small contribution toward the better is made for those who are virtuous."

"For to Daniel desire was a matter of praise;"

"and Phinehas by his anger appeased God toward us;"

"and we have learned that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and we have heard from Paul that the end of godly grief is salvation;"

"and the Gospel admonishes us to contempt of dreadful things;"

"and not to fear sudden terror is nothing other than a description of boldness;"

"which Wisdom reckons among the good things."

"By such considerations, then, the argument shows that one ought not to think such things to be passions;"

"for the passions could not be enlisted as allies toward the achievement of virtue."

{Macrina} And the teacher said, "It seems that I myself have furnished the cause of this confusion of reasonings, by not having distinguished the discussion about this matter, so that some consequent order might be imposed upon the inquiry."

"Now, then, so far as is possible, some order will be devised for the question, so that as the inquiry proceeds in due sequence, such objections may find no place against us."

"For we say that the soul's contemplative, discerning, and beholding power—that which surveys the things that are—is proper to it and according to its nature, and that through this, by the godlike grace, it preserves in itself the image."

"Since reason conjectures that the Divine—whatever it may be in its nature—consists in these very things:"

"in beholding all things, and in discerning the good from the worse."

"But all those parts of the soul that lie in the borderland, inclining by their own nature readily toward each of the two opposites..."

And the particular use of these things leads to an outcome that is either good or its opposite—such as anger, or fear, or any other of the soul's movements of this kind, without which human nature cannot be conceived.

We reckon that these came upon the soul from outside, because no such trait can be discerned in the archetypal Beauty.

Let our discussion of these matters be set forth as in a training exercise, so that it may escape the abuse of those who listen with a slanderous intent. By a certain method and orderly sequence the account relates that the Divine set about the making of man.

For when the universe had been established, as the Scripture says, man does not at once come into being upon the earth; rather, the nature of the irrational creatures preceded him.

By this, I think, the account shows that the life-giving power is blended with bodily nature by a certain sequence: first clothing the things without sense-perception, then advancing from these to the sentient, and thus ascending to the intellectual and rational.

Therefore, of existing things some are corporeal and others are altogether intellectual.

Of the corporeal, some is animate and some is inanimate.

By 'animate' I mean that which partakes of life.

And of living things, some live together with sense-perception, while others have no share in it.

Again, of those endowed with sense-perception, some are rational and others irrational.

Now since sentient life could not subsist apart from matter, and the intellectual could not otherwise come to be in a body unless it were implanted in the sentient, for this reason the fashioning of man is recorded last—as having embraced within itself the whole idea of life, both that observed in growing plants and that seen in the irrational animals.

The capacity to be nourished and to grow he has from the plant life;

for this can be seen even in plants, as nourishment is drawn up through the roots and discharged through fruits and leaves.

But the management of life through sense-perception he has from the irrational animals.

But the discursive and rational faculty is unmixed and distinctive, contemplated in this nature alone and by itself.

But just as nature possesses the impulse that draws toward the things necessary for material life—which, when it arises in us, is called 'appetite'—

this we say belongs to the natural form of life;

and since in those creatures too one may observe certain impulses naturally at work, both in being filled with what is proper to them and in striving toward reproduction,

so also whatever is proper to the irrational nature, these things have been blended with the intellectual part of the soul.

From those creatures, he says, comes anger; from those, fear; from those, all the other movements that work contrarily within us—except the rational and discursive power,

which alone is the choicest thing in our life, possessing in itself, as has been said, the imitation of the divine character.

But since, according to the account already given, the rational power cannot otherwise be implanted in bodily life except by entering through the senses;

and since sense-perception had its prior existence in the nature of the irrational animals;

it follows of necessity that, through this one thing, our soul's fellowship comes to extend also to the things connected with it.

These are all that arise in us and are called passions, which were not assigned to human life altogether for some evil end;

for in that case the Creator would bear the blame for evils, if the compulsions to wrongdoing had been built into our nature from that source;

rather, according to the particular use made of free choice, such movements of the soul become instruments either of virtue or of vice.

Just as iron, when shaped according to the craftsman's design, is formed into whatever the artificer's intention sets it to be, becoming either a sword or some farming tool—

so then, if reason—which is the choicest part of our nature—holds sway over the things introduced from outside, as the word of Scripture also intimated by way of riddle when it bade man rule over all the irrational creatures, then none of these movements would work in us for the service of vice: fear producing obedience, anger producing courage, timidity producing caution, and the impulse of desire procuring for us the divine and undefiled pleasure.

But if reason casts away the reins, and like a charioteer entangled in his chariot is dragged behind it, carried off to wherever the irrational motion of the yoked beasts bears him, then the impulses turn into passions—just as may be seen in the case of the irrational animals.

For since the irrational creatures have no reason presiding over the motion that is naturally extolled in them, the wrathful kinds of animals destroy one another, being governed by anger;

while the fleshy and powerful beasts gain no proper benefit from their strength, becoming a possession of the rational creature on account of their lack of reason;

and the activity of desire and pleasure busies itself with nothing of the lofty things,

nor does anything else among the things observed in them

operate by any rational principle toward what is profitable.

So too in us: if these things are not led toward what is fitting by reason, but the passions prevail over the sovereignty of the mind, then man, passing over to the irrational and senseless, is brutalized—by the impulse of such passions departing from the discursive and God-like.

{Gregory} And I, being deeply impressed by what had been said, replied: 'For anyone of sound mind it is enough that the argument, advancing thus plainly and without artifice by orderly consequence, should seem well-founded and nowhere to have strayed from the truth.

But since to those who have practiced the technical methods of demonstration a syllogism seems sufficient to produce conviction,