On the Making of Man 1 part 3/7

For it is possible to confirm the doctrine concerning these matters by other examples as well;

and if it is not burdensome to the ears of those already wearied by the discourse, let us treat of these matters also, as far as we are able, in a few words.

An Explanation of the Causes of Sleep, Yawning, and Dreams

This material and ever-flowing life of bodies, always advancing by means of motion, has its power of being precisely in this—that it never comes to a stand from motion.

And just as a river, flowing by its own impulse, shows full the channel through which it happens to be borne, yet is never seen in the same water at the same place, but part of it has run on past and part is flowing after;

so also the material element of this life is exchanged, through a kind of motion and flux, by the continuity of the succession of opposites, so that it can never come to a stand from change, but by its very inability to be at rest holds its motion ceaseless, being exchanged through like states.

But if it should ever cease from moving, it will assuredly have the cessation of its being as well;

for instance, emptying succeeds fullness, and again replenishing enters in to take the place of emptiness;

waking braces up what has been relaxed.

And neither of these abides continually, but both give way to the presence of the other, nature thus renewing itself by these alternations, so that, partaking of each in turn, it passes without interruption from the one to the other.

For both the living being's being perpetually strained in its activities produces a kind of rupture and tearing of the parts that are over-stretched;

and the continual relaxation of the body brings about a kind of collapse and dissolution of its constitution.

But to attain to each of these in due measure at the proper time is a power for the continuance of nature, which by the perpetual transition to the opposite states rests itself in each by means of the other.

Thus, then, having received the body braced up through waking, nature produces a relaxation of the tension by means of sleep, giving the sensory powers rest for a time from their activities, releasing them as it were like horses after the contests of the chariots.

And the timely relaxation is necessary for the constitution of the body, so that the nourishment may be distributed without hindrance throughout the whole body through the passages within it, with no tension impeding its passage.

For just as from the moist earth, when the sun shines upon it with hotter rays, certain misty vapours are drawn up from the depths,

something similar comes about also in our own earth, when the nourishment within is made to seethe up by the natural heat.

And the vapours, being by nature borne upward and airy, and breathing toward what lies above, come to be in the regions about the head, like some smoke making its way into the joints of a wall;

then from there, being exhaled toward the passages of the sense-organs, they disperse, and through these the sense-perception necessarily becomes idle, withdrawing before the passage of those vapours.

For the eyes are covered by the eyelids, as by a kind of leaden device—I mean by such a weight—which lets the eyelid sink down over the eyes.

And the hearing, thickened by these same vapours, as if a door were set upon the auditory parts, holds quiet from its natural activity;

and such a condition is sleep, the sense-perception being at rest in the body and altogether inactive from its natural motion, so that the distributions of nourishment may travel readily, passing out together with the vapours through each of the passages.

And for this reason, if the apparatus about the sense-organs should be straitened by the exhalation from within, while sleep is hindered owing to some need,

then the sinewy part, having become full of the vapours, is naturally stretched by itself, so that by the stretching the part thickened by the vapours may be thinned out;

as those do who by a more vigorous wringing squeeze the water out of garments.

And since the parts about the throat are circular, and the sinewy element abounds in them,

whenever there is need that the density of the vapours be thrust out from these too (since it is impossible to stretch out a circular part in a straight line, unless it be extended according to its rounded shape),

for this reason, when the breath is caught back in the yawn, when the chin is drawn downward in a hollow toward the uvula, and all the inner parts are stretched into the shape of a circle, that sooty thickness which had been trapped in those parts is breathed out together with the passing of the breath.

And often it knows how to come about that such a thing happens even after sleep, whenever some of those vapours are left behind in those places, unexpelled and unbreathed-out.

From these things, then, the human mind clearly shows that it is bound up with nature: when nature is in its full constitution and awake, the mind too works together with it and is in motion;

but when nature is loosed in sleep, the mind remains motionless—unless indeed someone should suppose the dream-like imagination to be a motion of the mind, operating during sleep.

But we say that only the rational and consistent activity of the understanding ought to be referred to the mind;

while [the dream-images] are formed at random by the more irrational form of the soul.

For when the soul is released from the senses through sleep, it necessarily comes about that it is also outside the activities that belong to the mind.

When, therefore, the senses have ceased, the understanding too must necessarily be idle.

And a proof of this is that the one who dreams often seems to himself to be in strange and impossible situations;

which would not have happened, were the soul at that time governed by reasoning and understanding.

But it seems to me that, while the more honourable powers of the soul are at rest (I mean the activities according to the mind and the sense-perception), only its nutritive part is active during sleep; and in this there appear certain images of things that occurred in waking life, and echoes of what was wrought both by sense-perception and by understanding, which were imprinted upon it through the memory-bearing form of the soul;

these are sketched out just as it happens, since a certain echo of memory has remained behind in that form of the soul.

In these things, then, the man forms imaginations, not being led by any orderly sequence toward an intelligible coherence of what appears, but wandering about amid certain confused and incoherent delusions.

And just as in the bodily activities, when one of the parts is acting in its own way according to the power naturally implanted in it, there comes about a kind of joint-disposition of the part that is at rest toward the one that is in motion;

so analogously also in the case of the soul: even if one part of it happens to be at rest and another in motion, the whole is jointly affected with the part.

For it is not possible that the natural unity should be altogether torn apart, since one of the powers belonging to it prevails in some part through its activity.

But just as in those who are awake and busied with tasks the mind prevails, while sense-perception serves, and the power that governs the body does not abandon these (for the mind procures the nourishment for the need, sense-perception receives what is procured, and the nutritive power of the body appropriates to itself what is given);

so also during sleep the leadership of these powers is, as it were, interchanged in us;

and when the more irrational prevails, the activity of the others ceases, yet is not utterly extinguished.

And since at that time the nutritive power is urgently engaged through sleep in digestion, and occupies the whole of nature with itself, neither is the power of sense-perception altogether severed from it (for it is not possible that what has once grown together should be cut asunder), nor can its activity blaze forth, being shackled by the inactivity of the sense-organs during sleep.

And by the same reasoning, since the mind too is allied with the sensory form of the soul, it would follow that, when this is in motion, we should say that the mind moves with it, and when it is at rest, that the mind comes to rest along with it.

And just as it is the nature of fire to behave when it has been buried beneath chaff on every side, with no breath fanning the flame into life: it neither feeds upon what lies near it, nor is it utterly extinguished, but instead of flame a kind of vapour passes out through the chaff into the air; yet if it should get some current of air, it turns the smoke into flame;

in the same manner the mind also, being covered over by the inactivity of the senses during sleep, is neither able to shine forth through them, nor yet is utterly extinguished;

but moves, as it were, smokily, partly active, yet partly unable.

And just as some musician, applying the plectrum to the strings of the lyre when they have been slackened, does not bring forth the melody in rhythm;

for that which is not taut would not give out a sound;

but the hand often moves skilfully, bringing the plectrum to the local position of the notes, yet there is no sound, except in so far as it gives out some indistinct and disordered humming murmur in the movement of the strings;

so, through sleep, when the instrumental apparatus of the sense-organs has been slackened, either the artificer is wholly at rest—if indeed the instrument has suffered a complete unstringing from some surfeit and heaviness—or he will work feebly and faintly, since the sensory instrument does not receive the art with precision.

For by the subtlety of its nature it has something more than bodily grossness in its power to discern some of the things that exist.

Yet it is not able to make clear what is said in any direct way, so that the teaching of the matters set forth might be far-shining and manifest beforehand;

but the disclosure of what is to come becomes oblique and ambiguous, which those who interpret such things call a riddle.

Thus the cupbearer pressed the cluster of grapes into Pharaoh's cup;

thus the baker imagined himself carrying baskets, for each of them supposed that he was, even through dreams, engaged in the very things in which he had his diligence while awake.

For the images of their accustomed occupations, being imprinted on the foreknowing faculty of the soul, gave them the means, at the appointed time, to divine what was about to come to pass through such a prophecy of the mind.

For no one would reckon these things to be due to the power of dreams, since by the same consequence he would suppose that even the theophanies which occur while awake are not vision but a sequence of nature operating spontaneously.

Therefore, just as, while all men are governed according to their own mind, there are but a few who are deemed worthy of manifest converse with the Divine,

so, while the imagining that comes in sleep occurs naturally and in common and with equal measure to all, some — not all — partake of a more divine manifestation through their dreams.

But for all the rest, even if some foreknowledge of something arises from dreams, it comes about in the manner already described.

And if both the Egyptian and the Assyrian tyrant were guided by God toward the knowledge of things to come, that which was dispensed through them is something else;

for it was necessary that the hidden wisdom of the saints be made manifest, lest it remain useless and pass through life unprofitable to the common good.

But this customary vision of dreams is common to all, occurring in the imaginations in many ways and many forms.

For either, as has been said, the echoes of the daytime occupations remain in the memory-faculty of the soul;

and often the state of the dreams is shaped in correspondence with the particular dispositions of the body as well.

For thus the thirsty man seems to be among springs, and the one in need of food among feasts, and the young man, when his age is full of vigour, is given an imagining corresponding to his passion.

I myself have come to know yet another cause of things that happen in sleep, when I was tending one of my acquaintances who had been seized with frenzy (phrenitis). Being burdened by food administered to him beyond his strength, he cried out, blaming those standing around, that they had filled his intestines with dung and laid it upon him.

And when his body was already hastening toward sweat, he accused those present of having water made ready to drench him as he lay, and he would not cease crying out, until the outcome of such complaints interpreted their causes.

For suddenly much sweat flowed over his body, and his stomach, having become disordered, signified the heaviness in the intestines.

Therefore, since sober watchfulness had been dulled by the disease, his nature suffered, being affected together with the suffering of the body — not being insensible to that which troubled it, yet, because of the derangement caused by the disease, not being strong enough to declare plainly what distressed it;

the food being signified as a burden of distress.

This too is the opinion of many who are trained in medicine: that, according to the differences of the afflictions, the visions of dreams also come to the sick in differing ways — some to those with stomach trouble, others to those whose membranes (meninges) are injured, and again others to those in fevers; and not the same to those afflicted in the bile and those afflicted in the phlegm, and again different ones to the plethoric and to the wasted.

From these things one may see that the nutritive and growth-giving power of the soul has within it something of the intellectual faculty also sown together with it through the commingling, which in a manner is assimilated to the particular disposition of the body, and the prevailing passion is refashioned in the imaginations.

Moreover, in many people dreams are also shaped according to the conditions of their characters (ethe).

The imaginings of the brave man are of one kind, and those of the coward of another;

the dreams of the licentious are of one sort, and those of the self-controlled of another;

in some the liberal man is given imaginings, and in others the insatiable; nowhere is it the understanding, but rather the more irrational disposition in the soul, that fashions such imaginings — refashioning even in dreams the images of those things to which it has been accustomed through its waking practice.

That the mind is not in one part of the body.

Wherein also is a distinction of the bodily and the psychic movements.

But we have wandered far from the subjects set before us.

but [the mind] touches everything equally, working its movement in correspondence with the nature of the underlying part.

Yet there are cases in which the mind also follows the natural impulses, becoming as it were a servant.

For often the nature of the body takes the lead, both implanting a sensation of what gives pain and a desire of what gives delight, so that it supplies the first beginnings — either an appetite for food, or in general some impulse productive of one of the things pertaining to pleasure — while the mind, receiving such impulses, by its own contrivances helps to furnish the body with the means toward what is desired.

But such a thing is not the case with all, but only with those disposed in a more slavish manner, who, having enslaved reason to the impulses of nature, by the alliance of the mind slavishly flatter the pleasure that comes through the senses.

But with the more perfect it is not so.

For the mind takes the lead, choosing what is profitable by reason and not by passion;

and nature follows step by step the one that leads before it.

And since reason discovered three distinctions in the vital power — one that is nourished without sensation, one that is both nourished and grows but has no share in the rational activity, and one that is rational and perfect, pervading the whole power, so as to be present in those others also and to have the larger share of the intellectual —

let no one on this account suppose that three souls have been compacted together in the human compound, contemplated in their own separate bounds, so as to think that human nature is some assemblage of many souls.

But the true and perfect soul is one by nature, the intellectual and immaterial, which through the senses is commingled with the material nature.

And all that is material, lying in turning and alteration, if it partakes of the ensouling power, will be moved in the way of growth;

but if it falls away from the vital activity, it will dissolve its movement into corruption.

Neither, then, does sensation come to be apart from material substance, nor does the activity of sensation come to be apart from the intellectual power.

That the rational soul both is, and is called, soul in the proper sense;

but the others are so named by equivocation.

Wherein is also the point that the power of the mind pervades the whole body, attaching itself in correspondence to each part.

But if some among creation have the nutritive activity, or again others are governed by the sensitive power — the former having no share in sensation, the latter none in the intellectual nature — and on this account someone suspects a multitude of souls;

such a one will not, according to the dividing reason, lay down a doctrine of a difference of souls;

because everything that is conceived among existing things, if it be perfectly that which it is, is properly named also that which it is called;

but that which is not throughout that which it has been called, holds its appellation in vain.

For example, if someone should point out true bread, we say that such a one applies the name to the subject in the proper sense.

But if someone should set, alongside the natural one, bread fashioned out of stone, having the same shape, equal in size, and a likeness of colour, so that in most respects it seems to be the same as the original, but it lacks in it the power to be nourishment also;

on account of this we say that the stone has obtained the name of bread not in the proper sense, but by a misuse of the appellation.

And all things that are according to the same principle, which are not throughout that which they are called, hold their name by a misuse.

Thus therefore, since the soul has its perfection in the intellectual and rational, all that is not this can indeed be of the same name as the soul, yet is not in reality a soul, but is a certain vital activity associated with the appellation of soul.

For "All the meat," it says, "you shall eat as the green herb."

For that which is nourished and grows together with the sensitive activity seems to have but a small advantage over that which is nourished and grows without it.

Let this teach the lovers of the flesh not to let the understanding run greatly after the things that appear according to sense, but to busy themselves with the advantages of the soul, since the true soul is contemplated in these, whereas sense has its equal even in the irrational creatures.

But the sequence of the discourse has been carried aside to another matter.

For this was not what was set forth for our contemplation, that the activity according to mind is more honourable than the material element of the substance among the things conceived in man;

but that the mind is not confined to some one part of the things within us, but is equally in all and through all;

neither encompassing from without, nor being mastered from within.

For these things are properly said of jars or of certain other bodies placed one within another.

But the communion of the mind with the bodily has a conjunction that is ineffable and inconceivable, being neither within (for the incorporeal is not contained by a body), nor encompassing from without (for the incorporeal does not encompass anything);

but in some manner inexplicable and incomprehensible the mind, drawing near to the nature and attaching itself, is contemplated both in it and around it, neither seated within nor enfolding it from without;

but in a way that cannot be told or conceived, except that, when the nature prospers according to its own proper connection, the mind also becomes active.

But if any disorder should befall it, the movement of the understanding too is crippled in that respect.

A contemplation of the divine saying which declared, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness." Wherein it is examined what is the meaning of the image, and whether that which is passible and perishable is likened to the blessed and impassible, and

magnifying, as they supposed, the human by comparison with this world.

For they say that man is a little world (microcosm), being composed of the same elements as the universe.

For those who, by the pomp of the name, bestow such praise upon human nature, have failed to notice that they are dignifying man with the properties of the gnat and the mouse.

For in those creatures also there is a mixture of these four elements, since in every one of the things that exist some portion, greater or lesser, of these is observed in the living thing, without which nothing of the things that partake of sensation has the nature to subsist.

What greatness is it, then, for man to be deemed a representation and likeness of the world — of the heaven that revolves, of the earth that alters, of all the things within these that are held fast and pass away together at the passing of that which contains them? But wherein, according to the teaching of the Church, lies human greatness? Not in the likeness to the created world, but in being made according to the image of the nature of the Creator.

What then is the meaning of the image? you will perhaps ask;

how is the incorporeal likened to the body? how the temporary to the eternal? that which is altered through change to the unalterable? the passible and perishable to the impassible and incorruptible? that which always dwells together with all evil and is nourished therein, to that which is unmixed with all evil? For great is the gulf between that which is conceived according to the archetype and that which has come to be according to the image.

For an image, if it bears the likeness to its prototype, is properly called by this name.

But if the imitation has been distorted from its model, such a thing is something else, and not an image of that original.

How then is man—this mortal, passion-prone, and short-lived being—the image of the nature that is incorruptible, pure, and ever-existing? But the true account of this only the very Truth Himself could clearly know.

As for us, in so far as our capacity allows, tracking out the truth by certain conjectures and surmises, we form these suppositions concerning the matters in question.

Neither does the divine word lie when it says that man was made in the image of God,

nor is the pitiable misery of human nature made like to the blessedness of the impassible life.

For one of two things must necessarily be admitted, if one compares our condition with God: either that the Divine is subject to passion, or that the human is impassible, so that through equivalent terms the principle of likeness might apply to both alike.

But if the Divine is not subject to passion, and that which is ours is not free from passion, then some other account remains, according to which we affirm that the divine voice speaks truly when it says that man was made in the image of God.

We must therefore take up the divine Scripture itself afresh, to see whether through what is written there might be some guidance toward the thing we seek.

After saying, "Let us make man in our image," and for what purposes "let us make him," it adds this statement: that "God also made man, and made him in the image of God."

"Male and female He made them." Now it has already been said in what precedes that such a declaration was proclaimed beforehand for the overthrow of heretical impiety, so that being taught that the Only-begotten God made man in the image of God, we might by no reasoning separate the Godhead of the Father and of the Son, since the Holy Scripture names each of them equally God—both Him who made man, and Him in whose image he was made.

But let the discussion of these matters be set aside, and let the inquiry be turned back to the subject before us:

how it is that the Divine is blessed and the human pitiable, and yet the latter is named by Scripture as like to the former.

We must therefore examine the words with precision.

For we shall find that the being made in the image is one thing, and that which is now displayed in misery is another.

"God made man," it says, "in the image of God He made him." Here the creation of the being made in the image reaches its completion.

Then it makes a recapitulation of the account concerning the formation, and says,

this is understood of the prototype;

For "in Christ Jesus," as the Apostle says, "there is neither male nor female." Yet surely the word says that man is divided into these.

Therefore the formation of our nature is in a sense twofold: the one made like to the Divine, and the one divided according to this distinction.

For the text hints at some such thing by the arrangement of what is written: first saying that "God made man, in the image of God He made him," and then again adding to what was said that "male and female He made them"—which is something foreign to what is conceived concerning God.

For I think that some great and lofty doctrine is here handed down by the divine Scripture through what has been said.

And the doctrine is this:

For it is possible to observe in the human compound the portion belonging to each of the things mentioned: from the Divine, the rational and intelligent element, which does not admit the distinction of male and female;

and from the irrational, the bodily constitution and fashioning, divided into male and female.

For each of these is assuredly present in everyone who partakes of human life.

But the intellectual element takes precedence, as we have learned from the one who set forth the genesis of man in order; while the communion and kinship with the irrational is something added afterwards to man.

For first it says that "God made man in the image of God," showing through what is said—as the Apostle says—that in such a being there is neither male nor female;

Then it brings in the peculiar properties of human nature, that "male and female He made them." What then do we learn through this? And let no one be vexed with me for bringing the argument to the matter in hand from far off.

God in His own nature is whatever good the mind can conceive to exist; or rather,

being beyond every good that can be thought of or comprehended, He creates human life for no other reason than because He is good.

And being such, and for this reason having set Himself to the creation of human nature, He would not have shown the power of His goodness as only half-complete, granting it some part of what belongs to Him, while grudging it a share in the rest;

but the perfect form of goodness lies in this: both in bringing man into being out of nothing, and in making him lacking in none of good things.

But since the catalogue of the several good things is a long one, it is indeed not easy to embrace it by number.

For this is equivalent to saying that He made human nature a partaker of every good.

For if the Divine is the fullness of good things, and this is His image,

then in being full of every good the image bears its likeness to the archetype.

There is therefore in us the idea of every excellence, all virtue and wisdom, and everything that is conceived as belonging to what is higher.

And one among all these is also to be free from necessity, and not to be subjected to any natural dominion,

but to have the will self-determining toward what seems good.

For virtue is a thing unmastered and voluntary, and that which is constrained and forced cannot be virtue.

Since then in all respects the image bears the character of the prototype's beauty, if it did not differ in some respect, it would no longer be a likeness at all, but would be shown to be that very same thing throughout—identical in every respect.

What difference, then, do we discern between the Divine itself and that which has been made like to the Divine? In this: that the one exists uncreated, while the other has come into being through creation.

And the difference of this particular property again produced a sequence of other distinctive characteristics.

For it is acknowledged everywhere and in every way that the uncreated nature is also unchangeable and ever remains the same, whereas the created nature cannot subsist without alteration;

for its very coming-forth is a certain motion and alteration, of that which is not into being, transferred according to the divine will.