Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 37 part 25/28

Accordingly, what he saw, being caught up even to the third heaven — which he even affirms that he knows — he saw properly, not imaginatively. But because as to that very alienation from the body, whether it left the body wholly dead, or whether the soul was there according to a certain mode of a living body while his mind was snatched away to see or hear the ineffable things of that vision — this was uncertain, therefore perhaps he said: 'whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knows.' But that which is seen not imaginatively but properly, and is not seen through the body, this is seen by that vision which surpasses all the rest. Their kinds and differences I shall take care to explain, as far as the Lord shall help me. Behold, in this one precept, when it is read:

'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' three kinds of vision present themselves: one through the eyes, by which the letters themselves are seen; a second through the spirit of man, by which the neighbour, even when absent, is conceived in thought; and a third through the contemplation of the mind, by which love itself, once understood, is beheld. Of these three kinds, the first is manifest to all; for through it are seen the heaven and the earth and all things in them that are conspicuous to our eyes. Nor is that second kind difficult to explain, whereby bodies that are corporeal and absent are conceived in thought;

for we conceive in thought the very heaven and earth and the things we are able to see in them even when set in darkness, where, seeing nothing with the eyes of the body, we nevertheless behold corporeal images with the soul—whether true images, as of the very bodies we have seen and retain in memory, or fabricated ones, such as thought has been able to form. For we think of Carthage in one way, which we have known, and of Alexandria in another, which we have not known. But that third kind, whereby love once understood is beheld, embraces those things which have no images resembling themselves, which are not the same as their images.

For a man, or a tree, or the sun, and whatever other bodies there are, whether celestial or terrestrial, are both seen when present in their own forms and, when absent, are conceived in thought through images impressed upon the soul; and they produce two kinds of things seen: one through the senses of the body, the other through the spirit, in which those images are contained. But is love perhaps seen in one way when present, in the form in which it exists, and in another way when absent, in some image resembling itself? By no means. But insofar as it can be discerned by the mind, it is discerned by one person more and by another less; yet if some corporeal image is conceived in thought, it is not love itself that is discerned.

These are the three kinds of vision, of which we have said something in the preceding books, as the matter seemed to require, yet without setting down their number; and now, having briefly indicated them—since the question we have undertaken demands that we treat of them somewhat more fully—we ought to designate them by fixed and fitting names, lest by constant circumlocution we cause delays. Let us therefore call the first 'corporeal,' because it is perceived through the body and presented to the senses of the body; the second 'spiritual': for whatever is not a body and yet is something is now rightly called 'spirit,' and assuredly is not a body, although it is like a body—being an image of an absent body, and not that very act of gazing by which it is discerned;

and the third 'intellectual,' from the intellect; for to call it 'mental,' from the mind itself, would be, by the novelty of the term, too absurd for us to say. If I were to give the reasoning behind these terms more subtly, my discourse would be both longer and more intricate, whereas either no necessity or certainly not so great a necessity demands this. It is enough, then, to know that something is called 'corporeal' either properly, when bodies are being spoken of, or also by a transferred term, as it was said: 'For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.'

For the Godhead is not a body; but because he calls the sacraments of the Old Testament shadows of things to come, on account of the comparison with shadows he said that the fullness of the Godhead dwells 'bodily' in Christ, in the sense that in him are fulfilled all the things that were prefigured by those shadows, and thus that he is in a certain manner the body of those shadows, that is, the truth of those figures and significations. Therefore, just as those figures themselves, being significative and expressed by a transferred term, were not properly called 'shadows,' so also, when he says that the fullness of the Godhead dwells 'bodily,' he has used a transferred word. But 'spiritual' is said in many ways. For the body too, which shall be in the resurrection of the saints, the Apostle calls 'spiritual,' where he says:

'It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body,' because in wondrous ways it is made subject to the spirit for every ease and incorruption, and without any need of corporeal nourishment is quickened by the spirit alone—not that it will have an incorporeal substance; for neither has this body, such as we now have, the substance of the soul, and this is what 'natural' means, since it was called 'natural.' Again, 'spirit' is said of the air itself, or of its breath, that is, its motion, as it was said: 'Fire, hail, snow, ice, spirit of the tempest.' 'Spirit' is also said of the soul, whether of a beast or of a man, as it is written:

'And who knoweth whether the spirit of the sons of men goeth upward, and whether the spirit of the beast goeth downward into the earth?' 'Spirit' is said also of the rational mind itself, wherein is as it were an eye of the soul, to which pertain the image and the knowledge of God. Whence the Apostle says: 'Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which is created according to God,' while he says elsewhere concerning the inner man: 'who is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him that created him.' Likewise, when he had said:

'So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin,' recalling the same thought in another place, he says: 'The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that ye do not the things that ye would'—that which he had called 'mind' he here also called 'spirit.' 'Spirit' is said even of God, as the Lord says in the Gospel: 'God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.' Out of all these ways which we have mentioned, by which 'spirit' is named, we have not drawn this term by which we have named this 'spiritual' kind of vision of which we now treat, but from that one way which we find in the Epistle to the Corinthians, whereby spirit is distinguished from mind by a most evident testimony.

'For if I pray in a tongue,' he says, 'my spirit prayeth, but my mind is unfruitful.' Since, then, by 'tongue' in this place is understood the speaking of obscure and mystical significations, from which, if you remove the understanding of the mind, no one is edified by hearing what he does not understand—whence he also says: 'For he that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God; for no man heareth him, howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries'—he sufficiently indicates that he here calls that a 'tongue' wherein are significations, as it were images and likenesses of things, which, in order to be understood, require the gaze of the mind. But when they are not understood, he says they are in the spirit, not in the mind; whence he says more plainly:

'If thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the place of the unlearned say "Amen" at thy blessing, seeing he knoweth not what thou sayest?' Therefore, because even by the tongue—that is, by the member of the body which we move in the mouth when we speak—signs of things are indeed given, and not the things themselves brought forth, for this reason he called by a transferred word any uttering of signs, before they are understood, 'a tongue'; but when understanding, which is proper to the mind, has been added to it, there comes to be revelation, or knowledge, or prophecy, or doctrine. Accordingly he says: 'If I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you either in revelation, or in knowledge, or in prophesying, or in doctrine?' that is:

when understanding has been added to the signs, that is, to the tongue, so that what is done is done not by the spirit only, but also by the mind. Accordingly, in those to whom signs were shown through certain likenesses of corporeal things in the spirit, unless the office of the mind was added so that they might also be understood, there was not yet prophecy; and he was more a prophet who interpreted what another had seen than the one himself who had seen it. Whence it appears that prophecy pertains more to the mind than to that spirit which by a certain proper manner is called 'spirit,' a certain power of the soul inferior to the mind, wherein the likenesses of corporeal things are expressed.

And so Joseph was more a prophet, who understood what the seven ears of corn and the seven oxen signified, than Pharaoh, who saw them in his dreams; for the spirit of the one was informed so that he might see, while the mind of the other was illumined so that he might understand. And through this, in the one there was a 'tongue,' in the other prophecy, because in the one there was the imaging of things, in the other the interpretation of the imaginings. He, then, is less a prophet who sees in the spirit, through images of corporeal things, only the signs themselves of the things that are signified; and he is more a prophet who is endowed with the understanding of them alone;

but he is most of all a prophet who excels in both, so that he both sees in the spirit the significative likenesses of corporeal things and understands them by the vividness of the mind—as Daniel's excellence was tested and proved, who told the king both the dream which he had seen and disclosed what it signified. For both the corporeal images were expressed in his spirit and the understanding of them was revealed in his mind. From this manner, then, in which 'spirit' is called in this distinction, according to which the Apostle said: 'I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray also with the mind,' so that both the signs of things might be formed in the spirit and the understanding of them might shine forth in the mind:

according to this distinction, I say, we have now called 'spiritual' that kind of things seen wherein we also conceive in thought the images of absent bodies. But that 'intellectual' kind is more excellent, which is proper to the mind. Nor does it occur to me at all that 'intellect' can be said in as many ways as we have found 'spirit' to be named in many ways; but whether we say 'intellectual' or 'intelligible,' we signify this same thing. Although some have wished there to be some difference, so that the 'intelligible' is the very thing which can be perceived by the intellect alone, whereas the 'intellectual' is the mind which understands; but whether there is some thing which can be discerned by the intellect alone and yet does not itself understand is a great and difficult question.

But that there is a thing which perceives by the intellect and yet cannot itself also be perceived by the intellect—this I do not think anyone either supposes or says; for the mind is not seen except by the mind. Because, therefore, it can be seen, it is 'intelligible'; because it can also see, it is 'intellectual,' according to that distinction. Wherefore, setting aside that most difficult question, whether there is anything which is only understood and does not itself understand, we now call 'intellectual' and 'intelligible' under the same signification. These three kinds of things seen, then—corporeal, spiritual, intellectual—are to be considered one by one, so that the reasoning may ascend from the lower to the higher. Now indeed we have already set forth above an example in which all three kinds may be seen in a single sentence.

For when one reads: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' the letters are seen corporeally, the neighbour is conceived spiritually, and love is beheld intellectually. But the letters, when absent, can also be conceived spiritually, and the neighbour, when present, can be seen corporeally; whereas love can neither be discerned by the eyes of the body through its own substance, nor be conceived by the spirit through an image resembling a body, but can only be known and perceived by the mind, that is, by the intellect. Corporeal vision, to be sure, presides over none of these kinds, but what is sensed through it is announced to that spiritual vision as to its president. For when something is discerned by the eyes, straightway an image of it is made in the spirit;

but this making is not recognized until, when the eyes have been withdrawn from that which we were seeing through the eyes, we find an image of it in the soul. And if indeed the spirit is irrational, as of a beast, the eyes announce only thus far; but if the soul is rational, it is announced also to the intellect, which both presides over the spirit—so that, if that which the eyes drank in, and which they announced to the spirit that its image might be made there, is the sign of some thing, it may either be understood at once what it signifies, or be inquired after, since it can neither be understood nor sought except by the office of the mind.

King Belshazzar saw the joints of the hand of one writing on the wall, and straightway, through the sense of the body, the image of the corporeally accomplished thing was impressed upon his spirit; and once the sight itself was done and passed, that image remained in his thought. It was seen in the spirit and was not understood; nor was this sign understood at the time when it was being corporeally made and appeared to the corporeal eyes, yet even then it was understood to be a sign, this it had from the office of the mind. And because it was inquired what it signified, it was the mind, assuredly, that carried out that very inquiry.

When this had not been discovered, Daniel came forward and, with a prophetic spirit and a mind enlightened, disclosed to the troubled king what was portended by that sign—he himself being rather the prophet through this kind of vision which is proper to the mind, than that other who had both seen corporeally the sign corporeally made and, in thought, discerned in his spirit the image of it now past, yet could do nothing by the intellect except know it to be a sign and inquire what it signified. Peter, in an ecstasy of mind, saw a vessel bound by four corners let down from heaven, full of various animals, when he also heard a voice: 'Kill and eat.' And when, restored to his senses, he was pondering upon the vision, behold, those whom Cornelius had sent were announced to him by the Spirit, saying: 'Behold, men seek thee;

but arise, go down, and go with them, for I have sent them.' And when he had come to Cornelius, he himself made known what he had understood in that vision, wherein he had heard: 'What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common,' saying: 'And to me God hath shown that I should not call any man common or unclean.' Therefore, when he saw that dish, being estranged from the senses of the body, he was also hearing in the spirit those voices, 'Kill and eat,' and 'What God hath cleansed, call not thou common.' But when restored to the senses of the body, he was discerning in thought, in that same spirit, the very thing which he had held in memory as seen and heard.

All these things were not corporeal, but images of corporeal things, both when they were first seen in that very estrangement and when afterward they were recalled and pondered. But when it was being debated and inquired, so that those signs might be understood, there was the action of the mind striving, yet the effect was lacking, until those who came from Cornelius were announced; but when this corporeal vision too was added, when the Holy Spirit again said to him in the spirit, 'Go with them,' where he had also shown that sign and impressed the voices, the mind, divinely aided, understood what was being done by all those signs.

When these and things of this kind have been diligently considered, it sufficiently appears that corporeal vision is referred to spiritual, and that spiritual is referred to intellectual. But when we are awake, and with the mind not estranged from the senses of the body, we are in corporeal vision, we distinguish from that vision the spiritual, by which we conceive absent bodies in imaginal fashion—whether recalling from memory the things we have known, or somehow forming in that very thought of the spirit things we have not known and which yet exist, or, according to our own choice or opinion, fabricating things which exist nowhere at all.

From all these we so distinguish those corporeal things which we see and among which, when present, our bodily senses are engaged, that we do not doubt these to be bodies, but those to be images of bodies. But when, whether by too great an intensity of thought, or by some force of disease—as is wont to happen to those in frenzy through fever—or by the admixture of some other spirit, whether evil or good, the images of corporeal things are so expressed in the spirit as if bodies were presented to the very senses of the body, while yet the attention remains also in the senses of the body, then the images of bodies which are made in the spirit are seen just as the bodies themselves are seen through the body, so that at the same time both some man present to the eyes and another absent are discerned in the spirit as if by the eyes.

For we have experienced people thus affected, both speaking with those who were truly present and with others who were not present as though they were present. Some, on recovering, relate what they had seen; others cannot. For so too some forget their dreams, and some remember them. But when the attention of the soul is wholly turned away and snatched off from the senses of the body, then it is more usually called 'ecstasy.' Then, whatever bodies may be present are not seen even with open eyes, nor are any voices at all heard: the whole contemplation of the soul is either upon images of bodies through spiritual vision, or upon incorporeal things figured by no image of body through intellectual vision.

But when spiritual vision detains the soul, wholly estranged from the senses of the body, by images of corporeal things, whether in dreams or in ecstasy—if the things that are seen signify nothing, they are the imaginations of the soul itself, just as even those who are awake and sound and moved by no estrangement turn about, in thought, images of many bodies which are not present to the senses of the body. But there is this difference, that they distinguish these from present and real bodies by a steadfast disposition.

But if they signify something, whether they are exhibited to those sleeping or to those awake—when they both see present bodies with the eyes and discern the images of absent bodies in the spirit, as though they were before the eyes; or in that which is called ecstasy, with the soul wholly estranged from the senses of the body—it is a wondrous way, if it can come about by the admixture of another spirit, that it should show the things which it itself knows, through images of this kind, to the one with whom it mingles, whether he understands, or whether they are disclosed to be understood by another. For if these things are shown, and cannot in any case be shown by a body, what remains, except that they be shown by some spirit? Some indeed will have it that the human soul has some power of divination in itself.

But if it is so, why can it not do so always, since it always wishes to? Or is it because it is not always aided, so as to be able? When, therefore, it is aided, can it possibly be aided by nothing, or by a body? Accordingly it remains that it is aided by a spirit. Then, how is it aided? Is something done in the body, so that from it its attention is as it were relaxed and darts forth, whither it may come into that where it may see within itself the significant likenesses which were already there and were not being seen—just as we have many things also in memory which we do not always behold? Or are there produced there things which were not there before, or are they in some spirit, into which it, breaking forth and emerging, may there see them? But if they were already in it, as it were properly its own, why does it not consequently also understand them?

For sometimes—nay, for the most part—it does not understand. Or is it that, just as its spirit was aided to see them in itself, so also the mind, unless it be aided, cannot understand the things which the spirit has? Or is it perhaps that the corporeal hindrances are not removed or as it were relaxed, so that the soul by its own impetus may be exerted toward the things that are to be seen, but rather the soul itself is wholly taken up into these—whether only to be discerned spiritually, or also to be known intellectually? Or does it sometimes see these things within itself, and sometimes through the admixture of another spirit? Whichever of these it be, it ought not to be rashly affirmed.

Yet this ought not to be in doubt: that the corporeal images which are discerned in the spirit are not always signs of other things, whether in those who are awake, or asleep, or ill; but it is a marvel if ecstasy can ever come about in such a way that those likenesses of corporeal things do not signify something. It is not, to be sure, a marvel if even those who have a demon sometimes say true things which are absent from the senses of those present: which certainly comes about by some hidden mixture of the same spirit, so that he who suffers and he who vexes are as it were one. But when a good spirit takes up or snatches away the human spirit into these visions, it must in no way be doubted that those images are signs of other things—and of things which it is useful to know; for it is a gift of God.

The discernment, to be sure, is most difficult, when a malign spirit acts as it were more tranquilly and, without any vexation of the body, having taken up the human spirit, says what it can. When it even says true things and foretells useful ones, transfiguring itself, as it is written, 'as an angel of light,' to this end—that, when it has been believed in manifest good things, it may seduce to its own. This one I do not think can be discerned except by that gift of which the Apostle speaks, when he was treating of the diverse gifts of God: 'to another the discerning of spirits.' For it is no great thing to recognize it then, when it has come to, or led on to, things which are contrary to good morals or to the rule of faith; for then it is discerned by many.

But by that gift, at the very outset, when it still appears good to many, it is at once judged whether it is evil. Nevertheless, both through corporeal vision and through the images of corporeal things which are shown in the spirit, the good instruct and the evil deceive. But intellectual vision is not deceived; for either he does not understand who thinks otherwise than it is, or, if he understands, it is at once true. For what should the eyes do, when they have seen a body like another which they cannot distinguish from it? Or what should the attention of the soul do, when in the spirit there has been made a likeness of a body which it is not able to distinguish from the body?

But the intellect is brought to bear, seeking what those things signify or teach as useful, and either, finding it, it comes to its own fruit, or, not finding it, it holds itself in deliberation, lest by some pernicious rashness it slip into destructive error. But the sober intellect, divinely aided, judges what and how great those things are in which even to think otherwise than it is, is not pernicious to the soul. For no one is thought good by good men to the peril of those who so think and not rather to his own destruction, even if he be a hidden evil man—provided that in the things themselves, that is, in that very good by which anyone becomes good, there be no error; nor does it harm all men that, when they sleep, they suppose to be real bodies those whose likenesses they see in dreams;

nor did it in any way harm Peter that, loosed from his chains and led by an angel, it came about by a sudden miracle that he supposed himself to be seeing a vision; or when, in that ecstasy, he answered: 'Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common and unclean,' thinking those very things which were shown in the dish to be as it were real animals. When these things are found to be otherwise than they were thought to be when they were seen, we do not regret that they so appeared to us, provided that neither a hard unbelief nor a vain or sacrilegious opinion be censured. Wherefore, even when the devil deceives with corporeal things seen, it does no harm that the eyes are mocked, if there be no error in the truth of faith and in the soundness of understanding, which God teaches to those subject to him.

Or if it should mock the soul with spiritual vision by images of bodies, so that it supposes that to be a body which is not, does it harm the soul, provided it does not consent to a pernicious persuasion? Hence there sometimes arises a question concerning the consents of dreamers, when they even seem to themselves to lie together, whether against their own resolve or even against permitted morals: which does not happen except when those things which even when awake we think—not with the approval of consent, but as we also speak of such things for some purpose—are in like manner suggested and expressed in dreams, so that the flesh is naturally moved by them and emits, through the genital passages, what it naturally collects; just as I could not say this very thing unless I also thought it.

Furthermore, the images of corporeal things, which I necessarily thought in order to say these things, if they were presented in dreams with as great a vividness as bodies are presented to those who are awake, then there would come about that which could not come about without sin in one awake. For who, even when he speaks and, at the demand of the discourse, says something about his own intercourse, could avoid thinking what he says?

Furthermore, that very fantasy which arises in the thought of one speaking, when it has been so expressed in the vision of one dreaming that it is not distinguished from a real conjoining of bodies, straightway the flesh is moved and there follows what is wont to follow that motion—though this happens as much without sin as it is said without sin by one awake, since, in order that it might be said, it was without doubt thought. Yet nevertheless, on account of the good disposition of the soul, which, cleansed by a better desire, slays many cupidities which do not pertain to the natural motion of the flesh—which the chaste who are awake restrain and bridle, but which those asleep cannot, because they do not have in their power what expression of a corporeal image, one that cannot be distinguished from a body, may be brought to bear:

on account, then, of that good disposition of the soul, certain of its merits shine forth even in dreams. For even in his sleep Solomon preferred wisdom to all things, and, neglecting the rest, he asked it of the Lord; and, as the Scripture testifies, this pleased the Lord, nor did he defer the good recompense for the good desire.

Since these things are so, the sense of the body pertains to corporeal things seen; it is distributed through five, as it were, rivulets, effective at various distances, since that which is most subtle in the body—and for this reason nearer to the soul than the rest—that is, light, is first diffused through the eyes alone and flashes forth in the rays of the eyes to behold visible things; then, by a certain admixture, first with pure air, secondly with murky and misty air, thirdly with a more corpulent moisture, fourthly with earthy thickness, it produces the five senses together with that sense of the eyes itself, wherein alone it is preeminent—as I recall having discussed in the fourth book and likewise in the seventh.