Variae & Works 16 part 2/4

But that which is read in the Gospel—that after the setting of this light, Lazarus in his want was received into the bosom of Abraham, but the rich man, burning and boiling in the scorching flames, begged for a drop whereby his burning might be tempered—is to be understood as set down so that the ruinous presumption of the human race regarding things might recognize what it ought to have dreaded. But neither did that one speak with a tongue, which is established to be corporeal, nor did this one have fingers whereby he might have tempered the rich man's burning with falling drops. For the other things contained in like reading are to be received in this manner. For it is a small matter that these things are recorded of this creature for the instruction of the custom of the human race.

We read also that the Author Himself—impassible, immutable, abiding perpetually in one mode—rages, and we have often heard that He slumbers; not that such things can befit the Lord, but that some things may more easily and compendiously be known from human custom. So we read that souls, formless to us, frequently take on forms. It is also wont to disturb some, if the soul has no quantity, since it is established to be contained within the body of man; but if we recall to the midst the most truthful definition of quantity, which always briefly resolves single things, the proved truth easily shines forth for us. For thus the arithmeticians describe it with compendious truth:

every quantity consists either of continuous things, as a tree, a man, a mountain, or of disjoined things, as a chorus, a people, or a heap, and the like. But since the soul is neither of continuous nor of disjoined things, because it is not a body, it is clear that it has no quantity at all; but wherever it is, it neither receives form nor is to be said by us to have any quantity. Yet it is to be believed that their circumstances and quantities can lie open to the Creator, because He created all things by measure, number, and weight, and they are truly known to Him alone who made them—who by His marvellous power beholds even our very thoughts as if they were visible things, who hears the blood of the innocent crying out; and finally, who knows all things even before they come to be.

It is time to come to the moral virtues, which are riches to be sought after and truly the precious wealth of souls, which the Greeks call aretai, by which a good conscience strives against bodily uncleanness to vindicate its own purity. First, against the depraved or the iniquitous, the bulwark of justice is set in opposition, whose framework, as the ancients wished to define it, is known to be such. Justice is a habit of mind, preserved for the common benefit, assigning to each his own dignity. Against confused and uncertain things, prudence is usefully applied. But prudence is the true knowledge of good and evil things. Against adverse or prosperous things, fortitude is set as a remedy.

But fortitude is the considered undertaking of dangers and the firm endurance of labours. Against unlawful delights, therefore, and fervid pleasures, temperance, our governess, comes to our aid. Temperance indeed is the firm and moderate mastery over lust and the other not-right impulses of the mind. By these fortifications, then, granted by divine help, girt about as it were with a fourfold breastplate, the salvation of the soul is guarded in this death-bearing world, nor can it be approached by vices, which has merited to be walled with so great a defence. But this fourfold ornament of the virtues is completed by a threefold part (so to speak). The first is contemplation, which extends the keen edge of our mind to behold the subtlest things.

The second is judicial, which handles the discernment of good and evil by rational estimation. The third is memory, when things inspected and deliberated are stored up in the inner recesses of the mind by faithful commendation, so that, as in a kind of receptacle, we may take in what we drink down by frequent meditation. Our wardrobes, when they have been filled, hold nothing; this treasury is not burdened by being loaded, but, when it has stored away many things, by the desire of knowing requires the more. We have touched the aforesaid parts as a three-stringed harmony: for in such a number the soul delights; in it the Divinity is known to rejoice. Some are wont to raise most subtle questions, saying:

if the Divinity creates perfect and rational souls, why do infants live with sense scarcely placed in them, or why are youths found to be witless? But who would not consider that the souls of little ones, by the weakness of the body, can explicate neither the offices of the senses nor the ministries of the members? as, if you shut up fire in a narrow vessel, it cannot, as is its manner, seek the heights, because a most close obstacle is established to cover it. For then the faculty of each thing seems to suffice for it, when nothing contrary prevails to impede it.

Thus there befalls foolish young men this: that whether through a disproportion of parts or through a thickness of humours, a defect having been contracted from the fault of the maternal womb, the soul, hampered by too unfit a dwelling, is weighed down and cannot exercise its own power, being obstructed by the seat of an unsuitable abode. This we see happening even today to the foolish, whom the Greeks call 'niniones.' For to speak also of a common occurrence: how many, when illnesses come upon them, whether through an overburdened brain or through a numbness of the inward parts, have, being confounded, lost the keenness of their accustomed wisdom? How many, indeed, have been altered by a momentary injury?

For even he who is reputed most renowned for wisdom, when stuffed with a sumptuous meal, how easily, sliding into drunkenness, is he dulled, so that you would scarcely believe him alive—much less the man who but lately discoursed most prudently—when you see him unable even to move himself. Yet one thing I know most certainly: that the wise are made exceedingly blessed who, by the mercy of the Lord, are rendered strangers to such adversities. Perhaps there are also other causes which seem to go against the rational soul in unfolding its proper motions. For the rest, souls neither grow with little children, nor are different souls assigned to fools by some varied distribution; but just as they continually receive immortality, so too they are generally held to be rational. For in little children it is the reason that grows by long reflection, not the soul.

Now let us pass on in due order to the remaining matters. The ancients held that the natural powers of the soul are fivefold. The first is the sensitive, present in both parts, which bestows on us the sense of understanding, by which we perceive all incorporeal things through varied imagination. It also makes the bodily senses vigorous—that is, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, by which we perceive things hard and soft, smooth and rough. The second is the imperative, which commands the bodily organs to perform the various motions it has decreed to be carried out—that is, to be moved from place to place, to utter sounds, to bend the limbs. These things we have set down by way of example, that in these we may be seen to have spoken of like matters.

The third, the principal power: when, withdrawn from all activity, we are set at leisure and, the bodily senses being at rest, we treat something more profoundly and more firmly. Hence it is that those mature in age are judged to understand better, because, as their limbs grow old and their bodily senses are softened, they pass for the most part into counsel. Here, while the mind is the more occupied, it becomes the stronger in the power of concentration; but again they lose their wits when they are laid low by excessive weakness, since it has been granted to souls to follow, for a time, the necessities of their bodies. The fourth, the vital power—that is, the natural heat of the soul, which, by reason of its fervour that must be tempered, or by drawing in and giving back the airs of the ether, grants us life and health.

The fifth, delight—that is, the appetite for good and evil, which the soul desires under the form of pleasantness. Behold, again, this part is dispersed by a fourfold subdivision for the purpose of sustaining the body. The first is the attractive, seizing from nature what it perceives to be necessary to itself. The second, the retentive, holding fast what it has taken until from these a useful concoction is brought about. The third, the transformative, which converts and transposes what has been received into something else. The fourth, the expulsive, which drives off from itself, that nature may become free, the things that would harm it. We have loosed, as was granted, as it were another knot; we have bent down, as it were, a sixth hill, that, the summit of difficulty being leveled, we may proceed unhindered to the rest.

Now let us come most cautiously to the origin of the soul, since it is full of difficulties. We read that in the creation of things the body was forthwith made from the slime of the earth, and that straightway the Lord breathed in, and Adam was made into a living soul. For it is said that He 'breathed in' to express the dignity of the work, that something extraordinary might be recognized which was brought forth by His mouth. Yet His 'breathing in' signifies nothing other than His command and His bidding. For how can He breathe in who neither releases breath nor has cheeks, which are agreed to be corporeal? Following this, some have said that as soon as the human seed has been coagulated into a vital substance, souls are at once created and given to the bodies, distinct and complete.

But those skilled in the art of healing say that the human and mortal creature receives a soul on the fortieth day, when it begins to move itself in the mother's womb. It is also reported, by the opinion of certain men, that that most powerful Creator, just as from our body He brings forth the seed of the flesh, so too from the quality of the soul a new soul can be generated—insofar as the creature can be shown guilty of that original sin which the Catholic Church confesses, through the transmission of the offense, unless it has been absolved by the gift of baptism. For how should an infant, who has no will to sin, be found in any way guilty, unless by some reasoning guilt is seen to have been poured over into the very origin of souls?

Hence father Augustine, to be praised for his most reverent doubting, says that nothing should be rashly affirmed, but that it lies in His secret, just as there are many other things which our mediocrity cannot know. Yet this must be believed truly and steadfastly: both that God creates souls, and that by some hidden reason He most justly imputes to them that they are held liable by the sin of the first man. For it is better, in causes so hidden, to confess ignorance than perhaps to assume a dangerous boldness, since the Apostle says: 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?' And again: 'We know in part, and we prophesy in part.'

But since the thread of our discussion has led us to this point—that we should say souls are generally guilty through the transmission of sin—it is fitting to bring forward into the midst the soul of Christ the Lord, lest anyone, perverted by a slanderous intent, should think it bound by a like condition. Let us hear, then, that His origin was prophesied to holy Mary, ever-virgin, by a worthy herald. The angel says: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. Therefore that which shall be born of you shall be called holy, the Son of God.' Who, I ask, in this majesty of birth, would believe there to be the guilt of original sin, or would suspect any profane offense of the flesh? Without doubt He came without sin, who was about to loose the sins of all.

Conceived by a mystical inbreathing, born of a virgin, He drew nothing from Adam, He who came that the evil of Adam might be overcome. That longest rope by which we were bound has been broken. The torrent that was sweeping us away has there been dried up. Death lost its rights, when our condition received the life of the Redeemer. For the first man transmitted destruction to his posterity; Christ the Lord, coming, conferred the kingdom of heaven upon believers. For through Him He restores the lost state who through that other one had lost his merit. Born in glory, having lived without stain, what could He draw from that one whom He came by a contrary action to destroy? To a holy origin a holy life responded. He who was begotten without sin was overcome by no defilement of the world.

Nature, not vices, took up the true man. He rejected what the first-formed man transgressed in, and assumed the most pure man whom He had created—not receiving sin, but taking on the flesh of sin without any injury of pollution. Sweet indeed, exceedingly, has this digression become to me, while I strive to remove wicked suspicions; but while we tend toward another matter, we cannot say many things here. It now remains that, pursuing the order and our purpose, we ought to speak of the seat of the soul. Some have held the seat of the soul to be in the heart, though it is diffused through the whole body, saying that there the purest blood and the vital spirit are contained, so that they affirm that thence also thoughts, whether evil or good, go forth;

and there is no doubt that the soul can effect its power there. But very many declare that it resides in the head—if it is permitted to say so, yet with reverence—after some likeness of the divinity, which, though it fills all things with its ineffable substance, Scripture nevertheless affirms to dwell in the heavens. For it was worthy that she should seek the citadel, who knew herself to be sublime by a heavenly working, and that she should dwell in such a place above the rest, from whence the remaining members ought to be governed by a fitting rule. For the very shape of the head, spheroid, is most beautiful, in which the immortal and rational soul might make for itself a worthy dwelling. Let us, to be sure, consider bodily things.

This mortal fire ever tends toward the heights, and that which has a most subtle nature hastens without doubt to the upper regions. There are also certain proofs of this belief. For when those most skilled in healing strive to restore to its former soundness the shell of the human skull, shattered by a most grievous blow, they frequently touch the membrane by which the tenderness of the brain is protected, when they desire to wipe it clean of bloody dregs. As soon as it is touched, the man comes into such a stupor that, even if struck severely elsewhere, he cannot feel it. But soon, as the hand lifts itself again from the pressure on the brain, he returns to his accustomed understanding, recovering voice and sensation, and recognizes what is now being done to himself.

This is not proven to happen in the other members, even though they be hollowed out with the pits of enormous wounds. It is added, moreover, that even to a sound body there come, pertaining to this matter, no small signs. For when someone has been inflamed with excessive indignation and has kindled his mind with the heat of thought, he is not troubled by a surging of the inward parts, nor by a commotion of the breast, but is straightway struck with pain of the head, so that there the soul seems to have left signs of its fatigue, where it was seen to strive with great power. There too we absolutely perceive certain surges of our soul, certain greater impulses, so that things which, being absent, no one is ignorant of, come before our eyes.

We do indeed direct the vigor of the mind into diverse quarters and many regions, and by fantastic imagination it is led to the judgment-seat of our head, which is recognized as having sought out things through the diverse parts of the world. Finally, when we are deep in thought, we fix our eyes altogether, the sense of the ears is stopped up, taste ceases, the nostrils are idle, the tongue has no voice; and in many ways, by such signs, the soul is recognized to be occupied, as it were, in its own chambers. This soul, then, as is supposed, set on high as though sitting upon a tribunal, is known to be the governess of its desires, the judge of good and evil, discerning ambiguous things, rejecting harmful ones—provided, however, that the grace of the divinity has shone upon it.

There was indeed in the first man a natural blessedness, possessed of free will and an inviolate judgment; but, deceived by an unhappy transgression, losing through diabolical fraud what he had received to hand on to posterity, he could not transmit to us what he had lost. Thence came propagated destruction, thence the nourished decline of the human race, thence ignorance contrary to reason, thence harmful cares, thence counsels to be repented of, thence darkened knowledge, base desire, neglect of justice; thence a thousand falls into crimes, and many things common to us with the beasts, which the divinity had made to be distinct.

For—alas the grief!—the departure of the sun alone foretells to us the coming of fair weather; by the commotion of the winds we discern coming storms; by reason we gather the coming abundance of seasons for the ages; sometimes, by the foreboding of an unknowing mind, we promise ourselves gladness. But what such thing could the soul have been ignorant of, if its dignity had been preserved? Justly has it been pressed down into ignorance, it which willfully wished to know things forbidden. For now it knows certain things by signs or conjectures, things which it could have known, all of them, without labor. Yet that thing, purified by holy conduct, it recovers by the help of the divinity, which it lost by the snares of the deceiver; illumined, it sees from its Creator what, darkened, it cannot know of itself.

It has been related how great are the things proven to have been granted to the soul; but it is fitting that we also speak of its temple, since that image of God does not suffer to be seen joined to a deformed body. A tall creature, raised up into the likeness of most beautiful contemplation, to behold things supernal and rational, whose harmonious arrangement declares to us mighty mysteries. First of all, our head, framed of six bones in the likeness of the heavenly sphere, is fashioned with a round concavity, so that the seat of our brain—in whose organ we have understanding—might contain that most perfect number, six.

Hence the eyes, like two most beautiful volumes of the sacred testaments, are placed; after whose likeness all things in us descend combined in pairs: as ears, nostrils, lips, arms, sides, legs, shins, feet. For in this mystical duality the framework of the whole body is contained; and just as those testaments look toward one, savor of one, so these offices join themselves together into one harmony and operation. But although this most beautiful symmetry associates itself by distribution and lends to each other their mutual adornment, there are also single things set in the middle, lest, inclining prejudicially to one side, they should strip the other of its fitting grace:

the nose, the mouth, the throat, the breast, the navel, and the descending rod of the genitals, which are shown to be praiseworthy and honorable when they stand placed in the middle. But to our head, which receives all the senses, the neck is rightly set under as a kind of pillar, teaching us that holy religion consists in one most strong firmness of faith. The tongue too, the most fitting plectrum of our voice, was given to temper the fitness of our words, so that articulate words might distinguish us from the confusion of the animals.

Nor should it seem in vain that two digestions serve the one throat—namely, that all the understanding of the prudent soul, like food received and cooked by the heat of reason, might be unfolded through the twin paths of the testaments in fitting treatises. And since the form of the human body cannot defend itself either by horn, by tooth, or by flight, as do other animals, a sturdy chest and arms were granted to it, that it might ward off injury inflicted with the hand, and protect itself by the interposition of the breast as by a kind of shield. But who would doubt that our genitals were assigned to a great mystery?

Whence, by God's bestowal, the fruitful renewal of man proceeds; whence mortals know no failing, since, while individual persons perish, the race is known to be able to be preserved continuous. A comely member it would be, had it not been defiled by base lust. For what would be more precious than it, if from it the human race descended without fault? Thus all things were created worthy of proclamation, were they not rendered obscene by polluting sins. But this animated body is administered and ruled by five senses, which, though they are common with the beasts, are nevertheless better distinguished and fulfilled by us through rational judgment. The first of them is sight, which, the air being illumined, beholds bodily colors and recognizes in them their proper qualities.

For sight, as the ancients preferred to define it, is a power of the spiritual soul, going forth through the pupil of the eye, reaching things not so very distant, but judging those to which it can attain, seeing that for which it is appointed to see. For if the eyes could see of their own interior parts, they would without doubt also behold themselves. This too father Augustine perceived. The second is hearing, which by the hollow and spiral ears receives sounds, the resounding strikings of the air, judging by reason what has been heard. The third is smell, which, taking in diverse odors, weighs the power of fragrant bodies—as by a kind of invisible smoke received into the nostrils—by a fitting inhalation.

The fourth is taste, by which we recognize the savor of many things through the judgment of the palate. The fifth is touch, which is known to be assigned in common to all the members as well. More elegant for us is that which is in the hands, which were given uniquely to unfold in common our many thoughts. For through them comes the other and firmer memory; for what we can forget, we retain without labor by these writing for us. These are the craftsmen of the diverse arts and the effecting of almost all our operation. For what would it profit the sense to conceive things to be done, if this laborious hand were not proven to fulfill them?

Nor do I think this should be passed over: that our feet and hands are formed with the tenfold number of fingers and toes, so that the course of our life and our work might contain the sacraments of the heavenly Decalogue, lest beyond the law of the Lord we should either think or do anything. The face itself—how it lays open the signs of its prudence! Into our countenance go forth hidden thoughts, and from this side it is recognized what manner of mind and will is stirring within. Indeed our countenance, which takes its name from the will, is a kind of mirror of its own soul, and what is not substantially discerned is most evidently declared through its bearing. How many things could be said of its remaining members?

Why is the row of our gums studded with thirty-two teeth? Why is our neck bound by seven knots, and the spine by twenty-three vertebrae? Why do the ribs bend in twenty-four spokes for the defense of the inward parts, lest that tenderness of the entrails be most easily harmed by importunate injury? With how fitting a dispersion do the sinews hold together the whole body! How do the veins suitably irrigate the members with nourishing blood! How do the marrow-filled bones strengthen us! Why is it common to our nails to grow continually together with the hair? How becomingly, how usefully, does the skin clothe our flesh, that neither the inner moisture should shamefully flow out, nor the beauty of complexion, its comeliness withdrawn, should perish!

But although the individual members seem to furnish diverse offices to the body—one being sublime to us, another middling, another set in the lowest place—they have come together into so great a grace of conjunction that all are necessary, all are proven suitable, just as the Apostle says, when he was uniting the Church of God by the zeal of charity: 'The eye cannot say to the hand: I have no need of you. Or again the head to the feet: I do not desire your service. But much rather those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those which we think to be the less honorable parts of the body, on these we bestow more abundant honor. For God has so tempered and distributed the body that the members should need one another's mutual help.'

But let this, said summarily on account of its excessive length, suffice abundantly: that no bodily creature was formed unto so great a signification of mysteries. For that which seemed fit to be joined to a rational soul ought to have been made by the highest counsel. O wondrous creature of the supreme Maker, who so arranged the lineaments of the human body that, had it not been burdened and weighed down by the sins of the first man, it would not have been stripped of its great gifts! For what manner of things did it deserve to have then, when free, which now, condemned, it is known to retain among so many goods?

Yet this flesh, although it is assailed by diverse vices and lies subject, mangled by many wounds, is nevertheless the very thing that sings the heavenly psaltery, that makes glorious martyrs, that, being visited, merited its own Creator, that received even the life-giving cross itself of the holy Redeemer; deservedly is it now believed to be destined to be spiritual, since even here, mortal, it glories in having performed so great an office. For thus this great nature indeed, but, by reason of the original offense, liable to daily sins, by fastings, almsgivings, and assiduous prayers composes itself with divine support; thus, the filth of sins cleansed away, it prepares a luminous mind, that it may merit to receive its own Author—a temple of faith, which has not granted to crimes a lodging.

I believe it was provided by divine compassion that the body should be subjected to the soul, the soul to Him, and that the whole should look salutarily toward God its Creator. These things having been carried through which had to be said, it seems fitting to discourse on the signs and indications of souls, because, although their substance may seem to be one, they are nevertheless separated by far unequal qualities. And first I shall say how the habit and character of evil men are made manifest, insofar as those whom we cannot see within, we may judge by certain outward indications.

All souls, therefore, without right faith are most foul—as those of the philosophers, who follow not the law of the Creator but rather human error; and although they may seem to be teachers of morals and strive to scrub themselves clean upon the whetstones of the disciplines, they nevertheless do not escape the rust of superstition. For what madness is it to worship that than which one is better, and to believe that he can grant aid who cannot prevail to come to his own help? For it profits no one anything to have avoided harmful desires, not to have loved enervating luxury, to have fled deceiving falsehood, to have made oneself a stranger to earthly vices—because he who renders the Rewarder of all good things hostile to himself must needs labor in vain. For whose precepts will he obey, if he is ignorant of the Giver of the law?