Canon Law & Easter Computus 9 part 3/8

shining like a certain mirror with the impression of the pre-eminent one, by the same reasoning we believe that nature too is contained by the mind, by which it is dispensed and ruled, and is adorned by its appearance, having been made like a certain mirror of a mirror. By nature also we profess that this material part of our substance is sustained, about which that same nature is contemplated. Since therefore the one is contained by the other, through these the participation of all that supreme and true one duly flows, through the higher that which appears lower being adorned. But if at any time there comes about a sundering of this good communion, and on the contrary the higher follows after the lower, then let the deformity of matter itself appear when it is deserted by nature.

For matter in itself is a certain formless and ill-composed thing, and by this its formlessness the beauty of nature is at the same time seized upon, the beauty which is adorned by the liveliness of the mind: and thus the deformity of matter is derived even to the mind itself through the defect of nature, so that the image of God can no longer be discerned in this impression of the moulded thing; for, like a certain mirror, that is, the form of goodness and virtue, placing itself behind one's back, casts away indeed the brightness of its surpassing splendour, but takes wholly into itself the formlessness of matter: and in this way comes about the birth of evil, creeping in by the privation of good. But good is whatsoever is joined to the supreme Good;

but if it be outside the likeness of this disposition, it will without doubt remain without good. Since therefore, according to the reasoning we have inspected, it is established that the supreme good is that which is truly good, and the mind was made after the image of the supreme good, and itself received that it should be well with it; while the figure which the mind contains is proved to be, as it were, a certain image of an image: by this it is shown that our material part then well subsists and is well contained, when it is dispensed and ruled by nature. But again it is dissolved and cast down, when it is deprived of its provision, and at the same time is cut off from the conjunction of the good;

but this comes about in no other way than when a turning to the contrary part of nature has been made, and its desire does not advance toward the supreme good, but declines from it, in that it seems always to lack beauty. For it is necessary that that which attains its likeness should be conformed to the most despicable and foulest deformity of matter. But these things have been said by us by a certain logical consequence, supplied through the inspection set before us. This, however, was being inquired into, whether the intellectual power is located in some part of the members, or is dispersed through all the limbs with equal balance.

For to those who (as was said above) enclose the mind in local parts, and bring forward for the demonstration of their opinion that the intellect of those whose membrane of the brain is disturbed contrary to nature does not prosper, reason shows that through all the parts of the human frame each member naturally operates as it is fitted. But similarly the power of the soul subsists apart from its efficiency, when some part of the body does not remain in its nature. And for these reasons there has been offered to our discourse, as a consequence, the inspection set forth, through which we may learn that in the construction of man the mind is governed indeed by God, but our material life is contained by the mind, so long as it persists in its nature;

but if it depart from nature, it is necessary that it also be deprived of the cooperation of the mind. But let us return again to the point from which we digressed: that, if in those things which altogether deviate from their natural constitution through some passion, the mind keeps its proper effect, and in those things indeed which flourish it remains unimpaired, but becomes powerless in those which cannot receive the force of its operation. It is right, however, to confirm the opinion of a doctrine of this kind from other matters also: and unless it be grievous and troublesome, though wearied with the present discourse, I will explain even concerning these few points, as best I can. CHAPTER XIV. Reasoning concerning sleep and yawning, and concerning dreams.

This material and flowing life of the body, always proceeding in motion, has its force and power of existing in this, that it never wholly ceases from motion, but, like a certain river running according to its own impetus, it indeed shows a full channel through which it glides down. Yet the same water is not seen to be about the same place, but one part of it runs across, while another comes after: so too this material part of the present life runs down through a certain motion of contraries with a frequent succession to itself, and it cannot stand still at all from its mutation, but, impatient of rest, it likewise possesses a continual turning of things. But if at any time it should cease from motion, it will at the same time also cease to exist;

as, for instance, emptiness relaxes fullness, and again fullness succeeds emptiness, sleep sustains the continual labour of wakefulness. And again wakefulness consolidates what seemed to have been loosened, and neither of these remains in the same state, but by a mutual presence each succeeds the other. And so nature, renewing itself by alternations of changes, passes, as it were, having received the part of either from the one to the other. For if the animal should always persist in activity, the strain would effect a rupture and tearing apart of the parts that are stretched: a continual rest of the bodies too would work a certain ruin and dissolution of the state.

But each perceived more moderately in due time will furnish strength for the continuance of the substance, which is repaired by a continual passage to contraries, with an alternating succession on either side. So therefore nature, having got an opportunity for rest, contrives how it may succour by sleep the vigour of the body wearied with wakefulness, and, the senses being withdrawn from operation, it imparts leisure for a time, restraining them, as it were, like horses after contests and sweats. Rest, moreover, is necessary for the body, that without impediment the food too may be diffused into all the members by hidden paths of its own, no obstacle of strain shutting off the passable transit.

For just as from earth soaked with rains, when it has been warmed by the rays of the sun, certain misty vapours are drawn out from its deep boundaries, similarly it comes about in our earth too: when food is cooked within by the innate heat, a certain vapour naturally, being as it were aerial, strives toward the upper parts, and, like smoke penetrating through the chinks of a wall, reaches the regions of the head, thence being exhaled through the aforesaid connections to the senses. Whence it is necessary that the senses then keep leisure, detained by the passage of the vapours. The eyes are lulled to sleep, and are covered by the drawing down of the eyelids as by a certain even weight of mechanical art:

by these same vapours hearing too is obstructed, and, as by a certain door set upon the ears, it takes holiday from its natural operation. But such an affection of this kind is called sleep, the senses being idle in the body and, according to natural motion, doing nothing at all, so that the digestions of food may proceed with an easier exit, and run across their channels by exhalation itself. Wherefore, if those places which are about the senses be straitened by these exhalations, and the senses be slowed by a certain occupation of sleep, they are filled with vapour;

and since they are constituted as composed of nerves, like those of the neck and throat, they are naturally stretched of themselves, so that through this stretching those things which had been compressed by the vapours may be thinned, as is wont to be done by those who, twisting infused garments by excessive compression, strive to squeeze out all the moisture;

and since the parts which are about the throat seem to be more rounded, and abound in nerves, as has been said, when at any time it is fitting to dispel from these the thickness of the vapours, since it is impossible for the rounded shape to be shown extended unless it accomplish this by its own configuration, therefore the breath, left in the yawn, draws the chin indeed downward toward the face with a certain hollowing, and, all things within being opened in a circle, that billowy thickness which had settled in those places is directed forth by the breath driving it. But frequently even after sleep this same thing is wont to happen to us, when something undigested has been left over from those vapours.

From these causes, therefore, the mind is evidently shown to be one, which seems to be congruous and consenting with nature: while it is awake, this too puts forth its effects, but when it is relaxed into sleep, the mind too remains immovable—unless perchance someone should reckon the imaginations of dreams to be the agitations of the mind, and should judge it to be operating through sleep by its own motions. But we constantly affirm that that action alone is to be referred to the mind which is accomplished by wisdom and counsel. But those vain wanderings of phantasms which arise through sleep, we suppose to be certain imaginings of the unseeing efficiency, which the irrational part of the soul fabricates through chance occurrences.

For the soul, being called away from the senses through sleep, must necessarily also be deprived of the effect of the mind. For through the senses a return of the mind to man is in some way effected, and, these being idle, the intelligence too must necessarily be at leisure: of which thing the proof is, that frequently in sleep we are mocked by the most absurd and most empty forms; which would by no means happen if the soul were then ruled by counsel and reason. But to me it seems that, when the more present power of the soul, that is, the efficiency of mind and of the senses, takes rest, that part of it alone operates in dreams which dispenses the nourishments and increases.

But if this is so, the dreams that occur and the imaginations agreeable to the senses and to the intelligence come about no doubt for this cause. Whatsoever has been impressed upon us through that part of the soul in which memory flourishes, these same things, as chance has brought them, are formed as it were by the work of the mouth's modelling, with a certain figuration continually adhering in this species of the soul by which memory is contained. By these phantasies, therefore, man is deluded, led not by the track of any order to the vision and conversation of the things that appear, but seduced by certain mixed and inconsequent errors.

For just as in the bodily work, while each member properly performs something according to the power naturally implanted in it, there comes also a certain consent of cooperation even of the member that is at rest, by the same logical consequence it is to be thought concerning the soul also. For when one part of it rests, while another is moved, the whole necessarily consents with the part, since it is not possible that the natural unity can then be divided, even though some part of its powers persists in operation. But just as, in those who are awake and busy, the mind indeed prevails, and the sense obeys it, and yet:

nevertheless that power which dispenses for the body is approved to be present, since the mind provides food for use, but the sense takes what has been provided, while that bodily power which watches over the nourishments properly acquires for itself what is given; so through sleep, the use of these powers being taken away, they are in a manner interchanged in us, and that which is proved to be more irrational prevails. The efficiency of the others indeed takes rest, yet is not altogether restrained. For then the power of the soul which attends upon the nourishments, although through sleep it strives toward the office of digestion and permits all nature to be at leisure for itself.

For that sensory power is not withdrawn from this its operation—for it is not lawful that what has once been naturally united can be torn apart—but its effect cannot shine forth, being hindered by the leisure of sleep. By this reasoning, therefore, when the mind turns itself to the form of the sensitive soul, it follows that, when this is moved, we should say that that too is moved likewise, and when it rests, that it rests in like manner. But just as it is natural for these things to come about concerning fire, that, when it is covered on every side with chaff and is roused by no vent-hole, it neither feeds upon what is covered around nor is utterly extinguished, but instead of flame smoke arises, while if it be a little stirred, straightway the smoke is roused into flame:

similarly the mind too, covered by the leisure of the senses in the time of sleep, can neither shine through them nor be wholly intercepted, but seems to operate after a manner of the highest sort, in one respect indeed lacking, in another prevailing: and just as some musician, when the bindings of the lyre are loosened, if he throw the plectrum upon the strings, the melody does not duly meet him (for what is not stretched will not aptly resound), but for the most part the hand is moved with art, leading the plectrum to the local positions of the accents, yet no sound is produced except a disordered one from the motion of the strings which the Greeks call βόμβον (a buzzing).

So, during sleep, when the bodily organs of the senses are relaxed in their nature, the craftsman-mind either rests altogether—if the body is weighed down by excessive fullness—or else works more sluggishly and obscurely, since it cannot employ this organ of sense more carefully for its art. For this reason, in dreams the memory is indeed confused, while foreknowledge, buried as it were beneath certain veils, contemplates certain images apart from any wish or effort, and now and then foretells something of the things that are to come. For by the subtlety of its nature it has somewhat more power than the grossness of the body to draw near to the contemplation of the things that appear; yet it cannot in right order unlock the future, because no clear and manifest teaching is set forth of those things which are perceived as arranged in dreams.

But whatever it is, the announcement of the future is made ambiguous—what those who seem to discern such things call an 'enigma'—because it shows one thing in words and brings another in meaning. Thus Pharaoh's cupbearer presses the grape-cluster into the cup, and thus the baker imagines that he carries loaves in a basket; for each in his sleep clearly sees himself engaged according to the occupation he had practiced. For the likenesses of their accustomed crafts, impressed upon the mind in its foreknowledge, granted, through every prophecy, the foretelling of what was to come.

But as for the fact that Daniel and Joseph and those like them, undisturbed in any of their senses, are informed by divine power for the knowledge of things to come—this has nothing to do with the present question; for no wise man ought to impute these to the various kinds of dreams. Otherwise he will also suppose that those visions which befall the waking by divine agency can come to pass, not by a heavenly visitation, but by the sequence of nature acting of its own accord.

Therefore, just as among all men who govern their own minds there are some who deserve to be enlightened by divine converse, so likewise, when the fantasies of dreams befall us commonly and similarly according to nature, some in their sleep come to share in a certain divine revelation; while for all the rest, even if some foreknowledge is begotten through a dream, it is begotten in the manner aforesaid. But if that Egyptian or that Assyrian tyrant is more divinely instructed through dreams unto the knowledge of the future, it is something else that is wrought through them by a wondrous dispensation. For it was fitting that the wisdom of the saints, which seemed hidden, should be made manifest, lest it pass through common life without profit or benefit.

For how could Daniel be recognized to be such, unless the effort of the enchanters and magicians had failed in attaining the dream? And how too would Egypt be saved, with Joseph set in prison, unless the interpretation of dreams had brought him forth into the midst? And therefore these things portend something other, nor are they to be weighed at all according to common fantasies; for the customary appearance of dreams is the same for all, which presents itself in very many ways by a certain semblance of imagination. For either, as has been said, there remain in that part of the soul wherein memory is contained the likenesses of the day's pursuits, or oftentimes the expression of dreams is prefigured by the qualities of bodily affections.

For thus he who thirsts marvels to find himself at fountains, and he who lacks food rejoices in delicacies, and the youth flourishing in his prime is mocked by the allurements of images, after the likeness of his passion. But I myself have learned through a dream yet another cause of healing enigmas. For a certain one of my kinsmen, seized by frenzy, when he was excessively oppressed because food had been offered him beyond what his strength required, supposed that many intestines full of dung were being heaped upon him. And when it was already nearly the moment when his wearied body should be relaxed by sweats, he earnestly besought those present to bring him water with which, as he lay, he might be drenched; nor did he cease demanding this with a cry, until the outcome of events resolved the cause of such complaints.

For at the same time both abundant sweat burst forth from his body, and the loosened belly interpreted the burden of the intestines. Therefore what nature then endured under its dulled health, it suffered in sympathy with the body's disorder, so that it indeed felt the distress, and yet because of the sickness could not clearly speak of it—and this, as is given to understand, would not have happened except from the discomfort; but since the mind was kept in safety by natural slumber, there assuredly came to be, for him who was thus afflicted, a dream: the water signifying the sweat, and the flux signifying the heaviness of the intestines; for the food intimates the heaviness and the pressure of what was moving him.

This same thing is also observed by very many skilled in medicine—namely, that according to the differences of afflictions, various appearances of dreams likewise befall the sick: some indeed to those failing in the stomach, others to those troubled by an affliction of the brain; others again to those who suffer from fever, and others to those endangered by bile and phlegm; and likewise unlike to these are the dreams of those who lie sick from repletion and from emptiness. From which it is possible to observe that that power of the soul by which nourishment and growth come to us has some particle of an intellectual thing joined to it in fellowship, so that, while the quality of the bodily affection in some way presents its likeness, it produces, according to the affliction that prevails, a corresponding imagination.

Likewise, for many also, according to the diversity of character, the visions of dreams are shaped. For some things belong to the brave man, others to the timid, others to the dissolute, and others to the self-controlled; one is mocked by liberal images, another by avaricious ones; but nowhere in these does the intelligence of the mind operate, but rather the more irrational part of the soul, as we have often said, produces these fantasies, and whatever pursuits one accustoms oneself to while waking, of these it preforms a likeness for itself in dreams. CHAPTER XV. That there is but one soul in the human body, consisting of a threefold power. But we have been led far from our purpose.

For our discourse had promised to demonstrate that the mind is not enclosed in any one part of the body, but ranges, equally diffused, through the whole, effecting its motion according to the nature of the subordinate part. But there is also a case where the mind itself, following the impulse of nature, expends in a manner the service of a kind of servitude. For frequently the nature of the body goes before, and brings on either occasions of gladness or causes of grief, so that it indeed furnishes the impulse—whether to crave food or to fulfill any other matter of pleasure. But the mind, receiving such motions of the flesh, prepares by the efforts of its own deliberation the accomplishment of the things considered.

But this happens not in all, but only in those who, being basely affected, subject the dominion of reason to the nods of nature, and who, by the votes of that same mind, slavishly comply with the pleasures of the senses. But in the more perfect it is certain that it does not so happen; with them the mind goes before in all things, and they carry out what is fitting by reason rather than by passion, and nature follows the straight footsteps of the mind that goes before.

But since reason apprehends three distinctions of the vital power—that is, the nutritive, which receives growth on account of certain senses; the sensitive, which is so nourished that it may perceive; and the rational, which is perfect and is extended through all these—therefore it must be noted that one power is merely vital, another sensitive, and the third, beyond the rest, also rational. But let no one on this account suppose that there are three souls in the constitution of man, circumscribed by their own limits, and believe it to be welded together as it were out of many; whereas the true and perfect soul is one, by nature spiritual and intelligible, which through the senses is mingled with the material substance.

But everything material and corporeal, which is in change and alteration, if indeed it partakes of the animate power, obtains its motion through increase. But if it withdraws from the operation of life, it will attest its motion by corruption. Therefore neither does sense operate on account of the material substance, nor does the intellectual power in us operate on account of the senses. CHAPTER XVI. That properly the soul of man both is and is called rational, and that the soul, poured through the whole body, nowhere has a fixed seat.

Since certain creatures rely only on this power by which they are nourished and grow, while others prevail by the power of the senses—and these are proved to partake neither of that sensible nor of this rational substance—on this account someone might suspect that there is a multitude of souls, since he does not define their difference by a fitting reason; for whatever exists in things, if indeed it is called so perfectly and wholly, properly is what it is said to be. But if it does not exist in all respects as what it is called, an empty name is thought to be ascribed to it—as, for instance, that it does not display the force of the thing; for we say that a name is properly imposed upon a subject.

But if someone should display a likeness of true bread, fashioned out of stone, to which the very form belongs, whose magnitude appears equal, and which moreover presents the same likeness of color, so that by many tokens it is thought to be true—yet there is lacking to it the power to be food—on that account we say that the stone has received the appellation of 'bread' not properly or naturally, but only by abuse; just as other things, according to the same reasoning, which are not in all respects what they are called, have their name from abuse.

Thus, therefore, the soul too, since it possesses its perfection wholly in reason and intellect, whatever is not this can indeed be a soul equivocally, yet is not truly called a soul, but is a certain vital efficiency which by abuse is named a soul. On which account God, who has affixed to each several thing the justice of His law, gave for the uses of men the natures of irrational creatures, as not standing far from a sprouting or seminal life, so that those who feed upon their flesh might have them in the place of vegetables. For 'you shall eat all flesh as the green herbs.'

For they seem to have but a little more, through the vegetation of the senses, than the things by which they are nourished and from which they receive their growth. Let this fact instruct the lovers of flesh not to fasten their soul to many sensible things, but rather to be occupied with spiritual privileges, since in these the effects of the soul are truly beheld. For in carnal things the irrational creatures are our equals and peers. But somehow the consequence of the discourse has been bent into another direction:

for this was not the thing set forth for contemplation—to inquire what is more excellent in man, whether the operation of the mind or the material substance—but that the mind, while interwoven in some part of the things that are in us, equally in all and through all diffuses itself, and is neither contained from without nor contained within. For this 'being contained' is properly perceived in jars or buckets and other like vessels and bodies, which contain by their own capacity that which they hold:

but the communion of the mind with the body is known to have a certain ineffable and incomprehensible bond—neither existing within, since an incorporeal thing cannot be contained by a body, nor surrounding or encompassing it from without, but joined and connected by an invisible and unsearchable principle of nature; it is beheld in it and around it, in that manner (as I have said) in which it can neither be understood at all nor uttered, save that, as long as that same nature retains its proper order, the mind too exercises its operations. But if nature wavers through some fault, the motion of the mind too must necessarily totter. CHAPTER XVII.

An exposition of the divine word in which it is said, 'Let us make man to our image and likeness,' wherein is investigated what the reason is, and in what respect this passible and mortal nature of ours is like to the blessed and impassible nature; and how in the image male is approved and female, although in the primeval form they seem in no wise to exist. But let us take up again the oracle of the divine voice: 'Let us make man to our image and likeness.' How small and unworthy a thing some of the outsiders have surmised concerning the magnificence of man, who thought to exalt him by comparison with this world! For they said that man is a little world, consisting of these same universal elements.

But indeed those who with such boasting have conferred a name of this kind upon human substance have utterly forgotten themselves, while out of the properties of a mouse and a gnat they have feigned inept praises of man. For in those creatures too nature is compacted out of four elements, and around all living things some portion, more or less, of these elements is discerned, without which the things that use the senses could in no wise subsist. What then is great, if man be thought to be set forth as the figure or likeness of the world—of the heaven that passes away, of the earth that is changed, and of all the things contained in them, perishing by a like condition along with the transit of their containers?