Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 105

PETER. But I can weigh the life of the soul remaining in the body from the very movements of the body, because unless the soul were present to the body, the members of that body could not be moved; but by what movements or what works do I behold the life of the soul after the flesh, so that from things seen I may gather that which I cannot see? GREGORY. I speak not indeed of a like case, but of an unlike one; for just as the power of the soul quickens and moves the body, so the divine power fills all that it has created; and some things it quickens by inspiring, to others it grants that they may live, but to others it bestows only that they may exist.

But since you do not doubt that God—creating and ruling, filling and encompassing, transcending and sustaining, uncircumscribed and invisible—exists, so you ought not to doubt that He has invisible ministries. For those things which minister must tend toward the likeness of Him whom they serve, so that they which serve the Invisible are not doubted to be themselves invisible. And what are these, which we believe to exist, but the holy angels and the spirits of the just? Just therefore as, considering the movement of the body, you weigh from below the life of the soul remaining in the body, so you ought to weigh from above the life of the soul departing from the body, since it can live invisibly, which must remain in the service of the invisible Creator. PETER.

All is rightly said, but the mind shrinks from believing what it cannot see with bodily eyes. GREGORY. Since Paul says: 'Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things not appearing' (Heb. XI, 1), that is truly said to be believed which cannot be seen. For that can no longer be believed which can be seen. Yet, to bring you back briefly to yourself: no visible things are seen except through invisible ones. For behold, the eye of your body beholds all corporeal things, and yet the bodily eye itself would see nothing corporeal, unless an incorporeal thing sharpened it for seeing. For take away the mind, which is not seen, and in vain the eye that once saw lies open. Withdraw the soul from the body, and without doubt the eyes remain open in the body.

If therefore they saw of themselves, why, when the soul departs, do they see nothing? From this, then, gather that visible things too are not seen except through invisible things. Let us also set before the eyes of our mind that a house is being built, that immense masses are raised, that great columns hang upon machines: who, I ask you, performs this work—the visible body which drags those masses with its hands, or the invisible soul which quickens the body? For take away that which is not seen in the body, and at once all those things that seemed to be moved—the visible bodies of the metals—remain immovable. From which it must be weighed that in this visible world too nothing can be arranged except through an invisible creature.

For just as almighty God, by breathing upon and filling those things which subsist by reason, both quickens and moves invisible things, so those invisible things themselves, by filling them, move and quicken the carnal bodies which are seen. PETER. By these arguments, I confess, being gladly overcome, I am compelled to reckon these visible things almost as nothing, I who before, taking upon myself in me the person of the weak, doubted concerning invisible things. And so all that you say pleases me; but yet, just as I recognize the life of the soul remaining in the body from the movement of the body, so I desire to know the life of the soul after the body, by certain manifest things bearing witness. GREGORY. In this matter, if I find the heart of your love prepared, I labor but little in argument.

Would the holy apostles and martyrs of Christ despise the present life, and lay down their souls unto the death of the flesh, unless they knew that a more certain life of souls would follow? But you yourself will say that you recognize the life of the soul remaining in the body from the movements of the body; and behold, these who laid down their souls unto death, and believed that there is a life of souls after the death of the flesh, flash with daily miracles. For to their extinguished bodies the living sick come, and are healed; perjurers come, and are vexed by a demon; the demoniacs come, and are set free; lepers come, and are cleansed; the dead are brought, and are raised.

Weigh therefore how their souls live there where they live, whose dead bodies here live in so many miracles. If then you detect the life of the soul remaining in the body from the movement of the members, why do you not weigh the life of the soul after the body, even through dead bones by the power of miracles? PETER. No reasoning, as I think, stands against this argument, in which from visible things we are compelled to believe what we do not see.