Book IV · Chapter 35 — Do Angels Appear to Men in Real Bodies?

It would, however, require too lengthy a discourse to enter very carefully on a discussion concerning this kind of corporeal semblances; whether angels even, either good ones or evil ones, appear in this manner, whenever they appear in the likeness of human beings or of any bodies whatever; or whether they possess real bodies, and show themselves in this veritable state of corporeity; or, again, whether by persons when dreaming, indeed, or in a trance they are perceived in these forms--not in bodies, but in the likeness of bodies--while to persons when awake they present real bodies which can be seen, and, if necessary, actually touched. Such questions as these, however, I do not deem it at all requisite to investigate and fully treat in this book. By this time enough has been advanced respecting the soul's incorporeity. If you would rather persist in your opinion that it is corporeal, you must first of all define what "body" means; lest, peradventure, it may turn out that we are agreed about the thing itself, but labouring to no purpose about its name. The absurd conclusions, however, to which you would be reduced if you thought of such a body in the soul, as are those substances which are called "bodies" by all learned men,--I mean such as occupy portions of space, smaller ones for their smaller parts, and larger ones for their larger,--by means of the different relations of length and breadth and thickness, I venture to think you are by this time able intelligently to observe.

Chapter 36 [XXII.]--He Passes on to the Second Question About the Soul, Whether It is Called Spirit.

It now remains for me to show how it is that while the designation spirit is rightly predicated of a part of the soul, not the whole of it,--even as the apostle says, "Your whole spirit, and soul, and body;" or, according to the much more expressive statement in the Book of Job, "Thou wilt separate my soul from my spirit," --yet the whole soul is also called by this name; although this question seems to be much more a question of names than of things. For since it is certainly a fact that there is a something in the soul which is properly called "spirit," while (this being left out of question) it is also designated with equal propriety "soul," our present contention is not about the things themselves; mainly because I on my side certainly admit, and you on your part say the same, that that is properly called spirit by which we reason and understand, and yet that these things are distinguishingly designated, as the apostle says "your whole spirit, and soul, and body." This spirit, however, the same apostle appears also to describe as mind; as when he says, "So then with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Now the meaning of this is precisely what he expresses in another passage thus: "For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." What he designates mind in the former place, he must be understood to call spirit in the latter passage. Not as you interpret the statement, "The whole mind is meant, which consists of soul and spirit,"--a view which I know not where you obtained. By our "mind," indeed, we usually understand nothing but our rational and intellectual faculty; and thus, when the apostle says, "Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind," what else does he mean than, Be ye renewed in your mind? "The spirit of the mind" is, accordingly, nothing else than the mind, just as "the body of the flesh" is nothing but the flesh; thus it is written, "In putting off the body of the flesh," where the apostle calls the flesh "the body of the flesh." He designates it, indeed, in another point of view as the spirit of man, which he quite distinguishes from the mind: "If," says he, "I pray with the tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my mind is unfruitful." We are not now, however, speaking of that spirit which is distinct from the mind; and this involves a question relating to itself which is really a difficult one. For in many ways and in divers senses the Holy Scriptures make mention of the spirit; but with respect to that we are now speaking of, by which we exercise reason, intelligence, and wisdom, we are both agreed that it is called (and indeed rightly called) "spirit," in such a sense as not to include the entire soul, but a part of it. If, however, you contend that the soul is not the spirit, on the ground that the understanding is distinctly called "spirit," you may as well deny that the whole seed of Jacob is called Israel, since, apart from Judah, the same appellation was distinctly and separately borne by the ten tribes which were then organized in Samaria. But why need we linger any longer here on this subject?

Chapter 37 [XXIII.]--Wide and Narrow Sense of the Word "Spirit."

But now, with a view to our easier elucidation, I beg you to observe that what is the soul is also designated spirit in the scripture which narrates an incident in our Lord's death, thus, "He bowed His head and gave up the spirit." Now, when you hear or read these words, you wish to understand them as if the whole were signified by a part, and not because that which is the soul may also be called spirit. But I shall, for the purpose of being able the more readily to prove what I say, actually summon yourself with all promptitude and convenience as my witness. For you have defined spirit in such terms that cattle appear not to have a spirit, but a soul. Irrational animals are so called, because they have not the power of intelligence and reason. Accordingly, when you admonished man himself to know his own nature, you spoke as follows: "Now, inasmuch as the good God has made nothing without a purpose, He has produced man himself as a rational animal, capable of intelligence, endowed with reason, and enlivened by sensibility, so as to be able to distribute in a wise arrangement all things that are void of reason." In these words of yours you have plainly asserted what is certainly most true, that man is endowed with reason and capable of intelligence, which, of course, animals void of reason are not. And you have, in accordance with this view, quoted a passage of Scripture, and, adopting its language, have compared men of no understanding to the cattle, which, of course, have not intellect. A statement the like to which occurs in another passage of Scripture: "Be ye not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding." This being the case, I want you also to observe in what terms you have defined and described the spirit when trying to distinguish it from the soul: "This soul," you say, "which has its origin from the breath of God, could not have possibly been without an inner sense and intellect of its own; and this is the spirit." A little afterwards you add: "And although the soul animates the body, yet inasmuch as it possesses sense, and wisdom, and vigour, there must needs be a spirit." And then somewhat further on you say: "The soul is one thing, and the spirit--which is the soul's wisdom and sense--is another." In these words you plainly enough indicate what you take the spirit of man to mean; that it is even our rational faculty, whereby the soul exercises sense and intelligence,--not, indeed, the sensation which is felt by the bodily senses, but the operation of that innermost sense from which arises the term sentiment. Owing to this it is, no doubt, that we are placed above brute animals, since these are unendowed with reason. These animals therefore have not spirit,--that is to say, intellect and a sense of reason and wisdom,--but only soul. For it is of these that it was spoken, "Let the waters bring forth the creeping creatures that have a living soul;" and again, "Let the earth bring forth the living soul." In order, indeed, that you may have the fullest and clearest assurance that what is the soul is in the usage of the Holy Scriptures also called spirit, the soul of a brute animal has the designation of spirit. And of course cattle have not that spirit which you, my beloved brother, have defined as being distinct from the soul. It is therefore quite evident that the soul of a brute animal could be rightly called "spirit" in a general sense of the term; as we read in the Book of Ecclesiastes, "Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of men, whether it goeth upward; and the spirit of the beast, whether it goeth downward into the earth?" In like manner, touching the devastation of the deluge, the Scripture testifies, "All flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: and all things which have the spirit of life." Here, if we remove all the windings of doubtful disputation, we understand the term spirit to be synonymous with soul in its general sense. Of so wide a signification is this term, that even God is called "a spirit;" and a stormy blast of the air, although it has material substance, is called by the psalmist the "spirit" of a tempest. For all these reasons, therefore, you will no longer deny that what is the soul is called also spirit; I have, I think, adduced enough from the pages of Holy Scripture to secure your assent in passages where the soul of the very brute beast, which has no understanding, is designated spirit. If, then, you take and wisely consider what has been advanced in our discussion about the incorporeity of the soul, there is no further reason why you should take offence at my having said that I was sure the soul was not body, but spirit,--both because it is proved to be not corporeal, and because in its general sense it is denominated spirit.

Chapter 38 [XXIV.]--Victor's Chief Errors Again Pointed Out.

Wherefore if you take these books, which I have with a sincere and affectionate interest written in answer to your opinions, and read them with a reciprocal love for me; if you attend to what you have yourself declared in the beginning of your first book, and "are anxious not to insist on any opinion of your own, if it be found an improbable one," then I beseech you to beware especially of those eleven errors which I warned you of in the preceding book of this treatise. Do not say, that "the soul is of God in such a sense that He created it not out of no, nor out of another, but out of His own nature;" or that, "as God who gives is Himself ever existent, so is He ever giving souls through infinite time;" or that "the soul lost some merit through the flesh, which it had previous to the flesh;" or that "the soul by means of the flesh repairs its ancient condition, and is born again through the very same flesh, by which it had deserved to be polluted;" or that "the soul deserved to be sinful even prior to sin;" or that "infants who die without the regeneration of baptism, may yet attain to forgiveness of their original sins;" or that "they whom the Lord has predestinated to be baptized can be taken away from His predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which the Almighty had predetermined;" or that "it is of those who expire before they are baptized that the Scripture says, Speedily was he taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding,'"--with the remainder of the passage to the same effect; or that "there are some mansions outside the kingdom of God, belonging to the many,' which the Lord said were in His Father's house;" or that "the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ ought to be offered in behalf of those who have departed out of the body without being baptized;" or that "any of those persons who die without Christ's baptism, are received for a while into paradise, and afterwards attain even to the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven." Above all things, beware of these opinions, my son, and, as you wish to be the vanquisher of error, do not rejoice in the surname of "Vincentius." And when you are ignorant on any subject, do not think that you know it; but in order to get real knowledge, learn how to be ignorant. For we commit a sin by affecting to be ignorant of nothing among "the secret things of God;" by constructing random theories about unknown things, and taking them for known; and by producing and defending errors as if they were truth. As for my own ignorance on the question whether the souls of men are created afresh at every birth, or are transmitted by the parents (an ignorance which is, however, modified by my belief, which it would be impious to falter in, that they are certainly made by the Divine Creator, though not of His own substance), I think that your loving self will by this time be persuaded that it either ought not to be censured at all, or, if it ought, that it should be done by a man who is capable by his learning of removing it altogether; and so also with respect to my other opinions, that while souls have in them the incorporeal semblances of bodies, they are not themselves bodies; and that, without impairing the natural distinction between soul and spirit, the soul is in a general sense actually designated spirit. If, indeed, I have unfortunately failed to persuade you, I must leave it rather to my readers to determine whether what I have advanced ought not to have convinced you.