On the Soul and the Resurrection 63–87

“… made brute.” Gregory: And I, much moved by what had been said, said: “For anyone of sense the argument, proceeding in sequence so plainly and without artifice, is enough to seem right and nowhere to have missed the truth. But since for those who have studied the methods of demonstration by art a syllogism seems sufficient for belief, while we agreed that what appears through the sacred teachings of Scripture is more trustworthy than all the conclusions of art, I think we must ask, after what has been said, whether the inspired teaching agrees with it.” Macrina: “And who could deny,” she said, “that truth is to be placed only in that which bears the seal of the witness of Scripture? If, then, something from the teaching of the Gospel must be brought in to support this doctrine, the contemplation of the parable of the tares would not be out of season for us. For there the master of the house sowed the good seed (and we are surely the house); but the enemy, watching for the men to sleep, sowed among the nourishing seed what was useless, putting the tares right in the middle of the wheat. And the seeds sprang up together; for it was not possible for the seed put in the very midst of the wheat not to sprout with it. But the overseer of the farm forbids the servants to pull up the useless plant, because of the union of the opposites at the root, so that the foreign may not uproot the nourishing with it. For we think the word shows by the good seeds such impulses of the soul, each of which, if cultivated only for the good, would certainly have produced the fruit of virtue in us. But since error in judging the good was sown among them through sin, and what is truly and alone good by its own nature was darkened by the growth of deceit that sprang up with it (for the desiring power did not grow and shoot up toward what is good by nature, for whose sake it was sown in us, but changed its shoot toward the brutish and irrational through lack of judgment about the good, bringing the impulse of desire to that …”

“… likewise the seed of anger was not sharpened to courage but armed for battle against one’s own kind; and the power of love departed from intelligible things and raged beyond measure in the enjoyment of sensible things; and the rest in the same way put forth the worse shoots instead of the better); for this reason the wise farmer lets the growth that sprang up in the seed remain in it, taking care that we may not be stripped of the better things, if desire were uprooted altogether together with the useless shoot. For if our nature suffered this, what would lift us up to union with heavenly things? Or, if love were taken away, in what way shall we be joined to God? And if anger were quenched, what weapon shall we have against the one who wrestles with us? The farmer therefore lets the bastard seeds remain in us, not so that they may always prevail over the more precious crop, but so that the field itself (for so he names the heart figuratively), by the natural power lying in it, which is reasoning, may wither the one kind of growth and make the other fruitful and flourishing. But if this does not happen, he reserves for the fire the separation of the crop. If, then, someone uses these things by right reason, holds them within himself and is not held by them, and, like a king, uses the many hands of his subjects as helpers, he will more easily achieve what he pursues for virtue. But if he comes to be in their power, as when slaves rise up against their master, and is enslaved by them, ignobly bowing to slavish designs, and becomes the property of what is by nature yoked under him, he will necessarily be carried over to whatever the domination of those now leading him forces. If this is so, we shall declare these things, which are movements of the soul lying in the power of those who use them to be good or otherwise, to be neither virtue nor vice in themselves. But when their movement is toward the better …”

“… they become matter for praise, as desire was for Daniel, anger for Phinehas, and grief for one who mourns well. But if the inclination is toward the worse, then they become and are named passions.” Gregory: When she had gone through this and had paused briefly in the discussion, I gathered in my mind what had been said and ran back to the earlier sequence of the argument, in which it was established that it is not impossible for the soul to be in the elements when the body has been dissolved. And I said this to my teacher: “Where is that much-talked-of name of Hades, used so much in ordinary life and so much in writings, both those outside and ours, into which all think souls pass from here as into a receptacle? For you would not say the elements are Hades.” Macrina: And my teacher said: “You have clearly not paid much attention to the argument. For when I spoke of the soul’s passing from the visible to the invisible, I thought I had left nothing out of the inquiry about Hades. This name, both in outside writers and in divine Scripture, seems to me to signify nothing else, as the place where they say souls come to be, than their passing into the formless and invisible.” Gregory: “And how,” I said, “do some think that the place under the earth is so called, and that it receives the souls of those down there, as a space fit for such a nature, drawing to itself those that have already flown from human life?” Macrina: “But the doctrine will be no more harmed by this supposition,” said my teacher, “even if the account you mention is true. For if the heavenly pole is continuous with itself and unbroken, containing all things in its own circle, and the earth and what is around it hang in the middle, and the motion of the revolving bodies is certainly around what is fixed and stable, it is entirely necessary,” she said, “that whatever is found for each of the elements on the upper side of the earth is also on the opposite side, since one substance runs around its whole bulk in a circle. And as, when the sun appears above it, the shadow …”

“… of the spherical shape turns to the side beneath it, since it cannot be wrapped all round at once by the embrace of the ray; but by every necessity, on whatever part of the earth the sun strikes with its rays, being certainly over some centre on the sphere, at the other end of the straight diameter there will be darkness; and so continually the darkness travels round on the side opposite to the straight line of the ray, along with the course of the sun, so that the region above the earth and the region below are equally in light and darkness in turn. So it is likely that whatever is seen in the elements in our hemisphere of the earth is the same about the other too, and we need not doubt it. Since the surrounding elements are one and the same about every part of the earth, I think we should neither contradict nor support those who insist on these matters, holding that either this place or the place under the earth must be thought assigned to souls released from bodies. For as long as the objection does not unsettle the main doctrine, that souls exist after life in the flesh, our argument will not quarrel about place, holding that position in place is proper to bodies alone, while the soul, being incorporeal, is under no natural necessity to be held in particular places.” Gregory: “What, then,” I said, “if the objector brings forward the Apostle, who says that the whole rational creation looks to the one who leads the universe in the restoration of all, where he mentions some under the earth, saying in the letter to the Philippians, ‘To him every knee will bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth’?” Macrina: “We shall hold to the doctrine,” said my teacher, “even if we hear people say this, having the objector on our side about the existence of the soul, and, as was said earlier, not quarrelling about place.” Gregory: “To those who ask the Apostle’s meaning in this saying,” I said, “what would one say, if one removed the word from its local sense?” Macrina: She said: “It does not seem to me that the divine Apostle, dividing the intellectual substance by place, named one part heavenly, another earthly, and another under the earth. But since there are three states of rational nature for us, one that received from the beginning the incorporeal life, which we call angelic; another united with the flesh …”

“… we call human; and another released from the flesh through death. What is seen in souls, I think, the divine Apostle saw with the depth of his wisdom, and indicated the harmony in the good that will one day come about of the whole rational nature: calling the angelic and incorporeal ‘heavenly,’ what is joined to the body ‘earthly,’ and what has already been separated from the body ‘under the earth’; or if some other nature besides these is seen among rational beings, which one may wish to name demons or spirits or something of the kind, we shall not dispute it. For it is believed, both from common opinion and from the tradition of the Scriptures, that there is a nature outside such bodies, opposed to the good and harmful to human life, which of its own will fell away from the better choice and by its departure from the good gave existence in itself to what is conceived as its opposite; and they say the Apostle counts this among those ‘under the earth,’ signifying by that word that, when vice has one day been destroyed in the long periods of the ages, nothing will be left outside the good, but even from them there will be a harmonious confession of the lordship of Christ. This being so, no one could any longer compel us to understand the place under the earth by the name ‘under the earth,’ since the air is poured around the earth equally on every side, so that no part of it is found bare of the covering of the air.” Gregory: When my teacher had gone through this, I paused a little and said: “I do not yet have enough of what is sought; my mind still hesitates somewhat at what has been said, and I ask that the argument be brought back to the same sequence, leaving aside what we have already agreed. For I think that through what has been said those who are not very obstinate will be moderately led not to bring the soul to destruction and non-existence after the dissolution of bodies, nor to maintain that it cannot be anywhere among existing things because it is of a different kind from the substance of the elements. For even if the intellectual and immaterial nature does not agree with these, it is not prevented from being with them, this supposition being confirmed for us in two ways: from the fact that the soul is now in this life in bodies while being something other than the body in substance, and from the argument’s having shown that the divine nature …”

“… is something altogether other than the sensible and material substance, yet passes through each existing thing and by its blending with the universe holds existing things together in being; so that, consistently, we should not think the soul either to be outside existing things when it passes from the life seen in form to the formless.” Gregory: “But how,” I said, “ when the elements, by their mixture with one another, have taken on another form in their union, to which the soul became attached, will the soul follow, when the form too has probably disappeared with the dissolution of the elements? By what sign will it follow, when what it knew has not remained?” Macrina: She paused a little and said: “Let me be allowed to invent freely an illustration to make the matter clear, even if what is said seems impossible. Let it be granted that the painter’s art can not only mix colours of opposite kinds, as they are accustomed to do for the likeness of the form, but also separate what has been mixed and give back to each of the colours its natural tint. If, then, white and black, or red and gold, or any other tint combined for the likeness of the subject, were separated again from its mixture with another and came to be by itself, we say that the artist would no less know the very form of the colour, and that no forgetfulness would come upon him either of the red or of the black, if, having become of other colours by their mixture with one another, they returned again to their natural tint; but, remembering the manner of the blending of the colours with one another, he would know what kind of colour each produced when it was in which, and how, when it was released from the other, it ran back to its own bloom; and if it were necessary to produce the same again by mixing, the preparation would be less laborious for him, having been practised in the earlier work. If the illustration has any consistency,” she said, “we must now examine the matter itself. Instead of the painter’s art let the nature of the elements be understood; and let the mixture of the varied tint of different colours, and again the return to their own, granted us by hypothesis, sketch the concurrence and separation of the elements.

“As, then, we say in the illustration that the artist is not ignorant of the tint of the colour that has returned to its own bloom after mixture, but recognizes the red and the black and anything else that produced the form by its particular fellowship with what is of another kind, what it was like in the mixture, what it is now in its natural state, and what it will be again if the colours are mixed again with one another in a like way: so the soul knows the natural property of the elements that came together for the construction of the body in which it grew, even after their dissolution. And even if nature draws them far from one another because of the oppositions lying in them, keeping each from mixing with its opposite, the soul will be no less with each, laying hold of what is its own by its power of knowledge, and remaining until the concurrence of the separated elements comes about again for the reconstitution of what was dissolved, which will properly be and be named resurrection.” Gregory: And I said: “You seem to me to have fought very well at present for the doctrine of the resurrection. For through these things those who fight against the faith might be gently brought not to think it impossible for the elements to come together again with one another and produce the same man.” Macrina: And my teacher said: “What you say is true. For one may hear those who oppose this doctrine say: ‘Since the dissolution of the elements into the universe takes place according to kinship, what means is there for the heat in this man, which has been mixed into the whole, to be separated again from its kin so that the departed man may be reconstituted? For if exactly what was his own does not return, but something of the same kind is taken instead of what was peculiar, one thing will come to be instead of another, and such a thing would no longer be resurrection but the making of a new man. But if the same man is to return to himself, he must be the same throughout, taking up again his original nature in all the parts of the elements.’” Gregory: “Then,” I said, “such a supposition about the soul would be sufficient for us against this objection: that the soul, having grown together with these elements from the beginning, remains with them after …”

“… the dissolution, set as a kind of guard over what is its own, and in their blending with their kin not letting go of what is its own through the fineness and quickness of its intellectual power, suffering no error amid the fine particles of the elements; but being dispersed along with its own as they mingle with their kind, not failing as it runs along with them when they are poured out into the universe, but always remaining in them, wherever and however nature arranges them. And if the signal for their concurrence is given again to the dissolved elements by the power that governs the universe, then, as when various ropes are fastened to one beginning, they all follow together at once the one that draws them, so, the different elements being drawn by the one power of the soul, the chain of our body will be woven together at once through the soul in the concurrence of its own elements, each being woven again suitably to its ancient and accustomed state and embracing what it knows.” Macrina: “This illustration too,” said my teacher, “might fittingly be added to what has been examined, to show that the soul needs no great instruction to distinguish its own among the elements from what is foreign. Let us suppose a potter with clay, and let it be granted that there is much of it, part of which has already been shaped into vessels and part is yet to be. Let the vessels not all be shaped alike, but let one be a jar, another a pitcher, another a plate or a bowl or some other thing useful for service; and let all these not be owned by one person, but let each be supposed to belong to its own master …”

“… vessel is each individual man, shaped by the concurrence of the elements from the common matter, having a great difference in his particular shape from those of his own kind. When it has been dissolved, the soul that owned the vessel no less recognizes its own from the remains, not departing from its own either in the company of the fragments or if it is mixed with the unworked matter of the elements, but always knowing its own, what it was like when it held together in its shape, and after the dissolution not going astray about its own because of the marks that remain on the remains.” Gregory: Accepting what had been said as fitting and proper to the aim before us, I said: “These things are rightly said and believed so. But if someone brings forward the Lord’s story in the Gospel about those in Hades as not agreeing with what has been examined, how should we prepare our answer?” Macrina: My teacher said: “The word sets out the story in rather bodily terms, but it scatters many hints through which it calls the attentive examiner to a finer contemplation. For by separating the bad from the better by a great chasm, making the sufferer need a drop carried on a finger, and placing the patriarch’s bosom as a rest for the one who was afflicted in this life, and before this relating that they died and were given burial, it draws away not a little from the obvious sense one who follows what is said with understanding. For what eyes does the rich man lift up in Hades, having left those of the flesh in the tomb? How did the incorporeal feel the flame? What tongue does he desire to be cooled by the drop, when he has no tongue of flesh? What is the finger that carries the drop to him? What is the bosom of rest itself? For since the bodies are in the tombs, and the soul is neither in a body nor composed of parts, it would be impossible to fit the details of the story to the truth according to the obvious sense, unless one transfers each detail to intellectual contemplation; so that the chasm separating the fellowship of things that cannot mix should not be thought a distance of earth; for what labour would it be for the incorporeal and intellectual to fly across the chasm, even if it were very wide? For the intellectual is by nature present instantly wherever it wishes.” Gregory: “What, then,” I said, “would be …”

“… the fire, or the chasm, or the rest of what was said, if not what is said?” Macrina: “It seems to me,” she said, “that through each of these the Gospel indicates certain doctrines about what is sought concerning the soul. For the patriarch first said to the rich man, ‘You received your share of good things in the life of the flesh,’ and said the same of the poor man, that he too had his fill of the service of evils during his life; and then, adding the chasm, that they are walled off from each other, he seems by this to indicate something great by the word …”

“… without consideration for the better, these, through gluttony in the life of the flesh, use up beforehand the share of good owed to their nature, storing up nothing for the life after; while those who manage their life with discerning and self-controlled reasoning, being afflicted in this short life by what pains the senses, store up the good for the age that follows, so that the better lot extends for them along with eternal life. This, then, in my account at least, is the chasm: it is not made by the earth parting, but the judgment made during life, divided toward opposite choices, makes it. For one who has once been drawn by pleasure in this life and has not cured his folly by repentance makes the land of the good impassable for himself afterward, digging against himself this impassable necessity like a yawning pit that cannot be crossed. That is why, it seems to me, the word named the good state of the soul, in which it gives rest to the athlete of patience, the bosom of Abraham. For this patriarch is recorded as the first of all who ever lived to exchange the enjoyment of the present for the hope of the future: stripped of everything among which his life was at first, he lived among strangers, purchasing by present hardship the good fortune he hoped for. As, then, by a certain extension of meaning we call a particular outline of the sea a ‘bosom’ (a bay), so the word seems to signify by the name ‘bosom’ the showing forth of those immeasurable goods, in which all who sail through the present life by virtue, when they set out from here, bring their souls to anchor as in a harbour safe from storms, in the good bosom; while for the rest the deprivation of the goods that appear to them becomes a flame smouldering in the soul, needing for consolation a drop from the sea of goods that flows around the holy, and not obtaining it. And when you see tongue and eye and finger and the other bodily names in the dialogue of incorporeal beings, you will agree, on examining the sense of the words, that the conjecture agrees with the account of the soul already reached. For as the concurrence of the elements makes the substance of the whole body, so it is likely that the nature of the parts in the body too is filled up from the same …”

“… cause. If, then, the soul is present to the elements of the body mixed into the universe, it will not only recognize the whole of what came together into the entire compound and be in them, but it will not be ignorant of the particular constitution of each of the parts, of which particles in the elements our members were completed. It is nothing unlikely, then, that the soul which is in the whole of the elements is also in each of them; and so, looking to the elements in which each member of the body exists in potency, one who supposes that Scripture speaks of a finger and an eye and a tongue and all the rest belonging to the soul after the dissolution of the compound will not miss what is probable. If, then, each detail leads the mind away from the bodily understanding of the story, it is surely likely that we should not think the Hades now mentioned to be some place so named, but we are taught by Scripture that it is a formless and incorporeal state of life in which the soul lives. And we learn another doctrine too in the story of the rich man and the poor man, which is closely related to what has been examined. It made that passionate lover of the flesh, when he saw that his own misfortune was inescapable, take thought for those of his family still on earth; and when Abraham said that the life of those living in the flesh was not left without providence, but that the guidance of the law and the prophets was set before them for their use, he still went on pleading with the righteous man that the proclamation might become persuasive to them by being announced, paradoxically, by someone come back to life from the dead.”

“… from these stories,” she said, “we think the Lord teaches this: that those who live in the flesh must as far as possible, through the life of virtue, be separated and released in some way from attachment to it, so that after death we may not need another death to cleanse away the remnants of the fleshly glue, but, the bonds as it were having been broken from round the soul, its course to the good may be light and free, no bodily pain dragging it back to itself. But if someone has become wholly and entirely fleshly in mind, occupying every movement and activity of the soul with the wills of the flesh, such a one, even when he has come outside the flesh, is not separated from its passions; as those who have stayed long in foul-smelling places are not free of the unpleasantness they have taken in through their long stay, even if they move to fresh air; so too, when the change to the unpleasant and invisible life comes about, it would not be possible for lovers of the flesh not to draw with them something of the fleshly foulness, by which their pain is made heavier, the soul having become more material from such a circumstance. And what some say seems somehow to agree with such a supposition, that shadowy phantoms of the departed are often seen about the places where bodies lie. For if anything of the kind happens, the soul’s excessive attachment now to the life of the flesh is thereby shown: even when thrust out of the flesh it does not wish to fly away cleanly, nor allow its complete change into the formless, but still remains with the form after the form has been dissolved, and, though already outside it, wanders out of longing about the places of matter and lingers around them.” Gregory: Pausing a little and taking up the sense of what had been said, I said: “It seems to me that a contradiction arises from what has been said with what was examined earlier about the passions. For if such movements of the soul were thought to work in us from kinship with the irrational creatures, the ones the argument listed, anger and fear and pleasure and …”