On First Principles 2.8.1–2.8.5

After this, the order now requires us to inquire also about the soul in general, beginning from the lower and ascending to the higher. That there are souls in each living thing, even in those that live in the waters, I think no one doubts. For the common opinion of all holds this, and the confirmation of the authority of holy Scripture is added, when it is said, “God made great sea monsters and every soul of creeping living things which the waters brought forth according to their kind.” It is confirmed also from the common understanding of reason by those who define the soul in fixed words. For the soul is defined thus: that it is a substance φανταστική and ὁρμητική, which in Latin, though it cannot be rendered so properly, may be called capable of perception and of movement. This can certainly be said of all living things, including those that live in the waters; and in birds too this same definition of soul is shown fittingly to apply. Scripture has also added the authority of another statement, when it says: “You shall not eat blood, because the soul of all flesh is its blood; and you shall not eat the soul with the flesh”; in which it most evidently indicates that the blood of all living things is their soul. Now if anyone asks how it said that the soul of all flesh is its blood, with regard to bees, wasps and ants, and, among those in the waters, oysters and snails and whatever others lack blood and yet are most plainly shown to be living things, we must reply that the force which the vigour of red blood has in other living things is held in these by the fluid that is in them, though it be of another colour; for it makes no difference what the colour is, provided the substance is life-giving. That beasts of burden and cattle are living beings there is no doubt even in common opinion. Yet the statement of divine Scripture is clear when God says: “Let the earth bring forth the living soul according to its kind, four-footed beasts and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kind.” And as regards man, although no one doubts it nor could anyone inquire, yet divine Scripture indicates that “God breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” It remains to inquire about the angelic order, whether they too have souls or are souls, and about the other divine and heavenly powers, and also about the opposing powers. We have found no authority anywhere in divine Scripture that either the angels, or any divine spirits who are ministers of God, are said either to have souls or to be souls; yet that they are living beings is held by very many. Of God, however, we find it written thus: “And I will set my soul against that soul which has eaten blood, and I will root it out from its people”; and again elsewhere: “Your new moons and sabbaths and the great day I do not accept. Your fasts and holidays and festal days my soul hates.” And in the twenty-first Psalm it is said thus of Christ (for it is certain that this Psalm is ascribed to his person, as the Gospel testifies): “But you, Lord, do not put your help far off; look to my defence; deliver my soul, O God, from the sword, and my only one from the hand of the dog.” There are also many other testimonies about the soul of Christ when he was in the flesh.

But as for the soul of Christ, the account of the incarnation, coming to our aid, removes every question. For as he truly had flesh, so he truly had a soul. But how what is called the soul of God in the Scriptures ought to be understood is difficult both to conceive and to express; for we confess once for all that nature to be simple and without admixture of any addition. Yet, however it is to be understood, the soul of God meanwhile seems to be named; about Christ, however, there is no doubt. And therefore it does not seem absurd to me to say or think some such thing of the holy angels and the other heavenly powers too, since that definition of soul seems to apply to them also. For who could reasonably deny that they are capable of perception and of movement? And if this seems a correct definition, that a substance rationally capable of perception and movement is called soul, this same definition seems to belong to the angels too. For what else is in them than rational perception and movement? And things which share one account of definition undoubtedly have the same substance. Paul indeed indicates that there is a certain soulish man, who, he says, cannot receive the things that are of the Spirit of God; rather, the teaching of the Holy Spirit seems foolish to him, and he cannot understand what is spiritually discerned. And in another place he says that a soulish body is sown and a spiritual body rises, showing that in the resurrection of the righteous there will be nothing soulish in those who have merited the life of the blessed. And therefore we inquire whether perhaps there is some substance which, in so far as it is soul, is imperfect. But whether it is imperfect because it fell from perfection, or was made such by God, we shall inquire when each matter begins to be discussed in order. For if the soulish man does not receive the things that are of the Spirit of God, and because he is soulish cannot receive the understanding of a better, that is, divine, nature, it is perhaps for this reason that Paul, wishing to teach us more evidently what it is by which we can understand the things of the Spirit, that is, spiritual things, joins and associates the mind rather than the soul with the Holy Spirit. For this I think he shows when he says: “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also; I will sing psalms with the spirit, I will sing psalms with the mind also.” He does not say “I will pray with the soul,” but with the spirit and the mind; and he does not say “I will sing psalms with the soul,” but “I will sing psalms with the spirit and the mind.”

But perhaps it is asked: if it is the mind that prays and sings psalms with the spirit, and it is the same that receives perfection and salvation, how does Peter say, “Receiving the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls”? If the soul neither prays nor sings psalms with the spirit, how will it hope for salvation? Or when it has come to blessedness, will it no longer be called soul? But let us see whether perhaps it can be answered in this way: that just as the Saviour came to save what was lost, and when it is saved, what was previously called lost is no longer lost, so perhaps this too which is being saved is called soul, but when it has been saved it will be named by the word for its more perfect part. And it will seem to some that this too can be added: just as what is lost undoubtedly existed before it was lost, when it was something other than lost, as it will certainly also be when it is no longer lost, so too the soul which is said to have perished will appear to have been something at one time, when it had not yet perished and for this reason came to be called soul; and, freed again from perdition, it can once more be that which it was before it perished and was called soul. And also from the very meaning of the name soul which the Greek indicates, it has seemed to some who inquire more curiously that no small understanding can be suggested. For the divine word has said that God is fire, when it says, “Our God is a consuming fire.” And of the substance of the angels it says thus: “Who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a burning fire”; and elsewhere, “The angel of the Lord appeared in a flame of fire in the bush.” Moreover, we have received a commandment to be “fervent in spirit,” by which the Word of God is undoubtedly shown to be fiery and hot. And the prophet Jeremiah hears from him who gave him answers: “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth as fire.” As, then, God is fire, and the angels a flame of fire, and all the saints are fervent in spirit, so on the contrary those who have fallen away from the love of God must undoubtedly be said to have grown cold in their love for him and to have become cold. For the Lord also says that because iniquity is multiplied, the love of many will grow cold. And whatever things in the holy Scriptures are compared to the adverse power you always find cold; and the devil is spoken of, and what is found colder than he? In the sea too the dragon is said to reign. For the prophet indicates that the serpent and dragon, which is certainly referred to one of the evil spirits, is also in the sea. And elsewhere the prophet says: “I will bring my holy sword upon the dragon, the fleeing serpent, upon the dragon, the crooked serpent, and it will slay him.” And again he says: “Even if they depart from my eyes and go down into the depth of the sea, there I will command the dragon and it will bite them.” And in Job too he is said to be king of all that are in the waters. The prophet announces that evils will be kindled from the north upon all who dwell on the earth. And the north wind is described in the holy Scriptures as cold, as it is written in Wisdom: “The cold north wind.” This too must undoubtedly be understood of the devil. If, then, things that are holy are called fire and light and fervent, while those that are contrary are called cold, and the love of many is said to grow cold, we must inquire whether perhaps the name soul, which in Greek is ψυχή, was so named from growing cold from a more divine and better state, and was transferred from the fact that it seems to have grown cold from that natural and divine warmth, and is therefore placed in the state and bears the name in which it now is. Finally, see whether you can easily find the soul spoken of properly in praise in the holy Scriptures; but in blame it frequently occurs, as there: “An evil soul destroys him who possesses it”; and “The soul that sins, it shall die.” For after it has been said, “All souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so the soul of the son is mine,” it certainly seemed to follow that he should say, “The soul that does righteousness, it shall be saved,” and “The soul that sins, it shall die.” But now we see that what is blameworthy he joined to the soul, while what was worthy of praise he passed over in silence. We must see, then, whether perhaps, as we said is declared by the name itself, it was called ψυχή, that is, soul, from having grown cold from the fervour of the righteous and from participation in the divine fire, and yet it has not lost the capacity to restore itself to that state of fervour in which it was at the beginning. Hence the Prophet too seems to show something of the kind when he says: “Return, my soul, to your rest.” From all this that seems to be shown: that the mind, falling from its state and dignity, became or was named soul; and if it is restored and corrected, it returns to being mind.

If this is so, it seems to me that this very decline and descent of the mind is not to be thought equal in all, but that it is turned into soul more or less, and that some minds preserve something even of their former vigour, others either nothing or some small amount. Hence some are found from their earliest age to be of more ardent sharpness, others slower, and some are born very dull and wholly unteachable. However, what we have said, that mind is turned into soul, or anything else that seems to point this way, let the reader examine and handle more carefully for himself; but let these things not be thought to have been put forward by us as dogmas, but discussed in the manner of treatment and inquiry. Let the reader also add this to the treatment: with regard to the soul of the Saviour it is observed from what is written in the Gospel that some things are ascribed to him under the name of soul, and others assigned under the name of spirit. For when he wishes to indicate some suffering or disturbance of his, he indicates it under the name of soul, as when he says, “Now my soul is troubled,” and “My soul is sorrowful even to death,” and “No one takes my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself.” But into the hands of the Father he commends not his soul but his spirit; and when he says that the flesh is weak, he does not say that the soul is willing, but the spirit. Hence the soul seems to be a kind of middle between the weak flesh and the willing spirit.

But perhaps someone may confront us with one of those points of which we ourselves gave warning in our propositions, and say: How then is the soul of God spoken of? We shall answer thus: just as with all things that are said of God in bodily terms, such as fingers, hands, arms, eyes, feet or mouth, we say that these are not human members but that certain powers of his are indicated by these names of bodily members, so too it must be thought that something else is indicated by this term, the soul of God. And if it is right for us to dare to say something more in such a matter, perhaps the soul of God can be understood as his only-begotten Son. For just as the soul, implanted throughout the whole body, moves all things and stirs all that it works, so too the only-begotten Son of God, who is his Word and Wisdom, reaches and extends to every power of God, being implanted in it. And perhaps as an indication of this mystery God is either called or described in the Scriptures as a body. We must consider, indeed, whether the only-begotten of God may perhaps be understood as the soul of God for this reason too, that he himself came into this place of affliction, and went down into the valley of weeping and into the place of our humiliation; as he says in the Psalm: “For you have humbled us in the place of affliction.” Finally, I know that some, expounding what the Saviour said in the Gospel, “My soul is sorrowful even to death,” have interpreted it of the apostles, whom he called his soul as being better than the rest of the body. For since the multitude of believers is called his body, they said that the apostles, as better than the rest of the body, ought to be understood as his soul. These things about the rational soul we have put forward, as far as we could, to be discussed by readers rather than as established and defined. Concerning the souls of cattle and other dumb animals, let what we said above in general suffice.