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GREGORY THAUMATURGOS

ON THE SUBJECT OF THE SOUL.(1)
(Dubious or spurious)

[Translated by the Rev. S.D.F. Salmond, M.A.]

   You have instructed us, most excellent Tatian,(2) to forward for your
use a discourse upon the soul, laying it out in effective demonstrations.
And this you have asked us to do without making use of the testimonies of
Scripture,--a method which is opened to us, and which, to those who seek
the pious mind, proves a manner of setting forth doctrine more convincing
than any reasoning of man.(3) You have said, however, that you desire this,
not with a view to your own full assurance, taught as you already have been
to hold by the Holy Scriptures and traditions, and to avoid being shaken in
your convictions by any subtleties of man's disputations, but with a view
to the confuting of men who have different sentiments, and who do not admit
that such credit is to be given to the Scriptures, and who endeavour, by a
kind of cleverness of speech, to gain over those who are unversed in such
discussions. Wherefore we were led to comply readily with this commission
of yours, not shrinking from the task on account of inexperience in this
method of disputation, but taking encouragement froth the knowledge of your
good-will toward us. For your kind and friendly disposition towards us will
make you understand how to put forward publicly whatever you may approve of
as rightly expressed by us, and to pass by and conceal whatever statement
of ours yon may judge to come short of what is proper. Knowing this,
therefore, I have betaken myself with all confidence to the exposition. And
in my discourse I shall use a certain order and consecution, such as those
who are very expert in these matters employ towards those who desire to
investigate any subject intelligently.

   First of all, then, I shall propose to inquire by what criterion the
soul can, according to its nature, be apprehended; then by what means it
can be proved to exist; thereafter, whether it is a substance or an
accident;(4) then consequently on these points, whether it is a body or is
incorporeal; then, whether it is simple or compound; next, whether it is
mortal or immortal; and finally, whether it is rational or irrational.

   For these are the questions which are wont, above all, to be discussed,
in any inquiry about the soul, as most important, and as best calculated to
mark out its distinctive nature. And as demonstrations for the establishing
of these matters of investigation, we shall employ those common modes of
consideration(5) by which the credibility of matters under hand is
naturally attested. But for the purpose of brevity and utility, we shall at
present make use only of those modes of argumentation which are most
cogently demonstrative on the subject of our inquiry, in order that clear
and intelligible(6) notions may impart to us some readiness for meeting the
gainsayers. With this, therefore, we shall commence our discussion.

I.WHEREIN IS THE CRITERION FOR THE APPREHENSION OF THE SOUL.

   All things that exist are either known by sense(7) or apprehended by
thought.(8) And what falls under sense has its adequate demonstration in
sense itself; for at once, with the application, it creates in us the
impression(9) of what underlies it. But what is apprehended by thought is
known not by itself, but by its operations.(10) The soul, consequently,
being unknown by itself, shall be known property by its effects.

II. WHETHER THE SOUL EXISTS.

   Our body, when it is put in action, is put in action either from
without or from within. And that it is not put in action from without, is
manifest from the circumstance that it is put in action neither by
impulsion(11) nor by traction,(12) like soulless things. And again, if it
is put in action from within, it is not put in action according to nature,
like fire. For fire never loses its action as long as there is fire;
whereas the body, when it has become dead, is a body void of action. Hence,
if it is put in action neither from without, like soulless things, nor
according to nature, after the fashion of fire, it is evident that it is
put in action by the soul, which also furnishes life to it. If, then, the
soul is shown to furnish the life to our body, the soul will also be known
for itself by its operations.

III. WHETHER THE SOUL IS A SUBSTANCE.

   That the soul is a substance,(1) is proved in the following manner. In
the first place, because the definition given to the term substance suits
it very well. And that definition is to the effect, that substance is that
which, being ever identical, and ever one in point of numeration with
itself, is yet capable of taking on contraries in succession.(2) And that
this soul, without passing the limit of its own proper nature, takes on
contraries in succession, is, I fancy, clear to everybody. For
righteousness and unrighteousness, courage and cowardice, temperance and
intemperance, are seen in it successively; and these are contraries. If,
then, it is the property of a substance to be capable of taking on
contraries in succession, and if the soul is shown to sustain the
definition in these terms, it follows that the soul is a substance. And in
the second place, because if the body is a substance, the soul must also be
a substance. For it cannot be, that what only has life imparted should be a
substance, and that what imparts the life should be no substance: unless
one should assert that the non-existent is the cause of the existent; or
unless, again, one were insane enough to allege that the dependent object
is itself the cause of that very thing in which it has its being, and
without which it could not subsist.(3)

IV. WHETHER THE SOUL IS INCORPOREAL.

   That the soul is in our body, has been shown above. We ought now,
therefore, to ascertain in what manner it is in the body. Now, if it is in
juxtaposition with it, as one pebble with another, it follows that the soul
will be a body, and also that the whole body will not be animated with
soul,(4) inasmuch as with a certain part it will only be in juxtaposition.
But if again, it is mingled or fused with the body, the soul will become
multiplex,(5) and not simple, and will thus be despoiled of the rationale
proper to a soul. For what is multiplex is also divisible and dissoluble;
and what is dissoluble, on the other hand, is compound;(6) and what is
compound is separable in a threefold manner. Moreover, body attached to
body makes weight;(7) but the soul, subsisting in the body, does not make
weight, but rather imparts life. The soul, therefore, cannot be a body, but
is incorporeal.

   Again, if the soul is a body, it is put in action either from without
or from within. But it is not put in action from without; for it is moved
neither by impulsion nor by traction, like soulless things. Nor is it put
in action from within, like objects animated with soul; for it is absurd to
talk of a soul of the soul: it cannot, therefore, be a body, but it is
incorporeal.

   And besides, if the soul is a body, it has sensible qualities, and is
maintained by nurture. But it is not thus nurtured. For if it is nurtured,
it is not nurtured corporeally, like the body, but incorporeally; for it is
nurtured by reason. It has not, therefore, sensible qualities: for neither
is righteousness, nor courage, nor any one of these things, something that
is seen; yet these are the qualities of the soul. It cannot, therefore, be
a body, but is incorporeal.

   Still further, as all corporeal substance is divided into animate and
inanimate, let those who hold that the soul is a body tell us whether we
are to call it animate or inanimate.

   Finally, if every body has colour, and quantity, and figure, and if
there is not one of these qualities perceptible in the soul, it follows
that the soul is not a body.(8)

V. WHETHER THE SOUL IS SIMPLE OR COMPOUND.

   We prove, then, that the soul is simple, best of all, by those
arguments by which its incorporeality has been demonstrated. For if it is
not a body, while every body is compound, and what is composite is made up
of parts, and is consequently multiplex, the soul, on the other hand, being
incorporeal, is simple; since thus it is both uncompounded and indivisible
into parts.

VI. WHETHER OUR SOUL IS IMMORTAL.

   It follows, in my opinion, as a necessary consequence, that what is
simple is immortal. And as to how that follows, hear my explanation:
Nothing that exists is its own corrupter,(9) else it could never have had
any thorough consistency, even from the beginning. For things that are
subject to corruption are corrupted by contraries: wherefore everything
that is corrupted is subject to dissolution; and what is subject to
dissolution is compound; and what is compound is of many parts; and what is
made up of parts manifestly is made up of diverse parts; and the diverse is
not the identical: consequently the soul, being simple, and not being made
up of diverse parts, but being uncompound and indissoluble, must be, in
virtue of that, incorruptible and immortal.

   Besides, everything that is put in action by something else, and does
not possess the principle of life in itself, but gets it from that which
puts it in action, endures just so long as it is held by the power that
operates in it; and whenever the operative power ceases, that also comes to
a stand which has its capacity of action from it. But the soul, being self-
acting, has no cessation of its being. For it follows, that what is self-
acting is ever-acting; and what is ever-acting is unceasing; and what is
unceasing is without end; and what is without end is incorruptible; and
what is incorruptible is immortal. Consequently, if the soul is self-
acting, as has been shown above, it follows that it is incorruptible and
immortal, in accordance with the mode of reasoning already expressed.

   And further, everything that is not corrupted by the evil proper to
itself, is incorruptible; and the evil is opposed to the good, and is
consequently its corrupter. For the evil of the body is nothing else than
suffering, and disease, and death; just as, on the other hand, its
excellency is beauty, life, health, and vigour. If, therefore, the soul is
not corrupted by the evil proper to itself, and the evil of the soul is
cowardice, intemperance, envy, and the like, and all these things do not
despoil it of its powers of life and action, it follows that it is
immortal.

VII. WHETHER OUR SOUL IS RATIONAL.

   That our soul is rational, one might demonstrate by many arguments. And
first of all from the fact that it has discovered the arts that are for the
service of our life. For no one could say that these arts were introduced
casually and accidentally, as no one could prove them to be idle, and of no
utility for our life. If, then, these arts contribute to what is profitable
for our life, and if the profitable is commendable, and if the commendable
is constituted by reason, and if these things are the discovery of the
soul, it follows that our soul is rational.

   Again, that our soul is rational, is also proved by the fact that our
senses are not sufficient for the apprehension of things. For we are not
competent for the knowledge of things by the simple application of the
faculty of sensation. But as we do not choose to rest in these without
inquiry,(1) that proves that the senses, apart from reason, are felt to be
incapable of discriminating between things which are identical in form and
similar in colour, though quite distinct in their natures. If, therefore,
the senses, apart from reason, give us a false conception of things, we
have to consider whether things that are can be apprehended in reality or
not. And if they can be apprehended, then the power which enables us to get
at them is one different from, and superior to, the senses. And if they are
not apprehended, it will not be possible for us at all to apprehend things
which are different in their appearance from the reality. But that objects
are apprehensible by us, is clear from the fact that we employ each in a
way adaptable to utility, and again turn them to what we please.
Consequently, if it has been shown that things which are can be apprehended
by us, and if the senses, apart from reason, are an erroneous test of
objects, it follows that the intellect(2) is what distinguishes all things
in reason, and discerns things as they are in their actuality. But the
intellect is just the rational portion of the soul, and consequently the
soul is rational.

   Finally, because we do nothing without having first marked it out for
ourselves; and as that is nothing else than just the high prerogative(3) of
the soul,--for its knowledge of things does not come to it from without,
but it rather sets out these things, as it were, with the adornment of its
own thoughts, and thus first pictures forth the object in itself, and only
thereafter carries it out to actual fact,--and because the high prerogative
of the soul is nothing else than the doing of all things with reason, in
which respect it also differs from the senses, the soul has thereby been
demonstrated to be rational.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 6, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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