Письмо VII. Пресвитеру Иоанну о том, что душа и после смерти сохраняет действие мысли и не утрачивает ни одной из своих естественных способностей

On the second day of the month of August of the first real indictment, our mutual friend conveyed to me a precious message from your fatherly priesthood, 176 after reading which, of course, I was comforted that you, my gentlemen and the first benefactors after God, are in health. So much [244] has the Holy Spirit of God united with you in everything that even contemplating you, absent, only with the eyes of the mind, I, as far as I am able, correct both my life and my mind, as if I saw and was ashamed of God revealed in the memory of you. But I was also immensely upset because of the doctrine of the soul, which, as you write, some fearlessly proclaim among you, having thought what power and freedom this evil has gained among us. And what fills me even more with despondency, as if pressing down my soul with a heavy cloud, is the newly discovered doctrine of the resurrection, professed here by almost everyone, and most of all by prominent monks, so that whoever has at least some ability to reason no longer speculates that the coming of the Antichrist is approaching, but rather believes and without hesitation asserts that he has already come, to which misfortune the very absurdity of these speeches testifies 177. These people say, who fearlessly refine their language in everything and do not consider anything terrible, no matter what the wicked they do or say, that after the resurrection life in bodies will again be maintained by phlegm and blood, and bile light and dark, and the inhalation of air, and material food, so that in comparison with the present life nothing at all different will appear, except that it will be impossible to die again; I don’t know how they managed to deliberately close their ears and close the eyes of their souls, so as not to hear and not notice everything that was declared about the soul and the resurrection of the dead in the Holy Scriptures by the prophets and apostles, and by God the Word Himself in the flesh, who taught us, and most of all by the divinely inspired Paul in his letter to the Corinthians - it’s all so clear, intelligible and does not require any interpreter to comprehend! while he teaches them the same thing as Divine revelations and the very nature of things, which was able to lead even barbarians to the knowledge of the truth, revealing in itself a clear solution to the questions under investigation; but they are not ashamed of her either. Who does not know, unless he has completely lost the gift of reason, that every nature, essentially [245] determined by its own properties, and thereby revealing both the image of its own existence and the differences by which it is completely delimited from other natures, if it loses the properties in which its essence lies, then either will not exist at all, or will become not what it was - if only with the elimination of properties it is generally permissible to talk about its existence. After all, with the destruction of natural properties, what possesses them is always destroyed (ὑποκείμενον). What or where will a bull, and a horse, and a lion, and similar creatures be, if the properties in which the nature of each of them is contained disappear? And I do not understand how anyone who is not stricken with madness would dare to assert that the former can exist without the latter. If it is true that nothing existing can exist or be known without the properties that mark its nature and essence, then it is absolutely clear that those who eliminate from the soul that which is innate in its essence, that is, reason and mind, with which it always exists and acts as a thinker and reasoner, eliminate at the same time, even if they are silent about this, its very existence; and according to their teaching, the soul comes out subject to corruption and mortal, having no existence after the death of the body - and what is more absurd than this? Since, fearing that otherwise everyone will refute them, they teach - at least in words, and not in essence - that the soul lives, then it certainly moves. After all, the life of everything born is expressed in movement. And since it moves, it certainly acts; after all, any movement is revealed through action. And if it acts, then it acts, certainly driven by nature, and not by something external or random. And not circularly or progressively, or, briefly speaking, physically, but with the mind and intelligence. And since she lives, moves, and acts with her mind and intellect, she certainly reasons, thinks, and knows. If he does not know and does not reason, then he does not act, does not move, does not live. After all, life is impossible without innate movement; Natural movement cannot manifest itself when there is no related action. In addition, the soul is either intelligent and intelligent in itself, or thanks to the body. And if it is reasonable and intelligent in itself [246] or in its essence, then it certainly has an independent existence (αὐθυπόστατος ἐστίν). And if the soul has an independent existence by nature, then both by itself and united with the body it will act, naturally thinking and reasoning, and will never cease to exercise the mental abilities inherent in it by nature. After all, what is inherent in anything existing by nature is inalienable from it while existence lasts. This means that the soul, which exists after birth eternally thanks to God, who created it as such, independently and by its own nature always thinks, and reasons, and knows, both on its own and in connection with the body. It is impossible to find any reason why the soul would lose the abilities inherent in it by nature, and not thanks to the body, after its destruction. And if the soul is rational and intelligent thanks to the body, then, first of all, the body will be more valuable than the soul, supposedly created because of it. Then, the intelligent and rational abilities of the soul will come from him by possession, since it was created because of him. After all, if without a body the soul cannot think or reason, it means that thinking and reasoning are inherent in it through the body. And if the soul acquires the ability to think and reason from the body and cannot have it without it, as these people claim, then, of course, it will not have independent existence; where will it come from the soul, which by itself, without a body, is deprived of what distinguishes it? If the soul does not have independent existence, then, obviously, it is not an essence. And not being an independent essence, it will be an incidental property (συμβεβηκός), co-emerging only with the existence of the body, and after its disintegration can in no way exist; and nothing else will remain for such insane false teachers, who have eliminated the immortality of the soul, except the vanity of Epicurus 178 and Aristotle 179, with whose connection these noble personalities are naturally exalted. Enough about this. Listening to what they say about the resurrection, who among those who care about virtue and piety does not acquire dispassion through passion (I’m talking about indignation against these people)? After all, if, as they say, without any change, in the image of the present [247] life, a body will arise, composed of mutually warring juices, and will absorb food at the terrible coming of God after the end of this world, then I don’t know what else they defend with these speeches - to put it briefly, discarding much that could be said here - but the eternity of death and the infinity of destruction. After all, if death is the destruction of bodies of such composition, and the composite body is always damaged by the influx of food, dissipated by the flow due to the natural mutual opposition of its juices, of which it is composed, then, by claiming that thanks to them the body will exist after the resurrection, these false teachers proclaim that death will persist forever. One must believe that the body itself will rise in essence and appearance incorruptible and immortal and, in the words of the Apostle, instead of the spiritual - spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44), for nothing will remain in it from the property included in its composition to change to destruction, as God knows, Who transforms the body into something unchangeable and precious; and there is no need to bother in vain about more knowledge. Seeing how many rejoice and enjoy these false teachings, I “got dumb, and humbled myself, and kept silent about what is good” (Ps. 39:3), deciding that it is more beneficial for every prudent person to remain silent than to speak, and I walk on my own, lamenting and grieving, and consider what destruction these irresponsible speeches will create for souls, scattering everywhere like sparks; and, due to the predominance of depravity in our time, there is no one who could or would want to protect true understanding from danger! That is why I mourn even more bitterly my departure from you, depriving me of the almighty close supervision of your fatherly priesthood, which would protect me and save me from all harm, constantly supporting me with a word when I stumble. [248] In 643 in Africa, according to Baronius (note in Min's edition). – Approx. comp. “These speeches” does not refer to what is said by someone “who has any ability to reason,” but to what “prominent monks” preach. For the reader of the Greek text, this also does not immediately become clear. – Approx. lane See: Epicurus. Letter to Herodotus, 63–66 (Arrigetti). – Approx. resp. ed. See: Aristotle. On the soul, II, 2, 414a13–28. – Approx. resp. ed. You might be interested in: