Слово 7, о душе

The soul is God's breath, and, being heavenly, it suffers mixing with earthly things. This is a light contained in a cave, but it is divine and unquenchable. For it is indecent for the image of the great God to be destroyed ingloriously, as reptiles and irrational animals are destroyed, although sin intensified to make it mortal. The soul is not the nature of destructive fire; because it is not in the nature of the devourer to animate the devoured. She is not the nature of air, now exhaled, now inhaled, and never remaining at rest. It is not a bloody current running through the body, not even the harmony of the constituent parts of the body brought into unity; because the nature of flesh and immortal form is not the same. And what advantage would the virtuous have over the most vicious, if the dissolution of the elements made them either good or bad? Why do the dumb also not have a rational nature (since the dumb also have a harmony of form and mortal flesh)? According to this teaching, he is the best in whom there is the improvement of the elements. But they reasoned this way on the assumption that something with the removal of which the soul leaves the body must be recognized as ensouling. Why can’t you call food animate, without which it is completely impossible for a mortal to live; So how does one diet strengthen? I also know another teaching, which I will never accept; because I do not have some common soul, divided by everyone and wandering through the air. Otherwise, everyone would inhale and exhale the same soul, and all those who live in the world, having given up their spirit, would remain in other living ones: because the nature of air at different times is diffused in different things. And if the soul is something abiding; what did she have in herself, and what constituted my embryo - also a living being in the womb of the birthing womb, if she attracted me (the soul) from the outside? And if you suppose that she who gives birth is the mother of many children; then I must credit her with the fact that she cost more souls. And this is not the teaching of smart people, but an empty bookish amusement, as if the soul constantly changes different bodies, each in accordance with a previous life, good or bad, as a reward for virtues or as some punishment for sins; they either clothe or unmask the indecent soul, like a person in clothes; in vain, bothering themselves, turning the wheel of the evil Ixion (The mythical king Ixion was tied in Tartarus to an eternally rotating fiery wheel for his wickedness. - Ed.), they force her to be now an animal, now a plant, now a man, now a bird, now a snake, now a dog, now a fish, and sometimes both twice, if the wheel turns that way. Where does this end? But I have never seen a wise beast with the gift of speech, or a speaking thorn. The crow is always talkative; silent fish always swim in salty moisture. If, as the inventors of this empty teaching themselves say, there will be a final reward for the soul, then it will suffer punishment either without the flesh - and this is very surprising - or with the flesh - then which of the many will you consign to fire? What is most incomprehensible is how, after you connected me with many bodies and this connection made me know a lot, only one thing escaped my mind, namely: what skin did I wear in advance, what skin later and in how many did I die; because my tax-setter was not so rich in souls as in sacks. Or was it also a consequence of long-term wandering that I fell into oblivion of my former life? Now listen to our most excellent teaching about the soul. And we will try to sweeten the song a little by starting it like this: There was a time when the high Word of the Mind, following the great Mind of the Father, established a hitherto non-existent world. It spoke, and everything that He desired was accomplished. But when all this - earth, sky and sea - made up the world, a spectator of Wisdom - the mother of all - and a reverent king of the earth became needed. Then the Word said: “The vast sky is already inhabited by pure, ever-living servants, immaculate minds, good Angels, hymns, incessantly singing My glory. But the earth is decorated only by irrational animals. Therefore, it pleases Me to create such a kind of creatures, which would contain both, a kind of creatures, intermediate between mortals and immortals, a reasonable person who would rejoice in My deeds, would be a wise secret of heaven, a great ruler of the earth, a new Angel from dust, a singer of My power and My mind. Thus spoke the Word and, taking part of the newly created earth, with immortal hands formed my image and gave it His life; because it sent into him a spirit, which is a stream of the invisible Divinity. Thus, from dust and breath, man was created - the image of the Immortal; because in both the nature of the mind reigns. Therefore, like the earth, I am tied to this life, like a particle of the Divine, I carry on my chest the love for the future life. This is how the first-born man was united; and subsequently the body is taken from the flesh, but the soul is mixed in an unknown way, coming from outside into the earthy composition, as He who united it knows this, Who in the beginning breathed it in and coupled His image with the earth. And another, having come to the aid of my song, boldly and following many, will add the following reasoning. Just as the body, originally dissolved in us from dust, later became a stream of human bodies and does not cease from the primordial root, enclosing others in one person; so the soul, breathed in by God, from now on co-enters into the formed composition of man, being born again, from the original seed given to many and always preserving a constant image in mortal members. Therefore, the soul receives intellectual dominion as its lot. But just as in thin pipes the strong breath, even of a very skilled person, produces weak and discordant sounds, and when wide-sized pipes are given into his hands, then they pour out the most perfect sound; so the soul, which turns out to be powerless in a weak structure, manifests itself in a strengthened structure and then reveals the whole mind. But since the incorruptible Son created His man so that he would acquire a new glory and, having changed the earthly things in himself in the last days, like a god, he would move from here to God; then he did not leave him to his own freedom and did not completely bind him, but, having put the law into his nature and imprinted good inclinations on his heart, he placed him in the midst of an ever-blooming paradise, although in such a balance between good and evil that he could, by his own choice, incline towards one or the other, however, pure from sin and alien to all duplicity. And heaven, in my opinion, is heavenly life. It was in him that God placed man so that he would be an unflagging doer of God’s words. He forbade him to use one plant, which was more perfect than others, containing within itself the power to completely distinguish between good and evil. For what is perfect is good for those who have succeeded, and not for beginners. For the latter, it is as burdensome as perfect food for a baby. But when, through the cunning of an envious murderer, having heeded the persuasiveness of a woman’s word, a man tasted the prematurely sweet fruit and put on leather vestments - heavy flesh - and became a corpse-bearer, because by death Christ put limits on sin; then he came from paradise to the earth from which he was taken, and received a difficult life as his inheritance; and God set His fiery jealousy as a guardian to the precious plant, so that any Adam, like before, would not ascend inside prematurely and before he fled the devouring food of the sweet tree, while still in evil, would not approach the tree of life. Just as a sailor, carried away by stormy waves, is carried back and then, either giving up the sail to the lightest wind, or with difficulty at the oars, sets sail again, so we, who have sailed far from the great God, again, not without difficulty, complete the desired voyage. And this newly implanted sin passed on to unfortunate people from the progenitor; Hence the ear froze. You might be interested in: