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| It is Not to the Philosophers that We Resort for Information About the Soul But to God.
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IX.
A Treatise on the Soul.1489
| 1489 [It is not safe
to date this treatise before a.d. 203, and
perhaps it would be unsafe to assign a later date. The note of the
translator, which follows, relieves me from any necessity to add more,
just here.] |
[Translated by Peter Holmes,
D.D.]
————————————
Chapter I.—It is Not to the
Philosophers that We Resort for Information About the Soul But to
God.1490
| 1490 In this treatise
we have Tertullian’s speculations on the origin, the nature, and
the destiny of the human soul. There are, no doubt, paradoxes startling
to a modern reader to be found in it, such as that of the soul’s
corporeity; and there are weak and inconclusive arguments. But after
all such drawbacks (and they are not more than what constantly occur in
the most renowned speculative writers of antiquity), the reader will
discover many interesting proofs of our author’s character for
originality of thought, width of information, firm grasp of his
subject, and vivacious treatment of it, such as we have discovered in
other parts of his writings. If his subject permits Tertullian less
than usual of an appeal to his favourite Holy Scripture, he still makes
room for occasional illustration from it, and with his characteristic
ability; if, however, there is less of his sacred learning in it, the
treatise teems with curious information drawn from the secular
literature of that early age. Our author often measures swords with
Plato in his discussions on the soul, and it is not too much to say
that he shows himself a formidable opponent to the great philosopher.
See Bp. Kaye, On Tertullian, pp. 199, 200. |
Having discussed with
Hermogenes the single point of the origin of the soul, so far as his
assumption led me, that the soul consisted rather in an
adaptation1491
| 1491 Suggestu. [Kaye, pp.
60 and 541.] | of matter than of
the inspiration1492
of God, I now turn
to the other questions incidental to the subject; and (in my treatment
of these) I shall evidently have mostly to contend with the
philosophers. In the very prison of Socrates they skirmished about the
state of the soul. I have my doubts at once whether the time was an
opportune one for their (great) master—(to say nothing of the
place), although that perhaps does not much matter. For what
could the soul of Socrates then contemplate with clearness and
serenity? The sacred ship had returned (from Delos), the hemlock draft
to which he had been condemned had been drunk, death was now present
before him: (his mind) was,1493
as one may
suppose,1494
naturally
excited1495
at every emotion;
or if nature had lost her influence, it must have been deprived of all
power of thought.1496
| 1496 Externata.
“Externatus = ἐκτὸς
φρενῶν. Gloss. Philox. | Or let it have been
as placid and tranquil so you please, inflexible, in spite of the
claims of natural duty,1497
at the tears of her
who was so soon to be his widow, and at the sight of his thenceforward
orphan children, yet his soul must have been moved even by its very
efforts to suppress emotion; and his constancy itself must have been
shaken, as he struggled against the disturbance of the excitement
around him. Besides, what other thoughts could any man entertain who
had been unjustly condemned to die, but such as should solace him for
the injury done to him? Especially would this be the case with
that glorious creature, the philosopher, to whom injurious treatment
would not suggest a craving for consolation, but rather the feeling of
resentment and indignation. Accordingly, after his sentence, when his
wife came to him with her effeminate cry, O Socrates, you are unjustly
condemned! he seemed already to find joy in answering, Would you then
wish me justly condemned? It is therefore not to be wondered at, if
even in his prison, from a desire to break the foul hands of Anytus and
Melitus, he, in the face of death itself, asserts the immortality of
the soul by a strong assumption such as was wanted to frustrate the
wrong (they had inflicted upon him). So that all the wisdom of
Socrates, at that moment, proceeded from the affectation of an assumed
composure, rather than the firm conviction of ascertained truth. For by
whom has truth ever been discovered without God? By whom has God ever
been found without Christ? By whom has Christ ever been explored
without the Holy Spirit? By whom has the Holy Spirit ever been
attained without the mysterious gift of faith?1498
Socrates, as none can doubt, was actuated by a different spirit. For
they say that a demon clave to him from his boyhood—the very worst
teacher certainly, notwithstanding the high place assigned to it by
poets and philosophers—even next to, (nay, along with) the gods
themselves. The teachings of the power of Christ had not yet been
given—(that power) which alone can confute this most pernicious
influence of evil that has nothing good in it, but is rather the author
of all error, and the seducer from all truth. Now if Socrates was
pronounced the wisest of men by the oracle of the Pythian demon, which,
you may be sure, neatly managed the business for his friend, of how
much greater dignity and constancy is the assertion of the Christian
wisdom, before the very breath of which the whole host of demons is
scattered! This wisdom of the school of heaven frankly and
without reserve denies the gods of this world, and shows no such
inconsistency as to order a “cock to be sacrificed to
Æsculapius:”1499
| 1499 The allusion is
to the inconsistency of the philosopher, who condemned the gods
of the vulgar, and died offering a gift to one of them. | no new gods and
demons does it introduce, but expels the old ones; it corrupts not
youth, but instructs them in all goodness and moderation; and so it
bears the unjust condemnation not of one city only, but of all the
world, in the cause of that truth which incurs indeed the greater
hatred in proportion to its fulness: so that it tastes death not
out of a (poisoned) cup almost in the way of jollity; but it exhausts
it in every kind of bitter cruelty, on gibbets and in
holocausts.1500
Meanwhile, in the
still gloomier prison of the world amongst your Cebeses and
Phædos, in every investigation concerning (man’s) soul, it
directs its inquiry according to the rules of God. At all events, you
can show us no more powerful expounder of the soul than the Author
thereof. From God you may learn about that which you hold of God; but
from none else will you get this knowledge, if you get it not from God.
For who is to reveal that which God has hidden? To that quarter must we
resort in our inquiries whence we are most safe even in deriving our
ignorance. For it is really better for us not to know a thing, because
He has not revealed it to us, than to know it according to man’s
wisdom, because he has been bold enough to assume
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