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| The Soul's Corporeality Demonstrated Out of the Gospels.
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Chapter VII.—The
Soul’s Corporeality Demonstrated Out of the Gospels.
So far as the philosophers are concerned, we have said
enough. As for our own teachers, indeed, our reference to them is ex
abundanti—a surplusage of authority: in the Gospel itself
they will be found to have the clearest evidence for the corporeal
nature of the soul. In hell the soul of a certain man is in torment,
punished in flames, suffering excruciating thirst, and imploring from
the finger of a happier soul, for his tongue, the solace of a drop of
water.1534
Do you suppose that
this end of the blessed poor man and the miserable rich man is only
imaginary? Then why the name of Lazarus in this narrative, if the
circumstance is not in (the category of) a real occurrence? But even if
it is to be regarded as imaginary, it will still be a testimony to
truth and reality. For unless the soul possessed corporeality, the
image of a soul could not possibly contain a finger of a bodily
substance; nor would the Scripture feign a statement about the limbs of
a body, if these had no existence. But what is that which is removed to
Hades1535
| 1535 Ad inferna. [See
p. 59, supra.] | after the separation of the body; which is
there detained; which is reserved until the day of judgment; to which
Christ also, on dying, descended? I imagine it is the souls of the
patriarchs. But wherefore (all this), if the soul is nothing in its
subterranean abode? For nothing it certainly is, if it is
not a bodily substance. For whatever is incorporeal is incapable of
being kept and guarded in any way; it is also exempt from either
punishment or refreshment. That must be a body, by which punishment and
refreshment can be experienced. Of this I shall treat more fully in a
more fitting place. Therefore, whatever amount of punishment or
refreshment the soul tastes in Hades, in its prison or
lodging,1536
in the fire or in
Abraham’s bosom, it gives proof thereby of its own corporeality.
For an incorporeal thing suffers nothing, not having that which makes
it capable of suffering; else, if it has such capacity, it must be a
bodily substance. For in as far as every corporeal thing is
capable of suffering, in so far is that which is capable of
suffering also corporeal.1537
| 1537 Compare De Resur.
Carnis, xvii. There is, however, some variation in
Tertullian’s language on this subject. In his Apol.
xlviii. he speaks as if the soul could not suffer when separated from
the body. See also his De Testimonio Animæ,
ch. iv., p. 177, supra; and see Bp. Kaye, p. 183. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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