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| Soul and Body Conceived, Formed and Perfected in Element Simultaneously.
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Chapter
XXVII.—Soul and Body Conceived, Formed and Perfected in Element
Simultaneously.
How, then, is a living being conceived? Is the
substance of both body and soul formed together at one and the same
time? Or does one of them precede the other in natural formation? We
indeed maintain that both are conceived, and formed, and perfectly
simultaneously, as well as born together; and that not a moment’s
interval occurs in their conception, so that, a prior place can be
assigned to either.1694
| 1694 Comp. De Resurr.
Carnis, xlv. | Judge, in fact, of
the incidents of man’s earliest existence by those which occur to
him at the very last. As death is defined to be nothing else than the
separation of body and soul,1695
| 1695 So Plato,
Phædo, p. 64. | life, which is the
opposite of death, is susceptible of no other definition than the
conjunction of body and soul. If the severance happens at one and
the same time to both substances by means of death, so the law of their
combination ought to assure us that it occurs simultaneously to the two
substances by means of life. Now we allow that life begins with
conception, because we contend that the soul also begins from
conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place
that the soul does. Thus, then, the processes which act together to
produce separation by death, also combine in a simultaneous action to
produce life. If we
assign priority to (the formation of) one of the natures, and a
subsequent time to the other, we shall have further to determine the
precise times of the semination, according to the condition and rank of
each. And that being so, what time shall we give to the seed of the
body, and what to the seed of the soul? Besides, if different periods
are to be assigned to the seminations then arising out of this
difference in time, we shall also have different substances.1696
For although we shall allow that there are
two kinds of seed—that of the body and that of the soul—we
still declare that they are inseparable, and therefore contemporaneous
and simultaneous in origin. Now let no one take offence or feel ashamed
at an interpretation of the processes of nature which is rendered
necessary (by the defence of the truth). Nature should be to us an
object of reverence, not of blushes. It is lust, not natural usage,
which has brought shame on the intercourse of the sexes. It is
the excess, not the normal state, which is immodest and unchaste: the
normal condition has received a blessing from God, and is blest by Him:
“Be fruitful, and multiply, (and replenish the
earth.)”1697
Excess, however,
has He cursed, in adulteries, and wantonness, and chambering.1698
Well, now, in this usual function of the
sexes which brings together the male and the female in their common
intercourse, we know that both the soul and the flesh discharge a duty
together: the soul supplies desire, the flesh contributes the
gratification of it; the soul furnishes the instigation, the flesh
affords the realization. The entire man being excited by the one effort
of both natures, his seminal substance is discharged, deriving its
fluidity from the body, and its warmth from the soul. Now if the
soul in Greek is a word which is synonymous with
cold,1699
| 1699 See above, c. xxv. p.
206. | how does it come to
pass that the body grows cold after the soul has quitted it? Indeed (if
I run the risk of offending modesty even, in my desire to prove the
truth), I cannot help asking, whether we do not, in that very heat of
extreme gratification when the generative fluid is ejected, feel that
somewhat of our soul has gone from us? And do we not experience a
faintness and prostration along with a dimness of sight? This,
then, must be the soul-producing seed, which arises at once from the
out-drip of the soul, just as that fluid is the body-producing seed
which proceeds from the drainage of the flesh. Most true are the
examples of the first creation. Adam’s flesh was formed of clay.
Now what is clay but an excellent moisture, whence should spring the
generating fluid? From the breath of God first came the soul. But
what else is the breath of God than the vapour of the spirit, whence
should spring that which we breathe out through the generative fluid?
Forasmuch, therefore, as these two different and separate substances,
the clay and the breath, combined at the first creation in forming the
individual man, they then both amalgamated and mixed their proper
seminal rudiments in one, and ever afterwards communicated to the human
race the normal mode of its propagation, so that even now the two
substances, although diverse from each other, flow forth simultaneously
in a united channel; and finding their way together into their
appointed seed-plot, they fertilize with their combined vigour the
human fruit out of their respective natures. And inherent in this
human product is his own seed, according to the process which has been
ordained for every creature endowed with the functions of generation.
Accordingly from the one (primeval) man comes the entire outflow and
redundance of men’s souls—nature proving herself true to
the commandment of God, “Be fruitful, and
multiply.”1700
For in the very
preamble of this one production, “Let us make
man,”1701
man’s whole
posterity was declared and described in a plural phrase, “Let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea,”
etc.1702
And no wonder: in the seed lies the promise
and earnest of the crop.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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