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But, say they, there is no body which can suffer and cannot also
die. How do we know this? For who can say with certainty that the
devils do not suffer in their bodies, when they own that they are
grievously tormented? And if it is replied that there is no earthly
body, that is to say, no solid and perceptible body, or, in one
word, no flesh, which can suffer and cannot die, is not this to tell
us only what men have gathered from experience and their bodily senses?
For they indeed have no acquaintance with any flesh but thai which is
mortal; and this is their whole argument, that what they have had no
experience of they judge quite impossible. For we cannot call it
reasoning to make pain a presumption of death, while, in fact, it is
rather a sign of life. For though it be a question whether that which
suffers can continue to live for ever, yet it is certain that
everything which suffers pain does live, and that pain can exist only
in a living subject. It is necessary, therefore, that he who is
pained be living, not necessary that pain kill him; for every pain
does not kill even those mortal bodies of ours which are destined to
die. And that any pain kills them is caused by the circumstance that
the soul is so connected with the body that it succumbs to great pain
and withdraws; for the structure of our members and vital parts is so
infirm that it cannot bear up against that violence which causes great
or extreme agony. But in the life to come this connection of soul and
body is of such a kind, that as it is dissolved by no lapse of time,
so neither is it burst asunder by any pain. And so, although it be
true that in this world there is no flesh which can suffer pain and yet
cannot die, yet in the world to come there shall be flesh such as now
there is not, as there will also be death such as now there is not.
For death will not be abolished, but will be eternal, since the soul
will neither be able to enjoy God and live, nor to die and escape the
pains of the body. The first death drives the soul from the body
against her will: the second death holds the soul in the body against
her will. The two have this in common, that the soul suffers against
her will what her own body inflicts.
Our opponents, too, make much of this, that in this world there is
no flesh which can suffer pain and cannot die; while they make nothing
of the fact that there is something which is greater than the body.
For the spirit, whose presence animates and rules the body, can both
suffer pain and cannot die. Here then is something which, though it
can feel pain, is immortal. And this capacity, which we now see in
the spirit of all, shall be hereafter in the bodies of the damned.
Moreover, if we attend to the matter a little more closely, we see
that what is called bodily pain is rather to be referred to the soul.
For it is the soul not the body, which is pained, even when the pain
originates with the body, the soul feeling pain at the point where the
body is hurt. As then we speak of bodies feeling and living, though
the feeling and life of the body are from the soul, so also we speak of
bodies being pained, though no pain can be suffered by the body apart
from the soul. The soul, then, is pained with the body in that part
where something occurs to hurt it; and it is pained alone, though it
be in the body, when some invisible cause distresses it, while the
body is safe and sound. Even when not associated with the body it is
pained; for certainly that rich man was suffering in hell when he
Cried, "I am tormented in this flame." But as for the body, it
suffers no pain when it is soulless; and even when animate it can
suffer only by the soul's suffering. If, therefore, we might draw a
just presumption from the existence of pain to that of death, and
conclude that where pain can be felt death can occur, death would
rather be the property of the soul, for to it pain more peculiarly
belongs. But, seeing that that which suffers most cannot die, what
ground is there for supposing that those bodies, because destined to
suffer, are therefore, destined to die? The Platonists indeed
maintained that these earthly bodies and dying members gave rise to the
fears, desires, griefs, and joys of the soul. "Hence," says
Virgil (i.e., from these earthly bodies and dying members),
"Hence wild desires and grovelling fears, And human laughter, human
tears."
But in the fourteenth book of this work s we have proved that,
according to the Platonists' own theory, souls, even when purged
from all pollution of the body, are yet pos sessed by a monstrous
desire to return again into their bodies. But where desire can exist,
certainly pain also can exist; for desire frustrated, either by
missing what it aims at or losing what it had attained, is turned into
pain. And therefore, if the soul, which is either the only or the
chief sufferer, has yet a kind of immortality of its own, it is
inconsequent to say that because the bodies of the damned shall suffer
pain, therefore they shall die. In fine, if the body causes the soul
to suffer, why can the body not cause death as well as suffering,
unless because it does not follow that what causes pain causes death as
well? And why then is it incredible that these fires can cause pain
but not death to those bodies we speak of, just as the bodies
themselves cause pain, but not therefore death, to the souls? Pain
is therefore no necessary presumption of death.
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