Letter 162: Augustine answers Evodius on delay, the soul, dream images, miracles, and whether God can be seen by bodily eyes.

To Evodius, most blessed and venerable brother and fellow bishop, and to the brothers with you: Augustine and the brothers with me send greetings in the Lord. You ask many things from a man who is very busy. What is more serious, you think they should be dictated in a hurry, though they are so difficult that even when dictated or written with great care they can scarcely be brought to the understanding even of people like you. Add this: it is not only you and people like you whom we must imagine reading what we write. There are also those whose minds are less sharp and less trained, yet who are carried by such eagerness to know our writings, whether friendly or hostile, that the writings cannot be kept from them at all. When I think of this, you see how much care writing requires, especially on matters so great that even great minds labor over them. If, whenever I have something in hand, it must be interrupted and postponed so that I may answer what comes in later, what will happen if, while I am answering those later questions, still others arrive? Would you like those too to be left aside while the newest ones are taken up, so that the later always become earlier, and only those things get finished during the writing of which no new question happens to arise? It would be very hard for this not to happen to me, but I do not think this would please you. Therefore I ought not to have interrupted other things when yours arrived, just as I ought not to interrupt yours if others rush in again. Yet I am not allowed to preserve this fairness. For look: so that I could write these very things back to you, warning you of this, I have interrupted what I was doing and turned my mind away from another great concentration to this letter. It was easy enough, I think, to send you this not unfair excuse in a letter. Answering your inquiries is not so easy. I think that in the very little works which now hold my closest attention there will not be lacking some places where, if the Lord grants it, I will explain the things you ask about. Many of the questions you have now sent have already been solved in books I have not yet published, whether on the Trinity or on Genesis. And if you read again things long known to you, or at least once known to you, unless I am mistaken, since perhaps you have forgotten things I wrote while conferring and conversing with you, whether On the Greatness of the Soul or On Free Choice, you will find material from which you may resolve your doubts even without my labor, provided you bring to the task some work of thought, linking consequences to the matters brought there to clear and certain understanding. You also have the book On True Religion. If you recalled and examined it, it would never seem to you that reason forces God to be, or that by reasoning God is made to have to be. Even in the reasoning of numbers, which we certainly use every day, if we say that seven and three ought to be ten, we speak carelessly. They do not ought to be ten; they are ten. We have argued, as far as I think sufficient, in the books I have mentioned, about the things of which it is rightly said that they ought to be, whether they already are and should remain, or are not yet and should come to be. A human being ought to be wise: if he is wise, he should remain so; if he is not yet wise, he should become so. But God does not ought to be wise. He is wise. Read again and again the things I wrote to you very recently about visions, which you mention as subtly said but as having tangled you in greater questions. Think about them more carefully; do not pass over them, but let your consideration dwell in them. From there perhaps you will somehow infer how the soul is present or absent. In dreams the soul lingers among those visions when it is absent from the sense and presence of seeing which it provides to the eyes while awake. If some greater force increases this absence of the soul from the eyes, that is, from the body's lamps, so that everything of it is withdrawn from there, that is death. Just as the soul does not depart from the sense of seeing to dream-visions with some body, unless perhaps we suppose that the things seen in dreams are bodily, and that we ourselves are carried and carried back among them with some body, which I think no longer seems right to you, so too, if the soul is wholly withdrawn and absent, which happens in death, it should not be thought to carry some body away from the body. For if it did, surely when we sleep and the soul withdraws from the eyes, it would carry the eyes away with it to the extent that it leaves them, however subtler those eyes might be, yet still bodily. It does not do this. Nevertheless it carries with it certain things very like bodies, but not bodily things, by which it sees things very like bodies in dreams. These too are not bodies. If someone insists that even dream-visions, which appear like bodies, are nothing but bodies, he seems to himself to be saying something, and this dullness of mind is not easily overcome. It belongs to many people, some not at all lacking in sharpness, because they pay too little attention to the power of bodily images that are made in the spirit and yet are not bodies at all. When they are compelled to look at them, if they attend rightly and discover that they are not bodily but very like bodies, they still cannot immediately give an account of them: by what causes and how they come to be, what nature of their own sustains them, and in what subject they exist. Are they made in the mind as letters are made on parchment from ink, where there are two substances, parchment and ink? Or as a seal or any shape is made in wax, where wax is the subject and the shape is in the subject? Or are these things made in our spirit in both ways, sometimes this way and sometimes that? We are moved not only to think about things absent from the bodily senses, found in our memory, or things we ourselves make as we please, arranging, enlarging, reducing, and varying them by position, dress, movement, and countless qualities and shapes. Perhaps the things by which we are deceived while asleep are also of this kind, except that we make the first sort willingly and undergo the second beyond our choice, unless we are being divinely warned. Not only these things move us, things one may reasonably think are made in the mind from the mind itself, though even this happens by hidden causes, by which one thing rather than another comes before the mind's sight. There is also what the prophet says: "And the angel who was speaking in me said to me." We should not believe that voices came from outside to the prophet's bodily ears, since he says "who was speaking in me," not "to me." Were the voices made from the spirit, like bodily voices, the kind we make when we silently run many things through memory within ourselves, often even by singing, and yet produced by an angel prompting him? And when it is written in the Gospel, "Behold, an angel of God appeared to him in a dream, saying," how did he appear? Was it an angelic body to closed eyes, as the angels appeared to Abraham while he was awake, so that he even felt them by washing their feet? Or was it spirit appearing to the spirit of the sleeper in some likeness of a body, just as in dreams we ourselves seem to ourselves to move in such a shape through places, in a way far different from the movement of limbs lying on beds? These things are marvelous because they have a reason too hidden to be seen by one human being or given by one human being to another. Causes of wonder arise either when the reason for a thing is hidden, or when the thing itself is not common because it is singular or rare. So from the cause of hidden reason I said, in the letter you remember reading, when I was answering those who deny that it should be believed that Christ was born of a virgin while she remained a virgin: "If a reason is asked, it will not be marvelous." I said this not because the matter lacks a reason, but because the reason is hidden from those to whom God willed it to be marvelous. From the other cause of wonder, because something unusual occurs, Scripture says of the Lord that he marveled at the centurion's faith. No reason for anything could be hidden from him, but marveling there is placed as praise of the man whose equal had not appeared among the Hebrew people. The marvel is sufficiently explained when the Lord says, "Amen, I say to you, I have not found such great faith in Israel." As for what I added in the same letter, "If an example is demanded, it will not be singular," you thought in vain that you had found examples in the little worm born in an apple and the spider that brings forth the thread of its weaving from an apparently whole body. Some things are said cleverly for the sake of resemblance, some more remotely, some more fittingly. But Christ alone was born of a virgin. From this you now understand, I think, why I said this was without example. Everything God does, whether usual or unusual, has its own causes and right and blameless reasons. When those causes and reasons are hidden, we marvel at what is done; when they are plain, we say that the thing happens consequently and fittingly, and that it is not to be wondered at because it was done as reason required. Or, if we marvel, we do so not by being stunned at something unexpected, but by praising excellence. This is the form of wonder by which the centurion was praised. Nor should the sentence "If a reason is asked, it will not be marvelous" be criticized, because there is another form of wonder even when the reason is plain to the one who marvels. In the same way the saying "God tempts no one" is not at fault, because there is another form of testing for which it is rightly said, "The Lord your God is testing you." No one should think it can rightly be said that the Father may be seen by the Son with bodily eyes, rather than as the Son is seen by the Father, because those who hold this view, when they fail to give a reason, can themselves say, "If a reason is asked, it will not be marvelous." That saying means not that there is no reason, but that the reason is hidden. In the case not of a miracle but of an error, whoever tries to refute the opinion must show that there is no reason at all. Just as there is no reason by which God's nature may die, be corrupted, or sin, and when we say God cannot do this we do not detract from his power but praise his eternity and truth, so when we say he cannot be seen by bodily eyes, the reason is not hidden but plain to those who understand well. It is evident that God is not a body, and that nothing can be seen by bodily eyes unless it is seen with some interval of space between. Such a thing can only be a body, a substance smaller in part than in whole. To believe this about God must be impious even for those who cannot yet understand it. The reason for different changes is hidden, and from this comes the whole forest of visible miracles. But is it hidden that bodies exist, that we have a body, and that there is no body however small that does not occupy space according to its measure, and that in the space it occupies it is not wholly everywhere but smaller in part than in whole? Since these things are not hidden, their consequences must be woven from them. To do that now is too long. From them it would be shown not that the reason is hidden, but that there is absolutely no reason by which it should be believed, or could be understood, that God, who is wholly everywhere and is not spread through spaces by bodily mass, needing larger and smaller parts, can be seen by bodily eyes. I would have said more if I had undertaken this in the present letter. Without noticing, I have gone on at length, almost forgetting my occupations, so that perhaps, contrary to what I thought, I have satisfied your attention. You can think out more from a few reminders. But others, into whose hands these things may not come uselessly, need a fuller and more careful discussion. People struggle in learning: they cannot understand brief things, and they do not love to read long ones. Teachers struggle too, because they throw a few things at the slow and many things at the lazy in vain. Send also a copy of that letter which, having gone astray among us, could not be found.

EPISTOLA 162 Scripta a. 414 aut 415. Augustinus negotiis distentus (n. 1) Evodio respondet solutionem quaestionis in Ep. 160 propositae ex aliis a se editis opusculis petendam (n. 2). Confirmat opinionem quam in Ep. 159 tetigerat de anima corpore soluta (n. 3) deque visis prodigiosis (nn. 4-5). Postremo vindicat sententiam illam in praemissa proxime epistola reprehensam: Si ratio quaeritur, non erit mirabile etc. (nn. 6-9). DOMINO BEATISSIMO, ET VENERABILI FRATRI ET COEPISCOPO SANCTO EVODIO, ET TECUM FRATRIBUS, AUGUSTINUS, ET MECUM FRATRES, IN DOMINO SALUTEM. A. negotiis distentus aliud praetermittit opus. 1. Multa quaeris ab homine multum occupato; et, quod est gravius, ea putas praecipitari debere dictando, quae sunt tam difficilia, ut cum magna diligentia dictata vel scripta, vix perduci possint ad intellectum etiam talium qualis ipse es. Huc accedit quia non tu et tales tantummodo cogitandi estis lecturi esse quod scribimus; sed utique et illi qui minus acuto minusque exercitato ingenio praediti, eo tamen studio feruntur ad cognoscendas litteras nostras, sive amico, sive inimico animo, ut eis subtrahi omnino non possint. Ista cogitanti cernis quanta cura in scribendo esse debeat, praesertim de rebus ita magnis, ut in eis et magni laborent. Si autem cum aliquid in manibus habeo, intermittendum est et differendum, ut ad ea potius respondeatur quae supervenientia requiruntur; quid fiet si etiam ipsis dum respondetur, alia supervenerint? Num placet ut etiam his omissis illa suscipiantur, et semper priora fiant quae posteriora oboriuntur, eaque sola terminare contingat, quibus cum scribuntur non supervenerit aliquid quod quaeratur? Quod ut mihi accidat difficillimum est; sed non opinor tibi hoc placere. Non ergo debui alia interrumpere cum tua supervenissent, sicut nec tua, si alia rursus irruerint; et tamen servare hanc iustitiam non sinor. Nam ecce ut tibi haec ipsa rescriberem, quibus id admonerem, intermisi quae agebam, et animum meum ad hanc epistolam ab alia magna intentione detorsi. Quibus Augustini operibus solvatur quaestio. 2. Facile autem fuit hanc excusationem, ut arbitror, non iniquam, litteris inditam tibi remittere; respondere autem inquisitionibus tuis non ita facile est: et puto in ipsis opusculis quae me nunc intentissimum detinent, non defutura quaedam loca, ubi haec ipsa expediam quae requiris, si Dominus faverit. Iam etiam ex iis quaestionibus quas modo misisti, multa soluta sunt in eis libris quos nondum edidi, sive de Trinitate, sive de Genesi. Quamquam et illa si relegas quae tibi iamdiu nota sunt, vel, nisi fallor, fuerunt, quia ea fortasse oblitus es quae te conferente mecum ac sermocinante conscripsi, sive de Animae Quantitate, sive de Libero Arbitrio; invenies unde dissolvas, etiam sine mea opera, dubitationes tuas, adhibito scilicet nonnullo labore cogitationis, ut iis quae ibi ad intellectum liquidum certumque perducta sunt, consequentia nectantur. Habes etiam librum de Vera Religione, quem si recoleres atque perspiceres, numquam tibi videretur, ratione cogi Deum esse, vel ratiocinando effici Deum esse debere. Quandoquidem in ratione numerorum, quam certe in usu quotidiano habemus, si dicimus, Septem et tria decem esse debent, minus considerate loquimur; non enim decem esse debent, sed decem sunt. De quibus itaque rebus recte dicatur quod esse debeant, sive iam sint, sive ut sint, satis quantum arbitror disputavimus in eis libris quos commemoravi. Homo enim sapiens esse debet, si est, ut maneat; si nondum est, ut fiat: Deus autem sapiens non esse debet, sed est. Anima, ex corpore abstracta, nullum aliud informat corpus. 3. Illa quoque de visis, quae tibi nuperrime scripsi, et ea commemoras subtiliter dicta, sed maioribus te quaestionibus implicasse, recense etiam atque etiam, et cogita diligentius, nec pertranseat, sed habitet in eis consideratio tua; et inde fortasse utcumque conicies quomodo sit anima praesens vel absens. In eis quippe visis demoratur in somnis, cum abest a sensu praesentiaque cernendi quam praebet oculis, vigilans: hanc autem ab oculis, hoc est tamquam a luminaribus corporis animae absentiam, quae fit cum dormimus, si vis maior augeat, ut totum quod est inde subtrahatur, mors est. Sicut ergo a cernendi sensu ad visa somniorum, non cum aliquo corpore abscedit, nisi forte illa quae videntur in somnis corporea, nosque ipsos inter illa, hac atque illac ferri ac referri cum aliquo corpore existimabimus; quod iam tibi arbitror non videri: ita si tota penitus abstrahatur atque absit, quod fit in morte, non secum putanda est auferre aliquod corpus ex corpore. Nam si auferret, profecto etiam cum dormimus et abscedit ab oculis, in quantum eos relinquit, in tantum oculos secum auferret, quamlibet subtiliores, corporeos tamen; quod non facit. Verumtamen aufert secum quosdam simillimos, sed non corporeos, quibus visa simillima cernit in somnis, sed nec ipsa corporea. Somniorum visa: imagines corporibus simillimae. 4. Porro si aliquis contendat etiam visa somniorum quae similia corporibus apparent, non esse nisi corporea, videtur sibi aliquid dicere, nec ista ingenii tarditas facile convincitur; multorum quippe est etiam non mediocriter acutorum: quoniam parum attendunt quantum valeant imagines corporum, quae fiunt in spiritu, nec omnino sunt corpora. Cum vero eas coguntur intueri, si recte adverterint, atque compererint non eas esse corporeas, sed corporum simillimas, rationem tamen de his non continuo valent reddere, quibus causis et quemadmodum fiant, qua denique natura sua subsistant, vel in quo subiecto sint: utrum ita in animo fiant ut in membrana ex atramento litterae, ubi utraque substantia est, membrana scilicet et atramentum; an sicut sigillum in cera, vel figura quaelibet cui cera subiectum est, illa in subiecto; an utroque modo fiant ista in spiritu nostro, aliquando sic, aliquando autem sic. Imagines in memoria manentes atque externa visa. 5. Movent enim non solum ea ut cogitemus ea quae absunt a sensibus corporis, et in nostra reperiuntur memoria, vel quae nos ipsi ut libitum est, facimus, disponimus, augemus, minuimus, situ, habitu, motu, innumerabilibus qualitatibus formisque variamus. Talia sunt fortassis etiam illa quibus deludimur dormientes, quando non divinitus admonemur; nisi quod haec volentes agimus, illa praeter arbitrium patimur. Non solum haec movent quae in animo de ipso animo fieri non absurde quis putat (quamvis et hoc causis occultioribus, quibus agitur ut istud potius quam illud in conspectum animi veniat); sed etiam quod ait propheta: Et dixit mihi Angelus qui loquebatur in me 1. Neque enim forinsecus voces ad aures corporeas Prophetae venisse credendum est, cum dicit, qui loquebatur in me, non, Ad me. Utrum voces erant de spiritu factae, corporalibus similes, quales agimus cum apud nos taciti multa memoriter, plerumque etiam cantando transcurrimus, sed tamen editae ab Angelo sibi suggerente? Et quod in Evangelio scriptum est: Ecce Angelus Dei apparuit illi in somnis dicens 2: Quomodo enim apparuerit, vel corpus angelicum oculis clausis (Abrahae quippe vigilanti sic apparuerunt, ut eos etiam, cum pedes lavit eis 3, contrectando sentiret)? vel spiritus spiritui dormientis in specie aliqua simili corpori, sicut nos ipsi nobis videmur tali figura etiam per loca moveri somniantes, longe aliter quam membra in stratis iacentia moventur. Explicatur sententia: "Si ratio quaeritur etc." ex Ep. 137. 6. Haec ideo mira sunt, quia occultiorem habent rationem, quam ut videri vel reddi ab homine homini possit. Nam istae causae sunt admirationis, cum vel ratio cuiusque rei latet, vel eadem res usitata non est, quod aut singularis aut rara est. Ex illa ergo causa latentis rationis, ego dixi in epistola quam te legisse commemoras, cum eis responderem qui negant esse credendum, quod Christum virgo pepererit, virgo permanserit: Si ratio quaeritur, non erit mirabile: hoc enim dictum est, non quod ratione res careat, sed quod eos lateat quibus hoc Deus voluit esse mirabile. Ex alia vero admirationis causa, quae ideo est, quia insolitum aliquid occurrit, scriptum est de Domino quod miratus sit Centurionis fidem; neque enim eum rei ullius ratio potuit latere, sed admiratio pro laude posita est eius cuius par in populo Hebraeo non apparuerat: unde ipsa admiratio satis exposita est, cum Dominus ait: Amen dico vobis, non inveni tantam fidem in Israel 4. Cur aliquid admirationem faciat. 7. Quod autem adieci in eadem epistola: Si exemplum poscitur, non erit singulare; frustra tibi visus es velut exempla invenisse de vermiculo qui in pomo nascitur, et aranea quae filum textrinae suae corpore velut integro parit. Dicuntur enim aliqua argute cuiusdam similitudinis gratia, alia remotius, alia congruentius; sed solus Christus natus est ex virgine: unde iam intellegis, quantum existimo, cur hoc esse dixerim sine exemplo. Habent itaque omnia causas suas atque rationes rectas et inculpabiles, quae Deus vel usitata vel inusitata operatur. Sed hae causae atque rationes cum latent, miramur quae fiunt; cum autem patent, consequenter ea vel convenienter fieri dicimus; nec mirandum esse, quia facta sunt, quae ratio exigebat ut fierent. Aut, si miramur, non inopinata stupendo, sed excellentia laudando miramur: quo genere admirationis Centurio ille laudatus est. Nec ideo reprehendenda est sententia qua dictum est: Si ratio quaeritur, non erit mirabile; quoniam est aliud genus admirationis, etiam cum ratio manifesta est admiranti: neque enim propterea culpatur sententia qua dictum est: Deus neminem tentat 5, quoniam est aliud genus tentationis, propter quod recte itidem dictum est: Tentat vos Dominus Deus vester 6. Cur Pater nequeat a Filio carneis oculis videri. 8. Nec quisquam existimet ideo merito posse dici corporeis oculis a Filio Patrem videri, ac non potius sicut a Patre Filium, quia illi qui hoc putant, cum in reddenda ratione defecerint, possunt et ipsi dicere: "Si ratio quaeritur, non erit mirabile": hoc enim dictum est, non quia non est ratio, sed quia latet. Illius autem non miraculi, sed erroris, demonstrare debet nullam esse rationem, quisquis id opinantes refellere aggreditur. Sicut enim nulla ratio est qua Dei natura moriatur, aut corrumpatur, aut peccet; et cum hoc Deum non posse dicimus, non derogamus potestati eius, sed aeternitatem veritatemque laudamus: ita cum dicimus non posse videri oculis corporeis, non latet, sed patet ratio bene intellegentibus, qua perspicuum est Deum corpus non esse, nec aliquid corporeis oculis cerni posse, nisi quod alicuius intervalli interpositione cernatur: id autem nonnisi corpus esse, eamque substantiam quae minor sit in parte quam in toto; quod de Deo credere nefas esse debet etiam iis qui hoc intellegere nondum valent. Deus incorporeus nequit corporis oculis videri. 9. Latet ratio diversarum commutationum; et hinc est omnium visibilium silva miraculorum: numquid tamen ideo latet esse corpora, habere nos corpus, nullum esse quantulumcumque corpusculum, quod non pro suo modo loci occupet spatium; nec in eo quod occupat ubique sit totum, sed minus sit in parte quam in toto? Haec quoniam non latent, his contexenda sunt consequentia, quod nunc facere nimis longum est, quibus ostendatur non rationem latere, sed rationem omnino nullam esse qua credi debeat, vel possit intellegi, Deum qui ubique totus est, nec per spatia locorum corporea mole diffunditur, in qua necesse habeat partibus maioribus minoribusque constare, cerni corporeis oculis posse. Unde plura dicerem si hoc in epistola ista suscepissem, in cuius longitudinem non sentiens progressus sum, pene oblitus occupationum mearum, ita ut fortasse, quod non arbitrabar, intentioni tuae satis fecerim, qui potes paucis admonitus plura cogitare quae competunt; sed non etiam eorum in quorum manus non inaniter venire ista possunt, si diligentius et copiosius disserantur. Laborant autem homines in discendo, et brevia non valent intellegere, prolixa non amant legere. Laborant itidem in docendo, qui et pauca tardis, et multa pigris frustra ingerunt. Mitte et illius epistolae exemplum, quae apud nos aberrans non potuit inveniri.