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Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul
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Chapter II.—The Christian Has Sure and Simple Knowledge Concerning the Subject Before Us.
Chapter III.—The Soul’s Origin Defined Out of the Simple Words of Scripture.
Chapter IV.—In Opposition to Plato, the Soul Was Created and Originated at Birth.
Chapter V.—Probable View of the Stoics, that the Soul Has a Corporeal Nature.
Chapter VII.—The Soul’s Corporeality Demonstrated Out of the Gospels.
Chapter VIII.—Other Platonist Arguments Considered.
Chapter IX.—Particulars of the Alleged Communication to a Montanist Sister.
Chapter X.—The Simple Nature of the Soul is Asserted with Plato. The Identity of Spirit and Soul.
Chapter XII.—Difference Between the Mind and the Soul, and the Relation Between Them.
Chapter XIII.—The Soul’s Supremacy.
Chapter XV.—The Soul’s Vitality and Intelligence. Its Character and Seat in Man.
Chapter XVI.—The Soul’s Parts. Elements of the Rational Soul.
Chapter XVII.—The Fidelity of the Senses, Impugned by Plato, Vindicated by Christ Himself.
Chapter XVIII.—Plato Suggested Certain Errors to the Gnostics. Functions of the Soul.
Chapter XXI.—As Free-Will Actuates an Individual So May His Character Change.
Chapter XXII.—Recapitulation. Definition of the Soul.
Chapter XXIII.—The Opinions of Sundry Heretics Which Originate Ultimately with Plato.
Chapter XXVI.—Scripture Alone Offers Clear Knowledge on the Questions We Have Been Controverting.
Chapter XXVII.—Soul and Body Conceived, Formed and Perfected in Element Simultaneously.
Chapter XXVIII.—The Pythagorean Doctrine of Transmigration Sketched and Censured.
Chapter XXX.—Further Refutation of the Pythagorean Theory. The State of Contemporary Civilisation.
Chapter XXXI.—Further Exposure of Transmigration, Its Inextricable Embarrassment.
Chapter XXXIII.—The Judicial Retribution of These Migrations Refuted with Raillery.
Chapter XXXVI.—The Main Points of Our Author’s Subject. On the Sexes of the Human Race.
Chapter XXXIX.—The Evil Spirit Has Marred the Purity of the Soul from the Very Birth.
Chapter XL.—The Body of Man Only Ancillary to the Soul in the Commission of Evil.
Chapter XLII.—Sleep, the Mirror of Death, as Introductory to the Consideration of Death.
Chapter XLV.—Dreams, an Incidental Effect of the Soul’s Activity. Ecstasy.
Chapter XLVIII.—Causes and Circumstances of Dreams. What Best Contributes to Efficient Dreaming.
Chapter XLIX.—No Soul Naturally Exempt from Dreams.
Chapter LI.—Death Entirely Separates the Soul from the Body.
Chapter LVII.—Magic and Sorcery Only Apparent in Their Effects. God Alone Can Raise the Dead.
Chapter XXII.—Recapitulation. Definition of the Soul.
Hermogenes has already heard from us what are the other natural faculties of the soul, as well as their vindication and proof; whence it may be seen that the soul is rather the offspring of God than of matter. The names of these faculties shall here be simply repeated, that they may not seem to be forgotten and passed out of sight. We have assigned, then, to the soul both that freedom of the will which we just now mentioned, and its dominion over the works of nature, and its occasional gift of divination, independently of that endowment of prophecy which accrues to it expressly from the grace of God. We shall therefore now quit this subject of the soul’s disposition, in order to set out fully in order its various qualities.176 Tertullian had shown that “the soul is the breath or afflatus of God,” in ch. iv. and xi. above. He demonstrated its “immortality” in ch. ii.–iv., vi., ix., xiv.; and he will repeat his proof hereafter, in ch. xxiv., xxxviii., xlv., li., liii., liv. Moreover, he illustrates the soul’s “corporeity” in ch. v.–viii.; its “endowment with form or figure,” in ch. ix.; its “simplicity in substance” in ch. x. and xi.; its “inherent intelligence,” in ch. xii.; its varied development, in ch. xiii.–xv. The soul’s “rationality,” “supremacy,” and “instinctive divination,” Tertullian treated of in his treatise De Censu Animæ against Hermogenes (as he has said in the text); but he has treated somewhat of the soul’s “rational nature” in the sixteenth chapter above; in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters he referred to the soul’s “supremacy or hegemony;” whilst we have had a hint about its “divining faculty,” even in infants, in ch. xix. The propagation of souls from the one archetypal soul is the subject of the chapter before us, as well as of the five succeeding ones (La Cerda). The soul, then, we define to be sprung from the breath of God, immortal, possessing body, having form, simple in its substance, intelligent in its own nature, developing its power in various ways, free in its determinations, subject to be changes of accident, in its faculties mutable, rational, supreme, endued with an instinct of presentiment, evolved out of one (archetypal soul). It remains for us now to consider how it is developed out of this one original source; in other words, whence, and when, and how it is produced.
CAPUT XXII.
Caetera animae naturalia jam a nobis audiit Hermogenes, cum ipsorum defensione et probatione per quae Dei potius quam materiae cognoscitur. Hic solummodo 0685C nominabuntur, ne praeterita videantur. De dimus enim illi et libertatem arbitrii, ut supra scripsimus, et dominationem rerum. et divinationem interdum, seposita quae per Dei gratiam obvenit 0686A ex prophetia. Itaque jam ab isto dispositionis retractatu recedam, ut ordinem ejus expungam. Definimus animam Dei flatu natam, immortalem, corporalem, effigiatam, substantia simplicem, de suo patientem , varie procedentem, liberam arbitrii, accidentiis obnoxiam, per ingenia mutabilem, rationalem, dominatricem, divinatricem, ex una redundantem. Sequitur nunc, ut quomodo ex una redundet consideremus, id est, unde, et quando, et qua ratione sumatur.