A Treatise on the Soul.

 Having discussed with Hermogenes the single point of the origin of the soul, so far as his assumption led me, that the soul consisted rather in an ada

 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 VI.—The Arguments of the Platonists for the Soul’s Incorporeality, Opposed, Perhaps Frivolously.

 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 XI.—Spirit—A Term Expressive of an Operation of the Soul, Not of Its Nature.  To Be Carefully Distinguished from the Spirit of God.

 Chapter XII.—Difference Between the Mind and the Soul, and the Relation Between Them.

 Chapter XIII.—The Soul’s Supremacy.

 Chapter XIV.—The Soul Variously Divided by the Philosophers This Division is Not a Material Dissection.

 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 XIX.—The Intellect Coeval with the Soul in the Human Being. An Example from Aristotle Converted into Evidence Favourable to These Views.

 Chapter XX.—The Soul, as to Its Nature Uniform, But Its Faculties Variously Developed. Varieties Only Accidental.

 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 XXIV.—Plato’s Inconsistency. He Supposes the Soul Self-Existent, Yet Capable of Forgetting What Passed in a Previous State.

 Chapter XXV.—Tertullian Refutes, Physiologically, the Notion that the Soul is Introduced After Birth.

 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 XXIX.—The Pythagorean Doctrine Refuted by Its Own First Principle, that Living Men are Formed from the Dead.

 Chapter XXX.—Further Refutation of the Pythagorean Theory.  The State of Contemporary Civilisation.

 Chapter XXXI.—Further Exposure of Transmigration, Its Inextricable Embarrassment.

 Chapter XXXII.—Empedocles Increased the Absurdity of Pythagoras by Developing the Posthumous Change of Men into Various Animals.

 Chapter XXXIII.—The Judicial Retribution of These Migrations Refuted with Raillery.

 Chapter XXXIV.—These Vagaries Stimulated Some Profane Corruptions of Christianity. The Profanity of Simon Magus Condemned.

 Chapter XXXV.—The Opinions of Carpocrates, Another Offset from the Pythagorean Dogmas, Stated and Confuted.

 Chapter XXXVI.—The Main Points of Our Author’s Subject. On the Sexes of the Human Race.

 Chapter XXXVII.—On the Formation and State of the Embryo. Its Relation with the Subject of This Treatise.

 Chapter XXXVIII.—On the Growth of the Soul. Its Maturity Coincident with the Maturity of the Flesh in Man.

 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 XLI.—Notwithstanding the Depravity of Man’s Soul by Original Sin, There is Yet Left a Basis Whereon Divine Grace Can Work for Its Recovery by

 Chapter XLII.—Sleep, the Mirror of Death, as Introductory to the Consideration of Death.

 Chapter XLIII.—Sleep a Natural Function as Shown by Other Considerations, and by the Testimony of Scripture.

 Chapter XLIV.—The Story of Hermotimus, and the Sleeplessness of the Emperor Nero. No Separation of the Soul from the Body Until Death.

 Chapter XLV.—Dreams, an Incidental Effect of the Soul’s Activity.  Ecstasy.

 Chapter XLVI.—Diversity of Dreams and Visions. Epicurus Thought Lightly of Them, Though Generally Most Highly Valued. Instances of Dreams.

 Chapter XLVII.—Dreams Variously Classified. Some are God-Sent, as the Dreams of Nebuchadnezzar Others Simply Products of Nature.

 Chapter XLVIII.—Causes and Circumstances of Dreams. What Best Contributes to Efficient Dreaming.

 Chapter XLIX.—No Soul Naturally Exempt from Dreams.

 Chapter L.—The Absurd Opinion of Epicurus and the Profane Conceits of the Heretic Menander on Death, Even Enoch and Elijah Reserved for Death.

 Chapter LI.—Death Entirely Separates the Soul from the Body.

 Chapter LII.—All Kinds of Death a Violence to Nature, Arising from Sin.—Sin an Intrusion Upon Nature as God Created It.

 Chapter LIII.—The Entire Soul Being Indivisible Remains to the Last Act of Vitality Never Partially or Fractionally Withdrawn from the Body.

 Chapter LIV.—Whither Does the Soul Retire When It Quits the Body?  Opinions of Philosophers All More or Less Absurd. The Hades of Plato.

 Chapter LV.—The Christian Idea of the Position of Hades The Blessedness of Paradise Immediately After Death. The Privilege of the Martyrs.

 Chapter LVI.—Refutation of the Homeric View of the Soul’s Detention from Hades Owing to the Body’s Being Unburied. That Souls Prematurely Separated fr

 Chapter LVII.—Magic and Sorcery Only Apparent in Their Effects.  God Alone Can Raise the Dead.

 Chapter LVIII.—Conclusion. Points Postponed. All Souls are Kept in Hades Until the Resurrection, Anticipating Their Ultimate Misery or Bliss.

Chapter XLIV.—The Story of Hermotimus, and the Sleeplessness of the Emperor Nero. No Separation of the Soul from the Body Until Death.

With regard to the case of Hermotimus, they say that he used to be deprived of his soul in his sleep, as if it wandered away from his body like a person on a holiday trip. His wife betrayed the strange peculiarity. His enemies, finding him asleep, burnt his body, as if it were a corpse: when his soul returned too late, it appropriated (I suppose) to itself the guilt of the murder. However the good citizens of Clazomenæ consoled poor Hermotimus with a temple, into which no woman ever enters, because of the infamy of this wife.  Now why this story? In order that, since the vulgar belief so readily holds sleep to be the separation of the soul from the body, credulity should not be encouraged by this case of Hermotimus. It must certainly have been a much heavier sort of slumber: one would presume it was the nightmare, or perhaps that diseased languor which Soranus suggests in opposition to the nightmare, or else some such malady as that which the fable has fastened upon Epimenides, who slept on some fifty years or so. Suetonius, however, informs us that Nero never dreamt, and Theopompus says the same thing about Thrasymedes; but Nero at the close of his life did with some difficulty dream after some excessive alarm. What indeed would be said, if the case of Hermotimus were believed to be such that the repose of his soul was a state of actual idleness during sleep, and a positive separation from his body? You may conjecture it to be anything but such a licence of the soul as admits of flights away from the body without death, and that by continual recurrence, as if habitual to its state and constitution.  If indeed such a thing were told me to have happened at any time to the soul—resembling a total eclipse of the sun or the moon—I should verily suppose that the occurrence had been caused by God’s own interposition, for it would not be unreasonable for a man to receive admonition from the Divine Being either in the way of warning or of alarm, as by a flash of lightning, or by a sudden stroke of death; only it would be much the more natural conclusion to believe that this process should be by a dream, because if it must be supposed to be, (as the hypothesis we are resisting assumes it to be,) not a dream, the occurrence ought rather to happen to a man whilst he is wide awake.

CAPUT XLIV.

Caeterum, de Hermotimo. Anima, ut aiunt, in somno carebat, quasi per occasionem vacaturi hominis proficiscente de corpore. Uxor hoc prodit. Inimici dormientem nacti pro defuncto cremaverunt. Regressa anima tardius, credo, homicidium sibi imputavit. Cives Clazomenii Hermotimum templo consolantur. Mulier non adit, ob notam uxoris. Quorsum istud? Ne quia facile est vulgo existimare secessionem animae esse somnum , hoc quoque Hermo imi argumento credulitas subornetur. Genus 0724C fuerat gravioris aliquanto soporis, ut de incubone praesumptio est, vel valetudinis, quam Soranus opponit, excludens incubonem, aut tale quid vitii, quod etiam Epimenidem in fabulam impegit, quinquaginta pene annos somniculosum. Sed 0725A et Neronem Suetonius , et Thrasimedem Theopompus , negant unquam somniasse: nisi vix Neronem, in ultimo exitu, post pavores suos. Quid si et Hermotimus ita fuit, ut otium animae nihil operantis in somnis divortium crederetur . Omnia magis conjectes, quam istam licentiam animae sine morte fugitivae, et quidem ex forma, continuam . Si enim tale quid semel accidere dicatur, ut deliquium solis aut lunae, ita et animae; sane persuaderer divinitus factum; congruere enim hominem seu moneri, seu terreri a Deo, velut fulgure rapido, momentaneae mortis ictu; si non magis in proximo esset somnium credi, quod vigilanti potius accidere deberet, si non somnium magis credi oporteret .