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."(1) 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."(2)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 possessed 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.
CHAP.4.--EXAMPLES FROM NATURE PROVING THATBODIES MAY REMAIN UNCONSUMED AND ALIVE IN FIRE.
If, therefore, the salamander lives in fire, as naturalists(1) have recorded, and if certain famous mountains of Sicily have been continually on fire from the remotest antiquity until now, and yet remain entire, these are sufficiently convincing examples that everything which burns is not consumed.As the soul too, is a proof that not everything which can suffer pain can also die, why then do they yet demand that we produce real examples to prove that it is not incredible that the bodies of men condemned to everlasting punishment may retain their soul in the fire, may burn without being consumed, and may suffer without perishing? For suitable properties will be communicated to the substance of the flesh by Him who has endowed the things we see with so marvellous and diverse properties, that their very multitude prevents our wonder.For who but God the Creator of all things has given to the flesh of the peacock its antiseptic property? This property, when I first heard of it, seemed to me incredible; but it happened at Carthage that a bird of this kind was cooked and served up to me, and, taking a suitable slice of flesh from its breast, I ordered it to be kept, and when it had been kept as many days as make any other flesh stinking, it was produced and set before me, and emitted no offensive smell.And after it had been laid by for thirty days and more, it was still in the same state; and a year after, the same still, except that it was a little more shrivelled, and drier.Who gave to chaff such power to freeze that it preserves snow buried under it, and such power to warm that it ripens green fruit?