26. But when I hear the soul
spoken of as something extraordinary, as akin and very nigh to God,
and
as coming hither knowing all about past times, I would have
it teach, not learn; and not go back to the rudiments, as the saying
is, after being advanced in knowledge, but hold fast the truths it has
learned when it enters its earthly body.
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For unless it were so, how could
it be discerned whether
the soul
recalls to memory or learns
for the first time
that which it hears; seeing that it is much
easier to believe that it learns what it is unacquainted with, than
that it has forgot what it knew
but
a little before, and that
its power of recalling former things is lost through the interposition
of the body? And what becomes of the doctrine that souls,
being
bodiless, do not have substance? For that which is
not connected with
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any bodily form is not hampered by the
opposition of another, nor can anything be led
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to destroy that which cannot be touched
by what is set against it. For as a proportion established in
bodies remains unaffected and secure, though it be lost to sight in a
thousand cases; so must souls, if they are not material, as is
asserted, retain their knowledge
3576
of the past, however thoroughly they
may have been enclosed in bodies.
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Moreover, the same reasoning not
only shows that they are not incorporeal, but deprives them of
all
3578
immortality
even, and refers them to the limits within which life is usually
closed. For whatever is led by some inducement to change and
alter itself, so that it cannot retain its natural state, must of
necessity be considered essentially passive. But that which is
liable and exposed to suffering, is declared to be corruptible by that
very capacity of suffering.
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Lit., “but retaining its own things, bind itself in earthly
bodies.”
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Lit., “of.”
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So the
ms.
and edd., reading
sua-de-ri
, for which Oehler reads very neatly
sua de
vi
—“can anything of its own power destroy,”
etc.
3576
Lit., “not suffer forgetfulness.”
3577
Lit., “however the most solid unions of bodies may have bound
them round.”
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So the edd. reading
privat immortalitate has omni
, for
which, according to Hildebrand, the
ms.
reads
-tatem has omnis
—“all these of
immortality.”