Chapter 35.

It seems to me that I have already fully and convincingly proved that it is impossible to think that the body has become a bond as a punishment for a crime, so that the soul, having put on deadness, may bear, in their opinion, an unceasing and constant punishment. Therefore it is untenable and impossible that the body is a snare and a fetter, and that God enclosed souls in this snare as a punishment by casting them out of the third heaven because they had broken the commandment. For on what basis can one believe such rash words of theirs? And this is not in the Psalm, but they explain it stiffly... But I will present the very words that are there, so that the falsehood of their interpretation may be revealed, as they do not want to understand the Scriptures correctly. These words are as follows: You have tested us, O God, you have refined us as silver is refined. Thou hast led us into the net, let us put fetters upon our loins; He put a man on our head. We have entered into fire and water, and Thou hast brought us free (Psalm 65:10-11). They immediately add: this is said about the souls cast down from the third heaven, where paradise is, into this body, as into a net, as if for podvig. For, they say, the words: "We have passed through fire and water" mean: either the entry of the soul into the world through the mother's womb, since it dwells there as it were in flame and moisture; or the descent from heaven into this life, which takes place through the springs of fire and the waters that are above the spaces of the firmament. It was against them that I found it necessary to come out. You, Aglaophon, give an answer for them, what will they say?

Chapter 36.

In the first place, paradise, from which we are expelled in the person of the primordial one, is evidently the chosen place on this earth, namely, appointed by the saints for unsorrowful rest and life, from which the Tigris and Euphrates flow and other rivers appear here in order to irrigate our continent with their flow; they do not flow and fall from heaven, because even the earth would not be able to receive such a mass of water rushing at once from a height. And the Apostle does not place paradise in the third heaven, if anyone knows how to understand the subtle meaning of his words: I know a man who was caught up to the third heaven. And I know of such a man (only I don't know whether in the body or out of the body, Boi knows) that he was caught up into paradise (2 Cor. 12:2-4). He shows that he saw two revelations, apparently twice being raptured: once to the third heaven, the other time to paradise. For the words: "I know a man who was caught up to the third heaven" point to the revelation that came to him at the time of the rapture to the third heaven; and the following words: "And I know of such a man (only I do not know whether in the body or out of the body, God knows), that he was caught up into paradise" point to another revelation that came to him in paradise.

But our adversaries, Aglaophon, did not pay careful attention to this word, but began to discuss such subjects as are not safe to discuss, and began to expound the Psalm in accordance with the opinion of ill-intentioned people, of which we will speak no more.

Chapter 37.

Since we once decided to correct their ignorance, I want to reveal to them the meaning of this prophecy: You have tested us, O God, you have refined us as silver is refined. Thus the martyrs, who have been continuously tempted by the blows of torment during the time of torture (for many things in the prophecies refer to us and they are fulfilled by faith), having struggled gloriously and courageously, with the words: "Thou hast tried us," thank God that He, in order to bring them greater glory, tested them with many sorrows, inviting them to gain victory in a truly Olympic contest. See how Solomon agrees with these words and speaks clearly of the torments (for our word is not without testimony from other Scriptures): for God tried them, and found them worthy of Him. He tested them as gold in the furnace, and accepted them as an all-perfect sacrifice, and in the time of their recompense, etc. (Wis. 3:5-6); And he said above: For although they are punished in the eyes of men, yet their hope is full of immortality. And if they are punished a little, they will be favored (vv. 4-5). And in the 123rd Psalm it says: If the Lord had not been with us when men rose up against us, they would have swallowed us up alive when their wrath was kindled against us; the waters would drown us, the stream would pass over our souls; Stormy waters would pass over our souls. Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as a prey to their teeth! Our soul has been delivered, like a bird, from the snare of those who catch; the snare is broken, and we are delivered (Psalm 123:2-8). This Psalm is sung by the martyrs. Thus the two faces of the victorious martyrs, one of the New Testament, the other of the Old Testament, alternately send up a harmonious song to God, the Intercessor and the King of all: Thou hast tested us, hast refined us, as silver is refined; Thou hast led us into the net, Thou hast put fetters upon our loins; here is understood the judgment seat of the pagans, or tortures, during which those who were torn and scorched by fire were greatly tempted. Tempt me, O Lord, says the Psalmist, and try me; melt my inward parts and my heart (Psalm 25:2). Let Abraham, who was kindled in the womb for the only-begotten, and preferred the command of God to all, after hearing the voice: Abraham! Have mercy on thy son, and cast down thy sword, saith these words: Thou hast tried us, O God, hast refined us as silver is refined. Let Job, too, after he had drained with pus, be reviled by his friends and sick in body, let him also, when he heard God say to him in the whirlwind, "Do you think that I have done this to you for something else, and not that you may appear righteous?" (Job 40:3) [15] He says: Thou hast put fetters upon our loins, Thou hast tried us as gold in a furnace. Let the three youths, who are watered in the furnaces, so that they may not be scorched by fire, say: Thou hast tried us, O God, hast refined us, as silver is refined. We have entered into fire and water, and Thou hast brought us free... O God Almighty, eternal, Father of Christ! Grant me also, Methodius, when on Thy day I painlessly pass through the fire and escape the rush of the waters, which have changed into a fiery nature, grant me to say: "I have entered into fire and into water, and Thou hast brought me out to freedom; for this is Thy promise to those who love Thee: if thou passest over the waters, I will be with thee, whether through rivers, they shall not drown thee; if you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and the flame will not scorch you (Isaiah 43:2). However, this is sufficient for the explanation of the Psalm.

Chapter 38.

Now we must pay attention to how they, like sleepy people, carried away by manifold deceptions, point to the words of the Apostle: "I once lived without the law" (Romans 7:9), and say that the Apostle understood our life before the commandment in the original life before the body, which is shown by the following words: "I am carnal, sold to sin" (v. 14); for a man could not have been made subject to evil, having been sold to it as a result of a crime, if he had not become fleshly; since, according to them, the soul in itself is inaccessible to sin, therefore the Apostle added with intention: "But I am carnal, sold to sin," having said before, "I once lived without law." At such words many at that time were astonished and amazed, but now, when the truth has already been more clearly revealed, they are not only far erroneous, but have also reached the point of extreme blasphemy; Admitting that souls before the commandment lived without a body, and judging that they in themselves are completely inaccessible to sin, they again refuted their teaching, or better than themselves. For they adopt to them the bodies which they received afterwards as a punishment for having sinned before the body, and at the same time they bring disapproval upon themselves, likening the body to fetters and fetters, and saying other nonsense. Meanwhile, as it is said, everything is the opposite. For the soul must exist together with the body before sin; for if the soul in itself is inaccessible to sin, then it would in no way have sinned before the body; and if she has sinned, then she is no longer inaccessible to sin, but rather is easily inclined and easily accessible, and consequently she will sin again, even if she did not receive this body, as she sinned before receiving it. And in general, why would she have received a body later, after committing a sin? And what was her need for a body? If in order to endure torments and sorrows, then why does she, together with the body, luxuriate and debauchery? How is it also autocratic in this world? For it depends on us to correct and sin, and for us to do good and do evil. And can we expect a future judgment after this, in which God will reward each according to his deeds and intentions? Shall we not admit that judgment already exists, if to be born and enter into the body for the soul is to be condemned and to receive retribution, and to die and be separated from the body is to be freed and come to rest, because, in your opinion, it is imprisoned in the body for condemnation and punishment for having sinned before the body? But reasoning has sufficiently and abundantly proved that it is impossible to admit that the body is the place of torment and the bondage of the soul.

Chapter 39.

And so, having proved from the Scriptures themselves that the first created crime consisted of soul and body, we can be satisfied and conclude here the discourse on this subject. Now, in order not to disturb the order of speech, I will examine their doctrine in its main foundations, in order to refute the principles of their arguments by objections. For you can already see, judges, that the words spoken in the Epistle to the Romans, "I once lived without the law," cannot, according to their opinion, indicate the life of the soul before the body, as the words that follow show, even though this famous physician, having torn out the following, strives to change the words of the Apostle to a sense suitable for him, acting in this case not as a physician, but as a child. For instead of preserving the bodily members in their own articulations and connections, so that the whole natural appearance of the body might be intact, he, without paying attention, disfigured the connection of the Scriptures, like the Scythian who mercilessly cuts the limbs of some enemy in order to destroy him. So be it; how, it will be said, did the Apostle understand these words, when you proved that they do not have such a meaning? I would say that he calls the commandment the law. Let it be first of all, according to our assumption, that he called the commandment the law, and at the same time he did not say that the first-created one before the commandment lived without a body, but only without sin. For not much time passed from his creation to the commandment, when he lived without sin, not without a body, but with a body. Soon after the commandment he was expelled, having spent a very short time in paradise. And if anyone, using the following saying, "When we lived according to the flesh, then the sinful passions revealed by the law were at work in our members," thinks that the Apostle rebukes and accuses the flesh, and adds to this what is said about the same thing in other places, namely, that the justification of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, or again: for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit on the things of the spirit; carnal thoughts are death, but spiritual thoughts are life and peace; for the carnal mind is enmity against God; for they do not obey the law of God, nor can they; but ye do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4-9), then he must be told: Have the Apostle already renounced life and those to whom he wrote this, if in this passage he did not condemn the life according to the flesh, but the flesh, or was he still in the flesh? But that he was not in the flesh when he wrote this cannot be said; for it is evident that he himself was in the flesh, and those to whom he wrote this. If neither he himself was already in the flesh, nor those to whom he writes, then how could he say: when we lived according to the flesh, then the sinful passions revealed by the law were at work in our members? Thus he discusses the life of intemperance, and not of the flesh itself; for he usually calls the man who lives in this way carnal, as well as the natural man who has lost hope of seeing the truth and the light of the sacrament. Let it be said that the soul cannot be saved at all. For it is written: The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, because he considers them foolishness; but the spiritual judge all things (1 Cor. 2:15). Along with the natural, there is also a spiritual man, the spiritual one among those who are saved, and the spiritual one among those who are perishing, and not because the soul perishes, but because something else besides the soul is saved; so here, when he says that those who are carnal and those who are in the flesh perish and cannot please God, he does not try to destroy the flesh, but the life according to the flesh. Further he says: "Those who live according to the flesh cannot please God; and immediately he adds: but ye do not live according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwelleth in you; and a little further: If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. And so, brethren, we are not debtors to the flesh to live according to the flesh: for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if ye mortify the works of the flesh by the Spirit, ye shall live" (Romans 8:13). Attention should be paid to the Apostle's testimony that it is not the body that is mortified, but the body's striving for voluptuousness.

Chapter 40.

But if they object to this again and say: why then is it said: carnal thoughts are enmity against God: for they do not obey the law of God, neither can they (Romans 8:7), then it must be said that here also they sin. For the Apostle said that it is not the flesh itself that cannot submit to the law of God, but the wisdom of the flesh, which is quite different from the flesh. Thus, if someone were to say: an impurity in ill-refined silver does not submit to the artist in order to make a suitable vessel; for it cannot, because it must first be separated and purified by fire: then by this he would show that it is not silver that can be worked out into a useful vessel, but the admixture of copper and other solid substance found in silver. In the same way, the Apostle, having spoken of the wisdom of the flesh, did not say that the flesh cannot submit to the law of God, but wisdom in the flesh, meaning its striving for intemperance. In other places he sometimes called it the old leaven of wickedness and wickedness, commanding us to cleanse ourselves completely from it (1 Cor. 5:7), sometimes a law that is at war with the law of the mind and captivating (Rom. 7:23). But if he were to say of the flesh itself, that it cannot submit to the law of God, then we, whether we commit debauchery or robbery, or do any other similar works through the body, could not deserve the condemnation of the righteous Judge; for the flesh cannot submit to the law of God. For how could one condemn the body, when it lives in accordance with its inherent nature? In the same way, bodies could not be subjected to the requirements of chastity or virtue, since it is natural for them not to submit to good. For if the nature of the flesh is such that it cannot submit to the law of God, and the law of God is truth and chastity, then it would be absolutely impossible to be either a virgin or an abstinent. But if there are virgins and abstinents, then they abstain evidently because they subdue the body; otherwise it is impossible to refrain from sin. If the body cannot be subject to the law of God, how would John subject his body to purity, or Peter to holiness, or others to righteousness? Why then does Paul say, "And so let not sin reign in your mortal body, that you may obey it in its lusts, and do not give up your members to sin as instruments of iniquity, but present yourselves to God as living from the dead, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness?" (Romans 6:12-13) — and again: As you have delivered up your members to be slaves to uncleanness and iniquity to lawless works: so now present your members to slaves of righteousness to holy works? (v. 19)

Chapter 41.