What is the SOUL and lessons about the soul

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Saint Maximus the Confessor (581-662) was a Christian monk and Byzantine theologian, the creator of a broad theological system that encompassed Christian thought from Origen to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, including Hellenic Neoplatonists such as Plotinus and Proclus.

Maxim was most likely born in Constantinople, although some of his opponents claimed that he was born in Palestine. He was of noble origin, so as a young man he became a high courtier (first secretary or adviser to the imperial senate) at the court of the Byzantine emperor Heracles.

Around 615, he left public office and became a monk at the Filipik Monastery in Chrysopolis, a small town near Constantinople on the Asian side (now Üsküdar in Turkey). During the years spent in Chrysopolje, Maxim became the ava (or elder) of the monastery.

When the Persian Empire conquered Anatolia, Maximus was forced to flee to a monastery near Carthage. There, under the tutelage of St. Sophronius, he began to study Neoplatonism and Christological writings (Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius the Areopagite). In Carthage, Maximus became a prominent theological writer and a very influential spiritual figure in North Africa, highly esteemed by the exarch, and considered a holy man by the people.

ABOUT THE SOUL

First of all, I will set the criteria by which the soul can be understood. Then, through which its existence is shown. After that, does it have its definite essence, or is its essence indefinite? This is followed by whether the (soul) is simple or complex. Then, whether it is mortal or immortal. And finally, whether it is reasonable or unreasonable.

All these questions, in most cases, would be asked in the conversation about the soul, because these are the main questions that can characterize its property. As evidence for determining what we are researching, we will use general terms, which will clearly confirm what we have in our hands.

And for the sake of brevity and the sake of benefit, we will stick only to those reasonings that are necessary for the subject of research that will now be proven. For the understanding to be clear and easy, we will introduce a certain readiness to face the opposite arguments. So let’s start the letter.

What is the criterion for understanding the soul?

Everything that exists is known by the senses or understood by the mind. And what falls under the realm of the senses, has sufficient proof of sensuality itself, because together with perception, an idea of a given object is created in us. But what is understood by the mind is not known by itself but based on the opposite. Thus the soul, being unknown, does not know itself, but precisely from its manifestations.

Is there a soul?

Our body is moved, or it moves outside or inside. And that it does not move from the outside is clear from the fact that it does not move in the same way as when someone pushes or pulls it, as, for example, soulless objects move. Inside, again, moving, it does not move naturally, like, for example, fire. For fire does not cease to move until it ceases to be fire, just as the body, having become dead, does not move, remaining the body.

Therefore, if the body does not move externally, as soulless objects move, nor naturally, such as fire, then it is obvious that it is moved by the soul, which also gives it life.

If therefore, it is shown that the soul gives life to our body, then it is clear that the soul itself is known based on what is opposite to it.

Is the soul the essence?

That it is the essence is shown from the following: first, naturally, it should be said what the definition of the essence is since it is the essence. Then, what is that essence since it is the same in number, but it is capable of receiving states opposite to each other?

It is clear from everything that the soul receives opposite states, although it does not deviate from its nature. In it, one can see justice and injustice, courage and timidity, chastity, and intemperance, states that are opposite to each other. If therefore, the property of essence is expressed in the ability to receive states that are opposite to each other, then it is clear that the same definition applies to the soul. So the soul is the essence.

Then, if the body is a being, the soul must be also a being. Because it cannot be that what is revived has an essence, and what revives it does not have an essence. Can it be said that what is nothing and has no essence will be the cause of what has its essence? Or, again, if something has life in another, and without that other, it cannot exist, then what fool would say that it is the cause of that other since he has life?

Is the soul disembodied?

It has been shown above that the soul is in the body. So we need to see how it is in the body? If it is added to the body as a pebble stands next to a pebble, then the soul is also a body. Then it cannot be said that the whole body is imbued with the soul, because (in that case) the soul is added to only one part of it. And if it is mixed and merged with it, then the soul should be said to be composed of many parts, and not to be simple, which is rejected by the very notion of the soul. Because what is composed of several parts can also be divisible. What can be divisible is also separable. What can be disassembled consists of parts?

What consists of parts has three dimensions. What has three dimensions is the body. When a body is added to the body, it creates a crowd. And the soul that is in the body does not create a crowd but revives it. Therefore, the soul is not the body, but it is disembodied.

More: if the soul is a body, does it move from within or from without? Nor does it move outward, because it is not pushed or pulled like soulless objects; nor does it move from within, as beings with the soul move, because it would be inappropriate to speak "of the soul of the soul." She is certainly not a body: therefore, she is disembodied.

And again: if the soul is a body, does (it) have sensory properties, and does it feed? No, she doesn't eat. And if it feeds, it does not feed the body, as (what it feeds) the body, but disembodied, because it feeds on the word and thought.

Therefore, it has no sensory properties, because (eyes) cannot see justice, courage, or any of such phenomena, because they are properties of the soul. She really is not a body. So she is disembodied.

Is the soul simple?

That the soul is simple is shown, for the most part, by what has been proved to be disembodied. If it is not a body, because everybody is composed, and what is composed is composed of parts, and it (soul) is not multi-part. Being disembodied, it is simple, because it is not composed of parts.

Is the soul immortal?

I think that what is simple (by its nature) is followed by immortality. And how do we come to such a conclusion? Listen. None of the existing beings is perishable by itself, since in the beginning, it was not. Because what is perishable perishes by the action of something opposite to it. That is why everything perishable is separable. And it is detachably complex. And it is complex in many parts. What is made up of parts is clearly made up of different parts. And what is different is not the same.

Therefore, since the soul is simple and is not composed of different parts, and since it is uncomplicated and inseparable, it is therefore imperishable and immortal.

And again, what is started from something else, does not have in itself a life principle, but received it from the mover, and exists as long as it is possessed by that driving force. And it disintegrates as soon as that active principle ceases.

What, on the other hand, does not start from something else, but has the ability to move by itself, just as the soul is self-moving, never ceases to be, because what is self-moving is followed by the fact that it is always moving. What is always moving is constant. What is constant is infinite.

It is infinitely imperishable. And imperishable is immortal. Therefore, if the soul is self-moving, as shown above, then it is imperishable according to the attached conclusion.

And yet: if everything perishable perishes because of its own evil, then what does not perish with its own evil is imperishable. Evil is that which opposes good, therefore it destroys it. Because the body has no other evil than suffering, illness, and death, as well as its virtues - beauty, life, health, and strength. And evil souls are fear, debauchery, envy, and the like. However, all that does not deprive her of life and movement. So she is immortal.

Is the soul reasonable?

That our soul is reasonable, everyone will show based on many things, and above all by the fact that it has found (various) skills6 that are useful in life. Because skills did not appear just like that, or by chance, because no one can say or prove that they are ineffective and useless for life. So, if skills contribute to what is useful in life, then what is useful deserves to be praised.

And that which is commendable is created by reason. Skills are the discovery of the soul. So our soul is reasonable. Then, since our senses alone are not enough to comprehend things, it turns out that our soul is rational. Because, for understanding beings, we are not satisfied only with sensory experiences, because we do not want to be deceived regarding them.

Here, for example, things that are different in nature - are they equal in shape and similar to each other in color? - sensory feeling is impossible to judge. Being unreasonable, sensory feelings can only give us a false idea of things, while we achieve them with reason. And that everything is really like that, we see by the fact that those phenomena whose existence, shape, color, etc. the senses transmit to the mind (which limits their role) the soul then knows how to use it to its advantage, to make choices and turn them into what suits us.

Therefore, if the existing things can be given a false idea by the sense organs, being unreasonable, there is a mind that judges everything, and knows all true things as it is. The mind is the rational part of the soul. So the soul is reasonable.

Still: we do not put into practice anything that we did not first imagine. It is nothing but the value of the soul. Because the mind is not attached to it from the outside, as well as the knowledge of existing things, but as if it itself arranges things with the forces of thought, from itself. That is why a preliminary draft of some things is made in it first, and then it is implemented. The value of the soul is nothing but to do everything with reason. Because it has already been shown that she makes a difference between the cognitions provided to her by the sense organs. So the soul is reasonable.