Tertullian — On the Soul 44
XLIV. ON HERMOTIMUS. [1] For the rest, concerning Hermotimus. The soul, they say, was absent in sleep, as if departing from the body by occasion of the man being vacant. His wife betrayed this. Enemies found him sleeping and burned him as one dead. The soul returning too late, I believe, charged itself with murder. The citizens of Clazomenae console Hermotimus with a temple; the wife does not approach, marked as wife. [2] To what end? Lest, because the crowd easily thinks sleep is the soul’s secession, credulity be dressed up also by this Hermotimus argument. It had been a kind of somewhat heavier sopor — as the presumption about the incubus, or that disease-flaw Soranus opposes excluding the incubus — or some such fault as also drove Epimenides into fable, nearly fifty years sleepy. ****** Sleep is not the soul sneaking out without death. Do not dress a folk-tale into a doctrine of the soul.
Latin
>XLIV. DE HERMOTIMO. [1] Ceterum de Hermotimo. Anima, ut aiunt, in somno carebat, quasi per occasionem uacaturi hominis proficiscente de corpore. Vxor hoc prodidit. Inimici dormientem nacti pro defuncto cremauerunt. Regressa anima tardius, credo, homicidium sibi imputauit. Ciues Clazomenii Hermotimum templo consolantur. Mulier non adit ob notam uxoris. [2] Quorsum istud? Ne, quia facile est uulgo existimare secessionem animae esse somnum, hoc quoque Hermotimi argumento credulitas subornetur. Genus fuerat grauioris aliquanto soporis, ut de incubone praesumptio est uel de ea ualetudinis labe quam Soranus opponit excludens incubonem, aut tale quid uitii quod etiam Epimeniden in fabulam impegit quinquaginta paene annos somniculosum. Sed et Neronem Suetonius et Thrasymeden Theopompus negant unquam somniasse, nisi uix Neronem in ultimo exitu post pauores suos. [3] Quid, si et Hermotimus ita fuit, ut otium animae nihil operantis in somnis diuortium crederetur? Omnia magis coniectes quam istam licentiam animae sine morte fugitiuae, et quidem ex forma continuam. Si enim tale quid semel accidere dicatur, ut deliquium solis aut lunae, ita et animae, sane persuaderer deuinitus factum; congruere enim hominem seu moneri seu terreri a deo, uelut fulgure rapido, momentaneae mortis ictu ---- si non magis in proximo esset somnium credi, quod uigilanti potius accidere deberet, si non somnium magis credi oporteret.