The Body as Slave and the Soul's Resurrection

He says, but someone is held back by that which he thinks is courage. Rather, this person is merely reckless. We often take courage as being something attached to certain things: courage regarding struggles, regarding wars, courage regarding seafaring; and this kind of courage has no praise. It is a weakness. Even if someone becomes weak in body, yet bears things that come upon him with endurance and patience—this is an underlining of this: Job, who was weak and having been struck all over his body and having almost come to death, had the same courage of the soul.

"The beginning of life is bread and water and a garment and a house surrounding one in unseemliness." These things are the causes of living. And so such natural things are called the beginning of life. And here the name 'beginning' signifies the cause. Therefore, the cause of seeing is sight, the eyes. So he says this—so that I might also understand in agreement—he says this: let it be said, someone acts courageously by using the natural senses; he has the beginning of perceiving from the senses, but he does not keep these by his own courage. For many both courageous and strong men cast away their sight and were deprived of hearing and of the other senses.

Furthermore, regarding the ascent: "And what courage?" I do not say again that the courage which is virtue is "someone's"—though it might be said once that the prudence of Joseph was "someone's"—but regarding the vain courage, I say "courage" of "someone," not as something perfected. For the ascent, "the eyes are the beginning of seeing." I say that there are eyes of the soul which are enlightened, concerning which the apostle writes, "the eyes of your heart having been enlightened" (Eph 1:18). Concerning these it is said, "To you I lifted up my eyes, you who dwell in heaven" (Ps 121:1). Of these eyes is the beginning of seeing. If anyone does not have the "mind of Christ," he is not able to see rightly, if he has not been enlightened by the true Light.

Sweet is the sleep of the servant, whether he eats little or much; and to him who is filled, it is not possible to leave him to sleep. To sleep is taken from himself, but to eat and drink is taken from another. Even if little, therefore...

Eating, even in large amounts, happens because of the master's cause. Sleeping, however, is from its own nature. And since he sleeps without anxiety, having no care for possessions or the guarding of wealth, his sleep is sweet. But he who has much money does not enjoy even this. Furthermore, regarding the lifting up: 'sweet is the sleep of the slave.' We say this because the body is the slave of the soul. The body itself, as a body, has no care, or it has the appropriate sleep with rest. But the soul, when it has care for possessions, gathers much 'false knowledge'; those 'rejected' silver pieces destroy both wealth and sleep, the natural rest. For everyone's natural rest is called his own 'sleep' and slumber. Behold, he indeed says: 'Behold the reward,' he says, of the 'worker' who has become ungrateful, if he sleeps in the house of the owner, it accuses him. Not that the silver sleeps; he has said that staying in the house is his 'sleep.' The body therefore has the natural rest—I do not say the unrestrained, nor the insatiable desire for food, but the appropriate one.

This is to be understood: the things called morally good... since again they do not think about the soul as being the underlying reality. And some think that the allegories, of which Apollinaris is one, are mere re-paintings of those things happening sensuously. If one hears that 'a young lamb was raised up,' having cast away this very thing, the impious one has descended to ultimate death. The Savior, therefore, if he turns someone away from sin and impiety, has worked a resurrection. He who knows the soul—I say paradoxically, as an opponent currently thinking—knowing the magnitude of the soul and its salvation, sets nothing against the body, to restore a man to sight and to walk without hindrance from lameness. For the daughter of the chief synagogue, having been justified, 'has not died' (Luke 18:43). Again, those rising for the sake of the soul have it forever. Those things are vain, as regards a certain logic—not simply vain, but as regards the superiority of the greater things, just as the 'vanity of vanities' (Ecclesiastes 1:2) was given, that the temporary creations of God possess much beauty. Indeed, to him...