The Unity of the Soul's Attributes

Things are expected. Or, does the prophet foresee them in advance? Such things even a prophet is not able to foresee. I am in a place where many are evil. They hate the righteous one who is there. Even if they once attack and bring a net or a snare and someone comes out of it, knowing their subsequent evil, he remains wide awake expecting such a thing again; 'for not indeed,' he says, 'will they sleep, unless they do evil; their sleep is taken away and they do not sleep' (Ps 31:3). And having been rescued many times, he also prays concerning the following.

My eye was greatly troubled in anger (Ps 32:3). My mind was troubled not in my own anger, but in the anger of the enemies or in your anger; for thinking against those committing sin, having sinned, I fell to the anger and my mind was troubled. My soul and my stomach (Ps 32:4). Not alone, he says, my eye—that is, the mind—was troubled by anger. And this is also possible: 'in anger my eye was troubled.' When I rage, my mind is disturbed; for the passions are disturbances of the mind. And my soul was troubled, of which the eye is the one troubled by the anger.

And 'my stomach'; he does not mean here the stomach of the body, but that which was receiving from the bridegroom and bringing forth: 'from your fear we have taken in the stomach and labored' (Ps 31:7), so as to no longer save hat was received, but to cast it away as small things. And this is also possible: because making the stomach calm, I did not receive the bread of heaven, but I received some other food, harmful, a poison, and my stomach has been disturbed. Therefore, he does not cast away salvation.

Or, the soul being disturbed? Some wish to say that the soul is threefold; rather, they say it is thick and divided. And they call the rational part of it the mind; for this is receptive of knowledge, and this is able to have knowledge. The desiring part does not receive knowledge, but sometimes is persuaded by the rational; being persuaded, it does not itself have knowledge. And just as when the winds of the air blow well, it becomes possible for the pilot—the ship not having such motion, but not opposing the skill of the winds not being contrary—and the desiring part again is persuaded by the rational, not having a calculation itself. Therefore, no one would be saying the mind while sinning. But all things together...

The soul is a single thing. Let us take an example. One takes a flower. The flower has such a color, but the color is not the flower itself. It also has such a fragrance, but the fragrance is not the flower. It also has such a shape. Therefore, all these things taken together are the flower. So when we say, 'The flower is fragrant' (Ps 143:6), we signify only one part of it, namely that it emits a sweet breath. And again, if we say it is bitter, we signify not only its juice alone. But the juice is not the flower; rather, all these things together are the flower.

Thus, when speaking about his own intellect or his own mind, saying that it is troubled by passion, the soul also says this. You know that when the helmsman is badly dragged, the whole vessel is damaged, and when the pilot is overturned, the ship is overturned. Therefore, the one called 'eye' is a certain intellectual power that steers the whole soul. If this is troubled, the soul is also disturbed.

And what about the generative womb? —which I have said many times, and now I will say: regarding sensible things, each thing is a specific kind and cannot be something else. A plant cannot be gold, and gold cannot be a man. But regarding intelligible things, it is possible through various relations and thoughts. For instance, I was saying yesterday that when the soul seeks, and seeks indeed to know itself, it possesses the word of both the seeker and the thing sought. And if it cultivates itself like a plant, the plant is not something else and the farmer is not someone else; difference is found in thought alone.

Therefore, if he says 'eye' and 'womb', it is possible to speak of both regarding the same power; because the mind is called an eye because it sees, and the womb is called a womb because it can generate and bring thoughts into the midst. 'For my life has wasted away in pain, and my years in lamentation' (Ps 102:9). Since my life has wasted away in pain—for I always had it painful—I sometimes lament and sometimes not; I always lament, desiring virtue; I always toil, I always sweat for the sake of the acquisition of the good. Since I suffer this through life, in a way my life has wasted away in pain and my years in lamentation; therefore I beseech you, so that I may no longer endure so much toil; for if I toil again guarding it, it is not the same toil as that of acquiring something and guarding what already exists. And what about how they are kinds in general? —if one requires the word of a man, not...