and maintained-first, in Africa, by Saint Augustin in his treatise de quantitate Anima; secondly, in Asia, by Nemesius, bishop of Emessa, who wrote a very remarkable work upon the nature of man (repe piosos àvepúrov); thirdly, in Gaul, by Mamertius Claudienus, de naturâ Animæ. Confined to the history of Gaulish civilization, this last is the only one with which we have to occupy ourselves.

This is the occasion upon which it was written. A man whom you already know, Faustus, bishop of Riez, exercised a great influence in the Gaulish church; born a Breton, like Pelagius, he came—it is not known why-into the south of Gaul. He became a monk in the abbey of Lerins, and in 433 was made abbot of it. He instituted a great school, where he received the children of rich parents, and brought them up, teaching them all the learning of the age. He often conversed with his monks upon philosophical questions, and, it appears, was remarkable for his talent of improvisation. About 462 he became bishop of Riez. I have spoken of the part taken by him in the semi-Pelagian heresy, and of his book against the predestinarians. He was of an active, independent spirit, rather intermeddling, and always eager to mix in all the quarrels which arose. It is not known what

called his attention to the nature of the soul: he treated of it at length in a long philosophical letter addressed to a bishop, and in which many other questions are debated; he declares himself for materiality, and thus sums up his principal argu

ments:

1. Invisible things are of one kind, incorporeal things of another.

2. Everything created is matter, tangible by the Creator; is corporeal.

3. The soul occupies a place. 1. It is enclosed in a body. 2. It is not to be found wherever its thought is. 3. At all events, it is to be found only where its thought is. 4. It is distinct from its thoughts, which vary, which pass on, while it is permanent and always the same; 5. It quits the body at death, and re-enters it by the resurrection; witness Lazarus; 6. The distinction of hell and heaven, of eternal punishments and rewards, proves that even after death souls occupy a place, and are corporeal.

4. God alone is incorporeal, because he alone is intangible and omnipresent.1

1 I have adopted the text of Faustus, inserted in the edition of the

These propositions, laid down in so unhesitating and dís tinct a manner, are not elaborated to any extent; and such details as the author does enter into are taken in general from the theology, narratives, and authority of the holy scriptures.

The letter of Faustus, which was circulated anonymously, occasioned considerable excitement; Mamertius Claudienus, brother of St. Mamertius, bishop of Vienne, and himself a priest in that diocese, answered it in his treatise On the Nature of the Soul, a work of far higher importance than the one which it refuted. Mamertius Claudienus was in his day the most learned, the most eminent philosopher of southern Gaul; to give you an idea of his reputation, I will read a letter written shortly after the philosopher's death, to his nephew Petreius, by Sidonius Appollinaris, a letter, I may observe, stamped with all the ordinary characteristics of this writer, exhibiting all the puerile elaboration of the professed bel esprit, with here and there just perceptions, and curious facts.

"I am overwhelmed with affliction at the loss which our age has sustained in the recent loss of your uncle Claudienus: we shall never see his like again. He was full of wisdom and judgment, learned, eloquent, ingenious; the most intellectual man of his period, of his country. He remained a philosopher, without giving offence to religion; and though he did not indulge in the fancy of letting his hair and his beard grow, though he laughed at the long cloak and stick of the philosophers, though he sometimes even warmly reprehended these fantastic appendages, it was only in such matters of externals and in faith, that he separated from his friends the Platonists. God of Heaven! what happiness was ours whenever we repaired to him for his counsel. How readily would he give himself wholly to us, without an instant's hesitation, without a word, a glance of anger or disdain, ever holding it his highest pleasure to open the treasures of his learning to those who came to him for the solution of some, by all others inso

Treatise of the Nature of the Soul, by Claudienus, published, with notes, by Andrew Schoff and Gaspard Barth, at Zwickau, in 1665.

2 Son of the sister of Mamertius Claudienus. 3 Lib. iv., ep. ii.

luble, question! Then, when all of us were seated around him, he would direct all to be silent, but him to whom-and it was ever a choice which we ourselves should have madehe accorded the privilege of stating the proposition; the question thus laid before him, he would display the wealth of his learning deliberately, point by point, in perfect order, without the least artifice of gesture, or the slightest flourish of language. When he had concluded his address, we stated our objections syllogistically; he never failed to refute at once any propositions of ours which were not based upon sound reason, and thus nothing was admitted without undergoing mature examination, without being thoroughly demonstrated. But that which inspired us with still higher respect, was that he supported, without the least ill-humor, the dull obstinacy of some amongst us, imputing it to an excusable motive, we all the while admiring his patience, though unable to imitate it. No one could fear to seek the counsel, in difficult cases, of a man who rejected no discussion, and refused to answer no question, even on the part of the most foolish and ignorant persons. Thus much for his learning: enough concerning his studies and his science; but who can worthily and suitably praise the other virtues of that man, who, always remembering the weakness of humanity, assisted the priests with his work, the people with his discourses, the afflicted with his exhortations, the forsaken with his consolations, prisoners with his gold; the hungry received food from him, the naked were clothed by him. It would, I think, be equally superfluous to say any more upon this subject. . .

"Here is what we wished to have said at first: in honor of the ungrateful ashes, as Virgil says, that is to say, which cannot give us thanks for what we say, we have composed a sad and piteous lamentation, not without much trouble, for having dictated nothing for so long, we found unusual difficulty therein; nevertheless, our mind, naturally indolent, was reanimated by a sorrow which desired to break into tears. This, then, is the purport of the verses:

"Under this turf reposes Claudienus, the pride and sorrow of his brother Mamertius, honored like a precious stone by all the bishops. In this master flourished a triple science, that of Rome, that of Athens, and that of Christ: and in the vigor of his age, a simple monk, he achieved it completely and in secret. Orator, dialectician, poet, a doctor learned in

the sacred books, geometrician, musician, he excelled in unravelling the most difficult questions, he struck with the sword of words the sects which attacked the Catholic faith. Skilful at setting the psalms and singing, in front of the altars, and to the great gratitude of his brother, he taught men to sound instruments of music. He regulated, for the solemn feasts of the year, what in each case should be read. He was a priest of the second order, and relieved his brother from the weight of the episcopacy; for his brother bore the ensigns, and he all the duty. You, therefore, reader, who afflict yourself as if nothing remained of such a man, whoever you be, cease to sprinkle your cheeks and this marble with tears; the soul and the glory cannot be buried in the tomb.'

"These are the lines I have engraved over the remains of him who was a brother to all ...

It was to Sidonius that Mamertius Claudienus had dedicated his work.

It is divided into three books. The first is the only truly philosophical one; the question is there examined in itself, independently of every special fact, of all authority, and under a purely rational point of view. In the second the author invokes authorities to his aid; first that of the Greek philosophers-then, that of the Roman philosophers-lastly, the sacred writings, Saint Paul, the Evangelists, and the fathers of the church. The special object of the third book is to explain, in the system of the spirituality of the soul, certain events, certain traditions of the Christian religion; for example, the resurrection of Lazarus, the existence of the angels, the apparition of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary; and to show that, so far from contradicting them, or being embarrassed by them, this system admits them and makes at least as much of them as any other.

The classification is not as rigorous as I have made it out: the ideas and arguments are often mixed; philosophical discussions appear here and there in the books which are not devoted to them; still, upon the whole, the work is not wanting in either method or precision.

I shall now place before you the summary of it, as prepared by Mamertius Claudienus himself, in ten theses or fundamental propositions, in the last chapter but one of the third book. I shall then literally translate some passages, which will enable you to understand, on one hand, with what profundity and

with what force of mind the author has penetrated into the question; on the other, what absurd and fantastical conceptions could, at this epoch, be combined with the most elevated and the most just ideas.

"Since many of the things which I have asserted in this discussion," says Mamertius Claudienus, "are scattered, and might not easily be retained, I wish to bring them together, compress them, place them, so to speak, in a single point, under the mind's eyes.

"1st. God is incorporeal; the human soul is the image of God, for man was made in the image and likeness of God. Now a body cannot be the image of an incorporeal being; therefore the human soul, which is the image of God, is incorporeal.

"2d. Everything which does not occupy a determined place is incorporeal. Now the soul is the life of the body; and, living in the body, each part lives as truly as the whole body. There is, therefore, in each part of the body, as much life as in the whole body; and the soul is that life. Thus, that which is as great in the part as in the whole, in a small space as in a large, occupies no space; therefore the soul occupies no place. That which occupies no place is not corporeal; therefore the soul is not corporeal.

"3d. The soul reasons, and the faculty of reasoning is inherent in the substance of the soul. Now the reason is incorporeal, occupies no position in space; therefore the soul is incorporeal.

"4th. The will of the soul is its very substance, and when the soul chooses it is all will. Now will is not a body; therefore the soul is not a body.

"5th. Even so the memory is a capacity which has nothing local; it is not widened in order to remember more of things; it is not contracted when it remembers less of things; it immaterially remembers material things. And when the soul remembers, it remembers entire; it is all recollection. Now, the recollection is not a body; therefore the soul is not a body.

"6th. The body feels the impression of touch in the part touched; the whole soul feels the impression, not by the entire body, but in a part of the body. A sensation of this kind has nothing local; now what has nothing local is incorporeal; therefore the soul is incorporeal.

"7th. The body can neither approach nor absent itself