Two Souls. Origen's and Augustine's Attitude toward the Two Souls Doctrine.Its Place in Greek and Christian Philosophy

FERWERDA, R., Two Souls. Origen's and Augustine's Attitude toward the Two Souls Doctrine. Its Place in Greek and Christian Philosophy , Vigiliae Christianae, 37 (1983) p.360 Shins . a as Vigiliae Christianae 37 (1983) 360-378, E. J. Brill, Leiden FERNERDA €. TWO SOULS ORIGEN’S AND AUGUSTINE’S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE TWO SOULS DOCTRINE. ITS PLACE IN GREEK AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY* BY R. FERWERDA Pereant a facie tua, deus, sicuti pereunt, vaniloqui et mentis seductores, qui cum duas voluntates in deliberando animadverterint, duas naturas duarum mentium esse asseverant, unam bonam, alteram malam. May they perish and disappear out of thy sight, o God, just as they actually do, those empty talkers and deceivers of the mind, who, since they have observed that there are two wills in our act of deliberating, state that there are two natures of two minds, one good, the other evil. (Aug. Conf. VIII, 10, 22) These words of Augustine cannot be ranked as an outstanding utterance of true Christian brotherly love for those who believe in two natures of two minds. Quoting Titus 1:10 he calls them empty talkers and deceivers of the mind; without flinching, he invokes eternal damnation upon them, his old friends. For he does not leave us in doubt as to the identity of the objects of his wrath. They must be the Manicheans, to whose ranks Augustine himself had belonged, but from whose company he had fled when he was about thirty years old.' In a previous book, De duabus animabus contra Manichaeos (see especially I and XII, 16), he had already attacked their views on the two souls in greater detail. In a book of that same period (De Vera Religione IX, 16) he described the gist of this doctrine: “Duas animas esse in uno corpore existimant: unam de Deo, quae naturaliter hoc sit quod ipse, alteram de gente tenebrarum quam Deus non genuerit, nec fecerit, nec protulerit, nec abiecerit’’. (That there are two souls in one body, one from God which is by nature the same as God, one from the people of darkness which God has neither generated, nor made, nor raised, nor cast down.) He continued by saying that this evil soul ‘‘adversus deum rebellasse, deum autem, qui aliud quid faceret non haberet et quomodo aliter posset

Vigiliae Christianae 37 (1983) 360-378, E. J. Brill, Leiden ORIGEN’S AND AUGUSTINE’S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE TWO SOULS DOCTRINE. ITS PLACE IN GREEK AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY* BY R. FERWERDA Pereant a facie tua, deus, sicuti pereunt, vaniloqui et mentis seductores, qui cum duas voluntates in deliberando animadverterint, duas naturas duarum mentium esse asseverant, unam bonam, alteram malam. May they perish and disappear out of thy sight, o God, just as they actually do, those empty talkers and deceivers of the mind, who, since they have observed that there are two wills in our act of deliberating, state that there are two natures of two minds, one good, the other evil. (Aug. Conf. VII, 10, 22) These words of Augustine cannot be ranked as an outstanding utterance of true Christian brotherly love for those who believe in two natures of two minds. Quoting Titus 1:10 he calls them empty talkers and deceivers of the mind; without flinching, he invokes eternal damnation upon them, his old friends. For he does not leave us in doubt as to the identity of the objects of his wrath. They must be the Manicheans, to whose ranks Augustine himself had belonged, but from whose company he had fled when he was about thirty years old.' In a previous book, De duabus animabus contra Manichaeos (see especially I and XII, 16), he had already attacked their views on the two souls in greater detail. In a book of that same period (De Vera Religione IX, 16) he described the gist of this doctrine: ‘‘Duas animas esse in uno corpore existimant: unam de Deo, quae naturaliter hoc sit quod ipse, alteram de gente tenebrarum quam Deus non genuerit, nec fecerit, nec protulerit, nec abiecerit’’. (That there are two souls in one body, one from God which is by nature the same as God, one from the people of darkness which God has neither generated, nor made, nor raised, nor cast down.) He continued by saying that this evil soul ‘‘adversus deum rebellasse, deum autem, qui aliud quid faceret non haberet et quomodo aliter posset

hosti resistere non inveniret, necessitate oppressum misisse huc animam bonam et quandam particulam substantiae suae cuius commixtione hostem temperatum esse somniant et mundum fabricatum’’ (had rebelled against God, but that God who had no other means and could not invent another way to oppose his enemy, was forced to send to this world the good soul, a certain part of his own being; they dream that the enemy is moderated by being mixed with it and that in this way the world was created). He mentioned the two souls also in a negative sense in De haeresibus c. 46 Migne P.L. 42, 38. It is evident that Augustine had to reject the two souls doctrine because the Christian creed allowed only one soul in one human being which was to be redeemed by Christ’s crucifixion. But this can hardly account for the ferocity of the rejection, apparent in the Confessiones. In order to explain that, we may, of course, refer to the fact that originally Augustine himself, as a member of the Manicheans, had believed in the idea and that, after his abnegation, he was particularly eager to denounce the weaknesses and dangerous points of their theories. Out of an understandable defence mechanism, he may have used expressions that are more vehement than the object invites. But this explanation meets with an unexpected difficulty. Recently H. S. Puech? made it clear that the existence of the two souls theory in Manichean circles is not supported by texts from other writers. What the Manicheans did believe in was a (good) soul and an (evil) body and they assumed that this soul had descended from God.? It is difficult to understand why Augustine, who must be supposed to have known the Manichean theories from first hand experience, thought fit to blame his former fellow sectarians for something they did not profess. It is almost unimaginable that he made a simple mistake, since he knew them so well. But what could then be the reason why he, as far as we know, deliberately presented their doctrine in a distorted form? Would it be true that he ascribed to them a heresy to which they did not adhere in order to make their creed so suspect that no one would dare flock to their circles anymore? If that is the case, however, we have to answer two new questions. First, why is this doctrine supposedly so dangerous, making it necessary to present it in such unfavourable terms, and second, who were its adherents, if there were any? Leaving the first question open for the moment, I would like to draw attention to Clement of Alexandria for the solution of the second problem. In his Stromateis II, 20, 113, 3 he says: ‘‘Isidorus, son of Basilides, writes in

his book on the attached soul that man has two souls (just as the Pythagoreans believe), and Valentine believed that our heart is comparable to a public lodging: all kinds of spirits gather there and enter it”. And in his Excerpta Theodoti 50, I (Theodotus is a follower of Valentine) Clement states: ‘‘From mud God made an irrational soul, akin to the souls of animals. This soul is flesh to the divine soul so to speak””. And in 51, 3 he adds: ‘‘As to the two souls Soter says that we must be afraid of the demon who is able to destroy that soul and that body in hell’’. According to these texts the two souls theory is found in Gnostic circles around the time of Valentine and Basilides (second century A.D.). We know, in fact, that most Gnostics taught that man not only had a soul (psyche) but also a spirit (pneuma). Whereas the pneuma had descended from heaven and could be redeemed, the psyche belonged to the lower parts of man and perished with the body.‘ It is not too difficult to infer from this theory the idea that the Gnostics believed in two souls, pneuma being the higher soul and psyche the lower. If this equation between pneuma and (higher) soul is correct, we may conclude that the Gnostics are the adherents of the two souls doctrine indicated by Augustine and not the Manicheans. Since Mani had inserted many Gnostic theories in his view of the world. I believe that Augustine took advantage of the similarity between the two doctrines in order to force upon the Manicheans the Gnostic theory of the two souls. By doing this he hoped to prevent his readers from joining his own old friends whom he had begun to loathe. I shall explain below (p. 364) why he used the two souls theory for it. I would like to turn now to an interesting and lengthy discussion by Origen of the cause of evil in this world in which the two souls play an important part. In his De Principiis III, 4, 1 Origen tackles the question whether there is also something else in us, viz. men who consist of soul and body and the spirit of life, which has a motive power of its own and a force which compels us to do evil. ‘‘Some scholars””, he says,‘ ‘‘put the question whether we have to say that there are two souls in us, one more divine and heavenly and the other inferior, or whether we are dragged to evil things which please the body because we are attached to bodies, or thirdly, whether our soul is essentially one but consisting of more parts, as the Greeks think, one rational and one irrational, the last one being divided into the two affections of desire and wrath’’. Because this third theory is not to be found in the Holy Writ, Origen decides to limit his discussion to the other two. First, he sums up the evidence he finds in

the Scriptures concerning the existence of two souls. ‘The heavenly soul’’, he says, ‘‘is sown directly into the body from heaven, for example the one which rendered the palm of victory to Jacob over his brother Esau, when they were still in their mother’s womb; it is also the soul which in Jeremiah (1:5) was sanctified before the birth and which in John was filled with the holy spirit before the birth. The inferior soul is created along with the body and is often called ‘flesh’. The adherents of this theory confirm that the phrase ‘‘the desires of the flesh are against the spirit’? (Gal. 5:17) does not refer to the body but to the soul of the body. They find support for this idea in Levit. 17:14: ‘“The soul of every creature is the blood of it’’, and in Romans 7:23: ‘‘But I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members’’. And when the apostle says that the struggle between flesh and spirit induces us not to do what we wish to do, who are those ‘we’? (Gal. 5:17). He is certainly not speaking about the real spirit nor about the flesh, because the flesh has no will. So he must mean the will of the soul of the flesh and, therefore, man has two souls. When this soul clings to the spirit the apostle concludes: “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit”? (Rom. 8:9). But then, of course, one could also argue that soul is an intermediary between flesh and spirit and not part of either of them.’ This leads to a very profound discussion. For if the soul is an independent entity and acts according to its own wishes (and not to those of the flesh or the spirit) the soul is neither warm nor cold and Jesus will spew it out of his mouth (Revelation 3:16)’’. We may surmise from this long paragraph that Origen prefers to see the soul as either warm or cold, acting either according to the spirit or to the flesh. At the end of his discourse, he states as a sort of afterthought that he discussed all these things in a rather long digression because he wanted to demonstrate that he knew all the arguments of those who believed that we have two souls. In the next section (III, 4, 4 and 5), Origen examines the theory that our soul is one and that the diverse passions are caused by the flesh. This flesh has no soul of its own, he argues. When the flesh seems to seduce us and a better insight resists the seduction, we should not think that there is a second life which resists the other; rather, the nature of the body wants to deplete itself, because it is filled with bodily juices. When the needs of the body seduce us, we are not open to divine realities. That is why the apostle says (Rom. 8:7): ‘‘The wisdom of the flesh is hostile

to God’’. This does not mean, according to Origen, that the flesh has a soul and wisdom of its own in the literal sense. ‘‘Soul’’ and ‘‘wisdom’’ are used here metaphorically, in the same manner that we say, metaphorically, that the earth is thirsty, or that the blood cries for vengeance. If this bodily desire would have a soul of its own, a second soul, created by God, then what would be the difference between this opinion and the conception of the two souls, one of which is bound to be saved and the other to perish? That would be the opinion of heretics who, because they cannot prove God’s justice in a pious way, invent such impious concepts, he says. I think that in this last sentence we find the answer to the first question posed on page 361, viz., why the two souls doctrine was so dangerous to the official dogma of the church. It was the divine justice which was at stake and no one should be allowed to tamper with matters of such importance. That is also the reason why Augustine forced this theory upon the Manicheans in order to put their doctrine in an unfavorable light. When we look at the discussion of this last section, it appears as if Origen professes himself a fervent opponent to the two souls theory. But amazingly enough he concludes this very interesting chapter with the following remark: ‘‘We have brought forward, as well as we could, what could be said by the adherents of the two theories; however, the reader should choose from these the way of reasoning which ought to be accepted by preference’’. At the same moment in which he seems to join the army of faithful believers, he shrinks back, offering his readers a choice. What does that mean? Crouzel-Simonetti* think that for Origen the two souls theory is not wholly unacceptable. They point to the fact that in several other cases Origen leaves it up to the reader to choose between diverse solutions (De Principiis I, 6, 4; 1, 7, 1 and II, 3, 7). But all these texts refer to the uncertainty concerning the corporeal or incorporeal state of man after the Day of Judgment and Origen does not know how it will be then: only God knows, he says, and His friends through Jesus Christ. In our text, however, the situation is different: Origen acts ‘‘entgegen seiner sonstigen Gepflogenheit’’, as Langerbeck says.’ He tries to prove the veracity of the official dogma, but he is reluctant to impose it on his readers. What is the reason for this? Is it a hint, for those who know, that Origen’s own opinion is not the same as the dogma of the church? And does he use his seemingly detached scholarly attitude (‘‘I want to show that I know all the arguments””) as a

mask in order to be able to reveal the feeling of his heart in an inconspicuous way? I think that we have to answer both questions in the affirmative. And I believe that there was a special reason why he felt so attracted to the idea. We shall see below that the Greeks in general rejected the two souls theory because they were afraid to introduce evil, in that way, as an independent force in our world. But things were different for Origen. His thorough familiarity with Gnosticism had opened his eyes, enabling him to look at this world in other ways. On this subject Daniélou’® has developed an intriguing theory. He pointed out that Eastern theology has a view of human nature which is exactly the opposite of that of Western theology. For example, Gregory of Nyssa regarded animal life as having been added to the nature of man consisting of both intellectual life (noús) and supernatural pneuma; Western theology, on the other hand, believed that the supernatural was added to the nature of man consisting of lower entities. This implies that the addition of a second soul in Western (i.e. official) theology would be an increase of the lower entities, while in Eastern theology the two souls would be the two higher entities of man that already exist. I think that Origen foreshadowed this tradition and that for him the second soul was not the source of evil but the entity by which man would be able to understand more about the essence of life and even about God. By using it he might even become like God. The road to this hidden wisdom was beset with dangers, as the Bible teaches us (Genesis 3), but it is also very tempting. As a Christian Origen had to accept that man has one soul, but as a ‘‘Gnostic’’ he wished to safeguard the hidden wisdom of the two souls which he deemed extremely valuable and enlightening for those who thirst after a solution to their deepest problems. According to a story told by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. VI, 8) Origen, in the zeal of youth, castrated himself because he took literally Matthew 19:12. In later years he may have realized that such a curtailment did not solve many problems and that it would be wise to recoil from curtailing another part of himself, i.e. his second soul, which he felt could procure insight into the heart of human existence. In my view, his ambiguity towards the two souls theory reflects his internal struggle between the demands of the church and his personal feelings which were fostered by his Gnostic background. That the two souls theory was propounded by the Gnostics is confirmed by what we find in Plotinus. In his famous treatise against the Gnostics he calls them senseless for introducing the other soul which

they compose of the elements (Enneads II, 9, 5, 16). It appears here that Plotinus considered their second soul to be the lower one. What surprises us in reading this phrase is the violent reprobation with which he denounces their theory. This surprise is due to the fact that in other texts Plotinus seems to admit that we do have two souls, for instance IV, 3, 27, 1-6: (Forgetfulness belongs to the soul) ‘‘But to which soul? The soul which is called more divine due to which we are ‘‘ourselves’’ or the other soul which comes from the universe?”” It is true that in II, 3, 9, 24 the ‘‘other’’ soul is the higher soul which strives for the divine, but usually the ‘‘other’’ soul only appears when Plotinus talks about the ““image”” of the ‘‘true’’ soul. I think that here we find the clue to the solution of this problem. For, from the meaning the word ‘‘image’’ has in his philosophy'' we may infer that this does not mean that there are really two independent entities called soul; rather there is only one soul whose image or reflexion is simply the intermediary between higher and lower entities which has no existence of its own. Plotinus!? accepts the plurality of souls only in the sense in which Plato talks about the soul which is undivided (in itself) but which is divided in (its reflexion in) the bodies (Timaeus 35a 1-3). In order to prove convincingly the unity of the soul he even calls upon god to offer his assistance (IV, 9, 4, 6, and 15) just as he invokes him in other cases when he has to disentangle a particularly difficult problem (V, 8, 9, 13). When, in moments of carelessness, his language sometimes slips and seems to suggest that there is ‘‘another soul’’, we have to bear in mind that Plotinus is unwaveringly consistent in his adherence to the unity of the soul. His ‘carelessness’ has also provoked difficulties in the interpretation of related objects: matter and evil. For Plotinus evil has no existence of its own; it is a sort of deprivation of the Good (I, 8, 11, 5; IL, 4, 13, 10 and passim). In the same way matter has no private being; it is the shadow, the image of being. Some texts imply, however, that both evil and matter possess their own right of being, for example I, 8, 6, 33: “Both non-being and being are principles, one of evils, the other of goods” and I, 8, 6, 48; ‘‘So we have shown that it is not universally true that there is nothing contrary to being’’. Also I, 8, 7, 1-3: “But how then is it necessary that if the good exists, so should evil? Is it because there must be evil in the all? This all must certainly be composed of contrary principles; it would not exist at all if matter did not exist’’. Various attempts have been made to reconcile these apparently conflicting expressions but none of them has carried the field. The problem is insolu-

ble, except when we realize that Plotinus did not always express himself in carefully chosen words and that, in addition to that, as has often been argued, there are two different sides in Plotinus’ philosophy. Zeller calls them ‘‘objectiv’’ and ‘‘subjectiv’’, Bréhier speaks of a ‘‘problème philosophique’’ and a ‘‘problème religieux’’ and Kristeller of “‘gegenständlich’’ and ‘‘aktual’’.'? The ambiguity in Plotinus’ use of language may be due to the fact that he often viewed the same topic from different vantage points. For example, he will discuss matter as an objective being and as a subjective value; or he will approach it first ontologically and then morally. The same is applicable to the two souls. But when we look at the vehemence with which Plotinus rejects the two souls theory we cannot help concluding that he saw in it a dangerous attack on his own most cherished view of the world and that he wanted to divorce himself completely from those (his old friends!) who upheld the theory that man has two souls. In this respect he shows the same reaction to them as Augustine did to his old friends, the Manicheans. Now that we have seen with which fervor Plotinus opposed himself to the two souls theory, it is worthwhile to investigate whether earlier Platonists or Plato himself dealt with this problem. There is, in the first place, that enigmatic figure of Socrates. According to Cicero (Tusc. 4, 37, 80) Socrates admitted that vices are part and parcel of himself but that he had learned to control them, in the manner as Antiphon before him had taught that the man who does not know what desire is and is not acquainted with evil, does not possess wisdom (fr. 59). Socrates had no difficulty in acknowledging his being attracted to beautiful youths like Charmides (Charm. 155 ce) or Phaedrus (Phaedr. 234d) and in using that erotic feeling to start a powerful and profound philosophical discussion. This is not to say, however, that Socrates spoke of two souls. The closest allusion to a second soul we can detect is his mentioning a ‘daimonion’ which warns him when he is about to make wrong decisions (A pology 31cd; State 496c). But this ‘daimonion’ is not evil or good as opposed to his soul. It is simply a warning voice which should be heeded and which ends all debate or internal struggle. Socrates thus does not figure as a proponent of the two souls theory. Plato himself, however, occasionally toys with something that might be (and, in fact, has been) interpreted as an independent existence of a ‘second force’. In his Timaeus (48a7) he states that in the process of creating the universe there are two causes, mind and necessity, the latter being the errant cause, destitute of reason. In addition to these causes he also introduces

the ‘receptacle’ into which all the forms enter and which is mostly thought to be the same as matter. Necessity in Plato is not matter but Plotinus seems to identify the two as well as the ‘old nature’ of Plato’s Politicus 273b5. Now it can be contended that ‘necessity’ or ‘old nature’ is the principle of evil but Plato does not explicitly say so. And when Plotinus (I, 8, 7, 4-5) endeavours to prove that matter and evil are the same by referring to Plato’s Theaetetus 176a, where it says that evil does not pass away, he evidently gives that phrase a turn which it does not have in Plato. Nevertheless there are more expressions in Plato which suggest a dualism not only between matter and mind, but in the realm of the soul itself as well. In Timaeus 69cd he mentions the ‘‘other kind of soul’’, the divine soul, as opposed to the mortal soul.'* This divine soul is more or less what is also called mind while the mortal soul contains desires, passions and lust. It is, however, wrong to suppose that Plato actually believed in two souls. In the same Timaeus he teaches us that the individual human soul is composed of the same ingredients as the world soul. When later interpreters conclude that the ‘‘other kind of soul’’ is good proof of Plato’s belief in two souls, they are not considering the general intention of the Timaeus but only one somewhat carelessly used expression. The same is true of what we find in the Phaedrus 237d: ‘‘We must observe that in each one of us there are two ruling principles: one is the innate desire for pleasures, the other an acquired opinion which strives for the best’’. This phrase cannot be read apart from what we find in the Phaedrus 246a: ‘‘We will liken the soul to the composite nature of a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. The horses and charioteers of the gods are all good and of good descent, but those of other races are mixed. One of the horses is noble and of noble breed, but the other quite the opposite in breed and character’’. What Plato intends to say here is that there are several parts in one soul and not that there are several souls. We find a similar case in the Laws 903d: ‘‘The soul suffers all kinds of changes by itself or by another soul”. This other soul is not another soul in one and the same person but the soul of another person; therefore, we are not allowed to suppose that Plato at any time of his life held the view that a person could have two different souls. And when in the Laws 896e he mentions two souls, one of which is benevolent while the other is able to contrive opposite things we may admit that this ‘dualism’ between good and evil was perhaps an adaptation of the Zoroastrian Ormuzd and Ahriman to his own doctrine.' But certainly it does not flatly contradict the denial in the

Politicus (270a) of two gods of opposite minds, since in the Laws 897c he says that the good and intelligent type of soul remains in supreme control and that the other type is the underling; it is, at best, a part of the ruling soul. As a conclusion I would say that Plato had an inkling of some mysterious pre-cosmic soul, an ‘‘inherited conglomerate’’ as Dodds calls it'* and that in some places he even suggests an independent life of this soul, comparable to the independent existence of evil in Zoroastrian literature. But there can be no doubt that he ultimately rejects this dualism and that his ‘second’ soul is only another part of the soul. What did Plato’s immediate successors make of the soul? Generally, Aristotle only speaks of one soul with several functions but at the end of the De Anima he introduces ‘‘a productive agent”” in the mind and contends that the mind itself is separate, immortal, and eternal (430a 22/3). There has been a continuous debate over what Aristotle meant by this productive agent and a mind which is eternal. Are they part of the human soul? Or are they substantially different leading us to conclude that, in fact, Aristotle believes in two different souls one of which he calls eternal mind? '” There seems to be no definite answer to these questions. But it is difficult to admit that he ever accepted the existence of two separate souls, one of which is good and the other evil. For one thing, he does not explicitly speak of two souls. Moreover, he thinks of this universe as being one, governed by a supreme being which is thinking of thinking. But his hesitation towards the ‘‘productive agent’’ may indicate a crack in his well-sealed universe which, although he tried to patch it, is disclosed by the patching itself. Turning to Speusippus and Xenocrates,!* we find that Damascius bracketed them with each other as believing that the irrational as well as the rational soul was immortal. This seems to imply that they believed in two souls, but the text does not state it explicitly. Moreover, it is claimed that Speusippus belonged to a group of people who denied that goodness and evil are archai. Furthermore, both Xenocrates and Speusippus state that the two ‘souls’ are immortal. It is hardly possible, therefore, to infer from the scanty remnants at our disposal that these philosophers developed a theory so divergent from that of Plato and Aristotle. The wording of these fragments (à Aoy:x% buy and 4 &koyia) may be due to the very late source to which we owe them. The situation changes a bit when we come to Plutarch (first century A.D.) and Atticus (second century). According to Copyright (c) 2002 ProQuest Information and Learning Company Proclus both

philosophers base themselves on Platonic dialogues (Timaeus and Laws) in bearing out their claim that unordered matter pre-existed the creation and that there also is a pre-existent maleficent soul which ordered this disordered mass.'? Now it is evident, as we have seen above, that in the text of the Laws (896d) the maleficent soul is a part of the world-soul, opposed to the good soul, but not an independent force in its own right. It has been argued that Plutarch was stimulated in his interpretation of the Plato texts by a study of Persian religion. But, on the other hand, in his De Iside 374c Plutarch makes it clear that this maleficent or irrational soul is not evil itself and we have, therefore, no definite proof that Plutarch believed in a dualistic conception of the world in which good and evil had their own independent rôles. From other sources however, we know that he did make a clear distinction between soul and mind in one human being.?” In De Facie Lunae 943a he says: ““Most people rightly hold a man to be composite but wrongly hold him to be composed of only two parts. The reason is that they suppose mind to be somehow part of soul, thus erring no less than those who believe soul to be part of body, for in the same degree as soul is superior to body, so is mind better and more divine than soul. The result of soul and body commingled is the irrational or the affective factor, whereas of mind and soul the conjunction produces reason; and of these the former is the source of pleasure and pain, the latter of virtue and vice’’. First we find in this passage a tripartition: mind, soul and body. Secondly two other entities as well: the conjunctions of body and soul, on the one hand, producing irrational soul, and that of mind and soul, on the other, producing reason. This is not the only text in Plutarch where we find the distinction between mind and soul. In De Mor. Virt. 441d ff. and De Daemone Socratis 591d ff. we find the distinction and several more ancient texts may be posited as sources of this theory, e.g. Plato’s Timaeus 30b or Aristotle’s De Anima III, 5. It is also possible that, while developing this theory, Plutarch was not immune to Hermetic and Gnostic concepts about mind and soul with the same impact. But what is most apparent is that in Plutarch’s writings this distinction between soul and mind does not represent a clear-cut two souls theory as we shall find elsewhere. Plutarch’s follower Atticus is perhaps a bit more precise. Dillon?! argues that he taught that the rational soul is immortal and that the irrational soul dies with the body. Though he attacks Aristotle fiercely for assuming only the immortality of the mind (fragment 4 Des Places), Atticus virtually defends here Aristotle’s view, ac-

cording to Dillon. He only changes the names: rational soul is Aristotle’s mind. But in my view Dillon is wrong. Both Baudry? and Des Places?’ state that the verbatim quotation from Atticus by Eusebius in Praepar. Evang. XV, 9 (= fragment 7 Des Places) indicates that the whole soul survived after death. Proclus’ statement on Atticus’ theories (In Timaeum MI, 234, 17-18=fragment 15 Des Places) cannot be attributed to him.?* Again there is no two souls theory here. The same applies to Albinus who is mentioned in the same passage of Proclus.?* There is, however, one ancient author, somewhat older than Plutarch, where we do find references to a two souls doctrine: Philo of Alexandria. Generally, he considers the soul as being composed of a rational and an irrational part.?* Occasionally he even alludes to the Platonic tripartition?’ or the Stoic division into the hegemonikon and the seven physical faculties.2* But when discussing biblical texts like Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11 and 14 or Deuteronomium 12:23 he seems to admit that there are two souls in man, one of which being the biblical ruach (mind), and the other the nefesh (blood-soul).?? Due to his interpretation of certain Platonic passages treated above and of Aristotle’s remarks on the separate mind Philo may have assumed that this two souls doctrine was not altogether alien to the Greek mind, making it possible, therefore, to include it in his own philosophy. And since he was well acquainted with Gnostic circles in which this interpretation of those passages was accepted, he may have considered it one of the bridges spanning the gulf between the view of the world of the Greeks and the Jews. This is certainly true for another Greek/Jewish philosopher, Numenius, who lived in Apamea in the second century A.D. It is a pity that we knowso little of his life or works, but what we know confirms that he definitely believed man has two souls, one the rational and the other the irrational, just as he has other pairs (ears and eyes) (fragment 44 Des Places).*° Although the fragment tells us that he is not the only philosopher to hold this opinion, it provides no further information. Unlike Plutarch and Atticus who postulate a harmony between the two elements in the soul, the two souls Numenius discusses are in a continuous quarrel.’' Apart from this two souls doctrine Numenius also firmly believes in the independent existence of matter as the evil force in the process of creating the universe (fragment 52 Des Places). Numenius, therefore, is the first and maybe the only Greek author who advocated a very consistent dualism even within man. It is interesting,

however, that Calcidius, in whose Commentary on the Timaeus (295-9) we find this last fragment, seems to change Numenius’ ideas somewhat by speaking again of the two parts of the soul. J. C. M. van Winden thinks he does so because he was a Christian.*? J. H. Waszink?** judges that ““bei Numenios die Platoninterpretation und seine eigene Ansicht nicht klar von einander getrennt oder dass sie in irgendeiner Weise koordiniert waren’’. In my opinion, Van Winden is right, particularly because, as we have seen, Christians very vehemently rejected this theory. One last remark about later Greek philosophy is in order. According to Iamblichus De Myst. VIII, 8,°° ‘‘the Hermetic writings also contend that a man has two souls. One of them stems from the first intelligible, taking part in the power of the Demiurg, whereas the other enters into us from the revolution of the heavenly bodies’’. This idea is akin to what Plotinus tells us about the Gnostics in Enn. II, 9, 5, 17.** Beutler?’ thinks that this theory has to be distinguished from what we find in Plutarch, Atticus and Numenius; I agree with him that there are considerable differences which are smoothed down a bit by Dodds** when he states that there is a perfect agreement between them. But the discrepancies are superficial and are bridged by the basically dualistic conception of the world which we found in them. The Hermetics, the Gnostics and Numenius were the only ones who also made their dualism apparent in their two souls theory. After them we find this theory in Porphyry*° and Nemesius‘ among others. However, they all hark back to either Numenius or the Gnostics, rendering Beutler’s statement“! that the idea is “nicht so selten’’ somewhat misleading. After this brief review of what the Greek philosophers have said about the two souls I should like now to turn back to the question why they were so reluctant to accept the full consequences of certain shadowy hints in their theories and to say that man has two souls. I think that the Greeks had an innate fear of excess, of bBpts, and could not accept that evil was an independent force. That would break their world into two and shake their most basic views of what the world should be. Levinas“ calls it the ‘‘horreur de l’Autre’’. I agree fully with Langerbeck * when he says: “Es (i.e., a dualistic theory) ist gegen die griechisch-philosophische Vorstellung einer Seele die ‘‘una est per substantiam’’, aber in verschiedene Unterteile zerfallt. Dass auch bei Platon schon in aller Deutlichkeit von zwei Seelen die Rede ist (cf. Timaeus 69cd) und dass diese platonischen Sätze fiir die Ausbilding der

gnostischen Lehre von grosser Bedeutung sind, ist kein Einwand dagegen’’. In the course of history, Langerbeck argues, it is normal that the views of great thinkers are dualistically (mis)interpreted in the process ‘‘ihrer vulgáren Vergróberung””.** That is what happened to Plato as well as to the Christian creed. Vulgar Platonism of later ages is no less dualistic than vulgar Catholicism in medieval or modern times. The reason why Origen seems to be willing to go along with it is, in my view, that he did not see the second soul as the evil force but interpreted it as the enlightened one which might communicate hidden wisdom.* This, however, was far from what the church was prepared to accept, referring to the dangers of human hybris which are spelled out in the first chapters of Genesis and of the idea that only one soul could be redeemed. It is no wonder, then, that the official church looked askance at Origen’s elucubrations and never accepted him as a saint. Before I briefly summarize modern thought concerning the existence of two souls I wish to call to mind two peculiar ancient stories. Xenophon in his Cyropaedeia 6, 1, 41 relates how Araspes and Panthea had fallen in love with each other and how Cyrus asks Araspes to leave Panthea and to depart on a dangerous mission into hostile territory. When Araspes obeys him unflinchingly, Cyrus asks whether he can leave his beloved easily. Araspes retorts: ‘‘Yes, for I have two souls. Were the two souls one, it would not be able to desire two things, a good and an evil. And since by your influence the good one rules, the evil one is silent’’. The other passage we find in Ovid’s Metamorphoseis VII, 21 where Medea describes her struggle between her passion for Iason. She says: ‘‘Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor’’.* (I see the better things and I approve of them but I follow the more evil ones). It is true that she does not mention two souls but the effect is the same. In both stories we see a conflict between state loyalty and personal passion, the latter being called evil. Both stories occur in the East (Persia and Armenia). A few times in this paper we came across the opinion of modern scholars that when the two souls doctrine (in Plato and Plutarch for example) seemed to be found in Greece it was due to Persian influence. When we compare these two eastern love stories with e.g. Antigone, we see that she also has to choose between loyalty to a state edict and her duty to her brother. However, she does not waver: there are not two souls one of which has to be silenced before she can act as in the case of Araspes. Neither is she torn apart between good and evil as in Medea’s

case. So even in ‘love’ stories it looks as if only under ‘Eastern’ influence Western authors could speak of two souls in one human being. It is interesting to see how the two souls doctrine was handled in later ages. In 1760 Wieland translated Xenophon’s Cyropaedeia into German and spoke of the two souls in two poems, first in Idris und Zenide (1767), and then in Die Wahl des Herkules (1773). And in 1801 Goethe wrote his famous ‘‘Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust’’ in his Faust I. The two souls are used to describe the struggle of the main characters between the ‘‘derbe Liebeslust”? and the loyalty to higher realms.* Once this trend has been set, it is often used in novels and poems. In the beginning the ‘alter ego’s’ of the main characters are not the enemies of the ‘self’, but just ‘the other’, as in Ludwig Tieck’s Ryno, or Jean Paul’s Siebenkäs. But especially in R. L. Stevenson’s famous novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) man is not truly one, but two. One of them is good, the other is wicked and wants to destroy the good one. The only way to get rid of that child of Hell is to commit suicide. We see another example in Stephan Zweig’s Schachnovelle. The main character is successful in his attempt to beat the world champion because, during a long period of incarceration, he was forced to beguile the time by playing chess with himself. He was an ‘Ich-schwarz’ and an ‘Ich-weiss’. The complete split of his personality had made him a genius. He can only become a normal person by giving up his split personality and, therefore, his genius. The message is thata normal person cannot endure the two souls in himself. They drive him to insanity as in R. M. Pirsig’s novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where Phaedrus ends up in an asylum, or cause a situation of complete inertia as in Margaret Drabble’s The Ice Age. But the most striking example of how the two souls of good and evil tear a person apart is found in Dostoevsky. One of the things Dostoevsky loathes most is the road of the golden mean. Therefore he forces either two persons in the same novel to take opposite stands or makes two souls in one and the same person opponents of each other. His prince Myshkin is the most glorious and awful example of the split personality; but we must not forget that originally even Myshkin and Rogozhin were meant to be one person.** Practically every character in his novels demonstrates the inner division by carrying on an inner dialogue with himself. ‘‘Evil and sin are so much part of ourselves that we can only love each other with all our imperfections and that he who truly forgives is the one who admits solidarity with the wicked act””. That is what is true of every individual,

an idea which is borne out in his novel ‘‘The Double’’. It is significant that Dostoevsky time and again quotes the same text from the Revelation of John we quoted earlier: ‘Because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor warm, I will spew you out of my mouth””.** It is not so strange, I think, that we come back to Origen here. Origen and Dostoevsky have in common that they both advocate bold ideas which sometimes seem to run counter to the official dogma of the church, but also that they try to smooth down the boldness of their theories in order not to run the risk of an open conflict with the church.5° But Dostoevsky takes a different and I would even say a more modern stand towards the problem of the two souls than Origen. In Dostoevsky’s view, the evil , second, soul is an indissoluble part of ourselves and should not be repressed. This concept has a remarkable correspondence with ideas we find in those psychological circles which openly admit their acquaintance and kinship with ‘Gnostic’ doctrines. A good example is Depth Psychology and New Ethics by one of Jung’s disciples Erich Neumann. He advocates that we should admit that we have two souls and that we should use the tension between the two in order to generate new energies for the benefit of the world in which we live.*' When we cut away evil, we truncate our own being and this inevitably weakens our potentialities to cope with the problems that beset us. Just as the physicists teach us to use the enormous energies that are hidden in atoms, Neumann exhorts us not to shrink back from the potential forces that lie hidden in ourselves. Of course, the developments around nuclear energy and nuclear armaments give us ample warning not to play wantonly with these potentialities. But we have to take the risk of accepting the existence of two souls, the one opposite the other, in order to create a new world where all human beings can live with their good and their evil. It is striking to see how Neumann’s contemporary Bertold Brecht takes the same stand in modifying Goethe’s famous line ‘‘Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust””.*? In order to demonstrate that I would like to conclude this article with a full quotation of the end of Brecht’s Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe. Mensch, es wohnen dir zwei Seelen in der Brust! Such nicht eine auszuwählen Da du beide haben musst. Bleibe stets mit dir im Streite! Bleib der Eine, stets Entzweite! Halte die hohe, halte die niedere Halte die rohe, halte die biedere Halte sie beide!

NOTES * ] wish to thank Dr. Sara J. Denning Bolle of UCLA for the meticulous way in which she corrected my English. 1 Augustine's utterances about the Manicheans are always very sharp: see e.g. Confessiones III, 6, 10: homines superbe delirantes carnales nimis et loquaces in quorum ore laquei diaboli. (A sect of men, proudly doting, too carnal and prating, in whose mouth were the snares of the Devil.) ? In Les sources de Plotin. Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique Y (Vandoeuvres/ Genève 1957) 39 he blames himself for having trusted Augustine too much. See also Cl. Tresmontant, La métaphysique du christianisme et la naissance de la philosophie chrétienne (Paris 1961) 308/9. In Die Gnosis III. Der Manichäismus, ed. J. P. Asmussen (München 1980) the two souls are mentioned only in two places. One occurs in Augustine De Haeresibus 46 (p. 143), the other in a text by As-Sahrastani on the Manicheans (p. 150). But in this last text it is only said that one soul belongs to the world of light and the other to the world of darkness. We do not find there two souls in one person. 3 See e.g. the aforementioned book by Asmussen, p. 36, 58, 122 (Dann bildete sie die gute Seele und fesselte sie in den Körper); 125 and other places. * See e.g. H. Jonas, Het gnosticisme (Dutch translation by A. M. J. Baljet, Utrecht 1969) 215. > How difficult it is to tell a Gnostic from a Manichee we see in the fact that Augustine himself alternately was called a Manichee and a Gnostic. See G. R. Evans, Neither a Pelagian nor a Manichee, in Vigiliae Christianae 35 (1981) 232-244. $ Most modern commentaries point to the Gnostics here e.g. H. Crouzel-M. Simonetti, Origène, Les principes (Paris 1980) IV, 85 and H. Görgemans und H. Karpp, Origenes, Vier Bticher von den Prinzipien (Darmstadt 1976) 603-5 n. 3. ? See H. Jonas, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist I (Göttingen +1964) 212ff. on the theory of the tripartition not only with the Gnostics but also with the Manicheans. * Op. cit., 97 n. 42. > H. Langerbeck, Aufsätze zur Gnosis (Göttingen 1967) 54. 10 J. Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique (Paris 1944) 54. ı J. Igal, Aristoteles y la evolución de la antropologia de Plotino, in Pensamiento 35 (1979) 315-346. 1? See e.g. Enneads IV, 1. 13 See H. R. Schwyzer, Zu Plotins Deutung der sogenannten platonischen Materie, in Zetesis, hulde aan Prof. Dr. Emile de Strycker (Antwerpen 1973) 278ff. and H. J. Blumenthal, Plotinus in Later Platonism, in Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought, Essays in Honour of A. H. Armstrong (London 1981) 220 with more literature in note 41. See also H.-R. Schwyzer’s excellent article Plotinos in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopddie Band XXI, 1 col. 549-550, 14 See E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Boston 1957) 214. It is interesting to compare this text with Plato, State 441bc where parts of the soul are carrying on an internal dialogue and Phaedo 94de where the soul has a dialogue with the (passions of the) body. See also Sophist 263e and Phaedrus 276e. I doubt that our late authority can be trusted that the two souls theory was already taught by Pherecydes of Syros (Fr. AS). See Dodds op. cit., 153 and 173-4 note 111. 15 Cf. W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy V (Cambridge 1978) 365 and

See Dodds op. cit., 207ff. ‘1 According to his De Part. Anim. II, 16 and De Gener. Anim. 736 b 27-29 this soul is brought in from outside. On this whole question see F. J. C. Nuyens, Ontwikkelingsmomenten in de zielkunde van Aristoteles (Nijmegen/ Utrecht 1939) 275ff. and 290ff. and J. M. Rist, Human Value (Leiden 1982) 43f. 18 See Guthrie op. cit., 462 and 480. The fragment is to be found in R. Heinze, Xenokrates (Leipzig 1892) fr. 75 and in P. Lang, De Speusippi Academici Scriptis (Bonn 1911) fr. 55. For Xenocrates’ monism see H. J. Kramer, Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik (Amsterdam 1964) 82. 19 In Timaeum I, 381, 26ff. See also J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (London 1977) 202 and 254. 2 Dillon op. cit., p. 211. 21 Dillon op. cit., p. 256. 2 J. Baudry, Atticos (Paris 1931) XXV. #3 È. des Places, Atticus (Paris 1977) 23. 24 See also L. G. Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo 11 (Amsterdam 1977) 108 n. 5. 2 R. E. Witt, Albinus (Cambridge 1937) 82. 26 Leg. Alleg. II, 6; Special Leg. I, 333. See F. Rüsche, Blut, Leben und Seele (Paderborn 1930) 367-401. 2? Special Leg. IV, 92; Heres 225. 28 De Opificio Mundi 117. 29 Quaest. in Genesim II, 59, and Quod deter. pot. insid. soleat 82-3. For the whole question see Dillon op. cit., 175-6. 30 See H. C. Puech, Numenius d’Apamee et les theologies orientales du Ile siècle, in Mélanges Bidez II (Brussels 1934) 754-778. Also E. R. Dodds, Numenius and Ammonius, in Les sources de Plotin, Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique V (Vandoeuvres/Genève 1957) 7-11. 31 lamblichus, De anima 375, I W. 32 See Dillon op. cit., 373 and A. J. Festugière, La révélation d’Hermes Trismégiste III (Paris 1953) 45 and 208. But Dillon also says (o.c., 375) that the evil principle is subject to domination by the Good, albeit with certain irreducible recalcitrance. 33 Calcidius on Matter. His Doctrine and Sources, Philos. Ant. IX (Leiden 1965) 114. 34 Porphyrios und Numenios, in Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique XII (Vandoeuvres/Geneve 1965) 76. 35 Hermes Trismégiste IV, 115, fragment 16 ed. Festugiere-Nock. 36 Cf. Festugière op. cit., 45 n. 1 and 48ff. 37 R. Beutler art. Numenios in Pauly-Wissowa Realencyclopädie Supp. Band VII (1940) 674ff. 32 E. R. Dodds (see note 30) p. 7ff. 39 Tlepl téiv cc duyfig duvéuewv in Stob. I, 350, 25ff. W. and De Abstinentia I, 40 p. 116, 11. See H. Dorrie, in Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique XII (Vandoeuvres/Genève 1965) 179ff. ‘°° De natura hominis 115ff., 213ff. Matth. 4! Beutler op. cit. (see note 37), 674, 42 E. Levinas, La trace de l’Autre, in Tijdschrift voor filosofie 25 (1963) 606. 4 Op. cit., 56.

Op. cit., 62. See also W. Theiler, Gott und Seele im kaiserzeitlichen Denken, in Entretiens sur Pantiquité classique III (Vandoeuvres/Genéve 1955) 78. A good example of vulgarized ideas is the doctrine of the two spirits even in man, which we find among the members of the Qumran sect. See J. Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls (Penguin 1978) 139. 48 See the words of Mauler in B. Brecht's Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe: Ach das Reine ohne Fehle Unverderbte Hilfsbereite Es erschiittert uns Gemeine! Weckt in unsrer Brust die zweite bessere Seele! ‘6 This is very much in agreement with the words of Medea in Euripides’ Medea 1078-1080: Kat uavdávo pèv ofa todutow xaxd, Buds dì xpeísoov tav ¿uv BovAevpdtwy, donep meyiotos arios xaxdv Bootoïs. See also Dodds op. cit., p. 186 and note 46. It should be noted however that in the Euripides passage Medea’s struggle is described as taking place between her love of the children and her hatred of Jason. It is also noteworthy that in Xenophon the ‘‘duty’’ soul wins over the ‘‘love’’ soul, while in Euripides the passion silences Medea’s patriotic feelings. 47 Cf. J. H. v.d. Berg, Leven in meervoud (Nijkerk 1974) 66ff. I do not, however, agree with his theory that in the Faust the two souls are used to illustrate a simple misunderstanding. “8 A. Boyce Gibson, The Religion of Dostoevsky (Philadelphia 1973) 105. See also M. M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, translated by R. W. Rotsel (Ardis 1973) 176-190 and passim. 22 This is what, for example, Sophia reads when Stephan Trofimowich dies in The Possessed. See Boyce Gibson op. cit., 147 and the Dutch translation Boze Geesten (Amsterdam ?1970) 675, 713, 783. 5° In his Notebooks for the Brothers Karamazov, for example, Dostoevsky’s denunciation of some aspects of the Christian creed is much more ferocious than in the (published) novel itself. See E. Wasiolek, Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Notebooks for the Brothers Karamazoy (Chicago 1971) 10, 62 and 89. $1 In La Substitution in Revue philosophique de Louvain 66 (1968) 494 Levinas also points at the tension that exists in every person. But he does not believe in two souls. The tension is part of and due to the indivisible unity of the soul. 52 On Brecht's way of dealing with his forerunners see R. Grimm, Bertold Brecht (Stuttgart °1971) 24, R. Grimm, Bertold Brecht (Nürnberg *1972) 42-49, M. Kesting, Brecht (Rororo 1973) 45-46. 6711 PL Ede, Stationsweg 79