ABSTRACT
All definitions of the human being are bound to fail, or are at least destined to remain only tentative, provisional attempts at identification, depending on one’s view of human nature. For the Greek ascetic Fathers, who never offered, nor claimed to offer, a comprehensive account of the matter, there always remained an element of mystery attached to the human person. This was due largely to their underlying idea of man or woman as an irreducible pneumatopsycho-physical being, of which both the material and immaterial constituents are mysteriously conjoined and are essential for a properly integrated personal existence. The mysterious unity of the human person was regarded as the sign of infinity and even of divinity. To divide body and soul, or perhaps body and mind, or again mind and heart, is to inaugurate an expanding series of division. John Climacus, using as he often does symbolical images rather than exact or even cogent theoretical explanations, speaks of ‘defeating the three tyrants, or to put it more clearly, conquering the body, the soul, and the spirit.’1 This may give the impression of an implied trichotomy in a quasi-Platonist sense. In fact, his approach shows a much more nuanced and integrated idea of the complex nature of human personality, which reflects the traditional patristic as well as the biblical view (cf. 1 Thess. 5.23). In the chapters that follow, I shall try, under the separate headings of ‘the body,’ ‘the heart’ and ‘the intellect,’ to demonstrate how John of the Ladder saw these complexities in their conflicting yet intimately related aspects that characterize the nature of the human person. A discerning master and guide of the soul’s complexities, John Climacus is unafraid to address the paradoxes of human nature. Any study of the human body cannot avoid ambiguities. Such ambiguity is
not absent from patristic literature, especially where Platonist terminology is used or Platonist associations of ideas occur. The ambiguity begins when the
body – or the heart, or the intellect, for that matter – is seen as a distinct object rather than a subject, as some-thing rather than as some-one, as an id rather than an is. For Gregory the Theologian: ‘A human being cannot be detached from matter without ceasing at the same time to be human.’2 Any separatist view implies an abstract point of observing objects, as it were from outside. The least authentic way to treat a person is to do so as if one is not a person oneself. It is a way of unreality. John Climacus does not hesitate to call it ‘hypocrisy’:
The body-soul antithesis evokes the general tendency that we have as human beings to oppose in order to understand. Yet this is not the only way that people have thought about human nature, and a primary focus of this study will be to present an alternative anthropology as this is suggested by the ascetic tradition of the early Christian era. To think of the body as separate from the soul – as soul-less or anti-soul – is to make an object of it, denying its mystical dimension and presence. In reality, when we think, we often think of two.4
Consequently, it is from philosophers and religious or mystical abstractionists – as in Orphism and Pythagoreanism – that we first hear of a separation between soul and body, leading ultimately to contempt for the latter, or to viewing it as something of little or no consequence, or even as a mere burden. However, a philosophy of disembodiment is a philosophy of death. Genuine philosophy reflects upon aspects of life in its entirety, and the compartmentalization of human nature into ‘body’ and ‘soul,’ each self-contained, is a symptom of a loss of wholeness, resulting in a variety of dualistic philosophies. The Pythagorean view, with its play on the words soma-sema, which
describes the body as a form or structure rather than a reality, is as divisive as Plato’s idea of the body as a prison or, at best, a ‘garment of the soul,’ and of the soul ‘descending’ into the body. The same may be said about Epicurean ‘atomism’ and the Stoics’ ‘indifferent’ human mind impinged upon by the extraneous material world – even in the Latin, more practically oriented, versions of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Moreover, this applies to Plotinus’ ‘idealism,’ in which phenomena in time are ephemeral copies of incorporeal reality: thus Plotinus was ‘ashamed’ of his body.5 Admittedly, these are broad
and generalized comparisons, which require qualification. It is not difficult to find conflicting strains in Plato, the Stoics and Plotinus alike. For instance, the idea of eros in Plato’s Symposium allows more reality to the sensible world and reflects a more integrated view of human nature than, say, the approach found in Phaedo and The Republic. The Stoic appeal to life ‘according to nature’ and the theme that the soul – and, indeed, God – are corporeal realities implies a more monistic view of humanity. Even Plotinus’ adherence to distinct ‘levels of being’ did not exclude the presence of these levels everywhere and in everyone, while the ‘Gnostic’ tone of his thought did not prevent him from being an opponent of extreme, dualistic (Chaldean) Gnosticism. Still, by and large, there was a pervasive trend to regard the individual, earthly human body as a hindrance to the intellectual and spiritual life, weighing us down and hampering us in our ascent. This suspicion of the body – seen as enemy, or the anti-body – is easily transformed into its opposite, into an inflation of the body. The body is, as a result, either despised or made absolute. The two derivative extremes originate in the same primary assumption of a dissociated human being. In reality, the human person – whether called body or soul – transcends any
such dualism.6 Any dichotomy of the self damages both the body and the soul. Extreme asceticism (‘encratism’) and excessive spiritualism (‘gnosticism’) represent only a partial truth, but to assert partial truth is to harm or destroy the human person. The teaching of Christianity in this respect seems clear: Christ came to glorify the entire human person and made nonsense of dualism or partiality. No such body-soul differentiation can be found in the Old Testament: human nature there is spoken of in its totality.7 The Hebrew mind saw things in their entirety and in relation to God, and saw the human person as a unity (cf. Gen. 2.24; 6.17; 7.16 and 21; Job 14.22 and 34.25, Ps. 62.2 and 135.25). The New Testament similarly speaks of the human person as a unified,
unfragmented being related to God. Even the ‘divine’ humanity of Christ is revealed in that relation. Grounded in the Old Testament, the New Testament spells a vision of the human body glorified by Christ. Paul’s theology, too, follows this pattern. He speaks of the body as the ‘outer person’ (2 Cor. 4.16) or, by analogy, of the soul as the ‘inner person’ (Rom. 7.22; 2 Cor. 4.16; Eph.
3.16), although this perhaps oversimplifies the problem. There is, in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, a certain hierarchical subordination of the body to the soul (Mt. 10.28; Lk. 12.4) and even a supposition of the provisional character of the earthly body (Mk. 12.25). Nevertheless, there is no clear, whether direct or indirect, indication that the two are taken in dissociation. For Paul, body and soul are ontologically united.8 His flesh-spirit dualism is existential, that is to say related to a concrete, behavioral situation rather than an ontological state. The human person is a stricken, fallen being. It is its sinful condition, otherwise known as ‘the flesh’ – that separates the person from the spirit. ‘Body’ is not to be equated with ‘flesh,’ nor again ‘soul’ with ‘spirit.’ Unity in the human person, unity in the human race: the Greek Fathers in
general share this essentially biblical attitude towards the body.9 There are exceptions to this view but, as will be seen below, it is the predominant understanding in Greek patristic thought, at least in its ascetic expression. One cannot discount the influence of Platonism on the patristic literature,10 but the Hebraic sythesizing, psychosomatic attitude ultimately prevails. In the end, ‘Jerusalem’ appears to triumph over ‘Athens,’ even in the more platonically minded writers. It is a case of the Christianization of Hellenism rather than the Hellenization of the Gospel. The Greek Fathers assimilated the Platonist and Stoic anthropological idiom without becoming either Platonists or Stoics. They could, in fact, more properly be said to incline toward the Aristotelian notion of the person as indivisible (a-tomon) rather than towards Platonist dualism.
