ABSTRACT

This picture carries the putrefactio a stage further. Out of the decay the soul mounts up to heaven. Only one soul departs from the two, for the two have indeed become one. This brings out the nature of the soul as a vinculum or ligamentum: it is a function of relationship. As in real death, the soul departs from the body and returns to its heavenly source. The One born of the two represents the metamorphosis of both, though it is not yet fully developed and is still a “conception” only. Yet, contrary to the usual meaning of conception, the soul does not come down to animate the body, but leaves the body and mounts heavenwards. The “soul” evidently represents the idea of unity which has still to become a concrete fact and is at present only a potentiality. The idea of a wholeness made up of sponsus and sponsa has its correlate in the rotundus globus coelestis. 1