Tertullian — On the Soul 19
THAT INTELLECT IS ALWAYS IN THE SOUL. Nor are those to be passed by who strip the soul of intellect even for a little time. In the same way they pave a way for inducing it afterward, as also of mind, from which intellect would come. They want infancy contained by soul alone, by which it only lives, not that it also understands — because not all that live understand. Trees live yet do not understand according to Aristotle and any other who shares animal substance through the universe — which with us is a private thing in man, not only as God's work, which also the rest are, but as God's breath, which this alone is, which we say is born with all its equipment.
And if we are challenged to trees, we will embrace the example: even in them, not yet little trees but still stocks and twigs, as soon as they rise from the pits there is their own force of soul, delayed for a time's reason while it coalesces and grows with its strength until age fills the habit by which nature functions. From where they live, therefore, they also understand — by a property of living as of understanding, and that from their own infancy. I see a vine still tender yet already understanding its works and wanting to cling to something. Why should I not contend these wisdoms of trees? Let them live as philosophers will, understand as philosophers will not — that the infancy of wood may understand, and much more of man, whose soul like a slip drawn from the matrix Adam into a shoot, committed to the woman's genital pits, sprouted with all its equipment in intellect as in sense. I lie if the infant does not at once, as he greeted life with a cry, testify that he sensed and understood that he was born, dedicating all the senses together there. That first voice is compelled from the first motions of the senses and the first pulses of the intellects. More: some interpret that tearful voice as an omen of life's hardships from the prospect of a lamentable life — that it should be held even foreknowing from the entry of birth, still more understanding. From then he proves a mother by breath and examines a nurse by breath and recognizes a bearer by breath, fleeing strange breasts and refusing unknown beds. Whence judgment of new and customary if he does not understand? Whence to be offended and soothed if he does not understand? Strange enough that infancy should be naturally spirited without having a mind and naturally affectionate without having intellect. But Christ, seeking praise from the mouth of sucklings and little ones, did not pronounce childhood or infancy dull — of which one meeting with approval could offer him testimony, the other slaughtered for him surely felt force.
Latin
INTELLECTVM SEMPER ANIMAE INESSE. [1] Sed ne illi quidem praetereundi qui uel modico temporis uiduant animam intellectu. Proinde enim uiam sternunt postea inducendi eius, sicut et animi, a quo scilicet proueniat intellectus. [2] Volunt infantiam sola anima contineri, qua tantummodo vivat, non ut pariter sapiat, quia nec omnia sapiant quae uiuant. Denique arbores uiuere nec tamen sapere secundum Aristotelen et si quis alius substantiam animalem in uniuersa communicat, quae apud nos in homine priuata res est, non modo ut dei opus, quod et cetera, sed ut dei flatus, quod haec sola, quam dicimus cum omni instructu suo nasci. [3] Et si ad arbores prouocamur, amplectemur exemplum, siquidem et illis necdum arbusculis, sed stipitibus adhuc et surculis etiamnunc, simul de scrobibus oriuntur, inest propria uis animae. Verum pro temporis ratione remoratur coalescens et coadulescens robori suo, donec aetas adimpleat habitum, quo natura fungatur. Aut unde mox illis et frutices inoculantur et folia formantur et germina inflantur et flosculi inornantur et succi condiuntur, si non in ipsis omnis paratura generis quiescit et partibus promota grandescit? [4] Inde igitur et sapiunt unde uiuunt, tam uiuendi quam sapiendi proprietate, et quidem ab infantia et ipsae sua. Video enim et uitem adhuc teneram et inpuberem intellegentem tamen iam opera sua et uolentem alicui adhaerere, cui innixa et innexa proficiat. Denique non expectata rustica disciplina, sine arundine, sine ceruo, si quid attigerit, ultro amabit, et quidem uiriosius amplexabitur de suo ingenio quam de tuo arbitrio. Properat esse secura. [5] Video et hederas, quantum uelis premas, statim ad superna conari et nullo praeeunte suspendi, quod malint parietibus inuehi textili silua quam humi teri uoluntaria iniuria. Contra quibus de aedificio male est, ut crescendo recedunt, ut refugiunt? Sentias ramos aliorsum destinatos, et animationem arboris de diuortio parietis intellegas. Contenta est paruitate quam ex primordio prouidentissimi fructicis edidicit, timens etiam ruinam.
[6] Has ego sapientias et scientias arborum cur non contendam? Viuant ut philosophi uolunt, sapiant ut philosophi nolunt, intellegat et infantia ligni, quo magis hominis, cuius anima uelut surculus quidam ex matrice Adam in propaginem deducta et genitalibus feminae foueis commendata cum omni sua paratura pullulauit tam intellectu quam et sensu. [7] Mentior, si non statim infans, ut uitam uagitu salutauit, hoc ipsum se testatur sensisse atque intellexisse quod natus est, omnes simul ibidem dedicans sensus, et luce uisum et sono auditum et umore gustum et aere odoratum et terra tactum. Ita prima illa uox de primis sensuum motibus et de primis intellectuum pulsibus cogitur. [8] Plus est quod de prospectu lacrimabilis uitae quidam augurem incommodorum uocem illam flebilem interpretantur, quod etiam praesciens habenda sit ab ingressu natiuitatis, nedum intellegens. Exinde et matrem spiritu probat et nutricem spiritu examinat et gerulam spiritu agnoscit, fugiens extranea ubera et recusans ignota cubilia , neminem appetens nisi ex usu. [9] Vnde illi iudicium nouitatis et moris, si non sapit? Vnde illi et offendi et demulceri, si non intellegit? Mirum satis, ut infantia naturaliter animosa sit non habens animum et naturaliter affectiosa sit non habens intellectum. At enim Christus ex ore lactantium et paruulorum experiendo laudem nec pueritiam nec infantiam hebetes pronuntiauit, quarum altera cum suffragio occurrens testimonium ei potuit offerre, altera pro ipso trucidata utique uim sensit.