Fragmentum ex oratione contra astronomos

From Saint Gregory the Theologian, from the discourse against astronomers. Just as fish living in the waters are sustained for the generation of life through the humors and waters that are washed in with them in the womb, yet after birth, not by exhalation but by inhalation and respiration of the life of the air, every animate creature enjoys life; and the body is a bond of the soul, and the blood is a bond of the body, or rather the heat inherent in the blood, upon the cooling of which the separation of the soul from the body occurs, as the blood congeals. Hence, when the dead bodies of humans are dissected immediately on the same day, they still have bile perhaps within, and likewise phlegm and humor, but blood not at all; for, as I have already said, by the deficiency of the hot element the separation of the soul from the body occurs. And for this reason most infants are born at night, as the womb is cooled and expels the infant through the nocturnal chill; in the same way, most bodies die at night, as if the heat of the blood were pursued and... by the cold of the night. And this is the account of the separation of souls. But it is necessary for you also to understand the separation of the elements of the body themselves, so that you may hold the account of the resurrection with certainty. For when the soul is separated from the body, the four elements from which they were composed... in them and are carried away, the heat of the blood into fire as into its own deposit, the moist into water, the cold into air.

The remainder remains in the earth, that is, the tomb, the dry element, that is, the dust taken from it by God in the beginning. At the time of the resurrection, as from some deposits of the said parts of the world, each element gives back its own to the dust, and the body is again constituted from the four, and the soul runs to it, and thus the human being is formed again. You will wish, as one who argues about everything, to treat this also in a specific manner: I mean the activities of the soul through the body—memory, I mean, and reason, desire and anger, laughter and breath—where these are, and through which parts they are activated. For memories and their distinctions are activated by the soul through the brain; therefore, often some who have received a fatal blow to the head have not died immediately, but have become senseless and utterly foolish; for this reason the back parts of the head are called the "metaphrena." The rational faculty is activated by the soul through the heart. The respiratory faculty through the lung; the irascible faculty through the blood; whence it is possible to see often in those who are angry, at the moment of anger, their appearance bloodshot and inflamed. The appetitive faculty the soul activates through the liver; whence when the liver is cooled, with a lack of appetite immediately following, the human being loses desire for food. Observe, for instance, that all gluttonous animals have a perfect liver, such as pigs and ostriches. You will also know that the soul activates the faculty of smiling through the spleen, for those who are reluctant to laugh have it.

and those who are often dragged down by the laughter of many are said to be splenetic. You will certainly also wish to understand concerning the spermatic parts, through which and from which parts they proceed, which are the kidneys; whence also those skilled in such matters are accustomed to say that those who are excessively given to intercourse are bent down by the pain of the kidneys. Now then, it is necessary for those who have studied these matters to know what is unclear to the many, that the soul, having been separated from the body and from the enumerated parts of the body, and being naked in itself, without flesh and without body, no longer remembers nor cultivates, as the one who said bears witness: "On that day all his thoughts will perish." And you, O wise one, will inquire, when you come to that place, carefully concerning the discourse about the soul. For this reason it is both unattainable and unsolvable to the many, how the incorporeal soul is separated from the body, and in the separation of the soul death does not occur; for there is one and only separation of the soul from the body. And after all this, consider this: whence and for what reason some men are naturally, and not from any training, from their very early infancy, some sharp, some gentle, some pleasure-loving, others temperate, others calm, others turbulent; and some prudent, others more innocent, and some deceitful, others foolish, and very many other things, O Greeks.

The uneducated among the philosophers are those who have fabricated the much-talked-about astrology of the celestial stars and who have dreadfully dogmatized about fate, declaring that our affairs are steered by the governance of the stars and not at all by God. But those who have scientifically grasped the intelligent and God-given qualities and true essential natures concerning man's natural gentleness and sharpness, softness and severity, temperance, I mean, and licentiousness, and all such natural endowments, have wisely spoken thus: that such natural dispositions and states are not engendered and brought forth together with nature from one single mode alone, but also from a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh cause: and first from the parental likeness of the fathers, second from the difference of the elements in their diurnal and nocturnal motion. For know, O philosopher, that there are three motions from the intervals of the three hours for the elements: from the first diurnal hour up to the third, the bile is in motion, as is often testified by the eyes of some appearing sharper in the morning; from the third to the sixth, with the heat of the sun, there are motions and boilings of the blood, sharper and more bitter, and others after eating; from the sixth hour to the ninth, the motion of the... is wont to occur, and thus then the motion of the humor until evening.