Anf-03 v.iv.vi.xv Pg 27
1 Thess. v. 23. For a like application of this passage, see also our author’s treatise, De Resurrect. Carnis, cap. xlvii. [Elucidation I.]
Now he has here propounded the soul and the body as two several and distinct things.5917 5917 It is remarkable that our author quotes this text of the three principles, in defence only of two of them. But he was strongly opposed to the idea of any absolute division between the soul and the spirit. A distinction between these united parts, he might, under limitations, have admitted; but all idea of an actual separation and division he opposed and denied. See his De Anima, cap. x. St. Augustine more fully still maintained a similar opinion. See also his De Anima, iv. 32. Bp. Ellicott, in his interesting sermon On the Threefold Nature of Man, has given these references, and also a sketch of patristic opinion of this subject. The early fathers, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alex., Origen, as well as Didymus of Alex., Gregory Nyssen., and Basil, held distinctly the threefold nature. Our own divines, as is natural, are also divided in views. Bp. Bull, Hammond, and Jackson hold the trichotomy, as a triple nature is called; others, like Bp. Butler, deny the possibility of dividing our immaterial nature into two parts. This variation of opinion seems to have still representatives among our most recent commentators: while Dean Alford holds the triplicity of our nature literally with St. Paul, Archdeacon Wordsworth seems to agree with Bp. Butler in regarding soul and spirit as component parts of one principle. See also Bp. Ellicott’s Destiny of the Creature, sermon v. and notes.
For although the soul has a kind of body of a quality of its own,5918 5918 On this paradox, that souls are corporeal, see his treatise De Anima, v., and following chapters (Oehler). [See also cap. x. supra.]
just as the spirit has, yet as the soul and the body are distinctly named, the soul has its own peculiar appellation, not requiring the common designation of body. This is left for “the flesh,” which having no proper name (in this passage), necessarily makes use of the common designation. Indeed, I see no other substance in man, after spirit and soul, to which the term body can be applied except “the flesh.” This, therefore, I understand to be meant by the word “body”—as often as the latter is not specifically named. Much more do I so understand it in the present passage, where the flesh5919 5919 Quæ = caro.
is expressly called by the name “body.”
