Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

Anima Christiana 457
pretty terrible, so that in attacking them Tertullian is at least on the right
side of the battle-field. And if his attack is not uniformly successful, he
certainly lands a few shrewd blows – and I confess that I see no reason to
apply the term “sophism” to anything he says in Chapter 6. For example,
when Tertullian states that “if being moved by something else is
characteristic of body, then how much more is moving something
else” (6.3), he has been accused of advancing “an outrageous sophism”
17 . It is the accusation which is outrageous: the sentence does
not express a sophism, nor even a ropy argument, for it doesn’t express
an argument at all. Nor does it express an outrageous falsehood: whether
or not it expresses a truth, it surely expresses something which many
people will find, initially at least, rather plausible.
But if Tertullian rightly rejects the Platonist arguments, and rejects
them without fraudulence, he doesn’t deserve much praise for swallowing
the Stoic syllogisms in favour of corporeality. Take the first of the
four: Zeno, defining the soul as innate spirit, argues thus: “That on
the removal of which an animal dies is a body. When the innate spirit
is removed, the animal dies. Therefore the innate spirit is a body. Therefore
the soul is a body” (5.3). Seneca dismissed things of that sort, which
he thought were typical of the early Stoa, as puerile trifles, as ineptiae. 18
He meant that they would never persuade anyone of the truth of their
conclusions. I dare say he was right. But that is irrelevant; for the arguments
were surely advanced as proofs of their conclusions – and the
question of whether or not they convince has nothing to do with
their probative status.
Nonetheless, just as the Stoic syllogisms are not persuasive, so they
are not probative. The four arguments which Tertullian transcribes and
commends are simply bad arguments. Perhaps a bit of tinkering might
improve them? I doubt it; but in any case Tertullian does not tinker,
and he was presumably satisfied with them as they are.
After he has applauded the Stoics and exploded the Platonists, Tertullian
finally calls upon Scripture: “As far as the philosophers are concerned,
that is enough, since as far as we Christians are concerned it is
superfluous – for us, the corporeality of the soul is evident from the gospels”
(7.1). Half a page, the story of Lazarus, and the question is settled.
says of one rather anodyne passage that “that is the fallacy of the excluded middle,
one of Tertullian’s favourites” (1971, 217).
17 Waszink 1947, 37*.
18 See Barnes 1997, 12 – 20.