1 (1) Pythagoras of Samos instructed the region of Italy once called ...

substance, and this certainly belongs not to one species but to contrary species. Someone
separating black sheep from white should not put the half-white among the black nor
among the white either but should set them apart from both.
For to say that man is a ‘body’ is not to talk about a man, and it is worse than saying
‘man is a soul’ since soul is the better part of man. (9) This did not escape the notice of
these people, but they thought that soul is not a substance, and so they said that both trees
and plants have soul (a point to be discussed shortly), also making a foolish distinction
between ‘animate body’ and ‘animal,’ as if these were different. Now no animal at all
need be called ‘immortal.’ Indeed, because the angels who are in heaven or in the place
below are not ‘animate bodies,’ they are also not ‘animals,’ not having been endowed
with body.
(10) Therefore, ‘bodiless substance’ or ‘spirit’ is divided into ‘creating’ and ‘created’;
‘created’ into ‘angelic’ and ‘non-angelic’; ‘angelic’ (if you like) into ‘celestial’ and
‘infernal,’ with ‘Michael,’ ‘Gabriel,’ ‘Satan’ and ‘Lucifer’ as individuals. And ‘nonangelic’
is divided into one made in the image of God and called ‘human,’ with ‘my
spirit’ and ‘yours’ as individuals; and one not made in the image of God, which perhaps
can also be divided into species, whose individuals are ‘the spirit of this brute’ and ‘of
that one.’ (11) ‘Bodily substance’ or ‘body’ is divided into ‘plant’ and ‘non-plant’; and
‘plant body’ itself can perhaps also be divided into its own species, whose individuals are
‘this olive,’ ‘this laurel.’ ‘Non-plant body’ is divided into ‘gold’ and ‘non-gold’ and
perhaps even farther, with ‘this gold piece,’ ‘this silver ring’ as individuals.
(12) ‘Animal’ belongs to neither genus, neither black sheep nor white, as I mentioned,
nor does it belong to ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ or ‘body’ even though it is composed of all three.
Therefore we shall classify it by itself into ‘human’ and ‘non-human.’ I exclude ‘Christ’
from ‘animal’ because he is not just man but God as well. As individuals belonging to
‘human’ I have already mentioned ‘Socrates,’ ‘Plato.’ The ‘non-human’ or ‘beast’ can, if
you prefer, be divided into many species, as I have shown. Therefore, since the first
category is ‘substance’ and is divided into ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ and ‘body,’ let us see what
Aristotle thinks about them both.
8 ON SPIRIT AND ON GOD AND ANGELS
(1) ‘Spirit,’ as I was saying, is on the one hand ‘creator,’ on the other hand ‘created.’
Although I acknowledge that the Creator is a substance, nonetheless I would say not that
he is composed of matter and form but that there is one essence of God and three
properties, and whether these may be called ‘qualities’ I shall examine in the appropriate
place. But I think that nothing can correctly be called ‘matter’ in such a thing. For who
but an unbearably arrogant philosopher, without regard for usage and custom in speaking,
would say ‘the sun’s matter’? Ordinary language treats ‘matter’ like wood in a box,
stones in a house or the action in a lawsuit: for the sun and other things, therefore,
‘essence’ is better, and thus also for God. Augustine does this, writing ‘one essence of
God, three persons,’ as the Greeks used both prosôpa and hupostaseis, ‘persons’ or
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