S'ANEANTIR OU S'EPANOUIR : - ResearchSpace@Auckland - The ...

Lelwica donne encore des exemples de femmes à la recherche d’une « otherworldly
order of existence », 95 qui se créent une « mind/body division », 96 qui croient que « the
corporeal [doesn’t] really matter » : 97
My soul was ... tied down by this big bag of rocks that was my body. I had to drag it around.
It did pretty much what it wanted and I had a lot of trouble controlling it. It kept me from
doing all the things I dreamed of. 98
Lelwica cite Margaret Miles, Doyenne de la Graduate Theological Union, à
Berkeley, selon qui cette division entre corps et esprit a été exagérée pendant des siècles par
le christianisme, tandis qu’elle trouve, dans les textes chrétiens primaires, une interprétation
de la relation entre esprit et corps qui est plus près de celle des auteurs classiques : « that the
human “body” and “soul,” while distinct, were inseparable. » 99
Or, selon R. B. Onians, pour les Grecs de l’époque d’Homère, ainsi que pour les
Romains de l’époque de Plaute, chaque personne possédait primo, un corps, secundo, un
« esprit vital » ou « conscious self » 100 (θσμός [thymos] ou animus) et tertio, un « esprit
supérieur » ou « life soul » (Ψστή [youxh] ou genius). La province du thymos, ou animus,
était la nourriture et les appétits du corps, et cet « esprit vital » mourait à la mort du corps.
Le youxh, ou genius, cependant, était associé à la tête, et à la génération, et était la partie
éternelle d’une personne. 101 Il était très important de bien traiter son thymos ou animus,
95 Lelwica, p. 115B.
96 Lelwica, p. 114D.
97 Rabinowitz, The Unanswered Echo, p. 80, dans Lelwica, p. 115B.
98 « Elsa, » dans Becky W. Thompson, A Hunger so Wide and So Deep : American women speak out on eating
problems (Minneapolis & London, University of Minnesota Press, 1994), p. 73, citée dans Lelwica, p. 115C.
99 Margaret Miles, Fullness of Life: Historical foundations for a new asceticism, (Westminster, Philadelphia,
1981) (Lelwica ne donne pas de référence de page pour sa citation). « Through a close and contextualized
reading of primary Christian texts, Miles reconstructs a Christian history of the human body that underscores
classical authors’ assumptions that the human “body” and “soul”, while distinct, were inseparable. » dans
Lelwica, p. 185 (note 71 à la p. 115).
100 V., par ex., Richard Broxton Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul,
the World, Time, and Fate : new interpretations of Greek, Roman and kindred evidence, also of some basic
Jewish and Christian beliefs (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1954), p. 129A ; p. 134A : « He
touches the breast [...], the seat of the conscious self [...], as in the other cases he touches the head, the seat of
the life-soul [...]. »
101 « The brain with its fluid was the stuff, as the genius was the spirit, of life, of generation. » Onians p. 227C;
« Pindar [...] uses Ψστή of that which survives death and passes to the realm of Hades, that which is the “life”
of the living. » Onians, p. 116C; « Despite Wissowa’s view that it [the genius] perished with the body, the
genius appears, like the youxh [Ψστή], to have been the part of man which survived death. » Onians, p. 131B;
« as we have seen, the dead man is identified with the genius, since it is what represents him, what survives of
him. » Onians, p. 137A. « The belief [chez les Romains] that besides the conscious self there was in the body
another spirit [...]. » Onians, p. 146D, Note (5). V. aussi Onians, p. 148, Note (2): « the original dualism of
animus, the normal conscious mind associated particularly with the chest, and genius, the procreative life-soul
associated particularly with the head [...]. »; « In old Germanic belief likewise the mind, the conscious self,
was believed to be in the chest (1) and the surviving soul to be in the head. » Onians, p. 154A. V. aussi
Onians, p. 159A, p. 160C, p. 168. Plus tard, ces deux « âmes » se joignent : « The Ψστή gradually ceases to
be merely the life or life-soul which it was in Homer and Hesiod, etc., and begins to be conceived of and
spoken of as concerned in perception, thought, and feeling, which had formerly passed as the work of θσμός,
φρένες [or phrenes: “seat of thought”, Onians, p. 561], and κηρ[or kēr: “heart”, Onians, p. 23B] in the chest.
In it as a single entity, “life” and consciousness, which had formerly been divided, centred in head and chest
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