elevation of soul. This it was which dispersed darkness from our souls,
as it is dispelled from our eyes, enabling us to see all things that
are above or below, the beginning, end, and middle of everything. I am
convinced entirely that that which could effect so many and such great
things must be a divine power. For what is memory of words and
circumstances? What, too, is invention? Surely they are things than
which nothing greater can be conceived in a God! For I do not imagine
the Gods to be delighted with nectar and ambrosia, or with Juventas
presenting them with a cup; nor do I put any faith in Homer, who says
that Ganymede was carried away by the Gods on account of his beauty, in
order to give Jupiter his wine. Too weak reasons for doing Laomedon
such injury! These were mere inventions of Homer, who gave his Gods the
imperfections of men. I would rather that he had given men the
perfections of the Gods! those perfections, I mean, of uninterrupted
health, wisdom, invention, memory. Therefore the soul (which is, as I
say, divine) is, as Euripides more boldly expresses it, a God. And
thus, if the divinity be air or fire, the soul of man is the same; for
as that celestial nature has nothing earthly or humid about it, in like
manner the soul of man is also free from both these qualities: but if
it is of that fifth kind of nature, first introduced by Aristotle, then
both Gods and souls are of the same.

XXVII. As this is my opinion, I have explained it in these very words,
in my book on Consolation.[19] The origin of the soul of man is not to
be found upon earth, for there is nothing in the soul of a mixed or
concrete nature, or that has any appearance of being formed or made out
of the earth; nothing even humid, or airy, or fiery. For what is there
in natures of that kind which has the power of memory, understanding,
or thought? which can recollect the past, foresee the future, and
comprehend the present? for these capabilities are confined to divine