Book 12

Summary

Outline

1. Whatever we have in common with beasts belongs to the outer man, reason to the inner man. (1.1–2.2)

2. Reason deals both with temporal things, and with eternal things. (3.3–4.4)

3. Both male and female were created in the image of God. (5.5–11.16)

4. It is less sinful to take pleasure in the thought of doing evil things one decides not to do. (12.17–13.21)

5. We must distinguish between wisdom (sapientia), which concerns eternal things, and knowledge (scientia), which concerns the temporal. (14.21–23)

6. We should reject the Platonic doctrine of recollection and believe rather that the intellectual mind is so formed to see the forms in the light of reason. (15.24–25)

Chapter 1

Well now! Let us see where the boundary line, so to speak, between the outer and the inner man is to be placed. For it is correctly said that whatever we have in our soul in common with the beasts pertains to the outer man, since by “outer man” we mean not the body alone, but also its own peculiar kind of life, from which the structure of the body and all the senses derive their vigor and by which they are equipped to perceive external things. And we are still concerned with something pertaining to the outer man when the images of things that have already been perceived and have been fixed in our memory are again seen through recollection.