Chapter Twenty-Three: Showing the Place of Souls After Their Separation from Their Bodies

the organs of his body had been suspended. And the word of Buṭrus: « Our Lord died in the body and lived in the soul, and warned the souls that are (1) in the bottom of the abyss » (2) — for if those souls had no decisive cognition, they would not have been able to receive our Lord's warning to them. And Addá the Apostle (al-salīḥ) said: « The thinking of the soul will never be suspended, for it is the image of the Truth, exalted be He ». And Ghrīghūriyūs said: « Every good soul that loves God, exalted be He, upon its separation from the body to which it was bound, is delivered from the world [54], and there it attains sensation and fixed intellectual contemplation, because what was barring it from its complete apprehension has been lifted away ».

The Twenty-Third Chapter

On the demonstration of the place of souls after their parting from their bodies

Know that the expression « where » (3) is said only of a body's occupying the place in which it resides. Therefore it is not permissible to ask of the men of the sciences « Where is the soul? »; rather the cause points to its rank. We say: all the people of the Church agree that when the soul comes to be transferred out of the body, the angels and the devils (abālisah) make for it, and to whichever side it has deserved they thrust it (4), until the universal resurrection, when it returns to the body from which it was separated, either for lasting torment or for abiding bliss. So the souls that have acquired the virtues by striving in this world set out for the Paradise [55] from which Ādam was driven out, and walk proudly with the separate intellects (al-ʻuqūl al-mujarradah); and as for the souls that are the reverse of what we have mentioned, they are (1) the bottom of the dark abyss. And this thesis is not among the rational matters that are demonstrated, but among the widely reported matters accepted by the excellent leaders (2) and the righteous fathers. Of this is what Diyūnisiyūs said: « These virtuous souls are the close friends (3) of the angels here and there; with them they inherit the high places in that world which no passing-away and no dissolution reaches, and they dwell with the Creator, exalted be He, for ever and ever. And as for the one that is (4) the reverse of the one mentioned (5), here it fraternises with the devils and the satans, and there it descends to the lowest of the low ». And Ghrīghūriyūs said: « It was by means of the soul that the way was set straight for the thief toward Paradise ». And Father Anṭūniyūs related that when his intellect was snatched away he beheld his soul flying (6) in the air, the angels surrounding it, and it ascending to (7) the Creator, exalted be He; and when it had traversed a stretch of its road it beheld forms ugly of aspect [56], greatly disturbing and dreadful, which stood facing it and hindered it from its object (8), and reviled and rebuked it.

And Awghrīs said: « The soul that has been honoured with the grace of God, exalted be He, and has been separated from the body, dwells in the places of the world, unto a station in which there is no hateful pain ».

— Notes —

[46] 1) Had he said « al-nufūs allatī fī qaʻr al-hāwiyah », it would have been more eloquent.

[46] 2) The First Epistle of Saint Buṭrus 3:18 and 19.

[46] 3) In the original: iʻlam anna lafẓatayn lā tuqāl.

[46] 4) In the original: dafaʻahā.

[47] 1) In the original: fī.

[47] 2) In the original: al-musallamah min al-aʼimmah.

[47] 3) In the original: awliyāt.

[47] 4) In the original: alladhī.

[47] 5) In the original: al-madhkūrīn.

[47] 6) In the original: ṭāʼir.

[47] 7) In the original: naḥwa al-bāriʼ.

[47] 8) In the original: min marāmihi.