) yet by death,
the soule fals from that, for which it was infused, and poured into
man at first; that is to be the forme of that body, the King of that
Kingdome; and therefore, when in the generall Resurrection, the soule
returns to that state, for which it was created, and to which it hath
had an affection, and a desire, even in the fulnesse of the Joyes of
Heaven, then, when the soule returns to her office, to make up
the man, because the whole man hath, therefore the soule hath a
Resurrection: not from death, but from a
deprivation
of her former
state; that state which she was made for, and is ever enclined to.
John Donne
By this descent of the soul into the body we deprive the latter of
its proper dignity, to be the Casket, Temple, Palace of the Soul.
Then Donne turns aside to enforce the dignity of the Body. It will be
redeemed from death, and the Soul is only preserved. No more than
the Body is the Soul naturally immortal. These lines are almost
a parenthesis. The poet returns once more to his main theme, the
degradation of the soul by our exclusive regard for the body.
Thus the deepest thought of Donne's poetry, his love poetry and
his religious poetry, emerges here again. He will not accept the
antithesis between soul and body. The dignity of the body is hardly
less than that of the soul. But we cannot exalt the body at the
expense of the soul. If we immerse the soul in the body it is not the
soul alone which suffers but the body also. In the highest spiritual
life, as in the fullest and most perfect love, body and soul are
complementary, are merged in each other; and after death the life
of the soul is in some measure incomplete, the end for which it was
created is not obtained until it is reunited to the body. 'Yet have
not those Fathers, nor those Expositors, who have in this text,
acknowledged a Resurrection of the soule, mistaken nor miscalled the
matter. Take _Damascens_ owne definition of Resurrection: _Resurrectio
est ejus quod cecidit secunda surrectio_: A Resurrection is a second
rising to that state, from which anything is formerly fallen. Now
though by death, the soule do not fall into any such state, as that it
can complaine, (for what can that lack, which God fils?
) yet by death,
the soule fals from that, for which it was infused, and poured into
man at first; that is to be the forme of that body, the King of that
Kingdome; and therefore, when in the generall Resurrection, the soule
returns to that state, for which it was created, and to which it hath
had an affection, and a desire, even in the fulnesse of the Joyes of
Heaven, then, when the soule returns to her office, to make up
the man, because the whole man hath, therefore the soule hath a
Resurrection: not from death, but from a
deprivation
of her former
state; that state which she was made for, and is ever enclined to.
'
_Sermons_ 80. 19. 189.
Here, as before, Donne is probably following St. Augustine, who
combats the Neo-Platonic view (to which mediaeval thought tended to
recur) that a direct source of evil was the descent of the soul into
the body. The body is not essentially evil. It is not the body as such
that weighs down the soul (aggravat animam), but the body corrupted
by sin: 'Nam corruptio corporis ... non peccati primi est causa, sed
poena; nec caro corruptibilis animam peccatricem, sed anima peccatrix
fecit esse corruptibilem carnem.' In the Resurrection we desire not
to escape from the body but to be clothed with a new body,--'nolumus
corpore exspoliari, sed ejus immortalitate vestiri.' Aug. _De Civ.
Dei_, xiv. 3, 5.
