The Body as a Prison

There are one or two more things on which he wants condemnation passed. One is this: that these men say the body is a prison, and like a chain around the soul; and that they assert that the soul does not depart, but returns to the place where it originally was. Let me give quotations to show his opinion on this point too. In the second book of these Commentaries, on the passage, “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ,” he says, a little way down: [a] “In several passages the apostle calls the body the chain of the soul, because the soul is kept shut up in it as if in a prison. In this way we may speak of Paul as held close in the bonds of the body and not returning to be with Christ, so that the preaching to the Gentiles may be fully accomplished.”

And again, in the third book of these Commentaries, on the words, “for which I am an ambassador in chains,” after some discussion of the passage he speaks in the character of that ‘other’ who is himself: [c] “Another argues that he speaks this way because of the body of our humiliation and the chain that surrounds us, so that we do not yet know as we ought to know, and we see by means of a mirror, in a riddle; and that he will be able to disclose the mysteries of the gospel only when he has thrown off this chain and gone out free from his prison. Yet perhaps even in chains a man may be considered free whose way of life is in heaven, and of whom it may be said: ‘You are not in the prison nor in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.’” [d]

And in the Commentary on Paul’s Letter to Philemon, at the place where he says, “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner, greets you,” some way down he says: [f] “Possibly, however, as some think, a deeper and more mysterious meaning is set before us: that the two companions had been captured and bound and brought down into this valley of tears.” [g]