The Fables of Aesop is out now!

The Rightly-Ordered Nature

The human soul
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The human soul must find nurture in God, live in God; the soul must nourish the spirit; the body mus live in the soul–such was the original design of man’s immortal nature. Turning away from God, however, the spirit, instead of giving food to the soul, begins to live at the soul’s expense, feeding itself with its substance (this is what are usually called ‘spiritual values’). The soul, in its turn, begins to live from the life of the body, and this is the origin of the passions. Finally, the body, compelled to seek its food in the external world, in soulless matter, in the end discovers death. Man’s structure falls to pieces.

Vladimir Lossky

While this quotation has impressive explanatory power, I think it might include a typo or an error. In the first sentence, he seems to suggest that the soul ought to feed the spirit, while in the second he seems to suggest that the spirit ought to feed the soul.

It seems to me the proper order is: the spirit is nourished by God, the soul is nourished by the spirit, and the body is nourished by the soul. To reverse the order is to destroy the structure and thus to bring about death.

Does anybody know if I’m reading this rightly?

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