De quaternario corporis.
The Body's Fourfold Number
The body is assigned the quaternary number, shown through the recurring dyad in powers of two, revealing that composite bodies are dissoluble.
For they too assign their own fourfold number to the body. Just as the monad fits the soul, so the dyad fits the body. Say: 'Two times two makes four.' Say: 'Two times four makes eight.' Say: 'Two times eight makes sixteen.' Say: 'Two times sixteen makes thirty-two.' Here in the fourth place the very same number appears to you — that is, the dyad, from which multiplication first began — and if you proceed further without limit, there's no doubt that the dyad will always stand out at every fourth step. And this is the fourfold number of the body, from which it is understood that everything composed of dissoluble elements is itself also dissoluble.
The Soul's Descent and Return
Souls degenerate when they descend from pure understanding into bodily imagination, yet are restored when they gather back to their simple source.
You see now clearly enough, I think, how souls degenerate from the intelligible to the understandable when they descend from the purity of simple understanding — which is darkened by no bodily image — to the imagination of visible things, and how they become more blessed again when, gathering themselves back from this distraction to the simple source of their nature, they are restored, as if stamped with the sign of an ideal form.
Understanding, Imagination, and Sensation
Understanding is pure knowledge of first principles, imagination is the uncertain memory of bodily traces, and sensation is the soul's passion in the body.
So then, to put it more plainly: the intelligible in us is what understanding is; the understandable, on the other hand, is what imagination is. Understanding, for its part, is a pure and certain knowledge concerned solely with the first principles of things — that is, with God, the Ideas, and matter — and with immaterial substances. Imagination is the memory of the senses, drawn from the traces of physical things that cling to the mind; it's a starting point for cognition, yet in itself it holds nothing certain. Sensation is a passion of the soul in the body, arising from qualities beyond the accidents.
Read the original Latin
Nam corpori quoque suum assignant quaternarium. sicut monas animae, ita dias corpori congruit. dic: "bis duo fiunt quattuor," dic: "bis quattuor fiunt octo," dic: "bis octo fiunt sedecim," dic: "bis sedecim fiunt triginta duo." hic in quarto loco similiter idem numerus, id est binarius, a quo multiplicatio initium sumpsit, tibi occurrit, idemque si in infinitum processeris, indubitanter continget ut quarto semper gradu binarius emineat. et hic est quaternarius corporis, in quo intelligi datur omne quod a solubilibus compositionem accipit ipsum quoque esse dissolubile. vides nunc satis aperte, ut puto, quomodo animae de intellectibilibus ad intelligibilia degenerant, quaudo a puritate simplicis intelligentiae, quae nulla corporum fuscatur imagine, ad visibilium imaginationem descendunt rursumque beatiores fiunt, quando se ab hac distractione ad simplicem naturae suae fontem colligentes, quasi quodam optimae figurae signo impressae, componuntur. est igitur, ut apertius dicam, intellectibile in nobis id quod est intelligentia, intelligibile vero id quod est imaginatio. intelligentia vero est de solis rerum principiis, id est, Deo, ideis, et hyle, et de incorporeis substantiis, pura certaque cognitio.
imaginatio est memoria sensuum ex corporum reliquiis inhaerentibus animo, principium cognitionis per se nihil certum habens. sensus est passio animae in corpore ex qualitatibus extra accidentibus.
Didascalicon de Studio Legendi (On the Study of Reading) companion
Hugh said begin with small daily portions. Start tomorrow.
Chosen Portion serves one short, ordered devotional reading each day — the medieval lectio pattern, free on iOS.
Hugh taught that formation comes from ordered, incremental daily reading, and Chosen Portion is that ordered daily portion delivered to your phone.
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