When men had seen in their sleep their dead relatives or friends, they necessarily sought to discover what had appeared to them. It was not the body, which had been consumed on a pile or swallowed up in the sea and eaten by the fishes. However, they would declare it was something, for they had seen it; the dead man had spoken; the dreamer had questioned him. Was it "_Psyche_"; was it "_Pneuma_"; was it "_Nous_" with whom he had conversed in his sleep? Then a phantom was imagined--a slight figure; it was "_skia_"--it was "_daimonos_"--a shade of the manes; a small soul of air and fire, extremely slender, wandering none knew where. In after times, when it was determined to sound the matter, the undisputed result was, that this soul was corporeal, and all antiquity had no other idea of it. At length came Plato, who so subtilized this soul, that it was doubted whether he did not entirely separate it from matter; but the problem was never resolved until faith came to enlighten us. In vain do the materialists adduce the testimony of some fathers of the Church who do not express themselves with exactness. St. Irenæus says that the soul is but the breath of life, that it is incorporeal only in comparison with the mortal body, and that it retains the human figure in order that it may be recognized. In vain does Tertullian express himself thus: "The corporality of the soul shines forth in the Gospel. _'Corporalitas animæ in ipso evangelio relucesseit.'_" For if the soul had not a body, the image of the soul would not have the image of the body. In vain does he even relate the vision of a holy woman who had seen a very brilliant soul of the color of the air. In vain does Tatian expressly say: _Ψυχὴ μὲν οὖν εἰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πυλυμερής ἐστιν_ --"The soul of man is composed of several parts." In vain do they adduce St. Hilary, who said in later times: "There is nothing created which is not corporeal, neither in heaven nor on earth; neither visible nor invisible; all is formed of elements; and souls, whether they inhabit a body or are without a body, have always a corporeal substance." In vain does St. Ambrose, in the fourth century, say: "We know nothing but what is material, excepting only the ever-venerable Trinity." The whole body of the Church has decided that the soul is immaterial. These holy men had fallen into an error then universal; they were men: but they were not mistaken concerning immortality, because it is evidently announced in the Gospels.