Life of Soul - Form

Form

The tract takes the form of a catechetical dialogue, or at least begins that way, one interlocutor falling silent about halfway through; of the three surviving versions, version L represents itself as a conversation between two "friends in Christ"; versions A and H replace this pair with a questioning sister and answering brother and a questioning son and answering father respectively. Life of Soul consists of six questions together with the corresponding answers. The first five questions are introductory, the sixth provokes a lengthy reply that forms the bulk of the tract. The tract begins with the eternal question, "How does one get to heaven?"; answers, "Through Christ who is the life of our soul" --identifying that life with faith and renunciation of sin--; and proceeds to the final question that forms the structural motif for the tract: "What are the food and drink that nourish the life of soul?" The rest of the text explicates the answer: the soul's bread is faith in Christ and its drink is adherence to his words. Faith in Christ is divided into faith in his divinity and faith in his humanity, the relevant tenets of the creed being listed under each. Christ's words are explained as being summed up in the two commands of love: to love God and one's brother. These two words, it is explained, comprise all ten of the Mosaic ten commandments (duly listed and accounted for); they combat the seven deadly sins (each duly listed, its defeat by love explained); they inspire their adherents to perform the corporal works of mercy(duly listed); and they nourish and are nourished by six virtues: peaceableness, patience, meekness, poverty in spirit, truth, and chastity. Each virtue is then exemplified, largely from the Sermon on the Mount; meekness by, among other things, the Lord's Prayer as the exemplarly prayer of the meek, a device which allows the author to expound the Lord's Prayer.