Date: 395

"The inner man hath an inner mouth, and this the inner ear discerns: what things go forth from this mouth, go out of the heart, and they defile the man."

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 399-426

"The Trinity's "own light seemed to be present around us, still, no trinity appeared to us in nature, for in the midst of that splendor we did not keep the eye of our mind fixed steadily upon searching for it ... because that ineffable light beat back our gaze, and the weakness of our mind was co...

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: 413-427

"Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of man is God, of whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say, 'Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.'"

— St. Augustine (354-430)

Date: c. 1016-1021

"[The Active Intellect's] relation to our souls is that of the Sun to our vision."

— Avicenna [Ibn Sīnā] (c. 980-1037)

Date: c. 1016-1021

"So, initially coming to know something is like treating the eye, but then when the eye is healthy, whenever it wants it looks at something from which a given form is taken, while when it turns from that thing, that [thing] comes to be in potency proximate to act."

— Avicenna [Ibn Sīnā] (c. 980-1037)

Date: w. c. 1210

"The mind's hand shapes the entire house before the body's hand builds it."

— Vinsauf, Geoffrey of [called Galfridus Anglicus] (fl. 1208-1213)

Date: 1257

"For this triple vision, man was endowed with a triple eye, as explained by Hugh of St. Victor: the eye of flesh, of reason, and of contemplation; the eye of flesh, to see the world and what it contains; the eye of reason, to see the soul and what it contains; the eye of contemplation, to see God...

— St. Bonaventure [born Giovanni di Fidanza] (1217-1274)

Date: 1257

"As Adam's flesh had been tainted by his sinful soul, becoming prone to lust, so the flesh seeded with lust and carrying in itself a virulent infection, taints and vitiates the soul."

— St. Bonaventure [born Giovanni di Fidanza] (1217-1274)

Date: 1257

"Consequently, while original sin is a disease infecting both elements, the personal and the physical - the personal through the will and the physical through the flesh - the stain of original sin is blotted out in the soul, while on the other hand the infection and its consequences remain in the...

— St. Bonaventure [born Giovanni di Fidanza] (1217-1274)

Date: 1257

"This disease denies to the soul the life of grace; [it denies it] the enabling rectitude of all the virtues; it inclines the soul in a certain measure toward every kind of sin."

— St. Bonaventure [born Giovanni di Fidanza] (1217-1274)