IV. Poet George Wither—Man a Candidate for Immortality

We must also note GEORGE WITHER, or WYTHER (1588-1667), a contemporary English poet and satirist. First a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, he then studied law at Lincolns Inn in London, but devoted his life principally to writing. He had been a major general in the Royalist Army, became a Puritan in 1643, and professed adherence to the foundation principles of early Christianity. His English translation of a work, The Nature of Man; ^{3131) See Abbot, Literature of the Doctrine of Future Life, nos. 7, 8.} by fourth- or fifth-century Bishop Nemesius, was significantly on Conditionalism. As previously observed, Nemesius had been a Neo-Platonist, but became bishop of Emesa. (Pictured on page 151.)CFF2 160.2

Wither’s comments on the treatise indicate that his own beliefs were in harmony with those of Nemesius and in conflict with the “orthodoxy” of his day. Moreover, he was the friend of Milton, and of Canne, Overton, and other Conditionalists of that period—a significant association in those days when pressure and persecution were rife.CFF2 160.3

Wither was author of numerous works, but his English translation of Nemesius had as its full title The Nature of Man. A learned and usefull tract written in Greek by Nemesius, surnamed the Philosopher; sometime Bishop of a City in Phcenecia, and one of the most ancient Fathers of the Church. Englished, and divided into Sections, with briefs of their principall contents: by Geo. Wither (London: 1636).CFF2 160.4

1. SOUL NONEXISTENT APART FROM BODY

Here are telltale excerpts from Wither’s translation, with its quaint spelling, contending that the soul “hath not an existence” apart from the body:CFF2 161.1

“The Hebrews affirme that MAN was made from the beginning, neither altogether mortall, neither wholly immortall, but, as it were, in a state betweene both those natures, to the end that if he did follow the affections of the body, he should be liable to such alterations as belong to the bodie; But if he did prefer such good things as pertaine to the soul, he should then be honoured with immortalitie ....CFF2 161.2

“Moreover, it is not to be beleeved, that God would so hastily have repented Himself, and made Him to be forthwith mortall, who was created absolutely imortall.” “When the soul commeth into the body it perfects the living creature. Genesis 2. So then, in a perfect living creature, neither can the soul bee at any time without the bodie, neither the body without the soul: for the soul is not the bodie it self; but it is the soul of the body: and therefore it is in the body, yea, and in such a kind of body: for it hath not an existence by itself.” ^{3232) George Wither, The Nature of Man, pp. 23ff.}CFF2 161.3

2. LIFE “DOTH PRINCIPALLY FORM THE SOUL.”

The closeness with which he identifies the soul with the body, in the functioning of man, is seen by this additional statement:
“For the soul doth not cease to worke, even in them that are asleep, but a man even in sleeping, is nourished, and groweth, and seeth visions, and breathes, which is the chiefest symptom of life .... For, indeed, it is nothing else but life which doth principally form the soul.” ^{3333) Ibid.}CFF2 161.4

These excerpts clearly show, first, that Phoenician Bishop Nemesius understood death to be the cessation of life, and that the soul had no separate existence or function apart from the body. But they also show that this early-century view was obviously shared by seventeenth-century Wither, more than a thousand years later, in another transition hour, when ecclesiastical pressures were heavy. It cost something to be a Conditionalist in Wither’s day.CFF2 161.5