Thus is not sufficient, in caring for a human being, to find a teacher for one's mind, a physician for one's body, a psychologist for one's emotions, and a pastor for one's spirit. While seeming to provide for every need, such an approach would forget that the whole is more than the sum of the parts - the human cannot be disassembled like a machine, having each part cleaned and oiled, and then be reassembled. It is in the intersection of body and soul that we find the man.
In the late 300's A.D., or perhaps in the early 400's A.D., an anonymous author living near the river Zab in Persia wrote a spiritual classic called The Book of Steps, also sometimes cited as the Ascents. This writer looked at the complex relation between body and soul, particularly in the context of the practice of fasting:
There is a hidden self-emptying of the heart when it leaves the earth and is raised up to heaven, it is right that we should empty ourselves in the body too of our possessions and inheritance. Then we shall be keeping the commandments of him who gives life to all, and we shall realize that the person who is bound up in our Lord and ponders on him continuously possesses hidden prayer of the heart. Let us pray with our body as well as with our heart, just as Jesus blessed and prayed in body and in spirit; and so too did the apostles and prophets pray. We should not be fools who fail to listen to their parents: we should not lose our spiritual parents and acquire false parents who belong to the flesh, who will cause us to stray from the truth of our Lord and those who preach him.
The text speaks of a 'self-emptying' of the heart - that it surrenders all desires and loves God above all things. The physical analogue is that we rid ourselves of 'possessions and inheritance' - material benefits. In this way, the corporeal body and the metaphysical soul are joined in purpose, in placing Jesus higher than any other affection.
There is a hidden fasting of the heart, fasting from evil thoughts, we should also fast openly, just as our Lord fasted and as did those who have preached him, of old and more recently. Since we know that the body is become a hidden temple and the heart a hidden altar for ministry in the spirit, we should show our eagerness at this visible altar and in this visible temple, so that, as we labor in these, we may have rest for ever in that church in heaven which is free and magnificent, and at that altar which is adorned and exalted in the spirit, before which the angels and all the saints minister, while Jesus acts as priest and effects sanctification before them, above them, and on every side of them.
The author shifts from 'self-emptying' to 'fasting' - perhaps these are mere synonyms in a Semitic parallelism, or perhaps there is a distinction: a self-emptying to prepare for new content, versus a fasting which is an abstinence. The heart empties itself of all other affections, so that it may be filled with affection for Jesus; the heart fasts from evil thought, meaning simply to rid itself of such. In either case, the continued theme is parallel and coordinated action between body and soul, a pious inspiration for all the faithful.
