When she had finished, I hesitated a moment, and then said: I am not yet satisfied about the thing which we have been inquiring into; after all that has been said my mind is still in doubt; and I beg that our discussion may be allowed to revert to the same line of reasoning as before71    The conclusion of which was drawn, 199 C. “Therefore the soul exists in the actual atoms which she has once animated, and there is no force to tear her away from her cohesion with them.” It is to the line of reasoning (ἀκολουθία) leading up to this conclusion that Gregory would revert, in order to question this conclusion. What both sides are agreed on is, the existence merely of the soul after death. All between this conclusion and the present break in the discussion has been a digression on the Passions and on Hades. Now Gregory asks, how can the soul possibly recognize the atoms that once belonged to her? Oehler therefore does not translate aright, “ich bitte nur den geführten Beweis…in derselben Folge zu wiederholen:” but Krabinger expresses the true sense, “ut rursus mihi ad eandem consequentiam reducatur oratio,” i.e. the discussion (not the proof), which is here again, almost in Platonic fashion, personified., omitting only that upon which we are thoroughly agreed. I say this, for I think that all but the most stubborn controversialists will have been sufficiently convinced by our debate not to consign the soul after the body’s dissolution to annihilation and nonentity, nor to argue that because it differs substantially from the atoms it is impossible for it to exist anywhere in the universe; for, however much a being that is intellectual and immaterial may fail to coincide with these atoms, it is in no ways hindered (so far) from existing in them; and this belief of ours rests on two facts: firstly, on the soul’s existing in our bodies in this present life, though fundamentally different from them: and secondly, on the fact that the Divine being, as our argument has shown, though distinctly something other than visible and material substances, nevertheless pervades each one amongst all existences, and by this penetration of the whole keeps the world in a state of being; so that following these analogies we need not think that the soul, either, is out of existence, when she passes from the world of forms to the Unseen. But how, I insisted, after the united whole of the atoms has assumed72    has assumed, ἀναλαβόντων. The construction is accommodated to the sense, not the words; τῆς τῶν στοιχείων ἑνώσεως having preceded., owing to their mixing together, a form quite different—the form in fact with which the soul has been actually domesticated—by what mark, when this form, as we should have expected, is effaced along with the resolution of the atoms, shall the soul follow along (them), now that that familiar form ceases to persist?

_Γ. Ταῦτα δὲ διεξελθούσης τῆς διδασκάλου, μικρὸν ἐπισχὼν, Οὔπω ἱκανῶς ἔχω, φημὶ, τοῦ ζητουμένου: ἀλλ' ἔτι μοι τοῖς εἰρημένοις ἐπιδιστάζει πως ἡ διάνοια, καὶ δέομαι πάλιν ἐπαναχθῆναί μοι πρὸς τὴν αὐτὴν ἀκολουθίαν τὸν λόγον, τῶν μὲν ἤδη συμβιβασθέντων ἡμῖν ἀπαλλαγέντα. Μέτριον γὰρ οἶμαι διὰ τῶν εἰρημένων τοὺς μὴ λίαν ἀντιτύπως ἔχοντας ἐναχθήσεσθαι μὴ εἰς ἀναίρεσιν καὶ ἀνυπαρξίαν τὴν ψυχὴν μετὰ τὴν διάλυσιν τῶν σωμάτων ἄγειν, μηδὲ κατασκευάζειν μηδαμοῦ δύνασθαι αὐτὴν ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν εἶναι διὰ τὸ ἑτεροειδῶς ἔχειν πρὸς τὴν τῶν στοιχείων οὐσίαν. Κἂν μὴ συμβαίνῃ γὰρ τούτοις ἡ νοερά τε καὶ ἄϋλος φύσις, τὸ εἶναι αὐτοῖς οὐ κωλύεται, διχόθεν ἡμῖν τῆς ὑπολήψεως ταύτης βεβαιουμένης, ἔκ τε τοῦ νῦν ἐν τῇ ζωῇ ταύτῃ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν τοῖς σώμασιν εἶναι, ἄλλο τι παρὰ τὸ σῶμα κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ὑπάρχουσαν, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ τὴν θείαν φύσιν ἀποδεῖξαι τὸν λόγον, ἄλλο τι παντάπασιν οὖσαν τῆς αἰσθητικῆς τε καὶ ὑλικῆς οὐσίας: ὅμως δὲ ἑκάστου τῶν ὄντων διήκειν, καὶ τῇ πρὸς τὸ πᾶν ἀνακράσει συνέχειν ἐν τῷ εἶναι τὰ ὄντα, ὡς διὰ τούτων κατὰ τὸ ἀκόλουθον μηδὲ τὴν ψυχὴν ἔξω τῶν ὄντων οἴεσθαι ἀπὸ τῆς ἐν εἴδει θεωρουμένης ζωῆς εἰς τὸ ἀειδὲς μεταστᾶσαν.
Ἀλλὰ πῶς, εἶπον, τῆς τῶν στοιχείων ἑνώσεως ἕτερόν τι διὰ τῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα μίξεως εἶδος ἀναλαβόντων, πρὸς ἃ τῆς ψυχῆς γέγονεν ἡ οἰκείωσις, ἐπειδὰν τῇ διαλύσει τῶν στοιχείων κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς συναφανισθῇ καὶ τὸ εἶδος; Τίνι σημείῳ κατακολουθήσει ἡ ψυχὴ μετὰ τοῦ ἐγνωσμένου μὴ παραμείναντος;