The Teacher answered: The expressions of that narrative of the Word are certainly material; but still many hints are interspersed in it to rouse the skilled inquirer to a more discriminating study of it. I mean that He Who parts the good from the bad by a great gulf, and makes the man in torment crave for a drop to be conveyed by a finger, and the man who has been ill-treated in this life rest on a patriarch’s bosom, and Who relates their previous death and consignment to the tomb, takes an intelligent searcher of His meaning far beyond a superficial interpretation. For what sort of eyes has the Rich Man to lift up in hell, when he has left his bodily eyes in that tomb? And how can a disembodied spirit feel any flame? And what sort of tongue can he crave to be cooled with the drop of water, when he has lost his tongue of flesh? What is the finger that is to convey to him this drop? What sort of place is the “bosom” of repose? The bodies of both of them are in the tomb, and their souls are disembodied, and do not consist of parts either; and so it is impossible to make the framework of the narrative correspond with the truth, if we understand it literally; we can do that only by translating each detail into an equivalent in the world of ideas. Thus we must think of the gulf as that which parts ideas which may not be confounded from running together, not as a chasm of the earth. Such a chasm, however vast it were, could be traversed with no difficulty by a disembodied intelligence; since intelligence can in no time79    ἀχρόνως. be wherever it will.

Μ. Ἡ διδάσκαλος δὲ, Σωματικώτερον μὲν, φησὶν, ὁ λόγος ἐκτίθεται τὸ διήγημα, πολλὰς δὲ κατασπείρει τὰς ἀφορμὰς, δι' ὧν εἰς λεπτοτέραν θεωρίαν ἐκκαλεῖται τὸν ἐξεταστὴν ἐπαΐοντα. Ὁ γὰρ χάσματι μεγάλῳ διείργων τὸ κακὸν ἐκ τοῦ κρείττονος, σταγόνος τέ τινος δακτύλῳ κομιζομένης ἐπιδεᾶ ποιήσας τὸν ὀδυνώμενον, καὶ πατριάρχου κόλπον τῷ διὰ τῆς ζωῆς ταύτης κεκακωμένῳ ὑποθεὶς ἀνάπαυσιν, πρὸ τούτων δὲ καὶ τὸ τεθνᾶναι αὐτοὺς, καὶ ταφῇ δοθῆναι διηγησάμενος, οὐ μικρῶς ἀφίστησι τῆς κατὰ πρόχειρον διανοίας τὸν μὴ ἀσυνέτως τοῖς λεγομένοις ἑπόμενον. Ποίους γὰρ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἐπαίρει ἐν τῷ ᾅδῃ ὁ πλούσιος, τοὺς τῆς σαρκὸς ἐναφεὶς τῷ τάφῳ; Πῶς δὲ φλογὸς ᾐσθάνετο τὸ ἀσώματον; Ποίαν δὲ γλῶσσαν καταψυχθῆναι διὰ τῆς σταγόνος ἐπιθυμεῖ, τῆς σαρκίνης αὐτῷ μὴ παρούσης; Τίς δὲ ὁ διακομίζων αὐτῷ τὴν ῥανίδα δάκτυλος; Αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ κόλπος τῆς ἀναπαύσεως, τίς; Τῶν γὰρ σωμάτων ἐν τάφοις ὄντων, τῆς δὲ ψυχῆς οὔτε ἐν σώματι οὔσης, οὔτε ἐκ μερῶν συνεστώσης, ἄπορον ἂν εἴη τὴν τοῦ διηγήματος διασκευὴν κατὰ τὸ προχείρως νοούμενον ἐφαρμόσαι τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, εἰ μή τις μεταλάβῃ τὰ καθ' ἕκαστον εἰς νοητὴν θεωρίαν: ὥστε χάσμα τὸ διεῖργον τῶν ἀμίκτων τὴν κοινωνίαν, μὴ γῆς διάστασιν οἴεσθαι: τῷ γὰρ ἀσωμάτῳ καὶ νοερῷ, τίς πόνος διαπτῆναι τὸ χάσμα, καὶ εἰ μήκιστον ἦν; Διότι τὸ νοερὸν τῇ φύσει, ἐν ᾧπερ ἂν ἐθέλῃ ἀχρόνως γίνεται.