As for the thinkers, the Teacher went on, outside our own system of thought, they have, with all their diverse ways of looking at things, one in one point, another in another, approached and touched the doctrine of the Resurrection: while they none of them exactly coincide with us, they have in no case wholly abandoned such an expectation. Some indeed make human nature vile in their comprehensiveness, maintaining that a soul becomes alternately that of a man and of something irrational; that it transmigrates into various bodies, changing at pleasure from the man into fowl, fish, or beast, and then returning to human kind. While some extend this absurdity even to trees118    some extend this absurdity even to trees: Empedocles for instance. Cf. Philosophumena (of Hippolytus, falsely attributed to Origen), p. 50, where two lines of his are quoted. Chrysostom’s words (I. iv. p. 196), “There are those amongst them who carry souls into plants, into shrubs, and into dogs,” are taken by Matthæus to refer to Empedocles. Cf. Celsus also (quoted in Origen, c. Cels. viii. 53), “Seeing then men are born bound to a body—no matter whether the economy of the world required this, or that they are paying the penalty for some sin, or that the soul is weighted with certain emotions till it is purified from them at the end of its destined cycle, three myriad hours, according to Empedocles, being the necessary period of its wanderings far away from the Blessed Ones, during which it passes successively into every perishable shape—we must believe any way that there exist certain guardians of this prison-house.” See De Hom. Opif. c. 28. Empedocles can be no other, then, than “the philosopher who asserts that the same thing may be born in anything:” below (p. 232 D). Anaxagoras, however, seems to have indulged in the same dictum (πᾶν ἐν παντὶ), but with a difference; as Nicetas explains in his commentary on Gregory Naz., Orations: “That everything is contained in everything Empedocles asserted, and Anaxagoras asserted also: but not with the same meaning. Empedocles said it of the four elements, namely, that they are not only divided and self-centred, but are also mingled with each other. This is clear from the fact that every animal is engendered by all four. But Anaxagoras, finding an old proverb that nothing can be produced out of nothing, did away with creation, and introduced ‘differentiation’ instead, &c.” See also Greg. Naz., Poems, p. 170. and shrubs, so that they consider their wooden life as corresponding and akin to humanity, others of them hold only thus much—that the soul exchanges one man for another man, so that the life of humanity is continued always by means of the same souls, which, being exactly the same in number, are being born perpetually first in one generation, then in another. As for ourselves, we take our stand upon the tenets of the Church, and assert that it will be well to accept only so much of these speculations as is sufficient to show that those who indulge in them are to a certain extent in accord with the doctrine of the Resurrection. Their statement, for instance, that the soul after its release from this body insinuates itself into certain other bodies is not absolutely out of harmony with the revival which we hope for. For our view, which maintains that the body, both now, and again in the future, is composed of the atoms of the universe, is held equally by these heathens. In fact, you cannot imagine any constitution of the body independent of a concourse119    συνδρομῆς of these atoms. But the divergence lies in this: we assert that the same body again as before, composed of the same atoms, is compacted around the soul; they suppose that the soul alights on other bodies, not only rational, but irrational and even insensate; and while all are agreed that these bodies which the soul resumes derive their substance from the atoms of the universe, they part company from us in thinking that they are not made out of identically the same atoms as those which in this mortal life grew around the soul. Let then, this external testimony stand for the fact that it is not contrary to probability that the soul should again inhabit a body; after that however, it is incumbent upon us to make a survey of the inconsistencies of their position, and it will be easy thus, by means of the consequences that arise as we follow out the consistent view, to bring the truth to light. What, then, is to be said about these theories? This that those who would have it that the soul migrates into natures divergent from each other seem to me to obliterate all natural distinctions; to blend and confuse together, in every possible respect, the rational, the irrational, the sentient, and the insensate; if, that is, all these are to pass into each other, with no distinct natural order120    εἰρμῷ, i.e. as links in a chain which cannot be altered. Sifanus’ “carcere et claustro” is due to εἱργμῷ against all the mss. Krabinger’s six have διατειχιζόμενα for διαστοιχιζόμενα of the Editt. secluding them from mutual transition. To say that one and the same soul, on account of a particular environment of body, is at one time a rational and intellectual soul, and that then it is caverned along with the reptiles, or herds with the birds, or is a beast of burden, or a carnivorous one, or swims in the deep; or even drops down to an insensate thing, so as to strike out roots or become a complete tree, producing buds on branches, and from those buds a flower, or a thorn, or a fruit edible or noxious—to say this, is nothing short of making all things the same and believing that one single nature runs through all beings; that there is a connexion between them which blends and confuses hopelessly all the marks by which one could be distinguished from another. The philosopher who asserts that the same thing may be born in anything intends no less than that all things are to be one; when the observed differences in things are for him no obstacle to mixing together things which are utterly incongruous. He makes it necessary that, even when one sees one of the creatures that are venom-darting or carnivorous, one should regard it, in spite of appearances, as of the same tribe, nay even of the same family, as oneself. With such beliefs a man will look even upon hemlock as not alien to his own nature, detecting, as he does, humanity in the plant. The grape-bunch itself121    οὐδε…τὸν βότρυν. The intensitive need not surprise us, though a grape-bunch does seem a more fitting body for a human soul than a stalk of hemlock: it is explained by the sentence in apposition, “produced…for the purpose of sustaining life,” i.e. it is eaten, and so a soul might be eaten; which increases the horror., produced though it be by cultivation for the purpose of sustaining life, he will not regard without suspicion; for it too comes from a plant122    καὶ γὰρ καὶ αὐτὸς τῶν φυομένων ἐστίν, i.e. the fruit, and not the tree only, belongs to the kingdom of plants: φυτὰ in the next sentence is exactly equivalent to τὰ φυόμενα, i.e. plants. The probability that this is the meaning is strengthened by Krabinger’s reading οὗτος, from five of his Codd. But still if αὐτὸς be retained, it might have been taken to refer to the man who must needs look suspiciously at a bunch of grapes; “for what, according to this theory, is he himself, but a vegetable!” since all things are mixed, πάντα ὁμοῦ.: and we find even the fruit of the ears of corn upon which we live are plants; how, then, can one put in the sickle to cut them down; and how can one squeeze the bunch, or pull up the thistle from the field, or gather flowers, or hunt birds, or set fire to the logs of the funeral pyre: it being all the while uncertain whether we are not laying violent hands on kinsmen, or ancestors, or fellow-country-men, and whether it is not through the medium of some body of theirs that the fire is being kindled, and the cup mixed, and the food prepared? To think that in the case of any single one of these things a soul of a man has become a plant or animal123    Two Codd. Mon. (D, E) omit φυτὸν ἢ ζῶον, which is repeated below., while no marks are stamped upon them to indicate what sort of plant or animal it is that has been a man, and what sort has sprung from other beginnings,—such a conception as this will dispose him who has entertained it to feel an equal amount of interest in everything: he must perforce either harden himself against actual human beings who are in the land of the living, or, if his nature inclines him to love his kindred, he will feel alike towards every kind of life, whether he meet it in reptiles or in wild beasts. Why, if the holder of such an opinion go into a thicket of trees, even then he will regard the trees as a crowd of men. What sort of life will his be, when he has to be tender towards everything on the ground of kinship, or else hardened towards mankind on account of his seeing no difference between them and the other creatures? From what has been already said, then, we must reject this theory: and there are many other considerations as well which on the grounds of mere consistency lead us away from it. For I have heard persons who hold these opinions124    i.e.Pythagoreans and later Platonists. Cf. Origen, c. Cels. iii. 80. For the losing of the wings, cf. c. Cels iii. 40: “The coats of skins also, which God made for those sinners, the man and the woman cast forth from the garden, have a mystical meaning far deeper than Plato’s fancy about the soul shedding its wings, and moving downward till it meets some spot upon the solid earth.” saying that whole nations of souls are hidden away somewhere in a realm of their own, living a life analogous to that of the embodied soul; but such is the fineness and buoyancy of their substance that they themselves’ roll round along with the revolution of the universe; and that these souls, having individually lost their wings through some gravitation towards evil, become embodied; first this takes place in men; and after that, passing from a human life, owing to brutish affinities of their passions, they are reduced125    ἀποκτηνοῦσθαι to the level of brutes; and, leaving that, drop down to this insensate life of pure nature126    τῆς φυσικῆς ταύτης. This is the common reading: but φύσις and φυσικὸς have a rather higher meaning than our equivalent for them: cf. just below, “that inherently (τῇ φύσει) fine and buoyant thing”: and Krabinger is probably right in reading φυτικῆς from four Codd. which you have been hearing so much of; so that that inherently fine and buoyant thing that the soul is first becomes weighted and downward tending in consequence of some vice, and so migrates to a human body; then its reasoning powers are extinguished, and it goes on living in some brute; and then even this gift of sensation is withdrawn, and it changes into the insensate plant life; but after that mounts up again by the same gradations until it is restored to its place in heaven. Now this doctrine will at once be found, even after a very cursory survey, to have no coherency with itself. For, first, seeing that the soul is to be dragged down from its life in heaven, on account of evil there, to the condition of a tree, and is then from this point, on account of virtue exhibited there, to return to heaven, their theory will be unable to decide which is to have the preference, the life in heaven, or the life in the tree. A circle, in fact, of the same sequences will be perpetually traversed, where the soul, at whatever point it may be, has no resting-place. If it thus lapses from the disembodied state to the embodied, and thence to the insensate, and then springs back to the disembodied, an inextricable confusion of good and evil must result in the minds of those who thus teach. For the life in heaven will no more preserve its blessedness (since evil can touch heaven’s denizens), than the life in trees will be devoid of virtue (since it is from this, they say, that the rebound of the soul towards the good begins, while from there it begins the evil life again). Secondly127    With the γὰρ here (unlike the three preceding) begins the second “incoherency” of this view. The first is,—“It confuses the ideas of good and evil.” The second,—“it is inconsistent with a view already adopted by these teachers.” The third (beginning with καὶ οὐ μέχρι τούτων, κ.τ.λ.),—it contradicts the truth which it assumes, i.e. that there is no change in heaven.”, seeing that the soul as it moves round in heaven is there entangled with evil and is in consequence dragged down to live in mere matter, from whence, however, it is lifted again into its residence on high, it follows that those philosophers establish the very contrary128    See just above: “For I have heard persons who hold these opinions saying that whole nations of souls are hidden away somewhere in a realm of their own,” &c., and see next note. of their own views; they establish, namely, that the life in matter is the purgation of evil, while that undeviating revolution along with the stars129    that undeviating revolution along with the stars, τὴν ἀπλανῆ περιφοράν. Cf. Origen, De Princip. ii. 3–6 (Rufinus’ translation), “Sed et ipsum supereminentem, quem dicunt ἀπλανῆ, globum proprie nihilominus mundum appellari volunt:” Cicero, De Repub. vi. 17: “Novem tibi orbibus ver potius globis connexa sunt omnia: quorum unus est cœlestis, extimus, qui reliquos omnes complectitur; in quo infixi sunt illi, qui volvuntur, stellarum cursus sempiterni,” i.e. they roll, not on their axes, but only as turning round with the general revolution. They are literally fixed in that heaven (cf. Virg.: “tacito volvuntur sidera lapsu”): and the spiritual beings in it are as fixed and changeless: in fact, with Plato it is the abode only of Divine intelligences, not of the δαίμονες: but the theorists, whom Gregory is refuting, confuse this distinction which their own master drew. is the foundation and cause of evil in every soul: if it is here that the soul by means of virtue grows its wing and then soars upwards, and there that those wings by reason of evil fall off, so that it descends and clings to this lower world and is commingled with the grossness of material nature. But the untenableness of this view does not stop even in this, namely, that it contains assertions diametrically opposed to each other. Beyond this, their fundamental conception130    ὑπόνοια. itself cannot stand secure on every side. They say, for instance, that a heavenly nature is unchangeable. How then, can there be room for any weakness in the unchangeable? If, again, a lower nature is subject to infirmity, how in the midst of this infirmity can freedom from it be achieved? They attempt to amalgamate two things that can never be joined together: they descry strength in weakness, passionlessness in passion. But even to this last view they are not faithful throughout; for they bring home the soul from its material life to that very place whence they had exiled it because of evil there, as though the life in that place was quite safe and uncontaminated; apparently quite forgetting the fact that the soul was weighted with evil there, before it plunged down into this lower world. The blame thrown on the life here below, and the praise of the things in heaven, are thus interchanged and reversed; for that which was once blamed conducts in their opinion to the brighter life, while that which was taken for the better state gives an impulse to the soul’s propensity to evil. Expel, therefore, from amongst the doctrines of the Faith all erroneous and shifting suppositions about such matters! We must not follow, either, as though they had bit the truth those who suppose that souls pass from women’s bodies to live in men131    Such theories are developed in the Phædo of Plato; and constitute ὁ ἕτερος τῶν λόγων, criticized more fully below., or, reversely132    Reading δοκεῖ, ἢ τὸ ἔμπαλιν, instead of the corrupt δοκείη τὸ ἔμπαλιν., that souls that have parted with men’s bodies exist in women: or even if they only say that they pass from men into men, or from women into women. As for the former theory133    ὁ πρότερος (λόγος). The second is mentioned below. “The same absurdity exists in the other of the two theories as well.” Obviously these two theories are those alluded to at the beginning of this last speech of Macrina, where, speaking of the heathen transmigration, she says, “While some of them extend this absurdity even to trees and shrubs, so that they consider their wooden life as corresponding and akin to humanity (i.e. ὁ προτέρος λόγος), others of them opine only thus much, that the soul exchanges one man for another man,” &c. (i.e. ὁ ἕτερος). In either case the soul is supposed to return from the dead body to heaven, and then by a fresh fall into sin there, to sink down again. The absurdity and the godlessness is just as glaring, Macrina says, in the last case (the Platonic soul-rotation) as in the first (Transmigration pure and simple). But the one point in both in contact with the Christian Resurrection is this, that the soul of the departed does assume another body., not only has it been rejected for being shifting and illusory, and for landing us in opinions diametrically opposed to each other; but it must be rejected also because it is a godless theory, maintaining as it does that nothing amongst the things in nature is brought into existence without deriving its peculiar constitution from evil as its source. If, that is, neither men nor plants nor cattle can be born unless some soul from above has fallen into them, and if this fall is owing to some tendency to evil, then they evidently think that evil controls the creation of all beings. In some mysterious way, too, both events are to occur at once; the birth of the man in consequence of a marriage, and the fall of the soul (synchronizing as it must with the proceedings at that marriage). A greater absurdity even than this is involved: if, as is the fact, the large majority of the brute creation copulate in the spring, are we, then, to say that the spring brings it about that evil is engendered in the revolving world above, so that, at one and the same moment, there certain souls are impregnated with evil and so fall, and here certain brutes conceive? And what are we to say about the husbandman who sets the vine-shoots in the soil? How does his hand manage to have covered in a human soul along with the plant, and how does the moulting of wings last simultaneously with his employment in planting? The same absurdity, it is to be observed, exists in the other of the two theories as well; in the direction, I mean, of thinking that the soul must be anxious about the intercourses of those living in wedlock, and must be on the look-out for the times of bringing forth, in order that it may insinuate itself into the bodies then produced. Supposing the man refuses the union, or the woman keeps herself clear of the necessity of becoming a mother, will evil then fail to weigh down that particular soul? Will it be marriage, in consequence, that sounds up above the first note of evil in the soul, or will this reversed state invade the soul quite independently of any marriage? But then, in this last case, the soul will have to wander about in the interval like a houseless vagabond, lapsed as it has from its heavenly surroundings, and yet, as it may happen in some cases, still without a body to receive it. But how, after that, can they imagine that the Deity exercises any superintendence over the world, referring as they do the beginnings of human lives to this casual and meaningless descent of a soul. For all that follows must necessarily accord with the beginning; and so, if a life begins in consequence of a chance accident, the whole course of it134    ἡ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν (i.e. βίον) διέξοδος. The Editions have κατ᾽ αὐτῶν. Krabinger well translates by “percursatio.” Cf. Phædrus, p. 247 A. becomes at once a chapter of accidents, and the attempt to make the whole world depend on a Divine power is absurd, when it is made by these men, who deny to the individualities in it a birth from the fiat of the Divine Will and refer the several origins of beings to encounters that come of evil, as though there could never have existed such a thing as a human life, unless a vice had struck, as it were, its leading note. If the beginning is like that, a sequel will most certainly be set in motion in accordance with that beginning. None would dare to maintain that what is fair can come out of what is foul, any more than from good can come its opposite. We expect fruit in accordance with the nature of the seed. Therefore this blind movement of chance is to rule the whole of life, and no Providence is any more to pervade the world.

Nay, even the forecasting by our calculations will be quite useless; virtue will lose its value; and to turn from evil will not be worth the while. Everything will be entirely under the control of the driver, Chance; and our lives will differ not at all from vessels devoid of ballast, and will drift on waves of unaccountable circumstances, now to this, now to that incident of good or of evil. The treasures of virtue will never be found in those who owe their constitution to causes quite contrary to virtue. If God really superintends our life, then, confessedly, evil cannot begin it. But if we do owe our birth to evil, then we must go on living in complete uniformity with it. Thereby it will be shown that it is folly to talk about the “houses of correction” which await us after this life is ended, and the “just recompenses,” and all the other things there asserted, and believed in too, that tend to the suppression of vice: for how can a man, owing, as he does, his birth to evil, be outside its pale? How can he, whose very nature has its rise in a vice, as they assert, possess any deliberate impulse towards a life of virtue? Take any single one of the brute creation; it does not attempt to speak like a human being, but in using the natural kind of utterance sucked in, as it were, with its mother’s milk135    συντρόφῳ, it deems it no loss to be deprived of articulate speech. Just in the same way those who believe that a vice was the origin and the cause of their being alive will never bring themselves to have a longing after virtue, because it will be a thing quite foreign to their nature. But, as a fact136    ἀλλὰ μὴν introduces a fact into the argument (cf. καὶ μὴν); Lat. “verum enimvero.”, they who by reflecting have cleansed the vision of their soul do all of them desire and strive after a life of virtue. Therefore it is by that fact clearly proved that vice is not prior in time to the act of beginning to live, and that our nature did not thence derive its source, but that the all-disposing wisdom of God was the Cause of it: in short, that the soul issues on the stage of life in the manner which is pleasing to its Creator, and then (but not before), by virtue of its power of willing, is free to choose that which is to its mind, and so, whatever it may wish to be, becomes that very thing. We may understand this truth by the example of the eyes. To see is their natural state; but to fail to see results to them either from choice or from disease. This unnatural state may supervene instead of the natural, either by wilful shutting of the eyes or by deprivation of their sight through disease. With the like truth we may assert that the soul derives its constitution from God, and that, as we cannot conceive of any vice in Him, it is removed from any necessity of being vicious; that nevertheless, though this is the condition in which it came into being, it can be attracted of its own free will in a chosen direction, either wilfully shutting its eyes to the Good, or letting them be damaged137    τὸν ὀφθαλμὸν βλαπτομένην by that insidious foe whom we have taken home to live with us, and so passing through life in the darkness of error; or, reversely, preserving undimmed its sight of the Truth and keeping far away from all weaknesses that could darken it.—But then some one will ask, “When and how did it come into being?” Now as for the question, how any single thing came into existence, we must banish it altogether from our discussion. Even in the case of things which are quite within the grasp of our understanding and of which we have sensible perception, it would be impossible for the speculative reason138    λόγῳ. to grasp the “how” of the production of the phenomenon; so much so, that even inspired and saintly men have deemed such questions insoluble. For instance, the Apostle says, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen are not made of things which do appear139    Heb. xi. 3..” He would not, I take it, have spoken like that, if he had thought that the question could be settled by any efforts of the reasoning powers. While the Apostle affirms that it is an object of his faith140    that it is an object of his faith, &c. In the Greek the μὲν contrasts the Apostle’s declaration on this point with his silence as to the “how.” that it was by the will of God that the world itself and all which is therein was framed (whatever this “world” be that involves the idea of the whole visible and invisible creation), he has on the other hand left out of the investigation the “how” of this framing. Nor do I think that this point can ever be reached by any inquirers. The question presents, on the face of it, many insuperable difficulties. How, for instance, can a world of movement come from one that is at rest? how from the simple and undimensional that which shows dimension and compositeness? Did it come actually out of the Supreme Being? But the fact that this world presents a difference in kind to that Being militates against141    militates against, &c. ᾽Αλλ᾽ οὐχ ὁμολογεῖται (reading then, ὅτι τὸ ἑτερογενὲς ἔχει πρὸς ἐκείνην τὰ ὄντα). Cf. Plato, Tim. 29 C, αὐτοὶ αὑτοῖς οὐχ ὁμολογούμενοι λόγοι, “theories that contradict each other.” This world cannot come out of the Supreme Being: its alien nature contradicts that. Krabinger’s translation is therefore wrong, “sed non constat:” and Oehler’s, “Aber das ist nicht angemacht.” such a supposition. Did it then come from some other quarter? Yet Faith142    ὁ λόγος. can contemplate nothing as quite outside the Divine Nature; for we should have to believe in two distinct and separate Principles, if outside the Creative Cause we are to suppose something else, which the Artificer, with all His skill, has to put under contribution for the formative processes of the Universe. Since, then, the Cause of all things is one, and one only, and yet the existences produced by that Cause are not of the same nature as its transcendent quality, an inconceivability of equal magnitude143    Reading ἴση δὴ. arises in both our suppositions, i.e. both that the creation comes straight out of the Divine Being, and that the universe owes its existence to some cause other than Him; for if created things are to be of the same nature as God, we must consider Him to be invested with the properties belonging to His creation; or else a world of matter, outside the circle of God’s substance, and equal, on the score of the absence in it of all beginning, to the eternity of the Self-existent One, will have to be ranged against Him: and this is in fact what the followers of Manes, and some of the Greek philosophers who held opinions of equal boldness with his, did imagine; and they raised this imagination into a system. In order, then, to avoid falling into either of these absurdities, which the inquiry into the origin of things involves, let us, following the example of the Apostle, leave the question of the “how” in each created thing, without meddling with it at all, but merely observing incidentally that the movement of God’s Will becomes at any moment that He pleases a fact, and the intention becomes at once realized in Nature144    ἡ φύσις.; for Omnipotence does not leave the plans of its far-seeing skill in the state of unsubstantial wishes: and the actualizing of a wish is Substance. In short, the whole world of existing things falls into two divisions: i.e. that of the intelligible, and that of the corporeal: and the intelligible creation does not, to begin with, seem to be in any way at variance with a spiritual Being, but on the contrary to verge closely upon Him, exhibiting as it does that absence of tangible form and of dimension which we rightly attribute to His transcendent nature. The corporeal creation145    The long Greek sentence, which begins here with a genitive absolute (τῆς δὲ σωματικῆς κτίσεως, κ.τ.λ.), leading up to nothing but the anacoluthon περὶ ὧν τοσοῦτον κ.τ.λ., has been broken up in translating. Doubtless this anacoluthon can be explained by the sentences linked on to the last words (τῷ λόγῳ) of the genitive clause, which are so long as to throw that clause quite into the background. There is no need therefore to take the words where this anacoluthon begins, down to σῶμα γίνεται, as a parenthesis, with Krabinger and Oehler; especially as the words that follow γίνεται are a direct recapitulation of what immediately precedes., on the other hand, must certainly be classed amongst specialities that have nothing in common with the Deity; and it does offer this supreme difficulty to the Reason; namely, that the Reason cannot see how the visible comes out of the invisible, how the hard solid comes out of the intangible, how the finite comes out of the infinite, how that which is circumscribed by certain proportions, where the idea of quantity comes in, can come from that which has no size, no proportions, and so on through each single circumstance of body. But even about this we can say so much: i.e. that not one of those things which we attribute to body is itself body; neither figure, nor colour, nor weight, nor extension, nor quantity, nor any other qualifying notion whatever; but every one of them is a category; it is the combination of them all into a single whole that constitutes body. Seeing, then, that these several qualifications which complete the particular body are grasped by thought alone, and not by sense, and that the Deity is a thinking being, what trouble can it be to such a thinking agent to produce the thinkables whose mutual combination generates for us the substance of that body? All this discussion, however, lies outside our present business. The previous question was,—If some souls exist anterior to their bodies, when and how do they come into existence? and of this question146    Reading, as Dr. H. Schmidt conjectures, καὶ τούτου πάλιν, cf. 205 C., again, the part about the how, has been left out of our examination and has not been meddled with, as presenting impenetrable difficulties. There remains the question of the when of the soul’s commencement of existence: it follows immediately on that which we have already discussed. For if we were to grant that the soul has lived previous to its body147    Origen, Gregory’s master in most of his theology, did teach this very thing, the pre-existence of the soul: nor did he attempt to deny that some degree of transmigration was a necessary accompaniment of such teaching; only he would adjust the moral meaning of it. Cf. c. Celsum, Lib. iii. 75. “And even if we should treat (i e. medically) those who have caught the folly of the transmigration of souls from doctors who push down a reasoning nature into any of the unreasoning natures, or even into that which is insensate, how can any say that we shall not work improvement in their souls by teaching them that the bad do not have allotted to them by way of punishment that insensate or unreasoning state, but that what is inflicted by God upon the bad, be it pain or affliction, is only in the way of a very efficacious cure for them? This is the teaching of the wise Christian: he attempts to teach the simpler of his flock as fathers do the merest infants.” Not the theory itself, but the exaggeration of it, is here combated. in some place of resort peculiar to itself, then we cannot avoid seeing some force in all that fantastic teaching lately discussed, which would explain the soul’s habitation of the body as a consequence of some vice. Again, on the other hand, no one who can reflect will imagine an after-birth of the soul, i.e. that it is younger than the moulding of the body; for every one can see for himself that not one amongst all the things that are inanimate or soulless possesses any power of motion or of growth; whereas there is no question about that which is bred in the uterus both growing and moving from place to place. It remains therefore that we must think that the point of commencement of existence is one and the same for body and soul. Also we affirm that, just as the earth receives the sapling from the hands of the husbandman and makes a tree of it, without itself imparting the power of growth to its nursling, but only lending it, when placed within itself, the impulse to grow, in this very same way that which is secreted from a man for the planting of a man is itself to a certain extent a living being as much gifted with a soul and as capable of nourishing itself as that from which it comes148    ἐκ τρεφομένου τρεφόμενον. If this offshoot, in its diminutiveness, cannot contain at first all the activities and the movements of the soul, we need not be surprised; for neither in the seed of corn is there visible all at once the ear. How indeed could anything so large be crowded into so small a space? But the earth keeps on feeding it with its congenial aliment, and so the grain becomes the ear, without changing its nature while in the clod, but only developing it and bringing it to perfection under the stimulus of that nourishment. As, then, in the case of those growing seeds the advance to perfection is a graduated one149    κατὰ λόγον., so in man’s formation the forces of his soul show themselves in proportion to the size to which his body has attained. They dawn first in the fœtus, in the shape of the power of nutrition and of development: after that, they introduce into the organism that has come into the light the gift of perception: then, when this is reached, they manifest a certain measure of the reasoning faculty, like the fruit of some matured plant, not growing all of it at once, but in a continuous progress along with the shooting up of that plant. Seeing, then, that that which is secreted from one living being to lay the foundations of another living being cannot itself be dead (for a state of deadness arises from the privation of life, and it cannot be that privation should precede the having), we grasp from these considerations the fact that in the compound which results from the joining of both (soul and body) there is a simultaneous passage of both into existence; the one does not come first, any more than the other comes after. But as to the number of souls, our reason must necessarily contemplate a stopping some day of its increase; so that Nature’s stream may not flow on for ever, pouring forward in her successive births and never staying that onward movement. The reason for our race having some day to come to a standstill is as follows, in our opinion: since every intellectual reality is fixed in a plenitude of its own, it is reasonable to expect that humanity150    This seems like a prelude to the Realism of the Middle Ages. also will arrive at a goal (for in this respect also humanity is not to be parted from the intellectual world151    Each individual soul represents, to Gregory’s view, a “thought” of God, which becomes visible by the soul being born. There will come a time when all these “thoughts,” which complete, and do not destroy, each other, will have completed the πλήρωμα (Humanity) which the Deity contemplates. This immediate apparition of a soul, as a “thought” of God, is very unlike the teaching of his master Origen: and yet more sober, and more scriptural.); so that we are to believe that it will not be visible for ever only in defect, as it is now: for this continual addition of after generations indicates that there is something deficient in our race.

Whenever, then, humanity shall have reached the plenitude that belongs to it, this on-streaming movement of production will altogether cease; it will have touched its destined bourn, and a new order of things quite distinct from the present precession of births and deaths will carry on the life of humanity. If there is no birth, it follows necessarily that there will be nothing to die. Composition must precede dissolution (and by composition I mean the coming into this world by being born); necessarily, therefore, if this synthesis does not precede, no dissolution will follow. Therefore, if we are to go upon probabilities, the life after this is shown to us beforehand as something that is fixed and imperishable, with no birth and no decay to change it.

Μ. Καὶ ἡ διδάσκαλος, Οἱ μὲν ἔξω, φησὶ, τῆς καθ' ἡμᾶς φιλοσοφίας ἐν διαφόροις ὑπολήψεσιν, ἄλλος ἄλλως μέρει τινὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἐφήψαντο δόγματος, οὔτε δι' ἀκριβείας τοῖς ἡμετέροις συνενεχθέντες, οὔτε πάντη τῆς τοιαύτης ἀποσφαλέντες ἐλπίδος, Τινὲς μὲν γὰρ ὑβρίζουσι τῇ κοινότητι τὸ ἀνθρώπινον, τὴν αὐτὴν ἀνὰ μέρος ἀνθρώπου τε καὶ ἀλόγου ψυχὴν διοριζόμενοι γίνεσθαι, μετενδυομένην τὰ σώματα, καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἀρέσκον ἀεὶ μεταβαίνουσαν, ἢ πτηνὸν, ἢ ἔνυδρον, ἢ χερσαῖόν τι ζῶον γινομένην μετὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον, καὶ πάλιν ἀπὸ τούτων πρὸς τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ἐπανιέναι φύσιν. Ἕτεροι δὲ μέχρι τῶν θάμνων τὸν τοιοῦτον λῆρον ἐκτείνουσιν, ὡς καὶ τὸν ξυλώδη βίον αὐτῇ κατάλληλόν τε καὶ οἰκεῖον νομίζειν. Τοῖς δὲ τοῦτο δοκεῖ μόνον τὸ ἐξ ἀνθρώπου ἕτερον ἄνθρωπον ἀεὶ μεταλαμβάνειν, καὶ διὰ τῶν αὐτῶν πάντοτε τὸν ἀνθρώπινον διεξάγεσθαι βίον, νῦν μὲν ἐν τούτοις, πάλιν δὲ ἐν ἑτέροις τῶν αὐτῶν ψυχῶν εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς γινομένων. Ἡμεῖς δὲ καλῶς ἔχειν φαμὲν, ἐκ τῶν ἐκκλησιαστικῶν δογμάτων ὁρμώμενοι, τοσοῦτον παραδέξασθαι μόνον τῶν τοιαῦτα πεφιλοσοφηκότων, ὅσον συμφωνοῦντας αὐτοὺς τρόπον τινὰ δεῖξαι τῷ τῆς ἀναστάσεως δόγματι. Τὸ γὰρ λέγειν αὐτοὺς πάλιν τισὶν ἐπεισκρίνεσθαι δόγμασιν μετὰ τὴν ἀπὸ τούτου διάλυσιν τὴν ψυχὴν, οὐ λίαν ἀπᾴδει τῆς ἐλπιζομένης ἡμῖν ἀναβιώσεως, ὅτι γὰρ ἡμέτερος λόγος ἐκ τῶν τοῦ κόσμου στοιχείων, νῦν τε καὶ εἰσαῦθις τὸ σῶμα ἡμῶν συνίστασθαι λέγει, καὶ τοῖς ἔξωθεν τὸ ἶσον δοκεῖ. Οὐ γὰρ ἄλλην τινὰ τοῦ σώματος ἐπινοήσεις φύσιν ἔξω τῆς δρομῆς τῶν στοιχείων. Διαφέρει δὲ τοσοῦτον, ὅσον παρ' ἡμῶν μὲν τὸ αὐτὸ λέγεσθαι πάλιν περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν συμπήγνυσθαι σῶμα, ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν στοιχείων συναρμοζόμενον: ἐκείνους δὲ οἴεσθαι πρὸς ἄλλα τινὰ σώματα λογικά τε καὶ ἄλογα, καὶ ἀναίσθητα τὴν ψυχὴν καταπίπτειν οἷς τὸ μὲν ἐκ τῶν τοῦ κόσμου μερῶν εἶναι τὴν σύστασιν ὁμολογεῖται, διαφωνεῖ δὲ τὸ μὴ ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν οἴεσθαι τῶν κατ' ἀρχὰς ἐν τῇ διὰ σαρκὸς ζωῇ τῇ ψυχῇ προσφυέντων. Οὐκοῦν τὸ μὲν μὴ ἔξω τοῦ εἰκότος εἶναι τὸ πάλιν τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν σώματι γενέσθαι, παρὰ τῆς ἔξω φιλοσοφίας μεμαρτυρήσθω: τὸ δὲ ἀσύστατον τοῦ ἐκείνων δόγματος καιρὸς ἂν εἴη διασκορπίσασθαι, καὶ δι' αὐτῆς δὲ τῆς κατὰ τὸ εὔλογον ἀνακυπτούσης ἡμῖν ἀκολουθίας, φανερῶσαι ῥᾳδίως ἐστὶ δυνατὸν τὴν ἀλήθειαν.
Τίς οὖν ὁ περὶ τούτων λόγος; Οἱ πρὸς διαφόρους φύσεις τὴν ψυχὴν μετοικίζοντες, συσχεῖν μοι δοκοῦσι τὰς τῆς φύσεως ἰδιότητας: καὶ πάντα χρὴ καταμιγνύειν τε καὶ ἀναφύρειν πρὸς ἄλληλα, τὸ ἄλογον, τὸ λογικὸν, τὸ αἰσθητικὸν, τὸ ἀναίσθητον: εἴπερ ἐν ἀλλήλοις ταῦτα γένοιτο, μηδέ τινι φύσεως εἱρμῷ κατὰ τὸ ἀμετάπτωτον ἀπ' ἀλλήλων διαστοιχιζόμενα. Τὸ γὰρ τὴν αὐτὴν ψυχὴν λέγειν, νῦν μὲν λογικήν τε καὶ διανοητικὴν, διὰ τῆς τοιᾶσδε τοῦ σώματος περιβολῆς γίνεσθαι: πάλιν δὲ μετὰ τῶν ἑρπετῶν φωλεύειν, ἢ τοῖς ὀρνέοις συναγελάζεσθαι, ἢ ἀχθοφορεῖν, ἢ σαρκοβορεῖν, ἢ ὑποβρύχιον εἶναι, ἢ καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἀναίσθητον μεταπίπτειν, ῥιζουμένην τε καὶ ἀποδενδρουμένην, καὶ κλάδων ἐκφύσεις ἀναβλαστάνουσαν, καὶ ἐν τούτοις ἢ ἄνθος, ἢ ἀκάνθην, ἢ τρόφιμόν τι φυομένην, ἢ δηλητήριον, οὐδὲν ἕτερόν ἐστιν, ἢ ταὐτὸν ἡγεῖσθαι τὰ πάντα, καὶ μίαν ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν εἶναι τὴν φύσιν ἐν συγκεχυμένῃ τινὶ καὶ ἀδιακρίτῳ κοινωνίᾳ πεφυρμένην, μηδεμιᾶς ἰδιότητος τὸ ἕτερον τοῦ ἑτέρου ἀποκρινούσης. Ὁ γὰρ λέγων τὸ αὐτὸ ἐν παντὶ γίνεσθαι, οὐδὲν ἕτερον, ἢ ἓν εἶναι τὰ πάντα βούλεται, τῆς ἐμφαινομένης διαφορᾶς τοῖς οὖσιν οὐδὲν πρὸς ἐπιμιξίαν τῶν ἀκοινωνήτων ἐμποδιζούσης: ὡς ἀνάγκην εἶναι, κἄν τι τῶν ἰοβόλων, καὶ σαρκοβόρων θεάσηται, ὁμόφυλον νομίζειν ἑαυτῷ καὶ συγγενὲς τὸ φαινόμενον, οὐδὲ τὸ κώνειον ὁ τοιοῦτος ὡς ἀλλότριον τῆς ἰδίας ὄψεται φύσεως: εἴπερ βλέπει καὶ ἐν φυτοῖς τὸ ἀνθρώπινον: ἀλλ' οὐδὲ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἀνυπόπτως ἕξει τὸν βότρυν τὸν ἐπὶ τῇ χρείᾳ τῆς ζωῆς γεωργούμενον. Καὶ γὰρ καὶ αὐτὸς τῶν φυομένων ἐστίν: φυτὰ δὲ ἡμῖν καὶ τὰ τῶν ἀσταχύων γεννήματα, δι' ὧν τρεφόμεθα.
Πῶς οὖν ἐπάξει τὴν δρεπάνην ἀσταχύων τομῇ; πῶς δὲ ἀποθλίψει τὸν βότρυν, ἢ ἀνορύξει τῆς ἀρούρας τὴν ἄκανθαν, ἢ τὸ ἄνθος δρέψει, ἢ θηρεύσει τοὺς ὄρνιθας, ἢ ἀπὸ ξύλων ἀνακαύσει πυρὰν, ἄδηλον ὂν εἰ μὴ κατὰ συγγενῶν, ἢ προγόνων, ἢ ὁμοφύλων, ἡ χεὶρ φέρεται, καὶ διὰ τοῦ σώματος αὐτῶν ἢ τὸ πῦρ ἀνάπτεται, ἢ ὁ κρατὴρ κιρνᾶται, ἢ ἡ τροφὴ παρασκευάζεται; Τὸ γὰρ οἴεσθαι δι' ἑκάστου τούτων τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου γίνεσθαι φυτὸν ἢ ζῶον, σημεῖα δὲ μὴ ἐπικεῖσθαι, ποῖον μὲν τὸ ἐξ ἀνθρώπου φυτὸν ἢ ζῶον, ποῖον δὲ τὸ ἑτέρως γινόμενον, πρὸς πάντα κατὰ τὸ ἶσον ὁ τῇ τοιαύτῃ προειλημμένος ὑπολήψει διατεθήσεται, ὡς κατ' ἀνάγκην, ἢ καὶ κατ' αὐτῶν τῶν ἐν τῇ φύσει ζώντων ἀνθρώπων ἀπηνῶς ἔχειν, ἢ εἴπερ ἐπὶ τῶν ὁμοφύλων πρὸς φιλανθρωπίαν ἐκ φύσεως ῥέποι, ὁμοίως αὐτὸν διακεῖσθαι πρὸς πᾶν ἔμψυχον, κἂν ἐν ἑρπετοῖς, κἂν ἐν θηρίοις τύχοι: ἀλλὰ κἂν ἐν ὕλῃ δένδρον γίνεται, ὁ τὸ δόγμα τοῦτο παραδεξάμενος, δῆμον ἀνθρώπων τὰ δένδρα οἰήσεται. Τίς οὖν ὁ τοιοῦτος βίος ἢ πρὸς πάντα εὐλαβῶς διὰ τὸ ὁμόφυλον, ἢ καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἀπηνῶς διὰ τὴν ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀδιαφορίαν ἔχοντος; Οὐκοῦν ἀπόβλητος ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων ὁ τοιοῦτος ἂν εἴη λόγος, πολλῶν καὶ ἄλλων τῆς τοιαύτης ἡμᾶς ὑπολήψεως κατὰ τὸ εὔλογον ἀπαγόντων. Ἤκουσα γὰρ τῶν τοιαῦτα δογματιζόντων, ὅτι ἔθνη τινὰ τῶν ψυχῶν ἀποτίθεται ἐν ἰδιαζούσῃ τινὶ πολιτείᾳ πρὸς τὴν ἐν σώματι ζωὴν βιοτεύοντα, ἐν τῷ λεπτῷ τε καὶ εὐκινήτῳ τῆς φύσεως ἑαυτῶν τῇ τοῦ παντὸς συμπεριπολοῦντος δινήσει, ῥοπῇ δέ τινι τῇ πρὸς κακίαν πτεροῤῥοούσας τὰς ψυχὰς ἐν σώματι γίνεσθαι: πρῶτον μὲν ἀνθρώποις, εἶθ' οὕτως διὰ τῆς πρὸς τὰ ἄλογα τῶν παθῶν ὁμιλίας, μετὰ τοῦ ἀνθρωπίνου βίου ἐγχώρησιν ἀποκτηνοῦσθαι, κἀκεῖθεν μέχρι τῆς φυσικῆς ταύτης καὶ ἀναισθήτου καταπίπτειν ζωῆς, ὡς τὸ τῇ φύσει λεπτὸν καὶ εὐκίνητον, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἡ ψυχὴ, πρῶτον μὲν ἐμβριθές τε καὶ κατωφερὲς γίνεσθαι τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις σώμασι διὰ κακίας εἰσοικιζόμενον: εἶτα τῆς λογικῆς δυνάμεως ἀποσβεσθείσης τοῖς ἀλόγοις ἐμβιοτεύειν: ἐκεῖθεν δὲ καὶ τῆς τοιαύτης τῶν αἰσθήσεων χάριτος ἀφαιρεθείσης, τὴν ἀναίσθητον ταύτην ζωὴν τὴν ἐν φυτοῖς μεταλαμβάνειν: ἀπὸ τούτου δὲ πάλιν διὰ τῶν αὐτῶν ἀνιέναι βαθμῶν, καὶ πρὸς οὐράνιον χῶρον ἀποκαθίστασθαι.
Τὸ δὲ τοιοῦτον δόγμα τοῖς καὶ μετρίως κρίνειν ἐπεσκεμμένοις αὐτόθεν ἐλέγχεται, μηδεμίαν ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς στάσιν. Εἰ γὰρ ἀπὸ τῆς οὐρανίας ζωῆς διὰ κακίας ἐπὶ τὸν ξυλώδη βίον ἡ ψυχὴ κατασύρεται, ἀπὸ τούτου δὲ πάλιν δι' ἀρετῆς ἐπὶ τὸν οὐράνιον ἀνατρέχει, εὑρίσκεται ὁ λόγος αὐτῶν ἀπορῶν, ὅ τι προτιμότερον οἴεται, εἴτε τὴν ξυλίνην, εἴτε τὴν οὐρανίαν ζωήν. Κύκλος γάρ τίς ἐστι διὰ τῶν ὁμοίων περιχωρῶν, ἀεὶ τῆς ψυχῆς, ἐν ᾧπερ ἂν ᾖ, ἀστατούσης. Εἰ γὰρ ἐκ τῆς ἀσωμάτου ζωῆς πρὸς τὴν σωματικὴν ἀναπίπτει, καὶ ἐκ ταύτης πρὸς τὴν ἀναίσθητον: ἐκεῖθεν δὲ πάλιν πρὸς τὴν ἀσώματον ἀνατρέχει, οὐδὲν ἕτερον ἢ ἀδιάκριτος κακῶν τε καὶ ἀγαθῶν σύγχυσις παρὰ τοῖς ταῦτα δογματίζουσιν ὑπονοεῖται. Οὔτε γὰρ ἡ οὐρανία διαγωγὴ ἐν τῷ μακαρισμῷ διαμένει, εἴπερ κακία τῶν ἐκεῖ ζώντων καθάπτεται: οὔτε τὰ ξύλα τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀμοιρήσει, εἴπερ ἐντεῦθεν μὲν ἐπὶ τὸ ἀγαθὸν παλινδρομεῖν οἴονται τὴν ψυχὴν, ἐκεῖθεν δὲ τοῦ κατὰ κακίαν ἀνάρχεσθαι. Εἰ γὰρ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ἡ ψυχὴ συμπεριπολοῦσα τῇ κακίᾳ συμπλέκεται, καὶ διὰ ταύτης ἐπὶ τὸν ὑλώδη καθελκυσθεῖσα βίον, ἀνωθεῖται πάλιν ἐντεῦθεν ἐπὶ τὴν ἐν ὕψει διαγωγήν: ἄρα τὸ ἔμπαλιν παρ' ἐκείνων κατασκευάζεται, τὸ τὴν μὲν ὑλικὴν ζωὴν κακίας εἶναι κάθαρσιν, τὴν δὲ ἀπλανῆ περιφορὰν κακῶν ἀρχηγὸν καὶ αἰτίαν ταῖς ψυχαῖς γίνεσθαι, εἴπερ ἐντεῦθεν δι' ἀρετῆς πτεροφυήσασαι μετεωροποροῦσιν, ἐκεῖθεν δὲ διὰ κακίας τῶν πτερῶν ἐκπιπτόντων χαμαιπετεῖς πρόσγειοι γίνονται, τῇ παχύτητι τῆς ὑλικῆς καταμιγνύμεναι φύσεως. Καὶ οὐ μέχρι τούτων ἵσταται τῶν τοιούτων δογμάτων ἡ ἀτοπία, τῷ ἀντεστράφθαι πρὸς τοὐναντίον τὰς ὑπολήψεις. Ἀλλ' οὐδὲ αὐτὴ παγία διαμένει μέχρι πάντων αὐτοῖς ἡ ὑπόνοια. Εἰ γὰρ ἄτρεπτον τὴν οὐράνιον λέγουσι φύσιν, πῶς χώραν ἔχει ἐν τῷ ἀτρέπτῳ τὸ πάθος; Καὶ εἰ ἐμπαθὴς ἡ κάτω φύσις, πῶς ἐν τῷ παθητῷ κατορθοῦται ἡ ἀπάθεια; Ἀλλὰ φυροῦσι τὰ ἄμικτα, καὶ ἑνοῦσι τὰ ἀκοινώνητα, ἐν πάθει τὸ ἄτρεπτον, καὶ ἐν τῷ τρεπτῷ πάλιν καθορῶντες τὴν ἀπάθειαν. Καὶ οὐδὲ τούτοις εἰσαεὶ διαμένουσιν: ἀλλ' ὅθεν τὴν ψυχὴν διὰ κακίας ἀπῴκησαν, ἐκεῖσε πάλιν αὐτὴν ὡς ἀσφαλῆ καὶ ἀκήρατον ζωὴν ἐκ τῆς ὑλικῆς ἀνοικίζουσιν, ὥσπερ ἐπιλαθόμενοι τὸ ἐκεῖθεν αὐτὴν ἡ κακία βρύσασα, τῇ κάτω καταμιχθῆναι φύσει.
Ἥ τε οὖν διαβολὴ τοῦ τῇδε βίου, καὶ ὁ τῶν οὐρανίων ἔπαινος ἐν ἀλλήλοις συγχέονται, καὶ ἀνωφεροῦνται, τοῦ μὲν διαβεβλημένου κατὰ τὴν ἐκείνων δόξαν πρὸς τὸ καλὸν καθηγουμένου: τοῦ δὲ πρὸς κρείττονος ὑπειλημμένου τὴν ἀφορμὴν ἐνδιδόντος τῇ ψυχῇ τῆς πρὸς τὸ χεῖρον ῥοπῆς. Οὐκοῦν ἐκβλητέα τῶν τῆς ἀληθείας δογμάτων πᾶσα πεπλανημένη τε καὶ ἀστατοῦσα περὶ τῶν τοιούτων ὑπόληψις: μήθ' ὅσοι καταβαίνειν ἐκ γυναικείων σωμάτων πρὸς τὴν ἀνδρώδη ζωὴν τὰς ψυχὰς δοκείη τὸ ἔμπαλιν ἐν γυναιξὶ γίνεσθαι τὰς τῶν ἀνδρικῶν σωμάτων χωρισθείσας ψυχὰς, ἢ καὶ πρὸς ἄνδρας ἐξ ἀνδρῶν μεταβαίνειν, καὶ γυναῖκας ἐκ γυναικῶν γίνεσθαι λέγουσιν, ὡς τῆς ἀληθείας ἐστοχασμένους ἀκολουθήσωμεν. Ὁ μὲν γὰρ πρότερος οὐ μόνον τῷ ἄστατος καὶ ἀπατηλὸς εἶναι ἀπεδοκιμάσθη ὁ λόγος, αὐτὸς ἐν ἑαυτῷ πρὸς τὰς ἐναντίας ὑπολήψεις περιτρεπόμενος, ἀλλ' ὅτι καὶ ἀσεβῶς ἔχει, μηδὲν τῶν ὄντων εἰς γένεσιν ἄγεσθαι δογματίζων, καὶ κακίας τῇ ἑκάστου φύσει τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐνδιδούσης. Εἰ γὰρ οὔτε ἄνθρωποι, οὔτε φυτὰ, οὔτε βοσκήματα, μὴ ψυχῆς ἄνωθεν ἐπὶ ταῦτα ἐμπεσούσης φύονται: ἡ δὲ πτῶσις διὰ κακίας γίνεται, ἄρα κατάρχειν οἴονται τὴν κακίαν τῆς τῶν ὄντων συστάσεως. Καί πως συμβαίνει κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον ἀμφότερα, καὶ ἄνθρωπον ἐκ γάμου φύεσθαι, καὶ τῆς ψυχῆς τὴν κατάπτωσιν τῇ τοῦ γάμου συμβαίνειν σπουδῇ. Καὶ τὸ ἔτι τούτου παραλογώτερον, εἰ ἔαρι τὰ πολλὰ τῆς ἀλόγου φύσεως συνδυάζεται. Ἆρ' οὖν ἔστιν εἰπεῖν ὅτι καὶ τῇ ἄνω περιφορᾷ τὸ ἔαρ ἐμφύεσθαι, τὴν κακίαν ποιεῖ, ὥστε συμβαίνει ὁμοῦ τε τοῦ κακοῦ τὰς ψυχὰς πληρουμένας πίπτειν, καὶ τὰς γαστέρας τῶν ἀλόγων κυΐσκεσθαι; Τί δ' ἂν εἴπῃ τις περὶ τοῦ γεωπόνου τοῦ καταπηγνύοντος τῇ γῇ τὰς τῶν φυτῶν ἀποσπάδας; Πῶς ἡ τούτου χεὶρ συγκατέχωσε τῷ φυτῷ τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ψυχὴν, συντρεχούσης πτεροῤῥυήσεως τῇ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πρὸς τὴν φυτείαν ὁρμῇ; Τὸ αὐτὸ τοίνυν ἄτοπον καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου τῶν λόγων, ἐπὶ τὸ οἴεσθαι τὴν ψυχὴν τὰς συνόδους ἐν συζυγίᾳ ζώντων περιεργάσασθαι, ἢ τὰς λοχείας ἐπιτηρεῖν, ἵνα τοῖς φυομένοις σώμασιν ἐπεισκριθῶσιν. Εἰ δὲ ἀπείποι ὁ ἀνὴρ τὸν γάμον, ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἑαυτὴν τῆς τῶν ὀδυνῶν ἀνάγκης ἐλευθερώσειεν ἆρ' οὐ βαρήσει τὴν ψυχὴν ἡ κακία; Οὐκοῦν ὁ γάμος τῇ ἄνω κακίᾳ τὸ κατὰ τῶν ψυχῶν ἐνδώσιμον δίδωσιν, ἢ καὶ δίχα τούτου καθάπτεται τῆς ψυχῆς ἡ πρὸς τὸ ἐναντίον σχέσις. Οὐκοῦν ἄοικος ἐν τῷ μέσῳ καὶ ἀλῆτις ἡ ψυχὴ πεπλανήσεται, τῶν μὲν οὐρανίων ἀποῤῥυεῖσα: σώματος δὲ ἂν οὕτω τύχοι πρὸς ὑποδοχὴν ἀμοιρήσασα. Εἶτα καὶ πῶς διὰ τούτων ἐπιστατεῖν τὸ Θεῖον τῶν ὄντων ὑπονοήσουσι, τῇ τυχαίᾳ ταύτῃ καὶ ἀλόγῳ τῶν ψυχῶν καταπτώσει τὰς ἀρχὰς τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ἀνατιθέντες ζωῆς; Ἀνάγκη γὰρ πᾶσα τῇ ἀρχῇ καὶ τὰ μετὰ ταύτην συμφώνως ἔχειν. Εἰ γὰρ ἐκ συντυχίας αὐτομάτου τινὸς ὁ βίος ἤρξατο, τυχέα πάντως καὶ ἡ κατ' αὐτῶν διέξοδος γίνεται. Καὶ μάτην τῆς θείας δυνάμεως οἱ τοιοῦτοι τὰ ὄντα ἐξάπτουσιν, οἱ μὴ βουλήματι θείῳ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ φύεσθαι λέγοντες, ἀλλ' εἰς πονηράν τινων συντυχίαν τὰς ἀρχὰς τῶν γινομένων ἀνάγοντες, ὡς οὐκ ἂν συστάσης τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ζωῆς μὴ τοῦ κακοῦ δόντος τῇ ζωῇ τὸ ἐνδόσιμον. Εἰ οὖν ἡ ἀρχὴ τοῦ βίου τοιαύτη, δηλαδὴ καὶ τὰ ἐφεξῆς κατὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν κινηθήσεται. Οὐ γὰρ ἄν τις ἐκ κακοῦ καλὸν, οὐδὲ ἐξ ἀγαθοῦ τὸ ἐναντίον φύεσθαι λέγοι. Ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ σπέρματος φύσιν, καὶ τοὺς καρποὺς ἀναμένομεν. Οὐκοῦν πάσης τῆς ζωῆς ἡ αὐτόματος αὕτη καὶ συντυχικὴ κίνησις ἡγεμονεύει, μηδεμιᾶς προνοίας διὰ τῶν ὄντων οἰχούσης.
Ἄχρηστος δὲ παντάπασι καὶ ἡ τῶν λογισμῶν ἔσται προμήθεια: τῆς δὲ ἀρετῆς κέρδος οὐδὲν, καὶ πρὸς τὸ κακὸν ἀλλοτρίως ἔχειν ἀντ' οὐδενὸς ἂν εἴη. Πάντα γὰρ πάντως ἐπὶ τῷ φέροντι κείσεται, καὶ οὐδὲν ὁ βίος διοίσει τῶν ἀνερματίστων πλοίων, ταῖς αὐτομάτοις συντυχίαις, οἷόν τισι κύμασιν, ἄλλοτε πρὸς ἄλλην καλῶν ἢ φαύλων σὺν τύχῃ μεθορμιζόμενος. Οὐ γὰρ ἔστι τὸ ἐξ ἀρετῆς ἐγγενέσθαι κέρδος, οἷς ἡ φύσις ἐκ τῶν ἐναντίων τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔχει. Εἰ μὲν γὰρ θεόθεν οἰκονομεῖται ἡμῶν ἡ ζωὴ, τὸ δὲ κακίαν κατάρχειν τῆς ζωῆς ἡμῶν συνομολογεῖται. Εἰ δὲ δι' ἐκείνης φυόμεθα, πάντη τε καὶ πάντως κατ' αὐτὴν βιοτεύσομεν. Λῆρος οὖν διὰ τούτων ἀποδειχθήσεται, τὰ μετὰ τὸν τῇδε βίον δικαιωτήρια: καὶ ἡ πρὸς ἀξίαν ἀνταπόδοσις, καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα πρὸς ἀναίρεσιν τῆς κακίας λέγεται καὶ πεπίστευται. Πῶς γὰρ δυνατὸν ἔξω ταύτης εἶναι τὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν δι' ἐκείνης φύντα; Πῶς δὲ καὶ ὁρμή τις ἐγένετο προαιρετικὴ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ πρὸς τὸν κατ' ἀρετὴν βίον, οὗ ἡ φύσις ἐκ κακίας, ὡς λέγουσι, τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔχει; Ὡς γὰρ οὐκ ἐπιχειρεῖ τι τῶν ἀλόγων ἀνθρωπικῶς φθέγξασθαι, τῇ δὲ συντρόφῳ καὶ κατὰ φύσιν κεχρημένα φωνῇ, οὐδεμίαν ἡγεῖται ζημίαν ἀμοιροῦντα τῷ λόγῳ: κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον, καὶ οἷς ἡ κακία νομίζεται εἶναι τῆς ζωῆς ἀρχὴ καὶ αἰτία, οὐκ ἂν εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν ἔλθοιεν τῆς ἀρετῆς, ὡς ἔξω τῆς φύσεως αὐτῶν οὔσης. Ἀλλὰ μὴν πᾶσι τοῖς κεκαθαρμένοις ἐκ λογισμῶν τὴν ψυχὴν διὰ σπουδῆς τε καὶ ἐπιθυμίας ὁ κατ' ἀρετὴν βίος ἐστίν. Ἄρα διὰ τούτων σαφῶς ἀποδείκνυται, τὸ μὴ πρεσβυτέραν εἶναι τῆς ζωῆς τὴν κακίαν, μήτ' ἐκεῖθεν τὰς πρώτας ἀρχὰς ἐσχηκέναι τὴν φύσιν, ἀλλὰ κατάρχειν ἡμῶν τῆς ζωῆς τὴν τὸ πᾶν οἰκονομοῦσαν τοῦ Θεοῦ σοφίαν. Ἐλθοῦσαν δὲ εἰς γένεσιν τὴν ψυχὴν κατὰ τὸν ἀρέσκοντα τρόπον τῷ κτίσαντι, τότε κατ' ἐξουσίαν αὐτὴν αἱρεῖσθαι τὸ κατὰ γνώμην ἐκ τῆς προαιρετικῆς δυνάμεως, ὅ τί περ ἂν ἐθέλει τοῦτο καὶ γινομένην. Μάθοιμεν δ' ἂν τὸν λόγον ἐκ τοῦ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ὑποδείγματος, ᾧ τὸ μὲν ὁρᾷν ἐστιν ἐκ φύσεως τὸ δὲ μὴ ὁρᾷν ἐκ προαιρέσεως ἢ καὶ πάθους. Γένοιτο γὰρ ἄν ποτε καὶ τὸ παρὰ φύσιν ἀντὶ τῆς φύσεως, ἢ ἑκουσίως τινὸς τὸν ὀφθαλμὸν μύοντος, ἢ ἐκ πάθους στερηθέντος τῆς ὄψεως. Οὕτως ἔστιν εἰπεῖν, καὶ τῇ ψυχῇ θεόθεν μὲν εἶναι τὴν σύστασιν, μηδεμιᾶς δὲ νοουμένης περὶ τὸ Θεῖον κακίας, ἔξω τῆς κατ' αὐτὴν ἀνάγκης εἶναι: γενομένην δὲ οὕτως τῇ ἰδίᾳ γνώμῃ πρὸς τὸ δοκοῦν ἄγεσθαι, ἢ ἐκ προαιρέσεως πρὸς τὸ καλὸν ἐπιμύουσαν, ἢ ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς τοῦ συνοικοῦντος ἡμῶν τῇ ζωῇ πολέμου τὸν ὀφθαλμὸν βλαπτομένην, καὶ ἐν τῷ τῆς ἀπάτης βιοτεύουσαν σκότει, καὶ τὸ ἔμπαλιν καθαρῶς πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν βλέπουσαν, πόῤῥω γίνεσθαι τῶν σκοτεινῶν παθημάτων.
Πότε οὖν ἐρεῖ τις γινομένην, καὶ πῶς; Ἀλλὰ τὴν μὲν ζήτησιν τὴν περὶ τοῦ πῶς τὰ καθ' ἕκαστον γέγονεν, ἐξαιρετέον πάντη τοῦ λόγου. Οὔτε γὰρ περὶ τῶν προχείρων ἡμῖν εἰς κατανόησιν, ὧν τὴν ἀντίληψιν δι' αἰσθήσεως ἔχομεν, δυνατὸν ἂν γένοιτο τῷ διερευνωμένῳ λόγῳ, τὸ πῶς ὑπέστη τὸ φαινόμενον κατανοῆσαι, ὡς μήτε τοῖς θεοφορουμένοις καὶ ἁγίοις ἀνδράσι τὸ τοιοῦτον ληπτὸν νομισθῆναι. Πίστει γὰρ νοοῦμεν, φησὶν ὁ Ἀπόστολος, κατηρτίσθαι τοὺς αἰῶνας ῥήματι Θεοῦ, εἰς τὸ μὴ ἐμφαινομένων τὰ ὁρώμενα γεγονέναι: οὐκ ἂν, ὡς οἴομαι, τοῦτο εἰπὼν, εἴπερ ᾤετο γνωστὸν, εἶναι διὰ τῶν λογισμῶν τὸ ζητούμενον. Ἀλλ' ὅτι μὲν θελήματι θείῳ κατήρτισται αὐτός τε ὁ αἰὼν, καὶ πάντα ὅσα ἐν αὐτῷ γεγένηται (ὁστισοῦν ἂν εἴη οὗτος ὁ αἰὼν, ᾧ παραθεωρεῖται πᾶσα ὁρατή τε καὶ ἀόρατος κτίσις), τοῦτο πεπιστευκέναι φησὶν ὁ Ἀπόστολος, τὸ δὲ πῶς ἀφῆκεν ἀδιερεύνητον. Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐφικτὸν τὸ τοιοῦτον οἶμαι τοῖς ἀναζητοῦσιν εἶναι, πολλὰς ἀμηχανίας τοῦ περὶ τούτων ζητήματος ἡμῖν προδεικνύντος, πῶς ἐκ τῆς ἑστώσης φύσεως τὸ κινούμενον ἐκ τῆς ἁπλῆς τε καὶ ἀδιαστάτου τὸ διαστηματικόν τε καὶ σύνθετον; Ἄρα ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς ὑπερκειμένης οὐσίας; Ἀλλ' οὐχ ὁμολογεῖ τὸ ἑτερογενὲς ἔχειν πρὸς ἐκείνην τὰ ὄντα, ἀλλ' ἑτέρωθεν πόθεν. Καὶ μὴν οὐδὲν ἔξωθεν τῆς θείας φύσεως ὁ λόγος βλέπει. Ἦ γὰρ ἂν διασχισθείη πρὸς διαφόρους ἀρχὰς ἡ ὑπόληψις, εἴ τι τῆς ποιητικῆς αἰτίας ἔξω νομισθείη, παρ' οὗ ἡ τεχνικὴ σοφία, τὰς πρὸς τὴν κτίσιν παρασκευὰς ἐρανίζεται. Ἐπεὶ οὖν ἓν μὲν τῶν ὄντων τὸ αἴτιον, οὐχ ὁμογενῆ δὲ τῇ ὑπερκειμένῃ φύσει τὰ δι' ἐκείνης παραχθέντα εἰς γένεσιν: ἴση δὲ καθ' ἑκάτερον ἐν τοῖς ὑπονοουμένοις ἡ ἀτοπία, τό τε ἐκ τῆς φύσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ τὴν κτίσιν οἴεσθαι, καὶ τὸ ἐξ ἑτέρας τινὸς οὐσίας ὑποστῆναι τὰ πάντα: ἢ γὰρ καὶ τὸ Θεῖον ἐν τοῖς τῆς κτίσεως ἰδιώμασιν εἶναι ὑπονοηθήσεται, εἴπερ ὁμογενῶς πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν ἔχοι τὰ γεγονότα: ἤ τις ὑλικὴ φύσις ἔξω τῆς θείας οὐσίας ἀντεξαχθήσεται τῷ Θεῷ κατὰ τὸ ἀγέννητον τῇ ἀϊδιότητι τοῦ ὄντος παρισουμένη: ὅπερ δὴ καὶ Μανιχαῖοι φαντασθέντες, καί τινες τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς φιλοσοφίας ταῖς ἴσαις ὑπονοίαις συνενεχθέντες, δόγμα τὴν φαντασίαν ταύτην πεποίηνται.
Ὡς ἂν μάλιστα οὖν ἐκφύγοιμεν τὴν ἀφ' ἑκατέρου ἀτοπίαν ἐν τῇ ζητήσει τῶν ὄντων, κατὰ τὸ τοῦ Ἀποστόλου ὑπόδειγμα, ἀπολυπραγμόνητον τὸν λόγον τὸν περὶ τοῦ, πῶς ἕκαστόν ἐστιν, καταλείψομεν, τοσοῦτον παρασημαινόμενοι μόνον, ὅτι ἡ ὁρμὴ τῆς θείας προαιρέσεως, ὅταν ἐθέλει, πρᾶγμα γίνεται, καὶ οὐσιοῦται τὸ βούλευμα εὐθὺς ἡ φύσις γινόμενον, τῆς παντοδυνάμου ἐξουσίας, ὅπερ ἂν σοφῶς τε καὶ τεχνικῶς ἐθέλῃ, μὴ ἀνυπόστατον ποιούσης τὸ θέλημα. Ἡ δὲ τοῦ θελήματος ὕπαρξις οὐσία ἐστί. Διχῆ δὲ διακρινομένων τῶν ὄντων, εἰς τὸ νοερόν τε καὶ σωματικόν: ἡ μὲν τῶν νοερῶν κτίσις οὐ δοκεῖ πως ἀπᾴδειν τῆς τοῦ ἀσωμάτου φύσεως, ἀλλ' ἐκ τοῦ σύνεγγυς εἶναι τὸ ἀειδές τε καὶ ἀναφὲς καὶ ἀδιάστατον δεικνύουσα. Ὅπερ δὴ καὶ περὶ τὴν ὑπερκειμένην φύσιν ὑπονοῶν τις οὐχ ἁμαρτήσεται. Τῆς δὲ σωματικῆς κτίσεως ἐν ἀκοινωνήτοις ὡς πρὸς τὸ Θεῖον τοῖς ἰδιώμασι θεωρουμένης: καὶ ταύτην μάλιστα τὴν πολλὴν ἀμηχανίαν ἐμποιούσης τῷ λόγῳ, μὴ δυναμένου κατιδεῖν, πῶς ἐκ τοῦ ἀοράτου τὸ ὁρώμενον; ἐκ τοῦ ἀναφοῦς τὸ στεῤῥὸν καὶ ἀντίτυπον, ἐκ τοῦ ἀορίστου τὸ ὡρισμένον, ἐκ τοῦ ἀπόσου τε καὶ ἀμεγέθου τὸ πάντως μέτροις τισὶ τοῖς κατὰ τὸ ποσὸν θεωρουμένοις περιειργόμενον; Καὶ τὰ καθ' ἕκαστον ὅσα περὶ τὴν σωματικὴν καταλαμβάνεται φύσιν, περὶ ὧν τοσοῦτόν φαμεν, ὅτι οὐδὲν ἐφ' ἑαυτοῦ τῶν περὶ τὸ σῶμα θεωρουμένων σῶμά ἐστιν, οὐ σχῆμα, οὐ χρῶμα, οὐ βάρος, οὐ διάστημα, οὐ πηλικότης, οὐκ ἄλλο τι τῶν ἐν ποιότητι θεωρουμένων οὐδὲν, ἀλλὰ τούτων ἕκαστον λόγος ἐστίν: ἡ δὲ πρὸς ἄλληλα συνδρομὴ τούτων καὶ ἕνωσις σῶμα γίνεται. Ἐπεὶ οὖν αἱ συμπληρωματικαὶ τοῦ σώματος ποιότητες νῷ καταλαμβάνονται καὶ οὐκ αἰσθήσει, νοερὸν δὲ τὸ Θεῖον, τίς πόνος τῶν νοητῶν τὰ νοήματα κατεργάσασθαι; Ὧν ἡ πρὸς ἄλληλα συνδρομὴ τὴν τοῦ σώματος ἡμῖν ἀπεγέννησε φύσιν. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν ἔξω τοῦ προκειμένου παρεξετάσθη. Τὸ δὲ ζητούμενον ἦν, εἰ προϋφεστήκασιν αἱ ψυχαὶ τῶν σωμάτων, πότε ἢ πῶς γίνονται. Καὶ τούτου χάριν ἡμῖν περὶ τοῦ πῶς ζήτησιν ὡς ἀνέφικτον οὖσαν ἀπολυπραγμόνητον ἀφῆκεν ὁ λόγος. Περὶ τοῦ πότε τὰς ἀρχὰς αἱ ψυχαὶ τῆς ὑπάρξεως ἔχουσιν, ὡς ἀκόλουθον ὂν τοῖς προεξητασμένοις, ζητεῖν καταλείπεται. Εἰ γὰρ δοθείη τὸ πρὸ τοῦ σώματος ἐν ἰδιαζούσῃ τινὶ καταστάσει τὴν ψυχὴν βιοτεύειν: ἀνάγκη πᾶσα τὰς ἀτόπους ἐκείνας δογματοποιίας ἰσχὺν ἔχειν νομίζειν τῶν διὰ κακίας τὰς ψυχὰς εἰσοικιζόντων τοῖς σώμασιν. Ἀλλὰ μὴν ἐφυστερίζειν τὰς ψυχὰς τὴν γένεσιν, καὶ νεωτέρας τῆς τῶν σωμάτων εἶναι συμπλάσεως, οὐδεὶς ἂν τῶν εὖ φρονούντων ὑπονοήσειεν, φανεροῦ πᾶσιν ὄντος ὅτι οὐδὲν τῶν ἀψύχων κινητικήν τε καὶ αὐξητικὴν ἐν αὐτῷ δύναμιν ἔχει. Τῶν δ' ἐν νηδύϊ ἐντρεφομένων, οὔτε ἡ αὔξησις, οὔτε ἡ τοπικὴ κίνησίς ἐστιν ἀμφίβολος.
Λείπεται οὖν μίαν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ψυχῆς τε καὶ σώματος ἀρχὴν τῆς συστάσεως οἴεσθαι. Καὶ ὥσπερ τῆς ῥίζης τὴν ἀποσπάδα λαβοῦσα παρὰ τῶν γεηπόνων ἡ γῆ δένδρον ἐποίησεν, οὐκ αὐτὴ τὴν αὐξητικὴν ἐνθεῖσα τῷ τρεφομένῳ δύναμιν, ἀλλὰ μόνον τὰς πρὸς τὴν αὔξησιν ἀφορμὰς ἐνιεῖσα τῷ ἐκκειμένῳ: οὕτω φαμὲν, καὶ τὸ ἐκ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀποσπώμενον πρὸς ἀνθρώπου φυτείαν, καὶ αὐτὸ τρόπον τινὰ ζῶον εἶναι ἐξ ἐμψύχου ἔμψυχον, ἐκ τρεφομένου τρεφόμενον. Εἰ δὲ μὴ πάσας τὰς τῆς ψυχῆς ἐνεργείας καὶ κινήσεις ἡ βραχύτης ἀποσπάδος ἐχώρησε, θαυμαστὸν οὐδέν. Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐν τῷ σπέρματι σῖτος εὐθὺς κατὰ τὸ φαινόμενον στάχυς ἐστὶ (πῶς γὰρ τοσοῦτον ἐν τοσούτῳ χωρήσειεν); ἀλλὰ τῆς γῆς αὐτὸν ταῖς καταλλήλοις τιθηνουμένης τροφαῖς, στάχυς ὁ σῖτος γίνεται, οὐκ ἐξαλλάσσων ἐν τῇ βολῇ τὴν φύσιν, ἀλλ' ἐμφαίνων ἑαυτὸν καὶ τελειοῦν τῇ τῆς τροφῆς ἐνεργείᾳ. Ὥσπερ οὖν ἐπὶ τῶν φυομένων σπερμάτων κατὰ λόγον ἡ αὔξησις ἐπὶ τὸ τέλος πρόεισι: τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης συστάσεως, πρὸς λόγον τῆς σωματικῆς ποσότητος, καὶ ἡ τῆς ψυχῆς διαφαίνεται δύναμις: πρῶτον μὲν διὰ τοῦ θρεπτικοῦ καὶ αὐξητικοῦ τοῖς ἔνδοθεν πλασσομένοις ἐγγινομένη. Μετὰ ταῦτα δὲ τὴν αἰσθητικὴν χάριν τοῖς εἰς φῶς προελθοῦσιν ἐπάγουσα, εἶθ' οὕτω, καθάπερ τινὰ καρπὸν, αὐξηθέντος ἤδη τοῦ φυτοῦ, μετρίως τὴν λογικὴν ἐμφαίνουσα δύναμιν, οὐ πᾶσαν κατὰ τὸ ἀθρόον, ἀλλὰ τῇ ἀναδρομῇ τοῦ φυτοῦ δι' ἀκολούθου προκοπῆς συναυξανομένην. Ἐπειδὴ τοίνυν τὸ ἐκ τῶν ἐμψύχων εἰς ἀφορμὴν ἐμψύχου συστάσεως ἀποσπώμενον, νεκρὸν εἶναι οὐ δύναται (ἡ γὰρ νεκρότης κατὰ ψυχῆς στέρησιν γίνεται: οὐκ ἂν δὴ προσλάβῃ τὴν ἕξιν ἡ στέρησις): ἐκ τούτων καταλαμβάνομεν τὸ κοινὴν τῷ ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων συνισταμένῳ συγκρίματι, τὴν εἰς τὸ εἶναι πάροδον γίνεσθαι, οὔτε τούτου προτερεύοντος, οὔτ' ἐκείνου ἐφυστερίζοντος: στᾶσιν δέ ποτε τῆς τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τῶν ψυχῶν αὐξήσεως, ἀναγκαίως προορᾷ ὁ λόγος. Ὡς ἂν μὴ διαπαντὸς ῥέοι ἡ φύσις, ἀεὶ διὰ τῶν ἐπιγινομένων ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσω χεομένη, καὶ οὐδέποτε τῆς κινήσεως λήγουσα. Τὴν δὲ αἰτίαν τοῦ δεῖν πάντως στάσιμόν ποτε καὶ τὴν ἡμετέραν γίνεσθαι φύσιν, ταύτην οἰόμεθα, ὅτι πάσης τῆς νοητῆς φύσεως ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ πληρώματι ἑστώσης, εἰκός ποτε καὶ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον εἰς πέρας ἐλθεῖν, οὐδὲ γὰρ τοῦτο τῆς νοητῆς ἠλλοτρίωται φύσεως: ὡς μὴ πάντοτε δοκεῖν ἐν τῷ λείποντι καθορᾶσθαι. Ἡ γὰρ ἀεὶ τῶν ἐπιγινομένων προσθήκη, κατηγορία τοῦ ἐλλείποντος ἔχειν τὴν φύσιν γίνεται. Ἐπειδὰν οὖν εἰς τὸ οἰκεῖον πλήρωμα τὸ ἀνθρώπινον φθάσῃ, στήσεται πάντως ἡ ῥοώδης αὕτη τῆς φύσεως κίνησις, εἰς τὸ ἀναγκαῖον καταντήσασα πέρας, καί τις ἑτέρα κατάστασις τὴν ζωὴν διαδέχεται, τῆς νῦν ἐν γενέσει καὶ φθορᾷ διεξαγομένης κεχωρισμένη. Μὴ οὔσης γὰρ γενέσεως, κατὰ πᾶσαν ἀνάγκην οὐδὲ τὸ φθειρόμενον ἔσται. Εἰ γὰρ πρὸ τῆς διαλύσεως σύνθεσις ἄρχεται, σύνθεσιν δέ φαμεν τὴν διὰ γενέσεως πάροδον: ἀκόλουθον πάντως μὴ καθηγουμένης τῆς συνθέσεως, μηδὲ τὴν διάλυσιν ἕπεσθαι. Οὐκοῦν ἑστῶσά τις καὶ ἀδιάλυτος ἡ μετὰ ταῦτα ζωὴ δι' ἀκολουθίας προφαίνεται, οὔτε ὑπὸ γενέσεως, οὔτε ὑπὸ φθορᾶς ἀλλοιουμένη.