27. So then, if souls lose all their knowledge on being fettered with the body, they must experience something of such a nature that it makes them become blindly forgetful.341    Lit., “put on the blindness of oblivion.” For they cannot, without becoming subject to anything whatever, either lay aside their knowledge while they maintain their natural state, or without change in themselves pass into a different state. Nay, we rather think that what is one, immortal, simple, in whatever it may be, must always retain its own nature, and that it neither should nor could be subject to anything, if indeed it purposes to endure and abide within the limits of true immortality. For all suffering is a passage for death and destruction, a way leading to the grave, and bringing an end of life which may not be escaped from; and if souls are liable to it, and yield to its influence and assaults, they indeed have life given to them only for present use, not as a secured possession,342    Cf. Lucretius, iii. 969, where life is thus spoken of. although some come to other conclusions, and put faith in their own arguments with regard to so important a matter.

XXVII. Ergo, si et animae perdunt omne quod noverant, corporalibus vinculis occupatae, patiantur necesse est aliquid, quod eas efficiat oblivionis induere caecitatem. Neque enim nihil omnino perpessae, aut integritatem conservantes suam, possunt rerum scientiam ponere, aut in alios habitus sine sui mutabilitate transire. Atqui nos arbitramur, quod est unum, quod immortale, quod simplex, quacumque in re fuerit, necessario semper suam retinere naturam: nec debere aut posse aliquid perpeti, si modo esse perpetuum cogitat, et in finibus propriae immortalitatis haerere. Omnis enim passio lethi atque interitus 0854B janua est, ad mortem ducens via, et inevitabilem rebus afferens functionem: quam si sentiunt animae, et tactui ejus atque incursionibus cedunt, usu et illis est vita non mancipio tradita, quamvis aliter quidam inferant, et rei tantae fidem suis in argumentationibus ponant.