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in the air of a soul completely whitened, immaterially penetrating clearly the whole immaterial substance through and through, and from this the whole body (366) being as in a whole, the incorporeal soul itself also being so, and your body will shine like your soul, and your soul in turn will be like the grace that has shone, flashing like God. But if you shrink from imitating the humility of the creator, the sufferings and the insults, and you do not consent to endure these things, whether intellectually, but rather more perceptibly, you have been left behind—O the foolishness!— in the gloom and tartarus of your poor flesh, which is corruption—for what else exists, if not death in an immortal vessel?— shut up therefore for ages, deprived of all the good things that are in the light and of the light itself. For I do not yet speak of being handed over to fire, to the gnashing of teeth, to weeping and the worm, but of dwelling as in a jar in the body after the resurrection, just as also before it, and looking out from nowhere, nor receiving any light at all within, but lying thus, deprived of all the pleasures here and of those to come, as I said before. So say, you who hear, you who say: I do not wish to be inside the unblemished kingdom nor to enjoy those good things, but only to be outside of punishment and not to experience fire at all. What profit is it to you to become so, as I said? Answer me, O wisest one, and speak! (367) Will you then reckon any other punishment to be greater than to exist at all? Away with it! For then you will say that you alone are both existing and being punished in torment. For even if you should say that the body will then be received as spiritual, how then will a soul be shut up in it as in a jar? Listen, be taught how this will be! Just as the seed is sown according to its kind—I speak to you of wheat and barley and the others— and according to its kind it sprouts up again, so also the bodies of those who die fall into the earth, whatever kind they happen to be. The souls therefore, having been separated from them
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ἀέρι ψυχῆς πάμπαν λελευκασμένῳ, ἀΰλως τήν ἄϋλον σαφῶς οὐσίαν ὅλην δι᾿ ὅλου ὄντως διϊκνουμένην, ἐκ ταύτης δ᾿ ὅλον ὡς ἐν ὅλῳ τό σῶμα (366) οὔσης καί αὐτῆς ψυχῆς τῆς ἀσωμάτου, καί λάμψει τό σῶμά σου ὡς ἡ ψυχή σου, ἡ ψυχή δ᾿ αὖθις ὡς ἡ λάμψασα χάρις ἔσεται ἀστράπτουσα, Θεός καθάπερ. Εἰ δ᾿ ἀποκνήσεις μιμήσασθαι τοῦ κτίστου τήν ταπείνωσιν, τά πάθη καί τάς ὕβρεις καί ὑποστῆναι ταῦτα οὐ καταδέξῃ, εἴτε νοερῶς, αἰσθητῶς δέ γε μᾶλλον, ἐναπελείφθης ὤ τῆς ἀβελτηρίας! - ἐν ζόφῳ καί ταρτάρῳ τοῦ σοῦ σαρκίου, ὅ φθορά ἐστι - τί γάρ ὑπάρχει ἄλλο, εἰ μή θάνατος ἐν ἀθανάτῳ σκεύει; ἐγκεκλεισμένος μενοῦνγε εἰς αἰῶνας, πάντων ἀγαθῶν τῶν ἐν φωτί κἀυτοῦ δέ τοῦ φωτός στερισκόμενος. Οὔπω γάρ λέγω τό γε καί πυρί βρυγμῷ τῶν ὀδόντων, κλαυθμῷ τε καί σκώληκι παραδοθῆναι, ἀλλ᾿ ὡς ἐν πίθῳ τῷ σώματι οἰκῆσαι μετά τήν ἀνάστασιν, ὡς καί πρό τούτου, καί μηδαμόθεν ἔξωθεν ἀποβλέπειν μηδέ φῶς ἐντός εἰσδέχεσθαι παράπαν, ἀλλ᾿ οὕτω κεῖσθαι τῶν ἐνταῦθα ἡδέων πάντων στερισκόμενον καί τῶν μελλόντων, καθώς προεῖπον. Λέγε οὖν ὁ ἀκούων, ὁ λέγων˙ Οὐ βούλομαι τῆς βασιλείας τῆς ἀκηράτου ἔνδον γενέσθαι οὐδ᾿ ἀπολαύειν τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἐκείνων, ἀλλ᾿ἔξω μόνον τῆς κολάσεως εἶναι καί πεῖραν πυρός μή λαβεῖν με κἄν ὅλως. Τί σοι ὄφελος γενομένῳ, ὡς εἶπον; Ἀπόκρινέ μοι, σοφώτατε, καί λέγε! (367) Ἆρα λογίσῃ τιμωρίαν ἑτέραν εἶναι μείζονα ἤ γενέσθαι ὅλως; Ἄπαγε, καί γάρ ὡς μόνος ἐν βασάνοις τότε καί εἶναι καί κολάζεσθαι φήσεις. Εἰ γάρ καί εἴποις πνευματικόν τό σῶμα τότε ἀπολήψεσθαι, καί πῶς ὡς πίθῳ ἐναποκλεισθήσεται ψυχή ἐν τούτῳ; Ἄκουσον, διδάχθητι, πῶς ἔσται τοῦτο! Ὥσπερ ὁ σπόρος σπείρεται κατά γένος σίτου σοι λέγω καί κριθῆς καί τῶν ἄλλων - καί κατά γένος αὖθις ἀναβλαστάνει, οὕτω καί τά σώματα τῶν γε θνῃσκόντων πίπτουσιν εἰς γῆν, οἷα τύχωσιν εἶναι. Αἱ οὖν ἐξ αὐτῶν ψυχαί διαζευχθεῖσαι