Say not so, she replied; to talk so also is blasphemous. Rather, as the Scripture tells you, say that the one is like the other. For that which is “made in the image” of the Deity necessarily possesses a likeness to its prototype in every respect; it resembles it in being intellectual, immaterial, unconnected with any notion of weight25    weight(ὄγκου). This is a Platonic word: it means the weight, and then (morally) the burden, of the body: not necessarily connected with the idea of swelling, even in Empedocles, v. 220; its Latin equivalent is “onus” in both meanings. Cf. Heb. xii. 1; ὄγκον ἀποθέμενοι πάντα, “every weight,” or “all cumbrance.”, and in eluding any measurement of its dimensions26    Reading διαστηματικὴν. Cf. 239 A.; yet as regards its own peculiar nature it is something different from that other. Indeed, it would be no longer an “image,” if it were altogether identical with that other; but27    ἀλλ᾽ ἐν οἷς…ἐκεῖνο…τοῦτο. where we have A in that uncreate prototype we have a in the image; just as in a minute particle of glass, when it happens to face the light, the complete disc of the sun is often to be seen, not represented thereon in proportion to its proper size, but so far as the minuteness of the particle admits of its being represented at all. Thus do the reflections of those ineffable qualities of Deity shine forth within the narrow limits of our nature; and so our reason, following the leading of these reflections, will not miss grasping the Mind in its essence by clearing away from the question all corporeal qualities; nor on the other hand will it bring the pure28    pure(ἀκηράτῳ). perishable (ἐπίκηρον). The first word is a favourite one with the Platonists; such as Plotinus, and Synesius. Gregory uses it in his funeral speech over Flacilla, “she passes with a soul unstained to the pure and perfect life”; and both in his treatise De Mortuis, “that man’s grief is real, who becomes conscious of the blessings he has lost; and contrasts this perishing and soiled existence with the perfect blessedness above.” and infinite Existence to the level of that which is perishable and little; it will regard this essence of the Mind as an object of thought only, since it is the “image” of an Existence which is such; but it will not pronounce this image to be identical with the prototype. Just, then, as we have no doubts, owing to the display of a Divine mysterious wisdom in the universe, about a Divine Being and a Divine Power existing in it all which secures its continuance (though if you required a definition of that Being you would therein find the Deity completely sundered from every object in creation, whether of sense or thought, while in these last, too, natural distinctions are admitted), so, too, there is nothing strange in the soul’s separate existence as a substance (whatever we may think that substance to be) being no hindrance to her actual existence, in spite of the elemental atoms of the world not harmonizing with her in the definition of her being. In the case of our living bodies, composed as they are from the blending of these atoms, there is no sort of communion, as has been just said, on the score of substance, between the simplicity and invisibility of the soul, and the grossness of those bodies; but, notwithstanding that, there is not a doubt that there is in them the soul’s vivifying influence exerted by a law which it is beyond the human understanding to comprehend29    λόγῳ τινὶ κρείττονι τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης κατάνοήσεως. So just below ἀῤῥήτῳ τινὶ λόγω. The mode of the union of soul and body is beyond our comprehension. To refer these words to the Deity Himself (“incomprehensible cause”), as Oehler, would make of them, as Schmidt well remarks, a “mere showy phrase.”. Not even then, when those atoms have again been dissolved30    ἀναλυθέντων. Krabinger reads ἀναλυσάντων, i.e. “returning”; as frequently in this treatise, and in N.T. usage. into themselves, has that bond of a vivifying influence vanished; but as, while the framework of the body still holds together, each individual part is possessed of a soul which penetrates equally every component member, and one could not call that soul hard and resistent though blended with the solid, nor humid, or cold, or the reverse, though it transmits life to all and each of such parts, so, when that framework is dissolved, and has returned to its kindred elements, there is nothing against probability that that simple and incomposite essence which has once for all by some inexplicable law grown with the growth of the bodily framework should continually remain beside the atoms with which it has been blended, and should in no way be sundered from a union once formed. For it does not follow that because the composite is dissolved the incomposite must be dissolved with it31    i.e.as we have already seen (p. 433). The fact of the continuity of the soul was there deduced from its being incomposite. So that the γὰρ here does not give the ground for the statement immediately preceding.   Gregory (p. 431) had suggested two alternatives:—1. That the soul dissolves with the body. This is answered by the soul’s “incompositeness.” 2. That the union of the immaterial soul with the still material atoms after death cannot be maintained. This is answered by the analogy given in the present section, of God’s presence in an uncongenial universe, and that of the soul in the still living body. The γὰρ therefore refers to the answer to 1, without which the question of the soul continuing in the atoms could not have been discussed at all..

_Μ. Μὴ ταὐτὸν εἴπῃς, φησὶν ἡ διδάσκαλος (ἀσεβὴς γὰρ καὶ οὗτος ὁ λόγος), ἀλλ' ὡς ἐδιδάχθης παρὰ τῆς θείας Γραφῆς, ὅμοιον εἰπὲ τοῦτο ἐκείνῳ. Τὸ γὰρ κατ' εἰκόνα γενόμενον διὰ πάντων ἔχει πάντως τὴν πρὸς τὸ ἀρχέτυπον ὁμοιότητα, νοερὰν τοῦ νοεροῦ, καὶ τοῦ ἀσωμάτου ἀσώματον, ὄγκου τε παντὸς ἀπηλλαγμένον ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνο, καὶ πᾶσαν ἐκφεῦγον διὰ σημαντικὴν καταμέτρησιν ὁμοίως ἐκείνῳ: ἄλλο δέ τι παρ' ἐκεῖνο κατὰ τὴν τῆς φύσεως ἰδιότητα. Οὐκέτι γὰρ ἂν εἴη εἰκὼν, εἰ ἐκείνῳ δι' ἁπάντων εἴη ταὐτὸν, ἀλλ' ἐν οἷς ἐν τῇ ἀκτίστῳ φύσει καθορᾶται ἐκεῖνο, ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἡ κτιστὴ φύσις δείκνυσι τοῦτο: καὶ ὥσπερ πολλάκις ἐν μικρῷ ψήγματι ὑελίνῃ, ὅταν τύχῃ πρὸς ἀκτῖνα κείμενον, ὅλος ἐνορᾶται τοῦ ἡλίου ὁ κύκλος, οὐ κατὰ τὸ ἴδιον μέγεθος αὐτῷ ἐμφαινόμενος, ἀλλ' ὡς χωρεῖ βραχύτης τοῦ ψήγματος τοῦ κύκλου τὴν ἔμφασιν: οὕτως ἐν τῇ βραχύτητι τῆς ἡμετέρας φύσεως τῶν ἀφράστων ἐκείνων τῆς θεότητος ἰδιωμάτων αἱ εἰκόνες ἐκλάμπουσιν, ὥστε διὰ τούτων τὸν λόγον χειραγωγούμενον, μήτε ἀποπίπτειν τῆς κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν τοῦ νοῦ καταλήψεως, ἀποκαθαιρομένης ἐν τῇ ἐξετάσει τοῦ σκέμματος τῆς σωματικῆς ἰδιότητος: μηδ' αὖ πάλιν εἰς ἶσον ἄγειν τῇ ἀορίστῳ τε καὶ ἀκηράτῳ φύσει, τὴν μικρὰν καὶ ἐπίκηρον: ἀλλὰ νοητὴν μὲν οἴεσθαι τὴν οὐσίαν: ἐπειδὴ καὶ νοητῆς οὐσίας ἐστὶν εἰκὼν, μὴ μέντοι τὴν αὐτὴν τῷ ἀρχετύπῳ τὴν εἰκόνα λέγειν.
Ὥσπερ οὖν διὰ τῆς ἀποῤῥήτου σοφίας τοῦ Θεοῦ τῆς τῷ παντὶ ἐμφαινομένης τὴν θείαν φύσιν τε καὶ δύναμιν ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς οὖσιν εἶναι οὐκ ἀμφιβάλλομεν, ὡς ἂν ἐν τῷ εἶναι τὰ πάντα μένοι: καί τοί γε εἰ τὸν τῆς φύσεως ἀπαιτοίης λόγον, παμπλήθως ἀπέχει οὐσία Θεοῦ πρὸς τὰ καθ' ἕκαστον ἐν τῇ κτίσει δεικνύμενά τε καὶ νοούμενα: ἀλλ' ὅμως ἐν τούτοις εἶναι τὸ διεστὸς κατὰ τὴν φύσιν ὁμολογεῖται: οὕτως οὐδὲν ἄπιστον καὶ τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς οὐσίαν, ἄλλο τι καθ' ἑαυτὴν οὖσαν, ὅ τί ποτε καὶ εἶναι εἰκάζεται, μὴ ἐμποδίζεσθαι πρὸς τὸ εἶναι, τῶν στοιχειωδῶς ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ θεωρουμένων οὐ συμβαινόντων αὐτῇ κατὰ τὸν λόγον τῆς φύσεως: οὐδὲ ἐπὶ τῶν ζώντων σωμάτων, καθὼς ἤδη προείρηται, οἷς ἡ ὑπόστασις ἐκ τῆς τῶν στοιχείων ἐστὶ συγκράσεως, κοινωνία τις κατὰ τὸν τῆς οὐσίας λόγον ἐστὶ τῷ ἁπλῷ τε καὶ ἀειδεῖ τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς τὴν σωματικὴν παχυμερίαν: ἀλλ' ὅμως τὸ ἐν τούτοις εἶναι τὴν ζωτικὴν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐνέργειαν, οὐκ ἀμφιβάλλεται, λόγῳ τινὶ κρείττονι τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης κατανοήσεως ἀνακραθεῖσαν. Οὐκοῦν οὐδὲ ἀναλυσάντων πρὸς ἑαυτὰ τῶν ἐν τοῖς σώμασι στοιχείων, τὸ συνδέον αὐτὰ διὰ τῆς ζωτικῆς ἐνεργείας ἀπόλωλεν. Ἀλλ' ὥσπερ συνεστῶτος ἔτι τοῦ τῶν στοιχείων συγκρίματος ψυχοῦται καὶ τὰ καθ' ἕκαστον, ἴσως τε καὶ ὁμοίως πᾶσι τοῖς μέρεσι τοῖς συμπληροῦσι τὸ σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς ἐνδυομένης, καὶ οὐκ ἄν τις εἴποι, οὔτε στεῤῥὰν αὐτὴν καὶ ἀντίτυπον εἶναι, τῷ γεώδει συγκεκραμένην, οὔτε ὑγρὰν, ἢ ψυχρὰν ἢ τὴν τῷ ψυχρῷ ἀντικειμένην ποιότητα, τὴν ἐν πᾶσιν οὖσαν τούτοις, καὶ ἑκάστῳ τὴν ζωτικὴν δύναμιν ἐνιοῦσαν: οὕτω, καὶ λυθέντος τοῦ συγκρίματος, καὶ εἰς τὰ οἰκεῖα πάλιν ἀναδραμόντος, τὴν ἁπλῆν ἐκείνην καὶ ἀσύνθετον φύσιν ἑκάστῳ παρεῖναι τῶν μερῶν, καὶ μετὰ τὴν διάλυσιν οἴεσθαι, οὐδὲν τοῦ εἰκότος ἐστίν: ἀλλὰ τὴν ἅπαξ ἀῤῥήτῳ τινὶ συμφυεῖσαν λόγῳ τῷ τῶν στοιχείων συγκρίματι, καὶ εἰσαεὶ παραμένειν, οἷς κατεμίχθη, μηδενὶ τρόπῳ τῆς γινομένης ἅπαξ αὐτῇ συμφυΐας ἀποσπωμένην. Οὐ γὰρ ἐπειδὴ λύεται τὸ συγκείμενον, κινδυνεύει συνδιαλυθῆναι τῷ συνθέτῳ τὸ μὴ συγκείμενον.