Theophrastus, or Dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection of the Body

^A And behold, I am here with you, looking upon the Nile, not the Ilissus, upon the Pharos, not the Piraeus.

AEGYPTUS. I owe great thanks, by heaven, to the wind, which compelled you by its own force to be brought to your friends. But I beseech you, do you still remember Hierocles, and the philosophy which he used to teach, whose pupils we were in philosophy from childhood, and because we loved one another, we had many fellow-lovers? I, for my part, do not know that I ever grieved so much as when you departed from us, after having filled yourself with much and varied wisdom, to your Syrians. ^B And while much time has passed, it has not yet put an end to our love; but it flourishes just as it was when you departed, even though I have not seen you for many years, nor did I think I would see you. But some fortune, struggling along with me, has beyond my hope hunted out the one I longed for.

AXITHEUS. Now, indeed, it has conspired with fortune, and it was not therefore ^C an opposing one. ^D

but a graceful and friendly wind to our friendship, which has sent one friend to another. But tell me, are there still among us any who, as our teacher Hierocles used to do, teach the mysteries of philosophy? And do any noble and good youths still attend their schools, such as was that Protagoras the Lycian, who was indeed my contemporary, but who far surpassed me in beauty and intellect? ^A EGYPT. Formerly, indeed, those excellent studies of human culture flourished here, but now they have perished and dissolved entirely. For those who are enrolled in the number of the students have no desire to learn, while those who take upon themselves the persons of teachers know nothing of the way and method of teaching. The orchestra and the circus indeed abound with a crowd and throngs of people, but the auditoriums of the philosophers and the places sacred to the Muses have been reduced to a vast and desolate wilderness. AXITHEUS. I myself was suspecting the same thing, and having traveled throughout Egypt, I was seeking Athens, to see if any wise man might yet remain among the Athenians. For I wish to learn from him that which has often and greatly been a matter of question ^B among both the ancients and those of our own day: yet it has remained so dubious and uncertain that it has been argued about in one way and then another. EGYPT. You have here, O friendly soul, Athens itself; unless you would prefer to see the citadel, or the ramparts, or the shipyards, rather than a wise man. The great glory of Athens, Theophrastus, has arrived here for us, and he is now passing his third day here. But come, let us approach him. You will learn from him whatever you may have asked; or if not that, you will learn at any rate that this very thing ought not even to be sought from a man. For it is not possible, either in Athens or anywhere else, to find a man wiser than Theophrastus. ^C AXITHEUS. You tell of a divine and truly auspicious thing: when I find the philosophy of the Athenians by the Nile, so that I need not cross great seas, nor, to learn this, ^D endure the [original-script column: see facsimile]

^A arduous task of wandering. But let us go, for you have already made me a lover of Theophrastus.

EGYPT. I come to you, Theophrastus, bringing with me this Axitheus, as it were a rival of mine, for he too is a lover of philosophy.

THEOPH. Axitheus will indeed be to me in the place of an old friend, if he is a lover of philosophy. For it is a noble and rare thing; since even among the Athenians, where philosophy most shone, it has become utterly unknown and has been cast away into nothingness.

AXITH. Then I was traveling to the Athenians in vain, if you assert that no one is left there ^B who can answer the question proposed. But I did not interrupt my voyage in vain, if, by the favor of God, I find by the Nile the leader of philosophy and the most excellent of the Athenians. But tell me: for Egypt says that I cannot learn from anyone better than from you; is it permitted to ask whatever I wish?

THEOPH. Ask, if you wish to do me a favor; for no one for many years has asked me anything new.

AXITH. We are fortunate, if we are permitted to learn, and by this very fact to do a favor for the teacher. ^C First: has the soul lived here before, and will it live again? Or, having lived its present life, is it freed from the things here?

THEOPH. It has lived before, and it will live again; for this is what the sages of old are eager to teach me.

AXITH. You mean that the same soul enters into this life many times?

THEOPH. I certainly mean that, unless you have something wiser to say.

AXITH. And will it come again of its own accord, or by necessity?

THEOPH. I will try to open up to you, as if sitting in a ^D sanctuary, the secrets of the ancients. For Heraclitus, asserting a necessary succession,

^A said that the path of the soul is sometimes upward and sometimes downward. Since it is a labor of excessive toil to struggle upward on the same path, and to go around with the gods and be subject to their command, he said that it is for this reason, through a desire for rest and the hope of rule, that the soul is carried downward. ^B Empedocles, however, strikes fear into us, saying that by law it is decreed for souls that have sinned to fall into this place; pointing out quietly that which Pythagoras also enigmatically suggests. But Plato, our own ancestor, speaks many and noble things concerning the soul; and though he speaks in many ways concerning its journey, he does not say the same things everywhere. For now, Socrates in the *Phaedo*, having disparaged all that is sensible and having censured the communion of the soul with the body, laments the soul as one constrained by a bond and, as it were, buried in the body as in a tomb; he admires that saying, held in some mysteries, which declares: "Since we have arrived and have come to be, we are in a, so to speak, guard-post." And Empedocles ^C calls this whole world a "cave," whereas Plato in the *Republic*, changing the term, calls it a "den." And indeed he said that the loosening of bonds and the escape from the cave signifies the journey of the soul here. At another time, however, Socrates in the *Phaedrus* says he sees the souls descending, stripped little by little of their wings; for the soul that has forgotten its wings becomes heavy and is carried downward, until it stops, having approached a body. And this is the cause of the arrival. And again, circles bring the soul that has ascended back here, and it is sent down by judgment and justice; but also lots and fortunes and necessities pull it down. Thus, everywhere, the movement of the soul toward the body is...

^A blamed, but in the *Timaeus* which he composed, changing his mind, he praises its arrival, and marvels at this world, naming it a blessed God, and he greets the soul that has appeared here; for he is persuaded that it was given by the good Creator, and he prepares to persuade others as well. For it was necessary for this whole to be ensouled, and without a soul it was not possible for it to have come into being, but also [it needed] to be perfect. The soul of each thing gives this to the whole, rousing the sensible, and holding it together, and adorning it, and setting it in order; so that it serves the Creator willingly, and he willingly, so that this beautiful work of his might not remain imperfect. For he desired to show in the sensible world all that which pre-exists in the intelligible. These things, then, are those of Plato. ^B But his disciple Aristotle, not holding these views, but coining the term *entelechy* for the soul, as if it were introducing the perfect upon matter, and being a form, even dissolving along with the body 74.

AXITH. I deem you happy, Theophrastus, that while the opinions of the ancients on this matter are many and varied, nothing has escaped you; but you explain everything clearly, as if you had discovered it yourself, and not as if you were merely recounting the things of the ancients. You have shown yourself more mnemonical than Hippias 68, and not without diligence. But what shall I do 69? I remain still uncertain, and I do not know what I should become 70, not knowing to whom I should rather attach myself. Should I turn to Heraclitus, to whom it seems that the flight into this life is a respite from the labors of the soul 71 above? Or to Empedocles, who [thinks that] in accordance with judgments for those things in which it sinned, the soul is [sent] here ^C?

^D

Or rather to Plato, who at one time decrees that the soul is sent here to pay off penalties, and at another time says that it is for [completing] that which we call the universe; and that sometimes it is of its own accord, sometimes forced, now brought hither from elsewhere, and now sent forth by its own proper motion (for I shall keep silent about Aristotle, who, out of an excessive and intemperate wisdom, took away the immortality of the soul entirely)—all these men, by destroying and refuting one another's views, end up offering opinions that are contrary both to others and to themselves. ^A

THEOPH. Indeed, in this the Academics torment themselves wonderfully, so as to persuade everyone that Plato does not in the least disagree with himself, and for this reason they are accustomed to twist both his meanings and his words, in whatever way it pleases them, no differently than those who interpret divine oracles according to their own sentiment. But they seem to me to do injury to Plato himself. For there has not been, nor will there be, any man who could express what he wished in words more fully and better than Plato. Others, whom it likewise shames to appear to teach something different from his opinion, by the very fact that they undertake his defense, heap a new charge upon him. For they say that the philosopher is either an obscure teacher, or else, stirred by a certain envy, he deliberately obscured his mind and his meaning. But Plato suffered from neither of these vices; rather, it has escaped those who sophisticate his works that he was introducing the philosophy of the Chaldeans and Egyptians ^B to Hellas, and demonstrating the teachings of Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Empedocles ^C. Whence it is that he speaks differently at different times, so that nothing of those things wisely discovered everywhere might escape those who philosophize in the Academy. For instance, even regarding the Chaldeans and Egyptians, Plato himself, in demonstrating the Timaeus, said that the souls of men were sent forth. ^D

^A of matter, sometimes declaring it to have been created, and sometimes uncreated. The later ones, however, being ignorant of the subtle and multifaceted nature of Plato’s knowledge, and each of them striving to be the first to invent something new, became confused within themselves; and having been scattered, they follow neither Plato nor one another. And this causes me many pangs.

AXITH. You give birth to your views in no ignoble fashion. I, indeed, having grown dizzy ^B at this perplexity, forgetful of my country and my dearest ones, sailed to Athens. But now, having met you and marveling at the wisdom that is in you, I marvel even more that, having learned these things, you still study Pythagoras and Plato, and the Chaldeans and Egyptians, who are wont to be tossed ^C up and down, and would seek to reconcile them with one another. For not all of them speak the same things about the same matters, nor do individuals even hold the same views. Ignorance, not knowledge, is what leads to saying contradictory things. And as it seems, God was not the leader of this philosophy; for otherwise it would have appeared the same to all, but it is a certain human opinion ^D, in which many and contradictory things are varied.

THEOPH. I know, my good friend; but it also pleases Plato that one should be persuaded by his own decrees so long as a more divine one...

Theophrastus

^A a human himself appearing to him should teach him the truth, to whom it would be fitting to follow once again.

AXITH. You speak well indeed; but tell me, have you ever [(91)] considered this as well? For I am quite disturbed by the turmoil of those who philosophized in the past; for some cast the soul into humans again, while others cast it into wild beasts.

THEOPH. If you knew them all [(92)], you would marvel at how great is the battle among those who speak. For I, standing by myself [(93)], away from the slaughter [(94)], away from blood, and from the din [(95)], as if from a high vantage point [(96)], observed the complexity of the battle; and I am willing to describe this to you (for you are a good listener [(97)] and a lover of learning). For it seems to the Egyptians that the same soul clothes itself in turn in a human, an ox, a dog, a bird, and a fish [(98)]. And now it is among them some kind of beast, an ant or a camel, grazing on the earth; now again, it has slipped into a fish [(99)], having become a whale or a sprat [(1)], it has plunged into the sea; and again, having transformed into the nature of a bird, having been spotted as a jackdaw or a nightingale, it has flown into the air; showing one animal at one time and another at another, until [(2)], having gone through all of them, it returns again to where it first descended.

EGYPT. Alas for this tale of monsters [(3)]! I would be fortunate if I were to become a camel, or a sprat [(4)], or a jackdaw.

AXITH. You are laughing, Egypt; but I am struck with amazement at Theophrastus, if, knowing these things, he is still content with the Egyptians [(5)].

THEOPH. Humans, indeed, as they are filled with the passion of sense-perception, so that even when they prefer to conceive of something intelligible, they have (in their imagination) the sensible object, such as to comprehend magnitude along with it, and shape, and color, they often do not think of the intelligibles purely. ^{B C D}

^A Plato, in agreement with the Egyptians, as Axithea thought. For one thing, Apollo provides oracles in such a way as to command men always to acquiesce in the discoveries of the Egyptians. And Plato, demonstrating his *Timaeus*, said that men's souls in this life, becoming effeminate, are reborn into women. And if filled with vice, they descend into beasts, and live in common with land animals, fly with birds, and herd with water creatures. Pursuing the conversation Socrates had with Phaedo, he transforms those who are carried away by greed and are always ready and prepared for rapine into kites and wolves. He turns those who have enslaved themselves to lusts into donkeys. And when he is settling his happy city, he says there that Orpheus, the son of Calliope—since he ended this life after being torn apart by women—shunning mankind, became a swan, so that, being a musician, he might practice music. And Thersites, who was the ugliest of all who came to Ilium, ^B [was considered] Achilles—yet Speusippus in the work entitled *Plato's Banquet*, and Clearchus in his *Encomium of Plato*, and Anaxilides in his second book *On Philosophers*, say that there was a report at Athens that Ariston was trying to force himself upon Perictione while she was beautiful, and was not succeeding, and ceasing from the violence, he beheld an apparition of Apollo; whence he kept her pure from marriage until her delivery: Plato the philosopher is said not to have endured any marriage or bodily intercourse at all; and they say that his mother became pregnant from a divine vision, Apollo appearing to her; and when she gave birth to Plato, then her husband had relations with her.

Regarding the Egyptians, I think it is superfluous to speak; for even those first of philosophers said that these were superior to the most renowned men who were among the Greeks. Astronomy, astrology, and geometry were at that time considered common, elementary, and public disciplines among the Egyptians. ^C But if one should posit the law that women—being that they have practiced all dancing in armor and fighting, and have handled the maneuvering, tactical deployment, and position and taking up of arms—should, if the need ever arises when the whole force must leave the city for a campaign, be capable enough to guard the children and the rest of the city; or even the opposite, where nothing is left unsaid: that if outside enemies attacked with great strength and force, whether barbarians or Greeks, and provided an necessity for a struggle regarding the city itself, there is a great deal of wickedness in a constitution that has women trained so shamefully that they do not even wish, like birds fighting for their young, to die and risk everything against any of the strongest beasts, but instead immediately flee to the temples, filling all the altars and shrines, and spread the opinion of the human race that it is by nature the most cowardly of all beasts. Therefore, let us propose this law to the extent that we must not neglect the need for women to attend to war, but all men and women citizens alike must attend to it. ^D For he said he once saw the soul of Orpheus choosing the life of a swan out of hatred for the female gender because of the death they had inflicted upon him.

...the account was by the Nile, where we were playing with the Muses along its banks; and the account was artfully told and seemed to smile while being serious. It was a contest of beauty; the judges were the Greeks, the contestants were Nireus, who became the most beautiful of mortal men, and Thersites, who was the ugliest man who came to Ilium. And, the most charming part, Thersites claimed he had the advantage. And the account granted him the prize; and nothing prevented Homer’s comedy, naming every part of the body according to the suffering, and mocking the man down to the single hair. It even praised Thersites as a kind of Cynic orator.

^A

AXITH. What then, my friend, of those who are the mystagogues and interpreters of Plato’s rites? Do they not, in these matters as in his other tenets, reason subtly and acutely, or do they transpose names and confuse one teaching with another?

THEOPH. The ancient mystagogues of these aforementioned teachings have altered nothing, knowing full well that Plato, having become a disciple of the Egyptians and having filled his ears with their doctrines ^B—namely, that the human soul passes into every genus of living creature—scattered this teaching throughout all his books. Plotinus, therefore, and Harpocration, and also Boethus and Numenius, having received from Plato the kite, have handed down the kite; and the wolf as a wolf, and the ass as an ass. Even the ape is to them nothing else than that, just as the swan is considered nothing else than a swan. And they say that the soul, before it is conjoined with any body, is capable of assuming the likeness of animals that lack reason; and accordingly, it is carried toward that to which it has been made similar, by entering into one creature or another. ^C But Porphyry and Iamblichus, coming later— ^D and of those from Greece who say that he was subjected to the teachings of Numenius, Amelius has written a book which we have entitled, "Concerning the Difference in Doctrines between Plotinus and Numenius."

"" ^A And scorning those who came before them in wisdom, and blushing at the donkey, the wolf, and the kite of Plato, and having perceived that the substance of the rational soul is one thing, and that of the irrational is another; and that they do not change places, but the substances remain such as they first came forth. For the rational part is not something that happens to the soul in such a way that it can move away, but it is a difference of substance firmly established; and it is absolutely impossible for reason to be transformed into irrationality, unless they would also say that the irrational carries off the nature of reason. Having reasoned about these things at some time, they have leaped over the irrational animals, and say that when they are transformed, the human does not come to life again as a donkey, but as a "donkey-like" human; nor as a lion, but as a "lion-like" human. For they say that it is not the nature, but the form of the bodies that is changed—just as on the stage, the actors of tragedy play at one time the part of Alcmaeon, and at another that of Orestes.

^B AXITH. You are "adding hemp to hemp," Theophrastus, it seems to me, and healing evil with evil. For what was the need for the soul to be released from the bonds of the body, if it is again sent down into another body? Such a death is redundant, and is brought into the middle in vain. For the life of the most wicked men ought to have been extended just as long as their punishment was intended to be extended. And otherwise, if a soul should fall into licentiousness, and in this life be ruled by a thousand desires as if by mistresses, and be shamefully enslaved; why, on account of this, is it sent down again by justice to come back to life as a "donkey-like" human? As if it were to serve its desires even more, receiving its punishment as a supply for wickedness.

^C ...who, having followed the opinion of Plato, wrote that the souls of men return only into men. Nemesius, towards the end of chapter 2 of his work *On the Soul*, where these matters are relevant... The most important among those following Plato differ concerning this doctrine; for although Plato said that the spirited, irascible, and rapacious souls are clothed in the bodies of wolves and lions, and those engaged in licentiousness take on the bodies of donkeys and the like, some have understood the wolves, lions, and donkeys literally, while others have determined that he spoke metaphorically, indicating the characters through the animals. For Cronius, in his work *On Reincarnation* (for so he calls transmigration), wishes all souls to be rational; and likewise Theodore the Platonist in his work, *That the Soul is All Forms*; and Porphyry likewise. But Iamblichus, following the opposite path to these, says that there is a kind of soul for each kind of animal—that is to say, different kinds of souls. A single book was written by him, entitled, *That Reincarnations Do Not Happen from Men into Irrational Animals, Nor from Irrational Animals into Men, but from Animals into Animals and from Men into Men.* And to me, he seems to have conjectured well on this point, not only regarding the opinion of Plato, but also of the truth itself. ^D

^A And it becomes not a removal of licentiousness, but a more certain addition to it. For indeed, the chastisement of the motions of the soul is considered to be a medicine, which restrains, prunes, cuts, and utterly excises—and does not excite, nor inflame, nor provide any substance for a vicious motion. For if this were the case, it would be as if some judge, having taken a man convicted of theft, should order him not to be punished in any way, but rather to enter into the holy temples and carry away whatever he pleases; so that, because he is a thief, he might satisfy his desire for having more than enough, and even be granted permission to touch the offerings hung for the gods with impunity, since he has been convicted of theft. Just now, such-and-such a one is savage, and he corrupts the bloom of the young; let him again become a beautiful youth, so that he himself might suffer these same things: let another be an adulterer, and let him be turned into a woman, so that he might be outraged by adultery. ^B EGYPT. O the absurdity! For thus does the punishment inflicted for crimes, and the men of every kind of crime, act, just as if some pimp were prostituting them. AXITH. Indeed, O Egypt, since that most learned Porphyry and the divinely-inspired Iamblichus command us to remit that which is within our power to the judges in Hades, and to attribute the retribution for human sins to them; and Theophrastus wishes us to follow these men. THEOPH. By no means would I wish this any longer, Axitheus. For neither Syrianus nor Proclus follow them; but they have discovered something of their own, and something new. AXITH. What is that, indeed, Theophrastus? THEOPH. They do not turn the soul which is always prepared and ready for rapine into a kite; for it is absurd for that which is endowed with reason to be translated into that which lacks reason. Nor do they send it into a human being who is like a kite; for it is absurd if the cause of greed becomes punishment. But they say that the kite possesses its own irrational soul, ^C as praying to the gods to be lifted ^D more than ten cubits from the earth, and your body and clothing are changed into a golden radiance.

^A

THEOPHRASTUS. ...to become a cause. But they teach that the kite indeed possesses its own soul, and that, being destitute of reason, the human soul is bound to it, adhering to it, and flying with it. And this is the form and method of that punishment.

AXITH. This is a recent invention indeed, but far more ridiculous. For if this be so, Ulysses will follow an ant, since both are prudent and industrious managers of household affairs; Hector will be bound to a wasp, since both have ornamental helmets and are warlike; and likewise a frog and Cleon will live a life together, since both frequently raise the same clamor, and thus he will drag it as if it were a stone tied to his neck. For impudence is the sign of both. But that ants, wasps, and frogs are twofold has not escaped us hitherto. Nor does anyone follow them—if indeed he follows—without a body, or do those who follow them [do so without a body]; because I do not believe that you maintain that he who is to be affected by punishment is free and released from a body.

THEOPH. By no means.

AXITH. Whether, therefore, is Ulysses hidden as if enclosed within the ant, or does he hang from its foot, as from the ram among the Cyclopes, and is he dragged wherever the ant thinks fit? But why do you laugh, Egyptus? ^B

EGYPT. Who would not laugh at such fabulous tales of theirs, which, through their extreme arrogance, have no sense of truth?

AXITH. Come then, Theophrastus, if you should see a flock of starlings or cranes flying with clamor and noise, perhaps you would say that those who lead masked armies on the stage, and those accustomed to injuring others, to stir up tumults, and to act wantonly, are bound to these birds; and that they disturb them and cry out just as those creatures do, and follow them everywhere. But if the birds, once caught, were to be slaughtered, then the slaughter of the birds would become ^C an escape from their bonds; for they are released as the soul to which they were bound is destroyed. For they will not say that the irrational soul is immortal. ^D

^A What then? If they were bound to the fry—and what of this? Does the net of the fish-merchants, if released, mock the punishment? For the binding of the fish is the release of the souls, and the catching of the fry brings freedom to human souls. Now, when bees are dying off 65, the bee-keepers devise the following 64: they drive an ox into a house and beat it with clubs until it fails; it lies there piteously, and they, having closed the doors securely so that the wind might not penetrate from anywhere, depart for a time. Having counted forty days 65, they open them later and find the ox rotted, but instead of one, ten thousand animals flying about; for the house suddenly seemed full of bees that had originated from the ox, and having been fed, they used their wings in clusters. The bee-keepers, having taken these 66 and cared for them, caused them to do the work of honey well. Is it, then, that the one soul was fragmented and dispersed into those ten thousand which the ox alone held together, or did it summon those many swarms of bees and organize them? These things seem ridiculous to me; do they not to you? Perhaps others will come, inventing a fourth novelty. But the conflict of arguments is as great as the error of the doctrines 67. Where are you being carried, O Athenians 68, you who are persuaded by the mythologist 69? For you see how the argument, colliding with itself—like the fire-bearing stones 70—has flashed forth light and exposes what until now lay hidden in darkness, and no longer permits ^B any man to confidently assert that the soul had lived beforehand, ^C and it no longer permits the soul to have previously lived in a state of equality. ^D THEOPH. These same things, before I heard them from you, had settled in my mind and frequently agitated my thoughts. 71

^A AXITH. Did not this occur to you before everything else: if the soul had previously lived, it ought to remember or recall past events? For the ancients were accustomed to call all liberal studies "recollections," that is, a kind of remembrance of things previously treated. Then, it remembers the Creator and the intelligible beauty, from which it departed a long time ago. But is it to be believed that it has completely forgotten its former life, its practices, its sufferings, its country, and its parents, from whom it departed only yesterday? And what reason could justify it in remembering the former and forgetting the latter, whose memory is even more firmly imprinted upon our minds? For my own part, for this very reason, when I punish a son or a servant for the sins they have committed, I warn them often before I exact the punishment, so that they may remember and never again fall into the same evils. But does God, when He determines final punishments, not instruct those who suffer on the causes of their punishments, but rather remove all memory of their sins, while failing to impart the full sense of retribution? What profit, then, is a punishment that conceals the sin? On the contrary, it only irritates and leads to defiance. It would be ^B easy, and not at all foreign to justice, for one who is suffering punishment, since he is conscious of no guilt, to reproach the judge with insults. But you, Theophrastus, who recall the precepts of so many arts, are you unmindful only of yourself? And can you not tell us whether you have been a soldier or a philosopher, whether you were a hare or a lion, whether you followed the nightingale or the kite?

THEOPH. It is said that Pythagoras remembered that he was once Euphorbus, who was at Troy.

AXITH. By saying these things, he was boasting, and attempting to confirm what he taught, namely, that the soul had lived before. And by the same craft and design, having hidden himself in a certain underground passage for ten years, he ascended as though from Hades, and ^C indeed, through the reverence for ancestral dogmas and the lack of a companion's comfort, he restrained his mind from mounting up. As for the mind, if you wish to understand the Pythagoras of the shield of Euphorbus, look at the navel. He says: "This was I in a former life." But of the time when he was not, he claimed that he was, which would certainly not be possible. But he himself also says in his writing that after two hundred and seven years he came again from Hades to men. Hermippus says that when he was in Italy, he made an underground dwelling and instructed his mother to write down what transpired on a tablet, noting also the time; then he went down into it until he should come back up; and that his mother did this. And that Pythagoras, after a time, came back up, thin and emaciated, and went into the assembly and claimed to have arrived back from Hades, for ten years. ^D

had remained hidden for ten years, and then, having returned as it were from the lower world, he kept declaring that he had heard ^A from Pluto, and believed, that the soul is immortal. Apollonius of Cappadocia, subsequently becoming an imitator of this imprudent arrogance, used to relate to the Greeks concerning the wise men who live among the Indians, that they knew who they themselves had once been. Rightly, indeed, did the vain man take refuge in those witnesses who live outside the world. But he is none the less convicted of falsehood, since not even Ctesias, who in other respects wrote down many fabulous things about the Indians, makes any mention of these trifles of his; nor does Arrian, who writes history more truthfully than fabulously, make any mention of this dogma, even when he recounts the meeting of the Brahmins with Alexander, and diligently explains how they attempted to dissuade the king from his excessive eagerness to possess. And certainly, the time itself demanded some such invention, so that they might terrify Alexander the Great—whom none of the things seen in this world could deter from the purpose of his mind—with some terrors that are not seen. Indeed, it was necessary for that extraordinary and potent power of philosophy to be exercised then, most of all, when the fear of servitude and destruction was upon ^B our people. Yet those whom I mentioned a little earlier, the wise Indians, neither demonstrated anything of the sort before Alexander, nor later, when they sent letters to the Greeks themselves—in which they rebuked Greek philosophy and lauded their own philosophy as worthy of veneration—did they insert into their letters any slight appearance of this vanity. Therefore, if neither the ancients nor any of the more recent writers bear witness for him by even a single word, Apollonius is left alone, and, destitute of all witnesses, is convicted of having handed down a falsehood.

Hierocles, however (not the one whom we ourselves formerly had as a teacher, but that writer who recounts certain miracles), added even that incredible deed to his narratives. A certain lewd youth, who was indeed a Corcyræan, had sailed with a certain Myron, his lover; but when the ship ^C had anchored at a certain deserted place, having gone off, he laments, remembering that—

On the agreement of the Brahmins with Greek philosophy

^A Since someone once, while in a former life, missing the time of a youth, went and choked himself—and he weeps because he did not bestow favors upon him earlier. Now, is it not ridiculous ^B if the lecher remembers, but Socrates and Plato forget, and boast that they know nothing of their former state? And indeed, even among the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Greeks, those who gather for initiations and profess to be able to charm the souls of those who died long ago, and to lead and draw them with incantations wherever they wish—if they desire to call the soul of Homer, or of Orpheus, or of Phoroneus, or of Cecrops, by sacrificing cocks and inscribing characters, they claim to call them forth and show them. Yet, if one became a nightingale, another a swan, another a man, and another a lion, how will they come when called, unless they arrive having abandoned the bird, the beast, and the man devoid of soul? And how will the swan or the lion know that he was once a man, when the man himself does not know it? And yet, even they themselves use trickery in their rites; for they do not show your father or your wife, but rather demonstrate some malevolent demon impersonating the father or the wife. Thus, as soon as the sun rises, this specter immediately vanishes. Consequently, everything said to this effect is like an old wife’s tale, and has nothing that is probable.

^B THEOPH. You seem to me to speak well, and not ignobly, in your opposition. But if we were to completely abolish the former life of the soul, a certain disorder ^C in affairs would seem to arise, if the wicked prosper while the good suffer misfortune.

AXITH. I will answer, if it is pleasing to you.

THEOPH. Certainly, by all means.

AXITH. Tell me first: what do you call misfortune? Do you mean disease and poverty, and being tortured, and, in short, being destroyed?

THEOPH. I mean just that.

AXITH. But to those who are excited by wealth, power, and pleasure...

such speech was appropriate; but not so for Theophrastus. For you do not forget that poverty, disease, and death are not considered shameful or evils by Socrates and philosophy; since they have often been of great benefit to many. For Socrates himself was quite proud of his poverty, calling it by the name of wealth [(18)] and a companion and friend of philosophy [(19)]. Just as he said that disease also contributes greatly to philosophy for Theages; speaking as follows, if I remember rightly [(20)]: "But indeed, for our Theages, everything contributes to his falling away from philosophy, and only this disease, by restraining him, holds him back." And Plato, ^B finding a sickly region [(25)], dwelt in it, taking away the greater part of his health, and exchanging the strength of his body for temperance [(24)]. He calls death, most reverently, a freedom from evils and a release [(25)]; teaching that God, moved by mercy for man, made his bonds mortal [(26)]. If, therefore, these things are the causes of blessings, how could they be evils? But intemperance, and greed, and folly, and cowardice, are the most shameful of evils [(27)], and are so both in reality and in name; of which the good possess nothing. But happiness is present [(28)] and adheres to them, and it is not lawful for it to depart; if temperance and justice, and courage and prudence, are true happiness, none of which forsakes the good; nor will anyone who has chosen to act unjustly be able to take away any of these things; for he cannot [(29)]. But he is able to cut the purse [(30)] and to dissect the body; but he is unable to snatch away any part of happiness. But while he masters other things, virtue remains ^C unmastered [(31)]. And the free will of the rational soul is its most beautiful dignity. This is the first and greatest gift of the Creator toward us, which I...

embrace above all else, rendering the greatest thanks to God the Giver. For what is more august than liberty? It takes him who is a man and makes him a god. ^A

THEOPH. Would it not, then, have been better for men to be born good by necessity, rather than, under the name of liberty, to have the license to choose and do evil?

AXIT. And what kind of virtue would there be in a soul constrained to serve? For no coerced instruction is noble; nor is anything done by necessity conducive to praise. And how would ^B a man be better if he were a stone, moved wherever the craftsman might wish, or one who produced some sound from himself, which the Creator of the entire work might skillfully adjust to the whole harmony?

THEOPH. But I am surprised that, while hating the vicious nature of the wicked, He does not therefore abolish the liberty and faculty of the good.

AXIT. What of it? Is it not better, for the sake of the good, to endure the disobedience of the wicked, rather than, because of the indecency of the wicked, to wish to diminish the adornment and form of those who are better? ^C Come then; if someone appointed to perform rustic labors, and bearing the name of a farmer, should abandon the vines and run into the city, and suddenly catch sight of a harlot glittering with gold and beauty, smelling of perfume, and speaking winningly and craftily to those she meets, and, gripped by love for her, should follow her—forgetting his vines; while another...

^D For the free will would not attain the truly good, if it did not desire to receive it; and these are truth and virtue, ever and in the same way shining forth to all from the creative Cause. For even if the choice of good things lies within us, we nevertheless possess this very faculty of "that which depends on us" from God, and we surely have need of His cooperation and perfection for the things we have chosen. For the movement of our will toward the reception of good things is like a hand stretched out, while the provision and source of the gift of good things is from God. It is in our nature to search out good things, but it is in His nature to manifest them to the one who searches rightly. And prayer is the boundary between our searching and the gift from God, holding fast to the Cause of our being, which leads us to exist, and perfects us toward existing well.

^A And if one were a partner in the cultivating and planting of a vineyard, and upon learning of the love his companion had, he labored that much more strenuously and tended the vines, so as to repair the loss caused by his companion’s negligence: would you, if you were the master of the fields, cast the thrifty servant who labors from the house on account of one who indulges himself in the city in drunkenness and debauchery?

THEOPH. Certainly not; for in this way the estate would become horrid and wild to my great detriment.

AXITH. Do you not then rather praise the industrious tiller, because, though he might just as well have gone to the city and loved and drunk together with his companion, he preferred honorable love to base pleasure?

THEOPH. Most certainly, if I wish my grapes to thrive abundantly. But it would be proper that the good should be kept safe and unharmed; while the bad should either not be produced at all, or, if they are already born, be destroyed at once.

AXITH. And yet the law of Solon does not allow a special right to be set for one individual, but the same one to be laid down for all men. Yet you distinguish among them, ordering that some should be sown and nurtured, while of others you wish the end to be before their birth. Therefore, let not the sun warm all, nor the earth bring forth fruit for all. If you think it superfluous to say this, yet you wish that man should do all things brilliantly and rightly, and never swerve from virtue: you grant too much to man; and it is not at all strange if, whenever he does sin, you are so very astonished. But man is not that highest and principal being, but rather that lowest one endowed with the faculty of the rational soul; for he remains in the power and, as it were, the hand of the master, who is God and the true father of the family. He leads man skillfully to the praise of abstinence from things from which you abstain without any compulsion. ^{B C} But man is not of the primary rational order, but rather of the last ^D; he prevails over the irrational beings through the immortality of his soul and reason; yet he falls short of the higher rational essences through the corruption of his body and the lack of sustenance. For the rational animal is naturally capable of perceiving justice alone. Since we are separated by the greatest boundaries from the irrational animals, it is fitting that we should also employ a rule of life that is separated by a great distance.

^A Nothing that happens is, therefore, surprising. For if the soul, when separated from the body, were driven toward desire and anger, that would be a wonder. But now, since it must take care of earthly bodies along with the body, it is preserved by nourishment. Therefore, the Creator says, let it desire rightly and moderately. For whence does the newly born infant yearn for milk, and become angry at what causes it pain, if not so that it might admit the one and reject the other, and thus be saved? To live according to nature is good, and it is preserved; but to live against nature is shameful and is punished; while that which is above nature is great and worthy of honor. ^B If, however, we were to criticize the last things because they are not the first, would we not be dissolving the entire order of things? For tell me: if we wished to cast away the stone because it does not produce fruit like plants; and to blame the plants because they do not work the earth like oxen; and to reproach the ox because it does not wish to behave like the plowman—and let the plowman himself be banished because he does not neglect food as much as the heavenly powers do; and if then one were to ascend through an irrational wisdom even unto divine things, as if the higher powers were not creators, but were ordered to serve the Creator—if we were to do these things, what would be left of existing things to stand in its proper place? But may the Creator be kind, and let all things remain in order. For nothing ^C among things that come into being is small; rather, everything is good and great and ordered. The stone is good, if it is a stone; and the tree, if it is a tree. And the lion is good, even if it is according to the principle of its nature.

^A Since it possesses neither the irrationality nor the ignorance of irrational life—for there was not inside it the irrationality—to do whatever it might do contrary to reason [(82)]. But man is something noble and graceful when he is man, ascending toward the good and the wisdom of the good. And yet, he also desires food, and is affected by painful things; for man is both.

A good mind, ^B using an irrational body, but becoming self-governing, moves upward and downward by its own authority, choosing one thing over another [(81)]. For the free choice of man is capable of this. And while the power and principle of reason is ordered, the impulse of reason—if it is not regulated by reason—is disordered; and reason itself is idle [(85)] through sluggishness and sloth, or through lack of instruction, and low-level leisure, and the forgetting of higher things. Desire and anger, like a pair of horses when the charioteer has fallen out, are thrown into confusion; but the matter is not blameless. For the judge of the contest set forth the exercises beforehand, and proclaimed when it is necessary for the combatant to train. The reason which neglects these pays the penalty, not for what it did, but for what it overlooked [(87)]. For the reason, being able to stop the disorderliness of the irrational part but neglecting to do so, commits the deed more truly.

Therefore, ^C one must not entrust the rule to the child within us, or else we should not be surprised if all our affairs were thrown into complete chaos [(89)]. For the child desires many things, but the best intellect, and the anger that fights as an ally to it, prevents and curtails these myriad desires. And if the rule of the inferior part becomes fierce, it causes a disturbance in the superior part, which it is possible to heal. For there are many remedies: good food, and education [(90)], and law, and reason [(91)], and the study of evils [(92)], and habit, and knowledge, and the order of the whole [(93)].

^A And indeed, the change of those things that flow toward mortals is a sufficient lesson in self-restraint for those who see it. For example, the fluctuations of wealth instruct those who desire to have more that they have acquired with a great deal of sweat nothing that is stable; and that they have been relieved of a matter that is unreliable and impossible to guard. But he who considers none of these things is unable to lead a quiet life, but being disturbed, he is carried away at random; and, as if stumbling in the dark, he rails, knowing nothing of the things that are well laid out in his path, but, ignorantly failing to recognize his own ignorance, he suffers from a double malady: he neither sees for himself, and he blames what lies at his feet; and he does not desire what is actually coming to pass, but assumes that what he himself thinks is good and useful. Thus, if a base man harms a good man, he himself being provoked by irrationality, God is blameless; but if one harms a passer-by, like an archer about to shoot, the one who happens to be there will necessarily be wounded, whoever he may be. But the greedy man does not proceed according to order. God, however, brings the disorder of greed into order; just as an excellent craftsman, having made good use of what has appeared for the common work, even that which was thrown away at random, and useless to others, by cleaning it and forcing it to fit together, ^B and ^C as he himself said, "Order." "There is no chance for us, there is no god; but the automatic, what happens just as it happens to each person, is called chance."

And indeed, the change of the goods that flow toward mortals, and their possession, which is accustomed to be carried here and there, is a sufficiently clear proof of temperance or self-restraint to those who see and observe it. Just as the fluctuations of money themselves teach those men who are given over to the pursuit of wealth how unstable and fluid a thing they have acquired with great sweat, and what a faithless and unsafe good they have cast away from themselves, so they teach them enough and more. But he who thinks of none of these things cannot be of a tranquil mind, and being much more disturbed, he is carried along rashly: and as if walking in the dark, he also stumbles and rails, since he has discerned nothing of those things which were laid in his way; not knowing his own ignorance, he labors under a double disease: one, that he does not attend to himself, but rails at the things laid in his way; the other, that he does not want to bear with an even mind the very thing that happens: and much more because he considers it a good and commodity which he himself desired. ^D Therefore if any base and wicked man should do an injury to some good and honest person, he himself, who has dared to commit such wickedness, has sinned, driven by the goad of an unbalanced reason: but God is free from the guilt of that whole matter. For just as he who can learn his own ignorance is sometimes fortunate, if not always, it is the beginning of knowledge. Hence that polymathic ignorance and the opposition of the mathematicians among the skeptics, and that boast of the highest philosopher [Socrates] that he knew only this, that he knew nothing. See Lactantius in book III, ch. 4, of the Divine Institutes. To which writer we give this testimony, that no one more instructed in human literature has ever championed the truth. For although other Greeks and Latins have contributed much to the same task from the inner depths of pagan literature, this one nonetheless draws out the very marrow, excelling in such a bright and elegant style of speaking, and with such eloquence, that he seems thus far to have attained no suitable admirer. Few recognize the value of such an author, because he is now attributed to the vulgar; but it is a fault peculiar to talented men, and most unworthy, to seek what you admire and neglect things worthy of admiration. Here, however, he is also despised for this reason, that he encroaches most placidly, and affects neither science nor empty discourse, but is the legitimate possessor of both, as much as suffices to combat errors, without any comparison at all.

^A ordering all things to the whole. So that what occurs is always an injury to the one having done the evil and wrong; and the perpetrator is not released from the cause, nor does he escape justice; but to the one who has suffered, it is not an evil, but useful, ^B if indeed the suffering provided him an addition of happiness, and it is ordered to the benefit of the common good.

Since there is sufficient consolation for those who think rightly regarding virtue, not to flee virtue for fear of death. For this reason, God has willed it to be devoid of wealth, power, and pleasure, so that good athletes might embrace virtue, not for the sake of those things I have mentioned, but for its own sake, so that they might not disturb virtue with passion; and He permits them to consider even the painful things of the good—as if acting as the arbiter of the contest, and wishing to stir up the whole power of the soul ^C so that it might be able to endure such a great peril for the sake of the good. So that passion becomes a demonstration of strength, not of weakness. And otherwise, if the one who suffers is good, the end turns out to be a good for him. For it is truly possible, even upon passing away, to live, ^D and to ascend as far as the first principle, and no longer to fear change; but to possess eternal happiness and a delight befitting a pure soul. For these are considered the prizes of virtue, not tyranny, nor an abundance of wealth—which has often changed many masters. And to be regarded.

as ^A less than these goods, from which evils are wont to arise, which are not eternal, but resemble the fleeting appearances and shadows of dreams 20 and daily phantasms 21.

Sometimes a man strives toward virtue, yet he slips, or commits or considers something unlawful. To us indeed it seems to fare well; for our own pretexts, and his, clearly stand in the way 22 of seeing what is within, and we are astonished if he suffers anything 23 through ignorance of the cause. But to the Judge all things are naked. And having looked upon the man, seeing that he does other things well, but is in some small measure corrupted, though able to be healed by medicine—there He allows him to suffer 24 something and to pay the penalty 25, so that, having become pure, he may purely enjoy the goods that are there. ^B If, however, someone while harming another man 26 should suffer evil from another, he himself has indeed suffered justly; but he who did the deed acted unjustly and would never escape. But God has arranged 27 both: and He has brought together both the one who is to suffer the thing, and the one destined to do that which required the other to endure, into one thing. And as each, as it were, emits a voice from his own self—the one a better sound, the other a worse—He has nevertheless established one harmony upon them both. And it did not become an evil because it was thus arranged, but because it was done by us, it was arranged by Providence. For this is also a power of great magnitude, to use even evils well 28, and to be able to turn those things which have become misshapen by us into other forms 29. ^C Thus, then, is the [proper] due gathered for souls, and that which has labored is healed, and the common good is preserved. But let the wicked man be rich and healthy for a time, says the philanthropy of Providence. For he might become better through healing, just as children are enticed by some pleasure toward the study of crafts; or, having been exposed, and having stripped bare whatever was festering in his soul, and having revealed himself entirely, he himself prepares the flame 30 for himself, having piled up much fuel.

And thus the dignity of souls is acquired; and if any evil has been suffered, it is healed, and the public good is conserved. But if some wicked man becomes rich and thrives, it is certain that this is from the willing favor and grace of divine providence toward us. For whether by this remedy he becomes better, just as children are wont to be invited to the study of the arts by certain allurements; ^D or, having been convicted of desperate malice, and his hidden secrets having been laid bare, [God] sees and judges the soul. [He] makes the penal fire stronger by blowing upon it, as if by his own torments. We note in many places that the punishments of the wicked increase with their prosperity, as in Claudian’s *Rufinus*: "they are lifted on high, that they may fall with a heavier crash." Fire, moreover, in Scripture denotes every torment and every misfortune. And so it is for the Greeks. Sophocles in *Oedipus Tyrannus*: [regarding former desolation over the city, you have brought forth the alien flame of affliction].

^A And having fallen from there, he shall have no excuse, nor forgiveness. For you could not argue that you did not aid those in need of assistance because of poverty—for you were wealthy—nor that you disregarded those oppressed by injuries because of a lack of power—for you were a tyrant—nor that you were overcome by the infirmity of being unable [ to resist] the passions—for the strength of body was present. For the Judge, because of the excess of His justice, wishes for the judgment to be neither obscure nor ambiguous; but rather that the convicted should both suffer, and wonder at the verdict of the Judge ^B. For if death were the complete release from all things, one might rightly be puzzled as to how a wicked man could finish his entire life in tyranny and luxurious fortune. But now, since the soul is immortal, it does not escape justice even after departing into Hades; rather, it perceives the retribution most acutely there, having fallen into Tartarus from which it shall never emerge. So it is a windfall for the wicked to suffer and be in need and in servitude while here. For already someone, having sinned slightly in his personal life, when the harmony of his limbs was dissolved, learned the cause, and having wept for this, was freed from the punishment in Hades. Another, knowing himself to be guilty of no fault, endures the punishment. ^{C D}

^B THEOPH. Excellent is the way you discourse on these dark and hidden matters. But of that man whom you mentioned: because he had done injury to another, he was deprived of his eyes. But the infant, recently born, is blind, when before this he has neither lived nor committed any sin whatever: by what causes, I pray you, is he burdened by the disease of the eyes?

AXITH. These things, for the most part, I deem to be a mischance of the body, not a punishment of the soul. ^C For when the principle does not rule, it is necessary that the things which follow it should be in confusion. For what can hold together when that from which the whole depends has been dissolved? If, therefore, the principle of the seed prevails, and the power of the matter, held together and shaped and ordered by the Creator, is sound, the fetus becomes beautiful and like a living statue. But when the seed is withered for lack of warmth, and the matter is overwhelmed by a surfeit of moisture, the water floods over, and it slips all the more, and is completely submerged. And the growing creature must of necessity change into the opposite state. Conversely, to strength comes weakness; to the sound, the corrupted; to the healthy, the sickly; and by this means, the weak, monstrous, and maimed children are born. From this, at times, a finger is found to be superfluous, and in another case, one has been taken away; and one goes beyond the bounds of nature, while the other... ^D and groans call out to the Lord, and the tears of fear perform the office of an embassy. This is stated hyperbolically, however; as that kind is wont to commend the things it praises with an impetus of the mind once set, often forgetful of higher things, which it depresses while raising the subject proposed. That it settles the mind to bring forth tears of reconciled God, Germanus the abbot teaches by his own example, in Cassian, *Collationes* 9, c. 28: "Frequently," he says, "with tears springing from the remembrance of my sins, I am so invigorated by this unspeakable joy, as you have said, with the Lord visiting me, that the very magnitude of the joy tells me I ought not despair of pardon for them": than which state I think nothing is more sublime. Laurentius Novariensis, *Homily 1*: "Does sin defile the body? Now it has water as an antidote. Where? Is it not in the eyes? And justly does water trickle from the body, from the eyes, which dissolves and washes away the defilements of the whole body." And so in infinite places the holy Fathers. That hyperbole of Climacus you might heal with those things which the most learned man Jac. Pontanus notes on the 30th oration of Symeon the abbot at Xylocercus, attributing even greater things to tears. It is known, moreover, that tears of this kind have even served as a medicine, as in the example in Augustine, *De civitate Dei*, bk. XXI, c. 8. But on these matters, we shall speak elsewhere in general.

^A many infants, weak and monstrous-looking and maimed, are born. Whence one man abounds with a finger, another lacks one; and one indeed comes into the light according to nature, another with his back turned. Then another, either from parents or from some relative, has contracted some wasting disease. And again, for one the eye has remained imperfect, for another it has been distorted; nor have there been lacking those whose right hands were withered. Some of these have ascended to the highest pinnacle of philosophy, and the maimedness of the body was unable to become an obstacle to prevent them from arriving there; but others, having fallen into wickedness, cannot sin as much as they wish. This bodily disadvantage becomes for them a kind of watchman of the soul divinely conferred, and to those who see, the affliction appeared to be salvation rather than punishment. But those who wander in darkness, and do not regard the maimed and imperfect eye of their own soul, are accustomed to judge the soul of that blind man as if it were already suffering the punishments of the lower world, cast down and abject.

Verily, I can relate to you another occult reason: ^B the law of Providence pays attention not only to those things which are just now before our eyes, but it also foresees those things which will occur long after. It then determines that those things which are convenient and worthy for each person should come to pass. Because this man seemed destined to be a harsh master to his servants, it permitted him to become a servant. But the other, because he would have made bad use of wealth, it left poor and needy. The latter, because he was about to deceive and flatter and immediately inflict damage on others, was struck and damaged in the head, where the seat and power of the soul reside; whence reason failed him, and he himself became foolish and imprudent. ^C Others, again, who were prone to murder, have had their right hand wither, and for this reason it has come to pass that they think they must live more quietly and peacefully. But let that blind boy, who is accustomed to use others as his guide, come into our midst, of whom we have spoken before. If he had possessed the use of his eyes, he would certainly have had them lascivious and unchaste. Wherefore Providence closed his eyes, and with this affliction ^D [it]—

^A it granted that we might learn, through the comparison of the deformed, what beauty is and from whence the bounty of this beauty has come to nature. For a more accurate knowledge of the good is gained through an experience of the evil. ^B And the most graceful thing is that the method of healing is not singular. For the medicine of Providence would not use one drug; rather, it offers one thing to one person, and another to another, yet it offers to all, for the art is varied, since passions are various. The one, by not seeing, was delivered from loving wickedly; but another, having despised even this, appeared sharper than he who sees keenly in his pursuit of pleasures, and seeks a different remedy. Sometimes he even expects fire and iron. To another, the lack of money sufficed for temperance; and thus, one thing is beneficial to one and another to another, and it is not the same for all. And for each passion, there are many remedies. Whence the art itself is adorned. ^C But he who is unskilled in medicine, if he should see a remedy that he did not know, reviles the physician. But he who, without reason and knowledge, intrudes upon the art, having learned one remedy, applies it to all the sick, distinguishing nothing—neither nature, nor temperament, nor place, nor age, nor passion—none of which escape the master of the art. In short, poverty and disease and what are called evils are nothing to the good; for their preparation is not for wealth or bodily strength or beauty; but to the most wretched, it is considered a calamity, yet even to them it has been more beneficial. For pleasure stirs up every form of vice just as oil stirs up a flame, while pain, like the mandrake, puts it to sleep. ^D For not only in bodies, but also in souls, the opposites of opposites become remedies. Not always, however, is approaching vice stopped ahead of time by disease. For Providence did not have to be in such a state that we would be nothing; for if everything were of Providence, then we would not exist at all. For whose would we be, if we were of the Divine? BA. For whatever causes pain to a human being, this is called a disease. What then is the remedy for hunger? That it ceases. Again, in turn, drink has ceased thirst; again, in turn, satiety is cured by evacuation, and evacuation by satiety, and pain by ease, and ease by pain. In brief, the opposites of opposites are remedies; for medicine is addition and subtraction: subtraction of things that are in excess, and addition of things that are lacking. It is the remedy for either condition, for opposites are the cure for opposites. BL.

^A Likewise, parents must be blamed for the infirmity of their offspring. For the bald are born from the bald, and the sick from the sick, as Hippocrates maintains, and as true reason teaches. Intemperance and drunkenness injure what has already been sown, rendering the seed itself worse and altogether evanescent, so that it does not easily sustain the form derived from the Word; just like counterfeit silver, it shuns the artist’s hand due to its weakness, and rejects its form. Hence many monsters and diseases are born. And these are not altogether useless to the universe; for they become a reproach for intemperance, and they arouse and persuade others to be vigilant, so that they might approach procreation soberly. Wherefore I also accept the law of the Hebrews, which stoned the father of a maimed child, because he could not restrain himself and abstain from his wife while she was unclean. Hence it was necessary that an excess of matter and a most foul disease of the child should arise. And the Lacedaemonian legislator also consulted well for his republic in this matter, by leaving no room for the female sex to be idle and at rest; thinking that if both parents excel, having their strength fortified by labors, it is fitting that their children should also be born more robust. And this is that plan of Providence which no one finds fault with, except one who is devoid of right reason. Just as those who are ignorant of the art of painting sometimes find fault with pictures that have been painted in a varied, skillful, and pleasant manner. ^C THEOPH. But is it not unjust that one, as soon as he is born, should be deprived of life, while another, on the contrary, should continue to enjoy it even unto extreme old age? AXITH. God contracts human life, having regard for our utility, and extends it so that it may be longer. For if the soul departs sooner, it has surely adorned the matter to which it had given form; and it has departed without any harm to itself, when it has gained the experience of generation, and by comparison with the opposite mortal body, it has known more fully and better how much it excels to be immortal; and finally, it has sown the principle of immortality into the mortal body, and has instructed the remaining humans not to trust in all things to nature. For nature does not have dominion over life; otherwise it would extend it by fixed laws.

^A and define its time by its own boundaries, and would thus supply it; nor would it labor greatly over whether something were better or worse. This, however, is the gift of Providence, not of nature. Whence it also fixes these various limits of our life according to our advantages, and transfers them here and there as it seems fit to the Governor of all things. But if anyone should reach extreme old age, there will be the danger of greater contests, but he will have enjoyed greater rewards, if he has learned and performed the things aforementioned, and has introduced all wisdom and knowledge and skill into his life; and has departed after having adorned not only himself, but the whole earth. For it was not necessary that the same limits and spans of time should be given to all; ^B since, were this given, things would slip to such a point that men would live much less modestly, and would postpone temperance until the final age: and those who, while they were in the prime of life, were accustomed to enjoy the things of others, would, once they had become old, scarcely keep to justice. For if now they pursue intemperance and avarice so easily, not knowing whether they will live until evening, what would they do if they knew for certain that they would reach old age? And let no one be greedy for gain for the sake of his children, thinking it uncertain whether they will be corrupted before they come into their inheritance; and indeed, this is also a divine law, that some depart before their time; and that the best man lives beyond the limit, if time and necessity call for it. For it is of Providence to place things toward the good, and to transfer them toward what is most excellent; whereas if the limit were fixed immovably, ^C it would seem to be a matter of necessity, not of Providence. But now, that this is transgressed, it teaches those who are able to understand that it assigns each thing to its order toward authority, not toward necessity; and transfers it toward the best; and conducts it according to mind, not in vain; and releases it toward instruction, not toward force, and does not release it. These things are symbols of power, not of weakness, and of care, not of sloth.

HELLAS, A DIALOGUE ON THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY AND THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

^D It is known, for he knows that it is fated for all to die, and there is some defined time for the remaining of our mortal bodies, at the arrival of which one must not be angered, but rather, as by a divine law, follow willingly.

^A Let no one, therefore, marvel if a myriad of mishaps befalls our bodies. For these do not happen in vain; but often the matter, being unable 88 to follow the soul, falls away before it has been seen in beauty and goodness. Those who attribute matter to the Creator and consider it of equal weight have understood this: that it is a final thing, not a principle; and that it is weak, not endowed with equal power; and that it enjoys life from elsewhere, not from itself.

Sometimes, even when matter has already been adorned as a body, it is disturbed and dissolved; for either an attacking beast has torn it asunder, or a falling stone has crushed it. Sometimes, also, a man has been suffocated by drinking too much, or has perished from drinking nothing at all. Satiety and famine have often done the same. ^B Moreover, an attacking enemy may slaughter whoever falls in his way; the waves of the sea may swallow them up, or an earthquake may engulf them, or a lightning bolt destroy them. Since, then, so many and such varied things happen to men, it is not an unexpected thing if one should be intercepted by some of them; and it would be much more wonderful if all these chances were to be escaped. For while one thing is contrary to another, to the whole they are nothing. For this too belongs to harmony: that it should produce one melody from contrary sounds.

If the father of the boy who perished was a wicked man, he was not prevented from this mishap, so that, being affected by greater grief, he might become more equitable and better. But if he was just, ^C he progressed to a more brilliant demonstration of virtue. For perhaps that boy would not have done anything illustrious or brave; otherwise, he would have been preserved safe, beyond what could have been hoped or desired. Just as they say has often happened, that Pelias, Telephus, and Cyrus, exposed to wild beasts, were fed and nurtured by those very ones to whom they had been abandoned to be fed and nourished. For they were destined to perform great and stupendous deeds. Just as it is told of Hercules, that when the ship in which he was sailing was broken apart, he was swallowed by a sea monster and yet was preserved safe. ^D

^A For those who have fallen into the greatest danger and have escaped by divine aid, rather than by hope, it was destined that they should achieve great and stupendous things. Just as Hercules also is said, when the ship in which he was traveling was broken, to have been swallowed by a certain whale and nevertheless to have been preserved safe. But many who happen upon what has occurred are captured; it is, however, always for the benefit of both themselves and those who look on. For in some, the disease of the mind has ceased; in others, the disease has appeared terrible. Even he who possesses virtue might suffer, so that, neither puffed up by his own virtue does he behave insolently, nor do those who have often been saved by him, forgetting their nature, proclaim a man, not God, to be God. This indeed is what many of the Greeks and Thracians and Egyptians and Italians have suffered, thinking their own benefactors or even rulers to be not heroes, but gods, and venerating them, and performing rites and sacrifices to them as to gods. At any rate, they count Menelaus, and, by Zeus, Helena after Alexander and Deiphobus, among the gods along with the handmaids of Laconia, and sing hymns to them, honoring them with sacrifices and votive offerings. And all declare Dionysus son of Semele, and Heracles son of Alcmena, to be gods as far as the Pillars of Heracles. Porphyry refutes these as having been born mortal. For in describing demons in his discourse, he says somewhere that the lowest demons ^B towards those who have fallen into the greatest perils, yet who have escaped by divine aid rather than by hope and expectation. Again, not few are they who, captured and snared in these same evils into which they had fallen, have perished. And this happens in every way as it seemed useful both to those who had fallen and to those who were watching. In some, the mind’s disease is calmed; in others, it appears again as something horrific. Often, even he who is endowed with virtue suffers some misery, so that he may not, by being puffed up, do injury to virtue itself, nor those by whom he is often preserved, failing to remember their nature, deem him to be in the place of God and no longer a man. By this disease most of the Greeks, Thracians, Egyptians, and Italians have been afflicted: those who deemed the men from whom they had received some benefit, or even their own magistrates and princes, not to be heroes, but gods; and they were both initiated to them as to immortal gods and offered sacrifices. Therefore, they number Menelaus, and by Jove, Helena herself also, after Alexander and Deiphobus, among the Laconic gods, and they worship them together with them, and with sacrifices and gifts suspended at their altars ^C they serve them. Concerning Therapnae, Lacedaemonian city. Therapnae, a Laconian city, which some say is Sparta; there is also a place having a temple of the Dioscuri, because they are honored there; for to 'therapeuein' means to honor. And the name 'Therapne' came to the place from the daughter of Lelex; there is also a temple of Menelaus in it, and they say that Menelaus and Helena were buried there. But the poet of Ilium calls Hector a god, and, knowing it, worships Helena as Adrastea. ^D

^A And all who dwell here as far as the Pillars of Hercules assert that Bacchus the son of Semele, and Hercules born of that Alcmena, are truly gods. Yet Porphyry convinces us that they were born mortals, when he writes somewhere that most wicked demons set snares for good men, and attack them suddenly and unexpectedly: just as Juno [attacked] Bacchus and Hercules.

The Getae dwell in Thrace by the banks of the Ister river, who consider Pythagoras’s slave, Zamolxis, to be a fugitive and a pretender to his master’s philosophy, claiming that he is the only god. And they slaughter the good and best among them, and immortalize them, as they believe. ^B And Proteus also is deemed a god by the Egyptians. And Helena shares in his sacred rites; the initiated call her the Stranger Venus. ^C Italians also recount all their ancient kings into the number of the gods. And Alexander, the thirteenth—

On the divinity of Helena

And they [the Greeks] took Helena, after her much-talked-of and excessive adultery, away from Menelaus and raised her to heaven, as Euripides says. ^D Yet I think it is not fitting to overlook the case of Helena, or the daughter of Zeus, who became notorious for her shame because of an unrighteous report, and because of this very shame was considered a god among the Greeks.

There is in the temple of Proteus a shrine which is called that of the Stranger Venus; and I conjecture that this shrine is Helena’s, the daughter of Tyndareus. For they say that, as Alexander was passing through Egypt, Proteus took Helena away from him and gave him a phantom of Helena, as Stesichorus says; the Trojans at that time had a phantom of Helena.

^A tenth god was proclaimed among the Athenians. But, having often been wounded and having been ill, and when he died, he was recognized to have been mortal in nature, he who had previously been registered among the gods. Thus the sufferings of the noble become noble lessons for men.

THEOPH. You seem to me to speak well. And it is not good, it seems, to be changed. For no argument compels one to confess that the soul has lived previously along with the things that happen here.

AXITH. You do well, my friend. For a soul endowed with reason will not desire, after its experience, to undergo such danger again. Nor is it granted to us to contend a second time. For the present life is sufficient for demonstration. For the power of the soul is revealed to the referee immediately from childhood. Both fitness and lack thereof are known before the contests, and subsequent pursuits and choices and deeds do not escape even the spectators, much less the judge. Wherefore they do not await a second life or another trial, just as those who do not discern the present things, nor foreknow the future ones. But that which adorned this contest, and displayed both fitness and skill, and remained in all its laws, as one that has conquered, it crowned with nectar and honor, and with ^B Therefore, the Greeks deified not only those who had done something good, but also the most licentious of men and women. Romans, having learned these things from them, deemed their own emperors worthy of deification after the end of their life, and not only those who had reigned lawfully and had cared for justice, but also those who had directed the government tyrannically and unjustly and unlawfully. For they even enrolled Nero, who had indulged in every idea of licentiousness and lawlessness, and Domitian and Commodus, and indeed other murderous men and the most lustful, into the catalogue of their own gods.

THEOPH. [...] ^C But when the end of the drinking took place, and the contests began on the following day, the multitude, even while it was still night, rushed into the theater; and at daybreak, the procession happening with other magnificent preparations, it sent forth images of the twelve gods, fashioned in a distinguished manner through the craftsmanship and wonderfully adorned with the brilliance of wealth. And along with these, there marched an image of Philip himself as a thirteenth, god-befitting, demonstrating the king himself as sitting on a throne with the twelve gods.

AXITH. ...for the sake of the demonstration of virtue, a person might fare badly, or for the cessation of vice. But if he does not cease, punishment serves as an example to others. And earthquakes and droughts and floods, and pestilential disease, and strange stars, and shortfalls of crops, and lightning strikes drive out the wickedness of men that is being poured forth; for let a public scourge instruct the universal hubris, cutting off the part, so that the whole may be saved; just as an excellent physician, when the disease becomes intense and is spreading, delivers the limb to those appointed to cut it off, so that the person may be healthy in the rest of his body. But you blame the physician, not the disease, which came to be through distrust and forgetfulness of what the Father had foretold. ^D ...nor another trial, they await, to the laws of Him, to await the judge. Him... simply. For it was not necessary to allow many things to happen against nature, so that nature, which He Himself ordained, might not be disturbed.

^A And the slothful, cowardly, foolish, talkative [soul], which used to disturb the theater and confuse the laws, having hated it at once, He sent [it] away from the guard into the prison of punishment, from whence it is not permitted to flee. He deemed the former worthy of the choir on high, from whence it is not permitted to fall. THEOPH. Wherefore, then, does He summon so many such contestants, since in such a long duration of time so many have already departed from the arena? For you do not say, I suppose, that they have all been the same.

AXITH. By no means.

THEOPH. Whence, then, tell me, pray?

AXITH. God, remaining what He is, ^B creates the things that come to be; for He is not diminished by creating other things, nor is He exhausted by bringing forth many things. But He remains whole even more, in that He produces a greater multitude. For the Creator is the Creator not from the individual things that come to be, but from Himself. Since even among humans, the architect is not divided into the things he builds, nor is anything taken away from his soul or from his entire knowledge, nor ^C if he builds temples now, houses now, and now ships. But the Creator remains first, and the things that come to be from Him remain, needing His providence. Having therefore dismissed the "whence" (for this concerns me and you) and being persuaded by the women that to the Creator of all, nothing of all is impossible, do not seek ^D the contestants who are always descending, from whence they enter; for He Himself who sets the contest, summons them; and the proclamation becomes nature. Thus, having willed, He established the intellectual powers, and no one was prompted to ask "whence." Thus He made the heaven and the earth; and the one He adorned with the stars, and the other with plants. Do you see, perhaps, even the plants now heavy with fruits; and others not yet born, travailing. And when again the time...

^A calls, it obeys the proclamation, and puts forth and discloses, and in all ways renders the fruits perfect, while the power through which it first brought them forth remains within; and again and many times there is an abundance of fruits; and of the root nothing is lost, but rather it becomes more stable. Why then do we still wonder if the Creator has encompassed all things that have come to pass 50 and that are destined to be? Each one, as He wills and when it is fitting, and as it may be most beautiful, He brings forth with wisdom and art 51.

THEOPH. But why is it that God both pre-established 52 the other rational faculties and defined them; yet the souls of men, being rational, He even now brings forth?

AXITH. The good lawgiver 53 does not wait for all the passions of men; for that would belong to a judge 54 already; but He only foretells 55 the beginning of their coming to be. Just as He commands the earth to prepare beforehand the herbs, and many medicines, and cures, before the diseases. And now God foresaw that men, marveling at the rational powers and deeming them without beginning and unbegotten, ^B and creating many beginnings and myriads of gods, would introduce an unordered democracy instead of the ordered monarchy, and that they, having praised the sensible world and standing upon it, would conclude that God is without beginning and unbegotten 56; and that even those who are very vigorous in philosophy would lapse into an irrational fancy. For this reason, He brings forth our souls, being rational, even now, as a pattern of His own power and a teaching concerning those that existed before 57, in order that all things might have come from one Creator, and from one beginning all rational and intellectual power and substance has gone forth, and that 58 it proceeds 59. Do not disbelieve, looking at yourselves being newly brought forth, [since] ^C they—

^A proceed in a similar way to the substances above the heavens, and ascend even to the first principle; just as, to be sure, He has done in the celestial bodies. He allowed only the moon, out of the whole number of the stars, to wane and release its light, and again to begin [to increase], and to become newer, so that, by not supposing any of the bodies above to be unbegotten, we might suffer something from irrationality. Just as, therefore, from the last of the stars, which has just appeared and disappears, we are taught that those higher 60 also have come to be, so from the last rational substance, the human soul, which has been newly put forth, sound reason has grasped that the rational powers before it also took their origin from the Creator. For nothing is idle, nor superfluous, nor does He work in vain. ^B If, however, we should say that the human soul existed beforehand while there was only one man, and the body was fashioned a long time afterwards, then the soul was surely idle and superfluous for such a long time before it descended into the body, and it could not display its power in action, nor did it know what it possessed; for it gains all these things upon its descent. But the most excellent soul, which you call incorrupt and newly completed, would be rather idle than good if it had not first experienced the body, but lived its first existence here—much like what is said to have been the birth of Bacchus and Hercules in Thebes. But if it had been working beforehand, separated from [the body] above, ^C then, since it descended, it left its own place empty, deserted, and in idleness. For the other powers, as soon as they came forth, were both stationed where each ought to be, and were commanded to function, to serve, to minister, and to keep watch; but the human soul, having spent a long time in idleness, is at last ^D cast as a prisoner into the tomb, that is, the body. 68

^A And yet, it is appointed to adorn and to assist the earth, seeing that it would not be human if it were to cease to declare the mysteries of God, so that no place might be seen as godless. Is it not, therefore, better that it should carry out its appointed task as soon as it proceeds forth, than to remain so long idle and incomplete, and by not exercising its office from the beginning, be utterly ignorant of its own power? For action is a demonstration and knowledge of power.

THEOPHRASTUS: But if it comes into being in time, how can it be immortal?

AXITHEUS: It is not a different one that creates the higher powers and another that fashions the human soul, but the same one that produces them and yields this one also. ^B And if it is the same, there is nothing novel in it, if the one power and knowledge produces this one now, as it did then. For the power of the Creator does not waste away over time, nor is His knowledge limited by anything. Therefore, we must either concede that those (higher powers) are not immortal, or we must be persuaded that this one also is of such a nature; for it ascends back to the first Cause, just as they do. He has certainly not made any rational substance mortal. How, then, when He was creating our soul, did He transgress His own law, since He has not made it of the same essence as Himself, yet has made it similar and as it were an image, and if it should philosophize, to be likened unto God? For that which is similar to the immortal is also itself immortal; ^C for that which is mortal is not similar to the immortal, but its opposite. But you, having "swallowed up" Plato, say that everything which has come into being is altogether mortal, and subject to corruption and dissolution. Yet I shall remind you of the Timaeus, and of the address of the Creator, the preamble of which, as I remember, is, "O gods of gods," ^D whose...

father and creator I am: you are not altogether immortal, since you were created, yet you shall not be dissolved, for you have obtained my will, which is stronger than death." By these words, he introduces both facts: that they were created and shall never perish, and that they came to be and yet escaped being subject to death.

Therefore, the soul of man proceeded from the beginning such that it is a substance possessing reason, which is moved perpetually and is autonomous and free: it has its own life from itself, and can also impart it to the body. None of the things that are mortal are endowed with these goods: but these are, beyond controversy, true and certain arguments for immortality. And surely you will marvel at that power lying within the soul, if you grasp the variety of the things it performs externally. For every art, every science, as well as action and contemplation, ^B are sufficient and more than sufficient to teach that the soul of man is immortal. For He who gave them that being of theirs, He Himself also gave them that gift—that they might be perpetual; and that gift is now its very nature. But to Plato, it seems that even this whole world was once made, and is mortal, and is perpetually… [rising] again hereafter at the consummation of the world with the body, perceiving death as a punishment within immortality. Hear then, accordingly, the rational argument...

Every thing moved by something else does not possess the vital principle from itself, but from the mover; it subsists only as long as it is held together by the power working within it; but when the mover ceases, the thing having its motion from it also fails. But the soul, being self-moving, never ceases to be; for it follows the self-moving that it is always moved. And that which is always moving is incessant, and that which is incessant is endless, and that which is endless is incorruptible, and that which is incorruptible is immortal; if, therefore, the soul is self-moving, as was demonstrated above, it will be incorruptible and immortal, according to the syllogism proposed. ^C Hence, even when united to the body, and being as an image of God, and enlivening it, it remains impassible, being neither explained nor grasped in its nature.

Thus went forth the soul of man, a rational essence, always moving and autonomous, having life from itself, and being able to supply it to a body; which it received as nothing mortal, but all these things are clearly marks of immortality; and you would marvel at the power within the soul, learning it from the variety of things outside. For every art and science, and practice and theory, is sufficient to explain the immortality of the soul. For He who gave it to be, also provided the gift that our souls should always be. And the gift was nature. To Plato, it seems that this whole world was both created and is mortal, yet is preserved immortal. For that which is capable of being burned is not necessarily burned. Then they praise Plato, even if he says that bodies were created and do not perish; but for souls, they do not wish to grant it even for their species, shape, form, quality, quantity, existence, composition, or beauty. Whence Methodius also says the soul in the Symposium (Or. 6) has an incomprehensible and ineffable beauty, and for this reason, it is, as it were, envied and loved by contrary spirits as one holding a form superior to the intellectual ones. And all the incomprehensibility, obscurity, and uncertainty concerning it implies nothing else than that it is truly and properly the image of the incomprehensible God. ^D The most paradoxical of all that is in us according to the image is that the human mind is able to grasp neither the arguments of the existence of God, nor indeed the substance of our soul, how it comes into existence. Whence, being ignorant of all things concerning it, we believe in its existence solely from its operations in the body, just as we also confirm the existence of God from His works in the visible creation.

^A They do not wish to concede what they easily grant to bodies.

THEOPH. We cannot but follow these reasonings. But one thing still escapes us: that while we assert that the other substances endowed with reason and intellect are defined in a certain way and by a certain number, we say that human souls extend into infinity. Unless reason allows the same soul to pass over into many bodies.

AXITH. The multitude of human souls is infinite to us, but finite to the Creator, just as are the other rational substances. These you indeed will not count, but God has encompassed as many as there are; to us they are indefinite, but to Him who has encompassed them, they are defined. And He Himself becomes a measure to them, those which He has encompassed. In the other rational substances, the multitude does not cause crowding; for all are one, and each has filled the whole, and all receive the whole; and one is no impediment to another, as is the case with material bodies. For even in plants, some shadows of what is now being said appear. For from one tree myriad shoots are cut, and each of those cut off possesses the whole of life, so that when committed to the earth, it sprouts; and the whole of that life has remained in the great tree in the same way. And from one, infinite things are born, and all are one, and of those born from it, none is that from which they were born. And though it may seem to us to proceed to infinity, nothing is indefinite. ^C Besides these things, everything composed of unequal parts is dissolved in time. Such is the sensible world; and since its parts are perishable, it is necessary that the whole, composed of the parts from which it was constructed, will suffer these things until it shall clearly grasp the immortal. And all time is short to God, but very long to mortals. Therefore, if bodies are defined up to this point, we do not lead souls into infinity; rather, the motion of the souls will stop when that which needs and receives [it] stops. So that... ^D [The soul exists as the life-giving, constitutive, and providential principle of the four-element nature of the body, after the image of God, the providential care of the entire four-cornered world and the upper creation; therefore, we do not know the place of God where He dwells, but we only believe that He is everywhere; nor do we understand the place of the soul where it dwells in the body, but we only know that it is in the whole body and acts therein.]

^A Needs are defined for souls, and the measure is determined by what is lacking. But as it is now said: Apollo indeed boasts that he knows the number of all the sand, shall the Creator of the souls himself, whom he produces, be ignorant of the number of those which he puts forth? And yet the whole heaven is full of intelligent powers; the ether is full of angels and demons; the air is full, the earth is full, the sea is full, and finally everything under the earth is full. And as one of our wise men said, there is nothing in the nature of things so void that there is not room ^B to insert even a hair. So that even if he should wish to extend the sensible life for men for ten thousand years, I do not believe that the souls of men would become equal in number to the multitude of angels and demons. But as it is now said, a total failure of souls would come to pass in this life; for if it remains such as it is, and the good, having run up into the Elysian fields, feast immortally, always being filled with nectar—for this is also a law of Plato’s Republic—while the evil, having fallen into Tartarus, from whence they will never depart, themselves no longer gain benefit, but, having become an eternal example of divine justice, ^C will lie there forever. For these things Socrates maintained in the *Phaedo* and the *Gorgias*. From the number having been so diminished, they would at some point leave the life here deserted and destitute of men. And he will no longer say that the soul will live this life again; for these things have been refuted; and if [he should lead] a youth...

Aliud quid qui hoc loco intelligere volet, per me suo utatur sensu. Potest et illud inuere, quod ex Platone refert Eusebius, lib. XI Præpar., exacto tempore defecturum genus humanum cum mundi magna concussione; qui ne plane intereat, principem Deum ejus gubernationem suscepturum, eumque juventa perpetua donaturum. Ba.

^A If the soul, as Socrates says in the *Phaedrus*, is bound by adamantine chains in such a way that it communalizes with a body only once in a thousand years, and if the measure of the souls is said to suffice for the ten-thousandth period, then we will have need of fewer souls. For we do not say that mortal bodies extend through such a long span of time; so that it is more reasonable for me than for you to define the souls by measure.

THEOPH. You have left me with no doubt, then, regarding the soul. But do you believe that this world will someday be dissolved?

AXITH. It certainly will. For since the world itself is corporeal, and it is easily demonstrated ^B that it does not exist of its own accord or by itself, how could you argue otherwise? If the generation of bodies, which is in fact a kind of movement, does not wish to remain in one place, but always yearns for the perfect and single [source] from which it came forth, and hastens and rushes toward that goal—for movement is not in vain—then it will never stop until it finds what it desires. And it will find it when the Creator himself wills it; and he will will it when it is appropriate. For after the testing of souls and the manifest proof of wickedness, he will transform the whole sensible [order] into the immortal, so that it may be in harmony with the immortality of men; and the place will again become fitting for the felicity of its inhabitants. For it was fitting that a mortal creature dwell in a mortal world, but that an immortal one dwell in the immortal; ^C for there is one single breath of the whole [cosmos], and nothing is disorderly, nor is there anything out of harmony, but everything is friendly and fitting to each part. And he has made the will of the Creator to be nature. And I suppose that it is the work of one who is wise and powerful to transform the same things into both mortal and immortal. Or rather, of what power and wisdom [is it], that we might neither be ignorant of the mortal nor remain in it once it has been explored?

THEOPH. What then? Is the world not unbegotten and without beginning? Or how is the Creator the Creator, if there was a time when he was not performing his works?

AXITH. Hear then, I pray you, a very fine argument. ^D The King of all, from whom all things [come], the source of the things that exist...

^A and the fountain, is in the first place a productive spring; since he is the highest good, the Father of Wisdom, and the Creator of all things. He did not begin to have the power and activity of generation at some point in time; for he is always the Father of the Word and of Wisdom. He did not beget by passion, for he did not do so by necessity, nor did he take any co-cause of his generation; for there was nothing else, nor did he empty himself of his power. For he always has within himself him whom he has begotten, filling and being filled, whole in the whole. For the Father alone willed to be alone. And the offspring is not superfluous; for he did not have [offspring] apart from himself or of an essence other than his own; for there is no composition in him. For this reason he has begotten the Word substantially, so that the Word himself, being the manifestation ^B and the power of the Father, might be the mind, and, having gathered all things together within his mind, might exist. The Father creates all things through him; for it required Wisdom to bring about this whole. And together with the begetting of his own essence, he brought forth the Holy Spirit; not by force, he says, but by the authority of his power. Wherefore he also begat because he willed, and he brought forth because he had the power, and by this Spirit he inspires both the intelligible and sensible things, fills them with power, and holds them together and draws them to himself. For the Spirit is always turned toward the Father, and draws up everything that it touches. Thus is the great Wisdom and Power of the Father timeless, the Monad, the divine Trinity, not admitting of "more" or "less"; ^C for there is one essence. And he ordained the intelligent essences, and has made them. For he willed to have those whom he might benefit. For this reason he brings forth the upper powers of the Good, and [determines] that they should sufficiently enjoy his first beneficence; for in the Good there is no place for envy toward anyone.

Thus, indeed, the Creator was not idle before he had brought forth these things which are exposed to the senses. But he creates the heaven, from which time takes its beginning, and the earth, and the air, and the sea, after the first creations. For he works one thing at one time according to his authority, but he himself always works; he himself also provides the matter for the ^D rational creatures. He ordered, and has made them.

^A And he stirs up, and fits together, and settles, and adorns; for matter is not unbegotten, nor without beginning. This the Chaldeans also teach you, and Porphyry. He entitles his book *On the Whole*, which he brings forward containing the Chaldean oracles, in which he contends that matter has come into being. He also unfolds the book of Plotinus; whence, speaking of things according to nature, he says that matter is unbegotten, and that to place it among the first principles should be rejected as an impious doctrine. If, therefore, matter is begotten, and not a first principle, but a final one, how is the sensible world unbegotten or without beginning, or prior to time? For it is not a creation prior to matter. Plato himself also reminds us of this in the *Timaeus*, clearly stating that nothing is without a form. First, he asks whether the world has come into being, or has not come into being; then the cause is written down; for it is visible; and it itself is the most graceful thing of the heaven, the stars; but yet these too have come into being. For their shifts, and paths, and retrogradations, and their ascents toward the north, and their descents toward the south, and the eclipses of the sun and moon, are all sensible things; which Plato thinks come into being, but that they never firmly exist.

THEOPH. The mystagogues of Plato say that "it has come into being," but that it has come into being according to a cause. For example, of my shadow the cause is my body, yet it [the body] has not made it, but it [the shadow] followed this [the body]. ^C

AXITH. Therefore the Creator is not a creator, if he does not create what he has made by his own will; but this universe is spontaneous, if it has not come into being. The body standing in opposition to the sun does not allow a brightness to come behind, and this is the shadow; and therefore, such as the body is, such also is that which is marked out. But the Creator is incorporeal, boundless, existing as light itself; how then, or whence, has the shadow befallen? And how was he better, and as truly a Creator, himself producing and fitting together as he willed? Or does the shadow [arise] from necessity? ^D

And who is there who would choose to decorate or wipe clean his own shadow? Therefore, the discourse of the foolish has also abolished providence; for there would be no care for a shadow. Moreover, a shadow also appears at the same time as the body; but it is impossible to assume the matter at the same time as the Creator. ^A Plotinus, 66 scrutinizing this matter, clearly prefaces it, and mocks Anaxagoras because he does not preface it 67, but introduced the Creator and matter simultaneously. But it is impossible [for them to be] simultaneous; for the maker must be older than the thing made. And the eminent Atticus 68, that lover of Plato, detailing the opinions which seemed correct to his beloved, while seeking the nature and order of the world, said that this world of ours, which we call [the world], is neither unborn nor eternal; but that it was produced by One who is in power greater and more perfect, and more ancient, and wiser: since it is impossible that that which can be seen and touched, and which has a body, should never have been born. For of those things whose nature stands in need of help and assistance from others in order to exist, how shall we dare to say that they were not born, and are not preserved by Him who made them? And he calls Aristotle ridiculous, because he admits that the whole mechanism of this world can be seen and touched and is corporeal, and yet maintains notwithstanding that it was not created at some time, nor will it ever perish. ^B But the eminent Proclus and Atticus. Concerning the activities of the soul, I: "Now then, even among the Platonists themselves, many are in disagreement, some gathering the forms and the parts of life and the activities into one arrangement and one idea, as do Plotinus and Porphyry; others stretching these toward a conflict, as does Numenius; others harmonizing them out of those that are in conflict, as those around Atticus and Plutarch." Concerning the difference of the descent of the souls, p. 908: "For, being the same, it is not unborn [69-70], nor eternal; but it has been produced by the God who is greater in power and more perfect, the most ancient and intelligible. For, being visible and tangible and entirely corporeal, it was impossible for it to be unborn. For since its substance stands in need of help from another in order to exist, how can we not admit that these things have come to be and are preserved by the maker?" ^C Furthermore, pure and perfect souls are purely settled into bodies without passions and without the deprivation of thinking, while the opposite ones [are settled] in the opposite way; but it does not seem so to Atticus or the Platonists. That the lack of belief that all things are steered by providence increases the wickedness of men, Atticus the Platonist cries out. ^D

Companions

Or why should one laugh at him, who neither yields assent to the Egyptian prophets, who explain the origin and generation of the world, nor ascribes the time of its duration to the Crab? But Apollo also, having delivered an oracle, replied: "Before the creation of men and the world, demons were made, who might serve the Creator, who cares for the salvation of man." The oracle itself, however, has it thus: "They were created before us and the divine generation of the world, immortal spirits for our benefit." How then is it that the guides of Plato, having brought into being both the intelligible and sensible things together, do not contrive things contrary to Apollo and to Plato? For certainly not all things [exist] at once. Now is the season of summer, and the plants are adorned with fruits, yet winter has not broken upon us. Is he therefore the creator of summer, but no longer of winter? Does he not also rain? Does he not prepare the earth for the bearing of fruit? Is it not because summer is not confounded with winter? But this is a sign not of weakness or lack of order, ^B but of order and power. The silence of Pythagoras was a dogma; yet nevertheless he was rational, even if he knew how to be silent at that time. And the art of statuary is the art of Phidias, yet he was still a creator, even if he did not make the statue in the Acropolis and the one in Olympia at the same time.

THEOPH. Do you think, then, that this whole world was badly put together? AXITH. Not at all; there is nothing better than this handiwork. THEOPH. How then will it be dissolved? AXITH. Because that which is composed is not simple. For one thing is joined to another. ^C And that which is composed of many and dissimilar and even contrary things is easily dissolved; and that which has a power suitable for dissolution will at some time act in accordance with that which its nature summons to its dissolution and destruction. THEOPH. Do you think, then, that it belongs to a wise man to dissolve that which is well put together and harmoniously joined? AXITH. If indeed he made its parts mortal, ^D and determined beforehand that the whole itself should be dissolved. For from those [parts] comes this [result].

^A For if an eye and a finger and each part can in some way suffer, the whole, being the same as its parts, will not be immune [to suffering]. Furthermore, if dissolution introduced corruption to the whole, it would have been senseless to dissolve [it]. But if [this] dissolution should undo corruption itself, it is of great wisdom and ineffable power to make mortal things immortal.

THEOPH. Why then did He not do this from the beginning? Was He unable, or did He not wish to?

AXITH. No forces are ever wanting to the will of God. He surely wished all intelligible things to be immortal; but He did not wish the sensible things to be so. ^B

THEOPH. Out of envy, or for some other reason?

AXITH. With the Good, there is no envy at all regarding anyone. But if all things were the same, they would be nothing, since they would be one. Now, however, He brought forth the rational and intelligible substances, and the whole world of intelligible faculties, entirely immortal; and there is no envy. He added a second order, sensible and mortal things: which are indeed beautiful and great, but lesser than the first. Therefore, it was not out of envy that He added the second things; rather, it would have been [a sign of] envy to omit any of the beautiful things which He was able to create. And to create both immortal and mortal things was a sign of power, not of weakness. For it belongs to the perfect Word and Creator not only to create diverse things, but even things contrary to one another: such as white and black, and hot and cold, and immortal and mortal; which He Himself will, by excess of power, transform into immortality. For this reason, He has even sown the seed of immortality in mortal things; which also will one day sprout and prevail, and will consume the lesser and adapt it to itself, and will bear ever-flourishing fruits.

And no slight argument for this is that the purest part ^C of heaven and earth is preserved even now, safe and immune from corruption. To which, indeed, the ancients gave the names of Olympus, the Fortunate Isles, and the Elysian fields, clearly to show that the whole heaven and the whole earth will be of such a nature. ^D For nothing is better than to have what is ordained [be] superior to the more humble, both in the whole of these generations, and in those which possess their specific subsistence according to each kind; for all things were not allotted their order by chance, nor by changes of choice, but in accordance with the creative laws they were brought forth as diverse, and they obtained order proportional to the worth of their natures.

^A For nothing, in truth, is altogether mortal by the act of the Creator; therefore, corruption or the destruction of things shall not always hold its power. He did this, however, so that that which moves the senses and is corporeal might for a time admit of its own origin and destruction; and this He did for the sake of some greater good that He was contemplating. At once, by giving space to the Ideas and to the variety and beauty of the many forms, that they might frequently be imprinted through corruption and generation, and that by the continuity of change the beautiful shapes of form might be exercised in matter, the arguments concerning the Ideas might be confirmed by practice, and be demonstrated by movement, in such a way that by the variety of external things one might wonder at the ^B internal contemplations concerning them. ^C For instance, if some painter, while the archetype is beautiful, were to produce many images of the same, so that none of its beauty might escape, and it might appear everywhere, and he might show his art as more august. At the same time, He shows to the rational substances that He bestows immortality upon it ^D not by necessity, but by His free gift, and that in the first things there shall be a position, not a lack of the second things.

And how the first must care for the second, and not be filled with them, but lay hold of the last, and be attached to the Beginning, and always look toward It, and do what is commanded, and wish rather to be ruled than to rule. For freedom is, ^A and is indeed, power.

Theon the Roman

(88) *Altogether mortal.* First, the Creator [desired this], so that none of the things generated by Him might be held eternally under death and corruption; for He wills all things to be, and to be well, and to be always. BA.

(90) *Imprinted.* In order that, as is natural, the species of living beings might be generated and the species of forms. For this continuity of forms excludes mortality.

(91) *For the love of woman and man is generation*: this thing is divine, and in this mortal creature it is immortal, [namely] pregnancy and generation. ^B Do not wonder, for in this case the mortal nature seeks, according to its power, to be always and immortal, just like the [divine] Reason; and it can do this only by this generation, because it always leaves behind another that is new in place of the old.

(93) *And how the first must care for the second, and not be filled with them, but lay hold of the last, and be attached to the Beginning, and always look toward It, and do what is commanded, and wish rather to be ruled than to rule.* For it is just that the first should care for the second, and not be filled with them, but rather that the superior should be illustrated by the defects of the inferior. The sense is ambiguous; for you could translate it differently. But my reasoning is that the words are not sound enough; and Æneas our friend wrote, if one may trust a very plausible conjecture: *“And how the first must care for the second, and not be filled with them, but lay hold of the last, and be attached to the Beginning, and always look toward It.”* Truly, thus did Æneas write and the interpretation must be established upon this correction. Compare all things, both the preceding and the subsequent; you will see nothing can be more convenient. BA.

(94) *Always look toward It.* To look toward the most perfect and unique beginning, so that, having found there how much is lacking to them, they may be compelled by the law of equity to perform also the care of the lesser. All things depend upon the word. Ambrosius translated this most elegantly, a man in whom there was a beautiful skill in both languages, if he could have used emended books. We judge the same regarding Laertius, in which he interpreted many things better than I think anyone of our age would have done, had he happened upon those [same] codices. BA.

^A to serve the Good, ^B desiring that they, having received a rational nature, might rule themselves with dignity, if they intend to use their free will well. This is the greatest pledge of immortality which they possess from the Creator. But if they are burdened by serving the First, and are annoyed that each one is not himself the first, and yearn for tyranny, and begin to transgress the law, having been torn from the right order, they will fall into disorder 97. And having stood apart from the lightning of the King, they will not indeed be mortals 98, having been made immortal by Him at the first, but they will perceive something like the darkness of mortals; and as if they had fallen into a river 1, they would be carried hither and thither 2, ruled rather than ruling. The Creator, foreseeing these things, discovered beforehand how He might put an end to this happening; and He neither removed the free will of the subjects on account of those who revolt, nor did He test the weakness of those who revolt through material things: because, being abandoned, they know how to destroy, not to save 3. And pitying them, He does not permit them to pine away with disease, but has made that part mortal, which they themselves most desire to enjoy; upon the dissolution of which they are saved and liberated; and then, after the destruction of the tyrants, He will make immortal again that portion 4 which, because of them, He had first allowed to be mortal.

^B And this did He introduce as a bait, and a refutation, and a dissolution of tyranny; and as a demonstration of the power, justice, and gentleness of the Creator... ^C finding the only cure to be a refuge in non-existence, whence it occurs to him to cure the evil with evil, by soothing the wickedness of the soul, and by voting for his own nothingness after death in order to flee the pains of judgment? For the wicked man does not wish his soul to be immortal, so that he may not endure punishment, and he anticipates the Judge who is there, voting for his own death, as if it were fitting that the wicked soul should not even exist. But whereas this man, having been carried toward wickedness through lawlessness, naturally brings a verdict against himself, the judges in Hades, as they conduct their judgment according to the rule of truth, do not judge that the soul ought not to exist, but that it ought not to be wicked. BA.

THEOPHRASTUS.

THEOPH. But will man rise again with his body, or without his body?

AXITH. If man is [a] complete [human being], is it not a rational soul using a body?

THEOPH. Of what kind of body? One like this, or an airy one, or one like an oyster-shell? For the soul is filled with such bodies and so many of them, through as many and such places as it passes.

AXITH. You say that the soul carries about a burden ^C of various bodies. And just as small animals which have fallen into spiders' webs are immediately wrapped round and caught; so, as it seems, the human soul, approaching bodies, even though they be diverse, is quickly clothed and captured. If it travels through the heavens, it has snatched up a celestial body; if through the stars, a star-like one; if its passage is through the aether, it is surrounded by an ethereal body; and if it descends into the air, it is wrapped in an airy one; if it should be seen upon the earth, an earthly body is compacted for it. If, therefore, it is so easily filled with the other elements, what hinders it, even if it should fall into fire, from being clothed in a fiery body? And if it should be overwhelmed by the sea, from being drawn up with a watery body? Do you wish, O Egypt, to make a trial of such bodies?

EGYPT. I have no leisure either to be burned by fires or to be suffocated ^D by waters.

AXITHEUS. But every body, Theophrastus says, is suitable to the soul, just as a garment is; and that it was triple or quadruple, has hitherto escaped us.

THEOPHRASTUS. You are joking, Axitheus, about the mysteries of the ancients. ^A

AXITHEUS. And you, Theophrastus, are speaking seriously; and does it not seem ridiculous to you that a bodiless something should easily be intertwined with a body, and joined and stitched, one piece to another, and that many bodies should be clothed at once? And if the bodies are also animate, you are essentially saying that one soul drives many animals, like a herd of cattle grown together, and that it drags along a train of animals mounted upon one another.

THEOPHRASTUS. These things seem absurd, and you leave nothing unrefuted. But have you not heard of the shadowy specters seen near tombs? These are those airy bodies of souls, which they call images ^B.

AXITHEUS. Are you still ignorant, you who have learned all things, that these specters are malevolent demons, misrepresenting human souls? And that those who practice sorcery, and claim to be able to summon the long-dead, do not draw a man by their incantations, but a demon, which fashions itself into the image and phantom of the person, and does and says strange things to deceive? But when the sun rises, the phantom dissolves; whereas if it were a human soul, it would consort quite happily even in daylight with those it holds most dear ^C.

THEOPHRASTUS. In what way, then, will the soul feel punishment and endure it, if we take away the airy body? For it will not feel any punishment if it is destitute of a body.

AXITHEUS. You speak rightly; it will not be without a body. But it will take back its own, which it openly used before, when the appointed time for judgment arrives. For it will not happen that it takes pleasure with one body and yet experiences common pain with another; nor will one body serve the soul while another is summoned to judgment ^D.

THEOPHRASTUS. Do you think, therefore, that this earthly body will be resurrected? But that would be like a miracle; for it dissolves and is scattered; and it is partly by the...

fishes torn asunder, partly by birds dismembered: and then these animals are in turn caught by others, and are so consumed that not even a trace of a human body any longer exists. ^A

AXITH. You terrify me, my noble friend; but once you have learned more, you will be altogether calmer. But tell me: is the human body simple or composite?

THEOPH. It is entirely composite.

AXITH. From what parts, therefore, do you think it is composed? From four, do you say?

THEOPH. From the elements, I say.

AXITH. But if that which is composite is dissolved, does it not return again into those things from which it was composed?

THEOPH. Most certainly.

AXITH. Does not, therefore, the body of a man, and a fish, and a bird, and a wild beast return again into the elements; and does not each thing dissolve into that from which it was gathered?

THEOPH. Most certainly.

AXITH. If, therefore, the elements are preserved, the underlying principle of our body is preserved along with them; and whenever the Creator calls, all things are gathered together from every side. For if in the beginning some small and formless moisture ^B brought forth an entire man, I shall no longer be astonished if the body of the whole man, having been scattered among the elements, renders back not more, nor less, but the very same measure. I myself have seen a large, beautiful, spreading, and shady vine adorning my own house, which was not planted by any husbandman, nor nourished by any shoot, but a single grape-seed having fallen into the ground provided the whole thing. Where, therefore, was the trunk hidden? Where were the myriad leaves? And where did the fruit lie concealed? But those who are skilled in husbandry, having rubbed a fig with a cord and filled it with seeds, bury that cord. A short time [passes], ^C

THEOPH.

THEOPHRASTUS ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

AXITH. You speak of the four elements?

THEOPH. I do.

AXITH. That human seed which is cast into the womb of a woman, do you not say that it is a drop of some moisture? ... In order that a small drop of moisture, having been cast into the workshop of nature, might be fashioned into a rational, mortal animal...

[Note: [original-script column: see facsimile]]

...bury the cord, they bury it with a cord.

The text above is the continuation from the previous page, following the established anchor.] ...bury the cord, they bury it with a cord. And, according to the measure of the grains of millet, fig-trees appear set in line. And yet, how small and individual a thing is the grain, like a mere point; and yet, after it has been broken up, to what a great tree it gives birth! And the palm tree, though it springs from a very hard stone, is exalted into the high air. Add to this that human art of which we spoke before, that produces bees. How does it produce them? Those who are diligent in breeding bees take a bull, slaughter it with clubs, and bury the corpse in a house, covering it with a little earth, and sealing it accurately until it decomposes and rots. And the paradox is that the decay and rot of the one become the generation, life, and living existence of ten thousand bees. And even the phoenix bird is said to live for five hundred years; then, dying and completely dissolving, it revives again. And a multitude of animals flow forth, having their generation from corruption. But Theophrastus wonders at none of these. Yet if it should be that the body of man revives, this he wonders at and disbelieves, although he trusts the Athenians who claim to be autochthonous. ^B And yet the Creator, having removed this disbelief, grants so many similar wonders that that later event should not seem incredible. He commands the earth to bring forth many animals and many plants, exercising countless seeds toward bearing fruit; so that the command might not seem strange to it. For if He gives living and ensouled bodies, it would no longer seem strange that He should restore the bodies of men alone.

THEOPH. You might persuade me of this: but if the body remained in the form it now has, it would not seem incredible to me that the soul should re-enter it as if into a statue. But if this constitution and proportion of the body has been dissolved for many years, how will it ever use it again?

EGYPT. But surely our own bodies will revive easily, since they lie well-preserved and prepared for the reception of the soul.

AXITH. How witty is Egypt! But Theophrastus has not yet noticed that it makes no difference whether a corpse is dissolved or is still intact; for in both cases the binding and composition of the limbs are dissolved. ^C For the soul would not depart from the body, were the harmony not [dissolved].

So that the dead man is nothing better, if he is not even weaker, than the painted man. For the latter is endowed with beautiful color and is, as it were, in his prime, while the former has entirely ceased to bloom and is altogether past his prime. Therefore, one must either concede that colors and worked stones are more fit for receiving a soul than the body of a deceased man is considered to be, or one must admit that the company of the soul confers nothing, whether the body be compact or diffused; since the soul, even when migrating into the body now, does not find the body itself to be perfect and absolute in all its parts, but finds an unformed seed. Nay, that strength of its own is not yet perceived, and its power is rather hidden within, raising up the body itself.

^B THEOPH. Will each soul then receive its own proper body? AXITH. The body of a man consists of matter and form. Now, the matter is corrupted and dissolved, but the cause or reason of the form remains immune from destruction. Or do you not see that even when men who are sowing wheat hide it in the earth, the wheat itself has perished, dispersed, and died; yet its creating cause remains incorrupt, unshaken, and as it were immortal? This cause, remaining safe and gathering the earth all around it, and drawing the moisture poured about it from every side, and warming it with heat, revives the already extinguished wheat; it fixes the roots deeper, sends out the blossom, raises the stalk, nourishes the ears, and simply makes the wheat that was below to live again above. ^C And the reason of the spelt preserves spelt, and that of the beans, beans; and there is nothing incredible in these things. But if there is fear that man might be saved, it is the envy of demons and the unbelief of men. If, therefore, in perishable and mortal things the reason of the form is immortal, how much more is the reason of the immortal soul immortal, never perishing in time, but remaining within itself! When the proper preparedness is present [for all things have been well foretold and ordered], it awakens the matter and adorns it according to its own power in the ancient manner, so that the form is most recognizable to the soul.

And God Himself, who calls all souls together, sends forth each soul ^D to its own proper form and separates and distributes them; just as among us good shepherds, who, having countless flocks, easily distinguish whether each thing is necessary, and there is no fear that they might ever be confused. And

^A indeed, God provides; yet there are countless trees and plants. But though the water is one, the reason of each thing, drawing from the same water, changes it into its own proper form, and shape, and color, and size, and sweetness, and bitterness, and heat, and cold, and a pleasant or unpleasant odor. And though the result is ever wonderful, it has not confounded the wise; yet if the proclamation has gone forth from the Creator, and the immortal soul, remembering its own proper form, recognizes and receives it, it is only concerning this that they find difficulty and contend.

On the Soul and the Resurrection

^B The form indeed, such as it first appeared, has remained; but matter (for it is subject to every quality) being a receptacle, receives change. For example, if Achilles be made of bronze, and this Achilles be dissolved by time, and some people take the neglected bronze, and having broken it into minute pieces, scatter it everywhere; then some skilled craftsman, having praised the matter of the bronze as most suited to the art, and having sought and found all the bronze, and having melted it down, and purified it, and by some wisdom and power having converted the bronze into gold, might bestow upon it the form of Achilles; the bronze Achilles of old would surely be seen as golden, yet still Achilles. In the same way, the matter of bodies, having escaped the heavy, the fluid, and the mortal, through the bounty and art of the Creator, becomes pure and light and immortal. For it was fitting that it, having been made for ^C communion with the immortal soul, should at some time partake of that immortality, of which it might have partaken first, had it not been permitted (as has been stated many times) for a time to die, and in order that wickedness might be cut off, or that it might find for itself its own punishment.

For if our bodies were dissolved into nothingness, why then would such great power remain in them, so that they mightily persist while settled in their tombs, rather than when they were everywhere on earth? ^D

^A You hear of Oedipus, how, though he lay in Colonus, he was thought to lie in Scyros for the benefit of the Athenians? It is said that when the Athenians were being afflicted with a pestilence, they consulted Apollo, and he responded to transfer Theseus, son of Aegeus, to Athens (for he had been buried in Scyros; it was there that, having been treacherously murdered, he died), hinting that there would be no release from their sufferings until Theseus was settled among the Athenians ^B after his death. And as soon as the remains of Theseus arrived in Attica, the pestilence was no more. Or have you not yet learned that Orestes lay hidden in a chest among the Arcadians? And long after the death of Orestes, when the Lacedaemonians were having success in all their other wars, they were not faring as they wished against the Arcadians. And as they did not know who they were, or what they ought to do, they asked Apollo. And he answered them, not to summon armored soldiers nor to assemble cavalry, but to find one dead man for an alliance ^C and he was teaching—obscurely, it is true, but yet he was teaching—that in Chalcis... ^D If, then, Oedipus, who had relations with his mother, and Orestes, who killed his mother, and Theseus, who dragged his son to the authorities... are said to save the land while beneath the earth. You hear of Oedipus, how, lying in Colonus, he was thought to lie for the benefit of the Athenians? He spoke of this cessation in the long time: "Having come to the boundary of the land where I might obtain a seat for the revered goddesses and a place of hospitality; there I shall bend my wretched life, with gain for those who have received me, but with ruin for those who sent me away." ... "For I have come here as one sacred and pious, and bearing gain for these citizens. You will someday have me as one sought by the people there, even when I am dead, for the sake of the good will of the living." Those who wrote the commentaries write thus: "The oracle was such: wherever Oedipus should be added, he will prevail." And also, in common for the Thebans, that he will be for them a cause of great evils if they do not bury him in the land. "For if you, O strangers, are willing," he says, "with these revered goddesses who command the people, to grant protection, you will have for this city a great Savior, and for my enemies, labors." For the oracle was that if the Athenians should become masters of the tomb of Oedipus, he would be a savior to them someday when besieged by the Thebans, whether in the Peloponnesian war or in another. ... "And tell this to no man, neither where it is hidden nor in what places it lies, so that it may always provide this as a defense against many shields and the incoming spear of their neighbors." You hear of Oedipus, how, lying in Colonus, he was thought to be placed in the highest spot for the Athenians. ^B (Cimon) was eager to find the grave of the ancient Theseus, son of Aegeus, who had fled from Athens to Scyros and had died there by treachery out of fear by King Lycomedes; for there was an oracle for the Athenians commanding them to bring back the remains of Theseus to the city and to honor him fittingly as a hero; but they did not know where he lay, as the Scyrians would not agree or allow them to search. Then, when the shrine was finally found with great effort, Cimon placed the bones in his own trireme and, having decorated them splendidly, brought them back to his own city after almost four hundred years. In the time that these were reigning, the Lacedaemonians were suffering failure in the war against the Tegeans for the most part; but under Anaxandridas, son of Leo, they became more powerful in the war against the Tegeans. And they became so in this way: A Lacedaemonian man, Lichas by name, arrived at Tegea, and at that time the cities happened to be observing a truce. Upon the arrival of Lichas, the Spartans were searching for the bones of Orestes; they were searching for them by oracle. Therefore, Lichas perceived that they were lying in the house of a smith; and he perceived it in this way: whatever he saw in the house of the smith, he compared it to the oracle from Delphi, likening the bellows of the smith to the winds, because they themselves were blowing a violent gust, and the hammer and anvil to that which reflects this, and the iron...

^A in Chalcis, the son of Agamemnon lay, and that by stealing him away they would transfer the victory along with him. They find Orestes, and they steal him away, and from then on they were victorious. If, therefore, Oedipus, who had illicit relations with his mother, and Orestes, who murdered his mother, and Theseus, who dragged away the chaste youth to his curses ^B, are said, even when under the earth, to preserve the land, how much more so should men who have measured their entire life by virtues, and have displayed their very death in a brilliant manner for the sake of piety? For I have observed many bodies of good men ^C putting to flight the phalanxes of demons to such a degree as they themselves used to harass the man they had held captive and obsessed; and they would easily loosen and purge and entirely remove the countless diseases for which the medical art had not sufficed.

If, however, our bodies were entirely devoid of that future immortality, they would certainly be weak, superfluous, and necessarily cast off as worthless. Furthermore, if the wicked must descend into a prison of punishment, how will it not be just for the body to enjoy the good things of the soul, whose partnership it never declined in adverse times? It is, moreover, a wisely devised plan that the soul should, for a time, depart from the body, in order that this very suffering might become a lesson as to how great the power of the soul is, and how great the weakness of the body. But then, as a law, comes the return to life. For it was not fitting that the body should be cast away forever in vain, since it had at the first tasted of the soul's immortality; yet it was not to return to *this* life, for the first birth of the present age ^D is sufficient to provide the experience. And besides, death would be superfluous if it were to return again to the same life. Or are these things myths, as has been demonstrated to us before? For you have not forgotten, having in mind...

APPENDIX ON CHALCIS AND THESEUS

[82] *The youth dragged away to his curses.* Chrysippus, he says, was carried off by Theseus for the purpose of sexual abuse. Hyginus, Fab. 271, lists him among the most beautiful youths, the son of Pelops, and carried off by Theseus at the games. It is to be written [as]..., and that games sacred to Mars are designated, at which Theseus carried off the youth. This carrying off of a boy by Theseus is not frequently found among writers. That this Chrysippus was also loved by Laius is written by Apollodorus and Plutarch in *Parallelis* cap. 53. Understand this as referring to Hippolyto. BA.

[85] *Bodies.* He speaks of miracles wrought at the memories of the martyrs of Christ. See many things in Augustine, Lib. XXII, *De Civit. Dei*, etc. These are not, however, nicely attributed to the bodies, which was the work of divine mercy. BA.

[86] CC. P. This passage is to be restored thus: *if, and in vain does Plato exhort us to honor the guards of his own city when they die, and to venerate the shrines of their bodies; for you have experienced of these things.* But the divine law...

[88] *Wise is the contrivance.* Sapiens inventum. The word *commentum* (contrivance), although more fitting, is nevertheless more unworthy of that highest divine majesty. BA.

[89] *But the law.* *Deesse* (to be lacking) is a slip, indicating, I see, the dignity of this law. The more ancient interpreter [Ambrosius] seems to have read *theios de nomos*. He rendered it even with a circumlocution: but it is truly a divine law that the body should live again. BA.

[90] CC. P. *Agōnos* (of the struggle).

[91] CC. P. *Epestrephe* (returned).

^A And it will rise again into an immortal life; for the good, a life long desired, but for those who feared nothing in this life, a fearful and terrible one.

THEOPHRASTUS. You have explained these things in your speech with excellence. But if bodies become eternal because of their communion with the soul, then it would seem consistent that the bodies of irrational animals must also be eternal, since they too have partaken of a soul.

AXITHEUS. But they have partaken, O wisest one, of an irrational and mortal soul, which is dissolved along with the body. If, therefore, the soul has departed, it would be superfluous to raise the body; for bodies are not raised for their own sake, but for the sake of the soul. In irrational creatures, therefore, there is nothing immortal sown; since even their soul is surpassed by death. But our soul—for it is immortal—having come into union with the body, has left behind a seed of immortality for it. And what is most significant: man is, as it were, the offspring and handiwork of the Creator Himself; thus, nothing of human substance could possibly remain entirely mortal. As for the irrational animals, their birth was commanded to be brought forth from the elements, and that command was their nature and ^B power; and since they came forth from such ancestors, it is necessary that they should be dissolved and perish entirely. For they never tasted of immortality. But the human body, having been nurtured in cooperation with an immortal soul, and having been moved with aptitude and great grace toward every art, has caught a portion of immortality, and has not been entirely untasted of that nectar; it will not, therefore, lie fallen forever. For if, when the sun strikes cold water, warmth is produced, and it sends forth fire and flame from the water, who would doubt that the human body, having received within itself a whole and immortal soul, has acquired a power and a ray of immortality? Just as earth, when ignited, becomes divine; for while it lies cold to the touch and without heat, once it is brought near the fire, it easily snatches at it—what it was hiddenly possessing from the first—and is quickly kindled, showing ^C its power in action and hastening into the order of fire; so, indeed, the bodies of men, having mingled with the immortality of the soul, are for the rest of the time cast aside as cold and completely motionless; but being suited for communion with the soul, if ever there is a mingling again, they are readily warmed and rise up, and follow gladly, and run toward immortality.

Nor is it incredible that matter should be converted into a better state. ^A For even among us, those who are skilled in matter take silver and tin, and having caused their form to vanish, by transforming the matter into something more noble, they produce most beautiful gold. Sand is dispersed, and nitre is dissolved; but human art has devised a new and transparent glass from these. And the children of the farmers sing of the transformation of plants. What then? Do you suppose the Creator of human beings to be weaker and more inexperienced than human beings themselves? And has not faith in what happens every day driven away your unbelief concerning the future? But although there are many exercises before the contest, you, having forgotten everything, dissolve at the time of the contest as if loosened by fear. If the world has come into being, just as man also has come into being, and emerged from the earth in the beginning as far as his body is concerned—for from where else could he have come?—was it not then in accordance with nature that man should subsequently be born from the earth?

What, then, of matters that are thoroughly true and admitted ^B to have been handled in a novel way? But he who has thoroughly investigated the books written by the ancients concerning the chemistry of gold and silver burned them, so that wealth might no longer accrue to the Egyptians from such an art, nor that they, emboldened by a surplus of funds, should rise up against the Romans.

[alt-version omitted]

^{C D}

^A Do you dispute this childishly, especially you who so willingly accept such obscure and absurd things? For you, without requiring any other proof, accept the story that Polydius the seer, having traveled from Argos to Crete, raised Glaucus the son of Minos—who had been suffocated in honey—restoring him to life by means of a herb he learned of through a serpent. And you believe Eudoxus, who writes that Asclepius raised Hippolytus, or (for this too is told) Tyndareus, and that Hercules raised Alcestis, and Theseus, and Timon, and Lydus, and Timosthenes the Athenian. ^B Pindar the Theban and Herodotus the Halicarnassian say that Aristeas of Proconnesus entered a fuller's shop in Proconnesus and died there; and that when he had disappeared, he was clearly conversing with the Cyzicenes, and two hundred and forty years later appeared in Italy to the Metapontines, bidding them honor himself and Apollo with sacrifices; for he said that at that time he was a crow, and was following Apollo, whereas now he is Aristeas. And when the Metapontines sent to Delphi to ask Apollo whether they should believe Aristeas, the Pythian priestess told them it would be better for them if they did believe. And even now a statue stands under the name of Aristeas, right beside the image of Apollo itself, and it is thought that the sacrifice to both gods is common. ^C You follow these things thoughtlessly, just as cattle follow fodder, and you rejoice with one another like Corybants, and applaud. No one has ever dared to write the contrary.

But if the Creator Himself promises to make the body also immortal for the immortal soul, you incite one another to wage an implacable and undeclared war against Him. And yet, it is said that Plato brought back Harmonium from the underworld along with his body. Zoroaster, moreover— ^D

^A foretells that a time will come when there shall be a resurrection of all the dead. Theopompus knows what I mean, and he himself instructs others in it. But, in truth, no one among the ancient sages contradicted them. The young, however, are brazen and dare to make war against the divine Word—as if they had already departed from the divine lot—bringing with them much that is irrational. They not only abandon the body to everlasting mortality but also compel the very soul to die out of irrationality. For ignorance of virtue is the true death of the soul. But the oracles of the Hebrews, which ^A the oracles of Apollo have also praised, promise the restoration of life not merely to a part, but to the whole man in his entirety.

Zoroaster also foretells that there shall be: "Only the Chaldeans obtained wisdom, or the Hebrews, Worshipping the self-begotten King, God, purely." ^B

Now, there are even today among the Syrians and elsewhere men who, from childhood to extreme old age, have led a temperate and modest life, having raised their souls toward intelligible realities, and who have compelled the body to serve them; through their hymns they have persuaded it, and by practice and contemplation they have reached the height of philosophy, demonstrating their kinship with God; and by calling upon Him in purity, they have caused the dead to rise, offering this as a sufficient proof of the doctrine. For among them, no dogma remains merely in words, but immediately receives faith from the deeds performed. And he who is a spectator of the miracle departs a hearer of the doctrine who is in no way doubtful or perplexed. And what we say is no myth, nor a wonder held in memory from distant antiquity, but a miracle that happened in this present age. ^C I myself saw an old man, exceedingly good and beloved of God above all others. A certain farmer was familiar with him, a man of simple character and father of only one young boy. With this boy, the rustic man frequently visited that elder, wishing to do and learn something noble. And the first fruits of his crops he would carry there as if to a sanctuary. But a short time passed, and the boy, having fallen ill, departed this life. And when he died, the father did not hide him in the earth, as the law commands, but placed him in a basket, covered him with leaves, and, after lifting him onto his shoulders, went in to the elder.

[...and that which follows in the text, beginning with the description of the boy's revival...]

you should not record, since they are known to all and ought to be known. One thing I cannot pass over, which George Elmacinus records in his *History of the Saracens* (p. 177), which occurred around the Christian year 834. When Mark held the patriarchate of the Jacobites in Alexandria, there was a certain prefect named Macara, from Nabrubo, who asked the patriarch to enter his house and eat his bread. Now, he had at that time just fathered a son. The patriarch complied with his request. But after a few days, the son of the prefect Macara died; the prefect, carrying him in his hands, brought him to the patriarch—the father. And he [the patriarch] received him, placed him in his bosom, prayed over him, and wept. And when the boy had come back to life, he gave him to his father, saying, "Receive your son alive again." And he fell to the ground in great fear, and distributed a third of his wealth to the poor, and sent to Jerusalem, and built there a temple intended for the Egyptians who resorted thither.

^A And he laid aside his burden, and greeted the boy as he was wont to do; and sitting with his eyes fixed upon him, he spoke a few words, and having listened, he departed again, leaving the child as he was, like the first fruits of the grapes. The sun ^B set, and the old man, having prayed, was about to take hold of the fruits; but moving the leaves, he found not grapes, but the dead boy. The old man marveled at how great was the hope the Father had placed in him. And having lifted his mind toward the Divine, and prostrated himself over the child, he did not rise until the little boy had risen; thus he sends him back to the one who brought him forth. But he himself departs into exile, so that the people, struck with wonder, might not molest him further. This deed accords with the word. And he would not have accomplished so much, had he accepted a false opinion. But having learned the word from God, he brings the word into action with the help of God. This is the greatest form of proof, to do that which one promises to be possible.

THEOPH. This is marvelous indeed, but for one who has witnessed the fact, it is neither easy nor right not to believe.

AXITH. I have something else to tell you, but listen, for I myself have seen it. A disciple of an excellent man was not bad, but although he possessed the beauty of the soul, he was deprived of his ^C eyes. Since the teacher was about to pass from this life, the blind man, standing by, begged him to provide him with help for the recovery of his sight. But he said: "If my belief is true, may God be gracious, on the seventh day, when this darkness of yours has dissolved, you shall surely see this sun." Having said this much, the old man breathed his last. And it did not turn out otherwise for him; for on the seventh day that blind man, who until then had been led by the hand, suddenly marveled at the ray of the sun; and having taken up the books, and read them in public, he struck the beholder with amazement, and persuades the contentious listener that the soul is immortal, and that, having departed with good nourishment and instruction, it raises up the dead body.

THEOPH. You are a happy man, and I rejoice with you in your discourse and in your vision. ^D

AXITH. And these things indeed have happened among us; but many such things will occur, as they have happened in the past and are still happening. But what happened yesterday, and even a little while ago, I believe you yourself have seen. ^A

THEOPHR. What do you mean?

AXITH. That great Libya is oppressed by a harsh tyranny. And since tyranny admits neither humanity nor kindness, nor any sound and true judgment about things, the tyrant considers the piety of his subjects a crime, and commands them to abjure that most excellent and good dogma; and because they will not obey, he cuts out the God-beloved tongue, ^B committing a crime. Just like the Tereus of the myth, who, thinking to forestall the accusation of the ravished maiden, cut out her tongue. But the maiden weaves the drama into her robe, and interprets it by her art; for nature no longer provided a way for her to speak. But those of whom we are speaking, having no need of robes or art, call upon the Creator of nature herself; and He grants them a newer nature on the third day, not by giving them another tongue, ^C but by enabling them to speak even more clearly than before without a tongue. ^D I was convinced... [The text here continues to discuss the persecution of the Christians in Libya by Huneric, the king of the Vandals, who, regarding piety as a crime, caused the tongues of many to be cut out. The manuscript notes that Marcellinus comes and Procopius testify to having seen these confessors in Byzantium, and that this same miracle has occurred in other instances, such as that of the Roman martyr Romanus, as recounted by Prudentius.]

^A It is impossible for a flute-player to demonstrate his art without flutes, or for a cithara-player to perform music without a cithara. But now this strange sight compels me to repent, and to believe that nothing visible is fixed and unchangeable, if God wills to move it from its place. I have seen these men, and I have heard them speaking, and while I marveled at the articulation of their voice, I looked for the instrument of that voice. Not trusting my ears, I committed the task of judgment to my eyes; and as they opened their mouths, I saw that the tongue had been rooted out in its entirety. And I was struck with amazement, not at how they had composed their words, but at how they had survived. Let this also dissolve the disbelief of the incredulous, if bodies that have fallen are raised up. For there, the resurrection of bodies is from things that exist; but here, the harmony of the voice is from things that do not exist, if they see these things. Who is so dull that he would not follow those who have knowledge of this?

THEOPH. For how could it be otherwise, my friend? But tell me, from whence did those wise men learn to persuade through deeds what they teach in words?

AXITH. God, O noble man, God, remaining what He was, became man out of love for our kind, and He inspired the wisdom of the word and the power of the deed in those who were apt to receive it. ^B And He Himself, first, as God, raised His own body to immortality, and promises this gift as common to all. But to charge a wise man with lying—let alone God Himself—is not right. Indeed, whoever obeys the laws of God becomes, as it were, an immortal god and is no longer mortal. Thus, having partaken of immortality, he acts in the same way as the intellectual substances; and he already stands with dignity before the great King, and faithfully follows Him everywhere. ^C

THEOPH. I am persuaded. For I already perceive a sense of the divine grace. Therefore, farewell to the Academy; let us go to Him instead. For even Plato himself bids one to believe in Plato only until someone wiser than him appears. And there is no one wiser than God.

^D

^A AXITH. Now that we have come thus far, let us offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God: not a hecatomb as among the Athenians to Minerva, nor an ant, as at the Isthmus to the Sun and Neptune; but with a purged mind, that we may become like unto God. For it is deemed impious for the impure to touch that which is pure. O King, and Father, and Creator of all things, O first Wisdom of the Father and Word, by whom He produced all things. ^B (For by what other means than Wisdom and Word does God create all things?) O Holy Spirit, by whom God breathes into all things, holds them together and preserves them, and leads them to their perfection: O divine Trinity and holy unity, grant us the remembrance of that supernal beauty, grant eternity to all. But now we have prayed enough. Therefore, let us go hence.

^A If we only assert this much, yet it is likely that what we have said, both now and even more upon reflection, must be put to the test; let it be declared. ^B Nor the son, as Creon did Menoeceus, nor the child, as Leos did Praxithea, nor altogether a human being, as in Arcadia to Cronus. Our discourse is complete; it is now time, having turned our mind toward prayer, to hymn the Maker and Creator of this whole universe. AXITH. But since we have been persuaded, let us offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to God; not a hecatomb as among the Athenians to Athena, nor an ant, as at the Isthmus to Helios and Poseidon; but cleansing the mind, that we may be likened unto God Himself. For it is not considered lawful for the impure to touch ^C the pure. O King, and Father, and Creator of all! O first Wisdom of the Father and Word, through whom all things were brought forth. (For by what does God create if not by Wisdom and Word?) O Holy Spirit, through whom God, breathing into all things, sustains and preserves them, and leads them to perfection; O divine Trinity, and holy Monad, grant us the remembrance of the beauty above, and grant immortality ^D to all. We have prayed sufficiently. But let us go.

ZACHARIAS BISHOP OF MITYLENE

NOTITIA

(GALLAND., *Veterum Patrum Biblioth.*, t. XI, Pr. p. X.)

Zacharias, having first been imbued with the liberal arts in Alexandria, later emerged from the schools of rhetoric and cultivated jurisprudence; and, betaking himself to the forum, he practiced as an advocate in Berytus, thereby obtaining the epithet *Scholasticus*: for by that name were those who acted as counsel in the forum classified, as we understand, having long ago been observed by Valesius after others. Subsequently, indeed, the fame of his learning spread more widely, and he was appointed to govern the Church of Mitylene. He flourished around the year of Christ 530. For in the year 536 he was present at the Constantinopolitan council, celebrated under Mennas against Anthimus, Severus, and other leaders of the Acephali; in whose Acts his mention frequently occurs, and he is everywhere signalized by the title of metropolitan, *Zachariou tēs Mitylenaiōn mētropoleōs* (Zacharias, of the metropolis of Mitylene). Whence I am truly surprised that the celebrated Lequien considered the term *mētropoleōs* suspect in those same Acts, as it is repeated often; especially since Mitylene is held to be the greatest city of the most illustrious island of Lesbos. What is more, in the most ancient *Notitia* of Greek bishoprics, from Leo the Wise to Andronicus Palaeologus, submitted by Georgius Codinus to Goarus, in the province of the island of Lesbos, the prelate of Mitylene is called metropolitan 47: *eparkhias nēsou Lesbou ho Mitylēnēs 47*. And further below, in the Order of precedence of metropolitans, where the see of Mitylene is enumerated as the forty-ninth throne, six bishoprics are subjected to that same metropolitan see. But, these matters being set aside, we do not have it clearly established in what year our prelate of Mitylene finally departed from the living. He certainly drew his last breath around the middle of the sixth century. For we know that at the fifth ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in the year 553, Johannes, bishop of Cucusus, was present as the delegate of Palladius, the metropolitan of Mitylene, who surely should not have been overlooked by Lequien among the prelates of the Church of Mitylene, but should have been placed before Gregorius I, whom we know to have sat among the Fathers of the Constantinopolitan council, the sixth general one, celebrated in the year 680. Furthermore, from those things which we have just said concerning Palladius, Miraeus, Oudin, Tillemont, and others must be corrected, as Fabricius long ago warned; who relate that Zacharias, with whom we are dealing, attended that same Constantinopolitan council, the fifth general one, in the year 553.