POEM A NDEES. X. 65 



shall do, I know not. I am eaten up, the unfortunate, by 

 the ills enclosing me ! I neither see nor, the miserable, do 

 I hear ! " These are the voices of the soul being punished, 

 not as the many suppose and thou opinest, Child ! that 

 a soul going forth from the body becomes a wild beast (a), 

 which is a very great error. 1 



21. For the Soul is punished after this manner. 

 But the Mind when it becometh demon, is ordained 

 to acquire a fiery body for the ministries (b) of The 

 God, and entering into the very impious soul chastises it 

 with the scourges of the sins; by which being scourged, 

 the impious soul turns itself to murders, and injuries, 

 and blasphemies, and various violences, and other 

 tilings by which men are wronged; but the Mind enter- 

 ing into the pious Soul guides it to the light of the 

 Knowledge. And the such like Soul never ever experi- 

 ences satiety, hymning and blessing all men, and in 

 words and deeds doing all things well, imitating its own 

 Father. 2 



22. Wherefore, O Child! giving thanks to The God, it 

 behoves to pray to obtain the beautiful Mind. The Soul 

 then passes on to the superior, but to the inferior it is im- 



(a) 0yipiei(Tcti. (6) VTrspqefots. 



1 See ante xix., sec. 4, note. 



Plato in Timceus (42) had also spoken thus : " Those who are domi- 

 nated by bodily passions shall be avenged by justice ; but he that 

 has passed well the proper time, living again, proceeding to the dwell 

 ing of the associate (^vwofiov) star, will lead a happy life ; but failing 

 of these he will in his second birth change into the nature of a woman ; 

 but not ceasing then from the way of evil by which he was debased, 

 he changes into some beastly nature, and shall not cease from labours, 

 until by reason having conquered the great tumult and debasement, 

 and being other, he return to the form of the first and best habitude 



(H*> 



2 Compare Wisdom, iii. 1-10 : " The souls of the righteous are in 

 the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the 

 sight of the unwise they seemed to die. . . Yet is their hope full 

 of immortality. . . . But the ungodly shall be punished accord- 

 ing to their own imaginations, which have neglected the righteous 

 and forsaken the Lord." 



