27. So then, if souls lose
all their knowledge on being fettered with the body, they must
experience something of such a nature that it makes them become blindly
forgetful.3579
| 3579
Lit., “put on the blindness of oblivion.” |
For they
cannot, without becoming subject to anything whatever, either lay aside
their
knowledge while they maintain their
natural state, or without
change in themselves pass into a different
state. Nay, we rather
think that what is one,
immortal, simple, in whatever it may be, must
always retain its own
nature, and that it neither should nor could be
subject to anything, if indeed it purposes to
endure and
abide within
the limits of true immortality. For all suffering is a passage
for
death and
destruction, a way leading to the
grave, and bringing an
end of
life which may not be
escaped from; and if
souls are liable to
it, and yield to its influence and
assaults, they indeed have life
given to them only for present use, not as a secured
possession,
3580
| 3580 Cf.
Lucretius, iii. 969, where life is thus spoken of. |
although some
come to other conclusions, and put faith in their own arguments with
regard to so important a matter.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
