The soul is not then sent down from heaven to what is worse. For God works all things up to what is better. But the soul which has chosen the best life--the life that is from God and righteousness--exchanges earth for heaven. With reason therefore, Job, who had attained to knowledge, said, “Now I know that Thou canst do all things; and nothing is impossible to Thee. For who tells me of what I know not, great and wonderful things with which I was unacquainted? And I felt myself vile, considering myself to be earth and ashes.”[683] For he who, being in a state of ignorance, is sinful, “is earth and ashes;” while he who is in a state of knowledge, being assimilated as far as possible to God, is already spiritual, and so elect. And that Scripture calls the senseless and disobedient “earth,” will be made clear by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, in reference to Joachim and his brethren, “Earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord; Write this man, as man excommunicated.”[684] And another prophet says again, “Hear, O heaven; and give ear, O earth,”[685] calling understanding “ear,” and the soul of the Gnostic, that of the man who has applied himself to the contemplation of heaven and divine things, and in this way has become an Israelite, “heaven.” For again he calls him who has made ignorance and hardness of heart his choice, “earth.” And the expression “give ear” he derives from the “organs of hearing,” “the ears,” attributing carnal things to those who cleave to the things of sense. Such are they of whom Micah the prophet says, “Hear the word of the Lord, ye peoples who dwell with pangs.”[686] And Abraham said, “By no means. The Lord is He who judgeth the earth;”[687] “since he that believeth not, is,” according to the utterance of the Saviour, “condemned already.”[688] And there is written in the Kings[689] the judgment and sentence of the Lord, which stands thus: “The Lord hears the righteous, but the wicked He saveth not, because they do not desire to know God.” For the Almighty will not accomplish what is absurd. What do the heresies say to this utterance, seeing Scripture proclaims the Almighty God to be good, and not the author of evil and wrong, if indeed ignorance arises from one not knowing? But God does nothing absurd. “For this God,” it is said, “is our God, and there is none to save besides Him.”[690] “For there is no unrighteousness with God,”[691] according to the apostle. And clearly yet the prophet teaches the will of God, and the gnostic proficiency, in these words: “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, and walk in all His ways, and love Him, and serve Him alone?”[692] He asks of thee, who hast the power of choosing salvation. What is it, then, that the Pythagoreans mean when they bid us “pray with the voice?” As seems to me, not that they thought the Divinity could not hear those who speak silently, but because they wished prayers to be right, which no one would be ashamed