sacred concerns! some indeed becoming insane on the very spot; others proclaiming their impious deeds, but others not proclaiming them before they perished; some destroying themselves, and others becoming a prey to incurable diseases. And sometimes a dreadful voice issuing from the adyta has destroyed them*. "In the next place, is it not absurd that you should desire and hope for the resurrection of the body, as if nothing was more excellent or more honourable to us than this; and yet again, that you should hurl this same body into punishments, as a thing of a vile nature? To men, however, who are persuaded that this is true, and who are conglutinated to body, it is not worth while to speak of things of this kind. For these are men who in other respects are rustic and impure, without reason, and labouring under the disease of sedition. Indeed, those who hope that the soul or intellect will exist eternally, whether they are willing to call it pneumatic**, or an intellectual spirit holy and blessed, or a living soul, or the supercelestial and * See the scientific theory of Oracles unfolded in the Notes to Taylor's translation of Pausanias, vol. iii. p. 259. ** This is said conformably to the opinion of the Stoics. {39} incorruptible progeny of a divine and incorporeal nature*, or whatever other appellation they may think fit to give it; those who thus hope, (but I say this in accordance with Divinity,) in this respect think rightly, that those who have lived well in this life will be blessed, but that those who have been entirely unjust, will be involved in endless evils. And neither the Christians nor any other man were ever hostile to this dogma. "Since men are bound to body, whether they are so for the sake of the dispensation of the whole of things, or in order that they may suffer the punishment of their offences, or in consequence of the soul through certain passions becoming heavy and tending downwards, till through certain orderly periods it becomes purified;--for according to Empedocles, it is necessary that 'From the blest wandering thrice ten thousand times, Through various mortal forms the soul should pass.'-- * This is asserted in accordance with the doctrine of the Platonists. ** This 30,000 times must not be considered mathematically; since it symbolically indicates a certain appropriate measure of perfection. For in units S is a perfect number, as having a beginning, middle, and end. And again, 10 is perfect, because it comprehends all numbers in itself. These numbers, however, were call-... {40} This being the case, it is requisite to believe that men are committed to the care of certain inspective guardians of this prison the body.