A. All that thou sayest is true. I believe it all.
R. Now I hear that thou trustest the higher lord better. But I would know whether it seem to thee that thy worldly lords have wiser and truer servants than the higher lords have. Trustest thou now thyself and thy companions better than thou dost the Apostles, who were the servants of Christ Himself? Or the Patriarchs? Or the Prophets, through whom God Himself spake to His people what He would?
A. Nay, nay; I trust not ourselves so well, nor anywhere near, as I do them.
R. What spake God then more often, or what said He more truly through His Prophets to His people than about the immortality of souls? Or what spake the Apostles and all the holy Fathers more truly if not about the eternity of souls and about their immortality? Or what meant Christ, when He said in His Gospel: 'The unrighteous shall go into eternal torments, and the righteous into eternal life'? Now thou hearest what said Christ and His Apostles; and I heard before that thou didst doubt nothing of the word of Honorius and his servants. Why doubtest thou, then, about the words of Christ, the Son of God, and those of the Apostles, which they themselves uttered? They spake to us more of such like words than we can count, and with many examples and proofs they explained it to us. Why canst thou, then, not believe them all, and why saidst thou before that thou wert their man?
A. So I say still, and say that I believe them, and also know exactly that it is all true that God either through Himself or through them said; for there are more of these occurrences in the holy books than I can ever count. Therefore I am now ashamed that I ever doubted about it, and I confess that I am rightly convinced, and I shall always be much happier when thou dost convince me of such things than I ever was when I convinced another man. All this I knew, however, before; but I forgot it, as I fear also that I shall this. I know also that I had so clean forgotten it that I should never have remembered it again, if thou hadst not cited me clearer examples, both about my lord and about many parables.
R. I wonder why thou couldst ever suppose that men's souls were not eternal, for thou clearly enough knewest that they are the highest and the most blessed of the creatures of God; and thou knowest also clearly enough that He alloweth no creature entirely to pass away so that it cometh to naught—not even the most unworthy of all. But He beautifieth and adorneth all creatures, and again taketh away their beauty and adornments, and yet again reneweth them. They all so change, however, that they pass away, and suddenly come again and return to that same beauty and to the same winsomeness for the children of men, in which they were before Adam sinned. Now thou canst perceive that no creature so fully passeth away that it cometh not again, nor so fully perisheth that it doth not become something. Now that the weakest creatures do not pass away entirely, why then supposest thou that the most blessed creature should entirely depart?
A. Alas! I am beset with wretched forgetfulness, so that I can not remember it as well as before. Methinks now that thou hadst explained it to me clearly enough by this one example, though thou hadst said nothing more.
R. Seek now in thyself the examples and the signs, and thou canst know well what thou before wouldst know, and what I explained to thee by the concrete examples. Ask thine own mind why it is so desirous and so zealous to know what was formerly, before thou wert born, or ever thy grandfather was born; and ask it also why it knoweth what is now present and what it seeth and heareth every day; or why it wisheth to know what shall be hereafter. Then I suppose it will answer thee, if it is discreet, and say that it desireth to know what was before us for the reason that it always existed since the time that God created the first man; and therefore aspireth to what it formerly was, to know what it formerly knew, although it is now so heavily weighed with the burden of the body that it can not know what it formerly knew. And I suppose that it will say to thee that it knoweth what it here seeth and heareth, because it is here in this world; and I suppose also that it will say that it wisheth to know what shall happen after our days, because it knoweth that it shall ever be.
A. Methinks now that thou hast clearly enough said that every man's soul ever is, and ever shall be, and ever was since God first made the first man.
R. There is no doubt that souls are immortal. Believe thine own reason, and believe Christ, the Son of God, and believe all His sayings, because they are very reliable witnesses; and believe thine own soul, which always saith to thee through its reason that it is in thee; it saith also that it is eternal, because it wisheth eternal things. It is not so foolish a creature as to seek that which it can not find, nor wish for that which doth not belong to it. Give over now thy foolish doubting. Clear enough it is that thou art eternal and shalt ever exist.