"The disembodied spirits of man and beast return as the clouds to renew the young streamlets of infancy....
"When a man dieth or leaveth his body, he wendeth through the gate of oblivion and goeth to God, and when he is born again he cometh from God and in a new body maketh his dwelling; hence is this saying:
"The body to the tomb and the spirit to the womb....
"This doctrine is none other than what God hath taught openly from the very beginning....
"For truly the soul of a man goeth not to the body of a beast, as some say....
"But the soul of the lower beast goeth to the body of the higher, and the soul of the higher beast to the body of the savage, and the soul of the savage to the man....
"And so a man shall be immortal in one body and one garment that neither can fade nor decay.
"Ye who now lament to go out of this body, wept also when ye were born into it...."[221]
"The person of man is only a mask which the soul putteth on for a season; it weareth its proper time and then is cast off, and another is worn in its stead....
"I tell you, of a truth, that the spirits which now have affinity shall be kindred together, although they all meet in new persons and names."[222]