(2) Now, amongst the profane, some illogically think to go to a non-existence; others that the bodily blending with their proper souls will be severed once for all, as unsuitable to them in a Divine life and blessed lots, not considering nor being sufficiently instructed in Divine science, that our most Godlike life in Christ has already begun. But others assign to souls union with other bodies, committing, as I think, this injustice to them, that, after (bodies) have laboured together with the godly souls, and have reached the goal of their most Divine course, they relentlessly deprive them of their righteous retributions. And others (I do not know how they have strayed to conceptions of such earthly tendency) say, that the most holy and blessed repose promised to the devout is similar to our life in this world, and unlawfully reject, for those who are equal to the Angels, nourishments appropriate to another kind of life. None of the most religious men, however, will ever fall into such errors as these; but, knowing that their whole selves will receive the Christ-like inheritance, when they have come to the goal of this present life, they see more clearly their road to incorruption already become nearer, and extol the gifts of the Godhead, and are filled with a Divine satisfaction, no longer fearing the fall to a worse condition, but knowing well that they will hold firmly and everlastingly the good things already acquired. Those, however, who are full of blemishes, and unholy stains, even though they have attained to some initiation, yet, of their own accord, have, to their own destruction, rejected this from their mind, and have rashly followed their destructive lusts, to them when they have come to the end of their life here, the Divine regulation of the Oracles will no longer appear as before, a subject of scorn, but, when they have looked with different eyes upon the pleasures of their passions destroyed, and when they have pronounced blessed the holy life from which they thoughtlessly fell away, they are, piteously and against their will, separated from this present life, conducted to no holy hope, by reason of their shameful life.

(38) Now, wherever a man hath been made a partaker of the divine nature, in him is fulfilled the best and noblest life, and the worthiest in God’s eyes, that hath been or can be. And of that eternal love which loveth Goodness as Goodness and for the sake of Goodness, a true, noble, Christ-like life is so greatly beloved, that it will never be forsaken or cast off. Where a man hath tasted this life, it is impossible for him ever to part with it, were he to live until the Judgment Day. And though he must die a thousand deaths, and though all the sufferings that ever befell all creatures could be heaped upon him, he would rather undergo them all, than fall away from this excellent life; and if he could exchange it for an angel’s life, he would not. This is our answer to the question, “If a man, by putting on Christ’s life, can get nothing more than he hath already, and serve no end, what good will it do him?” This life is not chosen in order to serve any end, or to get anything by it, but for love of its nobleness, and because God loveth and esteemeth it so greatly. And whoever saith that he hath had enough of it, and may now lay it aside, hath never tasted nor known it; for he who hath truly felt or tasted it, can never give it up again. And he who hath put on the life of Christ with the intent to win or deserve ought thereby, hath taken it up as an hireling and not for love, and is altogether without it.

(18) Of a truth we ought to know and believe that there is no life so noble and good and well pleasing to God, as the life of Christ, and yet it is to nature and selfishness the bitterest life. A life of carelessness and freedom is to nature and the Self and the Me, the sweetest and pleasantest life, but it is not the best; and in some men may become the worst. But though Christ’s life be the most bitter of all, yet it is to be preferred above all. Hereby shall ye mark this: There is an inward sight which hath power to perceive the One true Good, and that it is neither this nor that, but that of which St. Paul saith; “When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”22 By this he meaneth, that the Whole and Perfect excelleth all the fragments, and that all which is in part and imperfect, is as nought compared to the Perfect. Thus likewise all knowledge of the parts is swallowed up when the Whole is known; and where that Good is known, it cannot but be longed for and loved so greatly, that all other love wherewith the man hath loved himself and other things, fadeth away.

(16) Again, when we read of the old man and the new man we must mark what that meaneth. The old man is Adam and disobedience, the Self, the Me, and so forth. But the new man is Christ and true obedience, a giving up and denying oneself of all temporal things, and seeking the honour of God alone in all things. And when dying and perishing and the like are spoken of, it meaneth that the old man should be destroyed, and not seek its own either in spiritual or in natural things. For where this is brought about in a true divine light, there the new man is born again. In like manner, it hath been said that man should die unto himself, that is, to earthly pleasures, consolations, joys, appetites, the I, the Self, and all that is thereof in man, to which he clingeth and on which he is yet leaning with content, and thinketh much of. Whether it be the man himself, or any other creature, whatever it be, it must depart and die, if the man is to be brought aright to another mind, according to the truth. Thereunto doth St. Paul exhort us, saying: “Put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts: . . . and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”17 Now he who liveth to himself after the old man, is called and is truly a child of Adam; and though he may give diligence to the ordering of his life, he is still the child and brother of the Evil Spirit. But he who liveth in humble obedience and in the new man which is Christ, he is, in like manner, the brother of Christ and the child of God. Behold! where the old man dieth and the new man is born, there is that second birth of which Christ saith, “Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”18 Likewise St. Paul saith, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”19 That is to say, all who follow Adam in pride, in lust of the flesh, and in disobedience, are dead in soul, and never will or can be made alive but in Christ.

(2) And It gives chiefly to the self-existing Life to be a life, and to every life, and to the individual life, that each should be conformable to that which nature intended it to be. And to the supercelestial lives It gives the immaterial and godlike, and unchangeable immortality; and the unswerving and undeviating perpetual movement; whilst extending Itself through excess of goodness, even to the life of demons. For, neither has this its being from another cause, but from It life has both its being and its continuance. Further, It bequeaths even to men the angelic life, so far as is possible to compound being, and through an overflowing love towards man turns, and calls us back to Itself, even when we are departing from It; and, what is still more Divine, promises to transfer even our whole selves (I mean souls, and bodies their yoke-fellows), to a perfect life and immortality;--a fact which perhaps seems to Antiquity contrary to nature, but to me, and to thee, and to the truth, both Divine and above nature. But, by "above nature," I understand our visible nature, not the all-powerful nature of the Divine Life. For, to this, as being nature of all the living creatures, and especially the more Divine, no life is against nature, or above nature. So that the contradictory statements of Simon's folly on this matter, let them be far repelled from a Divine assembly, and from thy reverent soul. For this escaped him, as I imagine, whilst thinking to be wise, that the right-thinking man ought not to use the visible reason of the sensible perception, as an ally against the invisible Cause of all; and this must be our reply to him, that his statement is against nature, for to It nothing is contrary.

(20) Now, since the life of Christ is every way most bitter to nature and the Self and the Me (for in the true life of Christ, the Self and the Me and nature must be forsaken and lost, and die altogether), therefore, in each of us, nature hath a horror of it, and thinketh it evil and unjust and a folly, and graspeth after such a life as shall be most comfortable and pleasant to herself, and saith, and believeth also in her blindness, that such a life is the best possible. Now, nothing is so comfortable and pleasant to nature, as a free, careless way of life, therefore she clingeth to that, and taketh enjoyment in herself and her own powers, and looketh only to her own peace and comfort and the like. And this happeneth most of all, where there are high natural gifts of reason, for that soareth upwards in its own light and by its own power, till at last it cometh to think itself the true Eternal Light, and giveth itself out as such, and is thus deceived in itself, and deceiveth other people along with it, who know no better, and also are thereunto inclined.