(84) Timaeus: and withdraws from the bones; while the flesh falls away with it from the roots and leaves the sinews bare and full of saline matter, and by falling back itself into the stream of the blood it augments the maladies previously described. But although these bodily ailments are severe, still more grave are those which precede them, whenever the bone by reason of the density of the flesh fails to receive sufficient inspiration, and becoming heated because of its moldiness decays and does not admit its nutriment, but, on the contrary, falls back itself,

(6) After his soul has departed he dies, and when it has gone down he decays; he is all corruption; all his bones are rottenness, putrefaction seizes his limbs and makes his bones break down, his flesh becomes a fetid liquid, his breath is stink, he becomes a multitude of worms

(43) For the dead or mortal flesh has encompassed the astral birth, and man's flesh is a dead carcass, while it is yet in the mother's body or womb, and is encompassed with hell and God's wrath.

(76) Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered. Thus it is that firmness and strength are the concomitants of death; softness and weakness, the concomitants of life. Hence he who (relies on) the strength of his forces does not conquer; and a tree which is strong will fill the out-stretched arms, (and thereby invites the feller.) Therefore the place of what is firm and strong is below, and that of what is soft and weak is above.

(19) First, thou hast the bestial flesh, which is come to be so through the lustful longing bite of the apple, for it is the house of corruption. For when Adam was made out of the corrupted Salitter of the earth, that is, out of the seed, or mass, or lump which the Creator extracted out of the corrupted earth, he was not then at first such flesh, else his body had been created mortal, but he had an angelical powerbody, in which he should have subsisted eternally, and should have eaten angelical fruit, which did grow for him in Paradise before his fall, before the LORD cursed the earth.

(51) The flesh is not the life, but is a dead, inanimate being, which, when the government or dominion of the spirit ceaseth to qualify or operate therein, soon becometh a dead carcass, and putrefieth and turneth to dust or ashes.

(74) Timaeus: mixed it in therewith, and thus molded flesh full of sap and soft. And the substance of the sinews He compounded of a mixture of bone and unfermented flesh, forming a single substance blended of both and intermediate in quality, and he used yellow also for its coloring. Hence it is that the sinews have acquired a quality that is firmer and more rigid than flesh, but softer and more elastic than bone. With these, then, God enclosed the bones and marrow, first binding them one to another with the sinews, and then shrouding them all over with flesh.

(84) Timaeus: but whenever the substance which binds the flesh to the bones becomes diseased and no longer separates itself at once from them and from the sinews, so as to provide food for the bone and to serve as a bond between flesh and bone, but becomes rough and saline instead of being oily and smooth and viscid, owing to its being starved by a bad regimen,—then, every such substance, as it undergoes these affections, molders away beneath the flesh and the sinews

(74) Timaeus: And inasmuch as He deemed that the texture of the bony substance was too hard and inflexible, and that if it were fired and cooled again it would decay and speedily destroy the seed within it, for these reasons He contrived the species known as sinew and flesh. He designed to bind all the limbs together by means of the former, which tightens and relaxes itself around the pivots, and thus cause the body to bend and stretch itself. And the flesh He designed to be a shield against the heat and a shelter against the cold; and, moreover, that in case of falls it should yield to the body softly and gently, like padded garments ;

(88) And we are seriously and highly to know (for it is seen in the Light of Life) that the Marrow in the Bones has the noblest and highest Tincture, wherein the Spirit is sweetest, and the Light clearest; which may be known in the Fire, if you be not blind with your Gain- saying; and it is accurately known, that those Places (where the hard Bones now are) were Wonders and Virtue [or Power,] which have broken the Gates of the Darkness, in which [Power] the angelical Man in the Light stood.

(12) But despite its fall, the whole earth cannot satisfy the lust of the flesh; who can do its will? To him who longs for the impossible come guilt and bafflement of desire; but he who is utterly without desire has a happiness that ages not. Then give no room for the lust of the flesh to swell; blessed indeed is the thing that is not imagined for the sake of its pleasant- ness. The body is a motionless thing stirred by something without, and ending in ashes, a loathsome frame of foulness; why do I cling to it? What have I to do with this machine, alive or dead? What distinguishes it from such things as clods of earth? Alas, O thought of self, thou wilt not die! Through complicity with the flesh I win sorrow, all to no purpose; it is no better than a thing of wood, and what should avail its hatred or its kindness? It feels no love when I guard it, no hate when vultures devour it; then why do I love it? I am angered when it is treated with scorn, delighted when it is honoured; but if it has no knowledge, to what end is my toil? My friends, forsooth, are they who wish well to this body; but all men wish well to their own flesh, and why are not they also my friends? So I have surrendered my body indifferently for the weal of the world; it is but as an instrument of work that I still bear it, with all its guilt. Enough then of worldly ways! I follow in the path of the Wise, remembering the Discourse upon Heedfulness and putting away sloth. To overcome the power of darkness I concentre my thought, drawing the spirit away from vain paths and fixing it straightly upon its stay.

(84) And so instead of the paradisical Joy and Refreshment, there has been a mere Brimstone-Spirit, which stands in Anguish and Trembling, of Corruption [or Fragility,] which kindles the Tincture of the Blood, wherein Tearing, Stinging, and Tormenting is wrought; and if the Fire in the Brimstone-Spirit be too much kindled, then it burns the Tincture up, and the Light of Life goes out, and then the Body falls away to be a dead-Carcase; and if the tart Sourness be kindled too much by the hard Attracting and Holding, then also the Light of Life goes out, and the Body perishes; so also of the Water; if the Tincture kindles itself in the Meekness, then it becomes windy, gross, swelled, wholly dark, also infectious.and corrupt, wherein the Flash of the Life is as a pricking Thorn. And so Man's Life is every where begirt with Enemies, and the poor Soul is always in a close Prison fettered with many Chains, and is continually in Fear that (when the Body shall [die or] break) it may fall into the Kingdom of the Executioner, the Devil.

(121) But seeing the fleshly birth or geniture is not the soul's own proper house, and that it cannot possess it as an inheritance, as the devil does, therefore the fight and the battle lasteth as long as the house of flesh lasteth.

(57) In this world man is always seeking for soft days of ease for the flesh, and after riches, beauty and bravery, and knoweth not that he sitteth therewith in the chamber of death, where the sting of wrath darteth into him.

(31) Thus the noble Life in the Tincture stands in great Danger, and has hourly to expect the [Corruption, or Destruction, Breaking, or] Dissolution; for as soon as the Blood (wherein the Spirit lives) flows out [or passes away,] the Essence [breaks, or] dissolves, and the Tincture flies away like a Glance or Shadow; and then the source [or Springing up] of the Fire is out, and the Body becomes stiff.

(82) Timaeus: the density of the bones, and, as it oozes and drips from the bones, moistens the marrow. Now when each of these substances is produced in this order, health as a rule results; but if in the reverse order, disease. For whenever the flesh is decomposed and sends its decomposed matter back again into the veins, then, uniting with the air, the blood in the veins, which is large in volume and of every variety, is diversified by colors and bitter flavors, as well as by sharp and saline properties, and contains bile and serum and phlegm of every sort. For when all the substances become reversed and corrupted, they begin by destroying the blood itself, and then they themselves cease to supply

(89) But the body, which was first contracted or drawn together out of the sweet water, remaineth dead or mortal, and the sweat [or juice] of the body, which qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth with the astringent and bitter qualities, has the house therein, where it spreadeth itself forth, grows gross, full [fat] and lusty or wanton.

(21) It goes not out at the Mouth like a Bodily Substance; it is raw [or naked] without a Body, and instantly passes (at the Departure of the four Elements) into the Center, into the Gate of the Deep, [in the hidden Eternity;] and that which it is clothed with, that it comprehends, and keeps it: If its Treasure be Voluptuousness, Might, [or Power,] Honour, Riches, Malice, Wrath, Lying, or the Falshood of the World, then the fierce Might of the Essences out of the first Principle comprehends these Things, through the syderial Spirit, and keeps them, and works therewith according to the Region of the Stars; yet the [starry Region] cannot bring the Spirit of the Soul into its own Form, but it practises its juggling therewith, and so there is no Rest in its Worm, and its Worm of the Soul hangs to its Treasure; as Christ said, Where thy Treasure is, there is thy Heart also.

(10) But the body of this great house, which lies hid under the shell or rind of darkness, incomprehensibly to the darkness, that body is the house of life, wherein love and wrath wrestle the one with the other.

(72) For this body is but a husk, from which the new body grows— ["The new body grows out of the heavenly substantiality in the Word, out of the flesh and blood of Christ, out of the mystery of the old body."] —as it is with a grain of wheat in the earth. The husk or shell will not rise again, no more than it does in the wheat, but will remain for ever in death and in hell.