Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

The Delay of the Deity
cation and punishment, and when the passions are
purged out, the soul recovers entirely its native luster
and uniform color. Until this takes place, paroxysms
of passion break forth, causing relapses and heart=
throbs, in some cases faint and easily recovered from,
in others exceedingly violent. Some of the souls,
after undergoing repeated castigations resume their
natural character and disposition; others again are
carried away into the bodies of animals by the force
and power of ignorance and the innate love of sensual
gratification; for, owing to the weakness of the
reasoning faculty and a disinclination to discursive
thought, one is impelled by its active principle to
procreation, while another, though lacking an instru
ment of sensual gratification, yet longs to satisfy its
desires with worldly pleasures and to attain its ends
by means of the body, for in this place there is only
a kind of imperfect shadow and vision of joys that
can have no reality. When the spirit had thus
spoken, it conducted him (Thespesius) swiftly through
boundless space, as he thought, easily and without
as if on
deviation, borne up by the beams of light
wings, until he came to a wide and deep chasm where
the power that supported him gave way; he saw, too,
that the other souls had a like experience at that
place, for these, crowding together like birds, and
darting downward, flew about the chasm, for they
dared not venture to pass directly across it which
he saw was decorated within like the grottoes of
Bacchus, with shrubbery and plants and with all
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