Dialogue with Trypho

"It doesn't seem so."

"Nor should it be called immortal, for if it is immortal, it is clearly unbegotten."

"It is both unbegotten and immortal, according to some who are called Platonists."

"Do you say that the world is also not created?"

"Some say that. I do not, however, agree with them."

"You are right; what reason is there to suppose that a body so solid, resistant, composite, changeable, decaying, and renewed daily has not been created by some cause? But if the world is created, then souls must also be created; and perhaps at one time they did not exist, for they were made for the sake of humans and other living creatures, if you claim they have been created entirely separately and not alongside their respective bodies."

"This seems to be correct."

"‘So, they are not immortal?’"

"No; since the world has appeared to us to be created."

"I do not say that all souls die, for that would be good fortune for the evil. What then? The souls of the pious remain in a better place, while those of the unjust and wicked are in a worse one, waiting for the time of judgment. So, some who have appeared worthy of God never die, but others are punished as long as God wills them to exist and be punished."

"Is what you're saying similar to what Plato suggests in Timaeus about the world, when he says that, because it was created, it is indeed subject to decay, but it will neither dissolve nor face death due to the will of God? Do you think the same can be said of the soul and, generally, of all things? For the things that exist after God, or will exist at any time, have the nature of decay and can be destroyed and cease to exist; for God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and therefore He is God, while all other things after Him are created and corruptible.

For this reason, souls die and are punished: if they were unbegotten, they wouldn't sin, be foolish, or cowardly, and again ferocious; nor would they willingly transform into swine, serpents, and dogs; and it wouldn't be just to force them if they were unbegotten. For what is unbegotten is similar to, equal to, and the same as that which is unbegotten; neither in power nor in honor should one be preferred over the other, and hence there aren't many things that are unbegotten: if there were differences between them, you wouldn't find the reason for the difference, even if you searched for it; but after letting the mind wander to infinity, you would eventually, exhausted, settle on one Unbegotten, and say that this is the Cause of all.

Did such things escape the notice of Plato and Pythagoras, those wise men," I asked, "who have been a wall and fortress of philosophy for us?"