'Then those philosophers know nothing about these matters; for they cannot even say what the soul really is.' 'It seems not.' 'Nor indeed ought one to call it immortal; for if it is immortal, it is clearly also unbegotten.' 'But it is unbegotten and immortal, according to certain so-called Platonists.' 'Do you also say that the world is unbegotten?' 'There are those who say so, but I do not agree with them.'
'And rightly so. For what reason is there to suppose that a body so solid, possessing resistance and composition, changing and decaying and coming into being each day, has not had its origin from some beginning? But if the world is generated, then of necessity the souls too have come into being and are perhaps somewhere not at all; for they came into being for the sake of men and the other animals—if indeed you will say they came into being separately by themselves and not together with their own bodies.' 'This seems to be correct.' 'Then they are not immortal.' 'No, since the world also appeared to us to be generated.'
'But I do not say that all souls die; for that would truly be a windfall for the wicked. What then? The souls of the pious remain in some better place, while the unjust and wicked are in a worse, awaiting the time of judgment that comes then. Thus those that have shown themselves worthy of God no longer die, while the others are punished, so long as God wills them both to exist and to be punished.'
'Is what you say, then, such as Plato hints at in the Timaeus concerning the world, when he says that it is in itself perishable, inasmuch as it has come into being, yet will not be dissolved nor meet with the lot of death, because of the will of God? Does the same thing seem to you to be said also concerning the soul and, simply, concerning all things? For whatever exists after God, or shall ever exist, these have a perishable nature, and are capable of being annihilated and of being no more; for God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and for this reason He is God, while all the rest after Him are generated and perishable.'
'For this reason souls also die and are punished; since, if they were unbegotten, they would neither sin nor be filled with folly, nor again be cowardly and rash, nor would they ever willingly pass into swine and serpents and dogs; nor indeed is it right that they should be compelled to do so, if they are unbegotten. For that which is unbegotten is like and equal and identical to that which is unbegotten, and neither in power nor in honor could the one be preferred to the other.'
'Hence the unbegotten things are not many; for if there were some difference among them, you would not, on inquiry, find the cause of the difference, but, sending your thought ever onward to infinity, you would at last wearily come to rest upon one unbegotten, and would declare this to be the cause of all.' 'Could it be,' I said, 'that these things escaped Plato and Pythagoras, wise men who became for us, as it were, the wall and bulwark of philosophy?'