But perhaps it will be asked: if it is the mind that prays and sings in the spirit, then does not this very mind receive perfection and salvation, as Peter says: "Attaining at last by your faith the salvation of souls" (1 Peter 1:9). If the soul does not pray and sing with the spirit, then how will it hope for salvation? Or perhaps, having attained bliss, it will no longer be called a soul? But let us see if it will not be possible to answer this question in this way: As the Saviour came to save the lost, and that which was formerly called lost is no longer lost, as soon as it is saved: so perhaps that which is saved is called the soul, but when the soul is saved, it will be called (already) by the name of its most perfect part. It seems to some that it is possible to add the following (explanation).

(From a letter of Jerome to Avitus: "Therefore with infinite caution we must consider whether souls will not cease to be souls when they inherit salvation and attain a blessed life? Since the Lord and Saviour came to seek and save the lost, so that it would cease to be lost, so the soul that perished and for whose salvation the Lord came, having received salvation, may cease to be a soul. The following thought should be discussed in the same way. Just as the lost was not once lost, and there will be a time when it will not be lost: so, perhaps, the soul was not once a soul, and will not the time ever come when it will no longer be a soul?!"

From the letter of Justinian to Menas: "As the Saviour came to save that which was lost, and this lost thing, being saved, is no longer lost: so the soul which He came to save, as something lost, being saved, no longer remains a soul or (something) lost. The following should also be considered. Just as the lost was not once lost and will never be lost, so perhaps the soul was once (yet) not a soul, and there will be a time when it will not be (already) a soul").

The lost existed, without a doubt, even before it perished, when it was something other than the lost one (I do not know what exactly); In the same way, it will exist when it is not lost: in the same way, the soul that is called lost may not have been lost at one time, and therefore was not called a soul, and will someday again be delivered from perdition, and will become what it was before perdition and being called soul. Further, from the very meaning of the name of the soul, which this name has in the Greek language, it is possible to extract an important idea, as it seems at least to some more attentive students. The Word of God calls God fire when it says, "The Lord your God is a consuming fire" (Deuteronomy 4:24). Likewise, of the substance of the angels, it says: "Thou makest by Thy angels spirits, and by Thy servants a flaming fire" (Heb. 1:7), and in another place: "And an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a thorn bush" (Exodus 3:2). In addition, we have received the commandment to burn with the Spirit (Romans 12:11), which undoubtedly indicates the fiery and fervent Word of God. Jeremiah the prophet heard from the One Who gave him the answers: "Behold, My words are in your mouth as fire" (Jeremiah 1:9 Old Ed.). Thus, just as God is fire and the angels are a flame of fire, and as all the saints are aflame in spirit, so, on the contrary, those who have fallen away from the love of God have undoubtedly grown cold in the love of God and have become cold. The Lord, indeed, says that "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold" (Matt. 24:12). And everything that is compared in the Holy Scriptures with an opposing power is always called cold, as is the devil himself, whom, of course, nothing can be found colder. In the sea, says the Scriptures, the dragon reigns; indeed, the prophet remarks that there is a serpent and a dragon in the sea, and this certainly refers to some evil spirit (Ezek. 32). And in another place the prophet says: "The Lord will smite with His heavy sword the leviathan, the serpent that runs straight, and the leviathan, the serpent that bends, and will kill the monster of the sea" (Exodus 27:1). And he also says: "Though they hide themselves from my eyes at the bottom of the sea, and there I will command the sea serpent to bite them" (Amos 9:3). In the book of Job, the dragon is called the king of all that is in the water (Job 41:25). From Boreas, as the prophet proclaims, calamities proceed upon all that dwell on the earth (Jeremiah 1:14). In the Holy Scriptures, the cold wind is called Boreas, as it is written in the Most Wise One: "The wind of the north is cold" (Sir. 43:22). The same, no doubt, must be thought of the devil. If, therefore, the holy is called fire, light, and flame, the opposite is called cold, and it is said that love grows cold in many; then it may be asked, why is the soul called by the name of the soul, which in Greek is denoted by the word psyche? Is it not because she has grown cold from a divine and better state? Is it not because this name is transferred to it, that it seems to have cooled from that natural and divine warmth, and consequently found itself in its present state and with that name? Finally, you will hardly find that in the Holy Scriptures the name of the soul is used in a laudatory sense; in a reprehensible sense, it is often found here, for example: "The soul of evil will destroy him that has acquired it" (Sir. 6:4), and "the soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:4). After the words: "All souls are Mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son" (ibid.), it would seem that it would be necessary to say: "The soul that does righteousness will itself be saved; but the soul that sins will die of its own accord." But we see that He united with the soul that which is worthy of punishment; and what is worthy of praise – he kept silent about it. Therefore it is necessary to consider whether the soul (psyche), i.e., the soul, is not called because it is cooled to the zeal of the righteous and to participation in the divine fire, as is clear, we have said, from the name itself; And, however, it did not lose the ability to recover to the state of hotness in which it was at first. That is why the prophet apparently indicates something similar when he says: "Return, O my soul, to thy rest" (Psalm 114:7). All this seems to show that the mind, which has deviated from its state and dignity, has become and is called the soul; and that the soul, in case of restoration and correction, will again become mind.

(From Justinian's letter to Menas: "The present soul has come into being as a result of falling away and cooling to the spiritual life, but it can return to what it was in the beginning. This, I think, is expressed in the words of the prophet: "Return, O my soul, to thy rest" (Psalm 114:7), in order to become fully intellect. In this way, the mind has become a soul, and the soul, having been corrected, becomes the mind."

From Jerome's letter to Avitus: "The mind, as a result of the fall, has become a soul, and, conversely, the soul, having learned the virtues, will become the mind. We can find confirmation of this if we examine the soul of Esau: for his former sins he was condemned to a worse life. And of the heavenly bodies, it must be supposed that the soul (or whatever we may call it) of the sun did not begin at the time when the world was created, but before it entered into this luminous and burning body. In the same way we must think of the moon and the stars, that they were compelled to submit to vanity for previous faults: for the reward of the future, to submit not voluntarily, not of their own free will, but according to the will of Him who showed them their offices").