That is why it behooves you, O soul, to proclaim with all sincerity, without any mockery or hesitation, both silently and aloud: "God sees all things," "I entrust to God," "God will repay," "God will judge among us." Where did you get it from—you're not a Christian, are you? For often, even when you are crowned with the headband of Ceres, with the scarlet cloak of Saturn or the linen robe of Isis, in their temples you tearfully cry out to God the Judge. You stand before Aesculapius, adorn the copper Juno, put on Minerva a helmet with figured images, and you do not invoke any of these gods. In your forum you cry out to another Judge, in your temples you tolerate another God. O testimony of the truth, it turns you into a witness of Christians in the face of the demons themselves!

3. In fact, a follower of Chrysippus mocks us, as if we, while acknowledging the existence of demons, do not prove it, although we alone expel them from their bodies! Why, your spells, soul, say that demons exist and are disgusting! You call a demon a person who is full of impurity, malice, arrogance, or any vice that we attribute to demons, and who is so intolerable that he inevitably arouses hatred. You understand Satan every time you suffer, feel disgusted, or curse. And we consider him to be the messenger of evil, the creator of all error, the perverter of the whole world. From the very beginning he so deceived man that he broke the commandment of God and was therefore put to death, and thereby subjected to this curse the whole race [human] that came from his seed. Then you feel your destroyer, although only Christians and some sect near the Lord know him, but you also recognized him because you hated him.

4. And now, as to the judgment which is most dear to you, because it relates to your own position, we affirm that you remain even after the end of your life in anticipation of the Day of Judgment, when, according to your merits, you will be destined for torment or rest for eternity. In order to experience this, you must, of course, get back your former substance (substantia), matter (materia) and the memory of the same person, for you can feel neither evil nor good without the power of the flesh to feel, and judgment has no meaning unless the one who deserves the sentence of judgment is presented. And although this Christian opinion is much preferable to Pythus-Horus, for it does not resettle you into beasts; although it is fuller than Plato's, for it returns to you the body, your property; although it is more serious than Epicurus, because it protects you from destruction, yet, for its very name, it is considered empty, stupid, and, as they say, a prejudice. But we will not be ashamed if you reinforce this prejudice of ours. For, in the first place, when you think of a departed person, you call him "unfortunate," not because he has been deprived of the blessings of life, of course, but because he has already been judged and punished. In addition, you call the dead "the dead," acknowledging that life is painful and death is beneficial. However, you speak of their peace even when you go out of the gate with food and drink to the graves to offer sacrifices to yourself as soon as possible, or when you come from the graves drunk. And I need your sober opinion. You call the dead miserable when you speak on your own behalf, being far from them. For at a feast where they seem to be present, reclining with you, you cannot lament their fate. You must flatter those who make you live more cheerfully. Do you call him unhappy, then, who feels nothing? But what really happens when you speak evil of him as if he were a feeler, remembering him with some sarcastic attacks? You ask for him heavy earth, and ashes for torment in hell. And to whom you owe your gratitude for your good lot, to the bones and ashes of him you ask for peace and want him to "rest in peace" in hell.

If there is no suffering for you after death, if no feeling remains, if, finally, you yourself are reduced to nothing by leaving the body, why do you deceive yourself when you say that you are able to feel even after death? Moreover, why do you fear death if you have nothing to fear after death, for there is no suffering after death? Of course, one can object: death is to be feared not because it threatens something in the other world, but because it takes away the good of life; but since at the same time you leave the many greater burdens of life, you remove the fear of a worse fate by gaining more. And in general, there is no need to fear the loss of goods, which is compensated for by another good—comfort from burdens. We should not be afraid of that which frees us from all fear. If you are afraid to depart from life, because you consider it to be the highest good, then you should not be afraid of death, because you do not know whether it is evil. And if you are afraid, then you know that she is evil. But you would not consider it evil, and you would not be afraid if you did not know that there is something after death that makes it the evil you fear. Let us not speak of the natural fear of death: no one should fear that which he cannot avoid.

I come to the other part—[namely], the hope of a better thing after death. In fact, almost everyone has an innate desire for posthumous glory. For a long time he will talk about the Curtius and Regulus, or about the Greek men, who are constantly praised for their contempt for death for the sake of posthumous glory. And even today who does not strive to strengthen the memory of himself, preserving his name by literary works, or simply by praising his morals, or by the splendor of his tombs? Why does the soul even today strive for what it desires after death, and so diligently prepare what it will use after leaving the body? Of course, she wouldn't care about the future if she didn't know anything about it. But perhaps you know more about the feeling after death than about the Resurrection that will come someday, because of which we are accused of prejudice. But the soul also preaches about this. For if a man who is long dead is asked as if he were alive, it is not uncommon to say, "He is gone, but he must return."

5. These testimonies of the soul are the truer, the simpler, the simpler, the more accessible, the more accessible, the more known, the more natural, and the more natural, the more divine. I do not think that they can seem absurd or ridiculous to anyone, if he reflects on the greatness of nature, for it is by this that the dignity (auctoritas) of the soul should be judged. As much as you give to your teacher, you will give to your apprentice. Nature is a teacher, the soul is a student. Everything that the first taught and the second learned is communicated by God, and He is the Guide of the teacher herself.

And that the soul can form an idea of the Supreme Teacher can be judged by the soul that is in you. Feel the one who made you able to feel. Know the diviner in prophecies, the interpreter in signs, the seer in events. Is it surprising that the soul given to man by God is capable of prophesying? Is it so surprising that she knows the One from Whom she is given? Even when oppressed by an enemy, it remembers its Creator, His goodness and commandments, its end, and even its enemy. Is it so surprising that it, given from God, proclaims what God has made known to His own?

Who, however, does not regard such manifestations of the soul as the teachings of nature, or as the silent messages of an innate conscience, is more likely to see in them an ordinary and even vicious way of conducting a conversation with the help of common, and moreover, bookish opinions. Undoubtedly, the soul is older than the letter, the word is older than the book, and the feeling is older than the style, and the man himself is older than the philosopher and poet. But is it therefore necessary to think that before the appearance of literature and its dissemination, people were dumb without such speeches? Has no one spoken of God and His goodness, of death, of hell?

Speech, it seems to me, was poor; but it could not exist at all in the absence of that without which even now it cannot become better, more abundant, and more intelligent, if there was not yet that which is now so easy, so familiar, and so near that it is born almost on the lips—that is, there were no writings in the world before, as I think, Mercury was born. And how, I ask, did that which no mind had ever imagined, no tongue spoken, no ear heard, got into these writings and spread into speech? Why, the Divine Scripture, which we and the Jews have, to whose wild olive tree we are grafted, is much older than the pagan writings, most of which are not very ancient, as we have shown in our place to confirm its authenticity. And if the soul borrowed its utterances from the writings, it must be supposed to be undoubtedly from ours, and not from yours, for the ancient writings are more capable of instructing the soul than the later ones, who themselves relied on the support of the former. For even if we admit that the soul has received instruction from your writings, yet this instruction goes back to the original source, and it belongs entirely to us, as well as everything that has been borrowed from our writings and transmitted to others. And since this is the case, it is not very important whether the consciousness of the soul (animae conscientia) is created by God himself or by divine writings. Why, then, do you want, man, that all this should come into stable everyday use from your human writings?

6. Итак, доверяй своим сочинениям, тем более, — как мы разъясняем. — верь божественным, но особенно, — по решению самой души. —верь природе. Выбери из этих сестер истины ту, которую ты почитаешь более верной. Если в своих сочинениях ты сомневаешься, то ни Бог, ни природа не обманут. А чтобы поверить природе и Богу, верь душе, — и тогда окажется, что ты и себе поверишь. Душу ты ценишь в меру того, чем она тебя сделала, ей ты принадлежишь целиком, она для тебя—все, без нее ты не можешь ни жить, ни умереть, ради нее пренебрегаешь и Богом. А раз ты боишься стать христианином, — спроси ее: почему, почитая других, она славит имя Божье? Почему, браня духов, вызывает к демонам? Почему заклинает небо и проклинает землю? Почему служит в одном месте, а защитника ищет себе в другом? Почему судит о мертвых? Почему на устах ее речи христиан, которых она не желает ни слышать, ни видеть? Почему она научила нас этим речам или переняла их у нас? Почему она или учила, или училась?

При такой нескладности жизни складность учения подозрительна. Ты неразумен, если эту складность станешь приписывать только нашему или греческому языку (которые в родстве между собою)—до такой степени, что пренебрежешь всеобщностью природы. Душа сошла с небес не только для латинян или аргивян. Человек одинаков во всех народах, различны лишь имена; душа одна—различны голоса; дух един—различны звуки; у каждого народа свой язык, но материя языка—всеобща.

Повсюду Бог и повсюду благость Божья; повсюду демоны и демонские проклятья, повсюду призывы к Суду Божьему; повсюду смерть и сознание смерти, и повсюду свидетельство этого. Всякая душа по праву своему возглашает то, о чем мы не смеем и пикнуть. Стало быть, всякая душа заслуженно является и виновницей и свидетельницей, — и настолько же виновница заблуждения, насколько свидетельница истины, и в Судный день предстанет перед чертогами Божьими, не имея, что сказать.

Ты проповедовала Бога, но не искала Его, отвращалась от демонов и почитала их, взывала к Суду Божьему и не верила в него, представляла себе муки адовы и не остерегалась их, разумела имя христианское и христианское имя преследовала.

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