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Contrarieties betweene Plato and Porphyry, wherein if eyther should yeeld vnto other, both should find out the truth. CHAP. 27.
PLato and Porphyry held diuers opinions, which if they could haue come to re∣concile, they might perhaps haue prooued Christians. Plato said, That the soule could not bee alwayes without a body: but that the soules of the wisest, at length should returne into bodyes againe. Porphyry sayd, That when the purged soule ascen∣deth to the father, it returnes no more to the infection of this world. Now if Plato had yeelded vnto Porphyry, that the soules returne should bee onely into an humaine body: and Porphyry vnto Plato, that the soule should neuer returne vnto the mi∣series of a corruptible body, if both of them ioyntly had held both these posi∣tions, I thinke it would haue followed, both that the soules should returne into bodies, and also into such bodies as were befitting them for eternall felicity. For Plato saith, The holy soules shall returne to humaine bodyes: and Porphyry saith; The holy soules shall not returne to the euills of this world. Let Porphyry therefore say with Plato, They shall returne vnto bodyes: and Plato with Porphyry, they shall not returne vnto euills: And then they shall-both say; They shall returne vnto such bodyes as shall not molest them with any euills, namely those wherein GOD hath promised that the blessed soules should haue their eternall dwellings. For this I thinke they would both grant vs; that if they confessed a returne of the soules of the iust into im∣mortall bodies, it should bee into those wherein they suffred the miseries of this world, and wherein they serued GOD so faithfully, that they obteined an euer∣lasting deliuery from all future calamities.