TEXT & TRANSLATION

Pamphilus, Apology for Origen 186, 188^[10] 186. Now it seems to me that that assertion according to which it is claimed that souls are transferred from body to body has even reached some who seem to believe in Christ and who [derive that assertion] from certain texts in the Holy Scripture. These people do not understand how the things written ought to be interpreted. For they do not pay heed to how a man becomes either a chicken or a horse or a mule. They thought that the human soul is transmigrated into the bodies of cattle, so that they reckon that at some time it receives the body of a serpent or of a viper, at another time of a horse or of the other animals. It is logical, then, that they should also say that the devil, who is called a lion in the Scripture, uses the body of a lion, or the flesh of a dragon, since he is named a dragon. So shall it be that, according to them, this transmigration of souls reaches even into the nature of demons, so that there could sometimes be a lion or a dragon that has the devil for its soul. 188. But all these additional fabrications are in vain. For it is obvious that the Lord has determined in advance a single punishment for sins, both for the nature of demons as well as for the human race. The Lord himself has indicated this by his own judgment when he says: “Go into the eternal fire which God has prepared for the devil and his angels”^[90]. In that passage he shows that the same kind of punishments has been prepared for human sinners and for the devil and his angels, though in that punishment the measure of punishment may be different. For some are tormented more strongly and gravely owing to the magnitude of their sins, but others are punished more lightly, namely, those whose sins were less grave and less severe.