77. So also is the nature of the rational faculty, which is in man, (circumstanced), that it is now bound up in a corruptible body, and of its own power acts but feebly. But, should it be freed from the corruption which surrounds it, and receive (as a possession) the locality which is in heaven, and henceforth be sown and planted (as it were) in the society which (is far) beyond it, and be fitted for the clothing of heaven and of the Angels;—of what sort it shall be, when it shall partake of the life that is pure, and shall be freed from a participation in mortality, it is neither becoming in me, nor necessary for me, to say: for this will be obvious to all who can see, from the example (given). For the whole of the wheat (seed) is not subject to corruption : it is only the part that is without which perishes, when it falls to the earth: while that concealed WORD and living power which is within it, lives and remains; and the excellence which is of this is such, that it will give forth vigorous corn-ears. Of plants too, the same is the WORD (invigorating cause), and so it is with every sort of seed. And, Shall man alone be wholly and in every thing subject to corruption, when released by death⁷¹? And, Shall the clothing which is without, at once and together with that WORD which resides within him, cede to corruption? And, as to the knowledge which is incorporeal,—that which partakes in all these powers; that, which on account of its superiority, is likened to God himself;—Shall it not be (considered) even as one of those seeds which fall to the earth? or^: rather greatly (their) superior ? for it is not the beard, nor yet the blade, but those mature and fat corn-ears of his superiority, which he shall give forth. Then, when he shall be taken away

from the corruption which is of the earth, and shall have been delivered as from bonds, and shall not imprudently have bartered the conversation which is in heaven, for that on the earth ; and, when he shall be at the side of God; (then) shall he in truth render as the Angels do, the fruits which are acceptable to God: those (I say), the seed and power of which he possessed from ancient times in a mortal body, and contained as it were in an oven⁷².