Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[ON THE NATURE OF THE SOUL] Let us return, then, to the remaining parts of their argument. They say that at the consummation their Mother will go back within the Pleroma and receive her Bridegroom, the souls having become intellectual spirits, destined to be brides of the spiritual angels; and that the Demiurge — whom they term the animal, or psychic, one — will occupy the place vacated by the Mother; and that the souls of the righteous will find rest in that intermediate region, the dwelling of the psychic. And in claiming that like joins with like — the spiritual drawn toward the spiritual, whereas the material remains among material things — they set out claims that contradict one another. For they no longer maintain that souls enter the intermediate place because they share a like substance, but rather because of how they conducted themselves — asserting that the souls of the righteous move on into that place, while the souls of the impious are left behind in the fire. Now if it were by reason of substance alone that all souls passed into refreshment, given that all are alike in nature insofar as they are souls, then such a belief would be pointless, and the Savior's descent equally pointless. But if it happens by reason of righteousness, then the deciding factor is no longer their being souls at all, but their being righteous. But if souls that were about to perish would not have begun to exist unless they had been righteous, then righteousness is able to save; and why, then, will it not also save bodies, which have likewise shared in righteousness? For if nature and substance save, all souls will be saved; but if righteousness and faith save, why should it not also save the bodies, which along with souls likewise begin to pass into corruption? For such a righteousness will appear either powerless or unjust, if it saves some because of their participation in it, but not others.
For it is clear that the things belonging to righteousness are accomplished in bodies. Therefore either all souls without exception must pass into the middle place, and there will be no judgment at all; or else the bodies too, which have shared in righteousness, will obtain the place of refreshment together with the souls that likewise shared in it -- since righteousness is well able to bring there those who have shared in it. And so a true and firm doctrine of the resurrection of bodies will emerge, which we indeed believe: that God, raising up our mortal bodies that have kept righteousness, will make them incorrupt and immortal, since God is good, and since he is powerful enough to do it, and since, being rich and perfect, he is able to bring it to completion. [Showing that their souls too are said to share in salvation.] But these men say the very opposite on every point: they do not hold that all souls pass into the middle place, but only those of the righteous. For they say that three natures were begotten by the Mother, naturally and according to substance: the first from anguish, weariness, and fear, which is matter; the second from impulse, which is the animal (psychic) nature; and the third, which she brought forth according to the vision of the angels who attend Christ, which is the spiritual nature. If, then, that which was brought forth by vision passes wholly into the Pleroma, since it is spiritual -- while that which belongs to matter remains below, since it is material, and is entirely consumed when the fire within it blazes up -- why then does the animal element not pass wholly into the middle place too, the place to which they also send the Demiurge? What indeed is it that they say remains there? As for bodies, since they have a material substance, they say these are dissolved into matter and burned up by the fire within them; and when the body is corrupted and the soul remains in the middle place, nothing further is left of the human being to enter the Pleroma. For a man's perception, mind, thought, and the intention of the mind, and everything of that kind, are nothing other than the soul itself -- they are simply the motions and operations of the soul, having no substance apart from the soul. What, then, is still left of them to pass into the Pleroma? For they themselves, insofar as they are souls, remain in the middle place; and insofar as they are body, they will be burned up along with the rest of matter.