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FURTHER ELUCIDATIONS
51 of my infirmity?' And then the judgment was at a stand still. What, then, does the just judge do? Having discerned in what manner the two men yoked together, he sets the lame man on the blind man's back, and examines both of them with scourges, and they cannot deny the facto Each convicts the other, the lame man saying to the blind, *Didst thou not bear me and carry me off ?' And the blind to the lame. 'Didst not thou thyself become eyes 60 me?"
The above is given oerbatim from the Apocryphal Book of Ezekiel (see the Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament, by M. Rhodes James, pp. 64-67). Its explanation is obvious to the thoughiful allegorist, but for the benefit of others it may be given in the words of Epiphanius who was writing against the Origenists (see the work quoted) :-“God cannot separate the soul from the body for the final judgment. For immediately the judgment will be found at a standstill. For if the soul be found all by itself, it would reply when judged, 'The cause of sin is not of me, but of that contemptible and earthly body, in fornication, adultery, lasciviousness. For since it left me I have done none of these things, and it will have a good defence and will paralyse the judgement of God...... The body cannot be judged apart from the soul : for it also could reply, saying.' 'It was not I that sinned, it was the soul : have I, since it departed from me, committed adultery, fornication or worshipped idols ?' and the body will be withstanding the judgment of God, and with reason. On this account therefore...God ...... brings our dead bodies and our souls to a second birth......"
We are not concerned here with the quarrels of Origen and Epiphanius ; but the story gives us a true insight into the nature of both spirit and matter. For pure Spirit is absolutely sinless, and matter is dead and unconscious ; separately from each other, they are incapable of sinning. On page 67 of “ The Lost Apocrypha of The Old Testament," the subject is again referred to in the following striking terms :
"The soul will say, 'I have not sinned; it is the body. Sinc. I como out from it I have been like a pure bird that flies in tho air.' Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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