[1]“Now, my son, we must speak about soul and body and say in what way the soul is immortal and whence comes the energy that composes and dissolves the body. Death actually has nothing to do with this. Death is a notion that arises from the term ‘immortal’: either it is an empty usage, or, through the loss of the first syllable, ‘immortal’ is taken to mean ‘mortal.’ Death has to do with destruction, yet none of the things in the cosmos is destroyed. If the cosmos is a second god and an immortal living thing, it is impossible for any part of this immortal living thing to die. All things in the cosmos are parts of the cosmos, but especially mankind, the living thing that reasons.”

[2]“God is in reality the first of all entities, eternal, unbegotten, craftsman of the whole of existence. But by his agency a second god came to be in his image, and by him this second god is sustained, nurtured and immortalized, as from an eternal father, everliving because he is immortal. In fact, the everliving differs from the eternal. God did not come to be by another's agency, and, if he came to be, it was by his own agency. He never came to be, 〈however〉; he comes to be always. {This is the eternal being through whom the universe is eternal,} the father who is eternal because he exists through himself.[…]