Dream of Scipio and Stoic Paradoxes

a prison. What you call life is, in fact, death. Look at your father Paulus coming toward you." When I saw him, I poured forth a flood of tears. But he, embracing and kissing me, forbade me to weep. And when I had checked my tears and could speak, I said, "I beseech you, most holy and excellent father, since this is life, as I hear Africanus say, why do I linger on earth? Why do I not hasten to come here to you?" "It is not so," he said, "for unless that God, whose temple is all that you see, has freed you from these guards of the body, you cannot have access here. For men were created under this law: to protect that globe which you see in the middle of this temple, which is called Earth. To them, a soul was given from those eternal fires which you call stars and planets, which, being round spheres animated by divine minds, perform their orbits and circles with marvelous speed. Therefore, Publius, you and all pious men must retain the soul in the custody of the body, nor should you depart from the life of men without the command of Him by whom it was given to us, lest you appear to have fled from the human duty assigned to you. But rather, Scipio, like your grandfather here, and like me who begot you, cultivate justice and piety. These are great in parents and relatives, but greatest toward one’s country. That life is the path to heaven, and to this gathering of those who have lived and, released from the body, inhabit the place you see." There was, however, a circle of most splendid brightness shining among the flames, which you, as you have learned from the Greeks, call the Milky Way. As I contemplated all things from there, everything else seemed magnificent and wonderful. There were stars which we never see from this location, and the magnitudes of all were greater than we ever suspected. The smallest of these was the one furthest from the heavens and closest to the earth, shining with reflected light. The spheres of the stars easily surpassed the size of the earth.
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