What greater punishment than impiety itself? — the soul's cry, and the beast-error refuted
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Tat — Πῶς οὖν κολάζεται, ὦ πάτερ, ἀνθρωπίνη ψυχή;
Hermes — Καὶ τίς ἐστι μείζων κόλασις ἀνθρωπίνης ψυχῆς, ὦ τέκνον, ἢ ἀσέβεια; ποῖον πῦρ τοσαύτην φλόγα ἔχει ὅσην ἡ ἀσέβεια; ποῖον δὲ δακετὸν θηρίον, ὥστε λυμᾶναι σῶμα, ὅσον αὐτὴν τὴν ψυχὴν ἡ ἀσέβεια; ἢ οὐχ ὁρᾷς ὅσα κακὰ πάσχει ψυχὴ ἀσεβής, βοώσης αὐτῆς καὶ κεκραγυίας, «καίομαι, φλέγομαι· τί εἴπω, τί ποιήσω, οὐκ οἶδα· διεσθίομαι ἡ κακοδαίμων ὑπὸ τῶν κατεχόντων με κακῶν· οὔτε βλέπω οὔτε ἀκούω»; αὗται αἱ φωναὶ οὐ κολαζομένης εἰσὶ ψυχῆς; ἢ ὡς οἱ πολλοὶ δοκοῦσι, καὶ σὺ δοξάζεις, ὦ τέκνον, ὅτι ψυχὴ ἐξελθοῦσα τοῦ σώματος θηριάζεται, ὅπερ ἐστὶ πλάνη μεγίστη;
— How then is the human soul punished, O father? — And what greater punishment of a human soul is there, O child, than impiety? What fire has so great a flame as impiety? And what biting beast so mauls the body as impiety the very soul? Or do you not see how many evils an impious soul suffers, itself crying out and shrieking, 'I burn, I blaze; what shall I say, what shall I do, I do not know; I am devoured, wretched one, by the evils that hold me; I neither see nor hear'? Are these not the voices of a punished soul? Or, as the many suppose, and you imagine, O child, that a soul gone out of the body becomes a beast — which is the greatest error?
Tat: how then is the human soul punished, father? Hermes: and what greater punishment of a human soul is there, child, than impiety? What fire has so great a flame as impiety? What biting beast so mauls the body as impiety the very soul? Do you not see how many evils an impious soul suffers, crying out and shrieking, 'I burn, I blaze; what shall I say, what shall I do, I do not know; I am devoured, wretched one, by the evils that hold me; I neither see nor hear'? Are these not the voices of a punished soul? Or, as the many suppose, and you imagine, child, that a soul gone out of the body becomes a beast — which is the greatest error?
Tat asks the natural question — how is the soul punished? — and Hermes refuses the whole apparatus of external torment with a counter-question: 'what greater punishment (μείζων κόλασις)… than impiety?' Vice is its own hell. The two similes drive it home, both turning the imagery of bodily torture inward: 'what fire has so great a flame as impiety (ποῖον πῦρ τοσαύτην φλόγα ἔχει ὅσην ἡ ἀσέβεια)?' and 'what biting beast (δακετὸν θηρίον) mauls the body as impiety mauls the very soul?' Fire and venomous beast — the standard furniture of punishment — are named only to say the soul's self-inflicted state is worse than either.
Then the treatise does something rare in ancient philosophy: it lets the suffering soul speak, in the first person, a small aria of despair. 'I burn, I blaze (καίομαι, φλέγομαι); what shall I say, what shall I do, I do not know; I am devoured (διεσθίομαι), wretched, by the evils that hold me; I neither see nor hear.' It is close to the language of the Psalms of lament and anticipates the confessions of later mystics — vice experienced from inside as fire, blindness, and being eaten alive. And note the last clause: 'I neither see nor hear' — the exact loss CH VII diagnosed, the deadened senses, now felt as agony. Finally Hermes turns to correct Tat directly, and 'the many': the belief 'that a soul gone out of the body becomes a beast (θηριάζεται)' is 'the greatest error (πλάνη μεγίστη).' The punishment is real but interior; the popular picture of literal bestial rebirth is a category mistake. Hell is a condition of the soul, not a menagerie.
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