Miscellanies 5.14.138

Whoever wishes, then, having arrived at true learning, let him hear Parmenides of Elea promising: “You will know the nature of the ether, and all the signs in the ether, and the unseen works of the pure, holy torch of the sun, and whence they came to be; and you will learn the wandering works of the round-eyed moon and its nature; and you will know also the heaven that holds them around, whence it sprang, and how Necessity led and bound it to keep the limits of the stars.” And let him hear Metrodorus, who, though he became an Epicurean, said this at least as if inspired: “Remember, Menestratus, that, being born mortal and having received a limited life, you went up in soul as far as eternity and the infinity of things, and saw ‘what will be and what was before.’” Then, with a happy chorus, according to Plato, we shall behold a blessed sight and spectacle, we following with Zeus, others with other gods, being initiated into the most blessed of mysteries, as is right to say, which we celebrate, ourselves whole and untouched by the evils that awaited us in later time, being initiated into and beholding whole and unshaken visions in pure light, pure ourselves and without the mark of this which we now carry about and call the body, bound to it like an oyster to its shell.