Two Heresies Set Side by Side

I wonder that you, with your consummate wisdom, have not understood my method of explanation. When I say, “But not in such a way that, as another heresy holds, all are placed in one rank, that is, all become angels by a process of reform,” I show clearly that the things I put forward for discussion are heretical, and that one heresy differs from the other. Which, you ask, are the two heresies? The one says that all rational creatures will become angels by a process of reform. The other asserts that in the restoration of the world each thing will become what it was originally created: for instance, that demons will become angels again, and that the souls of men will become such as they were first formed. That is, by the process of reform they will become not angels, but what God originally made them, so that the righteous and sinners will stand on an equal footing. Finally, to show you that it was not my own opinion I was setting out, but two heresies I was comparing with each other, both of which I had found stated in the Greek, I completed my discussion with this ending: “These things, as I have said before, are more obscure in our language because they are put in figurative form in Greek. And in every figure of speech, when a translation is made word for word from one language into another, the budding sense of the word is, as it were, choked with brambles.” If you do not find in the Greek the very thought I have expressed, I give you leave to treat everything I say as my own.