As to thy question, doth every soul without exception achieve life
everlasting? Know thou that immortality belongeth to those souls in whom
hath been breathed the spirit of life from God. All save these are
lifeless--they are the dead, even as Christ hath explained in the Gospel
text. He whose eyes the Lord hath opened will see the souls of men in the
stations they will occupy after their release from the body. He will find
the living ones thriving within the precincts of their Lord, and the dead
sunk down in the lowest abyss of perdition.
Know thou that every soul is fashioned after the nature of God, each being
pure and holy at his birth. Afterwards, however, the individuals will vary
according to what they acquire of virtues or vices in this world. Although
all existent beings are in their very nature created in ranks or degrees,
for capacities are various, nevertheless every individual is born holy and
pure, and only thereafter may he become defiled.
And further, although the degrees of being are various, yet all are good.
Observe the human body, its limbs, its members, the eye, the ear, the
organs of smell, of taste, the hands, the fingernails. Notwithstanding the
differences among all these parts, each one within the limitations of its
own being participateth in a coherent whole. If one of them faileth it
must be healed, and should no remedy avail, that part must be removed.