2 Enoch
23:4-5:
And when I had finished 30 days and 30 nights, Vrevoil said to me, “These
things, whatever I have taught you, whatever you have learned, and whatever we
have written down, you sit down and write—all the souls of men, whatever of
them are not yet born, and their places, prepared for eternity. For all the souls
are prepared for eternity, before the composition of the earth.”
2 Baruch
23:5:
No creature will live again unless the number that has been appointed
is complete. For my spirit creates the living, and the realm of death receives
the dead.
Testament
of Naphtali 2:2:
For just as a potter knows the pot, how much it holds, and brings clay
for it accordingly, so also the Lord forms the body in correspondence to the
spirit, and instill the spirit corresponding to the power of the body.
Philo, On
Dreams 1.135-141:
This air is the abode of incorporeal souls, since it seemed good to
the Creator of the universe to fill all the parts of the world with living
creatures. On this account he prepared the terrestrial animals for the earth,
the aquatic animals for the sea and for the rivers, and the stars for the
heaven; for every one of these bodies is not merely a living animal, but is
also properly described as the very purest and most universal mind extending
through the universe; so that there are living creatures in that other section
of the universe, the air. And if these things are not comprehensible by the
outward senses, what of that? For the soul also is invisible. And yet it is
probable that the air should nourish living animals even more than the land or
the water. Why so? Because it is the air which has given vitality to those
animals which live on the earth and in the water. For the Creator of the
universe formed the air so that it should be the habit of those bodies which
are immoveable, and the nature of those which are moved in an invisible manner,
and the soul of such as are able to exert an impetus and visible sense of their
own. Is it not then absurd that that element, by means of which the other
elements have been filled with vitality, should itself be destitute of living
things? Therefore let no one deprive the most excellent nature of living
creatures of the most excellent of those elements which surround the earth;
that is to say, of the air. For not only is it not alone deserted by all things
besides, but rather, like a populous city, it is full of imperishable and
immortal citizens, souls equal in number to the stars. Now of these souls some
descend upon the earth with a view to being bound up in mortal bodies, those
namely which are most nearly connected with the earth, and which are lovers of
the body. But some soar upwards, being again distinguished according to the
definitions and times which have been appointed by nature. Of these, those
which are influenced by a desire for mortal life, and which have been
familiarised to it, again return to it. But others, condemning the body of
great folly and trifling, have pronounced it a prison and a grave, and, flying
from it as from a house of correction or a tomb, have raised themselves aloft
on light wings towards the aether, and have devoted their whole lives to
sublime speculations. There are others, again, the purest and most excellent of
all, which have received greater and more divine intellects, never by any
chance desiring any earthly thing whatever, but being as it were lieutenants of
the Ruler of the universe, as though they were the eyes and ears of the great
king, beholding and listening to everything. Now philosophers in general are
wont to call these demons, but the sacred scripture calls them angels, using a
name more in accordance with nature. For indeed they do report ('diangelliusi')
the injunctions of the father to his children, and the necessities of the
children to the father.
