“The Orphic poets
were under the impression that the soul is suffering the punishment of
sin, and that the body is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is
incarcerated and kept (σώζεται) as the name
σῶμα implies,
until the penalty is paid.” Plato, Cratyl.
400. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. III. iii. 17), after
referring to this passage of Plato, quotes Philolaus the Pythagorean,
as saying: “The ancient theologians and soothsayers also
testify that the soul has been chained to the body for a kind of
punishment, and is buried in it as in a tomb.“