Arnobius

“ For if, through being hampered by the body, it does not remember those things which it knew long ago, and before it came into this world, [2] there is more reason that it should forget those things which it has done from time to time since being shut up in the body, than those which it did before entering it, [3] while not yet connected with men. For the same body which [4] deprives of memory the soul which enters it, [5] should cause what is done within itself also to be wholly forgotten ”

“ But if souls, as you call them, are prevented and hindered by their fleshly members from recalling their former knowledge, [6] how do they remember what has been arranged [7] in these very bodies, and know that they are spirits, and have no bodily substance, being exalted by their condition as immortal beings? [8] how do they know what rank they hold in the universe, in what order they have been set apart from other beings? ”