Miscellanies 4.12.83

Then, going on, he speaks even about the Lord plainly as about a man: “If, however, leaving all these arguments, you come to shame me by pointing to certain persons, saying, for instance, ‘So-and-so, then, sinned, for so-and-so suffered,’ I will say, if you allow me, that he did not sin, but was like the suffering infant; but if you press the argument more forcefully, I will say that whatever man you name is a man, but God is righteous. For no one is pure from filth,” as someone said. But Basilides' hypothesis says that the soul, having sinned beforehand in another life, undergoes punishment here: the elect honorably through martyrdom, the other purified by an appropriate punishment. And how is this true, when confessing and being punished, or not, rests with us? For in the case of one who will deny, Basilides' providence is undone.