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The recurring quotation of Wisdom 9,15 : « For a perishable body weighs down the soul and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind ». Indeed, in his first works, Augustine quotes Wisdom 9,15 in support of his claim that the body is an obstacle to the contemplation of truth. But in his later works he draws upon Wisdom 9,15 to argue against the Platonists that the body is not the prison of the soul and that the burden of the body must not be assigned to the body itself but to its corruptibility : therefore, there is no need to « escape » all bodies as Porphyry compells us to. Confronted with Julian of Eclane, quoting Wisdom 9,15 he emphasizes that the pained condition of man is not at the root of his primitive nature, but results from the pain of the sin that has corrupted nature.