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Book I Chapter 49

38.5 · Division and the growth of trees

Those who do not distinguish soul from nature likewise acknowledge that the infinity of souls comes about through division. For each growing tree, when divided, is the same as the whole and appears capable of generating others like itself.¹⁴⁷⁷

38.6 · An unchanging measure

Plato’s followers, positing souls as ungenerated and imperishable, determine that they always remain in the same proportionate measure. Nothing is added to them through generation, nor is anything removed from them by passing into the things that perish. The followers of Plotinus relate this measure to the perfect number as appropriate to it.¹⁴⁷⁸

39.1 · Differences in souls’ descent

⟨In the same work: on differences in the descent of souls.⟩

Plotinus, Porphyry, and Amelius make all souls alike take up residence in bodies from the soul above heaven.¹⁴⁷⁹

39.2 · Different first allotments in the Timaeus

The Timaeus, however, appears to give souls a markedly differentiated first subsistence, presenting the demiurge as sowing them among all the higher kinds, throughout the whole heaven, and into all the elements of the universe.¹⁴⁸⁰

39.3 · Procession and its recipients

Thus the creative sowing of souls will be differentiated according to the divine acts of creation, and souls’ first procession will arise together with it, having with itself what is to receive them: the universal soul, the whole cosmos; the souls of the visible gods, the heavenly spheres; and those of the elements, the elements themselves, with which souls too were jointly allotted in each such assignment. From these allotments the descents of souls occur, different descents from different allocations, as the arrangement of the Timaeus clearly intends to indicate.¹⁴⁸¹

39.4 · Souls always in some body

Another Platonic position distinguishes souls’ descents from different places neither by creative allotments, nor by the divisions of higher kinds such as gods, angels, divine spirits, and heroes, nor by the regions assigned within the universe. Positing soul as always in a body, as does the position of Eratosthenes, Ptolemy the Platonist, and others, it makes soul pass from subtler bodies to take up residence again in shell-like bodies;¹⁴⁸²

39.5 · Places from which souls descend

for it says that soul dwells in some portion of the sensible realm, but comes down into a solid body at different times from different places in the universe. Heraclides of Pontus locates these places around the Milky Way; others, throughout all the heavenly spheres, from which souls descend here. Some say that souls dwell around the moon or in the air beneath it and pass down from there into earthly becoming; others maintain that they always fall from solid bodies into other bodies.¹⁴⁸³

39.6 · Heraclitus: change and rest

Descents into this world thus differ because they begin from so many and such different regions; their very modes also differ in many ways. Heraclitus posits necessary exchanges between opposites. He has supposed that souls travel a road upward and downward, that remaining in the same conditions is weariness, and that change brings rest.¹⁴⁸⁴

39.7 · Completing the cosmos and revealing the gods

The Platonists around Taurus say that souls are sent to earth by gods. Some, following the Timaeus, teach that this is for the completion of the universe, so that there may be as many living beings in the cosmos as there are in the intelligible realm. Others refer the purpose of descent to a manifestation of divine life. For this, they say, is the will of the gods: that gods should be revealed through souls. The gods come into manifestation and display themselves through the pure and undefiled life of souls.¹⁴⁸⁵

39.8 · Voluntary and involuntary descent

On another division, voluntary modes of descent are conceived either when soul itself chooses to administer earthly things or when it obeys higher beings. Involuntary modes occur when it is forced to be drawn toward what is worse.¹⁴⁸⁶

40.1 · Universal and particular souls in bodies

In the same work.

The association of souls with bodies is not the same for all. The universal soul, as Plotinus too thinks, contains within itself the body that approaches it; it does not itself approach the body, nor is it contained by it. Particular souls, however, approach bodies and come to belong to them, taking up residence in bodies already governed by the nature of the universe.¹⁴⁸⁷

40.2 · Divine vehicles and pure souls

The souls of gods turn divine bodies, which imitate intellect, toward their own intellectual substance. The souls of the other divine kinds direct their own vehicles in accordance with the rank assigned to each. Pure and complete souls, moreover, enter bodies purely, without affections and without being deprived of understanding; souls of the opposite character do the opposite.¹⁴⁸⁸

40.3 · Atticus and a single mode of union

Atticus, ⟨however,⟩ and ⟨certain other⟩ Platonists do not agree. They bring all souls into conjunction with bodies through one mode of union, always and in every embodiment alike presupposing an irrational, discordant soul immersed in matter, and subsequently introducing into it, as it is ordered, the association of rational soul.¹⁴⁸⁹

40.4 · Different purposes, different descents

I think that differences in purpose also make the modes of souls’ descent different. A soul descending for the preservation, purification, and perfection of things here makes its descent undefiled as well. A soul turning toward bodies for the exercise and correction of its own character is not entirely free from affections, nor is it left released on its own. A soul coming down here for punishment and judgment seems in some way to be dragged and driven together with others.¹⁴⁹⁰

40.5 · The view that every embodiment is bad

⟨Some more recent thinkers do not make such⟩ distinctions. Without attending to the differences, they merge everyone’s embodiments into one and insist that all are bad, especially the followers of Cronius, Numenius, and Harpocration.¹⁴⁹¹

1477.The botanical comparison supports a view that does not separate soul from nature. “The same as the whole” describes the divided portion’s character or generative capacity in this argument, not numerical identity between all trees. The translation preserves the report’s “appears” rather than turning the example into an independent biological assertion.

1478.The contrast with the preceding accounts is an unchanging total measure, because souls neither originate nor perish. The passage names “the perfect number” but gives no numeral or calculation; none is supplied here. Symmetria is the fixed proportionate measure in this context. “Passing into the things that perish” is retained as the text’s compressed explanation of subtraction.

1479.The whole heading is restored here. Wachsmuth relocates to this excerpt the heading transmitted before the next, because he judges its subject to belong here. “From the soul above heaven” retains the singular source from which the plural souls are said to enter bodies. The compressed kai pasas episēs emphasizes that all are treated alike in this report.

1480.The author is interpreting the Timaeus’s account of the demiurge’s distribution of souls. Hypostasis here denotes their first subsistence or establishment. The English supplies “presenting” to complete the abbreviated construction; it is not a marked restoration in the Greek. The three spheres of distribution, higher kinds, heaven, and elements, are preserved separately.

1481.The Greek moves from the singular “first procession” to an abbreviated list of souls and their recipients; the English makes that list explicit without replacing the printed wording. The language of allotment, lēxis and diaklērōsis, connects each descent to a prior assignment. “Jointly allotted” preserves the association of souls with the elements rather than identifying them with those elements.

1482.Ostreōdē literally means shell-like; the contrast is with the preceding subtler bodies. The epithet “the Platonist” belongs to Ptolemy in the source and is retained without identifying him with a different Ptolemy. Angels and divine spirits are separate members of the listed hierarchy. This account distinguishes changes of bodily habitation from a soul’s first acquisition of any body whatever.

1483.The sequence surveys different locations and bodily transitions without reconciling them. The unusual eis moiran tina with “dwells” is retained in Greek and rendered by the contextual “in some portion.” The last position is more restrictive than the subtler-body account: its point of departure is always a solid body.

1484.The account now moves from the places of descent to its modes. The source cites Heraclitus under Bywater’s fragment 83 and compares Plotinus in its apparatus. The sentences remain a report of Heraclitus’s position rather than a newly reconstructed direct quotation. The paradox of rest through change is preserved.

1485.Two purposes are reported, cosmic completeness and the manifestation of divine life; they are not collapsed into one. The edition adopts “divine life” in place of the transmitted reading and corrects the expression for coming into manifestation to eis toumphanes. The repeated explanation involving souls and the gods is retained: the apparatus notes that Heeren omitted part of it. These statements describe the position being reported.

1486.The voluntary category includes both self-chosen administration and obedience to higher beings. The involuntary category adds compulsion toward an inferior condition. The text therefore does not identify every descent with a fall caused by wrongdoing.

1487.The contrast reverses the direction of containment: body is within universal soul, while particular souls enter bodies. “Come to belong to them” retains the force of tōn sōmatōn gignontai without equating soul’s substance with body. The universe’s nature already governs the bodies into which the particular souls enter. The descriptive heading transmitted here was relocated by Wachsmuth to excerpt 39.

1488.The divine bodies are the things described as imitating intellect. Ochēmata, “vehicles,” is the printed correction of a reading meaning shapes. The final contrast concerns whether bodily residence involves affections and the loss of understanding. Pathēmata can include what is undergone or suffered, not only emotions in the narrow modern sense.

1489.Both supplied phrases are marked in Greek and English. Here tas holas psychas is taken collectively as “all souls,” since the argument assigns a single mode to every embodiment, unlike the distinctions just made; the phrase can literally suggest souls in their entirety. The irrational soul is presupposed, while rational soul’s association is introduced subsequently. The English does not make the two identical.

1490.The author expressly states his own judgment. The first purpose concerns the benefit of things here; the second concerns the soul’s own training; the third is punitive. Sōtēria may mean preservation or salvation. The final participle synelaunomenē suggests being driven together; “with others” makes that force explicit, without identifying companions not named by the text.

1491.The substantial opening phrase is supplied by Heeren and remains fully marked in English. The criticism of undifferentiated embodiment belongs to the excerpt’s author. Tōn holōn is interpreted collectively, in keeping with the assertion that all embodiments are bad. The source cites Numenius using Thedinga’s older fragment numbering.