Hellenistic Philosophy Introductory

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

176 l/-65 to l/-72
Arius Didymus fr. 39 (= Dox. Gr. 471.18-24, [11-65]
SVF 2.809)
... They say the soul is generated and destroyed; it is not destroyed
as soon as it leaves the body but lasts for a while on its own. The soul
of the virtuous man lasts until the breakdown of everything into fire, but
that of fools [only] for a certain length of time. They say that the enduring
of souls works like this, i.e., that we last by becoming souls separated
from the body, changing into a more limited substance, that of the soul.
But the souls of imprudent and irrational animals are destroyed together
with their bodies ....


Nemesius On the Nature of Man 2
(SVF 2.790)

[11-66]

And Chrysippus says, "Death is a separation of soul from body. But
nothing incorporeal can be separated from a body. For neither does
anything incorporeal touch a body, and the soul both touches and is
separated from the body. Therefore the soul is a body."

Tertullian On the Soul 5.3 (SVF 1.137) [11-67]
Then Zeno, defining the soul as the inborn pneuma [spiritus], teaches
as follows: that, he says, because of the departure of which the animal
dies, is a body. But when the inborn pneuma departs the animal dies.
But the inborn pneuma is the soul. Therefore, the soul is a body.


Chalcidius Comm. on Plato's Timaeus c. 220
(SVF 1.138)

[11-68]

The Stoics grant that the heart is the seat of the leading part of the
soul, but nevertheless that it is not the blood which is created together
with the body. To be sure, Zeno argues that the soul is [inborn] pneuma
thus: that whose withdrawal from the body causes the animal to die is
certainly the soul; furthermore, the animal dies when the inborn pneuma
withdraws; therefore, the inborn pneuma is the soul.

Alexander De Anima Mantissa CIAG Supp.
2.1 p. 117-118 (SVF 2.792)

[11-69]

[Alexander cites and rejects Stoic arguments.]-117.1-2. For it [the
soul] is not a body just because the same thing is predicated of it [as of
the body].-117.9-11. But the argument which says that something
incorporeal does not share an experience with a body, and purports to
show that the soul is not incorporeal, is also false.-117.21-23. Nor is
the argument sound which says that nothing incorporeal is separated
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