[Discussion] On the Gods and the World, Ch. XX

[sdi]

Good morning and happy Wednesday! Let us pick the puzzle-box back up on this, the penultimate chapter:

XX. On Transmigration of Souls, and how Souls are said to migrate into brute beasts.

If the transmigration of a soul takes place into a rational being, it simply becomes the soul of that body. But if the soul migrates into a brute beast, it follows the body outside, as a guardian spirit follows a man.* For there could never be a rational soul in an irrational being.

The transmigration of souls can be proved from the congenital afflictions of persons. For why are some born blind, others paralytic, others with some sickness in the soul itself? Again, it is the natural duty of Souls to do their work in the body; are we to suppose that when once they leave the body they spend all eternity in idleness?

Again, if the souls did not again enter into bodies, they must either be infinite in number or God must constantly be making new ones. But there is nothing infinite in the world; for in a finite whole there cannot be an infinite part. Neither can others be made; for everything in which something new goes on being created, must be imperfect. And the World, being made by a perfect author, ought naturally to be perfect.

* Thomas Taylor notes, "This beautiful doctrine, which seems to have originated from Syrianus and Proclus, was universally adopted by all the succeeding Platonists."

Comments

[sdi]

I've been continuing to research this. There is an extremely strong break in theology here between Plotinus and Porphyry on the one hand, and Iamblichus, Proclus, and Sallustius on the other. The former assert that the soul is always in the Intelligible, and does not—can not!—bend down to matter, and does not enter a body but rather connects to it by means of a proxy (a spirit) (Enneads I 1, Sentences IV), while the latter assert that the soul does indeed come down to be clothed in matter (On the Gods XX, Elements CCXI).

The question of whether one's soul can reincarnate in an animal body seems to me to be the least implication of this; a greater question is, can a man become a god? To Plotinus and Porphyry, he is a god already and cannot be otherwise (though he may pretend not to be for a while) (Enneads II 2, Sentences XXXII).

This is very different than the "evolutionary" standpoint! But there's always the old saw that "all models are wrong, but some are useful," and so I do not wish to begrudge anyone their beliefs, but merely to say that this seems to be a point of contention within Neoplatonism (let alone the broader universe of discourse).

[sdi]

I might note that, to the Hellenistic mind, the nature of time was that of an eternal changeless world, while to ours, it is one of eternal growth and progress and improvement. It might simply be that Plotinus' model made sense to a Roman while thinking in terms of evolution makes sense to an American.

One wonders if Reality itself is subjective. (...to who?)

[causticus]

"I might note that, to the Hellenistic mind, the nature of time was that of an eternal changeless world, while to ours, it is one of eternal growth and progress and improvement."

Yeah it seems like this is a matter of specific civilizational worldviews shaping cosmological doctrines. We could say there's really no right answers here, in the concrete sense.

[sdi]

I note that the prominent Neoplatonist Plethon follows Iamblichus, Proclus, and Sallustius, as a consequence of humans having rational souls (and animals not having rational souls).