The Asclepius of Hermes Trismegistus: On the Immortality of the Soul

Book VI. Commentary I. Chapters 5 & 6. On the Immortality of the Soul

[Plato] says Continuing from the previous page's discussion of Plato's Phaedo, once separated from the body, the soul does not die; but if it has not followed the passions of the body, it will contemplate the First Being original: "primum ens," referring to the ultimate source of reality or God and receive ineffable pleasures which the tongues of mortals cannot recount.

Josephus.

Josephus the Hebrew also says in the sixth book of The Jewish War: "Bodies indeed are mortal for all, and perishable; but the soul is forever immortal." And how many do we read of who gave themselves over to death out of a desire for possessing immortality?

Theobrotus.

For even Theobrotus Likely a reference to Cleombrotus of Ambracia, as Augustine witnesses in book 22 of The City of God, threw himself headlong after reading Plato’s book on the immortality of the soul.

Diogenes. Cato. Zeno.

So too Marcus Cato, as Lactantius witnesses in his third book, killed himself out of a desire to obtain immortality. The philosopher Diogenes did the same to himself, as Cicero reports in the second book of his Tusculan Disputations; so did Zeno, as Seneca witnesses to Lucilius. Cleanthes and Chrysippus were also seized by this same desire, as Lactantius says in the place cited above.

Lucretius.

The poet Lucretius, as Lactantius witnesses in his third book, sang famously of the soul's immortality: "That which came from the earth returns back to the earth; but that which was sent from the mouth of the ether, the shining dwellings of heaven receive again."

Lucan. Propertius. Ovid. Juvenal. Virgil. Sallust. Cicero.

Lucan says: "The spirit rules the limbs in another world." Propertius in his fourth book: "There are such things as ghosts; death does not end everything." Ovid in the 15th book of the Metamorphoses: "Souls are free from death." Juvenal in his 15th Satire: "We have drawn our sense sent down from the celestial citadel." Virgil, in the sixth book of the Aeneid, places eternal punishments which the souls of the damned suffer. It is for this reason that Sallust says in his Catiline: "One part of us we have in common with the gods, namely the soul; the other with the beasts, namely the body." For which reason Cicero did not speak foolishly to Laelius: "Nor," he says, "do I agree with those who have recently begun to argue that souls perish along with bodies, and that all things are blotted out by death; for the authority of the ancients carries more weight with me, who say that the souls of men are divine, and that for them, when they have departed from the body, a return to heaven lies open." Since these things are so, I think it is sufficiently established that the opinion concerning the immortality of the soul was common to almost all the ancients—poets and orators, as well as philosophers.

CHAPTER VI.

A decorative woodcut initial 'A' featuring architectural elements, scrollwork, and a central face or grotesque at the top.

1.

I have thought it necessary to bring forward Aristotle's reasons which seem to establish the immortality of the soul, so that from the sight of them, everyone may see what he himself felt regarding the immortality of the soul. First, I thought that which was said by him in the 12th book of the Metaphysics, commentary 10, should be introduced: namely, that the human will is free by its very essence, because it can will the complete opposite and command an opposite act, because it is a power that is free by its essence. This same thing is taught by the same philosopher in his book On Interpretation and in his Ethics.

Free Will.

Therefore, if the will is free by its essence, its being undoubtedly does not depend on the body; otherwise, it would not be able to strive against the inclination of its own subject The "subject" here refers to the physical body in which the soul resides; for the power of acting flows from the essence of the subject.

2.

Likewise, every form existing in some subject, upon which it depends for its being and preservation, does not act or suffer except by the action or suffering of the composite The "composite" is the whole human being, made of body and soul together, or of some part of its composite. But the intellective soul does not act or suffer by the action or suffering of its composite; for it does not understand and will through the body, as the philosopher says in the third book of On the Soul, text commentary 9. Therefore, it does not depend on the body for its being and preservation, and thus it is not corrupted along with the body.

3.

Likewise, the "universal" A general concept or category, like 'humanity' as opposed to a specific person is immortal and perpetual, certainly by reason of its object; because it is in the intellect objectively and subjectively, which separates it from matter in place and time. But everything by whose participation something is made perpetual is itself perpetual by essence, as is the common opinion of the Peripatetics The followers of Aristotle's school of philosophy. Therefore, the intellect of man is perpetual by essence. Socrates the philosopher was of this opinion, who said the universal, but not the individual, must be defined because—