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Select Works of Plotinus · 412 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 389

Section 8 8. B. (10) If the soul is body and permeates the entire body-mass, still even in this entire permeation the blending must be in accord with what occurs in all cases of bodily admixing. Now: if in the admixing of bodies neither constituent can retain its efficacy, the soul too could no longer be effective within the bodies; it could but be latent; it will have lost that by which it is soul, just as in an admixture of sweet and bitter the sweet disappears: we have, thus, no soul. Two bodies [i.e., by hypothesis, the soul and the human body] are blended, each entire through the entirety of the other; where the one is, the other is also; each occupies an equal extension and each the whole extension; no increase of size has been caused by the juncture: the one body thus inblended can have left in the other nothing undivided. This is no case of mixing in the sense of considerable portions alternating; that would be described as collocation; no; the incoming entity goes through the other to the very minutest point- an impossibility, of course; the less becoming equal to the greater; still, all is traversed throughout and divided throughout. Now if, thus, the inblending is to occur point by point, leaving no undivided material anywhere, the division of the body concerned must have been a division into (geometrical) points: an impossibility. The division is an infinite series- any material particle may be cut in two- and the infinities are not merely potential, they are actual. Therefore body cannot traverse anything as a whole traversing a whole. But soul does this. It is therefore incorporeal.
Themes
Body As Obstacleanthropology

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

Material body is shown to be incapable of accounting for memory, growth, and reason without a higher incorporeal principle.

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Logoscosmology

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

Reason-Principles are explicitly named as incorporeal entities distinct from bodily magnitude alongside the Soul.

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Divine Simplicitytheology

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

[auto] The passage centrally argues that the soul lacks parts and quantity, maintaining complete identity throughout unlike divisible body.

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Related passages · 6 parallels
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 11 (part 7)
48.) "The soul and the Word are not one or one being. The soul is born from the centre of nature, from the essences, and belongs to the body, for she issues from the essences of the body, and attracts to herself the body; but the Word is f…”
Both passages discuss the nature of the soul and its relationship to the body and higher principles. They explore the idea that the soul is not purely corporeal and has qualities that transcend physicality, though they do so within different philosophical and theological frameworks.
greek_mystery|Orphic Hymns|Front Matter, p. 4 (part 3)
Because it is also necessary that the soul, essentially rational, should receive intellect by participation, and that intellectual energy should be of p. 22 two kinds; one primarily subsisting in the divine intellect; but the other subsist…”
Both passages discuss the nature of the soul and its relationship to the body, emphasizing the incorporeal and self-motive aspects of the soul. They both argue for the soul's role in governing movement and growth, and they both reject the idea that the soul is purely corporeal.
hermeticism|Corpus Hermeticum 10: The Sermon on the Mount|Section 1c
For that the soul who hath no knowledge of the things that are, or knowledge of their nature, or of Good, is blinded by the body's passions and tossed about. This wretched soul, not knowing what she is, becomes the slave of bodies of stran…”
Both passages explore the nature of the soul and its relationship to the body, emphasizing the incorporeal and transcendent aspects of the soul. They both argue against the soul being purely corporeal and highlight the soul's role in reason and movement.
hermeticism|Corpus Hermeticum 10: The Sermon on the Mount|Section 1d
Spirit pervading [body] by means of veins and arteries and blood, bestows upon the living creature motion, and as it were doth bear it in a way. For this cause some do think the soul is blood, in that they do mistake its nature, not knowin…”
Both passages discuss the nature of the soul and its relationship to the body, exploring the idea that the soul is not corporeal and transcends quantity. They share a mystical perspective on the soul's immaterial and divine nature.
hermeticism|Corpus Hermeticum 11: The Hymn|Section 1c
It must, then, be that such a one as this must be some one who's wholly One. 9. For as the many motions of them [all] are different, and as their bodies are not like, yet has one speed been ordered for them all, it is impossible that ther…”
Both passages explore the nature of the soul, its relationship to the body, and the unity of the divine. They discuss the impossibility of multiple creators and the singular nature of the divine source, showing a conceptual parallel in their mystical traditions.
platonism|Plato: Phaedo|Section 1q
Then reflect, Cebes: is not the conclusion of the whole matter this?-that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and the body is in the very likeness…”
Both passages discuss the nature of the soul and its relationship to the body, emphasizing the incorporeal and immortal aspects of the soul. They both argue for the soul's purity and its separation from the bodily form, though they come from different philosophical traditions.