31. A certain neutral
character, then, and undecided and doubtful nature of the soul, has
made room for philosophy, and found out a reason for its being sought
after: while, that is, that fellow3611
| 3611 i.e.,
the abandoned and dissolute immortal spoken of in last chapter. |
is full of dread because of
evil deeds of
which he is
guilty; another conceives great hopes if he shall do no
evil, and pass his
life in obedience to
3612
duty and
justice. Thence it is
that among
learned men, and
men endowed with excellent
abilities, there is
strife as to the
nature of the
soul, and some say
that it is subject to
death, and cannot take upon itself the
divine
substance; while others
maintain that it is
immortal, and cannot
sink under the
power of
death.
3613
But this is brought about by the
law of
the soul’s neutral character:
3614
| 3614
Arnobius seems in this chapter to refer to the doctrine of the
Stoics, that the soul must be material, because, unless body and soul
were of one substance, there could be no common feeling or mutual
affection (so Cleanthes in Nemes. de Nat. Hom., ii. p. 33); and
to that held by some of them, that only the souls of the wise remained
after death, and these only till the conflagration (Stob., Ecl.
Phys., p. 372) which awaits the world, and ends the Stoic great
year or cycle. Others, however, held that the souls of the wise
became dæmons and demigods (Diog., Lært., vii. 157 and
151). |
because, on the one
hand,
arguments present themselves to the one party by which it is found that
the
soul3615
is capable of
suffering, and perishable; and, on the other hand, are not wanting to
their opponents, by which it is shown that the soul is divine and
immortal.
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