"The soul is bound to the body by a conversion to the corporeal passions; and again liberated by becoming impassive to the body. That which nature binds, nature also dissolves: and that which the soul binds, the soul likewise dissolves. Nature, indeed, bound the body to the soul; but the soul binds herself to the body. Nature, therefore, liberates the body from the soul; but the soul liberates herself from the body. Hence there is a twofold death; the one, indeed, universally known, in which the body is liberated from the soul; but the other peculiar to philosophers, in which the soul is liberated from the body. Nor does the one entirely follow the other. We do not understand similarly in all things, but in a manner adapted to the essence of each. For intellectual objects we understand intellectually; but those that pertain to soul rationally. We apprehend plants spermatically; but bodies idolically (i.e., as images); and that which is above all these, super-intellectually and super-essentially."
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Porphyry (philosopher)
Porphyry of Tyre (Πορφύριος, c. 234 – c. 305) was a Neoplatonic philosopher.
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