The belief in reincarnation among the Neoplatonists

 The belief in reincarnation among the Neoplatonists

Found an interesting paper about the believe in metempsychosis held by the Neoplatonists and previous Greek philosophers (tracing the belief back to pre-socratic philosophers like Pythagoras and Empedocles), the paper 'Plotinus on Transmigration: a Reconsideration' by Giannis Stamatellos (link: https://www.academia.edu/8428243/Plotinus_on_Transmigration_a_Reconsideration). Two excerpts:

"In Ennead iv 8 Plotinus denies the descend of the soul into the bodies.   He  considers, or even reconsiders, the descent of the soul not as a fall but as a kind of  spiritual mission necessary for self-realisation, and its return to the divine as gained  through self-knowledge and contemplation. The soul as a whole is described in terms of ontological unity and homogeneity: as a single intelligible source that animates  any human, animal or plant form.   The soul is conceived as amphibian, living a  ‘double life’ (iv 8.4.19) between the intelligible and the perceptible world (iv 8.8).  The psyche has a ‘double nature’, partly intelligible and partly perceptible (iv 8.7);  and so it is able to recognize and participate in both the world of the eternal Forms  and the world of temporal becoming. Plotinus divides (theoretically but not  ontologically) the hypostasis of soul into world soul and individual souls (iv 8.2).  Whereas the individual soul governs with difficulty and struggle the lower in purity and unity perceptible body, the world soul cares and directs the higher universal body with pure intelligible power. The world soul animates the corporeal bodies with its  logoi (iii 6.19.26-29; iv 3.10.35-42; v 1.6) and illuminates with its intelligible light the perceptible universe (iii 8.4)."

"It is noteworthy that the changing-role metaphor was also used by later  Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus who claimed that, in transmigration, the human  substance remains the same as the actor’s human nature, despite the external changes  in different roles.  However, the transmigration of the human soul into animal bodies  was a controversial issue for later Neoplatonists. On the one hand, Iamblichus and  Proclus rejected human transmigration to animals since human and animal souls are  essentially different or, as Wallis has stated, “they denied that animals have souls at  all in the strict sense of the term”.  When the evil man acquires a beast-like character  then the sinful human soul is temporarily associated with an animal body or form.  On the other hand, Porphyry seems to follow Plotinus’ transmigration of the human  soul into animal bodies in so far as both human souls and animal souls are derived  from the same intelligible source."

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