Damascius on Pneuma

From the L. G. Westerink translation.

Commentary on the Phaedo, version A

§62. "From the point where differentiation among the Gods begins there is a descending scale of death as the principle that bestows the life of the prior upon the secondary, so that even after procession the product is in its cause through reversion, the reverting entity being as it were stripped fo its own life; in sleep we have reversion while the subject survives, and such is death for all everlasting beings. The lowest form of death is that of individual animals, as commonly understood, the death of the earthly body. There would be also an intermediate form, the death of pneumatic animals, among them the so-called 'Longeval Ones.' [makraiôniôn]"

§178. "The soul is either (1) inseparable from the body, as Simmias will suppose presently [85e3-86d4], or (2) separable, in which case either (a) it will dissolve at the moment of separation, as Cebes suggests here [69e6-70a6], or (b) continute to exist for some time, a theory which he is going to advance later on [86e6-88b8] or (c) it is completely everlasting, as Socrates will prove ultimately [102a10-107a1]. The reason to take the first view as the affinity with the body; the second was prompted by the fact that the soul pervades the whole (divisible) body and that, further, composite bodies are surpassed in excellence by the simple body, and simple bodies by spirit (pneuma), which has a strong resemblance to soul in many ways; the ground for the third was the greater strength of soul as compared to body, while Socrates is going to found his proof, eventually [105d3-4], on the argument that soul is the source of life."

§217. "As far as this argument goes, the irrational soul jointly with its pneumatic body will also have complete immortality. Here, too, there will be the cycle of life and death revolving endlessly (or perhaps as long as creation holds together - but then it holds togetehr always, since God continues always to shape matter); for this organism, too, is alive when united with the 'oysterlike' body and dies when separated from it by a process of decomposition."

§239. "The eighth [objection] will show the same accordance with our view. We do admit that the animated pneumatic body repeatedly enters and leaves this 'oyster-like' body. The philosophers themselves hold that the pneumatic body accompanies the rational soul until its complete deliverance from genesis. What is more, Socrates is going to say a little later [81c9-e2] that what he describes as 'the shadowy phantom' remains joined to the soul after death, 'until the soul, yielding to the compulsion of the corporeal, is imprisoned again in the earthly body.' Its cycle continues until the time when this vehicle, too, suffers privation of life. Nor will it ever be restored to possession of life, just as we asserted above with regard to this earthly body, once it has died; for complete immortality is not proved for the pneumatic body, any more than for the soul, but only continuance longer than a repeated or at least than a single recurrence of its accidents."

§551. "As for souls that have led a sinless and God-fearing life: those who have done so without philosophical insight are transferred to an abode on the heights of the earth, with very tenuous pneumatic bodies, those who practice philosophy in the community live in a heaven with their luminous bodies, those who are completely purified return to the supramundane region without bodies."

Commentary on the Phaedo, version B

§20. "Why are 'Pythagorean recollections,' that is to say, those of former lives, so rare? - Because they also require the identity of the pneumatic organism."

§146. "Socrates uses the phrase 'mounting vehicles' as we speak of mounting horses. What are three vehicles, then? - They are pneumatic bodies, for souls can have locomotion only by means of the bodies that depend on them. Pneumatic bodies, being perishable can also be punished through pain."