On the Mysteries of the Egyptians - Pimander - Asclepius

...ought original: "debet." This fragment completes the sentence from the previous page regarding the nature of the divine.. I speak of the soul that is pure from bodies, which is not even touched by the disturbance of pleasure—that specific pleasure which is merely a restoration to a natural state In Platonic philosophy, pleasure was often defined as the body returning to its natural equilibrium after being disturbed.. Since the soul possesses a supernatural, unbegotten life, it is not dissolved by any pain; for it exists outside of every body and the nature that is divided around the body. It exists outside the harmony that descends into the physical form from the soul’s own principal harmony; nor does it require those passions passions: "passiones," referring to any external influence that acts upon or changes a thing, such as emotions or physical sensations that precede sensation. For the soul is not contained by the body, nor is it forced to perceive physical things through external instruments. Indeed, since it is an indivisible and uniform essence, remaining incorporeal in itself and sharing nothing with the body, it clearly admits no passions of division, alteration, or any change whatsoever.

The soul does not suffer even while it is present in the body, neither in itself nor in the seminal reasons seminal reasons: "rationes seminales," the formative spiritual principles or "blueprints" that govern the growth and structure of physical matter which it provides to the body. For these forms are simple and uniform, admitting no disturbance or departure from their own nature. Whatever passions exist in the living creature original: "animali," meaning the composite being of body and soul together. are not found in the soul itself, no matter the soul's state, but rather in the body, which possesses a certain quality under the soul’s influence by which it both suffers and acts. There is no passion in the soul, whether destructive or disturbing; and the soul does not only acquire this impassibility by choice, but possesses it...