On the Immortality of the Soul

...[Alexander] attempted to corrupt the arguments brought forward by Aristotle for asserting the immortality of the soul; he who is also? held by many to be inconsistent regarding the nature of the soul, as one who, in the commentaries written upon it, asserted it to be mortal, but in the Natural Questions, immortal. Nevertheless, most have judged that the Natural Questions were not by Alexander himself, and all the ancient expositors condemned him for his opinion on mortality. Averroes, however, Against Averroes. while he feared Alexander's error, imprudently fell into so great a lapse that a vast multitude of philosophers rushed after him, although he himself is also held to be inconsistent; and there are those who would have it that, besides that single intellect, an immortal intellective soul was asserted by him—though whether they have judged correctly, I know not. This I certainly know: that it was the express opinion of Theophrastus and his followers, and furthermore of Simplicius, as we shall show a little later even in their own words. Moreover, those more ancient Peripatetics did not speak so clearly as to simultaneously reveal the immortality of the soul beyond controversy and reject those who had thought it mortal. For they themselves, just as Aristotle, have undergone various declarations and interpretations; yet almost all were so inclined toward asserting immortality that some even came to suspect that they held the view that the sensitive soul—or, if you prefer to say, the sensual soul—should be rescued from destruction, which is clearly detected in Themistius in the second book On the Soul; nor would they have been rejected by Thomas if they had understood the sensitive soul as an essence, not a power. What the difference is between St. Thomas and the ancient Greek expositors. But in later centuries there was altogether greater zeal among the Greeks for explaining the opinion of Aristotle and Theophrastus as clearly as could be done; whom St. Thomas approached very closely in his commentaries, though in this indeed far dissimilar: that most of them wished the human intellect to be full of forms—which Alexander also? did not wish. The Platonists, however, contend—being not far removed from the ancient Peripatetics—so that in this matter also, little difficulty was presented to Giovanni Pico, my uncle, Jo. Pico. in reconciling Plato and Aristotle; also dissimilar in this, that that intellect which is said to come from without is not a part of the soul but a more divine substance of theirs, non-