GNOSTICS WHO BOAST SUPERIORITY TO THE DIVINITIES WHO CANNOT LEAVE THEIR BODIES ARE IN REALITY IGNORANT OF THE TRUE STATE OF AFFAIRS. Vainly also do some (Gnostics) boast of having to leave their bodies when they will have ceased to live, while this is impossible to the divinities because they always fill the same function in heaven. They speak thus only because of their ignorance of what it is to be outside of the body, and of how the universal Soul in her entirety wisely governs what is inanimate. THE JEALOUS DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE SPIRITUAL, PSYCHIC AND MATERIAL IS DUE CHIEFLY TO IGNORANCE OF OTHER PEOPLE'S ATTAINMENTS. We ourselves may very well not love the body, we may become pure, scorn death, and both recognize and follow spiritual things that are superior to earthly things. But on this account we should not be jealous of other men, who are not only capable of following the same goal, but who do constantly pursue it. Let us not insist that they are incapable of doing so. Let us not fall into the same error as those who deny the movement of the stars, because their senses show them to remain immovable. Let us not act as do the (Gnostics), who believe that the nature of the stars does not see what is external, because they themselves do not see that their own souls are outside. FOOTNOTES: [1] A Stoic term. [2] As says Parmenides, verse 80. [3] Cicero, Tusc. i. 16; Nat. Deor. i. 1; Maxim. Tyr. xvii. 5. [4] As wastage, see 6.4, 10; as Numenius might have said in 12, 22. [5] As said Numenius fr. 46. [6] See Plato's Timaeus 37. [7] Od. xvii. 486. [8] See v. 3.5, 6. [9] See v. 3.10. [10] See v. 3.8, 9. [11] See v. 3.12-17. [12] See v. 5.13. [13] See ii. 1.2. [14] ii 1.1. [15] Aristotle, Met. v. 4. [16] Aristotle, Met. xii. 2. [17] Aristotle, Met. vii. 8. [18] Aristotle, de Anima, ii. 5. [19] Aristotle, Met. xii. 5. [20] Aristotle, Met. ix. 8. [21] Aristotle, Met. ix. 5. [22] That is, their producing potentiality, and not the potentiality of becoming these things, as thought Aristotle. Met. ix. 2. [23] As thought Aristotle, Soul, iii. 7; Met. xii. [24] By Plato in the Timaeus 52. [25] See iv. 6. A polemic against Aristotle, de Anima ii. 5, and the Stoics, Cleanthes, Sextus Empiricus, adv. Math. vii. 288, and Chrysippus, Diog. Laert. vii. 50. [26] As thought Chrysippus, Diog. Laert. vii. 111. [27] See iv. 6. [28] See vi. 6.16. [29] See ii. 6.2. [30] Plato, in his Phaedo 127. [31] See i. 2.1. [32] See i. 2.1, the Socratic definition. [33] See i. 1.2.4. [34] See ii. 5.2. [35] See i. 2.4. [36] A term of Stoic psychology. [37] See i. 2.4. [38] These are the so-called "passions" of the Stoic Chrysippus, Diog. Laert. vii. 111. [39] Of the Stoic contention, Tert. de Anima, 5. [40] See i. 1.13. [41] As was taught by Cleanthes, Sext. Empir. adv. Math. vii. 288. [42] See iii. 6.3. [43] Or, "affections," as we shall in the future call them, in English. [44] See i. 8.15.