But, more precisely, son, naught is impassible, but all are passible.
Yet passion differeth from passibility; for that the one is active, while the other’s passive.
Incorporals moreover act upon themselves, for either they are motionless or they are moved; but whichsoe’er it be, it’s passion.
But bodies are invariably acted on, and therefore are they passible.
Do not, then, let terms trouble thee; action and passion are both the selfsame thing. To use the fairer sounding term, however, does no harm.
12. Tat. Most clearly hast thou, father mine, set forth the teaching (logos).
Her. Consider this as well, my son; that these two things God hath bestowed on man beyond all mortal lives—both mind and speech
(logos) equal to immortality. He hath the mind for knowing God and uttered speech (logos) for eulogy of Him.
And if one useth these for what he ought, he’ll differ not a whit from the immortals. Nay, rather, on departing from the body, he will be guided by the twain unto the Choir of Gods and Blessed Ones.
13. Tat. Why, father mine!—do not the other lives make use of speech (logos)?
Her. Nay, son; but use of voice; speech is far different from voice. For speech is general among all men, while voice doth differ in each class of living thing.
Tat. But with men also, father mine, according to each race, speech differs.
Her. Yea, son, but man is one; so also speech is one and is interpreted, and it is found the same in Egypt, and in Persia, and in Greece.
Thou seemest, son, to be in ignorance of Reason’s (Logos) worth and greatness. For that the Blessed God, Good Daimon, hath declared:
“Soul is in Body, Mind in Soul; but Reason (Logos) is in Mind, and Mind in God; and God is Father of [all] these.”
14. The Reason, then, is the Mind’s image, and Mind God’s [image]; while Body is [the image] of the Form; and Form [the image] of the Soul.
The subtlest part of Matter is, then, Air; of Air, Soul; of Soul, Mind; and of Mind, God.
And God surroundeth all and permeateth all ; while Mind surroundeth Soul, Soul Air, Air Matter.
Necessity and Providence and Nature are instruments of Cosmos and of Matter’s ordering; while of intelligible things each is Essence, and Sameness is their Essence.
But of the Bodies of the Cosmos each is many; for through possessing Sameness, [these] composed Bodies, though they do change from one into another of themselves, do natheless ever keep the incorruption of their Sameness.
15. Whereas in all the rest of composed bodies, of each there is a certain number; for without number structure cannot be, or composition, or decomposition.
Now it is units that give birth to number and increase it, and, being decomposed, are taken back again into themselves.
Matter is one; and this whole Cosmos—the mighty God and image of the mightier One, both with Him unified, and the conserver of the Will and Order of the Father—is filled full of Life.
Naught is there in it throughout the whole of Æon, the Father’s [everlasting] Re-establishment, —nor of the whole, nor of its parts,—which doth not live.
For not a single thing that’s dead, hath been, or is, or shall be in [this] Cosmos.
For that the Father willed it should have Life as long as it should be. Wherefore it needs must be a God.
16. How, then, O son, could there be in the God, the image of the Father, in the plenitude of Life—dead things ?
For that death is corruption, and corruption is destruction.
How then could any part of that which knoweth no corruption be corrupted, or any whit of him the God destroyed?
Tat. Do they not, then, my father, die—the lives in it, that are its parts?
Her. Hush, son!—led into error by the term in use for what takes place.
They do not die, my son, but are dissolved as compound bodies.
Now dissolution is not death, but dissolution of a compound; it is dissolved not so that it may be destroyed, but that it may become renewed.
For what is the activity of life? Is it not motion? What then in Cosmos is there that hath no motion? Naught is there, son!
17. Tat. Doth not Earth even, father, seem to thee to have no motion?
Her. Nay, son; but rather that she is the only thing which, though in very rapid motion, is also stable.
For how would it not be a thing to laugh at, that the Nurse of all should have no motion, when she engenders and brings forth all things?
For ’tis impossible that without motion one who doth engender, should do so.
That thou shouldst ask if the fourth part is not inert, is most ridiculous; for that the body which doth have no motion, gives sign of nothing but inertia.
18. Know, therefore, generally, my son, that all that is in Cosmos is being moved for decrease or for increase.
Now that which is kept moving, also lives; but there is no necessity that that which lives, should be all same.
For being simultaneous, the Cosmos, as a whole, is not subject to change, my son, but all its parts are subject unto it; yet naught [of it] is subject to corruption, or destroyed.
It is the terms employed that confuse men. For ’tis not genesis that constituteth life, but ’tis sensation; it is not change that constituteth death, but ’tis forgetfulness.
Since, then, these things are so, they are immortal all,—Matter, [and] Life, [and] Spirit, Mind [and] Soul, of which whatever liveth, is composed.
19. Whatever then doth live, oweth its immortality unto the Mind, and most of all doth man, he who is both recipient of God, and co-essential with Him.