[151] For instance Georg. iv 221 sqq. See also below, §§ [434], [435].
[152] ‘impias vero [animas Stoici dicunt] ... habere aliquid imbecillitatis ex contagione carnis, cuius desideriis ac libidinibus addictae ineluibilem quendam fucum trahant labemque terrenam, quae cum temporis diuturnitate penitus inhaeserit, eius naturae reddi animas, ut ... cruciabiles fiant per corporis maculam, quae peccatis inusta sensum doloris attribuit. quam sententiam poeta sic explicavit—“quin et supremo etc.”’ Lact. Div. inst. vii 20, 9 and 10 (Arnim ii 813); ‘[Stoicos] miror, quod † imprudentes animas circa terram prosternant, cum illas a sapientibus multo superioribus erudiri adfirment’ Tert. de an. 54 (Arnim i 147, reading ‘prudentes’ on his own conjecture). On the other hand Augustine (Civ. De. xxi 13) ascribes the doctrine to ‘Platonici quidam’ and Comm. Luc. ix 9 (p. 291 Us.) to Pythagoras. See Schmekel, p. 105.
[153] ‘facillimum ad superos iter est animis cito ab humana conversatione dimissis. facilius quicquid est illud obsoleti inlitique eluunt’ Sen. Dial. vi 23, 1; ‘[filius tuus] paulum supra nos commoratus, dum expurgatur et inhaerentia vitia situmque omnem mortalis aevi excutit’ ib. 25, 1.
[154] Diog. L. vii 157.
[155] Cic. Tusc. disp. i 32, 79.
[156] See above, §§ [254], [293]; for the teaching of Posidonius as to the pre-existence of the soul, see Schmekel, p. 250.
[158] ‘animus beneficio subtilitatis suae erumpit’ Sen. Ep. 57, 8.
[159] ‘ibi illum aeterna requies manet e confusis crassisque pura et liquida visentem’ Dial. vi 24, 5.
[160] ‘emissis [animis] meliora restant onere detracto’ Ep. 24, 18. So in the Burial Service ‘the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity.’