Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3 In Chronological Order,...

Stars, therefore, stand in need of no feeding,221 and we should not judge them according to our own circumstances. Indeed, our (human) soul, which contains our bodies, is not identical with the Soul that contains the heaven; our soul does not reside in the same place, while the world-Soul does not, like our composite bodies lose (excreta). Not as our bodies do the stars need continual metabolic replacing food. From our conception of celestial bodies we should remove all ideas of a change that could modify their constitution. Terrestrial bodies are animated by an entirely different nature222; which though because of its weakness is incapable of insuring them a durable existence, nevertheless imitates the superior nature (of the celestial Soul) by birth and generation. Elsewhere223 we have shown that even this very celestial Soul cannot partake of the perfect immutability of intelligible things.