Folly is presenting a modified neoplatonist psychological system, drawing on Origen's commentary on St Paul and the seventh chapter of the Enchiridion in which Erasmus expounds Origen's view. The ascription of passions to the body rather than the soul is Plotinian, although it became common in the neo-stoic moralists of the Renaissance. In Christian authors it normally leads to a trichotomist psychological system, based on 1 Thessalonians v, 23, and distinguishes body, soul and spirit. For Folly, as for Pico della Mirandola, the soul can determine itself either to achieve spiritual and angelic status or to remain immersed in the material world.