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The Problem of Immortality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Erland Ehnmark
Erland Ehnmark
Affiliation:
Lund University
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Extract

In the Platonic Phaedo, just as Socrates has closed his long speech with the sublime words about the journey of the soul after death, and its ultimate goal, Crito, his old friend — who does not seem to understand very much of the higher aspects of the matter, but is the more versed in worldly affairs, somewhat abruptly breaks the serene atmosphere with some practical questions, among them in what manner Socrates wishes to be buried. After his wont, Socrates answers, alike courteously and ambiguously, “Just as you please, if only you can catch me, and I do not escape from you.” He adds, with a smile, that he cannot convince Crito that he is the Socrates who is then conversing with his friends, and who will not remain after having drunk the poison. “Crito,” he says, “thinks that I am he whom he will shortly behold dead, and asks how he should bury me. But that which I some time since argued at length, that when I have drunk the poison I shall no longer remain with you, but shall depart to some happy state of the blessed, this I seem to have urged to him in vain, though I meant at the same time to console both you and myself. Be ye then my sureties to Crito,” he said, “in an obligation contrary to that which he made to the judges; for he undertook that I should remain; but do you be sureties that, when I die, I shall not remain, but shall depart, that Crito may more easily bear it, and when he sees my body either burnt or buried, may not be afflicted for me, as if I suffered some dreadful thing, nor say at my interment that Socrates is laid out, or is carried out, or is buried.” It is improper to speak of Socrates' dead body as if it were Socrates himself.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 1951, pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1951

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References

1 Phaedo 115 C sq.; Cary's translation (Everyman's Library).

2 For references, see my paper on The Idea of Immortality in Greek Religion, Eranos XLVI, 1948, p. 5 sq. I have drawn here on this paper where the Greek material is somewhat more fully treated.

3 Cf. Arbman, E. in Le Monde Oriental XXI, 1927, p. 183Google Scholar.

4 Quoted from Palgrave, Francis T., The Treasury of Sacred Song, Oxford 1906, p. 127Google Scholar.

5 Hymnary of the Church of Scotland, 312:6.

6 Hymnal of the Augustana-Synod, 338.

7 The Oxford Hymn Book, 200 (H. F. Lyte).

8 Hymnary of the Church of Scotland, 312:4.

9 The Living God, Oxford 1933, p. 236Google Scholar.

10 Eranos XLIV (= Eranos Rudbergianus), 1946, p. 105 sq.

11 H. F. Lyte, quoted from Palgrave, op. cit. p. 246.

12 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 3.2.13. Here and in the following I use the translation of Hume, R. E. (The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, Oxford 1921)Google Scholar.

13 Dhammapada 153–154, quoted from Thomas, E. J., The Life of Buddha, London 1927, p. 75Google Scholar,

14 Chandogya Upanishad 6.9.4.

15 Brihad Aranayaka Upanishad 4.4.13.

16 Katha Upanishad 2.9.

17 Ib. 2.8.

18 Ib. 2.23.

19 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 1.4.15.

20 Über die Religion, 1799, p. 131.

21 G. Tideström, Runeberg (Diss. Uppsala 1941) p. 395.

22 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 3.4.1.

23 Ib.4.3.ii.

24 Tideström, op. cit. p. 370, 375.

25 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 4.3.22.

26 Ib. 4.4.22. Cp. here also Corp. Herm. XII 7 and Festugière's note on this passage [in: Corpus Hermeticum, ed. A. D. Nock and A. J. Festugière (Collection Budé) I p. 194 sq.] I am indebted to Professor M. P. Nilsson for this reference.

27 De Clementia I 6.3; De Ira III 26.4; Epist. 66.12, 31.11, 41.1 sq.

28 Enchiridion ch. 53, transl. by P. E. Matheson, Oxford 1916.