Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-j7cmm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-09T09:34:36.699Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Soul's Comeback: Immortality and Resurrection in Early Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2010

François Bovon
François Bovon*
Affiliation:
Harvard Divinity School
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the middle of the twentieth century biblical scholars claimed the unity of the human person as the core of biblical anthropology.1 The Hebrew term , “life,” “person,” was no longer to be translated as “soul,” and the best English equivalent for the Greek ψυχή was “person.” In the seventies and eighties, on both sides of the Atlantic, the pendulum swung even further, to the point of favoring the body. In Paris, in the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Pierre Geoltrain offered a lecture course on the “body” in several texts of the New Testament, while in the United States Dale Martin worked on his book published under the title The Corinthian Body.2 In Geneva, where expression corporelle had become a form of instruction in dance and eurhythmic practice at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, some New Testament scholars incorporated bodily experience into their understanding of biblical passages.3 It was also this time that saw—in the secular realm—the creation of “body shops” and the continuous care of one's own body. With Merleau-Ponty we can say that this recent period witnesses a rediscovery of the body.4

Information

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 103 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 387 - 406
Copyright
President and Fellows of Harvard College 2010

In the middle of the twentieth century biblical scholars claimed the unity of the human person as the core of biblical anthropology.Footnote 1 The Hebrew term , “life,” “person,” was no longer to be translated as “soul,” and the best English equivalent for the Greek ψυχή was “person.” In the seventies and eighties, on both sides of the Atlantic, the pendulum swung even further, to the point of favoring the body. In Paris, in the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Pierre Geoltrain offered a lecture course on the “body” in several texts of the New Testament, while in the United States Dale Martin worked on his book published under the title The Corinthian Body.Footnote 2 In Geneva, where expression corporelle had become a form of instruction in dance and eurhythmic practice at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, some New Testament scholars incorporated bodily experience into their understanding of biblical passages.Footnote 3 It was also this time that saw—in the secular realm—the creation of “body shops” and the continuous care of one's own body. With Merleau-Ponty we can say that this recent period witnesses a rediscovery of the body.Footnote 4

I hope my many colleagues who have classes or publications that include the word “body” in their titles will forgive me today if I respond on behalf of the soul against what I consider to be an inflation of the body. My reaction is not meant to imply that we must neglect the study of the body as the locus of social practices and the expression of power relations. It is, however, meant to imply that an obsession with the body, that is, with what is visible, may reflect an absence of the divine—of the invisible—in an outrageously secular society.

My approach is to work backwards in time, that is, to deal first with several church writers of late antiquity and then in Part Two move to Origen, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and other Christian authors of the third and second centuries C.E. I shall then concentrate in a third part on the promise of eternal life in the Gospel of John and Paul's epistles, including one of Jesus— sayings. My last part will suggest a path for spiritual experience for today.

Late Antiquity

Eustratios

Eustratios, a priest of Hagia Sophia, disciple of Eutychios, patriarch of Constanti-nople, at the end of the sixth century, wrote a polemical essay entitled On the condition of souls after they have departed from the body.Footnote 5 Eustratios does not have to prove the existence of the soul or its survival after death, for this was commonly accepted in his day. Instead, he attacks the opinion of those who claim that the souls of the departed sleep until the resurrection. He himself is convinced that the soul lives actively in the after world, and his defense has a biblical foundation, beginning with Abel's blood crying out to the Lord from the ground (Gen 4:9).Footnote 6 The soul can intercede for the living even as the living in their liturgical prayers can alleviate the suffering of the dead. Eustratios's position represents a defense of the cult of saints, and it may be considered quite different from the apostle Paul's terminology of the sleep of the departed. Still, as late as the sixth century there were those who continued to think in the archaic terms of Paul's epistles: that the dead should be compared to people who are asleep, being neither dead nor really alive.Footnote 7 We know that Christian authors of Syria preserved this archaic perspective on the dead.Footnote 8 I am pleased to mention that Louis Demos, a doctor of theology here, has recently defended a dissertation on that church author.Footnote 9

Augustine

Turning to the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century C.E., we note that in Book 22 of his City of God Augustine is concerned with eternal beatitude in the divine city: “But in that city all the citizens shall be immortal, human beings now for the first time enjoying what the holy angels have never lost.”Footnote 10 This will be, he emphasizes, the fruit of God's gracious will,Footnote 11 as referred to in Isa 26:19; Isa 65:17–19; and Dan 12:1–2.Footnote 12 He then proposes both a rational and an affective argument to support his own view of survival of the person. His rational argument: if God at each human birth can join a soul to a body, he will be powerful enough at the end of time to add a body to a soul.Footnote 13 His affective argument: the resurrection, it is true, is difficult to believe, but through faith and love we believe two events have already occurred, namely Christ's own resurrection and the success of the Christian mission. Jesus— resurrection is not only a spiritual event: Christians believe and know that Jesus was raised from the dead in his physical person. The resurrection of the dead is the consequence of Jesus Christ's resurrection.Footnote 14

Jerome

While Augustine's argument represents a synthesis on the resurrection, Jerome's witnesses to the variety, the tensions and the controversies of four centuries of Christian inquiry. Jerome, as a biblical scholar, in his Epistula CXIX ad Mineruium et Alexandrum, bases his discussion of the resurrection on 1 Cor 15, particularly verse 51, where the apostle Paul reveals the “mystery” of the resurrection. The mystery is particularly complex to understand (Jerome knows), for the text of First Corinthians is not certain at this point. Some Greek manuscripts render the verse: “All of us will die, but not all of us will be changed.” But others state: “All of us will not die, but all of us will be changed.”Footnote 15 This texual difference reflects the hesitation of theologians and scribes over several centuries.

In his long letter,Footnote 16 Jerome presents first an eloquent status quaestionis. Diodorus of Tarsus, probably reading the first variant, claims that as for universal death incorruptibility will follow for all, but transformation (probably into a glorious body) will be reserved for the just or elect. Didymus of Alexandria and Acacius of Caesarea insist on the mystery, but ultimately their interpretation is close to Diodorus's.

The second form of the text, Jerome explains, was championed by, among others, Theodorus of Heraclia and Apollinaris of Laodicea, but following two diverging interpretations. Those who “will not die” can be those who are still alive on the day of the parousia or—more interestingly—they may be the believers referred to in John 11:25–26, where it is stated that to believe now is to cross the boundary of death and go from mortality to immortality.Footnote 17

After this long review, Jerome chooses a solution close to Augustine's position, claiming that the death of the body is not the end of the human person. But the variety of patristic interpretations as well as the instability of the biblical text make it clear that the problem of immortality, the destiny of the soul, and the hope for a bodily resurrection were still burning issues, well into Christian centuries.Footnote 18

Gregory of Nyssa

Let us consider now a Greek theologian of fourth-century Christianity. Gregory of Nyssa's On the Soul and the Resurrection was written within days of the death of his brother Basil the Great, and as his sister Macrina lay mortally ill.Footnote 19 Sometimes called the Christian equivalent to Plato's Phaedo, because of its dialogical genre and topic, Gregory deferentially attributes to his sister the role of Socrates, the wise teacher, and modestly takes for himself the role of pupil. Platonic in its defense of the immortality of the soul and its spiritual nature, the work is Aristotelian in asserting the simultaneous birth of both the soul and the body and in denying any migration of the soul. What interests me here is Gregory's first concern: the search for a definition of the soul, establishing a parallel between the invisible God and the spiritual soul. Gregory's second concern is to harmonize the dissolution of the body after death with belief in the resurrection of the flesh. Thus sins such as anger and desire, even if connected to the soul, are not part of the human person.

Nor does Gregory see the continuity of the person after death in the physical presence of relics or in the almighty care of God but in the memory that the soul preserves of all the details of her brother the body. The parable of the Rich Man and Poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) does not confront resurrected bodies in Hell and Paradise but souls who remember their bodily counterparts. Gregory considers life after death—strangely more presupposed than described—not as a static period of reward and punishment but, under the influence of Origen,Footnote 20 as a long process of training and education in a sort of moral rehabilitation. This optimistic perspective confirms Gregory's main goal: to find consolation in the face of death—not an easy consolation, such as the billige Gnade (“cheap grace”) chastised by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but a real consolation.

Third and Second Centuries

Origen

Turning to the third century C.E., in the De principiis of Origen we find the skill of a biblical scholar and the sophistication of a theologian.Footnote 21 Even though he will be condemned by some as early as the fourth century for his eschatology and spiritualization, his interpretation of immortality and resurrection will become highly influential. All spiritual life seeks to become similar to God. If God has created human beings in his image (imago) at the creation, then at the resurrection the saved will be reestablished in a status even closer to God (similitudo).Footnote 22 While the final transformation will be the matter of an instant in Jerome's thinking, it is a long process, a process of spiritual education, in the mind of Origen.

In another passage of De principiis, Origen meditates on punishment and reward.Footnote 23 In his effort to explain who will face the final judgment, he eagerly reacts against what he calls the heretics who limit survival to the soul, insisting that it will be our souls and our bodies both that will inherit eternal life. This continuity is important to Origen: it will be in our own bodies that the resurrection will take place. On the other hand, he criticizes the simple believers who expect only a revival of their present fleshly body. Our risen bodies will be, he insists, spiritual in nature, for as the apostle Paul says, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 15:50). We will inhabit our spiritual body and abandon our animal body. As Caroline Bynum has opposed the two metaphors, one—dangerous—is the reconstruction of the body as a house and the other—more useful—is the transformation of the seed into a plant.Footnote 24 Origen, like Paul, prefers the metaphor of the seed. The glorified body will be both continuous and discontinuous with the natural body. It will be similar and different, just as a plant is continuous with the seed even though it looks quite different. The change will be the work of the grace of God, but through the spiritual exercise of their souls over their bodies believers cooperate in this divine effort.

Tertullian

Tertullian wrote his De anima in 210 or early in 211.Footnote 25 The difficulty of interpreting this very complex work begins with the question: Why does Tertullian write on the soul? Two things are clear: Tertullian does not write for the sake of clarifying his own thought, and he does not face one major opponent but many. He opposes Pythagoras and his view of the migration of souls, which he, Tertullian, describes as unstable souls going and coming without a rest (§ 28). He opposes Plato, reproaching him for the spiritual nature of his soul (§§ 4, 9, and 24). He opposes what he calls the solution of the magicians, who claim victory over death through magical formulae and tricks (§ 57). For Tertullian, the soul is bodily. Philosophically speaking, he is the closest to the Stoic thinkers, except that for him the soul is the fruit of a creation by the transcendent, true, and unique God.

The long list of Tertullian's Christian opponents witnesses to the melting pot of Christian views in the second century. He is shocked by Saturninus's view that at death the soul will simply fly home directly to heaven (§ 23). He dislikes particularly metempsychosis and metensomatosis, two Greek terms he uses for reincarnation, thus refuting Carpocrates and, before him, Simon Magus. He cannot agree with Apelles, Marcion's disciple, who separates male and female souls. He disagrees finally with Menander, who had preserved an archaic formulation of the Gospels and believed that the afterlife can be called a life and not death. Endowed with a good dose of mauvaise foi, Tertullian ridicules Menander, saying that he was refusing to die.

Against all these adversaries, Tertullian builds an intellectual defense: he trusts the Christian religious tradition and not philosophical wisdom. He believes from Scripture that the soul is created by the Spirit of God (§ 1). The soul has a beginning (§ 4), and her birthday coincides with the body's birthday. The parable of the Rich Man and Poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) proves that the soul after death is bodily (§ 7) and possesses a certain form (an effigies animae; § 9).Footnote 26 Death constitutes the separation of body and soul, the temporary suspension of what Tertullian calls societatem carnis atque animae (“company of body and soul,” § 37). The soul after death does not climb triumphantly to heaven, as we have seen, but goes to the realm of the dead (apud inferos). Tertullian visualizes this space very concretely while Gregory of Nyssa refuses to interpret Hades as a place. For the Cappadocian it is a quality of survival. But for Tertullian apud inferos is a liminal space, the place of a transition between life and resurrection. One therefore does not have to wait for the Middle Ages to celebrate the birth of purgatory.Footnote 27 The reality, without the term, is present in the works of Tertullian and the writings of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. All these theologians of late antiquity expect the period between death and the resurrection to be a time of reeducation, temporary punishment, and first rewards.Footnote 28

Irenaeus

Besides presenting his own position, Irenaeus mentions the position of his adversaries.Footnote 29 In this way he bears witness to the existence of a spiritual interpretation that we find in several authors of the second century. There are “heretics” (from Irenaeus's point of view), who neglect the flesh and claim that, released from the burden of the body, the elect at their death obtain direct access to God. Irenaeus adds here an interesting comment: all his adversaries, he says, rely on Paul's statement in 1 Cor 15, that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (v. 50), to support their position. But in book 5 of Adversus haereses, where Irenaeus defends his own position, we find that he uses the very same authority and source, 1 Cor 15, to support the opposite doctrinal position (particularly v. 44). The battle for interpretations, a topic dear to Paul Ricœur,Footnote 30 is well engaged in the second century.

But we must be fair to Irenaeus: the bishop of Lyon is not just the champion of the resurrection of the flesh. He qualifies his position with the following contrast: just as Adam was marked by natural breathing (πνοή), Christ was connected with the divine Spirit (πνεῦμα). Similarly, after their natural life, human beings will rise from the dead in a body, but it will be a transformed, spiritual body.Footnote 31

Other Second-Century Christian Authors

The second century was for Christians a period of uncertainty and conflicted opinions. Compared to writers of the Second Sophistic, Christians appear naïve and amateurish in their writings. Compared to the Stoics and other philosophers, Christians present inconsistent anthropological views. Their usage of terms such as “soul,” “mind,” and “spirit” is often loose. Above all, there is hesitation concerning the afterlife. Some underscore the involvement of the flesh in the resurrection process, while others are satisfied with the spiritual aspect of the resurrection. This diversity of opinion reflects the ambiguities of the early Christian documents that will become the stock of authoritative writings, particularly 1 Cor 15, and the lack of intellectual training among many Christians. But even more it reflects the early Christian preoccupation with the message of salvation: what really mattered for the Christians of that time is not a definition of the soul or a philosophical distinction of the parts of the self but the hope of an afterlife and a relationship of hope and love with the deity. The clearer the promise of eternal life, the more vague the definition of the self.

Such is the evidence in early Christian poetry, particularly the Odes of Solomon, where anthropology appears simply in the form of the first person pronoun “I,” and soteriology shines in a wide variety of poetic expressions: The Son has loved me and I love him. I shall become “son” or “daughter” myself: “For he who is joined to him who does not die will also be immortal” (Odes Sol. 3.8).Footnote 32 Such is the teaching of the Spirit of the Lord (Odes Sol. 3.10).Footnote 33 The Lord opened my heart to his light and “caused his immortal life to dwell in me” (Odes Sol. 10.2).Footnote 34 “I drank—and became drunk—immortal water” (Odes Sol. 11,7 [Greek]).Footnote 35 “I put on imperishability by his name and took off perishability by his grace. Death was annihilated before my face and the realm of the dead [Sheol] destroyed by my word” (Odes Sol. 15.8–9).Footnote 36

The apologists Athenagoras, Pseudo-Justin, and the author of the so-called Third Epistle to the Corinthians defend a doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh, but for them the soul remains important.Footnote 37 The flesh helps bridge the gulf between death and the resurrection, but the soul is even better than a bridge.Footnote 38 This becomes evident when reading the newly discovered Prayer and Apocalypse of Paul, which I was fortunate to edit with Bertrand Bouvier for the first time.Footnote 39 This apocalypse depicts the opposite destinies of the sinner and the elect at the moment of death and during the long stay in the realm of death while awaiting the final resurrection. Typically for early Christian and Byzantine scenarios, we hear two dialogues between the soul and body, one in the sinner and one in the just. In the case of the just, the soul thanks and congratulates the body for their harmonious life together, like two affectionate siblings. The noble ethical attitude of both in this life has secured the unity of their person on the day of resurrection. Therefore they can separate at the hour of death with the hope of being reunited at the end of time.

The question arises: In their efforts to give life to the soul after death, what function did Christians attribute to the body? As with the soul, various—often contradictory—opinions are offered. A very common response was to praise the future fate of the soul as an escape from the body, which was considered a prison (here of course the influence of the Platonic tradition is tangible). Even if careful distinctions must be made, this is the solution of several so-called gnostic texts,Footnote 40 particularly The Exegesis of the Soul (NHC II.6) and the Letter to Rheginus or Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I.4).Footnote 41 To be sure, we also find anthropological reflections in texts such as the Gospel of Mary.Footnote 42 In this document the author connects matter with the passions and the vision of the Lord with the mind, which is a part of the self distinct from the soul and the human spirit. But here also soteriology is the core of the reflection and among the two mentioned tendencies—spiritual and corporal salvation—it clearly chooses the spiritual. Chapter 9 of the Gospel of Mary describes the ascent of the soul.

A second solution underscores the unity of the person in the knowledge of different fates reserved for his or her parts. Although the dying body is distinct from the living soul, the destiny of the soul in the afterlife depends on the ethical commitment of the body in this life, and a reunion of both, soul and body, is expected on the day of resurrection. This is the orthodox vision thaywe find in Origen's treatise on Martyrdom and in several Apocalypses.Footnote 43

There is a particular version of this respect for the human person, visible in the body, as the image of God. This positive evaluation of the body irradiates the whole person, the soul in particular. Indeed, the body becomes a metaphor for the soul. This is the option selected by early Christian artists and their commanditaires or patrons. In art, whose preserved witnesses are most often funerary, the representation of the body may become the image of the soul or—put differently—the image of the post mortem existence of the self. The picture of the orant, the praying woman with arms outstretched, is perhaps the metaphor of the departed soul. To paint this figure or to sculpt it, quoting Émile Mâle, is to express faith in immortality: “Les peintures les plus anciennes des catacombes respirent cette douceur et traduisent cette foi dans l—immortalité et il est peu de chefs d—œuvre qui nous touchent autant que ces pauvres fresques à moitié effacées.”Footnote 44

Fig. 1.

Praying woman, orant. Rome, Catacombs of Santa Priscilla, Cubiculum of the “veiling.”

Fig. 2.

The patriarchs Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob hold the souls of the blessed. Fresco by Theophánes the Cretan, 1512. Mount Athos, Great Lavra, Trápeza.

John's Gospel, Paul, and Jesus

Why have I entitled this lecture “The Soul's Comeback”? In any case I do not mean the immortality of the soul, Plato's idea, in opposition to the resurrection of the body, the Christian tradition. No, I mean the Christian hope of an afterlife for the self as opposed to today's obsession with the body in a framework of life limited by death as the final perspective. Two quotations help me convey my emphasis. The first is from John Calvin in his comments on Matt 10:28: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Calvin writes, “For how comes it that the dread of men prevails, in the struggle, but because the body is preferred to the soul, and immortality is less valued than a perishing life?”Footnote 45 I found the second quotation reading with students the Greek text of Origen's treatise on Martyrdom: “For, created in the image of God, it [the soul] is worthier than all bodies.”Footnote 46 This is what we find in nuce in first-century Christianity, in the Gospel of John and in the Pauline epistles, to which we now turn.

The Gospel of John

The Gospel of John, written around the end of the first century C.E., is the best witness to my thesis that priority was given to soteriology over anthropology in the early Christian communities.Footnote 47 At no layer in the slow process of this Gospel's composition is special attention given to anthropological terminology. What counts to the authors and to the Johannine community is not a definition of the human being but the salvation offered (“eternal life”) and the Son of God as the source of that salvation. John 3:14–16 compares the Son to the bronze serpent who, lifted up in the wilderness, brought healing to the sick Israelites (Num 21:6–9). When humans look up to the Son, as the Israelites did toward the serpent, they will receive eternal healing.Footnote 48

Explaining at the end of The City of God what “eternal blessedness” means, Augustine claims that the adjective “eternal” does not simply describe an everlasting period.Footnote 49 On the contrary, it implies an extraordinary quality. This is especially true in the Gospel of John: eternal life is not just an indefinite period of time that begins at the death of believers. It is the quality of relationship with Christ, the depth of love between God and God's children, and an existence that begins at the moment of redemption (according to a christological and not an anthropological chronology). It is independent of natural life, so that we will live even if we shall die (see John 5:24–29 and 6:68).Footnote 50

Paul

Writing four or five decades before John, Paul uses the anthropological terms found in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.Footnote 51 He uses terms such as “heart,” “flesh,” “soul,” and “spirit” in a loose way, except when contrasting the “flesh” and the “spirit.”Footnote 52 As sinful existence begins with wrong desire (ἐπιθυμία), develops into sin (ἁμαρτία), and ends with death (θάνατοϛ) (Rom 7:7–25), redeemed existence, described as “righteousness,” is life in the Spirit, not meaning an especially spiritual or mystical existence but a life guided by the Spirit of God, active in concrete love for one's neighbor and intense love for the deity.

Active in the old life, the new life can be described by Paul as a sacrifice of our bodies and the renewal of our minds (Rom 12:1–2). The source of hope for the self comes from divine grace; and the ethical dimension of body and soul can only result from the decision of faith, the human response to the divine affirmation of love.Footnote 53

There is a clear harmony between the Epistle to the Romans and the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Eternal life begins already in the here and now, but the present participation in this eternal life happens in our mortal bodies and conforms itself to the cross of Christ.Footnote 54 Future participation—in continuity with the present—will coincide with Jesus— resurrection. It is therefore of vital importance to affirm that there is a resurrection (1 Cor 15:12).

As a Jew, but also as a native Greek speaker, Paul cannot imagine a self outside the body, an existence without a body. But what will the final body be? Certainly it will be in continuity with the present life (to be sure that this is the same person), but there will also be discontinuity, since the quality of the resurrection will be completely different from natural existence. Therefore Paul creates the expression σῶμα πνευματικόν, “spiritual body,” using σῶμα (“body”) for the continuity and πνευματικόν (“spiritual”) for the discontinuity, for the newness (1 Cor 15:44). Wielding this metaphor, understandable to both Jews and Greeks, he compares our present suffering and our future glorious self to the destiny of a seed, sown physically but reborn spiritually, according to ancient standards and beliefs.Footnote 55 We not only look like the risen Christ but also participate in Christ's existence: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor 15:49). “For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:53).Footnote 56

Jesus

If we search for Jesus— view on this matter using a Greek concordance and the term ψυχή (“soul,” “life,” or “person”),Footnote 57 we find in particular a reference to the most important saying regarding our topic, for it presumes the survival of the person in one way or another after death; it underscores the importance of the “soul” along with the reality of the “body”; it gives strength and hope to all Christians in times of persecution or distress, and it is the saying explained by John Calvin mentioned earlier in this lecture. Knowing that fear can overwhelm anyone in many different circumstances, Jesus says: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28).Footnote 58 Here we find that Jesus believes and presupposes that human life does not stop at the moment of death, and what he calls “soul” can survive after departure from the body. This saying confirms also the serious ethical dimension of eternal life: Christian redemption is not just a sweet promise of eternal delight, but the gift—not without requirements—of resurrection and immortality in the framework of faith and perseverance.Footnote 59

Fig. 3.

An angel wresting the soul of a monk from his corpse. From a Psalter, Dionysiou 65. Mount Athos, Dionysiou.

Spiritual Experience Today

This voyage backwards from late antiquity to the time of Jesus compels me to plead in favor of the soul as the most precious gift given to humankind. But I do not wish to define the soul, as AristotleFootnote 60 or Tertullian did. I do not wish to speculate, as DescartesFootnote 61 did. I do not dare to explain the relationship between the body and the soul or embodiment, as Merleau-PontyFootnote 62 does. My only purpose is to avoid attributing a disappointing limitation to the body and to draw attention to the danger of academic skepticism with respect to the afterlife. It sounds like a sermon, and in some measure it is. Some may refuse to accept this religious tradition, but intellectually they cannot deny the existence of the voice of hope and faith as it is echoed in Origen's opinion that the soul is worthier than all bodies.Footnote 63

Now that we have seen the relevance that Christians of the first centuries attributed to the soul, what do we do with the recent reflections on the body by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Pierre Hadot, and Peter Brown?Footnote 64 I would like to use this impressive amount of research first as an invitation to underscore human responsibility in this life and in this world. In doing so, I introduce an expression that theologians have created: “eschatological reservation.” To understand this notion, it is necessary to look at Paul's epistle to the Romans. While Paul says in Romans 6 that we have been crucified with Jesus Christ, he does not dare say that we have been raised again with him.Footnote 65 Sensitive to the eschatological reservation, he says that from now on we can live in newness of life, but not yet in full resurrection. In conformity with the apostle, early Christians did not flee from their bodies but accepted their insertion into this life. They strove to respect their ethical duty.Footnote 66

The recent emphasis on the body urges us not to return to the type of spirituality proclaimed by the publisher Henri-Louis Mermod (who was trying to educate the young student that I was at that time) by shouting: “We are all of us Platonists, aren—t we?”Footnote 67 This attitude is no longer appropriate, for our soul is intimately dependent on our body and our body on our soul. This is a second positive result of the current interest in the body. In my view, however, there is in the human person an element of mystery, of irreducible subjectivity that the term “soul” preserves. This portion is as light as the ancient definition of the soul as a butterfly recalls. And it is exceedingly thin, as a recent Ph.D. graduate from Harvard University (Department of History), Gregory Smith, underscores in the title of his dissertation: Very Thin Things: Toward a Cultural History of the Soul in Roman Antiquity.Footnote 68 The soul escapes from one's hand like a thin sheet, as it does in the death of the partriarch recorded in the Testament of Abraham.Footnote 69 But being so thin, it is a part of us that refuses all laws of contingency and mortality.

Recently I enjoyed reading Drew Leder's The Absent Body, which Michael Jackson had mentioned to me.Footnote 70 Both Merleau-Ponty and Leder refuse to consider the body as an object of study. Both also participate in the philosophical reaction against the all-too-easy tendency since Plato to prefer disembodiment.Footnote 71 While Merleau-Ponty, in his Phénoménologie de la perception, examined the external body, Leder has been attentive to the internal body, to the visceral part of our being. Leder's main thesis, that Merleau-Ponty still ignores, is exciting: when we use it, when everything is fine, we forget our body. The body is absent. Engaged in a sports competition, I concentrate exclusively on the game. And Leder remarks correctly that we remember our body only at the moment something is going wrong, which he calls “dysfunction.” Therefore a third positive result of the recent passion for the body is a reminder of the self, a reminder of our fragile—and not heroic—constitution.Footnote 72

Conclusion

I read in the early Christian witnesses a special interest in the soul and its immortality, strongly related to their faith in the resurrection itself. Immortality was not for them an anthropological given but a christological gift. It was for them the fruit of redemption and not the result of an immanent process. Different from many observations today, their concern for the body, even for the flesh (in the framework of the resurrection of the dead), went hand in hand with the continuity of the person in a way that we can call the soul. They were interested in the body as it related to their hope in the resurrection and to their reflection on the incarnation of the Son. They preferred the first person singular “I” to the impersonal third person “she” or “he.” Using the German distinction, they preferred Leib rather than Körper. They claimed a holistic view of the person, with ethical embodiment now and the risen person tomorrow, and suggested the preservation of the person (between the two) through the existence of the soul and the care and memory of their God.

References

1 I would like to express my gratitude to Harvard Divinity School for the invitation to deliver the Ingersoll Lecture 2009, to Dean William A. Graham for his kind introduction, and to my colleague Professor Karen L. King, who in her presentation expressed much understanding for my work and for me. I would like also to thank Héctor G. Amaya and Eunyung Lim, who both helped me as research assistants, one in the beginning and the other at the end. I convey also my thanks to Linda Grant who improved the English of this lecture and contributed to its final edition. I express also my gratitude to Profs. Jon D. Levenson and Kevin J. Madigan, the new editors, who invited me to publish this lecture in HTR, to Margaret Studier, managing editor of HTR, and to the staff of HTR.

2 See Geoltrain, Pierre, “Origines du christianisme,” Annuaire de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études 92 (1983–1984) 355–56Google Scholar and 93 (1984–1985) 365–67; Martin, Dale B., The Corinthian Body (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995Google Scholar).

3 I still feel in my body the meaning of “following,” “waiting,” or “being transformed” as a hermeneutical approach to encountering Jesus or the experience of Pentecost. See Bovon, François, “Le dépassement de l—esprit historique,” in Le christianisme est-il une religion du livre? Actes du Colloque organisé par la Faculté de théologie protestante de l—Université des Sciences humaines de Strasbourg du 20 au 23 mai 1981 (Études et travaux 5; Strasbourg: Association des publications de la Faculté de théologie protestante et Association pour l’étude de la civilisation romaine, 1984) 111–24Google Scholar, esp. 120–22.

4 The full quotation is: “Avant de poser cette question, voyons bien tout ce qui est impliqué dans la redécouverte du corps propre.” Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phénoménologie de la perception (Bibliothèque des idées; Paris: Gallimard, 1945) 232Google Scholar.

5 Eustratios, , De statu animarum post mortem (CPG 7522) (ed. Van Deun, Peter; CCSG 60; Turnhout: Brepols, 2006Google Scholar).

6 Ibid., 138–41.

7 These opponents, according to Eustratios, do not doubt that souls can manifest themselves from time to time, but in such cases they are not active selves but are moved by God's power.

8 See Gavin, Frank, “The Sleep of the Soul in the Early Syriac Church,” JAOS 40 (1920) 103–20Google Scholar.

9 See Demos, Louis, “The Cult of the Saints and Its Christological Foundations in Eustratios of Consantinople's De statu animarum post mortem” (Th.D. diss., Harvard University, 2010Google Scholar).

10 Augustine, City of God 22.1; English translation slighty changed from Augustine, Saint, The City of God (trans. Marcus Dods; intro. Thomas Merton; New York: The Modern Library, 1993) 810Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., 22.2.

12 Ibid., 22.3.

13 Ibid., 22.4.

14 Ibid., 22.6–7. Augustine confirms his point with a double reference to the witness of faith and the witness of blood. Rejecting the contemporary cosmological argument that at the resurrection the body will not be allowed to reach the peak of creation, he asserts that resurrected people will have their residence above earth, water, air and heaven, and this because their bodies will not be of flesh but of spirit (22.11). See also 22.21.

15 See Nestle-Aland, , Novum Testament Graece (27th ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006)Google Scholar, apparatus criticus ad loc.

16 Jerome, , Lettres (ed. Labourt, Jéràme; 8 vols.; Collection des Universtités de France; Paris: Belles Lettres, 1958) 6:97–120Google Scholar.

17 Those who believe have a living soul and imitate the destiny of the apostles, while those who do not believe have a soul that is already dead even if they are still physically alive. Jerome mentions that this is the opinion of Origen, who, according to Jerome, understands the eternal life of believers as the bodily life of asceticism (a bodily life hic et nunc according not to the flesh but to the spirit).

18 At the end of his letter Jerome mentions even a third textual variant of 1 Cor 15:51, preserved, according to him, only in the Latin version of First Corinthians: “Omnes quidem resurgemus, non omnes autem inmutabimur” (“All of us will rise; not all, however, will be transformed”). (The third edition of the Vulgate by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, 1983, has “sed” [but] before “non omnes autem inmutabimur”). Actually the variant reading is found in the codex Claromontanus, a bilingual manuscript in Greek and Latin (D=06). It is therefore attested in at least one Greek manuscript.

19 Gregory of Nyssa, Dialogus de anima et resurrectione (PG 46, 11–160); see idem, On the Soul and the Resurrection (ed. Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry; NPNF2; 14 vols.; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994) 5:428–68Google Scholar; idem, On the Soul and the Resurrection (trans. and intro. Roth, Catharine P.; Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002)Google Scholar; idem, L—âme et la résurrection (trans. Bouchet, Christian; intro. Bernard Pottier; notes Marie-Hélène Congourdeau; Paris: Migne, 1998)Google Scholar.

20 See Völker, Walther, Das Vollkommenheitsideal des Origenes. Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte der Frömmigkeit und zu den Anfängen christlicher Mystik (BHT 7; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1931) 36–38, 215–22Google Scholar.

21 Origen, Princ. 3.6.

22 Behind the Latin translation imago there must be the Greek ∊ἰκών, and behind similitudo, ὁμοίωσιϛ. Irenaeus had already made use of this distinction, based on an exegesis of Genesis 1; see Irenaeus of Lyon, Haer. 4.38.3–4; 5.6.1; 5.16.1; 5.28.4; 5.36.3. Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.8.38 and 2.22.131, also used the distinction in a way that is similar to Irenaeus.

23 Origen, Princ. 2.10.

24 Bynum, Carolyn Walker, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (Lectures on the History of Religion 15; New York: Columbia University Press, 1995) 1–43Google Scholar.

25 See Tertullian, , De anima, mit Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar (ed. Waszink, Jan H.; Amsterdam: H. J. Paris, 1933) 9Google Scholar. More recently, see by the same editor the edition in Tertullian, , Opera (2 vols.; CCSL 1–2; Turnhout: Brepols, 1954) 2:779–869Google Scholar.

26 As we have seen, Gregory of Nyssa offers a different interpretation. See above, 391. For Tertullian, De anima 11–12, the soul is one and simple. Her strength and power is the animus, the equivalent of the mind (mens, νοῦϛ). Her “leading part,” the ἡγ∊μονικόν (a Stoic formulation), is the equivalent of what Scripture calls “heart” (ibid., 15.1 and 4).

27 Jacques Le Goff distinguishes between the formation of the belief in purgatory already in antiquity and the birth of purgatory itself in the Middle Ages: “Je me propose de suivre la formation séculaire de ce troisième lieu depuis le judéo-christianisme antique, d—en montrer la naissance au moment de l’épanouissement de l—Occident médiéval dans la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle, et le rapide succès au cours du siècle suivant” (“I propose to trace the secular formation of this third place since the Jewish Christianity of antiquity in order to demonstrate its birth at the time of the blossoming of the medieval West in the second half of the twelfth century C.E. and its rapid success in the course of the next century”). La naissance du Purgatoire (Collection Folio; Histoire 31; Paris: Gallimard, 1991) 9Google Scholar.

28 The success of the Christian message of eschatological hope through the expression of immortal life was widespread in the third century, as in the centuries that followed. In Acts Phil. 12.8, even animals convert and express their gratitude in the following prayer: “We glorify you, Lord, the only begotten Son, on account of the undying life into which we have been born, having received in place of an animal body a human one.” In the History of Joseph the Carpenter 24.4, preserved in Coptic, death is understood as an exodus out of the body. And considering this death, Jesus, who is presumed to speak, observes: “Yes, he [Joseph] died, but this death of my father Joseph is not a death, this is eternal life.” Everyone must die, even the most holy ones such as Joseph, Enoch, and Elijah (even if taken alive to heaven Enoch and Elijah will have also to die before the final resurrection). In the Armenian Martyrdom of Thaddeus 22, the apostle, who is praised for having converted Sandoukht, the king's daughter, is considered to be “a way of life and a medicine of immortality.” That means that he is able to bring his converts on the way to eternal life. Book eight of the Sibylline Oracles (8.310–17) presents Christ's passion in a poetic way: through his agony the Son has put death to death and has become a source of immortality. See Écrits apocryphes chrétiens (ed. Bovon, François, Geoltrain, Pierre, and Kaestli, Jean-Daniel; 2 vols.; La Pléiade 442 and 516; Paris: Gallimard, 1997–2005) 1:1285–2Google Scholar:53, 688, and 1077.

29 Irenaeus, Haer. 5.1–14. Irenaeus, , Contre les hérésies. Livre V (ed. Rousseau, Adelin, Doutreleau, Louis, and Mercier, Charles; SC 152–53; Paris: Cerf, 1969)Google Scholar.

30 Ricœur, Paul, Le conflit des interprétations. Essais d—herméneutique (L—ordre philosophique; Paris: Seuil, 1969)Google Scholar.

31 Irenaeus, Haer. 5.12.1–4.

32 Lattke, Michael, Odes of Solomon: A Commentary (trans. Marianne Ehrhardt; Hermeneia; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2009) 35Google Scholar.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 140.

35 Ibid., 149.

36 Ibid., 206.

37 See Athenagoras, , Supplique au sujet des chrétiens et Sur la résurrection des morts (ed. Pouderon, Bernard; SC 379; Paris: Cerf, 1992)Google Scholar; idem, Embassy for the Christians: The Resurrection of the Dead (trans. and annotated by Crehan, Joseph Hugh; ACW 23; Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1956)Google Scholar; Pseudo-Justin, , Sulla resurrezione. Discorso cristiano del II secolo (ed. D—Anna, Alberto; Antica, Letteratura Cristiana; Brescia: Morcelliana, 2001)Google Scholar; idem, Über die Auferstehung. Text und Studie (ed. Heimgartner, Martin; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001)Google Scholar; Terza Lettera ai Corinzi, Pseudo-Giustino, La Risurrezione (ed. D—Anna, Alberto; Letture Cristiane del Primo Milennio 44; Milan: Paoline, 2009)Google Scholar; Hovhanessian, Vahan, Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul for Christian Orthodoxy (New York: Lang, 2000)Google Scholar. Recently two Harvard doctoral students submitted their dissertations on the topics treated here: Taylor Petrey, “Carnal Resurrection: Sexuality and Sexual Difference in Early Christianity” (Th.D. diss., Harvard University, 2010); Glenn E. Snyder, “Remembering the Acts of Paul” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2010).

38 In the Vision of Ezra (recension B), Ezra is taken by seven angels to visit Hell and by four archangels to visit the seventh heaven. Then he must die, and like many strong believers, he is afraid of dying. The Lord consoles him by telling him that his body will go back to the earth while his soul will go back to God. The document may be dated from the second century C.E., but the Latin recensions must be later (4th–9th century C.E.). See Flavio G. Nuvolone, “Vision d—Esdras,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, 1:593–632, esp. 631. Then, in so-called 5 Ezra, when the seer observes the Son in the company of a crowd of believers and asks who the people are, he receives the answer: “These are they who have put off mortal clothing and put on the immortal, and they have confessed the name of God; now they are being crowned, and receive palms” (5 Ezra 2.45). See Pierre Geoltrain, “Cinquième livre d—Esdras,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, 1:633–51. Probable date of 5 Ezra, second half of the second century or beginning of the third century C.E.

39 See Bouvier, Bertrand and Bovon, François, “Prière et Apocalypse de Paul. Un fragment grec inédit conservé au Sinaï. Introduction, texte, traduction et notes,” Apocrypha 15 (2004) 9–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Even if the text is later than the second century, it defends the same position as the Apocapypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul. On these two early Christian apocalypses, see below, n. 43. See Dudley, Louise, The Egyptian Elements in the Legend of the Body and the Soul (Baltimore, Md.: Furst, 1911)Google Scholar; eadem, “An Early Homily on the ‘Body and Soul’ Theme,” Journal of English and German Philology 8 (1909) 225–53Google Scholar.

40 I hesitate to mention here the Gospel of Truth. See Gospel of Truth 20.32–34; 15.12–14 and 35–36; Attridge, Harold and MacRae, George W., “The Gospel of Truth (I,3 and XII, 2),” in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. Robinson, James M.; 3d ed.; New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990) 38–39Google Scholar. Regarding this document, Hurtado, writes: “In the Gospel of Truth, however, Jesus— death does not provide a ransom for sins. Instead, it vividly portrays the futility and unimportance of the flesh, and the secret of the transcendent destiny to which the elect can now aspire in consequence of Jesus— own pathfinding action.” Hurtado, Larry W., Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003) 545Google Scholar.

41 See Malcolm L. Peel, “The Treatise on the Resurrection (I, 4),” in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, 52–54.

42 See King, Karen L., The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge, 2003)Google Scholar.

43 On Origen, see above, 391–92, and below, 399–400. On the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul, see Bauckham, Richard and Marrassini, Paolo, “Apocalypse de Pierre,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, 1:745–74Google Scholar; and Kappler, Claude-Claire and Kappler, René, “Apocalyse de Paul,” in Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, 1:775–826Google Scholar; Claude Carozzi, , Eschatologie et au-delà. Recherches sur l—Apocalypse de Paul (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l—Université de Provence, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 “The most ancient paintings of the catacombs breathe of this sweetness and express this faith in immortality, and few masterpieces move us more than these poor, half-erased frescoes.” Mâle, Émile, Rome et ses vieilles églises (Paris: Flammarion, 1942) 18Google Scholar.

45 Calvin, John, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke (trans. Pringle, William; Commentaries, Calvin's; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845–1846Google Scholar; repr.; Calvin's Commentaries 16; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2003) 1:462. “Car qui est cause qu—au combat la crainte des hommes l—emporte, sinon pour ce qu—on préfère le corps à l—âme, et que l—immortalité est moins estimée que ceste vie caduque?” Idem, Sur la Concordance ou Harmonie composée de trois évangélistes, ascavoir S. Matthieu, S. Marc, et S. Luc (vol. 1 of Commentaires de Jehan Calvin sur le Nouveau Testament; 4 vols.; Paris: Meyrueis, 1854) 263.

46 ἡ γὰρ “κατ j∊ἰκόνα θ∊οῦ” δ∊δημιουργημένη τιμιωτέρα ἐστὶ πάντων σωμάτων. Origen, Mart. 12 (GCS 2; Berlin: Hinrichs,1899) 13. See also 4 Macc. 7.16–19.

47 On the Gospel of John, see Brown, Raymond E., An Introduction to the Gospel of John (ed. Moloney, Francis J.; ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 2003)Google Scholar; Zumstein, Jean, L—Évangile selon saint Jean (13–21) (CNT 2d series 4b; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2007)Google Scholar.

48 On another occasion, changing the metaphor, the Gospel of John describes the Son as the origin of special healing water: “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

49 Augustine, City of God, 22.1. Augustine actually shares an opinion already defended by Origen; see Tzamalikos, Panagiōtēs, Origen: Philosophy of History and Eschatology (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 85; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 230CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who writes: “Reference to eternal in the first place alludes not to a quantity of time, but to the quality of a certain existential state” [emphasis in original].

50 It is not surprising that the Son himself declares: “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). The words “resurrection” and “life” constitute a hendiadys, a way of expressing by two terms one and the same reality. The term “life” is qualified by the term “resurrection.” It is new life, different from the natural life. It is at the same time a “resurrection” of the person, but with the presence of the word “life” it is not just a future hope for the body. It is a present reality for the self as well. Through the gift of this special type of life the self ceases to be “flesh”: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13).

51 Just as there were several distinct synagogues in Jerusalem, as well as in Rome, a plurality that was not felt as a threat against Jewish identity and unity, there were different Christian communities in Jerusalem, Antioch of Syria, and Ephesus. The Johannine community in Ephesus, to whom one of the seven letters of the book of Revelation was addressed (Rev 2:1–7), was probably different from the community established by Paul in the same city (see 1 Cor 15 and Acts 19). Despite this difference, the same fundamental structure of faith was accepted by the two groups. What we have seen for the Johannine group can be found also in the Pauline churches.

52 On Paul's anthropological terminology, see Jewett, Robert, Paul's Anthropological Terms: A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings (AGJU 1; Leiden: Brill, 1971)Google Scholar; van Kooten, George H., Paul's Anthropology in Context: The Image of God, Assimilation to God and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism, Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity (WUNT 232; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008)Google Scholar.

53 Although 1 Thess 4:23 seems to display a complete and firm anthropology (“May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”), this verse is an exception, and Paul—different from Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius, the two stoic thinkers—is not interested in the practice of the body as a source of sanctification.

54 On Jesus— death and resurrection as a saving event received by faith, see Bultmann, Rudolf, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (ed. Merk, Otto; 8th ed.; Uni-Taschenbücher 630; Tübingen: Mohr, 1980) § 33, pp. 292–306Google Scholar. On the parallels between Jesus— resurrection and the believers— resurrection, see Rom 6:3–11; Byrne, Brendan, Romans (SP 6; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1996) 189–93Google Scholar.

55 Here in nuce we find already the future distinction between imago and similitudo, for today human beings look like Adam and Eve, born from earth, natural and mortal (in the image of God, imago), but as Christians they shall be assimilated to Christ, the last Adam, who came not from earth but from heaven (in similarity with God, similitudo; see 1 Cor 15:42–49). See Altermath, François, Du corps psychique au corps spirituel. Interprétation de 1 Cor 15, 35–49 par les auteurs chrétiens des quatre premiers siècles (BGBE 18; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1977)Google Scholar.

56 On 1 Cor 15, see Schrage, Wolfgang, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1Kor 15,1–16,24) (EKKNT 7.4; Düsseldorf: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2001)Google Scholar.

57 When Jesus, according to Mark 10:45, says that the Son of man has come not to be served but to serve, and to give his ψυχή as a ransom for many, there is little doubt that he means here “his life.” But when at Gethsemane he sighs, saying “my ψυχή is deeply grieved,” he means his soul and his spirit, his mental and affective parts (Matt 26:38). Compared with Luke 22:37, Mark 10:45—as it is formulated with the soteriological allusion to a ransom—is more likely the expression of the first community than words spoken by the historical Jesus. See also Luke 21:19, Acts 20:10, and Heb 4:12.

58 On Matt 10:28 see Luz, Ulrich, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Mt 8–17) (EKKNT 1.2; Zurich: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990) 126–28Google Scholar. One should remember the parallel to the saying in 4 Macc. 13.13b–15: “With all our hearts let us consecrate ourselves unto God, who gave us our souls, and let us expend our bodies for the custodianship of the Law. Let us have no fear of him who thinks he kills. Great is the ordeal and peril of the soul that lies in wait in eternal torment for those who transgress the commandment of God.” H. Anderson, “4 Maccabees: A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. James H. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983–1985) 2:558.

59 In subsequent centuries Christian leaders emphasized and contrasted the destiny of the elect and the punishment of others. The separation of the two groups began in early apocalyptic literature: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some for everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2). This eschatological perspective is present as well in the Synoptic Gospels (remember the great picture of the sheep and the goats; Matt 25:31–46) just as it is in the Gospel of John (“Do not be astonished at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation”; John 5:28–29).

60 See Aristotle, , On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On Breath (ed. Hett, Walter S.; Aristotle 8; LCL 288; rev. ed.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

61 René Descartes, Méditations touchant la première philosophie, mainly the second and the sixth meditations; see also the fourth part of Descartes's Discours de la méthode; see Martin, The Corinthian Body, 4–6.

62 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception; idem, L—union de l—âme et du corps chez Malebranche, Biran et Bergson. Notes prises au cours de Maurice Merleau-Ponty (ed. Deprun, Jean; rev. ed.; Bibliothèque d—histoire de la philosophie 98; Paris: Vrin, 1978)Google Scholar.

63 See also Riley, Gregory J., Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1995) 31Google Scholar: “Socrates felt it his divine mission to persuade his fellow Athenians to concentrate their efforts on the cultivation of the good of the soul over against that of the body.”

64 Foucault, Michel, Le souci de soi (vol. 3 of Histoire de la sexualité; Bibliothèque des histoires; Paris: Gallimard, 1976)Google Scholar; Arendt, Hannah, Vita activa oder Vom tätigen Leben (2d ed.; Munich: Piper, 1981)Google Scholar; Hadot, Pierre, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, préface d—Arnold I. Davidson (Bibliothèque de l’évolution de l—humanité; 2d ed.; Paris: Albin Michel, 2002)Google Scholar; Brown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (Twentieth anniversary edition with a new introduction; New York: Columbia University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

65 Beside the reference to Byrne's commentary (see above, n. 54), see also Wilckens, Ulrich, Der Brief an die Römer (Röm 6–11) (3d ed.; EKKNT 6.2; Zurich: Benziger; Neukirchener-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1993) 5–33Google Scholar.

66 On the “eschatological reservation,” see Käsemann, Ernst, An die Römer (HNT 8a; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1973) 214 and 336Google Scholar; idem, Paulinische Perspektiven (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1969) 215Google ScholarPubMed.

67 Henri-Louis Mermod was an influential editor in the middle of the twentieth century in French-speaking Switzerland. The conversation I recall took place at Vidy, along the Lake of Geneva, during a preparation of the Chemin du Château à Vidy, an early morning walk honoring Major Davel and following, on 24 April 1959, the path that he took 24 April 1723 going from his prison to his execution. See Juste Olivier, Le Major Davel followed by Hommage au Major by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (Lausanne: Mermod, 1959).

68 Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2005.

69 Long recension of the Greek Testament of Abraham 20.9–10; see Schmidt, Francis, Le Testament grec d—Abraham. Introduction, édition critique des deux recensions grecques, traduction (Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 11; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986) 166–67Google Scholar.

70 Leder, Drew, The Absent Body (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

71 Ibid., 3.

72 Among the books and articles that I have not yet mentioned, I have selected in chronological order: Rohde, Erwin, Psyche. Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen (5th and 6th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1910)Google Scholar; Cumont, Franz, Lux perpetua (Paris: Geuthner, 1949Google Scholar; a reprinted version, edited by B. Rochette and A. Mott and published or distributed by Brepols in Turnhout [Belgium] is expected for 2010); Cullmann, Oscar, Immortalité de l—âme ou résurrection des morts? (2d ed.; Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1959)Google Scholar; Hanhart, Karel, The Intermediate State in the New Testament (Groningen: Druk. V. R. B. Kleine, 1966)Google Scholar; Otto, Walter F., Die Manen oder von den Urformen des Totenglaubens. Eine Untersuchung zur Religion der Griechen, Römer und Semiten und zum Volksglauben überhaupt (3d ed.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976)Google Scholar; Bremmer, Jan N., The Early Greek Concept of the Soul (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Bernstein, Alan E., The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Lona, Horacio E., Über die Auferstehung des Fleisches. Studien zur frühchristlichen Eschatologie (BZNW 66; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baumgarten, A. I., Assmann, J., and Stroumsa, G. G., eds., Self, Soul and Body in Religious Experience (SHR 78; Leiden: Brill, 1998)Google Scholar; Constas, Nicholas, “ ‘To Sleep, Perchance to Dream—: The Middle State of Souls in Patristic and Byzantine Literature,” DOP 55 (2001) 91–124Google Scholar; La résurrection chez les Pères (ed. Prieur, Jean-Marc; Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 7; Strasbourg: Université Marc Bloch, 2003)Google Scholar; Levenson, Jon D., Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Prinzivalli, Emanuela, “La risurrezione nei Padri,” in Morte—Risurrezione nei Padri della Chiesa (ed. Panimolle, Salvatore Alberto; Rome: Boria, 2006) 169–288Google Scholar; Feichtinger, Barbara, “‘Quid est autem homo aliud quod caro …— (Tert. adv. Marc. 1,24). Aspekte spätantiker Körperlichkeit,” JAC 50 (2007) 5–33Google Scholar; Madigan, Kevin J. and Levenson, Jon D., Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Gill, Christopher, The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Metamorphoses. Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity (ed. Seim, Turid Karlsen and àkland, Jorunn; Ekstasis 1; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ševčenko, Nancy Patterson, “Images of the Second Coming and the Fate of the Soul in Middle Byzantine Art,” in Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity (ed. Daly, Robert J.; Holy Cross Studies in Patristic Theology and History; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2009) 250–72Google Scholar; The Afterlife of the Platonic Soul: Reflections of Platonic Psychology in the Monotheistic Religions (ed. Elkaisy-Friemuth, Maha and Dillon, John M.; Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition 9; Leiden: Brill, 2009)Google Scholar; Macchi, Jean-Daniel and Nihan, Christophe, “Mort, résurrection et au-delà dans la Bible hébraïque et dans le judaïsme ancien,” BCPE 62 (2010) 1–53Google Scholar.

Figure 0

Fig. 1. Praying woman, orant. Rome, Catacombs of Santa Priscilla, Cubiculum of the “veiling.”

Figure 1

Fig. 2. The patriarchs Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob hold the souls of the blessed. Fresco by Theophánes the Cretan, 1512. Mount Athos, Great Lavra, Trápeza.

Figure 2

Fig. 3. An angel wresting the soul of a monk from his corpse. From a Psalter, Dionysiou 65. Mount Athos, Dionysiou.