Over thousands of years of development of our civilization, different beliefs and religions have arisen. And every religion in one form or another formulated the idea of life after death. Ideas about the afterlife are very different, however, there is one thing in common: death is not the absolute end of human existence, and life (soul, stream of consciousness) continues to exist after the death of the physical body. Here are 15 religions from different parts of the world and their ideas about life after death.
The most ancient ideas about the afterlife were not divided: all dead people go to the same place, regardless of who they were on Earth. The first attempts to connect the afterlife with retribution are recorded in the Egyptian "Book of the Dead", associated with the afterlife court of Osiris.
In ancient times, there was no clear idea of heaven and hell. The ancient Greeks believed that after death, the soul leaves the body and goes to the gloomy kingdom of Hades. There, her existence continues, rather bleak. Souls wander along the banks of Lethe, they have no joy, they are sad and complain about the evil fate that deprived them of sunlight and the delights of earthly life. The dark kingdom of Hades was hated by all living things. Hades was presented as a terrible ferocious beast that never lets go of its prey. Only the most courageous heroes and demigods could descend into the dark realm and return from there to the world of the living.
The ancient Greeks were cheerful as children. But any mention of death caused sadness: after all, after death, the soul will never know joy, will not see the life-giving light. She will only moan in despair from the joyless resignation to fate and the unchanging order of things. Only the initiates found bliss in communion with the celestials, and all the rest after death were expected only by suffering.
This religion is about 300 years older than Christianity and today has a certain number of followers in Greece and other parts of the world. Unlike most other religions on the planet, Epicureanism believes in many gods, but none of them pays attention to what human beings will become after death. Believers believe that everything, including their gods and souls, is made up of atoms. In addition, according to Epicureanism, there is no life after death, nothing like reincarnations, going to hell or heaven - nothing at all. When a person dies, in their opinion, the soul also dissolves and turns into nothing. Just the end!
The Bahá'í religion has brought together approximately seven million people under its banner. Baha'is believe that the human soul is eternal and beautiful, and each person must work on himself in order to get closer to God. Unlike most other religions, which have their own god or prophet, the Bahá'ís believe in one God for all religions in the world. According to the Baha'i, there is no heaven and hell, and most other religions mistakenly consider them to be some kind of physically existing places, while they should be considered symbolically.
The Baha'i attitude towards death is characterized by optimism. Bahá'u'lláh says: "O son of the Most High! I have made death a messenger of joy for you. What are you sad about? I commanded the light to shed its radiance upon you. What are you hiding?"
Approximately 4 million followers of Jainism believe in the existence of many gods and the reincarnation of souls. In Jainism, the main thing is not harming all living things, the goal is to get the maximum amount of good karma, which is achieved through good deeds. Good karma will help the soul to be freed, and the person to become a deity (deity) in the next life.
People who do not achieve liberation continue to revolve in the cycle of rebirth, and with bad karma, some of them may even go through the eight circles of hell and suffering. The eight circles of hell get tougher with each successive stage, and the soul goes through trials and even torture before getting another opportunity for reincarnation and another chance to achieve liberation. Although this may take a very long time, the liberated souls receive a place among the gods.
Shintoism (神道 Shinto - "the way of the gods") is a traditional religion in Japan, based on the animistic beliefs of the ancient Japanese, the objects of worship are numerous deities and spirits of the dead.
The strangeness of Shinto is that believers cannot publicly admit that they are adherents of this religion. According to some old Japanese Shinto legends, the dead end up in a gloomy underground place called Yomi, where a river separates the dead from the living. It's very similar to the Greek Hades, isn't it? Shintoists have an extremely negative attitude towards death and dead flesh. In Japanese, the verb "shinu" (to die) is considered obscene and is used only in case of extreme need in it.
Followers of this religion believe in ancient gods and spirits called "kami". Shintoists believe that some people can become kami after they die. According to Shinto, people are naturally pure and can keep their purity if they stay away from evil and go through some purification rituals. The main spiritual principle of Shinto is to live in harmony with nature and people. According to Shinto, the world is a single natural environment where kami, people and the souls of the dead live side by side. Shinto temples, by the way, are always organically integrated into the natural landscape (pictured is the “floating” torii of Itsukushima Temple in Miyajima).
In most Indian religions, the idea is widespread that after death, the soul of a person is reborn into a new body. The transmigration of souls (reincarnation) occurs at the behest of the higher world order and almost does not depend on a person. But it is in the power of everyone to influence this order and in a righteous way improve the conditions for the existence of the soul in the next life. In one of the collections of sacred hymns, it is described how the soul enters the womb only after a long journey through the world. The eternal soul is reborn again and again - not only in the bodies of animals and people, but also in plants, water and everything that is created. Moreover, her choice of the physical body is determined by the desires of the soul. So every follower of Hinduism can "order" whom he would like to reincarnate in the next life.
Everyone is familiar with the concepts of yin and yang, a very popular concept that all followers of Chinese traditional religion are true to. Yin is negative, dark, feminine, while yang is positive, bright, and masculine. The interaction of yin and yang greatly affects the fate of all entities and things. Those who live according to traditional Chinese religion believe in a peaceful life after death, however, a person can achieve more by performing certain rituals and paying special honor to the ancestors. After death, the god Cheng Huang determines whether a person was virtuous enough to get to the immortal gods and live in a Buddhist paradise, or he is on the road to hell, where an immediate rebirth and a new incarnation follows.
Sikhism is one of the most popular religions in India (approximately 25 million followers). Sikhism (ਸਿੱਖੀ) is a monotheistic religion founded in Punjab by Guru Nanak in 1500. Sikhs believe in the One God, the Almighty and All-pervading Creator. Nobody knows his real name. The form of worship of God in Sikhism is meditation. No other deities, demons, spirits, according to the Sikh religion, are worthy of worship.
The question of what will happen to a person after death, the Sikhs decide as follows: they consider all ideas about heaven and hell, retribution and sins, karma and new rebirths to be wrong. The doctrine of retribution future life, the demands of repentance, cleansing from sins, fasting, chastity and "good deeds" - all this, from the point of view of Sikhism, is an attempt by some mortals to manipulate others. After death, the human soul does not go anywhere - it simply dissolves in nature and returns to the Creator. But it does not disappear, but is preserved, like everything that exists.
Juche is one of the newer teachings on this list, and the state idea behind it makes it more of a socio-political ideology than a religion. Juche (주체, 主體) is a North Korean national communist state ideology developed personally by Kim Il Sung (leader of the country in 1948-1994) as a counterweight to imported Marxism. Juche emphasizes the independence of the DPRK and fences itself off from the influence of Stalinism and Maoism, and also provides an ideological justification for the personal power of the dictator and his successors. The Constitution of the DPRK establishes the leading role of Juche in state policy, defining it as "a worldview, in the center of which is a person, and revolutionary ideas aimed at realizing the independence of the masses."
Juche adherents personally worship Comrade Kim Il Sung, the first dictator of North Korea, who rules the country as an eternal president - now in the form of his son Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Soko, Il's wife. Juche followers believe that when they die, they go to a place where they will forever remain with their dictator-president. I don't know if this is heaven or hell.
Zoroastrianism (بهدین - good faith) is one of the oldest religions, originating in the revelation of the prophet Spitama Zarathustra (زرتشت, Ζωροάστρης), received by him from God - Ahura Mazda. Zarathustra's teachings are based on the free moral choice of good thoughts, good words and good deeds by a person. They believe in Ahura Mazda - " wise god”, the good creator, and to Zarathustra, as the only prophet of Ahura Mazda, who showed mankind the path to righteousness and purity.
The Teaching of Zarathustra was one of the first, ready to recognize the personal responsibility of the soul for the deeds performed in earthly life. Those who choose Righteousness (Asha) are waiting for heavenly bliss, those who choose Falsehood - torment and self-destruction in hell. Zoroastrianism introduces the concept of a posthumous judgment, which is a count of deeds committed in life. If the good deeds of a person even outweighed the evil ones by a hair, the yazats lead the soul to the House of Songs. If the evil deeds outweigh the soul, the deva Vizaresh (the deva of death) drags the soul to hell. The concept of the Chinwad Bridge leading to Garodmana over the abyss of hell is also widespread. For the righteous, it becomes wide and comfortable; before sinners, it turns into a sharp blade, from which they fall into hell.
In Islam, earthly life is only a preparation for the eternal journey, and after that its main part begins - Ahiret - or the afterlife. From the very moment of death, Ahiret is significantly influenced by the lifetime deeds of a person. If a person was a sinner during his life, his death will be hard, the righteous will die painlessly. In Islam, there is also an idea of a posthumous judgment. Two angels - Munkar and Nakir - interrogate and punish the dead in the graves. After that, the soul begins to prepare for the last and main Just Judgment - the Judgment of Allah, which will happen only after the end of the world.
“The Almighty made this world a habitat for man, a “laboratory” for testing the souls of people for loyalty to the Creator. Whoever believes in Allah and in His Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), must also believe in the coming of the End of the World and the Day of Judgment, for the Almighty speaks of this in the Qur'an.
The most famous aspect of the Aztec religion is human sacrifice. The Aztecs revered the highest balance: in their opinion, life would not be possible without the offering of sacrificial blood to the forces of life and fertility. In their myths, the gods sacrificed themselves so that the sun they created could move along its path. The return of children to the gods of water and fertility (sacrifice of infants, and sometimes children under 13) was considered a payment for their gifts - abundant rains and harvests. In addition to offering a "blood sacrifice", death itself was also a means of maintaining balance.
The rebirth of the body and the fate of the soul in the afterlife depend largely on the social role and cause of death of the deceased (in contrast to Western beliefs, where only a person’s personal behavior determines his life after death).
People who succumb to illness or old age end up in Mictlan, a dark underworld ruled by the death god Mictlantecuhtli and his wife Mictlancihuatl. In preparation for this journey, the dead man was swaddled and tied to him with a bundle with various gifts to the god of death, and then cremated along with a dog, which was supposed to serve as a guide through the underworld. After passing through many dangers, the soul reached the gloomy, soot-filled Mictlan, from where there is no return. In addition to Mictlan, there was another afterlife - Tlaloc, belonging to the god of rain and water. This place is reserved for those who have died from lightning strikes, drowning, or certain agonizing illnesses. In addition, the Aztecs believed in paradise: only the most valiant warriors who lived and died like heroes got there.
It is the youngest and most cheerful of all the religions on this list. No sacrifices, just dreadlocks and Bob Marley! Rastafari followers are on the rise, especially among communities that grow marijuana. Rastafarianism originated in Jamaica in 1930. According to this religion, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was once a god incarnate, and his death in 1975 did not disprove this claim. Rastas believe that all believers will be immortal after going through several reincarnations, and the Garden of Eden, by the way, in their opinion, is not in heaven, but in Africa. Looks like they have great grass!
The main goal in Buddhism is to get rid of the chain of suffering and the illusion of rebirth and go into metaphysical non-existence - nirvana. Unlike Hinduism or Jainism, Buddhism does not recognize the transmigration of souls as such. It speaks only of the journey of various states of human consciousness through several worlds of samsara. And death in this sense is just a transition from one place to another, the outcome of which is influenced by deeds (karma).
The world's two largest religions (Christianity and Islam) have similar views on life after death. In Christianity, the idea of reincarnation was completely rejected, about which a special decree was issued at the Second Council of Constantinople.
Eternal life begins after death. The soul passes to another world on the third day after burial, where it then prepares for the Last Judgment. No sinner can escape God's punishment. After death, he goes to hell.
In the Middle Ages, the provision on purgatory appeared in the Catholic Church - a temporary place of residence for sinners, after passing through which the soul can be cleansed and then go to heaven.
After the Feast of the Renewal of the Temple, the Lord leaves Judea and goes beyond the Jordan. Here, in the Transjordan region, He will spend three months before Passover, then to return to Jerusalem for the last time. The Evangelist Luke describes in detail, in six chapters (from the 13th to the 18th), the sojourn of Jesus Christ in Transjordan. This final period of the life of the Savior is especially significant. The Lord tirelessly preaches, revealing the meaning of His teaching, and in multitudes accomplishes great and glorious deeds. One of the parables occupies a special place in the gospel narrative. This is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus:
“A certain man was rich, dressed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day. There was also a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who was lying at his gate in scabs, and wished to feed on the crumbs falling from the rich man's table, and the dogs, coming, licked his scabs. The beggar died and was carried by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died, and they buried him. And in hell, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom, and crying out, said: Father Abraham! have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said: child! remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus - evil; now he is comforted here, while you suffer; and besides all this, a great chasm has been established between us and you, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can they pass from there to us. Then he said: So I ask you, father, send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers; let him testify to them that they also do not come to this place of torment. Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen. He said: No, Father Abraham, but if anyone from the dead comes to them, they will repent. Then Abraham said to him: if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone rises from the dead, they will not believe (Luke 16:19-31).
The language of the Bible is particularly figurative. Within the framework of our earthly concepts it is impossible to display the realities underworld. And therefore often used in Holy Scripture metaphor, allegory and parable are the most appropriate form of narration about spiritual realities that are beyond the limits of human sensory experience. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is of a very special nature, for it reveals the secret of the afterlife and expounds religious truths that are extremely important for our salvation.
The first of them is that with the cessation of the physical existence of a person, with his death, the life of his self-conscious and unique personality does not stop, his individual spiritual nature does not go into non-existence. For there is a kind of supersensible reality, mysterious and incomprehensible to the mind, which accepts a person into its bosom after his death.
Another truth is that this otherworldly reality is differentiated, heterogeneous. It consists, as it were, of two worlds: from the world of good, called paradise, and from the world of evil, known to us under the name of hell. After physical death, the human personality inherits either one or the other world, in strict accordance with the state of the soul of each of us. There can be no injustice, hypocrisy or deceit in our gaining a posthumous fate: “You are weighed in the balance,” according to the prophet (Dan. 5:27), and a good soul is rewarded with a transition to the world of grace and light co-natural to it, and an evil soul finds a posthumous retribution in joining the pernicious world of evil.
From the parable, we also learn that these worlds are not completely isolated from each other, they are, as it were, visible to one another, but mutually impenetrable. It is impossible to pass from one world to another, although it is possible to contemplate it. Some semblance of this can be seen in our earthly life: a prisoner is in a world of unfreedom, which he is not able to leave of his own free will, but from his dungeon the prisoner can contemplate the world of free people, inaccessible to him.
Staying in the world of evil is associated with great suffering. In order to convey a sense of their torment, the Savior resorts to a very bright and strong image of fire. The rich man from the parable, consumed by the fiery heat, is tormented by thirst. He asks Lazarus to ease his ordeal and, dipping his fingers in water, bring him some moisture and coolness. This, of course, is an image, a symbol, a metaphor that helps to reveal a very important spiritual truth: beyond the boundaries of the earthly physical world, in the eternity of otherness, a sinful person will be in suffering, the image of which is the fire of hell. In our everyday life, to express a high degree of certain experiences, we often resort to metaphors containing the image of fire: “burn with shame”, “burn with impatience”, “flame of passion”, “fire of desire”. It is amazing that the fire from the parable of the Lord about the afterlife and the fire of the “passions and lusts” of this world reveal an undeniable relationship.
It often happens that the needs and desires of a person cannot be realized in his life, and then there is an internal conflict, discord, a contradiction with oneself, which psychologists call frustration. As a result, the negative tension of the inner life of a person increases, which, in turn, can lead to a clash between the personality and the world, which objectively impedes its self-realization. The greatest drama of posthumous retribution lies in the fact that, unlike earthly life, in the afterlife such tension can never be resolved by anything, constituting the essence of the inescapable torment of a sinful soul.
One or another of the two other worlds, namely the world of good or the world of evil, as already mentioned, is inherited by a person according to his spiritual state. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the tormenting state of the soul is expressed, contemplating the beautiful world of good, but dooming itself to painful vegetation in the gloomy world of evil during its lifetime.
In the perspective of eternal life, there is no place for injustice and unrighteousness that darkened the earthly path of man. It was here, in our temporary life, that one could deceive, mislead, present deeds and events one way or another. It is not uncommon for a person, being inherently sinful, evil and dishonest, to enjoy the favor of gullible and good people, hypocritically presenting himself as not what he really was. And sometimes it takes years for the deception to finally dissipate and become obvious. The other world, which awaits us all, does not know this: an unkind and sinful person inherits in eternity that which corresponds to the true state of his soul. He departs to the abode of evil with their fire, consuming and inescapable painful suffering, and a kind-hearted and gentle person inherits heavenly abode, transferring the grace of his soul to eternity and becoming an accomplice of immortal life in the bosom of Abraham.
It is not accidental in the parable of the Lord that the personification of two types of personality, two varieties life path and two variants of afterlife retribution in the images of a rich man and a beggar. Why exactly? After all, wealth in itself is not a sin, and the Lord does not condemn the rich man for being rich, for the presence or absence of money in a person is morally neutral. But in the Gospel narrative one can clearly trace the assertion of some kind of internal connection between the presence of wealth and the possibility of the death of the soul. Let us remember: “How difficult it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God” (Luke 18:24-25).
Why are earthly riches an obstacle to the inheritance of heavenly treasures? Yes, because wealth is associated with an abundance of temptations. In fact, a wealthy person can afford, if not all, then certainly a lot of what he wants. But a person's desires are often dictated not only by his needs for what is necessary and sufficient, but also by his instincts and passions, which are extremely difficult to restrain and control. And if a rich person succumbs to the power of instincts and passions, then there are no external restraining factors in his life. You need to be a very strong and strong-willed person, a spiritually hardened person, in order, being rich, to avoid the temptations of wealth. On the contrary, a poor person is objectively placed in conditions under which he often simply does not have the opportunity to indulge his passions and temptations. This restraint by external circumstances to a certain extent protects a person from sin, although, of course, it cannot be a guarantor of his salvation.
“I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house,” says the unfortunate rich man about the happy beggar, turning to Abraham, “for I have five brothers; let him testify to them that they also do not come to this place of torment. And Abraham answers him: if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone were raised from the dead, they would not believe (Luke 16:27-28, 31).
What great truth lies in these simple words! Indeed, people who are mad from the imaginary omnipotence of wealth, having the main goal of life to acquire earthly treasures, all conceivable and inconceivable wealth in the name of appeasing their passions - these people will not only not hear the word of Abraham and Moses, but they will not believe the resurrected dead if he comes to enlighten them.
Therefore, the word of God, brought to us through the centuries by the holy Gospel, is so essential for our salvation, from the pages of which the truth of earthly existence is revealed in the perspective of eternal life.
a term denoting participation in the eternal Divine being; infinite existence, life as duration without end; a concept that expresses religion. and religious and philosophical ideas about the highest goal of human existence, about its final paths, about posthumous existence. In Christianity V. Zh. there is life in the Kingdom of Heaven, full-fledged spiritual and bodily participation human personality in divine existence.
Pre-Christian ideas about V. Zh.
Most famous religions traditions of antiquity (ancient Egyptian, ancient Iranian, Vedic, Mediterranean), earthly existence was perceived only as a preparation of a person for the transition to the afterlife. The concept of V. was associated with the idea of a posthumous judgment and the concept of 2 afterlife paths of a person - blessed or mournful - depending on his compliance with the ideals and following the prescriptions of this religion. Faith in the immortality of the soul and in the inevitability of judgment was combined with the hope of a future. resurrection tel. In the religions of Mesopotamia, the idea of V. Zh., on the contrary, appears as a pessimistic view of the afterlife of the human soul as a “bad infinity” - a hopeless stay in the underworld of shadows. Recent ideas are related to religion. degradation caused by the increasing distortion of “the true faith inherent in humanity from the beginning” (Florensky P. A. Stolp and the statement of truth. M., 1914. S. 674), as a result of which the idea of V. Zh. is replaced either by its folklore and mythological surrogates (belief in reincarnation, ideas about the posthumous transition to the world of spirits and the possibility of subordinating it with the help of magic in shamanism, etc.), or by its actual denial (as, for example, in Buddhism).
One of the earliest dated monuments of religions. lit-ry - a body of texts from the pyramid of King Unas (mid-XIV century BC) - definitely testifies to the faith of the ancient Egyptians in V. Zh. (Piankoff A. The Pyramid of Unas. Princeton, 1968). Despite the idea of the inevitability of a posthumous judgment, ancient Egypt. the idea of death is optimistic: the reward for the righteous, eternal bliss, is incommensurably greater than the punishment for the villains by non-existence (Badzh. C. 111). For ancient egypt. monument "Praise of Death" is characteristic of almost complete absence fear of the afterlife reality: “Of those who are born into the world in an innumerable multitude, no one will settle in Egypt: in the city of Eternity, shelter is prepared for everyone without exception. Will the time of earthly visitation last long? Time will pass like a dream, and “welcome” - they will say to the stranger in the sunset fields ”(Praise of death // Poetry and prose of the Ancient East. M., 1973. P. 102). According to the views of the ancient Egyptians, the afterlife is the world above the earth, and not the underworld, as in later religions. beliefs of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. It is described in very bright colors, and this applies not only to external well-being, but also to the moral state of the inhabitants. The “City of Eternity” is presented in the image of “a just, blissful country, where there is no place for fear, a place of rest, whose residents are disgusted by strife, where there is nothing to be afraid of their neighbors, for there is no enmity in this region” (Ibid.). Equally optimistic in their mood are the surviving examples of the ritual art of the ancient Egyptians: images in the pyramids, representing scenes of posthumous existence, are life-affirming pictures of vigorous activity (Frankfort G. et al. On the eve of philosophy: Spiritual quest ancient man. M., 1984. S. 96-97). The most important position of ancient Egypt. religion was the belief in the subsequent bodily resurrection of man: to V. g. not only the souls of people are intended, but also their bodies, which will be restored. The funeral ritual, tombs and tomb utensils, memorial temples, the art of embalming testify to the firm hope of the ancient Egyptians for the restoration of the whole person - soul and body - after death (Zubov. S. 44-45).
The surviving lit. monuments of ancient religions of Mesopotamia contrast sharply with ancient Egypt. Their ideas about the afterlife of a person are extremely pessimistic. The place of the afterlife ("foreign country" - in the Sumerian beliefs, "the country without return" - in the Babylonian) is a gloomy, bleak picture of a weary half-existence. The same bitter fate awaits both the righteous and the evildoers. All rewards and punishments have already been received in earthly life, but after death, people move “to the house of darkness, the dwelling of Irkalla, / to the house from which one who enters never leaves, / To the path along which one cannot return, / To the house where the living are deprived light, / Where their food is dust and their food is clay, / And they are dressed like birds with clothes of wings, / And they do not see the light, but they dwell in darkness, / And the bolts and doors are covered with dust ”(The Epic of Gilgamesh 7 // Epic of Gilgamesh. M., 1961). The souls of the dead languish here without any hope of resurrection or new birth. The path to the blissful immortality of the gods is closed to man. However, in the “land of no return” there are various gradations of suffering: “Those who had large families, who fell in battle, those who lived a worthy life, are treated better than the rest. But still, any clear moral and ethical principles, apparently, are not valid in the infernal world ”(Jacobsen, p. 239).
Views on the fate of man after death, found in the beliefs of the early Indo-Aryans, are vague and contradictory. They did not have a special doctrine of the afterlife, nevertheless they were convinced that death does not mean the end: “After the night, the day; after death - life. Beings, having once arisen, will never end their existence ”(Radhakrishnan. T. 1. P. 92). After death, a person goes to the realm of Yama, where the soul is clothed in a radiant spiritual cover. It is not clear exactly when and how the original, more optimistic eschatology of the Indo-Aryans began to undergo changes, but gradually the idea of the various paths of the ancestors (heaven and hell) changes the view, according to which a person after death is doomed to a hopeless gloomy existence. The image of Yama takes on the features of a formidable and merciless lord of revenge, his kingdom turns from a shining country of the setting sun into a place of underground imprisonment. “The soul that parted with the body - urvan - lingered on earth for three days before descending to the underground kingdom of the dead, in which Yima (in Sanskrit - Yama) ruled ... In the kingdom of Yima, souls lived like shadows and depended on their descendants who continued to abide on earth” (Boyce, p. 23). In Zoroastrianism, there is the idea of a blessed V. zh., which is achieved through the union of the soul with the resurrected body (Ibid., p. 39), as well as the idea of different ways: only the righteous receive eternal bliss; sinners are waiting for eternal torment in the underworld (Rak I. V. Myths of Ancient and Early Medieval Iran (Zoroastrianism). St. Petersburg; M., 1998. S. 296-301, 357-367).
In Dr. Religion of India. representations in general and understanding V. zh. in particular, at the turn of the II-I millennium BC, they were subject to radical changes. Originally, during the Vedic period, an integral part of Indian religion was the idea of a blissful eternity after death. Man lives on earth once. The path of the dead is a path without return, the path to Heaven, to the gods and to those who paved it (Atharvaveda XVIII 4 // Atharvaveda: Izbr. M., 1995). The posthumous existence seemed to the ancient Indians to be eternal and integral: not only the spirit (atman), but also the body participates in it. A number of Vedic texts, and most importantly, the funeral rite testify that a person hoped to find after death a stay in the divine world - “on the other side of the sun” - in a resurrected, as if reborn, own body, cleansed of the flaws of sin (Ibid.; Rigveda X / / Rigveda: Mandalas IX-X. M., 1999). Later, the idea of 2 paths becomes more and more widespread. In addition to the blissful eternity that awaits the god-honoring righteous, there is a place of punishment, a dark abyss that irrevocably absorbs the evil (Radhakrishnan, vol. 1, pp. 93-94).
The founder of Buddhism, Buddha Gautama (6th century BC), accepted the general orientation and pessimistic nature of Brahminical philosophy, but at the same time rejected its basic principle “you are That”, expressing the idea of identity and fusion of atman and brahman. Both were declared by the Buddha to be illusions. According to him, the words about union with Brahma are the speeches of fools. The desire for heavenly bliss was openly recognized in early Buddhism as the greatest evil, because any desire binds to an illusory reality, and the desire for eternal bliss is the strongest. The ultimate goal of a person in Buddhism is dissolution in nirvana (lit. - extinction), which is achieved through a passive state of inaction, unwillingness, insensibility, through complete intellectual and emotional static, through awareness of total emptiness, in which a ghostly individual dissolves, through "intense self-denial" (Conze E. Buddhist meditation: pious exercises, mindfulness, trance, wisdom. M., 1993. P. 13).
In the context of Buddhist teachings, thus, the question of V. f. of a person and even about his further reincarnations seems absurd, because a person, according to this view, is not integrity in any of the usual senses, but the sum of 5 layers of skandhas, which do not reincarnate, but form a series of sequences regulated by the law of karma, mistakenly perceived by the profane consciousness as something really existing: “There are only skandhas that remain for a short time, and there is nothing other than them. The disappearance of the skandhas is called death” (Ibid., p. 116).
The religion of ancient Greeks formed under the influence of a evdemonic civilization solves a question of V. zh. of a person negatively: “All aspirations and expectations, hopes and desires in Homer’s worldview are focused on well-being in this earthly life” (Kulakovsky, p. 21). The life of the body is temporary, but real. Only in the body can human life be carefree, only earthly goods are genuine. Therefore, even the bliss of the gods themselves is depicted in an extremely naturalistic way. The posthumous existence of the human soul is nevertheless recognized, but this existence is gloomy, languid, on the verge of non-existence. The soul is but a shadow (Homer . Od. XXIV 6). Eternal bliss - Olympus - for the gods. The posthumous fate of people is Hades, “where the dead are only the shadows of the departed, deprived of feeling, lifelessly hovering” (Ibid. XI 488). However, apparently, the initial views of the ancient Greeks on the posthumous fate of man were different, more optimistic. This is evidenced, in particular, by Homer's mention of the Champs-Elysees, "where the light-sad-free days of man flow" (Ibid. IV 561).
IN ancient philosophy V. j. - predominantly the life of the mind in the immutability of being, outside the past and future, but with a complete belonging to the indivisible present. Man and his fate were considered included in the eternal cyclical development, which inevitably returns to its starting point. Instead of the idea of a full-fledged V. Zh. here the abstract idea of eternal return was affirmed. Everything in the world is ruled by the impersonal law of necessity, blind fate, fate. The essence of this view, shared by the majority of ancient philosophers, was accurately expressed by Aristotle: “That which exists by virtue of necessity, at the same time always exists, because that which necessarily exists cannot but exist. Therefore, if it exists necessarily, then it is eternal, and if it is eternal, then it exists necessarily ... So, if the emergence of something is absolutely necessary, it occurs in a circle and returns to the starting point ... So, there is an absolute necessity in motion around and around and around” (Arist. De generat. et corrupt. 338a 1-15). Plato in Timaeus compares V. g. over time, which, imitating eternity, constantly runs in a circle (Plat. Tim. 37e - 38a). The idea of circulation is one of the central ones in Stoicism as well. The final state of the world for the thinkers of this school is identical to the initial one. After the completion of the next cosmic cycle, everything starts all over again: "restoration", "development", "completion". The next period to the smallest detail coincides with the previous one. Cosmic cycles replace each other endlessly (Stolyarov A. A. Stoya and Stoicism. M., 1995. S. 114-115). The idea of the eternal circulation of being was also shared by other philosophical schools of antiquity up to Neoplatonism. The cosmology of the Neoplatonists assumes the movement of everything that exists in a circle: “In space, eternal life takes place in the form of a fall of matter from its higher spheres to its lower ones and its reverse ascent” (Losev A. F. History of ancient aesthetics: Late Hellenism. M., 2000. P. 226).
However, if for philosophical discourse this consistent idea seemed the most convincing, then for everyday consciousness and religions. feelings, she looked frightening, because, remaining a hostage to the universal eternal circulation, a person lost hope for his own V. f. Fear of death, horror of life. non-existence, the absolute predestination of fate forced the ancient Greeks to look for a way out of this ideological impasse. As a result, the search led to the development of various forms of the idea of metempsychosis, which, as a kind of semblance of "earthly eternity", was received here with great enthusiasm. If in India this idea was extremely pessimistic, then in the religions of the Mediterranean it acquired a positive life-affirming charge.
References to the transmigration of souls are found in the funerary inscriptions of the South Italian Orphics, Ovid (Ovid. Met. XV 98-142), Virgil (Vergil. Aen. VI 730-751), etc. Pythagoras, Plato and their followers recognized the possibility of reincarnation. Plato saw the highest goal of human existence in the final disincarnation: the soul is called to leave the body, this prison, in order to return to the eternal and perfect world of ideas, from which it once fell. However, Aristotle and his closest students, following the traditions. ancient Greek view, they did not see any hope for a person beyond the threshold of death: “Beyond him, for the deceased, nothing is either good or bad” (Arist. EN. 1115a 26). According to Plotinus, after death, every person becomes that creature whose character most corresponded to his aspirations in this life: whoever lived worthy of a man with his mind will be reborn as a philosopher; who lived only by sensory perception - by animals; who was inactive - a plant, etc. (Plot. Enn. III 4. 2). At the same time, Plotinus believed that everyone in the new birth would have to experience what he caused to others: the rapist would be born a woman and be raped, the killer would become a bud. life as a sacrifice, etc. (Ibid. III 2.13).
In Neo-Platonic philosophy, V. zh. is an impersonal dissolution in the One, a pantheistic merger with the Divine, a complete and perfect identification with it. The ideal of the Neoplatonists is unity with the Mind and through it with the beginning of being - the One. V. g. is acquired by the human soul through its ascent in the reverse order to the emanatic outflow of the One (the One - the Mind - the Soul - other forms of being; the whole set of existential processes is expressed by the triad "stay" - "origin" - "return").
Idea about V.. in the Old Testament and in Judaism
In the VZ, the idea of V. expressed indefinitely. The idea of a posthumous fate is limited only to conjectures and allusions (see, for example: Ecclesiastes 12.7). “With sorrow I will go down ... to the underworld” (Genesis 37:35); “My days run faster than a canoe and end without hope” (Job 7.6; cf. Ps 102.15-16) is the main dying motif of biblical books. In some cases, they sound pessimistic motifs characteristic of the thanatology of the peoples of Mesopotamia, related to the ancient Jews: “Everything and everyone has one thing: one fate for the righteous and the wicked, the good and [evil], the pure and the impure, the one who sacrifices and who does not sacrifice ; both the virtuous and the sinner; both the one who swears and the one who fears the oath ... The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and there is no longer any retribution for them, because their memory has been forgotten, and their love and their hatred and their jealousy have already disappeared, and they have no more part for ever in anything that is done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:2-6). Every person - both righteous and sinful - expects after death the same unenviable fate: his body disintegrates and turns to dust (Job 14:10); the soul descends into the underworld (sheol) - the kingdom of darkness and shadows (Job 10.21), the land of silence (Ps 93.17), the land of oblivion (Ps 87.13), an ugly, twilight place, in which nothing is visible (Job 10.22); there the soul is in an unconscious state (Ps 6:6), in a state of heavy and meaningless sleep (Job 14:12). Sometimes the view of the Old Testament authors on the posthumous fate of a person is so hopeless that even the very existence of the soul as a separate substance is called into question by them (Ps 145.4; Ecclesiastes 12.7).
Understatement about V.'s secret. and such pessimistic ideas about the afterlife of man are compensated in the OT by the ideal of earthly prosperity. The reward for righteousness is wealth, health, longevity, multiplication of the family (Genesis 22:17; 26:3-4). All the promises of God are contained within earthly limits - in the life of the righteous man himself or in the life of his descendants (Genesis 17:8). In most cases, these promises are called eternal. V. f., thus, according to the Old Testament views, is the infinite tribal well-being in conditions this world(Gen 26:4; 48:4; Ex 32:13).
So at first glance, strange for a divinely revealed religion, understatement in ideas about V. Zh. is explained primarily by the fact that, according to the Divine plan, the faith of Dr. Israel had to concentrate on waiting for the coming Messiah. If the role of the OT was reduced to Ch. arr. to being a preparatory step for the coming of the Savior of the world (cf.: Gal 3.24), then it is natural that messianic eschatology and the hopes associated with it should have been at the center of religions. consciousness of the Old Testament people, ousting from it all personal hopes for s.-l. private retribution after the grave. Dr. Israel had to firmly believe only that the Messiah promised by God would come sooner or later and His coming would radically change the fate of mankind - the desired prosperity would come. The nature of this prosperity is spoken of very vaguely, which allowed the majority of Jews to reinterpret the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah and present His Kingdom as the national-political triumph of Israel.
However, in the books of the Prophets there are already expressions that allow us to conclude that the dead do not just sleep in eternal sleep, but in some way are aware of their existence and experience certain states (Ezek 32:18-32; Isaiah 14:9-11; 66 .24). In a number of texts Old Testament prophets connect the coming of the Messiah with the general resurrection of the dead and judgment: “Thy dead shall live, dead bodies shall rise!” (Is 26:19); “And many of those sleeping in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, others to everlasting reproach and shame” (Dan 12:2). But the literal interpretation of these prophecies became generally accepted only in the New Testament Church. In Old Testament times, they were considered ch. arr. in the context national history. For example, the prophecy from the book of Ezekiel about the bones gathering together (37. 11-14) was understood as a prediction about the coming union of scattered Israel (see: Uspensky N. D. Anaphora // BT. 1975. Sat. 13. P. 57) .
Only in the later books of the OT is the idea of the posthumous existence of man, the belief in the resurrection of the dead, and V. g. expressed quite clearly. The Book of Wisdom of Solomon directly says: “Those who think wrongly said to themselves: our life is short and sad, and there is no salvation for a person from death, and they do not know who will free him from hell. ... So they reasoned, and made a mistake; for ... they did not know the mysteries of God, did not expect a reward for holiness, and did not consider the souls of the blameless worthy of the reward. God created man for incorruption and made him the image of His eternal existence” (Wis 2.1-5, 21-24; see also: Wis 3.1-4; 2 Makk 7.9, 14; 12.43; 3 Rides 2.23).
Nevertheless, the general eschatological views of the Old Testament Jews were still vague, which often led to intense disputes between different religions. currents within pre-New Testament Judaism. Thus, the 2 largest rabbinical schools of that time - Hillel and Shamai - for 3 years had a debate on the topic "Is not man created in vain?" and finally agreed that better man would not be born (Eisenberg J ., Gross B . A Bible ouverte. P., 1978. P. 101-102). At the time of Jesus Christ among the Jewish scribes, in particular between the Pharisees and Sadducees, there were disputes about the posthumous reward, V. g., the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees believed in Bud. resurrection, the Sadducees denied it (Mt 22:23; Mk 12:18; Lk 20:27).
From the time of the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the revolt of the Maccabees (167-165 B.C.) until the revolt of Bar Kokhba and the final destruction of Jerusalem (132-135 A.D.), eschatological expectations in Heb. people reach a climactic tension. These expectations were associated with the coming of the Messiah, who would have to establish his eternal Kingdom (cf. Acts 1:6), which was understood by most Jews as the Kingdom of the earth. At that time, there was a rapid development of the Jewish apocalyptic apocryphal literature (Books of Enoch, Psalms of Solomon, Book of Jubilees, Ascension of Moses, Apocalypse of Ezra, Apocalypse of Baruch, Testament of 12 Patriarchs) (see articles Apocalyptic, Apocrypha). In the Jewish apocalypse, for the first time, the idea of chiliasm sounded distinctly - a thousand-year earthly kingdom, at the end of which a new eon will come. The image of the Messiah, which, at first glance, seems to occupy a central place here, actually serves only as a means, an instrument for establishing the world domination of the chosen people, which, in particular, is confirmed by the complete uncertainty of this image itself. In some cases, this is a personal Messiah, in others, a collective Messiah is the personification of the entire Jewish people, sometimes he is a mortal man, an earthly king, sometimes an immortal, super-peaceful being, but in all cases, the task of the Messiah comes down to the liberation of the Israeli people and the establishment of an earthly kingdom with Jerusalem as world capital. In addition, the Messiah is the link that brings the world from the current eon to the new one. He not only liberates the Jewish people, punishes their enemies and establishes a thousand-year rule, but is also present at the resurrection of the dead, acts as a judge at the Last Judgment and opens the life of the future. century (Bulgakov, p. 81). The latter does not have any clear spiritual criteria, therefore, either it is completely shaded by the image of the messianic kingdom that preceded it, or it is presented in the same materialistic features, but with the participation of all of the resurrected and united Israel.
After the coming into the world of Jesus Christ in Judaism, there was a final division into 2 parts - the chosen "remnant", which became the beginning of Christ. Churches, and the national community headed by the Sanhedrin, having rejected the true Messiah, thereby lost the spiritual status of God's chosen people (cf.: Acts 13:46). The understatement in the question of V. Zh., inherent in the Old Testament Scriptures, turned into numerous borrowings in Judaism from paganism, in particular, from Gnostic philosophy and mysticism. So, by the turn of the I-II centuries. according to R. Kh. are the first mentions of the idea of reincarnation in Jewish literature. Heb. historian Flavius Josephus, describing the views of the Pharisees of his time, notes: “Souls, in their opinion, are immortal; but only the souls of the good are resettled after their death in other bodies, and the souls of the evil are doomed to eternal torment ”(Ios. Flav. De bel. II 163; Russian translation 8. 14). In the Middle Ages period the idea of the transmigration of souls becomes a key one in Kabbalah. In the New Age, it is also widely used in other Jewish movements and schools: “After death, the bodies of the soul return to their Source and move to other bodies in order to correct what they spoiled in the past incarnation” (Gordon Y. Garden of Eden. M. , 1996, p. 26). However, unlike ind. In karmic philosophy, reincarnation in Judaism does not serve as a means for the final disincarnation and complete merging with the Absolute, but is woven into the context of the main position of Judaism - the idea of the eternal reign of Israel.
The doctrine about V. in the New Testament
The purpose of the coming into the world of the Son of God, as well as of the entire dispensation of our salvation, was that "everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (Jn 3:15). The gospel of Jesus Christ filled the Old Testament eschatology with the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is seen as a fundamentally different, spiritual reality (Mt 22:30; Lk 20:35), which opens up inside the person himself (Lk 17:21) as a V. f., t. e. communion with the Holy Spirit given to the Church (cf. 1 Jn 1:2). V. g. is a gift of God (Rom 6.23), participation in His being (2 Pet 1.4), which was lost for mankind in the primordial Adam, who arbitrarily fell under the power of death, and returned in the incarnate Son of God, who conquered death with the Cross and the Resurrection. In the risen Christ, as in the firstfruits, the whole creation is reborn and rises: “And as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). Contrary to the understatement of the thanatology of the OT, the New Testament teaching about the descent of Christ into hell clearly testifies that with the death of the bodies the souls of the dead are not destroyed and do not completely lose their self-consciousness, for they were capable of hearing the Savior’s preaching and accepting it (cf. Mt 12:40; Acts 2 27-31; 1 Pet 3:19; 4:16; Rom 10:7; Eph 4:9).
Dar V. g. is perceived by people already here, on earth, through faith in the Son of God (Jn 3:36; 5:24) and Baptism (Jn 3:5). In a conversation with a Samaritan woman, Christ speaks of living water, that is, of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which becomes in those who receive it “a fountain of water flowing into eternal life” (Jn 4:14). Join V. Zh. can be both living and deceased. According to Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky), V. Zh. “is not conditioned by the resurrection from the dead, it is earlier than it, and even seems to determine it by itself: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I (as if by virtue of this) will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6.54). On the other hand, “no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 Jn 3:15), i.e., not only does he not have a firm hope of receiving eternal life in the next age, but he directly does not have eternal life here on earth, as their spiritual property "( Sergius (Stragorodsky), archbishop. 1898. S. 113-114).
Divine Gift Received in Baptism V. f. should not only be preserved, but also multiplied (cf. Mt 25:14-27). It requires dynamic perception and unceasing development, “kindling” (2 Tim 1:6) on the part of the person himself. This process is carried out through keeping the commandments (Mt 19:17), selflessly following Christ (Mt 19:29), who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6), constancy in virtue (Rom 2:7) and Eucharistic communion with Christ's Flesh and Blood (Jn 6:54). However full initiation to V. Zh. will become possible only after the general resurrection (Jn 6:40; 2 Cor 5:1), when God renews all creation, makes it incorruptible and eternal (Rev 21:5).
In the new transfigured state (1 Cor 15:51-53) man will have the opportunity to contemplate God directly (Rev 22:4), "as He is" (1 John 3:2). The knowledge of God, the ever-growing union with God and becoming like Him will become the source of man's infinite bliss, the content of his eternal being: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). This union does not imply spiritualistic disincarnation or pantheistic dissolution in the Divine; on the contrary, a person will not lose either his personal beginning or his spiritual and bodily integrity. Thus, God's plan for creation will be finally realized.
The New Testament Revelation does not consider eternal blessed life as a reality, to which man is unconditionally predestined. V. g. has its antipode - eternal death - a state of endless stay in the darkness of eternal darkness (2 Peter 2. 17). Along with the image of Heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 21.2) - the eternal abode of the righteous - the Apocalypse draws the image of the lake of fire - the place of torment of the devil and sinners (Rev. 21.8; see also: Mt 18.8; 25.41; Mk 9.43 -44). At the Last Judgment, a spiritual division of mankind will take place: the righteous will go to eternal life, and sinners to eternal torment (Matthew 25:46). However, the reason for this division is not rooted in the will of the good God, “Who wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2: 4), but in the free desire of sinners themselves: “The judgment consists in this, that the light has come into world; but people loved the darkness more than the light, because their deeds were evil” (Jn 3:19). Eternal torment, therefore, is a statement of that spiritual state into which a person arbitrarily brought himself during earthly life (Gal 6:8).
The teaching of the Church about V. Zh.
New Testament understanding V. Zh. revealed by the fathers and teachers of the Church in polemics with 2 opposite heretical tendencies - the chiliasm of the Judaizers (Ebionites) and Hellenistic spiritualism, manifested in the anthropology and eschatology of Origen. On the one hand, it was necessary to cut off naturalistic sensory ideas about the Kingdom of Heaven, on the other hand, to defend the idea of a universal bodily resurrection.
The temptation of chiliasm, to-rum under the influence of Heb. apocryphal apocalyptics succumbed in one way or another to many others. Christ. authors of the II-III centuries. (Holy Martyrs Polycarp of Smyrna, Papias of Hierapolis, Justin the Philosopher, Irenaeus of Lyons, Hippolytus of Rome, Methodius of Patara, and also Tertullian), was overcome fairly quickly. In the East, chiliasm was exposed by the efforts of St. Dionysius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria, and condemned at the Council convened by him in 255. Changed historical conditions also played an important role in overcoming chiliasm: the legalization of Christianity significantly weakened the tension of apocalyptic expectations. In the 2nd floor. 4th century chiliasm was already perceived as a non-church view: st. Ephraim the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian. In the West, belief in the millennial kingdom persisted for several years. longer, ch. arr. among the Montanists or in church circles spiritually close to them. In con. IV-beginning 5th century, thanks to the controversy and educational works of Blessed. Augustine, chiliasm disappears from Western Christ. consciousness until modern times. Common in Zap. The Church becomes the Augustinian teaching, according to which the “thousand-year kingdom” of the Apocalypse (Rev. 20. 1-6) is the allegorically understood Catholic Church in its historical perspective - from the time of Pentecost to the Second Coming (Aug. De civ. Dei. XX).
At the same time, ecclesiastical thought also overcame Hellenistic tendencies. Already in the Epistles of St. Paul was rejected the temptation of disincarnation: "For we do not want to put off, but put on, so that mortals might be swallowed up with life" (2 Corinthians 5:4). The preaching of the resurrection of bodies became one of the main motives in the writings of the early Christian apologists: “We are waiting for spring for our body” (Min. Fel. Octavius. 34). To justify this hope, early Christ. the authors pointed to the spiritual and bodily integrity of man. A soul without a body, they noted, is not a whole person, but only a fragment of it, incapable of a full-fledged being. “God endowed independent being and life not with the nature of the soul in itself and not with the nature of the body taken separately, but rather with people, consisting of soul and body, so that with the same parts of which they are composed, when they are born and live, according to at the end of this life they reached the common end” (Athenag . De resurrect. 13, 15).
However, to completely overcome Hellenistic spiritualism, preaching alone was not enough: the dialectical refinement of Platonic philosophy had to be countered by the intellectual weight of Christ. arguments. Origen's attempt was extremely unsuccessful in this respect. Formulating the eschatology of the Church in terms of the Greek Thought, he failed to overcome the principle of the identity of "beginning" and "end" basic in ancient cosmology, although he tried to synthesize it with Christ. the idea of creation. The concept of the eternal cycle of being, invariably culminating in the return of all things to their original unity, remained the basic premise in Origen's eschatology. With such a view, human history and, as a consequence, the atoning Sacrifice that took place in it, lose their uniqueness and ontological significance. The resurrection of the dead longed for by Christians becomes in Origenism only a preparatory fragment before the final and complete disincarnation - the apokatastasis of all rational creatures into a primary purely spiritual state.
Church thought, represented primarily by St. Athanasius the Great, Cappadocians, blj. Augustine, author of the Areopagitic, and St. Maximus the Confessor contrasted the Hellenic idea of eternal circulation with a strictly biblical linear vision of history. History, following the “principle of progressive aspiration” laid down in it by the Creator, moves from its “beginning” to its “end”, from rudimentary primordial perfection to the all-perfect fullness of the Kingdom of God, when the world passes into a qualitatively different, transfigured state. History is not accidental in relation to V. Zh., it is not opposed to it. On the contrary, it is a necessary condition for the entry of mankind into Divine eternity. According to Fr. George Florovsky, history is “the process of becoming a creature growing into eternity” (On the Resurrection of the Dead, p. 441). This dynamic linearity is an obligatory principle not only of the existence of humanity as a whole, but also of each human person. Man must freely carry out his ascent into eternity through following the Divine "pioneer" Jesus Christ. Bearing in mind the Hellenic cosmology, in which there is no room for human freedom, but there is only one inevitable predestination, blzh. Augustine wrote: "Let us follow Christ - straight path and turn away from the vain circular labyrinth” (Aug . De civ. Dei. XII 20).
History will end when the gathering of the Body of the Church is completed. Fullness of the Body is the goal and fulfillment of history (Ioan. Chrysost. In Eph. III 1.23). “When humanity reaches its fullness,” wrote St. Gregory of Nyss, - then this flowing movement of nature will certainly stop, having reached the necessary limit, and the place of this life will be replaced by some other state, separated from the current one, flowing in destruction and birth "(Greg. Nyss. Dial. de anima et resurrect. // PG 46. Col. 128). The General Resurrection will be the final victory over death and corruption, over the fluidity and variability of the temporal world that frightens the ancient Greeks. But this will not be a simple return to the "beginning", but a final renewal. Christ. belief in the inevitability of the end of this world does not mean its essential destruction. The new creation - "Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5) - does not abolish the first creation, perfected "in the beginning" (Genesis 1:1), but transforms it, elevates it to a new incorruptible, deified state.
However, according to the patristic view, V. Zh. is not just the other world, acquired exclusively in the bud. perspective, but the reality of the Divine being, to which one can partake already in earthly conditions. For this reason, the doctrine of V. Well. was not considered by the Fathers of the Church separately, as an independent section of theology, but was included in Christology, soteriology and asceticism as an integral aspect of the central patristic doctrine - the deification of man in Christ. Spiritually dead in Adam human nature was regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit in Christ. In the Church he founded, the grace of regeneration became an inalienable gift. Christ made us, as St. Athanasius the Great, "spiritual" (Athanas . Alex . Or. contr. arian. I 46).
Initiation to V. Zh., carried out through baptismal birth from above, is only its 1st stage. In Baptism, incorruption is acquired by man only potentially, "in a state of possibility" (Maximus Conf. Quaest. ad Thalas. 6). "Potentiality" in Greek. fathers means not the absence of something that should appear later, but the real presence, which, however, requires certain conditions for manifestation. In this sense, the gift of V. zh. given in Baptism is inalienable, however, in addition to the objective presence of baptismal grace, its unceasing subjective assimilation, acquisition is also required. Being born again is not a single act, but a dynamic process. “The one who changes must be constantly born: in a perverse nature you will not notice anything always identical in everything” (Greg. Nyss. De vita Moysis). One of the antinomies of Christianity: on the one hand, the Church proclaims the eternal Kingdom of St. Trinity opened and accessible, with others - calls for unceasing effort to acquire it (“Struggle to acquire consciously the Kingdom of Heaven within you, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit” - Sym . N . Theol . Catech. 34; Russian translation: Word 89 ). In the synergistic combination of two wills - the Divine, giving grace, and the human, perceiving it, - the gift of V. Zh. is transformed in the Christian from a state of possibility into a state of actuality (Maximus Conf. Quaest. ad Thalas. 6). The ascetic efforts of the Christian are supported by the sacraments. Baptism gives birth to a person in V. j., the Eucharist - “the medicine of immortality”, “the antidote so as not to die” (Ign. Eph. XX 2) - supports and nurtures this life in him.
At the end of earthly history, the Kingdom of God, previously hidden in the souls of the saints, will be manifested with glory and power in all visible creation. All nature will be restored to its original God-established plans. The resurrected humanity will be able to participate in the eternal glory of the Godhead not only with their souls, but also with their own spiritualized bodies, freed from the corruption that had mixed with them through the fall (1 Cor 15:44). “The coming life destroys and destroys not the body, but corruption and death adhering to it” (Ioan. Chrysost. De resurrect. 6). Together with human nature, the whole world will be transformed. The whole creation will receive everlasting existence and indestructibility, it will become incorruptible. But about the nature or forms of this transfiguration, Christ. Revelation is silent, apophatically elevating human mind from sensory perceptions to spiritual contemplation: “The Scriptures did not explain to us what the things of the future age are ... the future blessings are incomprehensible and have no resemblance to the blessings here” (Isaac Syr . Sermo 2).
However, St. Scripture clearly says: God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). All created nature - both spiritual and material - will manifest only God, the contemplation of which will become the content of human existence. According to the most common patristic definition, V. zh. there is a constant and inexpressible rest in God (Aug. De civ. Dei. XI 8), union with Him. In this unity, the relationship "I - You" is not abolished, on the contrary, they acquire perfect fullness. Rev. John of Damascus emphasizes that in Bud. century, the righteous will be glorified together with the Son of God, forever "looking at Him and forever being seen by Him" (Ioan. Damasc. De fide orth. IV 27). Although man is called to become a god insofar as God has become a man (Greg. Nazianz. Or. 29.19), the essential difference between them will still remain radical. Man will not be deprived “by grace of anything that is by nature inherent in God” (Maximus Conf. Quaest. ad Thalas. Proem. 14), but God in his essence will always remain inaccessible, transcendent.
V. g. has no end or change. However, this does not mean that the saved humanity will remain in a static motionless rest. The state of a deified creature is aspiration to God (Mantzaridis. p. 123), an endless process of becoming like God (Areop. CH. IV 2). On the other hand, God Himself will give Himself to His creatures immeasurably, "generously and without envy," so that the sons of Bud. the ages will continually increase, "receiving grace from grace, and advancing unceasingly on the joyful path of ascent" (Greg. Pal. Triad. II 2.11). That is, “the actual infinity of the Divine being determines the dynamic (potential) infinity of the human path” (Florovsky. Eastern Fathers of the 4th century, pp. 129-130). At the same time, the distance between the creature and the Creator will, incessantly shrinking, always remain infinite.
Although, at the end of earthly history, all mankind will inevitably be resurrected and all people, regardless of their will, will be restored to V. Zh., nevertheless, only those who choose will become gods by grace (Nicol. Cabas. De vita in Christo. II 91-98). Resolving this paradox, St. Maximus the Confessor developed the theme of a twofold connection with God: connection through internal free consent and connection against the will, from the outside, "outside of grace." Some will be deified by the action of the Divine energies, internally appropriated by their being, while others will be in a state of external contact with God while being internally separated from Him. All - both good and evil - will be embraced by the same Divine love, but unrepentant sinners will not be able to experience the bliss of this love, for them the adoring fire of the Holy Spirit will be an external flame, bringing only unbearable torment (Lossky, p. 134).
Lit .: Sergius (Stragorodsky), archbishop. (later Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'). Orthodox teaching about salvation. Kaz., 1898, 1991; he is. Eternal life as the highest good // AiO. 1999. No. 2 (20). pp. 147-172; No. 3 (21). pp. 130-145; Kulakovsky Yu . A . Death and immortality in the view of the ancient Greeks. K., 1899; Bulgakov C . N . Two cities. M., 1911. T. 2. S. 51-127; Radhakrishnan S. Indian philosophy. M., 1956-1957. 2 tons; Lossky V. N . Essay on the mystical theology of the Eastern Church. dogmatic theology. M., 1991. S. 148-188, 285-287; Trubetskoy N . WITH . Religions of India and Christianity // Lit. studies. M., 1991. Nov.-Dec. pp. 131-144; Zubov A . B . Victory over the "last enemy" // BV. 1993. No. 1. Issue. 2. S. 40-53; Boys M . Zoroastrians: Beliefs and Practices. SPb., 1994; Budge W. Journey of the Soul in the Realm of the Dead: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. M., 1995; Jacobsen T . Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion. M., 1995; Meyendorff I., prot. Three eschatologies // aka. Orthodoxy in modern the world. Klin, 2002. S. 299-303; Florovsky G. IN . About the resurrection of the dead // aka. Dogma and history. M., 1998. S. 415-443; Manzaridis G. The deification of man according to the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas: Per. from Greek Serg. P., 2003.
A. A. Zaitsev
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is one of the most important in Christianity. The study of the question of the posthumous fate of the human soul is an important task for contemporary Orthodox theology. The immortality of the soul is connected with the question of the salvation of man, which, in turn, is the main goal of the existence of Christian theology. For Christianity, the accumulation of knowledge for its own sake is alien. Orthodox theology is a fully practical science aimed at a better understanding of God's relationship with man.
Man is called to serve God, using all his possibilities. Comprehension of divinely revealed truth should take place using all available information, including scientific. It is necessary to develop a Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul and its posthumous fate in the light of modern scientific discoveries which do not contradict the patristic teaching on this issue, but confirm it.
The relevance of the question of the immortality of the soul is associated with an unprecedented revival of mass interest in this topic. It is on this basis Orthodox Church can conduct a dialogue with non-Orthodox researchers, as well as carry out a mission.
To this end, it is necessary to review the available scientific data: evidence of the post-mortem experience of people who were in a state close to death; opinions of resuscitators who observe in their work people who are on the verge of life, etc. It is necessary to compare these data with patristic testimonies and non-Christian teachings about the soul.
It should be noted that the urgent need to develop some specific attitude of Christianity to non-Christian evidence of the immortality of the soul has recently arisen in connection with the rapid development of resuscitation medicine. Until recently, evidence of post-mortem experience was extremely rare. Therefore, there is a certain gap in the development of this teaching. But this gap allows us to use as a theological basis the teaching of the holy fathers, which was fully formed by the 5th century.
The theme of immortality is directly related to the search for the meaning of life. The main difficulty in understanding the meaning of life is the presence of suffering and death in the world. It is the mortality of a person that makes many come to the conclusion about the meaninglessness of existence. For some philosophers, the meaninglessness of life is a kind of theorem, the proof of which is based on human mortality. The anti-Christian orientation of this philosophy is also obvious. First, because the testimony of Holy Scripture and Tradition is rejected. Secondly, the logical conclusion of these thoughts is the conclusion about the need for suicide. This topic well developed in the work of E.N. Trubetskoy "The Meaning of Life". Human life without a higher goal that goes beyond the limits of earthly existence seems to be a series of suffering and nonsense. E.N. Trubetskoy, analyzing the nature of evil, comes to the conclusion that it does not exist independently, but as a perversion of good. Continuing this thought, one can come to the conclusion that the temporary - imperfect cannot exist on its own, but only as a perversion of the absolute - perfect. Those. the perversion of the absolute temporal is only when it claims to be self-sufficient, while in essence it is an infinitely small part of the eternal. From this follows the conclusion that eternal life is possible only in God.
Personal immortality is a Christian revelation. For non-Christian cultures and beliefs, it is one of the stumbling blocks in the way of understanding Christianity. Thus, the Old Testament speaks very little and allegorically about the afterlife. The understanding of eternal life is available only to a few. The prophets foresee it, but they do not talk about it openly, since the people are not ready to accept their testimonies. Moreover, the prophets directly connect the resurrection in eternity with the coming of the Messiah, that is, the posthumous state of the Old Testament man was different from the Christian one.
Many heretical and sectarian movements build their teachings about the soul on the letter of the Old Testament, denying eternal life. The substantiation of the difference in the Jewish and Christian understanding of the fate of the human soul, some of them see in the apostasy Christian Church from true doctrine. Thus, modern man receives the same temptations in the study of Christianity as the era of the assimilation of the New Testament by the Hellenic world. All the more important is the coverage of this problem from the standpoint of the teachings of the Orthodox Church.
A good attempt to harmonize the review of new scientific data in the light of the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul was made by Fr. Seraphim (Rose) in his book The Soul After Death. Data from medical studies of the post-mortem experience of Fr. Seraphim compares not only with Orthodox teaching, but also with evidence of occult practices, which makes the work more comprehensive and objective.
Father Seraphim compares the approach of Orthodox teaching, science and other religions to the question of the immortality of the soul.
It should be noted that there is no single work that contains in its entirety the Orthodox teaching on the immortality of the soul. Many Christian authors devoted to this issue either parts of their works, or entire works that do not claim to be a full presentation of the doctrine. Therefore, patristic literature will always be drawn on specific issues.
The doctrine of afterlife is contained in almost all religions and beliefs. But the fullness of truth is revealed only in Christianity. In the Old Testament religion, the doctrine of immortality is contained only covertly. Man's basic duties before God do not go beyond human life on earth. However, even in the Old Testament one can see the progress of mankind's preparation to receive the fullness of truth in Christ. So, in the Pentateuch of Moses, the earthly prosperity of a person is directly dependent on the fulfillment of the commandments, therefore, the consequence of their violation is earthly trouble. Already by the time of the prophets and kings, the concepts of spiritual purity, prayers for purity of heart, etc., appeared. Gradually comes the understanding that a person is not limited earthly life. However, this understanding was not accessible to everyone, but only to the best representatives of the Jewish people.
With the coming of Jesus Christ, the focus of spiritual life changes dramatically. There is a call to repentance in connection with the approach of the Kingdom of Heaven, and not for the purpose of earthly prosperity. The Lord Himself says that the law of Moses was given to the Jewish people because of their hardness of heart. The fullness of truth is revealed only in the Christian Church. For Christianity, the earthly component of human life is of value only to the extent that it contributes to the acquisition of the Kingdom of Heaven. There is an understanding of the temporality and frailty of everything earthly. The true goal of a Christian is to enter the Kingdom and be with Christ for eternity. However, understanding the gospel does not come overnight. During the first centuries of Christianity, theological disputes were conducted, dogmatic definitions were honed. Gradually, the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul is being formed. However, app. Paul points to the incompleteness of human understanding of revealed truth. If now we see conjecturally, then we will see directly.
The main thing in understanding the Christian doctrine of immortality is that death is not a natural phenomenon for a person. Man was created immortal. His immortality was not absolute, but in the Divine plan it had to become such. Of course, the main evidence of this is Divine revelation. But this is confirmed by human existence itself. People have never perceived death as some physiological regularity. In all religions and cults there is a belief in the posthumous existence of man. This may be due to the memory of peoples about the true ancient religion when people communicated with God directly. But such beliefs are also confirmed by the testimonies of contemporaries who survived a state close to death. It is interesting that these testimonies, differing in details, coincide in the main.
So, what can be identified in the stories of people about the post-mortem experience.
First, it is the continuation of the existence of human consciousness after death. In almost all cases, immediately after death, no qualitative changes occur with the human consciousness. Many people did not even understand what had happened to them, believing that they were still alive. The view of one's own body from the outside was surprising to many. Such an experience is clearly not a vision caused by the physiological characteristics of brain dying. “There is amazing objective evidence that the person is indeed out of the body at this moment - sometimes people are able to retell conversations or give accurate details of events that took place even in neighboring rooms or even further away while they were dead.”
However, the unaltered consciousness does not long remain in this world. Many people talk about their meeting with representatives of another world. In different cases, these are either previously deceased loved ones, or spiritual creatures. In the latter case, there is a correspondence of spiritual creatures to the religious and cultural beliefs of the deceased. Thus, Indians who survived clinical death describe a meeting with Hindu gods, while Europeans talk about a meeting with Christ or with angels. In this regard, the question arises about the degree of reality and reliability of such meetings. In the case of meeting with deceased relatives, we can talk about the universality of the phenomenon. Such a meeting occurs regardless of the religion of the person. Whereas the nature of spiritual beings can be different. The testimony of the Holy Scripture unequivocally refers the pagan gods to demons. Therefore, the meetings of the Hindus with the gods of the Hindu pantheon, from the Orthodox point of view, can be qualified as a meeting with demons. But it cannot be assumed that all evidence of a meeting with angels reflects objective reality. It is known from Scripture that Satan can also take the form of an Angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). Based on this, we can conclude that meetings of this kind take place in the airy realm of fallen spirits, described in Christian literature. This is all the more objective evidence, because. people who had a similar experience might not have heard anything about the Orthodox teaching about aerial ordeals.
An integral part of the post-mortem experience is the vision of another world. It should be noted that it occurs without connection with the confessional affiliation of a person and regardless of the degree of his religiosity. Although the practical side of the vision may vary. Depending on the religious affiliation of a person, the elements of vision may change. If Christians see another world, which they define as paradise, then Hindus see Buddhist temples, and so on.
It is this part of the post-mortem experience that has the greatest contradictions with the Christian doctrine of death. According to people who have had post-mortem experiences, death is something pleasant. In such descriptions, there is absolutely no Christian attitude to death as the beginning of a private judgment on a person. In the cases described, people have positive memories of the post-mortem experience, regardless of their lifestyle and sinfulness. In order to understand the nature of this difference, it is necessary to analyze what are the emotions received in the process of dying. Whether they are a reflection of objective reality, demonic temptation, or just part of the physiological process of dying. To do this, you need to separate the direct visions described by eyewitnesses, and the emotions caused by them.
According to the latest research in the field of thanatology, positive emotions, close to euphoria, are caused by the action of an electrode on the human brain, resulting in artificial inhibition of its individual sections, similar to that which occurs at the time of death. Proceeding from this, a person's emotional attitude to his post-mortem experience cannot be recognized as objective, since in the case described, similar emotions are achieved in a normal state, and not in a near-death state. Concerning the visions of the other world, only hypotheses can be made. The insufficient objectivity of human assessments of post-mortem experience is also evidenced by the fact that this assessment is obviously directly related to the humanistic-liberal development of modern civilization.
The exceptionally positive emotions given out by the posthumous state do not agree with the patristic experience. The evidence of a person's encounter with death described in patristic literature suggests that death is terrible for any person. All the more different is the death of the righteous and the sinner. It is not only a transition to a better world, but also the beginning of a private judgment, a time when it is necessary to give an account of the life lived. Almost all patristic descriptions of the posthumous state of people speak of the passage of the soul of the newly reposed air ordeals. This is the main difference between the Orthodox teaching about the soul after death and the modern teaching, developed on the basis of occult tendencies and the evidence of post-mortem experience interpreted accordingly.
The doctrine of air ordeals, private judgment, the possibility of the soul's transition not only to heaven, but also to hell for carriers modern culture seem more like obscurantism than a reflection of objective reality.
According to psychologists, the fear of death is the greatest in a person's life. Mortality itself leaves a certain imprint of tragedy on any life. Therefore, any person is forced to think about the question: “what then?”. The answer to the question about death is given according to the same rules as the question about the meaning of life. European civilization is doing everything possible to make life as comfortable and free as possible. No matter how trite it may seem, but even after death a person cannot deny himself a certain comfort. But here a contradiction arises not only with the Orthodox testimony about the posthumous state, but also with the evidence of the main world religions. One way or another, the doctrine of posthumous retribution is found everywhere. It is this fact that caused the massive turnaround from traditional religions in the direction of various occult practices and teachings that promise paradise without any extra effort.
The representatives of the new paradigm either reject the evidence of posthumous retribution altogether or speak of its illusory nature. The last statement is based, among other things, on the teachings of various pseudo-Hindu movements. It should be noted that information drawn from such sources is taken out of context and selectively. So, rejecting the doctrine of retribution based on pseudo-Hindu literature, a person may not believe in reincarnation and believe in paradise. As a result, a completely new understanding of the immortality of the soul is being created, which is a conglomerate of various beliefs.
A source worthy of separate analysis is the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This is an early Buddhist text that describes the state of a person's soul immediately after death, which must be read to the deceased in order to help him navigate the other world. The soul goes through three successive post-mortem states of "bardo", after which it falls to a new incarnation. The main emphasis is placed on the fact that all posthumous visions of a person are illusory and symbolic, but do not reflect objective reality. However, the theory of retribution is also present here. Firstly, the main goal of the chain of rebirths is the liberation from the wheel of samsara (being in this world) and the transition to nirvana, which can be achieved by a certain austerity. Secondly, the incarnation is possible in one of the six worlds, depending on the merits of the deceased.
Despite the fundamental difference in the interpretation of posthumous visions, they also have some similarities with the posthumous experiences of Europeans and descriptions in patristic literature. So, for example, in the first posthumous state, a person sees light, i.e. supreme god with which to associate itself. Then he immediately passes into nirvana.
An analysis of the evidence of occult practices also proves the similarity of individual post-mortem experiences, regardless of a person's beliefs and religious affiliation. However, the main emphasis must be placed on the interpretation of occult experience. Those. it is required to evaluate from the Orthodox point of view what exactly a person sees with the help of occult practices. The answer to this question is clear - individual people have the ability to see the world of fallen spirits. Descriptions of mediumistic experiences of the 19th-20th centuries completely coincide with the descriptions of the heavenly world of fallen spirits in patristic literature.
The mediumistic experiences themselves can be divided into two groups. The first group includes spontaneous and, as a rule, short-term visions of the phenomena of the other world. To the second - long journeys in another world, when a person sees dead relatives and spiritual beings, whom he tries to interpret in one way or another.
From examples of post-mortem experience taken from various sources, and occult teachings about the soul, it is clear that the contradictions between them and the Orthodox teaching about the immortality of the soul are, as a rule, imaginary. The main contradictions arise in connection with different interpretations of certain phenomena. But with a deep study of patristic literature, one can understand that the new scientific data do not contradict the testimony of the fathers. However, modern researchers of post-mortem experience admit subjectivity in their work. To some extent, they form a new doctrine of the posthumous fate of the soul, based on the ideals of Western civilization, the ideals of the consumer society.
The Orthodox Church possesses a treasure of patristic literature, therefore it can comprehend new scientific data in the light of sacred tradition and testify to the world of its teaching. It is on this basis that Orthodox theology must build the modern doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Dealing with new scientific data, the modern theologian only receives additional arguments for ideas expressed long before the birth of a full-fledged science.
In the era of the Middle Kingdom, the most characteristic idea of \u200b\u200bthe Egyptian funeral cult was formed - the idea of \u200b\u200bjudging the souls of the dead. This idea is not yet in the Pyramid Texts, but it is already in the monuments of the Middle Kingdom. Osiris himself was considered the judge of souls, and his assistants were the gods of 42 nomes, as well as the gods Anubis, Thoth and the infernal monster devouring condemned souls. On this doomsday the heart of the deceased is weighed and, depending on the good and bad deeds committed by him during his lifetime, the fate of his soul is determined. Here we have a belief in the afterlife retribution, which contradicts the earlier idea of the afterlife as a simple continuation of the earthly life.
The ideas of the Egyptians about the posthumous misadventures of the soul, about its judgment, about the dangers that threaten it, and about the means to get rid of them, are set out in detail in the so-called Book of the Dead. This is an extensive (more than 180 chapters) collection of magical mortuary formulas. The oldest of these formulas date back to the Pyramid Texts (5th and 6th dynasties), they were then written on the walls of the tombs of the pharaohs: in transitional times, these texts were written on the sarcophagi of nobles, and later these increasingly growing funerary texts began to be written on papyri and put them on the chest of the mummy of the deceased. And so this famous Book of the Dead was compiled with a very contradictory content. Some chapters contain appeals on behalf of the deceased to various deities with a request for protection from various dangers; sometimes the deceased directly calls himself the names of these deities. Particularly interesting in this regard is the 17th chapter, where the deceased says about himself: “I am Atum, being one. I am Ra at his first rising I am the great one who created himself...” etc. In other chapters, on the contrary, the idea of afterlife retribution for earthly deeds, an idea associated with the notion of moral responsibility, is clearly presented. Such is the especially famous chapter 125, in which the deceased, as if already before the judgment of Osiris, is justified, denying various sins and bad deeds.
I didn't hurt people.
I have not harmed the livestock.
I have committed no sin in the place of Truth...
I didn't do anything wrong...
I didn't blaspheme...
I didn't raise my hand to the weak.
I didn't do anything nasty before the gods...
I was not the cause of the disease.
I didn't cause tears.
I didn't kill.
I didn't order the kill.
I didn't hurt anyone.
I didn't run out of supplies at the temples.
I did not spoil the bread of the gods.
I did not appropriate the bread of the dead.
I didn't swear...
I did not take milk from the mouths of children...
I did not bring the bird of the gods into the seed.
I did not fish in their ponds.
I did not stop the water at its time.
I didn't block the running water.
I did not extinguish the sacrificial fire at its hour...
I did not obstruct the god in his exit.
I am clean, I am clean. I am clean!
Subsequently, it was the Egyptian religious doctrine of the terrible afterlife judgment that influenced the development of the same doctrine in Christianity. However, this idea of posthumous retribution for good and evil deeds was far from dominant in Egyptian beliefs. Still, the idea that it was possible to ensure the well-being of the soul in the next world by purely magical means prevailed. One such means was the use of the text of the Book of the Dead itself, including the same chapter 125, a text to which magical significance was attributed in itself. In addition, along with the Book of the Dead, other magical items (the so-called ushabti) were placed on the mummy's chest and around, which were supposed to insure the soul of the deceased from all dangers. Some formulas of the Book of the Dead were intended to give the soul of the deceased the ability to turn into different animals; others are ward spells. Magical ideas in the cycle of funeral beliefs of the Egyptians still prevailed over religious and moral ideas.
