Philosophical Sects That Rejected the Doctrine of the Soul’s Immortality by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 2, 1879

Philosophical Sects That Rejected the Doctrine of the Soul’s Immortality.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

BY ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.

Nearly all the celebrated philosophers of Greece and Rome and of the schools founded by them rejected the doctrine that the soul is immortal.

The Peripatetics.

Aristotle, a Greek, born B. C. 384, stands first among the Peripatetics. He founded a flourishing school called the Peripatetic, which through many ages had numerous followers. That he rejected the idea of the soul’s immortality is abundantly proved. The Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge, art. Aristotle, says of him, “The soul of man he considered as an emanation from the Deity, but he says nothing of its immortality.” Dr. Horne says: “Concerning the nature of the human soul, various and most contradictory sentiments prevailed; its existence after death was denied by many of the Peripatetics, or followers of Aristotle, and this seems to have been the philosopher’s own opinion.” Buck says, “They were uncertain as to the immortality of the soul.” Tatian says, “But Aristotle impugns the immortality of the soul.” Watson says, “The doctrine of Aristotle and the Peripatetics gives no countenance to the opinion of the soul’s immortality, or even of its existence after death.”

The learned Ritter, who has carefully investigated the whole subject, says of Aristotle: “No passage in his extant works is decisive; but from the general context of his doctrine it is clear that he had no conception of the immortality of any individual, rational entity.” Mosheim bears this testimony: “Therefore Aristotle’s opinion was not a whit better than that of the Stoics, nor are those in error who consider that the prince of the Peripatetics augured ill of souls, and meant them to be perishable and mortal.”

The Encyclopædia Britannica says: “It may be said, however (and this, perhaps, is the most prevailing notion), that little as the vulgar believed in the doctrine of a future state, it was received and inculcated by many eminent philosophers. But in reality the doctrine never was either generally admitted among the ancient philosophers or satisfactorily proved by any of them, even in the opinion of those who argued in favor of it. On the one hand, not only the Epicurean school openly contended against it, but one of much greater weight than any of them, and the founder of a far more illustrious sect, Aristotle, without expressly combating the notion of a future state, does much more,—he passes it by as not worth considering, and takes for granted the contrary supposition, as not needing proof. He remarks incidentally in his treatise on courage that ‘death is formidable beyond most other evils, on account of its excluding hope; since it is a complete termination, and there does not appear to be anything either of good or evil beyond it.’” “And in the same work, discussing the question whether a man can justly be pronounced happy before the end of his life, he proceeds all along on the supposition that after death a man ceases altogether to exist. * We may collect from his mode of speaking that such was the prevailing and generally uncontradicted belief of the rest of the world.”

The believers in the immortality of the soul were few and far between, and their speculations on this subject were passed by unheeded, as not worthy of notice, by the mass of men both learned and unlearned.

Epicureans.

Epicurus, a Greek, born B. C. 341, was the founder of this school. “The Epicureans … continued to flourish through a long course of years under the Roman emperors.” Paul met them at Athens. Acts 17:18. To their doctrine he refers, 1 Cor. 15:32, when he says, “If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.” They said that would be the end of man; that death was an eternal sleep; that there was no future life of any kind.

These facts are so well known that I need offer little proof upon them. Buck, in his Theological Dictionary, art. Epicureans, says, “They denied the immortality of the soul, and the existence of angels.” Alger says: “Pliny, in his Natural History, affirms that death is an everlasting sleep. The whole great sect of the Epicureans united in supporting that belief by the combined force of ridicule and argument.” Of their numbers in the first century Mosheim says they were “everywhere so immensely great in the age to which we allude that whole armies might have been formed of them.”

Of the doctrine of this philosopher, the New American Cyclopædia says: “The soul is not immortal, nevertheless death is by no means to be considered as an evil, since there remains no consciousness of annihilation after death.” “His system found many followers in Rome, among whom Celsus, Pliny the elder, and Lucretius were the most eminent.” This sect “exercised considerable influence over the Latin world in the decay of the Roman republic and during the first two centuries of the empire.” “No other ancient school of philosophers has evinced a cohesive power equal to that of Epicurus.” “The pupils of Epicurus were very numerous.”

Here, then, was another whole sect, great, popular, and numerous, spread over the civilized world, and flourishing through many ages, which arrayed itself against the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.

Academics.

This school originated with Socrates and Plato. In time it was divided into the Old, the Middle, and the New. We might naturally expect that they would teach the immortality of the soul, but they did not. Mr. Leland justly remarks: “It is remarkable that though there were several sects of philosophers which professed to derive their origin from Socrates, scarcely any of them taught the immortality of the soul as the doctrine of their schools, except Plato and his disciples, and many even of these treated it as absolutely uncertain.” They held everything to be uncertain, and this with the rest. “This they held to be the case even in the most important subjects, such as the soul; and in the most interesting questions concerning it, as whether it was, in its nature, mortal or immortal.” Says the learned Bishop of Gloucester, “The sect was thoroughly skeptical.”

The Religious Encyclopædia bears this testimony: “Among the Academics, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the preferableness of virtue to vice, were all held as uncertain. This sect and that of the Epicureans were the chief that were in vogue at the time of Christ’s appearing, and they were embraced and supported by persons of high rank and wealth.” Then at that time the immortality of the soul must have been generally disbelieved.

The Pyrrhonic Sect.

The Pyrrhonic sect was founded by Pyrrho about B. C. 340. (Smith’s Classical Dictionary, art. Pyrrho.) The disciples of Pyrrho doubted everything, and believed nothing. They were purely skeptical. Warburton remarks: “The Eleatic line [of philosophers] was wholly composed of atheists of different kinds, as the Democritic, the Pyrrhonian, the Epicurean, etc., so these come not into the account” as believers in the soul’s immortality. “So highly was he [Pyrrho] valued by his fellow-citizens that they made him their high priest, and erected a monument to him after his death.” Here is another whole school of philosophers who not only did not believe in the soul’s immortality, but utterly repudiated it.

The Stoics.

The Stoics, founded by Zeno, a Greek who died B. C. 264, was another very celebrated and numerous sect of philosophers. Enfield says that “the Stoic as well as the Academic school was patronized by many eminent men in the Roman republic. The most distinguished lawyers were, as we have seen, inclined toward this sect.” Like those above mentioned, they rejected the soul’s immortality. Mr. Jones says, “The Stoics denied the immortality of the soul.” Warburton remarks of Zeno: “We know, too, that the philosophical principle of this school was that the soul died with the body.” Mosheim confirms this testimony thus: “It is well known to the learned world that this [Stoic] sect denied the immortality of the soul.” So Alger asserts: “They all agreed that there was no real immortality for the soul.” Enfield says of this sect that it “became so popular as to threaten the destruction of the Platonic system.” Again he says, “From these and other causes the Stoic sect, in the time of Juvenal, prevailed almost through the whole Roman empire.”

Heraclitean Sect.

This sect was founded at Ephesus by Heraclitus about 504 B. C. He had many followers who took up and taught his doctrine. He taught that souls were perishable. Thus Enfield says: “Human souls are liable to perpetual changes, and when they are loaded with moist vapors, they pass into the watery mass and perish; but if they are purified from these, they return into the soul of the universe.”

Thus it will be seen that nearly all the philosophical sects of ancient times avowedly rejected the notion of the immortality of the soul.