The Immortality of the Soul.—History of the Doctrine.
WE have now seen that of the different sects of philosophers, the Aristotelians, the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Academics, and the Pyrrhonists, denied the immortality of the soul; and that the great mass of the people agreed with them on this subject. This leaves only the Platonics and Pythagoreans, and these sects, it is claimed, did believe the soul immortal. We know that they talked about the immortality of the soul, and argued about it, and professed to believe in it; but the doctrine they discussed was only that of emanation and immanation, or absorption. That is, they thought the soul a part of God, an emanation from him, separated from him for a short time, but destined finally, either at the death of the body or at some future time, to return to him, be re-absorbed into his being, and thus lose all personality and conscious existence. This view, it will be seen, virtually amounts to annihilation of the soul. It is not at all like the present doctrine of the immortality of the soul. On this point Bishop Warburton remarks: "But when the ancients are said to hold the pre and post existence of the soul, and therefore to attribute a proper eternity to it, we must not suppose that they understood it to be eternal in its distinct and peculiar existence; but that it was discerped from the substance of God, in time, and would, in time, be rejoined and resolved into it again. This they explained by a closed vessel filled with seawater, which, swimming awhile upon the ocean, does, on the vessel's breaking, flow in again, and mingle with the common mass. They only differed about the time of this reunion and resolution: the greater part holding it to be at death; but Pythagoreans, not till after many transmigrations. The Platonists went between these two opinions, and rejoined pure and unpolluted souls immediately to the Universal Spirit; but those which had contracted much defilement were sent into a succession of other bodies, to purge and purify them, before they returned to their parent substance." (Divine Legation of Moses, vol. ii., book iii., sec. 4, pp. 214, 215.) Then he justly adds: "Thus we see this very opinion of the soul's eternity, which hath made modern writers conclude that the ancient sages believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, was, in truth, the very reason why they believed it not." (Ibid., p. 216.) This was the doctrine of the Platonists and Pythagoreans. Speaking of this subject, Mr. Watson remarks: "Thus philosophy refined upon the doctrine of immortality until it converted it into annihilation itself; for so it is, in the most absolute sense, as to distinct consciousness and personality. The prevalence of this notion under different modifications is indeed very remarkable." (Theol. Inst., vol. i., p. 50.) He thus indorses Warburton's position:— "Some learned men have denied the consequence which Warburton wished to establish from these premises, and consider the re-absorption of these sages as figurative, and consequently compatible with distinct consciousness and individuality. The researches, however, since that time made into the corresponding philosophy of the Hindoos, bear this acute and learned man out to the full length of his conclusions." (Ibid., pp. 50, 51.) Of the belief of the philosophers in the immortality of the soul, the Encyclopædia Britannica says:— "This, however, appears by no means to have been the case with the systems of any, as far as we can learn, of those ancient philosophers who contended the most strenuously for the immortality of the soul. For not only do they seem to have agreed that no suffering could be expected by the wicked in another life, on the grounds that the gods were incapable of anger and therefore could not punish, but the very notion of the soul's immortality, as taught by them, involved the complete destruction of distinct, personal existence.
"Their notion was, that is, when they spoke their real sentiments (for in their exoteric or popular works they often inculcate, for the benefit of the vulgar, the doctrine of the future retribution, which they elsewhere laugh at), that the soul of each man is a portion of that spirit which pervades the universe, to which it is reunited at death, and becomes again an undistinguishable part of the great Whole, just as the body is resolved into the general mass of matter. So that their immortality, or rather eternity, of the soul, was anterior as well as posterior; as it was to have an end, so it had no beginning; and the boasted continuance of existence, which, according to this system, we are to expect after death, consists in returning to the state in which we were before birth; which every one must perceive is the same thing virtually as annihilation. Such, then, were the views which prevailed among the most highly enlightened nations of antiquity on this subject." (Encyc. Brit., eighth edition, vol. i., pp. 459-463.) What will our friends say to these facts? Not one of the ancients believed in the eternal, personal existence of the soul. All souls were finally to lose their separate existence, and be re-absorbed into God. Certainly these will not be claimed as orthodox believers in the immortality of the soul! With these views they could not possibly believe in the eternal misery of the wicked.