Appendix A: The Soul in Ancient Mediterranean Thought
Appendix A
The Soul in Ancient Mediterranean Thought
Ancient thought varied as to the nature of the person, whether the soul was an entity distinct from the body, whether it was material, and whether it was eternal. In earlier times Jewish people sometimes distinguished the material and immaterial aspects of a person, though often to emphasize the whole person that they composed. Greek thinkers tended to distinguish soul and body more strongly, though not all viewed the soul as immaterial in the modern sense. Both Stoics and Platonists were major players in these discussions in the first centuries of the Christian era. Although Stoicism was dominant in first-century Greece, Platonism prevailed in subsequent centuries and influenced subsequent Christian theology.
Some Gentile thinkers regarded the soul as immortal, or at least as surviving the body. Some Jewish thinkers also adopted this approach, starting especially in the Mediterranean Diaspora, and it was among the range of approaches accepted by Diaspora Jews in Paul’s day.
Among Gentiles, people often spoke loosely of the soul and body together as the entire person, and some thinkers treated this as the normal approach; however, other thinkers viewed only the soul as the real person. Both popular language and philosophic discourse usually distinguished soul and body. Thinkers in the Platonic tradition emphasized this distinction most, but even Stoics distinguished the soul from the body and regarded the soul as the superior part. So did Skeptics, although they regarded most matters as merely convention. For Platonists and some others, bodies encased souls as containers, sheaths, stalks, or similar container analogies. Plato saw the soul imprisoned in the body “like an oyster in its shell.”
Although many thinkers distinguished the soul from matter, not all did so. Aristotle envisioned the incorporeal soul as merely providing “form” or structure to the matter of the body. Both Stoics, the most popular philosophic school in this period, and Epicureans were materialists. For Epicureans, the body affects the soul, and the soul dies when the body dies. For many Stoics, the soul in the body was a particular case of universal divine Reason permeating and structuring matter. Rather than viewing the body as the soul’s container, Stoics considered the soul to be intermingled throughout the body. The body and the soul cannot but affect each other. Whereas their relationship could mean pain at their separation on the Stoic view, an Epicurean could argue that the soul could leave easily through the body’s many pores.
Even Middle Platonists (those following the form of Platonism dominant in this period) were not always fully Cartesian dualists. Sometimes they associated the rational soul with fire, so that the soul was a substance, merely lighter and purer than the body.
The Soul’s Afterlife
In this period some people continued to embrace older mythical traditions of an afterlife and religiously based hopes in some mysteries for not only earthly blessedness but also a blessed afterlife. Yet many thinkers critiqued these ideas, and even popular thought on the afterlife was often inconsistent. Indeed, no more than 10 percent of funerary inscriptions explicitly affirm an afterlife, and, more tellingly, many lament nonexistence.
Among philosophic schools, the majority of thinkers were unwilling to profess agnosticism regarding the afterlife. Like some others, Epicureans rejected the soul’s immortality, as we would expect. Both medical writers and many philosophers regarded the soul as mortal.
Some other thinkers, however, regarded the soul as immortal; again, this was an important feature of Platonist thought, although it was not limited to Platonists. One curious argument for the soul’s eternality was Plato’s insistence on its preexistence, verified by innate knowledge. (Naturally, neither evolutionary development of instincts nor direct divine design of these human tendencies—nor, for that matter, any combination thereof—was an important part of his context.) On this approach, learning was thus merely recollection. Embracing an idea that also appears in Plato, Pythagoreans affirmed immortality in the form of reincarnation, that is, changing bodies. (Indeed, Greeks believed that some other cultures affirmed the soul’s immortality, including Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Persians.)
Plato admittedly deemed union with the body no worse than separation from it. Still, learning to separate the soul from the body in the present better prepared one for one’s disembodied future. Purified souls could be freed from the body; Plato encouraged purifying oneself in advance to be ready for separation from the body.
Plato complained that pleasures nailed the soul to the body; he wanted philosophy to free the soul from attention to the body. Many thinkers viewed the body as a prison or chains for the soul, or even as a tomb. On this view, death was a release; one sophist felt that at death he would be freed from his body, “an uncomfortable companion.” Consistent with such an approach, some thinkers even denigrated the body. A philosopher could deliberately neglect his body; a later Neoplatonist even loathed his body and starved himself. It was said that one of Plato’s pupils, after reading Plato’s On the Soul, killed himself. Yet as Cicero notes, even Pythagoras and Plato, “though they praise death, forbid us to fly from life,” a violation of nature. Those with a more holistic perspective more fully avoided denigration of the body.
Technically, early and middle Stoics, who expected everything to be resolved back into the primeval fire, did not accept the individual soul’s eternality (though many did accept a period of afterlife), yet a minority apparently did embrace a form of immortality of the soul. Others felt that the soul would float around for a time before being resolved back into fire. Seneca probably represents a moderate Stoic perspective in this period: wise souls persist beyond death, but even they revert to former elements when the universe is destroyed to be remade.
Many intellectuals viewed the soul as intrinsically good or even divine and heavenly. Some urged that the mind must remain tranquil, like the highest heavens. The human mind is shared with the gods, whereas the body is shared with animals; in some Jewish sources the mind is angelic and the body like animals. The pure soul could ascend back to the heavens from which it came; this thought also fed into some people’s notion of astral immortality on a more popular level, at least for good souls. Compare, for example, the story of Scipio’s dream: humanity “has been given a soul out of those eternal fires which you call stars and planets.” Or the thinking of Valerius Flaccus: humans were originally fire, stars in heaven; they became mortals, but they eventually return to heaven.
Jewish Thinkers regarding Soul and Body
Jewish views and especially language about the soul varied in Paul’s era. Most scholars believe that the ancient Israelites were monistic or holistic; one might distinguish the breath of life from the body, but there was little emphasis on partitioning the human person. Many argue that this holistic approach persisted in early Judaism. Although this observation appears true for much of Palestinian Judaism, it was not true for all Jews, whether in Judea or, particularly, in the Mediterranean Diaspora.
Josephus, for example, a Judean writing in the Diaspora, views the soul as afflicted by the body’s defilements until freed from the body at death. He claims to have urged fellow Judeans to recognize that God had given each person an immortal soul, a portion of the divine. He depicts (presumably imaginatively) a Judean revolutionary exhorting his fellow Judeans to view the soul as imprisoned in the body.
Rabbis did not denigrate the body, as many Gentile thinkers did, but they did distinguish the body and soul, especially in later (Amoraic) sources. An early rabbi (a Tanna) spoke of God reuniting soul and body at the resurrection, bringing the soul from heaven and the body from earth. In a later rabbinic parable the body must be raised because the soul and body, which sinned together but separated at death, would be judged together. The same parable is paralleled in another source that some date as early as the first century.
From the Diaspora, the Wisdom of Solomon notes that “the corruptible body [φθαρτὸν σῶμα] weighs down the soul.” In a later work Satan afflicts Job’s body but cannot touch his soul. Writing before Paul, Philo of Alexandria distinguishes body from soul or (often more meaningfully) from the mind scores of times. For Philo, the mind is the soul’s soul, so to speak. Philo emphasizes that humans are created not only from earthly substance but also from the divine breath. Philo often emphasizes the soul’s invisibility, which marks its kinship with the invisible God, as the image of the invisible God.
Jewish Thinkers regarding the Afterlife
Just as Jewish views about the soul varied, so did Jewish views about the afterlife. Sadducees denied not only resurrection but apparently also immortality. They may have continued one pre-Hellenistic line of tradition. Even some later Diaspora Jewish funerary inscriptions lament that “no one is immortal,” though they may simply mean that everyone dies. But Josephus contends that Pharisees reflected more popular views than the Sadducees did, and evidence from Judean burials prior to AD 70 suggests widespread afterlife beliefs.
Certainly, many Jewish writers envisioned death as the soul or the immaterial element leaving the body, and many Jewish people spoke of the soul as immortal. Jewish sources attest belief in immortality, sometimes even before substantial influence from Hellenism, and a wide range of sources attest it.
Psalms of Solomon, probably from the first century BCE, speaks of the life of the righteous continuing “forever,” in contrast to the wicked, who would be destroyed. In some apocalyptic texts, death means escape from what is mortal. For later rabbis, the soul remained near the body for three days before abandoning it.
Josephus, contextualizing his description of Jewish movements for a Hellenistic audience, declares that Pharisees believe in souls’ immortality: “They believe that souls have power to survive death and that there are rewards and punishments under the earth for those who have led lives of virtue or vice; eternal imprisonment is the lot of evil souls, while the good souls receive an easy passage to a new life.” Josephus also describes Essenes in hellenized terms: they believed that their material bodies were perishable and temporary but that their souls were immortal; freed from the prison of their bodies, good souls would ascend upward, just as the Greeks believed.
For Philo, the soul left the body to return to God at death; death was passing from perishable to imperishable existence, to immortality. Hellenistic Jewish works such as Wisdom of Solomon and 4 Maccabees clearly affirm immortality. Outsiders recognized that Christians also believed in an afterlife; Lucian complains that Christians, deluded to believe in immortality, do not shrink from death. Although Paul may teach an afterlife even before the resurrection (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23), like many Pharisees, it should be noted that Pauline literature never clearly uses ψυχή in the Platonic sense, even in letters that elsewhere borrow some Platonic imagery. Paul’s linguistic influence here may reflect more the Septuagint, which employs ψυχή in the conventional, earlier Greek sense that corresponds much more closely to the sense of the Hebrew term nephesh.
. For one concise survey of ancient thought on soul, see Frede, “Soul” (on Plato, see 673–74; on Aristotle and Stoics, see 674); on ancient treatises on the soul, see briefly Dillon and Finamore, “Preface,” ix–x; on Plato and the soul, at length, see Merlan, Platonism, 8–29; and (as cited in Laws, James, 59n1) Guthrie, Plato, 346–47, 421–25, 476–78. For pre-Platonic Greek thought, cf. Croce, “Concepto”; for contrast with the Hebraic approach, Isaacs, Spirit, 15.
. With, e.g., Pelikan, Acts, 192.
. Perhaps Livy 28.15.6; 28.19.13; Philost. Hrk. 27.10. Seneca’s soul is part of his person in Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 113.5.
. Mus. Ruf. 6, p. 54.3–4; Marc. Aur. 5.13; 6.32; for animals, see Hierocles Ethics 4.39–40.
. Plato Phaedo 115D; Epict. Diatr. 1.1.24; 1.25.21; 3.13.17; Diog. Laert. 3.63 (on Plato); Porph. Marc. 8.147–50; 32.485–89; cf. Cic. Resp. 6.24.26; Tusc. 1.22.52.
. E.g., Rhet. Alex. pref. 1421a.17–18; Jos. Ant. 18.282; Fronto Nep. am. 2.8; Philost. Ep. 8 (46); Gr. Anth. 7.109.
. Cic. Tusc. 3.3.5; 3.10.22; 4.13.28; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 8.5. For Iamblichus, the soul mediates between intellect and body (Finamore and Dillon, “Introduction,” 15).
. E.g., Plut. Plat. Q. 3.1, Mor. 1002B; Table 5.intro, Mor. 672F–673A; Pleas. L. 14, Mor. 1096E (protesting detractors); Aff. Soul, Mor. 500B–502A passim; Max. Tyre Or. 33.7–8; Diog. Laert. 3.63 (on Plato); Porph. Marc. 9.154–58.
. Cic. Fin. 3.22.75; Mus. Ruf. 6, p. 54.4–6; Arius Did. 2.7.7b, p. 46.11–18. For that matter, even Aristotle attributed virtue to the soul rather than to the body (Arist. N.E. 1.12.6, 1102a).
. Sext. Emp. Pyr. 1.79.
. See, e.g., Plut. Isis 5, Mor. 353A; Porph. Marc. 32.485–93; Iambl. Soul 6.34, §382; beyond Platonists, e.g., Cic. Tusc. 1.22.52; Dio Chrys. (Favorinus) Or. 37.45. Cf. even the Stoic Marc. Aur. 3.7 (trans. Haines, LCL, 57): “his soul overlaid with his body.”
. Plato Phaedr. 250C; quoted approvingly in Plut. Exile 17, Mor. 607D (trans. Perrin, LCL, 7:569–71).
. Iambl. Soul 1.3, §363; Martin, Body, 7–8. Though incorporeal, it remained matter as fire did (Martin, Body, 8). Stoics could also divide the person according to “causal” and “material” (Marc. Aur. 5.13).
. Ramelli, Hierocles, 44n24; for Stoics, see Iambl. Soul 2.10, §367. Stoics distinguished soul from body, unlike Aristotelians, but normally treated it as material, unlike Platonists (Dillon and Finamore, “Preface,” x). Stoics envisioned πνεῦμα as material (see Keener, Acts, 1:530–31, and sources cited there, e.g., Long, Philosophy, 155–58, 171; Lake, “Spirit,” 103; see Klauck, Context, 353–54; Scott, Spirit, 52–53; cf. Büchsel, Geist, 45–49, esp. 47; Schweizer, Spirit, 29; Nolan, “Stoic Gunk”; Vogt, “Brutes”), and Engberg-Pedersen therefore suggests this use for Paul (Engberg-Pedersen, “Spirit”; Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology), but Paul usually refers to God’s Spirit, which would be no more material than is God. For some responses to Engberg-Pedersen on this point, see, e.g., Levison, “Stoa Poecile”; Barclay, “Stoic Physics.”
. Lucret. Nat. 3.417–977 (esp. 417–829).
. Long, “Soul”; Long, Philosophy, 171 (citing Diog. Laert. 7.156); cf. Martin, Body, 21; Stowers, “Self-Mastery,” 527–28.
. Hierocles Ethics 4.4–6, 44–46.
. Hierocles Ethics 4.11–14.
. Philod. Death 7.6–20; see Henry, “Introduction,” xix. Others also regarded the soul as a fine substance (cf. Lucret. Nat. 3.370–95; Iambl. Soul 1.2, §363; 1.9, §366).
. Martin, Body, 13; Stowers, “Self-Mastery,” 527. Platonists envisioned both “rational and emotive components in the soul, whereas a primary feature of Zeno’s new Stoicism was its return to the purely rational Socratic soul” (Sedley, “Debate,” 152).
. In traditional mythology, see Hom. Od. 11.204–24, 487–91 (though after Homer, hopes moved toward a celestial afterlife; Klauck, Context, 75; Bremmer, “Hades”); Burkert, Religion, 194–99; Lieven, Johnston, and Käppel, “Underworld.” Virgil’s depiction of the underworld was among the most influential (Kaufmann, “Underworld”); for the Roman conception of the murky underworld, see Borca, “Exploration.” For the afterlife in Orphism, see Diog. Laert. 6.1.4; Guthrie, Orpheus, 148–93, 269 (cf. perhaps Bijovsky, “Allegory”; Dionysiac religion in Nock, “Developments,” 508–9; Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, 116–32, though Nilsson reconstructs too much ideology from artwork).
. Nock, Conversion, 102–5; Burkert, Mystery Cults, 21–27. See, e.g., Apul. Metam. 11.6 (though in the Isis cult generally, see Wagner, Baptism, 112); for the Eleusinian mysteries, see, e.g., Isoc. Paneg. 28; discussion in Grant, Hellenism, 12; Burkert, Mystery Cults, 21; Mylonas, Eleusis, 268–69; Wagner, Baptism, 87; Klauck, Context, 117; Godwin, Mystery Religions, 52; for the Bacchic cult, Burkert, Religion, 293–95; Burkert, Mystery Cults, 21–22.
. E.g., Epict. Diatr. 3.13.15. Note Diogenes the Cynic against the afterlife promises of the mysteries in Diog. Laert. 6.2.39. For some satires on the mythical afterlife, see Lucian Z. Cat. 17–18; Dial. D. 402–3 (11/16, Diogenes and Heracles 1–4); 405 (11/16, Diogenes and Heracles 5); ghost stories in Lover of Lies 29–33.
. See the criticism in Philod. Death 28.5–13; conflicting thoughts also are noted in Warden, “Scenes.”
. Klauck, Context, 80; see, further, Thomas, “Dead,” 288. Nevertheless, many expressions of pessimism when bitter about death could coexist with some hope for afterlife, just as they do today; in antiquity, however, they were frequent enough to be formulaic.
. Contrast the epistemic humility in Confuc. Anal. 206 (11.11). Agnosticism about the afterlife appears among thinkers portrayed in Lucian Dem. 43; Z. Cat. 17. Fitch (“Introduction,” 23) suggests that Seneca took an agnostic position; but the examples in Seneca’s tragedies may simply follow the genre (and even here, note the afterlife traditions in Sen. Y. Herc. fur. 743–44, 749–59).
. Pliny E. N.H. 7.55.188–90.
. Epicurus Let. Men. 125; Lucret. Nat. 3 (see Warren, “Lucretius”; O’Keefe, “Lucretius”); Philod. Death 1; Diog. Laert. 10.124; Hippol. Ref. 1.19; Sorabji, Emotion, 248. Cf. also the Cynic Diogenes: death cannot be an evil if one who is dead is unaware of it (Diog. Laert. 6.2.68). Ancient thinkers knew the range of views (as in Iambl. Soul 7.36, §383).
. See the thorough discussion in Weissenrieder, “Leitfaden.”
. E.g., Xen. Cyr. 8.7.17–21 (the speaker, Cyrus, is a reliable character); Arist. Soul 1.4, 408b; Cic. Tusc. 1.8.18–24; 1.14.31; Resp. 6.24.26; Senect. 20.78; Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 8.62.1; (Ps.-)Dion. Epideictic 6.283; Apul. De deo Socr. 126–27; Plot. Enn. 4.7.12; Libanius Encom. 6.10. Cf. perhaps even Lucian Dem. 43.
. Plato Meno 81B (citing also Pindar Thren. frg. 133; cf. Pindar Thren. 7, frg. 131b, in Plut. Apoll. 35.120C); Rep. 10.611B; Phaedo 64DE; 105–7; Phaedr. 245C; Plut. Div. V. 17, Mor. 560B (for Plutarch on the postmortem soul returning to the moon and the mind to the sun, see Buffière, “Séléné”); Max. Tyre Or. 10.2, 5; 41.5; Iambl. Soul 5.25, §377; Letter 8, frg. 2 (Stob. Anth. 2.8.43); frg. 7 (Stob. Anth. 2.8.48); Testimonium 2 (in Olympiodorus In Gorg. 46.9.20–28 [ed. Westerink]); Plato in Hippol. Ref. 1.17; satirized in Lucian Fly 7; see discussion in Lodge, Ethics, 394–409; Patterson, Plato on Immortality. For the myth of Er (Plato Rep. 10.614B ff.), see, e.g., Dräger, “Er.”
. Plato Meno 81BD; Phaedo 75CD. For souls’ preexistence, see, e.g., Iambl. Pyth. Life 14.63; Philo in Dillon, Middle Platonists, 177; cf. Epict. Diatr. 2.1.17; Wis. 8:19–20; 3 En. 43:3; b. Hag. 12b; Gen. Rab. 8:7; 24:4; Exod. Rab. 28:6; Schechter, Aspects, 24; but contrast with more nuance Urbach, Sages, 1:234, 237–38; on innate tendencies, e.g., Cic. Top. 7.31; Mus. Ruf. 2, p. 38.12–14; Max. Tyre Or. 21.7–8; Iambl. Letter 13, frg. 1.1–4 (Stob. Anth. 2.2.6); Porph. Marc. 26.419–20. For the tendency toward worship as innate, see, e.g., Cic. Inv. 2.22.65; 2.53.161; Dio Chrys. Or. 12.27; Iambl. Myst. 1.3; toward ethics, cf. Jackson-McCabe, “Preconceptions.”
. Plato Phaedo 75CD; later, cf. Max. Tyre Or. 10.6; Porph. Marc. 10.185–86. Because Pythagoreans taught reincarnation (Lucian Phil. Sale 5), they viewed learning as merely recollection (Phil. Sale 3).
. Diod. Sic. 10.6.1; Max. Tyre Or. 10.2; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 6.22; 8.31; Ep. Apoll. 58; Diog. Laert. 8.1.14; 8.5.83 (Pythagoras); Iambl. Pyth. Life 18.85; 32.219; Symm. Ep. 1.4.2; Hippol. Ref. 1.2–3; cf. Croy, “Neo-Pythagoreanism,” 739. For reincarnation views, see, further, Plato Meno 81BC; Hdt. 2.123; Val. Flacc. 3.383–96 (for the evil only); Virg. Aen. 6.747–51; Sil. It. 13.558–59; Athen. Deipn. 15.679A; cf. Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 108.20; Pythagorean-Orphic ideas in Thom, “Akousmata,” 105; Epimenides and Pythagoras in Blackburn, “ΑΝΔΡΕΣ,” 191.
. Hdt. 2.123. Cf. Book of Dead, Spell 20, parts T-1 & 2; Spell 30, part P-1; Spell 31a, part P-1; Spell 35a, part P-1; Spell 79, part P-1; Spell 177, part P-1; see also Lieven in Lieven, Johnston, and Käppel, “Underworld,” 105–6. Cf. the Greek Elysian Fields (e.g., Statius Silv. 5.1.192–93) with Egyptian “field of reeds” (mentioned, e.g., in Currid, Egypt, 98). Egyptian and Greek afterlife ideas mingled on tombs in Roman Alexandria (Venit, “Tomb”).
. Cf. ANET 32–34; Lieven in Lieven, Johnston, and Käppel, “Underworld,” 104–5 (similar to Greek mythology).
. See Olmstead, Persian Empire, 40, 100–101. Cf. in Mithraism, in PGM 4.646–48, 748–49 (cf. 719–23).
. Plato Laws 8.828D. Nevertheless, one too willing to die might be compared with a philosopher (Cic. Marcell. 8.25).
. Plato Phaedo 80DE; Diogenes Ep. 39; Iambl. Pyth. Life 32.228; Porph. Marc. 32.494–95. Cf. living justly as a prerequisite for immortality in Diog. Laert. 6.1.5 (Antisthenes).
. Iambl. Soul 8.43, §456; on the descent of some souls for purification, see 6.29, §380.
. Plato Phaedo 67C.
. Plato Phaedo 83CD; followed also by Proclus Poet. 6.1, K121.14–15; Iambl. Letter 3, frg. 2 (Stob. Anth. 3.5.45); Pyth. Life 32.228.
. Plato Phaedo 83A.
. Plato Phaedr. 250C (cf. also Gorg. 493E; Phaedo 82E); Cic. Resp. 6.14.14; 6.15.15; Tusc. 1.31.75; Sen. Y. Dial. 11.9.3; 12.11.7; Ben. 3.20.1–2 (on Seneca, cf. Sevenster, Seneca, 82–83); Epict. Diatr. 1.1.9; 1.9.11–12; Dio Chrys. Or. 30.10–24 (recounting one view, not the speaker’s own); Heracl. Ep. 5; Max. Tyre Or. 7.5; 36.4; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 7.26; Gnom. Vat. 464 (Pythagoras, in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 110); Porph. Marc. 33.506–7; Philo Alleg. Interp. 3.21; Drunkenness 101; Heir 85 (cf. vices in 109); Dreams 1.138–39 (on Philo, see, further, Hagner, “Vision,” 85); Diogn. 6.7; cf. harsh labors in Marc. Aur. 6.28.
. Epict. Diatr. frg. 26 (cf. 1.1; 1.8–9; 1.9.11–12, 16; 3.13.17; 4.7.15); Marc. Aur. 4.41 (cf. 3.7; 4.5; 6.28; 9.3); Philo Dreams 1.138–39; Phrygian sectarians in Hippol. Ref. 5.3; cf. Plut. Isis 28, Mor. 362B. Scholars often note this idea; e.g., Burkitt, Church and Gnosis, 33–35; Bornkamm, Paul, 130; Barclay, “Themes,” 115; Patterson, Plato on Immortality, 20–21. The exact wordplay, σῶμα-σῆμα, the body as a tomb, Plato’s Socrates attributes to Orphics in Plato Cratyl. 400BC; in earlier Orphism, Guthrie, Orpheus, 156–58.
. E.g., Epict. Diatr. 1.9.16; Max. Tyre Or. 7.5; 10.3; Marc. Aur. 6.28; 11.3; Philost. Hrk. 7.3.
. Arrian Alex. 7.2.4.
. See Guthrie, Orpheus, 154 (on Orphics); Sevenster, Seneca, 69 (on Seneca; contrasting Paul on 75).
. Val. Max. 8.7.ext.5, on Carneades; cf. Diogn. 6.9. For many philosophers’ simple garb and minimal grooming, see Dio Chrys. Or. 32.22; 34.2; 72.2, 5; Keener, Acts, 2:2140–41; esp. for Cynics, e.g., Juv. Sat. 13.121–22; Crates Ep. 18, 30; Aul. Gel. 9.2.4–5; Lucian Dem. 48; Runaways 14, 20, 27; Peregr. 15, 24, 36; Indictment 6; Phil. Sale 9; Icar. 31; Cynic 4, 19–20. For Cynics’ lack of hygiene, see, e.g., Alciph. Farm. 38 (Euthydicus to Philiscus), 3.40, ¶2; Lucian Icar. 31. On philosophers with long hair, see Dio Chrys. Or. 12.15; 35.2; Encomium on Hair; Lucian Phil. Sale 2; Peregr. 15; Cynic 17, 19; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 7.36; Diog. Laert. 1.109; Iambl. Pyth. Life 2.11; 6.31; with long beards, see Epict. Diatr. 2.23.21; Plut. Isis 3, Mor. 352C; Artem. Oneir. 1.30; Aul. Gel. 9.2.4–5; Lucian Runaways 27; Icar. 29; Fisherman 42; Dem. 13; Lover of Lies 5; Indictment 11; Hermot. 18, 86; Eunuch 9; Philost. Ep. Apoll. 3, 70; with both, Epict. Diatr. 4.8.12; 8.15; Dio Chrys. Or. 36.17; 47.25; 72.2; Lucian Dial. D. 371–72 (20/10, Charon and Hermes 9); Philost. Vit. Apoll. 7.34. In contrast to Cynics, Stoics, though bearded, wore their hair short (Lucian Runaways 27; Hermot. 18).
. Eunapius Lives 456 (though contrast Porph. Plot. 11.113). A Neoplatonist such as Plotinus could regard bodily existence as an evil (Plot. Enn. 1.7.3.20–21).
. Callim. Epig. 25. Reportedly, Cleombrotus, learning from Plato’s work that the soul was merely imprisoned in the body, threw himself off a high wall to his death (Cic. Scaur. 3.4, regarding this tale as false). Cato read Plato’s treatise on the soul before attempting suicide (Appian C.W. 2.14.98–99; but cf. Zadorojnyi, “Cato’s Suicide”). Plato himself did not support suicide (Plato Phaedo 62C; cf. Novak, Suicide and Morality; Taran, “Plato”).
. Cic. Scaur. 4.5 (cf. Plato Phaedo 61C). Cf. the duty of remaining alive in Cic. Resp. 6.15.15; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 58.36. For ancient philosophic views on suicide, see, e.g., Cercidas frg. 1; Cic. Fin. 3.18.60; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 70.4, 6, 14–16, 20–21; 77.15; Epict. Diatr. 1.2.1–3; 1.9.10–17, 20; 1.25.21; 2.1.19; 3.8.6; 3.13.14; Marc. Aur. 3.1; 8.47; Arius Did. 2.7.11m, p. 90.30–34; p. 92.1–3; Max. Tyre Or. 7.5; Diog. Laert. 7.4.167; 7.5.176; Lucian Oct. 19; Dem. 65; Peregr. 1–2; Fisherman 2; Runaways 1–2; True Story 2.21; Book-Coll. 14; Cooper, “Philosophers”; Wyllie, “Views”; Griffin, “Philosophy”; Klauck, Context, 363–65; Kerferd, “Reason”; Nietmann, “Seneca”; Noyes, “Seneca”; Xenakis, “Suicide Therapy”; Rist, “Seneca and Orthodoxy”; Ramelli, Hierocles, 106; Sorabji, Emotion, 172–73, 214–15; further discussion in Keener, Acts, 3:2503–5.
. Mus. Ruf. 6, p. 54.4–6, 10–11; Hierocles Marr. (Stob. Anth. 4.79.53); on a popular level, cf. Sall. Catil. 1.7. Some went much further and justified hedonism; see the discussion in Winter, Left Corinth, 78.
. See, e.g., Sen. Y. Ben. 4.8.1; Epict. Diatr. 3.13.4; Plut. Comm. Conc. 31, Mor. 1075B; Lucian Phil. Sale 14; Marc. Aur. 4.46; Diog. Laert. 9.1.7; cf. further Adams, Stars, 116–18.
. See, e.g., Bels, “Survie.”
. Posidonius in Ju, “Immortality”; cf. the soul as eternal (aeternus) in Sen. Y. Dial. 12.11.7; Ep. Lucil. 57.9.
. Marc. Aur. 4.21. For souls remaining in the air rather than in the netherworld, see Klauck, Context, 358.
. Sen. Y. Dial. 6.26.7 (inconsistent with some of his teaching elsewhere); cf. also Cleanthes and Chrysippus in Klauck, Context, 358; for other Stoics, see Haines, “Introduction,” xxvi. They could be reformed cyclically, but not all Stoics were convinced that reconstituted persons of the next cycle would be the same person anyway (Sorabji, Emotion, 243). Unlike God, people were mortal (Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 124.14; but cf. 124.23).
. E.g., Epict. Diatr. 3.3.4; 4.11.5; Max. Tyre Or. 34.2 (cf. also 10.6); in Jewish works, Let. Aris. 236. Contrast the usage of the term in Sir. 6:2, 4; 18:30–31.
. E.g., Cic. Tusc. 5.25.70; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 78.10; Nat. Q. 1.pref.14; Max. Tyre Or. 33.7; Men. Rhet. 2.9, 414.21–22, 26; Philo Heir 64; Creation 135; see, further, Caird, Age, 102, and sources cited there. Deities have souls but not bodies (Max. Tyre Or. 41.5; Apul. De deo Socr. 123).
. Plato Phaedr. 248AB; Virg. Aen. 6.728–34; Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 120.15; in Jewish circles, see Philo Heir 64 (cf. Spec. Laws 3.2); Sipre Deut. 306.28.2; Gen. Rab. 8:11. In earlier Orphic circles, cf. the gold funerary plates in Grant, Religions, 108. Even Epicureans, who denied an afterlife, acknowledged a person’s heavenly elements (Lucret. Nat. 2.991–1006).
. Sen. Y. Dial. 5.6.1.
. E.g., Sall. Catil. 1.2; Epict. Diatr. 1.3.3; Max. Tyre Or. 33.7. Cf. the complementary delineation of attributes in Max. Tyre Or. 9.1–2. On some views, animals also had souls (Arist. Pol. 1.2.10, 1254a; Pythagoras in Diog. Laert. 8.1.28; Plot. Enn. 4.7.14).
. Sipre Deut. 306.28.2.
. Plato Phaedr. 248E–249A; Cercidas frg. 1 (on a Cynic who committed suicide); Cic. Resp. 6.15.15; 6.26.29; Tusc. 1.19.43–44; 1.31.75; Sen. Y. Ben. 3.20.1–2; Dial. 11.9.3; 12.11.6; Heracl. Ep. 5; Plut. Isis 78, Mor. 382F–383A; Men. Rhet. 2.9, 414.22–23; Porph. Marc. 6.105–8; 7.131–34; for the emperor, e.g., Vell. Paterc. 2.123.2; 2.124.3. Cf. gnostic adaptations in Jonas, Religion, 43; Chadwick, Early Church, 36; traditions about the mysteries in Sheldon, Mystery Religions, 32; in Mithraism, Sheldon, Mystery Religions, 33–34. Gnostics may have adapted ideas from earlier Egyptian mortuary texts (Frankfurter, Religion in Egypt, 261) as well as earlier Platonism (Nock, “Gnosticism,” 266–67).
. See Cumont, After Life, 91–109 (now qualified; cf., e.g., Gasparro, Soteriology, 98); Martin, Body, 117–18; Klauck, Context, 80. In Jewish sources, see Dan. 12:3; 1 En. 51:5; 104:2 (but cf. 43:1, 4); T. Mos. 10:9; 2 Bar. 51:10; cf. Ps.-Phoc. 71; Sipre Deut. 47.2.5. For deification of heroes, see, e.g., Virg. Aen. 7.210–11; Ovid Metam. 15.749, 843–51 (cf. Ovid’s hope for himself in 15.875–76); Val. Max. 3.2.19; 4.6.ext.3; 6.9.15; Lucan C.W. 9.1–9; Ps.-Callisth. Alex. 2.15; for philosophers in Cercidas frg. 1; Eunapius Lives 469.
. Cic. Resp. 6.15.15 (trans. Keyes, LCL, 16:267).
. Val. Flacc. 3.378–82.
. So, e.g., Urbach, Sages, 1:214–16; Meyers and Strange, Archaeology, 99.
. See Urbach, Sages, 1:250, on even the Amoraim (though acknowledging that Amoraim often distinguished between soul and body). Cf. perhaps the spirit released into air when the body returns to dust in Ps.-Phoc. 108 (though OTP 2:578 n. j may be right to suggest “Stoic influence”). The argument for a Jewish tradition behind Philo’s use of Hellenistic anthropology (Melnick, “Conception”), however, does not strike me as persuasive.
. E.g., Let. Aris. 236; T. Job 20:3; Apoc. Ezek. 1–2; 1 En. 102:5; t. Sanh. 13:2; b. Ber. 10a; 60b; Yoma 20b, bar. Diaspora Jewish authors often distinguished body and soul, though often “in order to express an ethical rather than an ontological dualism” (Isaacs, Spirit, 75–76). For body and soul mentioned together but with more emphasis on the whole, see, e.g., 2 Macc. 7:37; 14:38; Let. Aris. 139; T. Sim. 2:5; 4:8; probably L.A.B. 3:10; perhaps T. Ash. 2:6; for their close correspondence, see, e.g., T. Naph. 2:2–3.
. Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.203. He elsewhere distinguishes soul and body (Ant. 18.117, regarding John the Baptist’s ministry; 18.333), though sometimes in ways emphasizing their connection (Ant. 4.291, 298; 15.190; 18.282; War 1.95, 429; 2.60, 136, 476, 580, 588; 3.362). The soul leaves the body at death (Ant. 6.3; 13.317; 19.325; War 1.84).
. Jos. War 3.272. He speaks of the body as a foreigner to the soul in War 3.278.
. Jos. War 7.345; cf. 7.340–88 (esp. 340, 348, 355). Ancient hearers would have recognized the speech as Josephus’s composition (Luz, “Masada”).
. Urbach, Sages, 1:218–21; for distinctions from Hellenism, see 248–49; cf. Kahn, “Duality.” The soul is pure and fills the body as God is pure and fills the cosmos (b. Ber. 10a; Lev. Rab. 4:8; Deut. Rab. 2:37).
. Sipre Deut. 306.28.3; this is a Tannaitic commentary and hence reflects the earlier phase of rabbinic teaching (especially second-century traditions). Souls are distinguished from bodies also in t. Sanh. 13:2, 4 (although treated together). For the soul leaving the body at death, see also 1 En. 22:7; 4 Ezra 7:78; Eccl. Rab. 5:10, §2; their reuniting at resurrection appears in 1 En. 102:5; b. Ber. 60b. For heavenly and earthly elements in humans, see Gen. Rab. 14:3; Eccl. Rab. 6:6–7, §1; for mortal and immortal, Gen. Rab. 14:9.
. B. Sanh. 91ab. Young, Parables, 65–66, cites a shorter form in Mek. Shir. 2 on Exod. 15:1 (plus wider parallels to the story; also in OTP 1:492–93; see earlier Wallach, “Parable”).
. Apoc. Ezek. 1–2. Citing predecessors and evidence, Mueller and Robinson (“Introduction,” 488) suggest between 50 BCE and 50 CE; the evidence for dating is not certain but the best currently available.
. Wis. 9:15. This Alexandrian Jewish work reflects here the sort of Middle Platonic influence also reflected in Philo. For immortality in this work, see also Mazzinghi, “Morte e immortalità.”
. T. Job 20:3.
. E.g., Philo Creation 67 (the mind being eternal and divine); Alleg. Interp. 2.22; Sacr. 9.
. Philo Creation 66 (cf. 69, 139); cf. Heir 55, where the soul’s soul is energized by the divine Spirit. Cf. discussion of two minds in Philo in Konstan, “Minds.”
. E.g., Philo Creation 135; cf. Gen. 2:7. In Gen. 1:1 Philo parallels “heaven” with the mind and “earth” with sense knowledge (Alleg. Interp. 1.1).
. E.g., Philo Dreams 1.73, 135; Jos. 255; Mos. 2.217; Virt. 57, 172.
. E.g., Philo Cher. 101.
. E.g., Philo Worse 86; cf. Plant. 18; Decal. 60.
. Jos. Ant. 18.16; War 2.165. Josephus, who does not favor Sadducees, implies their similarity to Epicureans.
. Sir. 17:28, 30; cf. the worms in Sir. 7:17 (with fire); 10:11; 19:3. Some regard this as the dominant Jewish view during the Persian period (e.g., Montefiore, “Spirit of Judaism,” 36). Ferguson (Backgrounds, 439) suggests that Sirach preserves the OT image of the underworld (citing Sir. 14:16–19; 17:25–32; 38:16–23; 41:4; 48:5; 51:5–6).
. See CIJ 1:263, §335; 1:309, §401; 1:334, §450. Cf. similar pessimistic inscriptions of Gentiles noted above, p. 270.
. Goodenough, Symbols, 1:164–77 passim. Some argue for ancient Israelite afterlife beliefs because Israelites placed vessels in graves, as did surrounding cultures with afterlife traditions; see Sellers, “Belief,” esp. 16.
. E.g., 1 En. 9:10; 22:7; Tob. 3:6; Bar. 2:17; Wis. 16:14; Jos. War 1.84; 4 Ezra 7:78; T. Ab. 1:24–25 A; 4:9; 9:10 B; b. Yoma 20b, bar.; Lev. Rab. 34:3; Eccl. Rab. 5:10, §2; Pesiq. Rab. 31:2; Matt. 10:28; James 2:26. For an extensive survey of Second Temple Jewish sources, see Gundry, Sōma, 87–109; also concisely listed in Gundry, Matthew, 197. Many Gentile sources articulate this view, e.g., Plato Phaedo 64C; 115D; Arist. Soul 1.5, 411b; Varro L.L. 5.10.59; Lucret. Nat. 3.121–23, 323–49; Socratics Ep. 14; Sen. Y. Dial. 1.5.8; Epict. Diatr. 2.1.17; Marc. Aur. 4.5; Max. Tyre Or. 5.8; 9.5–6.
. E.g., Jos. Ant. 17.353; War 1.650; 3.372. Humans are created from visible material, and thus die, but also invisible material, and thus live (2 En. 30:10 J). Tac. Hist. 5.5 compares Jewish and Egyptian afterlife beliefs. Immortality for the righteous probably appears in Jos. Asen. 27:10 (OTP 2:245; = 27:8 Greek p. 214), with Philonenko (pace C. Burchard in OTP 2:245 n. n); 1 Macc. 2:63 excludes it for the wicked.
. Légasse, “Immortalité”; see the briefer survey in Bonsirven, Judaism, 164–65.
. Pss. Sol. 13:11.
. 4 Ezra 7:96. Adam’s spirit ascends in Apoc. Mos. 13:6 (not in the parallel L.A.E. text); 32:4 (for his body, cf. 33:2).
. Gen. Rab. 100:7 (Bar Kappara, an early Amora); cf. the longer period in b. Shab. 152b. Some may have inconsistently allowed the deceased hearing requests at their graves (as in b. Taan. 23b), reflecting a wider motif in late antiquity (cf. grave goods in Thomas, “Dead,” 289–91).
. Jos. Ant. 18.14 (trans. Feldman, LCL, 13). Their “new life” corresponds to their return in pure bodies at the turning of the ages (War 3.374; see also 2.163); this image undoubtedly implies the Pharisaic doctrine of resurrection, yet it is couched sufficiently ambiguously for an uninformed audience so as to resemble the more respectable Hellenistic idea of reincarnation articulated by Platonists and Pythagoreans. The soul’s afterlife was compatible with future resurrection (e.g., T. Ab. 7:15–16 B; Légasse, “Immortalité”; in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see Ulrichsen, “Troen”).
. Jos. War 2.154–55; on their belief in immortality more briefly, see Ant. 18.18. Josephus may know that they believe in resurrection (cf. War 2.153), but he appeals to respectable Hellenistic conceptions (the same way he contextualizes John the Baptist’s purifying of soul and body in Ant. 18.116–17). 4Q185 frgs. 1–2, col. 1.9–13 might depict a shadowy existence in the netherworld, as in the OT and the older Greek tradition. For a future earthly kingdom, not just immortality, see Laurin, “Immortality.”
. Philo Abr. 258. For the immortality of the soul in Philo, see, e.g., Alleg. Interp. 1.1; in detail, Wolfson, Philo, 1:395–413.
. Philo Virt. 67; Mos. 2.288. Philo believed that the virtuous achieved incorporeality after death (Burnett, “Philo on Immortality”).
. E.g., Wis. 3:4; 5:15; 6:18–19; 8:13, 17; 15:3; 4 Macc. 9:22; 14:5; 16:13; 17:12; 18:23; cf. Rost, Judaism, 110.
. Lucian Peregr. 13. Lucian himself had more of a predilection toward the teaching of Epicurus.
. Jos. Ant. 18.14; War 2.163 (cf. 3.374; Ag. Ap. 2.218). Josephus adapts the language of Pharisaic resurrection belief so that it can be construed as if it were Platonic reincarnation, but the existence of an interim state remains clear, esp. in Antiquities.
. See, e.g., Walton, Thought, 148; Wright, Perspectives, 455–73.