Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/571

IMBTORTALITY. 497 IMMOKTALITY. shows that imagination occupied itself with the abode of the dead, and the translation of some heroes to be with the gods tends to mark the contrast with the ordinary issues of human life. Substantially the same conception of the future was held bj' the ancient Hebrews. (>See .Sheol; Hades.) There was no conception of an endless existence of the human soul in possession of a distinct consciousness, and no intimation of a dillVrcnce based on conduct in this life. A poetic passage (Isa. xiv. ) possibly shows that the kings were thought of as sitting upon thrones — consequently a social distinction. The intense religious life of the nation did not occupy itself much with the future of the individual. Neither the prophets, nor the legislators, nor the poets, nor the great wisdom-teachers, seem to have at- tached much importance to it. Their opposition to the ancestral cult and to necromancy may ac- count in a measure for this indifference. Only as the sufferings of innocent individuals, par- ticularly in the Exile, made the question of the divine government of the world acute, did 'the hope of man' receive attention by the thinkers of Israel. But the author of Job presents this possibility of a restoration to life only in order to reject it. He is not willing to ohscure the issues by the introduction of what he considers a vain and improbable speculation. A high type of piety thus flourished without a hope of im- mortality. But the growing demand for a justi- fication of the ways of God was met by foreign conceptions that brought relief by a temporary j)ostponement of the problem. Persia contributed the thought of a resurrection, Greece that of immortality, in the stricter sense. The conception of a resurrection appears for the first time in Jewish literature in the Book of Daniel (written about B.C. 165) . Here some of the dead are raised, probably the martyrs of the great persecution and their oppressors, to continue their life on earth. There is evidence that this new life was some- times regarded as of limited duration. In re- gard to the new body, some maintained that it was identical with the old, or of a similar sub- stance ; others that it was spiritual ; some that it was bestowed on men at a general resurrection in the future; others that it was given immedi- ately after death. In some circles it was thought that only the Israelites or the good would be raised; in others, that all men, even the wicked, ■would rise. (See Resurrection.) The new doctrine was chiefly accepted by the Pharisees; the Sadducees strongly opposed it. Ecclesiastes rejected the idea of a survival after death in every form. Meanwhile the Greek conception of immortality based on the nature of the soul, with or without the notion of preexistence, found ac- ceptance not only among the Alexandrian Jews, but to some extent also in Palestine. A doctrine of a future life in which the resurrection had no place is found in the Slavonic Enoch, Wisdom of Solomon. Philo, among the Essenes, and else- where. Jesus himself seems to have believed in a spiritual resurrection occurring immediately after death. A somewhat similar conception is fiiund in the Pauline literature, while the Fourth Gospel presents the eternal life as a sharing in the divine nature that may begin, in time and continue through eternity, and seems to use the term 'resvir- reetion' figuratively. The firm conviction of the early Church that Jesus had risen from the nether world and ascended to heaven, and that He would presently return in glory to raise the dead and establish His kingdom on earth, tended to base the hoi)e of survival upon His resurrection. In I. Corinthians xv. the thought is expressed that if Jesus was not risen His disciples are not raised, and that it does not matter how life is lived, if that is the ease. It was felt that through His resurrection He had thrown light upon life and iuunortality. Much of the success of Cliris- tianity was no doubt due to the prospect that it held out for a future life. It offered to all men, even slaves and barbarians not permitted to |)articipate in the oliicial cult and not invited to take the holy vows of the secret cult-societies, the same blessed immortality that was promised to those initiated in the Orpliie, Dionysiae, and Mitliraic mysteries, and it was itself inllueneed by the thoughts that had prevailed in these reli- gious societies. (See He.wen ; Hell.) The Greek idea that the soul is immortal b' virtue of its own nature became dominant in Christian theology. The controversies within the Church have not affected this fundamental position, but have had reference to the character of the future life. Through Maimonides the Cireek conception of immortality found its way into the synagogue. At first it had a tendency to exclude the doctrine of a resurrection ; subsequently it was made the philosophical basis of this doctrine as in the Church. With the renascence of learning and the development of natural science doubts as to the immortality of the soul began to be expressed. Uriel Acosta (q.v.) was persecuted for reiecting this doctrine, and he had sympathizers among the deists. The growth of evolutionary phi- losophy in the nineteenth century led many minds to question the survival of the human soul after death, and the possibility of a continued life of the spirit apart from the bodily organism is to- day widely denied in scientific circles. Various reasons are given for this negative position. It is maintained that the mental life of man is so closely connected with and invariably dependent upon the brain that a continuance of any intel- lectual functions after the dissolution of the body is inconceivable. As the mentality of man appears to differ from that of the animal only in degree, and not in kind, any argument from the peculiarities of the human mind is held to imply also the immortality of the lower organisms. Still greater difliculties are thought to arise from man's embryological development. The lack of any convincing evidence of "bomnuiiiication between the dead and the living is pointed out, and it is urged that the origin of the belief can be naturally accounted for. and that its por- fistence is largely due to the social conditions in which man is placed. On the other hand, the doctrine is defended not only from the stand- point of belief in an infallible revelation, but also by thinkers who claim the right of free inquiry, and base their views solely uymn what appears to them to be sufficient evidence. As a more careful exegesis renders it increasingly dif- ficult to appeal to the Old Testament on that subject, it is generally the Xew Testament, an^ particularly the words ascribed to .Jesiis himself, that furni>h the authority. Even from an inde- jiendent point of view, great weight is often ac- corded to the conception of .Tesus and the New