Death and the Afterlife
• The Greeks:
Homer’s Iliad ultimately asks one of the most basic questions - What
is a meaningful life, when we all die in the end?
The Greek View on Hell
• The Grecian view is the concept of Hades. Upon the moment of death,
Greeks believed that the soul was separated from the body (but takes
the shape of the person) and is transported to the entrance to the
underworld.
• Greek thought believed Hades was a physical place and commonly
though of as the outer ocean, end of the earth or beneath the ocean floor.
• Not a spiritual place, a real and physical part of living world.
6 Rivers Leading to the Underworld in the Living World:
• Styx = Hatred. - Acheron = Pain. - Lethe = Forgetfulness. - Phlegethon
= Fire.
• Cocytus = Wailing. - Oceanus = Finality.
The Journey to Hades:
• Common practice for Greek funerals was playing gold coins on the
eyes/under the tongue of the deceased to pay Charon (ferry-master), to
take them across the river. Grecian myth refers to the unburied who
Charon refuses to take over. This is thought to be where Christianity
obtains its views on funeral rites.
In the Underworld:
• The soul still exists but lacks menos (strength) and cannot influence the
surroundings. It is an afterlife that is in stasis and by its nature one of
neutrality.
• Existence is immutable in Hades and life exists exactly as it did before.
This has implications for those who died peacefully in their sleep and those
who died horrific deaths.
• Hades is free from time and so those existing there will do so forever.
“Immortals are never alien to one another” - Odysseus - Homer’s Odyssey
Death was not the end of life, but the end of any meaningful life. While
in the Underworld the soul could do nothing but exist. Homer argues
the greatness of life pails in comparison to the cost of death, and is
why Greeks paid such respect to the dead.
The Greek View on Heaven:
, • Referred to as Elysium/the Elysian Isles/Elysian Fields, and was a
physical place.
• It was for god’s selected few and a space of perfect happiness.
• The term ‘Elysium’ is closest to the idea of relief/release, conveying the
sense of ease and freedom that would be found there.
Heaven: The Bible:
• Old Testament Jewish thinking gives the first concept of what Heaven
might be like through the Garden of Eden.
• it is a land of bounty, endless joy and physicality away from hardship. The
land of heaven in the sky is not one that comes into Christian thought until
much later.
• Jesus:
How does Jesus talk about Hell?
• Jesus acknowledges that there is a place for those who are not
righteous and they will spend their eternity of the afterlife in such a
place. It remains to be seen what this place will be like though.
• “The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and
throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.”
• Jesus teaches clearly and often about the dangers of ending up in
Hell. He paints a clear and unpleasant picture of what it is like and we
can see where many modern day depictions of Hell come from.
• The idea of weeping and gnashing of teeth hints at a physical hell,
much like the Greek version (in terms of reality).
“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to
enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the
unquenchable fire… where their worm does not die and the fire is not
quenched.”
Fire and Worms:
• If Christianity is an advancement of Greek thought - why is Hell so fiery?
• Jesus taught around Jerusalem, there is one geographically important point
of Jerusalem for the Christian belief about Hell, Gehenna.
• Gehenna is a site in a small valley that was where children were sacrificed
via fire, after this Gehenna was always closely linked to death, suffering
and fire. Gehenna was considered a destination of the wicked,
impure and immoral. ‘Hell’ is a translation of the literal place
“Gehenna”.
• Christians appropriated Greek ideas, thus required a physical place to
situate Hell.
• The Greeks:
Homer’s Iliad ultimately asks one of the most basic questions - What
is a meaningful life, when we all die in the end?
The Greek View on Hell
• The Grecian view is the concept of Hades. Upon the moment of death,
Greeks believed that the soul was separated from the body (but takes
the shape of the person) and is transported to the entrance to the
underworld.
• Greek thought believed Hades was a physical place and commonly
though of as the outer ocean, end of the earth or beneath the ocean floor.
• Not a spiritual place, a real and physical part of living world.
6 Rivers Leading to the Underworld in the Living World:
• Styx = Hatred. - Acheron = Pain. - Lethe = Forgetfulness. - Phlegethon
= Fire.
• Cocytus = Wailing. - Oceanus = Finality.
The Journey to Hades:
• Common practice for Greek funerals was playing gold coins on the
eyes/under the tongue of the deceased to pay Charon (ferry-master), to
take them across the river. Grecian myth refers to the unburied who
Charon refuses to take over. This is thought to be where Christianity
obtains its views on funeral rites.
In the Underworld:
• The soul still exists but lacks menos (strength) and cannot influence the
surroundings. It is an afterlife that is in stasis and by its nature one of
neutrality.
• Existence is immutable in Hades and life exists exactly as it did before.
This has implications for those who died peacefully in their sleep and those
who died horrific deaths.
• Hades is free from time and so those existing there will do so forever.
“Immortals are never alien to one another” - Odysseus - Homer’s Odyssey
Death was not the end of life, but the end of any meaningful life. While
in the Underworld the soul could do nothing but exist. Homer argues
the greatness of life pails in comparison to the cost of death, and is
why Greeks paid such respect to the dead.
The Greek View on Heaven:
, • Referred to as Elysium/the Elysian Isles/Elysian Fields, and was a
physical place.
• It was for god’s selected few and a space of perfect happiness.
• The term ‘Elysium’ is closest to the idea of relief/release, conveying the
sense of ease and freedom that would be found there.
Heaven: The Bible:
• Old Testament Jewish thinking gives the first concept of what Heaven
might be like through the Garden of Eden.
• it is a land of bounty, endless joy and physicality away from hardship. The
land of heaven in the sky is not one that comes into Christian thought until
much later.
• Jesus:
How does Jesus talk about Hell?
• Jesus acknowledges that there is a place for those who are not
righteous and they will spend their eternity of the afterlife in such a
place. It remains to be seen what this place will be like though.
• “The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and
throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.”
• Jesus teaches clearly and often about the dangers of ending up in
Hell. He paints a clear and unpleasant picture of what it is like and we
can see where many modern day depictions of Hell come from.
• The idea of weeping and gnashing of teeth hints at a physical hell,
much like the Greek version (in terms of reality).
“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to
enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the
unquenchable fire… where their worm does not die and the fire is not
quenched.”
Fire and Worms:
• If Christianity is an advancement of Greek thought - why is Hell so fiery?
• Jesus taught around Jerusalem, there is one geographically important point
of Jerusalem for the Christian belief about Hell, Gehenna.
• Gehenna is a site in a small valley that was where children were sacrificed
via fire, after this Gehenna was always closely linked to death, suffering
and fire. Gehenna was considered a destination of the wicked,
impure and immoral. ‘Hell’ is a translation of the literal place
“Gehenna”.
• Christians appropriated Greek ideas, thus required a physical place to
situate Hell.
