Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IVToy, Crawford Howell
HistoryHistory
Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV
Toy, Crawford Howell
Mythology; Religion -- History; Religions -- History; Rites and ceremonies
+88+. _Resurrection._ The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead,
which has been fully developed only by the Persians and the Jews (and
from them taken by Christianity and Islam), appears to have grown from
simple beginnings. It is the expression of the conviction that the
perfect man is made up of soul and body, and its full form is found only
in periods of high ethical culture. But in very early times the belief
in the intimate connection between body and soul appears in the care
taken among certain peoples to preserve the bones or the whole body of
the deceased as a possible future abode for the soul;[184] and, on the
other hand, as the soul, it was held, might return to the body and be
dangerous to the living, means were sometimes employed to frighten it
off. It seems to have been believed in some cases that the destruction
of the body involved the destruction of the soul (New Zealand). An
actual entrance of a departed soul into a human body is involved in some
early forms of the doctrine of reincarnation,[185] but this is not the
restoration of the dead man's own body. It was held in Egypt (and not
improbably elsewhere) that the soul after death might desire to take
possession of its own body, and provision was made for such an
emergency; but this belief seems not to have had serious results for
religious life. A temporary reunion of soul and body appears in the
figure of the vampire, which, however, is a part of a popular belief and
religiously not important. But these passing beliefs indicate a general
tendency, and may have paved the way for the more definite conception of
bodily restoration.
+89+. The more developed Hindu doctrine (Brahmanic, Jainistic,
Buddhistic) recognized a great variety of possible forms of
reincarnation (human and nonhuman), and made a step forward by including
the continuity or reëstablishment of moral life and responsibility (the
doctrine of karma).[186] It, however, never reached the form of a
universal or partial resurrection.
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