Ancient afterlife beliefs

  On the problem of John Chrysostom position on eschatology In her book, A Larger Hope, vol. 1, Ilaria Ramelli briefly speaks of the position of St. John Chrysostom (d. 407). She says: “John Chrysostom himself, in Hom. Phlm. 3, insisted that Gehenna has an educative function: “But why do I speak of slaves, who easily fall into these sins? But let a man have sons, and let him allow them to do everything they want, and let him not punish them; will they not be worse than anything? Tell me, in the case of men then, it is a sign of goodness to punish, and of cruelty not to punish, and is it not so in the case of God? Since he is good, he has therefore prepared Gehenna.” Chrysostom, although he was not a consistent or explicit supporter of soteriological universalism, was viewed by Jerome as an Origenist sympathizer.” (A Larger Hope, vol.1, p. 162) Unfortunately, Ramelli doesn’t in this book discuss with some depth Chrysostom, who had an immense influence on Christian history (he ...

  The problem of Universal Salvation in Mahayana Buddhism In his Chapter on Shinjin, the medieval Japanese Buddhist Shinran (fl. 12 th -13 th centuries) provides the following quote of the ‘Nirvana Sutra’ (probably the ‘Mahayanaparinirvana sutra’ in a Japanese translation): “Good sons! Great love and great compassion are called Buddha-nature. Why? Because great love and great compassion always accompany the bodhisattva, just as shadows accompany things. All sentient beings will without fail ultimately realize great love and great compassion. Therefore it is taught, “All sentient beings are possessed of Buddha-nature.” Great love and great compassion are Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature is Tathagata. Great joy and great even-mindedness are called Buddha-nature. Why? Because if a bodhisattva-mahasattva were incapable of the twenty-five forms of existence, he could not attain the supreme, perfect enlightenment. All sentient beings will ultimately attain great joy and great even-min...

  The belief in reincarnation among Gnostics Some sects of Gnostics, all based in Egypt – although there is some debate about the exact origin of the ‘Sethians’, who after all, aren’t named after a particular teacher – believed in reincarnation.   Sethians In the Apocryphon of John , we read that the fate of most souls is to experience a cycle of reincarnations with the exception of those who reach liberation from the cycle through spiritual knowledge and those who after gaining knowledge still reject the truth. The last group is condemned to eternal damnation. “And I said to the savior, "Lord, will all the souls then be brought safely into the pure light?" He answered and said to me, "Great things have arisen in your mind, for it is difficult to explain them to others except to those who are from the immovable race. Those on whom the Spirit of life will descend and (with whom) he will be with the power, they will be saved and become perfect and be worthy of the ...

  Origen of Alexandria rejected reincarnation Against a somewhat popular myth, Origen of Alexandria didn't accept the doctrine of reincarnation: "In this place it does not appear to me that by Elijah the soul is spoken of, lest I should fall into the dogma of transmigration, which is foreign to the church of God, and not handed down by the Apostles, nor anywhere set forth in the Scripture" (Commentary on Matthew, book 13, chapter 1; source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers/Volume_IX/Origen_on_Matthew/Origen%27s_Commentary_on_Matthew/Book_XIII/Chapter_1 ) "For, observe, [the angel Gabriel] did not say in the 'soul' of Elijah, in which case the doctrine of transmigration might have some ground, but 'in the spirit and power of Elijah.'" (Commentary on Matthew, book 13, chapter 1; source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers/Volume_IX/Origen_on_Matthew/Origen%27s_Commentary_on_Matthew/Book_XIII/Chapter_2  ) "But ...

The question of universalism in the Cappadocians: a historical survey of the reactions to their writings In what follows, I will make a list of references about pre-modern witnesses of ‘universalistic’ or ‘universalist-leaning’ positions in the writings of the Cappadocian Christian philosophers (who lived in the fourth century): Basil of Caesarea, Macrina the Elder, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus.  The purpose of this text is to show that, while scant, there is evidence that in pre-modern times some have noted the presence of the doctrine in these figures – especially Gregory of Nyssa – or tried to explain it away by suggesting that the texts have been interpolated (which, in a way, is an admission of the presence of the doctrine in the texts themselves) and the latter strategy was probably popular among the later Greek Christian writers. Basil of Caesarea In a letter to Augustine of Hyppo (fl. 4 th -5 th centuries), Paulus Orosius (fl. 4 th -5 th  centuries) wrot...