Ancient afterlife beliefs

Possible conditionalism in some very early Christian writings   In what follows, I quotes some very early Christian writings about eschatology. Taken at face value, they seem to either teach conditionalism/annihilationism or, perhaps, they are simply vague about the ultimate fate of the lost. Epistle of Barnabas: "But the way of darkness is crooked, and full of cursing; for it is the way of eternal death with punishment, in which way are the things that destroy the soul, viz., idolatry, over-confidence, the arrogance of power, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, adultery, murder, rapine, haughtiness, transgression, deceit, malice, self-sufficiency, poisoning, magic, avarice, want of the fear of God. [In this way, too,] are those who persecute the good, those who hate truth, those who love falsehood, those who know not the reward of righteousness, those who cleave not to that which is good, those who attend not with just judgment to the widow and orphan, those who watch not to the fear...

The current Catholic Catechism and John of Damascus on Hell When reading the current Catholic Catechism about the future life [1] and topic of sin [2] , one might wonder how the current views mirror the ancient Western theologians . I do believe, however, that the views espoused nowadays in the Catechism are, in fact, closer to those of St. John of Damascus (fl. 7-8th centuries) rather than those of, say, St. Gregory the Great (fl. 6-7th centuries) and St. Augustine (fl. 4-5th centuries). Just to make one example, the Catechism today doesn’t seem to accept the notion of ‘infant damnation’ as even the Church nowadays recognizes [3] and in another post, I discussed in more detail Augustine’s eschatology [4] . In this post, I’ll quote several paragraphs of the Catechism and I’ll try to show how they closely resemble the ideas found in John of Damascus (whose views I treated more extensively here: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-allowance-of-damnation-irenaeus-of....

  Universalism and the ‘Book of the Bee’: a case study The ‘Book of the Bee’, written by the 13 th century bishop of the Church of the East Solomon of Basra, is a very interesting example of how easy can universalism be missed in a text. In the last chapters of the work, the author talks about eschatology. At the very end of the penultimate chapter, the author writes: “In the new world there will be no distinctive names for ranks and conditions of human beings; and as every name and surname attributed to God and the angels had its origin from this world, and names for human beings were assigned and distributed by the government of this world, in the world of spiritual and intellectual natures there will be neither names nor surnames among them, nor male nor female, nor slave nor free, nor child nor old man, nor Ethiopian nor Roman (Greek); but they will all rise in the one perfect form of a man thirty-three years of age, as our Lord rose from the dead. In the world to come the...

  Reincarnation in Dharmic religion and the myth of Er The belief in reincarnation (or rebirth) is a central tenet in Buddhism, Jainism and most forms of Hinduism. In Indian (or rather Dharmic , as Buddhism is now found mostly outside India) religions, the cycle of successive lifetimes is called samsara and the ultimate goal of spiritual practice is to escape from that ultimately meaningless cycle. The cyclic existence, however, is governed by a sort of 'moral law', in which future lives are (at least partly) determined by the actions ( karma ) made in precedent lives.  In Ancient times, the belief in reincarnation was seemingly quite widespread even in the 'West'. The belief in metempsychosis in Antiquity was accepted by Pythagora and the Pythagoreans, Orphism, Empedocles, Platonists and some Gnostic Christian sects. One of the most famous tales about metempsychosis is the myth of Er found in Plato's Republic (10.614-621):  https://eurosis.org/cms/files/projects/Pl...

  Cyprian of Carthage, Augustine of Hippo and Gregory the Great on Purgatory St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) The context of these quotes seems to be the fate of believers based on how faithful they were: “In the cxviith Psalm: The Lord amending has amended me, and has not delivered me to death . Also in the eighty-eighth Psalm: I will visit their transgressions with a rod, and their sins with scourges. But my mercy will I not scatter away from them . Also in Malachi: And He shall sit melting and purifying, as it were, gold and silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi . Also in the Gospel: You shall not go out thence until you pay the uttermost farthing .” (St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 12, third book, 57; source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050712c.htm ) “20. And do not think, dearest brother, that either the courage of the brethren will be lessened, or that martyrdoms will fail for this cause, that repentance is relaxed to the lapsed, and that the hope of p...

  A Buddhist version of the 'Pascal's Wager' Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), among other things, is famous for his argument that, based on the beliefs of post-mortem fate, is more rational to believe in Christianity. Indeed, Pascal argued that even if Christianity was wrong, the deprivation of a transient life of worldy pleasures is not a significant loss, whereas the possible loss if Christianity is true is much higher if one lives a life a wordly pleasures and ignore the Christian life (and, indeed, Pascal believed in literally endless torments for unbelievers). It should be noted that there is more nuance in Pascal's argument that it is often given credit, as this discussion between Alex O' Connor and Graham Tomlin :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqxA1SHrJgA    Curiously enough, there is a sutta, a Buddhist discourse preserved in the Pali Canon, that makes a similar point. Indeed, if there will be an afterlife, ignoring the possibility of post-mortem retribution of...

  Hilary of Poitiers, Jerome of Stridon and Ambrose of Milan on subjection to Christ In what follows, I’ll quote the views of St. Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367), St Jerome of Stridon (d. 420) and St. Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) on the topic of ‘subjection’. This topic is quite relevant also for the present eschatological debates among Christians and it is about how to interpret passages like 1 Corinthians 15:21-28 and 2 Philippians 2:9-11. For a more complete discussion about the eschatological beliefs of these authors, see: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026/05/possible-traces-of-universalism-in.html Hilary of Poitiers In his work ‘On the Trinity’, Hilary of Poitiers distinguishes between the ‘subjection’ and the ‘abolition’ of enemies and evil powers: “32. The meaning of the abolishing of every power which is against Him is not obscure The prince of the air, the power of spiritual wickedness, shall be delivered to eternal destruction, as Christ says,  Dep...