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“And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book; for the time is near"
(Rev. 22.10).

“The river of times, in its rush, carries away all the affairs of people,and drowns nations, kingdoms and kings into the abyss of oblivion.”
G.R. Derzhavin

The word “chronology” comes from two Greek words “chronos” - time and “logos” - word, doctrine and means the science of measuring time. It is divided into two parts: astronomical (mathematical) and historical (technical). The first, by studying the patterns of movement of celestial bodies and astronomical phenomena, is designed to establish accurate astronomical time. The objectives of the second include studying how different peoples measured and calculated time at different times, how various time systems (calendars) developed and interacted. Based on data from written and archaeological sources, historical chronology determines and clarifies the dates of historical events, correlates them with the modern system of counting time. Already among primitive peoples there was a need to measure events occurring in their lives in time. At first, primitive methods of calculating time became more and more improved with the growth of the practical needs of people and their knowledge in the field of mathematics and astronomy.

The first calendar systems arose in the Ancient East, some of the most successful elements of which were adopted and developed during the development of calendars in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

The Christian peoples of medieval Europe, on the one hand, adopted elements of chronology from ancient peoples, and on the other, created new ones.

It is necessary to distinguish between the “religious era”, this is a chronology based on a religious event, for example the Muslim era, which is associated with the flight of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622, the Buddhist era, etc.

The Christian era is associated with a great historical event, the fact of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The entire modern European civilization was formed under the influence of Christian values, therefore in our publication we will consider the problem of “The Biblical view of times and the Sacred character of human history.”

During the medieval period of human history, a special term was introduced into scientific circulation, denoting that the course of history is directly related to Divine Providence, this term is called Providentialism.

In the context of universal eschatology, those led by God must transcend (realize) themselves in the coming of a new heaven and a new earth, or in other words, realize themselves in the advent of a new age (Tea of ​​the dead and the life of the next century).

According to S.S. Averintsev, early Christian eschatology arose on the basis of the eschatology of Jewish sectarianism, freed from national-political aspirations, and enriched with motifs of ancient and Zoroastrian eschatological doctrines.

Christian eschatology originates from the Fall of our first parents until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Moreover, the First and Second Coming of Christ expresses the polar relationship between the two attributes of the Divine.

1. Divine Mercy.

2. Fairness of punishment (judging with justice).

Therefore, we see that the eschatology of the New Testament expresses itself only in polysemantic parables and symbols.

The Word of God speaks of the last times, immediately preceding the coming of the Antichrist; and this moral characteristic is not only the most significant for these times, but also determines their very onset. That is, until humanity is morally ready for them, they will not come.

In time, four main properties should be distinguished:

— directionality (irreversibility);

— fluidity (“running of time”);

— absoluteness;

- correlation.

Moreover, if we analyze the life of modern man, we will see several directions in the development of eschatological concepts that shape the spiritual life of modern man. Individual eschatology includes three components:

1. the righteous already in earthly life, through his meeting with Christ, secretly has an eschatological new life;

2. after death, a person receives Eternal life in Paradise and a meeting with Christ; already here in Earthly life, a person may be honored to meet with Christ, but such a meeting will fully occur after the Second Coming of Christ.

3. Resurrection, return (restoration) of the body and union with Christ.

The very idea of ​​a personal afterlife in the late Middle Ages begins to express itself in the aspirations of social justice.

The Renaissance contributed to the emergence of Humanism. Within the Christian civilization, leaving aside other religions - Confucian, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. - a broad anti-Christian front has formed, trying to create a non-Christian and anti-Christian culture.

Interest in World Eschatology is characteristic of the latest modern philosophy and theology, since one of the main processes of modern Christianity is the interpretation of the crisis processes of human history in the sense of the fulfillment of eschatological deadlines.

The theme of time runs like a red thread through the entire eschatology of the Church.

Oscar Kuhlman, in his classic work Christ and Time, describes the two most common images of time:

1. image: time can be represented cyclically in the form of a circle, ring or wheel.

2. image: linear image - ray, straight line (straight path, river or flying arrow), segment.

Both symbols not only do not exclude each other, but form different facets of one truth.

The circle marks the repeatability of natural rhythms, the line conveys to us a sense of time as the direction of movement and development, but the most amazing thing is that each of these two symbols reveals to us an eschatological perspective about “two ends.”

Movement in a circle can be experienced as a saving return to the golden age and the lost Paradise, or you can see in it only meaningless repetition, doom and futility.

Therefore, for us it can be an image of light, an image of eternity - Transfiguration, or it can be a sign of hell, a closed and strong circle.

The same applies to the linear measurement of time. The line can be strictly horizontal, which means neutral, but at the same time you can imagine its inclination.

The line going up or down becomes the path leading to the top of the Holy Mount Sinai, i.e. shows the path of ascension, spiritual improvement, and if interpreted negatively, it is a symbol of decay, degradation, downward movement, the path to the abyss leading to destruction.

According to Bishop Callistus Ware, a successful symbol of time is a spiral, which combines all the best that is observed in a line and a circle.

More precise than a circle or a straight line, the spiral corresponds to a pattern that dominates the physical world, from the trajectory of galaxies to the shapes of the convolutions of the human brain.

The spiral reflects the cyclical rhythms of nature, but the circle in the spiral is not closed and therefore implies a constant striving towards the goal, moreover, the spiral is three-dimensional.

Time (or "chronos"), the Greek word for chronological time. Chronological time is seen as linear and sequential.

But there have been and are entire civilizations in the world that view life on the basis of the “kairos” paradigm (from Greek - the time of waning, accomplishment, fulfillment).

Time – it needs to be experienced, it is existential.

The essence of “kairos” is how usefully we spend our time, and not how much time we invest in a particular matter or action (action).

The time from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ until His Second Coming is the time allotted by God for repentance, correction, the person “Be Holy, for I am Holy,” says the Lord. The time before the Second Coming of I. Christ is very close “Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy and keeps those things that are written in it; for the time is near” (Rev. 1.3).

In the eternal Kingdom of Christ there will be no more time; it will be abolished. “And he swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in it, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, that time would be no more…” (Rev. 10.6).

Earthly life is given to a Christian for moral preparation, for the education of his soul, for the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, for worthy entry into the Kingdom of Truth and Truth.

In the context of Christian eschatology (the doctrine of the ultimate destinies of the world and man), any Theological simplification is a dead scheme, religious schematicism and is characterized by monotony, which ultimately distorts the experience of the vision of an Orthodox Christian.

List of references and sources

Bible. New Testament. – Moscow, 1995.

1. Introduction to special historical disciplines: Proc. allowance / T.P. Gusarova, O.V. Dmitrieva, I.S. Filippov and others - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 1990.

For the presentation of the book - Studia Petropolitana Biblica I - St. Petersburg. : Contrast, 2015. - 608 p.

Oscar Kuhlman(1902-1999) - Doctor of Theology, Professor of the Department of New Testament and History of the Ancient Church in Basel (1938-1972) and Strasbourg (1945-1948), Professor of the Theological Faculty of the Sorbonne (1948-1968); Member of the French Academy of Sciences (1972).

A significant part of the work is devoted to the writings of the Apostle John and the Apostle Peter. Being a Protestant, he actively collaborated with Catholic theology, and was a participant in the Second Vatican Council. In different traditions of Christianity I saw the expression of different aspects of grace.

Kuhlman emphasized the historical character of Christian Revelation. He believed that with a linear perception of time in the New Testament texts, the feat of Christ represents a turning point, after which the Church finds itself in a certain gap between “already” (Christ died for our sins two thousand years ago) and “yet” (we have yet to be saved ).

Oscar Kuhlman - Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead?

The first publication of an article on the resurrection of the dead (Immortalite de l "ame ou resurrection des corps? // Melanges offers a Karl Barth a l "occasion de ses 70 ans. Basel, 1956 = Theologische Zeitschrift, 1956 N 2) caused a huge resonance both in scientific, and in a Christian environment. In the preface to the English translation (The Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the Body: The Witness of the New Testament. London, 1958), Kuhlman provides a number of explanations and emphasizes the fundamental provisions of his work.

Author's Preface to the English Translation (1958)

The presented work is a translation of an article previously published in Switzerland, a retelling of which appeared in various periodicals in France. No other publication of mine has evoked such enthusiasm or such sharp rejection. Some magazine publishers have kindly forwarded me some of the letters of protest they have received from readers. My article prompted the author of one letter to reflect bitterly that “the French, hungry for the bread of Life, were offered stones, if not snakes, instead of bread.” Another letter suggests that I am some kind of monster who delights in causing spiritual suffering to people. “Does it really mean,” it says, “that Mr. Kuhlman has a stone instead of a heart?” For a third reader, my article was “a cause of shock, grief and great depression.” Friends who followed my previous publications with interest and approval admitted to me that my article caused them pain. In others I noticed anxiety, which they tried to hide with eloquent silence.

My critics belonged to very different camps. The contrast - which I decided on in the interests of truth - the bold and joyful hope of the first Christians for the resurrection of the dead and the calm philosophical expectation that the immortal soul will continue to live, caused the displeasure not only of many sincerely believing Christians of various communities and denominations, but also the displeasure of those whose worldview, although outwardly not so alien to the Christian one, was formed rather under the influence of various philosophical concepts. However, no critic has yet attempted to refute my assertions by exegesis, while exegesis is at the heart of this work.

This remarkable unanimity, it seems to me, shows how widespread is the erroneous attribution of the ancient belief in the immortality of the soul to the first Christians. Moreover, people with such different views as those I mentioned above are united in their inability to hear with complete objectivity what the text tells us about the faith and hope of early Christianity, to hear without mixing in their own view and their own opinion, so valuable to them when interpreting texts. This failure is equally surprising on the part of educated men who adhere to the principles of sound, scientific exegesis, and on the part of believers who claim to rely entirely on the revelation of Holy Scripture.

The attacks that my work has provoked would have seemed serious to me if they had been based on exegetical arguments. Instead, I am bombarded with general arguments of a philosophical, psychological and, above all, emotional nature. The following objections were given to me: “I can accept the immortality of the soul, but not the resurrection of the body” or “I cannot believe that our loved ones simply fell asleep for an indefinite time and that I myself, when I die, will simply sleep, awaiting the resurrection.”

Is it really necessary today to remind reasonable people, Christian or not, that there is a difference between admitting that Socrates held a particular view and accepting that view, between recognizing the hope of the resurrection as an early Christian concept and sharing that hope?

First of all, we must listen to what Plato and the Apostle Paul have to say. We can go further. We can respect and admire both teachings. How can we help but admire them, considering them in connection with the life and death of their creators? But there is no reason to deny the fundamental difference between the Christian expectation of the resurrection of the dead and the ancient belief in the immortality of the soul. No matter how sincerely we admire both concepts, this does not allow us to pretend, contrary to our deep conviction and contrary to exegetical evidence, that they are compatible. I have demonstrated in this study that some common ground can be found between them, but this does not change the fact that their basic inspirational ideas are completely different.

The fact that later Christianity connected these two beliefs, so that today the ordinary Christian simply confuses them, will not keep me silent about what I, along with most exegetes, consider to be the truth. Moreover, the connection established between the expectation of the “resurrection of the body” and the belief in the “immortality of the soul” is in fact not a connection at all, but a rejection of one in favor of the other. The belief in the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15) was sacrificed to the immortality of the soul, as expounded in Plato's Phaedo.

Concealing this fact will not lead to anything good, which often happens today when truly incompatible things are combined on the basis of overly simplified reasoning of this kind: no matter what may seem to us in early Christian teaching to be contrary to the immortality of the soul, namely the concept of bodily resurrection, it was not the most important thing thesis for the early Christians; it is simply the use of mythological expressions by the philosophical thought of that time, while the essence of the teaching is the immortality of the soul. On the contrary, we must honestly admit that precisely what distinguishes Christian teaching from ancient beliefs lies its basis. Even if the interpreter of the New Testament cannot accept this position as basic to Christian teaching, he has no right to conclude that it is not so for the authors whom he interprets.

In view of the negative reaction that the publication of my provisions caused in periodicals, should I not have stopped the controversy, showing Christian mercy, and not published this brochure? My decision was born of the conviction that a stumbling block can sometimes bring great benefit both to science and to Christian views. I just ask readers to take the trouble to read my work to the end.

The brochure discusses the issue from an exegetical perspective, but if we touch on the religious aspect, I would venture to remind my critics that when they so ardently defend the very method of salvation for themselves and their loved ones that seems most desirable to them, they are unwittingly playing into the hands of to those opponents of Christianity who never tire of repeating that the faith of Christians is nothing more than a projection of their desires.

In fact, is not the greatness of the Christian faith - as I have tried to explain - that we do not start from our own desires, but fit our resurrection within the framework of the universal process of redemption and the new creation of the world? I cannot in any way underestimate the difficulty of accepting this belief and freely admit that it is difficult to discuss this issue in an abstract manner. The open grave immediately reminds us that this is not just a matter of academic debate. But isn't there a more compelling reason to seek truth and clarity on this issue? The best way to find the truth is not to begin with something that can be interpreted in two ways, but to explain simply and as honestly as possible, using all available means, what was the hope of the New Testament authors, and thus reveal the very essence of this hope, and also - no matter how difficult It was impossible for us to accept it - to reveal what separates it from other beliefs to which we are so committed. Having begun by objectively examining the hope of the first Christians in those features that amaze us today, are we not following the only possible path in which, perhaps, it was given to us, in order not only to understand these hopes better, but also to be convinced that, contrary to our ideas, there is nothing impossible in accepting them?

For many of those who attacked me, the cause of “sadness and depression” was not only the distinction I made between the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul. What confused them most of all was the place that I, in agreement with the first Christians, assign to the intermediate position of those who died and will die in Christ before the last day. The authors of the 1st century called this intermediate position the word “sleep.” The thought of a temporary state of waiting is especially unbearable for those who would like to know more about this “sleep” of the dead, who, having lost their fleshly body, have not yet received the body of the Resurrection, although they are under the power of the Holy Spirit. Such people find it difficult to reconcile with the caution of the New Testament writers on this issue, including the Apostle Paul, or to be satisfied with his joyful promise that death will no longer be able to separate those who have received the Holy Spirit from Christ: “As we live, we live for the Lord; Whether we die, we die to the Lord” (Rom. 14:8).

There are those for whom the concept of “sleep” is completely unacceptable. I would like to ask them, leaving aside the exegetical method of inquiry for a moment: have they ever fallen into such a dream in which they were happier than ever, although they were only sleeping? Could this not be an illustration, albeit a truly imperfect one, of the state of anticipation in which, according to the Apostle Paul, those who have died in Christ find themselves during the “sleep” while they await the resurrection of the body?

Be that as it may, I do not intend to avoid the stumbling block by diminishing the significance of what I have said about the temporary and still imperfect nature of this condition. For, according to the first Christians, the real, full life of the resurrection is unthinkable without a new body, a “spiritual body” in which the dead will be clothed when heaven and earth are created anew.

In this study, I more than once refer to the Isenheim altarpiece, executed by the artist Matthias Grunewald in 1515. The master depicted precisely the resurrection of the body, and not the immortality of the soul. Likewise, another artist, Johann Sebastian Bach, has given us the opportunity to hear - in the Creed of the Mass in B Minor - a musical interpretation of the words of this ancient text that expresses the New Testament faith in the Resurrection of Christ and our own Resurrection. The solemn music of the great composer seeks to depict not the immortality of the soul, but the moment of the resurrection of the body: “Et resurrexit die tertia...expecto resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi seculi.” And Handel in the last part of “Messiah” allows us to hear what the Apostle Paul understood by the sleep of those who rest in the Lord, and the triumphal song contains Paul’s hope for the final Resurrection, when “the last trumpet will sound, and we will be changed” (1 Cor. 15:52) .

Whether you share this hope or not, let's at least recognize that artists are the best interpreters of the Bible in this case.

Oscar Kuhlman - Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead? - Introduction

If you ask an ordinary Christian today (no matter whether Catholic or Protestant, theologically educated or not) what the New Testament teaching about the posthumous destiny of man is, with rare exceptions the answer will be the same: “The doctrine of the immortality of the soul.” But this widespread idea is one of the greatest misconceptions about the Christian faith among both Catholics and Protestants. This fact cannot be hidden or explained away by reinterpreting Christianity. This is something that needs to be talked about openly. The idea of ​​death and resurrection is closely connected with the incarnation of Christ (as will be shown below) and is therefore incompatible with the ancient Greek belief in immortality, and since it is based on the history of salvation (Heilsgeschichte), it is unacceptable to modern consciousness. Is this really not such an integral element of early Christian doctrine that it can easily be omitted or reinterpreted without risking stripping the New Testament of its essence? Is it really true that the early Christian belief in the resurrection is incompatible with the ancient concept of the immortality of the soul? Doesn't the New Testament, and especially the Gospel of John, say that we have already gained eternal life? Is it true that death in the New Testament is always perceived as the “final enemy” as opposed to Greek philosophy, which sees death as a friend? Didn't Paul cry out, "Death, where is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55). We will eventually see that a certain similarity can be found between these two points of view, but first we need to identify their fundamental difference.

The widespread misconception that the New Testament preaches the immortality of the soul was caused by the unshakable post-Easter belief of the early adherents that the bodily resurrection of Christ had robbed death of its horror and that after Easter the souls of believers were eternally awakened by the Holy Spirit to the life of the Resurrection.

But the very fact of the need to talk about the post-Easter era demonstrates the deep chasm that separates the first Christians from the followers of the Greek philosophers. Early Christian teaching is based solely on the history of salvation, and everything that is said there about death and eternal life depends entirely on belief in a real event that happened under real circumstances that took place in its time - this is a fundamental difference from Greek philosophy. The main task of my book “Christ and Time” was to show that this is the true essence, the essence of the faith of early Christianity, that it cannot be abandoned, that it cannot be interpreted differently. Often, however, the erroneous opinion is expressed that I wanted to write a work devoted to the relationship of the New Testament texts to the problem of time and eternity.

If we recognize that death and eternal life are connected in the New Testament with the incarnate Christ, it becomes clear that for the first Christians the soul, in essence, is not immortal, but becomes so through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and through a person’s faith in Him. It also becomes clear that death, in essence, is not a “friend,” but its sting, its power, is destroyed only through the victory of Jesus Christ over it in His death. And finally, it becomes clear that the already accomplished resurrection is not yet a state of completeness that will remain in the future until the body is also resurrected, and this will not happen before the “last day.”

It would be a mistake to see in the Fourth Gospel references to the ancient doctrine of immortality, since in it, eternal life is associated with the incarnate Christ. Speaking about the incarnate Christ, different books of the New Testament place different emphasis in certain places, but they have a common view of the history of salvation, as B. Reike rightly notes. Obviously, one must take into account the fact that Greek philosophy initially influenced the emerging Christianity, but since individual philosophical ideas of antiquity are considered exclusively from the perspective of the history of salvation, one cannot talk about Hellenization in the full sense of the word. The process of true Hellenization begins much later.

Oscar Kuhlman - Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead? - Chapter 1. The last enemy. Socrates and Jesus

The biblical view of death is focused primarily on the problem of salvation, in this it completely contradicts ancient thought. Nothing can demonstrate this fact more clearly than the comparison of the death of Jesus and Socrates, which was repeatedly mentioned by the early opponents of Christianity, although for other purposes. In Plato's Phaedo, in an amazingly powerful description of the death of Socrates, perhaps the most sublime and perfect doctrine of the immortality of the soul has ever been born. What makes Plato's arguments particularly valuable is that, suppressing the scientist within himself, he abandoned all arguments that had mathematical reliability. The arguments with which he proves the immortality of the soul are well known. Our body is only an outer shell, which, while we are alive, prevents the soul from moving freely and being in harmony with its eternal nature. The body imposes laws on the soul that are alien to it. The soul imprisoned in the body belongs to the world of eternity. While we live, our soul is in prison, that is, in a body that, by its very essence, is alien to it. In reality, death is the great liberator. She breaks the shackles, for she returns the soul from the bodily prison to its eternal abode. Since the body and soul are fundamentally different from each other and belong to different worlds, the death of the body does not mean the death of the soul, just as a piece of music is not destroyed if a musical instrument is destroyed.

And although for Socrates himself the proofs of the immortality of the soul do not have the same value as the proofs of a mathematical theorem, they, however, achieve the highest reliability in their field and lead us to the conclusion that the immortality of the soul is very probable. When the great Socrates sets out the evidence of immortality to his students, applying them to his fate on the day of his death, he is not just preaching his teaching - he is living his teaching. He showed that by devoting ourselves to the search for eternal philosophical truth, we serve the liberation of the soul in this life. For through philosophy we penetrate into the eternal world of ideas, to which our soul belongs, and free the soul from the bodily prison. Death only completes liberation. Plato tells us how Socrates meets his death in peace and quiet. It's a beautiful death. There is no place for mortal horror here. It is impossible for Socrates to be afraid of death, because, in fact, death frees us from the body. He who fears death shows his love for the physical world, his attachment to the world of sensuality. Death is a great friend of the soul. Thus he teaches, and thus, in wonderful harmony with his teaching, he dies - a man who embodied the most noble image of antiquity.

This is how Jesus dies. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He knows that death awaits Him, just as Socrates prepares for it on his last day. The Synoptic Gospels give a generally consistent account. Jesus, according to Mark (Mark 14:33), begins to be “horrified and sad.” “My soul is mortally sorrowful,” He says to the disciples. Jesus is so human that he has a natural fear of death. He is afraid in the face of death as such. Death is not something divine for him, it is something terrible. Jesus does not want to be alone at this hour. He knows, of course, that the Father will protect Him. He turns to Him at this turning point, as he has throughout his life. He turns to Him with his human fear of the greatest enemy, death. He is afraid of death. There is no need to prove that the fear of Jesus was attributed to Him by the evangelists. The opponents of Christianity, who even in the first century contrasted the death of Jesus with the death of Socrates, showed more understanding on this issue than its supporters. He was really afraid. He did not have a drop of the calmness of Socrates, who joyfully met death as a friend. Of course, Jesus is aware of the task entrusted to Him - to suffer death; he had already said: “I must be baptized through baptism; and how I languish until this is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50). Now that God's enemy stands before him, He prays to God, whose omnipotence is known to him: “All things are possible to You; take this cup away from me” (Mark 14:16).

And when Jesus ends: “But it is not what I want, but what You want,” this does not mean that He finally, like Socrates, saw in death a friend, a liberator. No, it only means: if the greatest of all horrors, death, must befall Me according to Your will, I will give myself to this horror. Jesus knows that death is the enemy of God, therefore to die means to be completely abandoned. And so he calls out to God; in the face of the enemy of God, He does not want to be alone. He wants to maintain his close connection with God as he was connected with Him during His earthly life. For he who is in the hands of death is no longer in the hands of God, he is in the hands of God's enemy. At this hour, Jesus seeks support, not only from God, but also from his disciples. Again and again He interrupts prayer and goes to his beloved disciples, who are trying to fight sleep, in order to be awake to meet the people who will come to arrest the teacher. They try, but they fail, and Jesus wakes them up again and again. Why does He want them to stay awake? He doesn't want to be alone. When the formidable enemy, death, approaches, He does not want His disciples, whose human weakness is known to Him, to be abandoned. “Couldn’t you stay awake for one hour?” (Mark 14:37).

Could there be a greater difference between the deaths of Jesus and Socrates? Like Jesus, Socrates is surrounded by disciples on the day of his death; he calmly talks with them about immortality. A few hours before his death, Jesus laments and begs his disciples not to leave Him alone. The writer of Hebrews, who more than any other New Testament writer emphasizes the absolute divinity (1:10) but also the absolute humanity of Jesus, surpasses the Synoptics in describing Jesus' mortal fear. In verse 5:7, he writes that Jesus “offered prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death.” Thus, according to Hebrews, Jesus wept and screamed in the face of death. Here is Socrates, calmly and coolly discussing the immortality of the soul; and here is Jesus, weeping and screaming.

And then the picture of death itself. Socrates drinks hemlock with the greatest calm, but Jesus (so says the Evangelist Mark, Mark 15:34, and we do not dare soften) cries out: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me? And crying out again, He dies (Mark 15:37). This death is not a friend. This death is a terrifying fear. This is truly the “last enemy” of the Lord. This name is given to her by Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:26), in which the gulf between ancient philosophy and Christianity is exposed. The author of the Revelation of John the Evangelist, although in different words, also speaks of death as the final enemy, announcing how death will ultimately be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). Since death is the enemy of God, it separates us from God, who is Life and the Creator of all things. Jesus, who is so closely connected with God as no one else, fears death more than anyone else for this very reason. To be in the hands of God's greatest enemy is to be abandoned by God. Jesus had to suffer from his forsakenness - the only thing truly worth fearing - much more than others. Therefore, He calls out to God: “Why have you forsaken Me?” After all, He is in the hands of God's enemy.

We should be grateful to the evangelists that they did not smooth things over. Later (perhaps at the beginning of the second century or perhaps even earlier) there were people - Greeks by origin - who were offended by this. We call them Gnostics.

I compare the death of Socrates and the death of Jesus because nothing can better show the fundamental difference between the ancient doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. Since Jesus suffered death in all its horror not only in body but also in soul (“My God, why have you forsaken me?”), and Christians perceive Him as the mediator through whom salvation will come, He must be the one who in his death conquers death itself. He cannot win by simply continuing to live as an immortal soul and not going through the path of death to the end. He can win only by truly dying, moving into the realm of death, the destroyer of life, into the realm of non-existence and abandonment by God. To defeat the enemy, you need to enter its borders. He who wants to conquer death must die; he must really stop living - not live as an immortal soul, but die soul and body, lose life itself - the most valuable gift that God has given us. For this reason, the evangelists who wanted to present Jesus as the Son of God did not try to mitigate the horror of His exclusively human death.

Moreover, if life is to emerge from such a real death as this, then a new act of divine creation is necessary. And this creative act brings back to life not only a part of a person, but the whole person - everything that God created and death destroyed. For Socrates and Plato there is no need for an act of creation. After all, the body only interferes and therefore should not continue to live. And that part of a person that should, that is, the soul, does not die at all.

If we want to understand the Christian faith in the Resurrection, we must reject the ancient idea that the material, material, bodily is bad and subject to destruction and that the death of the body in no way means the loss of real life. For a Christian (and a Jew), the death of the body means the death of the life created by God. There is no difference: after all, the life of our body is also genuine life; death is the destruction of all life that God has created. Therefore, by the Resurrection it is not the body that is overcome, but death.

Only those who, together with the first Christians, comprehended the full horror of death, who take death seriously - as it should be taken death, can feel the Easter rejoicing of the early Christian communities and understand how much the entire philosophy of the New Testament is subordinated to the faith in the Resurrection. Belief in the immortality of the soul is not belief in an epoch-making event. Immortality is essentially a negative statement: the soul does not die, it simply continues to live. Resurrection is a positive statement: a truly dead person, completely, is brought back to life by a new act of divine creation. What happened is a miracle of creation! But before that, something terrible also happened - the life created by God was destroyed.

Death in itself cannot be beautiful, not even the death of Jesus. Death before the Resurrection is a skull covered with the spirit of rot. And the death of Jesus is as disgusting as the great medieval painter Grunewald depicted it. But precisely for this reason, the artist knew how, at the same time, to unsurpassably accurately depict the great victory - the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Christ in a new body, the body of the Resurrection. He who writes a beautiful death cannot write the Resurrection. Anyone who has not been seized by mortal horror will not repeat after Paul: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Death! Where is your sting? (1 Cor. 15:54-55).

Oscar Kuhlman - Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead? - Chapter 2. The payment for sin is death. Soul and body - spirit and flesh

However, the main difference between the ancient doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the Christian belief in the resurrection is much deeper. Belief in the resurrection is based on the connection that is assumed in Judaism between sin and death. Death is not perceived as something natural, approved by God - this is how the Greek philosophers saw death; rather, it is unnatural, incorrect, hostile to God. The book of Genesis tells us that she came into the world only through human sin. Death is a curse, and the entire created world falls under its power. The sin committed by man set in motion a chain of events that are recounted in the Bible and which we call the story of redemption. Death can be defeated only to the extent that sin is eliminated, for “death is the wages of sin.” This is not only stated in the book of Genesis, it is also stated by Paul (Rom. 6:23), and this view of death was accepted by the first Christians. Since sin is hostile to God, so is the consequence of sin - death. Of course, God can use death (1 Cor. 15:35ff; John 12:24), just as He uses Satan in human life.

Nevertheless, death as such is the enemy of God. For God is Life and the Creator of life. The fruits of death - devastation and destruction, illness and death - appear in our lives not according to the will of God. All this, according to the ideas of Judaism and Christianity, comes from human sinfulness. Therefore, whenever Jesus performs a healing, he not only pushes back death, he invades the kingdom of sin; That’s why he says every time: “Your sins are forgiven.” It is not that this or that sin corresponds to this or that disease; rather, the very existence of illness, like death, is a consequence of the sinfulness of human existence. Every healing is a partial resurrection, a partial victory of life over death. That's the Christian point of view. In the understanding of the Greeks, on the contrary, bodily illness is a consequence of the fact that the body is bad in itself and is subject to decay. For Christians, the premonition of the resurrection can be seen in the earthly body.

This reminds us that the body in itself is in no way evil, but, like the soul, is a gift from our Creator. Therefore, according to Paul, we have a responsibility to take care of our bodies. God is the Creator of all things. The ancient doctrine of immortality and the Christian hope of resurrection are so different because Greek philosophy interprets creation completely differently. In the Jewish and Christian understanding, it is completely free from the traditional dualism of soul and body in antiquity. For, in reality, everything visible, everything corporeal is just as truly God’s creation as the invisible. God created the human body. The body is not a prison for the soul, but a temple, as Paul says (1 Cor. 6:19): the temple of the Holy Spirit! This is where the main difference lies. Body and soul are not opposites. After creating the material world, the Lord recognized it as “good”. This is clearly stated in the story of Creation (Gen. 1:31). Therefore, sin, in turn, covers the whole person, not only the body, but also the soul, and its consequence - death - gains power over all things. Death, accordingly, is something repulsive, but everything visible, including the body, is beautiful, even if undermined by sin or death. The pessimism of death is opposed to the optimism of creation. If in Platonism death is seen as a liberator, then the visible world is not considered in this teaching to be the direct creation of God.

It must, however, be recognized that among the philosophical doctrines of Greece one can also find a positive attitude towards physicality. But for Plato, the “beautiful and good” in the corporeal is beautiful and good not due to the merits of corporeality, but rather in spite of corporeality: with him the soul, the eternal and the only truly existing reality of being, still shines through matter. The world of things is not genuine, not eternal and not divine. Through it, reality simply appears, and in a distorted form. Through corporeality we must come to the contemplation of an unclouded image, completely free from all corporeality - the contemplation of the invisible Idea.

Of course, the Jewish and Christian view, in addition to the material world, also notices something else. After all, everything created is distorted by sin and death. We see everything created by God differently than He intended, including our body. Death rules over everything. The Destroyer does not at all need to complete her destructive work for us to understand this - this is already evident from the general appearance of all things. Everything, even the most beautiful, is marked by death. Because of this, it may seem that the difference between ancient philosophers and Christians is not so great after all. But it is nevertheless fundamental. For Plato, behind bodily manifestations there is something incorporeal, transcendental, a pure idea. Behind the crooked created world, condemned to death, the Christian sees the future world, which should appear, thanks to the Resurrection, as God intended. The Christian contrasts not the body and soul, not the outer shell and the idea, but the world, doomed to death by sin, and the new world, the corruptible, carnal body and the incorruptible resurrected body.

This brings us to the next question: what is the Christian understanding of human nature? The teaching about human nature in the New Testament is not ancient, it is associated with a Jewish concept. Naming the concepts “body”, “soul”, “flesh” and “spirit” (the list can be continued), the New Testament uses the same words as the ancient philosopher. But they mean something completely different, and we will generally misunderstand the New Testament if we interpret these concepts solely from the point of view of Greek philosophy. This is how many misconceptions arose. In this work I cannot examine in detail the biblical teaching about man; There are excellent monographs devoted to this issue, as well as corresponding articles in Theologisches Worterbuch. A detailed study would require separate examination of this issue by different New Testament authors, since there are differences between their views that cannot be ignored. I will be forced to touch upon only a few important points that relate to our problem, but this will also have to be done only schematically, omitting nuances that would be good to discuss in a separate study. Given this state of affairs, it will be natural to turn first of all to Paul, since only in his Epistles is human nature defined in detail, although he does not manage to operate with various concepts with complete consistency.

The New Testament certainly recognizes a distinction between soul and body, or more precisely between the inner and outer man. However, this difference does not imply that the first is by nature good and the second bad. The outer and inner man are in harmony; they are equally created by God. The inner man without the outer will not have a full life. He needs a body. He can, of course, somehow eke out a shadow existence, like the dead in Sheol, who are mentioned in the Old Testament, but this is not real life. The difference from the ancient “soul” is obvious: the ancient “soul” reaches the highest point of development only after leaving the body. According to the Christian point of view, the body was created precisely on the basis of its necessity for the inner man.

Then what role do the flesh and spirit play? We should not be confused here by the use of these Greek words in a secular sense, although it can be found in some places even in the New Testament and even in those authors whose terminology has never been consistent. With these reservations, we can affirm that, given the most characteristic use of these words, for example in Paul's theology, the flesh and spirit in the New Testament are two transcendental forces that can penetrate a person from without, and neither of them is determined by human existence as such. In general it is true that Paul's idea of ​​human nature, in contrast to ancient ideas, is based on the history of salvation (Heilsgeschichte).

The flesh is the power of sin or the power of death. It captures both the inner and outer man at the same time. Spirit, its great antagonist, is the force of creation. It also captures both the inner and outer man at the same time. Flesh and spirit are active forces and, as such, they operate within us. The flesh, the power of death, entered man with the sin of Adam. Of course, having entered man, external and internal, in this way, it is very closely connected with the body, but through sin the power of death captured the inner man more and more. The spirit, in turn, is the great force of life, the element of the Resurrection. The divine power of creation is given to us through the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament the Spirit acts only sometimes - through the prophets. At the end of times, as we live from the moment Jesus destroyed the power of death by his own death and rose from the dead, this power of life operates in all members of the community “in the last days” (Acts 2:17). Like the flesh, the whole person, external and internal, is subject to it. But in the present age, while the flesh is strengthened in the body to a considerable extent, although its power over the inner man is not so inexorable, the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit is already taking hold of the inner man so decisively that our inner man is “renewed from day to day.” ” as Paul says (2 Cor. 4:16). The entire Gospel of John is about this. We are already in a state of resurrection, that is, eternal life, but not the immortality of the soul: a new era is already coming into its own. The body is already under the power of the Holy Spirit.

Under the influence of the Holy Spirit we receive what amounts to a temporary withdrawal of the power of death, a kind of premonition of eschatology. This is also true for the body, hence the healing of diseases. But this is only a retreat, and not the final transformation of the body of death into the body of resurrection. Even those whom Jesus brought back to life while He lived among us will die again, because they did not receive a resurrection body and the transformation of a fleshly body into a spiritual body will not happen until the very end of the world. Only when the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit gains full control over the body will it change in the same way that the inner man is already changing. It is important to see how different the teaching about man in the New Testament is from the Greek. Body and soul are good initially and to the extent that they were created by God; and they are evil to the extent that the mortal power of the flesh controls them. They can and must be set free by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

So, liberation does not consist in the separation of the soul from the body, but in the separation of both of them from the flesh. We are not freed from the body, rather the body itself becomes free. This is obvious from the letters of the Apostle Paul, but this is generally the point of view of the entire New Testament. There is no disagreement here as there is in the New Testament books on other issues. Even the often quoted words of Jesus, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28) in no way suggest an ancient interpretation. From these words it may seem that the soul does not need a body, but the context shows that this is not so. Jesus does not say further: “Fear those who kill the soul,” he continues: “Fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” That is, fear God, who can put you to final death if he does not resurrect you to life. We will see, indeed, that the soul is the starting point of the Resurrection, since, as we have already said, the Holy Spirit can already take it into its power in a completely different way than the body. The Holy Spirit already lives in our inner man. “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Holy Spirit,” says the Apostle Paul (Rom. 8:11). Therefore, one need not fear one who kills only the body. The body can be brought back to life. Moreover, it must be brought back to life. The soul cannot always remain without a body. On the other hand, we see in Matt. 10:28, that even a soul can be killed. The soul is not immortal. Both must be resurrected, for from the moment of the fall the whole person is “sown in corruption” (1 Cor. 15:42). For the inner man, thanks to the transformation by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, resurrection can happen already in this life - through “renewal from day to day” (2 Cor. 4:16). The flesh, however, still resides in our body. The transformation of the body will not occur until eschatology, when everything created will be renewed by the Holy Spirit, when there will be neither death nor corruption.

The resurrection of the body, whose substance (I use this unfortunate term only for lack of a better one; from the foregoing considerations it should be clear what I mean by it) will no longer be flesh, but the Holy Spirit, is only a part of the new creation. After all, it is said: “We are looking forward to new heavens and a new earth” (2 Peter 3:13). The hope of Christians embraces not only a new future for the individual, but a new future for all creation. Through sin, everything that exists came under the power of death. We see this not only in Genesis, but also in Rom. 8:19-22, where Paul writes that all created things have longed for liberation ever since. This liberation will come when the power of the Holy Spirit transforms all matter, when God, in a new act of creation, does not destroy matter, but frees it from the flesh, from susceptibility to decay. Not eternal ideas, but certain objects will rise anew, with a new, incorruptible life essence - the Holy Spirit - including our bodies.

Since the resurrection of the body is a new act of creation that embraces everything, it does not begin every time with the death of an individual, it will only happen at the end of the world. This is not a transition from this world to another, as during the liberation of an immortal soul from the body, it is a transition from the present era to the future. It is connected with the general process of redemption.

There is sin, which means there must be a prescribed act of atonement for it. Where sin is seen as the source of death's power over God's creation, there sin and death must be conquered together, there the Holy Spirit - the only power capable of overcoming death - must return all creation to life, working unceasingly.

Therefore, the Christian faith in the Resurrection, in contrast to the Greek faith in immortality, is connected with the general course of the divine plan, which presupposes final freedom. Sin and death must be defeated. We can't do this. Someone else did it for us. He was able to do this only by submitting Himself to the power of death, entering its territory. That is, He himself died and atoned for sin, so that death as the payment for sin was abolished. The Christian faith proclaims that He did this and that His body and soul were restored to life after His complete and final death. Here God performed a miracle of creation, which was expected only at the end of the world. He created life once again, as at the beginning of the world. This happened to one Jesus Christ, but it happened! Resurrection, not only in the sense of the passage of the inner man under the power of the Holy Spirit, but also the resurrection of the body. A new creation of matter, incorruptible matter. This spiritual matter is not found anywhere in the world. There is no spiritual body anywhere. Only in Christ.

Oscar Kuhlman - Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead? - Chapter 3. Firstborn from the dead. From the Resurrection of Christ to the destruction of death

To understand what the cry “Christ is risen from the dead” meant to Christians, we must not lose sight of what death meant to them. There is a temptation to connect this all-powerful statement with the ancient doctrine of the immortality of the soul and thus deprive it of its true meaning. “Christ is risen” means that we stand on the threshold of a new era, when death is conquered, when there is no place for decay. After all, if there really is a spiritual body (not an immortal soul, but a spiritual body) arising from the flesh, then the power of death is truly defeated. Believers, according to the belief of the first Christians, should no longer die - such was the expectation of the first days. There must have been some confusion when it was discovered that Christians continued to die. But the fact that people die does not have the same meaning after the Resurrection of Christ. Death is deprived of its former significance. Dying no longer expresses the omnipotence of death, it is just its last claim to power. Death cannot undo the great fact that there is a resurrected Body.

Let's try to understand what Christians meant when they spoke of Christ as the “firstborn from the dead.” No matter how difficult it is to do this, we exclude the question of whether we accept this faith or not. From the very beginning we must give up asking who is right, Socrates or the New Testament. Otherwise, we will constantly confuse the development of New Testament thought with extraneous teachings. In this case, it is enough for us to simply hear what the New Testament says. Christ is the firstborn from the dead! His body is the first Body of the Resurrection, the first Spiritual Body. If a person has this faith, it should influence his whole life, all his thoughts. The New Testament will remain for us a book with seven seals if each line does not stand for us: death has already been defeated (death, I emphasize, and not the body); there is already a new creation (a new creation, and not the immortality that the soul has always possessed), the era of resurrection has already come into its own. (If - and the findings at Qumran, recently published by Allegro, seem to confirm this - the "teacher of righteousness" of this sect were indeed sentenced to death and his return was expected, then what most separates this sect from the first Christian communities is the lack of faith that the resurrection has already happened.)

Of course, the resurrection has only just come into its own, although it definitely has.

“It has just entered” because death is still in effect, Christians are still dying. The followers of Christ recognized this when the first members of the community died. They had to face a serious problem. In 1 Cor. 11:30 Paul writes that, essentially, death and disease should no longer happen. We are still dying, and dying in sin and sickness. But the Holy Spirit is already at work in our world as a new force of creation; it already visibly works in early communities and manifests itself in various ways. In my book Christ and Time, I spoke about the conflict between the present and the future, the paradox between the “already fulfilled” and the “not yet completed.” This paradox is originally part of the New Testament, and not developed as a later solution born of confusion, as the followers of Albert Schweitzer and Rudolf Bultmann believe.

This contradiction is already present during the life of Jesus. He promises the Kingdom of God in the future, but, on the other hand, He declares that the Kingdom of God has already come into the world, since He, with the Holy Spirit, already makes death recede when He heals diseases and brings the dead back to life (Matt. 12:28, 11 :3 et seq.; Luke 10:18), foreshadowing the victory over death that He would gain in His own death. Schweitzer is wrong when he sees hope for the future in the original hope of Christians, just as Dodd is wrong when he speaks only of an ongoing eschatology. Bultmann is even less right when he reduces the hope of Jesus and the first Christians to existentialism. The essence of the New Testament is that it thinks in temporal terms, for the belief that the resurrection was fulfilled in Christ is the starting point of Christian thought and Christian life. Based on this principle, the chronological paradox between the “already fulfilled” and the “not yet completed” is the very essence of the Christian faith. Then the metaphor that I use in Christ and Time very well characterizes the general situation described in the New Testament: “the decisive battle has been won in the death of Christ and the Resurrection, only the day of victory has not yet come.”

In fact, all theological debates of the present day are conducted around one question: is the Easter event the starting point for the Christian Church, for its existence, life and teaching? If so, we are living in an in-between time.

In this case, the New Testament belief in the Resurrection is a fundamental part of Christian belief. Accordingly, the idea according to which there is a body of the Resurrection, that is, the body of Christ, determines the integrity of the Christian perception of time. If Christ is the “firstborn from the dead,” then the eschatological end has already arrived. This also means that the Firstborn is separated from other people who have not yet been “born from the dead” by a certain time interval. This also means that we live in an intermediate time between the Resurrection of Jesus that has already occurred and our own, which will not occur before the end of the world. Moreover, this also means that the life-giving Power, the Holy Spirit, is already at work in us. Therefore, Paul calls the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:23) the same word as Jesus himself (1 Cor. 15:23) - the firstfruits, the firstborn 2 *. Therefore, there is already a premonition of the resurrection. Even twofold: our inner man is already being renewed day by day by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 4:16, Eph. 3:16); the body is also already subject to the power of the Holy Spirit, although it is still a stronghold of the flesh. Where the Holy Spirit appears, even in the body, the defeated power of death flees. As a result, miracles of healing occur in our still mortal body. To the cry of despair in Rome. 7:24 “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”, the entire New Testament answers: “The Holy Spirit!”

The premonition of eschatology that comes through the Holy Spirit is visibly manifested in the early Christian rite of breaking bread. Visible miracles of the Spirit happen here. Here the Spirit is trying to go beyond imperfect human speech into speaking in tongues (Acts 2:4-11, 1 Cor. 12:10, 30). And here the community moves on to a direct connection with the Risen One, not only with his soul, but also with the body of the Resurrection. Therefore we read in 1 Cor. 10:18: “...are not those who eat the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” Here, in unity with the brothers, we come closest to Christ’s Body of the Resurrection; This is what Paul writes in the next, eleventh chapter (a passage that is usually not given enough attention): if the bread of the Lord and the cup of the Lord were worthily received by all members of the community, then union with Christ's Resurrection Body would be so effective in our bodies that even now there would be no sickness or death (1 Cor. 11:28-30). An unusually bold statement. The community is called the body of Christ because the spiritual body of Christ is present in it, because we find ourselves very close to it; in it, during the common Easter meal, the disciples saw the Resurrection Body of Jesus, His Spiritual Body.

Yet, even though the Holy Spirit is already working powerfully in them, people die; even after Easter and Pentecost people continue to die as before. Our body remains mortal and subject to disease. His transformation into a spiritual body will not take place until God creates the world anew; only then, for the first time, will there be nothing but the Spirit, nothing but the power of life, since death will be completely destroyed. Then visible things will have a new essence. Instead of carnal matter, spiritual matter will appear. That is, instead of perishable matter, incorruptible matter will appear. The visible and the invisible will become spirit. And let us not be mistaken: this is definitely not the ancient understanding of the idea of ​​corporeality. A new heaven and a new earth - this is the Christian hope! And then our bodies will also rise from the dead. But not as carnal bodies, but as spiritual bodies.

The words used in the Apostle's Creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the flesh” do not entirely correspond to the thoughts of the apostle. Paul couldn't say that. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom. Paul believes in the resurrection of the body (aob|sh), but not the flesh (aar£). Flesh is the force of death that must be destroyed. This deviation towards ancient teaching arose at a time when biblical terminology was erroneously interpreted in line with the ancient understanding of human nature. Moreover, our body (and not just our soul) is subject to resurrection at the end of the world, when the life-giving power of the Spirit will renew everything, without exception.

Imperishable body! How should we understand this? Or rather, how did the first Christians understand this? Paul says in Phil. 3:21 that at the End Christ will transform our lowly body into the body of his glory, just as in 2 Cor. 3:18: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” This glory was understood by the first Christians as a kind of matter of light; but this is only an imperfect metaphor. We cannot find the right word in our language. I again refer you to the image of the Resurrection, executed by the great Grunewald. He perhaps came closest to what Paul understood by the spiritual body.

Oscar Kuhlman - Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead? - Chapter 4. Sleeping. The Holy Spirit and the Transitional State of the Dead

Now we come to the last question. When does body transformation occur? There can be no doubt about this. The entire New Testament answers “in the end,” and this must be understood literally, that is, in a temporary sense. This gives rise to the question of the “intermediate state” of the dead. Death, of course, has already been defeated, according to 2 Tim. 1:10: "By grace<...>now revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought to life and incorruption through the gospel.” The chronological paradox that I keep talking about is connected with the main problem: death has already been defeated, but it will not be abolished until the end of times comes, as it is said: “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). It is important that in Greek the same verb is used both to denote a victory that has already been finally won, and to denote a “not yet completed” victory that is coming at the end. In Rev. 20:14 describes the victory at the end, the destruction of Death: “Both death and hell were cast into the lake of fire,” and a few verses later it says, “and there will be no more death.”

This means, however, that each individual human death does not immediately cause a transformation of the body, and in order to correctly grasp the doctrine of the New Testament, we must beware of borrowing concepts from ancient philosophy. Here I cannot agree with Karl Barth that he manages to restore the original appearance of Christian teaching, I cannot even accept his position in Church Dogmatics, where such borrowing is barely noticeable, so that his teaching is more consistent with the eschatology of the New Testament than in his early works, especially in The Resurrection of the Dead (1926). Barth believes that, according to New Testament ideas, the transformation of the body occurs for each person after his death immediately, as if there were no more dead. However, according to the New Testament they still exist, otherwise the discussion in 1 Thess. 4:13-18 would not make sense. Paul is really at pains to point out that at the coming of Christ, “we who are alive will not warn those who are dead.” So those who have died in Christ exist in time, they also wait. “How long?” - cry the martyrs laid to rest under the altar in Rev. 6:10. Neither the words of Jesus on the cross: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), nor the parable of the rich man, where Lazarus was immediately carried into Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:22), nor the words of Paul: “I have the desire to be resolved and to be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23) do not prove that the resurrection of the body occurs immediately after each individual death, as many think. None of these texts directly speak of the resurrection of the body. Instead, these passages note the position of those who died in Christ without waiting for the canvas - the intermediate state in which they found themselves, as well as those living. All these episodes only indicate the special closeness to Christ in which those dying in Christ are located before the end of the world. They are “with Christ,” or “in paradise,” or “in the bosom of Abraham,” or, according to Rev. 6:9, “under the altar.” All these are different ways of depicting special closeness to God. But Paul’s most frequent expression is “they are sleeping.” It is difficult to doubt that the New Testament has in mind the same intermediate period for the dead as for the living, and the condition of the dead during this intermediate period is not described in detail.

Those who died in Christ are part of the paradox of the midlife. But that doesn't just mean they're waiting. And for them, something decisive happened with the death and Resurrection of Jesus. And for them, Easter was a turning point (Matt. 27:52). This new situation created by Easter allows us at least to feel something in common with Socrates, not with his teaching, but with his behavior in the face of death. Death has lost its terrifying part, its “sting.” Although it remains the last enemy, it is no longer of decisive importance. If the Resurrection of Christ was to mark the turning point of the era only for the living, and not for the dead too, then the living undoubtedly have a great advantage over the dead, since they, as members of the community of Christ, are truly ruled by the power of the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit. But it is inconceivable that, according to the early Christian point of view, nothing would change for the dead before the end of the world. To describe the condition of the dead in Christ, the New Testament uses images that prove that even now the Resurrection of Christ - as a foreshadowing of eschatology - is already influencing the intermediate state of the dead. They are “with Christ.”

From 2 Cor. 5:1-10 clearly shows why the dead, who no longer have a body and are only “sleeping,” still find themselves in special closeness to Christ. Paul speaks of the natural anxiety he feels about death still being present. He is afraid of the state of “nakedness,” as he calls it, that is, the state of the inner man without a body. This natural horror of death, therefore, did not disappear. Paul, as he says, would like to acquire a spiritual body while still alive, without undergoing death. That is, he would like to be still alive at the time of the coming of Christ. Here once again we find confirmation of what we talked about regarding Christ’s fear of death. But now we also see something new: in the same text, next to the natural anxiety about the “nakedness” of the soul, we find the greatest confidence in closeness to Christ, even in an intermediate state. What's scary about the fact that the in-between still exists? Confidence in closeness to Christ is based on the conviction that our inner man has already been captured by the Holy Spirit. Since the time of Christ, we who live already have the Holy Spirit. He is really inside us, he has already transformed our inner man. But, as we know, the Holy Spirit is the power of life. Death cannot harm him. Therefore, something has changed for the dead, for those who really died in Christ, that is, by surrendering themselves to the Holy Spirit. The terrible abandonment in death, separation from God, which we talked about earlier, no longer exists, because there is the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the New Testament emphasizes that the dead are truly with Christ, that is, they are truly not abandoned. From this it is clear why, speaking about the fear of separation from the body, Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit as “a deposit, an earnest” (2 Cor. 5:5).

According to verse 8 of the same chapter, it turns out that the dead are closer to Christ, to whom the “sleep” brings them closer: “...we desire rather to leave the body and be at home with the Lord.” For this reason, the apostle could write that he wanted to die and be with Christ (Phil. 1:23). A person who has lost his fleshly body finds himself closer to Christ than he was before if he has the Holy Spirit. It is the flesh, attached to our earthly body, that during our lives prevents the full development of the Holy Spirit. Death delivers us from this obstacle, even if our situation is imperfect due to the fact that we do not have a resurrection body. Neither in this passage nor anywhere else is there any detail given about this intermediate state in which the inner man, stripped of his fleshly body and still without a spiritual body, abides with the Holy Spirit. The apostle confines himself to the assurance that this state, which anticipates our destiny, since we have received the Holy Spirit, brings us closer to the final resurrection.

Here we find that the fear of the disembodied state is combined with the conviction that even in this intermediate, transitional state there will be no separation from Christ (among the forces that cannot separate us from God's love in Christ is death, see Rom. 8:38-39). Fear and conviction are woven together in 2 Cor. 5, confirming that even the dead are involved in resolving the situation. But conviction prevails, because the decision has already been made. Death has been defeated. The inner man, who has cast off his body as clothing, is no longer alone; he does not eke out the existence of a shadow, which the Jews hoped for and which cannot be called life. The inner man, having cast off his body as a garment, is already during his lifetime transformed by the Holy Spirit and is already embraced by the resurrection (Rom. 6:3 et seq.; John 3:3 et seq.), if he, as a living person, has already been renewed by the Holy Spirit. Let him still “sleep” and wait for the resurrection of the body, and only this will give him the fullness of life, but a dead Christian has from the Holy Spirit. So, even in this case, death has lost its horror, although it still exists. This means that those from the dead who die in the Lord can be “henceforth blessed,” as Revelation says (Rev. 14:13). And what is said in 1 Cor. 15:54-55 also refers to the dead: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Death! Where is your sting? Hell! Where is your victory? So the apostle writes: “Whether we live, we live for the Lord; whether we die, we die for the Lord<.. .>For to this end Christ died, and rose again, and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:8-9).

One may wonder whether we have not thus returned in this study to the ancient doctrine of immortality, whether the New Testament for the post-Easter time does not imply the continuity of the “inner man” of converted Christians before and after death, so that here too death appears only as a natural transition link There is an aspect in which a certain similarity with ancient teaching is noted, and this concerns the inner man, when, after being transformed by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 6:3) and as a result of this quickening, he, being asleep, continues to live with Christ in his transfigured state. Such continuity is given special significance in the Gospel of John (John 3:36, 4:14, 6:54 et seq.). Indeed, one can see in this at least some analogy to the “immortality of the soul,” but the difference does not become any less radical. Then, the position of the dead in Christ is still not perfect, it is a state of “nakedness,” “sleep,” as Paul says, waiting for the resurrection of all created things, the resurrection of the body. On the other hand, death in the New Testament remains an enemy, although a defeated enemy who has yet to be destroyed. The fact that even in this state the dead already live with Christ does not correspond to the natural essence of the soul. This is, rather, a consequence of divine intervention from the outside, through the Holy Spirit, who, with his miraculous power, has already breathed life into the inner man even during his earthly existence.

Thus, it is still true that the resurrection is expected even in the Gospel of John, although now, of course, with the certainty of victory, since the Holy Spirit already dwells in our inner man. Therefore, there can no longer be any doubt: since He already dwells in the inner man, He will certainly transform the body. After all, the Holy Spirit, this life-giving power, penetrates everywhere and knows no barriers. If He is truly present in a person, He will revive the person completely. Thus Paul writes: “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11). And again: “We wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our destroyed body so that it will be like His glorious Body” (Phil. 3:20-21). The New Testament does not speak in detail about the intermediate position. We hear only one thing: we are closer to God.

We wait and the dead wait. Perhaps the passage of time for them may not be the same as for the living, so the intermediate period for them may be shortened. This is not outside the scope of the New Testament and its interpretation, and the expression "sleeping", which is the usual New Testament designation of "in-between", makes it seem that the dead have a different perception of time: like those who sleep. But this does not mean that the dead are no longer timeless. And here we are again convinced that the New Testament hope for the Resurrection differs from the ancient belief in immortality.

Conclusion

In his missionary travels, Paul met people who were not able to accept his preaching of the Resurrection for the very reason that they believed in the immortality of the soul. In Athens, Paul was mocked when he spoke about the Resurrection (Acts 17:32). Both those of whom Paul says that they “have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13) and those of whom he writes that they do not believe in the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:12) may not were epicureans, as we used to think. Even those who believe in the immortality of the soul do not have the hope that Paul speaks of; hope, which is based on faith in the divine miracle of the new Creation, which will embrace every particle of the world created by God. Of course, the Greeks, who believed in the immortality of the soul, probably found it more difficult to accept the Christian preaching of the Resurrection than others. Around the year 150, Justin the Philosopher, in his Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon, mentions those “who say that there is no resurrection of the dead, and that at the moment of death souls ascend directly to heaven.” Truly the difference is clearly noticeable.

Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher who, along with Socrates, is the noblest man of antiquity, also felt this difference. It is well known that he deeply despised Christianity. One would expect that the death of Christian martyrs would inspire respect for the great Stoic, who reflected on death with complete calm. But it was martyrdom that he sympathized with least of all. He did not like the readiness with which Christians went to death. The Stoic died dispassionately, but the Christian died with spiritual passion - for the sake of Christ, for he knew that in doing so he was part of a powerful redemptive process. The first Christian martyr, Stephen, shows us (Acts 7:55) what the difference in the perception of death is between the ancient philosopher and the one who dies in Christ: he sees, as it is said, “the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” he sees Christ, the conqueror of death. And with this belief that the death that awaits him has already been defeated by the One Who Himself endured it, Stefan allows himself to be stoned.

There are no two answers to the question: “Immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead in the New Testament?” The teachings of the great philosophers Socrates and Plato can in no way be reconciled with the New Testament. The apologists of the second century showed that their personality, their life, their perseverance in death could be highly valued by Christians. It seems to me that this can also be understood from the New Testament. But we will not touch on this issue here.

On this, see also: Cullman O. La foi a la resurrection Ct l "esperance de la resurrection dans le Nouveau Testament // Etudes theol. et rel. 1943. P. 3f; Idem. Christus und die Zeit. Zurich, 1946. S. 23 If; H. Le sort des treipasseis.

But in this case, Christian society could hardly talk about “natural” death. This definition in the book of Karl Barth (Barth K. Die kirchliche Dogmatik. 1948. Bd. Ill, 2. S. 776f), although used in a section where the rest emphasizes primarily the negative assessment of death as the “last enemy,” is nevertheless does not seem to me to be supported by the New Testament. See 1 Cor. 11:30.

It would be more accurate to call this (referring to the history of salvation) the “Christian historicization” of Greek thought. Only with such an interpretation, different from Bultmann’s concept, can we consider that the “myths” of the New Testament are “demythologized” by the New Testament itself.

Despite the parallel with the book of Jonah 4:9, which is given by E. Klostermann (E. Das Marcus-Evangelium. 1936, ad loc.) and E. Lohmeyer (E. Lohmeyer. Das Evangelium des Marcus. 1937, ad loc), I agree with I. Weiss (Weiss J. Das Marcus - Evangelium. 1917, ad loc), that the interpretation of these words as: “I grieve so much that it is better for me to die” despite the fact that Jesus knows that He will soon die (these words are pronounced during the Last Supper) seems completely unsatisfactory. Moreover, Weiss's interpretation: "My sorrow is so great that I perish under its weight" is reinforced in Mark. 15:34, and also in Luke. 12:50: “And how I languish until this [baptism, that is, death] is accomplished” leaves no room for any other interpretation.

Both former and modern commentators (Wellhausen J. Das Evangelium Marci. 1909, ad. loc, Schniewind J. in N.T. Deutsch (1934), ad loc, Lohmeyer. Das Evangelium des Markus, ad loc.) try in vain to avoid this conclusion , supported by the Greek strong expression “to be stunned with horror,” and give interpretations that do not correspond to the fact that Jesus already knows that He will suffer for the sins of mankind (the Last Supper scene). In Luke 12:50, the “languor” of death is difficult to explain, but given that Jesus was abandoned by God on the cross, the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane cannot be explained as anything other than a foreshadowing of the abandonment that would be the fruit of death, God’s greatest enemy. Jesus is afraid, although not as afraid as His cowardly killer would have been, but he is less afraid of the pain and sorrow that precedes death.

This problem is completely misrepresented in the book: Leipoldt J. Der Tod bei Griechen und Juden. 1942. Of course, the author rightly points out the sharp differences between the Greek and Jewish views on death, but the reasons for his attempts to identify Christians with the Greeks and contrast them with the Jews become clear if one pays attention to the year and series of publication of the book.

We will see that death, due to the victory of Christ, no longer seems terrible. But I still would not risk drawing on the New Testament, as Karl Barth does, when speaking about “natural death” (see 1 Cor. 11:30). See: Barth K. Die kirchliche Dogmatik, III, 2 (1948). S. 777f (based on Rev. 21:8 describing the “second death”).

See: Gutbrod W. Die paulinische Anthropologic Stuttgart/Berlin, 1934; Ktimmel W. G. Romer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus. Leipzig, 1929; Schweitzer E. Rom. l:3f und der Ge-gensatz von Fleisch und Geist vor und bei Paulus // Evangelische Theologie. 1955. Bd. 15. S. 536, as well as particularly important considerations in Bultmann R. Theology of the New Testament. London, 1955.

Another question, of course, is whether Barth has any right at all to invoke as an argument relationships that lie outside the framework of the New Testament. But even so, going beyond the New Testament should be done consciously and always clearly stipulated, especially if the discussion is conducted from a biblical perspective, as Barth does. In this case, the inevitable danger will be recognized, which every dogmatist (and this is the dignity and greatness of his task) must resist, namely: the danger of not remaining attached to the biblical lines, but interpreting them mainly ex post facto, from his own point of view, already went beyond the New Testament. If this exeget were clearly aware of this danger, the discussion with him would be more fruitful.

Although the much-discussed words of Lk. 23:4 “Today you will be with me in Paradise” testify in favor of this. Of course, it is quite possible, albeit with a stretch, to understand them. This statement must be understood in the light of Luke. 16:23 and the late Jewish perception of “Paradise” as the place of the blessed (StrackH. L., Billerbeck W. Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch. Miinster, 1922, ad. loc; Volz P. Die Escha-tologie der jiidischen Gemeinde im neutest. Zeitalter 1934. S. 265). Words of Luke. 16:23 certainly does not refer to the resurrection of the body, and the expectation of canvas has by no means disappeared. This interpretation is strongly rejected by Kümmel in his work (Ktimmel W. G. Verheissung und Erfullung. 1953. S. 67). A certain inconsistency with theology can indeed be detected here, because Christ himself, on the day about which He said “today,” was not resurrected, and therefore the foundation for the connection of the dead with Christ had not yet been laid. But a recent study emphasizes that the thief will be with Christ. Menoud rightly points out that Jesus' answer must be understood in connection with the prayer of the prudent thief (Menoud Ph. Le sort des trepasses, P. 45). This thief asks Jesus to remember him when He enters His kingdom, which, according to the Jewish view of the Messiah, can only refer to the time when the Messiah comes and establishes His kingdom. Jesus does not grant this request, but instead gives him more than he asked for: he will be reunited with Jesus even before His kingdom comes (Luke 23:39-3). It is clear from this that these words, given their purpose, do not contradict the text stated above. We have already talked about K. Barth's attempt - which, however, goes too far - to place in a dialectical manner a positive assessment of death next to a negative one.

Here I share the assumption of R. Mehl (Mehl R. Der letzte Feind... S. 56.)

Every Christian, reading the Creed, compiled at the two Ecumenical Councils of 325 and 381 in particular, professes faith in Christ, who suffered, was buried, rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven and “coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead, the kingdom Which will never end."

And this confession also ends with the words “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come, amen.” Such was the original faith, and such it remains to this day among Christians who trust the Holy Scriptures.

It is safe to say that the Apostle Paul, the author of the earliest extant texts included in the New Testament, believed in the immediate and imminent proximity of the second coming of Christ. Just as the first Christians believed in this.

“I do not want to leave you, brothers, in ignorance about the dead, so that you do not grieve like others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not warn those who have died, because the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first; Then we who are left alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord" ( 1 Thess. 4, 13-17).

The apostle’s explanations arose, among other things, because already in the first generation of Christians, deaths occurred for various reasons, which was a somewhat puzzling moment for them - after all, those who believed in Christ hoped not to see death!

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever keeps My word will never see death” ( In. 8, 51).

In this case, the apostle consoles the Christians of Thessalonica with the fact that the fate of the departed will not fundamentally differ from the fate of the living, whom Christ will find at His next coming. In another letter, later addressed to the Christians of Corinth, he writes:

“I tell you a secret: we will not all die, but we will all change suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible, and we will be changed" ( 1 Cor. 15, 51-52).

Another question is about the timing of this coming, which will remain unknown to anyone. Therefore, speaking about the coming of the day of the Lord, the apostle resorts to the image of a thief sneaking at night ( 1 Thess. 5, 2), meaning that this day will come suddenly, when no one is expecting it, and, therefore, it is necessary to stay awake and be sober ( 1 Thess. 5, 6-8).

Early Christian writers also did not emphasize the “immortality of the soul,” but only the expected resurrection of the dead, the re-creation of the human person in his renewed, redeemed body, analogous to the spiritualized body of the Risen Christ.

Thus, Clement of Rome (d. 101d), in his first epistle, writes: “Will we therefore consider it great and wonderful if the Creator of all things resurrected those who, in the hope of good faith, holyly served Him? For it is said somewhere: You will also raise me up and I will praise You ( Ps. 27:7). And again: I fell asleep and slept, but I arose, because You are with me ( Ps. 3:6). Job also says: You will also resurrect this flesh of mine, which endures all this ( Job. 19:25-26)»

And in the second they continue the same thought: “we, while we still live in this world, must repent from the bottom of our hearts for the evil that we have done in the flesh; to receive salvation from the Lord while we have time to repent . For after our departure from the world we can no longer confess or repent there.»

We see the same sentiments in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107d): “Christ is truly risen from the dead, since His Father raised Him, who in like manner will also raise us who believe in Jesus Christ, for without Him we have no true life »

“Whoever does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is the Antichrist.” (1 John 4:3)

.

Whoever does not recognize the evidence of His death on the cross is of the devil; and whoever interprets the words of the Lord according to his own lusts and says that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, he is the firstborn of Satan.” Continuing, he writes: “He who raised Him from the dead will also raise us, if we do His will, walk according to His commandments and love what He loved.”

Also, Athenagoras of Athens (2nd century AD) writes: “If God did not grant independent existence and life to the nature of the soul in itself, nor to the nature of the body separately, but only to people consisting of soul and body, so that, with those but by the parts from which they consist when they are born and live, at the end of this life they reached one common end: then the soul and body in man constitute one living being, which experiences both what is characteristic of the soul and that of the body.”

Hence the conclusion: “The being that has received mind and reason is a person, and not a soul in itself; therefore, man must always remain and consist of soul and body; and it is impossible for him to remain like this unless he is resurrected. For if there is no resurrection, then the nature of men as men will not remain” (“On the Resurrection of the Dead,” 15).

Justin Martyr (d. 165), who lived at the same time as Athenagoras, in his “Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew” generally contains the idea that the soul cannot be immortal in itself, since only one God is immortal, who gave it life: “The soul is involved in life because God wants it to live, and therefore it can cease to live once if God wants it to no longer live. For it is not characteristic of the soul to live as God does; but just as a person does not always exist, and his body is not always united with the soul, when this union needs to be destroyed, the soul leaves the body and the person no longer exists, so from the soul, when it is necessary for it to no longer exist, the vital spirit is taken away, and the soul no longer exists, but goes again to the same place from where it was taken” (chapter 6).

Moreover, those who deny the resurrection of the dead St. Justin generally denies the right to be called Christians: “If you meet such people who are called Christians, but do not recognize this, and even dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, do not recognize the resurrection of the dead and think that their souls are immediately deaths are taken to heaven, then do not consider them Christians” (chapter 80).

And if we turn to later sources, we can recall the life of the hermit Anthony (d. 356), who also protested against the worship of relics, recorded by Athanasius the Great:
“Then, calling those who were with him, he said to them: “I, as it is written, am going on the path of my fathers.” (Nav. 23, 14) . For I see that the Lord is calling me... and if you care about me, and remember me as a father, then do not allow anyone to take my body to Egypt and lay it in their house; To avoid this, I went up the mountain and came here. You know, how I always condemned those who did this and urged them to leave such a custom. Give my body a burial and hide it underground. May you keep this word of mine, so that no one knows the place of burial of my body except you alone; because at the resurrection of the dead I will receive it from the Savior incorruptible».

After the above study, a logical question arises: what is the basis for the belief of many Christians that the soul is immortal, and at the moment of death, retaining consciousness, is separated from the body and transferred to the afterlife? On the very dubious later apocrypha of obvious pagan origin - mainly the apocalypses of Peter, Paul, and the Virgin Mary - the latter is generally entirely devoted to the description of hellish torment.

These descriptions are very different from the evidence of the Bible, both in meaning and in their focus (their author did not have the irrational thinking of the authors of the Bible, but logical, philosophical). But the one who composed all this was not inclined to imitate the Word of God. He imitated well-known pagan myths, works of ancient classical literature - the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the myths of Plato, and Pythagorean legends.

Perhaps it should be noted that all stories about afterlife retribution have a clear genetic connection. Their authors placed people they hated in hell. In Greek stories, these are heroes of myths, in whose images one can see hints of the author’s contemporaries. In the late “hell” described by Dante, the author no longer resorts to images, but directly deals with personalities that are unpleasant to him.

All stories about eternal hellish torment, supposedly awaiting sinners in eternity, pursue purely utilitarian goals - influencing people in order to limit the external manifestations of sin. Each sinner will find in them a description of what awaits him after death if he does not reform. The Bible does not share this approach, since God does not desire the outward appearance of people, but their deep and thorough conversion, “being born again.” Therefore, Christ did not turn people into fear with examples of reward from beyond the grave, but showed them an example of his own love:

“As the Father has loved Me, I have loved you; abide in My love." ( John 15:9)

Therefore, I think there is no point in forgetting the testimony of the Bible and the early Christians about the resurrection of the dead and replacing it with the pagan doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which originates in ancient myths, legends and non-canonical writings, which distort the essence of the character of God.

References:
1) Scriptures of the apostolic men / [preface by R. Svetlov]. – St. Petersburg: Amphora. 2007. – 474 p. (Series “Alexandria Library”).
2) Works of St. Justin, Philosopher and Martyr. M.: "University Printer", 1892. p. 132-362.
3) Saint Athanasius the Great. Creations in 4 volumes. Volume III.- M.: Spaso-Preobrazhensky Valaam Monastery, 1994.- P. 178–251.

Every Christian, reading the Creed, compiled at the two Ecumenical Councils of 325 and 381 in particular, professes faith in Christ, who suffered, was buried, rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, ascended into heaven and “coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead, the kingdom Which will never end."

And this confession also ends with the words “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come, amen.” Such was the original faith, and such it remains to this day among Christians who trust the Holy Scriptures.

It is safe to say that the Apostle Paul, the author of the earliest extant texts included in the New Testament, believed in the immediate and imminent proximity of the second coming of Christ. Just as the first Christians believed in this.

“I do not want to leave you, brothers, in ignorance about the dead, so that you do not grieve like others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not warn those who have died, because the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first; Then we who are left alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:13-17).

The apostle’s explanations arose, among other things, because already in the first generation of Christians, deaths occurred for various reasons, which was a somewhat puzzling moment for them - after all, those who believed in Christ hoped not to see death!

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever keeps My word will never see death” (John 8:51)

In this case, the apostle consoles the Christians of Thessalonica with the fact that the fate of the departed will not fundamentally differ from the fate of the living, whom Christ will find at His next coming. In another letter, later addressed to the Christians of Corinth, he writes:

“I tell you a secret: we will not all die, but we will all change suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51-52)

Another question is about the timing of this coming, which will remain unknown to anyone. Therefore, speaking about the coming of the day of the Lord, the apostle resorts to the image of a thief sneaking in the night (1 Thess. 5:2), meaning that this day will come suddenly, when no one is waiting for it, and, therefore, it is necessary to stay awake and be sober (1 Thess. 5, 6-8).

Early Christian writers also did not emphasize the “immortality of the soul,” but only the expected resurrection of the dead, the re-creation of the human person in his renewed, redeemed body, analogous to the spiritualized body of the Risen Christ.

For example, Athenagoras of Athens(2nd century AD) writes: “If God did not grant independent existence and life to the nature of the soul in itself, nor to the nature of the body separately, but only to people consisting of soul and body, so that, with the same parts, from which they consist of when they are born and live, at the end of this life they reached one common end: then the soul and body in a person constitute one living being, which experiences both what is characteristic of the soul and that of the body.”

Hence the conclusion: “The being that has received mind and reason is a person, and not a soul in itself; therefore, man must always remain and consist of soul and body; and it is impossible for him to remain like this unless he is resurrected. For if there is no resurrection, then the nature of men as men will not remain” (“On the Resurrection of the Dead,” 15).

U St. Justin the Martyr, who lived at the same time as Athenagoras, in “Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew” In general, there is the idea that the soul cannot be immortal in itself, since only God alone is immortal, who gave it life: “The soul is involved in life, because God wants it to live, and therefore can cease to live once if God wants it to live.” she lived no more. For it is not characteristic of the soul to live as God does; but just as a person does not always exist, and his body is not always united with the soul, when this union needs to be destroyed, the soul leaves the body and the person no longer exists, so from the soul, when it is necessary for it to no longer exist, the vital spirit is taken away, and the soul no longer exists, but goes again to the same place from where it was taken” (chapter 6).

Moreover, those who deny the resurrection of the dead St. Justin generally denies the right to be called Christians: “If you meet such people who are called Christians, but do not recognize this, and even dare to blaspheme the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, do not recognize the resurrection of the dead and think that their souls immediately after death are taken to heaven, then do not consider them Christians” (chapter 80).

So what is the basis for the belief of many Christians that the soul is immortal, and at the moment of death, while maintaining consciousness, it is separated from the body and transferred to the afterlife? On the very dubious later apocrypha of obvious pagan origin - mainly the apocalypses of Peter, Paul, and the Virgin Mary - the latter is generally entirely devoted to the description of hellish torment.

These descriptions are very different from the evidence of the Bible, both in meaning and in their focus (their author did not have the irrational thinking of the authors of the Bible, but logical, philosophical). But the one who composed all this was not inclined to imitate the Word of God. He imitated well-known pagan myths, works of ancient classical literature - the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the myths of Plato, and Pythagorean legends.

Perhaps it should be noted that all stories about afterlife retribution have a clear genetic connection. Their authors placed people they hated in hell. In Greek stories, these are heroes of myths, in whose images one can see hints of the author’s contemporaries. In the late “hell” described by Dante, the author no longer resorts to images, but directly deals with personalities that are unpleasant to him.

All stories about eternal hellish torment, supposedly awaiting sinners in eternity, pursue purely utilitarian goals - influencing people in order to limit the external manifestations of sin. Each sinner will find in them a description of what awaits him after death if he does not reform. The Bible does not share this approach, since God does not desire the outward appearance of people, but their deep and thorough conversion, “being born again.” Therefore, Christ did not turn people into fear with examples of reward from beyond the grave, but showed them an example of his own love:

“As the Father has loved Me, I have loved you; abide in My love." (John 15:9)

Therefore, I think there is no point in forgetting the testimony of the Bible and early Christians about the resurrection of the dead and replacing it with the pagan teaching about the immortality of the soul, which originates in ancient myths, legends and non-canonical writings, which distort the essence of a loving God.

Konstantin Bud-Gusaim

Based on materials from: biblepravda.com