Death and the Afterlife in Byzantium
With the kind permission of Professor Vasileios Marinis, here is an excerpt from his book, Death and the Afterlife in Byzantium: The Fate of the Soul in Theology, Liturgy, and Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, while on a trip to Italy, George Bardanes, metropolitan of Kerkyra, had an informal exchange about the soul’s fate after death with Fra Bartolomeo, a Franciscan who asked about Byzantine beliefs. Bardanes responded that, because the Last Judgment had not occurred and Christ had not separated the righteous from the sinners, the souls of the departed had not yet received their final and eternal recompense. Rather, they resided in temporary locations, where they experienced a foretaste of their punishments or their rewards of various kinds, allocated presumably according to their conduct in life.
Bardanes’s response reflects a desire for an efficiently structured and morally logical afterlife, but it leaves many issues unresolved. How and, just as importantly, by whom are souls assigned their provisional locations and respective ordeals or delights? Is this decision final or revocable? How does one’s soul get to its interim assignment? Are these physical locations, spiritual states, or both? What do they look like? What is the purpose of praying for the dead? In short, what did the Byzantines believe happened to the soul after death and until the final resurrection and Last Judgment?
In contemporary scholarship, the period from death to the Last Judgment is conventionally called the intermediate state, a designation that I use throughout this book for the sake of clarity. It is significant that the Byzantines do not have one single term for this but many. What is clear, however, even from Bardanes’s succinct reply, is that this intermediate state is different for different people: the righteous enjoy blessings, the sinners suffer punishments, and in both cases they do so in various degrees. Where a soul ends up depends obviously on one’s conduct in life, but most often this fate comes only after a judgment of sorts, which is sometimes a quick, but more often a complicated and lengthy part of a journey.
From the outset it should be said that, for all their reputed and professed preoccupation with the afterlife, the Byzantines never produced a systematic theology on the postmortem fate of the soul. Or, rather, they did so only in the fifteenth century, under duress at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, whose goal was the union of the Byzantine and Latin Churches. One of the main reasons for this late date is the relatively meager and sometimes contradictory information that the Bible provides on the matter. In neither the Old nor the New Testament do we find a fully developed description of the afterlife. In the Old Testament the term most often connected with the afterlife is sheol, which the Septuagint almost invariably translates as Hades.[1] It appears there more than sixty times. Although never exactly defined, sheol is usually understood to be the underworld, to which the departed descend, leading a shadowy and even unconscious existence, essentially cut off from God. It is a land of perpetual darkness. It is the destiny of both the righteous and sinners, and there is no elaborate journey to get there. In contrast to Byzantine thought, the soul’s arrival at sheol is not the result of any sort of judgment. Sheol conforms with the covenant of curses and blessings between God and Israel. God delivers punishments or bestows favours depending on Israel’s fidelity, but only in this life. The book of Proverbs, for example, indicates clearly that God rewards the just and punishes the wicked during their lifetimes; after death, all go to sheol. That the dead continue to exist in sheol is evident from the necromancy that was practiced in Israel.
While sheol is the final destination for the souls in the Old Testament, there are some exceptions. Some texts, such as Psalm 29 (30):4, offer the possibility of deliverance. There are also two cases of bodily ascension into heaven, Enoch in Genesis 5:24 and Elijah in 4 Kingdoms 2:11. In addition we find scattered mentions of a general resurrection. The least ancient books of the Hebrew scriptures, as well as deuterocanonical texts, develop a conception of the afterlife that is different from sheol. For example, Daniel 12:2, a passage that likely dates to the second century BCE, includes a clear reference to the resurrection: “And many of those who sleep on the flat of the earth will arise, some to everlasting life but others to shame and others to dispersion and everlasting contempt.” This verse describes an actual rising of some of the dead, likely the most virtuous and the most wicked, who are described as “asleep,” something that implies an intermediate state of the souls. More interestingly, the passage relates a judgment that rewards some of the righteous and punishes some of the wicked in the afterlife. Further, the idea of resurrection and judgment is evidently at odds with the conception of sheol, inasmuch as sheol is turned into a place of temporary residence.
Similar to the Old, the New Testament is a collection of books of different genres, written in varying contexts, and for distinct audiences. As a result, it does not communicate a systematic theology regarding death and the afterlife in general, let alone the intermediate state. Furthermore, the New Testament is concerned primarily with the Parousia, Christ’s Second Coming, and the ensuing general resurrection and Last Judgment. Consequently, there is little on what happens to the souls of the departed before the Last Judgment, an issue complicated by the expectation of Christ’s imminent return, especially in Paul. As a result, with very few exceptions, it is difficult to identify with certainty passages that refer to an intermediate state of souls.
The parable of the rich man and Lazaros in Luke 16:19–31 is the most explicit description of the soul’s fate in the New Testament. After death the soul of the rich man and the soul of Lazaros have different fates: The latter’s is carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom; the rich man is buried and finds himself in Hades. Although no judgment is mentioned, it is certainly implied. Abraham’s response to the rich man’s plea suggests that, based on their conduct, each got what he deserved. That this parable refers to the intermediate state is evident in that the rich man’s siblings are still alive.
Beyond this, the New Testament includes little about the provisional judgment and the intermediate state. In 1 Corinthians 15, especially in verses 35–58, Paul writes that both the living and the dead will be resurrected at Christ’s Second Coming, a comment that implies an intermediate state. What Paul thought this state was like remains unclear. Romans 2:5–11 clarifies that this will be an individual judgment according to one’s deeds (see also 2 Corinthians 5:10). However, in Philippians 1:18–26, Paul writes that he desires death so he can be with Christ, and in 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 he claims that there will be a house in heaven, immediately after one’s death. But if one can be with Christ immediately after his or her death, then what is the purpose of the Parousia?
To this biblical ambiguity we must attribute the general evasiveness on the topic on the part of the early Church fathers, the other source of theological authority in Byzantium. John Chrysostom, for example, wrote four discourses on the parable of the rich man and Lazaros but his main concern is charity, not the geography of the afterlife. The writings of Basil of Caesarea contain sporadic information but nothing that could be construed as a systematic exposition of the topic. So, too, the afterlife of the soul never came under the purview of the great Church councils.
In response to the observation that all men thirst, as if for water, for knowledge about the human soul, its nature, and where it goes after the separation of the body, Anastasios of Sinai writes that “[i]t is perfectly obvious that one should not pry into things about which the divine Scripture is silent. Whatever is convenient for us to know has been made clear by the Holy Spirit, and what is not convenient the same Spirit has hidden away.”[2] Anastasios recognizes, however, that humans are obstinate, inquisitive animals, and he feels that he must offer some information. This text encapsulates with clarity the tension in Byzantine Christianity regarding the afterlife of souls. On the one hand, Scripture says very little about it, which Anastasios construes this to be a deliberate silence. On the other hand, humans are inveterately curious. What is one to do then but attempt some answers?
Image
Separation of the soul from the body, from an eleventh-century manuscript of the Heavenly Ladder by John Klimakos (Princeton Garrett 16).
Notes
[1] I refer here to the Old Testament known to the Byzantines through the Greek Septuagint, which, unlike the Hebrew Bible, includes several apocryphal or deuterocanonical books.
[2] Anastasios of Sinai Kephalaia, edited by Richard & Munitiz (2006), 35–37. Translation from Joseph A. Munitiz (2011) Anastasios of Sinai. Questions and Answers (Turnhout), 89.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, while on a trip to Italy, George Bardanes, metropolitan of Kerkyra, had an informal exchange about the soul’s fate after death with Fra Bartolomeo, a Franciscan who asked about Byzantine beliefs. Bardanes responded that, because the Last Judgment had not occurred and Christ had not separated the righteous from the sinners, the souls of the departed had not yet received their final and eternal recompense. Rather, they resided in temporary locations, where they experienced a foretaste of their punishments or their rewards of various kinds, allocated presumably according to their conduct in life.
Bardanes’s response reflects a desire for an efficiently structured and morally logical afterlife, but it leaves many issues unresolved. How and, just as importantly, by whom are souls assigned their provisional locations and respective ordeals or delights? Is this decision final or revocable? How does one’s soul get to its interim assignment? Are these physical locations, spiritual states, or both? What do they look like? What is the purpose of praying for the dead? In short, what did the Byzantines believe happened to the soul after death and until the final resurrection and Last Judgment?
In contemporary scholarship, the period from death to the Last Judgment is conventionally called the intermediate state, a designation that I use throughout this book for the sake of clarity. It is significant that the Byzantines do not have one single term for this but many. What is clear, however, even from Bardanes’s succinct reply, is that this intermediate state is different for different people: the righteous enjoy blessings, the sinners suffer punishments, and in both cases they do so in various degrees. Where a soul ends up depends obviously on one’s conduct in life, but most often this fate comes only after a judgment of sorts, which is sometimes a quick, but more often a complicated and lengthy part of a journey.
From the outset it should be said that, for all their reputed and professed preoccupation with the afterlife, the Byzantines never produced a systematic theology on the postmortem fate of the soul. Or, rather, they did so only in the fifteenth century, under duress at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, whose goal was the union of the Byzantine and Latin Churches. One of the main reasons for this late date is the relatively meager and sometimes contradictory information that the Bible provides on the matter. In neither the Old nor the New Testament do we find a fully developed description of the afterlife. In the Old Testament the term most often connected with the afterlife is sheol, which the Septuagint almost invariably translates as Hades.[1] It appears there more than sixty times. Although never exactly defined, sheol is usually understood to be the underworld, to which the departed descend, leading a shadowy and even unconscious existence, essentially cut off from God. It is a land of perpetual darkness. It is the destiny of both the righteous and sinners, and there is no elaborate journey to get there. In contrast to Byzantine thought, the soul’s arrival at sheol is not the result of any sort of judgment. Sheol conforms with the covenant of curses and blessings between God and Israel. God delivers punishments or bestows favours depending on Israel’s fidelity, but only in this life. The book of Proverbs, for example, indicates clearly that God rewards the just and punishes the wicked during their lifetimes; after death, all go to sheol. That the dead continue to exist in sheol is evident from the necromancy that was practiced in Israel.
While sheol is the final destination for the souls in the Old Testament, there are some exceptions. Some texts, such as Psalm 29 (30):4, offer the possibility of deliverance. There are also two cases of bodily ascension into heaven, Enoch in Genesis 5:24 and Elijah in 4 Kingdoms 2:11. In addition we find scattered mentions of a general resurrection. The least ancient books of the Hebrew scriptures, as well as deuterocanonical texts, develop a conception of the afterlife that is different from sheol. For example, Daniel 12:2, a passage that likely dates to the second century BCE, includes a clear reference to the resurrection: “And many of those who sleep on the flat of the earth will arise, some to everlasting life but others to shame and others to dispersion and everlasting contempt.” This verse describes an actual rising of some of the dead, likely the most virtuous and the most wicked, who are described as “asleep,” something that implies an intermediate state of the souls. More interestingly, the passage relates a judgment that rewards some of the righteous and punishes some of the wicked in the afterlife. Further, the idea of resurrection and judgment is evidently at odds with the conception of sheol, inasmuch as sheol is turned into a place of temporary residence.
Similar to the Old, the New Testament is a collection of books of different genres, written in varying contexts, and for distinct audiences. As a result, it does not communicate a systematic theology regarding death and the afterlife in general, let alone the intermediate state. Furthermore, the New Testament is concerned primarily with the Parousia, Christ’s Second Coming, and the ensuing general resurrection and Last Judgment. Consequently, there is little on what happens to the souls of the departed before the Last Judgment, an issue complicated by the expectation of Christ’s imminent return, especially in Paul. As a result, with very few exceptions, it is difficult to identify with certainty passages that refer to an intermediate state of souls.
The parable of the rich man and Lazaros in Luke 16:19–31 is the most explicit description of the soul’s fate in the New Testament. After death the soul of the rich man and the soul of Lazaros have different fates: The latter’s is carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom; the rich man is buried and finds himself in Hades. Although no judgment is mentioned, it is certainly implied. Abraham’s response to the rich man’s plea suggests that, based on their conduct, each got what he deserved. That this parable refers to the intermediate state is evident in that the rich man’s siblings are still alive.
Beyond this, the New Testament includes little about the provisional judgment and the intermediate state. In 1 Corinthians 15, especially in verses 35–58, Paul writes that both the living and the dead will be resurrected at Christ’s Second Coming, a comment that implies an intermediate state. What Paul thought this state was like remains unclear. Romans 2:5–11 clarifies that this will be an individual judgment according to one’s deeds (see also 2 Corinthians 5:10). However, in Philippians 1:18–26, Paul writes that he desires death so he can be with Christ, and in 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 he claims that there will be a house in heaven, immediately after one’s death. But if one can be with Christ immediately after his or her death, then what is the purpose of the Parousia?
To this biblical ambiguity we must attribute the general evasiveness on the topic on the part of the early Church fathers, the other source of theological authority in Byzantium. John Chrysostom, for example, wrote four discourses on the parable of the rich man and Lazaros but his main concern is charity, not the geography of the afterlife. The writings of Basil of Caesarea contain sporadic information but nothing that could be construed as a systematic exposition of the topic. So, too, the afterlife of the soul never came under the purview of the great Church councils.
In response to the observation that all men thirst, as if for water, for knowledge about the human soul, its nature, and where it goes after the separation of the body, Anastasios of Sinai writes that “[i]t is perfectly obvious that one should not pry into things about which the divine Scripture is silent. Whatever is convenient for us to know has been made clear by the Holy Spirit, and what is not convenient the same Spirit has hidden away.”[2] Anastasios recognizes, however, that humans are obstinate, inquisitive animals, and he feels that he must offer some information. This text encapsulates with clarity the tension in Byzantine Christianity regarding the afterlife of souls. On the one hand, Scripture says very little about it, which Anastasios construes this to be a deliberate silence. On the other hand, humans are inveterately curious. What is one to do then but attempt some answers?
Image
Separation of the soul from the body, from an eleventh-century manuscript of the Heavenly Ladder by John Klimakos (Princeton Garrett 16).
Notes
[1] I refer here to the Old Testament known to the Byzantines through the Greek Septuagint, which, unlike the Hebrew Bible, includes several apocryphal or deuterocanonical books.
[2] Anastasios of Sinai Kephalaia, edited by Richard & Munitiz (2006), 35–37. Translation from Joseph A. Munitiz (2011) Anastasios of Sinai. Questions and Answers (Turnhout), 89.
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