Plato, Luther & Tyndale

What does a pagan Greek philosopher have in common with two Christian reformers?
As we shall see - nothing!

PLATO: (427-347 BC) an ancient Greek philosopher:

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century B.C.) tells us in his History that the ancient Egyptians were the first to teach that the soul of man is separable from the body, and immortal.

 

The pagan Greeks got the concept of an immortal soul from the Egyptians! The foremost advocate among the ancient Greeks of the idea of an "immortal soul" was the Athenian philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.), the pupil of Socrates. Plato was the founder of the Academy, an institute for philosophical and scientific research just outside of Athens.

In the Phaedo---one of Plato's most famous works---Plato recounts Socrates' final conversation with his friends on the last day of Socrates' life. Socrates declared to them:

"Be of good cheer, and do not lament my passing ...When you lay me down in my grave, say that you are burying my body only, and not my soul."

Socrates' statement is little different from the teaching of most churches today!

Notice also the following assertion from Plato, again taken from the Phaedo:

"The soul whose inseparable attitude is life will never admit of life's opposite, death. Thus the soul is shown to be immortal, and since immortal, indestructible...Do we believe there is such a thing as death? To be sure. And is this anything but the separation of the soul and body? And being dead is the attainment of this separation, when the soul exists in herself and separate from the body, and the body is parted from the soul. That is death.... Death is merely the separation of the soul and body."

"The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is...nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture...The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with Greek thought and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato its principle exponent, who was led to it through Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended" (The Jewish Encyclopedia, article, "Immortality of the Soul").
But see the page on the Karaite Jews.

 

Tertullian (A.D. 155-220), for example, wrote: "For some things are known even by nature: the immortality of the soul, the instance, is held by many ... I may use, therefore, the opinion of Plato, when he declares: 'Every soul is immortal'" (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. III).

Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)---held to be the greatest thinker of Christian antiquity---also taught the immaterial and spiritual nature of the human soul. But notice the source of his teachings. The Encyclopaedia Britannica states:

"He [Augustine] fused the religion of the New Testament with the Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy."

Why should those early professing Christian scholars have resorted to the opinions of a pagan Greek philosopher? Could it be that the immortal soul doctrine is not clearly supported in Christian Scripture?

The deep-seated teachings of centuries were not to be easily dislodged, even by Protestant reformers. Theologians and churchgoers alike persisted, for the most part, in their unquestioning embrace of the ideas passed down from the ancient pagan philosophers. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica summarizes:

"Traditional Western philosophy, starting with the ancient Greeks...shaped the basic Western concepts of the soul."

 

MARTIN LUTHER (1493-1546) German Reformer and Bible translator:

On December 19, 1513, in connection with the eighth session of the fifth Lateran Council, Pope Leo X issued a Bull (Apostolici regimis) declaring, "We do condemn and reprobate all who assert that the intelligent soul is mortal" (Damnamus et reprobamus omnes assertentes animam intellectivam mortalem esse). This was directed against the growing "heresy" of those who denied the natural immortality of the soul, and avowed the conditional immortality of man. The Bull also decreed that "all who adhere to the like erroneous assertions shall be shunned and punished as heretics." The decrees of this Council, it should be noted, were all issued in the form of Bulls or constitutions (H. J. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils, 1937, pp. 483, 487).

Then, on October 31, 1517, Luther posted his famous Theses on the church door in Wittenberg. In his 1520 published Defence of 41 of his propositions, Luther cited the pope's immortality declaration, as among "those monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dunghill of decretals" (proposition 27). In the twenty-seventh proposition of his Defence Luther said:

   However, I permit the Pope to establish articles of faith for himself and for his own faithful—such are: That the bread and wine are transubstantiated in the sacrament; that the essence of God neither generates nor is generated; that the soul is the substantial form of the human body that he [the pope] is emperor of the world and king of heaven, and earthly god; that the soul is immortal; and all these endless monstrosities in the Roman dunghill of decretals—in order that such as his faith is, such may be his gospel, such also his faithful, and such his church, and that the lips may have suitable lettuce and the lid may be worthy of the dish.—Martin Luther, Assertio Omnium Articulorum M. Lutheri per Bullam Leonis X. Novissimam Damnatorum (Assertion of all the articles of M. Luther condemned by the latest Bull of Leo X), article 27, Weimar edition of Luther's Works, vol. 7, pp. 131, 132 (a point-by-point exposition of his position, written Dec. 1, 1520, in response to requests for a fuller treatment than that given in his Adversus execrabilem Antichristi Bullam, and Wider die Bulle des Endchrists).

Archdeacon Francis Blackbume states in his Short Historical View of the Controversy Concerning an Intermediate State, of 1765: [pg. 571]

   Luther espoused the doctrine of the sleep of the soul, upon a Scripture foundation, and then he made use of it as a confutation of purgatory and saint worship, and continued in that belief to the last moment of his life.—Page 14.

'The immediate cause of Luther's stand on the sleep of the soul was the issue of purgatory, with its postulate of the conscious torment of anguished souls. While Luther is not always consistent, the predominant note running all through his writings is that souls sleep in peace, without consciousness or pain. The Christian dead are not aware of anything—see not, feel not, understand not, and are not conscious of passing events. Luther held and periodically stated that in the sleep of death, as in normal physical sleep, there is complete unconsciousness and unawareness of the condition of death or the passage of time.† Death is a deep, sound, sweet sleep.  And the dead will remain asleep until the day of resurrection, which resurrection embraces both body and soul, when both will come together again.

Luther, with a greater emphasis on the resurrection, preferred to concentrate on the scriptural metaphor of sleep. For just as one who falls asleep and reaches morning unexpectedly when he awakes, without knowing what has happened to him "...we shall suddenly rise on the last day without knowing how we have come into death and through death. 'We shall sleep, until He comes and knocks on the little grave and says, "Doctor Martin, get up!' Then I shall rise in a moment, and be with him forever. "

Here are sample Luther citations. In the quaint 1573 English translation we read:

Salomon judgeth that the dead are a sleepe, and feele nothing at all. For the dead lye there accompting neyther dayes nor yeares, but when are awaked, they shall seeme to have slept scarce one minute.—An Exposition of Salomon's Booke, called Ecclesiastes or the Preacher, 1553, folio 151v.
   But we Christians, who have been redeemed from all this through the precious blood of God's Son, should train and accustom ourselves in faith to despise death and regard it as a deep, strong, sweet sleep; to consider the coffin as nothing other than our Lord Jesus' bosom or Paradise, the grave as nothing other than a soft couch of ease or rest. As verily, before God, it truly is just this; for he testifies, John 11:11; Lazarus, our friend sleeps; Matthew 9:24: The maiden is not dead, she sleeps. Thus, too, St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, removes from sight all hateful aspects of death as related to our mortal body and brings forward nothing but charming and joyful aspects of the promised life. He says there [vv. 42ff]: It is sown in corruption and will rise in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor (that is, a hateful, shameful form) and will rise in glory; it is sown in weakness and will rise in strength; it is sown in natural body and will rise a spiritual body.—"Christian Song Latin and German, for Use at Funerals," 1542, in Works of Luther (1932), vol. 6,  pp. 287, 288.
   Thus after death the soul goes to its bedchamber and to its peace, and while it is sleeping it does not realize its sleep, and God preserves indeed the awakening soul. God is able to awake Elijah, Moses, and others, and so control them, so that they will live. But how can that be? That we do not know; we satisfy ourselves with the example of bodily sleep, and with what God says: it is a sleep, a rest, and a peace. He who sleeps naturally knows nothing of that which happens in his neighbor's house; and nevertheless, he still is living, even though, contrary to the nature of life, he is unconscious in his sleep. Exactly the same will happen also in that life, but in another and a better way.*—"Auslegung des ersten Buches Mose," in Schriften, vol. 1, cols. 1759, 1760.

 Here is another sample:

   We should learn to view our death in the right light, so that we need not become alarmed on account of it, as unbelief does; because in Christ it is indeed not death, but a fine, sweet and brief sleep, which brings us release from this vale of tears, from sin and from the fear and extremity of real death and from all the misfortunes of this life, and we shall be secure and without care, rest sweetly and gently for a brief moment, as on a sofa, until the time when he shall call and awaken us together with all his dear children to his eternal glory and joy. For since we call it a sleep, we know that we shall not remain in it, but be again awakened and live, and that the time during which we sleep, shall seem no longer than if we had just fallen asleep. Hence, we shall censure ourselves that we were surprised or alarmed at such a sleep in the hour of death, and suddenly come alive out of the grave and from decomposition, and entirely well, fresh, with a pure, clear, glorified life, meet our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the clouds . . .
   Scripture everywhere affords such consolation, which speaks of the death of the saints, as if they fell asleep and were gathered to their fathers, that is, had overcome death through this faith and comfort in Christ, and awaited the resurrection, together with the saints who preceded them in death.—A Compend of Luther's Theology, edited by Hugh Thomson Ker, Jr., p. 242.

 

WILLIAM TYNDALE (1484-1536) English Bible translator and reformer:

In Britain William Tyndale, translator of the Bible into English, came to the defense of the revived teaching of conditional immortality. This, as well as other teachings, brought him into direct conflict with the papal champion, Sir Thomas More, likewise of England. In 1529 More had strongly objected to the "pestilential sect" represented by Tyndale and Luther, because they held that "all souls lie and sleep till doomsday." In 1530 Tyndale responded vigorously, declaring:

  And ye, in putting them [the departed souls] in heaven, hell, and purgatory, destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection.... And again, if the souls be in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good case as the angels be) And then what cause is there of the resurrection?—William Tyndale, An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue (Parker's 1850 reprint), bk. 4, ch. 4, pp. 180, 181.

 In yet another section of the same treatise, dealing with the "invocation of saints," Tyndale uses the same reasoning, pointing out that the doctrine of departed saints being in heaven had not yet been introduced in Christ's day:

And when he [More] proveth that the saints be in heaven in glory with Christ already, saying, "If God be their God, they be in heaven, for he is not the God of the dead;" there he stealeth away Christ's argument, wherewith he proveth the resurrection: that Abraham and all saints should rise again, and not that their souls were in heaven; which doctrine was not yet in the world. And with that doctrine he taketh away the resurrection quite, and maketh Christ's argument of none effect.—Ibid., p. 118.

Tyndale presses his contention still further by showing the conflict of papal teaching with St. Paul, as he says in slightly sarcastic vein:

  "Nay, Paul, thou art unlearned; go to Master More, and learn a new way. We be not most miserable, though we rise not again; for our souls go to heaven as soon as we be dead, and are there in as great joy as Christ that is risen again." And I marvel that Paul had not comforted the Thessalonians with that doctrine, if he had wist [known] it, that the souls of their dead had been in joy; as he did with the resurrection, that their dead should rise again. If the souls be in heaven, in as great glory as the angels, after your doctrine, shew me what cause should be of the resurrection)—Ibid.

 

JOHN FRITH (1503-33), associate of Tyndale and fellow martyr:

   A Disputacyon of Purgatorie ... divided into three Bokes, c. 1530
   An Answer to John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester

Notwithstanding, let me grant it him that some are already in hell and some in heaven, which thing he shall never be able to prove by the Scriptures, yea, and which plainly destroy the resurrection, and taketh away the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul do prove that we shall rise;... and as touching this point where they rest, I dare be bold to say that they are in the hand of God.—An Answer to John Fisher.