Pagan Ideas of Immortality During the Early Roman Empire

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moore, Clifford Herschel, 1866-1931

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource : multiple file formats

Place of Publication:

Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg,

Summary:

"Pagan Ideas of Immortality During the Early Roman Empire" by Clifford Herschel Moore is a scholarly publication written in the early 20th century. This book examines the beliefs surrounding immortality that were prevalent in the Greco-Roman world during the time of Jesus and the early Christian centuries. Through historical analysis, Moore explores how these pagan beliefs influenced and interacted with emerging Christian ideas on the same topic. In the book, Moore delves into a range of ideas about the afterlife that existed among ancient Greeks and Romans, touching upon various philosophical, religious, and cultural perspectives. He highlights significant sources, including Virgil's "Aeneid," to illustrate how concepts of the soul's journey, punishment, and reward evolved from earlier beliefs like those of the Orphics, Pythagoreans, and Stoics. Moore argues that while Christianity introduced new doctrines, such as the resurrection and a unique relationship with God, the foundation of belief in immortality was already well established in pagan thought, providing fertile ground for Christian teachings to take root. Ultimately, he suggests that understanding these pagan concepts is key to grasping the evolution of beliefs in immortality throughout history. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Credits:

Produced by Sonya Schermann, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

Notes:

Reading ease score: 55.9 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read.

Release date is 2016-12-29