The Soul After Death

Примечания

1

This passage probably refers more particularly to the toll-houses which are encountered after death; in Chapter Six below there is a detailed discussion of the experience of demonic trials and temptations undergone by the soul both before and after death.

2

There is, however, a distinction in subtlety between the body of man in paradise before his fall, and his body in heaven after the resurrection. See Homily 45, ch. 5, of St. Symeon the New Theologian, in The Orthodox Word, no. 76 and The Sin of Adam, St. Herman Monastery Press, 1979. (Ed. note)

3

However, in rare cases, for some special purpose of God, holy angels do appear to sinful men and even to animals, as Bishop Ignatius notes below. (Ed. note)

4

I.e., by a mediumistic talent which can be inherited (Ed. note)

5

Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (in Russian), St. Petersburg, 1883, vol. 2, p. 538.

6

Bishop Ignatius, Vol. III, pp. 138-39; Life of St. Anthony, Eastern Orthodox Books, ed., p. 41.

7

Homily on Patience and Gratitude, appointed to be read at Orthodox church services on the seventh Saturday of Pascha and at funeral services.

8

Fifty Spiritual Homilies, 16:13; A.J. Mason tr., Eastern Orthodox Books, Willits, Ca., 1974, p. 141.

9

St. Ephraim the Syrian, Collected Works (in Russian), Moscow, 1882, vol. 3, pp. 383-85.

10

Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. 2, p. 535.

11

St. Adamnan, Life of St. Columba, tr. by Wentworth Huyshe, George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., London, 1939, Part III, ch. 13, p. 207.

12

The Letters of Saint Boniface, tr. by Ephraim Emerton, Octagon Books (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux), New York, 1973, pp. 25-27.

13

“Unbelievable for Many but Actually a True Occurrence,” in Orthodox Life, July-August, 1976.

14

Ladder of Divine Ascent, tr. by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore, Eastern Orthodox Books, 1977, pp. 120-21.

15

Billy Graham, Angels, God’s Secret Messengers, Doubleday, New York, 1975, pp. 150-51.

16

The One-Hundred Eighteenth Psalm, Interpreted by Bishop Theophan, Moscow, 1891, reprinted Jordanville, 1976, pp. 289-90; see the English summary printed by New Diveyevo Convent, Spring Valley, N.Y., 1978, p. 24.

17

Ed. by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, Oxford University Press, Paperback ed., 1960.

18

The Book of the Dead, tr. by E. A. Wallis Budge, Bell Publishing Co., N.Y., 1960.

19

Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell, tr. By George F. Dole, Swendenborg Foundation, Inc., N.Y., 1976, section 421; sections in parentheses in the text above are all from this book.

20

R. L. Tafel, Documents Concerning Swedenborg, vol. 1, pp. 35-6. See Wilson Van Dusen, The Presence of Other Worlds (The Psychological-Spiritual Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg), Harper and Row, N.Y., 1973, pp. 19-63, for a description of the opening of Swedenborg’s “spiritual eyes.”

21

Benjamin Walker, Beyond the Body: The Human Double and the Astral Planes, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1974, pp. 117-18.

22

A. E. Powell, The Astral Body, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill., 1972, p. 123.

23

Celia Green, Out-of-the-Body Experiences, Ballantine Books, N.Y., 1975.

24

Robert Crookall, Out-of-the-Body Experiences, The Citadel Press, Secaucus, N.J., 1970, pp. 11-13.

25

Only a few sects far from historical Christianity teach that the soul “sleeps” or is “unconscious” after death: the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, etc.

26

C. G. Jung, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1955, p. 128.

27

Robert A. Monroe, Journeys Out of the Body, Anchor Books (Doubleday), Garden City, New York, 1977 (first printing, 1971).

28

This latter experience is very similar to that undergone by many people today in close encounters with “Unidentified Flying Objects” (UFOs). The occult experience of encountering the fallen spirits of the air is always one and the same experience, even though it is expressed in different images and symbols in accordance with human expectations. (For a discussion of the occult side of UFO encounters, see Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, St. Herman Monastery Press, 2nd Edition, 1979, ch. VI.)

29

Monroe’s observation, made also by many other experimenters in this area, that “out-of-body” experiences are invariably accompanied by a high degree of sexual excitement, only confirms the fact that these experiences attract the lower side of man’s nature and have nothing whatever spiritual about them.

30

Stanislav Grof and Joan Halifax, The Human Encounter with Death, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1977.

31

See M. Eliade, Shamanism, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961.

32

Apuleius, The Golden Ass, tr. by Robert Graves, Farrar, Straus and Young, New York, 1951, p. 280. Proserpine (or Persephone) was the Queen of Hades in Greek and Roman mythology.

33

David Winter, Hereafter: What Happens after Death? Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, Ill., 1977, p. 90.

34

J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee, The Edge of Reality, Henry Regnery Co., Chicago, 1975, p. 107.

35

Allen Spraggett, The Case for Immortality, New American Library, New York, 1974, pp. 137-38.

36

Suzy Smith, Life is Forever, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1974, p. 171.

37

See the Life of St. Patricius of Prussa, May 19; St. Gregory’s Dialogues, IV, 36 and 44; Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, vol. III, p. 98.

38

See the Life of Blessed Theophilus (Feofil), Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, N.Y., 1970, p. 125.

39

Lives of Saints, May 3, English translation in Orthodox Life, May-June, 1978, pp. 9-17.

40

St. Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, Book VII, 1; Vita Patrum, St. Herman Monastery Press, 1988, pp. 296-97.

41

Lives of Saints, October 2; English translation in The Orthodox Word, 1979, no. 86, pp. 125-27.

42

From the Life of Optina Elder Leonid, St. Herman Brotherhood, 1976, pp. 275-76 (in Russian). English edition, 1990, pp. 223-34.

43

Homily “To the People of Antioch,” III, “On Lazarus,” II, as cited in Metr. Macarius, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology , II, p. 536.

44

Bede, A History of the English Church and People, tr. by Leo Sherley-Price, Penguin Books, 1975, Book V, 12, pp. 290-91.

45

Lives of Saints, March 28; Eternal Mysteries Beyond the Grave, p. 170.

46

Maurice Rawlings, Beyond Death’s Door, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, 1978, pp. 24-25.

47

Interview by James Pearre of the Chicago Tribune, printed in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle, Nov. 14, 1976, Section B, p. 7.

48

As reported by Gaea Laughingbird in Berkeley Monthly, June, 1978, p. 39.

49

Reported by Lennie Kronisch in Yoga Journal, September-October, 1976, pp. 18-20.

50

See The San Diego Union, Sept. 2, 1979, pp. A-l, 3, 6, 14.

51

As reported by Elizabeth Kemf in East-West Journal, March, 1978, p. 52.

52

An examination of the “charismatic” movement as a mediumistic phenomenon may be read in Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, St. Herman Monastery Press, 1979, ch. VII.

53

Psychics, by the Editors of Psychic Magazine, Harper & Row, N.Y., 1972, p. 23.

54

Arthur Ford, The Life Beyond Death, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1971, p. 153.

55

Quoted in George Trobridge, Swedenborg: Life and Teaching, Swedenborg Foundation, New York, 1968, pp. 175, 276.

56

Patericon of Scetis, quoted in Bishop Ignatius, vol. III, pp. 107-8.

57

Metr. Macarius, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. II, p. 524.

58

Abba Dorotheus, Soul-Profiting Instructions, Holy Trinity Lavra, 1900. Instruction 12: “On the Fear of Future Torment,” p. 137.

59

The Spiritual Instructions of St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Herman Monastery Press, 1978, p. 69.

60

As related by Bishop Ignatius, vol. III, p. 129; see his Life in the Kiev-Caves Patericon, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, N.Y., 1967, pp. 153-55. St. Athanasius, called “the Resurrected,” is commemorated on December 2.

61

Bede, A History of the English Church and People, Book V, 12, pp. 289, 293.

62

St. Ambrose, “Death as a Good,” 8:32, in Seven Exegetical Works, tr. by Michael P. McHugh, Catholic University of America Press, 1972, Fathers of the Church, vol. 65, p. 94.

63

From the Russian periodical, Soul-Profiting Reading, August 1894.

64

St. Ambrose, “Death as a Good” (De bono mortis), in Seven Exegetical Works, tr. by Michael P. McHugh, Catholic University of America Press, 1972 (Fathers of the Church Series, vol. 65), ch. 4:15, p. 80.

65

Abba Dorotheus, Discourses, tr. by E. P. Wheeler, Kalamazoo, 1977, pp. 185-86.

66

First Conference, ch. 14, in the Works of St. John Cassian the Roman, Russian tr. by Bishop Peter, Moscow, 1892, pp. 178-79.

67

Quoted in “The Church’s Prayer for the Dead,” Orthodox Life, 1978, no. 1, p. 16.

68

Orthodox Funeral Service for laymen, sticheron, tone 2; Hapgood Service Book, p. 385.

69

For some examples, see Eternal Mysteries Beyond the Grave, pp. 189-96. Genuine appearances of the dead after this first short period of the soul’s “freedom” are much rarer and are always for some specific purpose allowed by God, and not according to one’s own will (see below, Appendix II).

70

This is visually depicted in the traditional Orthodox icon of the Dormition.

71

Lives of Saints, February 1; English translation of this passage in Orthodox Life, 1978, no. l, pp. 23-24.

72

Her complete Life in Russian is contained in Archimandrite Seraphim Chichagov, The Diveyevo Chronicle, St. Herman Brotherhood, 1978, pp. 530ff.

73

Soul-Profiting Reading, June, 1902, p. 281.

74

These names had been unknown before this vision. Several years after the canonization, St. Theodosius’ own Book of Commemoration was found in the monastery where he had once been abbot, which confirmed these names and corroborated the vision. See the Life of Elder Alexis in Pravoslavny Blagovestnik, San Francisco, 1967, no. 1 (in Russian).

75

Exact Exposition, Book Four, ch. 27, in The Fathers of the Church, vol. 37, 1958, pp. 401, 402, 406.

76

Translated from the Russian translation of Archimandrite Amvrossy Pogodin, in St. Mark of Ephesus and the Union of Florence, Jordanville, N.Y., 1963, pp. 58-73.

77

In the “Alphabetical Collection” of sayings of the Desert Fathers, under “Macarius the Great,” we read: “Abba Macarius said, Walking in the desert one day, I found the skull of a dead man, lying on the ground. As I was moving it with my stick, the skull spoke to me. I said to it, ‘Who are you?’ The skull replied, ‘I was high priest of the idols and of the pagans who dwelt in this place; but you are Macarius, the Spirit-bearer. Whenever you take pity on those who are in torments, and pray for them, they feel a little respite.’ ” The skull further instructed St. Macarius concerning the torments of hell, concluding: “We have received a little mercy since we did not know God, but those who knew God and denied Him are down below us.” (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, tr. by Benedicta Ward, London, A. R. Mowbray & Co., 1975, pp. 115-16.)

78

In Book IV of the Dialogues

79

The latter incident is related in some of the early Lives of St. Gregory, as for example in an 8th-century English Life: “Some of our people also tell a story related by the Romans of how the soul of the Emperor Trajan was refreshed and even baptized by St. Gregory’s tears, a story marvelous to tell and marvelous to hear. Let no one be surprised that we say he was baptized, for without baptism none will ever see God; and a third kind of baptism is by tears. One day as he was crossing the Forum, a magnificent piece of work for which Trajan is said to have been responsible, he found on examining it carefully that Trajan, though a pagan, had done a deed so charitable that it seemed more likely to have been the deed of a Christian than of a pagan. For it is related that, as he was leading his army in great haste against the enemy, he was moved to pity by the words of a widow, and the emperor of the whole world came to a halt. She said, ‘Lord Trajan, here are the men who killed my son and are unwilling to pay me recompense.’ He answered: ‘Tell me about it when I return and I will make them recompense you.’ But she replied, ‘Lord, if you never return, there will be no one to help me.’ Then, armed as he was, he made the defendants pay forthwith the compensation they owed her, in his presence. When Gregory discovered this story, he recognized that this was just what we read about in the Scriptures, Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Since Gregory did not know what to do to comfort the soul of this man who brought the words of Christ to his mind, he went to St. Peter’s Church and wept floods of tears, as was his custom, until he gained at last by divine revelation the assurance that his prayers were answered, seeing that he had never presumed to ask this for any other pagan.” (The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, tr. by Bertram Colgrave, The University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, Kansas, 1968, ch. 29, pp. 127-29.) Since the Church does not offer public prayer for departed non-believers, it is evident that this deliverance from hell was the fruit of St. Gregory’s own personal prayer. Although this is a rare occurrence, it gives hope to those who have dear ones who have died outside the faith.

80

It is related in the Life of St. Proclus (Nov. 20) that when St. Chrysostom was working on his commentaries on St. Paul’s epistles, St. Proclus saw St. Paul himself bending over St. Chrysostom and whispering into his ear.

81

It is related in the Life of St. Proclus (Nov. 20) that when St. Chrysostom was working on his commentaries on St. Paul’s epistles, St. Proclus saw St. Paul himself bending over St. Chrysostom and whispering into his ear.

82

Translated from the author’s periodical Catchechese Orthodoxe, vol. VIII, no. 26, pp. 74-84.

83

From his book Mystical Flowers, Athens, 1977.

84

St. Isaac the Syrian.

85

Translated from his Sunday Talks on the Resurrection, St. Job Brotherhood, Montreal, 1977, pp. 63-65, 73-74, 93, 111.

86

Compare the statement of St. Gregory the Dialogist over 1300 years ago (see above, pp. 164-65): “As the present world approaches its end, the world of eternity looms nearer.... The end of the world merges with the beginning of eternal life.... The spiritual world is moving closer to us, manifesting itself through visions and revelations.” The end of this world’s existence began with the coming of Christ, and sensitive souls are always seeing how the other world is “breaking into” this world ahead of time and giving “hints” of its existence.

87

Many excerpts from this book, “Unbelievable for Many but Actually a True Occurrence,” are given above; see Index.

88

The comparison of the toll-houses with “purgatory” is surely far-fetched. The toll-houses are part of the Orthodox ascetic teaching and have to do solely with the “testing” of a man for the sins committed by him: they give no “satisfaction” to God and their purpose is certainly not “torture.” “Purgatory,” on the other hand, is a legalistic Latin misinterpretation of an entirely different aspect of Orthodox eschatology — the state of the souls in hell (after the testing of the toll-houses) which may yet be bettered by the prayers of the Church. The Latin sources themselves give no indication that demons have any part at all in the pains of those in “purgatory.”

89

Page xv in the present edition (the printed edition says "xviii" erroneously.)

90

Pages 64ff in the present edition.

91

Page 27 in the present edition.

92

Pages 71-72, 247-48, 251 in the present edition.