The Immortality of the Soul—History of the Doctrine

GENERALLY, no error is born into the world fully grown and perfectly developed; but it has a gradual growth, and passes through different stages of development till it becomes a regular system. Some truth, either natural or revealed; is always taken as the foundation on which to build up a system of error. The counterfeit must at first be very nearly like the genuine, or it would not be received, as all would detect the fraud; so we may expect to find this the case with the doctrine under consideration.

It is a doctrine relating to future life. Let us look a moment at the doctrine of a future as revealed in the word of God. The Lord told man in the beginning, that if he sinned he should surely die. (Gen. 2:17.) When man had sinned, God said to him, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Gen. 3:19. Christ came into the world, died, went into the grave, and rose again, that man might have a resurrection from the dead. (Rom. 14:9; 1 Cor. 15.) A future life could only be had by a resurrection from the dead. For this resurrection all the ancient worthies, from Abel to Paul, looked with earnest anticipation. (Heb. 11:4-13, 32-40; Phil. 3:10, 11.) This resurrection, the angel in the bush taught Moses. (Luke 20:37.) Job and David, and in short all the ancient people of God, rested all their hopes upon it. (Job. 19:25-27; Ps. 17:15.) This was the first and true doctrine of a future life as revealed by God to man.

Now it is an undeniable fact that the first theory which finally led to the doctrine of the immortality of the soul was that the soul would live as long as the body was preserved. If the body perished, then the soul was destroyed too. If the body could be preserved, it would be resurrected, and live again some time in the distant future. They thought the soul would live in the body again; hence the immense expense and untiring pains to embalm the dead body so that it should not decay. It is a well-known fact that the ancient Egyptians, and after them many other nations, embalmed the dead. This they did at great expense, and so effectually that many bodies are preserved in quite a perfect condition to the present day. Their object was to preserve the body so that it would live again. On this point all the best authors agree, as witness the following:—

Calmet, in his Dictionary of the Bible, article "To Embalm," says: "The ancient Egyptians, and the Hebrews in imitation of them, embalmed the bodies of the dead. . . .The art of physic was by the Egyptians ascribed to Isis, and in particular the remedy which procured immortality, which, in my opinion, was no other than that of embalming bodies, and rendering them incorruptible."

In harmony with this, Kitto's Biblical Cyclopedia, article "Embalming," says: "The feeling which led the Egyptians to embalm the dead, probably sprung from their belief in the future reunion of the soul with the body. Such a reunion is distinctly spoken of in the 'Book of the Dead.'"

So Chambers' Cyclopedia, article "Embalming," states: "This art [that of embalming] seems to have derived its origin from the idea that the preservation of the body was necessary for the return of the soul to the human form."

Bunsen, in his elaborate work on Egypt, bears this decisive testimony: "The real meaning of the celebrated passage in Herodotus (ll. 123) about the reasons why the Egyptians bestowed so much care on the preservation of the body, and, as it were, on preventing it from passing away, must have been this: The belief in a resurrection of the body. . . . This doctrine we may now read in every page of the sacred books. Thence the popular notion in Egypt that unless its old human envelope was preserved, the soul would be subject to disturbances and hindrances in performing its destined course."

Again: "It is only by considering how very deeply this sense of immortality was engrafted on the Egyptian mind, that we can comprehend the passion for the monstrous and colossal proportions of the pyramids, and at the same time the glorious emblematical and artistic character of those works of the old empire. As animal worship is merely the Egyptianized African form of an early Asiatic conception, so is also the combination of the care for the preservation of the body, and if possible its protection from destruction, connected with the doctrine of immortality. The soul was immortal; but its happiness, if not the possibility of its continuing to live, depended on the preservation of the body. The destruction of the body, consequently, involved the destruction of the soul. We assuredly owe the stupendous fabric of the pyramids to a superstitious fear of the destruction of the body, rather than to mere vanity or love of display on the part of the builders. . . . This inability, combined with the artistic impulses of the Egyptians, led to the colossal preservatories which arose out of a superstitious adherence to the notion of the value of the body, and which clung with a rigid grip to the materialistic principle." (Egypt's Place in Universal Mist. vol. iv. pp. 641, 642, 651, 652.)

Several facts worthy of attention are stated in the above testimonies.

1. "The belief in a resurrection of the body" was what led the Egyptians to embalm the dead.

2. The belief that the soul would return to the body, and thus begin a new life as man. This shows that they connected the idea of a future life inseparably with the life of the body.

3. It was "a popular notion in Egypt that unless the old human envelope was preserved," the soul would not be happy. Here, again, the soul depended upon the body.

4. The preservation of the body from destruction was connected with the doctrine of immortality, there being no immortality without the preservation and re-living of the body. "The soul was immortal; but its happiness, if not the possibility of its continuing to live, depended on the preservation of the body. The destruction of the body, consequently, involved the destruction of the soul." The soul was immortal only as connected with an immortal body! This is so near the scriptural idea of immortality that we may easily recognize its origin. We have reason to thank God that in those early ages we can find so clear an idea still retained of the divine doctrine of a future life only by the resurrection of the body.

5. These writers say that the pyramids looked to the same object,—a preservation of the dead.

6. The old Egyptians were materialists.

Mr. Mitchell, in his "Ancient Geography," confirms the above testimonies. He uses this language: "The priests adopted the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, while the belief that it will continue as long as the body endures obtained with the people. Whence the care displayed in the preservation of embalmed bodies, or mummies, and the vast expense of excavating tombs in the solid rocks." (Lesson 24, p. 60, art. Egypt.)

One more testimony upon this important point must suffice: "Immortality is plainly taught, but bound up with the idea of the preservation of the body to which the Egyptians attached great importance as a condition of the soul's continued life; and hence they built vast tombs, and embalmed their bodies as if to last forever." (Chambers' Ency., art. Immortality.)

Here, then, we have the object of embalming, the object of the pyramids, and the first idea of the immortality of the soul as taught by the Egyptians,—quite different from the present doctrine of the soul's immortality.