Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon (Eds.), the Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul

Book Reviews / CHRC .– () – 

Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon (Eds.), The Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul. Papers Read at the  Summer Meeting and the  Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society [Studies in Church History ]. Boydell & Brewer, Woodbridge/Rochester, NY ,  pp.,  b/w ill. ISBN . ; US.

The Venerable Bede once reported that an old pagan compared human life to a swiftly-flying sparrow in flight from a darkened to an illuminated hall and then again to a darkened one. Light, however momentary, offered a reason to convert. Ideas about the afterlife have ever been central to the Christian Church’s thinking. Notions about the fate of souls after death seasoned debates between Eastern and Western traditions, were crucial to the Reformation, and ordered the spread of Christianity beyond Europe. Arranged chronologically, thirty essays by ecclesiastical historians grace this pricey but impressive tome whose central theme embraces the impact of belief in the afterlife on the Church’s history and evolution, as well as the manifold ways in which that belief has impinged upon and been reflected in the lives, expectations, and aspirations of Christians across the centuries. By considering the whole sequential spread of the Church’s experience, these authors, both senior and junior, seek to highlight and share the current excitement of schol- arly study of the afterlife. Frequently questioned are such deeply-held assump- tions as the late development of purgatory in Christian thought and the divorce between the living and the dead in the western tradition after the sixteenth century. A brief sampling of topics considered will give some idea of the enormous and enormously interesting field considered. The span is both local and global, serious and humorous, the coverage focused and broad. Topics include: eschatology and Creation, the Last Judgment, the theme of death in Augustine’s sermons, Anglo-Saxon and Byzantine notions of purgatory, hagiography and sote- riology, salvation among the Visigoths, the afterlife, its geography and appari- tions or revenants (ghosts), the judgment of the soul in Irish tradition, com- memoration, the harrowing of Hell, colonial American piety, Chinese (Con- fucian), Korean, African, and Maltese views, eighteenth-century anti-heathen Anglican theology, Evangelical premillennialism, nineteenth and twentieth- century angelology, and st-century views of the afterlife in York, England. For this review, I have arbitrarily selected the first eighteen contributions for synopsis. Thankfully, Clarke and Claydon do an outstanding job of editing and graciously chose not to contribute otherwise. After R.N. Swanson’s introductory overview, Fr. Young’s ‘Naked or Clothed?

Eschatology and the Doctrine of Creation’ focuses on the resurrection of the body linked both to creation and to world reformation, according to Gregory of Nyssa, whereby all physical and spiritual elements are rejoined and restored after death. Second-century disputes over the emerging doctrine of creatio ex nihilo involve the theocentric arguments of Justin Martyr’s pupil Tatian that are seen to propose human immortality as embedded within God’s own incorruptibility: “[…] the body and soul belong together and after death may be reconstituted by the Creator God who created them in the first place” (pp. –). For Augustine, the first resurrection is of the soul, the final one of the body (which will be whole, free of distortion, and at peace with God). J. Laffin, ‘What Happened to the Last Judgement in the Early Church?’ addresses evidence both visual (early Christian art) and textual (from a passel of patristic texts) regarding depictions of the Last Judgment. Initially rare, con- soling, or soteriological images (Jonah, the Good Shepherd) are substituted by more regal representations of Christ as glorious judge or in apocalyptic majesty. Patristic eschatology emphasized hope rather than the later medieval stress on fearful doom. Laffin captions structured references to the Last Judgment in Tertullian, bishops Irenaeus of Lyons and Cyprian of Carthage, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil the Great and his brother Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome, and Augustine—all of whom recognized some remedial and temporary punishment for the soul. In ‘Timor Mortis: The Fear of Death in Augustine’s Sermons on the Martyrs,’ E. Martin examines the role of celebra- tory North African martyr festivals in encouraging discussion of the afterlife insofar as “[…] eschatological hopes had long given meaning to martyrdom, exposing the order permeating chaos, pointing towards beauty amid human suffering, and revealing death as the gateway to true life” (p. ). In his theo- logical treatises, Augustine terrifies with intimidating fire and brimstone, as he underscores the transitoriness of the “first death” and the horror of the perma- nent one, endless and tormenting. His optimistic sermons, however, with their understanding of how fear paralyzes, accentuate life as a pilgrimage within the paradigm of martyrdom leading to heavenly wonders and a glorious eternal life. M.J. dal Santo, in ‘Philosophy, Hagiology and the Early Byzantine Origins of Purgatory,’ takes up the psychological issue of post mortem expiation (expe- rienced in a sort of intermediate waiting room, as described by Pope Gregory the Great), while reporting on sixth-century controversies that pondered the problematic link between the soul and the body—the integrity of human per- sonality. The question was: can the disembodied soul be active after death? That is, does the soul require the physical body for “mobility and perception”