¹ See Bumet, J., Early Greek Philosophy, p. 278.Google Scholar

It should be noted that the Orphic Scheme, which Plato follows in a number of dialogues, envisaged for most humans several re-incamations before the final goal of an enduring disembodiment could be achieved. As certain scholars have contended, this could have had some influence on the development of Jewish thought. See the chapter ‘Resurrection and Re-incamalion’ in my Greek Influence in Jewish Eschatology (now available in Japanese). Moreover, in Plato's Politicus parable, when God takes the helm of the foundering ship of the universe and a new age begins, ‘the men who are already dead and lying in their graves… begin to be compacted anew out of their elements, and when his time cometh unto each of them in the cycle of generation whose motion is contrary to the former motion, he riseth from the dead’ (J. A. Stewart's trans, in The Myths of Plato). The men of Athens who scoffed at the thought of resurrection (Acts xvii. 32) were evidently not aware of this passage!

² Merchant of Venice V.i.64. In this famous passage Lorenzo is referring to the music of the stars. The words ‘Such harmony is in immortal souls’ should be taken as parenthetical, pointing back to the orbs which were regarded as the dwelling-places of divinities. We cannot hear the music of the spheres while the muddy vesture of the body closes us in (accepting the proposed emendation: ‘us’ for ‘it’).

³ See Taylor, A. E., Plato, p. 179.Google Scholar

⁴ It is difficult to reconcile this with the Biblical doctrine of creation. Philo takes the dangerous line that the body was not created by God but by angelic powers; he appeals to Gen. i. 26, ‘Let us make man’ (Conf. Ling. 176–9). He may have taken this idea from Plato's Timaeus, which declares that while souls were made by God bodies were the creation of junior (created) divinities.

⁵ Cf. Schweizer, E.: ‘vermutlich sieht erin dieser Vorstellung [i.e. Nacktsein] überhaupt nur die völlig absurde Idee seiner Gegner’ (TWNT VII. 1058).Google Scholar

⁶ With regard to φ' ᾡ in v. 4: π with the Dative can mean ‘on account of’ (see Moulton and Milligan p. 234): φ' ᾡ would then mean ‘on account of which’ — ‘in view of the situation just mentioned’ — ‘wherefore’. MM suggest ‘to the effect that’ for φ' ᾡ in the case of one of the papyri cited. Paul groans or sighs because of the human condition since the Fall, not because he fears death. The passage may be compared with Rom. viii. 23 where the same three factors are mentioned: the sighing, the anticipation of the redemption of the body, and the earnest or firstfruits of the Spirit. The creation also sighs because at the Fall it became subject to vanity.

⁷ I hesitate to call this a myth (in spite of J. A. Stewart's well-known work The Myths of Plato) because Plato expressly repudiates the term. He begins, ‘Listen to a fine story, which you will regard as a fable (μ⋯θος) but I as an actual account (λ⋯γος 523 A; and he concludes, 'Possibly you regard this as an old wife's tale ()

⁸ In Rom. xiv. 10 we are to stand before the judgment-seat of God.

⁹ See NTS 28 (1982) pp. 528–539, my paper on ‘The Last Judgment’.

¹⁰ In addition to the use of γυμνς to denote the disembodied state (a point at which a numberof commentators bring in a reference to the Gorgias) the following are other matters we have mentioned of comparison and contrast (possibly fortuitous but nevertheless worth noting) between 2 Cor. v and the concluding story of this dialogue: the idea of dissolution (διλυαις καταλω);—the use in both of θαρρ;ω; —the fear which this arouses; the resolve induced by this situation, described in the same three-fold fashion.

¹¹ Incertum est, an signified statum beatae immortalitatis, qui post mortem fideles manet, an vero corpus incorruptibile et gloriosum, quale post resurrectionem erit In utrovis sensu Nihil est incommodi: quamquam malo ita accipere, ut initium hujus aedificii sit beatus animae status post mortem: consummatio autem sit gloria ultimae resurrectionis.

12 ‘Paul on Immortality’, Drew Lecture 1970, SJT Vol. 24. 457–472.Google Scholar