Single Idea 5883

[catalogued under 29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality]

Full Idea

As far as the literature tells us, Pherecydes of Syros was the first who pronounced the souls of men to be eternal.

Gist of Idea

Pherecydes was the first to say that the soul is eternal

Source

report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.xvi.38

Book Reference

Cicero: 'Tusculan Disputations', ed/tr. King,J.E. [Harvard Loeb 1927], p.45


A Reaction

Presumably before that it was the physical person who arrived in the Underworld. The Hindu tradition seems to require the soul to be very long-lived, if not eternal. Why did Pherecydes come up with this idea?