Immortality of the soul, taught by the ancient greeks, but not fully accurate.....Early Christians were the first to believe in ONE soul that was eternal.
Turtullian states:
I will go further, and say that the soul does not even fall into sleep along with the body, nor does it with its companion even lie down in repose. For it is agitated in dreams, and disturbed: it might, however, rest, if it lay down; and lie down it certainly would, if it fell. Thus that which does not fall even into the likeness of death, does not succumb to the reality thereof. Passing now to the other word mortuorum, I wish you to look carefully, and see to what substance it is applicable. Were we to allow, under this head, as is sometimes held by the heretics, that the soul is mortal, so that being mortal it shall attain to a resurrection; this would afford a presumption that the flesh also, being no less mortal, would share in the same resurrection. But our present point is to derive from the proper signification of this word an idea of the destiny which it indicates. Now, just as the term resurrection is predicated of that which falls—that is, the flesh—so will there be the same application of the word dead, because what is called “the resurrection of the dead” indicates the rising up again of that which is fallen down. We learn this from the case of Abraham, the father of the faithful, a man who enjoyed close intercourse with God. For when he requested of the sons of Heth a spot to bury Sarah in, he said to them, “Give me the possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead,”110 —meaning, of course, her flesh; for he could not have desired a place to bury her soul in, even if the soul is to be deemed mortal, and even if it could bear to be described by the word “dead.” Since, then, this word indicates the body, it follows that when “the resurrection of the dead” is spoken of, it is the rising again of men’s bodies that is meant.
110 Gen. xxiii. 4.
Roberts, Alexander ; Donaldson, James ; Coxe, A. Cleveland: The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. III : Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325. Oak Harbor : Logos Research Systems, 1997, S. 558
about Greek influence on Early Christians:
Some of them deny the immortality of the soul; others affirm that it is immortal, and something more... it will be for Christians to clear away....Whatever noxious vapours, accordingly, exhaled from philosophy, obscure the clear and wholesome atmosphere of truth,..., both by shattering to pieces the arguments which are drawn from the principles of things—I mean those of the philosophers—and by opposing to them the maxims of heavenly wisdom
Turtullian; Ibid. S. 184
If it had been possible to construct the soul and to destroy it, it would no longer be immortal. Since, however, it is not mortal, it is also incapable of dissolution and division.
Turtullian; Ibid. S. 193
The attributes that belong to the soul's own proper condition are these: immortality, rationality, sensibility, intelligence, and freedom of the will...All these endowments of the soul which are bestowed on it at birth are still obscured and depraved by the malignant being who, in the beginning, regarded them with envious eye, so that they are never seen in their spontaneous action, nor are they administered as they ought to be.
Turtullian; Ibid. S. 219
Being Himself immortal, God wills that the soul should also be everlasting
Lactantius (304-313, W), 7.77
"the body can do nothing without the soul. But the soul can do many and great things without the body....The soul is not the same thing as the mind. For it is one thing to live and another thing to think. And it is the mind of the sleeping person that is at rest--not the soul. And in those who are insane, it is the mind that is not functioning; the soul continues to function. For that reason, they are said to be out of the minds"
Lactantius; Ibid. 7.208, 209
"The soul cannot entirely perish, for it received its origin from the Spirit of God, which is eternal....So long as the soul is united with the body, it is destitute of virtue, and it grows sick by the contagion of the body and from sharing its frailty....However, once the soul is disunited from the body, it will flourish by itself.
...It is not the soul that becomes senseless when the body fails. Rather, it is the body that becomes senseless when the soul takes it departure"
"We acknowledge with us a soul that is incorporeal and immortal"
Apostolic Constitutions (compiled c.390, E), 7.454; extended discussion; 3.181-3.220; 4.286-4.289
For observe, these men asserted that the soul was immortal, or rather, they did not merely assert this, but persuaded others of it.
"and so these last were victorious over Plato and Pythagoras, in short, over all that had gone astray; and they surpass those whose lives had been worn out in31 astrology and geometry, mathematics and arithmetic, and who had been thoroughly instructed in32 every sort of learning, and33 were as much superior to them as true and real philosophers are superior to those who are by nature foolish and out of their senses.34 For observe, these men asserted that the soul was immortal, or rather, they did not merely assert this, but persuaded others of it. The Greeks, on the contrary, did not at first know what manner of thing the soul was, and when they had found out, and had distinguished it from the body, they were again in the same case, the one asserting that it was incorporeal, the other that it was corporeal and was dissolved with the body."
31 al. “who were familiar with.”
32 al. “had got together.”
33 al. “these they cast as dust, and.”
34 al. “so that these appeared henceforward to be truly philosophers, but those fools by nature and out of their senses.”
St. John Chrisostom
Schaff, Philip: The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Vol. XIV. Oak Harbor : Logos Research Systems, 1997, S. 234
but we have an immortal soul, that we may use every means to prepare ourselves for that other life. For if one enquire the use of horses and asses and oxen, and other such-like animals, we shall tell him that it is nothing else but only to minister to the present life; but this cannot be said of us; our best condition is that which follows on our departure hence; and we must do all that we may shine there, that we may join the choir of Angels, and stand before the King continually, through endless55 ages. And therefore the soul is immortal, and the body shall be immortal too, that we may enjoy the never-ending blessings.
55 al. “incorrupt.”
St John Chrisostom; Ibid. S. 111
having filled His eleven disciples with His mighty31 power, He sent them to men throughout all the world, to be the common healers of all their kind,32 to correct their way of living, to spread through every part of the earth the knowledge of their heavenly doctrines, to break down the tyranny of devils, to teach those great and ineffable blessings, to bring to us the glad tidings of the soul’s immortality, and the eternal life of the body, and rewards which are beyond conception, and shall never have an end.
31 al. “a certain irresistible and divine.”
32 Or “of their whole nature.”
St John Chrisostom; Ibid. S. 42
