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JAINISM, CHRISTIANITY & SCIENCE
“There is nothing after death, according to the school of Epicurus. After death all things come to an end, even death itself, says Seneca to like effect. It is satisfactory, however, that the no less important philosophy of Pythagoras and Empedocles, and the Platonists, take the contrary view, and declare the soul to be immortal; affirming, moreover, in a way which most nearly approaches (to our own doctrine), that the soul actually returns into bodies, although not the same bodies and not even those of human beings invariably: thus Euphorbus is supposed to have passed into Pythagoras, and Homer into a Peacock. They firmly pronounced the soul's renewal to be in a body, (deeming at) more tolerable to change the quality (of the corporeal state) than to deny it wholly : they at least knocked at the door of truth, although they entered not. Thus the world with all its errors, does not ignore the resurrection of the dead."-(Tertullianus) A.N.C.L. vol. xv. p. 216.
“If there is any ground for moving to and fro of human souls into different bodies, why may they not return into the very substance they have left, seeing this is to be restored, to be that which had been? They are no longer the very things they had been; for they could not be what they were not, without first ceasing to be what they had been. If we were inclined to give all rein on this point, discussing into what various beasts one and another might probably be changed, we would need at our leisure to take up many points. But this we would do chiefly in our own defence as setting forth what 18 greatly worthier of belief, that a man will come back from a man, any given person from any given person, still retaining his humanity; so that the soul, with its qualities unchanged, may be restored to the same condition, though not to the same outward framework ... And therefore the body too will appear; for the soul is not capable of suffering without the solid substance, that is, the flesh; and for this reason also, that it is not right that souls should have all the wrath of God to bear : they did not sin without the body, within which all was done by them ...
"... Thou, man, of nature so exalted, if thou understand thy. self, ... lord of all these things that die and rise [like seasons, fruits, etc.)—shalt thou die to perish evermore? Wherever your dissolution shall have taken place, whatever material agent has des. troyed you, or swallowed you up, or swept you away, or reduced you
