BEYOND THE GRAVE. A HISTORY OF LIFE AFTER DEATH

Discover a fascinating journey through the ages, exploring the mysteries of life after death. Philip C. Almond takes us on a journey through ancient beliefs and Christian concepts, focusing on the groundbreaking 17th and 18th centuries. This book is not only a history of ideas, but also a testament to human hope and the desire for justice.

• In-depth analysis of historical sources
• Evolution of understanding life after death
• The role of purgatory and paradise in different eras
• The passing of hell and its significance
• Controversies surrounding the resurrection of bodies
• Desire for light on the other side of darkness

The author, Australian historian Philip C. Almond, presents "a history of life after death", that is, the understanding of the afterlife and ideas about it from ancient times to Christian times, with particular emphasis on the groundbreaking 17th and 18th centuries of modern times. These issues from his history of ideas have two poles at their base, around which Christian thinking of past centuries about life after death is focused: the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul.

On an extremely rich, erudite historical material, we trace the evolution of understanding the state after death, the changing role of purgatory and paradise, the passing of hell, the controversies surrounding the place where bodies reside in the afterlife until the Day of Judgment and afterwards, the question of their resurrection. The doctrinal problem that runs through the entire book (and fertilizes all Christian thought about life after death) lies in the question of whether the resurrection will occur in some form immediately after death or only on Judgment Day.

And even if disputes around these ideas have weakened today, the huge amount of energy devoted to them in the past, documented by Almond, is, as the author himself writes, "testimony to the hope of extending life beyond the grave", and expresses the desire for "light on the other side of the darkness of death, the highest good on the other side of earthly evil and ultimate justice repairing earthly injustices."