Soul: Greek and Hellenistic Concepts
The modern Western idea of the soul has both eschatological and psychological attributes, and the presence of the Greek word psuchē, or "soul," in concepts such as psychiatry and psychology suggests that the Greeks viewed the soul in the modern way. Yet the absence of any psychological connotations in the earliest extant usages of psuchē shows that at least the early Greek concept of the soul was different from later beliefs. Taking this difference as my point of departure, I shall first trace the development of the conception of the soul of the living, then look at the conception of the soul of the dead, and, finally, analyze the fate of the soul according to Hellenistic religions.
Soul of the Living
The Greek conception of the soul in the Archaic age (800–500 BCE) might best be characterized as multiple. Following the widely accepted terminology developed by the Scandinavian Ernst Arbman (1926, 1927), we can distinguish in the oldest literary texts—Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (commonly dated to the eighth and seventh century, respectively)—two types of soul. On the one hand, there is the free soul, or psuchē, an unencumbered soul representing the individual personality. This soul is inactive (and unmentioned) when the body is active; it is located in an unspecified part of the body. Its presence is the precondition for the continuation of life, but it has no connections with the physical or psychological aspects of the body. Psuchē manifests itself only during swoons or at death, when it leaves the body never to return again. On the other hand, there are a number of body-souls, which endow the body with life and consciousness. The most frequently occurring form of body-soul in Homer's epics is thumos. It is this soul that both urges people on and is the seat of emotions. There is also menos, which is a more momentary impulse directed at specific activities. At one time, menos seems to have meant "mind, disposition," as appears from related verbs and the fact that the Vedic manas has all the functions of the Homeric thumos. As is indicated by the related Sanskrit dhūmah and the Latin fumus, thumos probably once meant "smoke"; it later usurped most of the connotations of menos. A word emphasizing the intellect more than thumos and menos is nous, which is the mind or an act of mind, a thought or a purpose. In addition, there are a number of organs, such as the heart and the lungs, which have both physical and psychological attributes.
In Homer, then, the soul of the living does not yet constitute a unity. The resemblance of this kind of belief in the soul to that of most "primitive" peoples .....
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