Sin death and beyond

SIN, DEATH AND BEYOND: M.M.NINAN
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The passing of souls into successive bodily forms, either human or animal. According to
Pythagoras, who probably learned the doctrine in Egypt, the rational mind (ψρήν), after having
been freed from the chains of the body, assumes an ethereal vehicle, and passes into the
region of the dead, where it remains till it is sent back to this world to inhabit some other body,
human or animal. After undergoing successive purgations, and when it is sufficiently purified, it
is received among the gods, and returns to the eternal source from which it first proceeded.
This doctrine was foreign to Judaism until about the eighth century,when, under the influence
of the Mohammedan mystics, it was adopted by the Karaites and other Jewish dissenters. It is
first mentioned in Jewish literature by Saadia, who protested against this belief, which at his
time was shared by the Yudghanites, or whomsoever he contemptuously designated as "socalled
Jews" (V12p232001.jpg; see Schmiedl, "Studien," p. 166;idem, in "Monatsschrift," x.
177; Rapoport, in "Bikkure ha-'Ittim," ix. 23; idem, introduction to Abraham bar Ḥiyya's "Hegyon
ha-Nefesh," p. lii.; Jellinek, in "Orient, Lit." 1851, p. 410; Fürst, "Gesch. des Karäert." i. 81).
According to Saadia, the reasons given by the adherents of metempsychosis for their belief
are partly intellectual and partly Scriptural. The former are as follows: (1) Observation shows
that many men possess attributes of animals, as, for instance, the gentleness of a lamb, the
rage of a wild beast, the gluttony of a dog, the lightness of a bird, etc. These peculiarities, they
assert, prove that their possessors have in part the souls of the respective animals. (2) It would
be contrary to the justice of God to inflict pain upon children in punishment for sins committed
by their souls in a previous state. The Scriptural reasons are conclusions drawn from certain
Biblical verses, such as: "Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; but with
him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not
here with us this day" (Deut. xxix. 14, 15); "Blessed be the man that walketh not in the counsel
of the ungodly," etc. (Ps. i. 1). Both sets of reasons are refuted by Saadia, who says that he
would not consider it worth while to show the foolishness and the low-mindedness of the
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