Palingenesis (English version)

Palingenesis

Palingenesia is a term adopted by many religions and types of philosophy in the world. We could say that each line of religious thought has its own Palingenesis, but what is palingenesis?

We must consider that the word ''palin'' (πάλιν) means '' again '' and the word ''genesia'' (γένεις) means ''new''. So we can say that Palingenesis is a kind of thinking about a ''continuation'' of another life after dying.

Philosophers

Stoics

As we said earlier, the concept of Palingenesia is treated by many thinkers, but in the history of Greek philosophy it was the Stoics who mentioned the term. They said that basically palingenesis was the rebirth of the world after a certain life cycle. However, they also used this term to refer to the soul, that is, a cycle of the soul ends to start another.

Plato

In fact, Plato himself described it when he spoke of the migration of the soul and then imprisoned in another body. In this case it is similar to the term used by Plato: metempsychosis.

Origin of Alexandria

On the other hand, it also has the relation of a Christian theory developed in Roman times. The Father of the Church called Origen spoke to us of the '' Apocastastasis ''.

The vision of the world for Origen is successive and not contemporary or parallel, that is, after this world there is another. This means that for all souls, sinners or not, there will be the opportunity to expiate their sins and thus be forgiven. This is what Origen called Apocatastasis.

However, depending on how the atonement was the man who happens to the other world could be demon, angel, man again or any animal. Men have free will and therefore they can always choose between good and evil.

Conclusion

Another of the interesting curious concepts that we have been able to rescue from the Greek philosophers. However, as we said earlier, this concept was already presented by other civilizations that developed it. We can see clearly that there is more philosophy, apart from what we classically know in school or university studies.