Editing Reincarnation (section)

===Classical antiquity===
{{see also|Metempsychosis}}
[[Image:2161 - Taormina - Badia Vecchia - Sarcofago romano del sec. II d.C. - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 20-May-2008.jpg|thumb|A second-century Roman sarcophagus shows the mythology and symbolism of the Orphic and Dionysiac Mystery schools. Orpheus plays his lyre to the left.]]
Early Greek discussion of the concept dates to the sixth century BCE. An early Greek thinker known to have considered rebirth is [[Pherecydes of Syros]] (fl. 540 BCE).<ref>Schibli, S., Hermann, Pherekydes of Syros, p. 104, Oxford Univ. Press 2001</ref> His younger contemporary [[Pythagoras]] (c. 570–c. 495 BCE<ref>"The dates of his life cannot be fixed exactly, but assuming the approximate correctness of the statement of Aristoxenus (ap. Porph. ''V.P.'' 9) that he left Samos to escape the tyranny of Polycrates at the age of forty, we may put his birth round about 570 BCE, or a few years earlier. The length of his life was variously estimated in antiquity, but it is agreed that he lived to a fairly ripe old age, and most probably he died at about seventy-five or eighty." [[William Keith Chambers Guthrie]], (1978), ''A history of Greek philosophy, Volume 1: The earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans'', p. 173. Cambridge University Press</ref>), its first famous exponent, instituted societies for its diffusion. Some authorities believe that Pythagoras was Pherecydes' pupil, others that Pythagoras took up the idea of reincarnation from the doctrine of [[Orphism (religion)|Orphism]], a [[Thrace|Thracian]] religion, or brought the teaching from India.

[[Plato]] (428/427–348/347 BCE) presented accounts of reincarnation in his works, particularly the ''[[Myth of Er]]'', where Plato makes Socrates tell how Er, the son of [[Arminius|Armenius]], miraculously returned to life on the twelfth day after death and recounted the secrets of the other world. There are myths and theories to the same effect in other dialogues, in the [[Chariot allegory]] of the ''[[Phaedrus (dialogue)|Phaedrus]]'',<ref>''The Dialogues of Plato'' (Benjamin Jowett trans., 1875 ed), vol. 2, p. 125</ref> in the ''[[Meno]]'',<ref>''The Dialogues of Plato'' (Benjamin Jowett trans., 1875 ed), vol. 1, p. 282</ref> ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'' and ''[[Laws (dialogue)|Laws]]''. The soul, once separated from the body, spends an indeterminate amount of time in the intelligible realm (see The [[Allegory of the Cave]] in ''[[The Republic (Plato)|The Republic]]'') and then assumes another body. In the ''Timaeus'', Plato believes that the soul moves from body to body without any distinct reward-or-punishment phase between lives, because the reincarnation is itself a punishment or reward for how a person has lived.<ref>See Kamtekar 2016 for a discussion of how Plato's view of reincarnation changes across texts, especially concerning the existence of a distinct reward-or-punishment phase between lives. Rachana Kamtekar. 2016. "The Soul’s (After-) Life," ''Ancient Philosophy'' 36 (1):115-132.</ref>

In ''[[Phaedo]]'', Plato has his teacher [[Socrates]], prior to his death, state: "I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead." However, [[Xenophon]] does not mention Socrates as believing in reincarnation, and Plato may have systematized Socrates' thought with concepts he took directly from Pythagoreanism or Orphism. Recent scholars have come to see that Plato has multiple reasons for the belief in reincarnation.<ref>See Campbell 2022 for more on why Plato believes in reincarnation. Douglas R. Campbell. 2022.  "Plato's Theory of Reincarnation: Eschatology and Natural Philosophy," ''Review of Metaphysics'' 75 (4): 643-665. See also the discussion in Chad Jorgensen. 2018. ''The Embodied Soul in Plato's Later Thought''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref> One argument concerns the theory of reincarnation's usefulness for explaining why non-human animals exist: they are former humans, being punished for their vices; Plato gives this argument at the end of the ''Timaeus''.<ref>See ''Timaeus'' 90–92.</ref>

====Mystery cults====
The [[Orphism (religion)|Orphic religion]], which taught reincarnation, about the sixth century BCE, produced a copious literature.<ref>Linforth, Ivan M. (1941) ''The Arts of Orpheus'' Arno Press, New York, {{OCLC|514515}}</ref><ref>Long, Herbert S. (1948) ''A Study of the doctrine of metempsychosis in Greece, from Pythagoras to Plato'' (Long's 1942 Ph.D. dissertation) Princeton, New Jersey, {{OCLC|1472399}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Long |first1=Herbert S. |title=Plato's Doctrine of Metempsychosis and Its Source |journal=The Classical Weekly |date=1948 |volume=41 |issue=10 |pages=149–155 |id={{ProQuest|1296280468}} |doi=10.2307/4342414 |jstor=4342414 }}</ref> [[Orpheus]], its legendary founder, is said to have taught that the immortal soul aspires to freedom while the body holds it prisoner. The wheel of birth revolves, the soul alternates between freedom and captivity round the wide circle of necessity. Orpheus proclaimed the need of the grace of the gods, [[Dionysus]] in particular, and of self-purification until the soul has completed the spiral ascent of destiny to live forever.

An association between [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagorean philosophy]] and reincarnation was routinely accepted throughout antiquity, as Pythagoras also taught about reincarnation. However, unlike the Orphics, who considered metempsychosis a cycle of grief that could be escaped by attaining liberation from it, Pythagoras seems to postulate an eternal, neutral reincarnation where subsequent lives would not be conditioned by any action done in the previous.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans|author=Leonid Zhmud|publisher=OUP Oxford|year=2012|isbn=978-0-19-928931-8|pages=232–233}}</ref>

====Later authors====
In later Greek literature the doctrine is mentioned in a fragment of [[Menander]]<ref>Menander, ''The Inspired Woman''</ref> and satirized by [[Lucian]].<ref>Lucian, ''Gallus'', 18 et seq.</ref> In [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] literature it is found as early as [[Ennius]],<ref>Poesch, Jessie (1962) "Ennius and Basinio of Parma" ''[[Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes]]'' 25(1/2):116–118 [117 n15].</ref> who, in a lost passage of his ''Annals'', told how he had seen [[Homer]] in a dream, who had assured him that the same soul which had animated both the poets had once belonged to a peacock. [[Persius]] in his satires (vi. 9) laughs at this; it is referred to also by [[Lucretius]]<ref>Lucretius, (i. 124)</ref> and [[Horace]].<ref>Horace, ''Epistles'', II. i. 52</ref>

[[Virgil]] works the idea into his account of the Underworld in the sixth book of the ''[[Aeneid]]''.<ref>Virgil, ''The Aeneid'', vv. 724 et seq.</ref> It persists down to the late classic thinkers, [[Plotinus]] and the other [[Neoplatonist]]s. In the [[Hermetica]], a Graeco-Egyptian series of writings on cosmology and spirituality attributed to [[Hermes Trismegistus]]/[[Thoth]], the doctrine of reincarnation is central.