It was only some two hundred years before the time
of Jesus of Nazareth - interpreted as the new Adam who is obedient
to God - that some Jews began developing the idea of the
resurrection of the dead, in an act of divine vindication of the
righteous. It was an idea that ran alongside the notion of
atonement, the belief that suffering could counteract the effect of
sin and restore ruptured relations with God. Suffering in this life
could serve an atoning function, while death itself, which was more
of a process of dying than an instantaneous moment, also served to
atone for sins. These ideas came together in the interpretation of
the life of Jesus as a saving passion: suffering and death were
interpreted as making atonement for the sins of all and of bringing
into sharp profile a fulfilment of the divine covenant. The
immensely popular film The Passion of the Christ, directed
by Mel Gibson in 2004, brought to the screen perhaps the most
extensive pictorial displays of Jesus' suffering and death ever
witnessed in cinema.
Christianity glorified death. Death was the outcome of sin, yet sin
was destroyed by Christ's pure life outpoured in his atoning death.
He died, yet his death was subjected to resurrection. Henceforth
the cross would become the symbol within which these many ideas
would become condensed and mutually influential.
Religions originating in India, by contrast, set less store either
by this world or any similar perfected landscape of eternity.
Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism took death to be part of the immense
cycle of ongoing existence from which the vital self should and
might be released. In time, and after many incarnations and strict
observance of proper behaviour, that final release might be
achieved. In classical Hindu tradition the funeral pyre served the
function of a kind of reversed womb. As the mother's 'heat'
prepared the foetus for life, and as the spirit came to it in the
womb, so the heat of the pyre prepared the corpse for the freeing
of the spirit from the cracked skull. The pyre was an altar, the
cremation the last offering of the self to the deity.
Transmigration lay ahead, for reincarnation or, ultimately, for the
freedom of indescribable bliss. In these traditions the history of
death is more the history of 'consciousness', of a person's
essential identity and what we might call its 'journey beyond'.
Death, unlike many philosophical and religious ideas, affects each
one of us as we encounter the death of those we love, of those we
like, of the famous who serve as imaginary friends, of our
neighbours and of those we hate. Moreover, although death is our
future, it often takes time for that realization to dawn upon
us.
