Greek Afterlife vs. Christian Afterlife

Depending on an individual’s belief, there are many different ideas of the afterlife. The afterlife consists of life or existence believed to follow death. Most beliefs are held that when a person dies there is a place they go to such as Heaven, Hell, the Underworld, Purgatory, or somewhere for their spirit to rest for eternity. Two such beliefs are that of the ancient Greeks and the Christians. Each believes that when an individual passes away, there is a place for their soul or spirit to rest, but that is where the similarities end. The differences between these two beliefs are much greater than their similarities.

When we as Christians think of the afterlife we assume that there are two places that constitute the afterlife, Heaven and Hell. Those who believe in Heaven generally hold that it or Hell is the afterlife destination of many or all humans. Heaven is generally construed as a place of happiness, sometimes eternal happiness. When we think of the word Hell, we automatically think of a place or a state of pain and suffering. Hell is often portrayed as the final resting place of the Devil, prepared as his punishment by God Himself. Hell is commonly believed to be for eternity with no chance of redemption or salvation for those who suffer there. Christian faith teaches it to be a domain of boundless dimension and torment. Many monotheistic religions such as Christianity regard Hell as the absolute ultimate worst-case-scenario.

When the ancient Greeks mention the afterlife, there is only one place that is thought of as to where the afterlife lingers for eternity, the Underworld. The Underworld is neither Heaven nor Hell as we think of our afterlife, but both. The Underworld consisted of two main sections, the Elysian Fields and Tartarus. The Elysian Fields were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous and it is comparable to the Christian belief of Heaven, whereas Tartarus is comparable to Hell. You may assume that the ancient Greeks Heaven consists of the many Gods and their Hell consists of all afterlife, but it is not directly labeled as Heaven or Hell. The Greeks do not portray their afterlife as two separate locations, the punished and non-punished. In a way it is wrong to label the afterlife of the ancient Greeks as Hell because the usual aspect of Hell is that which consists of the punished, but the ancient Greeks believed that all afterlife lived together. Both cultures believe that burying the deceased signifies an honorable end to their worldly existence such as the instance when Elpenor asked Odysseus to give him a proper burial.

On one hand it is right to say that ancient Greek afterlife is Hell because it is referred to as a place consisted of countless drifting crowds of shadowy figures. In Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, the ghost of the great hero Achilles told Odysseus that he would rather be a poor serf on earth than lord of the dead in the Underworld. Odysseus witnessed a few of the tormented souls such as Tityos, the son of Gaia, who had vultures hunched over him rifling his stomach for all of eternity. He then sees Tantalus, agonized by hunger and thirst, because each time he reaches for the grapes that are hanging above him or drink from the pool of water, they rise or sink out of reach. He witnesses the punishment of Sisyphus, struggling eternally to push a boulder over a hill only to have it roll back down whenever it reaches the top.