We continue with the methodical study of "The Gospel According to Spiritism" by Allan Kardec, the third of the works that make up the Pentateuch Kardecian, whose first edition was published in 1864. The answers to the questions suggested for discussion was the end of the text below.
Questions
A. Who were the Sadducees and they believed?
B. What were the main precursors of the idea of Christian and spiritism?
C. What was the crime that led to the conviction Socrates?
D. There are many parties to the Law of Moses?
Text for reading
30. The idea was perceived Christian centuries before Jesus and the Essenes, with the main precursors Socrates and Plato. Socrates, like Christ wrote nothing, or at least left no writings, and we only have knowledge of their doctrine by the writings of his disciple Plato, in which we face also the fundamental principles of Spiritism. (Introduction, item IV)
31. Those who consider a desecration draw a parallel between the Socratic doctrine and Christianity and wish that there should be parity between a pagan doctrine of Christ and we must say that it was a pagan doctrine of Socrates because his goal was to combat paganism. (Introduction, item IV)
32. Kardec this book includes 21 lessons of doctrine taught by Socrates and Plato. Here are some of them:
I. Man is an embodied soul.
II. Philosophers exercise in dying and death if they do not seem in any way, awesome.
III. After our death, the genius who called us out in life leads us to a place where they gather all that must be taken to Hades, to be judged.
IV. The souls, after having been in Hades the time, are brought back to life in this multiple and lengthy periods.
V. The constant concern of the philosopher is to take the greatest care of the soul, at least with respect to this life, which lasts no more than an instant, that in view of eternity. Since the soul is immortal, not be prudent in order to live forever?
VI. If death were complete dissolution of man, would gain very ill with death, would see themselves as free, while the body, the soul and the vices. He who guard the soul, not of strangers ornaments, but with those who are his own, this can only wait quietly the hour of his departure to the other world.
VII. The soul guard, evident traces of their character, their affections and brands that you have left all the acts of his life.
VIII. The greatest misfortune that can happen to a man is to go to the other world with the soul charged with crimes. So many different opinions, the only remaining steadfast is that it is better to receive than an injustice and that, above all, we must take care not to seem, but to be a good man.
IX. You should never repay an injustice with another, not to hurt anyone, whatever damage that have resulted in us.
X. It is the fruit that the tree is known. Every action must be qualified by producing. XI. Wealth is a great danger. Every man who loves wealth not love yourself, not what is yours; loves one thing that is even more strange.
XII. The most beautiful most beautiful prayers and sacrifices to God rejoice less than a virtuous soul that makes him resemble efforts by themselves.
XIII. Love is everywhere in nature, which invites us to exercise our intelligence. It is love that gives peace to men, the sea calm, the winds and quiet sleep to pain.
XIV. If doctors are unsuccessful, dealing with most diseases, is treating the body without treating the soul. Now, do not think the whole in good condition, it is impossible to pass a portion of it as well. (Introduction, item IV)
33. Jesus was very clear about his mission by saying, "Think not that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfill them: - because, verily I say unto heaven and earth not will, without all that think the law is perfectly fulfilled. "(Chapter I, item 1)
34. When transcribing the first commandment of God's law, Kardec left out the following sentences: "... for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punish the iniquity of the fathers upon the children in the third and fourth generations of those that hate me, and showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments "(Exodus, Ch. XX, verses 5 and 6). (Note from Publisher of FEB, 1947)
35. The final part of that commandment shows that the law covertly teaches reincarnation, the atonement and the evidence. In the first and second generations, as a contemporary of his children and grandchildren, the reincarnated spirit guilty yet, but a little later - in the third and fourth generations - it may have already gone back and receive, so the consequences of their faults . Thus, it is the culprit, and not others, which pays its debt to the Law of God. (Note from Publisher of FEB, 1947)
36. The ten commandments are divine character. Mosaic laws are of the human character and therefore transient. As the idea of a God awful could impress ignorant creatures, Moses availed himself of the name of the Lord to edit certain civil laws that clashed often with the Decalogue. Examples are laws that sent a terse woman found in adultery and known by the term "tooth for tooth, eye for an eye." (Chapter I, item 2)
37. Jesus did not come to destroy the law, ie the law of God as expressed in the Ten Commandments. It came, instead, fulfill it, develop it, give you the true sense and adapt it to the degree of advancement of men. As for the laws of Moses, as such, he changed them profoundly, either in substance or in form. (Chapter I, item 3)
38. Constantly fighting the abuse of external practices and false interpretations, Jesus could not make them go through more radical reform than reducing this single prescription: "Love God above all things and your neighbor as yourself" adding, "there are all the law and the prophets." (Chapter I, item 3)
39. The words: "Heaven and earth shall not pass, till all be fulfilled until the last iota" Did Jesus say be necessary for the law of God had full compliance, that is, the entire Earth was practiced in all its purity, with all your extensions and consequences. (Chapter I, item 3)
Answers to questions
A. Who were the Sadducees and they believed?
The Sadducees were followers of a Jewish sect that formed around the year 248 BC and whose name came from Zadok, the name of its founder. Do not believe in immortality or resurrection, or the good and bad angels, but they believed in God. Nothing waiting after death only served in order temporal rewards, to which, according to them, was confined to divine providence. Just wondering, had the satisfaction of physical senses for essential goal of life. Regarding Scripture, stick to the text of the old law. Not admitted to tradition, nor any interpretations. They put the good works and the observance of the law, pure and simple above the external practices of worship. They were, as it turns out, the materialists, deists and sensualists the season. Sect little large, had, however, important characters in her womb and became a political party opposed to the Pharisees constantly. (The Gospel According to Spiritism, Introduction, item III.)
B. What were the main precursors of the idea of Christian and spiritism?
The philosophers Socrates and Plato. (Ibid., Introduction, item IV.)
C. What was the crime that led to the conviction Socrates?
As happened with Jesus, Socrates took the death of criminals, victim of fanaticism, for having attacked the beliefs he had found and placed above the real virtue of hypocrisy and pretense of ways, for there, in a word, fought religious prejudices. Just as Jesus, whom the Pharisees accused him of being corrupting the people with the teachings ministered to him, he was also accused by the Pharisees of his time, since there was always at all times, by proclaiming the dogma of unit God, the immortality of the soul and the afterlife. (Ibid., Introduction, item IV.)
D. There are many parties to the Law of Moses?
In the Mosaic law there are two distinct parts: God's law, enacted on Mount Sinai, and the civil law or discipline, enacted by Moses. The first is invariable, the other proper customs and character of the people, it changes with time. It is of all times and of all countries the Decalogue; hence its divine character. The others are laws that Moses decreed, thank you saw the bear, by fear, a turbulent and unruly people, in which he had to combat abuses and entrenched prejudices acquired during slavery in Egypt. To print authority of their laws, was to give them divine origin, as did all regulators of primitive peoples. (Ibid., Chapter I, Items 1 and 2.)
