Waiting for the board game version
November 21, 2016 12:01 PM   Subscribe

If you’re worrying about the state of your mortal soul, this handy graphic by François Georgin could help you.

Published in 1825 in Jean-Charles Pellerin’s print shop in France, 3 Roads to Eternity alludes to Matthew 7:13-14. The biblical passage describes the different roads a soul can take:
13 Enter at the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who are going through it, 14 because small is the gate and narrow is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Hosted at the Cornell University Library, the link at the library's digital collection allows you to zoom in to see details of the map.
posted by cynical pinnacle (10 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yeah, I've been LARPing this game for decades.
posted by Celsius1414 at 1:09 PM on November 21, 2016


Ugh, what a grotesque cosmos Christianity created. Vicious, authoritarian, and claustrophobic all at once.
posted by Lighthammer at 1:23 PM on November 21, 2016 [4 favorites]


I think you mean "if you're worried about the state of your IMmortal soul." If one's soul is merely mortal, why be concerned about any of this? However, if one's soul lives forever, these are VERY big questions.
posted by Modest House at 4:13 PM on November 21, 2016


I like Hugleikur Dagsson's take on this concept. (I thought there was a bigger version but I can't find it.)
posted by darksong at 5:15 PM on November 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


I've just been binge-watching 'The Leftovers'. This is totally up my alley as of late.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:19 PM on November 21, 2016


Well I'll be damned!
posted by sjswitzer at 7:12 PM on November 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ugh, what a grotesque cosmos Christianity created. Vicious, authoritarian, and claustrophobic all at once.

This is one of many passages in the New Testament that readers assume, too hastily, must refer to the afterlife. In reality, there is very about the afterlife in the Gospels at all, or in the New Testament generally. This bit about the two gates comes toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount, which is an extended bit of ethical teaching that most people find laudatory--regardless of their feelings about the veracity of Christianity--and whose main function is to contrast the common way of overtly religious folk with the purer way Jesus was pointing to. The wide gate is the popular religious lifestyle. The narrow gate is the harder, but better, way. So, for example, you have:

Matthew 5:38-39 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ [Wide gate] But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. [Narrow gate]

Matthew 5:43-45 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ [Wide gate] But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. [Narrow gate]

Matthew 6:2-4 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. [Wide gate] But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. [Narrow gate]

Matthew 6:5-6 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.[Wide gate] But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. [Narrow gate]

Matthew 6:19-20 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. [Wide gate] But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. [Narrow gate].

I could go on and on. Jesus draws many contrasts between unhealthy religious practices and the better way he espouses. The last section, right before the bit about the two gates, is this:

Matthew 7:7-12 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.


We literally go straight from a promise of God's blessing to anyone who asks right into the golden rule and then into the discussion of the two gates. The gates are not leading to "heaven" and "hell." The wide gate is the prevalent religious environment, which is hypocritical, hateful, selfish, unloving, prideful and overly interested in status and prestige.* The narrow gate is the one that honors grace, quiet acts of service that don't draw attention to themselves, love so radical it encompasses enemies, trust that God will provide what is needed, and therefore a willingness to treat everyone with the same concern and respect we would like to receive. The "destruction" at the end of the wide gate is probably better thought of as societal destruction, inequity, and disharmony rather than personal destruction of the soul. The "life" at the end of the narrow path is true living, harmonious and joyful. This is very much a text about ethical frameworks and the consequences of choosing the easy path versus the harder one.

Yes, it's been often misunderstood and taught as a heaven or hell dichotomy, but there's not really anything in the context of the Sermon to justify that reading. I suppose it's possible to read this in full, see the admonition of Jesus to choose a life of love, grace, and service where we treat others the way we wish to be treated and still see that as "vicious, authoritarian, and claustrophobic" but I'd call that a radical interpretation of the text.

*Hard not to draw analogies to modern American evangelicalism
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:48 AM on November 22, 2016 [13 favorites]


I think you mean "if you're worried about the state of your IMmortal soul." If one's soul is merely mortal, why be concerned about any of this? However, if one's soul lives forever, these are VERY big questions.

I am very tempted to go down a long theological rabbit-trail I don't have time for, but suffice it to say that I am convinced that the early Christians did not believe that souls are inherently immortal.

"In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen." --1 Timothy 6:13-16

In later theology, the influence of Platonic philosophy, which did teach an immortal soul, radically changed the reading of the New Testament and led to ideas such as everlasting torment in hell--a concept that would have been completely foreign to the authors of the New Testament.

If some armchair theologian really wants to pursue this topic, Edward Fudge's book The Fire that Consumes makes a very persuasive case that original Christian teaching held all souls die unless they are granted immortality through the grace of God. It's right there in the most well known New Testament verse, John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Those are the options--your mortal soul either perishes, or God grants everlasting life to you because of your belief.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:58 AM on November 22, 2016 [10 favorites]


Is this a good place to link to the Wheel of Life? It's a Buddhist perspective on the same thing, also featuring artwork and souls heading in various directions.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:25 AM on November 22, 2016


As usual, the devils are the best part.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:31 PM on November 22, 2016


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