Page "Resurrection" Paragraph 8

This traditional religious belief in physical immortality was generally denied by the Greek philosophers.

Writing his Lives of Illustrious Men ( Parallel Lives ) in the first century CE, the Middle Platonic philosopher Plutarch's chapter on Romulus gave an account of his mysterious disappearance and subsequent deification, comparing it to traditional Greek beliefs such as the resurrection and physical immortalization of Alcmene and Aristeas the Proconnesian, " for they say Aristeas died in a fuller's work-shop, and his friends coming to look for him, found his body vanished ; and that some presently after, coming from abroad, said they met him traveling towards Croton.

" Plutarch openly scorned such beliefs held in traditional ancient Greek religion, writing, " many such improbabilities do your fabulous writers relate, deifying creatures naturally mortal.