Weighing of souls

Archangel Michael is commonly depicted holding scales to weigh the souls of people on Judgement Day.

The weighing of souls (Ancient Greek: psychostasia)[1] is a religious motif in which a person's life is assessed by weighing their soul (or some other part of them) immediately before or after death in order to judge their fate.[2] This motif is most commonly seen in medieval Christianity.[3]

  1. ^
    • Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1922), p. 183f;
    • Isaac Myer, Oldest Books in the World (New York, 1900), VIII: The Psychostasia or Judgment of the Soul of the Dead, pp 265-79. (Reprinted by Kessinger, 2005) ISBN 9781169220263.
  2. ^ Brandon 1969.
  3. ^ Brandon 1969, p. 99.