{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_53829/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_53829","id":"gutenberg_53829","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53829","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Immortality","Rome -- Religion"],"text":"Ingersoll Lectures on Immortality\n\n\n     IMMORTALITY AND THE NEW THEODICY. By George A. Gordon. 1896.\n\n     HUMAN IMMORTALITY. Two supposed Objections to the Doctrine. By\n     William James. 1897.\n\n     DIONYSOS AND IMMORTALITY: The Greek Faith in Immortality as\n     affected by the rise of Individualism. By Benjamin Ide Wheeler.\n     1898.\n\n     THE CONCEPTION OF IMMORTALITY. By Josiah Royce. 1899.\n\n     LIFE EVERLASTING. By John Fiske. 1900.\n\n     SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. By William Osler. 1904.\n\n     THE ENDLESS LIFE. By Samuel M. Crothers. 1905.\n\n     INDIVIDUALITY AND IMMORTALITY. By Wilhelm Ostwald. 1906.\n\n     THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. By Charles F. Dole. 1907.\n\n     BUDDHISM AND IMMORTALITY. By William S. Bigelow. 1908.\n\n     IS IMMORTALITY DESIRABLE? By G. Lowes Dickinson. 1909.\n\n     EGYPTIAN CONCEPTIONS OF IMMORTALITY. By George A. Reisner. 1911.\n\n     INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY IN THE SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE. By George\n     H. Palmer. 1912.\n\n     METEMPSYCHOSIS. By George Foot Moore. 1914.\n\n     PAGAN IDEAS OF IMMORTALITY DURING THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE. By\n     Clifford Herschel Moore. 1918.\n\n\n\n\n                            PAGAN IDEAS OF\n\n                        IMMORTALITY DURING THE\n\n                          EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE\n\n\n\n\n                      The Ingersoll Lecture, 1918\n\n                            Pagan Ideas of\n\n                        Immortality During the\n\n                          Early Roman Empire\n\n                                  By\n\n                Clifford Herschel Moore, Ph.D., Litt.D.\n\n              _Professor of Latin in Harvard University_\n\n                       [Illustration: colophon]\n\n                               Cambridge\n                       Harvard University Press\n                       London: Humphrey Milford\n                        Oxford University Press\n\n                                 1918\n\n                            COPYRIGHT, 1918\n                       HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS\n\n\n\n\n                       THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP\n\n_Extract from the will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who died in\n       Keene, County of Cheshire, New Hampshire, Jan. 26, 1893_\n\n\n_First._ In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father, George\nGoldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will and testament,\nI give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where my\nlate father was graduated, and which he always held in love and honor,\nthe sum of Five thousand dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the\nestablishment of a Lectureship on a plan somewhat similar to that of the\nDudleian lecture, that is--one lecture to be delivered each year, on any\nconvenient day between the last day of May and the first day of\nDecember, on this subject, \u201cthe Immortality of Man,\u201d said lecture not to\nform a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any\nProfessor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction, though\nany such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such service. The choice\nof said lecturer is not to be limited to any one religious denomination,\nnor to any one profession, but may be that of either clergyman or\nlayman, the appointment to take place at least six months before the\ndelivery of said lecture. The above sum to be safely invested and three\nfourths of the annual interest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for\nhis services and the remaining fourth to be expended in the publishment\nand gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always to\nbe furnished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same lecture to be\nnamed and known as \u201cthe Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nPAGAN IDEAS OF IMMORTALITY DURING THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe invitation of the committee charged with the administration of the\nIngersoll lectureship and my own inclination have agreed in indicating\nthat aspect of the general subject of immortality, which I shall try to\npresent tonight. I shall not venture on this occasion to advance\narguments for or against belief in a life after death; my present task\nis a humbler one: I propose to ask you to review with me some of the\nmore significant ideas concerning an existence beyond the grave, which\nwere current in the Greco-Roman world in the time of Jesus and during\nthe earlier Christian centuries, and to consider briefly the relation\nof these pagan beliefs to Christian ideas on the same subject. In\ndealing with a topic so vast as this in a single hour, we must select\nthose elements which historically showed themselves to be fundamental\nand vital; but even then we cannot examine much detail. It may prove,\nhowever, that a rapid survey of those concepts of the future life, whose\ninfluence lasted long during the Christian centuries, and indeed has\ncontinued to the present day, may not be without profit.\n\nThe most important single religious document from the Augustan Age is\nthe sixth book of Virgil\u2019s Aeneid; for although the Aeneid was written\nprimarily to glorify Roman imperial aims, the sixth book gives full\nexpression to many philosophic and popular ideas of the other world and\nof the future life, which were current among both Greeks and Romans.[1]\nIt therefore makes a fitting point of departure for our considerations.\nIn this book, as you will remember, the poet\u2019s hero, having reached\nItalian soil at last, is led down to the lower world by the Cumaean\nSybil. This descent to Hades belongs historically to that long series of\napocalyptic writings which begins with the eleventh book of the Odyssey\nand closes with Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy. Warde Fowler deserves credit for\nclearly pointing out that this visit of Aeneas to the world below is the\nfinal ordeal for him, a mystic initiation, in which he receives\n\u201cenlightenment for the toil, peril, and triumph that await him in the\naccomplishment of his divine mission.\u201d When the Trojan hero has learned\nfrom his father\u2019s shade the mysteries of life and death, and has been\ntaught the magnitude of the work which lies before him, and the great\nthings that are to be, he casts off the timidity which he has hitherto\nshown and, strengthened by his experiences, advances to the perfect\naccomplishment of his task.[2]\n\nBut we are not concerned so much with Virgil\u2019s purpose in writing this\napocalyptic book, as with its contents and with the evidence it gives as\nto the current ideas of the other world and the fate of the human soul.\nWhat then does the poet tell us of these great matters? We can hardly do\nbetter than to follow Aeneas and his guide on their journey. This side\nof Acheron they meet the souls of those whose bodies are unburied, and\nwho therefore must tarry a hundred years--the maximum of human\nlife--before they may be ferried over the river which bounds Hades. When\nCharon has set the earthly visitors across that stream, they find\nthemselves in a place where are gathered spirits of many kinds, who have\nnot yet been admitted to Tartarus or Elysium: first the souls of infants\nand those who met their end by violence--men condemned to death though\ninnocent, suicides, those who died for love, and warriors--all of whom\nmust here wait until the span of life allotted them has been completed.\nThese spirits passed, the mortal visitors come to the walls of Tartarus,\non whose torments Aeneas is not allowed to look, for\n\n    \u201cThe feet of innocence may never pass\n    Into this house of sin.\u201d\n\nBut the Sybil, herself taught by Hecate, reveals to him the eternal\npunishments there inflicted for monstrous crimes. Then the visitors pass\nto Elysium, where dwell the souls of those whose deserts on earth have\nwon for them a happy lot. Nearby in a green valley, Aeneas finds the\nshade of his own father, Anchises, looking eagerly at the souls\nwhich are waiting to be born into the upper world. In answer to\nhis son\u2019s questions, the heroic shade discloses the doctrine of\nrebirths--metempsychosis--with its tenets of penance and of\npurification.[3] Finally, to fulfill the poet\u2019s purpose, Anchises\u2019\nspirit points out the souls of the heroes who are to come on earth in\ndue season; the spirits of future Romans pass before Aeneas in long\narray; and at the climax he sees the soul of Augustus, that prince who\nwas destined in the fullness of time to bring back the Golden Age and to\nimpose peace on the wide world. This prophetic revelation ended, Aeneas\nenlightened and strengthened for his task, returns to the upper world.\n\nThis book seems at first a strange compound indeed of popular belief,\nphilosophy, and theology, which is not without its contradictions. On\nthese, however, we need not pause; but for our present interest we must\nask what are the main ideas on which this apocalypse is based. First of\nall, a future life is taken for granted by the poet; otherwise the book\ncould never have been written. Secondly, we notice that, according to\nancient popular belief, the souls of those who had not received the\nproper burial rites, were doomed to wander on this side of Acheron until\na hundred years were completed, and also that souls which were\ndisembodied by violence or by early death, were destined to live out\ntheir allotted span of earthly existence before they could enter the\ninner precincts of Hades. Again the poet represents some few as\nsuffering eternal torments for their monstrous sins or enjoying immortal\nbliss because of their great deserts. And finally, he shows that the\nmajority of souls must pass through successive lives and deaths, until,\npurified from the sin and dross of the body by millennial sojourns in\nthe world below, and by virtuous lives on earth, they at last find\nrepose and satisfaction. The popular beliefs which concern details of\nthe future life we shall leave one side for the moment; let us rather\nfirst observe that Virgil\u2019s ideas as to rewards and punishments in the\nnext world, as well as his doctrine of successive rebirths and deaths\nwith their accompanying purifications, rest on a moral basis, so that\nthe other world is conceived to be a complement of this: life on earth\nand life below are opportunities for moral advance without which final\nhappiness cannot be attained. Whence came these ideas of the future life\nand how far were they current in the ancient world of Virgil\u2019s day?\n\nNaturally it does not follow that, because Rome\u2019s greatest poet chose to\npicture souls surviving their corporeal homes, the average man believed\nin a future life, but there is abundant evidence that the poet was\nappealing to widespread beliefs, when he wrote his apocalyptic book.[4]\nIn fact from the earliest times known to us, both Greeks and Romans held\nto a belief in some kind of extended life for souls after the death of\nthe body.[5] Both peoples had their cults of the dead, rites of tendance\nand of riddance, festivals both public and private, which leave no doubt\nthat the great majority of men never questioned that the spirits of the\ndeparted existed after this life, and that those spirits were endowed\nwith power to harm or to bless the living.[6] But beyond this rather\nelementary stage of belief the Romans never went of themselves. The\nGreeks, however, began early to develop eschatological ideas which had,\nand which still have, great importance.\n\nThe eleventh book of the Odyssey, as I have already said, is the oldest\n\u201cDescent to Hades\u201d in European literature. The souls of the dead are\nthere represented as dwelling in the land of shadows, having no life,\nbut leading an insubstantial existence, without punishment or reward.\nSuch a future world could have no moral or other value; it could only\nhang over men as a gloomy prospect of that which awaited them when the\nsuns of this world had forever set. But in the seventh and sixth\ncenturies B.C. other ideas came to the front, which were influential\nthroughout later history. In those two centuries fall the first period\nof Greek individualism and a religious revival--two things not wholly\ndisconnected. The Orphic sect, which appeared in the sixth century, was\nmade up of religious devotees who adopted a purified form of the\nreligion of Dionysus.[7] The center of the Orphic faith and mystic\nceremonial was the myth of the birth, destruction, and rebirth of the\ngod. According to the story, Dionysus was pursued by the Titans, powers\nhostile to Zeus. In his distress the god changed himself into various\ncreatures, finally taking on the form of a bull, which the Titans tore\nin pieces and devoured. But the goddess Athena saved the heart and gave\nit to Zeus who swallowed it. Hence sprang the new Dionysus. The Titans\nZeus destroyed with his thunderbolt and had the ashes scattered to the\nwinds. From these ashes, in one form of the myth, man was made, and\ntherefore he was thought to unite in his person the sinful Titanic\nnature and the divine Dionysiac spark. The parallelism between this\nstory and the myths of Osiris, Attis, and Adonis is at once evident.\nThey are all gods who die and live again, and thus become lords of death\nand life, through whom man gains assurance of his own immortality.\n\nOur chief concern with the Orphics here is that they seem to have\nintroduced among the Greeks the idea that the soul of man was divine,\nwas a [Greek: daim\u00f4n] which had fallen, and for its punishment was\nimprisoned in the body as in a tomb. In its corporeal cell it was\ncondemned to suffer defilement until released by death, when it passed\nto Hades. Its lot there depended on its life on earth. As an Orphic\nfragment says: \u201cThey who are righteous beneath the rays of the sun, when\nthey die, have a gentler lot in a fair meadow by deep flowing\nAcheron.... But they who have worked wrong and insolence under the rays\nof the sun are led down beneath Cocytus\u2019s watery plain into chill\nTartarus.\u201d[8] The soul\u2019s sojourn in Hades therefore was a time of\npunishment and of purification, even as life itself was a penance for\nsin. According to a common belief, at least in Plato\u2019s day, after a\nthousand years the soul entered a new incarnation, and so on through ten\nrounds of earth and Hades, until at last, freed from sin and earthly\ndross by faithful observance of a holy life on earth and by the\npurification which it underwent below, it returned to its divine abode;\nbut those who persisted in sin were condemned to all the punishments\nwhich man\u2019s imagination could devise; the wicked were doomed to lie in\nmud and filth, while evil demons rent their vitals. Indeed the horrors\nwhich the medieval Christian loved to depict in order to terrify the\nwicked and to rejoice the faithful, were first devised by the Orphics\nand their heirs, for exactly the same purpose.\n\nBut what bases did the Orphics find for their belief in the divine\nnature of the soul? In their mythology they had said that man was\ncreated out of the ashes of the Titans in which a spark of Dionysus\nstill remained. But in fact they seem to have rested on faith or\nintuition, without working out clearly a philosophic answer. They were\nindeed deeply conscious of man\u2019s dual nature; they perceived that on the\none hand he is pulled by his baser instincts and desires, which they\nnaturally attributed to the body, and that on the other hand he is\nprompted by nobler aspirations, which they assigned to his soul. This\nhigher part of man\u2019s dual self was, for them, the Dionysiac element in\nhim. And man\u2019s moral obligation they held to be to free this divine\nelement from the clogging weight of the body, to cease to \u201cblind his\nsoul with clay.\u201d So far as we are aware, the Orphics were the first\namong the Greeks to make the divinity of the soul a motive for the\nreligious life, and perhaps the first to see that, if the soul is\ndivine, it may naturally be regarded as eternally so, and therefore as\nimmortal. What more momentous thoughts as to the soul\u2019s nature and its\ndestiny could any sect have introduced than these? They were shared by\ntheir contemporaries, the Pythagoreans; in fact it is hard to say with\ncertainty which sect developed these concepts first.[9]\n\nBut the Orphic-Pythagorean confidence in the immortality of the soul\nwas at the most only an emotional belief. It remained for Plato in the\nearly fourth century to give that belief a philosophic basis and thereby\nto transform it into a reasonable article of religion. This he\nfundamentally did, when he brought his concept of the reasoning soul\ninto connection with his doctrine of \u201cforms\u201d or \u201cideas.\u201d He maintained\nthat behind this transient phenomenal world known to us through the\nsenses, lies another world, the world of ideas, invisible, permanent,\nand real, which can be grasped by the reason only. These permanent\nideas, he said, are of various grades and degrees, the supreme idea\nbeing that of the Good and the Beautiful, which is the cause of all\nexistence, truth, and knowledge; it at once comprehends these things\nwithin itself and is superior to them; it is the Absolute, God.[10]\n\nBut all the ideas, including the Absolute, are, as I have just said,\napprehended not by man\u2019s senses but by his intellect. Therefore, argues\nPlato, man\u2019s reasoning soul must have the same nature as the ideas; like\nthem, it must belong to the world above the senses and with them it must\npartake of the Absolute. Moreover, since the ideas are eternal and\nimmortal, it inevitably follows that man\u2019s reasoning soul has existed\nfrom eternity and will exist forever.[11]\n\nThis is not the occasion to discuss the validity of Plato\u2019s doctrine.\nAristotle stated, once for all, the fundamental objections to his\nteacher\u2019s views.[12] But we shall readily grant that, if we accept\nPlato\u2019s doctrine, his conclusions as to the immortality of the soul may\nlogically follow and that no further evidence is needed to convince us.\nYet Plato was not content to let the matter rest on this single\nargument, for in other dialogues he adduces proofs which do not seem so\nconvincing to us as to their author. He attempts to prove immortality\nfrom the self-motion of the soul, again from the dim recollections out\nof an earlier existence which enable one to recall axiomatic truths or\nto recognize relations, as in mathematics--things which one has never\nlearned in this present life. On another occasion he argues from the\nunchanging nature of the soul and from the soul\u2019s superiority to the\nbody. But he seems to have thought the most convincing proof was the\nfact that the notion of life is inseparable from our concept of the\nsoul; that is, a dead soul is unthinkable. For all these reasons,\ntherefore, he argued that the soul must be immortal.[13]\n\nWhatever we may think of Plato\u2019s different proofs, they have furnished\nthe armories of apologists almost down to our own day. In antiquity they\nwere constantly repeated, in whole or in part, not only by devoted\nmembers of the Academy and later by the Neoplatonists, but by the\nEclectics and others, like Cicero in the first book of his Tusculan\nDisputations, and at the close of Scipio\u2019s Dream; they were borrowed by\nthe Stoics, and some eight hundred years after Plato had first\nformulated them, they were employed by St. Augustine in his tract _De\nImmortalitate Animae_. The religious intuition of the Orphic and\nPythagorean then was given a rational basis by Plato, and thus\nsupported, proved so convincing to antiquity that Plato\u2019s views were the\nmost important of all in supporting belief in the soul\u2019s immortality.\nThey were in large measure taken up by the Christian church, and, as has\nbeen often shown, the doctrine of a spiritual immortality apart and free\nfrom the body, was of immense service to primitive Christianity, when\nthe hope of the early return of Christ to found a new kingdom on earth\nfaded before the lengthening years.\n\nTo Plato himself his belief in immortality was of the greatest moment,\nfor the whole fabric of his ethical and political philosophy is built\nagainst the background of that doctrine. And indeed we should all grant\nmuch validity to the argument that the human reason, though weak and\nlimited, is one with the divine and infinite reason; otherwise the human\ncould have no understanding of the divine. But when it is further argued\nthat if the human reason is of the same nature with the divine, it must\nbe eternal and immortal, we may reply that, even so, we are not\nconvinced that the individual soul must therefore have a conscious and\nseparate existence through all eternity; its identity may be lost by\nabsorption into the universal reason, the supreme idea. This is a matter\non which Plato nowhere delivers a clear opinion, but his thought is so\nplainly centered on the individual soul that we can hardly believe that\nit was possible for him to conceive of the soul\u2019s personality ever being\nlost in the Absolute.\n\nAlthough Plato and his greatest pupil, Aristotle, regarded man\u2019s\nreasoning soul as spiritual, something distinct from matter, few ancient\nthinkers were able to rise to the concept of the immateriality of man\u2019s\nreasoning nature. The Stoics, who in their eclectic system borrowed from\nboth Plato and Aristotle, as well as from many other predecessors, held\nto a strict materialism which they took from Heraclitus. But to their\nmaterial principle they applied a concept which they took from\nAristotle, for they recognized in all things the existence of an active\nand a passive principle, and they said that by the action of the former\non the latter, all phenomena were produced. The active principle they\ncalled reason, intelligence, the cause of all things. It was the\nworld-reason which, according to their view, permeated every part of\nthe cosmos, causing and directing all things. To express their concept\nof its nature, they often named it Fire, the most powerful and active of\nthe elements, or rather the primordial element; again they often called\nit God, for they did not hesitate to speak of this immanent principle as\na person. Furthermore, since man is a part of the cosmos, the\nworld-reason expresses itself in him. Indeed man\u2019s reason, the directing\nelement of the human soul, is itself a part of the world-reason, or in\nEpictetus\u2019 striking phrase, man is \u201ca fragment of God.\u201d[14] At this\npoint the Stoic and the Platonist were in accord, although the paths of\nthought which they had travelled were very different. Yet the Stoic\ncould not agree with the Platonist that the individual soul survived\nforever, since he held to a cyclical theory of the cosmos, according to\nwhich this present universe was temporal. It had been created by the\neternal fire, by the world-reason, from itself, and it was destined in\ndue season to sink back again into universal fire. Meantime, according\nto the views of most Stoics, the souls of the just would survive this\nbody, ascending to the spheres above the world, where they would dwell\nuntil absorbed once more into the divine element from which they sprang.\nTo the souls of the wicked only a short period at most of post-corporeal\nexistence was granted--brevity of life or annihilation was their\npunishment.[15]\n\nStrictly speaking, the prospect of the limited existence after death,\nwhich the Stoics held out as virtue\u2019s reward, should have had little\nvalue for the philosophic mind, especially as their philosophy offered\nno warrant that personality would survive at all. But it would seem that\nmen at every period of human history have had immortal longings in them\nso strong that they have eagerly embraced the assurance of even a brief\nrespite from annihilation; certain it is that to many Greeks and Romans\nthe Stoic doctrine of a limited existence after death was a strong\nincentive to virtue and a consolation in the midst of this world\u2019s\ntrials.\n\nBut no doctrine of the post-corporeal existence of the soul has ever had\nthe field entirely to itself. We know that in antiquity even the Stoic\nconception of the soul\u2019s limited survival, to say nothing of Platonic\nbeliefs in actual immortality, met with much opposition and denial among\nthe intellectual classes. The Epicureans, with their thorough-going\natomistic materialism, would not allow that the soul had any existence\napart from the body; on the contrary, they held that the soul came into\nbeing at the moment of conception, grew with the body, and, at the\nbody\u2019s death, was once more dissolved into the atoms from which it\nfirst was formed. Epicurean polemics were directed against both popular\nsuperstitions and Platonic metaphysics; the attacks had the advantage of\noffering rational, and for the day scientific, explanations of natural\nphenomena, which fed human curiosity as to the causes of things, and\nwhich, if accepted, might logically lead to that freedom from the soul\u2019s\nperturbation which was the aim of the teaching. Moreover, the noble\nresignation, the high moral and humane zeal, which characterized the\nEpicurean School at its best, as well as its easy decline into\nhedonistic appeals, made it popular, especially in the last two\ncenturies before our era. But the very fire and passion of Lucretius,\nits most gifted Latin exponent, give us the impression that after all\nmost men were not moved to find the peace which the poet promised them,\nif they would but accept the doctrine of the soul\u2019s dissolution at the\nmoment of death.\n\nThe Sceptics also, who claimed not an inconsiderable number of\nintellectuals, doubted the possibility of a future life, or found\nthemselves unable to decide the matter at all. Like Tennyson\u2019s Sage they\nwould declare:\n\n    \u201cThou canst not prove that thou art body alone,\n    Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone,\n    Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one:\n    Thou canst not prove that thou art immortal, no,\n    Nor yet that thou art mortal.\u201d\n\nIndeed it is true that of all the philosophic sects at the beginning of\nour era, only those which were imbued with Platonic and\nOrphic-Pythagorean ideas, had confidence in the soul\u2019s immortality. The\nStoic position we have already discussed. Some scholars, following\nRohde,[16] claim that there was little belief in any kind of a future\nlife among the educated classes at the time we are considering; this I\nhold to be an error, although it is certain that the Epicureans and\nSceptics had a large following. In any case we need to remind ourselves\nthat the intellectuals are always a small minority, whose views may not\nrepresent in any way popular beliefs.\n\nWe are, however, not without evidence that there were doubters among the\ncommon people. Flippant epigrams and epitaphs show that men could at\nleast assume a cynicism toward life and a light-heartedness toward death\nwhich equal Lucian\u2019s. More than once we can read funerary inscriptions\nto this effect: \u201cI was nothing, I am nothing. Do thou who art still\nalive, eat, drink, be merry, come.\u201d[17] Or sentiments like this: \u201cOnce I\nhad no existence; now I have none. I am not aware of it. It does not\nconcern me.\u201d[18] Again we find the denial: \u201cIn Hades there is no boat,\nno Charon, no Aeacus who holds the keys, no Cerberus. All of us, whom\ndeath has taken away are rotten bones and ashes; nothing more.\u201d[19] The\nsentiments are perhaps as old as thinking man. They have at times\ntouches of humor which call forth a smile, as in the anxious inquiries\nof Callimachus\u2019 epigram: \u201cCharidas, what is below?\u201d \u201cDeep darkness.\u201d\n\u201cBut what of the paths upward?\u201d \u201cAll a lie.\u201d \u201cAnd Pluto?\u201d \u201cMere talk.\u201d\n\u201cThen we\u2019re lost.\u201d[20]\n\nSuch expressions, of course, must not be given too much weight in our\nreckoning. The longing for annihilation, which appeals at times to most\nweary mortals, also led to dedications \u201cto eternal rest\u201d or \u201cto eternal\nsleep.\u201d[21] But after all the number of such epitaphs is comparatively\nsmall. In the nature of the case many funerary inscriptions give no\ntestimony for or against a belief in immortality; but large numbers\nshow confidence, or a hope, in a future life.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe time has now come for us to return from our rather long historical\nsurvey to Virgil\u2019s Apocalypse, and to listen to the words with which\nAnchises\u2019 shade taught his eager son:\n\n    \u201cKnow first that heaven and earth and ocean\u2019s plain,\n    The moon\u2019s bright orb, and stars of Titan birth\n    Are nourished by one Life; one primal Mind,\n    Immingled with the vast and general frame,\n    Fills every part and stirs the mighty whole.\n    Thence man and beast, thence creatures of the air,\n    And all the swarming monsters that be found\n    Beneath the level of the marbled sea;\n    A fiery virtue, a celestial power,\n    Their native seeds retain; but bodies vile,\n    With limbs of clay and members born to die,\n    Encumber and o\u2019ercloud; whence also spring\n    Terrors and passions, suffering and joy;\n    For from deep darkness and captivity\n    All gaze but blindly on the radiant world.\n    Nor when to life\u2019s last beam they bid farewell\n    May sufferers cease from pain, nor quite be freed\n    From all their fleshly plagues; but by fixed law,\n    The strange, inveterate taint works deeply in.\n    For this, the chastisement of evils past\n    Is suffered here, and full requital paid.\n    Some hang on high, outstretched to viewless winds;\n    For some their sin\u2019s contagion must be purged\n    In vast ablution of deep-rolling seas,\n    Or burned away in fire. Each man receives\n    His ghostly portion in the world of dark;\n    But thence to realms Elysian we go free,\n    Where for a few these seats of bliss abide,\n    Till time\u2019s long lapse a perfect orb fulfills,\n    And takes all taint away, restoring so\n    The pure, ethereal soul\u2019s first virgin fire.\n    At last, when the millennial aeon strikes,\n    God calls them forth to yon Lethaean stream,\n    In numerous host, that thence, oblivious all,\n    They may behold once more the vaulted sky,\n    And willingly to shapes of flesh return.\u201d[22]\n\nThese words express the commingled beliefs of Orphic, Pythagorean,\nPlatonist, and Stoic. How extensively such beliefs were held by Virgil\u2019s\ncontemporaries we cannot say with accuracy, but certain it is that this\nbook and this passage would never have made the religious appeal which\nthey made in antiquity, if they had not corresponded to widespread\nconvictions.\n\nBut Virgil\u2019s sixth book contains much more than the eschatological views\nof philosophic schools; it reflects to an extraordinary degree popular\nideas and practices. I have already referred to the fact that it\nrepresents a mystic initiation of Virgil\u2019s hero as preparation for his\nholy task. Now we know that at all times the convictions of the majority\nof men are founded not on the arguments which thinkers can supply, but\non hopes, intuitions, and emotional experiences. Such were the grounds\non which the Orphic built his hope of the purified soul\u2019s ultimate\nhappiness. More popular than Orphism were the Greek mysteries, of which\nthe most important were those celebrated annually at Eleusis in Attica.\nThere the story of the rape of Proserpina, of Demeter\u2019s search for her\ndaughter, and of the daughter\u2019s recovery, formed the center of a mystic\nceremonial. Originally these mysteries were no doubt agricultural rites\nintended to call to life the dead grain in the spring. But before the\nseventh century, B.C., the festival had been transformed; the miracle of\nthe reviving vegetation, of the grain which dies and lives again, here,\nas so many times elsewhere, had become the symbol and assurance of human\nimmortality.[23]\n\nBefore admission to the annual celebration the would-be initiate was\nduly purified. During the celebration the initiated, by their own acts,\nrecalled Demeter\u2019s hunt for her daughter, roaming the shore with\nlighted torches; like the goddess, they fasted and then broke their fast\nby drinking a holy potion of meal and water; in the great hall of\ninitiation they witnessed a mystic drama, perhaps saw holy objects\nexhibited and explained. In any case they underwent an emotional\nexperience which so confirmed their intuitional belief in immortality,\nthat they were confident of peace and happiness in this life and of\nblessedness in the life to come, where they would join in the sacred\ndance, while the uninitiated would be wretched. Many are the expressions\nof this ecclesiastical confidence. The Homeric hymn of Demeter promised:\n\u201cBlessed is he among mortal men who has seen these rites.\u201d[24] Pindar,\nearly in the fifth century, wrote: \u201cHappy he who has seen these things\nand then goes beneath the earth, for he knows the end of life and its\nZeus-given beginning.\u201d[25] Sophocles said: \u201cThrice blessed are they who\nhave seen these rites, and then go to the house of Hades, for they alone\nhave life there, but all others have only woe.\u201d[26] At the close of the\nfifth century Aristophanes made his chorus of mystae sing: \u201cFor we alone\nhave a sun and a holy light, we who have been initiated, and who live\nhonorably toward friends and strangers, reverencing the gods.\u201d[27] In\nthe third century of the Christian era, an official of the mysteries set\nup an inscription which declares: \u201cVerily glorious is that mystery\nvouchsafed by the blessed gods, for death is no ill for mortals, but\nrather a good.\u201d[28]\n\nIt is difficult for us now to appreciate the widespread influence of\nthese Eleusinian mysteries. They had many branches; at Eleusis they\ncontinued to be celebrated until 396 A.D., when Alaric the Goth\ndestroyed Demeter\u2019s ancient shrine. Other Greek mysteries also\nflourished in the Mediterranean world: those of Samothrace; the\nmysteries of Bacchus, whose excesses brought down the displeasure of the\nRoman Senate in 186 B.C.; and in later times the mysteries of Hecate or\nDiana. All had this in common, that they gave the initiate assurance of\na happy immortality.\n\nUnder the Roman Empire the longing for religious satisfaction through\nmystic rites and revelations found new and exotic sources of\ngratification. Slaves, traders, and finally soldiers from Hellenized\nEgypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, carried their gods throughout the\nMediterranean world, and even beyond, to the Atlantic Ocean, to\nHadrian\u2019s Wall in Britain, to the Rhine and Danube, and to the borders\nof the African desert. The invasion of the West by these oriental gods\nbegan in 204 B.C., when, in answer to the Roman Senate\u2019s invitation, the\nAsiatic Great Mother of the Gods took up her residence in Rome. Many\nother divinities came during the succeeding centuries; but three\nremained most prominent: the Great Mother of the Gods, whom I have just\nmentioned, with her attendant Attis; Egyptian Isis and her associate\ndivinities, who were worshipped in Rome as early as Cicero\u2019s day; and\nthe Persian Mithras, whose cult became influential in the West toward\nthe close of the first century of our era.[29] These religions added to\ntheir exotic charm that spell which great age casts over men\u2019s\nimaginations. Osiris, the husband of Isis, had been lord of the dead in\nEgypt for more than two thousand years; Attis and the Great Mother\nbelonged to an immemorial antiquity; while Mithras had his origin in the\nremoter East, at a period to which neither Greek nor Roman knowledge\nran. Moreover, Attis and Osiris, like Dionysus and Persephone among the\nGreeks, or the Semitic Adonis and Tammuz, were gods who died and lived\nagain, and who therefore became warrants of man\u2019s immortality. Mithras\nbelonged to another class of divinities. He was held to be the\nbenefactor and constant supporter of mankind. According to the sacred\nlegend, he had himself wrestled with the powers of darkness and had\nestablished civilization on earth, before he ascended to heaven, whence\nhe was believed to aid his faithful followers in their constant struggle\nagainst the servants of Ahriman, the lord of wickedness.\n\nThe devotees of these gods formed sacred communities, admission to which\nwas obtained by secret initiation; the rituals were mysteries in which\nthe devotee had pictured to him, or himself acted out, the sacred drama,\nwhereby he received assurance of divine protection here and of a happy\nimmortality hereafter. The initiate, moreover, was believed to\nexperience a new birth and to enter into union with his god, so that he\nbecame Osiris-Serapis, or Attis, or Mithras, even as the Dionysiac\ndevotee became a Bacchus.\n\nTo the question how the comforting assurance of present safety and of\nfuture immortality was given the initiate, we can return no more\nsatisfactory answer than we can make in the case of the Greek mysteries;\nyet we may get some hint from the words which the Latin writer,\nApuleius, puts into the mouth of his hero, Lucius, who was initiated\ninto the rites of Isis. This is all that he might tell: \u201cI approached\nthe bounds of death. I trod the threshold of Proserpina. I was carried\nthrough all the elements and returned again to the upper air. At dead of\nnight I saw the sun glowing with a brilliant light. The gods of heaven\nand of hell I approached in very person and worshipped face to\nface.\u201d[30] Obscure as these words are, much is plain. In some way the\ndevotee was made to believe that he, like Virgil\u2019s hero, had passed\nthrough the world of the dead and had been born again into a new life;\nhe had touched the elements--earth, air, water, and fire, the very\nfoundations of the visible cosmos; he had seen the sun which ever shines\non the consecrated; and he had been granted the beatific vision.\nTherefore he knew that his salvation was secure forever.\n\nFurthermore in these mystery religions preparation for the emotional\nexperiences of initiation was made by means of lustral baths, fasting,\nabstinence, and penance; once consecrated, the devotee supported his\nreligious life by following a prescribed regimen and by participating in\nfrequent holy offices; degrees of initiation and grades of office marked\nhis advance in faithful proficiency; while magic words and formulae,\ncommitted to memory, assured him a safe passage from this world to the\nnext.\n\nThe oriental mysteries enjoyed a widespread popularity, except in\nGreece, under the Roman Empire down to the latter half of the third\ncentury. Then they began to lose their hold in the Roman provinces\nbefore the growing power of Christianity; yet in the city of Rome they\nstubbornly held their ground until the end of the fourth century. The\nfirst St. Peter\u2019s was built hard beside a shrine of the Great Mother of\nthe Gods; there for three-quarters of a century the old and the new\nmysteries strove in conscious rivalry, until at last Cybele was forced\nto yield to Christ.\n\nThe last centuries before the birth of Jesus and the opening centuries\nof our era were marked by an increasing religious longing and unrest,\nfirst among the Greeks and then among the Romans. There was a weariness\nand a dissatisfaction with the inherited forms of religious expression;\nand many felt a sense of separation from God, of a gulf between the\nhuman and the divine, which they hoped might be bridged by a direct\nrevelation, by a vision, which would grant immediate knowledge of God.\nThese eager desires led in part to an increase in superstition and\ncredulity, over which we need not now pause; in part to the resort to\nthe oriental mysteries of which I have just spoken; and in part to a\nrevival of Pythagorean mysticism and of mystic Platonism among the\nintellectuals, who no longer felt that the reason and the will gave them\nthe assurance which they required.\n\nThe later mystic philosophies laid much stress on an ascetic discipline\nin this life, to secure the soul\u2019s purification, and all taught that the\ngreat end of man was to attain to the knowledge of God, wherein lay\nman\u2019s supreme happiness. Such knowledge, it was thought, could come only\nthrough a revelation. Here these philosophies agreed with the teaching\nof the oriental mysteries, and indeed with popular belief as well. On\nthe question of the immortality of the soul, however, the later mystics\nbrought forward no new arguments. Plotinus, the greatest of the\nNeoplatonists, virtually repeats the proofs adduced by the founder of\nthe Academy.[31] Undoubtedly during the opening centuries of the\nChristian era there was a growing belief in the soul\u2019s immortality, or\nat least an increasing hope of a future life, but such hopes and\nbeliefs, outside Christianity, were not based on new arguments. Plato\nhad once for all in antiquity, supplied the philosophic grounds for\nconfidence. Only in modern times have new arguments of any weight been\nadduced.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us now pause to summarize the results of the considerations which\nhave thus far occupied us. We may fairly say that, in spite of popular\ndoubt, intellectual scepticism, and philosophic denial, beliefs in some\nkind of existence beyond the grave were widespread in the Greco-Roman\nworld at the beginning of our era. For many, probably for most, belief\ndid not advance beyond inherited intuitions, fears, or hopes, which were\nfostered by tendance of the dead, prescribed by immemorial custom. Many,\nboth the simple and the learned, found their assurance in diverse forms\nof Greek mysteries; others, again, strengthened to endure the buffetings\nof this life by the resolute doctrines of Stoicism, were satisfied with\nthe extended, though limited, future existence vouchsafed the virtuous;\nwhile the later Platonists, returning to the mystic Orphic-Pythagorean\nelements which had influenced the founder of their school, offered\ntheir disciples arguments in favor of a genuine immortality. Under the\nEmpire the supports of faith became more numerous and appealing. At the\nlowest end of the scale were charlatans, as there had been since Plato\u2019s\nday,[32] who imposed on the fears and hopes of their victims for their\nown mercenary ends. Higher were those inspiring Eastern mysteries which\nwere carried to the remotest provinces, binding their devotees by\ninitiation, ritual service, and a prescribed regimen, more constantly to\na religious life than Greek mysteries had ever done; and the great end\nof all was the assurance that the souls of the faithful should not die,\nbut should mount to the upper heavens to be at one with God.\n\nThe last vital philosophy of antiquity was Neoplatonism, on which we\nhave just touched; the chief aim of the Neoplatonist also was to secure\nunion with the Divine, and his greatest article of faith was the soul\u2019s\nimmortality. If this theosophic philosophy seem to any of poor account,\nI would remind him that by Origen and Augustine Neoplatonism was brought\ninto Christian thought, where it has been operative ever since.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nIn view of the facts with which we have been occupied we shall not make\nthe error of thinking that Christianity brought the hope of immortality\namong men, for, as we have seen, hope--nay, sure confidence, in the\nsoul\u2019s survival was widespread throughout the ancient world when Jesus\nbegan his ministry. What can we say of early Christian teaching, and how\nwas it related to its pagan environment?\n\nChristianity grew out of Judaism. Now it is a striking fact that the\nJews were later than most of the peoples about them in conceiving of\nindividual immortality.[33] Clinging to monotheism and absorbed in the\nlife of their nation, they had cut themselves off from some of the ideas\ndeveloped by their neighbors. To follow out the intricate and uncertain\nhistory of eschatological ideas among the Jews would be too difficult\nhere. We may simply say that when Jesus began his ministry a\nconsiderable part of the Jews had abandoned the expectation of a\nmaterial kingdom of God and looked forward to a spiritual kingdom on a\ntransformed earth or in heaven. In this kingdom those would share, who\nthrough God\u2019s grace and their own righteousness had won a place therein;\nbut the wicked were either to be punished forever or to be utterly\ndestroyed. To these ideas Jesus\u2019 teaching was closely related, although\nhe gave a nobler meaning to Jewish doctrine, and he did not limit the\nhope of a future existence so narrowly as some would do. Moreover, he\nadopted from the law the teaching which made salvation and future\nhappiness depend on a love for God and for one\u2019s fellow-men, which would\nresult in an unselfish life of righteousness. Salvation, he taught, was\na present experience, open to every man who conformed to the\nrequirement.\n\nAfter the crucifixion of Jesus, the Apostles and their successors\nnaturally made his person, death, and resurrection the great means\nthrough which his followers secured salvation. Paul, moreover, taught\nthat through faith--using the word in a somewhat unusual sense--the\nbeliever secured the actual presence of Christ within him, entered into\na mystic union with the divine Saviour, by which the man was freed from\nsin and reborn into a new spiritual life; this new life was confirmed by\nthe indwelling Holy Spirit which completed the man\u2019s moral\nregeneration. In the Fourth Gospel we find a similar doctrine of a\nmystic union with Christ, secured by belief in Him as the incarnate\nWord--a belief which brought about a spiritual rebirth and therewith\ngave a present warrant of eternal life.[34]\n\nIt is unnecessary for our present purpose to examine the beliefs of the\nearliest Christians as to the resurrection or the second coming of\nChrist, which they expected to take place within their own time--these\nbeliefs and many others the Apostolic Church derived naturally from\ntheir Jewish tradition and from the teachings of Jesus. I shall ask you\nrather to focus your thought on the fundamental ideas of this early\nChristianity: that is to say, on the revelation of God, the punishment\nof sin by suffering or annihilation, the mystic union with the Divine,\nand a happy immortality as a reward for faith and righteousness. Were\nthese ideas foreign to the peoples of the Mediterranean area? No, our\nsurvey has reminded us that on the contrary they were familiar over wide\nstretches of the Greco-Roman world.\n\nDo not misunderstand me here. Of course I am not making the elementary\nblunder of saying that because certain beliefs of the Christians and the\nPagans were similar, they therefore were identical, or that they were\nderived from one another, or that the many factors of which they were\ncomposed were the same. No one with any knowledge of the history of\nreligious thought could maintain that. But the point which I do wish to\nemphasize is this, viz.: that the eschatological ideas widely current in\nthe Mediterranean world were such that Christianity found a favorable\nenvironment when it began its proselyting work. This seems to me one of\nthe most significant facts in the relation of early Christianity to\npaganism. The Christian teachings as to the means by which the assurance\nof a happy immortality was to be secured could hardly seem very strange\nat first hearing to any one who was familiar with mystery religions or\nwith much of the religious philosophy current in the pagan world during\nthe early Christian centuries. Closer examination would reveal\nfundamental differences between Christian belief and the pagan hope. But\nit is not insignificant that Christianity spread most rapidly at first\nin Syria and Asia Minor, countries long familiar with those mystic\nreligions, which had promised what the nobler faith supplied.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nAlthough we now have examined the conditions which, to my mind, are the\nmost significant in the relation of pagan ideas of immortality to those\nof early Christianity, there yet remain matters which, if less\nimportant, are still of more than merely curious interest. We shall now\nlook at some of these questions.\n\nWhat notions of heaven and of hell did the Greeks and Romans have? This\ninquiry is often made. The reply is easily given. Man has always painted\nhell and paradise after his own conception of suffering and of\nhappiness, just as truly as he has made God after his own image.\nConsequently the ancient\u2019s ideas of the future life ranged all the way\nfrom the grossest materialistic concepts to highly spiritualized\nbeliefs. Plato in the Republic makes Adeimantus say that some seem to\nthink that an immortality of drunkenness is virtue\u2019s highest meed.[35]\nBut Socrates conceived the future state to be something very different;\na place in which he could hold high discourse with the great ones of the\npast.[36] In general, however, punishment and rewards were of a material\nsort, for such are most easily imagined and understood. Has it been\notherwise with Christians? The answer is to be found in Christian\napocalypses, medieval monuments, renaissance art, and in our own minds.\nOf course there developed in Greek thought what we might call an\northodox geography and scheme for the other world, of which Virgil gives\nus a just picture. Interesting as it might prove to examine the details\nof this picture, we will rather turn to other matters.\n\nWhen Christianity spread among the Gentiles, it at once came under\ninfluences which inevitably left their marks in its thought and\npractice. Let me offer two illustrations.\n\nEarly in the hour I spoke of Aeneas\u2019 journey through the lower world as\nan initiation by which he was enlightened and strengthened for the great\ntask that lay before him; and we have now seen that in all the\nmysteries, both Greek and oriental, there were initiatory rites, in\nwhich the novice symbolically died to the old life and was born again\ninto a new existence. Moreover, through his emotional experience he\nreceived assurance that his salvation was secure forever. The idea of\nthe new birth belongs to Christianity also from the first. Paul held\nthat it was brought about by faith; the author of the Fourth Gospel\ntaught that it was secured by love and belief. Baptism in primitive\nChristianity was at first symbolical--an act of ritual purification,\nwhich was believed to indicate the remission of sins and the bestowal of\nthe Holy Spirit.[37] But by the second century Christianity had become a\nmystery in the Greek sense, into which the novice, after a period of\npreparation, was duly initiated by baptism; and indeed the act was\nbelieved to have a magic power to secure immortality, closely parallel\nto that of the pagan initiation.[38] We all know that the\necclesiastical confidence which such belief inspires is far from unknown\ntoday.\n\nAgain you will recall that when Anchises\u2019 shade was instructing Aeneas\nin the meaning of life and death, he said:\n\n    \u201cNor when to life\u2019s last beam they bid farewell\n    May sufferers cease from pain, nor quite be freed\n    From all their fleshly plagues; but by fixed law,\n    The strange, inveterate taint works deeply in.\n    For this, the chastisement of evils past\n    Is suffered here, and full requital paid.\n    Some hang on high, outstretched to viewless winds;\n    For some their sin\u2019s contagion must be purged\n    In vast ablution of deep-rolling seas,\n    Or burned away in fire. Each man receives\n    His ghostly portion in the world of dark.\u201d\n\nThus the sojourn of the soul in the world below for the thousand years\nwhich must elapse before it could be born again, was a period of\ncleansing from ancient sin. This idea of purification we have already\nseen to be as old as the Orphics; it was made an important element by\nPlato; and indeed all who held to the doctrine of rebirths regarded the\nperiods between earthly existences as times of moral punishment and\ncleansing. There were certain analogies in Mithraism. Orthodox\nChristianity could not adopt the doctrine of metempsychosis, although\nsome Gnostics found this possible, by rejecting the resurrection of the\nbody. But beyond question the Greek doctrine of post-mortem purgation\nfrom sin, combining with ideas inherited from the Old Testament, has\nbeen influential in the development of a Christian belief in\npurification, especially by fire, in an intermediate state between death\nand paradise. The doctrine of purgatory, in somewhat different forms,\nhas been held by both the Eastern and the Western Churches. Although\nthis doctrine did not become a definite part of the theology of the\nWestern Church until the time of Gregory the Great (590-604),\nnevertheless traces of it can be found in the earlier Church writers.\nOrigen held that even the perfect must pass through fire after\ndeath;[39] St. Augustine was less confident, but he thought it not past\nbelief that imperfect souls might be saved by cleansing flames.[40] The\nWestern Church, from St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth to Bellarmino\nin the sixteenth century held the doctrine that the cleansing fire was\nas material as that of any Stoic; but today that view has in large part\nbeen abandoned.[41]\n\nThese two illustrations must suffice to suggest the ways in which\nChristian thought was influenced by its pagan environment.\n\nFinally we will consider an example of parallelism between pagan and\nChristian ideas. It is evident that the Greeks, who made such large use\nof successive rebirths, following periods of punishment and\npurification below, thought of these repeated lives and deaths as\nforming a moral series, so that moral progress, or degeneracy, at one\nstage was inseparably connected with both the preceding and the\nfollowing stages. To them life here and life in the other world were\nindissolubly bound together. This was also as true of Stoicism with its\nlimited reward for uprightness, as it was of Platonism. The Greek\nmysteries, which did not concern themselves with metempsychosis, by the\nfifth century before our era likewise made future happiness depend in\npart at least on righteousness in this life; the oriental mysteries too\nmade this existence the condition of the next. In short, we may say that\nwherever men believed in any kind of a future existence, they almost\nuniversally held to the common belief that future happiness was to be\nthe reward of a virtuous life on earth. But this is one of the\nfundamental principles of Christianity. Paganism, therefore, was in\naccord on this point with its enemy, and thereby favored the propagation\nof the new religion; moreover, the superior ethical demands of\nChristianity and its humanitarian principles no doubt found a ready\nresponse, especially in enlightened circles.\n\nSo we have returned to that which seems to me most important in the\nrelations of paganism and of early Christianity. In many ways paganism\nprovided an environment favorable for the spread of the religion which\nJesus founded. The two were at many points irreconcilable, and the\nformer has not always benefited the latter by its influence; but it is a\ngrave historical error not to recognize the areas in which the thought\nof the two ran parallel. Is the nobler faith the poorer because its\npaths were made broad by the pagan in his search after Immortality?\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\n1. Eduard Norden, _Aeneis_, _Buch VI_, Leipzig, 1903, is most useful for\nits commentary, especially on religious and philosophic matters.\n\n2. W. Warde Fowler, _The Religious Experience of the Roman People_,\nMacmillan Co., 1911, pp. 419 ff.\n\nSo Dante\u2019s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise secured his\nconversion and salvation, bringing him finally to freedom and to\nknowledge. _Paradiso_, XXXI, 85-87 and XXXIII entire.\n\n3. Metempsychosis was the subject of the Ingersoll lecture by Professor\nGeorge Foot Moore in 1914. Therefore that theme is not discussed here.\n\n4. Cf. Friedl\u00e4nder, _Roman Life and Manners_, Routledge, London, 1910,\niii, chap. II.\n\n5. On the pre-Hellenic periods, see Schuchhardt, _Schliemann\u2019s\nExcavations_, New York, 1891, passim; Lagrange, _La Cr\u00e8te Ancienne_,\nParis, 1908, chap. II; Baikie, _The Sea-Kings of Crete_, London, 1910,\nchap. XI.\n\n6. Cf. Fairbanks, _Greek Religion_, New York, 1910, pp. 168-188;\nStengel, _Griechische Kultusaltert\u00fcmer_, 2d ed., Munich, 1898, \u00a7 80;\nWissowa, _Religion und Kultus der R\u00f6mer_, 2d ed., Munich, 1912, \u00a7 36; W.\nWarde Fowler, _Religious Experience of the Roman People_, London, 1911,\npassim; and especially Lecture XVII, \u201cMysticism--Ideas of the Future\nLife;\u201d C. Pascal, _Le Credenze d\u2019Oltretomba_, 2 vols., 1912.\n\n7. B. I. Wheeler, _Dionysos and Immortality_, Ingersoll Lecture for\n1898-99. The classic work on Orphism is Rohde, _Psyche: Seelencult und\nUnsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen_, 3d ed., T\u00fcbingen, 1903, vol. ii.\n\n8. _Frg._ 154 Abel.\n\n9. Apparently Orphism was already established at Croton in southern\nItaly when Pythagoras arrived there about 530 B.C.; but the matter is\nvery uncertain. It is clear that Orphism and Pythagoreanism soon\ncoalesced, even if they were originally distinct.\n\n10. _Rep._, vi, 508 f. It should be said that the identity of Plato\u2019s\nsupreme idea with God is denied by some Platonists; but cf. _Phil._ 22C;\n_Tim._ 28A-29E, 57A, 92C.\n\n11. The doctrine of ideas is developed in the _Phaedo_, _Phaedrus_,\n_Meno_, _Symposium_, and especially in the _Republic_. In the _Sophist_\nand the _Parmenides_, Plato criticizes his own views acutely.\n\n12. _Metaphys._, i, 9; vi, 8; xii, 10; xiii, 3.\n\n13. _Phaedrus_, 245 (cf. _Laws_, x, 894B ff., xii, 966E); _Phaedo_, 72\nff., 86, 105; _Meno_, 81 ff.\n\n14. _Diss._, i, 14, 6; ii, 8, 11.\n\n15. Cf. E. V. Arnold, _Roman Stoicism_, University Press, Cambridge\n(Eng.), 1911, chap. XI.\n\n16. Rohde, _Psyche_, ii^3, 379 ff.\n\n17. _CIL._, ii, 1434; cf. 1877, 2262.\n\n18. _CIL._, v, 1939.\n\n19. _CIL._, vi, 14672 = _Ins. Graec._, xiv, 1746.\n\n20. Call., _Epig._, 13, 3 ff.\n\n21. _CIL._, iii, 5825; vi, 9280, 10848; x, 6706; etc.\n\n22. _Aen._, vi, 723-751. Translation by Theodore C. Williams, Houghton\nMifflin Company, Boston, 1908.\n\n23. On these mysteries, see Rohde, _Psyche_, i^3, pp. 278 ff.; Farnell,\n_Cults of the Greek States_, iii, 126-213; A. Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt\nAthen_, pp. 204-277, 405-421.\n\n24. 480 f.\n\n25. _Frg._ 137.\n\n26. _Frg._ 753.\n\n27. 454 ff.\n\n28. _Eph. Arch._, iii (1883), p. 81, 8.\n\n29. On these and other oriental gods, see F. Cumont, _The Oriental\nReligions in Roman Paganism_, Chicago, 1911; also G. Showerman, _The\nGreat Mother of the Gods_, 1901; Hepding, _Attis_, 1903; W. Budge,\n_Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection_, 2 vols., 1911; G. A. Reisner,\n_The Egyptian Conception of Immortality_, Ingersoll Lecture for 1911; F.\nCumont, _Textes et Monuments relatifs aux Myst\u00e8res de Mithra_, 2 vols.,\n1894-1900; Id., _Les Myst\u00e8res de Mithra_, 2 ed., 1902; English\ntranslation, 1910.\n\n30. Apuleius, _Metamorphoses_, xi, 23.\n\n31. _Enn._, iv, 7.\n\n32. Cf. Plato, _Rep._, 364 B ff.; _Demosth._, xviii, 259; Apul., _Met._,\nviii, 24 ff.\n\n33. R. H. Charles, _A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life\nin Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity_, London, 1899, is a\nconvenient book, but one which must be used with caution.\n\n34. A. Harnack, _Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte_, i, 4th ed., 1909;\nEnglish translation from the third German edition, 1901; G. B. Stevens,\n_The Theology of the New Testament_, 1903; H. Holtzmann, _Lehrbuch der\nneutestamentlichen Theologie_, 2 vols., 2d ed., 1911.\n\n35. _Rep._, ii, 363 D.\n\n36. _Apol._, 41.\n\n37. It should be said that even in the earliest period Christian baptism\nhad certain magical notions attached to it; not, however, the belief\nthat it secured immortality.\n\n38. Cf. Hatch, _The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages on the Christian\nChurch_, X, B; Anrich, _Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfluss auf\ndas Christentum_, 1894, pp. 168 ff., especially 179 ff.\n\n39. _Hom. in Num._, xxv; _in Ps._ xxxvi, 3.\n\n40. _C. D._, xx, 25; xxi, 13 (where Virgil\u2019s verses given above are\nquoted), 26; _de octo Dulcitii Quaest._, _Qu._ i, 13; _Enchiridion_,\nlxix.\n\n41. St. Thomas, _Opera_ (Venice, 1759), xii, p. 575, _Distinctio_ xxi,\n_Quaes._ 1, _Sol._ 3; xiii, p. 347 ff., _Distinctio_ xliv, _Quaes._ 3,\n_Art._ 4, _Quaestiunc._ 3; Bellarmino, _de Purgatorio_, II, x-xii.","title":"Pagan Ideas of Immortality During the Early Roman Empire","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":9812}