Purgatory, Mary Anne Madden Sadlier [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

forming an opinion are more ample.

Zoroaster, or, more correctly, Zarathustra, the founder of the Persian religion, was born, according to some accounts, in the sixth century before our era, while others claim for him an antiquity dating at least from the thirteenth century before Christ. Be that as it may - and it does not concern us to inquire into it - this much is certain: he was a firm believer in a middle state, and he transmitted the same to his followers. But, going a step further than some, he taught that the souls undergoing purification are helped by the prayers of their friends upon earth. "The Zoroastrians," says Mr. Rawlinson, "were devout believers in the immortality of the soul and a conscious future existence. They taught that immediately after death the souls of men, both good and bad, proceeded together along an appointed path, to 'the bridge of the gatherer.' This was a narrow road conducting to heaven or paradise, over which the souls of the pious alone could pass, while the wicked fell from it into the gulf below, where they found themselves in the place of punishment. The good soul was assisted across the bridge by the Angel Serosh - 'the happy, well-formed, swift, tall Serosh' - who met the weary wayfarer, and sustained his steps as he effected the difficult passage. The prayers of his friends in this world were of much avail to the deceased, and greatly helped him on his journey." [1]

[Footnote 1: "Ancient Monarchies." Vol. II, p 339.]

With regard to the opinions held by the Greeks, - and the same may, in general terms, be applied to the Romans, whose religious views coincided more or less closely with those of their more polished neighbors, - it is difficult to form a correct idea. Not that the classic writers and philosophers have permitted the subject to sink into oblivion, - on the contrary, they have treated it at considerable length, as all classic scholars well know, - but while, on the one hand, as I remarked above, there is a difference between the popular ideas and those of the learned, there is also here a great difference of opinion between the various schools of philosophy. Not only so, but it is difficult to determine how far the philosophers themselves were in earnest in the opinions they expressed; and how far, too, we understand them. The opinions of the people, and much more, those of the learned, vary with the principal periods of Grecian and Roman history. This much, however, may be safely held, that, while they drew their origin from Central or Western Asia, their religion must, in the beginning, have been that of the countries from which they came. But truth only is immutable; error is ever changing.

I shall not tax the patience of the reader by asking him to pass in review the more striking periods of the history of these famous nations, but shall content myself with giving the views of a celebrated writer on a part, at least, of the question. Speaking of the opinions held by the Greek philosophers regarding the future state of the soul, Dr. Dollinger says, "The old and universal tradition admitted, in general, that man continued to exist after death; but the Greeks of the Homeric age did not dream of a retribution appointed to all after death, or of purifying and penitential punishments. It is only some conspicuous offenders against the gods who, in Homer, are tormented in distant Erebus. In Hesiod, the earlier races of man continue to live on, sometimes as good demons, sometimes as souls of men in bliss, or as heroes; yet, though inculcating moral obligations, he does not point to a reward to be looked for beyond the grave, but only to the justice that dominates in this economy.... Plato expressly ascribes to the Orphic writers the dogma of the soul's finding herself in the body as in a sepulchre or prison, on the score of previously contracted guilt; a dogma indubitably ascending to a very high antiquity.

"... It is from this source that Pindar drew, who, of the old Greeks, generally has expressed notions the most precise and minutely distinct of trial and tribulation after death, and the circuits and lustrations of the soul. He assigns the island of the blest as for the everlasting enjoyment of those who, in a triple existence in the upper and lower world, have been able to keep their souls perfectly pure from all sin. On the other hand, the souls of sinners appear after death before the judgment seat of a judge of the nether world, by whom they are sentenced to a heavy doom, and are ceaselessly dragged the world over, suffering bloody torments. But as for those whom Persephone has released from the old guilt of sin, their souls she sends in the ninth year back again to the upper sun; of them are born mighty kings, and men of power and wisdom, who come to be styled saintly heroes by their posterity." And, again: "Plato was the first of the Greeks to throw himself, in all sincerity, and with the whole depth of his intellect, upon the solution of the great question of immortality.... He was, in truth, the prophet of the doctrine of immortality for his time, and for the Greek nation.... The metempsychosis which he taught under Orphic and Pythagorean inspiration is an essential ingredient of his theory of the world, and is, therefore, perpetually recurring in his more important works. He connects it with an idea sifted and taken from popular belief of a state of penance in Hades, though it can hardly be ascertained how large a portion of mystical ornament or poetical conjecture he throws into the particular delineation of 'the last things,' and of transmigration. He adopts ten grades of migration, each of a thousand years; so that the soul, in each migration, makes a selection of its life-destiny, and renews its penance ten times, until it is enabled to return to an incorporeal existence with God, and to the pure contemplation of Him and the ideal world. Philosophic souls only escape after a three-fold migration, in each of which they choose again their first mode of life. All other souls are judged in the nether world after their first life, and there do penance for their guilt in different quarters; the incurable only are thrust down forever into Tartarus. He attaches eternal punishment to certain particularly abominable sins, while such as have lived justly repose blissfully in the dwelling of a kindred star until their entrance into a second life. Plato was clearly acquainted with the fact of the necessity of an intermediate state between eternal happiness and misery, a state of penance and purification after death." [1]

[Footnote 1: "The Gentile and the Jew," Vol. I. pp. 301-320.]

The popular notion of Charon, the ferryman of the lower world, refusing to carry over the river Acheron the souls of such as had not been buried, but leaving them to wander on the shores for a century before he would consent, or rather before he was permitted by the rulers of the Hades to do so, contains a vestige of the belief in a middle state, where some souls had to suffer for a time before they could enter into the abode of the blest. But when it is said that the friends of the deceased could, by interring his remains, secure his entry into the desired repose, we see a more striking resemblance to the doctrine that friends on earth are able to assist the souls undergoing purgation. A remarkable instance of the popular belief in this doctrine is furnished in Grecian history, where the soldiers were encouraged on a certain occasion to risk their lives in the service of their country by their being told to write their names on their arms, so that if any fell his friends could have him properly interred, and thus secure him against all fear of having to wander for a century on the bleak shores of the dividing river. Nothing could better show the hold which this idea had on the minds of the people.

Roman mythological ideas were, as has been said, nearly related to those of Greece; they underwent as great modifications, while the opinions of her philosophers were equally abstruse, varied, and difficult to understand. The author above quoted, treating of the notion of the soul and a future state entertained by the Roman philosophers, proves their ideas to have been extremely vague and ill- defined. Still, there were not wanting those who held to the belief of an existence after this life. Plutarch, a Greek, "has left us a view of the state of the departed. The souls of the dead, ascending through the air, and in part reaching the highest heaven, are either luminous and transparent or dark and spotted, on account of sins adhering to them, and some have even scars upon them. The soul of man, he says elsewhere, comes from the moon; his mind, intellect, - from the sun; the separation of the two is only completely effected after death. The soul wanders awhile between the moon and earth for purposes of punishment - or, if it be good, of purification, until it rises to the moon, where the
vouç [1] leaves it and returns to its home, the sun; while the soul is buried in the moon. Lucian, on the other hand, whose writings for the most part are a pretty faithful mirror of the notions in vogue among his contemporaries, bears testimony to a continuance of the old tradition of the good reaching the Elysian fields, and the great transgressors finding themselves given up to the Erinnys in a place of torment, where they are torn by vultures, crushed on the wheel, or otherwise tormented; while such as are neither great sinners nor distinguished by their virtues stray about in meadows as bodiless shadows, and are fed on the libations and mortuary sacrifices offered at their sepulchres. An obolus for Charon was still placed in the mouth of every dead body." [2] Here, again, we have both the belief in the existence of a middle state and of the assistance afforded to those detained there.

[Footnote 1: Mind]

[Footnote 2: "The Gentile and the Jew," Vol. II., p. 146.]

The religion of the Druids is so wrapped in mystery that it is difficult to determine what they believed on any point, and much more on that of the future lot of the soul; but as they held the doctrine of metempsychosis, it is fair to class them among the adherents to the notion of a period of purgation between death and the soul's entrance into its final rest. Of the views of the sturdy Norsemen, on the contrary, there can be no two opinions; in their mythology the idea of a middle state is expressed in the clearest language. The following passage from Mr. Anderson, places the matter beyond question. I may first remark, for the information of the general reader, that by Gimle is meant the abode of the righteous after the day of judgment; by Naastrand, the place of punishment after the same dread sentence; by Ragnarok, the last day; Valhal, the temporary place of happiness to which the god Odin invites those who have been slain in battle; and Hel, the goddess of death, whose abode is termed Helheim. With these explanations the reader will be able to understand the subjoined passage, which expresses the Norse idea of the future purgation of the soul.

After speaking of the lot of the departed, the writer says: "But it must be remembered that Gimle and Naastrand have reference to the state of things after Ragnarok, the Twilight of the gods; while