contriving for the safety of their fellow-citizens, found nothing would more contribute to it, than the public and solemn interment of the dead; private murders, without this provision, being easily and securely perpetrated. They therefore introduced the custom of the most public and pompous funeral rites. And both Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus observe, that they were, of all people, the most circumstantially ceremonious in them. But, to secure the observance, by the force of religion, as well as custom, they taught that the deceased could not retire to a place of rest in the other world, till these rites were paid to him in this. And the notion spread so wide, and fixed its root so deep, that the substance of the superstition remains, even to this day, in most civilized countries. By so effectual a method did the Legislator gain his end, the security of the citizen. There is one circumstance, which, if well considered, will shew us of how great moment the rites of sepulture were thought by the antients. The three greatest of the Greek Poets are without question, Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides. Now, in the judgment of modern critics, the performance of funeral rites for Patroclus, Ajax and Polynices, in the Iliad, the Ajax and the Phoenicians, is a vicious continuation of the story which violates the unity of the action. But these men did not consider, that the antients esteemed funeral rites to be an inseparable part of the history of any one's death. And that therefore those great masters of unity and decorum could not think the action ended, till that important circumstance was settled. But the Egyptian Legislator found afterwards another use in this opinion; and, by artfully turning it as a punishment on insolvent debtors, grounded on it an institution of great advantage to society: for, instead of that general custom of modern barbarians to bury insolvent debtors alive, this polite and humane people had a law that denied burial to them when dead. The terror of which, we are told, gained its desired effect. And here the learned Marsham seems to be mistaken, when he supposes, that from this interdiction of sepulchral rites, sprung up the Grecian opinion of the wandering of unburied ghosts". For it is plain, from the nature of the thing, that the law was founded on the opinion, which was Egyptian; and not the opinion on the Law, because the opinion was the only sanction of the Law. On the whole, had not our Poet adjudged it a matter of much importance, he had hardly dwelt so long upon it, or returned again- to it, or laid so much stress on it, or made his hero so attentively consider it. PAb interdictae apud Aegyptios sepulturae poenâ, inolevit apud Graecos opinio insepultorum corporum animas à Charonte non esse admissas.-Canon Chronicus, Seculum 11. sect. 3. q V, 373, et seq. "Constitit Anchisa satus, et vestigia pressit, But having added-"Sortemque animo miseratus iniquam;" and Servius commented, " Iniqua enim sors est puniri propter "alterius negligentiam: nec enim quis culpa sua caret Sepul"chro;" Mr. Bayle cries out', "What injustice is this! Was it "the fault of these souls that their bodies were not interred ?” But not knowing the original of this opinion, he did not see its use; and so attributes that to the blindness of religion, which was the issue of wise policy. Virgil, by his "sors iniqua," means no more than that in this, as well as in several other civil institutions, a public good was often a private injury. The next thing observable is the Ferry-man, Charon; and he, the learned well know, was a substantial Egyptian; and, as an ingenious writer says, fairly existing in this world. The case was plainly thus: The Egyptians, like all other people, in their descriptions of the other world, used to resemble it to something they were well acquainted with in this. In their funeral rites, which, as we observed, was with them a matter of greater moment than with any other nation, they used to carry their dead over the Nile, and through the marsh of Acherusia; and there put them into subterraneous vaults: the ferry-man, here employed, being in their language called Charon. Now in their descriptions of the other world, in the Mysteries, it was natural for them to borrow from these circumstances in the funeral rites. And that they themselves actually transferred these realities into the MTOOZ, and not the Greeks, as their later writers generally imagine, might be very easily proved if there was any occasion. 66 Charon is appeased at the sight of the Golden Bough. "Ille admirans venerabile donum But it is represented as the passport of all the antient heroes who had descended into hell; how then could it be said to be "longo post tempore visum," Aeneas being so near the times of those heroes? To explain this, we must have in mind what hath been said above of a perfect Lawgiver's being held out in Aeneas, and of Augustus's being shadowed under the Trojan Chief. So that here Virgil is thinking of his master; and the insinuation is, that the Roman Emperor, in a latter age, should rival the fame of the first Grecian Lawgivers. * Quelle injustice! etoit-ce la faute de ces ames que leurs corps n'eussent pas été enterrés. Respons. aux Quest, d'un Provincial. p. 3. c. 22. But Aeneas hath now crossed the river, and is come into the proper regions of the dead. The first thing that occurs to him is the Dog Cerberus: "Haec ingens latratu regna trifauci "Personat, adverso recubans immanis in Antro." This is plainly the phantom in the Mysteries, which Pletho tells us above, was in the shape of a dog, nuvon TivX. And in the fable of Hercules' descent into Hell, which, we have shewn, signified no more than his initiation into the Mysteries, it is said to have been, amongst other things, for fetching up the dog Cerberus. To appease his rage, the prophetess gives him a medicated cake, which casts him into a slumber. 66 "Cui vates, horrere videns jam colla colubris, 66 The cake was of poppy-seed (for so I understand" medicatis "frugibus") made up with honey. Honey, as we have shewn above, was sacred to Proserpine, who on that account was called MEXITWns. And the poppy, to Ceres. "Cereale Papaver," says Virgil, on which words Servius thus comments, "vel quod "est esui, sicut frumentum, vel quo Ceres usa est ad oblivionem "doloris; nam ob raptum Proserpinae Vigiliis defatigata, gus"tato èo acta est in Soporem"." To the same purpose Ovid in speaking of Ceres: "Illa soporiferum parvos initura Penates 66 Colligit agresti lene papaver humo: "Dum legit, oblito fertur gustasse palato, 66 The regions are, according to Virgil's division, in three parts: 1. Purgatory, 2. Tartarus, 3. Elysium. For Deïphobus, in the first, says, "Discedam, explebo numerum, reddarque tenebris"." And in the second it is said of Theseus, "Sedet, aeternumque sedebit "Infelix Theseus.". Ad 1. 1. Georg. v. 212. t L. 3. Fast. " But the nature and end of this Purgatory the Poet describes at large, from v. 736. to v. 745. So The mysteries divided them in the very same manner. Plato, in the passage quoted above, speaks, as taught there, of souls sticking fast in mire and filth, and remaining in darkness, till a long series of years had purged and purified them. And Celsus, in Origen, we have seen, says that eternal punishments were taught in the Mysteries. Of all the three states, that of Tartarus only was eternal. There was, indeed, another, in the antient Pagan Theology, which had the same relation to Elysium that Tartarus had to Purgatory, the extreme of reward, as Tartarus of punishment. But then this state was not in the infernal regions, but in Heaven. Neither was it the lot of common men, but reserved for heroes and demons; beings of a superior order, such as Hercules, Bacchus, &c., who became Gods on their admission into Heaven, where eternity was the consequence of their deification. Cicero distinguishes the two orders of souls, according to the vulgar theology, in this manner. Quid autem ex hominum genere consecratos, sicut Herculem et ceteros coli lex jubet, "indicat omnium quidem animos immortales esse; Fortium "Bonorumque Divinos."-De Legg. Lib. 1. Cap. 12. 66 66 And here it is very observable to our purpose, that the virtues and vices which the Poet recapitulates, as stocking these three divisions with inhabitants, are such as most immediately affect society. A plain proof that he was directed by the same views with the institutors of the Mysteries. Purgatory, the first division, is inhabited by suicides, extravagant lovers, and ambitious warriors: and in a word, by all those, who had given a loose to the exorbitancy of their passions; which made them rather miserable than wicked. It is remarkable that amongst these we find one of the initiated: Which was agreeable to the public teaching in the Mysteries, that initiation without virtue was of no use; though with virtue the initiated had great advantages over other men in a future state. But, of all these disorders, suicide being most pernicious to society, the Poet hath more distinctly marked out the misery of this condition: "Proxima deinde tenent moesti loca, qui sibi lethum "Insontes peperêre manu, lucemque perosi Projecêre animas. Quam vellent aethere in alto "Nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores!" Here he keeps close to the Mysteries; which not only forbade suicide, but taught on what account t was criminal. "That "which is taught in the Mysteries," says Plato, concerning "these matters, of man's being place in a certain watch, or "station, which it is unlawful to fly fom, or forsake, is a pro"found doctrine, and not easily fathoned. Hitherto all goes well. But what nust we say to the Poet's putting children, and men falsely condemned, into his Purgatory? For though the modern Romin Faith and Inquisition send these two sorts of persons into a place of punishment, yet the genius of antient Paganism had a far gentler spirit. It is indeed difficult to tell what these inmates have to do here. 66 66 * Ο μὲν οὖν ἐν ΑΠΟΡΡΗΤΟΙΣ λεγόμενος περὶ αὐτῶν λόγος, ὡς ἔν τινι φρερῷ ἐσμεν οἱ ἄνθρωποι καὶ ἐ δεῖ δὴ ἑαυτὸν ἐκ ταύτης λύειν ἐδ' ἀποδιδράσκεν, μεγάς τε τις μοι φαίνεται καὶ ἐ ῥᾴδιος διέ dev. Phaed. p. 62. Ser. Ed. tom. 1. The very learned Mr. Dacier translates Toppáros, dans les Mysteres; and this agreeably to his vast knowledge of antiquity. For oppla was used by the antients, to signify not only the grand secret taught in the Mysteries, but the Mysteries themselves: as appears from innumerable places in their writings. Yet the French translator of Pufendorf's Law of Nature and Nations, 1. 2. c. 4. sect. 19. Note (1), accuses him of not understanding his author. "Mr. Dacier fait dire à Platon que l'on tenoit tous les jours ces discours "au peuple dans les ceremonies et dans les Mysteres. Il seroit à souhaiter qu'il "eût allégué quelque autorité pour etablir un fait si remarquable. Mais il s'agit "içi manifestement des instructions secrétes que les Pythagoriciens donnoient "à leurs inities, et lesquelles ils decouvroient les raisons les plus abstruses, et les plus particuliers des dogmes de leur philosophie. Ces instructions cachées "s'appelloient &æópina-Ce que Platon dit un peu auparavant de Philolaüs, "Philosophe Pythagoricien, ne permit pas de douter que la raison, qu'il rapporte ici comme trop abstruse et difficile à comprendre, ne soit celle que don"noient les Pythagoriciens." He says, it was to be wished Dacier had some authority for so remarkable a fact. He hath this very passage: which is authority enough. For the word appa signifies the Mysteries, and cannot here mean the secret Doctrines of the Philosophers; as will be shewn presently. But those who want farther authority, may have it, amply, in the nature and end of the Mysteries, as explained above. He says, it is evident, Plato is here talking of the secret instructions which the Pythagoreans gave to their initiated, in which they discovered their most abstruse and particular doctrines. This cannot possibly be so, for a very evident reason. The philosophy of the Pythagoreans, like that of other sects, was divided into the Exoterical and Esoterical; the Open taught to all, and the Secret taught to a select number. But the impiety of suicide was a doctrine in the first division taught to all, as serviceable to society: "Vetatque Pythagoras injussu imperatoris, id est, Dei, de praesidio et "statione vitae decedere," says Tully, in his book of Old Age; who, in his Dream of Scipio, writ in the Exoteric way, condemns Suicide, for the very same reason. But in an epistle to a particular friend, which certainly was of the Esoteric kind, he approves of it."Ceteri quidem, Pompeius, Lentulus tuus, Scipio, Afranius, foede perierunt. At Cato praeclarè. Jam istuc quidem, cum volemus, licebit." L. 9. Ep. 18. It could not be therefore, that the impiety of Suicide could be called one of the άoppla of Philosophy; for, on the contrary, it was one of their popular doctrines. But this will be fuller seen when we come to speak of the Philosophers in the next book.--He concludes, that as Plato had spoke of Philolaus a little before, it cannot be doubted but that he speaks of the reason against Suicide, as a doctrine of the Pythagorean philosophy. What has been said above, utterly excludes any such interpretation. But though it did not, his reason will not infer it. There is nothing in the context that shews Plato had Philolaus in his mind here. That this was a doctrine, though not of the Esoteric kind, in the Pythagoric school, I readily allow. The Mysteries, and that, held an infinite number of things in common: we have seen this in part already, and when we come to speak of Pythagoras, we shall shew how this happened. |