guise as to be beyond their comprehension: all could feel the disgrace of inhabiting the body of a pig; and the very one they beheld with loathing and disgust probably contained the soul of a wicked being they had known as their enemy or their friend. TRANSMIGRATION AND IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. "The Egyptians," according to Herodotus *, "were the first to maintain that the soul of man† is immortal; that after the death of the body it always enters into that of some other animal which is born; and when it has passed through all those of the earth, water, and air, it again enters that of a man; which circuit it accomplishes in 3000 years." This doctrine of transmigration is mentioned by Plutarch, Plato, and other ancient writers as the general belief among the Egyptians, and it was adopted by Pythagoras and his preceptor Pherecydes, as well as other philosophers of Greece. Plutarch says that "the Egyptians thought *Herodot. ii. 123. Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 211. St. Augustin says, " Ægyptii soli credunt resurrectionem, quia diligenter curant cadavera mortuorum; morem enim habent siccare corpora et quasi ænea reddere; gabbaras ea vocant.' ." It is singular that the word now used in Egypt for a tomb is gabr or gobber. Aug. Sermon. c. 12. t Conf. Lucian's Gallus; and Hor. 1. Od. xxiii. 10. "Panthoiden iterum orco Demissum; quamvis clypeo Trojana refixo Nervos atque cutem morti concesserat atræ." Plut. de Is. s. 72. and 31. the souls of men, which still survive their bodies, returned into life again in animals; " and that "they considered it right to prefer for sacrifice those in whose bodies the souls of wicked men were confined during the course of their transmigration;" while the precept in the golden verses of Pythagoras . . . ειργου βρωτων ων είπομεν, εν τε καθαρμοις دو commands men to abstain from food connected with the purifications and solution of the soul. The reason of this purification of the soul I have already noticed, as well as the greater or less time required, according to the degree of sin by which it had been contaminated during its sojourn in the world. Herodotus fixes the period at 3000 years, when the soul returned to the human form ‡ ; and Plato says §," If any one's life has been virtuous, he shall obtain a better fate hereafter; if wicked, a worse. But no soul will return to its pristine condition till the expiration of 10,000 years, * Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 316. The same occurs in these lines of Milton's Comus : "But when lust, By..... lavish act of sin, Lets in defilement to the inward parts, Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose The divine property of her first being." This seems to disagree with the custom of giving all good men the name of Osiris immediately after their burial, as if their soul had already returned to the Deity, whence it emanated. Plato, in Phædro, p. 325., transl. Taylor. since it will not recover the use of its wings until that period, except it be the soul of one who has philosophised sincerely, or, together with philosophy, has loved beautiful forms. These, indeed, in the third period of 1000 years, if they have thrice chosen this mode of life in succession.... shall, in the 3000dth year, fly away to their pristine abode; but other souls being arrived at the end of their first life shall be judged. And of those who are judged, some, proceeding to a subterraneous place of judgment, shall there sustain the punishments they have deserved; but others, in consequence of a favourable judgment, being elevated into a certain celestial place, shall pass their time in a manner becoming the life they have lived in a human shape. And, in the 1000dth year, both the kinds of those who have been judged, returning to the lot and election of a second life, shall each of them receive a life agreeable to his desire. Here also the human soul shall pass into the life of a beast; and from that of a beast again into a man, if it has first been the soul of a man. For the soul which has never perceived the truth cannot pass into the human form." It is possible that the Egyptians also supposed the period of 3000 years to have been confined to those who had led a philosophically virtuous life; but it is difficult to determine if the full number of 10,000 years was required for other souls. From the fact of the number 10 signifying completion *This agrees with the Egyptian notion of a winged soul. Vide suprà, Vol. I. (Second Series) p. 442. and return to unity, it is not altogether improbable; particularly since the Greek philosophers are known to have derived their notions on this, as on many other subjects, from the dogmas of Egypt. Herodotus states that several Greeks adopted the doctrine of transmigration and used it as their own, whose names he refrains from mentioning; and it is generally supposed by Diodorus, Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and others, that Pythagoras had the merit of first introducing it into Greece.* And if Cicero thinks Pherecydes of Syros, of whom Pythagoras was a disciple, to be the first to assert that the souls of men were immortal, the Egyptian origin of the doctrine is only the more confirmed, since he had also visited and studied under the Egyptian priests. This metempsychosis, or rather metensomatosis, being the passage of the soul from one animal to another, was termed xuxλos avayans, "the circle (or orbit) of necessity;" and besides the ordinary notion of its passing through different bodies till it returned again in a human shape, some went so far as to suppose that after a certain period all events which had happened were destined to occur again, in the identical order and manner as before. The same men were said to be born again, and to fulfil the same career; and the same causes were thought to produce the same effects, as stated by Virgil.† t This idea of a similarity of causes and effects ap Diodor. i. 98.; Diog. Laert. viii. 14.; Porph. Vit. Pyth. 19. "Alter erit tum Tiphys, et altera quæ vehat Argo Delectos heroas; erunt etiam altera bella, Atque iterum ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles." pears to be quite consistent with the opinions of the Egyptians, mentioned by Herodotus *; and not only, says the historian, "have the Greek poets adopted many of their doctrines," but the origin of most of the religious speculations of Greece may be traced to the Egyptians; who "have invented more prodigies than all the rest of mankind." The Egyptian notion that the soul, after its series of migrations, returned to the same human body in which it had formerly lived on earth, is in perfect accordance with the passage of the Roman poet above alluded to, and this is confirmed by Theophrastus, who says, "The Egyptians think that the same soul enters the body of a man, an ox, a dog, a bird, and a fish, until having passed through all of them it returns to that from which it set out." There is even reason to believe that the Egyptians preserved the body in order to keep it in a fit state to receive the soul which once inhabited it, after the lapse of a certain number of years; and the various occupations followed by the Egyptians during the lifetime of the deceased †, which were represented in the sculptures; as well as his arms, the implements he used, or whatever was most precious to him, which were deposited in the tomb with his coffin, might be intended for his benefit at the time of this reunion, which at the least possible period was fixed at 3000 years. On the other hand, from the fact of animals being also embalmed (the preservation of whose bodies was not ascribable to any idea *Herodot. ii. 82. + Vide suprà, p. 393. and 395. |
