‘L’immortalité de l’âme est une chose qui nous importe si fort, et qui nous touche si profondément, qu’il faut avoir perdu tout sentiment pour être dans l’indifférence de savoir ce qui en est.’—Pascal.
‘L’immortalité de l’âme est une chose qui nous importe si fort, et qui nous touche si profondément, qu’il faut avoir perdu tout sentiment pour être dans l’indifférence de savoir ce qui en est.’—Pascal.
‘For he should persevere until he has attained one of two things; either he should discover or learn the truth about them, or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life—not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him.’—Plato’sPhædo; translated byJowett.
‘For he should persevere until he has attained one of two things; either he should discover or learn the truth about them, or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life—not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him.’—Plato’sPhædo; translated byJowett.
1. The great majority of mankind have always believed in some fashion in a life after death; many in the essential immortality of the soul; but it is certain that we find many disbelievers in such doctrines who yet retain the nobler attributes of humanity. It may, however, be questioned whether it be possible even to imagine the great bulk of our race to have lost their belief in a future state of existence, and yet to have retained the virtues of civilised and well-ordered communities.
We have said that the disbelievers in such doctrines form a minority of the race; but at the same time it must be acknowledged that the strength of this minority has of late years greatly increased, somuch so that at the present moment it numbers in its ranks not a few of the most intelligent, the most earnest, and the most virtuous of men.
It is, however, possible that, could we examine these, we should find them to be unwilling disbelievers, compelled by the working of their intellects to abandon the desire of their hearts, only after many struggles, and with much bitterness of spirit.
Others, again, without absolutely abandoning all hope of a future existence, are yet full of doubt regarding it, and have settled down into the belief that we cannot come to any reasonable conclusion upon the subject. Now, these men can have had nothing to gain, but rather much to lose, in arriving at this result. It has been reached by them with reluctance, with misgivings, not without a certain kind of persecution, nor without the loss of friends and the stirring up of strife; still they have fearlessly looked things in the face, and have followed whithersoever they imagined they were led by facts, even to the brink of an abyss.
It is the object of the present volume to examine the intellectual process which has brought about such results, and we hope to be able to show not only that the conclusion at which these men have arrived is not justified by what we know of the physical universe, but that on the other hand there are many lines of thought which point very strongly towards an opposite conclusion.
2. A division as old as Aristotle separates[3]speculators into two great classes,—those who study the How of the Universe, and those who study the Why.All men of science are embraced in the former of these, all men of religion in the latter. The former regard the Universe as a huge machine, and their object is to study the laws which regulate its working; the latter again speculate about the object of the machine, and what sort of work it is intended to produce. The disciples of How are accused by their adversaries of being willing to sacrifice the individual to the system; while the disciples of Why are accused bytheiradversaries of being willing to sacrifice the system to the individual.
We may compare the Universe to a great steamer plying between two well-known ports, and carrying two sets of passengers. The one set remain on deck and try to make out, as well as they can, the mind of the Captain regarding the future of their voyage after they have reached the port to which they know they are all fast hastening, while the other set remain below and examine the engines. Occasionally there is much wrangling at the top of the ladder where the two sets meet, some of those who have examined the engines and the ship asserting that the passengers will all be inevitably wrecked at the next port, it being physically impossible that the good ship can carry them further. To whom those on deck reply, that they have perfect confidence in the Captain, who has informed some of those nearest him that the passengers will not be wrecked, but will be carried in safety past the port to an unknown land of felicity. And so the altercation goes on; some who have been on deck being unwilling or unable to examine the engines, and some who have examined the engines preferring to remain below.
3. Our readers will perceive from what we have said, that difficulties regarding the possibility of a future state of existence are most likely to arise amidst the disciples of How or those who study the machinery of the Universe, and inasmuch as this class has greatly increased of late, it follows that the disbelievers in or doubters of the future state have increased likewise. The disciples of Why have, on the other hand, existed from time immemorial, and have, in the plenitude of their power, frequently carried themselves with much violence towards the disciples of How, who are of comparatively modern origin. It must not, however, be inferred that this old and venerable family have always been at peace amongst themselves, for there have been numerous contentions among their various sections, not the less acrimonious because the contending members have been to some extent supporters of a common cause, believing in some fashion in the reality of a world to come. We shall therefore begin by giving our readers a sketch, necessarily and purposely a very meagre one, of the various beliefs on these subjects held by the different branches of this great family.
4. Let us begin with the Egyptians, who are perhaps the most antient people of whom we have historical records. The manners and customs of this nation have been very minutely described by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, to whose work we are chiefly indebted for the following account. In the first place it appears that we must separate between what the priests believed and what was held by the great body of the people. The bulk of the nation were left by the priests to believe in a multiplicity of deities, andeven to reverence animals as divine, while on the other hand the higher orders of the priesthood, who were initiated into the greater mysteries of their religion, appear to have acknowledged the unity of God. These believed in one Eternal God, from whom all other deities were produced, and whom they did not permit themselves even to name, far less to represent under any visible form. The Egyptians likewise believed in the existence of Dæmons or Genii, who were present unseen amongst mankind.
5. The earliest Egyptian records attest the belief of this nation in the immortality of the soul:—‘Dissolution, according to them, is only the cause of reproduction—nothing perishes which has once existed, and things which appear to be destroyed only change their natures and pass into another form.’[4]
Anubis held in Egypt an office similar to that of Mercury among the Greeks, being the usher of souls in their passage to the future state. Amenti was the region to which the souls of men were supposed to go after death, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson notices the resemblance between this name and that of Ement ‘the West’—the west, where the sun was seen to sink, being looked upon as the end of the world. The guardian of the lower regions was called Ouom-n-Amenti, or the Devourer of Amenti. It had frequently the appearance of a hippopotamus, but was drawn sometimes with the head of a fanciful creature something between the hippopotamus and the crocodile.
‘The judgment of the soul was conducted by Osiris, aided by forty-two assessors, supposed to representthe forty-two crimes from which a virtuous man was expected to be free when judged in a future state, or rather the accusing spirits, each of whom examined if the deceased was guilty of the peculiar crime which it was his province to avenge.’[5]
6. As regards the fate of the soul when once the judgment had been passed upon it,—the Egyptians considered the souls of men to be emanations of the Divine soul, and each was supposed to return to its Divine origin when sufficiently pure to unite with the Deity. On the other hand, those who had been guilty of sin were doomed to pass through a series of torments ending in the second death.
7. It is considered probable by some that the Egyptian custom of embalming the body had relation to this religious doctrine, and before the mummy was allowed burial it had to be judged and acquitted by terrestrial authorities. Diodorus gives a detailed account of the ceremonies which then took place, in which forty-two judges were summoned to act as assessors and determine the fate of the body. If it could be proved that the deceased had led an evil life, his body was deprived of the accustomed burial, and on such occasions the grief and shame felt by the family were excessive. Diodorus considers that this was in itself a strong inducement to every one to abstain from crime, and praises very strongly the authors of so wise an institution.
8. Let us next consider the antient belief of the Hebrew nation.
Referring to the records of this nation, we find that at an early period they had been slaves or serfs tothe Egyptians, from whom they were delivered by Moses, who became afterwards their lawgiver. Moses had by a species of adoption obtained a very prominent position among the Egyptians, and had probably been initiated into their sacred mysteries, for we read that he was ‘learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.’ Without discussing the question of inspiration, we may readily imagine that, himself a believer in the unity of God, this sagacious leader must have perceived the deficiency of a religious system in which the truth was confined to a few, while the many were allowed to remain in the most degrading idolatry.
He was thus in a fit state to recognise the paramount importance of the whole mind and mass of the nation being pervaded with a belief in one invisible, ever-present, ever-living God. We do not, however, mean to assert that Moses got his religious notions from Egypt, but we think it possible that his mind may have been prepared by the failure of the Egyptian system to receive a better one.
9. In the Egyptian system there were two peculiarities which were probably connected together. We have seen (Art. 4) that amongst the higher orders of the priesthood there was a profound, but at the same time a superstitious, reverence for the name of God, who was unnamed and unapproachable, unless under some deified attribute. At the same time there was, and probably in consequence of the former, an ignorance of the unity of God amongst the great mass of the people, and a worship of the various deified attributes of one supreme being as so many separate divinities.
10. Now the task which Moses believed himselfdivinely commissioned to accomplish was the revelation of this one living and ruling God to the whole body of his countrymen. Thus we find God, in the sacred writings of the Jews, saying to Moses, ‘I am theLord(Jehovah), and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty (El Shaddai); but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them.’[6]We do not however intend to discuss the precise meaning of the two names of God, which we find in the Hebrew Scriptures—sufficient for us that Moses endeavoured to impress upon his people the unity and ever-living presence of the Divine Being.
11. Again, it would appear that the Jews, in addition to their belief as a nation in the unity of God, believed also in the reality of an invisible world containing spiritual intelligences, some of whom were the loyal servants and messengers of God, while others delighted in the endeavour to thwart His counsels, and were in rebellion against Him. Apparently both orders of these were supposed to have very considerable power, not only over the minds and bodies of men, but also over the operations of nature. Thus two angels were commissioned by God to destroy Sodom;[7]and again, in the poem of Job, when Satan received power over the Patriarch, he overwhelmed him by at once inciting robbers who plundered his substance, killing his children by a wind from the wilderness, and finally smiting the body of Job himself with a loathsome disease.
It is perhaps worthy of note that while we read in these records of various appearances of good spiritsin the human form, we have no certain account of any such manifestation of evil spirits. It may even be supposed that a good deal of the Demonology of Scripture belongs to poetic or semi-parabolic representation of spiritual truths. Thus Coleridge and others have thought that the Satan of Job is only the dramatic accuser or adversary imagined by the poet.
12. Very little is said about man’s future state in the Scriptures of the Jews. The Hebrews, like the Assyrians and Chaldeans, believed in Sheol (Hades), a dark and gloomy abode peopled by the shades of the dead. But the continued existence of the ‘pithless’ shades (Rephaim) in this land of powerlessness and forgetfulness was not thought of as constituting immortality, but rather as the essence of death itself. The religious hope of immortality which appears in some passages of the Old Testament takes the form of a victory over or rescue from the fear of Sheol. But this higher hope was not brought before the mind of the Hebrew nation in the same way as was the presence and unity of God. It seems to us that Dean Stanley’s conjecture is probably correct where he says, with reference to this omission, ‘Not from want of religion, but (if we might use the expression) from excess of religion, was this void left in the Jewish mind. The future life was not denied or contradicted, but it was overlooked, set aside, overshadowed by the consciousness of the living, actual presence of God Himself. That truth, at least in the limited conceptions of the youthful nation, was too vast to admit of any rival truth, however precious. When David or Hezekiah shrank from the gloomy vacancy of thegrave, it was because they feared lest, when death closed their eyes in the present world, they should lose their hold on that Divine friend with whose being and communion the present world had in their minds been so closely interwoven.’[8]
13. As the nation grew older we find frequent and distinct allusions indicating a belief in a resurrection of some kind. Thus we find the angel saying to Daniel, ‘And many of them which sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.’[9]And again: ‘Go thy way till the end be; for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.’[10]Again, in the Apocrypha, we find one of seven brethren who were put to death by Antiochus, saying to that tyrant,—‘It is good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised up again by Him; as for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life,’[11]and the other brethren spoke in like manner. Here it is evident from the whole chapter that the hope expressed was rather the result of perfect trust in God than derived from any process of their own reason, or even from any revelation on the subject which they imagined to have been made.
We have likewise the testimony of Josephus as well as of the New Testament that the Pharisees believed in a resurrection. Josephus tells us,—‘They [the Pharisees] say that all souls are incorruptible,but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment.’[12]Again, we learn from the same two authorities that the Sadducees held sceptical notions on the subject, and Josephus says—‘They take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades.’
14. If we next turn to the Greek and Roman mythologies we find ideas of a future state very similar to those entertained by the Egyptians, from whom probably the Greek notions were originally largely derived.
They called by the name of Elysium the abode appropriated to the souls of the good, while those of the wicked suffered punishment in Tartarus. It has been well remarked by Archbishop Whately that these regions were supposed to be of the most dreamy and unsubstantialnature:—
‘The poet [remarks Whately] from whom so many were content to derive their creed [meaning Homer] represents Achilles among the shades as declaring that the life of the meanest drudge on earth is preferable to the very highest of the unsubstantial glories ofElysium:—
Βουλοίμην κ’ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ,Ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη,Ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν.
Βουλοίμην κ’ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ,Ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη,Ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν.
Βουλοίμην κ’ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ,
Ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη,
Ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν.
It is remarkable too that the same poet seems plainly to regard thebodynot thesoulas being properly “the man” after death has separated them.Weshould beapt to say that such a one’s body is here, and thathe, properly the person himself, is departed to the other world; but Homer uses the very opposite language in speaking of the heroes slain before Troy: viz., that their souls were despatched to the shades, and thatTHEYthemselves were left a prey to dogs andbirds:—
Πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ΨΥΧΑΣ Ἄϊδι προΐαψενἩρώων, ΑΥΤΟΥΣ δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν.’[13]
Πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ΨΥΧΑΣ Ἄϊδι προΐαψενἩρώων, ΑΥΤΟΥΣ δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν.’[13]
Πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ΨΥΧΑΣ Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
Ἡρώων, ΑΥΤΟΥΣ δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν.’[13]
We agree with this writer that the belief in an unsubstantial region of this description can have had no real influence either in deterring men from vice, or in encouraging them to virtue. Indeed its inevitable tendency must have been to foster an undue regard for the pleasures of this present life to the absolute discouragement of goodness and virtue. For while we of the present day regard the future life as in some sense the reward of piety and goodness, the antients looked upon Hades rather as a penalty which inexorable fate had reserved for all men, and from which even piety and goodness were powerless to exempt their possessors.
Cum semel occideris, et de te splendida MinosFecerit arbitria;Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non teRestituet pietas.Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicumLiberat Hippolytum;Nec Lethæa valet Theseus abrumpere caroVincula Pirithöo.
Cum semel occideris, et de te splendida MinosFecerit arbitria;Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non teRestituet pietas.Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicumLiberat Hippolytum;Nec Lethæa valet Theseus abrumpere caroVincula Pirithöo.
Cum semel occideris, et de te splendida Minos
Fecerit arbitria;
Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te
Restituet pietas.
Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum
Liberat Hippolytum;
Nec Lethæa valet Theseus abrumpere caro
Vincula Pirithöo.
15. The active-minded as well as the gross-minded members of the community could hardly be expected to care much for such an unsubstantial future, andthis consideration may probably have led to the readier acceptance of the doctrine of some of the Greek philosophers who introduced a bodily state after death. But these, in so doing, rather favoured the doctrine of transmigration than that of a resurrection of the body which was seen to die, and which, after being devoured by dogs, or destroyed in some other manner, they could hardly conceive to rise again. It is well known that Pythagoras taught the doctrine of transmigration, although as none of his writings have come down to us we are not sure of the exact manner in which he held it. Plato also alludes to a similar doctrine, in a passage which refers no doubt to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls, and to the view that it is a punishment to become corporeal at all. He tells us:—‘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 ten thousand years, 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 a thousand years, if they have thrice chosen this mode of life in succession, ... shall in the three thousandth 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 mannerbecoming the life they have lived in a human shape. And in the thousandth 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.’[14]A certain degree of choice is here supposed to be left to the soul, and those who cannot attain to the more ethereal and refined existence, have to choose a bodily one, returning, after they have become sufficiently purified, once more into human shape.
16. As a matter of course, a dim belief of this nature gave rise to a class of philosophers who denied the possibility of a future state altogether. The advent of this school of thought was probably hastened by outward events. In the golden age of Greece a vigorous republic served to concentrate upon itself the energies of the citizens, and under these circumstances their minds were not likely to question the truth of the national creed. While the gods smiled upon them they were content to acknowledge their active existence. It has been remarked by Schmitz, that the unfavourable political circumstances of the time may have been concerned in the rise of the Epicurean school—‘thinking men were led to seek within for that which they could not find without.’ The gods of Epicurus, this writer goes on to remark, ‘consisted of atoms, and were in the enjoyment of perfect happiness, which had not been disturbed bythe laborious business of creating the world, and as the government of the world would interfere with their happiness, Epicurus conceived them as exercising no influence whatever upon the world or man.’
It is of such gods the poet speaks when hesays:—
‘For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’dFar below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’dRound their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming worldWhere they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying hands.’
‘For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’dFar below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’dRound their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming worldWhere they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying hands.’
‘For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying hands.’
The antient Roman poet Lucretius, in his well-known poem ‘De Rerum Natura,’ has beautifully interpreted the Epicurean philosophy. Adopting like Epicurus the atomic or corpuscular theory of things, he tells his readers that the soul of man perishes along with the body, and that it is the height of folly for man to be afraid of that which may happen to him after death.
17. It is unnecessary to discuss in detail the tenets of the various Greek and Roman philosophers. A number of indefinite and sometimes contradictory expressions sufficiently betrays the uncertainty of their opinions. Desirous, it may be, themselves to believe—desirous at least that the body of their countrymen should believe—in a future state, it is yet not wonderful that they should have felt strongly the difficulty of believing, or have expressed their doubts in writings which were not intended to be read by the great mass of the people.
18. Proceeding now to the extreme east, it is well known that of late years very great light has beenthrown upon the antient religions of the Brahmans, the Magians, and the Buddhists. In an admirable collection of essays by Professor Max Müller,[15]we have a good epitome of what has been accomplished by the laborious investigations of oriental scholars. We learn from these that the most antient document is the Rig-Veda, or Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans, in which we have the religious belief of a large section of the Indo-Germanic race at a period supposed to be from 1200 to 2000 years before the Christian era. In these hymns the gods are called Deva, a word which is conjectured to be the same with the Latin Deus. ‘It would be easy,’ says Max Müller, ‘to find in the numerous hymns of the Veda passages in which every important deity is represented as supreme and absolute. Thus in one hymn, Agni (fire) is called “the ruler of the universe.”... In another hymn, another god, Indra, is said to be greater than all. “The gods,” it is said, “do not reach thee, Indra, nor men,—thou overcomest all creatures in strength.”... Another god, Soma, is called the king of the world, the king of heaven and earth, the conqueror of all.... Another poet says of another god, Varuna, “Thou art lord of all, of heaven and earth; thou art the king of all, of those who are gods, and of those who are men.”... This surely,’ remarks Max Müller, ‘is not what is commonly understood by Polytheism. Yet it would be equally wrong to call it Monotheism. If we must have a name for it, I should call it Kathenotheism. The consciousness that all the deities are but different names of one and the same godhead, breaksforth indeed here and there in the Veda. But it is far from being general. One poet for instance says, “They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; then he is the beautiful-winged heavenly Garutmat—that which is one, the wise call it, in divers manners; they call it Agni, Yama, Mâtarisvan.”’
19. We learn from the same author that ‘there is in the Veda no trace of metempsychosis, or that transmigration of souls from human to animal bodies, which is generally supposed to be a distinguishing feature of Indian religion. Instead of this we find what is really thesine quâ nonof all real religion, a belief in immortality and in personal immortality.... Thus we read, He who gives alms goes to the highest place in heaven; he goes to the gods.... Again we find this prayer addressed toSoma:—
‘Where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun is placed, in that immortal, imperishable world place me, O Soma!
‘Where King Vaivasvata reigns, where the secret place of heaven is, where these mighty waters are, there make me immortal!
‘Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure reside, where the desires of our desire are attained, there make me immortal!’
Max Müller further remarks, that the Rig-Veda contains allusions, although vague, to a place of punishment for the wicked. ‘The dogs of Yama, the king of the departed, present some terrible aspects, and Yama is asked to protect the departed from them. Again, a pit is mentioned, into which the lawless are said to be hurled down, and into which Indra casts those who offer no sacrifices.’
20. A religion like this, however pure at its commencement, was likely soon to become corrupted. It speedily merged into idolatry and polytheism, as far at least as the main body of the worshippers were concerned, while at the same time the rule of the Brahmans or officiating priests became strengthened into an insupportable social tyranny. Thus a double reformation was to be apprehended, corresponding on the one hand to the religious, and on the other to the ceremonial and social, development of the system.
21. The first reformation was that attributed to Zoroaster and his disciples, whose belief is contained in the Zend-Avesta. In his confession of faith, the disciple of the Eranian or Zoroastrian religion declares, ‘I cease to be a worshipper of the daêvas.’
It must however be remembered that in this religiondaevameansdevil, or evil spirit. Thus the earliest forms of the Zoroastrian religion need not have excluded, and apparently did not exclude, the worship of good spirits.
Whilst the Zoroastrian disciples believed in a supreme God who rules the world, they yet gave a prominent place to a spirit of evil, which afterwards received the name of Ahriman, and was supposed to exercise very considerable influence over the order of nature and the minds of men. Indeed, Ahriman is apparently an independent power so strong that but for the fact that he acts before he thinks, while Ormuzd (the good spirit) thinks before he acts, the victory of good would be doubtful. The whole system hinges on this and on the fact that everything noxious and evil in creation is the work of Ahriman.
Max Müller is of opinion that ‘the Zoroastrianreligion was founded on a solemn protest against the whole worship of the powers of nature involved in the Vedas;’ and again the same writer says, ‘The characteristic change that has taken place between the Veda and Avesta is, that the battle is no longer a conflict of gods and demons for cows (alluding to a Vaidik myth), nor of light and darkness for rain. It is the battle of a pious man against the power of evil.’
22. The disciples of the Zoroastrian religion believed in a future state; the ill-speaker (the devil), we are told in the Zend-Avesta, shall not destroy the second life.
The following extracts given by Max Müller from a catechism of the modern Parsis or disciples of Zoroaster give us a very good idea of their presentcreed:—
‘Q. Whom do we of the Zarthosti community believe in?
‘A. We believe in only one God, and we do not believe in any besides Him.
‘Q. Do we not believe in any other God?
‘A. Whoever believes in any other God but this is an infidel, and shall suffer the punishment of hell.’
In another extract the disciples are told that in the world to come they shall receive the return according to their actions.
23. The next reform of the Brahminical system had reference to its social characteristics, and was occasioned by the insupportable tyranny of the priesthood. The reformer, a young prince, was born about 500 yearsB.C., and from his life and doctrines received the name of Buddha, or the Enlightened.After having learned from various famous Brahmans, he came to the conclusion that their austerities and doctrines could neither free men from the miseries of this life nor from the fear of death. From this stage Buddha passed into the belief that all we see is vanity—a delusion, a dream—and that the highest wisdom consists in perceiving this, and in desiring to enter into Nirvâna, or, in other words, to be blown out like a flame.
It would seem from these words that Buddha himself regarded annihilation rather than immortality as thesummum bonum; but no account of Buddhism would be satisfactory which did not pay special regard to the notion so widely diffused in heathenism, that matter is the source of all evil. To be liberated frommatteris to be liberated fromevil; and this would seem to be the fundamental thought in the Nirvâna in all its different senses. But however this may be, we know that, allied to these extreme metaphysical opinions, Buddha inculcated a moral code which is one of the purest the world has ever known. M. Laboulaye says, ‘It is difficult to comprehend how men not assisted by revelation could have soared so high;’ and M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire does not hesitate to assert that ‘with the sole exception of Christ, there is not amongst the founders of religion a more pure or touching figure than that of Buddha.’
24. In process of time, among the followers of the Buddhist religion, the word Nirvâna came to have a very different meaning from that which it had at first. Buddha was himself worshipped as a divinity, and his Nirvâna came to denote a state in whichthere was a total absence of pain, or in other words an Elysium.
In illustration of this we may quote the account given by Max Müller of the dying words of Hiouen-Thsang, a famous pilgrim from China to the shrine of Buddha, who died in the year of our era664:—
‘I desire,’ he said, ‘that whatever merits I may have gained by good works may fall upon other people. May I be born again with them in the heaven of the blessed, be admitted to the family of Mi-le, and serve the Buddha of the future who is full of kindness and affection. When I descend again upon earth, to pass through other forms of existence, I desire at every new birth to fulfil my duties towards Buddha, and arrive at the last at the highest and most perfect intelligence.’
25. Having thus surveyed, however imperfectly, the belief regarding a future state held by the greater nations both of the East and West before the advent of Christianity, let us now make a few observations.
In the first place, there are manifestly two ways in which such a belief may be held. In one of these it becomes the natural result of an implicit faith in God and his goodness, which will not suffer him to disappoint the natural and innate longings of his intelligent creatures. And such a belief is most likely to arise amongst a nation which has already vividly realised the living presence and goodness of God. Now the ancient Jews were such a nation, and the belief that even death cannot break the fellowship of the believer with God comes out clearly enough in several of the Psalms. Moreover, the notion of some sort of future life lies clearly in what is said ofEnoch. All this goes beyond the mere notion of Sheol, which is not thought of as a happy place. But in the time of the Maccabees this had grown into a definite belief in the resurrection, and without insisting on the truthfulness of the Second Book of Maccabees as an historical document, we may yet be sure that it embodies the feelings of the Jewish nation at the time when it was written. It is of little consequence whether a mother and seven brethren were actually put to death because they would not transgress what they believed to be the laws of God, or whether in dying they expressed their belief that they would be continued in a bodily existence by the Creator. For it is manifest from what we know of the Jews, that not merely one family but many would under similar circumstances have acted in the manner described by the historian, dying with the same fortitude and encouraged by the same hope. We have here a region in which there is no thought of the How—this troublesome question has not yet arisen, nor is it likely to arise. No doubt has yet been entertained regarding the power of God, nor would such a doubt be likely to receive much encouragement here.
26. But the human mind will not refrain from speculation, and this brings us to the second method in which a belief regarding a future state may be held. It may be held after a mode determined by speculations regarding the possible conditions of a future state. Such speculations may of course take every variety of form, but yet there are three well-defined classes into which they naturally groupthemselves:—
In the first place, we have the doctrine of an ethereal state, which may or may not be eternal;
Secondly, we have the doctrine of a bodily existence, which may or may not be eternal; and,
In the third place, we have the doctrine that a future state is inconceivable or impossible.
27. The first of these beliefs was probably held by a portion of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and by most of the Jews. It was likewise held by many amongst the eastern nations. It formed indeed one of the two ways of imagining a future state, but it was of a very vague and dreary nature; and from the passage of Homer already quoted (Art. 14), we realise the longing supposed to be felt by the inhabitants of such a place to escape into a more substantial region. Unquestionably it was not a place in which practical men like the Jews, for instance, would wish to dwell, and yet no doubt it had great attraction for minds of a visionary and ecstatic nature, who held matter to be the source of evil.
The return of the soul to its divine original, an Egyptian doctrine, the entrance into Nirvâna, proclaimed by Buddha, and the absorption into Buddha himself, proclaimed by some of his followers, are all proofs that a doctrine of this nature has peculiar fascinations for a dreamy order of minds. Nor must we analyse too rigidly the exact meaning and tendency of such doctrines, inasmuch as we cannot easily enter into the real feelings of those who propounded them, and who probably entertained conceptions which cannot adequately be expressed in words.
28. Coming now to the belief in a bodily future existence, it is remarkable that the doctrine of a transmigrationof souls was extensively prevalent among all the nations we have named, if we except the Jews. It was believed in, as we have seen, by a large class of the Egyptians; it was introduced into Greece by Pythagoras and his followers; it is considered to have been from time immemorial a common property of the various religions of the extreme East; and it is recorded by Cæsar that the Druids believed in the same doctrine, although they confined the transmigration to human bodies.
It will perhaps surprise many of our readers to learn the extensive prevalence of such a doctrine, wondering as they must how it is possible to attach certainty to an existence which passes through the body of various men and animals—something perhaps like a draught of Lethe being administered at the moment of passage. But the antients, being unable to rise to a higher conception of a bodily future, were compelled to admit either this doctrine or one yet more absurd, namely, that thevery same bodywhich was laid in the tomb will once more be animated by the spirit which formerly possessed it. It does not therefore surprise us that the antients, with the exception probably of a portion of the inhabitants of Egypt, and some of the Jews, should have preferred the doctrine of transmigration; but we are exceedingly surprised that the alternative doctrine, of manifestly Egyptian parentage, should have come to be accepted by the modern nations of Europe under the garb of Christianity. We shall return again to this subject, but meanwhile let us observe that, when men first began to ask the How of a future state, the reply was something extremely vague and unsatisfying.No wonder, then, that a class of men who had not unlimited confidence in God, and who could not believe in either of the doctrines of a future state, should have lapsed into philosophical infidelity and denied altogether the possibility of a future state.
29. We have thus arrived at a stage of development in which we may imagine the next step to be one which will throw some light upon this question of How—that is, which will give, or at any rate profess to give, some information regarding the conditions of a future life. The intellect of man had attempted to obtain such knowledge for itself, but the result was a conspicuous failure; the sword was not sharp enough, nor the arm which wielded it powerful enough, to hew down the thick and seemingly impenetrable barrier which closes the avenue to the world of spirits.
‘We cannot go to them,’ was the unanimous wail of the antient philosophers; till some of the more hopeful of them suggested as an alternative that they might come to us. For clearly, if A and B are separated from each other by a barrier, and there yet remains good-will between them, two courses are possible, and only two, if they are to be made acquainted with each other. One or other must surmount the barrier. If A be so weak as to be unable to do so, and if at the same time it would be a matter of importance to him to become better acquainted with B, then B may be expected to surmount the barrier if it be surmountable, and exhibit himself to A.
30. As a matter of history, it appears that about the time of the birth of Christ there was an expectation,however vague, that something of this nature was about to take place. And when Christ made His appearance, and gathered round Him a little band of disciples, there can be no doubt that He claimed to be the bearer of intelligence from the world of spirits. All who accept the gospel narratives, however much they may differ from one another as to the light in which they regard His person and doctrine, will yet, we think, agree in this. The claim made by His disciples for His gospel was that it ‘had brought life and immortality to light’ (2 Tim. i. 10), and that Christ had by his resurrection ‘abolished death.’ The grounds of the claim were built upon the belief that He showed Himself after His resurrection to a body of men who had not previously believed that the Messiah Himself was to die and rise again.
His disciples in short took His resurrection for a proof that life is possible after death. Christ was believed to be the first-fruits of a system which was destined ultimately to enfold in the same glorious immortality all those of His disciples who were united to their Master by a sincere and living faith. Evidently Paul attached the utmost importance to the fact of Christ’s resurrection, for he says (1 Cor. xv. 14), ‘If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God: because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ; whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.’
31. Let us now try to ascertain what sort of future state was taught by Christ. In the first place, it was a bodily state—a state which could even adapt itself with some modification to the views of the Pharisees who believed in the resurrection of the body. But the modification introduced is sufficiently important. The occasion of its announcement was a disputation with the Sadducees, who attempted to perplex Christ by stating to Him the case of a woman who had been married in this life to seven brethren in succession, and then asking Him whose wife she should be in the resurrection. We are told (Matthew xxii. 29) that in reply to this question, ‘Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.’ We may gather by implication from this narrative, that the question would have puzzled the Pharisees, who had certainly not arrived at this idea of the resurrection state.
They must evidently have thought that the resurrection body was to be similar to the present one, and although they believed in the existence of angels, and their occasional appearance to human beings, they cannot have risen to the idea that it was possible for man to reach a similar state after death.
32. It may perhaps be said that many of Christ’s sayings would seem to lead towards the doctrine of a resurrection of the very same material particles which are laid in the grave. To this, however, it may be replied that Christ undoubtedly wished to impress upon His hearers, who were for the most part unlearned and ignorant men, the substantial and bodilyreality of the future state, and therefore spoke in plain language without entering into scientific minutiæ, which would only have perplexed them, and diminished the impression which His words were otherwise calculated to produce. Few of His hearers would trouble themselves about the mode, nor was it until an objection was started by the learned Sadducees that Christ took occasion to develop His doctrine. In accordance with this view we see that a similar difficulty must have occurred more than once in the life of Paul, who was brought into contact with the philosophy of Greece and Rome. For in one of his Epistles[16]he asks the question,—How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? He then replies to the supposed objector in the following noble and beautiful language:—‘There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead; it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.’
33. In the next place we remark, that this conception of a spiritual body similar to that of the angels is accompanied in the religious system of Christ by a conviction that the present visible universe will assuredly pass away. This is expressed in both divisions of the writings acknowledged as sacred by the disciples of Christ. Thus it is said:—‘Of oldhast thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment: as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.’[17]Again, Paul tells us that ‘the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’[18]Likewise also Peter says—‘The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up.... Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.’[19]In like manner John tells us that he saw in a vision ‘a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.’[20]
From all this we may conclude that the more advanced disciples of Christ supposed the resurrection body to be angelic in its nature, and similar to that which they believed Christ had himself assumed; and further, that they supposed this body would remain when the present visible universe had passed away.
34. We have already remarked that it was the object of Christ to bring the future state in a very vivid manner before His disciples, so that they might realise its substantial existence, and He has accordingly given them on the one hand exalted descriptions of the joys of heaven, and on the other awfulaccounts of the fate of the lost. Heaven was variously described by Him as a banqueting house, as a beautiful city, as Abraham’s bosom, and, when speaking to His immediate disciples, as a place where they shall dwell together with their Master. On the other hand, it is believed that Christ’s description of hell was borrowed from the valley of Hinnom, a place near Jerusalem, which formed the receptacle for every species of filth, the combustible parts of which were consumed by fire. Putrefaction, or the worm, was always busy there, and the fire was always burning, and this may have given rise to the expression: ‘Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.’ There can be no doubt, we think, that such descriptions were meant to be allegorical, the intention being by forcible earthly images to convey an idea of what could not otherwise be conveyed.
35. It is well known that many varieties of opinion have been entertained regarding the person of Christ even by those who profess to be His disciples. It is not however here our object to enter into theological controversies; our treatment of this subject is at present historical, and we will therefore bring before our readers only those views regarding the person of Christ and the constitution of the invisible world, which are held by the large majority of those who call themselves Christians.
Whilst all the Christian Churches believe in one God, yet by most of them the Godhead is believed to consist of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The first of these appears to be regarded as the Being or Essence in virtue of whom the Universe exists. Thus in reciting the Apostles’Creed the Christian disciple says:—‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth;’ and the laws of the Universe are regarded by Christian theologians as being expressions of the will acting in conformity with the character of this Being. Thus Nature (according to Whately) is the course in which the Author and Governor of all things proceeds in His works.
But the majority of Christian Churches virtually assert that there are two other Divine Persons, who work through and by the Universe.[21]One great object of the second Person of the Trinity is held to be the manifestation of God to man, and possibly to other beings, in a manner and to an extent which could not be accomplished by finite intelligences. One great object of the third Person is to enter, as Lord and giver of life, into the souls of men, and possibly of other beings, and to dwell there in such a manner as to fit them for the position which they are destined ultimately to occupy in the universe of God.
36. In Christ it is supposed that we have an incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity, and the work which He accomplished is regarded as done not in violation of the order of things as established by God the Father, but rather in strict obedience to it. But while this is generally accepted by the Church of Christ, yet the doctrine of the submission of Christ to law has been held by some as not inconsistent with a view which regards the miraculous works of Christ as manifestations of His divine nature, so changing the order of things as to denote something wrought upon the universe rather than something wrought through it and by its means. We do notthink that this theory is borne out by the words of Christ himself. He says: ‘I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.’[22]Again, we are told by Paul, that ‘when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that they might receive the adoption of sons.’[23]
Christ also frequently represents His works as wrought by the Father, as for instance when he says:—‘I do nothing of myself; but as the Father hath taught me, I speak these things.’[24]In fine, the whole genius of Christianity would appear to point towards a total submission of Christ in every respect to all the laws of the universe: for these, indeed, as we shall soon have occasion to show, form but another expression for the will of God acting in conformity with His character. To make our meaning clear, we may say that the will of man is accomplished in conformity with the laws of the universe, while on the other hand the will of God, as above defined, constitutes in itself the laws of the universe. Now it appears to us from what we find contained in the books of the Christian religion, that Christ must in this sense be regarded as similar to man; but, inasmuch as the relation of Christ to the universe is there asserted to have been different from that of any mere man, so the works of Christ are to be regarded as different from those which any mere man can accomplish.
37. The Christian system, of which we have thus briefly described the peculiarities, was soon called upon to do battle, on the one hand with the antientphilosophies of Greece and Rome, and on the other with the semi-savage creeds of those less civilised races of man which were destined ultimately to overpower the Roman Empire. But it was chiefly when the apostolic pioneers came into contact with the acute minds of the antient philosophers that we have light struck regarding what may be termed the philosophical system of Christianity; thus we have already remarked (Art. 32), that the nature of the glorified body is most clearly indicated to us by the Apostle Paul. As respects the more barbarous nations which afterwards embraced Christianity,theywere not likely to puzzle themselves about the physical possibilities of a future state, nor even to contest the reality of a place of eternal physical torment. And so it happened that, when dealing with a lower class of converts, some prominent Christians in post-apostolic periods appealed more to their fears than to their hopes, bringing vividly before them awful ideas of the nature of hell; while on the other hand, the higher class of converts, if they had not a very clear idea of heaven, were yet drawn with intense longing to a future which they were to spend in the company of Christ.
38. In the course of a few hundred years we find the whole Roman Empire converted to Christianity, while, however, in Arabia and the East it appears either to have made very little progress, or to have become corrupted into something very different from that which we read of in the New Testament. It had not become the national religion of the Arabs; and we can well imagine that this nation, with their pretensions to be regarded as the most antient representativesof the Semitic race, would not look kindly upon a religion which took its origin in a rival branch of the same family. We can further imagine that, with such a feeling, they would be very ready to welcome any skilfully devised religious system which should spring up amongst themselves. Such an opportunity was afforded them by Mohammed. Acknowledging in some measure the claims of Moses and of Christ, Mohammed yet claimed for himself and his religion a superiority over his rivals, flattering by this means the vanity of his own countrymen, who considered themselves the elder branch of the Semitic race. The heaven which was promised by Mohammed was altogether of a sensuous character, and well calculated to strike the imagination of his countrymen. He succeeded equally well in describing hell as a place of physical torture reserved for those who did not believe in his religion. He further commissioned his followers to propagate his tenets by the sword, so that men became converts from dread of earthly punishment, and were retained in his ranks by the success which attended his arms, and by the promise of a paradise full of earthly delights, as well as by the threat of a horrible material hell which was reserved for unbelievers. We could not possibly have a better or more graphic description of such a system than that which is given us byByron:—