tion, cast not off all care of interment. And, since the ashes of sacrifices burnt upon the altar of God were carefully carried out by the priests, and deposited in a clean field; since they acknowledged their bodies to be the lodging of Christ, and temples of the Holy Ghost, they devolved not all upon the sufficiency of soul existence; and, therefore, with long services and full solemnities concluded their last exequies, wherein, to all distinctions, the Greek devotion seems most pathetically ceremonious. (125) Christian invention hath chiefly driven at rites which speak hopes of another life, and hints of a resurrection. And, if the ancient Gentiles held not the immortality of their better part, (126) and some subsistence after death, in several rites, customs, actions, and expressions, they contradicted their own opinions; wherein Democritus went high, even to the thought of a resurrection, as scoffingly recorded by Pliny.(127) What can be more express than the expression of Phocyllides? (128) Or who would expect from Lucretius (129) (125) Rituale Græcum opera J. Goar, in officio exequiarum. (126) The immortality of the soul was scarcely less firmly believed in antiquity than at this day. Perhaps, indeed, there existed fewer sceptics then than now. See Plat. Repub. I. Tom. VI. p. 9. Phed. Tom. V. p. 3. ff. Bekk.-ED. (127) "Similis reviviscendi promissa a Democrito vanitas, qui non revixit ipse. Quæ, malùm, ista dimentia est, iterari vitam morte?" Plin. 1. vii. c. 56. (128) Καὶ τάχα δ' ἐκ γαίης ἐλπίζομεν ἐς φάος ἐλθεῖν λειψαν ἀποιχομένων, et deincepsi. 66 (129) Cedit enim retro de terrâ quod fuit ante in terram," &c. Lucret. R a sentence of Ecclesiastes ? Before Plato could speak, the soul had wings, in Homer, which fell not, but flew out of the body into the mansions of the dead; who also observed that handsome distinction of Demas and Soma, for the body conjoined to the soul and body separated from it. Lucian spoke much truth in jest, when he said, that part of Hercules which proceeded from Alcmena perished, that from Jupiter remained immortal. Thus Socrates was content that his friends should bury his body, so they would not think they buried Socrates, and, regarding only his immortal part, was indifferent to be burnt or buried. (130) From such considerations Diogenes might contemn sepulture; and, being satisfied that the soul could not perish, grow careless of corporeal interment. The Stoics, who thought that the souls of wise men had their habitation about the moon, (131) might make slight account of subterraneous deposition; whereas the Pythagorians and transcorporating philosophers, who were to be often buried, held great care of their interment. And the Platonics rejected not a due care of the grave, though they put their ashes to unreasonable expectations, in their tedious term of return and long set revolution. (10) Plato, in Phæd. (1) On the future condition of the soul, the opinion of the Stoics was particularly extravagant: they supposed it to surThe souls of fools soon vive the body, yet not to be immortal. burned out, after death; but those of wise men ascended to the moon, where they continued till the final conflagration of all things. Lipsi Physiol. Stoic. III. 11. t. iv. p. 989, ff.—Ed. Men have lost their reason in nothing so much as their religion, wherein stones and clouts make martyrs; (132) and since the religion of one seems madness unto another, to afford an account or rationale of old rites, requires no rigid reader. That they kindled the pyre aversely, or turning their face from it, was a handsome symbol of unwilling ministration; that they washed their bones with wine and milk, that the mother wrapped them in linen and dried them in her bosom, the first fostering part and place of their nourishment; (133) that they opened their eyes towards heaven before they kindled the fire, as the place of their hopes or original, were no improper ceremonies. Their last valediction (134) thrice uttered by the attendants was also very solemn,(135) (132) He here trenches on Hudibras's ground "For some have worship'd rats, and some For that church suffer'd martyrdom." In fact, human nature, in the matter of religion, is exposed to extraordinary difficulties; and genuine philosophy will sympathize with it, whatever may be its creed, and whatever its errors.-ED. (133) Of this beautiful thought the germ is found in several classical writers. Thus Tibullus. I. 3. "Abstineas mors atra precor; non hîc mihi mater Propertius, also, I. 17. 11. f. ed. Jacobs: "An poteris siccis mea fata opponere ocellis ? And Seneca, Consol. ad Helviam, § 2. more in the spirit of Sir (134) Vale, vale, nos te ordine quo natura permittet sequemur. (135) Sir Thomas is remiss in the matter of authorities, and and somewhat answered by Christians, who thought it too little, if they threw not the earth thrice upon the interred body. That in strewing their tombs the Romans affected the rose, the Greeks, amaranthus and myrtle; that the funeral pyre consisted of sweet fuel, cypress, fir, larix, yew, and trees perpetually verdant, lay silent expressions of their surviving hopes; wherein Christians, which deck their coffins with bays have found a more elegant emblem. For that tree, seeming dead, will restore itself from the root, and its dry and exuccous leaves resume their verdure again; which, if we mistake not, we have also observed in firs. Whether the planting of yew in church-yards hold not its original from ancient funeral rites, or as an emblem of resurrection from its perpetual verdure, may also admit conjecture. They made use of music to excite or quiet the affections of their friends, according to different harmonies. (136) But the secret and symbolical hint even careless in quotation. The words occur in Serv. ad Æneid. III. 68. and read correctly as follows:-" Vale. Nos te, ordine quo Natura permiserit, cuncti sequamur." Virg. Masvicii. I. 502. See also, in Kirchmann, III. 9. 333. an inscription of the greatest beauty, in which nearly the same words occur; and, in the following pages, examples of that affectionate wish that the turf might lie lightly on the grave of beloved friends.-ED. (136) See Matt. xi. 23, and xi. 17. with the Rev. Mr. Trollope's note on the latter passage. Ovid, to whose poetical merits the critics have somehow or another been always unjust, has a fine remark on this subject. Fast. VI. 65. "Temporibus veterum tibicinis usus avorum Magnus, et in magno semper honore fuit. was the harmonical nature of the soul; which delivered from the body went again to enjoy the primitive harmony of heaven, from whence it first descended; which, according to its progress, traced by antiquity, came down by Cancer, and ascended by Capricornus. They burnt not children before their teeth appeared, as apprehending their bodies too tender a morsel for fire, and that their gristly bones would scarce leave separable relics after the pyral combustion. (137) That they kindled not fire in their houses for some days after, was a strict memorial of the late afflicting fire. And mourning without hope, they had a happy fraud against excessive lamentation, by a common opinion that deep sorrows disturbed their ghosts (138) That they buried their dead on their backs, or in a supine position, seems agreeable unto profound sleep, and common posture of dying; contrary to the most natural way of birth; nor unlike our pendulous posture, in the doubtful state of the womb.(139) Diogenes was singular, who preferred a prone situation in the grave, and some Chris And I may add, that in the East the women who sing at marriages are likewise employed at funerals; and that I have been sometimes startled, in Cairo, at observing the same voices which I had heard chaunt a funeral hymn in the morning, singing an epithalamium in the afternoon.-ED. (137) Vide Næn. Children found in graves.-DOUGLAS. 138 Tu manes ne læde meos. (139) Thus we always find the Egyptians in their coffins; and the general practice of antiquity was the same. Diogenes, whose whole life had been one fierce struggle after singularity, very naturally wished to be equally singular in death. Diog. Laert. Vit.-ED. |