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, and this 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 manner becoming 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 by the 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 he says:—