[46] This may possibly represent the conception originally prevailing in the mystic schools concerning the future life of mankind in general. (See Mr. Nutt hereon, op. cit., i. 256.) If so, redemption from such a lot would be one of the most important objects to be compassed by the theurgic effects of initiation, until the growth of moral ideas in connection with the mysteries converted this ‘place of filth and gloom’ into a place of punishment for the wicked.
[47] In like manner, the spirits were amazed to see that Dante’s body cast a shadow, as the souls of the dead did not (Purg., iii. 88 sq.), and that he breathed (ib., ii. 67-9). According to the old Persian belief, the souls of the beatified dead were to cast no shadows. See Sec. 2, post.
[48] See Books iv. and vi. of his De Civitate Dei.
[49] See Dante’s Tenth Epistle, addressed to Can Grande della Scala, Oxford Dante, pp. 414 sqq.
[50] Op. cit., p. 416, ll. 173-5.
[51] Ib., l. 169.
[52] Ib., p. 417, l. 268.
[53] Lenormant, Origines de l’Histoire, vol. ii., cited by Ragozin, Chaldæa, p. 276, which work gives a compendious account of the subject. For fuller particulars see Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 1887, Lectures iv. and v., and his article ‘Chaldæa’ in the Encyclopædia Britannica, ed. 9, vol. iii.
[54] Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, 1887, p. 364.
[55] ‘She makes the soul of the righteous one go up above the Hara-berezaiti (Mount Elborz), above the Kinvad bridge she places it, in the presence of the heavenly gods themselves.’—Vendîdâd, xix. 30; in Darmesteter’s translation, Sacred Books of the East, iv. 219; and see Ragozin, Media, c. iv.