[111] Skolion of Kallistratus, Antholog. Græc. p. 155. Isokrates, Encomium Helenæ, Or. x. s. 70-72. Compare the Νέκυια of the Odyssey and that of the Æneid, respecting the heroes —
| “Quæ gratia currûm Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos.” (Æn. vi. 653-5.) |
The philosopher will enjoy an existence of pure soul unattached to any body.
The Philosopher, as a recompense for having detached himself during life as much as possible from the body and all its functions, will be admitted after death to existence as a soul pure and simple, unattached to any body. The souls of all other persons, dying with more or less of the taint of the body attached to each of them,[112] and for that reason haunting the tombs in which the bodies are buried, so as to become visible there as ghosts — are made subject, in the Platonic Hades, to penalty and purification suitable to the respective condition of each; after which they become attached to new bodies, sometimes of men, sometimes of other animals. Of this distributive scheme it is not possible to frame any clear idea, nor is Plato consistent with himself except in a few material features. But one feature there is in it which stands conspicuous — the belief in the metempsychosis, or transfer of the same soul from one animal body to another: a belief very widely diffused throughout the ancient world, associated with the immortality of the soul, pervading the Orphic and Pythagorean creeds, and having its root in the Egyptian and Oriental religions.[113]
[112] Plato, Phædon, p. 81 C-D. ὃ δὴ καὶ ἔχουσα ἡ τοιαύτη ψυχὴ βαρύνεται τε καὶ ἕλκεται πάλιν εἰς τὸν ὁρατὸν τόπον, φόβῳ τοῦ ἀειδοῦς τε καὶ Ἅιδου, ὥσπερ λέγεται, περὶ τὰ μνήματά τε καὶ τοὺς τάφους καλινδουμένη· περὶ ἃ δὴ καὶ ὤφθη ἅττα ψυχῶν σκιοειδῆ φαντάσματα οἷα παρέχονται αἱ τοιαῦται ψυχαὶ εἴδωλα, αἱ μὴ καθαρῶς ἀπολυθεῖσαι, ἀλλὰ τοῦ ὁρατοῦ μετέχουσαι, διὸ καὶ ὁρῶνται.
Lactantius — in replying to the arguments of Demokritus, Epikurus, and Dikæarchus against the immortality of the soul — reminded them that any Magus would produce visible evidence to refute them; by calling up before them the soul of any deceased person to give information and predict the future — “qui profecto non auderent de animarum interitu mago praesente disserere, qui sciret certis carminibus cieri ab infernis animas et adesse et præbere se videndas et loqui et futura prædicere: et si auderent, re ipsâ et documentis præsentibus vincerentur” (Lactant. Inst. vii. 13). See Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i. 31.
[113] Compare the closing paragraph of the Platonic Timæus: Virgil, Æneid vi. 713, Herodot. ii. 123, Pausanias, iv. 32, 4, Sextus Empiric. adv. Math. ix. 127, with the citation from Empedokles:—
| “Tum pater Anchises: ‘Animæ quibus altera fato Corpora debentur, Lethæi ad fluminis undam Securos latices et longa oblivia potant’.” |
The general doctrine, upon which the Metempsychosis rests, is set forth by Virgil in the fine lines which follow, 723-751; compare Georgic iv. 218. The souls of men, beasts, birds, and fishes, are all of them detached fragments or portions from the universal soul, mind, or life, ætherial or igneous, which pervades the whole Kosmos. The soul of each individual thus detached to be conjoined with a distinct body, becomes tainted by such communion; after death it is purified by penalties, measured according to the greater or less taint, and becomes then fit to be attached to a new body, yet not until it has drunk the water of Lêthê (Plato, Philêbus, p. 30 A; Timæus, p. 30 B).
The statement of Nemesius is remarkable, that all Greeks who believed the immortality of the soul, believed also in the metempsychosis — Κοινῇ μὲν οὖν πάντες Ἔλληνες, οἱ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀθάνατον ἀποφῃνάμενοι, τὴν μετενσωμάτωσιν δογματίζουσιν (De Naturâ Hominis, cap. ii. p. 50, ed. 1565). Plato accepted the Egyptian and Pythagorean doctrine, continued in the Orphic mysteries (Arnob. adv. Gentes, ii. 16), making no essential distinction between the souls of men and those of animals, and recognising reciprocal interchange from the one to the other. The Platonists adhered to this doctrine fully, down to the third century A.D., including Plotinus, Numenius, and others. But Porphyry, followed by Jamblichus, introduced a modification of this creed, denying the possibility of transition of a human soul into the body of another animal, or of the soul of any other animal into the body of a man, — yet still recognising the transition from one human body to another, and from one animal body to another. (See Alkinous, Introd. in Platon. c. 25.) This subject is well handled in a learned work published in 1712 by a Jesuit of Toulouse, Michel Mourgues. He shows (in opposition to Dacier and others, who interpreted the doctrine in a sense merely spiritual and figurative) that the metempsychosis was a literal belief of the Platonists down to the time of Proklus. “Les quatre Platoniciens qui ont tenu la Transmigration bornée” (i.e. from one human body into another human body) “n’ont pas laissé d’admettre la pluralité d’animations ou de vies d’une même âme: et cela sans figure et sans métaphore. Cet article, qui est l’essentiel, n’a jamais trouvé un seul contradicteur dans les sectes qui ont cru l’âme immortelle: ni Porphyre, ni Hiérocle, ni Procle, ni Salluste, n’ont jamais touché à ce point que pour l’approuver. D’où il suit que la réalité de la Métempsychose est indubitable; c’est à dire, qu’il est indubitable que tous les sectateurs de Pythagore et de Platon l’ont soutenue dans un sens très réel quant à la pluralité des vies et d’animations” (Tom. i. p. 525: also Tom. ii. p. 432) M. Cousin and M. Barthélemy St Hilaire are of the same opinion.