EGYPTIAN IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE
We do not find among the early Hebrews or any other Oriental people very clear ideas about the life after death. The Egyptians long believed that the soul of the dead man resided in or near the tomb, closely associated with the body. This notion seems to have first led to the practice of embalming the corpse, so that it might never suffer decay. If the body was not preserved, the soul might die, or it might become a wandering ghost, restless and dangerous to the living. Later Egyptian thought regarded the future state as a place of rewards and punishments. One of the chapters of the work called the Book of the Dead describes the judgment of the soul in the spirit world. If a man in the earthly life had not murdered, stolen, coveted the property of others, blasphemed the gods, borne false witness, ill treated his parents, or committed certain other wrongs, his soul would enjoy a blissful immortality.
[Illustration: MUMMY AND COVER OF COFFIN (U.S. National Museum,
Washington)]
BABYLONIAN AND HEBREW IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE
Some Oriental peoples kept the primitive belief that after death all men, good and bad alike, suffered the same fate. The Babylonians supposed that the souls of the departed passed a cheerless existence in a gloomy and Hebrew underworld. The early Hebrew idea of Sheol, "the land of darkness and the shadow of death," [16] was very similar. Such thoughts of the future life left nothing for either fear or hope. In later times, however, the Hebrews came to believe in the resurrection of the dead and the last judgment, conceptions afterwards adopted by Christianity.
18. LITERATURE AND ART
THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD
Religion inspired the largest part of ancient literature. Each Oriental people possessed sacred writings. The Egyptian Book of the Dead was already venerable in 3000 B.C. It was a collection of hymns, prayers, and magical phrases to be recited by the soul on its journey beyond the grave and in the spirit world. A chapter from this work usually covered the inner side of the mummy case.
[Illustration: THE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD From a papyrus containing the Book of the Dead. The illustration shows a man and his wife (at the left) entering the hall in the spirit world, where sits the god of the dead with forty two jurors (seen above) as his assistants. The heart of the man, symbolized by a jar, is being weighed in balances by a jackal-headed god against a feather, the symbol of truth. The monster in the right hand corner stands ready to devour the soul, if the heart is found lighter than the feather.]