Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines

by John Claudius Pitrat

The soul, in the exercise of her operations, being necessarily in submission to the body which she animates; and all souls flowing from the immense reservoir called universal soul, it follows that the portion of the fire ether which animates a man, might as well animate an ox, a lion, an eagle, a whale, or any other beast. Fate caused that she would animate a man, and such a man; but when the soul will be disengaged from this first body, and will return to her source, she will be able to pass into the body of another animal; and her activity will be lesser or greater, in ratio of the organization of the new body into which she will pass.

All the great work of nature being reduced to successive organizations and destructions, in which the same matter is ten thousand times used under ten thousand forms, the subtle matter of the soul, carried in that current, brings life to all the moulds which open to receive her. Thus the same water flown from a same reservoir, enters the various pipes which are opened, rolls on and empties either as a fountain, or as a cascade, according to the forms of the orifices of the pipes; then it congregates, evaporates, and forms clouds which brings it back down to the earth, to experience again an infinity of modifications. It is the same of the fluid of the soul spread in the various canals of the animal organization, flowing from the bright mass of which the ethereal substance is composed; thence being carried to the earth by the generating force distributed among the animals, continually ascending and descending in the universe, and circulating within new bodies diversely organized.

Such was the basis of Metempsychosis, which became one of the most powerful political engines in the hands of the ancient rulers, legislators and mystagogues. Pythagoras brought this doctrine from the Orient to Greece, and to Italy. This philosopher, and Empedocles after him, taught that the souls of the criminals, when death separated them from the bodies they animated, passed into the bodies of beasts in order to suffer, under those divers forms the punishment of their wickedness, until they might recover, by expiation, their native purity. So this transmigration of the souls was a punishment of the gods. The Stoicians held this doctrine; and the emperor Marcus-Aurelius, in the ninth book of his Works, said: "The spiritus, or breath, which animates us, passes from one body into another."

To give the reader a general idea of what was the belief of the ancients, and of their philosophers, in regard to Metempsychosis, we take from the tenth and last book of the Republic of Plato the following lengthy but instructive extract:—

"It is not the narration of Alcinoüs (namely, a false story, such as the one of Ulysse to the Pheacians,) that I will tell you; but that of a noble man, of Her, the Armenian, a native of Pamphily. He had been killed in a battle; but when, ten days after, the dead bodies were taken away for inhumation, his, instead of being in putrefaction like the others, was found natural and entire. It was carried to his house, and, on the twelfth day, when laid on the wood-pile, he came again to life; and he related to the assistants what he had seen in the other world.

"'As soon,' he says, 'as my soul left my body, I arrived, in company with a great number of souls, at a mysterious place, where were seen two openings near each other, and two others corresponding in the sky. Between these two regions were judges sitting: when they had pronounced their sentence they ordered the righteous to take the right hand side route through one of the openings of the sky, after having previously placed on their breast a mark containing the judgment rendered in their favor; also they ordered the wicked to take the left hand side route through one of the openings of the earth, carrying on their back a mark containing all their evil actions. When I was presented to the judges, they decided that I should return to the earth to inform men of what was done in the other world; and they bade me listen and observe all I was to witness.

"'First I saw the souls of those who had been judged, the ones ascending to the heavens, and the others descending below the earth through the two corresponding openings. Withal I saw, through the other opening of the earth, many souls coming out, covered with filthiness and dust; and also, through the other opening in the sky, I saw souls pure and spotless descending: they seemed to return from a long voyage, and to stop with pleasure in the meadow, as if in a place of reunion. Those who knew each other mutually inquired what they had seen in the heaven, and in the earth. The ones related their adventures with groans and tears, caused by the recollection of the sufferings they had endured, or seen others endure, during their voyage below the earth, whose duration was of a thousand years. The others, who returned from the heaven, related the rapturous pleasures they had enjoyed, and the marvellous things they had seen.'

"It would be too long, my dear Glaucon, to relate the whole discourse of Her on this subject. It might be summed up in saying that the souls were punished ten times for each injustice they had committed while on earth; that the duration of each punishment was of one hundred years, natural length of man's life, in order that the punishment be ever tenfold for each crime. Thus those who had contaminated themselves with murder; who had betrayed States and armies, and reduced them to servitude; or who had committed similar crimes, were punished tenfold for each one of those crimes. Whereas those who had done good to their fellow men, who had been holy and virtuous, received in the same proportion the reward of their good deeds. In regard to children who die immediately, or a short time after they are born, Her gave details which it is useless to relate. According to his narration there were great recompenses for those who had honored the gods, and had respected their parents; and also there were extraordinary tortures for the parricides, and for impious men.

"'I was present,' said he, 'when a soul asked another where was the great Ardiee. This Ardiee had tyrannized over a city of Pamphily a thousand years before; he had killed his father, who was an old man, and he was guilty, it was said, of many other atrocious crimes. He does not come, the soul answered, and he will never come here. We all have witnessed, in relation to him, the most dreadful spectacle. When we were about leaving the subterraneous abyss after our pains ended, we saw Ardiee, and a great number of others, the most of whom had been tyrants like himself; there were also others, who, though in a private condition, had been great criminals.

"'When those souls were about going out, the opening was closed; and whenever one of those wretched souls, whose crimes were irremissible, tried to get out of the abyss, she howled. Thereupon hideous and firelike beings came. They violently wrested away several of those criminals; then they seized Ardiee and others, tied their feet, their hands and their heads; and after throwing them on the ground and torturing them with lashes, they dragged them through bleeding thorns, telling the shadows which they met on their route the reason why they treated so those souls, and adding that they were going to throw them into the Tartarus. Those souls added, that of the various fears they had on the route none was so horrible as that of hearing that howl; and that it had been an inexpressible pleasure for them not to have heard it when they were released from the abyss.