[171] The Balance of the Dead is an article in almost every creed. Mohammed borrowed it from the Persians. I know not from whence the Monks introduced it; probably they were ignorant enough to have invented the obvious fiction.
In the Vision of Thurcillus the ceremony is accurately described. “At the end of the north wall, within the church, sate St. Paul, and opposite him, without, was the Devil and his Angels. At the feet of the Devil a burning pit flamed up, which was the mouth of the Pit of Hell. A Balance equally poised, was fixed upon the wall between the Devil and the Apostle, one scale hanging before each. The Apostle had two weights, a greater and a less, all shining and like gold, and the Devil also had two smoky and black ones. Therefore the Souls that were all black came one after another, with great fear and trembling, to behold the weighing of their good and evil works: for these weights weighed the works of all the souls, according to the good or evil which they had done. When the scale inclined to the Apostle, he took the Soul, and introduced it thro’ the Eastern gate, into the fire of Purgatory, that there it might expiate its crimes. But when the scale inclined and sunk towards the Devil, then he and his Angels snatched the soul miserably howling and cursing the father and mother that begot it to eternal torments, and cast it with laughter and grinning into the deep and fiery pit which was at the feet of the Devil. Of this Balance of good and evil much may be found in the writings of the holy Fathers.”
Matthew Paris.
“Concerning the salvation of Charlemagne, Archbishop Turpin, a man of holy life, wrote thus. “I, Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, being in my chamber, in the city of Vienna, saying my prayers, saw a legion of Devils in the air, who were making a great noise. I adjured one of them to tell me from whence they came, and wherefore they made so great an uproar. And he replied that they came from Aix la Chapelle, where a great Lord had died, and that they were returning in anger because they had not been able to carry away his soul. I asked him who the great Lord was, and why they had not been able to carry away his soul. He replied that it was Charlemagne, and that Saint Jago had been greatly against them. And I asked him how St. Jago had been against them; and he replied, we were weighing the good and the evil which he had done in this world, and Saint Jago brought so much timber and so many stones from the churches which he had founded in his name, that they greatly over-balanced all his evil works; and so we had no power over his soul. And having said this the Devil disappeared.”
We must understand from this vision of Archbishop Turpin, that they who build or repair churches in this world, erect resting places and inns for their salvation.
Historia do Imperador Carlos Magno, & dos Doze
Pares de França.
Two other corollaries follow from the vision. The Devil’s way home from Aix la Chapelle lay thro’ Vienna;—and as churches go by weight, an architect of Sir John Vanbrugh’s school should always be employed.”
This Balance of the Dead was an easy and apt metaphor, but clumsily imagined as an actual mode of trial.
“For take thy Ballaunce, if thou be so wise,
“And weigh the winde that under heaven doth blow;
“Or weigh the light that in the East doth rise:
“Or weigh the thought that from man’s mind doth flow
“But if the weight of these thou canst not show,
“Weigh but one word which from thy lips doth fall.”
Spenser.