On the south side of the city of Erzeroom is a mountain called Eyerli, from the same likeness which has obtained for one of the English mountains the unpoetical name of Saddleback. The Turkish traveller Evlia Effendi saw on the top of this mountain a tomb eighty paces in length, with two columns marking the place of the head and of the feet. “I was looking on the tomb,” he says, “when a bad smell occurred very hurtfully to my nose, and to that of my servant who held the horses; and looking near, I then saw that the earth of the grave, which was greasy and black, was boiling, like gruel in a pan. I returned then, and having related my adventures in the evening in company with the Pashaw, Djaafer Effendi of Erzeroom, a learned man and an elegant writer, warned me not to visit the place again, for it was the grave of Balaam the son of Beor, who died an infidel, under the curse of Moses, and whose grave was kept always in this state by subterraneous fires.”
When Wheler was at Constantinople, he noticed a monument in the fairest and largest street of that city, the cupola of which was covered with an iron grating. It was the tomb of Mahomet Cupriuli, father to the then Grand Vizier. He had not been scrupulous as to the means by which he settled the government during the Grand Seignior's minority, and carried it on afterwards, quelling the discontents and factions of the principal Agas, and the mutinies of the Janizaries. Concerning him after his decease, says this traveller, “being buried here, and having this stately monument of white marble covered with lead erected over his body, the Grand Seigneur and Vizier had this dream both in the same night, to wit, that he came to them and earnestly begged of them a little water to refresh him, being in a burning heat. Of this the Grand Seigneur and Vizier told each other in the morning, and thereupon thought fit to consult the Mufti what to do concerning it. The Mufti, according to their gross superstition, advised that the roof of his sepulchre should be uncovered, that the rain might descend on his body, thereby to quench the flames which were tormenting his soul. And this remedy the people who smarted under his oppression think he had great need of, supposing him to be tormented in the other world for his tyrannies and cruelties committed by him in this.”
If Cupriuli had been a Russian instead of a Turk, his body would have been provided with a passport before it was committed to the grave. Peter Henry Bruce in his curious memoirs gives the form of one which in the reign of Peter the Great, always before the coffin of a Russian was closed, was put between the fingers of the corpse:—“We N. N. do certify by these presents that the bearer hereof hath always lived among us as became a good Christian, professing the Greek religion; and although he may have committed some sins, he hath confessed the same, whereupon he hath received absolution, and taken the communion for the remission of sins: That he hath honoured God and his Saints, that he hath not neglected his prayers; and hath fasted on the hours and days appointed by the Church: That he hath always behaved himself towards me, his Confessor, in such a manner that I have no reason to complain of him, or to refuse him the absolution of his sins. In witness whereof I have given him these testimonials, to the end that St. Peter upon sight of them, may not deny him the opening of the gate to eternal bliss!”
The custom evidently implies an opinion that though soul and body were disunited by death, they kept close company together till after the burial; otherwise a passport which the Soul was to present at Heaven's gate, would not have been placed in the hands of the corpse. In the superstitions of the Romish church a re-union is frequently supposed, but that there is an immediate separation upon death is an article of faith, and it is represented by Sir Thomas More as one of the punishments for a sinful soul to be brought from Purgatory and made to attend, an unseen spectator, at the funeral of its own body, and feel the mockery of all the pomps and vanities used upon that occasion. The passage is in his Supplycacyon of Soulys. One of the Supplicants from Purgatory speaks:
“Some hath there of us, while we were in health, not so much studied how we might die penitent, and in good christian plight, as how we might solemnly be borne out to burying, have gay and goodly funerals, with heralds at our herses, and offering up our helmets, setting up our scutcheons and coat-armours on the wall, though there never came harness on our backs, nor never ancestor of ours ever bare arms before. Then devised we some Doctor to make a sermon at our mass in our month's mind, and then preach to our praise with some fond fantasy devised of our name; and after mass, much feasting, riotous and costly; and finally, like madmen, made men merry at our death, and take our burying for a brideale. For special punishment whereof, some of us have been by our Evil Angels brought forth full heavily, in full great despight to behold our own burying, and so, stand in great pain, invisible among the press, and made to look on our carrion corpse, carried out with great pomp, whereof our Lord knoweth we have taken heavy pleasure!”
In opposition to this there is a Rabbinical story which shows that though the Jews did not attribute so much importance to the rights of sepulture as the ancient Greeks, they nevertheless thought that a parsimonious interment occasioned some uncomfortable consequences to the dead.
A pious descendant of Abraham, whom his wife requited with a curtain lecture for having, as she thought improvidently, given alms to a poor person in a time of dearth, left his house, and went out to pass the remainder of the night among the tombs, that he might escape from her objurgations. There he overheard a conversation between the Spirits of two young women, not long deceased. The one said, “come let us go through the world, and then listen behind the curtain and hear what chastisements are decreed for it.” The other made answer, “I cannot go, because I have been buried in a mat made of reeds, but go you, and bring me account of what you hear.” Away went the Ghost whose grave-clothes were fit to appear in: and when she returned, “well friend, what have you heard behind the curtain,” said the ghost in the reed-mat. “I heard,” replied the gad-about, “that whatever shall be sown in the first rains, will be stricken with hail.” Away went the alms-giver; and upon this intelligence which was more certain than any prognostication in the Almanack, he waited till the second rains before he sowed his field; all other fields were struck with hail, but according as he had expected his crop escaped.
Next year, on the anniversary of the night which had proved so fortunate to him, he went again to the Tombs: and overheard another conversation between the same ghosts to the same purport. The well drest ghost went through the world, listened behind the curtain, and brought back information that whatever should be sown in the second rains would be smitten with rust. Away went the good man, and sowed his field in the first rains; all other crops were spoilt with the rust, and only his escaped. His wife then enquired of him how it had happened that in two successive years he had sown his fields at a different time from every body else, and on both occasions his were the only crops that had been saved. He made no secret to her of his adventures, but told her how he had come to the knowledge which had proved so beneficial. Ere long his wife happened to quarrel with the mother of the poor ghost who was obliged to keep her sepulchre; and the woman of unruly tongue, among other insults, bade her go and look at her daughter, whom she had buried in a reed-mat! Another anniversary came round, and the good man went again to the Tomb; but he went this time in vain, for when the well-dressed Ghost repeated her invitation, the other made answer, “let me alone, my friend, the words which have past between you and me have been heard among the living.”
The learned Cistercian1 to whom I owe this legend, expresses his contempt for it; nevertheless he infers from it that the spirits of the dead know what passes in this world; and that the doctrine of the Romish Church upon that point, is proved by this tradition to have been that of the Synagogue also.
1 BERTOLACCI.