Nor light nor joys; and crazed is he who seeks
To die; for life, though full of ills, has more
Of good than death.”
Occasionally the ancient philosophers and poets give intimation of a belief in immortality, but not in resurrection, as Cicero in that eloquent longing for the day when he shall meet his illustrious friend Cato.[159] But, as we have said, of the great doctrine of the resurrection, which solved the dark enigmas of humanity, they were ignorant. The hold which classical mythology had upon the human mind was relaxed before this august mystery of the Catholic faith. Pagan temples were deserted, and the sacrificial fires on their altars extinguished.
“The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had her haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and wat'ry depths; all these have vanished.