Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari!
Happy the man whose vigorous soul can pierce
Through the formation of this universe,
Who nobly dares despise, with soul sedate,
The den of Acheron, and vulgar fears and fate.
—WHARTON.
The following lines from the "Troad" (chorus of act ii.), in which Pluto, Cerberus, Phlegethon, Styx, etc., are treated like dreams and childish tales, were repeated in the theatre of Rome, and applauded by forty thousand hands:
.... Tœnara et aspero
Regnum sub domino, limen et obsidens
Custos non facili Cerberus ostio
Rumores vacui, verbaque inania,
Et par solicito fabula somnio.
Lucretius and Horace express themselves equally strongly. Cicero and Seneca used similar language in innumerable parts of their writings. The great emperor Marcus Aurelius reasons still more philosophically than those I have mentioned. "He who fears death, fears either to be deprived of all senses, or to experience other sensations. But, if you no longer retain your own senses, you will be no longer subject to any pain or grief. If you have senses of a different nature, you will be a totally different being."
To this reasoning, profane philosophy had nothing to reply. Yet, agreeably to that contradiction or perverseness which distinguishes the human species, and seems to constitute the very foundation of our nature, at the very time when Cicero publicly declared that "not even an old woman was to be found who believed in such absurdities," Lucretius admitted that these ideas were powerfully impressive upon men's minds; his object, he says, is to destroy them:
.... Si certum finem esse viderent
Ærumnarum homines, aliqua ratione valerent
Religionibus atque minis obsistere vatum.
Nunc ratio nulla est restandi, nulla facultas;
Æternas quoniam poenas in morte timendum.
—LUCRETIUS, i. 108.
.... If it once appear
That after death there's neither hope nor fear;
Then might men freely triumph, then disdain
The poet's tales, and scorn their fancied pain;
But now we must submit, since pains we fear
Eternal after death, we know not where.
—CREECH.
It was therefore true, that among the lowest classes of the people, some laughed at hell, and others trembled at it. Some regarded Cerberus, the Furies, and Pluto as ridiculous fables, others perpetually presented offerings to the infernal gods. It was with them just as it is now among ourselves:
Et quocumque tamen miseri venere, parentant,
Et nigros mactant pecudes, et Manibus divis
Inferias mittunt multoque in rebus acerbis
Acrius admittunt animos ad religionem.
—LUCRETIUS, iii. 51.
Nay, more than that, where'er the wretches come
They sacrifice black sheep on every tomb,
To please the manes; and of all the rout,
When cares and dangers press, grow most devout.
—CREECH.
Many philosophers who had no belief in the fables about hell, were yet desirous that the people should retain that belief. Such was Zimens of Locris. Such was the political historian Polybius. "Hell," says he, "is useless to sages, but necessary to the blind and brutal populace."
It is well known that the law of the Pentateuch never announces a hell. All mankind was involved in this chaos of contradiction and uncertainty, when Jesus Christ came into the world. He confirmed the ancient doctrine of hell, not the doctrine of the heathen poets, not that of the Egyptian priests, but that which Christianity adopted, and to which everything must yield. He announced a kingdom that was about to come, and a hell that should have no end.