23 Swinden, On the Nature and Location of Hell.
24 Physical Theory of Another Life, chap. xvi.
Robbing all worlds of many an angel soul, With its light hidden in its breast, which burns With all concentrate and superfluent woe."
In the average faith of individuals to day, heaven and hell exist as separate places located somewhere in the universe; but the notions as to the precise regions in which they lie are most vague and ineffectual when compared with what they formerly were.
The Scandinavian kosmos contained nine worlds, arranged in the following order: Gimle, a golden region at the top of the universe, the eternal residence of Allfather and his chosen ones; next below that, Muspel, the realm of the genii of fire; Asgard, the abode of the gods in the starry firmament; Vindheim, the home of the air spirits; Manheim, the earth, or middle realm; Jotunheim, the world of the giants, outside the sea surrounding the earth; Elfheim, the world of the black demons and dwarfs, just under the earth's surface; Helheim, the domain of the goddess of death, deep within the earth's bosom; and finally, Niflheim, the lowest kingdom of horror and pain, at the very bottom of the creation. The Buddhist kosmos, in the simplest form, as some of them conceived it, was composed of a series of concentric spheres each separated from the next by a space, and successively overarching and under arching each other with circular layers of brightness above and blackness beneath; each starry hollow overhead being a heaven inhabited by gods and blessed souls, each lurid hollow underfoot being a hell filled with demons and wicked souls in penance. The Arabian kosmos, beginning with the earth, ascended to a world of water above the firmament, next to a world of air, then to a world of fire, followed in rising order by an emerald heaven with angels in the form of birds, a heaven of precious stones with angels as eagles, a hyacinth heaven with angels as vultures, a silver heaven with angels as horses, a golden and a pearl heaven each peopled with angel girls, a crystal heaven with angel men, then two heavens full of angels, and finally a great sea without bound, each sphere being presided over by a chief ruler, the names of all of whom were familiar to the learned Arabs. The Syrian kosmos corresponded closely to the foregoing. It soared up the mounting steps of earth, water, air, fire, and innumerable choruses successively of Angels, Archangels, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominations, Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim, unto the Expanse whence Lucifer fell; afterwards to a boundless Ocean; and lastly to a magnificent Crown of Light filling the uppermost space of all.25
It is hard for us to imagine the aspects of the universe to the ancients and the impressions it produced in them, all seemed so different then, in the dimness of crude observation, from the present appearance in the light of astronomic science. Anaximander held that the earth was of cylindrical form, suspended in the middle of the universe and surrounded by envelopes of water, air, and fire, as by the coats of an onion, but that the exterior stratum was broken up and collected into masses, and thus originated the sun, moon, and stars, which are carried around by the three spheres in which they are fixed.26 Many of the Oriental nations believed the planets to be animated beings, conscious divinities, freely marching around their high realms, keeping watch and ward over the creation, smiling their favorites on to happy fortune,
25 Dupuis, L'Origine de tous les Cultes, Planche No. 21.
26 Arist. de Coel. ii. 13.
fixing their baleful eyes and shedding disastrous eclipse on "falling nations and on kingly lines about to sink forever." This belief was cherished among the later Greek philosophers and Roman priests, and was vividly held by such men as Philo, Origen, and even Kepler. It is here that we are to look for the birth of astrology, that solemn lore, linking the petty fates of men with the starry conjunctions, which once sank so deeply into the mind of the world, but is now wellnigh forgotten:
"No more of that, ye planetary lights! Your aspects, dignities, ascendancies, Your partite quartiles, and your plastic trines, And all your heavenly houses and effects, Shall meet no more devout expounders here.