Part 15 (1/2)
PART III.
HISTORICAL
All the ages, every clime Strike the silver harp of time, Chant the endless, holy story, Souls retained in Purgatory.
Freed by Ma.s.s and holy rite, Requiem, dirge and wondrous might, A prayer which hut and palace send, Where king and serf, where lord and hireling blend.
The vast cathedral and the village shrine Unite in mercy's choral strain divine.
HISTORICAL.
THE DOCTRINE OF PURGATORY, OR A MIDDLE STATE, AMONG THE PAGAN NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY.
BY THE REV. A. A LAMBING, A.M.
[This very interesting article was originally published in the ”Ave Maria.”]
The attentive student of the mythology of the nations of antiquity cannot fail to discover many vestiges of a primitive revelation of some of the princ.i.p.al truths of religion, although in the lapse of time they have been so distorted and mingled with fiction that it requires careful study to sift the few remaining grains of truth from the great ma.s.s of superst.i.tion and error in which they are all but lost. Among these truths may be reckoned monotheism, or the belief in, and the wors.h.i.+p of, one only G.o.d, which the learned Jesuit, the Rev. Aug.
Thebaud, in his ”Gentilism,” has proved to have been the primitive belief of all nations. It may not, however, be so generally known that the doctrine of Purgatory, or a future state of purification, was also held and taught in all the religious systems in the beginning. While a knowledge of this fact cannot add anything to the grounds of our faith as Catholics, it will not be wholly without interest, and it will, besides, better enable us to give a reason for the faith that is in us.
It was left to Martin Luther to found an ephemeral religious system that should deny this dogma, founded no less on revelation than on right reason; but, then, logic has never been one of the strong points of Protestants.
Before turning my attention to the nations of the pagan world, I shall briefly give the Jewish belief on this point. It may not generally be known that the doctrine of a middle state is not explicitly proposed to the belief of the Jews in any of the writings of the Old Testament, although it was firmly held by the people. We depend for our knowledge of this fact mainly on the celebrated pa.s.sage of the Second Book of Machabees (xii. 43-46). The occasion on which the doctrine was stated was this: Some of the soldiers of Judas Machabeus, the leader of the Jewish armies, fell in a certain battle; and when their fellow-soldiers came to bury them, they discovered secreted in the folds of their garments some parts of the spoils of one of the pagan shrines, which it was not permitted them to keep. After praying devoutly, the sacred writer goes on to say that Judas, ”Making a gathering, sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifices to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection [for if he had not hoped that they who were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead]. And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with G.o.dliness had great grace laid up for them. It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”
The Catholic doctrine is thus briefly laid down in the Catechism: ”Purgatory is a place of punishment in the other life where some souls suffer for a time before they can go to heaven;” or, in the words of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, there is ”the fire of Purgatory, in which the souls of just men are cleansed by a temporary punishment in order to be admitted into their eternal country, 'into which nothing defiled entereth.'”
How far the pagan notions of a middle state harmonize with the Christian doctrine the reader will be able to determine as we proceed.
I must premise by stating that almost all, if not all, the forms of paganism were two-fold, containing a popular form of religion, believed and practiced by the ma.s.s of the people, and a more recondite form that was known only to the initiated, whether this was the priestly caste, as was generally the case, or whether they were designated by some other name. It should also be observed that the forms of religion were constantly undergoing changes of greater or less importance. Nor must we lose sight of the fact that different nations embodied the same idea under different terms. The conception of the phlegmatic Norseman would be different from that of the imaginative Oriental, and the language of the refined Greek would be far other than that of the rude American savage. But yet the same truth may be found to underlie all, the outward garb alone differing.
Turning first to Egypt, which is, rightly or wrongly, commonly considered the cradle of civilization, we may sum up its teaching with regard to the lot of the dead, and the middle state, in these interesting remarks of a learned author: ”The continuance of the soul after its death, its judgment in another world, and its sentence according to its deserts, either to happiness or suffering, were undoubted parts both of the popular and of the more recondite religion.
It was the universal belief that immediately after death the soul descended into a lower world, and was conducted to the Hall of Truth (or, 'of the Two Truths'), where it was judged in the presence of Osiris and the forty-two demons, the 'Lords of Truth' and judges of the dead. Anubis, 'the director of the weight,' brought forth a pair of scales, and, placing on one scale a figure or emblem of Truth, set on the other a vase containing the good actions of the deceased; Thoth standing by the while, with a tablet in his hand, whereon to record the result. According to the side on which the balance inclined, Osiris delivered the sentence. If the good deeds preponderated, the blessed soul was allowed to enter the 'boat of the sun,' and was conducted by good spirits to Aahlu (Elysium), to the 'pools of peace,' and the dwelling place of Osiris.... The good soul, having first been freed from its infirmities by pa.s.sing through the basin of purgatorial fire, guarded by the four ape-faced genii, and then made the companion of Osiris three thousand years, returned from Amenti, re-entered its former body, rose from the dead, and lived once more a human life upon earth. This process was reiterated until a certain mystic cycle of years became complete, when finally the good and blessed attained the crowning joy of union with G.o.d, being absorbed into the Divine Essence, and thus attaining the true end and full perfection of their being.”
[1]
[Footnote 1: ”History of Ancient Egypt,” George Rawlinson, Vol. I., pp.
327-329.]
It may be remarked that all systems of religion which held the doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, should be considered as believing in a middle state of purgation, since they maintained the necessity of the soul's further purification, after death, before it was permitted to enter into its final rest.
In the ever-varying phases through which Buddhism, the religion of all South-eastern Asia, has pa.s.sed in its protracted existence, it is difficult to determine with any degree of certainty, precisely what its disciples hold; but the belief in metempsychosis, which is one of its fundamental doctrines, must permit us to range it on the side of those who hold to the idea of a middle state. Certain it is, they believe that the soul, by a series of new births, becomes, in process of time, better fitted for the final state in which it is destined for ever to remain. The same may be said of the religion of the great body of the Chinese; for, although they have their law-giver Confucius, their religion at present, as far as it merits the name, appears to be no more than a certain form of Buddhism.
Coming to the more western nations of Asia, we may remark that, as their religions were evidently a corruption of primitive revelation, less removed in point of time, they must, although they had already become idolatrous, have embodied the idea of a future state of purgation, notwithstanding that it is impossible to determine at this distant day, the exact nature of their doctrines. If, however, we turn from these to the doctrine of Zoroaster, our means of forming an opinion are more ample.
Zoroaster, or, more correctly, Zarathustra, the founder of the Persian religion, was born, according to some accounts, in the sixth century before our era, while others claim for him an antiquity dating at least from the thirteenth century before Christ. Be that as it may--and it does not concern us to inquire into it--this much is certain: he was a firm believer in a middle state, and he transmitted the same to his followers. But, going a step further than some, he taught that the souls undergoing purification are helped by the prayers of their friends upon earth. ”The Zoroastrians,” says Mr. Rawlinson, ”were devout believers in the immortality of the soul and a conscious future existence. They taught that immediately after death the souls of men, both good and bad, proceeded together along an appointed path, to 'the bridge of the gatherer.' This was a narrow road conducting to heaven or paradise, over which the souls of the pious alone could pa.s.s, while the wicked fell from it into the gulf below, where they found themselves in the place of punishment. The good soul was a.s.sisted across the bridge by the Angel Serosh--'the happy, well-formed, swift, tall Serosh'--who met the weary wayfarer, and sustained his steps as he effected the difficult pa.s.sage. The prayers of his friends in this world were of much avail to the deceased, and greatly helped him on his journey.” [1]
[Footnote 1: ”Ancient Monarchies.” Vol. II, p 339.]
With regard to the opinions held by the Greeks,--and the same may, in general terms, be applied to the Romans, whose religious views coincided more or less closely with those of their more polished neighbors,--it is difficult to form a correct idea. Not that the cla.s.sic writers and philosophers have permitted the subject to sink into oblivion,--on the contrary, they have treated it at considerable length, as all cla.s.sic scholars well know,--but while, on the one hand, as I remarked above, there is a difference between the popular ideas and those of the learned, there is also here a great difference of opinion between the various schools of philosophy. Not only so, but it is difficult to determine how far the philosophers themselves were in earnest in the opinions they expressed; and how far, too, we understand them. The opinions of the people, and much more, those of the learned, vary with the princ.i.p.al periods of Grecian and Roman history. This much, however, may be safely held, that, while they drew their origin from Central or Western Asia, their religion must, in the beginning, have been that of the countries from which they came. But truth only is immutable; error is ever changing.