In the ancient Astrolatry, two different systems of future rewards and
punishments were inculcated; the Oriental or East Indian, and the
Occidental or Egyptian; the former, ignoring the resurrection of the
body, taught but one judgment immediately after death, and the latter
inculcated an individual judgment immediately after death, the
resurrection of the body, and a general judgment at the end of the
world, or conclusion of the 12,000 year cycle.
The Oriental System.
Considering perfect happiness to consist in absolute rest, the Oriental
astrologers conceived a state of eternal and unconscious repose,
equivalent to soul absorption, to which they gave the name of Nirvana,
into which they taught that, by the awards of the gods, the souls of
the righteous, or those who had lived what they called "the
contemplative life," would be permitted to enter immediately after
death. But, for the souls of sinners, they invented a system of
expiatory punishments which, known as the Metempsychosis, or
transmigration of souls, taught that they would be compelled to
successively animate the bodies of beasts, birds, fishes, etc., for a
thousand years before being permitted to enter the Nirvana.
The Occidental System.
In concocting the doctrine of the first judgment the Egyptian
astrologers, ignoring the Nirvana, inculcated the future sentient
existence of the soul; and, while retaining the Metempsychotial
expiations of the Oriental system, taught that its rewards, and
principal punishments, would be enjoyed or suffered in the under or
nether world, the existence of which they had conceived in constructing
their system of nature. This imaginary region, known to the Egyptians
as the Amenti, to the Greeks as Hades, and to the Hebrews as Sheol, was
divided by an impassable gulf into the two states of happiness and
misery which were designated in the Grecian mythology as the Elysium,
or Elysian Fields, and the Tartarus. In the lower part of the latter
was located the Phlegethon, or lake of fire and brimstone, the smoke
from which ascended into an upper apartment.
In this system it was taught that the souls of the two extremes of
society, constituted of the righteous and the great sinners, would be
consigned immediately after the first judgment, the one to the Elysium,
and the other to the Phlegethon, where they were to remain until the
second or general judgment; while the souls of less venial sinners,
constituting the greater mass of mankind, before being permitted to
enter the Elysium would be compelled to suffer the expiatory
punishments of the Metempsychosis, or in the upper region, or "smoky
row" of the Tartarus. Such was the Egyptian purgatory, and its denizens
constituted "the spirits in prison" referred to in I. Peter iii. 19,
from which the astrologers claimed to have the power to release,
provided their surviving friends paid liberally for their propitiatory
offices; and, from this assumption, the clergy of the Catholic church
derived the idea of saying masses for the repose of the soul. These
doctrines were carried by Pythagoras from Egypt to Greece about 550
years before the beginning of our era; and passing from thence to Rome,
the Greek and Latin poets vied with each other in portraying Hades and
the joys and terrors of its two states.
The Second or General Judgment.
The Egyptian Astrologers, recognizing the soul as a material entity,
and conceiving the idea that in the future life it would require a
material organization for its perfect action, taught that at the
general judgment it would be re-united to its resurrected body. In
conformity to this belief, Job is made to say in chapter xix. 25, 26,
"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter
day upon the earth; and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh
shall I see God." The higher class Egyptians, however, fearing that
their existence would continue to be of the same shadowy and intangible
character after the second judgment, as they believed it would be in
the Amenti, if worms were allowed to destroy their bodies, hoped to
preserve them until that time by the process of embalming.
The imaginary events to occur in connection with the second judgment,
which, constituting the finale of the plan of redemption, and
inculcated in what are known as the doctrines of Second Adventism, were
to be inaugurated by an archangel sounding a trumpet summoning the
quick and the dead to appear before the bar of the gods to receive
their final awards. At the second judgment, designated in the
allegories as "the last day," "day of judgment," "great and terrible
day of the Lord," etc., it was taught that the tenth and last saviour
would make his second advent by descending upon the clouds, and after
the final awards, the elect being caught up "to meet the Lord in the
air" (I. Thes. iv. 17), the heaven and the earth would be reduced to
chaos through the agency of fire. In reference to that grand
catastrophe we find it recorded in II. Peter iii. 10, that "the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be
burned up."
After the organization of a new heaven and a new earth it was taught
that upon the latter would descend a beautiful city, with pearly gates
and golden streets, called the City of God, the Kingdom of God, the
Kingdom of Heaven or New Jerusalem, in which the host of the redeemed
would, with their Lord and Saviour, enjoy the Millennium, or thousand
years of happiness unalloyed with evil; and such was the Kingdom for
the speedy coming of which the votaries of Astral worship were taught
to pray in what is known as the Lord's Prayer.
According to the teachings of the Allegories, there were to be no sun,
moon or stars during the Millennium, their authors having arranged it
so that the light of those luminaries would not be needed, as we find
recorded in Rev. xxi. 23, and xxii. 5: "The city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God did
lighten it," and "there shall be no night there; and they need no
candle, neither the light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them
light." It must be remembered, when reading the fanciful ideas relative
to the City of God, that they were composed by men who, living in a
very ignorant age, gave free rein to fervid imaginations.