thereby representing the similitude (as it were) to the sight, for
twins especially indicate similarity. And in another place he saith,
Death is brazen sleep, thereby intimating to us that it is insensible.
Neither hath he spoken much amiss who calls sleep the lesser mysteries
of death; for sleep is really the first initiation into the mysteries
of death.
Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a
slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether
any thing ailed him, wisely answered, Nothing, sir, only one brother
anticipates another,—Sleep before Death.
13. If death be like a journey, neither upon this account is it an
evil, but rather the contrary; for certainly it is the emphasis of
happiness to be freed from the incumbrances of the flesh and all those
troublesome passions which attend it, which serve only to darken the
understanding, and over-spread it with all the folly that is incident
to human nature.
“The very body,” saith Plato, “procures us infinite disquiet only
to supply its daily necessities with food; but if any diseases are
coincident, they hinder our contemplations, and stop us in our
researches after truth. Besides, it distracts us with irregular
desires, fears, and vain amours, setting before us so many fantastic
images of things, that the common saying is here most true, that
on account of the body we can never become wise. For wars, popular
seditions, and shedding of blood by the sword are owing to no other
original than this care of the body and gratifying its licentious
appetites; for we fight only to get riches, and these we acquire
only to please the body; so that those who are thus employed have not
leisure to be philosophers. And after all, when we have retrieved an
interval of time to seek after truth, the body officiously interrupts
us, is so troublesome and importune, that we can by no means discern
its nature. Therefore it is evident that, if we will clearly know any
thing, we must divest ourselves of the body, and behold things as they
are in themselves with the mind itself, that at last we may attain what
we so much desire, and what we do profess ourselves the most partial
admirers of, which is wisdom. And this we cannot consummately enjoy
till after death, as reason teacheth us. For if so be that we can
understand nothing clearly as long as we are clogged with flesh, one of
these things must needs be, either that we shall never arrive at that
knowledge at all, or only when we die; for then the soul will exist
by itself, separate from the body; and whilst we are in this life, we
shall make the nearest advances towards it, if we have no more to do
with the body than what decency and necessity require, if we break off
all commerce with it, and keep ourselves pure from its contagion, till
God shall give us a final release, and then being pure and freed from
all its follies, we shall converse (it is likely) with intelligences
as pure as ourselves, with our unaided vision beholding perfect
purity,—and this is truth itself. For it is not fit that what is pure
should be apprehended by what is impure.”[155]
Therefore, if death only transports us to another place, it is not to
be looked upon as an evil, but rather as an exceeding good, as Plato
hath demonstrated. The words of Socrates to his judges seem to me to
be spoken even with inspiration: “To fear death, gentlemen, is nothing
else than to counterfeit the being wise, when we are not so. For he
that fears death pretends to know what he is ignorant of; for no man
is certain whether death be not the greatest good that can befall a
man, but they positively dread it as if they were sure it was the
greatest of evils.” Agreeably to this said one after this manner:—