among the Jews and Christians as among the pagans. Thus the Book of
Enoch shows us the prophet carried off in a whirlwind to the heights
whence he perceived “the beds where the just rest” amid the saints.[497]
We can here point out exactly the most important of the literary
intermediaries through whom this conception was transmitted from
paganism to Judaism and from Judaism to Christianity. Towards the end of
the first century A. D., amid the desolation which followed on the
destruction of the Temple, a pious Jew, somewhere in the East, composed
and ascribed to the venerable authorship of Esdras an apocalypse which
enjoyed singular popularity until the time of its rejection by the
Church as apocryphal. The visionary who set it down combines a number of
pagan reminiscences with biblical ideas. He promises eternal felicity to
the just, and asks himself what will be the lot of souls between the
time of their death and the end of the world. Will they be at rest or
will they be tortured? And the angel who inspires him answers that when
the vital breath has left the body to go again to adore the glory of the
Most High, the soul which has violated the divine law will not enter the
celestial dwellings but will “wander amidst torments, for ever suffering
and saddened on seven paths.” But the soul which has walked in the way
of God “will rest in seven orders of rewards.”[498] The sixth of these
is the order in which its face begins to shine like the sun and in which
it becomes incorruptible, like the stars; the seventh is that in which
it wins to the sight of God.
These are conceptions and even expressions which belong to astral
immortality, and the Jewish author, like the pagans before him,
everywhere contrasts the state of agitation filled with anguish reserved
for the guilty with the blessed tranquillity which is the reward of a
pious life.[499] The description of the celestial dwelling which Saint
Ambrose borrowed from the pseudo-Esdras is singularly like that given by
the philosophers of the earlier period: a place in which there is no
cloud, no thunder, no lightning, no violence of winds, neither darkness
nor sunset, neither summer nor winter to vary the seasons, where no cold
is met with, nor hail, nor rain. But the Christian doctor, like the
Jewish visionary, adds a new feature: there will be no more sun nor moon
nor stars; the light of God will shine alone.[500]
The idea of repose in the eternal light was, thanks to the apocalypse of
the supposed Esdras, to become one of those most frequently expressed by
epitaphs and ritual. It was from this apocryphal work that the Roman
liturgy borrowed the form of a prayer introduced into the office of the
dead at least as early as the seventh century and still sung in the
funeral service—_Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat
eis_. “Lord, give them eternal rest and may perpetual light shine upon
them.”
* * * * *
The idea of the repast of the dead evolved, like that of their repose,
as the conception of life beyond the tomb was gradually transformed, and
it finally assumed a far higher significance than that originally
attributed to it.
According to a belief found everywhere, the dead, as we know,[501]
needed nourishment if they were not to suffer from hunger. Hence the
obligation to make libations and sacrifices on the tomb and to deposit
food and drink there. The neglect of these sacred duties entailed
consequences fearful to him who failed to fulfil them, just as their
exact observance ensured him the good will of the spirits of the dead.
The custom of holding banquets which united the members of a family
beside a grave at a funeral or on certain consecrated days, was
connected with this belief. This custom was no mere rendering of an
honour to one who had gone, no unmixed manifestation of piety or
affection. The motive for these ceremonies was much more concrete. As we
have stated elsewhere,[502] men were persuaded that the spirit of him
who lay beneath the ground was present at the meal, took its place
beside its kin and rejoiced with them. Therefore its share was set aside
for it, and by consecrated formulas it was invited to drink and eat.
Moreover the guests themselves ate copiously and drank deeply, convinced
that the noisy conviviality of the feast was a source of joy and
refreshment to the shade in the gloom of its sepulchral existence.
Sometimes the dinner took place in a room within the tomb, specially set
aside for such meetings, sometimes in one of the gardens which men
delighted to make around the “eternal house” of the dead[503] and to
which inscriptions sometimes give the name of “paradise”
(παράδεισος).[504]
These are customs and ideas which are found everywhere from the time
when history had its origin, practices and ideas to which under the
Roman Empire the people still clung, and which even partially survived
the conversion of the masses to Christianity, although the Church
condemned them as pagan. Until the end of antiquity and even in the
Middle Ages, banquets, at which wine flowed abundantly, were still held
on anniversaries by kinsfolk and friends near the remains of those they
loved.[505]
When, however, the conception of survival in the tomb was superseded or
overshadowed by that of survival in the nether world, the repast of the
dead was also transferred thither. Henceforth it was in the Elysian
Fields that pious souls could take their place at the table of the
Blessed. The Orphics were the first to introduce into Greece this new
idea, which was, however, no more than the development of a pre-Hellenic
belief, and it spread through the mysteries of Dionysos[506] to every
part of the ancient world: the ritualistic repasts in which the initiate
took part, the drunkenness which exalted their whole being, were for the
adepts of this cult at once a foretaste and a warrant of the happiness
reserved for them in that eternal feast of the subterranean world in
which a sweet intoxication would rejoice their soul. That forgetfulness
of all cares which the divine liquor gave was connected with Lethe, the
water of which, according to mythology, souls drank that they might lose
all memory of their former life.
An immense number of reliefs, scattered throughout the whole extent of
the Roman Empire, bear witness to the popularity of the belief in this
form of immortality. The dead man who has been made a hero and whose
family comes to make sacrifices to him is stretched on a couch and lifts
the _rhyton_ which holds the heady drink of Bacchus, while before him,
on a little table, dishes are placed. These banquets took place, as we
have said, in the Elysian Fields, and the idea of the repast thus met
and combined with the idea of rest. The Blessed were imagined as lying
on a soft bed of flowered grass, taking part in a perpetual feast, to
the accompaniment of music and songs. Lucian in his “True
Histories”[507] describes, with ironical exaggeration, the joys of these
guests who are stretched comfortably among the flowers of a fragrant
meadow in the shade of leafy trees, and who gather, instead of fruit,
crystal goblets, which fill with wine as soon as they are placed on the
table.
In spite of the mockery of sceptics these beliefs still had some
faithful partisans even at the end of paganism. A picture discovered in
the catacomb of Praetextatus shows us a priest of the Thraco-Phrygian
god Sabazios celebrating a mystic banquet with six of his fellows, and
another fresco represents the introduction of a veiled woman into the
garden of delights, where she has been judged worthy of being received
at the table of virtuous souls.[508]
Sometimes in the reliefs of the “funeral banquet” the dead are seen
wearing on their head the bushel (_modius_) of Serapis, with whom, after
a virtuous life, they have been identified. This indicates a confusion,
to which much other testimony bears witness, between the Bacchic
mysteries and the cult of the Alexandrian god.[509] Serapis is the great
master of the feast (συμποσιάρχης),[510] the host who must in the nether
world entertain those faithful to him. Thus the eschatological beliefs
of the Nile Valley mingled with those of Greece. In the country of
burning sun, where a straying traveller runs the risk of dying of thirst
on the arid stretches of sand, the hope expressed above all others for
him who accomplishes the great pilgrimage to the abode of the infernal
divinities, is that he may find wherewith to quench his consuming
thirst. “May Osiris give thee fresh water” is a wish which the votaries
of the Egyptian god often inscribed on their tombs. Thus the repast in
the other world was to be above all a refreshment (_refrigerium_). The
word passed into Christian language to denote both earthly “_agape_” or
sacred meal and the bliss of the other world, and even today the Roman
Church prays for the spiritual “refreshment” of the dead.[511]
We touch here on a question which is not yet completely elucidated, that
of the relation established between the funeral banquet and the
salvation of those who took part in it.
In Rome from the end of the Republic onwards this banquet, amid the
general decline of faith in immortality, was increasingly detached from
the tomb and became a guild or domestic ceremony. The tendency was to
reduce it to the repast of a family or confraternity, to the
perpetuation among men of the memory of him whose features were
preserved by a statue or picture. But the funeral cult acquired new
meaning with the spread of Oriental religions. It did not cease to be
useful to the dead who were its object, to whose subsistence in the
beyond and safe arrival in the Elysian Fields it was still thought to be
necessary. The offerings of the living sustained them on their dangerous
and hard journey thither; the food and drink restored them on the long
road they had to travel before they reached the place of everlasting
refreshment.
But the funeral repast was also salutary to those who offered it, and
not only because it ensured to them the good will of a spirit or demon
capable of protecting them. This banquet, at which wine flowed
profusely, was like the “orgies” of the Bacchic and Oriental mysteries,
and the resemblance is partly explained by an identity of kind.
The ritual of the gods whose death and resurrection were
commemorated—Bacchus, Osiris, Attis, Adonis—was probably a development
of the funeral ritual, and the banquet of initiation was thus related to
the banquet at the grave. On the one hand, it was believed that by a
mystic union with the god, men could share his blessed lot after the
transient trial of a death like his.[512] On the other hand, it was with
a dead man that a repast was taken, but with one who also, in some sort,
had become a god, who had preceded the diners into the other world and
awaited them there. “Live happy and pour out wine to our Manes,” says a
Latin epitaph of Syria, engraved beneath a scene of libation,
“recollecting that one day you will be with us.”[513]
According to an opinion which often found expression, the shades
themselves rejected whoever did not deserve to enter the abode of the
Blessed, but willingly received the pious soul which had always
fulfilled its duty towards them.[514] For admission to this club of
posthumous diners a members vote was necessary. Thus the funeral banquet
took on the character of a mystic banquet; that is, it came to be
conceived as a prelibation of the banquet at which the elect feasted in
the other world. The wish which the guests made to each other—“Drink and
live!”—became an allusion, no more to this earthly life, but to that
other existence in which they would participate in the felicity of him
who had gone before them and who would help them to rejoin him therein.
The following advice, repeated elsewhere in various forms, is found on
the tomb of a priest of Sabazios: “Drink, eat, jest and come to me ...
that is what you will carry away with you” (_hoc tecum feres_).[515]
This is not to be understood here as an Epicurean invitation to enjoy
life because all else is vain,[516] but a veiled expression of faith in
the efficacy for the salvation of the initiate attributed to the joyous
banquets which gathered men about a tomb.
The connection between the beliefs of the mysteries and the hopes
attached to the funeral cult became more intimate as immortality brought
the spirits of the dead nearer the celestial divinities. The idea that
some few privileged mortals win admission to the banquet of the gods is
very ancient. An inscription of Sendjerli in Syria, which goes back to
the eighth century before our era, orders sacrifices to be made in order
that the soul of King Panamu “may eat and drink with the god
Hadad,”[517] and Greek mythology told that certain heroes, such as
Heracles, who had been carried off to heaven, had there become the table
companions of the gods. Horace states that Augustus, borne to the
ethereal summits, will there rest between Hercules and Pollux, “drinking
nectar with his rosy lips.”[518] But we have seen elsewhere that
apotheosis, or deification, which was at first the privilege of an
aristocracy, became the common lot of all pious souls,[519] and that the
Elysian Fields were transferred from the depths of the infernal realm to
the upper spheres of the world. The repast of the Blessed was thus
transported to heaven.[520] This removal to the region of the stars
seems to have been first made in the astral religion of Syria, but it
was commonly accepted in western paganism. This is why in funeral
reliefs of the Roman period, in which the dead are shown banqueting,
such representations are placed in the upper part of the stele, above
the scenes of earthly life which fill the lower portion of the stone.
The emperor Julian is giving us a mocking picture of this repast of the
heroes, when in one of his satires he shows us the shades of the Caesars
at table immediately beneath the moon, in the highest zone of the
atmospheres—in accordance with the ideas of the Stoics.[521] Men readily
fashioned the heroes who tasted the joys of Olympus on the pattern of
the celestial divinities—resplendent with light, clothed in garments of
dazzling whiteness, their heads crowned with rays or surrounded by a
luminous nimbus, singing, as in a Greek symposium, melodious hymns.
The philosophers of course gave a symbolical interpretation of the
intoxication of the souls which took part in the feast, explaining it as
the ravishing of reason penetrated by divine intelligence. We will
return to their doctrines presently.
The Jews of the Alexandrian period shared the belief in the celestial
banquet with the Syrian paganism and transmitted it to the Christians.
The Paradise of the elect was often conceived as a shady garden where
tables were set out at which immortal guests passed their time in
endless joy. Thus, not to mention better-known texts, Aphraates, a
Syriac author of the first half of the fourth century, depicts the
felicity of the Blessed, clothed in light, who are admitted to the
divine table and are there fed with food which never fails. “There the
air is pleasant and serene, a brilliant light shines, trees grow of
which the fruit ripens perpetually, of which the leaves never fall, and
beneath these shades, which give out a sweet fragrance, the souls eat
this fruit and are never satiated.”[522]
The representation of this feast of Paradise recurs several times in the
paintings of the catacombs, but in them the wine is poured out by Peace
(_Eirene_) and Charity (_Agape_). An allegorical explanation gave a
spiritual meaning to the food and drink consumed by the elect. But the
old idea which was at the root of all the later development, the idea of
a material repast in which the dead participated, did not disappear from
popular faith when the conception that souls rose to the sky was
adopted, and in many countries it has not been obliterated even
today.[523]
* * * * *
Even in the pagan period, as we have said, enlightened minds accepted
the old descriptions of joyous feasts in fresh meadows only in a
figurative sense. A less coarse conception of immortality suffered them
to be looked upon only as symbols or metaphors. This conception of
celestial beatitude originated not in the cult of the dead but in the
cult of the gods. It was at first as material as preceding conceptions,
but it became purified as the idea of psychic survival was
spiritualised.
We have seen in another lecture[524] that the “sight of the god” who was
adored was the highest degree of initiation. Theurgy flattered itself
that it could evoke divine apparitions at will. These visions have been
described to us by those who claimed to have been favoured with
them.[525] Their character and their effects have moreover been analysed
in detail in the treatise of Jamblichus, _On the Mysteries_. The
impression most immediately produced by these epiphanies was a boundless
admiration for their splendour. The incomparable beauty with which the
gods were radiant, the supernatural light in which they were wrapped,
had such an effect on men that they could hardly bear the effulgence and
nearly lost consciousness, but their souls were flooded with unspeakable
joy and purified for ever.
To this ineffable delight of a heart possessed of divine love there was
added the highest revelation for the intelligence.[526] Must not the
infallible “gnosis” be that which was the result of instruction received
directly from the mouth of a celestial power which had come down to
earth?
The devotees who had obtained the signal favour of this resplendent
vision, were thenceforth united to the deity who had manifested himself
to them, and were certain to share his immortal life. The fugitive
pleasure which they had felt on earth would become a bliss without end
in the kingdom of the dead. There they would see face to face the god
who protected them and learn from him all that had remained hidden from
them in this life.
These ideas, half religious, half magical, are very ancient, especially
in Egypt, but they were transformed by astrolatry. Here the celestial
powers had not to be summoned by prayer or invoked by incantations in
order that they might come and converse with the faithful, but were
perpetually visible and offered themselves, day and night, to the
veneration of humanity.
Henceforth the knowledge of divine things was no longer to be
communicated by the words which the initiate believed that he heard in
the silence of the sanctuary. It was revealed by a mysterious
inspiration to him who had deserved it by a fervent observation of the
heavens.[527] Thus by an illumination of the intelligence the astral
powers unveiled their will and the secrets of their movements to their
attentive servants. Here below this knowledge was always imperfect and
fragmentary, but it would be completed in another world, when reason
once more would rise aloft to the starry spaces whence it had descended.
This eschatological doctrine, which made astronomy the source of virtue
and of immortality, could only be developed by a clergy devoted to the
study of that science. Its first authors were doubtless the “Chaldeans,”
who transmitted it to Greece with their theories as to the divisions of
the sky and the heavenly bodies. The most ancient writing in which this
Oriental influence asserts itself clearly is the _Epinomis_, probably a
work of the astronomer Philip of Opus, a disciple of Plato. Let us
listen to his own words:[528]
“When man perceives the harmony of the sky and the immovable order
of its revolutions, he is first filled with joy and struck with
admiration. Then the passion is born in him to learn about them all
that it is possible for his mortal nature to know, for he is
persuaded that he will thus lead the best and happiest existence and
will go after his death to the places suited to virtue. Then being
veritably and really initiate, pure reason taking part in the only
wisdom, he will spend the rest of his time in contemplation of what
is most beautiful among all visible things.”
This passage shows clearly the manner in which astrolatry modified
ancient ideas as to the sight of a god, the reverential wonder felt in
his presence by the faithful, the truth communicated to them and the
immortality which completed their initiation. The doctrine of an
intellectual reward for the Blessed was to attract scholars who in this
world gave themselves up to study. Spiritual activity, which emancipates
from material care and gives man nobility and virtue, seemed to them to
be the only occupation worthy of the elect. If the theory that the
Blessed would after death find this activity in the midst of the divine
stars, is probably of “Chaldean” origin, it was developed by the Greek
philosophers and in particular by Posidonius. It was also admitted into
the Roman mysteries, which, being penetrated by the spirit of Oriental
theologies, claimed to supply their adepts with a complete explanation
of the universe.
We have already alluded to this system in speaking of astral
mysticism.[529] Nature herself has destined man to gaze upon the skies.
Other animals are bent to the earth; he proudly lifts his head to the
stars. His eye, a tiny mirror in which immensity is reflected, the
soul’s door, open to the infinite, follows the evolutions of the
heavenly bodies from here below. By their splendour they make men marvel
and by their majesty compel them to veneration. Their complicated
movements, ruled by an immovable rhythm, are inconceivable unless they
are endowed with infallible reason.
The observation of the sky is not only an inexhaustible source of
aesthetic emotion. It also causes the soul, a detached parcel of the
fires of the ether, to enter into communion with the gods which shine in
the firmament. Possessed with the desire to know them, this soul
receives their revelations. They instruct it as to their nature; thanks
to them, it understands the phenomena produced in the cosmic organism.
Thus scientific curiosity is also conceived as a yearning for God. The
love of truth leads to holiness more surely than initiations and
priests.
Of the numerous passages in which these ideas are expressed I will
recall one which is well known but is not always well understood.[530]
Virgil in his _Georgics_ tells us what he looks to receive from the
sweet Muses whom he serves, being “struck with a great love for them.”
Not, as one would expect, poetic inspiration but physical science. The
Muses are to point out to him the paths of the stars in the sky, to
explain to him the reasons for eclipses, tides and earthquakes and the
variations in the length of the day. “Happy is he,” the poet concludes,
“who can know the causes of things, who treads underfoot all fear and
inexorable fate and vain rumours as to greedy Acheron.”[531] There is,
in spite of a reminiscence of Lucretius, nothing Epicurean in the idea
here expressed. The man who has won knowledge of Nature, which is
divine, escapes the common lot and does not fear death because a
glorious immortality is reserved for him.
For these joys which the acquisition of wisdom gives here below,
partially and intermittently, are in the other life bestowed with
absolute fulness and prolonged for ever. Reason, set free from corporeal
organs, attains to an infinite perceptive power and can satisfy the
insatiable desire of knowledge which is innate within reason itself. The
Blessed souls will thus be able at once to delight in the marvellous
spectacle of the world and to obtain perfect understanding thereof. They
will not weary of following the rhythmic evolutions of the chorus of
stars of which they form part, of noting the causes and the rules which
determine their movements. From the height of their celestial
observatory they will also perceive the phenomena of our globe and the
actions of men. Nothing which happens in nature or in human society will
be hidden from them. This speculative life (βιὸς θεωρητικός) is the only
one on earth or in heaven which is worthy of the sage.