SECT. XXII. Which is confirmed by tradition.

In order to establish this, we must first shew, that souls remain after they are separated from their bodies:¹⁶³¹⁶³   Whoever has a mind to read this argument more largely handled, I refer him to Chrysostom on 2 Cor. ch. iv. and to his Ethics, tome vi. against those who affirm that human affairs are regulated by daemons; and to his fourth discourse upon Providence. which is a most ancient tradition, derived from our first parents (whence else could it come?) to almost all civilized people; as appears from Homer’s verses,¹⁶⁴¹⁶⁴   Especially in that part called νεκυΐα, “concerning those that are departed:” to which may be added, the like in Virgil, in Seneca’s Œdipus, Lucan, Statius, and that in Samuel, 1 Sam. xxviii. and from the philosophers,¹⁶⁵¹⁶⁵   Pherecydes, Pythagoras, and Plato, and all the disciples of them. To these Justin adds Empedocles, and many oracles in his second Apologetic; and Xenocrates. 71not only the Greeks, but also the ancient Gauls, which were called Druids,¹⁶⁶¹⁶⁶   These taught that souls did not die. See Cæsar, book vi. of the war with the Gauls; and Strabo, book iv. of the same. “These and others say, that souls are incorruptible.” (See also Lucan, book i. 455.) and from the Indians called Brachmans,¹⁶⁷¹⁶⁷   Whose opinion Strabo explains to us thus, book xv. “We are to think of this life, as of the state of a child before it be born; and of death, as a birth to that which is truly life and happiness to wise men.” See also a remarkable place concerning this matter, in Porphyry’s fourth book, against eating living creatures. and from those things, which many writers have related, concerning the Egyptians,¹⁶⁸¹⁶⁸   Herodotus, in his Euterpe, says, that it was the opinion of the Egyptians, “That the soul of man was immortal.” The same is reported of them by Diogenes Laërtius, in his preface, and by Tacitus, book v. of his history of the Jews. “They buried rather than burnt their bodies, after the manner of the Egyptians; they having the same regard and persuasion concerning the dead.” See Diodorus Siculus, concerning the soul of Osiris; and Servius on the sixth Æneid, most of which is taken from the Egyptians. and Thracians, and also of the Germans.¹⁶⁹¹⁶⁹   See again here, the places of Hermippus, concerning Pythagoras, which we before quoted out of Josephus. Mela, book ii. concerning the Thracians, says, “Some think, that the souls of those who die return again; others, that though they do not return, yet they do not die, but go to a more happy place.” And Solinus, concerning the same, chap. x. “Some of them think, that the souls of those who die return again; others, that they do not die, but are made more happy.” Hence arose that custom of attending the funerals with great joy, mentioned by these writers, and, by Valerius Max. book i. ch. v. 12. That which we before quoted out of the Scholiast upon Aristophanes, makes this the more credible, viz. that some of the Hebrews of old came into Thrace. And, moreover, concerning a divine judgment after this life, we find many things extant, not only among the Greeks, but also among the Egyptians,¹⁷⁰¹⁷⁰   Diodorus Siculus, book i. says, that what Orpheus delivered concerning souls departed, was taken from the Egyptians. Repeat what we now quoted out of Tacitus. 73and Indians,¹⁷¹¹⁷¹   Amongst whose opinions, Strabo, book xv. reckons that “concerning the judgments that are exercised amongst the souls departed.” as Strabo, Diogenes Laërtius, and Plutarch,¹⁷²¹⁷²   Concerning those whose punishment is deferred by the gods, and concerning the face of the moon’s orb, see a famous place of his, quoted by Eusebius, book xi. ch. 38. of his Gospel Preparat. out of the dialogue concerning the soul. tell us: to which we may add a tradition, that the world should be burnt; which was found of old, in Hystaspes and the Sibyls,¹⁷³¹⁷³   (See Justin’s second Apologetic, and Clemens, Strom. vi. whence is quoted that from the Tragœdian:— “For certainly the day will come, ’twill come, When the bright sky shall from his treasure send A liquid fire, whose all-devouring flames, By laws unbounded, shall destroy the earth, And what’s above it; all shall vanish then. The water of the deep shall turn to smoke, The earth shall cease to nourish trees; the air, Instead of bearing up the birds, shall burn.” and now also in Ovid¹⁷⁴¹⁷⁴   Metamorphoses, book i. “For he remember’d, ’twas by fate decreed To future times, that sea, and earth, and heav’n Should burn, and this vast frame of nature fail.” and Lucan,¹⁷⁵¹⁷⁵   Book i. “So, when this frame of nature is dissolv’d, And the last hour, in future times, approach, All to its ancient chaos shall return: The stars, confounded, tumble into sea; The earth refuse its banks, and try to throw The ocean off; the moon attack the sun, Driving her chariot through the burning sky, Enrag’d, and challenging the rule of day: The order of the world’s disturb’d throughout.”
   Lucan was preceded by his uncle Seneca, in the end of his book to Marcia: “The stars shall ran upon each other; and, every thing being on a flame, that which now shines regularly, shall then burn in one fire.” 74and amongst the Indians in Siam;¹⁷⁶¹⁷⁶   See Ferdinand Mendesius. a token of which is the sun’s approaching nearer to the earth, observed by astronomers.¹⁷⁷¹⁷⁷   See Copernicus’s Revolutions, book iii. chap. 16. Joachim Rhæticus on Copernicus, and Goma Frisius. See also Ptolemy, book iii. chap. 4. of his mathematical syntax. That the world is not now upheld by that power it was formerly, as itself declares; “and that its ruin is evidenced, by the proof, how the things in it fail,” says Cyprian to Demetrius.—(Tbe earth is nearer to the sun in its perihelions, that is, when it is in the extreme parts of the lesser axis of its parabola, though the earth always approaches at the same distances; yet it is manifest from hence, that, at the will of God, it may approach still nearer, and, if it so pleases him, be set on fire by the sun, as it happens to comets. Le Clerc.)—“It were to be wished that the learned remarker had left out this and some other notes of this kind, unless he had studied such sort of things more.” So likewise, upon the first going into the Canary Islands and America, and other distant places, the same opinion concerning souls and judgment was found there.