Pagan Origin of Partialist DoctrinesPitrat, John Claudius
Religion
Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines
Pitrat, John Claudius
Catholic Church -- Controversial literature; Future punishment; Universalism
"It would be too long, my dear Glaucon, to relate the whole discourse of
Her on this subject. It might be summed up in saying that the souls were
punished ten times for each injustice they had committed while on earth;
that the duration of each punishment was of one hundred years, natural
length of man's life, in order that the punishment be ever tenfold for
each crime. Thus those who had contaminated themselves with murder; who
had betrayed States and armies, and reduced them to servitude; or who
had committed similar crimes, were punished tenfold for each one of
those crimes. Whereas those who had done good to their fellow men, who
had been holy and virtuous, received in the same proportion the reward
of their good deeds. In regard to children who die immediately, or a
short time after they are born, Her gave details which it is useless to
relate. According to his narration there were great recompenses for
those who had honored the gods, and had respected their parents; and
also there were extraordinary tortures for the parricides, and for
impious men.
"'I was present,' said he, 'when a soul asked another where was the
great Ardiee. This Ardiee had tyrannized over a city of Pamphily a
thousand years before; he had killed his father, who was an old man, and
he was guilty, it was said, of many other atrocious crimes. He does not
come, the soul answered, and he will never come here. We all have
witnessed, in relation to him, the most dreadful spectacle. When we were
about leaving the subterraneous abyss after our pains ended, we saw
Ardiee, and a great number of others, the most of whom had been tyrants
like himself; there were also others, who, though in a private
condition, had been great criminals.
"'When those souls were about going out, the opening was closed; and
whenever one of those wretched souls, whose crimes were irremissible,
tried to get out of the abyss, she howled. Thereupon hideous and
firelike beings came. They violently wrested away several of those
criminals; then they seized Ardiee and others, tied their feet, their
hands and their heads; and after throwing them on the ground and
torturing them with lashes, they dragged them through bleeding thorns,
telling the shadows which they met on their route the reason why they
treated so those souls, and adding that they were going to throw them
into the Tartarus. Those souls added, that of the various fears they
had on the route none was so horrible as that of hearing that howl; and
that it had been an inexpressible pleasure for them not to have heard it
when they were released from the abyss.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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