The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future LifeAlger, William Rounseville
Religion
The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life
Alger, William Rounseville
Future life -- Christianity -- Bibliography; Future life -- Christianity -- History of doctrines
The second question that arises is, What was the significance of
the funeral ceremonies celebrated by the Egyptians over their
dead? When the body had been embalmed, it was presented before a
tribunal of forty two judges sitting in state on the eastern
borders of the lake Acherusia. They made strict inquiry into the
conduct and character of the deceased. Any one might make
complaint against him, or testify in his behalf. If it was found
that he had been wicked, had died in debt, or was otherwise
unworthy, he was deprived of honorable burial and ignominiously
thrown into a ditch. This was called Tartar, from the wailings the
sentence produced among his relatives. But if he was found to have
led an upright life, and to have been a good man, the honors of a
regular interment were decreed him. The cemetery a large plain
environed with trees and lined with canals lay on the western side
of the lake, and was named Elisout, or rest. It was reached by a
boat, the funeral barge, in which no one could cross without an
order from the judges and the payment of a small fee. In these and
other particulars some of the scenes supposed to be awaiting the
soul in the other world were dramatically shadowed forth. Each
rite was a symbol of a reality existing, in solemn correspondence,
in the invisible state. What the priests did over the body on
earth the judicial deities did over the soul in Amenthe. It seems
plain that the Greeks derived many of their notions concerning the
fate and state of the dead from Egypt. Hades corresponds with
Amenthe; Pluto, with the subterranean Osiris; Mercury
psychopompos, with Anubis, "the usher of souls;" Aacus, Minos, and
Rhadamanthos, with the three assistant gods who help in weighing
the soul and present the result to Osiris; Tartarus, to the ditch
Tartar; Charon's ghost boat over the Styx, to the barge conveying
the mummy to the tomb; Cerberus, to Oms; Acheron, to Acherusia;
the Elysian Fields, to Elisout.12 Kenrick thinks the Greeks may
have developed these views for themselves, without indebtedness to
Egypt. But the notions were in existence among the Egyptians at
least twelve hundred years before they can be traced among the
Greeks.13 And they are too arbitrary and systematic to have been
independently constructed by two nations. Besides, Herodotus
positively affirms that they were derived from Egypt. Several
other ancient authors also state this; and nearly every modern
writer on the subject agrees in it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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