But a few words ought to be said about the earlier conceptions of an after-life. Both the Greeks and the {140} Hebrews thought of the other-world as a joyless reflection of the present. Death was, to all intents, the end of what really counted. Those who deny that men can live nobly without the hope of immortality forget that men like Pericles were unaffected by that phantom dream. Even the great Hebrew prophets extolled righteousness without the promise of a reward in the next world. What men have done, we can surely do again. The Greek father felt himself a member of a family whose traditions and loyalties he wished to hand on intact. For himself, he desired only the customary funeral rites so that his shade might rest in peace. In the house of Hades dwell the senseless dead, the phantoms of men outworn. The answer of Achilles to Ulysses, when that wanderer visits him in the underworld, expresses this shadowy after-life admirably: "Nay, speak not comfortably to me of death, oh great Ulysses. Rather would I live on ground as the hireling of another, with a landless man who had no great livelihood, then bear sway among all the dead that be departed." The Homeric Greeks rejoiced in life like youths whom everything pleases. The shadowy realm of Hades was felt to be a mockery of the sunlit world. The history of the belief in an after-life among the Hebrews is very similar. Yet it is surprising to notice how few remark the paucity of reference to this idea in the Old Testament. In the book of Isaiah occurs that account of Sheol to which attention was called in an earlier chapter: "Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at this coming.... All they shall answer and say unto thee, Art thou become weak as we?" The passage is a tremendous one, full of the most biting irony and vindictive hatred. This {141} conception of Sheol evidently scarcely differs from the corresponding one of the Homeric Greek. Toward the Christian era, as a result of the infiltration of the beliefs current among surrounding peoples, the idea of a future life took hold of the Jews. The Pharisees, the popular party of the day, stressed the dogma, while the Sadducees, the Aristocratic party, denied it.