[181] This is the doctrine of St. Augustine, which Dante followed in _Inf._ vi. 106 _sqq._ [182] Cp. the brazen wall wrapped in flame in the Revelation of St. Paul. [183] Cp. Revelation ix. 6, upon the authority of which text a similar passage is introduced into many of the mediæval descriptions of Hell. Cp. the Book of Adam, where the damned ‘call aloud for the second death, and the second death is deaf to their prayer’ (Ancona, _op. cit._ 107). So Dante, ‘che la seconda morte ciascun gride’ (_Inf._ i. 115). Cp. too Dante, _Inf._ iii. 124-6, where the guilty are eager to cross the river to their place of suffering: ‘Chè la divina giustigia gli sprona Sì che la tema si volge in disio,’ when, however, Dante was probably following Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 313-14. [184] See, especially, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 587 _sqq_. [185] ‘Now seeing that they who make this moan are the Saints, to whom are allotted everlasting mansions in the heavenly Kingdom, how much more meet were it for men that are yet on earth,’ etc., ch. 34. Cp. the similar passages in the _Félire Oengusa_ and the _Scéla Lái Brátha_ referred to in the preceding section. [186] Verbal differences between the two versions are frequent throughout, though generally the later copy is the fuller, owing to the insertion of a certain amount of ‘padding.’ Far wider divergences exist between the different versions of most of the mediæval legends, _e.g._ the Vision of Paul, the Voyage of St. Brendan, and the Vision of Tundale. This circumstance strengthens the internal evidence of interpolations in the _Fis Adamnáin_. At the same time, it adds to the difficulty of determining the relative priority of the incidents contained in the several Visions. [187] The Acts of St. Brendan, and the accounts of his voyages, have often been translated by modern scholars. Besides the collections of hagiologists and Church historians, standard works on the subject are Jubinal, _La Légende latine de Saint Brendaines_, Paris, 1836; Schröder, _Sanct Brandan_, Erlangen, 1871; Moran, _Acta Sancti Brendani_, Dublin, 1872. The Irish Life is edited, with a translation and notes, by Mr. Whitley Stokes, in _Anecdota Oxoniensia_ (_Mediæval and Modern Series_, pt. 5). In the Rev. Denis O’Donoghue’s _Brendaniana_ the subject is treated in an interesting and compendious manner. The summary of the principal incidents of the voyages given in the text, is taken, for the most part, from Mr. Stokes’s edition of the Irish life. [188] The imaginary island of St. Brendan was delineated in the maps of the Middle Ages, and even of later periods. It was claimed by the Portuguese, but afterwards ceded to Spain. Many voyages were undertaken in quest of it, one so late as 1721.--Ancona, _op. cit._, p. 50.