An Irish precursor of Dante : $b a study on the Vision of Heaven and Hell ascribed to the eighth-century Irish saint Adamnán, with translation of the Irish text
Dante Alighieri · en
In any case, the Egyptian eschatology offers many points of resemblance
to certain of the later Jewish beliefs, and to Christian doctrine.
Among these is a belief in the judgment to be passed on every soul
after death, whereby the wicked were condemned to be devoured by the
‘Eater of the Dead,’ while the righteous were led through a series of
perilous adventures to a region of perpetual happiness, where, in a
place surrounded by a wall of steel, they led an existence which is the
reproduction of a happy life on earth, conceived in the usual terms of
a pagan Elysium, with a due allowance of even the grosser pleasures.[75]
This resemblance extends to several points of detail. Among the trials
through which the soul must pass are enumerated rivers and atmospheres
of fire, and the assaults of demons and monsters; it is even affirmed,
in agreement with the teaching of certain Jewish Rabbis, and of the
early Christian divines, that all departed souls, good and bad alike,
must undergo these trials, but the good passed through them speedily,
and without pain. This, we have seen, is the teaching of the _Fis
Adamnáin_, and occurs, as we shall see, in other of the Christian
Visions.
Indeed, the Rabbinical schools developed the Purgatorial theory to a
considerable extent. Thus, we find mention of seven lodges of Hell, one
below another, through which the soul had to pass successively, being
tormented on its way by fire, scourging, showers of hail, exposure to
alternate heat and cold, etc., until all its guilt was purged away.
This process finds its exact counterpart in the _Fis Adamnáin_, save
that the Rabbis called the seven stages or lodges Hells, instead of
Heavens, with at least equal propriety. The fundamental conception, and
also the nature of the sufferings endured by the dead in the course of
their purgation, are capable of being referred either to an Egyptian
or a Hellenic origin, though probably the latter assumption would be
correct; the seven successive lodges are evidently the amplification of
a Rabbinical tradition borrowed from the Chaldæan mythology.