fact, that afflictions are so often compared to a furnace* and the trials of God's people are said to be by fire. " The fire," says the Apostle, " shall try every man's work, of what sort it is." With the ancient Persians fire was sacred. It became an object of worship, as the symbol of the divinity ; and elemental fire was even for the soul the great means of purification. In the Zend- avesta, Ormuz is made to say to Zoroaster, " Thine eyes shall certainly see all things live anew. — For the renovated earth shall yield bones and water, blood and plants, hair, fire and life as at the beginning. — The souls will know their bodies. — Be- hold my father ! my mother ! my wife ! Then will the inhabi- tants of the universe appear on earth with mankind. Every one will see his good or evil. Then a great separation will occur. Everything corrupt will sink into the abyss. Then too through the fierceness of the fire all mountains shall melt ; and through the flowing stream of fire, all men must pass. The good will go through as easily as through flowing milk. The wicked find it real fire ; but they must pass through and be purified. Afterward the whole earth shall be renewed." *
With the Greek Stoics also, fire was the elementary principle and soul of the world, and they also taught a renovation of the world through fire. With the Stoics, "The universe is one whole, which comprises all things ; yet contains a passive prin- ciple, matter, to iracrxov) an(i an active principle, to ttoiow, which is reason, or God. The soul of man is part of this divine nature, and will be reabsorbed into it and lose its individual existence. The Deity in action, if we may so speak, is a certain active aether, or fire, possessed of intelligence. This first gave form to the original chaos, and, being an essential part of the universe, sustains it in order. The overruling power, which seems some- times in idea to have been separated from the Absolute Being, was clfiapfxivr), fate, or absolute necessity. To this the universe is subject, both in its material and divine nature. Men return to this life totally oblivious of the past, and by the decrees of fate are possessed of a renovated existence, but still in imperfection and subject to sorrow as before." 2 This is an inchoate form of
i Kleuker's Zendavesta im Kleinem, 2 Thl. s. 128.
2 The Mutual Influence of Christianity and the Stoic School. By James Henry Bry- ant, B. D., St. John's College, Cambridge, Incumbent of Astley, Warwickshire. The Hulsean Dissertation for the year 1865. London and Cambridge, 1866, p. 22. Sir Alexan- der Grant, in his Ethics of Aristotle, Essay vi., The Ancient Stoics (first an Oxford Essay, 1858), London, 1866, vol. i. p. 246, remarks: "If we cast our eyes on a list of the early Stoics and their native places, we cannot avoid noticing how many of this school appear »o have come of an Eastern and often of a Semitic stock." This circumstance in connec-
768 PART IV. Ch. L — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
the pantheism of the present day. The system as stated is not self -consistent ; as it says that the souls of men are to be ab- sorbed into the soul of the world, and yet that they are to return to this life, although oblivious to the past; which amounts to saying that there will be a new generation of men.
The idea of a purification by fire after death became familiar to the Greek mind, and was taken up by Plato, and wrought into his philosophy ; he taught that no one could become perfectly happy after death, until he had expiated his sins ; and that if they were too great for expiation, his sufferings would have no end.1 That this doctrine passed from the Gentiles to the Jews may be inferred not only from the fact already mentioned that Judas Maccabeus sent money to Jerusalem to pay for sacrifices to be offered for the sins of the dead ; but also from the doctrine of the Rabbins, that children, by means of sin offerings, could alle- viate the sufferings of their deceased parents.2 Some of them also taught that all souls, not perfectly holy, must wash them- selves in the fire-river of Gehenna ; that the just would therein be soon cleansed, but the wicked retained in torment indefinitely.3 It was in this general form of a purification by fire after death that the doctrine was adopted by some of the fathers. Nothing more than this can be proved from the writings of the first three centuries. Origen taught first that this purification was to take place after the resurrection. " Ego puto," he says, " quod et post resurrectionem ex mortuis indigeamus sacramento eluente nos at- que purgante : nemo enim absque sordibus resurgere poterit : nee ullam posse animam reperiri quae universis statim vitiis careat." 4 And secondly, that in the purifying fire at the end of the world, all souls, and all fallen angels, and Satan himself, will ultimately be purged from sin, and restored to the favour of God. In his comment on Romans viii. 12, he says : u Qui vero verbi Dei et doctrinae Evangelicse purificationem spreverit, tristibus et poenali- bus purificationibus semetipsum reservat, ut ignis gehennae in cruci- atibus purget, quern nee apostolica doctrina nee evangelicus sermo purgavit." 6 This doctrine was condemned in the Church ; but, as
tion with affinity in doctrine, goes to show the eastern origin of the Stoic system. It in- cludes the pantheism of the Orientals with some of the elements peculiar to the religion of the Semitic race as we find them in the Bible.
i Hoepfner, De Origine Dogmatis de Purgatorio, Halle, 1792-98 ; quoted by Fliigge, ut supra, p. 323.
2 Eisenmenger, EndecJctes Judenthum, n. vi. ; Kbnigsberg, 1711, pp. 357, 358.
3 Kabbala Denudata, edit. Frankfort, 1684, vol. ii. part 1, pp. 108, 109, 113.
* Homil. xv. in Luc. Works, edit. Delarue, Paris, 1740, vol. iii. p. 948, B, a.
* Ibid. Paris, 1759, vol. iv. p. 640, B, b, c.