pleasantness and moderation treated his Body to the time of his death For when the dead Body is fallen and enbalmed â—â—s they who are enbalmed in Egypt it continues almost intire for a very long and indeterminable time and though some members thereof shall have suffered corruption yet the bones nerves and all of the more compact sort endure if I may so say for ever Do they not Certainly * Here he explains the Emigration of the Soul out of the Body at the instant of death subjoyning that Souls after death go thither whither the similitudes of their cogitations affectâ—ons and habits leâ—d them But here the Soul â—n invisible thing goes away into another place a place noble pure not to be seen by the eyes of Mortals among the infernal shades really to a good and provident God whither indeed if God be so pleased my Soul is presently to go For the Soul it self being in this manner qualified and freed from the Body will it think you presently vanish into air and perish as many men say No Cebes and Simmias it is very far from all possibility of being dissolved But truly in that manner we have explained the matter is rather dispar aged than illustrated for the nature of it is more noble if at least the Soul depart pure carrying along with it nothing from the contagion of the body as that which did whilst it remained in this life willingly and of choice hold no communication with the Body but declined and avoided it and retired into it self imployed all its powers by cogitation to avoid it Which is nothing else but to Philosophize rightly and in good earnest to anticipate death by familiar conversation of thoughts Is not this a meditation of death Wholly * From which principle he infers that a good Soul free from the contâ—gion and delusion of the corporeal senses goes immediatly after death to a certain invisible and most blisful place where it is again conjoyn'd to God to whom it is of â—in and like Doth not therefore Felices posthac Animae quas corpora nullis Faedarunt vitiis nullaque libidine morsas Detinuere olim quae dum sub carne latebant Contemplatrices abstracte a carne volarant Saepius ad Caelos Caelis post fata quibuscum Faedera sanxerunt viventes sacra locantur Eternaque illic Laetantes luce fruuntur the Soul being so comparated go to that Divine Being like unto it self Divine I say and Immortal and Wise To which when it comes it becomes perfectly happy being freed and exempted from error from ignorance from terrors wild Loves and all other Human Evils and as men are accustomed to speak of such as have been by solemn expiations purged and initiated to Sacred Rites living eternally with the Gods Shall we speak thus Cebes or otherwise Thus in all points by Jove saith Cebes But if the Soul depart out of the Body polluted and impure as having hitherto conversed wholly with the Body and slavishly served it and being both by its own errors and by the lusts of the Body fascinated esteemed nothing true but what 's corporeal namely that gross matter hat is touched seen drunk and used to Venereal pleasures and on the contrary that which is to the eyes dark and invisible but may by the power of understanding be perceived and by the institutes and discipline of Philosophy be comprehended this I say having been accustomed to hate and abhor and dread can we imagine that a Soul thus disposed and vitiated shall depart pure and intirely collected into it self By no means saith he * From the popular Opinion of Ghosts and Spirits he adds that Souls loaden with gross earthy affections wander in grief about monuments and Sepulchres for a certain time only that is according to the Pythâ—gorean Dream they light upon other Bodies suitable to their former affections inclinations and manners I think we ought rather to decree that such a Soul departs involved in and contaminate with the stains and infection of the corporeal mass which the very conversation and familiarity of the Body because that Soul hath so continually and intirely conversed therewith and with much At tenebrosae animae nimium quae carnibus olim Demerjae jae ueresuis quos tetra libido Atque voluptates solum quas sensus alebat In terris notae posthac de carne solutae Aspectum Caeli cum quo commercia nulla Viventes habuere timent nec luce fruuntur Sed tenebris dilecta nimis prope corpora semper Ferales errant Vmbrae maestaeque Sepulchra Bustaque faedacolunt Hinc noctu spectra videntur Quae terrent homines animae sunt ista malorum Quae quaeniam crassae sunt corporeaque videntur Majus noster in Supplem Lucani lib. 4. care and cogitation imployed it self in pursuit of such things hath as it were ingrafted into it and made a part of its nature Certainly This we are to hold to be with a kind of burden gross heavy terrene visible wherewith when such a Soul is inveloped it is weighed down and carried to a visible place by fear of that invisible one and as it is vulgarly said it wanders about Monuments and Sepulchres where have been seen certain darksom Images of Souls which Apparitions such Souls represent that have not departed pure but yet retain something of that gross and visible matter and are therefore beheld 'T is very probable Socrates Nor is it less probable Cebes that those are not the Souls of good men but of Wicked and Impious that are compelled to hover and flagg about those places suffering the punishment of their former vicious Education and restlesly wandring until by desire of that corporeal following they are again intangled in and bound to a Body And bound they are as is probable to one of such inclinations and manners as they in life had imployed their thoughts upon What are these things you speak Socrates How it is probable that those who have minded gluttony railing wantonness c. nor cautiously abstained from them pâ—â—on the forms of Asses and of other wild Beasts Do not you think it probable You speak with great probability And that they who highly valued and honoured injustice oppression tyranny rapine are turned into the Kindes of Wolves Hawks Kites and other Beasts of Prey or shall we say that their Souls go to some other place Truly saith Cebes to no other We are therefore to hold that all Souls strive to go whither the similitudes of their cogitations and inclinations carry them 'T is very perspicuous truly * A consectary of the former Doctrin that the arme way to that conjunction with God is not by Politic and Theatrical virtues which are but shadows but by the serious study of wisdom and why not Are then they the happiest of men who upon deliberate purpose exercise civil prudence in a popular way of life which they call temperance and justice contracted meerly from conversation and cogitation
Purgatory of the antient Heathens described with their Repentance in Hell and three parts thereof Contrition Confession Satisfaction all which they saw to be necessary by the light of Nature i. e. Sorrow These things being thus constituted when Ghosts have arrived whither the tutelar Demon of every one conducts them first they are examined tryed and judged both they who have lived well righteously and justly and they who have lived in vice injustice and impiety they also who have lived in a middle way going on to Acheron and mounting into Waggons prepared for them are therein carried to the Marish where they both remain and suffer punishments appointed for the expiation and expurgation of their sins After they are thus expiated they are absolved and quitted and every one receives rewards for their good deeds according to their merits But if for the greatness of their Crimes they be found incurable having committed either many or great Sacriledges or unjust and unlawful Homicides or such execrable Wickednesses a just lott casteth them into Tartarus from whence they never get out Whereas they who stand convicted of and obnoxious to sins great indeed but not inexpiable as they who have in heat of anger committed any violence against Father or Mother and truly repented of it all their life after or who have been Homicides through immoderate passion upon these is imposed a necessity of falling into Hell But when they have been there a year in Torments the Waves cast them forth Homicides by Cocytus Killers of Father or Mother by the Burning River And when they come to the Acherusiad Marish then with a loud voice they by name call some those whom they have killed others those whom they have wronged and begg and beseech them to be satisfied with their unfeigned penitence and grievous sufferings and to give them leave to depart out of that Marish If they prevail they retire thence and are freed from those miseries if not they are carried back again into Tartarus and so returned to the other rivers not ceasing to suffer their renewed torments untill they have obtained pardon from those to whom they have been injurious for this punishment is appointed for them by the decree of the Judges Now they who have been rightly purged by Philosophy live ever after without bodies and come into other habitations fair and delightful which to describe is too difficult for my understanding and too long for the short remainder of my life Commodious admonitions concluding the description of Hell that we are not obliged to give credit to those Poetic fictions and yet it is useful to reflect upon them that we may be incited to aim at felicity after death and to follow the only path that leads to it viz. Wisdom and Virtue But as for the concernment and importance of what we have here related Simmias we ought to labour with all possible study and care that we may follow the conduct of Virtue and Wisdom in this life For the reward is great and the hope good That the descriptions I have recounted to you of the places and conditions of Souls after death are true becomes not a wise man to affirm But that there are some such or the like as for what concerns the state and condition of our Souls and the places whither they are to go for habitation seeing it is evident that our Souls are immortal this also seems both consentaneous and worthy the danger to believe they are such For the danger is honorable and glorious and we are obliged to inculcate and as it were inchant these things into our minds wherefore I have been the more prolix in commemorating that Fable But yet as to what concerns a mans own Soul he ought to be with full confidence perswaded of these things who while he hath lived hath repudiated corporeal pleasures and outward Ornaments as alien and unnecessary and so hath resolved to addict himself to any thing rather than to lusts of the body and hath made it the grand business of his life to furnish his mind with learning and to render it polite and brave not with strange but it s own proper ornaments namely with Temperance Justice Fortitude Liberty Truth Thus armed let him expect the time when he is to take his Journey ad inferos to the Mansions of Souls departed and let him so prepare and address himself as to set forward redily and chearfully whensoever Fate shall call him And for your parts Simmias and Cebes and the rest that are here ye shall all go this Journey each in his appointed time Fate as the Tragedian saith calls me now But perhaps it is time for me to go and wash my self for I think it more decent to be washed before I drink the poyson that I may give the Women no trouble in washing my Body after death Be it so then saith Crito to him An Historical Narration of the manner of Socrates his death which was perfectly agreeable to his Life and Doctrine But do you Soorates give to those here or to me any command either concerning your Children or about any other matter wherein we may chiefly gatifie you No truly saith he Crito I leave no new command with you besides what I have alwaies told you namely that if ye take due care of your selves you will perform your duty to me and to mine and to your selves also whatever ye do though now ye make no promises nor enter into new engagements but if ye neglect your selves and will not order your life according to the prints as it were of what I now remonstrate to you what I have heretofore enjoyned ye though ye should even with vehement asseveration promise to do many and great things for my sake ye will do I am sure nothing more This saith Crito we will with courage and alacrity of mind endevour to perform But in what manner shall we Bury you Even how ye please saith he at least if ye can catch me and I not fly out of your reach And when he had sweetly smiled and turned his eyes upon us my Friends saith he I cannot perswade Crito here that I am that Socrates who just now disputed and pursued all parts of the discourse in order but he thinks me to be the same whom after a few hours ye shall behold dead and asketh me how I desire to be Buried not remembring that a good while since I made a long discourse to this very purpose that after I have drank the poyson I shall be no longer with you but go away to the Felicities of the Blessed This seems to have been spoken by me in vain while yet I endevoured to consolate both you and my self Do ye therefore undertake for me to Crito in an obligation quite contrary to what he entred into on my behalf before my Judges He was surety for me that I should remain but be ye my sureties to him that I shall not remain after I am
hence that all Relatives imply the Existence each of other do We conceive them to be Gods or the Sons of Gods Dost thou affirm or deny this I affirm it If then I hold there are Daemones as thou affirmest if some Gods be Daemones this is the very thing wherein I affirm thou dost Jest in obscure Words when thou saist I think not that there are Gods and on the contrary think there are Gods seeing thou grantest that I think there are Daemones And if these Daemones be the Sons of Gods Bastards begotten upon either Nymphs or some others such as are vulgarly talked of what man can hold them to be the Sons of Gods and yet hold that the Gods themselves are not for it would be equally absurd as if a man should affirm there are Sons of Horses or of Asses Mules but deny Horses Asses themselves to be in rerum natura But Melitus thou hast formed this Accusation against me either that thou mightest Experiment my skill in Reasoning or certainly because thou hadst nothing to object to me as a true crime Couldst thou perswade any man who hath but a spark of sense and understanding that the same man can hold there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divine things and yet at the same time deny there are either Daemones or Gods or Heroes this cannot be possible And so Athenians it is not necessary for me further to demonstrate that I am not in the least point guilty of the charge contrived by Melitus against me seeing these particulars seem abundantly cleared and proved Having refuted Melitus in all parts of his Indictment so that he need not doubt of Absolution from impartial Judges he yet shews his danger from the prejudice and inveterate hatred of the people always insense to good men Now ye may take it for an evident Truth that as I said afore among the multitude also there was raised up very great hatred against me and that is it which if any thing do will take away my life not Melitus nor Anitus but the very Crimination and Odium of the people which hath destroyed many other good men and will likewise destroy many in times to come for there is nothing of incommodity if this plague ended in me But some one may here ask Art not thou ashamed Socrates to undertake this so great an Enterprise which may bring thee into present danger of Death and I think I may return him this just Answer Thou art grosly mistaken whoever thou art That a virtuous and valiant man is not even by death it self deterred from doing his duty which he confirms by Examples if thou thinkest that a brave and valiant man makes any difference betwixt or is at all concerned in life or death where any though but little Utility may from thence result and that he doth not when he undertakes any Enterprise throughly consider this whether he therein performs Things just or unjust whether he doth the work of a Good or Ill man For according to that thy reason all the Heroes or Half-Gods who dyed at Troy were wicked and profligate as well others as the Son of Thetis who that he might suffer nothing of dishonor so far contemned death that after his Mother the Goddess her self opposing his desire of killing Hector had assured him that if he to Revenge the slaughter of his Friend and Kinsman Patroclus should kill Hector he should himself be slain in these very words if I be not mistaken Hector once killed thou too shalt surely die He nevertheless persisted in his Resolution despising death and danger he rather feared lest Surviving he should be held dishonest and unfaithful if he vindicated not the injuries of his Friends and thereupon instantly retorts Let me dye punishing an injurious man lest here exposed to the Laughter and scorn of the Greeks I sit on Ship-board an unprofitable Burthen of the Earth Thinkest thou that he was concerned in death or any other danger Thus it is Athenians in what place soever any man is set either by his own Judgment that it will be best for most commodious for him or by command of the Magistrate he is oblieged therein constantly to persist whatever danger threatens him nor is he to consider any other thing so much as this how he may avoid Dishonor Truly Athenians I should involve my self in a very great Wickedness if having hitherto even to the Hazard of my Life constantly maintained my station in that place n which they whom you had constituted my Generals have set me whether in Potidaea or in Amphipolis or in Delium He argueth a miâ—ori ad wajus if the Authority of a mortal General be so great as to oblige all under his Command to maintain their stations with invincible constancy what ought we to think of the authority of God I should now at length when God hath ordered and constituted me in that degree as I have hitherto conceived and with full perswasion of mind entertained that Judgment that it behoves me to spend my life in Philosophizing and so to search and throughly examine both my self and others commit a very hainous sin if for fear of death or any other terror I should abandon my station and desert my office And then certainly any man might drag me to judgment without injustice for that I from fear of death disobeying the command of the Oracle held there are no Gods and for that I thought my self to be wise when I am not so For to fear Death O ye men is nothing else but for a man to think himself wise who is far from being so for he thinks he knows what he doth not know For no mortal knows whether Death be not mans greatest good and yet they fear death as if they certainly knew it to be of all Evils the greatest And who sees not that it is an infamous and shameful ignorance to think ones self to know that whereof he is utterly ignorant But I Athenians herein very much differ from many men and if I durst affirm my self wiser than any other in any one thing it should be in this that I understand nothing concerning the state and condition of those below nor think I know it This one thing I certainly know that to do injury to any man or to rebel against our Superiors whether God or Men is sinful and shameful But as for those things which I know not whether they be good or evil certainly I never will either fear or avoid them rather than those which I certainly know to be evil If therefore repudiating the Since it would be a crime equivalent to Atheism or â—â—piety for him to relinquish his office of reproving men he declares his firm resolution to persist in the execution thereof in contempt of all danger yea of death it self Counsel of Anytus who saith that either I ought not to have been brought to this judgment at all or that since I
abundance Socrates himself only excepted Who said what do ye my Friends truly I sent away the Women for no other reason but lest they should in this kind offend For I have heard that we ought to die with good mens and gratulation But recompose your selves and resume your courage and resolution Hearing this we blush'd with shame and suppressed our tears But when he had walked awhile and told us that his thighs were grown heavy and stupid he lay down upon his back for so he who had given him the poyson had directed him to do Who a little time after returns and feeling him looked upon his leggs and feet then pinching his foot vehemently he asked him if he felt it and when he said no he again pinched his leggs and turning to us told us that now Socrates was stiff with cold and touching him said he would die so soon as the Poyson came up to his heart for the parts about his heart were already grown stiff Then Socrates putting aside the Garment wherewith he was covered we ow saith he a Cock to * Intimating that death was most grateful to him for which and for his deliverance now granted to him he would have a Sacrifice offered to Aesculapius See Erasmus Chiliad 3. cent 3. pag. 1. Aesculapius but do ye pay him and neglect not to do it And these were his last words It shall be done saith Crito but see if you have any other Command for us To whom he gave no answer but soon after fainting he moved himself often as if suffering Convulsions Then the Servant uncovered him and his eyes stood wide open which Crito perceiving he closed both his mouth and his eyes * A most august testimony given by Plato of his Master Socrates to vindicate both his person and Doctrine from the prejudice of an ignominious death This Echecrates was the end of our Friend and Familiar a man as we in truth affirm of all whom we have by use and experience known the Wisest and most Just. Quid dicam de Socrate cujus morti illachrimari soleo Platonem legens Cicero de natura Deor. lib. 3. Quidni ego narrem ultima illa nocte Catonem Platonis librum legentem posito ad caput gladio Duo haec in rebus extremis inst umenta prospexerat alterum ut vellet mori alterum ut posset c. Seneca Epist 24. Sic longa virtute fuit mens sancta Catonis Purgata atque illi vitae immortalis honorem Jam contemplanti divini fata Platonis Phaedonem tradunt Cum laetus talia fatur Salve sancte liber superis demisse Catoni Dirige tu cursum vitaeque extrema meantis Instrue non alium moriturus quaero magistrum Nec restare alias voluerunt Numina curas c. Tho. Maius in Supplemento Lucani lib. 4. Quid Ambraciotes ille Cleombrotus videlicet qui cum Platonis illum Phaedonem perlegasset praecipitem se dedit nullam aliam ob causam nisi quod Platoni credidit Lactantius Certain General AXIOMS Collected out of the Precedent Dialogue concerning the Soul 1. Axioms Moral 1. PAin and Pleasure are of Kin and so linked together that they closely succeed each other by turns 2. No man ought upon what account soever to desert the station wherein God hath placed him but to persist in the duties thereof contemning all opposition 3. Self-murder is a great Crime * Ac donec Deus ille Creator Qui terrena Animam primò statione locavit Evocat haud illa statione excedere fas est 4. A Wise man ought not only not to fear Death but also to desire it with submission to to the Divine Will 5. Philosophy is the perpetual meditation of Death that is to recal and divorce the Soul from commerce with the Senses and alienate it from Corporeal lusts and pleasures Which is an anticipatton of Death that is defined to be a solution and separation of the Soul from the Body 6. The Virtues of Politicians are not true Virtues but only faint resemblances of the true 7. Philosophy is the way to true Felicity and the two grand Duties of it are 1 To contemplate the perfections of God and 2 to alienate the Soul from the allurements of the Senses and from indulgence to the Body 8. Hope of future Felicity is a very great Reward that is the best way of passing through both the Temptations and Adversities of this Life with satisfaction of Mind 9. Decent Burial such as is ordained and prescribed by good Laws of the Country ought not to be neglected by a Wise man nor Funeral Pomp affected * So Epicurus in his last Will and Testament Sepeliunto nos quà videbitur in hortis commodissimum nihilq interim sumptuosiùs quod sivo ad sepulturam sive ad monumentum pertineat agunto Diog. Laert. lib. 80. II. Axioms Natural 1. COntraries are produced out of Contraries but cannot possibly subsist the same in one subject at the same time 2. To learn is to remember what the Soul knew before it came into the Body or there are naturally and congenially in the Soul the seeds of all Sciences which are only cultivated and matured by method of Discipline not implanted or ingraffed at first as Aristotle taught III. Axioms Theological 1. GOd takes care of Men for that they are his own Possession 2. God according to Plato's definition here is not only the Cause of his own Being but gives both Being and Well-being to all things else 3. The Soul of Man is the Off-spring of God in a peculiar manner participant of the Divine Nature incompound without figure or shape Incorruptible immortal as God 4. The Soul in this Life doth indeed use the service of the Body yet is not composed organically of the Senses and other Faculties thereof but simple and existeth apart by it self after separation by Death whereby the Body being compound is dissolved but the Soul goes away untouched and void of all Corruption into another Life and there lasteth Eternally 5. Of our Souls departed there is a Twofold state some are happy others unhappy 6. Seeing that in this Life things are carried on intemperately and in confusion there must be in the next Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certain and just Judgement of God the Supreme and Vniversal Judge whereby Good men may be distinguished from Wicked this being an Axiom evident by the very Light of Nature that God will reward every man according to his works in this life * Deus ipse sequendam Proposuit Virtutem praemia debita justis Haec quoniam justos injusta potentia fraudat Saepiùs in terris gens humanu rebellat Solvere post mortem justissimus ipse tenetur 7. Positively and with confidence to describe the places whither the Souls of the Dead go and to define what are the Rewards and Punishments they there receive is the part of a man extremely ignorant and superstitious though it be most
not from heat of blood nor from excess of Choler but from strength and resolution of Mind and that a good Philosopher may make an excellent Captain Had you seen him in another Expedition returning a Conquerour from Potidaea and transferring all the honours and rewards due to so signal a victory upon his beloved Alcibiades reserving to himself no other place in the Triumph but among the followers of his Friend You might have sworn he had fought so bravely rather for Conscience than for either Glory or Spoyl and that he desired no greater name than that of a good Patriot and sincere Friend When you reflect upon his fearless refusal to execute the Command he had received from the supreme Council of Athens to fetch Leo Salaminius from Salamine to be put to death according to the Sentence given against him by the Usurper Critias and his Adherents you will I presume acknowledge that he fear'd nothing but to do ill that he disdain'd to assert any power that was not just that Athens it self might with more ease have been removed to Salamine than he brought to relinquish Right and Equity and that he was more ready to accompany the oppressed in their Sufferings under Tyranny than to be a sharer in the administration of it Had some Roman been a witness of this virtuous obstinacy he would have cried out perhaps that the Capitol itself was not more immoveable than the integrity of Socrates and envied Greece the glory of so rare an Example What then would he have said my Lord had he been present at the dispute betwixt the same Socrates and his most faithful Scholar Crito wherein he being with no weak arguments urged to evade the execution of that most unjust Sentence lately pass'd upon him and deliver himself from violent death by an escape plotted and prepared to his hand nevertheless not only rejected that affectionate advice but by demonstration convinced the Author of it that the auctority of Law and Decrees of Courts of Judicature are things in their sanction so venerable and sacred as to oblige men to submission even when they are manifestly unjust and brought him at length to acquiesce in this Conclusion nefas sibi esse è carcere egredi injussu Magistratus contra legum autoritatem Herein whether Socrates were in the right or not let our Civilians determin I for my part verily believe he thought he was and this is most evident that he could never be either overcome by terrors or won by allurements to recede so much as a hairs bredth from what he had once defined to be just This very Monosyllable doubtless was his whole Decalogue equivalent to the Laws of the twelve Tables among the Romans the basis of his Religion the Centre of his Counsels and rule to his actions nor can I be easily persuaded that Astrea left to dwell among men untill after his death Of his obedience to the Laws and constitutions of his City he gave this further testimony that when the Athenian Republic to repair their people much exhausted by warre and pestilence had made an Edict that every man of fit years should be obliged to espouse one woman as principal wife and have liberty to take another for procreation he notwithstanding he had his hands full of unquiet Xantippe whose peevishness and morosity was grown to be the daily exercise of his patience at home and his reproch abroad yet in conformity to the Edict fear'd not to receive into his little house and narrow bed another Consort also one Myrto daughter of that Aristides surnamed the Just but equaly poor with himself This certainly could not but be somwhat harsh and disagreeable to a man already entered into the confines of old age and understanding the pleasures of serenity and repose and yet I must not imagin it to have been at all difficult to the wisedom of our Socrates whose tranquillity appears to have been elevated like the head of mount Athos above the tempest of feminin contentions jealousies and impertinences and his Mind incapable of peâ—turbations However he put not private cares into the balance against a duty to the Public but chose to be a good Citisen by increasing Posterity though he were sure thereby to multiply his own domestic incommodities Acting by this infallible principle of Justice which is as Plato calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the greatest of human goods and Mother of all other virtues and fully persuaded of the divinity and immortality of the Soul which is the fundament of all Religion and of future rewards and punishments the wonder is the less that this admirable man was able both to trample upon all the splendid and precious things of this momentany life and to bid defiance to all the terrible for secure in his own innocence and confident of happiness to come 't was less difficult to him either to contemn dangers or resist temptations Nay to do him right neither could this Temperance nor that Fortitude be at all difficult to him who by long use and continual practice had exalted them from Virtues into Habits In the first he appear'd to be so perfect that tho as a man he could not but feel the motions and sollicitations of Corporeal Appetites yet none of them dared to rebell against the Soveraignty of Reason by whose power he alwaies both ruled and bounded them nor could even a good Soul separated from its body and delivered from all encumbrances of Matter have acted more sedately or been less incommodated with Passions In a word in his whole life he seem'd not only unconcern'd in but insensible of the vain appearance of human things Being thus impenetrable to Cupidities it may be worth our labour to enquire also how strong he was against Fear That we may therefore take the true hight of his Courage let us if it please Your Lordship observe his deportment at the bar in the prison and at his death At the Tribunal we hear his Constancy no less than his Innocency triumphing over the power and malice of his combined Accusers the greatest hurt they can do to me saith he is to think it possible to hurt me since God takes care of Good men and they therefore can never be violated by wicked men To a friend whispering in his ear that his Judges had before resolved to doom him to death he answers softly and with a smile but such a smile as retain'd an aire of Gravity and Dignity and hath not Nature passed the same doom upon them Retiring after his condemnation Adieu my friends saith he I am now going to suffer death ye to enjoy life God alone knows which of the two is better In the Prison we find him despoil'd of whatever Fortune could take from him his body covered with raggs and loaden with chains his leggs galled and cramp'd with fetters his eyes entertain'd with no objects but a wife and Infant weeping and yet for all this we hear no complaints no lamentations
sufficiently efficacious nor honest but the best most honorable and easiest way is this not to hinder others but to render your selves virtuous to the highest degree Having then thus prophesied to those who have condemned me I leave them But to ye who have absolved me To his Friends he avows his confidence of happiness in his death and the presignification th reof by his Daemonium I shal gladly speak of what hath just now hapned while the Magistrates stay here imployed in other affairs and I have a short respit before I depart to the place where I must die and for so short a time do ye Athenians expect me for nothing hinders but we may speak together while we have the liberty To you who are my Friends I will declare what is the signification of this my disaster For Judges and in calling ye Judges I do ye but right there hath hapned to me an accident well worthy admiration That presaging and prophetie Voice of my Daemonium frequent to me at several times of my life past was wont to check and countermand me even in things of the least moment if I were about to enterprise any affair imprudently but now these Occurrents which ye see have hapned unto me which any one might imagine to be evils in extremity and yet that sign of God hath not contradicted me neither in the morning when I came forth nor when I ascended into the Pulpit or pleading chair nor in my speech whatsoever I was delivering In other speeches it did often interrupt me but now in this action it no waies opposed me in any thing I said or did And what do I conceive to be the reason of this I will explain it to ye This event of my condemnation is very happy to me We are not just Estimators of things whoever of us think death to be an evil Hereof this hath been to me a great argument for doubtless that usual sign would have resisted me if I had gone about any thing but what was truly good Thus we may with certain judgment determine of the matter That to good men there can be nothing of evil in death he proves by this Dilemma Either all sense is extinguished by death or mens Souls remain after death If there be no sense there must be eternal quiet if the Soul survive then there must be a state of extreme felicity to the Souls of good men in the society of the Blessed Hence Seneca seems to have borrowed that two edged argument against fear of death Mors nos aut consumit aut emittit emissis meliora restant onere detracto consamptis nihil restat Epist 24. A strong hope possesses me 't is happy for me that I am sent to death for one of these two is absolutely necessary Either death utterly deprives us of all sense or by death we pass from hence to another place Wherefore whether all sense be extinguished and death be like that sleep which sometimes brings most calm quiet without the deluding phantasms of Dreams good Gods what advantage it is to die for I think if any man were obliged to take particular notice of and set apart that night in which he slept so profoundly and quietly as not to be sensible of any the least disturbance from dreams and then comparing it with all other nights yea and daies too of his whole life past would observe which of all those nights or daies he had passed more sweetly and pleasantly I am of opinion that not only a man of private and humble condition but even the greatest of Kings would find such nights to be easily numerable in comparison of other whether daies or nights If then death be but like such a sound and undisturbed sleep I call it gain or advantage for all time seems to be nothing more than one night But if it be true as wise men have affirmed and taught that death is a passing hence into those places or regions which the deceased inhabit 't is more happy for thee when thou shalt have escaped from those who will have themselves to be accounted Judges to come to those who are rightly called Judges and who are said there to sit in judgment Minos and Radamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus and all other Demi-gods who lived justly and with faith Is such a change such a migration as this to be valued at nothing Then to converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer who of us would not prefer such a state of life to that of this For my part I would die if it were possible many times over to find the satisfactions I speak of How much shall I be delighted when I shall meet with Palamedes with Ajax the Son of Telamon and others circumvented by judgment of unjust men and compare their cases with my own This I think will not be unpleasant but this will be most pleasant there also to find one who examines and tries every one who is wise and who thinks himself wise but is not so how much rather Judges will a man find out him who brought a numerous Army against Troy or Vlisses or Sysiphus or very many others both men and Women with whom freely to talk and converse to compare opinions and make inquiries is a thing of vast and infinite wisdom And yet they who are there are not put to death for so doing and are in many other respects far happier than these our Citizens and for ever after immortal if at least those things that are said of the state of the Soul after death be true But it becomes you also This he saith not from doubt but from the supposition of the people with whom he had then to do For as to his own perswasion he held nothing so firm and certain as the immortality of mens minds or souls With the same caution Seneca also saith fortasse simodo sapient on vera sama est recipita nos locus aliquis quem putamne perisse premissas est Epist 63. O ye Judges to conceive noble hopes of death and to be fully perswaded in your minds of the verity of this that nothing of evill can ever come to a good man neither living nor dead and that his concerns are never neglected by the Gods Nor have these things hapned to me by chance but certain and evident it is to me that to die and to be freed from businesses is better and more conducible to me And for this reason that Divine sign hath not at all averted me Nor am I angry either with my Judges who condemned me or with my Accusers though they condemned and accused me not with design to render my condition more happy and tranquill but thinking thereby to bring some great incommodity or calamity upon me wherein I have just cause to complain of them But this only I begg of them In fine he recommends to his Judges the tuition of his Sons with this request that they might
be instructed rather to seek after virtue than to accumulate riches that if my Sons when they are grown up be troublesome to them in the same matters wherein I have disquieted and offended them they would severely punish them chiefly if they seem to take more care either of riches or the like transitory thing than of virtues they seem to be something when they are nothing I would have ye reprehend and convince them as I have reprehended you if they neglect things necessary to be solicitous about things unnecessary and pretend to be what they are not sharply reprove them Which if ye shall do both I and my Sons shal obtain from you a just and lawful benefit But 't is now time to depart I to my death ye to life and whether of the two is better I think is known only to God The End of Socrates his Apology AXIOMS MORAL Collected out of Socrates his Apology 1. A Judge is to consider not the Elegancy but Truth of what is said before him 2. The good Education of Youth is of very great Importance to the Common-wealth 3. Humane wisdom is not to be much valued because God alone is truly wise and among men he only deserves to be reputed wise who conscious of his own ignorance professeth to know nothing certainly but that he knows nothing 4. The Station and Office that God hath assigned to us in this Life we are to defend and maintain tho we thereby incur the greatest incommodities and dangers and we ought to have no consideration either of death or any other terror when Shame and Dishonour is to be avoided Nor are those things to be feared which we do not certainly know to be Evil but only those which we do certainly know to be Evil namely not to obey the Commands of God and to do unjustly 5. To be conversant in Affairs of State * A precept delivered also by Epicurus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non ad rem publicam accessurum Sapientem and inculcated even by Cicero himself Omnia suâ causâ facere sapientes Remp. capessere hominem non oportere c. Orat. pro Sext. is full of danger 6. It is both indecent and unjust for Judges to be moved and seduced by the Charms of Eloquence or Tears for they ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no respecters of persons and without passion and so to give judgment not from their own affections but from the merit of the Cause and according to Law 7. An honorable Death is alwaies to be preferred to a dishonorable Life 8. Since God takes care of human Affairs and chiefly of Good men no Evil can come to Good men neither living nor dead 9. We are not to be immoderately angry with our Enemies nor to hate them although guilty of Crimes against us and certainly to suffer the punishments reserved for them A DIALOGUE Concerning the Immortality of Mans Rational Soul AND Admirable Constancy of SOCRATES at his Death The ARGUMENT Out of SERRANVS PLATO here introduceth Phedo recounting to Echecrates the Philosophical Discourses delivered by Socrates the very day wherein he suffered death by a draught of poyson wherein he shewed both his invincible magnanimity in embracing death with perfect tranquility of mind and his most certain perswasion of the immortality of the Rational Soul By this eminent Example then and from the mouth of that true Hero at that time encountring that Gyant of Terrors death when the judgment and sayings of men much inferior to Socrates in point of wisdom are commonly reputed Oraculous Plato proves the Humane Soul to be immortal and declares his opinion concerning the state and condition thereof after its separation from the body The Thesis therefore or capital design of this Dialogue seems to be two-fold first to evince that death ought to be contemned and then that the Soul is by the prerogative of its nature exempt from the power of death And from the latter as the more noble and august part the whole Dialogue borrows its Title 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Animo of the Soul The Contents thereof are partly moral in that it teaches the contempt of death and constant adherence to virtue partly Metaphysical or Theological for that it treats of the excellency of the Soul and of God To these are added also Ornamental parts viz. a decent Introduction and accurate Narration of the remarkable manner and circumstances of Socrates his death Of these so various parts the Oeconomy or Order is concisely this Some Philosophers Friends to Socrates visiting him in the prison the last day of his life and talking familiarly together the clue of their conference oon leads them to this useful question Whether a wise man ought to fear death Of this Socrates first disputing with less cogent Reasons and transiently determining that other doubt Whether it be lawful for a man to kill himself opportunely and after his grave way of arguing resumes proceeds in the former enquiry about despising death Concerning which the summe of his reasoning is this Since the principal duty of a Philosopher is daily to meditate upon Death i. e. to withdraw and divide his Mind or Soul from his body and the exorbitant desires thereof and death is defined to be only a separation of the Soul from the Body and that after this frail and mortal life is at an end there remains a full and solid felicity to be enjoyed by those who have here truly and sincerly embraced the study of Wisdom there is no reason why he should fear death but good cause rather why he should wish and long for it because being thereby freed and secured from all importune and insatiable lusts of the body wherewith the Soul is here intangled and fettered he should instantly pass to a second and better life and therein attain to a full and perfect knowledg of Wisdom Which he now remonstrates he most assuredly expected to enjoy immediatly after his death and so his body being dissolved to become consummately happy So from the consequence of this conclusion there naturally ariseth a new dispute about the Souls surviving the Body For if the Soul exist not after death all dissertation concerning future felicity or infelicity must be vain and absurd Of this most important conference about the immortality of the Soul there are three parts One positively asserts the Soul to be essentially immortal the Second refutes the contrary opinions the Third teaches the use and advantages of the belief of the Souls immortality The FIRST part then of this excellent Doctrine of Plato and of Socrates too from whom he seems to have learned it concerning the Souls immortality is Apodictical or Demonstrative And yet he so prudently and circumspectly manages his forces as to begin the combat with a Forlorn of lighter Reasons and then bring up as it were a phalanx of stronger and more pressing arguments to assure the Victory which indeed is his
Apollodorus Socrates Cebes Simmias Crito Executioner EChecrat The Proem wherein Plato observing the Decorum proper to Dialogues and by natural consequence of the discourse lerding the mind to his grand argument here discussed first recounts the circumstances that are pertinent thereunto viz. when Socrates was put to death who were then present and upon what occasion this Dispute concerning the Soul arose Were you Phedon present with Socrates that very day wherein he drank the poyson in the Prison or have you heard it from some other Phe. I was then present Echecrates Ech. And what said that brave man before his death what end made he for that I would willingly hear But yet none of the Phliasians hath of late gone to Athens nor any stranger come from thence to us who could relate any thing of certainty concerning these matters only they report him to be dead by a draught of poyson but nothing more Phe. Have ye not heard what men said of his Judgement how that was ordered and managed Ech. That we have indeed heard for a certain man gave us a narration thereof But this seemed wonderfully strange to us that his arraignment and condemnation being past a good while since he should be reported to suffer death after so long a respit What was the reason of this Phedo Phe. A certain accident intervened Echecrates it hapned that the very next day after Judgment had been given upon him the stern of the sacred ship which the Athenians annually send to Delos was with usual pomp and solemnity Crown'd Ech. What Ship is that Phe. That wherein as the Athenians say Theseus long ago brought those fourteen young men into Crete and saved both them and himself and they then made a Vow as the tradition goes that if they returned in safety they would yearly celebrate a Feast and offer Sacrifice to Apollo in Delos in memory of their preservation which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sacrifice of Inspection and every year Solemnize by sending that ship thither Now when they have begun the celebration of this Feast of Inspection 't is by law provided that the City be in the mean time expiated and no man put to death by public decree until the Ship hath been at Delos and is returned home again in which Voyage sometimes long time is spent especially when they meet with contrary Winds The beginning of this Inspection is when the Priest of Apollo crowns the stern of the ship and this fell out to be performed upon the very day wherein as I said Judgment was given upon Socrates Which is the reason why so long a time intervened betwixt his condemnation and death he being all that while kept in prison Ech. But what of his death Phedon what were his speeches and actions were any of his Kindred and Friends with him did the Magistrates permit them to be present or died he alone deprived of their company Phe. They did permit them and there were with him some yea many of his Friends Ech. Well then I pray do your devoir to recount us the whole matter fully and plainly if at least your leisure will permit Phe. I have leisure and will endeavour to give ye the best account I can of all passages For to remember Socrates and to speak my self or hear another speak of him is the most delightful entertainment in the world Ech. And you shall find us also Phedon in the same manner affected and disposed to hear you Wherefore go on and do your best to relate the whole story Phe. Truly being then present I was affected in a very strange manner For commiseration moved me not at all as being present at the death of a man nearly Related to me For to me he seemed happy Echecrates both by his deportment and by his serene conformity and also by his discourses so undauntedly and bravely he submitted to death that it then came into my mind that he descended not to the shades below without some Divine power and therefore would when he came thither live in happiness if ever any man else did I did not then much pitty him as became one that was spectator of so sad and doleful a Tragedy nor was I on the other side sensible of that pleasure wherewith we were wont to be affected when we were seriously imployed in Philosophical conferences though at that very time also we were earnestly occupied in such but was variously agitated by a disagreeable and contrary passion A certain unusual pleasure mixt with grief surprised me thinking he was so soon to die And all we who were present felt the same confusion of opposite affections now smiling now weeping especially Apollodorus you know the man and his manners Esch I know him well Phe. In this manner was he then disposed but truly I and others were perturbed Elch. Who were there Phedon Phe. Of our Citizens there were this Apollodorus and Critobulus and his Father Crito Hermogenes also and Epigenes and Aeschines and Antisthenes with Ctesippus the Paeanian and Menexenus and some other of the Natives but Plato I think was sick Ech. Were there any strangers with him Phe. There were Simmias the Theban and Cebes and Phaedonides and Euclid and Terpsion Megarensians Ech. What was not Aristippus there and Cleombrotus Phe. No 't was said they were in Aegina Ech. Was any other there Phe. Those whom I have named were all Ech. Well what discourses passed among them Phe. I will endeavour to recount to ye all that passed from first to last In the daies precedent I and some others were wont to visit Socrates frequently meeting together early in the morning in the Judgment Hall where his cause had been tried for it stood next to the prison There we daily expected until the prison doors were opened passing the time in walking and talking together the while for 't was pretty late before the prison was opened When the doors were unlocked we went in to Socrates and many times passed the whole day with him On the day of his Suffering we came to visit him earlier than we used for the day before when we retired from the prison in the evening we had heard that the sacred ship was arrived from Delos and thereupon agreed among our selves to come to Socrates sooner than our custom was and indeed we did so but the Door-keeper who formerly used to obey us came forth and bid us have patience a while nor to enter till he called us For now saith he the Eleven Officers are taking off Socrates his Fetters having commanded that he Die this day So after a short stay he returned and gave us admittance Being entred we found Socrates unfettered and Xantippe whom you know holding an Infant in her arms and sitting by Socrates Having seen and saluted us and said some such things as Women use to speak out of civility now Socrates saith she this is the last time your Friends shall speak to you and you to them and
also that it is a nefarious act but why it should be such I have understood nothing of certainty from any The first question Whether self-murder be criminal or not argued Socratically that is pro and con and then determined by these two fundamental reasons God takes care of us and we are his by right of possession therefore t is double impiety to lay violent hands upon our selves But be of good courage replies Socrates perhaps you shall hear the reason by and by Mean while this perchance may seem strange that this among other things should be universally true without exception that no calamity can befal a man so great and intollerable as that it may be better for him to die than to live and to men in such a case is it inconvenient to affirm that it is impiety in them rather to confer this benefit upon themselves than to expect it from the hand of another And Cebes gently smiling be it known to Jove said he in his own Dialect * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you have said well So it seems saith Socrates to be inconsistent with reason That darksom and abstruse speech which is carried about concerning this matter viz. that we men are placed in a certain station and guard from which we ought not upon any pretext whatever to free our selves nor to abandon our charge seems to me to be truly great and such as cannot easily be understood and comprehended and yet notwithstanding I conceive it to be very truly said Cebes that both God takes care of us and that we are his possession Do not you conceive so too Cebes I do indeed saith Cebes But saith he if any one of your slaves should kill himself without your command would you be angry with him and if it were in your power revenge it I would saith Socrates and therefore this also seems grounded upon no less reason that no man ought to be author of his own death before God hath brought some absolute necessity upon him such as he hath now imposed upon us This also seems consentanious saith Cebes Coming here to the second Query viz. Whether a Philosopher ought to desire death First he shews reasons for the Negative viz. that the Gods are both Despots or Lords of men and gracious or good Lords to good men ergo good men ought not to desire death it being evident and confest that all are to desire to continue in the fruition of good things and he assuming that we remain with the Gods so long as we remain in this life Wherein lieth concealed a parasyllogism for in truth while we live here we are as it were pilgrims from God as Socrates will in due place remonstrate But in good truth what you said even now that Philosophers are easily inclined to die seems next to absurd if what we have here said be said consentaneously namely that God takes care of us and we belong to him as a Free-hold and certain possession For to affirm that even the wisest of men are not displeased and troubled in the least when they depart from this procuration and trust which the best Lords and Guardians of things the Gods committed unto them seems in no measure agreeable to reason For that Wise man thinks not that if he should be at his own liberty and dispose he can provide better for himself than God doth but a fool will think that he is to fly from his Lord nor will he think he ought to fly from a good thing but constantly to continue therein and so he flies away without any fore-going knowledg of reason But a prudent and circumspect man will rather desire to continue still in that which is more advantageous and profitable to him which certainly Socrates seems plainly repugnant to those things that have been by us just now explicated and yet it appears to be more like truth that wise men when they die ought to be troubled and fools to rejoyce This Socrates hearing seemed to me to be highly pleased with that subtile disquisition of Cebes and turning his eyes upon us Cebes saith he alwaies hunts after some amusing reasons nor will he presently give assent to what is said by any man But I also saith Simmias am in this point of the same opinion with Cebes For when Wise men desire death what else do they propose to themselves than to fly from Lords better than themselves and to be freed from them And Cebes seems to me to aim his discourse at you who can so easily relinquish both us and the Gods as your self confesses the best Lords Ye have reason saith Socrates for I think ye require me to make my defense before ye as in the Judgment-hall We do so saith Simmias Well then saith he I will endeavour to defend my self with more convenient and more probable Arguments before ye than before my Judges For I * Socrates going to prove that death is not only not to be feared but also wished by a Philosopher layeth down the fundamentals of his future probation applying the matter to himself namely that he was sustained by a stedfast hope that after death he should go not from the Gods but to them because there remains something after death and it will be well with good men Which are the two Heads of the subsequent disputation viz. that our Souls are immortal and that felicity is reserv d for good Souls after death saith he Simmias and Cebes if I did not think I should come first to other Gods wise and good and then to men deceased better than those who are here truly I should do very ill not to be offended and troubled at my death but now believe me I am confident I shall come to good men This I confess I will not positively affirm but if I affirm any thing for certain it shall be this that I shall come to Gods the best Lords And this is the true reason why I am not at all discomposed or troubled but sustain my self with a strong hope that something remains in reserve for the dead after death and as they long ago said that it will be much better with good men than with wicked What then saith Simmias since relying upon this cogitation you have a mind to depart will you not communicate to us the cause of it for that seems to be a good common to us also and if you shall convince us of the truth of what you say that will be also your full defense I will endeavour it saith Socrates but first let us see what Crito here would have What else should I desire to say to you Socrates answered Crito but this that a good while since the man who is to give the poyson to you bad us advertise you that you ought to speak very sparingly because much speaking puts men into a heat and therefore ought not to precede the poyson for tha from thence it may
that he cannot attain unto it until after death it is inconsistent for him to fear death So the whole question is determined that to a wise man death is not only not formidable but also desirable would it not be ridiculous if a man who hath all his life long made it his constant study and principal care to anticipate death by rendring his life as nearly like to it as is possible should yet when death really comes be afraid of and troubled at it Why not In truth then saith he they who Philosophize seriously and rightly meditate most upon death and to them of all men living death is least formidable which is evident from this argument Funera non metuit sapiens suprema nec illi Qui contemplando toties super astra levavit Carnoso abstractam penitus de carcere mentem Corporis atque Animi faciens divortia tanta Quanta homini licuit mors formidanda venire Aut ignota potest Nam mors divortia tantum Plena haec quae sapiens toties optasse videtur Et toties tentasse facit Superosque petenti Libertatem animae claustris concedit apertis Majus noster in Supplemento Lucani lib. 4. For if at all times they contemn and vilifie the Body and strive to have their Soul apart by it self and when the hour of their real and final separation comes fear and be disquieted what could be more alien or remote from reason unless they willingly and freely come thither where there is hope they shall at their arrival obtain whatever they in this life desired and they desired Wisdom and to be delivered from all commerce of the body with which they are offended Have many been willing out of ardent affection to their Friends Wives and Children deceased to descend to the shades below led by this hope that there they should see and converse with those whom they loved and shall he who is really in love with Wisdom and hath conceived a strong and certain hope that he shall no where obtain and enjoy it but in the other world as is decent and consentaneous when he is at the instant of death be vexed and grieved and not rather voluntarily and freely meet and embrace it for so we are to hold that a genuine Philosopher will conceive that he shall never meet with true wisdom but only apud inferos among the dead Which if true how inconsistent with reason were it for such a man to fear death Highly inconsistent saith he by Jove 'T is then a fit argument that he whom you shal see dying with reluctancy and fear is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of Wisdom but a lover of his Body not a lover of verity but of Riches and the Pleasures of this life It is just so as you say To those therefore who are in this manner disposed and inclined A new Theorem resulting from the precedents that those who neglecting the study of phylosophy pursue not truth as politicians and the vulgar have not true Virtue but only the shadow and resemblance of it is not that Virtue which is named Fortitude most agreeable and proper It is saith he Is not Temperance which many define to be this not to be disquieted or afflicted With lusts but to despise them and to regulate ones life by moderation does not this properly and peculiarly belong to those who both contemn the Body and continually exercise themselves in the study of Philosophy Of necessity For saith he if you consider the Fortitude and Temperance of other men you will discover them to be nothing but an importune and absurd ostentation of Virtue How so Socrates You know saith he that all other men account death to be one of the greatest Evils They do so indeed replies he Do then men of courage and fortitude endure death bravely for fear of greater Evils They do answers he Then are all except Philosophers said to be Valiant only from fear though it be truly somewhat absurd and a kind of contradiction to call any man valiant upon the account of fear and cowardise I grant it to be so What as for those of the vulgar who are reputed to be Temperate are not they so out of some intemperance Tho we have declared that to be impossible yet the like affection falls upon them in that their senseless and foolish temperance for while they fear to be deprived of some pleasures and still coveting them abstain from others they are carried away by those they covet without restraint Now they call it Intemperance to be governed by the tyranny of pleasures and 't is their case to be overcome by some pleasures whilst they conquer others So that what we said even now of vulgar Fortitude holds true also of these men that they are Temperate from some Intemperance But my Simmias That the firmament of true Virtue is wisdom without which the politic virtues are vizards and disguizes So that to Plato true Virtue is wisdom Wisdom truth and Truth Expurgation this is not the right way to Virtue to exchange pleasures for pleasures pains for pains one fear for another greater for less as we do money That is at last the true money for which all things else are to be exchanged Wisdom for the sake whereof and for which alone all things are to be sold and bought that fortitude and temperance and in summe every true and genuine Virtue may exist with wisdom while pleasures and fears and all of the same Tribe come and go But if they be separated from prudence and exchanged one for another by turns such Virtue will not amount to the shadow of Virtue but be meerly servile and base it will have nothing of true nothing of sound and solid in it Now Truth it self is the expurgation and refinement of all these not temperance nor justice nor fortitude no nor Wisdom it self can be the expurgation And indeed those who first ordain'd our Ceremonies seem not to have been silly and vile men but to have prudently designed that wrapt up in the veyls of words when they said that he who should descend to those below not being initiated and expiated according to the use of Sacrifices Hence that of Virgil Aeneid lib 6 ea prima piacula sunto Sic demum lucos stygios regna invia vivis aspicies c. Concerning which Expiation derived from the antient Egyptians consult Servius Honoratus upon the place should be rowl'd in mudd but he who descended to the shades being first ritely expiated and admitted to the Sacrifices should have his habitation with the Gods For in the Ceremonies themselves as they say you may see * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Multos Thyrsigeros paucos est cernere Bacchos an old Greek a dage many that bear Lances covered with leaves but few Bacchuses * The importance of all the precedent Arguments accomodated by Socrates to his own justification for that rejecting the
counsel and aid of his Friends who strove to perswade him to avoid death as Plato hath left upon Record in a precedent Dialogue intitled Crito he still remained fixed in his judgement that he sought rather to embrace it These are in my opinion no other but they who study Philosophy rightly From which institute I for my part have never in my whole life departed but have with all possible contention of mind laboured to be one of them But if we have done our devoirs rightly and profited any thing in that study when we come thither we shall certainly understand if God be so pleased a little after as I think These then Simmias and Cebes are the reasons I bring for my defense that I leave you and these Lords who are here not only upon just motives but without trouble or regret being fully perswaded within my self that I shall there find as good Lords and Friends as here The things I have said are indeed of that abstruse nature that they may be by very many esteemed incredible but if I shall appear to you to have made now a more pertinent decent defense to engage your assent than I did before those Athenians who were my Judges 't is very well When Socrates had said this A new disputation of the Immortality of the Soul but the basis of the former For if the Soul survive not the body all dispute concerning future felicity or infelicity must be vain and idle Cebes taking up the discourse some things saith he seem indeed to be excellently well said by you but what you have delivered concerning mans Mind or Soul seems wholly abhorrent from Humane belief nay they believe rather * To make way for this dispute first is proposed the contrary opinion of those who held that the Soul dies with the Body but so proposed that in the words of this opinion lie conceled the seeds as it were of more solid Arguments For things compounded are said to be dissipated He therefore being about to demonstrate the Soul to be a things not compound but most simple makes it most evident that a Soul is uncapable of destruction by dissipation as will appear from the dispute it self that the Soul so soon as it goes out of the Body doth no longer exist but in the very day wherein a man dies utterly perish more plainly that departing from the Body as a breath or smoke it is dispersed and flies away nothing of it afterwards remaining Now if it continued intire and had a being apart by it self delivered and freed from the evils you recounted then I confess there would be a noble hope beyond death if the things you have said Socrates be true But this wants no little probation of Arguments to prevail upon belief * The state of the Question Whether after the d ssolution of the Body the Soul be likewise dissolved and hath no longer a being namely that the Soul existeth after a man is dead and what faculty it hath of perceiving and understanding You are in the right Cebes replies Socrates But what do we Will you that we discourse further of this matter whether it be reasonable or not I would gladly hear saith Cebes your opinion concerning these abstruse things Nor do I think saith Socrates again there is any man living though he be a Comedian when he shall hear me disputing about them will say I trifle and speak of things impertinent and undecent If you please therefore that this matter be fully debated among us let us consider it in this manner namely whether the Souls of men deceased be in the infernal habitations or not * The first reason drawn from the Pythagorean opinion of the transmigration of souls For if souls go from bodies into another life and return thence hither to animate other bodies it follows both that they do and will exist hereafter because they are supposed 〈◊〉 pass through many bodies For this is a very antient Tradition which we here commemorate that the Souls of the dead go from hence thither and return from thence hither and are made of the dead Now if it be so that the living are made out of the dead our Souls truly can be no where but there for if they were not men could not be made again of them And this would be a strong Argumeâ—t that the thing is so in case it were manifest that the living are not otherwise animated than by the Souls of the dead But if this be not evident and certain other reasons are to be sought for that may be more convincing They are so saith Cebes * Proof of this Pythagorean Hypothesis that this circulation is performed not only in the bodies of men so that the living are made out of the dead but in all other creatures namely that contraries are made out of their contraries as he teacheth by various examples Do not then saith he consider this in men only if you would easily understand it but in Animals and Plants also in summe in all that have being by Generation that we may enquire whether they be all produced from no other original than as contraries from contraries whatsoever have their contraries as Beautiful or Honorable is contrary to ugly or shameful just to unjust and infinite others in the same manner Let us see therefore if it be necessary that any contrary can have no being in nature unless from its contrary for example that when a greater thing is made it be necessary it should be made of a less first and then greater Let us examine this If a less thing be made out of that which was greater before will it afterward be made less Yes saith he And of a stronger a weaker oâ— a slower a swifter It will so What if any thing worse be made is it out of a better if any thing more just is it out of what is more unjust Why not This then is clear saith he that all things are thus made contraries out of contraries 'T is so What more Is there any medium betwixt two contraries so that where there are two contraries there must be also two generations or originals of being produced first from one to the other and then from that to this again for betwixt a less thing and a greater there is augmentation and diminution of which one we call to increase the other to decrease Right Therefore to separate and compound to grow cold and to grow hot and all in the same manner though we use not names sometimes yet in reality it is necessary that some things be made out of others and that there be a mutual generation and beginning of some to others I grant it saith he Is any thing contrary to life as sleep is contrary to waking Yes What Death saith he Are these then made mutually each out of other seeing they are contraries and their generations made by some thing intermediate betwixt two contraries Why not One
necessary that as these also are so our Soul too be before we were Born and came into the light of this life If these were not truly this discourse would seem to be made in vain but they are so and there is an equal necessity both that they be and that our Souls were existent before we were Born If those be not neither are these * Conclusion that this created and divine Soul hath had prae-existence with God then knowing more things than since it came a Pilgrim into the darksom lodging of the body So that this Doctrine about Remembrance may be reduced to this one Syllogism That is learned which is perceived from remembrance of the like the Soul before it came into the Body could not but know many things by that Divine power wherewith it was endowed therefore what it learneth in the body it understandeth from remembrance of the like and so Learning is nothing but Reminiscense which was the thing to be demonstrated Truly Socrates saith Simmias absolute necessity seems to urge these things beyond all dispute and reason seems excellently to conduct us to this conclusion that as well our Soul as that Essence whereof we speak have been existent before we were born For I hold nothing so certain and evident as that all these are and chiefly both Beautiful and Good and the rest of which you now treated and I am abundantly convinced of their verity What and is Cebes so too for he also ought to be perswaded I conceive saith Simmias the whole matter hath been sufficiently proved to him too tho he be a man of most hard and most slow belief beyond all others yet I think it hath been clearly enough demonstrated to him that our Souls were pre-existent to our Nativity But whether they also survive our death and continue their Being after the dissolution of our Bodies this I think hath not been yet demonstrated and that vulgar opinion which Cebes mentioned yet remains unrefuted namely that so soon as a man is dead his Mind or Soul is dispersed and destroyed so that it can no longer exist For what should hinder but it may derive its origin and creation from some other principle and have Being long before it enter into a human body but when it departs and is freed again from the body then it both die and be utterly abolished You say well Simmias quoth Cebes for only the half of what was required seems to be demonstrated viz. that our Souls were before we were born There remains to be remonstrated the other part that the demonstration may be full and perfect namely that after our death our Souls will be no less than they were before our birth This part of the Demonstration The second part of the former Thesis of the immortality of Souls where Socrates after lighter arguments comes to allege more solid and cogent Reasons to evince that the Soul being perfectly simple or void of all composition is therfore naturally incapable of dissolution or dissipation as Cebes had objected Simmias and Cebes saith Socrates is now finished and if ye please to conjoyn and compose this reason with that upon which we all agreed before namely that whatever lives hath its existence out of the dead For if the Soul be pre-existent necessary it is that when it comes to life and is truly in Being it derive that existence only from death How therefore is not clearly evinced that it doth exist so soon as a man is deceased seeing it is necessary that it exist again This also then is already demonstrated as is apparent And yet notwithstanding both you and Simmias seem willing to be again exercised more accuratly in this argument and to be astonished with that childish fear lest the wind blow out and dissipate the Soul going out of the Body and the more if a man die not in a close room secured from winds but in an open place where winds blow strongly And when Cebes had smiled endeavour not Socrates saith he to incourage us as if we were astonisht with fear but endeavour rather to demonstrate the thing to us as free from all fear Yet perhaps there is here among us some Boy who is afraid at the mention of this Let us therefore do our devoir to perswade him not to dread death as a Goblin 'T is fit saith Socrates to mitigate and animate him daily with Verses * Alluding to the Magic of Inhcantation first used by the Egyptians and from them derived to the Grecians by Orpheus who thereby having cured his Wife Eorydice of the venemous bite of a Serpent was thereupon feigned to have reduced her from Hell Of the antiquity of this kind of Magic and the traduction of it consult Sir John Marâ—ham in Chronic. Canon pag. 142. till he be perfectly restored But where saith he shall we find a man skilful enough in the Art of Inchanting since you say you desire to leave us Greece is wide Cebes saith he and in it are good and skilful men and many Barbarous Nations which are all to be surveyed that there may be found out a man powerful in that Art of Charming neither money nor labour ought to be spared for ye can expend your money in nothing that 's more necessary And now he is to be sought after among your selves for perhaps ye will not easily find any man more able than your selves to perform it This shall be done saith Cebes but in the mean time let us if you please return to our argument from which we have digressed With all my heart why not You say well quoth he * The beginning of the grand dispute about the Souls immortality the fundament whereof is this proposition that the soul is most pure and simple and therefore indissoluble Ought we not then saith Socrates to ask of our selves and with the best of our understanding to enquire to what thing this affection of Dissipation may be convenient and incident and for what we ought to fear lest it suffer Dissipation and by what reason and in what part thereof then to consider diligently whether that thing be a Soul or not and in fine matters being thus stated either to hope comfortably of the Soul or to fear for it accordingly You say well quoth he * First position whatsoever is composed is obnoxious to dissolution Is it agreeable to a thing which is either actually mixt or compounded or by nature so constituted as to be capable of mixture or composition is it agreeable I say to such a thing in as much as it is compounded to be dissolved But if there be such a thing of whose nature it is to be wholly simple or uncompounded is it convenient to this thing to suffer no dissolution It seems to me to be so saith Cebes * Second Position Things that are alwaies the same that is Eternal are void of Composition things not alwaies the same that is moralâ— are compounded
Those things therefore which are alwaies in one manner and equally comparated 't is highly consentaneous that they be simple or void of composition but those that are sometimes in one manner sometimes in another affected that is subject to alterations 't is consentaneous that they be compounded I think so Let us then return to those we noted in our precedent discourse That very Essence which by the force of questions and answers we have defined to be really existent namely God is that equally the same at all times without alteration or not Third Position God who gives Being to all creatures and is not only Good but Goodness it self not only wise but wisdom it self c. is neither compounded nor subject to any mutation but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uniform knowing no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shadow of change namely the Equal it self the Beautiful the Single that is what really existeth doth it never receive any the least alteration That Essence saith Cebes must of necessity be ever the same without alteration What shall we determine of many Beautifuls as men or horses or garments or others however the like equal and beautiful or all that are comprehended under the signification of the same name are these alwaies the same or is any thing contrary to them nor they to themselves nor among themselves that I may so speak are they alwaies the same These truly saith Cebes are never exactly the same These therefore you may perceive either by your touch or sight or any other sense but those that are alwaies the same you cannot by any other way but by reasoning of your Mind comprehend for they are invisible and fall not under the power of sense You speak truly saith he in every point * Fourth position there are two kinds of things or as he speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two forms of Beings Those that are alwaies thesame which are invisible and those that are mutable which are visible Will you therefore that we make two Kinds of things one visible the other invisible Let us lay down these two Kinds for a foundation saith he Let us also put the invisible to be that which is alwaies the same the visible that which is never perfectly the same And that too saith he Now saith he do we consist of any other things but Body and Soul Of no other saith he * Application of all these four positions to the present argument There are in Man two distinct things One visible not alwaies the same but obnoxious to various mutations and so compound and mortal the other invisible alwaies the same and so incompound and immortal namely the Soul whence it is evinced that the Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indissoluble and consequently immortal To which of the two Kinds shall we decree the Body to be more like and more allied 'T is evident to every man saith he that the body is more of Kin to the Visible But the Soul is that visible or invisible Invisible to men saith he certainly But those things that fall under sense and those that do not did we not refer them to the nature of men or are they to be referred to any other nature think you To Human nature And what is to be concluded of the Soul that it is visible or that it is invisible Invisible This therefore is to be fixt that the Soul can by no meanes be perceived by the sight Right Therefore the Soul is more like to that Invisible Kind than the Body is and the Body more like to the Visible Of necessity Socrates * Impediments of the Soul from its so close conjunction with the body We said a while since this also that the Soul when it useth the service of the Body to consider any thing either by seeing or hearing or any other sense for to consider a thing by the body is to consider it by sense is then drawn by the body to those things that are never the same and that it errs and is amused and giddy as a Drunkard is giddy by a vertigo in his brain Altogether so But when the Soul doth contemplate by it self it aspires to what is pure to what alwaies existeth and is immortal to what is ever the same and as being of Kin thereunto is alwaies conversant therewith after it is of its self and by it self and hath power and ceaseth from error and is wholly in those things that are alwaies the same so far forth as they occur to it And this affection of the Soul is called Wisdom You speak rightly Socrates in every word To which Kind therefore both of these we mentioned above and those we now describe is the Soul more like and more allied * Conclusion that the soul is Divine and Immortal the Body gross and mortal Any man in my opinion saith he even the most ignorant will from this way and method of reasoning grant that the Soul is more alike and more cognate to the All and Whole that is to what is ever the same than to what is never exactly the same And what the Body To that which is never the same Thus observe also after the Soul and Body have come together into the same man that nature commands the body to be servant thereunto The Affections and Offices consigned by the institute or law of Nature that is of God acting by his servant Nature to both soul and body that the Soul is to rule the Body to obey and to obey the dictates of its superior the Soul and appoints the Soul to rule and give law to the Body From the reason of these things which of the two seems to you to be like unto the Divine and which to the Mortal being or is that Divine by nature qualified and made to command and govern but the Mortal to be subject and to serve I conceive so To which is the Soul like Truly Socrates the Soul is like to the Divine the Body to the Mortal Observe I pray saith he whether from all we have already alledged it be certainly evinced that the Soul is most like unto the Divine and Immortal and Intelligent and Vniform and Vnalterable but the Body is most like unto the Human and Mortal and Non-intelligent and Multiform and Dissoluble and Alterable Can we oppose any thing to these as if they were not right and convincing We cannot These things then being thus established Grand Conclusion that the Soul being indissoluble by death survives eternally is it not proper and peculiar to the body to be capable of Dissolution and to the Soul to continue indissoluble or somewhat next to this Why not You clearly see therefore saith he that when a man is dead the visible body which we call dead and to which it belongs to be dissolved and to fall asunder and be blown out doth not incontinently suffer any of these but remain some considerable time if a man hath by
fire be coldness But some may Object What hinders that Odd may not be made Even if Even be added as hath been granted and Odd being extinct Even succeed into the room thereof To him that should thus argue we could not I confess deny but that Odd may perish for Odd it self is not exempt from all destruction Since if that were not agreed upon among us we might easily evince that when Even comes in place Odd and the Ternary instantly fly away and so we might firmly determine of fire and hot and the rest Might we not Yes * Last conclusion that the Soul is both immortal and free from all destruction which is certainly demonstrated from the given and proved Hypothesis of proxim and cognate causes Now therefore of an immortal also since we are now agreed that an Immortal is absolutely free and exempt from all destruction it is demonstrated beyond all doubt or dispute that the Soul since it is immortal is free and immune from all destruction but if that be not granted it will require another disputation But saith he in good truth there is no need of further dispute as to that point For it is impossible that any thing whatever should escape death if this immortal and sempiternal undergo corruption and destruction * A confirmation of the Immortality and indissolubility of the Soul from the first and principal Cause God which being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very form of life the Soul also must be sempiternal because Divine and made after the Exemplar of that primary Idea which is confessed in the former disputation That God saith Socrates the very form of life as I conceive and if there be any other Immortal can never dye is confessed by all men By all by Jove saith Cebes not only men but Gods too I believe An Immortal therefore being incapable of Corruption what else ought we to conclude than that the Soul since it is certainly immortal must be also free and exempt from all destruction It is absolutely necessary When therefore death comes to a man what is in him mortal doth as is manifest die but what is immortal departs safe and free from all corruption giving place to death It seems so Then without all doubt Cebes the Soul is a thing immortal and free from destruction and certainly our Souls will eternally survive apud inferos I can say no more to this saith Cebes nor any way deny my assent to your Reasons But if Simmias or any other hath any new matter to object he shall do well not to conceal it since I do not see to what more convenient time he can differ the handling of these things if he desire either to speak or to hear any thing concerning them I also saith Simmias have nothing that detains me from submitting my faith to all you have explained in your former discourse And yet by reason of the Grandure and Excellency of the things commemorated while I think Human infirmity not at all worthy of so great Endowments and Prerogatives I find my self constrained not yet intirely to resign up my belief to your later conclusisions You speak with good reason Simmias saith Socrates and modestly for those our first Suppositions though we be perswaded of their verity are yet more diligently and accuratly to be considered But if ye shall after they have been decently and with just reason examined and explicacated once receive them ye will understand the whole matter as far as mans intellect is capable to comprehend things of that abstruse nature and if that be once made clear and evident ye will require no more You have reason saith he The Third part of the discourse arising from the conclusision of the Souls immortality and concerning the state of it after death which Socrates blindly describes from the opinion of the vulgar and superstitious fictions of Poets But my Friends saith he 't is fit we make diligent inquisition into this also that if the Soul be immortal we are highly concerned to take care of it not only in respect of this short time which we define by the name of life but of Eternity that remains after this life and the danger now seems to be great if any man shall neglect his Soul For if Death be a separation and dissolution of the whole it were to be reputed an advantage and emolument to dissolute and wicked men that when they are dead they might be freed from their Body and Soul and improbity all at once Whereas now it is manifest that the Soul is immortal a man hath no other way to avoid Evils and acquire security from future dangers but to become as wise and virtuous as is possible For the Soul departing hence to the Mansions of Ghosts carries along with it nothing but its former manners and education which are said to be of very great moment either to the importance of Utility or aggravation of loss to him who is dead when he first arrives there And Tradition tells us that every one of the dead is by that very Demon that attended on him living purposely led into a certain place where it is ordained all Ghosts assembled together must receive their Doom and according to the form of Judgment ratified and constituted go to the Infernal Mansions with that Guide to whom command is given to conduct those who are at those places But when they have obtained those things they ought to obtain and remained there the time appointed another Leader brings them back again after many and long periods of time But this Journey is not such as Telephus in Aeschylus describes to be for he affirms there is but one way and that Uniform too that leads to the Infernal Mansions whereas to me it seems more probable the way is neither Uniform nor Single for if there were but one way neither would there be any need of Guides nor could any Soul go out of it But now this seems to have many by-wayes diversions and intricate windings whereof I make a conjecture from Sacrifices and other Rites and Ceremonies belonging to Religion which are here performed Further a moderate and prudent Soul both follows his Guide willingly and chearfully and knows things present but a Soul fetter'd with sense of Lusts and commerce with the Body as we formerly declared still hankering after the Body with an affrighting and tumultuary error and striving much and suffering much about a visible-place is not without extreme difficulty at length led away by that Demon to whom the care of it was committed And when it comes to that place where other Souls are from this impure Soul which hath either committed Murder or polluted it self with some other crime or perpretrated some other villanous act of kin to that wickedness such as are the works of impious Souls from this Soul I say every Soul flies away with detestation and will be neither Companion nor Guide unto it while it self wanders up and
certain there are Rewards and Punishments appointed and absolutely necessary for every man here to have his cogitations seriously exercised in the contemplation of them 8. True it is also that the Souls of Good men by Death delivered from the chains of the Body and its Senses go immediatly to a place invisible indeed by Human eyes but of complete felicity where they are conjoyn'd to God for ever while on the contrary the Souls of Wicked men suffer the punishments justly due to their crimes in places convenient 9. Vnreasonable it is and unworthy a Philosopher to pretermit the Principal and Primary Cause God who is in truth not only the most Potent Cause but Cause of all secondary Causes to acquiesce in Second Causes which really are no more but concurrent and instrumental and in second causes themselves to omit the Proxime while he rambles in search of remote namely Constellations and Etherial influences and such like Chimera's as do those injudicious Professors of Judicial Astrology and as did Anaxagoras who held the great Mind of the Vniverse to be utterly void of understanding and judgment as Plato affirms 10. The use of this most excellent Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul is to induce us to put our selves into the way of Virtue as that which alone leads to Eternal Happiness and to abhor Vice as the direct Road to endless Misery REFLEXIONS Upon the Athenian Laws mentioned in the Apoligie and Dialogue Precedent I. THe Law which Socrates was accused to have Violated and by which he was Condemned yet extant under the first Title of Athenian Laws collected and explained by the Learned Monsieur Petit seems to be this Lex esto antiquissima aeteruaeque auctoritatis in Attica venerandos esse Deos atque Heroas patrios indigenas publice secundum patrias sanctionos privatim vero bonis verhis frugumque primitiis libis annuis pro facultatum modulo By this Law was provided ne quis novos habessit Deo that no man should introduce new Gods and the Transgressor was called into question before the Areopagites whereof we have two eminent Examples one in St. Paul who was hurried to the most severe Tribunal of the Areopagites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod peregrinorum Deornm videretur annunciator esse Act. Apostol cap. 17. vers 18. the other in Diodorus surnamed the Atheist whose Indictment upon the same Statute and convention before the same High Court of Justice are recorded by Diogenes Laertins How came it then that Socrates accused to have both denied the Divinity of the Old Gods of the Athenians and endeavoured the insinuation of new was not likewise tried by the Areopagites but by other Judges contrary to the tenor of this Law I answer with Monsieur Petit Commentar in leges Atticas pag. 3. that perhaps the jurisdiction of the Arcopagites extended not to the Citizens of the Attick Republic such as Socrates was but was limited only to Strangers such as was that ill-conjoyn'd pair St. Paul and Diodorus II. Socpates you may remember in his defense dissolving that part of his Charge which concerned the Corruption of Youth puts his Adversary Melitus in mind of a certain Law whereby he was obliged not to have brought an Impeachment against him to the Magistrates but privately and in a friendly manner admonished him of that his error supposing him to be really guilty thereof not out of malice but incogitancy Now the Law it self where to he then had respect was this Peccantes invite in jus ne rapiuntor sed privatim officii admonentor and the reason of it is obvious Talibus enim non poena opus est sed institutione Which is to be understood of Errors of no great moment nor likely to bring detriment to the Common-wealth such as those objected to Socrates in that article of his Indictment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrates doth contrary to right and equity in that he curiously enquires into things both subterranean and sublime and by his sophistry turns falshood into truth and teaches the same to others For granting him to be guilty hereof the fault was but light and venial In his enim neque sitae erant opes Greciae neque ex iis detrimenti quicquam Respublica capere potuit Wherefore he had right to the favour and indulgence of this Law which his malicious Adversary had by omitting the private admonition thereby required violated III. By the Religion of the Athenians no Deity was held more potent and venerable than Apollo none had so many sacred Buildings erected in their City to his Worship none so many solemn Sacrifices and public Feasts instituted to his Honor as he had and among their Festivals none were celebrated with more ceremonious Joy than that of Inspection mentioned by Plato in Phaedon Concerning which they had this peculiar Law Deliornm festos dies dum Delum itur reditur damnatorum suppliciis ne funestato And the observance of this Law hath been noted both by Xenophon and Plato as the reason why Socrates was detained in Prison thirty daies after his Condemnation before he was put to death the Athenians esteeming it piacular to darken the publick rejoycing and solemnity of that Feast by the death of any condemned however notorious a Malefactor So much was given to the Honor of Apollo Delius whom not only the Grecians but even Foreiners from the remotest parts of the Earth while in Greece were obliged to Worship with Oblations of their First Fruits as appears from the History of Abaris a Scythian who is said to have lived in Greece about the 52 Olympiad and wrote de Oraculis and from the example of the Tyrians alledged by Euripides in Phoenissis whose Verses in the Chorus are worthy the serious remark of Antiquaries as giving much of light to what hath been obscurely delivered by Geographers and Historians concerning the Colonies of the Tyrians in Africa and the neighbouring Islands X. From the same religious respect to Apollo it seems deducible that within the Attic Territories no condemned person suffered death until after the Sun was gone down The Law it self I confess I have not yet found among all those with such vast labour collected by Monsieur Petit but that they had such a Law may be inferred from the Example of Socrates and from what we read in Stobaeus Sermone 1. who saith expresly enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mythological Reflections UPON Some Ancient Rites and Traditions concerning the Soul mentioned by Plato in the precedent Dialogue 1. Of Lustration AMong the ancient Grecians who travelled into Aegypt on purpose to pry into and learn the Sacred Rites and mysterious Ceremonies used by the Priests of that Superstitious Nation Orpheus is celebrated as the first by Diodorus Siculus who Lib. 4. pag. 162. saith thus of him Orpheus in Aegyptum profectus multa ibi didicit ita ut tam Initiationibus Theologia quam Poesi Melodia esset Graecorum praestantissimus c. Now
he sojourned among their Priests curiously remarked them first invented his fiction of Hell in some things keeping close to the original he copied and adding others from the mint of his own Poetical phancy and so divulging the same to his admirers in Greece transmitted it to posterity as matter of Faith From their belief that Good Souls were after death advanced to the honour and felicity of conversing with the Gods first arose the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Ancients and first of all Hercules was for his Heroic virtues accordingly Deified Whence Homer describing the transcendent happiness of his condition saith apud Deos immortales oblectatur in convivijs habet pulchris talis Hebem by assigning him Hebe or Youth for a Wife intimating his Immortality And from the Aegyptian custom of interdicting sepulture to the bodies of men convicted of great crimes came the opinion of the Grecians that the Souls of men whose bodies want interrment are repulsed by Charon Whence in Homer the Ghost of Elpinor appearing to Vlisses complains of his repulse because his body yet remained unburied So doth that of Patroclus to Achilles begging the human office of inhumation sepeli me quam citissime ut intrem portas Plutonis To these remarkable instances of Similitude betwixt the old Aegyptian rites of burial and the Grecian fictions de inferis I might were not my pen already blunted with the drudgery of transcription add many others collected by Diodorus Siculus But from what I have alleaged it seems clearly evident that the original of the Grecian traditions and doctrin concerning Hell was fetch'd from Aegypt and that the grand pipe through which they were transmitted and diffused was the pen of Homer who flourished about the year 676 of the Attic Aera Nor is it less manifest that some Philosophers also and those too of great name and autority in their times laboured by their Writings to propagate the belief of the same Phantastical comments in the minds of the superstitious vulgar For Diogenes Laertius in the lives of Democritus and his Scholar Protagoras of Antisthenes and Heraclides Ponticus expresly delivers that each of them wrote whole Volumes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the regiment and judicial proceedings apud inferos the loss whereof the Common-wealth of Letters hath no great reason to lament And as for Plato we have already perused his ample Chorography and description of the same infernal regions in this Dialogue of Phoedo wherein whoever is not satâ—sfied let him at his leisure have recourse to the sixth book of Virgil's Aeneids where he shall find even the Topography of Hell and Elysium most accurately painted according to the patterns of Homer and Plato More particularly at verse 327. he shall find Charon refusing to transport the Souls of bodies unburied at verse 426. he shall behold the Limbus or apartment or Infants at verse 430. the receptacle of men condemned unjustly at verse 434. the Newgate of Self-murderers at verse 440. the melancholy walks of unfortunate Lovers at verse 540. the Campus Martius of Warriours at verse 548. the burning river and other torments of the impious at verse 638. the Paradise of Mahomet at verse 738. a most cruel Purgatory wherein polluted Souls being cleansed and whitened by aire fire and water are after a long tract of time removed into Elysium there with impatience to expect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Regeneration All which being compared with the descriptions of the same places extant in Homer and Plato he will at length be convinced that Virgil therein imitated them most exactly and that Purgatory is no such modern invention as the unlearned take it to be The Sandy foundation whereof lying so exposed to all eyes not blinded with the mist of Bigotism I cannot but applaud the Wisdom of our Divines assembled in the Convocation house by K. Henry VIII in the year 1536. Who among some Ecclesiastical Constitutions then made delivered their judgement concerning Purgatory in these memorable words Forasmuch as according to due order of Charity and the book of Macchabees and divers ancient Writers it is a very good and charitable deed to pray for Souls departed and forasmuch as such uses have continued in the Church even from the beginning that all Bishops and Preachers should instruct and teach the people not to be grieved with the continuance of the same But forasmuch as the place where those departed Souls be the name thereof and the kind of pains there also be to us uncertain by Scripture that therefore this and all other such things were to be remitted to God Almighty unto whose mercy it is meet and convenient to commend them trusting that God accepteth our praiers for them referring the rest wholly to God to whom is known their state and condition And therefore that it was necessary that such abuses should be clearly put away which under the name of Purgatory have been advanced c. As is recited by the Lord Herbert in the life of K. Henry VIII pag. 468. FINIS