REINCARNATION/PART 3
CHAPTER III.
The
Romans and Greeks.
One unfamiliar with
the subject would naturally expect to find the Ancient Romans well advanced
along the lines of philosophy, religion, and spiritual speculation, judging
from the all-powerful influence exerted by them over the affairs of the whole
known world. Particularly when one considers the relationship with and
connection of Rome with ancient Greece, it would seem that the two peoples must
have had much in common in the world of thought. But such is not the case.
Although the exoteric religions of the Romans resembled that of the Greeks,
from whom it was borrowed or inherited, there was little or no original thought
along metaphysics, religion or philosophy among the Romans. This was probably
due to the fact that the whole tendency of Rome was toward material advancement
and attainment, little or no attention being given to matters concerning the
soul, future life, etc. Some few of the philosophers of Rome advanced theories
regarding the future state, but beyond a vague sort of ancestor worship the
masses of the people took but little interest in the subject. Cicero, it is
true, uttered words which indicate a belief in immortality, when he said in
"Scipio's Dream": "Know that it is not thou, but thy body alone,
which is mortal. The individual in his entirety resides in the soul, and not in
the outward form. Learn, then, that thou art a god; thou, the immortal
intelligence which gives movements to a perishable body, just as the eternal
God animates an incorruptible body." Pliny the younger left writings which
seem to indicate his belief in the reality of phantoms, and Ovid has written
verses which would indicate his recognition of a part of man which survived the
death of the body. But, on the whole, Roman philosophy treated immortality as a
thing perchance existing, but not proven, and to be viewed rather as a poetical
expression of a longing, rather than as an established, or at least a well
grounded, principle of philosophical thought. But Lucretius and others of his
time and country protested against the folly of belief in the survival of the
soul held by the other nations. He said that: "The fear of eternal life
should be banished from the universe; it disturbs the peace of mankind, for it
prevents the enjoyment of any security or pleasure." And Virgil praised
and commended the philosophical attitude which was able to see the real cause
of things, and was therefore able to reject the unworthy fear of a world beyond
and all fears arising from such belief. But even many of the Roman philosophers,
while denying immortality, believed in supernatural powers and beings, and were
very superstitious and childlike in many respects, so that their philosophy of
non-survival was evidently rather the result of temperament and pursuit of
material things than a height of philosophical reasoning or metaphysical
thought.
And so, the Romans
stand apart from the majority of the ancient peoples, in so far as the
belief in Reincarnation is concerned. While there were individual mystics and
occultists among them, it still remains a fact that the majority of the people
held no such belief, and in fact the masses had no clearly defined ideas
regarding the survival of the soul. It is a strange exception to the general
rule, and one that has occasioned much comment and attention among thinkers
along these lines. There was a vague form of ancestor worship among the Romans,
but even this was along the lines of collective survival of the ancestors, and
was free from the ordinary metaphysical speculations and religious dogmas.
Roughly stated, the Roman belief may be expressed by an idea of a less
material, or more subtle, part of man which escaped disintegration after death,
and which in some mysterious way passed on to combine with the ancestral soul
which composed the collective ancestral deity of the family, the peace and
pleasure of which were held as sacred duties on the part of the descendants,
sacrifices and offerings being made toward this end. Nevertheless, here and
there, among the Romans, were eminent thinkers who seemingly held a vague,
tentative belief in some form of Reincarnation, as, for instance, Ovid, who
says: "Nothing perishes, although everything changes here on earth; the
souls come and go unendingly in visible forms; the animals which have acquired
goodness will take upon them human form"; and Virgil says: "After
death, the souls come to the Elysian fields, or to Tartarus, and there meet
with the reward or punishment of their deeds during life. Later, on drinking of
the waters of Lethe, which takes away all memory of the past, they return to
earth." But it must be admitted that Rome was deficient in spiritual
insight and beliefs, on the whole, her material successes having diverted her
attention from the problems which had so engrossed the mind of her neighbor
Greece, and her older sisters Persia, Chaldea, and Egypt.
Among the Greeks, on
the contrary, we find a marked degree of interest and speculation regarding the
immortality of the soul, and much interest in the doctrines of Metempsychosis
or Reincarnation. Although the great masses of the Grecian people were
satisfied with their popular mythology and not disposed to question further, or
to indulge in keen speculation on metaphysical subjects, still the intellectual
portion of the race were most active in their search after truth, and their
schools of philosophy, with their many followers and adherents, have left an
indelible mark upon the thought of man unto this day. Next to the Hindus, the
Greeks were the great philosophers of the human race. And the occultists and
mystics among them were equal to those of Persia, India, Chaldea or Egypt.
While the various theories regarding the soul were as the sands of the sea, so
many were the teachers, schools and divisions of thought among these
people—still the doctrine of Reincarnation played a very important part in
their philosophy. The prevailing idea was that the worthy souls pass on to a
state of bliss, without rebirth, while the less worthy pass the waters of
the river of Lethe, quaffing of its waters of forgetfulness, and thus having
the recollection of their earth-life, and of the period of punishment that they
had undergone by reason of the same, obliterated and cleansed from their
memories, when they pass on to re-birth. One of the old Orphic hymns reads as
follows: "The wise love light and not darkness. When you travel the
journey of Life, remember, always, the end of the journey. When souls return to
the light, after their sojourn on earth, they wear upon their more subtle
bodies, like searing, hideous scars, the marks of their earthly sins—these must
be obliterated, and they go back to earth to be cleansed. But the pure,
virtuous and strong proceed direct to the Sun of Dionysus." The teachings
of the Egyptians left a deep impression upon the Grecian mind, and not only the
common form of belief, but also the esoteric doctrines, were passed along to
the newer people by the elder.
Pythagoras was the
great occult teacher of Greece, and his school and that of his followers
accepted and taught the great doctrine of Reincarnation. Much of his teaching
was reserved for the initiates of the mystic orders founded by himself and his
followers, but still much of the doctrine was made public. Both Orpheus and
Pythagoras, although several centuries separated them, were students at the
fount of knowledge in Egypt, having traveled to that country in order to be
initiated in the mystic orders of the ancient land, and returning they taught
anew the old doctrine of Rebirth. The Pythagorean teaching resembles that of the
Hindus and Egyptians, in so far as is concerned the nature of man—his several
bodies or sheaths—and the survival of the higher part of his nature, while the
lower part perishes. It was taught that after death this higher part of the
soul passed on to a region of bliss, where it received knowledge and felt the
beneficent influence of developed and advanced souls, thus becoming equipped
for a new life, with incentives toward higher things. But, not having as yet
reached the stage of development which will entitle it to dwell in the
blissful regions for all eternity, it sooner or later reaches the limit of its
term of probation, and then passes down toward another incarnation on
earth—another step on the Path of Attainment.
The teaching was,
further, that the conditions, circumstances and environments of the new
earth-life were determined by the actions, thoughts, and mental tendencies of
the former life, and by the degree of development which the several previous
earth-lives had manifested. In this respect the teaching agrees materially with
the universal doctrine regarding Reincarnation and Karma. Pythagoras taught
that the doctrine of Reincarnation accounted for the inequality observable in
the lives of men on earth, giving a logical reason for the same, and establishing
the fact of universal and ultimate justice, accountable for on no other
grounds. He taught that although the material world was subject to the laws of
destiny and fatality, yet there was another and higher state of being in which
the soul would rise above the laws of the lower world. This higher state,
he taught, had laws of its own, as yet unknown to man, which tended to work out
the imperfect laws of the material world, establishing harmony, justice, and
equality, to supply the apparent deficiencies manifested in the earth life.
Following Pythagoras,
Plato, the great Grecian philosopher, taught the old-new doctrine of Rebirth.
He taught that the souls of the dead must return to earth, where, in new lives,
they must wear out the old earth deeds, receiving benefits for the worthy ones,
and penalties for the unworthy ones, the soul profiting by these repeated
experiences, and rising step by step toward the divine. Plato taught that the
reincarnated soul has flashes of remembrance of its former lives, and also
instincts and intuitions gained by former experiences. He classed innate ideas
among these inherited experiences of former lives. It has been well said that
"everything can be found in Plato," and therefore one who seeks for
the ancient Grecian ideas concerning Reincarnation, and the problems
of the soul, may find that which he seeks in the writings of the old sage
and philosopher. Plato was the past master of the inner teachings concerning
the soul, and all who have followed him have drawn freely from his great store
of wisdom. His influence on the early Christian church was enormous, and in
many forms it continues even unto this day. Many of the early Christian fathers
taught that Plato was really one of the many forerunners of Christ, who had prepared
the pagan world for the coming of the Master.
In
"Phaedo," Plato describes the soul, and explains its immortality. He
teaches that man has a material body which is subject to constant change, and
subject to death and disintegration; and also an immaterial soul, unchangeable
and indestructible, and akin to the divine. At death this soul was severed from
its physical companion, and rose, purified, to the higher regions, where it
rendered an account of itself, and had its future allotted to it. If it was
found sufficiently untainted and unsullied by the mire of material life, it
was considered fit to be admitted to the State of Bliss, which was described as
Union with the Supreme Being, which latter is described as Spirit, eternal and omniscient.
The base and very guilty souls undergo a period of punishment, or purgation, to
the end that they may be purged and purified of the guilt, before being allowed
to make another trial for perfection. The souls which were not sufficiently
pure for the State of Bliss, nor yet so impure that they need the purging
process, were returned to earth-life, there to take up new bodies, and endeavor
to work out their salvation anew, to the end that they might in the future
attain the Blissful State. Plato taught that in the Rebirth, the soul was
generally unconscious of its previous lives, although it may have flashes of
recollection. Besides this it has a form of intuition, and innate ideas, which
was believed to be the result of the experiences gained in the past lives, and
which knowledge had been stored up so as to benefit the soul in its
reincarnated existence.
Plato taught that the
immaterial part of man—the soul—was a complex thing, being composed of a
number of differing, though related, elements. Highest in the hierarchy of the
soul elements he placed the Spirit, which, he taught, comprised consciousness,
intelligence, will, choice between good and evil, etc., and which was
absolutely indestructible and immortal, and which had its seat in the head. Then
came two other parts of the soul, which survived the dissolution of the body,
but which were only comparatively immortal, that is, they were subject to later
dissolution and disintegration. Of these semi-material elements, one was the
seat of the affections, passions, etc., and was located in the heart; while the
other, which was the seat of the sensual and lower desires, passions, etc., was
located in the liver. These two mentioned lower elements were regarded as not
possessed of reason, but still having certain powers of sensation, perception,
and will.
The Neo-Platonists,
who followed Plato, and who adapted his teachings to their many conflicting
ideas, held firmly to the doctrine of Reincarnation. The writings
of Plotinus, Porphyry, and the other Mystics, had much to say on this
subject, and the teaching was much refined under their influence. The Jewish
philosophers were affected by the influence of the Platonic thought, and the
school of the Essenes, which held firmly to the idea of Rebirth, was a source
from which Christianity received much of its early influence.
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