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| The Judicial Retribution of These Migrations Refuted with Raillery.
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Chapter XXXIII.—The
Judicial Retribution of These Migrations Refuted with
Raillery.
Forasmuch as this doctrine is vindicated even on the
principle of judicial retribution, on the pretence that the souls of
men obtain as their partners the kind of animals which are suited to
their life and deserts,—as if they ought to be, according to
their several characters, either slain in criminals destined to
execution, or reduced to hard work in menials, or fatigued and wearied
in labourers, or foully disgraced in the unclean; or, again, on the
same principle, reserved for honour, and love, and care, and attentive
regard in characters most eminent in rank and virtue, usefulness, and
tender sensibility,—I must here also remark, that if souls
undergo a transformation, they will actually not be able to accomplish
and experience the destinies which they shall deserve; and the aim and
purpose of judicial recompense will be brought to nought, as there will
be wanting the sense and consciousness of merit and retribution. And
there must be this want of consciousness, if souls lose their
condition; and there must ensue this loss, if they do not continue in
one stay. But even if they should have permanency enough to remain
unchanged until the judgment,—a point which Mercurius
Ægyptius recognised, when he said that the soul, after its
separation from the body, was not dissipated back into the soul of the
universe, but retained permanently its distinct individuality,
“in order that it might render,” to use his own words,
“an account to the Father of those things which it has done in
the body;” —(even
supposing all this, I say,) I still want to examine the justice, the
solemnity, the majesty, and the dignity of this reputed judgment of
God, and see whether human judgment has not too elevated a throne in
it—exaggerated in both directions, in its office both of
punishments and rewards, too severe in dealing out its vengeance, and
too lavish in bestowing its favour. What do you suppose will become of
the soul of the murderer? (It will animate), I suppose, some cattle
destined for the slaughter-house and the shambles, that it may itself
be killed, even as it has killed; and be itself flayed, since it has
fleeced others; and be itself used for food, since it has cast to the
wild beasts the ill-fated victims whom it once slew in woods and lonely
roads. Now, if such be the judicial retribution which it is to receive,
is not such a soul likely to find more of consolation than of
punishment, in the fact that it receives its coup de
grâce from the hands of most expert
practitioners—is buried with condiments served in the most
piquant styles of an Apicius or a Lurco, is introduced to the tables of
your exquisite Ciceros, is brought up on the most splendid dishes of a
Sylla, finds its obsequies in a banquet, is devoured by respectable
(mouths) on a par with itself, rather than by kites and wolves, so that
all may see how it has got a man’s body for its tomb, and has
risen again after returning to its own kindred race—exulting in
the face of human judgments, if it has experienced them? For these
barbarous sentences of death consign to various wild beasts, which are
selected and trained even against their nature for their horrible
office the criminal who has committed murder, even while yet alive;
nay, hindered from too easily dying, by a contrivance which retards his
last moment in order to aggravate his punishment. But even if his soul
should have anticipated by its departure the sword’s last stroke,
his body at all events must not escape the weapon: retribution for his
own crime is yet exacted by stabbing his throat and stomach, and
piercing his side. After that he is flung into the fire, that his very
grave may be cheated.1722
| 1722 Or, “that he may
be punished even in his sepulture.” | In no other way,
indeed, is a sepulture allowed him. Not that any great care, after all,
is bestowed on his pyre, so that other animals light upon his remains.
At any rate, no mercy is shown to his bones, no indulgence to his
ashes, which must be punished with exposure and nakedness. The
vengeance which is inflicted among men upon the homicide is really as
great as that which is imposed by nature. Who would not prefer the
justice of the world, which, as the apostle himself testifies,
“beareth not the sword in vain,”1723
and which is an institute of religion when it severely avenges in
defence of human life? When we contemplate, too, the penalties awarded
to other crimes—gibbets, and holocausts, and sacks, and harpoons,
and precipices—who would not think it better to receive his
sentence in the courts of Pythagoras and Empedocles? For even the
wretches whom they will send into the bodies of asses and mules to be
punished by drudgery and slavery, how will they congratulate themselves
on the mild labour of the mill and the water-wheel, when they recollect
the mines, and the convict-gangs, and the public works, and even the
prisons and black-holes, terrible in their idle, do-nothing routine?
Then, again, in the case of those who, after a course of integrity,
have surrendered their life to the Judge, I likewise look for rewards,
but I rather discover punishments. To be sure, it must be a handsome
gain for good men to be restored to life in any animals whatsoever!
Homer, so dreamt Ennius, remembered that he was once a peacock;
however, I cannot for my part believe poets, even when wide awake. A
peacock, no doubt, is a very pretty bird, pluming itself, at will, on
its splendid feathers; but then its wings do not make amends for its
voice, which is harsh and unpleasant; and there is nothing that poets
like better than a good song. His transformation, therefore, into a
peacock was to Homer a penalty, not an honour. The world’s
remuneration will bring him a much greater joy, when it lauds him as
the father of the liberal sciences; and he will prefer the ornaments of
his fame to the graces of his tail! But never mind! let poets migrate
into peacocks, or into swans, if you like, especially as swans have a
respectable voice: in what animal will you invest that righteous hero
Æacus? In what beast will you clothe the chaste and excellent
Dido? What bird shall fall to the lot of Patience? what animal to
the lot of Holiness? what fish to that of Innocence? Now all
creatures are the servants of man; all are his subjects, all his
dependants. If by and by he is to become one of these creatures, he is
by such a change debased and degraded, he to whom, for his virtues,
images, statues, and titles are freely awarded as public honours and
distinguished privileges, he to whom the senate and the people vote
even sacrifices! Oh, what judicial sentences for gods to pronounce, as
men’s recompense after death! They are more mendacious than any
human judgments; they are contemptible as punishments,
disgusting as rewards;
such as the worst of men could never fear, nor the best desire; such
indeed, as criminals will aspire to, rather than saints,—the
former, that they may escape more speedily the world’s stern
sentence,—the latter that they may more tardily incur it. How
well, (forsooth), O ye philosophers do you teach us, and how usefully
do you advise us, that after death rewards and punishments fall with
lighter weight! whereas, if any judgment awaits souls at all, it ought
rather to be supposed that it will be heavier at the conclusion of life
than in the conduct1724
thereof, since
nothing is more complete than that which comes at the very
last—nothing, moreover, is more complete than that which is
especially divine. Accordingly, God’s judgment will be more full
and complete, because it will be pronounced at the very last, in an
eternal irrevocable sentence, both of punishment and of consolation,
(on men whose) souls are not to transmigrate into beasts, but are to
return into their own proper bodies. And all this once for all, and on
“that day, too, of which the Father only knoweth;”1725
(only knoweth,) in order that by her
trembling expectation faith may make full trial of her anxious
sincerity, keeping her gaze ever fixed on that day, in her perpetual
ignorance of it, daily fearing that for which she yet daily
hopes.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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