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
ad proximas balneas prius sueto lavacro traditum praefarus Deum veniam purissime circumrorans abluit c. Nor is it to be doubted but this was then done to him de more antiquo according to the most ancient use of that Nation Which while the Israelites remain'd in bondage among them were much more likely to give Examples to them than to receive any from them it being seldom observed that Lords imitate their Slaves But this is confirmed by Tertullian de Baptismo cap. 5. where he writes Nationes sacris quibusdam per lavacrum initiantur Isidis alicujus aut Mithrae summi apud Persas numinis ipsos etiam Deos suos lavationibus efferunt c. And whencesoever Moses borrowed this rite we have it under the hand of Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. that it was traduced from Aegypt to Athens by King Erechtheus Nor is there just cause why the traduction of the like Baptism from the Jews to Christians should be urged to the disparagement of our Mystical Ablution at the font when by the Church we are admitted to Christianism as well because ours was changed from a mere rite to a blessed Sacrament by Christ himself the Author of our faith honored by his Example and sanctified by his Benediction and the Divinity of its constitution confirmed by the miraculous descent of the most Holy Spirit in form of a Dove as because tho the External act of washing continue still the same yet the Signification and Effiacy thereof is become infinitely more noble and excellent Again if it be true as some very learned men have held that those Articles of faith and those religious Rites and Ceremonies that are embraced by men of all Religions and as it were seal'd by universal consent of Mankind in all Ages be less obnoxious to exceptions and dispute than others that are proper and peculiar only to some one Religion Age or Nation then certainly by how much more antique and common to various Religions and Nations this Rite of Expurgation by Water hath been by so much more sacred ought it to be esteem'd But this is only a Digression from my Theme the Lustration of Ethnics and more particularly of the Grecians Whereby those who were legitimately initiated were esteem'd not only more honorable then others in this life but more happy after death For their Wise men taught and the Vulgar therefore believ'd that by virtue of such Lustrations the Souls of men were rendred more defecate and pure from the contagion of the body refined as it were from the dross of sensual affections and made more fit and expedite for contemplation of Divine things Whence Sophocles the Tragedian writing of Mysteries is said by Plutarch de audiendis Poetis to have composed these verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Felices nimis Initia quotquot ista cum conspexerint Eunt ad Orcum Namque eos solos manet Ibi vita reliquos miserias praeter nihil and the Chorus in Aristophanes's Comedy named the Froggs was made to sing these Solis nobis Sol Et lux hilaris est Qui initiamur Piam degimus vitam c. This persuasion therefore being so universally diffused among the Grecians and rendred so plausible by Superstition no wonder if Plato in this Dialogue put this as an Axiom into the mouth of Socrates Whoever not expiated nor with due rites initiated shall descend to the Mansions of Souls departed shall there lye rowling in mudd but who shall after expurgation and initiation come thither shall for ever dwell with Gods Nor this altogether without reason because the Initiati were both obliged to newness of life and reformation of manners and instructed in Philosophy as well Natural as Moral II. The Antiquity and Traduction of the opinion of the Souls Immortality THough Strabo Geograph lib. 15. pag. 713 speaking of the Indian Brachmans be so rash to say of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they as Plato compose fables of the incorruptibility of the Soul and of judgements in the infernal shades yet to me it seems not to be doubted but the belief of the Immortality of mans Rational Soul is fully as ancient as Mankind it self For methinks the Excellency of its own Faculties and Operations above all Material Agents should be alone sufficient to afford to every contemplative man certain glimpses of both the divine Original and Immortality thereof and the desire of posthume glory an affection congenial and natural Arist 2. de Anima calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most natural to all noble minds together with a secret fear of future unhappiness common to all to give pregnant hints of its sempiternal Existence after death And yet notwithstanding such has been the cruelty of Time in the destruction of Books and other Monuments and so far hath Oblivion swallowed up the Tenents and Doctrines of the yonger World that of this so reasonable and comfortable an opinion we can find no prints remaining but what the Grecian Sages observed among the Aegyptians and from them transmitted down to posterity From them alone therefore we are to trace the tradition thereof Consentaneous it is that the Eleusinian Mysteries and other sacred Rites so solemnly observed and celebrated by the ancient Aegyptians more particularly that of Lustration just now explicated were grounded upon a belief of and had their chief respect unto a future life and the different state of good and bad Souls therein For to what end could that religious Ablution and Expurgation serve but as they were persuaded to rinse away the stains of guilt from the Soul or as Tertullian de Baptismo cap. 5. expresseth it in regenerationem impunitatem perjuriorum suorum if they were not possessed with a belief even to confidence of the Eternal Duration of the Soul after death and that in a condition of Felicity or Misery according to its virtuous or vicious Affections and Actions in this life Had they admitted the extinction thereof by death vain certainly and absurd had been all their care and sollicitude about the purification of it from the pollutions of Sin and from the dreggs of sensual inclinations before death The same may be by like genuine consequence inferred from their most magnificent Sepulchres their exquisite Embalmings of the dead and their Amenthes or subterraneous place into which they held the Souls of the Defunct to be received But what need we range into their Mythologies in search after evidence of their being strongly possessed with this opinion when we have proofs from Authority unquestionable that their Priests and other Learned men expresly taught it Hear then Herodotus lib. 2. cap. 123. saying Aegyptij primi sunt qui Animam hominis immortalem esse dicerent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ejus transmigrationem in alia animalia terrestria marina volueria rursumque in corpus humanum docuerunt hunc circuitum ab ea fieri intra
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
am come hither you are in prudence obliged to adjudg me to capital punishment and subjoyns this reason that if I escape condemnation it will come to pass that your Sons eagerly and with zeal pursuing the Lessons I teach them will all be wholly corrupted if I say ye should acquit and dismiss me and say to me Socrates at this time we give no credit at all to Anytus but acquit and discharge thee yet on this condition that henceforth thou never again meddle with this Disquisition that is never more Philosophize and if thou art found to do it thou shalt certainly be punished with death if as I said ye would acquit me upon these conditions I should tell ye that indeed I acknowledg and thank ye for your good will and favour but choose rather to obey God than you and that while I live and am able to do it I will never cease to Philosophize and to teach and exhort every one of you whom I shall meet and after my manner to inculcate thus And thou who also art a Citizen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sive ut Ciceroni vocatur Conformatio qua Socrates sibi personam quae non adest adesse consingit of Athens a City both exceeding great and most renowned as well for wisdom as power fearest thou not to undertake the menage and conduct of an affair of importance and to acquire Honor that those advantages may be accumulated upon thee and yet takest no care no consideration of prudence and verity i. e. of thy own mind to render it most accomplisht and noble If any man should desire contentiously to oppugn this my admonition and affirm that he doth take care also of those most excellent things prudence and truth I would not presently dismiss him and go my way but would interrogate and by strict examination sift him and so convince him If I conceived him to be unfurnished with virtue though he should never so confidently own himself to be therewith adorned I would rebuke him and severely tell him that he hath no esteem for things of greatest moment but puts too great value upon things vile and contemptible And this will I do to every man young or old Citizen or stranger whomsoever I shall meet but more studiously to Citizens as you are more neerly related to me For so believe me God commands me to do Nor do I think a greater good can come to your City After the divine authority of his commission to reform men he here asserts the excellent utility of it than that I perform this service to God For addicting my self intirely to this work and pretermitting all other affairs I walk up and down with no other design but to perswade you young and old to esteem neither bodies nor riches nor any thing else before nor so much as your mind that it be with all possible speed refined to the last degree of goodness And I give this reason that Virtue hath not its being from riches but from Virtue flow both riches and all other goods as well privatly as publickly to men Now if I corrupt youth by saying these things let them be hurtful but if any one avouches that I say other things besides these he saith nothing In fine I shall answer to these things do ye Athenians believe Anytus or not discharge me or not do according to your pleasure I will never do any thing but this though I were to suffer many deaths Be not disturbed Athenians but continue the calm attention I begged of ye lest you excite a tumult by reason of what I shall speak but hear me patiently Which if ye shall do ye will I think receive from thence no little emolument Other things besides I shall speak that perhaps will move ye to exclame but pray forbear to do so For be well assured that if ye shall put me to death me such a man as I describe myself to be ye will bring greater loss to your City to your selves than to me for neither shall Melitus nor Anytus hurt me in the least nor could they Since I think it impossible that a good man should be violated by a wicked man He will murder me perhaps or expel or disgrace me and he and some others will account those to be great evils but I think them not to be such Nay I rather hold that to do the actions that he doth is a great evil indeed for he attempts to inflict punishment unjustly upon an innocent man Now therefore Athenians I am so far from making a Defense for my self as some may expect that I will speak rather for your sakes lest by giving sentence against me ye hainously sin against the gift of God that is in me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Que verba ipsemet Saâ—ctas Apostolus Paulus alicubi emphatice reciuit for if ye kill me ye shall not easily find such another one who that I may speak truly and candidly though bluntly and ridiculously being by God appointed to the care and oversight of this your City am constituted supervisor thereof and Moderator that I might sit upon it as upon a Horse great and generous indeed but by reason of his huge bulk dull and slow and to be excited by sharp pricks Exactly so God seems to me to have placed me over the City that I may incite ye and perswade ye end reprove every Mothers Son of ye ceasing not daily to sit by and admonish every one in every place Such another monitor Athenians will not easily come to ye and therefore if ye believe me spare me Though ye perhaps filled with indignation as men rouzed up from profound sleep and following the Counsel of Anytus rejecting mine shall without remorse put me to death yet be most confident you shall spend the remainder of your life in drowsiness unless God taking care of ye shall send some other to excite ye And that I am such a man by the special favour and bounty of God given to the City ye may collect from hence It seems not consentaneous A farther proof of the Divine authority of his Office from his neglect of all his private and Domestick affairs only that he might execute that with diligence for the Public good to Humane reason that I casting away all care of my own private affairs have so tempered my self as to endure so many years together in that contempt of my domestic concernments and wholly apply my self to the administration of yours by catching hold of and going unto every one and as a Father or elder Brother inculcating to ye that ye should studiously addict your selves to Virtue If from these advises of mine I received any emolument or any reward to my own private uses and gave them to that end that would seem to rely upon some probable reason but ye see that my very Adversaries themselves who have impudently forged so many lies against me could not yet to their highest improbity adjoyn
for ought we can learn from the weak light of Nature to the contrary one of the Conditions may be that at the dissolution of that Union both Body and Soul should cease to be Especially since to the Souls relapsing into its first nothing no more is required but Gods withdrawing his conserving influence by which alone all his Creatures are supported and their Being is preserved Here then we find our selves left in the dark by human reason so that were it not for the brighter beams of Revelation Divine how fair soever our hopes might be of Immortality we should want a full assurance of it To conclude therefore this Parergon with the concordant judgement and in the most elegant words of that most excellent Philosopher and Christian the noble Mr. Boyl In Pag. 30. of his Book concerning the Excellency of Theology all that meer Reason can demonstrate concering this Subject may be reduced to these two things One That the Rational Soul being an Incorporeal substance there is no necessity that it should perish with the body so that if God hath not otherwise appointed the Soul may survive the body and last for ever The Other That the Nature of the Soul according to Des Cartes consisting in its being a Substance that thinks we may conclude that tho it be by death separated from the body it will nevertheless retain the power of thinking To more then this Des Cartes was both too circumspect and too conscious of the dimness of human reason to pretend tho some of his Sectators mistaking the design and scope of that his discourse have conceived it to extend even to an eviction also of the Souls absolute Immortality For in artic 7. respon ad object 2. he makes this ingenuous profession Cur de immortalitate animae nihil scripserim jam dixi in Synopsi mearum meditationum quod ejus ab omni corpore distinctionem satis probaverim supra ostendi Quod vero additis ex distinctione animae a corpore non sequi ejus immortalitatem quia nihilominus dici potest illam a Deo talis naturae factam esse ut ejus Duratio simul cum duratione vitae corporeae finiatur fateor a me refelli non posse Neque enim tantum mihi assumo ut quicquam de ijs quae a libera Dei voluntate dependent humanae rationis vi determinare aggrediar Docet quidem naturalis cognitio mentem a corpore esse diversam ipsamque esse substantiam c. Sed si de absoluta Dei potestate quaeratur an forte decreverit ut animae humanae iisdem temporibus esse desiuant quibus corpor a quae illis adjunxit destruuntur solius est Dei respondere Cumque jam ipse nobis revelaverit id non futurum nulla plane vel minima est occasio dubitandi III. Of the Comments of the ancient Ethnics concerning the infernal Mansions of Souls departed THo the description of Tartarus and Elysium here in the latter part of this grave Dialogue made by Plato be by himself declared to have been borrowed for the most part from the Fictions of others chiefly Poets and that he expresly affirms that to deliver any thing positively concerning the future state of Souls and the qualities of Rewards and Punishments in the next life is the part of a rash not a wise man yet forasmuch as the design and utility of those fictions is not more conspicuous than the first invention of them is to men inconversant in the monuments of Antiquity obscure and because there are even at this day not a few who entertain and promote as gross and in many things the like superstitious conceipts of Hell I think it worth the expence of a few vacant minutes to deduce them briefly from their original as high at least as my little reading reacheth The first Natural Philosophy whereof the envy of Time hath spared some little fragments to be handed down by tradition to this our so distant age seems to be that which supposed two Contrary Principles of all things that had beginning Of these one was God the Maker in the Grecian Theology named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the Etymology of which name t' will be no lost labour nor impertinent to consult the most learned Vossius in Etymologico Linguae Latinae in verbo Juvo and the Author of Life The other Matter call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which hath the power of Dissolution or Death To the First was ascribed Light and Day to the Latter Darkness and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non-apparence for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth privation of Light Under the Empire of Zeus or Jove was placed the upper part of the World the inferior was assigned to the dominion of Pluto the middle betwixt these two contrary Principles was imagined to be agitated by perpetual reciprocations or alternate changes so that Life and Death Light and Darkness Good and Evil rule by turns Congruous whereunto is that assertion of the Prince of Physicians Hippocrates lib. de Diaeta nihil gigni neque prorsus interire That as to Matter nothing is either generated or destroyed and that to be generated is to grow out of Hade into light men thinking that to perish which from light decreased into Hade or darkness again For it hath been an universal Axiom of ancient Philosophers nihil ex nihilo fieri aut in nihilum redigi and therefore they who allowed the World to have had a beginning held the Matter of it to have been pre-existent from all Eternity Now this which the Grecians named Hades the Aegyptians call'd Amenthes which signifies a place giving and receiving viz. Souls as Plutarch de Iside interpreteth it Which notion together with the opinion of the Souls Immortality and future rewards and punishments being by the Aegyptian Priests communicated to Orpheus he from thence after his return into Greece feigned a Hell in imitation of the Funeral Rites he had observed among them as is expresly averred by Diodorus Siculus lib. 1. pag. 71. formerly quoted who addeth that the other Comments of the Grecians de inferis were in most things conformable to the manner and place of Obsequies performed by the Aegyptians even in his own time For saith he the boat wherein dead bodies are usually carried to burial is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a half-penny is given for a fare to the Boatman who in the tongue of that Nation is call'd Charon not far from the Ferry there stands they say a Temple of Hecate the Darksom and the gates of Cocytus and Lethe made fast with brasen barrs and other gates of Verity by which stands an image or statue of Justice without a head c. And Servius in Virgil. lib. 6. ad hunc versum sic demum lucos Stygios regna invia vivis aspicies delivers that Seneca in a certain book he wrote de ritu sacris Aegyptiorum reports that about Sienes an extreme part of Aegypt is a certain