Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend

n of the body, and civil rites which take off brutal terminations: and though the

dged their bodies to be the lodging of Christ, and temples of the Holy Ghost, they devolved not all upon the sufficiency of soul-existence; and therefore

an the expression of Phocylides?+ Or who would expect from Lucretius# a sentence of Ecclesiastes? Before Plato could speak, the soul had wings in Homer, which fell not, but flew out of the body into the man- sions of the dead; who also observed that handsome distinction of Demas and Soma, for the body conjoined to the soul, and body separated from it. Lucian spoke much truth in jest, when he said that part of Hercules which proceeded from A

viviscendi promissa

. Quae (malum) ista

"-Plin.

eek o

o de terra quod fu

/i>, lib

ating philosophers, who were to be often buried, held great care of their inter- ment. And the Platonicks rejected not a due car

in linen, and dried them in her bosom, the first fostering part and place of their nourishment; that they opened their eyes toward heaven before they kindled the fire, as the place of their hopes or original, were no improper ceremonies. Their last valediction,* thrice uttered by the attendants, was also very solemn, and somewhat answered by Christians, who thought it too little, if they threw not the earth thrice upon the inter

o ordine quo natura

e. Whether the planting of yew in churchyards hold not its original from ancient funeral rit

olical hint was the harmonical nature of the soul; which, delivered from the body, went again to enjoy the primitive harmony of heaven,

leave separable relicks after the pyral combustion. That they kindled not fire in their houses for some days after was a strict memorial of the late affli

rary to the most natural way of birth; nor unlike our pendulous posture, in the doubtful state of the womb. Diogenes was singular, who pref

d them out of th

loede meos." +

nd also agreeable unto their opinions, while they bid adieu unto the world, not to look again upon it; whereas Mahometans

voke them unto life again, was a vanity of affection; as not presumably ignorant of the critical tests of death, by apposition of feathers, glasses, and reflection of fig

ution, but a loose opinion that the soul passed out that way, and a fondness of affection, from some Pyth

in facilitating the ascension. But to place good omens in the quick and speedy burning, t

eeches, gesture, and manners of the deceased, was too light for such solemn

nt custom of placing coins in considerable urns, and the present practice of burying medals in the noble foundations of E

persons planet-struck or burnt with fire from heaven; no relicks of traitors to their country, self-killers, or sacrilegious malefactors; persons i

f men to add one of a woman, as being more in- flammable and unctuously constituted for the better pyral combustion, were any rational practice; or whether the complaint of Periander's wife be toler- able, that wan

an all the rest in hell; why the funeral suppers consisted of eggs, beans, smallage, and lettuce, since the dead are made to eat asphodels about the Elysian meadows:-why, since there is

xcept they drink blood, wherein is the life of man. And therefore the souls of Penelope's paramours, conduc

osts are afraid of swords in Homer; yet Sibylla tells AEneas in Virgil, the thin habit of spirits was beyond the force of weapons. The spirits put off their malice with their bodies, and Caesar and Pompe

ar, yet seen by AEneas in hell?- except the ghosts were but images and shadows of the soul, received in higher mansions, according to the ancient division of body, soul, and image, or simulachrum of them both. The particulars of future beings must needs be dark unto ancient theori

to is to be found in no lower place than purgatory. Among all the set, Epicurus is most considerable, whom men make honest without an El

spirits as could contemn death, when they expected no better being after, would have scorned to live, had they known any. And there- fore we applaud not the judgment of Machiavel, that Christianity makes men cowards, or that with the con- fidence of but half-dying, the despised virtues of patience and humi

nferno

consideration unto a slender time to come) they had no small disadvantage from the constitution of old age, which naturally makes men fearful, and complexionally superannuated from the bold and courageous thoughts of youth and fe

ed better than he spake, or erring in the prin- ciples of himself, yet lived above philosophers of more specious maxims, lie so deep as he is placed, at least so low

ive not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for futurity, but from reason: whereby the noblest minds fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions. With these hopes, Socrates warmed his d

he justice of their constitutions, and rest content that Adam had fallen lower; whereby, by knowing no other original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed the happiness of inferior creatures, who in tranquillity possess their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their own natures, and, being framed below the circumferen