FOOTNOTES:
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Doane, T. W. (Thomas William)
"It deserves notice, that in both of these religions (i. e., Jewish and Christian), it found adherents as well in ancient as in modern times. Among the Jews, the doctrine of transmigration—the Gilgul Neshamoth—was taught in the mystical system of the Kabbala."[43:6]
"All the souls," the spiritual code of this system says, "are subject to the trials of transmigration; and men do not know which are the ways of the Most High in their regard." "The principle, in short, of the Kabbala, is the same as that of Brahmanism."
"On the ground of this doctrine, which was shared in by Rabbis of the highest renown, it was held, for instance, that the soul of Adam migrated into David, and will come in the Messiah; that the soul of Japhet is the same as that of Simeon, and the soul of Terah, migrated into Job."
"Of all these transmigrations, biblical instances are adduced according to their mode of interpretation—in the writings of Rabbi Manasse ben Israel, Rabbi Naphtali, Rabbi Meyer ben Gabbai, Rabbi Ruben, in the Jalkut Khadash, and other works of a similar character."[43:4]
The doctrine is thus described by Ovid, in the language of Dryden:
"What feels the body when the soul expires, By time corrupted, or consumed by fires? Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats Into other forms, and only changes seats. Ev'n I, who these mysterious truths declare, Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war; My name and lineage I remember well, And how in fight by Spartan's King I fell. In Argive Juno's fame I late beheld My buckler hung on high, and own'd my former shield Then death, so called, is but old matter dressed In some new figure, and a varied vest. Thus all things are but alter'd, nothing dies, And here and there the unbodied spirit flies."
The Jews undoubtedly learned this doctrine after they had been subdued by, and become acquainted with other nations; and the writer of this story, whoever he may have been, was evidently endeavoring to strengthen the belief in this doctrine—he being an advocate of it—by inventing this story, and making Jacob a witness to the truth of it. Jacob would have been looked upon at the time the story was written (i. e., after the Babylonian captivity), as of great authority. We know that several writers of portions of the Old Testament have written for similar purposes. As an illustration, we may mention the book of Esther. This book was written for the purpose of explaining the origin of the festival of Purim, and to encourage the Israelites to adopt it. The writer, who was an advocate of the feast, lived long after the Babylonish captivity, and is quite unknown.[44:1]
The writer of the seventeenth chapter of Matthew has made Jesus a teacher of the doctrine of Transmigration.
The Lord had promised that he would send Elijah (Elias) the prophet, "before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord,"[44:2] and Jesus is made to say that he had already come, or, that his soul had transmigrated unto the body of John the Baptist, and they knew it not.[44:3]
And in Mark (viii. 27) we are told that Jesus asked his disciples, saying unto them; "Whom do men say that I am?" whereupon they answer: "Some say Elias; and others, one of the prophets;" or, in other words, that the soul of Elias, or one of the prophets, had transmigrated into the body of Jesus. In John (ix. 1, 2), we are told that Jesus and his disciples seeing a man "which was blind from his birth," the disciples asked him, saying; "Master, who did sin, this man (in some former state) or his parents." Being born blind, how else could he sin, unless in some former state? These passages result from the fact, which we have already noticed, that some of the Jewish and Christian sects believed in the doctrine of Metempsychosis.
According to some Jewish authors, Adam was re-produced in Noah, Elijah, and other Bible celebrities.[44:4]
The Rev. Mr. Faber says:
"Adam, and Enoch, and Noah, might in outward appearance be different men, but they were really the self-same divine persons who had been promised as the seed of the woman, successively animating various human bodies."[44:5]
We have stated as our belief that the vision which the writer of the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis has made Jacob to witness, was intended to strengthen the belief in the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, that he was simply seeing the souls of men ascending and descending from heaven on a ladder, during their transmigrations.
We will now give our reasons for thinking so.
The learned Thomas Maurice tells us that:
The Indians had, in remote ages, in their system of theology, the sidereal ladder of seven gates, which described, in a symbolical manner, the ascending and descending of the souls of men.[45:1]
We are also informed by Origen that:
This descent (i. e., the descent of souls from heaven to enter into some body), was described in a symbolical manner, by a ladder which was represented as reaching from heaven to earth, and divided into seven stages, at each of which was figured a gate; the eighth gate was at the top of the ladder, which belonged to the sphere of the celestial firmament.[45:2]
That souls dwell in the Galaxy was a thought familiar to the Pythagoreans, who gave it on their master's word, that the souls that crowd there, descend and appear to men as dreams.[45:3]
The fancy of the Manicheans also transferred pure souls to this column of light, whence they could come down to earth and again return.[45:4]
Paintings representing a scene of this kind may be seen in works of art illustrative of Indian Mythology.
Maurice speaks of one, in which he says:
"The souls of men are represented as ascending and descending (on a ladder), according to the received opinion of the sidereal Metempsychosis in Asia."[45:5]
Mons. Dupuis tells us that:
"Among the mysterious pictures of the Initiation, in the cave of the Persian God Mithras, there was exposed to the view the descent of the souls to the earth, and their return to heaven, through the seven planetary spheres."[45:6]
And Count de Volney says:
"In the cave of Mithra was a ladder with seven steps, representing the seven spheres of the planets by means of which souls ascended and descended. This is precisely the ladder of Jacob's vision. There is in the Royal Library (of France) a superb volume of pictures of the Indian gods, in which the ladder is represented with the souls of men ascending it."[45:7]
In several of the Egyptian sculptures also, the Transmigration of Souls is represented by the ascending and descending of souls from heaven to earth, on a flight of steps, and, as the souls of wicked men were supposed to enter pigs and other animals, therefore pigs, monkeys, &c., are to be seen on the steps, descending from heaven.[45:8]
"And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it."
These are the words of the sacred text. Can anything be more convincing? It continues thus:
"And Jacob awoke out of his sleep . . . and he was afraid, and said . . . this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."
Here we have "the gate of heaven," mentioned by Origen in describing the Metempsychosis.
According to the ancients, the top of this ladder was supposed to reach the throne of the most high God. This corresponds exactly with the vision of Jacob. The ladder which he is made to see reached unto heaven, and the Lord stood above it.[46:1]
"And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it."[46:2]
This concluding portion to the story has evidently an allusion to Phallic[46:3] worship. There is scarcely a nation of antiquity which did not set up these stones (as emblems of the reproductive power of nature) and worship them. Dr. Oort, speaking of this, says:
Few forms of worship were so universal in ancient times as the homage paid to sacred stones. In the history of the religion of even the most civilized peoples, such as the Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Arabs and Germans, we find traces of this form of worship.[46:4] The ancient Druids of Britain also worshiped sacred stones, which were set up on end.[46:5]
Pausanias, an eminent Greek historian, says:
"The Hermiac statue, which they venerate in Cyllenê above other symbols, is an erect Phallus on a pedestal."[46:6]
This was nothing more than a smooth, oblong stone, set erect on a flat one.[46:7]