Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/60

 as they muse on their own death, and look forward to life in an imaginary world full of pleasures denied them by the wretchedness of their life on earth. But among the Babylonians, as also among the Hebrews and the Greeks, representations of Hades reflect the melancholy thoughts roused in human souls by mourning for their dead. The soul of the dead sinks into a joyless existence, the misery of which has been foreshadowed by the phenomena of mortal sickness. The loss of a corporeal manifestation has already deprived it of all adornment and all exercise of the senses (page 9). Where is the soul to be found? Simplicity sought it in the tomb; the shade of the dead man finds it hard to part from the body which gave him form and substance. Hence the corpse was embalmed, and food and drink were placed in the grave. But imagination followed the fate of the soul beyond the tomb into a world of its own, the entrance to which lay in the West, whither also the sun journeyed before sinking down into darkness, and which was depicted as a faded counterpart of the world of men. That the more primitive conception of the dwelling of the soul in the grave still held its ground is to be explained by the demands of ancestor worship. In this cult the tombs were the places of offering, and its influence was stronger than any demands of logic. 