Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/232

* ESCHATOLOGY. 200 ESCHATOLOGY. sible to introduce into the future life the nicest moral adjustments, implying at once punishments and rewards for conduct in a previous stage of existence and the possibility of rising or sinking in the scale of being according to present con- duct. In spite of the perfect justice thus regard- ed as being administered on every stage of being, this never-ending series of births and deaths may come to appear as an evil, if the present life seems such, and deliverance may then be sought from the infinite wheel of existence in Nirvana. Still another possibility presents itself, when the functions of the mind are considered as indicat- ing a purely spiritual essence independent of the body, having no beginning and no end, as in Greece. This abstract conception of immortality may be made the philosophical basis of a hope for a more concretely conceived personal life after death. For further details of this phase of es- chatology, see Immortality. The ideas held by different nations as to the future of the human race and the world are only imperfectly known to us. It would, of course, be quite wrong to suppose that such notions have been cherished only where we are fortunate enough to have testimony as to their existence, or that they have held a place in the life of na- tions proportionate to their prominence in such literary remains or other accounts as we may possess. But certain inferences can be drawn from the type of esehatological thought that comes to view. When the belief in a coming destruction of the world by a fire or a flood is found among uncivilized tribes in the Pacific, or American aborigines, it is not likely that it origi- nated in astronomical speculation, but rather that it was engendered by some terrifying experi- ence of the past. Though the medium through which the accounts have come makes them some- what doubtful, it is not impossible that the Spaniards found in Central America the belief in the coming of a white conqueror. If so. the history of the great American civilizations had prepared men for the possibility of the overthrow even of an ancient kingdom, and this apprehen- sion had been fused with the vague rumor of white men who had once settled in the New World. The notion of four great periods of the world, each lasting hundreds of years and end- ing in a universal conflagration, also presup- poses a longer historic development. The re- markable stability of the Chinese Empire and the practical disposition of its people preclude the development of a flourishing eschatology. On tl t lii-i' hand, the brooding genius of India care- Little t'O' politi.al independence, ami is too deeply Impressed with the infinite to have its attention absorbed by possible catastrophic changes in the world. There are no last things to claim enthusiastic interest in a pantheistic philosophy that sees in everj form of life a manifestation of the divine. But the infinite Btretches of divine sway are divided into periods; and thew kalpan or epochs give an esehatolog- ical perspective. In the main, however, it is the future of the individual only that occupies the mind of Brahmin ami Buddhist alike. Quite different was tie. attitude <>f the ancient Iranian-. ■ i who adopted Hie teachings of Zarathushtra early in lux i det eloped Hie simple not ton of a coming destruction of Hie world by lire into 'lie idea of il moral ordeal. As an indi- vidual may prove i !»• truth of hi- religion by undergoing an ordeal of fire, so at the end of the world the worshipers of the lord Mazda will be distinguished from all others by successfully enduring the ordeal of molten metal, and the good will then be recompensed. This conception is found in the Gathas, the earliest part of the Avestan literature. It is not certain that the idea of a resurrection from the dead goes back to the period represented by the Gathas. But Herodotus seems to have heard of such a Per- sian conception in the fifth century B.C., and Theopompus, the historian of Philip of Mace- donia, described it as a Mazdayasnian doctrine in the fourth century B.C., in a work of which excerpts have been preserved by Diogenes Laertius and .-Eneas of Gaza. Whether the resurrection was already at that time connected with the com- ing of the Saoshyant is uncertain. In the later Avesta it is distinctly the work of the Saoshyant to raise the dead. A final revelation of charac- ter, a brief period of punishment in a hell, and an ultimate restoration of all to blessedness, are here assumed. Characteristic of Mazdaism is the idea of a gradual evolution toward a rational and moral end, and of the preparation for this end by the work of the faithful. The world is conceived as lasting 12.000 years. The appear- ance of Zarathushtra falls at the beginning of the last quarter, and at each of the following millenniums one of the three sons of Zarathushtra is born, the last of these being Astvatereta, the 'restorer of the bodies,' or Saoshyant, 'the sa- vior.' This savior has no political character. After the final conquest of the serpent, Azi Dahaka, the reign of immortality begins. Dur- ing the period in which the native religion was suppressed and gradually crowded out of its home by Islam, the hope of the persecuted turned to the future, as the apocalyptic sketches in the Pahlavi literature show, and the return of the old King Kai Khosru was ardently desired. the Homeric poems and Hesiod show how- the Greek mind occupied itself with the soul's fu- ture in the Elysian fields or the darker realms of Hades. Through the Orphic and Eleusinian cults this thought was deepened, and the Chris- tian doctrines of heaven (q.v.) and hell (q.v.) air largely due to Greek speculation. That the future of nations and the world also played an important role in Greek thought is evident from the prophecies of the Sibyls. For while the orig- inal Sibylline Oracles have not been preserved, the references to them by Heraclitus and Plato reveal their character, and this is also indicated by the imitations in our present Sibylline Ora- cles. The same source betrays the esehatological thought of the Romans. Some details of Vergil's description of the Golden Age may indeed have been borrowed from our Pseudo-Sibyl, herself reminiscent of [saiahj hut it is quite likely that the conception itself goes back to a genuine Roman origin. An esehatological mood domi- nates the epoch ushered in by Alexander's con- quests, and Grfeco-Roman thought is fused with Oriental speculation in the outlook upon the world's future as in other respects. In a similar manner, tin- Scandinavian idea of a destruction of the earth by lire and its subsequent renovation under higher heavens, to he peiqded by the de- cendants of l.if and Liftraser, as set forth in VUluspa, no doubt reflects a primitive Germanic conception Even the twilight of the gods may have belonged to the original myth. But the