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| Chapter XVIII.—Proof of immortality and the resurrection.
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Chapter XVIII.—Proof of immortality
and the resurrection.
For reflect upon the end of each of the preceding
kings, how they died the death common to all, which, if it issued in
insensibility, would
be a godsend1803
| 1803 ἓρμαιον, a piece
of unlooked-for luck, Hermes being the reputed giver of such gifts:
vid. Liddell and Scott’s Lex.; see also the
Scholiast, quoted by Stallbaum in Plato’s Phæd., p. 107, on
a passage singularly analogous to this. | to all the wicked.
But since sensation remains to
all who have ever lived, and eternal punishment is laid up (i.e., for the
wicked), see that ye neglect not to be convinced, and to hold as your
belief, that these things are true. For let even necromancy, and the divinations you
practise by immaculate children,1804
| 1804 Boys and girls, or even children prematurely taken from
the womb, were slaughtered, and their entrails inspected, in the belief
that the souls of the victims (being still conscious, as Justin is
arguing) would reveal things hidden and future. Instances are abundantly
cited by Otto and Trollope. | and the evoking of departed human
souls,1805
| 1805 This form of
spirit-rapping was familiar to the ancients, and Justin again (Dial.
c. Tryph., c. 105) uses the invocation of Samuel by the witch of
Endor as a proof of the immortality of the soul. | and those
who are called among the magi, Dream-senders and Assistant-spirits
(Familiars),1806
| 1806 Valesius (on
Euseb. H. E., iv. 7) states that the magi had two kinds of
familiars: the first, who were sent to inspire men with dreams which
might give them intimations of things future; and the second, who were
sent to watch over men, and protect them from diseases and misfortunes.
The first, he says, they called (as here) ὀνειροπομπούς, and the
second παρέδρους.
| and all that is done by those who are skilled in such matters
—let these persuade you that even after death souls are in a state
of sensation; and those who are seized and cast about by the spirits of
the dead, whom all call dæmoniacs or madmen;1807
| 1807 Justin is not the only author in ancient
or recent times who has classed dæmoniacs and maniacs together; neither
does he stand alone among the ancients in the opinion that dæmoniacs
were possessed by the spirits of departed men. References will be found
in Trollope’s note. [See this matter more fully illustrated in
Kaye’s Justin Martyr, pp. 105–111.] | and
what you repute as oracles, both of Amphilochus, Dodana, Pytho, and as
many other such as exist; and the opinions of your authors, Empedocles
and Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates, and the pit of Homer,1808
| 1808 See the Odyssey, book
xi. line 25, where Ulysses is described as digging a pit or trench with
his sword, and pouring libations, in order to collect around him the
souls of the dead. | and the descent of Ulysses to inspect
these things, and all that has been uttered of a like kind. Such favour
as you grant to these, grant also to us, who not less but more firmly
than they believe in God; since we expect to receive again our own
bodies, though they be dead and cast into the earth, for we maintain that
with God nothing is impossible.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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