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Knight, Richard Payne
An Inquiry Into The Symbolical Language Of Ancient Art And Mythology — London, 1818 [Cicognara, 4789]

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0138
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rally liable.' Fire and water were held to be the great efficient
principles of both ; and as the spirit or vital principle of thought
and mental perception was alone supposed to be immortal and un-
changed, the complete dissolution of the body, which it animated,
was conceived to be the only means of its complete emanci-
pation. Hence the Greeks, and .all the Scythic and Celtic na-
tions, burned the bodies of their dead, as the Hindoos do at
this day; whilst the /Egyptians, among whom fuel was extremely
scarce, embalmed them, in order that they might be preserved
entire to the universal conflagration ; till when the soul was
supposed to migrate from one body to another.1 In this stale
those of the vulgar were deposited in subterraneous caverns, ex-
cavated with vast labor for the purpose ; while their kings
erected, for their own bodies, those vast pyramidal monuments,

1 A(p$apTovs 5e Xtyovffi ovroi Kai ol ak\oi (KcArai) Tas ^vxas Kai tov Kotrpiov eiriKpa-
Ti)(t(iv 5e irore Kai -xvp Kai iSvp. Strabo lib. i%'. p. 197. See also Justin lib. ii.
and Edda Myth. iv. and xlviii, Voluspa stropb. xlix. Vafthrud. xlvii.
ct seqq. The same opinion prevailed almost universally; seePhilarcb.de
Placit. Philos. lib. ii. c. xviii. Lucret. lib. v. ver. 9'2. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib.
ii. Bagvat Geeta Lect. ix. And Brucker Hist. Crit. Philos. vol. i. p. 11.
lib. i. Some indeed supposed the world to be eternal in its present state.
Diodor. Sic. lib. i. p. 10.

QeoTTOix-nos oe (pr]<ri Kara tovs payovs, ava fj-cpos Tpurx'A'a ctt? tov /j.€V Kpartiv, tov 5e
Kpar€io-6ai twv Oewv, a\Xa 5e Tpiaxi^ia l^ax^oSui Kat iroX^iv Kai avaXveiv ra tov
erepov top erepov TeXos 5' a7roXei7recr0ai (lege aTroXeio-6ai) tov aS'/jy, Kai tovs fl€V avBpu-
ttovs eutiaipovas etrccrfJai, pnrre Tpotpt\s Stofievovs, /^re CKiav iroiovvras. Plutarch. <le
Is. ct Osir. p. 370. Hence the period of 6,000 years so important in ecclesiastical
history.

Itratn Se Kai 'EWyves KaTaK\vfffi.c>> tj Tvvpi ttjv ytjv Kara irepiofiovs Ka9atpofj.iv7]v. Ori-
gen. contra Cels. lib. iv. s. 20.

E<ttcu yap arrai khvos aiuvuv xpov°s
brav itvpos yep-ovra 6i}davpov axaaV
Xpvaairos tufojp' V 8c $o<jkt)9tiaa tpXo%
hitavTa Tuiriyzia itai /xerapaia
<p*o|ei fiaveio-'- eirav S' ap eKXnrr) to iraV,
<ppovoos pnv coral kv/xaTUV airas jSufloj,
yy Sevhpeuv torsos' ou5' arjp cti
■rrTeptoTa cpvXa fiXaiTTavti ■jTvpovp.GVOs'
naneiTa trcocrei navv' a TrpoirO' aTrcvXcffe,

Sophocl. in Grotii excerpt, p. 145.

- Herodot, lib. ii. 123.
 
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