370 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vill 



Christian burial-place, would have taken it for an 

 appropriately adorned Teocalli. The professed 

 disciple of the God of justice and of mercy might 

 there gloat over the sufferings of his fellowmen 

 depicted as undergoing every extremity of atrocious 

 and sanguinary torture to all eternity, for theo- 

 logical errors no less than for moral delinquencies ; 

 while, in the central figure of Satan, 1 occupied in 

 champing up souls in his capacious and well- 

 toothed jaws, to void them again for the purpose 

 of undergoing fresh suffering, we have the counter- 

 part of the strange Polynesian and Egyptian 

 dogma that there were certain gods who employed 

 themselves in devouring the ghostly flesh of the 

 spirits of the dead. But injustice to the Polynesians, 

 it must be recollected that, after three such opera- 

 tions, they thought the soul was purified and 

 happy. In the view of the Christian theologian 

 the operation was only a preparation for new 

 tortures continued for ever and aye. 



With the growth of civilisation in Europe, and 

 with the revival of letters and of science in the 



1 Dante's description of Lucifer engaged in the eternal 

 mastication of Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot 

 " Da ogni bocca dirompea co' denti 

 Un peccatore, a guisa di maciulla, 

 Si cbe tre ue facea cosi dolenti. 

 A quel dinanzi il mordere era nulla, 



Verso '1 graffiar, che tal volta la schiena 

 Rimanea della pelle till ta brulla " 



is quite in harmony with the Pisan picture and perfectly 

 Polynesian in conception. 



