112 ON THE ORIGIN OF CREMATION, 



around the body or the place of its sepulture ; the soul being 

 more and more fettered to the mortal part : " Exitu autem coac- 

 " to, an imam circa corpus magis magisque vinciri. Et revera 

 w ideo sic extorta? animae diu circa corpus ejusve sepulturam, vel 

 " locum in quo injecta manus est, pervagantur *. " " On the 

 " contrary," he says, " those souls, which, during life, are loosed 

 " from corporeal bonds by a philosophical death, are translated 

 " to heaven even while the body exists." 



It is not perfectly clear, however, whether Macrobius assigns 

 this doctrine to Plato himself, or to his disciple Plotinus, who, 

 he says, carried the principles of his master still farther. In 

 the passage to which Macrobius seems immediately to refer, 

 Plato does not speak of those who die by violence, but in ge- 

 neral of men leaving this world under moral contamination *j\ 

 Elsewhere, indeed, he says, that, besides the immortal soul, the 

 gods have placed in the body of man hfog -^vyjig Gvqrov, " a kind 

 " of mortal soul." This, according to his idea, includes the 

 will and affections J. 



Tertullian has ascribed the same opinion to Democritus ; 

 observing that he reasons from the growth of the nails and 

 hair after death ||. But it would seem that here he has rather 

 mistaken the meaning of the language of Democritus ; as all 

 that we can certainly infer from it is, that he held the doctrine 

 of a future resurrection. 



Jamblichus says, that " fire destroyed whatever it found ma- 

 M terial in the sacrifice, purified, and released it from the bonds 



" of 



* Macrob. Somn. Scipion. lib. i. p. 87. edit. Lugd. 1560. 



\ He expresses his sentiments in the following terms : 'Ep/tpiU Ss yt, a Qi'te, r&ro ei artxi 

 %£i uvxt xxi &x(h, xxi yiabis, xxi o^xrov' a Se xxi i%evrx » roixvrn ^"M* /Sx^vnrxi rt xxi 

 ibixlTOM 5r«A»» «; rov «g«Tov -nro-prey, (pJou rtl Uuotvi it xxi otoov. Phsed. Plat. Oper. I. 

 p. 81. 



\ Plat. Timseus, Op. lit. p. 69. |j Tertullian. ubi sup. 



