118 ON THE ORIGIN OF CREMATION, 



ry of consecrations, the emperor appears carried aloft by an 

 eagle *. Or, perhaps, the figure here exhibited is rather to be 

 viewed as the emblem of his soul. 



9. The soul itself was thus supposed to be purified from the 

 contamination which it had contracted in its embodied state. 

 The ancient Gymnosophists of India, of whom the Brachmans^ 

 now called Bramrns, formed one sect, and the Germanes, Her- 

 manes, or Sermanez, another, were wont to burn themselves 

 alive f ; although, in our day, they require this sacrifice of 

 their wives only. That they ascribed some peculiar virtue to 

 fire as thus applied, might be inferred from the language of 

 that Indian, who, when he cast himself into the flaming pile at 

 Athens, said to the astonished spectators, " Thus I make my- 

 " self immortal ^." But perhaps the inference is confirmed 

 by the account which Porphyry gives of the reason of this act 

 of suicide. Having observed, that they who are about to de- 

 vote themselves in this manner, first coolly receive from those 

 around them the commissions which they wish them to carry 

 to their friends in the other world ; he subjoins, " They cast 

 " their body into the fire, that they may separate the soul from 

 " it in a state of the greatest possible purity." This at least 

 seems to be the natural meaning -of the words of Porphyry ; 



TTUg) to cufAttx, Taguoovres, OKug hr) xadagurar^v uxonglvairi rov cra^u- 

 rog rqv -ipofflv |j. 



Lucian, when speaking of the self-devotement of Hercules, 

 which he attributes to mere ostentation of fortitude in suffer- 

 ing* 



* V. Havercamp. Nummophylac. Reg. Christin. p. 100, 101. 



■f" ©«v«T4> oe ixvtxs anooioocta-t x-liiji, x.x9a7ri£ kui oi tSu IvcSt yvpvoo-eQteci'i uwrxitt Vfvfi. 

 Clem. Alexandii. Stromat. Lib. iv. p. $51. 



J Nic. Damascen. V. Hydriotaph. p. 3. 

 I De Abstinentia, lib. iv. sect, 18. 



