The cult of the seer in the ancient Middle East : a contribution to current research on hallucinations drawn from Coptic and other texts / [Violet MacDermot].

  • MacDermot, Violet.
Date:
1971
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The cult of the seer in the ancient Middle East : a contribution to current research on hallucinations drawn from Coptic and other texts / [Violet MacDermot]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3 The Meeting with Those in Heaven The meeting of the seer with the dead, as depicted in the Odyssey 26 and in the Aeneid, 21 was the occasion of prophetic utterances. Similarly, oracular pronouncements from the dead were a feature of ancient Egyptian ritual. The dead of the pre-Christian world, generally, were regarded as having fulfilled their destiny; in Egypt, one term for death was 'fulfilling the will of Rë'. 28 Nevertheless, destiny, ruled by the stars, was not always consistent with human notions of justice, and the dead were feared by the living as liable to seek either vengeance or redress of their wrongs. In contrast, in the Apocalypse of Paul, the mes sage of those of heaven was that those on whom pain or injustice were inflicted on earth would not be afflicted in the next world (8 ; see also Chapter V). A feature of late Christian apocalypses was the embracing of the 'living' by the 'dead' (Narratives 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11). In Egyptian funerary paintings, the dead were shown being embraced by the gods of the underworld. In the Odyssey 26 and the Aeneid, 27 embraces between the living and the dead were represented as impossible. The reunion in heaven thus implied a change of attitude of the living towards the dead and the overcoming of the separation between the two worlds. The status of the living was still, however, shown as dependent on the judgment of the dead. In the earlier apocalypses, no such reunions between the living and the dead were depicted; in I Enoch, 29 the righteous were assured only of becoming companions of the hosts of heaven. In the Jewish writings, the 'Age to Come' was represented in terms of a new Paradise; only with Saint Paul 30 did Adam take his place in this new Garden of Eden. The passage of the soul through the regions of heaven was, in the Mithraic cult, 31 regarded as being barred by seven gates, each of a metal corresponding to a planet. The seventh gate, that of the sphere of the sun, was of gold. The image of heaven, as having gates of gold, was also used by Christian writers (Narrative 11). The alternate rejoicing and weeping of those at the gates of heaven (4,11) was imagery similar to that of the Apocalypse of Abraham. In the latter, Adam, the First Man, seeing the righteous and wicked entering the two gates of heaven, alternately rejoiced and wept : So Michael turned the chariot, and brought Abraham to the east, to the first gate of heaven. And Abraham saw two ways, the one way narrow and compressed, and the other broad and spacious ; and there also he saw two gates, one gate broad on the broad way, and one gate narrow on the narrow way. And outside the two gates there I saw a