Note 144 — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF

Ep. 650, 12. I belong to the company of the blessed which τείρεσσι σὺν αἰθερίοισι χορεύει, λαχὼν θεὸν ἡγεμονῆα. These last words must refer to a special relation of a pious kind to some god. We may note the conclusion of the Caesares of Julian (336 C): Hermes addresses the Emperor: follow the ἐντολαί of πατὴρ Μίθρας in life, καὶ ἡνίκα ἂν ἐνθένδε ἀπιέναι δέῃ, μετὰ τῆς ἀγαθῆς ἐλπίδος ἡγεμόνα θεὸν εὐμενῆ καθιστὰς σεαυτῷ. Cf. also the promise made in an Egyptian magic papyrus ed, Parthey, Abh. Berl. Ak. 1865, p. 125, l. 178 ff.: the ghost thus conjured up will after your death σοῦ τὸ πνεῦμα βαστάξας εἰς ἀέρα ἄξει σὺν αὑτῷ, εἰς γὰρ ᾄδην οὐ χωρήσει ἀέριον πνεῦμα συσταθὲν (i.e. commended) κραταιῷ παρέδρῳ. Cf. Pl., Phd. 107 D ff.: the souls of the dead are conducted each by the δαίμων ὅσπερ ζῶντα εἰλήχει to the judgment place: thence they go εἰς ᾇδου μετὰ ἡγεμόνος ἐκείνου οὗ δὴ προστέτακται τοὺς ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε πορεῦσαι. Afterwards yet another, ἄλλος ἡγεμών as it appears, leads them back again. A blessed abode hereafter is found by ἡ καθαρῶς τε καὶ μετρίως τὸν βίον διεξελθοῦσα καὶ ξυνεμπόρων καὶ ἡγεμόνων θεῶν τυχοῦσα, 108 C. The same idea occurs on the monument of Vibia (in the Catacombs of Praetextatus in Rome): Mercurius nuntius conducts her (and Alcestis) before Dispater and Aeracura to be tried: after that a special bonus angelus leads her to the banquet of the blessed (CIL. vi, 142). There is nothing Christian in this, any more than in the whole monument or its inscriptions. (The “angel” as an intermediate being between gods and men had long been taken from Jewish religion by heathen belief and philosophy: they were sometimes identified with the Platonic δαίμονες: see R. Heinze, Xenokrat. 112 f. These intermediate natures, the ἄγγελοι, have nothing to do with the old Greek conception of certain gods as “Messengers” or of the Hero Εὐάγγελος, etc. [cf. Usener, Götternamen, 268 ff.].) With the fanciful picture of Vibia we may compare (besides the Platonic passages mentioned above) what Luc., Philops. 25, has to say of the νεανίας πάγκαλος who leads the souls into the underworld (οἱ ἀγαγόντες αὐτόν less precisely in the parallel narrative of Plutarch, de An. fr. 1, ap. Eus., PE. 11, 36, p. 563 D).