Note 45 — Chapter III · RELIGIOUS MORALS.

The question whether the Hebrews believed in the immortality of the soul has long been discussed, and M. Renan has been reproached with his negative attitude in the matter; but M. Renan never denied the existence, among the Hebrews, of a belief in a sojourn for the shadows or manes of the dead; the whole question was whether the Hebrews believed in a system of reward and punishment after death, and M. Renan was right in maintaining that any such notion is foreign to primitive Judaism. It is equally foreign to primitive Hellenism. Though the living endeavoured to conciliate the dead, they did not envy their fate which, even in the case of the just, was worse than the fate of the living. “Seek not to console me for death, noble Ulysses,” Achilles says, when he arrives in Tartarus. “I would rather be a hired labourer and till a poor man’s field than reign over all the regions of the dead.” (See Morale d’Épicure, 3d ed.; Des idées antiques sur la mort.)