Note 64 — Chapter XIII · THE GREAT TOL­ER­A­TION EX­ER­CISED A­MONG THE JEWS.

Neither the ancient Jews, the Egyptians, nor the Greeks, their contemporaries, believed that the soul of man went to heaven after death. The Jews thought that the sun and moon were placed some leagues above us in the same circle, and that the firmament was a thick and solid vault, that supported the weight of the waters, which, however, sometimes ran out through the crevices in this vault. The ancient Greeks placed the palace of their gods upon Mount Olympus. And the abode of heroes after death was, in Homer’s time, thought to be in an island beyond the ocean. This likewise was the opinion of the Essenians. After Homer, planets were assigned to the gods; but there was no more reason for men to place a god in the moon than for the inhabitants of the moon to place a god in our planet of the earth. Juno and Iris had no other palaces assigned them but the clouds, where there was no place to rest the soles of their feet. Among the Sabæans every deity had its star. But as the stars are little suns, it would be impossible to live there without partaking of the nature of fire. Upon the whole, then, it is needless to inquire what the ancients thought of heaven; since the best answer that can be given is, they thought nothing about it.