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The Celestial Eschatology and Its Transformations

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The Celestial Eschatology and Its Transformations CHAPrERFIVE THE CELESTIAL ESCHATOLOGY AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS Plato has removed the Isles of the Blessed to somewhere in the sky, according to the presuppositions of his ontology and cosmology: what is lower is coarser, the elements are ranged on a vertical scale from gross ( earth, water) to finer (air, aether, starry fire). However, after death, only the souls of the righteous have the privilege of abiding at the earth's surface, or even higher, in close vicinity to the eternal ideas. Moreover, neither the staying on the True Earth, nor the contemplation of the hyperuranian essences are in all cases supposed to be everlasting. For smaller merits, they last only for a definite period of time, after which the soul must choose again an incarnation on the earth. After judgement, the soul of the Unjust goes to the underground Hell, where the generally verticallity of Plato's system is again respected:the worse the soul, the deeper she goes into the bowels of the earth, and the worst of all, those of the tyrants and criminals, go down into the deepest region of the Tartarus. King Ardiaeus, for instance, had been sentenced to a punishment of that kind. We have already mentioned many times that Plato's legacy has had the tendency to transfer the underground Hell to the sky. As for the author of this transformation, opinions vary, but many scholars believe that Heraclides Ponticus would be the most likely candidate. Heraclides Ponticus, born at Heraclea on the Pontus between 388-373, frequented the Academy in 364 or before. In 338, he had the ambition to follow Speusippus, but he failed and then went back to his native town. In the good old tradition of the iatromantes, whose admirer he was, he tried to persuade his fellow-citizens that he was a god62, or at least that he would become a god after death63• The story of his complete failures has been reported by Diogenes Laertius, who might have, however, rationalized some local legends, as he used to. Heraclides was fascinated both by the iatromantes and by eschatology. He wrote a dialogue Abaris, a treatise on catalepsy (Apnous), another On the Things in Hell64• In one of these, he told the stories of famous ecstatics such as Abaris, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Epimenides of Crete, Hermotimus of Clazomenae and Pythagoras65, and also introduced a new character of his own invention, Empedotimus, whose name was derived from Empedocles and Hermotimus66 . According to some extant fragments of this dialogue, Empedotimus was probably introduced as a fictitious iatromantis, as an ecstatic who had had interesting experi­ ences. His mouth uttered, very probably, what Heraclides himself thought about these matters. Unfortunately, it is impossible to reconstruct the whole from some scattered information preserved by Servius, the Suda, Proclus, Philoponus and Olympiodorus. CELESTIAL ESCHATOLOGY ANT ITS TRANSFORMATIONS 41 Carried off by a divine force, Empedocles has had the vision of three gates and three ways in the sky, situated respectively in the signs Scorpio (gate of Hercules, leading to the gods), between Leo and Cancer and between Aquarius and Pisces67. The idea of the three gates is new in comparison with the two gates in the Republic of Plato, and different in comparison with the much later theory of Numenius, according to whom there were two gates, in the signs Cancer and Capricom68• Varro's satire Triodites'Tripulios might have contained an allusion to the vision of Empedotimus69. Proclus was acquainted with another vision: In a desert place, Empedotimus assisted to the sudden appearance of Pluto and Persephone and to the judgement of the dead 'lO. Another set of testimonies is related to a possible innovation of Heraclides, with respect to Plato's eschatology. Empedotimus used to call the Milky Way "the way of the souls going through the heavenly Hades,,71. Furthermore, he held that the Kingdom of Hades contained all things under the sphere of the Sun 72. From these scarce testimonies, I.D.P. Bolton has inferred that Heraclides was the author of the generalization of the celestial eschatology, i.e., the one who trans­ ferred the Platonic Hades from the underworld to the sky73. A story ascribed by Proclus to Clearchus of Soli, a contemporary of Heraclides, served as further evidence to support Bolton's assumption about Heraclides's innovation and influence. Clearchus reported that a cataleptic called Cleonymus of Athens experienced the separation of the soul from the body. His soul flew to the sidereal places, from where she contemplated, on the earth below, "places of differ­ ent forms and colours, and rivers that no mortal man can see". There, she met the soul of a fellow-cataleptic of Syracusa and both of them saw "the souls who were judged and punished and purified one after another, under the supervision of the Erinyes". After that, the two intruders were sent back to the earth, but promised one another that they would try to get in touch and make further acquaintance. Unfortunately for Bolton's hypothesis 74, there is no trace, in this story, of any innovation with respect to Plato, under Heraclides's influence. At first Sight, two of the elements of Clearchus's tale seem incompatible with the idea of an underground Hell: the rivers, which are very probably the rivers in Hades, and the judgement of the souls. However, looking closely at both these details, we can easily ascertain that they belong to the purest Platonic tradition. According to the Xth Book of the Republic, the judgement of the souls takes place somewhere between the "gates of heaven" and the "gates of earth", i.e., in a place above the earth. Their reincarnation takes place in the Field of the Middle, which, no matter what it really represents, is also situated somewhere in the sky. After the lots have been cast, the souls are "purified" by alternate heat and cold, until they reach the desert plain of Lethe. As far as the rivers are concerned, it would be useful to recall that Er cannot see them, because they are in the Tartarus. However, they come out again in the surface of the earth, and that is probably the place that Cleonymus - but no other mortal - could see from above. Cornelius Labeo reports a very similar story 75: "duos uno die fuisse defunctos et occurrisse invicem in quodam compito, deinde ad corpora iussos fuisse remeare .
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