of Abraham and the abode of the bad
rich man, and of those who resemble him.

The Egyptians called _Amenthes_, that is to say, "he who receives and
gives," what the Greeks named Hades, or hell, or the kingdom of Hades,
or Pluto. They believed that Amenthes received the souls of men when
they died, and restored them to them when they returned to the world;
that when a man died, his soul passed into the body of some other
animal by metempsychosis; first of all into a terrestrial animal, then
into one that was aquatic, afterwards into the body of a bird, and
lastly, after having animated all sorts of animals, he returned at the
end of three thousand years to the body of a man.

It is from the Egyptians that Orpheus, Homer, and the other Greeks
derived the idea of the immortality of the soul, as well as the cave
of the Nymphs described by Homer, who says there are two gates, the
one to the north, through which the soul enters the cavern, and the
other to the south, by which they leave the nymphic abode.

A certain Thespisius, a native of Soloe in Cilicia, well known to
Plutarch,[626] having passed a great part of his life in debauchery,
and ruined himself entirely, in order to gain a livelihood lent
himself to everything that was bad, and contrived to amass money.
Having sent to consult the oracle of Amphilochus, he received for
answer, that his affairs would go on better after his death. A short
time after, he fell from the top of his house, broke his neck, and
died. Three days after, when they were about to perform the funeral
obsequies, he came to life again, and changed his way of life so
greatly that there was not in Cilicia a worthier or more pious man
than himself.

As they asked him the reason of such a change, he said that at the
moment of his fall he felt the same as a pilot who is thrown back from
the top of the helm into the sea; after which, his soul was sensible
of being raised as high as the stars, of which he admired the immense
size and admirable lustre; that the souls once out of the body rise
into the air, and are enclosed in a kind of globe, or inflamed vortex,
whence having escaped, some rise on high with incredible rapidity,
while others whirl about the air, and are thrown in divers directions,
sometimes up and sometimes down.

The greater part appeared to him very much perplexed, and uttered
groans and frightful wailings; others, but in a less number, rose and
rejoiced with their fellows. At las