eak
not comfortably to me of death, oh great Ulysses. Rather would I live
on ground as the hireling of another, with a landless man who had no
great livelihood, then bear sway among all the dead that be departed."
The Homeric Greeks rejoiced in life like youths whom everything
pleases. The shadowy realm of Hades was felt to be a mockery of the
sunlit world. The history of the belief in an after-life among the
Hebrews is very similar. Yet it is surprising to notice how few remark
the paucity of reference to this idea in the Old Testament. In the
book of Isaiah occurs that account of Sheol to which attention was
called in an earlier chapter: "Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to
meet thee at this coming.... All they shall answer and say unto thee,
Art thou become weak as we?" The passage is a tremendous one, full of
the most biting irony and vindictive hatred. This {141} conception of
Sheol evidently scarcely differs from the corresponding one of the
Homeric Greek. Toward the Christian era, as a result of the
infiltration of the beliefs current among surrounding peoples, the idea
of a future life took hold of the Jews. The Pharisees, the popular
party of the day, stressed the dogma, while the Sadducees, the
Aristocratic party, denied it.

Early religion was largely a state affair, for it concerned itself with
the safety of the social group; but it was rapidly becoming an
engrossing concern for the individual. The religious imagination was
busily painting another world and connecting it with the relations of
the individual to divine powers. Given the religious view of the
world, what an instrument of appeal and of dread this conception of
immortality was! The shadow and sunshine of another world lay athwart
this one. Endless vistas of pain and pleasure stretched into the
future. No wonder that the true means of salvation became the burning
question! From the beginning, Christianity emphasized the fact of
another world and its terrific meaning for the soul of man, adopting as
an inheritance the current views with regard to a Messianic kingdom and
a place of torment. Paul even goes so far as to proclaim the cynical
alternative: "If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die."

The ideas of immortality and salvation were the central features of the
great religious revival which swept over the Roman Empire about the
time of the rise of Christianity. The desire for personal safety