hre from which they hasten, and, on light
wings seeking the lofty ether, pass eternity in sublime
contemplations."21 "The wise inherit the Olympic and heavenly
region to dwell in, always studying to go above; the bad, the
innermost parts of Hades, always laboring to die."22 He literally
accredits the account, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers, of the
swallowing of Korah and his company, saying, "The earth opened and
took them alive into Hades."23 "Ignorant men regard death as the
end of punishments, whereas in the Divine judgment it is scarcely
the beginning of them."24 He describes the meritorious man as
"fleeing to God and receiving the most intimate honor of a firm
place in heaven; but the reprobate man is dragged below, down to
the very lowest place, to Tartarus itself and profound
darkness."25 "He who is not firmly held by evil may by repentance
return to virtue, as to the native land from which he has
wandered. But he who suffers from incurable vice must endure its
dire penalties, banished into the place of the impious until the
whole of eternity."26

Such, then, was the substance of Philo's opinions on the theme
before us, as indeed many more passages, which we have omitted as
superfluous, might be cited from him to show. Man was made
originally a mortal body and an immortal soul. He should have been
happy and pure while in the body, and on leaving it have soared up
to the realm of light and bliss on high, to join the angels.
"Abraham, leaving his mortal part, was added to the people of God,

15 Ibid. p. 65.

16 Ibid. p. 233.

17 Ibid. p. 479.

18 Ibid. p. 513.

19 Ibid. p. 527.

20 Ibid. p. 555.

21 Ibid. p. 641, 642.

22 Ibid. p. 643.

23 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 178.

24 Ibid. p. 419.

25 Mangey's edition of Philo's Works, vol. ii. p. 433.

26 Ibid. vol. i. p. 139.

enjoying immortality and made similar to the angels. For the
angels are the army of God, bodiless and happy souls."27 But,
through the power of evil, all who yield to sin and vice lose that
estate of bright and blessed immortality, and become discordant,
wretched, despicable, and, after the dissolution of the body, are
thrust down to gloom and manifold just retribution in Hades. He
believed in the pre existence, and in a limited transmigration, of
souls. Here he leaves the subject, saying nothing of a
resurrection or final restoration, and not speculating as to any
other of the details. 28

We pass on to speak of the Jewish se