"for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God.... And they "lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." (Ibid. ch. xx. ver. 1, 2, 4.) "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea.... "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall "be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain.... And the building of the wall of it was of jasper; "and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. ... And the city "had no need of the Sun, neither of the Moon to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it.... And there shall in no wise enter in"to it any thing that defileth." (Ibid. ch. xxi. ver. 1, 4, 18, 23, 27.) After these general observations, nothing more remains, but to clear up some particular passages of the last fable of the ED DA. (A)" In the Hall called Bry"mer."] Brymer, according to the strict etymology of the word, means a Hall very hot; as Okolm does a place inaccessible to cold. The miseries of the last day are to commence by a very long and severe winter. The windows and doors of hell stood open towards the north. We see plainly that 66 all this must have been imagined and invented in a cold climate. The ancient Scandinavians were more frank and honest than some of their descendants; than the famous RUDBECK, for example; who seems to have been tempted to put off his own country for the seat of the Terrestrial Paradise (B) "Torments the bodies who "are sent in thither."] Before this stanza of the VOLUSPA, Bartholin has given another †, which deserves to be produced. "THEN the Master, he who governs all things, issues forth with "great power from his habitations on high, to render his divine judgments, and to pronounce his sentences. He terminates all dif"ferences, and establishes the sacred destinies, which will remain to "eternity." 1 The * Vid. Keysl. p. 123. † Vid. Bartholin, p. 599. The description which the EDDA gives of the place of torment, bears a striking resemblance to what we meet with in the religious books of the ancient Persians. "HELL (say they) is on the shore of a fœtid stinking river, whose "waters are as black as pitch, and cold as ice; in these float the souls " of the damned. The smoak ascends in vast rolls from this dark gulf and the inside of it is full of Scorpions and Serpents." Vid. Hyde de Relig, vet. Pers. p. 399. & 404. (c)" After the death of the "Gods."] In the new earth, which was to succeed that which we inhabit, there were to be again subaltern divinities to govern it, and men to people it. This, in general, is what the EDDA means to tell us; although the circumstances of the relation are darkly and allegorically delivered: yet not so obscurely, but that one easily sees it was the idea of the northern philosophers, as well as of the stoics, that the world was to be renovated, and spring forth again more perfect and more beautiful. This is what is expressed here with regard to the Sun and Moon. Lif signifies life; which is a farther proof, that by the fable of these two human beings who are to survive the destruction of the world, these northern philosophers meant to say, that there still existed in the earth a vivifying principle and seed, proper to repair the loss of the former inhabitants. It is certain, that all these different forms of expression were understood by these ancient people in their true sense; viz. only as figurative modes of speech, and ornaments of discourse ; and therefore we, who, in reading their works, continually lose sight of this circumstance, are in reality authors of many of those absurdities which we fancy we discover in them. (D) "Among the people by "oral tradition."] This passage may possibly start a question, Whether the doctrines here displayed were peculiar to the northern nations, or embraced by the other Gothic and' Celtic tribes? My opinion is, that the latter had adopted at least most of the principal points: and that they all derived Les Celtes. Fr. Orig. "If we may believe you," (says Lucan to the Druids) "the "souls of men do not descend in"to the abode of darkness and "silence, nor yet into the gloomy empire of Pluto: you say that "the same spirit animates the bo"dy in another world, and that "death is the passage to a long "life." Luc. Lib. 1. v. 454. derived their religious tenets from rant. ແ "The Gauls" (says Cæsar) are particularly assiduous to prove that souls perish not.” Cæs. Lib. 6. c. 14. Valerius Maximus, in a passage quoted above in my REMARKS on the 16th Fable *, comes still nearer to the doctrine of the EDDA: for he tells us that the Celtes looked upon a quiet peaceable death as most wretched and dishonourable, and that they leaped for joy at the approach of a battle, which would afford them opportunities of dying with their swords in their hands. * Page 63. These These authorities may suffice*: EDDA does; but that makes this they do not indeed say all that the work so much the more valuable. * I cannot help adding to the authorities of our Author, what Quintus Curtius relates of the Sogdians; a nation who inhabited to the eastward of the Caspian Sea; not far from the country of ODIN and his companions. When some of that people were condemned to death by Alexander, on account of their revolt," Carmen, lætantium more, canere, tripudiisque et lasciviori corporis motu, gaudium quoddam animi "ostentare cœperunt." When the king enquired the reason of their "thus rejoicing, they answered,- "A tanto Rege, victore omnium " gentium, MAJORIBUS SUIS REDDITOS, honestam mortem, quam fortes "viri Voro quoque expeterent, Carminibus sui moris Lætitiaque cele"brare." Curt. Lib. 7. cap. 8. Edit. Varior. T. THE END OF THE FIRST PART OF THE EDDA. |