death[1] or by lack of burial. In Phlegon's story it is indeed probable that the cause of Philinnion's re-appearance was a violent death; but the first part of the narrative is missing, and no such statement is actually made.
In modern beliefs, on the contrary, there is little or no trace of the idea that the dead return for these causes in purely spiritual form. The very conception of ghosts is weak and indefinite among the peasantry. I have certainly been told by peasants of cases in which a person at the point of death has appeared, presumably in spiritual form, to friends at a distance; and there is a fairly common belief, seemingly derived from the Bible, that at Easter many of the graves are opened and release for a time the spirits of the dead. But it is a significant fact that there is not even a name for ghosts which cannot be equally well applied to any supernatural apparitions. The thought of them in general seems to be nothing more definite than a vague uneasiness in the minds of timid women and children at that hour when
'a faint erroneous ray,
Glanced from the imperfect surfaces of things,
Flings half an image on the straining eye.'
There is no fixed creed or tradition here. In an account of the definite superstitions of modern Greece ghosts are a quantité négligeable.
But, while ancient literature and modern superstition are thus in direct conflict on one point, they are agreed in making lack of burial and violent death the causes of a certain unrest on the part of the dead; and though the one usually attributes that unrest to the ghost, and the other to the corpse, their agreement in all else could not surely be a mere casual coincidence; there must be a connexion to be discovered between them.
The consistency of the popular view which has obtained practically throughout the Christian era has already been established. The Church found the Greek people already firmly convinced that the two causes which we are considering, no less than formal execration or execrable sin, led to bodily incorruption and resuscitation. The only moot point is what agency was held to produce the resuscitation before the Church taught that it was the work of the Devil. But can equal consistency be claimed
- ↑ Certain hints however are to be found, on which see below, pp. 438-9.
