spiritus astra petit."

"The earth conceals the flesh; the shade flits round the tomb; the
under world receives the image; the spirit seeks the stars." Those
conversant with the opinions then prevalent will scarcely doubt
that these words were meant to express the return of the composite
man to the primordial elements of which he was made. The
particulars of the dissolving individual are absorbed in the
general elements of the universe. Earth goes back to earth, ghost
to the realm of ghosts, breath to the air, fiery essence of soul
to the lofty ether in whose pure radiance the stars burn.
Euripides expressly says that when man dies each part goes whence
it came, "the body to the ground, the spirit to the ether."6
Therefore the often misunderstood phrase of the Roman writers,
"the soul seeks the stars," merely denotes the impersonal mingling
after death of the divine portion of man's being with the parent
Divinity, who was supposed indeed to pervade all things, but more
especially to reside beyond the empyrean.

Fourthly: what shall be said of the apotheosis of their celebrated
heroes and emperors by the Greeks and Romans, whereby these were
elevated to the dignity of deities, and seats were assigned them
in heaven? What was the meaning of this ceremony? It does not
signify that a celestial immortality awaits all good men; because
it appears as a thing attainable by very few, is only allotted by
vote of the Senate. Neither was it supposed actually to confer on
its recipients equality of attributes with the great gods, making
them peers of Zeus and Apollo. The homage received as gods by
Alexander and others during their lives, the deification of Julius
Casar during the most learned and skeptical age of Rome, with
other obvious considerations, render such a supposition
inadmissible. In view of all the direct evidence and collateral
probabilities, we conclude that the genuine import of an ancient
apotheosis was this: that the soul of the deceased person so
honored was admitted, in deference to his transcendent merits, or
as a special favor on the part of the gods, into heaven, into the
divine society. He was really a human soul still, but was called a
god because, instead of descending, like the multitude of human
souls, to Hades, he was taken into the abode and company of the
gods above the sky. This interpretation derives support from the
remarkable declaration of Aristotle, that "of two friends one must
be unwilling