I refer, of
course, to Owain Miles, or The Purgatory of Saint Patrick, where we
have an account of the hero, after purification by fasting and prayer,
descending into the Nether World, passing through the abodes of the
Lost, finally reaching Paradise, and returning to earth after Three
Days, a reformed and regenerated character.[15]
"Then with his monks the Prior anon,
With Crosses and with Gonfanon
Went to that hole forthright,
Thro' which Knight Owain went below,
There, as of burning fire the glow,
They saw a gleam of light;
And right amidst that beam of light
He came up, Owain, God's own knight,
By this knew every man
That he in Paradise had been,
And Purgatory's pains had seen,
And was a holy man."
Now if we turn to Bousset's article Himmelfahrt der Seele, to which I
have previously referred (p. ---), we shall find abundant evidence
that such a journey to the Worlds beyond was held to be a high
spiritual adventure of actual possibility--a venture to be undertaken
by those who, greatly daring, felt that the attainment of actual
knowledge of the Future Life was worth all the risks, and they were
great and terrible, which such an enterprise involved.
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