We have stated as our belief that the vision which the writer of the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis has made Jacob to witness, was intended to strengthen the belief in the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, that he was simply seeing the souls of men ascending and descending from heaven _on a ladder_, during their transmigrations.
We will now give our reasons for thinking so.
The learned Thomas Maurice tells us that:
The _Indians_ had, in remote ages, in their system of theology, _the sidereal ladder of seven gates_, which described, in a symbolical manner, the _ascending and descending of the souls of men_.[45:1]
This descent (_i. e._, the descent of souls from heaven to enter into some body), was described in a symbolical manner, _by a ladder which was represented as reaching from heaven to earth_, and divided into _seven_ stages, at each of which was figured a gate; the eighth gate was at the top of the ladder, which belonged to the sphere of the celestial firmament.[45:2]
That souls dwell in the _Galaxy_ was a thought familiar to the _Pythagoreans_, who gave it on their master's word, that the souls that crowd there, _descend and appear to men as dreams_.[45:3]
The fancy of the _Manicheans_ also transferred pure souls to this column of light, _whence they could come down to earth and again return_.[45:4]
Paintings representing a scene of this kind may be seen in works of art illustrative of _Indian Mythology_.
"The souls of men are represented as ascending and descending (on a ladder), according to the received opinion of the sidereal Metempsychosis in Asia."[45:5]
"Among the mysterious pictures of the _Initiation_, in the cave of the Persian God Mithras, there was exposed to the view _the descent of the souls to the earth, and their return to heaven_, through the seven planetary spheres."[45:6]
"In the cave of Mithra _was a ladder with seven steps_, representing the seven spheres of the planets by means of which _souls ascended and descended_. This is precisely the ladder of Jacob's vision. There is in the Royal Library (of France) a superb volume of pictures of the Indian gods, in which the ladder is represented with the souls of men ascending it."[45:7]
In several of the Egyptian sculptures also, the Transmigration of Souls is represented by the ascending and descending of souls from heaven to earth, _on a flight of steps_, and, as the souls of wicked men were supposed to enter pigs and other animals, therefore pigs, monkeys, &c., are to be seen on the steps, descending from heaven.[45:8]