The lake appears also in the other Long versions of Paul - Greek, Coptic, Old Russian, Syriac -, references to all of which need not be given here.
my Visio sancti Pauli (Studies and Documents, no. R., Apocrypha anecdote, I (Texts and Studies, vol.
Shortly afterwards Dante swoons and, upon awaking, finds himself on the opposite shore of the Acheron without knowing exactly how he has crossed.ħ For Paul see Visio sancti Pauli apostoli, § 22, ed. to cross in the boat reserved for the good souls to Purgatory and Paradise, where he belongs, and not to Hell. Once Charon's opposition to Dante's mortality has been overcome, he states, not that his distinguished earthly visitor may not embark on his vessel, but that it would be more suitable for Dante to sail in the lighter craft, i.e. Google Scholar Dante himself in Inferno iii, it may be remarked, shows that he is aware of the distinction, but his solution of the problem which it creates leaves us in doubt. In the twelfth-century Visio Tnugdali, Tundale undergoes a similar experience ed. Thus in Gregory's Dialogues (IV, xxxvi) a certain Stephen is said to have deceased and recovered and during the interval to have been obliged to walk across the same precarious Bridge by means of which all the souls of the dead must traverse the Otherworld river. The entire problem is complicated by instances in which the visitant had actually died but come to life again not long afterwards. Thus in Aeneid vi Charon warns Aeneas away as being still alive, but once the golden bough is displayed he ferries the Trojan hero across the infernal river in the same boat by which the dead are usually carried. (Hence the references below to Alexander, St Paul and Brendan, who are living travellers seeking knowledge of the supernatural realms.) This is because the apocalyptic traditions themselves which were available to the Middle Ages, though careful always to distinguish between the deceased and the mortal visitant, often do not differentiate the means of their arrival.
6 In the following discussion no distinction is specially observed, in the selection of examples, between the souls of the dead and the mere sojourner or visionary who afterwards comes back to the present life.
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