1. A common subject of Christian mediæval legend is the inquest held on the soul immediately after death by angels and devils as a preliminary to final judgment. Graf, in Demonologia di Dante,⁠[560] and Batiouchkof, in Le débat de l’âme et du corps,⁠[561] have analysed these legends, the main elements of which are the following:

i. Every soul has one or more angels and devils to guard and tempt it during life.

ii. At death these angels and devils fight for possession of the soul.

iii. Often the debate is conducted with the aid of two books, one recording the sins, and the other the virtues of the soul.

iv. In other legends, the virtues and vices appear in person to bear witness.

v. Or again, the members of the body accuse the soul of the sins they committed.

vi. The balance is also used to decide the debate.

vii. Finally, the angels or devils carry off the soul to heaven or hell.

2. Christian doctrine furnishes but scant authority for these features, especially the more striking ones enumerated under iv, v and vi. These are precisely the elements that were most common in Islam, which had derived them from other Oriental religions, particularly the Zoroastrian religion.

The belief in a guardian angel, based as it is on the Gospel and conserved in patristic writings, formed part of the Christian faith both in the East and West. From the fifth century onwards it was, though not dogma, commonly believed that, in addition, everyone had a devil to tempt him. That, at death, the angel and devil fought for the soul, was again merely a popular belief, the earliest documentary evidence of which is to be found in a seventh century vision of the after-life composed by St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany. It reappears in the ninth century Germanic poem Muspilli⁠[562]; and it is noteworthy that both these legends are enhanced by the introduction of elements iv and v personifying the virtues and vices and the members of the body, features of Islamic or Zoroastrian origin,⁠[563] which then make their first appearance in Christian eschatology.

3. Islam, in contrast to Christianity, contained in its early hadiths the sources of all the elements detected in the mediæval legends. These tales, with the exception of those dealing with the balance⁠[564], are briefly summarised on the following pages:

1. Hadiths on Topic i

Algazel records the following hadith without mentioning the companion of the Prophet who related it:

“At his birth each man has an angel allotted to him by God, and a devil by Satan, who whisper good and evil suggestions into his right and left ear respectively.”⁠[565]

A hadith by Jabir ibn Abd Allah, of the seventh century:

In this tale Mahomet says that God has appointed a guardian angel to each man and two other angels to record his good and evil deeds. At his death these angels return to heaven, whence they will descend to bear witness on the day of judgment.⁠[566]

A hadith by Al-Hasan, of the seventh century, says:

“To every man lying on his death-bed there appear his guardians, who show him his good and evil deeds. At the sight of the former, he smiles; at the sight of the latter, he frowns.”⁠[567]

A hadith by Salman, also of the seventh century, reads:

“A man who lay on his death-bed told the Prophet that a black and a white figure had appeared before him. The Prophet inquired, ‘Which stood the nearer to thee?’ and the man replied, ‘The black figure.’ ‘Then,’ said the Prophet, ‘great is the evil and little is the good.’”⁠[568]

Finally, a hadith by Wahb ibn Al-Ward, of the eighth century, says:

“To everyone at his death there appear the two angels who during his life were the guardians of his deeds....”⁠[569]

2. Hadiths dealing mainly with the fight for the soul

A hadith by Ibrahim, son of Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awf, of the seventh century:

Abd ar-Rahman, who had been given up for dead, tells how, as he lay prostrate, two demons of fearsome aspect appeared before him, saying, “Rise, for we will lead thee to the Supreme Judge.” On their way they met two angels of mercy, who cried out, “Whither would ye lead him? Leave him to us, for God has destined him to enter heaven.”⁠[570]

A seventh-century hadith of the Caliph Muawya, but attributed to Mahomet:

A murderer, moved to repentance, proceeds to a monastery to end his days in prayer. But death overtakes him on the way. The angels of wrath and of mercy appear on the scene and fight for his soul. The dispute is decided by the soul being allotted to the nearest dwelling. This, upon measurement, is found to be the monastery, and the murderer is saved.⁠[571]

Hadith of Abu Hurayra, also of the seventh century:

A person relates his experiences during a trance. A man of beautiful features and sweet-smelling breath had hardly placed him in his grave, when a woman of repulsive mien and evil odour appeared and accused him of his sins. She then disputes with the other for his soul. During the dispute he withdraws at the woman’s bidding and, in a mosque near by, finds a man reciting the same verses of the Koran that he used to delight in reciting. These verses are adduced in his favour, and the man of the beautiful countenance claims him as saved.⁠[572]

Legend of Daud ibn Abu Hind, of the eighth century:

Daud, as he lies sick, sees a black figure of monstrous shape appear, whom he takes to be a demon come to carry him off to hell. At that moment two men in white tunics descend through the ceiling, who, after warding off the other, seat themselves at the foot and head of Daud’s bed; they feel his palate and toes and conclude that both show signs of a life of prayer.⁠[573]

The legend of the seventh-century traditionist, Shahr ibn Hawshab, is similar:

Two white angels seat themselves on the right of the sick-bed, and two black angels, on the left, and dispute over the soul. An examination of the dying man’s tongue, which shows traces of having uttered a certain prayer, finally settles the dispute in his favour.⁠[574]

3. Legends introducing the books of record

These legends are all based on the passages of the Koran⁠[575] treating of the two books in which angels record the good and evil deeds of each man. These books were mentioned in one of the tales of Group i, and many other similar legends might be quoted. Thus, a hadith attributed to Ibn Abbas⁠[576] tells of the recording angels and describes minutely the pens, the ink, and the sheets they use.⁠[577]

4. Legends treating mainly of the personification of virtues and vices

This feature, though also of Zoroastrian origin, attained its full development in the eschatological lore of Islam.

A hadith quoted from earlier traditionists by Ibn Abu Aldunya, of the ninth century, says:

“No man dies but his good and evil deeds appear in person before him, and he turns his eyes away from the evil towards the good deeds.”⁠[578]

A hadith attributed to Mahomet says:

“At the death-bed of the believer attend his prayers, his fasting, the alms he gave....”⁠[579]

A hadith quoted by a companion of the Prophet reads:

At the judgment of the soul the Koran will appear in its defence before the angels Munkar and Nakir. It will ask the soul, “Dost thou know me? I am the Koran which thou didst recite and which delivered thee from evil. Fear not.”⁠[580]

Other similar hadiths relate as follows⁠[581]:

To the righteous soul there appears in the grave a man of great beauty, dressed in fine garments and scented with rare perfumes, who says, “I am thy good deed.” To the wicked soul appear its vices, in evil shape.

His prayer places itself on the right of the virtuous soul; his fasting, on the left; the Koran, at his head; the virtue of walking to the Mosque, at his feet; his fortitude in adversity, at the side of the tomb. The punishment of the soul, which then appears in person, is driven off by these virtues.

5. Legends in which the members of the body are personified

A typical legend of this group, though attributed to Mahomet, is recorded in the tenth-century Corra:

An adulterer is brought before the Divine Judge, and the thigh relates the sin it committed. The accused indignantly denies the charge, but God imposes silence on the lying tongue. Each of the members then confesses its share in the sin, and their evidence is borne out by the recording angels and the earth. At God’s bidding the angels seize the sinner and cast him into the pit.⁠[582]

6. Legends of feature vii.

All the legends of this group are variants of the hadith of the Prophet relating the death of the upright man and the sinner.⁠[583] A brief outline is here given:

The angel of death extracts the soul from the body gently or violently, according as it is righteous or sinning. The angels guard the body as it is lowered to the grave. The devil, upon seeing a soul escape him, turns in anger upon his host of demons, who explain that they were powerless, as the soul was free of sin. The soul is then led through the astronomical heavens to the Throne of God. A similar, but antithetical, story is told of the death of the sinner.⁠[584]

4. Summarising the partial comparisons contained in this third part of our work, we may divide the Moslem features appearing in the mediæval Christian legends precursory of the Divine Comedy into two categories.⁠[585] The first category is formed of those Islamic features that reappeared in Dante’s poem and accordingly were treated at greater length in the first and second parts of this work. These, with the Christian legends in which they appear, may briefly be enumerated as follows:

Division of hell into seven regions (St. Macarius, Edda), or eight storeys (Bard of Regio Emilia). Typical tortures of hell, such as the tunics of fire (St. Patrick); fiery sepulchres (St. Patrick); molten metal and sulphur (St. Patrick and Tundal); immersion of the sinners in a lake (St. Macarius, St. Patrick, and Alberic); graduation of the fire (St. Paul); demons armed with prongs (Tundal); torture by the monster (Tundal); attraction and repulsion of the damned by its breathing (Tundal, St. Patrick, and St. Paul); sinners hanging head downwards (St. Patrick, Alberic, and St. Paul); or crucified to the ground (St. Patrick); or devoured by serpents (St. Macarius, St. Patrick, and Alberic); or laden with burdens (Edda); or forced to swallow their illicit gains (Turcill); the torture of ice (Tundal, St. Patrick, and Alberic); the picture of the giant held in chains (St. Macarius); and Lucifer bound in the bottommost pit of hell (Alberic).

The second category consists of Moslem features detected in the Christian legends, but not appearing in the Divine Comedy. These features, not having been mentioned in the two former parts of this work, have been dealt with in this part at greater length. The more important among them are the following:

The myth of the balance (Ch. V); the slippery bridge (Tundal, St. Patrick, St. Paul, Abbot Joachim); the torture of the sepulchre (Hugh of Brandenburg, St. Brandan); the intercession at the final judgment (Ch. V); the nakedness of sinners (Ch. V); the torture by the mad cow (Tundal); the vision of heaven granted to the sinners in order to increase their suffering (Tundal); the devil with the hundred hands (Tundal); the damned incarnate in birds of black plumage (Edda, and others in Ch. IX); the saintly souls and angels incarnate in white birds (St. Macarius, St. Brandan); Adam in paradise, smiling and crying at the same time (Turcill); the life of glory conceived as a courtly or religious festival (Cour du Paradis, Vergier du Paradis, Visione dei gaudii de’ santi). Finally, the main characteristics of the cycles examined in the last four chapters: the voyages, particularly the voyage of St. Brandan with its scenes, such as the table decked with food, the enormous vines, the torture of Judas, the description of the sea hermit, the island-whale; the legends of sleepers; the tales of respite from torture; the legends of the debate for the soul, with the striking features of the books of record, the personification of virtues and vices, and the accusation by the members of the body.

In view of the abundance of Islamic features present in the pre-Dante Christian legends, there is but one conclusion to be drawn: The many poetic conceptions of the after-life current throughout Europe before Dante’s time had grown from contact with Islam rather than from the native stock, for several of those poetic myths or their descriptive features had no foundation in Christian doctrine but owed their origin to other religions of the East, whence they were transmitted in a new and richer form by Islam.

5. The doubt that had assailed the mind at the end of the second part of our work is thus dispelled. The natural inference to be drawn at that stage of our inquiry from the great number of analogies detected in the Divine Comedy and the eschatological literature of Islam was that there existed some relation connecting the poem with that literature. To that hypothesis, however, it was possible to object the hypothesis put forward by the Dantists, that the conception of the divine poem could only have been influenced, and that indirectly, by the precursory Christian legends. But, once it has been shown that these legends also bear unmistakable signs of Moslem influence, that objection falls to the ground, and Dante now appears connected to Islam by a double tie—the indirect relation of the Islamic features present in his Christian precursors, and the direct relation of the Islamic elements contained in the Divine Comedy.

One question arises at this culminating point of our investigation: could Dante have known of the Moslem works on the after-life, and, if so, by what channels? The answer to this question will complete the chain of reasoning.