This post is about some common themes I've noticed between these author's descriptions of individuals experiencing spiritual ascents to heaven and returning with philosophical knowledge.

Lucretius offers a sort of naturalistic take on this form, explaining how Epicurus defeated the superstition of common religion.

On The Nature of Things 1.60-80

It used to be that human life, polluted, was lying in the dirt before our eyes, crushed by the weight of religion, which stretched out its head on display from the regions of heaven, threatening mortals from above with its horrible-looking face. It was a Greek man who first dared to raise his mortal eyes against religion, and who first fought back against it. Neither stories of the gods, nor thunderbolts, nor the sky with its threatening rumbles held him back, but provoked all the more the fierce sharpness of his mind, so that he desired to be the first to shatter the imprisoning bolts of the gates of nature. As a result the vital force of his mind was victorious, and he traveled far beyond the flaming walls of the world and trekked throughout the measureless universe in mind and spirit. As victor he brings back from there knowledge of what can come to be, what cannot, in short, by what process each thing has its power limited, and its deep-set boundary stone. And so the tables are turned. Religion lies crushed beneath our feat, and his victory raises us to the sky.

Philo of Alexandria describes his own experience of what he elsewhere calls the "dying" and "rising" of God's son the Logos within the soul of a person.

Special Laws 3.1-6

There was once a time when, devoting my leisure to philosophy and to the contemplation of the world and the things in it, I reaped the fruit of excellent, and desirable, and blessed intellectual feelings, being always living among the divine oracles and doctrines, on which I fed incessantly and insatiably, to my great delight, never entertaining any low or grovelling thoughts, nor ever wallowing in the pursuit of glory or wealth, or the delights of the body, but I appeared to be raised on high and borne aloft by a certain inspiration of the soul, and to dwell in the regions of the sun and moon, and to associate with the whole heaven, and the whole universal world. At that time, therefore, looking down from above, from the air, and straining the eye of my mind as from a watch-tower, I surveyed the unspeakable contemplation of all the things on the earth, and looked upon myself as happy as having forcibly escaped from all the evil fates that can attack human life. Nevertheless, the most grievous of all evils was lying in wait for me, namely, envy, that hates every thing that is good, and which, suddenly attacking me, did not cease from dragging me after it by force till it had taken me and thrown me into the vast sea of the cares of public politics, in which I was and still am tossed about without being able to keep myself swimming at the top.

But though I groan at my fate, I still hold out and resist, retaining in my soul that desire of instruction which has been implanted in it from my earliest youth, and this desire taking pity and compassion on me continually raises me up and alleviates my sorrow. And it is through this fondness for learning that I at times lift up my head, and with the eyes of my soul, which are indeed dim (for the mist of affairs, wholly inconsistent with their proper objects, has overshadowed their acute clear-sightedness), still, as well as I may, I survey all the things around me, being eager to imbibe something of a life which shall be pure and unalloyed by evils. And if at any time unexpectedly there shall arise a brief period of tranquillity, and a short calm and respite from the troubles which arise from state affairs, I then rise aloft and float above the troubled waves, soaring as it were in the air, and being, I may almost say, blown forward by the breezes of knowledge, which often persuades me to flee away, and to pass all my days with her, escaping as it were from my pitiless masters, not men only, but also affairs which pour upon me from all quarters and at all times like a torrent.

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Allegorical Interpretation 1.46

Well then, God sows and plants earthly excellence for the race of mortals as a copy and reproduction of the heavenly. For pitying our race and noting that it is compact of a rich abundance of ills, He caused earthly excellence to strike root, to bring succour and aid to the diseases of the soul. It is, as I said before, a copy of the heavenly and archetypal excellence, to which Moses gives many names. Virtue is figuratively called "pleasaunce," and the locality specially suited to the pleasaunce "Eden," which means "luxury"; excellence to be sure has for its fit adjuncts peace and welfare and joy, in which true luxury consists. Again the planting of the pleasaunce is "towards the sun-rising," for right reason (orthos logos) does not set nor is quenched, but its nature is ever to rise, and, I take it, just as the sun when it has risen fills the gloom of the atmosphere with light, so virtue also, when it has risen in the soul, illumines its mist and disperses its deep darkness. "And He placed there" it says, "the man whom He had formed." For God, being good and training our race to virtue as the operation most proper to it, places the mind amid virtue, evidently to the end that as a good gardener it may spend its care on nothing else but this.

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Confusion of Tongues 60-63, 146-147

Now those who conspired for iniquities, "moved," we are told, "from the 'east' (or 'rising') and found a plain in the land of Shinar and dwelt there" (Gen. xi. 2). How true to nature! For there are two kinds of "rising" in the soul, the better and the worse. The better is when the beam of the virtues rises like the rays of the sun; the worse when virtues pass into the shadow and vices rise above the horizon. We have an example of the former in these words: "And God planted a pleasaunce in Eden towards the sun-rise" (Gen. ii. 8). That garden was not a garden of the plants of the soil, but of heavenly virtues, which out of His own incorporeal light the Planter brought to their rising, never to be extinguished. I have heard also an oracle from the lips of one of the disciples of Moses, which runs thus: "Behold a man whose name is the rising" (Zech. vi. 12), strangest of titles, surely, if you suppose that a being composed of soul and body is here described. But if you suppose that it is that Incorporeal one, who differs not a whit from the divine image, you will agree that the name of "rising" assigned to him quite truly describes him. For that man is the eldest son, whom the Father of all raised up, and elsewhere calls him His first-born, and indeed the Son thus begotten followed the ways of his Father, and shaped the different kinds, looking to the archetypal patterns which that Father supplied. Of the worse kind of rising we have an example in the description of him who wished to curse one who was praised by God. ...

But if there be any as yet unfit to be called a Son of God, let him press to take his place under God's First-born, the Word, who holds the eldership among the angels, their ruler as it were. And many names are his, for he is called, "the Beginning," and the Name of God, and His Word, and the Man after His image, and " he that sees," that is Israel. And therefore I was moved a few pages above to praise the virtues of those who say that "We are all sons of one man" (Gen. xlii. 11). For if we have not yet become fit to be thought sons of God yet we may be sons of His invisible image, the most holy Word. For the Word is the eldest-born image of God.

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On Flight and Finding 106-118

The fourth and only remaining point of those proposed for consideration was the time prescribed for the return of the fugitives, namely, that of the death of the High Priest. If taken literally, this point presents, I feel, great difficulty. ... Let us, then, have recourse to the scientific mode of interpretation which looks for the hidden meaning of the literal words, and we shall escape from the difficulty and be able to give a reasonable account of the matter. We say, then, that the High Priest is not a man, but a Divine Word and immune from all unrighteousness whether intentional or unintentional. For Moses says that he cannot defile himself either for the father, the mind, nor for the mother, sense-perception, because, methinks, he is the child of parents incorruptible and wholly free from stain, his father being God, who is likewise Father of all, and his mother Wisdom, through whom the universe came into existence; because, more-over, his head has been anointed with oil (kechristai), and by this I mean that his ruling faculty is illumined with a brilliant light,... The High Priest, so Moses says, "Shall not go in to any dead soul". Death of soul is a life in the company of vice, so that what is meant is that he is never to come in contact with any polluting object, and of these folly always stinks. To him there is betrothed moreover a maiden of the hallowed people, pure and undefiled and of ever inviolate intention; for never is he wedded to a widow or one divorced or to a profane woman or to a harlot, but against them he ever wages a truceless and unrelenting warfare. For hateful to him is widowhood from virtue, and the plight of one cast out and driven from her doors, and any conviction that is profane and unholy. But the promiscuous, polyandrous cause of polytheism, or rather atheism, the harlot, he deigns not even to look at, having learned to love her who had adopted, as her one Husband and Father, God the All-sovereign. In this character we see perfection in something like the highest form. On the other hand, as to the man who has vowed the Great Vow, the lawgiver seems to recognize that he does stumble unintentionally, even if not with deliberate intent; for he says, "If one die by him suddenly, he shall at once be defiled": for that which suddenly swoops down upon us from without, apart from any wish of our own, defiles the soul at once, though not for an interminable period, owing to its being unintentional. But with such involuntary defilements, even as with those that are voluntary, the High Priest has no concern, but stands far beyond their reach.

The observations that I have been making are not beside the mark, but are meant to shew that the fixing of the High Priest's death as the term for the return of the exiles is in perfect accordance with the natural fitness of things. For so long as this holiest Word is alive and is still present in the soul, it is out of the question that an unintentional offence should come back into it; for this holy Word is by nature incapable of taking part in and admitting to itself any sin whatever. But if the Word die, not by being itself destroyed, but by being withdrawn out of our soul, the way is at once open for the return of unintentional errors; for if it was abiding within us alive and well when they were removed, assuredly when it departs and goes elsewhere they will be reinstated. For the Monitor, the undefiled High Priest, enjoys as the fruit of his nature the special prerogative of never admitting into himself any uncertainty of judgement. Wherefore it is meet that we should pray that He who is at once High Priest and King may live in our soul as Monitor on the seat of justice, seeing that he has received for his proper sphere the entire court of our understanding, and faces unabashed all who are brought up for judgement there.

Paul in 2 Corinthians 11 talks about a man, who is typically understood as Paul himself, being caught up to the third even, which other 2nd Temple era sources identify as Eden.

Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a man was caught up to the third heaven. And I know how such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows—was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak. On behalf of such a man I will boast; but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in regard to my weaknesses. For if I do wish to boast I will not be foolish, for I will be speaking the truth; but I refrain from this, so that no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me.

How many more examples like this are there, and what to make of them all?