3. Possibly thy inquiry is
satisfied by this my brief reply. But what other considerations
move me, to which I think meet to answer, do thou for a short space
attend. In the books of the Maccabees we read of sacrifice offered
for the dead.2713
Howbeit
even if it were no where at all read in the Old Scriptures, not
small is the
authority, which in this usage is clear, of the whole
Church, namely, that in the prayers of the
priest which are offered
to the
Lord God at His
altar, the Commendation of the dead hath
also its place. But then, whether there be some
profit accruing
unto the
soul of the dead from the place of its body, requires a
more careful inquiry. And first, whether it make any difference in
causing or increasing of misery after this
life to the spirits of
men if their bodies be not buried, this must be looked into, not in
the
light of opinion however commonly received, but rather of the
holy writ of our
religion. For we are not to credit that, as is
read in Maro, the unburied are prohibited from navigating and
crossing the infernal
stream: because forsooth
“To none is giv’n to pass the
hideous banks
And waters hoarse, ere in their
meet abode
The bones have sunk to rest.”2714
Who can incline a Christian heart to these
poetical and fabulous figments, when the Lord Jesus, to the intent
that under the hands of their enemies, who should have their bodies
in their power, Christians might lie down without a fear, asserts
that not a hair of their head shall perish, exhorting that they
should not fear them which when they have killed the body have
nothing more that they can do?2715
Of which in the first book “On
the City of
God,” I have methinks enough spoken, to
break the
teeth in their mouths who, in imputing to
Christian times the
barbarous devastation, especially that which
Rome has lately
suffered, do cast up to us this also, that
Christ did not there
come to the succor of His own. To whom when it is answered that the
souls of the
faithful were, according to the merits of their faith,
by Him taken into protection, they insult over us with talking of
their corpses left unburied. All this matter, then, concerning
burial I have in such words as these expounded.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
