5. Yet it follows not that the
bodies of the departed are to be despised and flung aside, and
above all of just and faithful men, which bodies as organs and
vessels to all good works their spirit hath holily used. For if a
father’s garment and ring, and whatever such like, is the more
dear to those whom they leave behind, the greater their affection
is towards their parents, in no wise are the bodies themselves to
be spurned, which truly we wear in more familiar and close
conjunction than any of our putting on. For these pertain not to
ornament or aid which is applied from without, but to the very
nature of man. Whence also the funerals of the just men of old were
with dutiful piety cared for, and their obsequies celebrated, and
sepulture provided:2721
and themselves while living did
touching
burial or even translation of their bodies give charge to
their sons. Tobias also, to have by burying of the dead obtained
favor with
God, is by witness of an
Angel commended.
2722
The
Lord
Himself also, about to rise on the third day, both
preaches, and
commends to be
preached, the good
work of a
religious woman, that
she poured out a precious
ointment over His limbs, and did it for
His
burial:
2723
and they
are with
praise commemorated in the
Gospel, who having received His
Body from the
cross did carefully and with reverend
honor see it
wound and laid in the
sepulchre.
2724
These
authorities however do not
put us upon thinking that there is in dead bodies any feeling; but
rather, that the Providence of
God (Who is moreover pleased with
such offices of
piety) doth charge itself with the bodies also of
the dead, this they betoken, to the intent our
faith of
resurrection might be stayed up thereby. Where also is wholesomely
learned, how great may be the
reward for
alms which we do unto the
living and feeling, if not even that be lost before
God, whatever
of
duty and of
diligence is paid to the lifeless members of men.
There are indeed also other things, which in speaking of the
bestowal or removal of their bodies the holy Patriarchs willed to
be understood as spoken by the prophetic Spirit: but this is not
the place to treat thoroughly of these things, seeing that
sufficeth which we have said. But if the lack of those things which
are necessary for sustentation of the living, as
food and
clothing,
however heavy
affliction attend the lacking, do not
break in good
men the manly
courage of bearing and enduring, nor eradicate
piety
from the
mind, but by exercising make it more
fruitful; how much
more doth lack of those things which are wont to be applied for
care of funerals and bestowal of bodies of the departed, not make
them
wretched, now that in the hidden abodes of the pious they are
at
rest! And therefore, when these things have to dead bodies of
Christians in that devastation of the great City or of other towns
also been lacking, there is neither fault of the living, who could
not afford these things, nor pain of the dead who could not feel
the same.
2725
| 2725 On the City of
God, book i. chap. xii. 13. Vol. ii. p.
10. |
This is my
opinion concerning the ground and reason of sepulture. Which I have
therefore from another book of mine transferred to this, because it
was easier to rehearse this, than to express the same matter in
another way.
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