St. Augustine, Of the citie of God vvith the learned comments of Io. Lod. Viues. Englished by I.H.

Of buryall of the dead: that it is not preiudiciall to the state of a Christian soule to be forbidden it. CHAP 11.

OH, but in this great slaughter the dead could not bee buryed: Tush our holy faith regards not that, holding fast the promise: It is not so fraile as to think that the rauenous beasts can depriue the body of any part to be wan∣ting in the resurrection, where not a hayre of the head shall be missing. Nor would the scripture haue said: Feare not them that kill the bodie but are not able to kill the soule: if that which the foe could doe vnto our dead bodies in this * 1.1 world should any way preiudice our perfection in the world to come: Vnlesse any man will be so absurd as to contend that they that can kil the body are not to be feared before death least they should kill it, but after death least hauing killed it they should not permit it buriall. Is it false then which Christ saith, Those that kill the body, after they can do no more, and that they haue power to do so much hurt vnto the dead carkasse? God forbid that should be false which is spoken by the truth it selfe: Therefore it is said they do something in killing, because then they afflict the bodyly sence for a while: but afterwards they can afflict it no more, because there is no sense in a dead body. So then suppose that many of the Christians bodies neuer came in the earth: what of that, no man hath taken any of them both from earth and heauen, haue they? No: And both these doth his glorious presence replenish that knowes how to re∣store euery Atome of his worke in the created. The Psalmist indeed com∣playneth thus: The dead (a) bodies of thy seruants haue they giuen to be meat vnto the foules of the ayre: and the flesh of thy Saintes vnto the beastes of the earth: Their * 1.2 bloud haue they shedde like waters round about Ierusalem, and there was none to bury them. But this is spoken to intimate their villany that did it, rather then their misery that suffered it. For though that vnto the eyes of man these actes seeme bloudie and tyranous, yet, pretious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints. And therefore all these ceremonies concerning the dead, the care

of the buriall, the fashions of the Sepulchers, and the pompes of the funeralls, are rather solaces to the liuing, then furtherances to the dead. (b) For if a goodly and ritch tombe bee any helpe to the wicked man being dead, then is the poore and meane one a hindrance vnto the godly man in like case. The familie of that rich (c) gorgeous glutton, prepared him a sumptuous funerall vnto the eyes of men: but one farre more sumptuous did the ministring An∣gels prepare for the poore vlcered begger, in the sight of God: They bore him * 1.3 not into any Sepulcher of Marble, but placed him in the bosome of Abraham. This do they (d) scoffe at, against whom wee are to defend the citty of God. And yet euen (e) their owne Philosophers haue contemned the respect of buriall: and often-times (f) whole armies, fighting and falling for their earth∣lie countrie, went stoutly to these slaughters, without euer taking thought where to be laide, in what Marble tombe, or in what beasts belly. And the (g) Poets were allowed to speake their pleasures of this theame, with applause of the vulgar, as one doth thus:

Caelo tegitur qui non habet vrnam. Who wants a graue, Heauen serueth for his tombe.

What little reason then haue these miscreants, to insult ouer the Christians, that lie vnburied, vnto whom, a new restitution of their whole bodies is pro∣mised, to be restored them (h) in a moment, not onely out of the earth alone, * 1.4 but euen out of all the most secret Angles of all the other elements, wherein any body is or can possibly be included.

L. VIVES.

DEad (a) carcasses, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, morticinia, the dead flesh. (b) For if a goodly.]

Et eternos animam collegit in orbes, Non illuc auro positi, nec thure sepulti Perueniunt,—Lucan. lib. 9.

The eternall spheres his glorious spirit do holde, * 1.5 To which come few that lye embalmd in golde, &c.

(c) Gorgious] of whom in the Chapter before. (d) Scoffe at] The Romanes had great care ouer their burials: whence arose many obseruances concerning the religious perfor∣mance thereof: and it was indeed a penalty of the law: hee that doth this or that, let him bee cast forth vnburied: and so in the declamations: hee that forsakes his parents in their necessities, let him bee cast forth vnburied: hee that doth not declare the causes of their death before the Senate, let him bee cast forth vnburied; An homicide, cast him out vnburied. And so speakes Cicero to the peoples humour for Milo, when he affirmes Clodius his carcasse to be therein the more wretched, because it wanted the solemne rites and honors of buriall. (e) Philosophers] those of the Heathen: as Diogenes the Cynike for one, that bad his dead body should be cast vnto the dogs and foules of the ayre: & being answered by his friends, that they would rent and teare it: set a staffe by me then, said he, and I will beate them away with it: tush you your selfe shall be sencelesse quoth they: nay then quoth he what need I feare their tearing of me? This also did Menippus, & almost all the Cyniks. Cicero in his Quae∣stiones Tusculanae recordeth this answer of Theodorus of Cyrene vnto Lysmachus that threat∣ned him the crosse: let thy courtiers feare that (quoth he) but as for me I care not whether I •…•…ot on the ayre or in the earth: and so also saith Socrates in Plato's dialogue called Phaedo. (f) Whole armies] meaning perhaps those legions which Cato the elder speake of in his Ori∣gines, that would go thether with cheerfulnesse, from whence they knew they should neuer returne. Nay, it was no custome before Hercules his time to burie the dead that fell in war•…•…

for Aelian in his Historia varia doth affirme Hercules the first inuenter of that custome. (g) Poets to speake] with the peoples approbation. Lucan in his 7. booke of the Pharsalian warre, speaking of the dead that Caesar forbad should bee burned, or buried, after hee had brought forth (as his custome is) many worthy and graue sentences concerning this mat∣ter, at length he speaketh thus vnto Caesar:

Nil agis hac ira, tabesne Cadauera soluat, An rogus, hand refert: placido natura receptat Cuncta sinu:

In this thy wrath is worthlesse: all is one, Whether by fire or putrefaction Their carcasses dissolue: kinde nature still Takes all into her bosome.

And a little after:

—Capit omnia tellus Quae genuit; caelo tegitur qui non habet vrnam

Earths off-spring still returnes vnto earths wombe, Who wants a graue, heauen serueth for his tombe.

And so saith the Declamer in Seneca: Nature giues euery man a graue; to the shipwrackt the water wherein he is lost: the bodies of the crucified droppe from their crosses vnto their graues: those that are burned quick their very punishment entombes them. And Virgill, who appoints a place of punishment in hell for the vnburied, yet in Anchises his words, shewes how small the losse of a graue is. That verse of Maecenas

(Nec tumulum curo, sepelit natura relictos: I waigh no tombe: nature entombes the meanest:)

Is highly commended of antiquitie. The Urna, was a vessell wherein the reliques and ashes of the burned body was kept. (h) In a moment,] 1. Corinth. 15. 52.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Mat, 10. 28.
• * 1.2

  Psal, 79. 2.
• * 1.3

  Luc. 16. 22.
• * 1.4

  1. Cor. 15. 52.
• * 1.5

  Sepulchers.