And so there are indeed many bodies of Christians lying unburied; but no one has separated them from heaven, nor froth that earth which is all filled with the presence of Him who knows whence He will raise again what He created.It is said, indeed, in the Psalm: "The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them."(5) But this was said rather to exhibit the cruelty of those who did these things, than the misery of those who suffered them.To the eyes of men this appears a harsh and doleful lot, yet "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."(6) Wherefore all these last offices and ceremonies that concern the dead, the careful funeral arrangements, and the equipment of the tomb, and the pomp of obsequies, are rather the solace of the living than the comfort of the dead.If a costly burial does any good to a wicked man, a squalid burial, or none at all, may harm the godly.His crowd of domestics furnished the purple-clad Dives with a funeral gorgeous in the eye of man; but in the sight of God that was a more sumptuous funeral which the ulcerous pauper received at the hands of the angels, who did not carry him out to a marble tomb, but bore him aloft to Abraham's bosom.
The men against whom I have undertaken to defend the city of God laugh at all this.But even their own philosophers(7) have despised a careful burial; and often whole armies have fought and fallen for their earthly country without caring to inquire whether they would be left exposed on the field of battle, or become the food of wild beasts.Of this noble disregard of sepulture poetry has well said: "He who has no tomb has the sky for his vault."(1) How much less ought they to insult over the unburied bodies of Christians, to whom it has been promised that the flesh itself shall be restored, and the body formed anew, all the members of it being gathered not only from the earth, but from the most secret recesses of any other of the elements in which the dead bodies of men have lain hid !
CHAP.13.--REASONS FOR BURYING THE BODIESOF THE SAINTS.
Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be despised and left unburied; least of all the bodies of the righteous and faithful, which have been used by the Holy Spirit as His organs and instruments for all good works.For if the dress of a father, or his ring, or anything he wore, be precious to his children, in proportion to the love they bore him, with how much more reason ought we to care for the bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely and intimately than any clothing! For the body is not an extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man's very nature.And therefore to the righteous of ancient times the last offices were piously rendered, and sepulchres provided for them, and obsequies celebrated;(2) and they themselves, while yet alive, gave commandment to their sons about the burial, and, on occasion, even about the removal of their bodies to some favorite place.(3) And Tobit, according to the angel's testimony, is commended, and is said to have pleased God by burying the dead.(4) Our Lord Himself, too, though He was to rise again the third day, applauds, and commends to our applause, the good work of the religious woman who poured precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against His burial.(5) And the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were careful to take down His body from the cross, and wrap it lovingly in costly cerements, and see to its burial.(6)These instances certainly do not prove that corpses have any feeling; but they show that God's providence extends even to the bodies of the dead, and that such pious offices are pleasing to Him, as cherishing faith in the resurrection.And we may also draw from them this wholesome lesson, that if God does not forget even any kind office which loving care pays to the unconscious dead, much more does He reward the charity we exercise towards the living.Other things, indeed, which the holy patriarchs said of the burial and removal of their bodies, they meant to be taken in a prophetic sense; but of these we need not here speak at large, what we have already said being sufficient.But if the want of those things which are necessary for the support of the living, as food and clothing, though painful and trying, does not break down the fortitude and virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from their souls, but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less can the absence of the funeral, and of the other customary attentions paid to the dead, render those wretched who are already reposing in the hidden abodes of the blessed ! Consequently, though in the sack of Rome and of other towns the dead bodies of the Christians were deprived of these last offices, this is neither the fault of the living, for they could not render them; nor an infliction to the dead, for they cannot feel the loss.
CHAP.14.--OF THE CAPTIVITY OF THE SAINTS, AND THAT DIVINE CONSOLATIONNEVER FAILED
THEM THEREIN.
But, say they, many Christians were even led away captive.This indeed were a most pitiable fate, if they could be led away to any place where they could not find their God.But for this calamity also sacred Scripture affords great consolation.The three youths(7) were captives; Daniel was a captive; so were other prophets:
