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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; 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. And Tobit, according to the
angel's testimony, is commended, and is said to have pleased God by
burying the dead. 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. 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. 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.
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