|
Objection 1: It would seem that the burial service profits the
dead. For Damascene (Serm.: De his qui in fide dormierunt)
quotes Athanasius as saying: "Even though he who has departed in
godliness be taken up to heaven, do not hesitate to call upon God and
to burn oil and wax at his tomb; for such things are pleasing to God
and receive a great reward from Him." Now the like pertain to the
burial service. Therefore the burial service profits the dead.
Objection 2: Further, according to Augustine (De Cura pro
mort. iii), "In olden times the funerals of just men were cared for
with dutiful piety, their obsequies celebrated, their graves
provided, and themselves while living charged their children touching
the burial or even the translation of their bodies." But they would
not have done this unless the tomb and things of this kind conferred
something on the dead. Therefore the like profit the dead somewhat.
Objection 3: Further, no one does a work of mercy on some one's
behalf unless it profit him. Now burying the dead is reckoned among
the works of mercy, therefore Augustine says (De Cura pro Mort.
iii): "Tobias, as attested by the angel, is declared to have found
favor with God by burying the dead." Therefore such like burial
observances profit the dead.
Objection 4: Further, it is unbecoming to assert that the devotion
of the faithful is fruitless. Now some, out of devotion, arrange for
their burial in some religious locality. Therefore the burial service
profits the dead.
Objection 5: Further, God is more inclined to pity than to
condemn. Now burial in a sacred place is hurtful to some if they be
unworthy: wherefore Gregory says (Dial. iv): "If those who are
burdened with grievous sins are buried in the church this will lead to
their more severe condemnation rather than to their release." Much
more, therefore, should we say that the burial service profits the
good.
On the contrary, Augustine says (De Cura pro Mort. iii):
"Whatever service is done the body is no aid to salvation, but an
office of humanity."
Further, Augustine says (De Cura pro Mort. iii; De Civ. Dei
i): "The funereal equipment, the disposition of the grace, the
solemnity of the obsequies are a comfort to the living rather than a
help to the dead."
Further, Our Lord said (Lk. 12:4): "Be not afraid of them
who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do."
Now after death the bodies of the saints can be hindered from being
buried, as we read of having been done to certain martyrs at Lyons in
Gaul (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. v, 1). Therefore the dead take
no harm if their bodies remain unburied: and consequently the burial
service does not profit them.
I answer that, We have recourse to burial for the sake of both the
living and the dead. For the sake of the living, lest their eyes be
revolted by the disfigurement of the corpse, and their bodies be
infected by the stench, and this as regards the body. But it profits
the living also spiritually inasmuch as our belief in the resurrection
is confirmed thereby. It profits the dead in so far as one bears the
dead in mind and prays for them through looking on their burial place,
wherefore a "monument" takes its name from remembrance, for a
monument is something that recalls the mind [monens mentem], as
Augustine observes (De Civ. Dei i; De Cura pro Mort. iv).
It was, however, a pagan error that burial was profitable to the dead
by procuring rest for his soul: for they believed that the soul could
not be at rest until the body was buried, which is altogether
ridiculous and absurd.
That, moreover, burial in a sacred place profits the dead, does not
result from the action done, but rather from the action itself of the
doer: when, to wit, the dead person himself, or another, arranges
for his body to be buried in a sacred place, and commends him to the
patronage of some saint, by whose prayers we must believe that he is
assisted, as well as to the suffrages of those who serve the holy
place, and pray more frequently and more specially for those who are
buried in their midst. But such things as are done for the display of
the obsequies are profitable to the living, as being a consolation to
them; and yet they can also profit the dead, not directly but
indirectly, in so far as men are aroused to pity thereby and
consequently to pray, or in so far as the outlay on the burial brings
either assistance to the poor or adornment to the church: for it is in
this sense that the burial of the dead is reckoned among the works of
mercy.
Reply to Objection 1: By bringing oil and candles to the tombs of
the dead we profit them indirectly, either as offering them to the
Church and as giving them to the poor, or as doing this in reverence
of God. Hence, after the words quoted we read: "For oil and
candles are a holocaust."
Reply to Objection 2: The fathers of old arranged for the burial of
their bodies, so as to show that "the bodies of the dead" are the
object of Divine providence, not that there is any feeling in a dead
body, but in order to confirm the belief in the resurrection, as
Augustine says (De Civ. Dei i, 13). Hence, also, they
wished to be buried in the land of promise, where they believed
Christ's birth and death would take place, Whose resurrection is the
cause of our rising again.
Reply to Objection 3: Since flesh is a part of man's nature, man
has a natural affection for his flesh, according to Eph. 5:29,
"No man ever hated his own flesh." Hence in accordance with this
natural affection a man has during life a certain solicitude for what
will become of his body after death: and he would grieve if he had a
presentiment that something untoward would happen to his body.
Consequently those who love a man, through being conformed to the one
they love in his affection for himself, treat his body with loving
care. For as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei i, 13): "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 anything else
we put on."
Reply to Objection 4: As Augustine says (De Cura pro Mort.
iv), the devotion of the faithful is not fruitless when they arrange
for their friends to be buried in holy places, since by so doing they
commend their dead to the suffrages of the saints, as stated above.
Reply to Objection 5: The wicked man dead takes no harm by being
buried in a holy place, except in so far as he rendered such a burial
place unfitting for him by reason of human glory.
|
|