88 ON THE ORIGIN OF CREMATION, 
Speaking of those who unnecessarily exposed themselves to de- 
struction, under the false idea of being martyrs, he adds, ‘ In 
« vain do they give themselves up to death, as the Gymnoso- 
 phists of India rashly cast themselves into the flames *. 
As it is acknowledged even by heathen writers, that the 
most ancient mode was that of inhumation, a question natural- 
ly occurs, which, although from deficiency of evidence it may 
be impossible to solve in a satisfactory manner, affords ample 
ground for curious and interesting disquisition. It is this ; 
Whence might the practice of cremation originate ? or, in other 
words, What could induce men, in opposition to the feelings of 
nature, to devote the mortal part of this frame, which they 
had cherished so tenderly during life, as far as possible to appa- 
rent destruction, after the departure of the spirit ? 
By the primitive Christians it was objected to cremation, 
that the practice involved in it the idea of inhumanity to the 
body. Hence Terruriian having remarked, that some of the 
gentiles disapproved of the mode of burning, because they 
wached to spare the soul, which hovered over the body after 
death, subjoins, “ But we have another reason,—that of piety, 
“ not as flattering the reliques of the soul, but as detesting 
* cruelty even to the body; because, being itself man, it does 
* not deserve. to be subjected to a penal death f.” In another 
. place, 
* Cuvara dt taurde drod:doace neva, noibdmreg xxi or Tay LddY yrpevorePiscel porrecies mugl. emt) 02 
Si Yevdaryeos ore TH capex Oiabwcrrect, &c. Crem. ALEXANDR. Strom. lib. iv. p. 351. edit. 
Lugd. 1616. 
+ Et hoc enim in opinione quorundam est ; propterea nec ignibus funerandum 
aiunt, parcentes superfluo anim. Alia est autem ratio pietatis istius, non reli- 
quiis anime adulatrix, sed crudelitatis etiam corporis nomine aversatrix, quod et 
ipsum homo non utique mereatur poenali exitu impendi. Trrtuxnuian. de Anim. 
c. 5k. 
