112 



BURIAL. 



Burial most ancient times, as an object of the highest im- 

 portance. I .; the Old Testament scriptures, we meet 

 wth many passages which prove this to have been 

 the case among the Jews ; who not only betrayed, at 

 all times, an anxiety with regard to the rites of se- 

 pulture, and were extremely careful about the burial 

 of their dead, but considered the deprivation of bu- 

 rial as one of the most disgraceful things which could 

 befal a man. When the Lord foretold to Abraham 

 the afflictions which should come upon his race, he 

 added, as a source of consolation, that he himself 

 should go to his fathers in peace, and should be bu- 

 ried in a good old age. (Gen. xv. 15.) Upon the 

 death of Sarah, his wife, Abraham earnestly besought 

 the sons of Heth, to give him possession of a bury- 

 ing-place ; and his request being granted, he purcha- 

 sed of Ephron, the son of Zohar, the field of Mach- 

 pelah, and the cave which was therein, for four hun- 

 dred shekels of silver. Abraham, accordingly, bu- 

 ried Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah, 

 which afterwards served as a place of interment for 

 his own body, and for those of Isaac and of Jacob. 

 Many other passages occur, in which the duty of se- 

 pulture is inculcated, and instances of the discharge 

 of it are recorded. David gives great praise to the 

 men of Jabez-Gilead, for rescuing the bones of their 

 king and prince from the enemy's walls, and commit- 

 ting them to their family vault. (2 Sam. ii. 5.) The 

 scriptures threaten the wicked with being deprived 

 of burial, as if such deprivation were one of the great- 

 est calamities that could befal them. " If a man be- 

 get a hundred children, and live many years, so that 

 the days of his years be many, and his soul be not 

 filled with good, and also that he have no burial, I 

 say, that an untimely birth is better than he. (Ec- 

 cles. vi. 3.) Jeremiah also threatens the kings, 

 priests, and false prophets, who had worshipped idols, 

 that he would have their bones thrown out of their 

 graves, like dung upon the earth. (Jerem. viii. 2.) 

 The same prophet foretold, that Jehoiakim, the wic- 

 ked king of Judah, as a severe punishment for his 

 guilt, should be buried with the burial of an ass ; 

 that he should be cast out of the gates of Jerusalem 

 into the common sewer. (Ibid. xxii. 18, 19.) That 

 good men considered it to be a part of their religious 

 duties to bury their dead, appears from the example 

 of Tobit, who went about burying the dead bodies 

 of his murdered countrymen, at the hazard of his 

 own life. 



Similar sentiments with regard to the importance 

 of burial, appear to have prevailed also among the 

 heathen nations of antiquity. Both the historical and 

 the poetical works of the Greeks clearly prove, that 

 even in their most flourishing period of prosperity and 

 civilization, they considered it essential to their hap- 

 piness to be buried and konoured with certain cere- 

 monies after death. Solon, in his conversation with 

 Croesus, (Herodot. Clio, 30 32,) plainly intimates, 

 that he considered a public funeral, a magnificent 

 interment, as a source of happiness. More than one 

 of the Greek dramas, and, among these, the most es- 

 teemed tragedy of Sophocles, the Antigone, derive 

 their whole interest from a contest about the right of 

 burial. The fate of the twelve Athenian command- 

 ers, who suffered death because they had been pre- 



vented from recovering and burying the dead bodies 

 of their countrymen, after a naval tight, is well known. 

 The ancient Greeks and Romans, indeed, were strong- 

 ly persuaded, that their souls would not be admitted 

 into the Eiysian fields, till their bodies were commit- 

 ted to the earth ; and if it happened that they never 

 obtained the rites of burial, they were supposed to 

 continue in a wandering state, excluded from the 

 mansions of the blest, for a tr-nn of one hundred 

 years. Hence the imperious duty, incumbent upon 

 all travellers who should happen to meet with a de:td 

 body in their way, to cast dust upon it three times ; 

 of which three hamifuls, one at least was cast upon 

 the head. He who encountered an unburied body 

 without performing this ceremony, drew upon him- 

 self a curse, which no sacrifice could remove. Ho- 

 race, accordingly, makes the shade of Archytas to 

 beg this service of a passing seaman : 



At tu, nauta, vagtv ne purcc malignus arena; 



Ossibus et cupiti inhumato 

 Particulum dare. Sic, quodcunquc minabitur Eums 



Fluctlbu.i ffexpi'riisj Vennshies 

 Plcclantur sUvcc, tc swpite ; muJtaquc mrrces, 



Undc potcst) tibi dejluat ccquo 

 Ab Jaw, tfepttmoffue sacri cuslodi Turcnli. 



Negligis inline rit is nocituram 

 Postmoda te natis fraudem commiUere forsafi. 



Debitajura vicesque superbea 

 Tu mant'diit ipxum : prccibiis non linquar inullis ; 



Teque piacula nitlla resolvent. 

 Quanqvamfettinat, non est mora longa ; licebit 



Injecto ter pulvore curras. 



Carm. I. 28. 



Herodotus informs us, (Euterp. 90.) that in Egypt, 

 if any person, native or foreigner, was found either 

 destroyed by a crocodile, or drowned in the water, 

 the city nearest which the dead body was discovered 

 was obliged to embalm it, with every mark of re- 

 spectful attention, and afterwards deposit it in some 

 consecrated place. Isaeus adduces it as a proof of 

 Cleon's not being the son of Astyphylus, that he nei- 

 ther buried him, nor performed his funeral exsequies. 

 A law of Athens compelled the burial of a dead bo- 

 dy found by accident, and pronounced him impious 

 who refused. Servius on Virgil (JEneid vi. 176.) 

 says, that writers on morals rank the interring of the 

 dead among the first of moral duties. Thus, too, al- 

 though a priest was contaminated by merely looking 

 on a dead body, yet it was considered the height of 

 impiety to leave it unburied. Some individuals, how- 

 ever, appear to have dissented from this almost uni- 

 versal opinion of the sacred duty of interment. The 

 Cynics seem to have regarded burial with contempt ; 

 and Pliny (H. N. \. vii.j classes the concern manifest- 

 ed about it among the weaknesses of human nature. 

 But the importance attached to it, in the general es- 

 timation of mankind, is sufficiently obvious from the 

 facts already mentioned, from the denial of the privi- 

 lege of interment to persons in particular situations, 

 and from the circumstance of disgrace attending the 

 funerals of some of those to whom it was allowed. 

 Persons killed by lightning were buried apart by 

 themselves, being deemed odious to the gods ; those 

 who wasted their patrimony, forfeited the right of be- 

 ing buried in the sepulchres of their fathers ; and 

 those who were guilty of suicide, were privutely de- 

 1 



Burial. 



