OR THE BURNING OF THE DEAD. 89 



place, he ridicules the heathen for their inconsistency, in first 

 burning the dead in the most unfeeling manner, and then cele- 

 brating the feasts which they denominated Parentalia, by the 

 same fires both honouring and insulting them, treating them as 

 if they had been gluttons after they had consumed them. " O 

 " piety !" he exclaims, " sporting itself in acts of cruelty *." 



The adversaries of the Christians, indeed, objected to them, 

 that they had a weightier reason for opposing cremation. Mi- 

 nucius Felix, accordingly, introduces the heathen as saying, 

 " For this reason they execrate the funeral pile, and condemn 

 " sepulture by burning," as if it precluded the possibility of re- 

 surrection. But Minucius replies, " We do not, as you be- 

 " lieve, fear any injury by this kind of sepulture ; but we ad- 

 " here to inhumation as the more ancient and the preferable 

 " modef." 



From the ridiculous reason assigned by Tertullian, for the 

 reluctance which some of the heathen felt to cremation, it ap- 

 pears that they were actuated by the self-same feeling with 

 Christians ; although, according to this ancient writer, they 

 transferred their compassion from the body to the soul. But 

 some of them, it is evident, viewed the practice as inhuman on 



Vol. VIII. P. I. M a 



* Ego magis ridebo vulgus, tunc quoque quum ipsos defunctos atrocissime 

 exurit, quos postmodum gulosissime nutrit, iisdem ignibus et promerens et of- 

 fendens. O pietatem de crudelitate ludentem ! Id. de Resurrect, c i. 



■f Inde videlicet et execrantur rogos, et damnant ignium sepulturas, quasi nort 

 omne corpus, etsi flammis subtrahatur, annis tamen et aetatibus in terram resol- 

 vatur. — Hoc errore decepti beatam sibi, ut bonis, et perpetem vitam mortuis pol- 

 licentur; cseteris, ut injustis, poenam sempiternam. Min. Fel. Octavius, p. 97, 

 98, edit. Liigd. 1672. Nee, ut creditis, ullum damnum sepulturse timemus, sed 

 veterem, et meliorem consuetudinem humandi frequentamus. Ibid. p. 327, 328. 



