CHAPTER III. ON CEMETERY INTERMENT. "And who would lay His body in the City Burial-place, To be thrown up again by some rude sexton, No, I will lay me in the village ground; KIRKE WHITE. HAVING briefly stated the various modes practised by the ancients in the disposition of their dead, it will be our purpose to show, that, in almost all cases, it was customary and frequently obligatory, to erect their cemeteries, or burying-places, at a proper distance from cities and towns, or other populous districts. The few instances recorded in Greek or Roman History of admitting the dead to burial within the walls of cities, are to be taken as exceptions to this general rule, which was for the most part only relaxed by the pagans in favour of heroes, senators, and princes: by the early Christians, in favour of martyrs and saints: and, in later ages of the church, in behalf of those who had purchased or merited the privilege by liberal eleemosynary endowments. Moreover, it may be observed, that while the custom of "Urn-burial prevailed, the privilege of being deposited within the walls, would be considered more as a breach of the strict letter of the law, which prohibited intra-mural interment, than of its spirit, as but a small place would suffice for depositing an urn and ashes and little or perhaps no danger could occur of that continual injury to the living, which always has resulted, and ever must, from the unhealthy, if not loathsome and indecent practice of interring the dead in the midst of the living. A just regard for the public health was the grand motive which induced the enactment of these prohibitory laws but other reasons no less cogent in their nature, because they were associated with the general religious rites and ceremonies of the people, contributed to enforce them; and probably, but for the fortunate concurrence of these latter causes, there would have been, as in modern times, considerable difficulty in fulfilling their enactments. The sanctity with which the ancient pagans regarded woods and groves, converting them at times into temples, or using them as select spots for consulting their oracles, would naturally induce them to give effect to the institutes of their rulers in this respect, and to select these retired and beloved places as the depositories of the dead: which, indeed, they held : so sacred, that the unfortunate and the accused fled to them as to the more ancient" Cities of Refuge," and were protected from all violence or interference while remaining within the bounds of their holy precincts. The moral effect of these civil regulations must have been good for the contemplation of past friendship, suspended, rather than destroyed, by the stroke of death, must have been more soothing to the spirits and beneficial to the heart, in association with the other duties, which would induce a visit to the place of burial, and which might not so often, or at least not so consistently occur, if the "Memento mori of a proud cenotaph, or humble mossy grave, had only occupied some little niche in the every-day frequented highways of the world, where each transient passenger, too intent on the concerns, the anxieties, or the miseries of this life, would hardly glance an eye, and much less bestow a meditation upon the hopes of the future. The hard and peculiar position in which the earliest converts to Christianity were placed by pagan persecution and cruelty, necessarily led to the establishment of separate places of interment; and these cemeteries,* as they were then for the first time called, very soon became dedicated as much to the purposes of worship as of sepulture. In the retirement and seclusion of these holy enclosures, were the * St. Jerome, in speaking of St. Ignatius, mentions the cemetery of the first Christians, which was at Antioch, without Daphnis' Gate. first altars erected to the "known" God of the Christians; and in this fruitful soil were planted those seeds of early and simple piety at first no larger than grains of mustard seed, "but which soon became a tree, so that the birds of the air lodged in the branches thereof;" and though its offsets may have been transplanted into various and uncongenial soils, or tended at times by faithless husbandmen, the germ has never died or been lost; but, in these later ages, re-visited with the pure dews of Heaven, and pruned of its excrescences by the divinely assisted hands of the Reformers, has sprung afresh, and invites under its genial shade and to the enjoyment of its saving benefits, all the nations of the earth. The In the early history of the church, many concurrent causes might tend to endear the cemeteries to the minds of its members. respect which, as we have seen, the contemporaneous pagans paid to the memory of the dead might lead them to allow the Christian converts considerable latitude in this respect : neither would the private and blameless lives which those converts led, induce much public observation of their quiet rites. The practice of praying for the souls of the departed, was also very soon incorporated with the other voluntary* institutions of the church, and it is easy to believe, that this species of * The term "voluntary" is here used in contradistinction to the Institutes of the New Testament, or the precepts and practice of the Apostles. devotion (having in it, perhaps, more of consolation to the dying and such as tarried in this life, than benefit to those who had exchanged it for that which is to come) would be principally enjoyed in those "holy and honourable places" (as the cemeteries were termed) where the newly buried remains were interred, and where, for the "peace and repose of the soul which had inhabited them, their anxious prayers were offered. دو In the writings of one of the earliest fathers (St. Clement), we find the following exhortation: "Assemble yourselves in the cemeteries: there read the sacred books and sing your spiritual hymns; be present at the mass which is celebrated there; and, after you have received the body of our Saviour, continue the harmony of your songs. At length a brighter day began to dawn in the darkened horizon of the infant church, and instead of being despised and persecuted by those in high places, it appeared as if "Kings were to become its fathers ;" and the Emperor Constantine, in embracing the Christian Religion, was hailed and blessed as the harbinger of peace. The temples of the idols were, however, not destroyed; but, being purified and cleansed, were consecrated to the service of the true God; so that the bloody sacrifices of paganism were laid aside for the sacrifices of "broken hearts and contrite spirits ;" and the altars, which were hardly dry from the bloodstains of hecatombs, were very soon used for the celebration of that holy rite instituted by |