victims and make good cheer, when once the preliminary lamentation is done; and then they dispose of the body by cremation or merely by interment'—[Greek: epeita de thaptousi katakausantes, ê allôs gê krypsantes][1]. The 'merely' plainly betrays Herodotus' own feeling that well-to-do persons might be expected to have the advantage of cremation.
In the following centuries the preference for cremation would seem to have become even more pronounced; for though both rites still continued in use, separately as well as conjointly, Lucian was able to call cremation the distinctively Hellenic rite[2]. But more marked still was the feeling in favour of cremation among those who upheld the old Greek religion when first they had to face the invasion of Christianity. 'The heathen for the most part,' says Bingham[3], 'burned the bodies of the dead in funeral piles, and then gathered up the bones and ashes, and put them in an urn above ground: but the Christians abhorred this way of burying; and therefore never used it, but put the body whole into the ground.' The conflict over this matter was bitter. The pagans taunted the Christians with fearing that, if their bodies were reduced to ashes by cremation, they would be incapacitated for the vaunted resurrection[4], and as a final injury to Christian martyrs sometimes burnt their bodies and scattered the ashes to the winds[5]. The Christians in retaliation condemned the rite of cremation as in appearance an act of cruelty to the dead body[6], and ridiculed the pagans for first 'burning up their dead in a most savage manner and then feasting them in a manner most gluttonous, using the flames alike for their service and for their injury[7]'—for their service in cooking them a funeral-meal, for their injury in consuming them to ashes. The two now conflicting rites continued in use until the end of the fourth century of our era; for reference is made to them in the laws of Theodosius[8]. But cremation must have been on the decrease; for Macrobius early in the fifth century says that in his time the practice had fallen into
- ↑ Herod. V. 8.
- ↑ Lucian, de Luctu, 21.
- ↑ Antiquities of the Christian Church, Bk XXIII. cap. 2, whence I take the following references.
- ↑ Minucius, p. 32.
- ↑ Acta Tharaci ap. Baron. an. 299, n. XXI., Ammian. Marcell. lib. XXII. p. 241, Euseb. lib. VIII. cap. 6.
- ↑ Tertull. De Anima, cap. 51.
- ↑ Tertull. de Resur. cap. 1.
- ↑ Cod. Th. lib. IX. tit. 17 de Sepulcris violatis, leg. 6.
