rate permissible, on this theory, to discontinue all care for the dead when once his body was no longer helpless but restored to its activity by re-union with the soul; and it is to be expected that the Greek people should sometimes avail themselves of the exemption from the task of feeding and otherwise tending the dead. Such action would be the natural outcome of the belief that dissolution meant the re-union of body and soul; and if I can show that such action has been or is commonly taken, the existence of the belief will have borne the best test, the demonstration of a custom arising from it.
The period required for dissolution, according to common belief, is either forty days or three years—the former being the really popular period, while the latter was fixed indeed by the Church but in many districts has been popularly accepted. Hence, if my views are correct, the meals provided for the dead and all other marks of care ought to cease sometimes at the fortieth day and sometimes at the third anniversary.
As regards the present time, I do not know of any place, though it would not surprise me to hear of one, in which the so-called memorial feasts are discontinued after the fortieth day; but I have already cited evidence to show that the memorial-feasts of later date are definitely ecclesiastical in origin, and even retain to this day in one district a distinctly ecclesiastical tone[1]. Therefore before a necessitous priesthood had succeeded in extending the custom, the ministration to the bodily wants of the dead clearly did cease when dissolution was popularly supposed to be complete. This conclusion is fortified by a most striking piece of evidence. The priests' interest has naturally been limited to the food and wine supplied to the dead; for a supply of water they have not been dependent upon the perquisites of their office. Hence it comes that the water, which, as I noted above, is often supplied to the dead day by day, without any accompanying provision of food, ceases to be brought after the fortieth day. The wants of the dead man have been assiduously satisfied until, in popular reckoning, his dissolution is complete, and ecclesiastical influence has had no motive for encouraging a longer continuance of the custom so far
- [Footnote: individual provided for them, the gifts were made not for a time only, but regularly
year after year.]
- ↑ See above, pp. 487 f.
