J. Millar.
BURGLARY See Crimes.
BURIAL in Bible lands followed speedily upon death. Among the Jews of the E. at the present day burial takes place, if possible, within twenty- four hours of death. Mohammedans bury their dead the same day, if death takes place in the morning; but if in the afternoon or at night, not till the following day. Immediate burial was rendered necessary among the Jews of Can.aan by the rapidity of decom[)osition in that climate, requiring survivors, as in the case of Abraham on the deatn of Sarah, to bury their dead out of their sight (Gn 23'"''). The delilement to which contact with a dead body gave occasion (Nu 19""") was a furthei reason among the Jews for speedy burial. Lazarus was buried on the day of his death (Jn II"- •*). It
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BUKIAL
BUKIAL
waB expressly commanded (Dt 21"-'') that the body of a man who had been hanged should not remain all night upon the tree, but snould be buried that day ; and it may have been a sense of the awfulness of the judgment which had overtaken Ananias and Sapphira that hurried on the under- takers in their case (Ac 5'""). It was in accordance with this provision of the Jewish law (cf. Dt 21^ with Gal 3'^), as well as with the dictates of humanity, that Joseph of Arimath^a went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus for burial on the day of the crucifixion (Alt 27"").
Immediately tlie last breath was drawn, it was the duty of the oldest son, or, failing him, of the nearest relative present, to close the eyes of the dead (Gn 46''). The mouth, too, was closed, and the cheekbones bound together (Jn 11**). The kiss imprinted npon the lifeless form of the patriarch Jacob by Joseph as he ' fell upon his father's face and wept upon him' (Gn 50'), may point to no uniform custom, but only to a natural impulse of all'ection. At the present day, when a Jew is drawing near his end, it is customary to bring in ten witnesses — an easy thing, as the house is usually full of friends waiting to raise the lamenta- tions which tell that the surterer has passed away. The death is announced, as it was of old, by a tumult of lamentation and the weeping and wailing of professional mourners ( Mk 5^"- ). [See Mourning. ] When death occurs, those who are present rend their clothes, and all water and leaven must be cast out of the house itself as well as out of the houses of the three nearest neighbours, the belief being that the Angel of Death wipes his sword in these two things. Offerings for the dead seem to have been forbidden under the Mosaic law (Dt 26").
The preparations for burial could scarcely be, in the circumstances, of a very elaborate character. In the case of Ananias (Ac 5'), we read that ' the young men wrapped him round, and carried nin: out and buried him.' What they did was likely this : they unfastened his girdle, and then taking the loose undergarment and the wide cloak which was worn above it, used them as a windinf^sheet to cover the corpse from head to foot. But there was usually more ceremony. Combining various allusions which we find in the Gospels and the Acts, we learn that the corpse was washed (Ac &"), anointed with aromatic ointments (Jn 12' l^, Mk 16', Lk 24'), wound in linen clothes with spices (Jn 19", Mt 27"®, Mk 15", Lk 23" ; cf. also To 12", Sir 38>«), hands and feet being bound with graveclothes and the face bound about with a napkin (Jn 11** 20'-'). It would appear that in later times at least there was a confraternity of young men whose duty it was to attend to these proprieties on behalf of the dead (Ac 5° 8'). But it was, perhaps, only in cases like those mentioned in the references that they were called upon to act. It was on the loving hands of relatives and friends, and ordinarily of female friends, as in the passages referred to above, that these ministries devolved, among the Jews as among the Greeks. In fact, the practice amon^ the Greeks, both by similarity and by contrast, attords an interesting illustration. One not unfamiliar instance may be cited : Electra believing Orestes to be dead, and his ashes placed in the sepulchral urn (Soj)hocles, J5:/ec<rn, 1136-1142), addresses him thus : ' W oe is me ! These loving hands have not washed or decked thy corpse, nor taken up, as was meet, their sad burden from the flaming lijTe. At the hands of strangers, hapless one, thou hast had those rites, and so art come to us, a little dust in a narrow urn.' These last words show the point of contrast. Burning of the dead, which was the custom among the Greeks, was no part of Jewish practice. The Rom historian Tacitus {Ilist. v. 5)
expressly notices that it was matter of piety with the Jews ' to bury rather than to bum dead bodies.' The exceptions (if they be exceptions, for the Heb. text is in dispute) were cases of emergency, the burning of the bodies of Saul and his sons by the men of Jabesh-gilead (1 S 31"'"), although even then they buried their bones under the tamarisk at Jabesh, and David had them finally laid to rest in the sepulchre of Kish (2 S 21'-"''') ; and the case supposed by the prophet (Am 6'") in the desolation which was to come upon Israel, when it may have been on account of pestilence and accompanying infection that burning was preferred. Burning was reserved for the living who had been found guilty of unnatural sins (Lv 20* 21') ; and Achan and his family after having been stoned to death were burned with fire, and all their belongings (Jos 7**). When St. Paul speaks of giving his body to be burned (1 Co 13'), he accommodates his language to the Greeks of Corinth, to whom such a thing was familiar, and by whom such self-immolation would be understood. And as the burning practised by the Greeks was no part of ordinary Jewish custom, neither was embalming as practised by the Egyp- tians, the cases of Jacob and Joseph (Gn 5(F- *) being obviously special. Among the Assyrians the corpse was arrayed for burial in the dress and ornaments and weapons that had been worn during life ; and although the allusions are not clear, this may be referred to in certain passages of Scripture ( 1 S 28'^, Is 14", Ezk 32"). Among the Jews and Mohamme- dans of the present day, the corpse is arrayed in the holiday apparel of former life.