THE NEW SCHAFF-HEEZOG
Nor was the Church behindhand in warning and punishing offenders. But the evil was so deeply rooted that in spite of all these measures it lasted much longer than Christian antiquity.
6. Commemoration of the Dead in the Cemeteries: Besides the solemnities of interment, the primitive Church had a number of arrangements for the subsequent commemoration of the dead. The earliest recorded is the annual commemoration at the grave of Polycarp on the day of his martyrdom (Marty- Hum Polycarpi, xviii.). In the time of Tertullian it was customary in Africa to celebrate the anniversary of the death of other Christians (De corona, iii.; De monogamia, x.; cf. also Apostolic Constitutions, viii. 42; Cyprian, Epist., xxxix.3). Other commemorations took place on the 1. Various third, seventh, ninth, thirtieth, and Commemo- fortieth days after death or burial.
rations. As has been seen in regard to the mode of burial, so here also these variations may be referred to the influence of pre-Christian local customs, whether Jewish or pagan. Thus Ambrose (De obitu Theodosii, iii.) ascribes the celebration of the thirtieth day to the example of Deut. xxxiv. 8 and of the fortieth to Gen. 1. 3; and Augustine (Quwstiones in Heptateuchum, i. 172) shows the pagan origin of the ninth by objecting to it as reminding people of the Roman novendial and being without Biblical precedent.
The place of these commemorations is not always mentioned in the early authorities. Those described in the Martyrium Polycarpi and the early Gnostic Acta Joannis took place at the sepulcher. What may be inferred from the latter to have been the practise of the Christians of Asia Minor is shown by Tertullian and Cyprian to have prevailed also in Africa — the celebration of the Eucharist in connection with these observances. By this sacred feast, which consolingly united the living with those who had gone before, the memorial ceremonies acquired a specifically Christian character. Later it came to be surrounded Cere- ^y a number of other ceremonies. Of Commemo- these the first to come up was a meal, ration. no* the ancient agape but one partaken of in the ordinary way as simple nourishment. These feasts on the anniversaries of the saints led to abuses and excesses which are frequently rebuked by the Fathers, especially in Africa, but also at Milan and in Rome. Offenses not merely against temperance but against morality seem to have taken place on these occasions in the East, according to Chrysostom, and also at the beginning of the fourth century in Spain, where a council legislates against them. In fact, the influence of the pagan dies parentales and femoralia continued to be felt, as was clearly the view of Ambrose and Augustine when they endeavored to regulate such customs, and especially to abolish anything which could seem like the heathen custom of offering food and drink to the dead (Augustine, De moribus ecclesiw catholiccv, i. 34; Confessiones, vi. 2; and a canon of the Second Synod of Tours, 567). These authorities, however, do not raise any objection to other survivals of pre-Christian customs, such as the offering of balsam and other
sweet-smelling spices, which were frequently poured into the grave in liquid form, through specially prepared openings such as are still to be seen in one of Orsi's discoveries in the catacombs of Syracuse, and at San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome. Incense was also used. It was a common practise to deck the graves with flowers, and lights were sometimes burned, though this was forbidden by the Synod of Elvira on the singular ground that " the spirits of the saints are not to be disturbed." This custom is evidenced by the large numbers of small lamps found in the catacombs, either placed in niches or fastened to the walls, which can hardly have been intended merely for lighting the dark passages.
III. Arrangement, Structure, and Grave-Formation of the Cemeteries: In the consideration of these points, the geographical division is evidently the right one; but lack of space will allow it to be carried out only in the description of the subterranean burial-places, while a generic classification will have to be adopted for those above ground.
1. Subterranean Burial-Places. — a. TheOriental Group (Asia Minor, the Crimea, Lower Egypt, and Cyrenaica): Palestine is rich in tombs hollowed out of the rock, more or less reminding the beholder of the sepulcher of Abraham (Gen. xxiii., xxv. 9). There has not been sufficient scientific investigation into their origin and age to enable an accurate distinction to be drawn between Jewish and Christian tombs in the individual instances. Either naturally perpendicular or artificially filled-out walls of rock were dug into horizontally, or, where such were difficult of attainment, an excavation was made downward in suitable rocky ground, into which a flight of steps or a ladder led down. Places for single or family graves were excavated horizontally, with a low and narrow door to each, closed with a stone, often cylindrical in form. In the single graves a sort of niche, or sometimes two, were chiseled out, at the base of which, on the semblance of a couch, the corpse was laid, wrapped in cloths without a coffin. A variant or development of this was the hollowed-out grave, corresponding to the arcosolium of the Roman catacombs, allowing the body to be laid in an excavation resembling a coffin. The best-known single graves in Palestine are those called the tombs of Absalom and of Zechariah at Jerusalem and a number of tombs on the south side of the Valley of Hinnom. The family tombs present the same forms, and later frequent instances are found of another kind, in which the excavation in the walls is shaped so as to allow the body to be pushed in head or feet foremost; of these a large number have been found in Palestine. This latter class may be taken to be exclusively Jewish in origin, and, where they are found in connection with indisputably Christian graves, it is commonly assumed that the Christians merely appropriated them. There is no doubt that the Jewish Christians also used the hollowed-out and the vertically sunk graves. An interesting burial-place with the latter type of grave is that on the Mount of Olives, which in more than one particular differs from the normal arrangement in Palestine, and probably belongs to a comparatively late period of Christian antiquity.
. Palestine.