Gatherings from grave yards : particularly those of London : with a concise history of the modes of interment among different nations, from the earliest periods. And a detail of dangerous and fatal results produced by the unwise and revolting custom of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living / by G.A. Walker.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gatherings from grave yards : particularly those of London : with a concise history of the modes of interment among different nations, from the earliest periods. And a detail of dangerous and fatal results produced by the unwise and revolting custom of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living / by G.A. Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    61 praying for them probably induced the early Chris- tians to deposit them near each other in the same ground; this was the origin of cemeteries. St. Chrysostom informs us (Hom. 84, in Math.) that cemeteries were not permitted in cities, because the presence or vicinity of the dead would not only contaminate pure air, but incommode the inhabitants by the stench they would occasion. Nullum in civitate sepulchrum struitur. If such, says a council (Hom. 74), is the privilege of cities, how evident it is that a church has a right to exclude interments from within her walls. In the council of Br ague, burials in churches were forbidden, and the house of God was decreed to be open only to the relics of apostles and martyrs. Nemo Apostolorum vel Ma7^tij7'um sedem humanis corporihus cestimet esse concessam (in the year 563, Can. 18.) The bodies of even Emperors were only admitted to the porti- coes or chapels of temples. Constantine himself, to whom the Church was so much indebted, and so grateful, asked no higher favour than to be buried under the portico of the church of the Holy Apostles. (Vid. Eusebius, lib. 4, de vita Con- stanti. St. Chrysost. hom. 26, in Corinth.) Mar- tyrs and confessors only were admitted ; because, as St. Ambrosius remarks, it was ^ just that those who had been victims to their faith should he de- posited near the altar where was offered the sacra- ment of the sacrifice of their divine Lord and Master. (Vid. St. Ambr. Epist. de Reliq. ss. Ger- vasii et Protasii.)