On Care to Be Had for the Dead.

 1. Long time, my venerable fellow-bishop Paulinus, have I been thy Holiness’s debtor for an answer even since thou wrotest to me by them of the house

 2. But this being the case, how to this opinion that should not be contrary which the Apostle says, “For we shall all stand before the judgment-seat o

 3. Possibly thy inquiry is satisfied by this my brief reply. But what other considerations move me, to which I think meet to answer, do thou for a sho

 4. “But” (say I) “in such a slaughter-heap of dead bodies, could they not even be buried? not this, either, doth pious faith too greatly dread, holdin

 5. Yet it follows not that the bodies of the departed are to be despised and flung aside, and above all of just and faithful men, which bodies as orga

 6. If this be true, doubtless also the providing for the interment of bodies a place at the Memorials of Saints, is a mark of a good human affection t

 7. When therefore the faithful mother of a faithful son departed desired to have his body deposited in the basilica of a Martyr, forasmuch as she beli

 8. We read in the Ecclesiastical History which Eusebius wrote in Greek, and Ruffinus turned into the Latin tongue, of Martyr’s bodies in Gaul exposed

 9. And yet, by reason of that affection of the human heart, whereby “no man ever hateth his own flesh,” if men have reason to know that after their de

 10. This affection the Martyrs of Christ contending for the truth did overcome: and it is no marvel that they despised that whereof they should, when

 11. In regard to that woful compassion which I have mentioned, are those praised, and by king David blessed, who to the dry bones of Saul and Jonathan

 12. Stories are told of certain appearances or visions, which may seem to bring into this discussion a question which should not be slighted. It is sa

 13. Such, however, is human infirmity, that when in a dream a person shall see a dead man, he thinks it is the soul that he sees: but when he shall in

 14. Like dreams, moreover, are also some visions of persons awake, who have had their senses troubled, such as phrenetic persons, or those who are mad

 15. Similar to this is also that condition when persons, with their senses more profoundedly in abeyance than is the case in sleep, are occupied with

 16. Why should we not believe these to be angelic operations through dispensation of the providence of God, Who maketh good use of both good things an

 17. Some man may say: “If there be not in the dead any care for the living, how is it that the rich man, who was tormented in hell, asked father Abrah

 18. So then we must confess that the dead indeed do not know what is doing here, but while it is in doing here: afterwards, however, they hear it from

 19. Hence too is solved that question, how is it that the Martyrs, by the very benefits which are given to them that pray, indicate that they take an

 20. Howbeit it is a question which surpasses the strength of my understanding, after what manner the Martyrs aid them who by them, it is certain, are

 21. Such, we may believe, was that John the Monk, whom the elder Theodosius, the Emperor, consulted concerning the issue of the civil war: seeing he h

 22. Which things being so, let us not think that to the dead for whom we have a care, any thing reaches save what by sacrifices either of the altar, o

 23. Here, to the things thou hast thought meet to inquire of me, thou hast such reply as I have been able to render: which if it be more than enough p

12. Stories are told of certain appearances or visions,30    Visa which may seem to bring into this discussion a question which should not be slighted. It is said, namely, that dead men have at times either in dreams or in some other way appeared to the living who knew not where their bodies lay unburied, and have pointed out to them the place, and admonished that the sepulture which was lacking should be afforded them. These things if we shall answer to be false, we shall be thought impudently to contradict the writings of certain faithful men, and the senses of them who assure us that such things have happened to themselves. But it is to be answered, that it does not follow that we are to account the dead to have sense of these things, because they appear in dreams to say or indicate or ask this. For living men do also appear ofttimes to the living as they sleep, while they themselves know not that they do appear; and they are told by them, what they dreamed, namely, that in their dream the speakers saw them doing or saying something. Then if it may be that a person in a dream should see me indicating to him something that has happened or even foretelling something about to happen, while I am perfectly unwitting of the thing and altogether regardless not only what he dreams, but whether he is awake while I am asleep, or he asleep while I am awake, or whether at one and the same time we are both awake or asleep, at what time he has the dream in which he sees me: what marvel if the dead be unconscious and insensible of these things, and, for all that, are seen by the living in their dreams, and say something which those on awaking find to be true? By angelical operations, then, I should think it is effected, whether permitted from above, or commanded, that they seem in dreams to say something about burying of their bodies, when they whose the bodies are are utterly unconscious of it. Now this is sometimes serviceably done; whether for some sort of solace to the survivors, to whom pertain those dead whose likenesses31    Imagines appear to them as they dream; or whether that by these admonitions the human race may be made to have regard to humanity of sepulture, which, allow that it be no help to the departed, yet is there culpable irreligiousness in slighting of it. Sometimes however, by fallacious visions,32    Visis men are cast into great errors, who deserve to suffer this. As, if one should see in a dream, what Æneas by poetic falsity is told to have seen in the world beneath: and there should appear to him the likeness of some unburied man, which should speak such words as Palinurus is said to have spoken to him; and when he awakes, he should find the body in that place where he heard say while dreaming, that it lay unburied, and was admonished and asked to bury it when found; and because he finds this to be true, should believe that the dead are buried on purpose that their souls may pass to places from which he dreamed that the souls of men unburied are by an infernal law prohibited: does he not, in believing all this, exceedingly swerve from the path of truth?

CAPUT X.

12. Mortui quidam apparent, ut sibi sepultura praebeatur: quomodo haec visa contingant. Narrantur visa quaedam, quae huic disputationi non negligendam videantur inferre quaestionem. Feruntur quippe mortui nonnulli vel in somnis, vel alio quocumque modo apparuisse viventibus atque ubi eorum corpora jacerent inhumata nescientibus, locisque monstratis admonuisse ut sibi sepultura quae defuerat praeberetur. Haec si falsa esse responderimus, contra quorumdam scripta fidelium, et contra eorum sensus qui talia sibi accidisse confirmant, impudenter venire videbimur. Sed respondendum est, non ideo putandum esse mortuos ista sentire, quia haec dicere vel indicare vel petere videntur in somnis. Nam et viventes apparent saepe viventibus dormientibus, dum se ipsi nesciant apparere ; et ab eis haec quae somniaverint audiunt dicentibus, quod eos in somnis agentes aliquid vel loquentes viderint. Si ergo me potest aliquis in somnis videre, sibi aliquid quod factum est indicantem, vel etiam 0601 quod futurum est praenuntiantem; cum id ego prorsus ignorem, et omnino non curem, non solum quid ille somniet, sed utrum dormiente me vigilet, an vigilante me dormiat, an uno eodemque tempore vigilemus ambo sive dormiamus, quando ille somnium videt in quo me videt: quid mirum si nescientes mortui nec ista sentientes, tamen a viventibus videntur in somnis, et aliquid dicunt, quod evigilantes verum esse cognoscant? Angelicis igitur operationibus fieri crediderim, sive permittatur desuper, sive jubeatur, ut aliquid dicere de sepeliendis corporibus suis videantur in somnis, cum id penitus nesciant quorum illa sunt corpora. Id autem aliquando utiliter fit, sive ad vivorum qualecumque solatium, ad quos pertinent illi mortui, quorum apparent imagines somniantibus; sive ut his admonitionibus generi humano sepulturae commendetur humanitas: quae licet defunctis non opituletur, culpanda tamen irreligiositate negligitur. Aliquando autem fallacibus visis homines in magnos mittuntur errores, quos talia perpeti justum est. Velut si quisquam videat in somnis, quod Aeneas vidisse apud inferos poetica falsitate narratur: et ei cujuspiam non sepulti appareat imago, loquaturque talia, qualia fertur illi locutus fuisse Palinurus (Aeneid. lib. 6, V. 337-383); et cum evigilaverit, ibi corpus ejus inveniat, ubi jacere inhumatum cum somniaret audivit, admonitus et rogatus ut sepeliret inventum; et quia id verum esse comperit, credat ideo mortuos sepeliri, ut eorum animae ad loca transeant, unde insepultorum animas inferna prohiberi lege somniavit: nonne ista credens , plurimum a tramite veritatis exorbitat?