On Care To Be Had For The Dead
Augustine's response to questions about whether it benefits the deceased for their bodies to be buried near the memorials of saints, discussing the Church's practice of praying for the departed and providing honorable burial for the faithful.
21 Chapters
Table of Contents
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On Care to Be Had for the Dead.
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1. Long time, my venerable fellow-bishop Paulinus, have I been thy Holiness's debtor for an
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2. But this being the case, how to this opinion that should not be contrary
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3. Possibly thy inquiry is satisfied by this my brief reply.
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4. |But| say I |in such a slaughter-heap of dead bodies
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5. Yet it follows not that the bodies of the departed are to be despised
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6. If this be true, doubtless also the providing for the interment of bodies a
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7. When therefore the faithful mother of a faithful son departed desired to have his
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9. And yet, by reason of that affection of the human heart
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10. This affection the Martyrs of Christ contending for the truth did overcome
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12. Stories are told of certain appearances or visions
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13. Such, however, is human infirmity, that when in a dream a person shall see
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14. Like dreams, moreover, are also some visions of persons awake
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16. Why should we not believe these to be angelic operations through dispensation of the
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17. Some man may say: |If there be not in the dead any care for
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18. So then we must confess that the dead indeed do not know what is
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19. Hence too is solved that question, how is it that the Martyrs
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21. Such, we may believe, was that John the Monk
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22. Which things being so, let us not think that to the dead for whom
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23. Here, to the things thou hast thought meet to inquire of me
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DOCTRINAL AND MORAL TREATISES. INDEX OF SUBJECTS.