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Burial Law
The interment of a deceased
person with ecclesiastical rites in consecrated ground. The Jews and most
of the nations of antiquity buried their dead. Amongst the Greeks and
Romans both cremation and interment were practised indifferently. That the
early Christians from the beginning used only burial seems certain. This
conclusion may be inferred not only from negative arguments but from the
direct testimony of Tertullian, "De Corona" (P.L., II, 92, 795;
cf. Minucius Felix, "Octavius", xi in P.L., III, 266), and from
the stress laid upon the analogy between the resurrection of the body and
the Resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:42; cf. Tertullian, "De
Animâ", lv; Augustine, "De civitate Dei", I, 13).
In the light of this same
dogma of the resurrection of the body as well as of Jewish tradition (cf.
Tobit 1:21; 12:12; Sirach 38:16; 2 Maccabees 12:39), it is easy to
understand how the interment of the mortal remains of the Christian dead
has always been regarded as an act of religious import and has been
surrounded at all times with some measure of religious ceremonial. The
motives of Christian burial will be more fully treated in the article
Cremation. As to the latter practice, it will be sufficient to say here
that, while involving no necessary contradiction of any article of faith,
it is opposed alike to the law of the Church and to the usages of
antiquity. In defense of the Church's recent prohibitions, it may be urged
that the revival of cremation in modern times has in practice been
prompted less by considerations of improved hygiene or psychological
sentiment than by avowed materialism and opposition to Catholic teaching.
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