On Care for the Dead

Contents

Reading pages: 1–14 · 15–23

1. 1Augustine explains that Paulinus of Nola asked him whether burial near a saint's shrine helps the dead, prompted by the widow Flora's son Cynegius.
2. 2Augustine reconciles prayers for the dead with judgment according to deeds: such help profits only those whose life in the body made them fit to be helped.
3. 3Augustine cites Maccabees and the church's custom of commending the dead at the altar, rejects Virgil's belief that the unburied cannot cross the river of the dead, and introduces a passage from The City of God.
4. 4In a passage quoted from The City of God, Augustine argues that lack of burial cannot harm Christians, since funeral rites comfort the living rather than help the dead and God will raise every body.
5. 5Continuing the quotation, Augustine says the bodies of the faithful deserve honorable burial, as Scripture shows, but that lack of burial does not make the dead wretched.
6. 6Burial at a martyr's shrine helps the dead only by moving the living to commend them in prayer to the martyr, and the church's general prayer for all the faithful departed matters more than the place of burial.
7. 7What helps the dead is not the place of burial but the living prayers it prompts, just as bodily gestures of prayer stir up the heart; where burial in a holy place is impossible, prayer must go on.
8. 8The martyrs of Gaul, whose bodies were burned and their ashes scattered in the Rhône, show that denial of burial cannot harm the blessed dead.
9. 9Natural love for one's own flesh makes people fear lack of burial, as the story of the disobedient prophet of Judah and the old prophet of Bethel in 1 Kings 13 shows.
10. 10God allowed the martyrs' bodies to be destroyed so that fear for the tomb or for the resurrection would not shake their confession, though the brethren grieved that they could not bury them.
11. 11David's blessing on those who buried Saul and Jonathan praises not a benefit to the dead but the merciful hearts of the living.
12. 12Augustine explains that dead people seen in dreams asking for burial need not know of it, since such appearances may be worked by angels, and warns that some such visions deceive.
13. 13Augustine gives two stories, a dead father who showed his son a receipt in a dream and his own image explaining Cicero to his former pupil Eulogius, to show that likenesses, not souls, appear in dreams.
14. 14The visions of the delirious, like dreams, show images of the living and the dead who know nothing of them.
15. 15Augustine tells of Curma of Tullium, who in a deathlike trance saw the dead but also living people, including Augustine, which shows that such visions present likenesses rather than the persons themselves.
16. 16The dead do not know the affairs of the living, as Augustine's own mother's absence from his dreams, the psalm, Isaiah, and God's promise to Josiah show.
17. 17The rich man's concern for his brothers shows care, not knowledge, and Abraham could have learned of earthly things from Lazarus after his death.
18. 18The dead may learn of earthly things from those who die after them, from angels, or by revelation, and Scripture shows some of the dead sent to the living, such as Samuel and Moses.
19. 19The martyrs' help, such as Felix's appearance at Nola, comes by divine power as a miracle, not by any natural power of the dead.
20. 20Augustine does not know whether the martyrs help people by their own presence or whether God, hearing their prayers, helps through angels, and leaves the question to those with the gift of discerning spirits.
21. 21Augustine tells how John the monk of Egypt appeared to a woman in a dream, and lists the questions he would have asked him about how martyrs and saints appear, ending content with Sirach's counsel not to seek what is too high.
22. 22Only the church's sacrifices, prayers, and alms reach the dead, and only those whose lives made them fit to be helped; burial is a humane duty and a witness to the resurrection, and burial at a martyr's shrine helps only by increasing prayer.
23. 23Augustine closes by asking Paulinus's opinion of the book and thanking Candidianus, whose urging made him write it.