XIII. ON THE CARE TO BE TAKEN FOR THE DEAD, TO PAULINUS. For a long time, venerable fellow-bishop Paulinus, I have been a debtor to your holiness for a reply, ever since you wrote to me through the servants of our most religious daughter Flora, asking of me whether it profits anyone after death that his body is buried near the memorial of some saint. For this the aforesaid widow had asked of you on behalf of her son deceased in those parts, and you had written back consoling her; and you also announced that concerning the corpse of the faithful young man Cynegius, that which she desired with a maternal and pious affection had been accomplished — namely, that he should be laid in the basilica of the most blessed confessor Felix.
On which occasion it came about that through the same bearers of your letters you also wrote to me, pressing this kind of question, and demanding that I should answer what seemed to me thereon, yourself not being silent as to what you think. For you say it seems to you that the motions of religious and faithful souls, who take care of such things for their own, are not empty. You add too that it cannot be idle that the whole Church has been accustomed to supplicate for the dead, so that from this it may also be inferred that it profits a man after death, if by the faith of his own such a place is provided for the burial of his body, in which the aid of the saints, sought even in this manner, may appear. But since these things are so, how it is not contrary to this opinion what the Apostle says, you signify that you do not sufficiently see:
'For we shall all stand before the tribunal of Christ, that every one may receive according to the things which he hath done in the body, whether it be good or evil.' For this apostolic sentence admonishes that before death there be done what may profit after death, not then, when there is now to be received what each one has done before death. But this question is thus resolved: since by a certain manner of life, while one lives in this body, it is acquired that such things should be of some help to the dead, and thereby, according to the things they have done in the body, they are helped by the things which after the body have been religiously done for them.
For there are those whom these things help in no way at all — whether they be done for those whose merits are so evil that they are not worthy to be helped by such things, or for those whose merits are so good that they need no such aids. It is therefore by the kind of life which each has led in the body that it is brought about that whatever is piously done for him profit or profit not, when he has left the body. For the merit through which these things may profit, if none has been prepared in this life, is sought in vain after this life. So it comes about that neither does the Church, nor the care of their own, expend in vain for the dead whatever of religion it can, and yet every one bears according to the things which he hath done in the body, whether good or evil — the Lord rendering to each according to his works.
For that this which is expended may profit him after the body, it was acquired in that life which he led in the body. This my brief reply could have sufficed for your inquiry; but attend a little to what other things may raise difficulties, to which I judge a response must be made. In the books of the Maccabees we read of a sacrifice offered for the dead. But even if it were nowhere at all read in the ancient Scriptures, the authority of the universal Church, which shines forth in this custom, is not small, where in the prayers of the priest which are poured out to the Lord God at His altar, the commendation of the dead also has its own place. But whether the place of his body profits anything to the soul of the dead is to be inquired more laboriously.
And first, whether it makes any difference toward inflicting or increasing misery after this life upon the spirits of men, if their bodies have not been buried, is to be seen not according to opinion however widely spread, but rather according to the sacred writings of our religion. For it is not to be believed, as is read in Maro, that the unburied are prevented from sailing and crossing over the infernal stream — because forsooth 'nor is it granted to carry them over the dreadful banks and hoarse-sounding waters, before their bones have rested in their seats.'
What Christian heart would incline to these poetic and fabulous fictions, when the Lord Jesus — so that Christians might fall securely amid the hands of enemies who held their bodies in their power — asserts that not a hair of their head shall perish, exhorting them not to fear those who, when they have killed the body, have nothing more that they can do? Whence in the first book 'On the City of God' I have spoken enough, as I judge, to blunt the tooth of those who, imputing the barbarian devastation — especially that which Rome lately suffered — to Christian times, object also this, that Christ did not there succour His own.
When it is answered them that the souls of the faithful were, according to the merits of their faith, received up by Him, they mock over the unburied corpses. And so I unfolded that whole question concerning burial in words such as these. 'But in so great a slaughter of bodies,' I said, 'they could not even be buried.' Yet devout faith is not overly frightened by this, holding fast the prediction that even devouring beasts shall do no harm to bodies destined to rise again, of whom not a hair of the head shall perish. In no way would Truth have said, 'Fear not those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul,' if anything that enemies might wish to do to the bodies of the slain could stand in the way of the life to come.
Unless perhaps someone is so absurd as to contend that those who kill the body ought not to be feared before death, lest they kill the body, and ought to be feared after death, lest they suffer the slain body not to be buried. It is therefore false, what He says: 'those who kill the body and afterward have nothing more that they can do' — if they have so many things that they may do to the corpses. Far be it that what Truth has spoken should be false! For it was said that they do something when they kill, because in the body there is sensation in the killing; but afterward they have nothing that they can do, because there is no sensation in the slain body.
And so the earth did not cover many bodies of Christians, yet no one of them did anyone separate from heaven and earth, which He wholly fills with His presence who knows whence to raise up again what He created. It is indeed said in the psalm: 'They have set the dead bodies of Thy servants as food for the birds of heaven, the flesh of Thy saints for the beasts of the earth; they have poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.' But this was said rather to magnify the cruelty of those who did these things, not the wretchedness of those who suffered them. For however hard and dire these things may seem in the sight of men, yet 'precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.'
Accordingly all these things — that is, the care of the funeral, the manner of burial, the pomp of the obsequies — are consolations of the living rather than aids to the dead. If a costly burial profits the impious in anything, then a mean burial, or none at all, will harm the pious. For that rich man clothed in purple a throng of servants provided splendid obsequies in the sight of men; but far more splendid in the sight of the Lord did the ministry of angels furnish to that ulcerous poor man, who did not bear him up into a marble tomb, but raised him into Abraham's bosom. These things are laughed at by those against whom we have undertaken to defend the City of God. And yet even their own philosophers held the care of burial in contempt.
And often whole armies, while they died for their earthly fatherland, took no care where they should afterward lie, or to what beasts they should become food; and it was permitted the poets to say plausibly on this matter: 'He is covered by the sky, who has no urn.' How much less ought they to insult over the unburied bodies of Christians, to whom the refashioning of that very flesh and of all its members is promised — to be rendered and restored in a moment of time, not only from the earth, but even from the most secret bosom of the other elements into which the dissolved corpses have withdrawn! Nor yet on that account are the bodies of the dead to be despised and cast aside, and most of all of the just and the faithful, which the Spirit used holily as organs and vessels for all good works.
For if a father's garment and ring, or anything of this sort, is the dearer to posterity the greater the affection toward the parents, then in no way are those very bodies to be spurned which we wear far more intimately and closely joined than any raiment whatever. For these belong not to adornment or to some aid applied from without, but to the very nature of man. Whence also the funerals of the ancient just were tended with dutiful piety, and their obsequies celebrated, and their burial provided; and they themselves, while they yet lived, gave charge to their sons concerning the burying, or even the transferring, of their bodies. And Tobias, by burying the dead, is commended, on an angel's testimony, to have deserved well of God.
The Lord Himself also, who was to rise again on the third day, proclaims the good work of the devout woman, and commends it as worthy to be proclaimed — that she poured precious ointment over His limbs and did this toward His burial. And they are commemorated with praise in the Gospel who took His body down from the cross and diligently and honourably saw to its covering and burial. But these authoritative examples do not admonish us that there is any sensation in corpses, but signify that the bodies of the dead also pertain to the providence of God — to whom even such offices of piety are pleasing — for the purpose of establishing faith in the resurrection.
Where also this is wholesomely learned: how great may be the recompense for the alms which we bestow upon the living and sentient, if not even this is lost with God which is paid out in duty and diligence to the lifeless members of men. There are indeed also other things which the holy patriarchs concerning their bodies — whether to be laid up or to be transferred — willed to be understood as spoken in a prophetic spirit; but this is not the place to treat of them, since those things we have said suffice. But if the things necessary for sustaining the living, such as food and clothing, though they be lacking with grievous affliction, do not break the virtue of enduring and bearing amid good things, nor uproot piety from the soul, but rather make it, being exercised, more fruitful:
how much more, when there are lacking those things which are wont to be applied to the tending of funerals and the laying up of the bodies of the dead, do they not make wretched those already at rest in the hidden abodes of the pious! And by this, when these things were lacking to the corpses of Christians in that devastation of the great city, or even of other towns, it is neither the fault of the living, who could not furnish them, nor the punishment of the dead, who cannot feel them. This is my judgment concerning the cause and reason of burial; which I have therefore transferred from another book of mine into this one, because this could more easily be recited by me than the same thing could have to be expressed in another way.
But if this is true, then surely even the provision of a place among the memorials of the saints for the burying of bodies is a mark of good human affection toward the funerals of one's own. For if there is some religious feeling in that they be buried, there cannot be none when it is regarded where they be buried. But when such consolations of the living are sought, whereby their devout mind toward their own may appear, I do not see what aids there are for the dead, save this: that while they recall where the bodies of those they love are laid, they may, in prayer, commend them to those same saints as to patrons, that they may be aided before the Lord, being taken under their protection. This indeed they could do, even if they could not inter them in such places.
But for no other reason are those tombs of the dead which are made conspicuously called either 'memorials' or 'monuments,' except because they recall to memory those who have been withdrawn by death from the eyes of the living — lest by forgetfulness they be also withdrawn from the hearts — and by admonishing make them to be thought upon. For both the name 'memorial' shows this most plainly, and 'monument' is so named because it admonishes the mind, that is, reminds it. On which account the Greeks too call that a 'mnēmeion' which we call a memorial or monument, since in their tongue the very memory whereby we remember is called 'mnēmē.'
And so when the mind recalls where the body of one most dear is buried, and there occurs a place honoured by the name of a martyr, it commends the beloved soul to that same martyr with the affection of one who remembers and prays. And when this is rendered to the dead by the faithful most dear to them, there is no doubt that it profits those who, while they lived in the body, so lived as to have merited that such things should profit them after this life.
But even if some necessity, no facility being given, should permit neither the burying of bodies nor their burying in such places, still the supplications for the spirits of the dead are not to be omitted — supplications which the Church has taken upon herself to make for all the departed in Christian and catholic fellowship, even with their names unspoken, under a general commemoration, so that to those who lack for these offices parents or sons or any kinsfolk or friends, they may be rendered by the one common devout mother. But if these supplications, which are made with right faith and piety for the dead, were lacking, I think it would profit their spirits nothing, however much their lifeless bodies were laid in holy places.
When therefore a faithful mother desired that the body of her faithful deceased son be laid in the basilica of a martyr — if indeed she believed his soul to be aided by the merits of the martyr — this, that she thus believed, was a kind of supplication, and it profited, if it profited anything. And that she has recourse in mind to the same sepulchre, and more and more commends her son in prayers, it is not the place of the dead body that aids the spirit of the departed, but the living affection of the mother arising from the memory of the place. For at once both who is commended and to whom he is commended touches, and not fruitlessly, the religious mind of the one praying.
For those who pray also do with the members of their body what befits suppliants, when they bend the knees, when they stretch forth the hands, or even prostrate themselves upon the ground, and whatever else they do visibly — although their invisible will and the intention of the heart is known to God, nor does He need these signs that the human mind should be laid open to Him. But by this a man rather rouses himself to pray and to groan more humbly and more fervently; and, in some way I know not, since these motions of the body cannot come to pass save with a motion of the soul going before, yet when these same are done outwardly and visibly, that inner invisible motion which caused them is increased, and by this the affection of the heart, which went before that these things might be done, grows because they are done.
Nevertheless, if anyone be so held, or even bound, that he cannot do these things with his members, not on that account does the inner man fail to pray, and before the eyes of God in the most secret chamber, where he is pricked with compunction, to prostrate himself. So also, although it matters greatly where he who supplicates God for the spirit of his dead should lay the body — since both the preceding affection chose a holy place, and, the body being laid there, the holy place, when recalled, renews and augments the affection that had gone before — nevertheless, even if he cannot bury where the religious mind chose the one he loves, in no way ought he to cease from the necessary supplications in commending him.
For wherever the flesh of the dead may lie, or not lie, rest is to be procured for the spirit, which, when it went forth thence, took with it the sensation whereby it could be present to how each one fares, whether in good things or in evil; nor does it look to be aided in its life by that flesh, to which it itself furnished life, which it drew away in departing and will restore in returning — since it is not the flesh that gains for the spirit, but the spirit for the flesh, even the merit of that very resurrection, whether it revive unto punishment or unto glory.
We read in the ecclesiastical history, which Eusebius wrote in Greek and Rufinus turned into the Latin tongue, that the bodies of the martyrs in Gaul were exposed to dogs, and that the leavings of the dogs and the bones of the dead were consumed with fire to the utmost destruction, and those same ashes were scattered in the river Rhone, lest anything be left to any memorial whatever. And this is to be believed to have been divinely permitted for no other reason than that Christians might learn, in confessing Christ — while they despise this life — much more to despise burial. For that which was done to the bodies of the martyrs with monstrous savagery, if it harmed them in anything, whereby their most victorious spirits should rest the less blessedly, would surely not have been suffered to be done.
By the very fact, then, it was declared that the Lord did not say, 'Fear not those who kill the body and afterward have nothing more that they can do,' because He would not permit them to do anything to the bodies of their dead, but because whatever they were permitted to do, nothing would come to pass whereby the Christian felicity of the departed should be diminished, nothing thence would reach the sensation of the living after death, nothing to the detriment even of the bodies themselves that would bear upon their rising less whole. And yet, out of that affection of the human heart, whereby no one ever hated his own flesh, if men know that something will be lacking to their bodies after their death which the solemn custom of burial requires in each one's nation or country,
they are grieved as men, and, though it does not pertain to them after death, they fear for their bodies before death — so that it is found in the books of Kingdoms that God, through a prophet, threatened another prophet, who had transgressed His word, that his corpse should not be brought into the sepulchre of his fathers. Which scripture runs thus: 'Thus saith the Lord: Because thou wast disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and didst not keep the commandment which the Lord thy God enjoined thee, and hast turned back and eaten bread and drunk water in the place wherein He commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat bread nor drink water, thy corpse shall not be brought into the sepulchre of thy fathers.'
At how great a price this punishment is to be reckoned — if we consider it according to the Gospel, where we have learned that after the body is slain nothing is to be feared lest the lifeless members suffer aught — it is not even to be called a punishment. But if we consider the human affection toward one's own flesh, the living man could be frightened or grieved thereat, though he was not to feel it when dead; and this was a punishment, since the mind grieved that this would befall his body, although when it came to pass he would not grieve. For thus far the Lord willed to chastise His servant, who had spurned to fulfil His precept not through his own obstinacy, but believed himself to obey when a stranger's deceiving falsehood misled him — when he did not obey.
For it is not to be thought that he was so slain by the beast's bite that his soul was thereafter snatched to the torment of Tartarus, seeing that the very same lion which had killed him guarded his body — the beast of burden also, on which he rode, being unharmed, and standing together with that huge wild creature in fearless presence beside its master's corpse. By which marvellous sign it appears that the man of God was rather chastened temporally, even unto death, than punished after death. Concerning which matter the Apostle, when on account of certain offences he had made mention of the infirmities and deaths of many, says: 'For if we judged ourselves, we should not be judged by the Lord; but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we be not condemned with the world.'
Indeed he who had deceived him buried him honourably enough in his own monument, and took care to be buried himself beside his bones, thus hoping that his own bones too might be spared when the time should come — when, according to the prophecy of that man of God, Josiah king of Judah in that land dug up the bones of many of the dead, and with those bones defiled the sacrilegious altars which had been set up for graven images. For he spared that monument where the prophet lay, who more than three hundred years before had foretold these things; and for his sake not even the burial of him who had seduced him was violated. For by that affection whereby no one ever hated his own flesh he had provided for his corpse — he who had slain his own soul by a lie.
From this, therefore — that each one naturally loves his own flesh — it was both a punishment to the one to learn that he would not be in the sepulchre of his fathers, and a care to the other to provide that his bones should be spared, if he lay beside him whose sepulchre no one would violate. This affection the martyrs of Christ, contending for the truth, overcame. Nor is it a wonder that they despised what they were not going to feel once death was accomplished, they who could not be conquered by torments which they felt while living. God could indeed — He who suffered the lion no further to touch the prophet's body which itself had slain, and made a guardian of the slayer — He could, I say, have kept off from the slain bodies of His own the dogs to which they had been thrown;
He could also in innumerable ways have terrified the savagery of those very men, that they should not dare to burn the corpses, nor to scatter the ashes: but this trial too ought not to have been lacking from the manifold variety of temptations, lest the fortitude of confession, which yielded not to the monstrousness of persecution for the safety of the body, should tremble for the honour of a sepulchre; and finally, lest the faith of the resurrection should dread the consuming of bodies.
These things too, therefore, ought to have been permitted, so that even after such examples of so great horror, the martyrs, fervent in the confession of Christ, might become witnesses also of this truth — in which they had learned that those by whom their bodies were slain would afterward have nothing that they could do, since whatever they did to the dead bodies they would in fact do nothing, when in flesh devoid of all life neither could he who had migrated thence feel anything, nor could He who created it lose anything therefrom.
But amid these things which were being done to the bodies of the slain, while the martyrs, not fearing them, endured with great fortitude, yet among the brethren there was a mighty grief, because no power was given to render the due rites to the funerals of the saints, nor to withdraw anything secretly, as the same history testifies the vigils of the cruel guards permitted. Thus, while no wretchedness touched those who had been slain — in the tearing of their members, in the burning of their bones, in the scattering of their ashes — yet a great compassion tormented these who could bury none of them, because in men in no way feeling they in some way felt; and where there was now no suffering of those, there was the wretched fellow-suffering of these.
According to that wretched fellow-suffering which I have spoken of, those men are praised and blessed by King David who showed the mercy of burial to the dry bones of Saul and Jonathan. What mercy, after all, is shown to those who feel nothing? Or is it perhaps to be recalled into our opinion that the unburied could not cross the infernal river? Far be this from the Christian faith! Otherwise it went most ill with so great a multitude of martyrs, whose bodies could not be buried, and Truth spoke to them falsely: 'Fear not those who kill the body and afterward have nothing more that they can do,' if they could do them so great evils whereby they should be hindered from passing to the longed-for places.
But since this is without any doubt most utterly false, and neither does the burial denied to their bodies harm the faithful in anything, nor, if it be furnished to the unfaithful, does it profit them in anything — why then are those who buried Saul and his son said to have done a work of mercy, and on that account blessed by the pious king, unless because the hearts of the compassionate are well affected, when they grieve in the bodies of others' dead over those things which, by that affection whereby no one ever hated his own flesh, they do not wish to be done after their own death to their own bodies; and what they wish to be shown to themselves, when they shall not feel it, they take care to show to others who feel nothing, while they themselves feel? Certain visions are related which seem to bring to this discussion a question not to be neglected.
For it is reported that not a few of the dead have appeared, whether in dreams or in some other manner whatsoever, to the living who knew not where their bodies lay unburied, and, the places being pointed out, have admonished them that the burial which had been lacking should be furnished them. If we should answer that these things are false, we shall seem to come impudently against the writings of certain of the faithful and against the perception of those who affirm that such things happened to them. But it must be answered that the dead are not on that account to be thought to feel these things, because they seem to say or indicate or ask these things in dreams.
For the living too often appear to the living while asleep, though they themselves know not that they appear, and hear from them these things which they had dreamed, as the dreamers say that they saw them in dreams doing or speaking something. If, therefore, someone can see me in his dreams indicating to him something that has been done, or even foretelling something that is to be — while I am utterly ignorant of it and care nothing at all, not only what that man dreams, but whether he wakes while I sleep, or sleeps while I wake, or whether we both wake or sleep at one and the same time, when he sees the dream in which he sees me:
what wonder is it if the dead, not knowing nor feeling these things, are nevertheless seen in dreams by the living and say something which the wakers recognize to be true? By angelic operations, therefore, I should believe it comes to pass — whether it be permitted from above or commanded — that they seem to say something in dreams about the burying of their bodies, while they whose bodies these are know nothing at all of it. And this is sometimes done usefully, whether for some consolation of the living to whom those dead pertain, whose images appear to the dreamers, or that by these admonitions the humane office of burial may be commended to the human race — which, though it help not the departed, is yet neglected with a culpable irreligiousness.
But sometimes by deceptive visions men are cast into great errors, which it is just that such should undergo. As if someone should see in dreams what Aeneas is related, by poetic falsehood, to have seen among the shades, and there should appear to him the image of some unburied man and speak such things as Palinurus is said to have spoken to him; and when he awakes, should find the body there where, while he dreamed, he heard it lay unburied, being admonished and asked to bury the one found; and because he finds this to be true, should therefore believe that the dead are buried in order that their souls may pass to the places whence he dreamed that the souls of the unburied are prohibited by an infernal law: does he not, so believing, stray very far from the path of truth?
But human infirmity so stands, that when anyone sees a dead person in dreams, he judges that he sees the very soul of him; but when he has likewise dreamed of a living person, he doubts not that neither his soul nor his body, but the likeness of the man, appeared to him — as though the likenesses, and not the souls, of dead men likewise not knowing could not appear to sleepers. Certainly, when we were at Milan, we heard that when a debt was demanded of a certain man, a bond of his deceased father being produced, which had already been paid by the father without the son's knowledge, the man began to be most grievously grieved and to marvel that his father, when dying, had not told him what he owed, since he had even made a will.
Then, as he was exceedingly anxious, that same father of his appeared to him in dreams, and indicated where the counter-receipt was, whereby that bond had been voided. When the young man had found it and shown it, he not only repelled the calumny of the false debt, but even recovered the paternal note of hand, which the father had not received back when the money was paid. Here surely it is thought that the soul of the man had taken care for his son, and had come to him sleeping, that by teaching what he knew not, it might free him from a great trouble.
But at almost the very same time at which we heard this — that is, while we were established at Milan — the Carthaginian rhetor Eulogius, who had been my pupil in the same art, as he himself related to me after we had returned to Africa, when he was delivering to his pupils the rhetorical books of Cicero, and going over the lesson which he was to deliver the next day, met with a certain obscure passage; and, not understanding it, he could scarcely sleep for anxiety. That night, as he dreamed, I expounded to him what he did not understand — nay, not I, but my image, without my knowledge, and so far away across the sea, either doing or dreaming something else, and caring nothing at all about his cares. How these things come to pass I know not; but howsoever they come to pass,
why do we not believe that it comes to pass in the same way, that anyone should see a dead person in dreams, in the manner in which it comes to pass that he sees a living person also? Both being alike ignorant and unconcerned who, or where, or when he dreams their images. Now certain waking visions of those who have their senses disturbed — such as the frenzied, or those raving in whatever mode — are also like dreams. For they too speak with themselves, as though they spoke to persons truly present; they speak also with the absent rather than the present, whose images they discern, whether of the living or of the dead.
But just as these, who are alive, know not that they are seen by them and are conversed with by them — for indeed they themselves are not really present, nor do they themselves converse, but men with disturbed senses suffer such imaginary visions — in the same way also those who have migrated from this life are seen by men so affected as though present, when they are absent, and utterly not knowing whether anyone sees them imaginatively. Like to this matter is that also, when men are withdrawn from the bodily senses more deeply than if they slept, and are occupied with such visions. For to these too appear the images of the living and of the dead;
but when they have been restored to their senses, whatever dead persons they say they saw, they are believed to have truly been with them; nor do those who hear these things attend that likenesses of certain absent and unknowing living persons were seen by them in like manner. A certain man named Curma, of the municipality of Tullium, which is near Hippo, a poor town councillor, scarcely of duumviral rank in that place, and a plain countryman, when he was sick, being taken from his senses, lay almost dead for some days: a very faint breath in the nostrils, which was somehow felt by a hand laid on, and was a slight sign of one living, did not allow him to be buried as lifeless. He moved no limbs, took no food;
he felt nothing with his eyes, nothing with any other bodily sense, whatever trouble was inflicted. Yet he saw many things as if in dreams, which at length, after very many days, as if waking, he narrated as things seen. And first, as soon as he opened his eyes, 'Let someone go,' he said, 'to the house of Curma the blacksmith, and see what is being done there.' When they had gone thither, he was found dead at the very moment at which this man had been restored to his senses and had, as it were, revived from death. Then, to those attending intently, he told that it had been ordered that the other be brought forward when he himself was dismissed. He indicated, and said that he had heard there, in the place whence he had returned, that it was not Curma the councillor, but Curma the blacksmith, who had been commanded to be brought to those abodes of the dead.
In those visions, then, as though they were his own dreams, among the dead whom he saw being dealt with according to the diversity of their merits, he recognized also several whom he had known while they were alive. And these persons themselves I might perhaps truly have believed, had he not seen among those things, which were as it were his own dreams, certain men who up to now are still living, namely some of the clergy of his own region, from whose presbyter he heard there that he was to be baptized by me at Hippo, which he also said had come to pass. He had therefore seen in that vision a presbyter, clergy, and myself, none of us yet dead of course, in the very vision in which he afterward saw the dead as well.
Why should it not be believed that he saw those persons just as he saw us — both parties, that is, being absent and unaware — and that consequently he saw not the men themselves but their likenesses, just as also the likenesses of places? For he saw both the estate where that presbyter was with his clergy, and Hippo, where he was as it were baptized by me; in which places he assuredly was not, at the time when he seemed to himself to be there. For what was being done there at that time he did not know — which he would beyond doubt have known, had he really been there. These things, then, were seen which are not presented in the very objects as they are, but are shadowed forth in certain images of things. Finally, after many things which he saw, he related that he had been brought even into paradise, and that it was said to him, when he was being dismissed thence to return to his own people:
Go, be baptized, if you wish to be in this place of the blessed. Then, being admonished that he should be baptized by me, he answered that it had already been done. But he who was speaking with him said again to him: Go, be truly baptized; for that which you saw was in a vision. After these things he recovered, and set out for Hippo. Easter was now drawing near. He gave in his name among the other candidates, being together with very many unknown to us; and he took no care to make known that vision either to me or to any of ours. He was baptized, and when the holy days were completed he returned to his own home. When two years or more had passed, I came to know all these things: first, through a certain man, both mine and his friend, at a banquet of mine, when we were speaking of some such matters;
then I pressed him and brought it about that he himself, being present, should narrate these things to me, his honourable fellow citizens bearing witness both concerning his marvellous illness — how he lay almost dead for very many days — and concerning that other Curma the blacksmith, whom I mentioned above; and concerning all those things which, when he was telling them to me, they recalled that they too had already at that time heard from him, and confirmed them. Wherefore, just as he saw his baptism and myself and Hippo and the basilica and the baptistery, not in the things themselves but in certain likenesses of things, so also did he see certain other living men, those same living men being unaware. Why then should he not have seen the dead likewise, those same dead being unaware?
Why do we not believe that these angelic operations take place through the dispensation of the providence of God, who makes good use of both the good and the evil according to the inscrutable depth of His judgments? — whether the minds of mortals be thereby instructed, or deceived, or consoled, or terrified, according as to each one either mercy is to be shown or vengeance is to be inflicted by Him to whom the Church sings of mercy and judgment not in vain. Let each one take what I shall say as he will. If the souls of the dead were involved in the affairs of the living, and it were they themselves who addressed us in dreams when we see them — to be silent about others — my own devoted mother, who followed me by land and by sea that she might live with me, would forsake me on no night.
For far be it that she should, by a happier life, have become so cruel that, when anything wrings my heart, she should not console her sorrowing son — the son whom she loved uniquely, whom she never wished to see downcast. But assuredly that which the sacred psalm proclaims is true: For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord has taken me up. If, then, our parents have forsaken us, how are they involved in our cares and concerns? But if our parents are not involved, who are those other dead who would know what we do or what we suffer? The prophet Isaiah says: For you are our father, for Abraham has not known us, and Israel has not recognized us.
If such great patriarchs were ignorant of what was being done concerning the people begotten from them — the people themselves promised, because they believed God, from their stock — how are the dead mingled in the knowing and helping of the affairs and doings of the living? How do we say that provision was made for those who died before the evils came that followed upon their death, if even after death they perceive whatever befalls in the calamity of human life? Or do we perhaps say these things erroneously, and suppose those to be at rest whom the unquiet life of the living disquiets? What then is it that God promised to the most pious king Josiah as a great benefit — that he should die beforehand, so that he might not see the evils which He threatened would come upon that place and people?
These are the words of God. Thus says the Lord God of Israel: The words which you have heard and have feared before my face, when you heard what I have spoken concerning this place and those who dwell in it, that it should be forsaken and be under a curse, and you rent your garments and wept in my sight — I also have heard, says the Lord of hosts. Not so: behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered in peace; and your eyes shall not see all the evils which I bring upon this place and upon those who dwell in it. This king, terrified by God's threats, had wept and rent his garments; and he is made secure, through a hastened death, from all the evils to come, in that he was so to rest in peace as not to see all those things.
There, then, are the spirits of the departed, where they do not see whatever is being done or comes to pass in this life of men. How then do they see their own tombs or their own bodies — whether they lie cast away or buried? How are they involved in the misery of the living, when either they themselves suffer their own ills, if they have contracted such deserts, or they rest in peace, as was promised to this Josiah, where they endure no evils either by suffering or by suffering-with, being delivered from all the evils which, by suffering and by suffering-with, they endured while they lived here? Someone will say:
If the dead have no care about the living, how did that rich man who was being tormented in the underworld beg father Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers who were not yet dead, and to deal with them, lest they too should come into the same place of torments? But surely, because that rich man said this, did he therefore know what his brothers were doing or what they were suffering at that time? He had care about the living in the same way, although he did not at all know what they were doing, just as we have care about the dead, although we by no means know what they are doing. For if we cared nothing about the dead, we would surely not supplicate God for them. Finally, Abraham did not send Lazarus, and answered that they had Moses and the prophets here, whom they ought to hear, so that they might not come to those torments.
Here again it presents itself, how father Abraham himself was ignorant of what was being done here, though he knew that there were Moses and the prophets — that is, their books, by obeying which men might escape the torments of hell — and knew, finally, that the rich man had lived in luxuries, but the poor man Lazarus in toils and sorrows. For this too he said to him: Remember, son, that you received good things in your life, but Lazarus evil things. He knew, then, these things which had assuredly been enacted among the living, not among the dead. Yet it was not while they were being done among the living, but when they were dead that he was able to come to know them, Lazarus making them known — lest that which the prophet says be false: Abraham has not known us.
Accordingly it must be confessed that the dead do not indeed know what is being done here while it is being done, but afterward they hear of it from those who go hence to them by dying — not indeed all things, but those which are permitted to be told by those who are permitted also to remember these things, and which those to whom they tell them ought to hear. The dead can also hear something from the angels who are present to the things that are done here — something which He to whom all things are subject judges that each one of them ought to hear. For unless there were angels who could be present at both the places of the living and of the dead, the Lord Jesus would not have said: And it came to pass that the poor man died and was carried away by the angels into the bosom of Abraham.
Now here, now there, then, could they be — those who carried away from hence to yonder him whom God willed. The spirits of the dead can also come to know certain things which are done here — things which it is necessary for them to know, and which it is necessary for those to know to whom they are made known — not only present or past things, but even future things, by the Spirit of God revealing them, just as not all men, but the prophets, while they lived here, came to know them, and not even they all things, but those which the providence of God judged were to be revealed to them. That some also are sent from the dead to the living — just as, conversely, Paul was caught up from among the living into paradise — divine Scripture bears witness. For the prophet Samuel, though dead, foretold even future things to the living king Saul:
although some suppose that it was not Samuel himself who could have been called up by magic arts, but that some spirit fitting for such evil works fashioned his likeness — whereas the book of Ecclesiasticus, which Jesus the son of Sirach is reported to have written and which, on account of a certain resemblance of eloquence, is pronounced to be Solomon's, contains, in the praise of the fathers, that Samuel even when dead prophesied. But if this book too is contradicted, because it is not in the Hebrew canon, what shall we say of Moses, who assuredly is read in Deuteronomy to have died, and yet in the Gospel to have appeared to the living together with Elijah, who did not die?
Hence too is that question resolved: how the martyrs, by the very benefits which are given to those who pray, indicate that they are involved in human affairs, if the dead do not know what the living are doing. For we have heard, not from uncertain rumours but from sure witnesses, that the confessor Felix — whose dwelling-place you piously love — appeared, not by the effects of benefits alone but even to the very sight of men, when Nola was being besieged by the barbarians. But these things are exhibited divinely in a manner far otherwise than the usual order allotted to each several kind of creatures conducts itself.
For because water was suddenly turned into wine when the Lord willed, we ought not therefore to fail to distinguish what water can do in its own proper order of the elements from the rarity, or rather the singularity, of that divine work; nor, because Lazarus rose again, does therefore every dead man rise when he wills, or is the lifeless roused by the living in the same manner as the sleeping is roused by one who is awake. The limits of human affairs are one thing, the signs of divine powers another; there are things which happen naturally, and things which happen miraculously — although God is present to nature that it may exist, and nature is not lacking to miracles.
It is not therefore to be supposed that any of the departed can be involved in the affairs of the living, because the martyrs are present for the healing or helping of certain persons; but rather it is to be understood that it is through divine power that the martyrs are involved in the affairs of the living, since the departed by their own nature cannot be involved in the affairs of the living. Although this question exceeds the powers of my understanding: in what way the martyrs bring aid to those who, it is certain, are helped through them —
whether they themselves are present in their own persons at one time in places so diverse and separated by so great a distance from one another — whether where their memorial shrines are, or apart from their memorials, wherever they are felt to be present — or whether, they themselves remaining in a place suited to their merits and removed from all converse with mortals, and yet in a general way supplicating for the need of those who pray (just as we pray for the dead, to whom we are certainly not present, nor do we know where they are or what they are doing), it is Almighty God — who is everywhere present, neither compounded with us nor removed from us —
hearkening to the prayers of the martyrs, through angelic ministries diffused everywhere, bestows on men those consolations which He judges are to be bestowed amid the misery of this life, and commends the merits of His martyrs where He wills, when He wills, and how He wills — and especially through their memorials, since He knows this to be profitable for us unto the building up of the faith of Christ, for the confession of which they suffered — by a marvellous and ineffable power and goodness. This matter is too lofty for me to be able to reach it, and too abstruse for me to be strong enough to search it out.
And therefore which of these two it is — or whether perhaps it is both, so that these things sometimes come to pass through the very presence of the martyrs, sometimes through the angels taking on the person of the martyrs — I do not dare to define. I would rather inquire into these matters from those who know. For it is not that there is no one who knows these things — no one, that is, who seems to himself to know and does not know. For the gifts of God are various, He bestowing some on these and others on those, according to the Apostle, who says that to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for profit. For to one, he says, is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith in the same Spirit; to another the gift of healings in the one Spirit; to another the workings of powers; to another prophecy; to another the discerning of spirits;
to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of speeches: but all these one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each his own as He wills. Of all these spiritual gifts which the Apostle has enumerated, whoever has been given the discerning of spirits, he himself knows these matters as they ought to be known. Such a one is to be believed to have been that John the monk, whom the elder Theodosius the emperor consulted concerning the outcome of the civil war; for he had prophecy also. For I do not doubt that not single gifts are had by single persons, but that even one man can have several of these gifts.
This John, then, said to a certain most religious woman who was impatiently desiring to see him, and who, in order to obtain this, was vehemently pressing her husband — while he was unwilling, since John had never permitted this to women: Go, say to your wife, she shall see me the coming night, but in sleep. And so it came to pass: and he admonished her whatever a faithful married woman ought to be admonished. And when she had awoken, she declared to her husband that she had seen such a man of God as her husband had known him to be, and what she had heard from him. He who learned this from them related it to me — a grave and noble man, most worthy to be believed.
But if I myself had seen that holy monk — since, as is reported, he was most patiently questioned and most wisely answered — I would have asked of him what pertains to this question: whether he himself had come to that woman in her sleep, that is, his spirit in the likeness of his body, just as we dream of our own selves in the likeness of our body; or whether, he himself doing something else, or, if he was asleep, dreaming something else, either through an angel or in some other way such a vision was made in the woman's dream, and he foreknew that this would come to pass, so that he could promise it, by the revealing Spirit of prophecy. For if he himself was present to her as she dreamed, he could assuredly have done this by marvellous grace, not by nature, and by the gift of God, not by his own power;
but if, he himself doing something else, or asleep and occupied with other visions, when the woman saw him in sleep, then assuredly something such was done as that which we read in the Acts of the Apostles, where the Lord Jesus speaks to Ananias about Saul and indicates to him that Saul had seen Ananias coming to him, while Ananias himself did not know this.
Whichever of these that man of God might have answered me, I would go on to inquire of him concerning the martyrs: whether they themselves are present in dreams, or in whatever other way, to those who see them in whatever form they have willed — and especially when the demons in men confess that they are tormented by them and beg them to spare them; or whether these things come to pass at God's bidding through angelic powers, unto the honour and commendation of the saints, for the profit of men — while the saints themselves are placed in supreme rest and are at leisure for other, far better visions, apart from us and praying for us.
for at Milan, at the shrine of the holy martyrs Protasius and Gervasius, the demons, naming him expressly as though he were one of the departed whom they commemorated in the same way, confessed the bishop Ambrose, still living, and besought him to spare them — while he was doing something else and, when this was being done, was entirely unaware of it; or whether these things sometimes come to pass through the very presence of the martyrs, sometimes through that of the angels; and whether these two can be, or by what signs they can be, discerned by us, or whether no one is able to perceive and discern them save he who has that gift through the Spirit of God, who divides to each his own as He wills:
that John, I think, would have discoursed to me on all these matters as I should wish, so that either, he teaching, I might learn, and might come to know that the things I heard were true and certain; or I might believe the things I did not know, when he told what he did know. But if perhaps he should answer me from holy Scripture and say: Seek not the things that are too high for you, and search not into things too mighty for you; but the things that the Lord has commanded you, think on these always — that too I would gladly accept. For it is no small fruit if, concerning certain obscure and uncertain matters which we are not strong enough to comprehend, it be at least clear and certain to us that they are not to be sought after, and that whatever anyone wishes to learn, thinking it profitable if he should know it, let him learn that it does not harm him if he should not know it.
Since these things are so, let us not suppose that anything reaches the dead, for whom we bear care, except what we solemnly supplicate on their behalf by the sacrifices either of the altar or of prayers or of alms — although these do not profit all for whom they are done, but only those for whom, while they live, it is procured that they should profit. But since we do not distinguish who these are, we ought to do these things for all the regenerate, so that none of them be passed over to whom these benefits can and ought to reach. For it is better that these things be superfluous for those whom they neither harm nor profit, than that they be lacking to those whom they profit. Yet each one does these things more diligently for his own kindred, that the like may be done for him by his own.
But whatever is expended upon the burying of the human body is not an aid of salvation, but an office of humanity according to that affection whereby no one ever hates his own flesh; whence it behoves that a man bear such care as he can for the flesh of his neighbour, when he who bore it has departed from it. And if those who do not believe in the resurrection of the flesh do these things, how much more ought those to do them who do believe — so that to the dead body, which nevertheless is to rise again and to abide in eternity, an office of this kind expended upon it may in a certain manner be also a testimony of that same faith! But that anyone is buried at the memorials of the martyrs seems to me to profit the departed only thus far, that, commending him also to the patronage of the martyrs, the affection of supplication on his behalf may be increased.
You have such a reply as I have been able to render to those things which you thought were to be inquired of me; and if it is more prolix than is enough, grant pardon; for that came to pass from love of speaking longer with you. How, then, your venerable affection receives this book, may I know by your reply, which the bearer of it will without doubt make more welcome to you — namely our brother and fellow presbyter Candidianus, whom, made known to me through your letters, I received with my whole heart and dismissed unwillingly. For he has greatly consoled us in the charity of Christ by his presence, and — this must be confessed — I have obeyed you at his urging.
For such great things distend my heart that, unless he, assiduously reminding me, had not suffered me to forget, my reply would assuredly have been lacking to your inquiry. (Here end the subscriptions of the several manuscripts: On the care to be had for the dead — Here ends the letter to Paulinus; here begins On the eight questions to Dulcitius. — Here ends the letter to Paulinus. — Here ends the letter of Saint Augustine on the care to be had for the dead. — Here ends the book of Aurelius Augustine to Paulinus, bishop of the city of Nola, on the care to be had for the dead. — Here ends the book of Saint Augustine on the care to be had for the dead. — Here ends the book of Saint Augustine to the most blessed Paulinus; here begins Saint Augustine on the immortality of the soul. — Here ends the book on the care to be had for the dead.)