be

the spiritual Israel were gathered together to intercede for their brethren in the faith, those who had gone fore them in the sleep of peace were ever and always remembered. Death, no doubt, was a true separation; but, on the other hand, the spiritual bonds of religion were not broken by death. Upon them, as regards their intercommunion, Death hath no power. Forged by the command of the Lord of Life, these bonds bind the souls of the faithful together, and unless rusted by sin, or rudely snapped by the reprobate, their hold is complete both for time and eternity.

From which considerations, to be amplified in detail hereafter, the duty of prayer for the departed, as well as the rationale of that duty, may be sufficiently gathered.

DOMITI

IN PACE.

LEA FECIT.

"Domitius, may you rest in peace. Lea inscribed this."

(Cemetery of Callistus, Rome.)

KALEMERE DEVS REFRI

GERET SPIRITVM TVVM

VNA CVM [spiritu] SORORIS TVAE

HILARE.

"O Calemera, may God refresh thy soul, together with the soul of thy sister, Hilara."

[The above, given by Lupi at p. 137 of his "Dissertation on the Epitaphs of the Martyrs under Severus," contains a representation of our Lord as the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of the Flock, and the Phoenix-emblem of the Resurrection.]

CHAPTER III.

PRAYER FOR THE DEPARTED USED BY THE JEWS.

THE plain testimony of the patriarch Job on behalf

of the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body indicates how vastly superior was the knowledge of the patriarchs to that which existed amongst the most elevated of heathen philosophers. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."* This statement, as is evident, mainly touches the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body. But its importance does not rest there. A belief in the separate and continuous existence of the soul appears to have been current and contemporaneously held: for both amongst the Jews of old,

*Job xix. 25-27.

as well as with heathen nations, the prevalence of a belief in ghostly apparitions is undoubted. Moreover, a conviction that immediately after death retribution for sins committed in the body surely followed, was likewise a very ordinary and widespread doctrine of both.

This may be specifically illustrated from the case of Enoch. It is recorded in the Book of Genesis that "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him."+ Here, then, it is formally declared that Enoch was with God. St. Paul's comment in the Epistle to the Hebrews re-states, amplifies, and gives point to the simple record of Moses. "Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." It is clear, therefore, from this important gloss, that the patriarchs neither doubted the existence of a future state, nor rejected the doctrines of the Immortality of the Soul and of the Resurrection of the Body. And it is equally clear that current opinion amongst the Jews of St. Paul's time supported and warranted a use of those arguments which were so pertinently and forcibly pressed upon them

* Eneid, book vi. 325.

+ Gen. v. 24.

Heb. xi. 5.

by the apostle. Of the patriarchs, he declared that "they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth," seeking, not an earthly but a heavenly country; and he maintained, as a consequence of this faith and conviction, that "God is not ashamed to be called their God for He hath prepared for them a city."* In truth, the whole of this part of St. Paul's epistle contains most forcible reasoning against the current scepticism of the Sadducees, and furnishes abundant proof of the kind of facts which the Jews of that period were willing to admit, and on which the apostle, in part, founded the arguments of his epistle.

And that St. Paul's statements, acquiesced in by those to whom he wrote, were justified by the ancient traditions of God's chosen people, is apparent from the records of their history.† For example, the care with which the bodies of the patriarchs were buried, though only directly indicating. a belief in the Resurrection of the Body, yet indirectly set forth a belief in a future state. So with regard to the account of the death and burial of Jacob. "He gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the

Heb. xi. 13-16.

+ Gen. xxiii.; xxv. 8-10; xxxv. 29.

Gen. xlix. 29-33; 1. 1-14.

ghost, and was gathered unto his people." From this it is clear that the inspired writer believed him to have "yielded up the ghost" to "the God of the spirits of all flesh."+ Furthermore, the following passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes, throws light on the belief of the Jews: "When they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." So, too, a previous passage from the same book: "All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?"§ Thus much as regards ancient traditions and the belief of the patriarchs.

But there is one event recorded, of great moment

* Gen. xv. 15; xxv. 8.

+ Numbers xvi. 22; xxvii. 16.

Ecclesiastes xii. 5-7. See also Isaiah lvii. 16; and Zech. xii. 1.

§ Ecclesiastes iii. 20, 21.