The end of the 1st century BC and the first centuries of the Christian era were, for the entire Greco-Roman world, a period in which the attempt to rescue the traditional mindset, the mos maiorum, led to the construction of a new mental framework, in which the Roman citizen, the ciuis Romanus, was no longer so closely bound to the City – the Urbs. Thus, the idea of the Urbs, as the mental pillar of the Roman, dissolved into that of the οἰκουμένη. The Roman’s world was no longer the Urbs, but the Orbis. Roman spirituality abandoned the image of the City, tending towards a new perspective, towards ecumenism, which offered a scale of values that opened man up to his fellow human beings and to God.
We read in Holy Scripture that, until the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles were bound to the City of Jerusalem by a divine command: ‘But you are to remain in the city (ἐν τῇ πόλει / in civitate), until you are clothed with power from on high’ (Luke 24:49). However, after they had been strengthened in the Holy Spirit and the Church had been established in a visible form, they were no longer confined within the city, intra muros, but went forth to build up the Church throughout the entire world, extra muros. The Holy Apostle Paul, too, urges us to go out of the city to be sanctified, having no lasting city here, but seeking the one that is to come, outside the gates of the earthly city: ‘For this reason, too, Jesus, in order to sanctify the people with His blood, suffered outside the gate (extra portam). Let us therefore go out to Him, outside the camp (extra castra), bearing His reproach. For here we have no lasting city (manentem civitatem), but we seek the one to come’ (Hebrews 13:12–14).
Saint John Chrysostom, in his Homily on the Name of the Cemetery and on the Cross of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, asks why ‘our forefathers decreed that, leaving the churches in the cities, we should gather today outside the city and here’1”, pointing out that this was not done without reason or in vain: “Therefore I sought the reason and found, by the grace of God, that it is just, blessed and fitting for today’s feast. So, what is the reason? We are celebrating the commemoration of the Cross. And the One who was crucified was crucified outside the city […]. Paul commanded it. We obeyed and went out. Therefore, this is why we are gathering outside the city […]. ‘For here lies the multitude of the dead’2 In pagan antiquity, the body of the dead was buried outside the inhabited city, both out of fear of it and so as not to defile the living, or even the gods, as we read in a tragedy by Euripides, where even the goddess Artemis herself feared this: ‘For, alas, I am not permitted to look upon corpses, nor to defile myself with the breath of those who are about to die’3
Christian antiquity brought about a profound transformation in this regard: the body of the departed was buried outside the city walls, for Christ Himself was crucified outside the city, as Saint John Chrysostom explains. Furthermore, early Christianity continued the practice of burial outside the city walls, emphasising that man has no lasting city here; when he falls asleep, he leaves this world to rest in the Heavenly City. The walls of the earthly city become too small for the Christian. Christian antiquity also emphasises that the tomb, the place of burial, is where Heaven meets Earth, the world below meets the world above, thus giving it the honour it deserves: ‘Do you not know of the angels who approached the Lord’s tomb, in which the Body was not to be found, but which was empty? Nevertheless, because the tomb had received the Lord’s Body in its entirety, they bestow great honour upon the place as well. Did the angels, who transcend our nature, stand around the tomb with such respect and reverence?’4 We see, then, that the early days of Christianity mark the end of a negative view of the relationship between the dead and the world of the living, the barriers between these worlds opening up in Christian Antiquity, even merging into a single City: The Church as a community not only of Christians everywhere, but also of those in this world and those in the Hereafter.
…the early days of Christianity mark the end of a negative view of the relationship between the dead and the world of the living, as the barriers between these worlds opened up.
Since there does not appear to be any Indo-European word to denote the concept of a grave 5, Ancient Greek and Latin diversified their funerary terminology to such an extent that, in Latin alone, Liana Lupaș, in a study on ‘The Name of the Grave in Latin’, lists over 130 Latin words denoting this concept 6.
As regards the concept of a cemetery, we can state without a shadow of a doubt that this is, as we shall see, a creation of Christianity. The etymology of the word is clear: the noun κοιμητήριον ‘place to sleep, bedroom, cemetery’7 derives from a nominal theme in *κοίμᾱ or κοῖμος of the verb κεῖμαι, expressing the idea of ‘to lie down to sleep, sleep’8, from which the denominative verb κοιμάω ‘to go to bed, to fall asleep, to sleep, to lie down’ is derived, as well as the factitive κοιμίζω, to sleep, to rest, but also with the meaning of ‘to sleep the sleep of death’, hence the meaning of ‘to lay to rest in the peace and tranquillity of the grave’ 9. As regards the earliest attested uses of the noun κοιμητήριον in pre-Christian texts, it appears to occur only twice, with the meaning of ‘bedroom’. These are a 5th-century BC inscription from the Temple of Amphiaraos at Orops, and a 3rd-century BC text by the sophist Athenaeus of Naukratis, in The Banquet of the Sophists (IV, 143c), whose source appears to be Dosiades of Rhodes. From the 2nd century of the Christian era, the word is used both to denote a place of rest (found particularly in the rules of monastic life during the Byzantine period) and in its funerary sense. This usage is undoubtedly explained by the biblical image of death as sleep whilst awaiting the Resurrection, the tomb being a place of rest, a sleeping-place, where the body remains to rest until the general Resurrection. In the early centuries, this term referred either to a single grave or to the area comprising a series of graves, a meaning which has been preserved to this day. Saint John Chrysostom, in his homily on the name of the cemetery, clearly explains why the place where we are buried is called a cemetery: ‘For this reason, this place is called a cemetery, so that you may know that those who have passed away and lie here have not died, but are asleep and at rest. Before the coming of Jesus, death was called death […]. But when Christ came and died for the life of the world, death is no longer called death, but sleep and slumber’10 Referring to the scriptural passages in which Christ the Saviour speaks of death, Saint John Chrysostom writes: “You see that death is called sleep everywhere; for this reason, the place is called a cemetery, that is, a place of sleep. The name is helpful to us and full of wisdom. Therefore, when you bring a dead person here, do not be overcome by grief, for you are not taking them to death, but to sleep. This name alone is enough to comfort you in your sorrow’11
The Saviour, coming to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, does not say that he has died, but that ‘Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep (κεκοίμηται); I am going to wake him up (ἐξυπνίσω)’ (John 11:11), and the disciples, not knowing to what kind of sleep Christ was referring, say: ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep (εἰ κεκοίμηται), he will get well’ (John 11:12). Thus, even though we do not find the noun κοιμητήριον in Holy Scripture, we do find the verb κοιμάω—from which this noun is derived—on several occasions, which forms the basis for the concept to which we are referring.
The first attestation of this noun in patristic literature belongs, perhaps paradoxically, to the Latin language. The Greek noun κοιμητήριον was borrowed into Latin in the literary form coemētērium, whilst also circulating in other spellings as forms of the spoken language, such as: cimiterium, cimeterium, cymiterium, coementerium etc. 12
Tertullian, in De anima (On the Soul*), a work composed around the year 197, whilst recounting a miracle, writes of how someone who had just been buried in the coemeterio made room for another 13. There is no doubt as to the use of this word. It refers to a place of burial. Saint Cyprian of Carthage, writing a letter to Bishop Successus in the year 258, informed him that Bishop Sixtus II had been martyred ‘in the cemetery (in cimiterio) on the eighth day of the Ides of August, and, together with him, four deacons’14
Greek epigraphy from the third and fourth centuries attests to the widespread use of the noun κοιμητήριον to mean a place of burial 15. The oldest known epigraphic attestation in this sense appears to be an inscription from Phrygia dating from 250–251.
With the remarkable expansion of the cult of the saints, particularly from the 4th century onwards, tombs began to be moved into the city walls (intra muros), especially the tombs of the saints, driven by the Christians’ desire to have them as close as possible. Blessed Augustine, in his treatise De cura pro mortuis gerenda (On the Care We Owe to the Dead), responds to Bishop Paulinus of Nola regarding a practice that was becoming increasingly common at that time, namely the burial of Christians in the vicinity of a memoria/martyria, near the tomb of a saint: burials ‘ad sanctos’16
When speaking of cemeteries in early Christian times, we cannot fail to mention the care shown for the departed, which found expression in the Roman festivals known as the Parentalia, which Saint Ambrose banned 17 on the grounds that they involved too much wine, a fact also recalled by Blessed Augustine in his Confessions, when speaking of his holy mother Monica’s care for the graves of her ancestors: ‘So, when she brought “to the graves of the saints, as was the custom in Africa, stew, bread and wine, and was stopped by the gatekeeper, and when she learnt that the bishop had issued this prohibition, she embraced the commandment so devoutly and with such obedience’18 In Saint Monica’s conduct we see the conduct of the entire Church, which succeeded in transforming a Roman pagan festival, the Parentalia, into a work of care for the poor; for cemeteries were and have remained,one of the most tangible expressions of Christian philanthropy over the course of two millennia: at memorial services at gravesides, not only is forgiveness sought for the sins of those who have passed into eternity, but love for the departed is also manifested through acts of charity. Cemeteries have been and remain the natural gathering place for the poor, from where they would depart for their homes with their needs met.
Finally, we must not forget the importance of the cemetery as a place of tranquillity and peace, a quality for which it was referred to in Latin by terms such as ‘quies’, ‘quietorium’ and ‘requies’, amongst others. Cemeteries have always been oases of beauty and tranquillity, a metaphysical space linking Heaven and Earth, situated on the border between the visible and the invisible worlds. The cemetery is a place of a distinctive ‘picturesque and melancholy’19, which makes us long for Heaven, but also for the beauty of God’s creation in this world, which the cemetery itself reveals and which our soul must savour, as Saint Gregory of Nyssa testified: ‘Without, however, going beyond the ordained realms, taking all this and other such things into account, how can one fail to realise that not only does the teaching about God spring from the One Who Is, but that, in some way, He has also ordained for us the power to savour those delights?’20
In Greco-Roman antiquity, care for those who had departed from this world had always been one of the essential pillars of religious life. In the view of the ancients, death did not mean a passing into non-existence, the annihilation of the person: ‘Death does not put an end to everything’21). They regarded death as a passage to another plane of existence: the dead, dwelling beneath the earth, continued to watch over those left behind, provided that the living, in turn, did not cease to care for them, thus making the grave the ideal dwelling place for them: ‘May the earth rest lightly upon you!’22. Anyone who was not buried was considered to be homeless, remaining an unhappy wanderer between the two worlds 23. All ancient Greco-Roman literature shows that the law of burial was a divine duty; failure to observe it implicitly invited punishment from the gods: ‘For these laws are not written in letters, no! / But they are eternal laws, not of today or yesterday. / Since when they have endured, no man knows’24’. The absence of a burial frightened the ancients even more than death itself; thus, Antigone accepts death without a trace of regret, rather than leave her brother unburied: ‘I shall bury him all the same! How beautiful it is to die / with a peaceful soul! I shall rest with the one / who was dear to me, to whom I was dear. And my guilt shall have been holy’25.
For a Roman, it was of paramount importance not only to have a good reputation during his lifetime, but also to be remembered after death: which is why the deceased was laid to rest in a monumentum (from which the Romanian word ‘mormânt’ [grave] is derived), so that the living might remember (monere) him. That is why most graves were situated near gates, main roads and crossroads, so that the memory of the deceased might remain in the hearts, but also on the lips, of those passing by (which is why the grave also bore an ‘epitaphium’, an ‘inscriptio’ providing certain details about the person buried there).
Apart from the burial ritual, the ancients had countless other duties towards the dead, regarding them as gods: ‘Humanos leto datos diuos habento’26. Plutarch, for his part, maintained that, according to religion, we regard the dead as saints 27, whilst Homer adds that we must offer prayers to the ancestors of the dead as if they were gods 28. The Latin poet Tibullus does not hesitate, in this regard, to call a young woman who died prematurely a saint 29.
In this regard, the Greco-Roman world knew many ways to commemorate the dead: libations, food offerings, wreaths of flowers adorning the graves, perfumes poured onto the graves, incense, torches and candles illuminating the grave, etc. The Latin elegiac poet Propertius asked Cynthia to bring fragrances and wreaths30 to his grave when he died.
The use of the wreath as a symbol in various public and private contexts, in both civil and religious life across the Mediterranean world, is very ancient and has been the subject of numerous studies. It is difficult to draw strict boundaries between these various uses, as they share many common features, and the religious sphere cannot be separated from the social one.
Greco-Roman terminology had several nouns denoting the concept of a crown or garland: στέφος, στέφανος, στέμμα or even στρόφος, from which the Latin terms stemma and stroppus derive, both denoting the same concept. In the Latin world, the term that came to be widely used in this sense was ‘corrona’, clearly borrowed from the Greek κορωνίς. Nor can we overlook the noun ‘infula’ (sometimes used in the plural as infulae), which referred to a headband made of white and red wool, worn like a diadem or a turban, with its ends hanging down on either side of the head. At times, this noun was confused with other terms denoting head ornaments, garlands or certain headbands worn on the head (capital, diadem, fascia, mitre, taenia). The infula was a sacred symbol, an indication of consecration and religious inviolability; it was reserved for persons, sacrificial animals or monuments used in divine worship. Generally, the infula could be worn by priests or placed on the head of a victim before sacrifice. Later, it became a symbol of high office 31.
The use of the crown in funeral rites undoubtedly predates the Homeric poems by a long way, even though many scholars dispute this: ‘the heroic period of Greece seems not to have known the use of the crown’ 32. However, we cannot overlook the telling passages in the Iliad, which attest to the use of the wreath on various occasions: the priest Chryses, coming to Achilles to ransom his daughter, carried in his arms the very wreath worn by Apollo 33; likewise, in another book, maidens wearing beautiful wreaths are mentioned 34. Other Greek writers, such as Euripides, illustrate, in the most concrete terms, the use of wreaths in funeral ceremonies. Thus, Creon threatened with death anyone who dared to place wreaths upon the dead body of Polynices 35.
In the context of classical civilisation, the symbol of the wreath increasingly took on a religious significance in relation to the veneration of heroes and gods. ‘Indeed, an ancient custom required that those performing a solemn religious act should wear wreaths of leaves or flowers on their heads’36). The branches or leaves of certain arbores sacrae seem to constitute a symbol of prayer, but also an offering to the deities: ‘The more richly adorned with flowers you are, it was said, the more certain you may be that you will remain in the favour of the gods; but if you make sacrifices to them without being crowned, they turn their faces away from you’37; likewise, ‘A wreath, it was also said, is the harbinger of good omen that prayer sends before it to the gods38.
Outside the religious sphere, the purpose of the coronation was to honour the Empire’s heroes as victors. In the ancient world, one could earn a crown in the army, in the arena or in a civil career. Pliny the Elder, quoting from the Law of the Twelve Tables, wrote: ‘If anyone has won a wreath through his own efforts or at his own expense, let it therefore be given to him for his valour’39. The same legislation, contained in the Twelve Tables, condemned the luxury of funerals, putting a stop to the excess of wreaths 40. Pliny describes, in Naturalis Historia, the wreath, as well as its evolution throughout the history of Rome. Thus, we learn that, initially, wreaths were made from tree branches, intended for the victors at the sacred games 41. The same Latin historian shows that these had no other purpose than to reward victorious citizens, but also to honour the gods: ‘The wreaths served to honour the gods, the public and private lares, the tombs and the Romans’42).
Virgil also provides a number of clarifications regarding the use of the wreath in the Greco-Roman world in the Aeneid. Thus, on the anniversary of Anchises’ death, he dedicates funeral games, offering a series of gifts: ‘Glorious gifts are placed in the centre, in plain view, closer to the front, on sacred tripods, arranged in a circle, and wreaths green with palm leaves (viridesque coronae, et palmae)’43 In Book VII, the fire, kindled on the altar by Latinus, seems to engulf even the tresses of his daughter, Lavinia: ‘Everything burns, both her royal tresses and the magnificent crown set with gems (accensa coronam insignem gemmis)’44
In the Old Testament, the wreath of flowers has multiple meanings: thus, in the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, the transience of life is contrasted with the eternity of the joy of being perfumed by the flowers of wisdom: ‘Our life is like a passing shadow, and its end is irrevocable, for it is sealed and no one returns […]. Let us not let the spring flowers pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with roses, before they wither’ (The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon IV, 5–8); in the same book, the virtue of goodness is likened to a wreath of flowers: ‘Goodness wears an eternal crown, ever victorious, emerging unscathed from battles won’ (The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon IV, 2).
Furthermore, in the New Testament there are numerous references to the crown, taking into account its multiple symbolisms. Often its symbolism is directly linked to the use of the crown, which in the Greco-Roman world was awarded as a reward to the victor: ‘Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to win it. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They do so to win a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one’ (1 Corinthians 9:24–25). At other times, it is seen as the crown of life, embodying the eschatological aspect of eternal happiness: ‘Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life’ (Revelation 2:10). In the same sense, the Holy Apostle James also uses this symbolism: ‘Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proven, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him’ (James 1:12). The disciples who remain obedient are called by Saint Paul his crown: ‘Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brothers and sisters, my joy and my crown, stand firm in the Lord, my beloved’ (Philippians 4:1), “For what is our hope, or our joy, or the crown of our praise, if not you, before our Lord Jesus at His coming?” (1 Thessalonians 2:19). The priest who shepherds his entrusted flock well will receive the crown from the hand of Christ the High Priest: ‘And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory’ (1 Peter 5:4).
Towards the end of the second century and the beginning of the third, patristic literature records a series of negative attitudes on the part of Christian writers, in their polemic against paganism, towards the customs and traditions of ancient society considered to be of demonic inspiration 45.
The ecclesiastical writer Tertullian, in his treatise De corona militis (written in early 208), inspired by that of Claudius Saturninus, De Coronis, a second-century author, asks, in his anti-pagan polemic, whether it is permissible for a Christian to wear crowns, as in pagan ceremonies, and where it is written that a Christian must not be crowned 46, and whether, indeed, the wearing of crowns is not “nec nullum nec incertum delictum”47.
Even though Scripture says nothing on this matter, Tertullian does not conclude that what is not forbidden by Scripture is permitted, but rather that what is not permitted is, evidently, forbidden 48.
The first reason why Christians should refrain from wearing crowns is that they are linked to idolatry; the first people to wear crowns, according to Greco-Roman mythology, were the gods 49 and that it is unworthy for a Christian, the image of the living God, to make himself an image of an idol and of the dead: ‘Indignum enim, ut imago Dei uiui imago idoli et mortui fias’50.
Speaking of the ‘corona mortui’—those wreaths which both pagans and Christians wore in the presence of the dead, during funerals, which adorned the graves, Tertullian criticises this custom, going so far as to claim that in this way the dead are elevated to the status of deities, being honoured in this manner. In his reasoning, the wreath becomes a form of idolatry, the wreath itself being ‘51’ idolatry. Certainly, Tertullian’s characteristic intransigence and rigour are also evident with regard to the custom of funeral wreaths. These must be seen in the context of his desire to protect Christians from any form of idolatry, which, in his view, permeated every aspect of pagan society.
Indeed, according to Tertullian, the Christian must seek only the crown which the Lord bestows: ‘Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life’ (Revelation 2:10). By urging Christians to be faithful unto death, he assures them of receiving the heavenly crown, provided they fight the good fight: ‘Esto et tu fidelis ad mortem, decerta et tu bonum agonem, cuius coronam et apostolus repositam sibi merito confidit’52).
Through their writings, the Christian authors of the first three centuries seem to have had as their main aim the provision of a sort of ‘code of conduct’, which the true Christian must adopt in order to ward off the temptations of the pagan world. Among the various symbols rejected by the Fathers, particularly by Tertullian, is precisely that of the crown. However, if we analyse the thinking of these writers carefully, we realise how many of their positions have all too often been misunderstood, and how their controversy, at times fierce and even anachronistic, was essentially directed against the practice of wearing crowns on the head, serves as a valuable clue attesting to the continued use of this custom amongst the Christians of the time 53.
Christian authors of the first three centuries seem to have had as their main aim the provision of a sort of ‘code of conduct’ which the true Christian must adopt in order to ward off the temptations of the pagan world. Among the various symbols rejected by the Church Fathers, particularly by Tertullian, is precisely that of the crown.
In this regard, Clement of Alexandria saw in the use of the crown the danger of straying towards pleasure, lasciviousness and idolatry, as it was used at ‘festivals and wine-fuelled revelries’54 He does not reject the beauty of flowers, nor the usefulness of perfumes and essences; everything was created by God for the well-being of humankind, but always in relation to their needs and never as a means of opulence and luxury, ‘but it is fitting for us to take pleasure in them with moderation, as in Paradise, truly following what is said in Scripture’55. Even the ancient Greeks, he said, did not use crowns until much later, ‘when Greece, after the Persian Wars, began to lead a life full of pleasure’56. Since wreaths, said Clement himself, had been put ‘at the service of the demons, we must turn away from them for the sake of our souls’57). However, when it comes to funeral wreaths, Clement of Alexandria seems to be less strict, pointing out that this is a symbol of ‘undisturbed peace’. This is the reason why wreaths are placed on the dead […]. The beautiful wreath of amaranth is reserved for those who have led a beautiful life; the flower of such a wreath cannot spring from the earth; only heaven is capable of producing it’58”.
This negative view of the use of the wreath, which spares not even the rites of the funeral tradition, is also found in Justin the Martyr and the Philosopher and, subsequently, in Minucius Felix. Saint Justin, in his First Apology, states that we Christians, unlike the pagans, ‘do not offer libations, animal fat, wreaths or sacrifices at the graves of the dead’59 In the dialogue Octavius, Minucius Felix says of Christians: ‘That we do not crown our heads with garlands? Let this not trouble you. We are accustomed to enjoying the pleasant scent of flowers with our noses, not with our hair or the back of our necks. You reproach us for not bearing wreaths to the dead; but I am even more astonished at how you can offer torches to those who still feel and wreaths to those who feel nothing at all. If they are happy, the dead no longer need flowers; and if they are wretched, they cannot enjoy them. In the tranquillity in which we live, it is in that same tranquillity that we prepare our funerals. We do not weave wreaths of flowers, which would wither, for we wear an evergreen wreath, made of the flowers of eternity, which God has given us’60 Thus, he concludes: ‘do not place wreaths on graves either’61
Saint Cyprian of Carthage, throughout his correspondence, establishes a connection between the Christian martyr and the crown of glory which he will receive as a reward for his faithfulness: ‘As you walk the path of service to the Lord, press forward with spiritual courage towards receiving the crown, as those who have the Lord as your defender and guide’62.
With the end of the persecutions, the literary output of Christian writers contains only a few references to the funeral wreath, even though descriptions of funerals are more frequently cited; yet the funeral wreath is no longer viewed with such caution; on the contrary, it is seen as a symbol of immortality and of the crowning of the soul of the departed in the Kingdom of God. The symbolism of the funeral wreath predominantly takes on the meaning of the ‘crown of victory’ which the Christian, like an athlete competing in the arena, aspires to attain at the end of his earthly life.
Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Life of Constantine the Great, recalls the crown which the virtuous Christian will receive from the hand of Christ the Saviour: ‘The gift of virtue would remain hidden and unused were it not for the spirit of wickedness opposing it with the temptation of a twisted and deluded life. That is why a crown is set before virtue, whilst the Most High God passes judgement’63 Saint Basil the Great, in his Fifth Homily on the Holy Martyr Julitta, shows that she was worthy of ‘the crowns of glory’ (τῶν στεφάνων τῆς δόξης / gloriae coronis) 64 Saint Gregory of Nyssa, in The Life of Saint Macrina, describes the virtues of his sister, Saint Macrina, noting that ‘Just as an athlete, who outruns his opponent and approaches the finishing line and the victory wreath (τὸν ἐπινίκιον στέφανον) as a reward, is overcome with joy in advance, as if he had already won it, and signals his victory to his friends in the stadium, so too does Macrina give us good hope for herself as she draws near to the crowning of her heavenly calling’65
Blessed Jerome and Prudentius mention the Christian custom of decorating graves with flowers scattered upon the tombstones. Thus, from a letter by Blessed Jerome, we see not only that he no longer viewed the decoration of graves with flowers and the custom of bringing wreaths with hostility, but, on the contrary, that he encourages this practice: ‘Other husbands scatter violets, roses, lilies and purple flowers upon their wives’ graves, and soothe the sorrow of their souls by fulfilling these duties’66 Paul of Nola expressly states that during the dies natalis of Saint Felix, wreaths were placed on his tomb, as though they belonged to a martyr: ‘Martyris ad tumulum debes et terra coronas’67
It is clear that patristic writers, from the fourth century onwards, no longer rejected the bringing of wreaths of flowers to the graves of the departed, seeing in this both a symbol of the crowning of the righteous in the Kingdom of God and, on the other hand, the beauty of Heaven, as well as the eternity of life perfumed by the flowers of Heaven for those who, like Saint Paul the Apostle, can say: ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on, the crown of righteousness is prepared for me, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, will bestow upon me on that day—and not only upon me, but upon all who have loved His appearing’ (2 Timothy 4:7–8).
…the patristic writers, from the fourth century onwards, no longer rejected the practice of laying wreaths of flowers on the graves of the departed, seeing in this a symbol of the crowning of the righteous in the Kingdom of God, and, on the other hand, the beauty of Heaven, as well as the eternity of life perfumed by the flowers of Heaven.
It seems that the most important way of honouring the deceased was the funeral feast. Funeral feasts formed part of the institutional ceremonies through which the dead were honoured, but they should not be viewed as mere commemorations, but rather as acts of religious worship, through which a connection was made with those in the afterlife, thereby effectively blurring the boundary between the two worlds, as Plutarch puts it, by calling upon the dead to come to the table: ‘they call the brave men, those who died for Hellas, to the funeral feast and sacrifice’68.
Funeral feasts are mentioned in Greco-Roman culture even in its earliest literary sources: for example, in the Iliad, we read how, at Patroclus’s burial, Achilles offered libations for his repose throughout the night: ‘…all night long, swift Achilles / from the great golden vessel, pouring into the two-handled cup, / poured it down to the very earth, soaking the ground, / calling upon the dear and wretched soul of Patroclus by name’69; or, likewise, in the Odyssey, we cannot overlook the famous passage in which Odysseus, in order to enter the Land of the Dead at the edge of the world, holds a funeral feast: “I dug a pit, a cubit long and a cubit wide, / And round it I poured libations to all the departed”70. Virgil refers to these funeral feasts several times in his literary work: “And, following counsel, he set out, with many thousands with him, to the tomb / Proud, in the midst, glorious, with the long procession, a great host./ And there he offered two deep cups of strong wine, / poured out upon the ground, and two of milk, and two of blood / sacred, scattering red flowers, and thus he spoke to him: / ‘Once more, father (sancte parens), I pay homage to you! Homage, ashes,/ Soul and shadow of my father (animaeque umbraeque paternae)’71
In the Roman world, the veneration of the departed took the form of two religious practices, which differed only in their social scope and were often confused with one another. These were the Parentatio and the Parentalia.
Parentatio was a ritual which, as the name suggests, was primarily directed, on the part of children and close relatives, towards the family circle of deceased parents. Cornelius Nepos quotes in his writings an excerpt from a letter by Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi brothers, in which she asks them to bestow upon her the fitting funeral honours after her death: ‘Ubi mortua ero, parentabis mihi et invocabis deum parentem’72 Based on this text, we are tempted to define parentatio as the cult of deus parens, a divine cult bestowed upon an ancestor who has passed into the afterlife.
Parentatio involved sacrifices, offerings, feasts and pious tributes, which were part of all funeral ceremonies, whether private or public: Funus, Manes, Feralia, etc. This family practice, parentatio, would later become part of public worship in the form of the Parentalia festival, apparently instituted by King Numa73 The Parentalia was merely one ritual, amongst many others, which focused on the relationship between the living and the dead, with the honouring of the dead taking a wide variety of forms across time and space. However, this diversity of ritual practices in honouring the dead in no way diminishes the central role of the Parentalia in both Roman society and the Roman family.
As regards the Parentalia, a foundational text for Latin culture is that found in Virgil’s Aeneid, in which Aeneas, the Trojan hero, is presented as the initiator of the Parentalia. Indeed, after the Trojan War, on the first anniversary of his father Anchises’ death, Aeneas offers sacrifices for the repose of his father’s soul: ‘And now, as we stand by his ashes and his bones, / We are here, I believe, surely not without the will of the gods, / Nor without their counsel, but having reached safe harbour, amongst our friends./ Come then, let us all celebrate joyfully – paying him proud homage, / We shall ask for a favourable wind – and, as is my custom, I myself / Year after year offer them, only in the temples erected in their honour / The sacred sacrifices in the cities founded for them!’74
Ovid, in Fasti, provides some details about the course of the Parentalia. For eight days, every family brings offerings to the graves of their dead. On the ninth day, the day of the Feralia, the last day on which we can appease the spirits of the dead (Manes) by bringing the necessary offerings, Ovid writes, a sacrificial banquet is organised near the grave, which is shared with the deceased 75. This banquet is followed by sacrifices to the Lares, the guardian gods of the family, thus signifying the full return of the living to their world, distinct from that of the dead. The offerings placed on graves have, above all, a symbolic value, for, according to Ovid, ‘the Manes ask for little’76). The most common offerings are food, because, as Ovid writes, during the Parentalia, the souls of the dead wander near the graves, and this is the moment when the shadow feeds on the food placed before it 77. Banquets held at the burial site appear to have been a favoured means of commemorating the dead throughout Latin antiquity. The banquet, held on the final day of the Parentalia, the day of the Feralia, is intended to be shared between the living and the dead, as is clearly shown by the words spoken by Petronius through the character of Trimalchio. The latter, seated amongst many guests, having anointed himself with nard perfume, declares that he hopes this fragrance, which he loved so much during his lifetime, will please him just as much after his death, invites all those present to drink as a foreshadowing of his own Parentalia 78. Many tombs even had a triclinium (dining hall) built into them so that the funeral banquet could be prepared at the tomb. If the descendants of the dead ceased or neglected to provide the funeral feast, the dead would emerge from their tombs and, their moans being heard in the dead of night, they would seek to punish the living, forcing them to resume the funeral feasts. These events are recounted by Herodotus, Aeschylus, Pliny the Younger and Ovid: ‘One day, the duty to honour the dead is forgotten, and then the souls emerge from their graves and are heard running and screaming through the streets of the city and across the plains of Latium, until sacrifices are brought to their graves’79).
All these beliefs and acts of worship are found among both the Romans and the Greeks, which demonstrates that they are much older, and that the Romans and Greeks inherited them, thus implying a common Indo-European religious heritage.
In the Roman Empire, as we have seen, the cult of the dead was essentially a family cult, even though it was also widespread as a public festival. Relatives and friends would gather at the grave and share a meal with the deceased; in their view, this was not merely symbolic but a concrete reality—a feast in which those who had passed into the other world also took part.
For a considerable period, Christians continued these ‘memoria mortuorum’, embodied in the so-called Parentalia, but gave them a new symbolic perspective, one that was far more spiritualised and much more open to fellow human beings. Christianity succeeded in transforming the feasts at gravesides, the memoria communis, practised throughout the Greco-Roman world at the very least, by giving them a social dimension and shielding them from the danger of being ‘appropriated’ by families, the memoria familiaris.
The Holy Fathers of the early centuries, as a whole, strove to purify these funerary practices of all pre-Christian influences, cladding them in the garments of the true faith: ‘When peace came to the Church, a group of pagans who wished to convert to Christianity were rejected because they spent their idol-worshipping feast days in an abundance of food and drink’80 In addition to the moral excesses taking place at these funeral feasts, they had also begun to take on an increasingly ostentatious character. In this regard, the Church Fathers of the early centuries of Christianity began to combat both the immoralities that were taking place and their ‘competitive’ nature. Thus, Peter Brown observed that Blessed Augustine ‘was willing to accept a kind of feast as long as it was not competitive in nature, did not become exclusive, or provide an occasion for the family to show off the number of servants’81).
The conviviality of funeral feasts organised near graves served as an argument for the Church Fathers, who sought very early on, from the dawn of Christianity, to suppress them, considering them immoral and lacking any onto-theological foundation.
Tertullian addresses the issue of funeral banquets, using a variety of terms: silicernium, cena, cenula, triclinium, convivium, epulum and parentatio. These terms refer to both pagan and Christian feasts, which he contrasts with the term agape (ἀγάπη), which denotes exclusively the communal, fraternal meals of Christians. In his work Apologeticum, he compares funeral feasts with those offered to the gods: ‘In what way does the banquet of Jupiter (epulum Iouis) differ from a funeral feast (silicernium), a funeral vessel from a libation vessel, an embalmer from a haruspic priest? For does not a haruspic also take part in the funeral?’82 The term silicernium remains rather obscure, but from Marcus Terentius Varro’s Menippean Satires, we understand quite well what this concept denotes: ‘After we have accompanied the deceased, we hold at the grave, according to the ancient custom, a lavish funeral feast [that is, perideipnon]. When we leave after supper, we say to one another: ‘Be well!’83’.
The Silicernium was a feast held immediately after the burial, bringing together the entire bereaved family at the grave. This meal was, above all, a rite of purification, followed by a nine-day period of mourning (nouemdial), which was also intended to strengthen the unity and solidarity of the group taking part in it84 Thus, it is easy to see that Tertullian is concerned not only with the moral aspects of funeral feasts, but also with their theological implications: he saw in them a ritual of communion with the dead, indeed a ‘cena demoniorum’: ‘We do not sacrifice, we do not offer to the Manes (we do not take part in the Parentalia); we do not eat anything that has been offered to the gods or the Manes at the Parentalia, for we cannot partake of the Lord’s Supper and the feast of the devils’85’.
Another key reason that led Tertullian to address the issue of commemorative feasts is that of the reality of the soul’s immortality, in contrast to the body’s disintegration after death into the elements of which it was composed. These feasts, because they are held at the grave, explicitly show that the bereaved family believed that through them they were sharing a meal with the deceased, which means that they continued to identify him with his body and not with his soul, which certainly resides only in the ‘familia funestae memoria’ (the memory of the bereaved family), and not in the ‘monumentum’ (the grave). This ancient belief, writes Tertullian, formally contradicts the Holy Scriptures, as well as reason. Tertullian points out that visible death corresponds to the separation of the soul from the body and, all the more so, to the departure of the soul, which no longer retains any connection with the body, which it leaves behind on this earth in the grave: ‘But I ask for your sober judgement (sobriam tuam sententiam). You call the dead “the wretched” (misellos vocas mortuos) when you speak of your own, whilst you are far from them. For at their table (convivio), where they are in a sense present and beside you, you could not disapprove of their fate. You must flatter those thanks to whom you enjoy such fine feasts. Do you call unhappy the one who feels nothing? But when you speak ill of one whose memory is unpleasant to you? You pray that the earth may be heavy upon him (terram gravem) and that the gods of the underworld may subject his ashes to torments’86 It is therefore absurd to wish to share a meal with the dead, by organising a feast (defunctis parentat) at the grave which contains only their body. To fail to recognise this is to be naïve and ignorant. Very often, this blindness is such that the very same people who claim to satisfy the dead by offering food to their dead bodies are the ones who nevertheless burn them, without asking themselves whether they are thereby causing them harm 87. Christians commemorate the dead, writes Tertullian, through prayer and the offering of gifts on the anniversary of their death: ‘On the contrary, she prays for his soul and implores relief for it, as well as a share in the first resurrection, and offers a (liturgical) sacrifice on the annual days commemorating his passing / Enimvero et pro anima eius orat et refrigerium interim adpostulat ei et in prima resurrectione consortium et offert annuis diebus dormitionis eius’88).
The texts from Tertullian’s writings on the correct manner of commemorating the dead already contain the main arguments later used in patristic theology to condemn the ancient ways of commemorating the dead, with a view to replacing these ancestral practices, bequeathed by pagan tradition and which are the fruit of the imagination of people who have strayed from their Creator. All this betrays ignorance and superstition and stems from a complete misunderstanding of what the death of the body truly is and of its place within the ontological reality of humankind. They reflect the confusion between the dead and the gods, since they celebrate both the latter and the former, and, moreover, the confusion between the person and their body. All of this becomes, for Tertullian, grounds for defending the Christian agape in preference to pagan funeral feasts: ‘Our agape feasts (cena nostra) derive their very being from the name they bear: this word, so called, means “love” in Greek. However much they may cost us, we consider ourselves repaid for the expense incurred in the name of love for our neighbour, if through this comfort we alleviate (refrigerium) in some measure the needs of those in want, not in the way that, among you, parasites pride themselves on sacrificing their freedom for the sake of filling their stomachs, so as to be the object of others’ mockery, but in the way that, in God’s sight, the needy enjoy a greater love”89
Tertullian’s teaching on the commemoration of the departed differs fundamentally from that of pagan antiquity: in the face of death, the Christian’s attitude stands in stark contrast to that of the pagan. According to this criterion, only acts of worship deemed to be in accordance with the belief in the resurrection are permitted, for the death of a Christian is truly a birth. Recalling the ancient myth of the Phoenix, Tertullian, in his famous words, emphasises the reality of our birth through death: ‘natali fine decedens atque succedens, iterum phoenix ubi nemo iam’90
Ever since Tertullian’s time, and probably long before him, the Christian Church has remembered the departed during the Eucharistic sacrifice. A term that cannot be overlooked in this regard from Tertullian’s theological vocabulary—drawn from Scripture (cf. the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon II, 1: ‘non est refrigerium in fine hominis’), is that of ‘refrigerium’, through which death is expressed as rest whilst awaiting the resurrection, a teaching already attested in the New Testament: ‘Blessed are the dead, those who now die in the Lord! Yes, says the Spirit, let them rest (requiescant) from their labours, for their deeds follow them” (Revelation XIV, 13).
This term has a dual meaning, in its verbal form (refrigerare) or noun form (refrigerium). The basic meaning refers to a low temperature—cold, cool— whilst the figurative meaning has a theological connotation, from the Christian perspective of death perceived as sleep, as relief, as liberation from the heat of this world and the eternal fire of the world beyond. It is not difficult to understand how this term evolved from a meaning related to a state of temperature to a metaphorical meaning, imbued with soteriological significance, to denote rest in God after death, amongst Latin-speaking Christian authors. The main Latin terms expressing this rest of the grave are refrigerium / refrigerare, requies / requiescere, and dormitio / dormire.
For Christians, refrigerium is the state of eternal life in God, which is experienced in two phases: through the first resurrection, which is partial, and the second resurrection, which is complete, as the resurrected person lives in the peace of the Kingdom of God. The path to this refrigerium is, according to Tertullian’s teaching, the Eucharistic sacrifice on the anniversary days (annuis diebus) of the dormitio, which the living must offer for the departed. Even though we have no details of how this annual commemoration was celebrated during the Eucharistic Sacrifice, it is clear that its purpose was precisely this refrigerium for the deceased, by which Tertullian understood the reward for a life lived in faith. The feast enjoyed by those who have fallen asleep is the Eucharistic feast and not the pagan feast of the Parentalia.
In the literary works of Saint Cyprian, the term ‘refrigerium’ appears, it seems, five times. For him, ‘refrigerium’ is a gift that God bestows upon the righteous as a reward for their virtuous life, whilst the unvirtuous receive punishment, manifested in the unquenchable fire. The first attestation of this word is found in De mortalitate, where he urges Christians to face death courageously and peacefully: ‘The righteous are called to rest in coolness, the unrighteous are led to torment’91 Because the righteous lead a virtuous existence and live a life of holiness on earth, they are called by the Lord after their physical death to rest ad refrigerium (in the coolness). The state of ‘refrigeration’ enjoyed by the righteous refers to a state of heavenly bliss and peace and does not refer to a space that can be localised, since this rest takes place outside the framework of space and time. It is the state of peace and rest in God. In Letter LIX, to Brother Cornelius, Saint Cyprian, recalling the biblical parable of the unmerciful rich man and the poor man Lazarus, ‘he who was placed in the coolness (in refrigerio) in the bosom of Abraham’92 uses the same term, refrigerium, to illustrate the contrasting state of the two, the rich man being ‘tormented, scorched by the flames of the burning fire’93
Because the righteous lead a virtuous existence and live a life of holiness on earth, they are called by the Lord after their physical death to rest ad refrigerium (in the coolness)… It is the state of peace and rest in God.
Blessed Augustine uses the term refrigerarium / refrigerare very frequently both in his Commentaries on the Psalms and in his Sermons, clarifying the meaning of this concept and attributing to it the synonym ‘quies’: ‘refrigerium propter quietem dicitur’94 Augustine asserts that the Holy Sacraments have as their ultimate purpose rest in eternal life.
Augustine does not oppose funeral feasts a priori—this ‘memoria mortuis’, organised by the living— but he condemns all the immoral practices associated with the Parentalia rituals, whilst encouraging participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the only feast capable of saving man from eternal death. A passage from his Confessions offers Augustine’s personal account of his mother’s practices relating to the Parentatio. Indeed, his mother, Monica, had set out one day for Mediolanum to honour the memory of the dead and the martyrs. Blessed Augustine recounts the following about this episode: ‘So, when she brought to the tombs of the saints (ad memorias sanctorum), as was the custom in Africa, stew, bread and wine, and was stopped by the gatekeeper, and when she learnt that the bishop had ordered this, she accepted the command so devoutly and with such obedience that I myself marvelled at how readily she had become, rather, a critic of her own custom than an inquisitor into that obstacle. Indeed, her mind was not preoccupied with the drink of wine, nor did her love of wine lead her to hate the truth […]. On the contrary, after she had brought in a basket of festive dishes, intended for tasting and sharing (praegustandis atque largiendis), she would pour no more than a small glass of wine, prepared to her own taste, rather weak, to make a gesture of dignity; and if there were the graves of the departed who were to be honoured in this way, she would even carry that single glass everywhere, to place it, so that – not only diluted with plenty of water, but also very slightly warmed – she might share it with those present in small sips, for it was piety, not pleasure, that she sought there (quia pietatem ibi quaerebat, non voluptatem)’95
Saint Ambrose warned of the risks of intemperance and confusion with the pagan rite of Parentalia. His pastoral measure was aimed, first and foremost, at avoiding excesses at these feasts, but also, not least, at protecting Christians from any superstition. According to Augustine’s account, Monica showed obedience to Saint Ambrose’s pastoral advice, spiritually transforming the offerings she brought in memory of the saints. Monica, having learnt from the cemetery gatekeeper that Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, ‘that most brilliant preacher and leader of piety, had ordered that these things should no longer be done, not even by those who used to do them whilst sober, so as not to give drunkards any cause for quarrelling, and because those practices were very similar to the ‘feasts of the dead among the pagans’ (et quia illa quasi parentalia superstitioni gentilium essent simillima), he gladly refrained from them and, instead of a basket full of the fruits of the earth, had grown accustomed to bringing to the martyrs’ tombs (ad memorias martyrum) a heart full of purer desires, so that he might give to the needy whatever he could and, in this way, celebrate the communion of the Lord’s Body (sic communicatio dominici corporis illic celebraretur), in imitation of Whom the martyrs had sacrificed themselves and been crowned (cuius passionis imitatione immolati et coronati sunt martyres)’96
The funerary cult which Monica practised for the dead and the martyrs highlights two pagan rites associated with this ‘Parentatio’: the offering of food in advance and the distribution of offerings. Augustine presents his mother’s offering as exemplary precisely because of its simplicity and restraint, since her sole concern was pietas defunctorum, and she avoided any excess. The phrase ‘amputanda consuetudine’ (‘a custom that must be cut off’) clearly reveals the excesses that existed in the practice of the pietas defunctorum ritual in the time of Blessed Augustine. We may add in this regard an Eastern testimony which highlights the provisions of the Church of Antioch against excesses during funeral feasts, contained in the so-so-called Apostolic Constitutions, drawn up around the year 380, which leads us to believe that the excesses associated with funeral feasts were not merely an isolated phenomenon in Rome, Mediolanum or Carthage, but were widespread throughout the Greco-Roman Empire. Thus, after listing the days on which the departed are to be commemorated: ‘Let the third day of those who have fallen asleep be celebrated with psalms and prayers because of Him who rose on the third day, the ninth day in remembrance of those who remain and of those who have fallen asleep, the thirtieth day, following the ancient example, for thus did the people mourn Moses, and the completion of one year in remembrance (commemoration) of him97; it is stated that alms must be given from the deceased’s estate in his memory: ‘καὶ διδόσθω ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων αὐτοῦ πένησιν εἰς ἀνάμνησιν αὐτοῦ’98 draws attention to the fact that funeral feasts must be held with propriety, in moderation, without excess: ‘But when you are called to commemorate them, eat in an orderly manner and with the fear of God, as those who have the power to intercede for those who have passed away’99
- 1
St John Chrysostom, ‘Homily on the Name of the Cemetery and on the Cross of our Lord and God Jesus Christ’, in Sermons on the Great Feasts, trans. Fr. Dumitru Fecioru, ‘Sources of Orthodoxy’ series, vol. V, Church Books Press, Bucharest, 1942, p. 110, (in this volume the title of the homily is translated as ‘Homily on the Cross of the Lord’).
- 2
St John Chrysostom, ‘Homily on the Name of the Cemetery and on the Cross of our Lord and God Jesus Christ’, pp. 110–111.
- 3
Euripides, Hippolytus, 1437–1438: “For it is not my lot to behold the perishable, nor to let my eyes be harmed by deadly breaths.”
- 4
St John Chrysostom, ‘Homily on the Name of the Cemetery and on the Cross of our Lord and God Jesus Christ’, p. 118.
- 5
Otto Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde. Grundzüge einer Kultur-und Völkergeschichte Alteuropas, Strasbourg, 1901, p. 80.
- 6
Liana Lupaș, ‘The Names of the Tomb in Latin’, in Studii Clasice, V, 1963, pp. 111–135.
- 7
Anatole Bailly, Greek–French Dictionary, Hachette, Paris, 2000, p. 1109.
- 8
Pierre Chantraine, Etymological Dictionary of the Greek Language: A History of Words, Paris, Klincksieck, 1999, p. 509.
- 9
See also Anatole Bailly, Dictionnaire grec-français, p. 1109.
- 10
St John Chrysostom, ‘Homily on the Name of the Cemetery and on the Cross of our Lord and God Jesus Christ’, p. 111.
- 11
St John Chrysostom, ‘Homily on the Name of the Cemetery and on the Cross of Our Lord and God Jesus Christ’, p. 112.
- 12
cf. Antoine Meillet and Alfred Ernout, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: Histoire des mots, Paris, Klincksieck, 1951, p. 233
- 13
Tertullian, De anima 51, 7, in Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, Opera. Part II: Opera montanistica, col. ‘Corpus Christianorum, Series latina’, II, Brepols, 1954, p. 858.
- 14
Saint Cyprian, Letter LXXX, I, 4, translated by Prof. Ion Diaconescu and Prof. Dr Ovidiu Pop, with a preface by Prof. Ion Diaconescu, Sophia Publishers, Bucharest, 2011, p. 426.
- 15
See Charles Bayet, De titulis Atticae christianis antiquissimis commentatio historica et epigraphica, Paris, 1878, pp. 43–46.
- 16
S. Aurelius Augustinus, CSEL, vol. 41, ed. J. Zycha, Vienna – Prague – Leipzig, 1900, pp. 619–660; Patrologia Latina, vol. 40, col. 591–610.
- 17
cf. Saint Ambrose of Milan, De Helia et ieiunio, 17, 62–65, in CSEL, vol. XXXII, part II, ed. Carolus Schenkl, Prague–Vienna–Leipzig, 1897, pp. 448–450.
- 18
St Augustine, Confessions, VI, II, 2, trans. Nicolae Barbu, IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1994, p. 179.
- 19
The expression is attributed to the philosopher Andrei Pleșu; see Andrei Pleșu, The Picturesque and Melancholy: An Analysis of the Sense of Nature in European Culture, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1992.
- 20
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, On Infants Who Die Prematurely, to Hierios, trans. by Rev. Prof. Dr Teodor Bodogae, in PSB, vol. 30, IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 1998, p. 422.
- 21
Propertius, Elegiae, IV, VII, 1: ‘Letum non omnia finit’.
- 22
Martial, Epigrams, IX, XXIX, 11: ‘Sit tibi terra leuis!’.
- 23
See Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City: A Study of the Cult, Law and Institutions of Greece and Rome, Vol. I, Meridiane, Bucharest, 1984, pp. 27–28.
- 24
Sophocles, Antigone, 244–247, trans. George Fotino in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Theatre: The Persians, Antigone, The Trojan Women, Ed. Tineretului, Bucharest, 1968, p. 123.
- 25
Sophocles, Antigone, 71–74, p. 106: “But do as you see fit; as for him, I / shall bury him: it seems right to me to die having done this. / I shall lie down with him, my beloved, alongside my beloved, / having done all these things.”
- 26
Cicero, De Legibus II, 22.
- 27
Plutarch, Solon, XXI, 1: ‘For he regards those who have usurped the priesthood as sacred’.
- 28
Homer, The Odyssey, Book X, line 526: “αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν εὐχῇσι λίσῃ κλυτὰ ἔθνεα νεκρῶν”.
- 29
Tibullus, Elegiae, II, 6, 31: ‘Illa mihi sancta est’.
- 30
Propertius, Elegiae, III, XVI, 23–24: “He will bring these ointments to me and, sitting by my tomb, / the guardian will adorn the tomb with wreaths.”
- 31
Ch. Daremberg and Edm. Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines d’après les textes et les monuments, vol. 3, Part I, Hachette, Paris, 1900, pp. 515–516 and Felix Gaffiot, Latin–French Dictionary, Hachette, Paris, 1934, p. 817.
- 32
Ch. Daremberg and Edm. Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, vol. I, 2, Paris, 1887, p. 1524.
- 33
Homer, The Iliad, Book I, line 14: “holding the crown in the hands of Apollo, the archer”.
- 34
Homer, The Iliad XVIII, 597: “καί ῥ᾽ αἳ μὲν καλὰς στεφάνας ἔχον”.
- 35
Euripides, The Phoenician Women, 1632–1633: “Whoever buries this dead man, whether by covering him with salt or earth, shall be exchanged for death.”
- 36
Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City. A Study of the Cult, Law and Institutions of Greece and Rome, Vol. I, Meridiane, Bucharest, 1984, p. 224.
- 37
Sappho, quoted in Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, XV, 16.
- 38
Chairemon, in Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, XV, 19.
- 39
Pline the Elder, Natural History, XXI, V, 1, text edited, translated and annotated by Jacques André, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1969: ‘In those Twelve Tables: Whoever forges a crown for himself, or for his wealth, is therefore the giver of it by virtue of his own merit’.
- 40
Cicero, De legibus, II, XXIV, 60: ‘Ne sumptuosa respersio, ne longae coronae, necacerrae praetereantur’.
- 41
Pline the Elder, Natural History, XXI, III, 4: “For it was the custom in sacred contests to be crowned with the branches of trees first.”
- 42
Pline the Elder, Natural History, XXI, V, 8: “The crowns of the gods, the public lares, the private lares, the sepulchres and the manes, and the supreme authority of the pactile crown.”
- 43
Virgil, The Aeneid, Book V, lines 109–110.
- 44
Virgil, Aeneid, Book VII, line 75.
- 45
Tertullian, De corona, 6, 3: ‘omnia a diabolo esse mutata’, in Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, Opera. Part II: Montanist Works, in the series ‘Corpus Christianorum, Series latina’, II, Brepols, 1954, p. 1047.
- 46
Tertullian, De corona, 1, 6: ‘Ubi autem prohibemur coronari?’, p. 1041.
- 47
Tertullian, De corona, 1, 6, p. 1041.
- 48
Tertullian, De corona, 2, 4: ‘It may be said that it is permissible to wear a crown because Scripture does not forbid it; and it may be equally argued that it is not permissible to wear a crown because Scripture does not command it’, p. 1042.
- 49
Tertullian, De corona, 7, 3–9, pp. 1048–1050.
- 50
Tertullian, De corona, 10, 8, p. 1055.
- 51
Tertullian, De corona, 10, 2: ‘It is also the practice to crown the dead in this way, since they too immediately become idols through the rites and rituals of consecration, which among us is a second form of idolatry’, p. 1053.
- 52
Tertullian, De corona, 15, 1, p. 1064.
- 53
cf. Giuseppe Biamonte, ‘From the Pagan Sign to the Christian Symbol’, in Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni, 58, Rome–L’Aquila, 1992, p. 99.
- 54
Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue, II, VIII, 70, trans. Fr. Dumitru Fecioru, in: PSB, vol. 4, IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1982, p. 270.
- 55
Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue, Book II, Chapter VIII, 71, p. 271.
- 56
Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue, II, VIII, 72, p. 271.
- 57
Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue, Book II, Chapter VIII, 72, p. 272
- 58
Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue, II, VIII, 73, p. 272
- 59
Saint Justin the Martyr and Philosopher, Apology I, XXIV, trans. Rev. Prof. Olimp N. Căciulă, in Greek Apologists, PSB, vol. 2, IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 1982, p. 41
- 60
Minucius Felix, Octavius, XXXVIII, 3–4, trans. by Paul Papadopol and Prof. David Popescu, in PSB, vol. 3, IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1981, p. 393.
- 61
Minucius Felix, Octavius, XII, 6, p. 363: ‘coronasetiam sepulchris denegatis’.
- 62
Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Letters, VI, 1, 2, p. 40.
- 63
Eusebius of Caesarea, The Life of Constantine the Great, II, 48, 2, trans. Radu Alexandrescu, with an introductory study by Prof. Dr. Emilian Popescu, PSB, vol. 14, Ed. IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1991, p. 112..
- 64
St Basil the Great, Homily V: On the Martyr Julitta, II, PG 31, 23–240B.
- 65
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Saint Macrina, 19, translated from the Greek by Ioan Pătrulescu, with notes, an afterword and a bibliography by Cristian Bădiliță, Anastasia Publishers, Bucharest, 2004, p. 37.
- 66
“Other husbands scatter violets, roses, lilies and purple flowers upon the graves of their spouses, and find solace for the sorrow in their hearts through these acts”; Blessed Jerome, Letter 66, 5, translated by Dan Negrescu, in Epistles, Volume II, edited by Ana-Cristina Halichias, Basilica, Bucharest, 2008, p. 150.
- 67
Paulinus of Nola, Poem XIV. On the Feast of St Felice. Poem III, PL 61, 467C.
- 68
Plutarch, Aristides, 21, 5.
- 69
Homer, The Iliad, Book XXIII, lines 218–221, translated into Romanian by Dan Slușanschi, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2019, p. 458.
- 70
Homer, The Odyssey, Book XI, lines 25–26, translated into Romanian by Dan Slușanschi, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2012, p. 170.
- 71
Virgil, Aeneid, Book V, lines 75–80, translated by Dan Slușanschi, Paideia, Bucharest, 2000, p. 115
- 72
Cornelius Nepos, Fragments, 12, in On Great Generals. On Historians, translated by J. C. Rolfe. Loeb Classical Library, vol. 467, Harvard University Press, 1929, pp. 328–329
- 73
Ausonius, Parentalia, Prose Preface: ‘The title of this treatise is Parentalia. This day bears an ancient name and was established by Numa to honour the spirits of one’s relatives.’
- 74
Virgil, Aeneid, Book V, lines 55–60, p. 115.
- 75
Ovid, Fasti, 2, 569–572
- 76
As Ovid writes in Fasti, 2, 535
- 77
Ovid, Fasti, 2, 565–566
- 78
Petronius, Satyricon, 78.
- 79
Ovid, Fasti, 2, 549–556
- 80
Augustine, Epistles, XXIX, 9, in PL 33, 118.
- 81
Peter Brown, The Cult of Saints: Its Origins and Role in Latin Christianity, published by Amarcord & CEU Press, Timișoara, 1995, p. 44.
- 82
Tertullian, Apologeticum XIII, 7, in PSB, vol. 3, p. 59.
- 83
Marcus Terentius Varro, Fragments of the Menippean Satires, edited by Raymond Astbury, second edition, in the series ‘Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana’, Saur, 2002, p. 51: ‘We prepared a lavish funeral feast at the tomb in the ancient manner of the Silicerni [that is, a perideipnon]. After the meal, as we took our leave, we bid each other farewell.’
- 84
G. Dumézil, La religion romaine archaïque, 2nd ed., Paris, 1974, pp. 605–606.
- 85
Tertullian, De spectaculis, XIII, 4, in Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, Opera. Part I: Opera Catholica. Adversus Marcionem, col. ‘Corpus Christianorum, Series latina’, I, Brepols, 1954, p. 239: ‘We do not offer sacrifices, nor do we make offerings. Nor do we partake of the sacrifice or the offering, for we cannot partake of the Lord’s Supper and the supper of demons.”
- 86
Tertullian, De testimonio animae, IV, 5, in Opera. Part I: Opera Catholica. Adversus Marcionem, p. 179.
- 87
Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, I, I, PL 2, 795.
- 88
Tertullian, On Monogamy, X, 5, in Opera. Part II: The Montanist Works, p. 1243.
- 89
Tertullian, Apologeticum, XXXIX, 16, in Opera. Part I: Opera Catholica. Adversus Marcionem, p. 152.
- 90
Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, XIII, 2, in PL 2, 811.
- 91
Saint Cyprian, On Mortality, XV: ‘The righteous are called to rest, whilst the unrighteous are carried off to their punishment’, in CSEL, vol. III, Part I, ed. G. Hartelius, Vienna, 1868, p. 306.
- 92
Saint Cyprian, Letter LIX, III, 3, p. 244.
- 93
Saint Cyprian, Letter LIX, III, 3, p. 244; cf. CSEL, 3, Part II, ed. G. Hartelius, Vienna, 1871, p. 670.
- 94
Aurelius Augustinus, Commentaries on Psalm 65, 17.
- 95
St Augustine, Confessions, VI, II, 2, trans. Nicolae Barbu, IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1994, pp. 179–180.
- 96
Blessed Augustine, Confessions, VI, II, 2, p. 180.
- 97
Apostolic Constitutions VIII, XLII, 1–4, in Les Constitutions apostoliques, Volume III: Books VII–VIII, Introduction, critical text, translation and notes by Marcel Metzger, ‘Sources Chrétiennes’ series, vol. 336, Ed. du Cerf, Paris, 1987, pp. 258–261: ‘Let the third part be devoted to those who have fallen asleep, through psalms and prayers, for the sake of him who was raised after three daysand on the ninth day in remembrance of those who have departed and those who have fallen asleep, and forty days according to the old custom, for the people mourned Moses in this way; and for a year in his memory”.
- 98
Apostolic Constitutions VIII, XLII, 5, in SC, 336, pp. 260–261.
- 99
Apostolic Constitutions VIII, XLIV, 1, in SC, 336, pp. 260–261: “In their memorials, you are called to act with order and the fear of God, as those who are able to intercede on behalf of those who have departed”.