medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Apr 5, 2007, at 11:32 AM, Maureen A. Tilley wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> culture
> BMC wrote:
>
> Wasn't this part of the point of burning at the stake, to prevent
> any body
> parts remaining and so
> a) preventing anyone collecting relics and
> b) depriving the deceased of a chance of bodily resurrection on the
> Last
> Day.
>
> Given the Christian belief in the omnipotence of God, I don't think
> that option b) would have been the major issue. In Augustine's City
> of God XXII.20, he discusses a host of things that might happen to
> a body or part of a body, none of which would have been an obstacle
> to God's raising a person, whole and entire, for the Last Judgment.
> The most pertinent example was the eating of a part of a person by
> a cannibal.
But even considering God to be omnipotent, having one's body NOT
buried in consecrated ground in the proper way was something people
actually did fear. IIRC, non-burial was felt to be an additional
horror, on top of the torture and everything else, for criminals who
were drawn and quartered. People seemed to react to the prospect as
though not having a grave was tantamount to wiping out all evidence
that the person had ever existed.
____________________________________________________________
O Chris Laning <[log in to unmask]> - Davis, California
+ http://paternoster-row.org - http://paternosters.blogspot.com
____________________________________________________________
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