Grave-clothes
Grave-Clothes
GRAVE-CLOTHES.The account in the Gospels of the circumstances attending the burial of our Lord illustrates fully the general practice of the time with regard to grave-clothes. The body of Jesus, doubtless after being bathed, after the manner of the Jews as well as of the Greeks (Act 9:37, cf. Gospel of Peter, 6), was wrapped (, Mat 27:59, Luk 23:53) or swathed (, Mar 15:46) in the shroud of linen cloth () which Joseph of Arimathaea had procured on his way back to Golgotha, and which is described as fresh or unused (, Mat 27:59), in accordance with the sacred use to which it was put (cf. Mar 11:2). Spices were next crumbled between the folds of the linen ( , Joh 19:40), and the whole was then bound together with strips of cloth (, Joh 19:40; cf. , Joh 11:44). The face was covered with a separate face-cloth or napkin ( , Joh 20:7).
In later Judaism it was held that the resemblance of the future to the present body was so close that men would rise in the same clothes in which they were buried, on the analogy of the grain of corn which comes up from the earth not naked, but clothed (cf. 1Co 15:37). And accordingly the Rabbis were in the habit of giving careful directions as to their grave-clothes (Weber, Jud. Theol.2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] p. 370). This frequently led, however, to such unnecessary expense in the way of luxurious wrappings, that by way of protest Rabbi Gamaliel left directions that he was to be buried in simple linen garments, while his grandson limited the number of grave-clothes to one dress (see Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, p. 168 f.). At the present day, among Jews as well as Mohammedans, the corpse is attired in the ordinary holiday attire of life.
Literature.See under art. Burial, also art. Begrbnis bei den Hebraern in Herzog, PRE [Note: RE Real-Encyklopdie fur protest. Theologic und Kirche.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , with the literature there cited.
George Milligan.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Grave-clothes
denotes, firstly, “a band” either for a bed girth, or bed sheets themselves (Sept. of Pro 7:16.); then, “the swathings wrapped round a corpse;” it is used in the plural in Joh 11:44.