Cremation
cremation
(Latin: cremre, to burn)
The destruction by fire, of the human body, in opposition to the burying of corpses. It was customary among the semi-barbarous Pre-Canaanites, but neither universal nor constant among the Greeks and Romans. The Jews buried the dead. Hence, the Christians had the example of the Semites for their own exclusively employed form of burying their dead. The Church has never deviated from this time-honored practise. Although no article of faith would be jeopardized by cremation, it was looked upon as an abomination in the sight of God, being a violent and unnatural destruction of the human body, as Boniface VIII declared. It is well known that Freemasons especially promoted cremation in a defiant way, particularly since their meeting at Naples , 1869. The number of crematories does not increase rapidly, as men instinctively abhor the process. The Church has frequently warred against it, consequently the law of the Church reprobates cremation. It is not lawful for a Catholic to carry out the order of anyone who chooses or directs that his body be cremated (canon 1203). Those who order their body to be cremated, unless they retract this order before death, are deprived of ecclesiastical burial (canon 1240). Those who dare to command or compel competent authorities to give Christian burial to such as have their bodies cremated incur excommunication reserved to none.
Note: the most recent Code of Canon Law states:
The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burial be retained; but it does not forbid cremation, unless this is chosen for reasons which are contrary to christian teaching. (canon 1176.3)
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Cremation
I. HISTORY
The custom of burning the bodies of the dead dates back to very early times. The Pre-Canaanites practised it until the introduction of inhumation among them along with the civilization of the Semitic people about 2500 B.C. History reveals no trace of incineration among the Jewish people, except in extraordinary circumstances of war and pestilence. It was likewise unknown, in practice at least, to the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians; or to the inhabitants of Asia Minor — the Carians, Lydians, and Phrygians. The Babylonians, according to Herodotus, embalmed their dead, and the Persians punished capitally such as attempted cremation, special regulations being followed in the purification of fire so desecrated. The Greeks and Romans varied in their practice according to their views of the after life; those who believed in a future existence analogous to the present buried their dead, even leaving food in the tomb for nourishment and enjoyment of the departed; such as, on the other hand, held the opinion that on the decay of the body life was continued in the shade or image, practised cremation, the more expeditiously to speed the dead to the land of shadows. But the practice of cremating never entirely superseded what Cicero tells us (De Leg., II, xxii) was the older rite among the Roman people. Indeed the Cornelian gens, one of the most cultured in Rome, had, with the single exception of Sulla, never permitted the burning of their dead. By the fifth century of the Christian Era, owing in great part to the rapid progress of Christianity, the practice of cremation had entirely ceased.
The Christians never burned their dead, but followed from earliest days the practice of the Semitic race and the personal example of their Divine Founder. It is recorded that in times of persecution many risked their lives to recover the bodies of martyrs for the holy rites of Christian burial. The pagans, to destroy faith in the resurrection of the body, often cast the corpses of martyred Christians into the flames, fondly believing thus to render impossible the resurrection of the body. What Christian faith has ever held in this regard is clearly put by the third-century writer Minucius Felix, in his dialogue “Octavius”, refuting the assertion that cremation made this resurrection an impossibility: “Nor do we fear, as you suppose, any harm from the [mode of] sepulture, but we adhere to the old, and better, custom” (“Nec, ut creditis, ullum damnum sepulturae timemus sed veterem et meliorem consuetudinem humandi frequentamus” — P.L., III, 362).
II. CHURCH LEGISLATION
(1) In the Middle Ages
In all the legislation of the Church the placing of the body in the earth or tomb was a part of Christian burial. In the acts of the Council of Braga (Hardouin, III, 352), in the year 563, while we read that bodies of the dead are by no means to be buried within the basilicas where rest the remains of Apostles and martyrs, we are told that they may be buried without the wall; and that if cities have long forbidden the interment of the dead within their walls, with much greater right should the reverence due the holy martyrs claim this privilege. The same may be seen in the canons of other councils — e.g. of Nantes, between the seventh and ninth centuries; of Mainz, in the ninth century; of Tribur, in the ninth century. This legislation evidently supposes the long-standing custom of burial such as the Church practises to-day, and shows that in the sixth century, in other places than Rome, where even to-day the old law of the Twelve Tables exerts a moral influence, the Church had so far conquered the prejudice of the past as to have gained the privilege of burying her dead within the city walls and within the enclosure of the churchyard. Once in the course of the Middle Ages did there seem to be on the part of some a retrogression to the pagan ideals, and as a consequence Boniface VIII, on 21 February, 1300, in the sixth year of his pontificate, promulgated a law which was in substance as follows: They were ipso facto excommunicated who disembowelled bodies of the dead or inhumanly boiled them to separate the flesh from the bones, with a view to transportation for burial in their native land. “Detestandae feritatis abusum”, he calls it, and it was practised in case of those of noble rank who had died outside of their own territory and had expressed a wish to be buried at their place of birth. He speaks of it as an abomination in the sight of God and horrifying to the minds of the faithful, decreeing that, thereafter, such bodies are either to be conveyed whole to the spot chosen or buried at the place of death until, in the course of nature, the bones can be removed for burial elsewhere. Those who were party to these enormities either as the cause or agent of their occurrence were to incur excommunication reserved to the Holy See, while the body thus inhumanly treated could not afterward be given ecclesiastical burial (“Extrav. Comm.”, Lib. III, Tit. vi, c. i.).
(2) Decrees of Roman Congregations
This rigid adherence to the principles of the early teaching of the Church may be seen in the later decrees of the Roman Congregations. The Vicar Apostolic of Viznagapatam, in the year 1884, proposed the following difficulty to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda: The bodies of two neophytes had been cremated, the parents testifying that there had been no idolatrous ceremonies. Should the missioners in such cases protest against what is considered a privilege of caste, or may the following present practice be tolerated? — If a pagan seeks baptism at the hour of death, the missioner grants it, without questioning what mode of sepulture is to be given the body after death, persuaded that the pagan parents will make no account of his desire to be buried, not cremated. The answer was: “You must not approve of cremation, but remain passive in the matter and confer baptism; be careful also to instruct your people according to the principles which you set forth” (Cremationem approbare non debes, sed passive te habeas, collato semper baptismate, et populos instruendos cures juxta ea quae a te exponuntur). This was given on 27 September, 1884. In 1886 another decree forbade membership in cremation societies and declared the unlawfulness of demanding cremation for one’s own body or that of another. On 15 December in the same year a third decree was issued of more or less the same tenor, and finally on 27 July, 1892, the Archbishop of Freiburg, among other questions, asked whether it was lawful to cooperate in the cremation of bodies either by command or counsel, or to take part as doctor, official, or labourer working in the crematory. It was answered that formal co-operation, the assent of the will to the deed, is never allowed, either by command or counsel. Material co-operation, the mere aiding in the physical act, may be tolerated on condition that cremation be not looked upon as a distinctive mark of a Masonic sect; that there be nothing in it which of itself, directly and solely, expresses reprobation of Catholic doctrine and approbation of a sect; if it be not clear that the officials and others have been assigned or invited to take part in contempt of the Catholic Religion. And whereas, under the above restrictions, co-operators are to be left in good faith, they must always be warned not to intend co-operation in the cremation. (See “Collectanea S.C.P.F.”, nn. 1608, 1609; “Acta S. Sedis”, XXV, 63; “Am. Eccl. Rev.”, XII, 499.)
(3) Motives of this Legislation
The legislation of the Church in forbidding cremation rests on strong motives; for cremation in the majority of cases to-day is knit up with circumstances that make of it a public profession of irreligion and materialism. It was the Freemasons who first obtained official recognition of this practice from various governments. The campaign opened in Italy, the first attempts being made by Brunetti, at Padua, in 1873. Numerous societies were founded after this, at Dresden, Zurich, London, Paris. In the last city a crematory was established at Pere Lachaise, on the passing of the law of 1889 dealing with freedom of funeral rites. The Church has opposed from the beginning a practice which has been used chiefly by the enemies of the Christian Faith. Reasons based on the spirit of Christian charity and the plain interests of humanity have but strengthened her in her opposition. She holds it unseemly that the human body, once the living temple of God, the instrument of heavenly virtue, sanctified so often by the sacraments, should finally be subjected to a treatment that filial piety, conjugal and fraternal love, or even mere friendship seems to revolt against as inhuman. Another argument against cremation, and drawn from medico-legal sources, lies in this: That cremation destroys all signs of violence or traces of poison, and makes examination impossible, whereas a judicial autopsy is always possible after inhumation, even of some months.
Is cremation a sign of culture?
The report of the French Cremation Society of 1905 has the following: “There exist in Europe 90 crematories…and the number of incinerations is above 125,000.” In France there are 3 crematories, in the United Stated 29, in Great Britain 12, in Italy 30, in Germany 9, in Switzerland 4, in Sweden 2, in Denmark, Canada, the Argentine Republic, Australia, one each. “Let us not number here the appliances of Tokio, let us not speak of the pyres raised in the Indies, in China, in Siam, in Cambogia, at all points of the Asiatic Continent, from time immemorial Asia has burned her dead.” At first sight 125,000 seems a large number; but a glance at the Paris statistics will help us to realize its true value. From 1889 to 1905 there were 73,330 cremations in Paris. Only 3484 were by request; 37,082 were hospital debris; 32,757 were embryos. Of the requested cremations there were 216 in 1894, 354 in 1904 — an increase in ten years of 138 — not a large number, and it serves to prove than even Paris is progressing in the use of cremation very slowly indeed.
The arguments in favor of cremation may be reduced to a few heads: it will prevent the corruption of the soil; drinking water will be safeguarded against contamination; corruption of the air will be avoided in localities bordering on cemeteries, with a consequent lessening of the danger of infection in times of epidemic. In answer it has been urged that cemeteries are not a cause of the infection of the air. In any well-ordered cemetery putrefaction takes place six or seven feet below the surface. In the open air, with abundance of oxygen, corruption proceeds more quickly, with continuous discharge of noxious gases in large quantities highly deleterious to health, but it is not so in the grave. Mantegazza, a celebrated bacteriologist, has shown (“Civilta Cattolica”, Ser. IX, Vols. X-XII) that, where there is but a small supply of oxygen, bodies will decompose without the emanation of any odour whatever. Often, too, the human body is so reduced before death that in the earth it suffers little or no corruption at all, but is first mummified and then slowly reduced to dust. Again, earth-pressure prevents chemical decomposition to a great extent, producing in the place of gas a liquid which enters into various combinations with the materials in the soil, without the slightest danger to the living. Earth is a powerful agent of disinfection. Even with noxious gases to escape in any quantity, they would be absorbed on their way upwards, so that a very small part would ever reach the surface, or were the soil not fit for absorption (as was said to be the case at Pere-Lachaise, Paris) the process would be taken up by the vegetable matter on the surface. It is held, also, that it is no more true to say that cemeteries are a menace to water wells. Charnock, Delacroix, and Dalton have proved that of three parts of rain water only one penetrates the soil, the other two either evaporating or flowing into rivers. Now corpses in cemeteries are not so placed as to form continuous strata, but a moderate distance intervenes between any two bodies or rows of bodies. Of the third part of rain, then, which penetrates the soil of a graveyard a very little will touch the bodies at all, and what does will not all reach the water streams, but will be absorbed by the earth, so that the remaining drops that would ultimately trickle into the stream would have absolutely no effect, were the stream large or small. Two experiments have proved this. The doctors above mentioned selected a tank 6« feet high, filled it with sand, and for many months filtered through it sewer water taken from the drainage pipes of Paris. The water received at the bottom of the vessel was always found pure, clear and drinkable. A like experiment was made with a smaller vessel with like results. To anticipate the difficulty, that what held for an experiment with small quantities would prove untrue were the amount of water very great, a large tract of ground near Genvillers was inundated for many months with the same putrid and reeking waters of the Seine after they had passed through the sewers of Paris. The result was the same. Wells were dug in the inundated portion, and the water was again found pure and clear, purer, as it chanced, than that of other wells outside the boundary of the place of experiments. In like manner, the waters in the cemeteries of Leipzig, Hanover, Dresden, and Berlin were examined and found purer and freer from organic matter than the well of the town.
In conclusion, it must be remembered that there is nothing directly opposed to any dogma of the Church in the practice of cremation, and that, if ever the leaders of this sinister movement so far control the governments of the world as to make this custom universal, it would not be a lapse in the faith confided to her were she obliged to conform.
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In addition to the authorities cited in the body of this article, consult Corpus Juris Canonici; HARDOUIN, Coll. Conc., VI, 443; WERNZ, Jus Decretalium, III, 465; HOWE, Studies in the Civil Law, 302.
WILLIAM DEVLIN Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett Dedicated to Carol Hills & Rosie Wakefield
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Cremation
the burning of human corpses, was probably the general practice of the ancient world, with certain important exceptions. In Egypt dead bodies were embalmed; in Judmea they were buried in sepulchres; and in China they were buried in the earth. In Greece only suicides, unteethed children, and persons struck by lightning were denied the right to be burned; while at Rome, from the close of the republic to the end of the 4th century A.D., burning on the pyre or rogus was the general rule. Even the Jews used cremation in the vale of Tophet when a plague came; and the modern Jews of Berlin and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews at Mile-End cemetery have been among the first to welcome the lately revived process. Cremation is still practiced over a great part of Asia and America, but not always in the same form. Thus, the ashes may be stored in urns, or buried in the earth, or thrown to the wind, or smeared with gum on the heads of the mourners. In one case the three processes of embalming, burning, and burying are performed; and in another, if a member of the tribe die at a great distance from home, some of his money and clothes are nevertheless burned by the family. It is claimed by some that the practice of cremation in modern Europe was at first stopped, and has since been prevented in a great measure, by the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body; partly, also, by the notion that the Christian’s body was redeemed and purified. The very general practice of burying bodies in the precincts of a church in order that the dead might have the benefit of the prayers of persons resorting thither, and the religious ceremony which precedes both European burials and Asiatic cremations, have given the subject a religious aspect. The question is also a sanitary one, and has attracted very considerable attention lately.
For the last ten years many distinguished physicians and chemists in Italy have warmly advocated the general adoption of cremation, and, in 1874, a congress called to consider the matter at Milan resolved to petition the Chamber of Deputies for a clause in the new sanitary code, permitting cremation under the supervision of the syndics of the commune. In Switzerland there are two associations in support of the cause. In 1797 cremation began to be discussed by the French Assembly, under the Directory, and the events of the Franco-Prussian war have again brought the subject under notice. The military experiments at Sedan, Chalons, and Metz, of burying large numbers of bodies with quicklime, or, pitch and straw, were not successful, but very dangerous. The municipality of Vienna has formally made cremation permissive. There is a propagandist society, called the Urne, and the main difficulty for the poor seems to be the cost of carrying the bodies five miles. To overcome this a pneumatic tube has been proposed. Dresden, Leipsic, and Berlin are the centres of the German movement. In England Sir Henry Thompson first brought the question prominently before the public, and in 1874 started the cremation society of London.. Its object is to introduce, through the agency of cemetery companies, and parochial and municipal authorities and burial-boards, some rapid process of disposing of the dead, “which cannot offend the living and shall render the remains absolutely innocuous.” His problem was this: ” Given a dead body, to resolve it into carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, rapidly, safely, and not unpleasantly.” Relying on the facts connected with recent burial legislation, he pointed out that in the neighborhood of cemeteries there is a constantly increasing risk of contaminated air and water. The problem he solved by the Siemens process of cremation. The British authorities also have had to interfere in the management of the Hindfi cremations, so as to reduce the cost and perfect the sanitary arrangements of the process.
Among the practical methods of cremation which have recently been attempted are those of Dr. Polli, at the Miian gas-works, and Prof. Brunetti of Padua. The former obtained complete calcination of dogs in two hours, by the use of coal-gas mixed with atmospheric air, applied to a cylindrical retort of refracting clay, so as to consume the gaseous products of combustion. The ashes remaining were five per cent. by weight of the material before cremation. The latter used an oblong furnace of refracting brick, with side doors to regulate the draught, and above a cast-iron dome, with movable shutters. The body was placed on a metallic plate suspended on iron wire. The noxious gases, which were generated in the first part of the process, passed through a flue into a second furnace, and were entirely consumed. The process required four hours. In the ordinary Siemens regenerative furnace only the hot blast is used, the body supplying hydrogen and carbon; or a stream of heated hydrocarbon mixed with heated air is sent from a gasometer supplied with coal, or other fuel, the brick or iron cased chamber being thus heated to a high degree before cremation begins (Encycl. Brit. 9th ed. s.v.). The subject has also been agitated in America, two societies having been organized here for cremation of corpses, and occasional instances have occurred; but the ovens and other apparatus have been as yet but moderately patronized. The operation, as carried on at one of the best-constructed furnaces, is thus described by an eye witness:
“Cremation is erroneously supposed to be a burning of the body. It is not. No flame whatever touches the flesh or bones from the beginning to the end of the process. It is properly and strictly incineration, or reduction of the human frame to ashes; an absorption of all the gaseous elements carried on inside a fire-clay retort, three feet in diameter and seven in length. As the door of the retort is opened the inrushing air cools it from white to red heat, and the whole interior is filled with a beautiful rosy light. The body, decently clad as for burial, is laid in a crib, which is covered with a clean white sheet soaked in alum. The crib is then put into the retort. The sheet retains its original position and conceals the form until nothing but the bones are left and these gently crumble into dust. The relatives then receive a few pounds of clean, pure ashes in an urn, which can be placed in any cemetery, public or private, in a vault or church niche, or disposed of as personal choice may dictate.”
This process is certainly a great improvement upon the rude and tedious operation of the ancient Romans and the modern Hindfis, consisting of a roasting of the corpse upon an immense pile of wood, filling the air with smoke and the. noxious fumes of burning flesh. It is also claimed by its advocates to be much more economical than ordinary burial. Could the prejudice naturally entertained against it, especially by Christians, as a heathenish and barbaric custom, be overcome, there is no telling how popular the practice might yet become. See Eassie, Cremation of the Dead (Lond. 1875), a valuable work; Vegmann Ercolani, Cremation the most Rational Method ofDisposing ofthe Dead (Zurich, 1874, 4th ed.); Reclam, De le Cremation des Cadavres; Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia, or Urn-burial (1658); Walker, On Graveyards (Lond. 1839); Pietra Santa, La Cremation des Morts en France et al’Etranger; Brunetti, La Cremazione dei Cadaveri (Padua, 1873). SEE BURIAL.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Cremation
kre-mashun (compare , saraph, Jos 7:15, etc., shall be burnt with fire; , kao, 1Co 13:3, If I give my body to be burned, etc.): Cremation, while the customary practice of the ancient Greeks, and not unknown among the Romans, was certainly not the ordinary mode of disposing of the dead among the Hebrews or other oriental peoples. Even among the Greeks, bodies were often buried without being burned (Thuc. i. 134, 6; Plato Phaedo 115 E; Plut. Lyc. xxvii). Cicero thought that burial was the more ancient practice, though among the Romans both methods were in use in his day (De leg. ii.22, 56). Lucian (De luctu xxi) expressly says that, while the Greeks burned their dead, the Persians buried them (see BURIAL, and compare 2Sa 21:12-14). In the case supposed by Amos (Amo 6:10), when it is predicted that Yahweh, in abhorrence of the excellency of Jacob, shall deliver up the city, and, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die, and a man’s kinsman (ARVm) shall take him up, even he that burneth him, etc., the suggestion seems to be that of pestilence with accompanying infection, and that this, or the special judgment of Yahweh, is why burning is preferred. When Paul (1Co 13:3) speaks of giving his body to be burned, he is simply accommodating his language to the customs of Corinth. (But see Plutarch on Zarmanochegas, and C. Beard, The Universal Christ.)
How far religious, or sanitary, or practical reasons were influential in deciding between the different methods, it is impossible to say. That bodies were burned in times of pestilence in the Valley of Hinnom at Jerusalem is without support (see Eze 39:11-16). The very great burning at the burial of Asa (2Ch 16:14) is not a case of cremation, but of burning spices and furniture in the king’s honor (compare Jer 34:5). Nor is 1Ki 13:2 a case in point; it is simply a prophecy of a king who shall take the bones of men previously buried, and the priests of the high places that burn incense in false worship, and cause them to be burned on the defiled altar to further pollute it and render it abominable.
There is in the New Testament no instance of cremation, Jewish, heathen or Christian, and clearly the early Christians followed the Jewish practice of burying the dead (see Tert., Apol., xlii; Minuc. Felix, Octav., xxxix; Aug., De civ. Dei, i.12, 13). Indeed, cremation has never been popular among Christians, owing largely, doubtless, to the natural influence of the example of the Jews, the indisputable fact that Christ was buried, the vivid hope of the resurrection and the more or less material views concerning it prevalent here and there at this time or that. While there is nothing anti-Christian in it, and much in sanitary considerations to call for it in an age of science, it is not likely that it will ever become the prevailing practice of Christendom.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Cremation
General references
Jos 7:25; 1Sa 31:12; 2Ki 23:20; Amo 2:1; Amo 6:10 Burial