The Egyptians, even after their conversion to Christianity, continued for a time to mummify their dead, and to bury them with the old ceremonies; but before the end of the third century A.D. the art of embalmment had fallen into general disuse. The pagan Egyptian embalmed his dead because he believed that the “perfect soul” would return to the body after death, and that it would enter upon a new life in it; he therefore took pains to preserve the body against the corruption of the grave. The Christian Egyptian believed that at the Resurrection he would receive back his body, changed and incorruptible, and that it was unnecessary for him to preserve by means of spices and unguents that which he would obtain, without any trouble on his part, by faith through Christ. Little by little, as a result of this belief, the observance of the old pagan ceremonies ceased, and with them embalmment in the Egyptian fashion. The views which Anthony the “Father of the Monks of the Egyptian desert” (A.D. 250-355), held on this matter are of importance. According to Athanasius: “The Egyptians were in the habit of taking the dead bodies of righteous men, and especially those of the blessed martyrs, and of embalming them and placing them, not in graves, but on biers in their houses, for they thought that by so doing they were paying honour to them.” Anthony besought the Bishops to preach to the people, and to command them to cease from this habit, and he showed “That it was a transgression of a command for a man not to hide in the ground the bodies of those who were dead, even though they were righteous men. Therefore many hearkened and were persuaded not to do so, and they laid their dead in the ground, and buried them therein.” When he was dying he entreated his monks, saying: “Permit no man to take my body and carry it into Egypt, lest according to the custom which they have, they embalm me and lay me up in their houses.... And ye know that I have continually made exhortation concerning this thing and begged that it should not be done, and ye well know how much I have blamed those who observed this custom. Dig a grave then, and bury me therein, and hide my body under the earth, and let these my words be observed carefully by you, and tell ye no man where ye lay me until the Resurrection of the Dead, when I shall receive this body without corruption from the Saviour.” (See _The Life of Anthony, by Athanasius_, in Migne _Patrologiae_, Ser. Graec., tom. XXVI, col. 972.)