Intramural burials and churchyards, it would seem, originated in the idea that persons passing the graves of their relatives or friends on their way to worship, might be reminded to offer up prayers for them; and the profit might also be another motive. The gross and horrible indignities now so frequently offered to the dead in consequence of over-crowding, to the great scandal of our national religion and character as a Christian people, could never have been contemplated; on the contrary, it was intended to offer a sacred asylum for the mortal remains of those whose memories were dear to us. It was a maxim, not only with the Jews, but with all nations of the world, that holy places are polluted by the presence of dead carcases or of dead men’s bones. Hence we find that when Josiah desired to profane the altars dedicated to idols, he burned dead men’s bones upon them, which he took out of the sepulchres that were on the mount (2 Kings xxiii. 16). And when God threatened by Ezekiel to punish Israel, he told them that their altars should be desolate: “and I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.” (Ezekiel vi. 5.) As the Jews by the divine law had ablutions, washings, and purifications for defilements by the dead, which is called Βαπτισμὸs ἀπὸ νεκρῶν (Ecclesiasticus xxxiv. 25),--a washing from the pollution contracted by the touch of a dead body,--so the Gentiles also from them had the rite of purification for defilements contracted from the dead; for the _Flamens_ or _Funera Mater_, when dismissing the people after a funeral, sprinkled them with water to purge them of the pollution received by the sight of the interment; and on their entering into a temple, they were first sprinkled with holy water, the ωυραντιεια, so often mentioned by heathen writers, lest they should appear polluted before the gods. Hosperian informs us that the ancients greatly opposed the innovation of burying in towns and churches, and on that account the councils of their bishops made several canons and decrees against intramural and church burials.