The Christians of the first centuries followed out all the customs relating to burial usual in their time and country, excluding only those which were specifically heathen and idolatrous. That they buried their dead with the same expedition as the heathen is clear from an incident related by Tertullian.[466] The burial of a woman who seemed to be dead was for some reason delayed. While she lay ready for burial and the priests were reciting the prayers, she raised up both her hands, and, when the prayer for peace was concluded, laid them down again in their former position. It was only in the fourth century that it began to be the custom to delay burial to the third or fourth day after death,[467] but the earlier practice continued still to exist for a considerable period.[468] As it was already the custom to inter those who died a natural death on the day of their decease, so there was no reason why the burial of the martyrs should be delayed, and thus with them the _dies obitus_ and the _dies depositionis_ were one and the same. Consequently the ancient dates in question, even when given as that of the burial, are always to be understood as referring to the day of the martyr’s death, and, when they form part of the traditions of the community to which the martyr belonged, they are to be received as absolutely reliable. In the case of the martyrs, the rule of venerating them on the day of their death admitted of no exception, although it might be set aside in the case of those saints who were not martyrs, for certain reasons and in particular instances. Thus, for example, the day of St Chrysostom’s death, the 14th September, was already occupied in the fourth century by the festival of the Invention of the Holy Cross. St Basil died on the 1st January, and St Ambrose on the 4th April, which fell within the Pascal season. During Lent, no festivals of martyrs were to be celebrated on week-days, according to the fifty-first Canon of Laodicea, but only on Saturdays and Sundays at most. But this prohibition was by no means general. Besides the lists of the _depositiones_, the service-books, the sacramentaries or missals, helped to preserve the memory of the martyrs.