Loading your reading…

ΝΕΚΡΟΚΗΔΕΙΑ; Or, the Art of Embalming;: Wherein Is Shewn the Right of Burial, and Funeral Ceremonies, Especially That of Preserving Bodies After the Egyptian Method. Together With an Account of the Egyptian Mummies, Pyramids, Subterranean Vaults and Lamps, and Their Opinion of the Metempsychosis, the Cause of Their Embalming. As Also a Geographical Description of Egypt, the Rise and Course of the Nile, the Temper, Constitution and Physic of the Inhabitants, Their Inventions, Arts, Sciences, Stup — John Shaqi

Philosophy

ΝΕΚΡΟΚΗΔΕΙΑ; Or, the Art of Embalming;: Wherein Is Shewn the Right of Burial, and Funeral Ceremonies, Especially That of Preserving Bodies After the Egyptian Method. Together With an Account of the Egyptian Mummies, Pyramids, Subterranean Vaults and Lamps, and Their Opinion of the Metempsychosis, the Cause of Their Embalming. As Also a Geographical Description of Egypt, the Rise and Course of the Nile, the Temper, Constitution and Physic of the Inhabitants, Their Inventions, Arts, Sciences, Stup

Greenhill, Thomas

Burial -- Early works to 1800; Embalming -- Early works to 1800; Funeral rites and ceremonies -- Early works to 1800; Mummies -- Early works to 1800

In Obedience therefore to the Laws both of GOD and Nature, _Sepulture_
undoubtedly was at first Instituted, and if either Antiquity or
universal Custom can prove a convincing Argument, you may account it as
antient as the World it self, and us’d by all Nations tho’ perhaps in
different manners; for you must allow, so soon as Death came in by Man’s
Transgression, it necessarily follow’d that some care must have been
taken to Bury his Carcass. The first Instance of this that we read of,
in the Sacred History of the old Testament, is how _Abraham_, the Father
of the _Faithful_, Buried his Wife _Sarah_ in the Cave of the Field
_Machpelah_, which he had bought of the Sons of _Heth_ for a
Burying-Place for his Family, _Gen._ 23. 19, 20. There also St. _Jerome_
asserts _Adam_ the first Man was Buried; and _Nicolaus Lyranus_ and
_Alphonsus Tostatus_ are of Opinion the Four Patriarchs were Buried
there likewise with their Wives, _Eve_, _Sarah_, _Rebecca_ and _Lea_,
all which you may find explain’d more at large in _Quenstedt_, p. 2, 3,
4.

[Sidenote: First Cause of it.]

Now this seems to have been one of the _first Causes of Interment_, to
wit, that it being the course of Nature, for Bodies depriv’d of Spirit
or Life to corrupt or stink; and the Medicinal Art being little known
and less us’d in those early Days (without the Knowledge of which it was
impossible to preserve them) there remained no other way of securing the
Living from the pestiferous Exhalations of the Dead, than by burying
their Carcasses in the Earth, and so removing such miserable Objects out
of their sight; which seems clearly intimated by the aforesaid Example
of _Abraham_, when, being in much trouble for the Loss and Death of
_Sarah_ his _Delight_, he spake thus unto the Sons of _Heth_, Gen. 23.
4. _Give me a Possession of a Burial-Place with you, that I may Bury my
Dead out of my Sight._ (LXX. θάψω τὸν νεκρόν μου, ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ) where it is
to be observ’d, that he no longer calls her his Wife, but his Dead; as
knowing that those alterations, which she must in a few Days inevitably
undergo, would have deterr’d him from the very Thoughts of her, if he
had not earnestly sought for and obtain’d a _Burying-Place_, where he
might hide her out of his _Sight_.

[Sidenote: Second Cause.]

No reviews yet