By the dead (_i.e._, spiritually dead) the Saviour, according to the best exegesis, meant the outside world, and he wanted to intimate that burial was fit work for them, but not for the Christian or disciple. See also St. Luke ix. 59. Christ disparaged the importance of burial more than once. Indeed, it seems that he paid little attention to the disposal of the dead. We find him, during his ministrations on earth, healing the sick, turning water into wine to make glad the hearts of guests at a wedding feast, administering to the wants of the indigent, and cheering the down-trodden; but never at funeral ceremonies. It was he who declared:— “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Dr. Le Moyne says:— “So far as we have knowledge of New Testament history, we find no command given anywhere which was a ‘thus saith the Lord’ for any mode of burial. The Christian world was left to choose a mode of burial.” When Jesus distinguished between cave and earth burial, he considered the latter the most despicable mode of burial, to which he compared the scribes and Pharisees; for when he reproved them by rebuke and disparagement, he said (Matthew xxii. 27):— “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which, indeed, appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” The above shows in what estimation the founder of Christianity held inhumation. It seems Christ himself gave the preference to cave-burial, for so he was disposed of. He was placed (_vide_ Matthew xxvii. 57–60) in the rock-hewn tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, which was open in front, and the door of which was closed with a stone. Christ was not buried in the earth, but was placed in a sepulchre because he was a Jew. Had he been an Egyptian, he would have been embalmed after the fashion of a mummy. It was merely a matter of custom, and is not necessarily a precedent to be followed. It is evident that to be buried as Christ was, Christians would have to be deposited in rock-hewn tombs. The assertion of certain religious fanatics, that cremation interferes with the Christian doctrine of the resurrection, proves untenable enough when one but remembers that both interment and incineration lead to the same result; namely, to the total destruction of the body. In the case of cremation this takes place within an hour; in earth burial the process may last for centuries until completed. Professor Max Müller, the famous linguist, in his biographical essays, writes:— “I often regret that the Jews buried and did not burn the dead, for in that case the Christian idea of the resurrection would have remained far more spiritual.” Cannon Liddon believes that:—