91. The Egyptian origin of the Christian expression has frequently been pointed out and cannot be doubted; see Lafaye, _op. cit._, p. 96, n. 1; Rohde, _Psyche_, II, p. 391; Kraus, _Realencycl. der christl. Alt._, s. v. "Refrigerium"; and especially Dieterich, _Nekyia_, pp. 95 ff. Cf. Perdrizet, _Rev. des etudes anc._, 1905, p. 32; Audollent, _Melanges Louis Havet_, 1909, p. 575.--The _refrigerii sedes_, which the Catholic Church petitions for the deceased in the anniversary masses, appears in the oldest Latin liturgies, and the Greeks, who do not believe in purgatory, have always expressed themselves along the same lines. For instance, Nubian inscriptions which are in perfect agreement with the euchology of Constantinople hope the soul will rest [Greek: en topoi chloeroi, en topoi anapsuxeos] (G. Lefebvre, _Inscr. gr. chret. d'Eg._, No. 636, 664 ff., and introd., p. xxx; cf. Dumont, _Melanges_, Homolle ed., pp. 585 ff.). The detail is not without significance because it furnishes a {240} valuable indication as to the Egyptian origin of prayer for the dead; this is unknown to Graeco-Roman paganism which prayed to the deified dead but never _for_ the dead as such. The Church took this custom from the Synagogue, but the Jews themselves seem to have taken it from the Egyptians during the Hellenistic period, undoubtedly in the course of the second century (S. Reinach, _Cultes, mythes_, I, p. 325), just as they were indebted to the Egyptians for the idea of the "spring of life" (_supra_, n. 90). The formula in the Christian inscriptions cited, [Greek: anapauson ten psuchen en kolpois Abraam kai Isaak kai Iakob], appears to indicate a transposition of the doctrine of identification with Osiris. In this way we can explain the persistence in the Christian formulary of expressions, like _requies aeterna_, corresponding to the most primitive pagan conceptions of the life of the dead, who were not to be disturbed in their graves.--A name for the grave, which appears frequently in Latin epitaphs, viz., _domus aeterna_ (or _aeternalis_) is undoubtedly also of Egyptian importation. In Egypt, "la tombe est la maison du mort, sa maison d'eternite, comme disent les textes" (Capart, _Guide du musee de Bruxelles_, 1905, p. 32). The Greeks were struck by this expression which appears in innumerable instances. Diodorus of Sicily (I, 51, Sec. 2) was aware that the Egyptians [Greek: tous ton teteleutekoton taphous aidious oikous prosagoreuousin, hos en Haidou diatelounton ton apeiron aiona] (cf. I, 93, Sec. 1, [Greek: eis ten aionion oikesin]).--