The young solitary spoken of in the _acta sanctorum_ of the Greeks, who after having quitted his cell through incontinency and disobedience, had incurred excommunication, could he receive the crown of martyrdom in that state? And if he had received it, was he not at the same time reconciled to the church? Did he not wash away his fault with his blood? And if his excommunication was only regular and minor, would he deserve after his martyrdom to be excluded from the presence of the holy mysteries? I see no other way of explaining these facts, if they are as they are related, than by saying that the story has not preserved the circumstances which might have deserved the absolution of these persons, and we must presume that the saints--above all, the bishops who absolved them--knew the rules of the church, and did nothing in the matter but what was right and conformable to the canons. But it results from all that we have just said, that as the bodies of the wicked withdraw from the company of the holy through a principle of veneration and a feeling of their own unworthiness, so also the bodies of the holy separate themselves from the wicked, from opposite motives, that they may not appear to have any connection with them, even after death, or to approve of their bad life. In short, if what is just related be true, the righteous and the saints feel deference for one another, and honor each other ever in the other world; which is probable enough. We are about to see some instances which seem to render equivocal and uncertain, as a proof of sanctity, the uncorrupted state of the body of a just man, since it is maintained that the bodies of the excommunicated do not rot in the earth until the sentence of excommunication pronounced against them be taken off. Footnotes: [509] Concil. Meli. in Can. Nemo. 41, n. 43. D. Thom. iv. distinct. 18, 9. 2, art. 1. quaestiuncula in corpore, &c. [510] S. Leo canone Commun. 1. a. 4. 9. 2. See also Clemens III. in Capit. Sacris, 12. de Sepult. Eccl. [511] Eveillon, traite des Excommunicat. et Manitoires. [512] D. Thom. in iv. Sentent. dist. 1. qu. 1. art. 3. quaestiunc. 2. ad. 2. CHAPTER XXIX. DO THE EXCOMMUNICATED ROT IN THE GROUND? It is a very ancient opinion that the bodies of the excommunicated do not decompose; it appears in the Life of St Libentius, Archbishop of Bremen, who died on the 4th of January, 1013. That holy prelate having excommunicated some pirates, one of them died, and was buried in Norway; at the end of seventy years they found his body entire and without decay, nor did it fall to dust until after absolution received from Archbishop Alvaridius.