Religion et Sepulture: L'Eglise, les vivants et les morts dans l'Antiquite tardive (review)

This volume, whose chronological limit extends to the end of the fifth century, is an important work for all students of late antiquity. The author's stated aim in part is to prove several negatives, i.e., that the Christian churches in late antiquity did not generally own or operate burial grounds, that burial practices did not play a role in the formation of Christian identity (except for the case of martyrs' tombs), and that, for the most part, the church paid little attention to that which concerns burial of the dead. Beyond proving these negatives, the book also aims to describe the wider context of death and burial among late antique Christians. Rebillard has amassed an impressive amount of primary source material, and the work is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the dead in early Christianity.

The author does a good job of placing Christian burial practices in the context of what neighboring Jews and pagans (including mystery cult initiates) were doing. In most cases there was little or no concern over the place of burial; mixing bodies that had belonged to different religious groups was not perceived as a problem, and a belief in bodily resurrection did not necessitate burial as opposed to cremation. Throughout late antiquity the family's primary role in deciding the how and where of burial was not usurped by religious institutions, whether they be they Jewish, pagan, or Christian. Even the famous "burial associations" did not supplant the role of the family unless there was no family—and Rebillard shows that these associations were much more than just burial societies (52–54). Christians were concerned about the violation of tombs but in ways that were identical to those of the pagans who lived alongside them (ch. 4).

Rebillard contends that Christians did have distinctive burial practices in two respects: they stressed the burial of the poor as a primary religious virtue (aligning themselves with Jews on this), and they lavished great attention on securing and honoring the tombs of martyrs. These practices played a role in the formation of Christian identity, but other aspects of death and burial did not. Rebillard makes a distinction between "Christian funerals" and the "funerals of Christians" (ch. 6); the former did not technically exist since there were no set liturgies for Christian burial. Local customs prevailed, and family wishes reigned supreme; there was no attempt by the church to impose uniformity. Some bishops, notably Augustine and Chrysostom, wanted to tone down the ostentation of private funerals, but they were not attempting to impose a church-sanctioned rite. They also opposed the continuation of pagan Parentalia, i.e., commemorations among Christians (for which some Christians cited Tobit 4.18 as authorization), and this practice shows that there was often a disjunction between what the bishops desired and what lay Christians were actually doing. In addition, Augustine and Chrysostom strove to limit prayers for the dead to those who had died as baptized Christians, but as Rebillard points out, this effort does not mean their flocks always followed their instructions. All of this exhortation made sense because the church as an institution had not yet taken over the care of the dead from family members and near kin (197).

In sum, this book is an excellent piece of scholarship, and it effectively challenges many of the standard viewpoints repeated in surveys of the late antique period, especially those written by medievalists. Were it in English, I could recommend it for classroom use for English-speaking undergraduates and seminarians. As it stands it should be owned by all research libraries and by individual scholars of late antiquity who are particularly interested in the interface between the living and the dead and in the transition from a largely pagan culture to a largely Christian one...