Description:
In this provocative book Éric Rebillard challenges many long-held assumptions about early Christian burial customs. For decades scholars of early Christianity have argued that the Church owned and operated burial grounds for Christians as early as the...
Review Quotes:
Éric Rebillard amasses a vast array of second- through fifth-century Christian literature in an attempt to systematically dispel any notion that Church institutions had much to do with the dead bodies of their community. Cemetery space, unless it was inhabited by a saint, was not considered sacred, grave robbing was a civil matter, and belief in resurrection of the dead had little influence on the fate of the Christian corpse--these are just some of the conclusions reached in this important revisionist work.
-- "Religious Studies Review"