_Burial towards the West_ (Vol. ii., p. 408.).--Mr. Hawker has stated very
confidently that
"It was the ancient usage of the Church that the martyr, the bishop,
the saint, and even the priest, should occupy in their sepulture a
position the reverse of the secular dead, and lie down with their feet
westward and their heads to the rising sun."
It is true that a custom has existed in many places for nearly two
centuries and a half to assign to the clergy a method of interment distinct
from that adopted for the laity; and the observance of this usage is not
limited to Romanists, for its continuance may be noted among members of the
Church of Ireland also, at least in remote districts of that country. With
respect to this matter, however, your correspondent has entirely misapplied
the term "ancient;" for until the seventeenth century there was not any
difference in the mode of sepulture prescribed for priests and laymen but,
most commonly, all persons entitled to Christian burial were placed with
their feet toward the east, in consequence of a tradition relative to the
position of our Saviour's body in the tomb. (Haimo, _Hom. pro Die Sancto
Pasch._; J. Gregrory, _Oriens nomen Ejus_, 85., Martene, _De Antiq. Eccles.
Ritibus_, tom. ii. p. 374. Venet. 1783.) It is believed that there is no
earlier authority for the sacerdotal privilege in question than a rule
contained in the _Rituale Romanum_ sanctioned by Pope Paul V. in June,
1614; viz.:
"Corpora defunctorum in ecclesia ponenda sunt pedibus versus altare
majus ... Presbyteri verò habeant caput versus altare."--Cap. _De
Exsequiis_, p. 63. Antwerp, 1635.
A rubric afterwards directs (p. 168.) that the bier should be so set down
in the middle of the church that in every case the injunction previously
given should be complied with, even from the commencement of the funeral
service; and, in fact, the manner of adhering to the established practice
of exhibiting in the church to the people the bodies of the deceased
clergy, clad in vestments, prior to their interment (on which occasions an
altar-ward posture was naturally selected for the head, in order that the
remains might be more easily seen), appears to have originated the idea of
the fitness of retaining an unjustifiable priestly prerogative at the time
of burial.
Mr. Hawker may peruse with much advantage the first Appendix in the second
edition of _Eusebii Romani Epistola de Cultu Sanctorum ignotorum_. Mabillon
has herein very usefully enlarged what he had said, "De Sepultura
Sacerdotum," in the preceding impression, of which a French translation was
speedily published at Paris, 12mo in eights, 1698. The text of both
editions may be found together in tome i. of the _Ouvrages posthumes de
Mabillon et Ruinart_, à Paris, 1724.