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 third century. Through a careful reading of primary sources including legal codes, theological works, epigraphical inscriptions, and sermons, Rebillard shows that there is little evidence to suggest that Christians occupied exclusive or isolated burial grounds in this early period. In fact, as late as the fourth and fifth centuries the Church did not impose on the faithful specific rituals for laying the dead to rest. In the preparation of Christians for burial, it was usually next of kin and not representatives of the Church who were responsible for what form of rite would be celebrated, and evidence from inscriptions and tombstones shows that for the most part Christians didn't separate themselves from non-Christians when burying their dead. According to Rebillard it would not be until the early Middle Ages that the Church gained control over burial practices and that "Christian cemeteries" became common. In this translation of Religion et Sépulture: L'église, les vivants et les morts dans l'Antiquité tardive, Rebillard fundamentally changes our understanding of early Christianity. The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity will force scholars of the period to rethink their assumptions about early Christians as separate from their pagan contemporaries in daily life and ritual practice.

In Death, Burial and Rebirth in the Religions of Antiquity, Jon Davies charts the significance of death to the emerging religious cults in the pre-Christian and early Christian world. He analyses the varied burial rituals and examines the different notions of the afterlife. Among the areas covered are: * Osiris and Isis: the life theology of Ancient Egypt * burying the Jewish dead * Roman religion and Roman funerals * Early Christian burial * the nature of martyrdom. Jon Davies also draws on the sociological theory of Max Weber to present a comprehensive introduction to and overview of death, burial and the afterlife in the first Christian centuries which offers insights into the relationship between social change and attitudes to death and dying.

The distinctions and similarities among Roman, Jewish, and Christian burials can provide evidence of social networks, family life, and, perhaps, religious sensibilities. Is the Roman development from columbaria to catacombs the result of evolving religious identities or simply a matter of a change in burial fashions? Do the material remains from Jewish burials evidence an adherence to ancient customs, or the adaptation of rituals from surrounding cultures? What Greco-Roman funerary images were taken over and "baptized" as Christian ones? The answers to these and other questions require that the material culture be viewed, whenever possible, in situ, through multiple disciplinary lenses and in light of ancient texts. Roman historians (John Bodel, Richard Saller, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill), archaeologists (Susan Stevens, Amy Hirschfeld), scholars of rabbinic period Judaism (Deborah Green), Christian history (Robin M. Jensen), and the New Testament (David Balch, Laurie Brink, O.P., Margaret M. Mitchell, Carolyn Osiek, R.S.C.J.) engaged in a research trip to Rome and Tunisia to investigate imperial period burials first hand. Commemorting the Dead is the result of a three year scholarly conversation on their findings.

Widely scattered primary data from late antiquity confirm that Roman-Christian families managed the rituals for death, burial, and commemoration of the dead at the domestic level. Household worship was regulated by Roman law, which explains in large part the lack of any serious interest by the emergent church in funerary matters until the mid-eighth century. During the interim therefore, Christian women as the primary caregivers and ritual specialists of the 'familia' assisted the dying, prepared the corpse for burial, lamented the dead-in song, poetry, music, drama, and dance-hosted funerary banquets, and remembered deceased family at the tomb. Furthermore, women were patrons and administrators of cemeteries, catacombs, martyr-shrines, and voluntary associations that buried deceased members. It was not until ca.750 that the Frankish bishops requested the nuns at the abbey in Chelles to compile the rituals for Christian dying, death, and burial. The result was a sacramentary of funerary liturgy called the Vatican Gelasian, the forerunner of the sacrament 'extrema unctio'. This fascinating history begs the question: Just how much did women contribute to an early Christian identity?

The most comprehensive book on Roman burial practices—now available in paperback Never before available in paperback, J. M. C. Toynbee's study is the most comprehensive book on Roman burial practices. Ranging throughout the Roman world from Rome to Pompeii, Britain to Jerusalem—Toynbee's book examines funeral practices from a wide variety of perspectives. First, Toynbee examines Roman beliefs about death and the afterlife, revealing that few Romans believed in the Elysian Fields of poetic invention. She then describes the rituals associated with burial and mourning: commemorative meals at the gravesite were common, with some tombs having built-in kitchens and rooms where family could stay overnight. Toynbee also includes descriptions of the layout and finances of cemeteries, the tomb types of both the rich and poor, and the types of grave markers and monuments as well as tomb furnishings.