that there is any purgatory.

He, then, did not deny either apparitions or the operations of the
devil; and he maintained that Ecolampadius died under the blows of the
devil,[368] whose efforts he could not rebut; and, speaking of
himself, he affirms that awaking once with a start in the middle of
the night, the devil appeared, to argue against him, when he was
seized with moral terror. The arguments of the demon were so pressing
that they left him no repose of mind; the sound of his powerful voice,
his overwhelming manner of disputing when the question and the reply
were perceived at once, left him no breathing time. He says again that
the devil can kill and strangle, and without doing all that, press a
man so home by his arguments that it is enough to kill one; "as I,"
says he, "have experienced several times." After such avowals, what
can we think of the doctrine of this chief of the innovators?

Footnotes:

[366] Philipp. Melancth. Theolog. c. i. Oper. fol. 326, 327.

[367] Martin Luther, de Abroganda Missa Privata, part. ii.

[368] Ibid. tom. vii. 226.

CHAPTER XLIII.

OPINIONS OF THE JEWS, GREEKS, AND LATINS CONCERNING THE DEAD WHO ARE
LEFT UNBURIED.

The ancient Hebrews, as well as the greater number of other nations,
were very careful in burying their dead. That appears from all
history; we see in the Scripture how much attention the patriarchs
paid in that respect to themselves and those belonging to them; we
know what praises are bestowed on the holy man Tobit, whose principal
devotion consisted in giving sepulture to the dead.

Josephus the historian[369] says that the Jews refused burial only to
those who committed suicide. Moses commanded them[370] to give
sepulture the same day and before sunset to any who were executed and
hanged on a tree; "because," says he, "he who is hung upon the tree is
accursed of God; you will take care not to pollute the land which the
Lord your God has given you." That was practiced in regard to our
Saviour, who was taken down from the cross the same day that he had
been crucified, and a few hours after his death.

Homer,[371] speaking of the inhumanity of Achilles, who dragged the
body of Hector after his car, says that he dishonored and outraged the
earth by this barbarous conduct. The Rabbis write that the soul is not
received into heaven until the gross body is interred, and entirely
consumed. They believe, moreover, that after death the souls of the
w