s of the virgin nuns
deceased to pray for them. "Perhibet praeclarissimum testimonium
ecclesiastica auctoritas, in qua fidelibus notum est quo loco martyres
et que defunctae sanctimoniales ad altaris sacramenta recitantur." It
was then, perhaps, when they were named at the altar, that they left
the church. But St. Gregory says expressly, that it was when the
deacon cried aloud, "Let those who do not receive the communion
retire."

The same St. Gregory relates that a young priest of the same St.
Benedict,[492] having gone out of his monastery without leave and
without receiving the benediction of the abbot, died in his
disobedience, and was interred in consecrated ground. The next day
they found his body out of the grave: the relations gave notice of it
to St. Benedict, who gave them a consecrated wafer, and told them to
place it with proper respect on the breast of the young priest; it was
placed there, and the earth no more rejected him from her bosom.

This usage, or rather this abuse, of placing the holy wafer in the
grave with the dead, is very singular; but it was not unknown to
antiquity. The author of the Life of St. Basil[493] the Great, given
under the name of St. Amphilochus, says that that saint reserved the
third part of a consecrated wafer to be interred with him; he received
it and expired while it was yet in his mouth; but some councils had
already condemned this practice, and others have since then proscribed
it, as contrary to the institutions of Jesus Christ.[494]

Still, they did not omit in a few places putting holy wafers in the
tombs or graves of some persons who were remarkable for their
sanctity, as in the tomb of St. Othmar, abbot of St. Gal,[495] wherein
were found under his head several round leaves, which were indubitably
believed to be the Host.

In the Life of St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarn,[496] we read that a
quantity of consecrated wafers were found on his breast. Amalarius
cites of the Venerable Bede, that a holy wafer was placed on the
breast of this saint before he was inhumed; "oblata super sanctum
pectus posita."[497] This particularity is not noted in Bede's
History, but in the second Life of St. Cuthbert. Amalarius remarks
that this custom proceeds doubtless from the Church of Rome, which had
communicated it to the English; and the Reverend Father Menard[498]
maintains that it is not this practice which is condemned by the
above-mentioned Councils, but that of giving the