Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/521

 i. MAY 28, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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written a Copy of what I formerly taughl them," i.e., instruction "in the right use oi their Armes, Distances, Motions and Firings,' both for cavalry and infantry.

William, first Viscount Saye and Sele, i described in the dedication as Master of the Court of Wards and a Privy Councillor. He, "like many other persons of distinction who had experienced the favour of the Court,' says Gorton ('Biog. Diet.,' p. 753), "joinec the Parliament in the contest for power with Charles I." How soon after the publication of this pamphlet did Saye and Sele's loyalty desert him 1 and did Raynsford follow the lead of his colonel 1 ? Is anything further known of Raynsford and this drill-book, no copy of which I believe is to be found in the collection of Civil War tracts now in the British Museum? It is not mentioned by Mr. C. H. Firth in his 'Cromwell's Army, 1642-1660,' London, 1902.

M. J. D. COCKLE.

Solan, Punjab.

"ASHES TO ASHES" IN THE BURIAL

SERVICE. (10 th S. i. 387.)

THE Rev. William Palmer, in 'Origines Liturgicse' (ii. 235, ed. 1836), says :

" This form of committing the ' body to the ground ; earth to earth, ashes to ashes,' &c., seems, as far as I can judge, to be peculiar to our Church, as we find that most other rituals of the East and West appoint some psalm or anthem to be sung or said while the body is placed in the tomb ; but the same form nearly has been used in the English Church for many ages, though anciently it followed after the body was covered with earth, and not while the earth was placed upon it."

The Rev. W. Mask ell, in the original edition of ' Monumenta Ritualia,' i. 124, gives the words thus :

" Commendo animam tuam Deo Patri omni- potent!, terrain terrse, cinerem cineri, pulverem pulveri, in nomine Patris," &c.

The prayer following this commendation begins in these terms :

" It is indeed presumption, O Lord, that man should dare to commend man, mortal mortal, ashes ashes, to Thee our Lord God ; but since earth receives earth, and dust is being turned to dust, until all flesh is restored to its source," &c.

This office, 'Inhumatio Defuncti,' was copied from the 1543 edition of the Sarum Manual in the editor's possession. He com- pared it with a slightly varying office in the Bangor Pontifical.

The compilers of this ancient service would seem to have had in view in the phrases now

under question three texts. I quote from the Vulgate, the Bible as they used it : Gen. iii. 19, "...donee revertaris in terrain

Saia pulyis es, et in pulverem reverteris." en. xviii. 27, " cum sim pulvis et cinis."

Ecclus. x. 9, " Quid superbis terra et cinis 1"

In these three passages we find the com- bination of earth, dust, and ashes, as sug- gestive of the deep humiliation which the evidence of our frail mortality must impress on every thoughtful mind. Ashes, the small residuum of a solid, perhaps beautiful sub- stance consumed by fire, easily scattered by the wind, without form and worthless, are a fit emblem of what human pomp and pride suffer under the stroke of death. It is not, of course, likely that the compilers of this office had any thought of cremation, any more than the writers of Genesis or Eccle- siasticus.

It would make this reply too long to give extracts from the 'Idiomela' of the Greek Church, written in the eighth century by St. John of Damascus, and still used in the Burial Office : 'A.Ko\ov6ia ve/c/owo-i/xos eis KOO-- /iiKovs. They may be seen in the Venice edition of the EvxoAoytov fj-tya (1862), p. 413. St. John was a true poet, and under his magic touch the dust and ashes of the grave become a fitting soil for the blossoms of immortality. C. DEEDES.

Chichester.

Whatever may have led to the use of the word "ashes" in this part of the Burial Service, it can have no reference to crema- tion. For the sense of the passage is that the body, which is earth, ashes, dust, returns to the same again, so that if we take "to ashes " to imply cremation we must suppose that the body came into existence also by cremation. W. C. B.

These words in the Burial Service date from 1549, and are translated from cinerem cineri in the Sarum form. They are, I should bhink, founded on Gen. xviii. 27. Ashes are Frequently associated with penitence and humiliation, as in the Old Testament (see Concordance) and in the old ritual of Ash Wednesday. Compare the line in the ' Dies frse,' "Cor contritum quasi cinis." The expression "dust and ashes " became familiar through Gen. xviii. 27 (see 'N.E.D.,' under

Dust,' 3 b) ; and so, given the phrase " dust to dust" from Gen. iii. 19, "ashes to ashes" would naturally follow. At the same time

t seems not unlikely that the expression originated in the practice of cremation, as many other words and phrases have ori-

inated in things that have long ceased to