Psalm 79 (78):3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

It would be utterly foolish to suggest that one should not fear a murderer before death, lest they take one's life, but instead fear them after death for possibly denying a proper burial. Is it incorrect then to believe what Christ stated: "Fear not them that kill the body, and afterwards can do nothing" (Luke 12:4), since the unrepentant can affect the corpse? Let us maintain that what Truth declares cannot be false. This is expressed because, in a living being, emotions exist; but after death, the body is devoid of sensation.

Although many Christians' remains have not been laid to rest in the ground, this cannot sever their connection to heaven or earth, both of which are filled with the presence of the One who knows how to raise what He has created. The psalmist indeed declares, "The corpses of Thy servants were given to the birds of the sky to eat, the bodies of Thy saints to the beasts of the earth; they shed their blood like water around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them" (Psalm 78:2-3). This statement aims to highlight the brutality of the perpetrators rather than evoke sympathy for the victims. While such acts may appear dreadful from a human perspective, "dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" (Psalm 115:6). Consequently, the rituals of washing, adorning, and burying the body serve more as comfort to the living than assistance to the deceased. If an extravagant burial could assist a wicked person in life, a modest or nonexistent burial could not harm a righteous individual.

We recall the rich man clad in purple, who received a splendid farewell judged by the crowd, yet in the eyes of the Lord, a far greater honor was given to the impoverished man, covered in sores, by angels who did not place him in a marble tomb but carried him to Abraham's bosom. Those against whom we defend the faith of God might mock this view, but even their own philosophers dismissed the importance of burial. Whole armies, sacrificing themselves for their earthly homeland, often showed no concern for where their remains would rest or what creatures would consume them. Poets have often celebrated this, declaring, "To those who lie not in urns, the whole firmament is a tombstone." How much less reasonable is their scorn for the burial of Christian bodies, who are promised not only the transformation of their flesh in due time but also a return and restoration from the elements into which their decayed remains have returned!

Because those who were already dead could not assist one another in burial, and the Church does not permit them to be interred, that is, to conceal their transgressions. What is the blockage to this? The divine instruction that states, “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22). Why is that? Because anyone who attempts to hide the sins of the guilty only serves to expose his own shameful actions more vividly to all.

This was realized in many instances, but most significantly with sixty mournful men, all of whom met brutal violence at the hands of Alcimus the wicked near Jerusalem in a single day, as recounted in 1 Maccabees 7:17, where this verse is cited verbatim.