The Dead And Unburied

Sed utrum aliquid prosit animae mortui locus corporis sui, operosius inquirendum est. Ac primum utrum intersit aliquid ad inferendam vel augendam miseriam post hanc vitam spiritibus hominum, si eorum corpora sepulta non fuerint, non secundum opinionem utcumque vulgatam, sed potius secundum religionis nostrae sacras Litteras est videndum. Neque enim credendum est, sicut apud Maronem legitur, insepultos navigando atque transeundo inferno amne prohiberi: quia scilicet   Nec ripas datur horrendas, et rauca fluenta transportare prius, quam sedibus ossa quierunt.  Quis cor christianum inclinet his poeticis fabulosisque figmentis, cum Dominus Iesus, ut inter inimicorum manus, qui eorum corpora in potestate haberent, securi occumberent Christiani, nec capillum capitis eorum asserat periturum, exhortans ne timeant eos qui cum corpus occiderint, amplius non habent quid faciant? Unde in primo libro de Civitate Dei satis, quantum existimo, sum locutus, ut eorum dentem retunderem, qui barbaricam vastitatem, praecipue quam nuper Roma perpessa est, christianis temporibus imputando, etiam id obiiciunt, quod suis illic non subvenerit Christus. Quibus cum responsum fuerit animas fidelium pro fidei suae meritis ab illo fuisse susceptas, insultant de cadaveribus insepultis.  Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensis, De Cura Pro Mortuis Gerenda, Cap. 3

But whether something about the place of the body benefits the soul of the dead requires a more laborious inquiry. First, whether to the spirits of men it may cause or increase misery if their bodies be not buried, and this must in no way be considered in accordance with vulgar opinion, but rather according to the sacred scripture of our religion. For we are not to credit that, as it may be read in Virgil, the unburied are prohibited from navigating and crossing the infernal stream, because evidently:   Nor is it given to pass over the hideous banks and roaring waters until bones rest in peace. 1 Who can incline a Christian heart to these poetical and fabulous figments, when the Lord Jesus asserts that under the hands of their enemies, those who should have their bodies in their power, Christians might lie down secure, nor shall a hair of their head perish, exhorting that they should not fear those who when they have killed the body can do nothing more? Whence in the first book of 'The City of God', thinking deeply, I have spoken, that the teeth in their mouths be broken, who, in imputing to Christian times the devastations of barbarians, Rome's recent fall, even this object, that Christ did not there come to help his own. To whom when it is answered that the souls of the faithful were by him received for the merits of their faith, they insult us with unburied corpses. Saint Augustine of Hippo, On the Care One Should Have For the Dead, Ch. 3 1 Virgil, Aeneid, 6.327