I thought I was now sufficiently prepared to practice the more advanced aspects of the Rites of the Sepulchre.
And then he wandereth on, a living sepulchre.
And Jesus wept.25. The people said, Behold how Jesus loved this man!26. And others said, Could not this Lord, who opened up the eyes of one born blind, have saved this man from death?27. But soon the mourners stood beside the tomb, a sepulchre hewn out of solid rock; a massive stone closed up the door.28. And Jesus said, Take you away the stone.29. But Martha said, Lord, is it well?
you are yourselves like whitewashed sepulchres; your outer garbs are beautiful, but you are full of dead men's bones.10. You seem to men to be divine; but in your hearts you nourish lust, hypocrisies and vile iniquities.11. Woe unto you, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
When Jesus saw them weeping and lamenting thus he said,3. Weep not for me, for though I go away, go through the gateway of the cross, yet on the next day of the sun, lift up your hearts, for I will meet you at the sepulchre.4. The great procession came to Calvary.
A guard of one hundred Jewish soldiers are placed about the sepulchre.
The priests, the Pharisees and scribes were filled with fear.16. They sought the cover of their synagogues and homes and said, Behold, the wrath of God!17. The great day of the Jewish pasch was near, and Jews could not by law permit a criminal to hang upon the cross upon the Sabbath day.18. And so they prayed that Pilate would remove the bodies of the men that had been crucified.19. And Pilate sent his guards to Calvary to note if all the men were dead.20. And when the guards were gone, two aged Jews came to the palace door to see the governor, and they were members of the highest council of the Jews;21. Yet they believed that Jesus was a prophet sent from God.22. The one was Rabbi Joseph, the Arimathean counsellor, and he was just and loved the law of God.23. And Nicodemus was the other one who came.24. These men fell down at Pilate's feet and prayed that they might take the body of the Nazarene and lay it in a tomb.25. And Pilate gave consent.26. Now, Joseph had prepared a costly mixture to embalm the body of the Lord, about a hundred pounds of aloes and of myrrh, and this they took and hastened out to Calvary.27. And when the guards returned they said, The Nazarene is dead; the malefactors are alive.28. And Pilate told the guards to go and smite the living men so they would die, and then to give their bodies to the flames; but give the body of the Nazarene to rabbis who would call for it.29. The soldiers did as Pilate said.30. The rabbis came and took away the body of the Lord and when they had prepared it with the spices they had bought,31. They laid it in the new-made tomb that had been made for Joseph in a solid rock.32. And then they rolled a stone up to the sepulchre.33. The priests were fearful lest the friends of Jesus would go forth at night and take away the body of the Nazarene, and then report that he had risen from the dead, as he had said;34. And they requested that the governor would send his soldiers to the tomb to guard the body of the dead.35. But Pilate said, I will not send a Roman guard; but you have Jewish soldiers and may send a hundred men with a centurion to guard the tomb.36. And then they sent a hundred soldiers out to guard the tomb.
and Mary said, My Lord!19. The eyes of Miriam were opened up and she beheld the Lord.20. And Jesus said, Behold, I told you as we walked along the way up to the cross that I would meet you at the sepulchre upon the first day of the week.21. Now, Mary Magdalene was sitting not a great way off, and Jesus went to her and said,22. Why seek the living 'mong the dead?
The greatest wrongs arise out of youthful insolence, and the greatest of all are committed against public temples; they are in the second degree great when private rites and sepulchres are insulted; in the third degree, when committed against parents; in the fourth degree, when they are done against the authority or property of the rulers; in the fifth degree, when the rights of individuals are violated.
There is no use in arguing with a man whose mind is disturbed by waxen images placed at his own door, or on the sepulchre of his father or mother, or at a spot where three ways meet.
The sepulchre shall be a vault built underground, which will last for ever, having couches of stone placed side by side; on one of these they shall lay the departed saint, and then cover the tomb with a mound, and plant trees on every side except one, where an opening shall be left for other interments.
If this fear had not possessed them, they would never have met the enemy, or defended their temples and sepulchres and their country, and everything that was near and dear to them, as they did; but little by little they would have been all scattered and dispersed.
And if in planting he does not leave a fair distance between his own and his neighbour's land, he shall be punished, in accordance with the enactments of many lawgivers, which we may use, not deeming it necessary that the great legislator of our state should determine all the trifles which might be decided by any body; for example, husbandmen have had of old excellent laws about waters, and there is no reason why we should propose to divert their course: He who likes may draw water from the fountain-head of the common stream on to his own land, if he do not cut off the spring which clearly belongs to some other owner; and he may take the water in any direction which he pleases, except through a house or temple or sepulchre, but he must be careful to do no harm beyond the channel.
If a slave be convicted of slaying a freeman voluntarily, either by his own hand or by contrivance, let the public executioner take him in the direction of the sepulchre, to a place whence he can see the tomb of the dead man, and inflict upon him as many stripes as the person who caught him orders, and if he survive, let him put him to death.
The greatest of them are excesses and insolences of youth, and are offences against the greatest when they are done against religion; and especially great when in violation of public and holy rites, or of the partly-common rites in which tribes and phratries share; and in the second degree great when they are committed against private rites and sepulchres, and in the third degree (not to repeat the acts formerly mentioned), when insults are offered to parents; the fourth kind of violence is when any one, regardless of the authority of the rulers, takes or carries away or makes use of anything which belongs to them, not having their consent; and the fifth kind is when the violation of the civil rights of an individual demands reparation.
And when men are disturbed in their minds at the sight of waxen images fixed either at their doors, or in a place where three ways meet, or on the sepulchres of parents, there is no use in trying to persuade them that they should despise all such things because they have no certain knowledge about them.
They shall be decked in a robe all of white, and there shall be no crying or lamentation over them; but a chorus of fifteen maidens, and another of boys, shall stand around the bier on either side, hymning the praises of the departed priests in alternate responses, declaring their blessedness in song all day long; and at dawn a hundred of the youths who practise gymnastic exercises, and whom the relations of the departed shall choose, shall carry the bier to the sepulchre, the young men marching first, dressed in the garb of warriors—the cavalry with their horses, the heavy-armed with their arms, and the others in like manner.
And here they will lay the blessed person, and cover the sepulchre with a circular mound of earth and plant a grove of trees around on every side but one; and on that side the sepulchre shall be allowed to extend for ever, and a new mound will not be required.
Their sepulchres are not to be in places which are fit for cultivation, and there shall be no monuments in such spots, either large or small, but they shall occupy that part of the country which is naturally adapted for receiving and concealing the bodies of the dead with as little hurt as possible to the living.
Nor shall the laying out of the dead in the house continue for a longer time than is sufficient to distinguish between him who is in a trance only and him who is really dead, and speaking generally, the third day after death will be a fair time for carrying out the body to the sepulchre.
The rite of the sepulchre
Then he would allow his body to transmute and be resurrected to a greater level of consciousness within the sepulchre that my father (Joseph of Arimathea) prepared for this purpose.