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St Gregory the Dialogist, tr. P. W., 1608

Book 4, Of the Body of a Dyer Buried in the Church, Which Afterward Could Not Be Found

For another thing also which happened in this city, the company of dyers dwelling here do testify to be most true, and it is concerning one that was the chief of their profession, who departed this life, and was by his wife buried in the church of St. Januarius the martyr, near to the gate of St. Lawrence: whose spirit the night following, in the hearing of the sexton, cried out of his grave, saying: “I burn, I burn”: and when he continued a long time crying so, the sexton told it to the dyer’s wife, who thereupon sent certain of his own profession to the church, to see in what case his body was in the grave, who so cried out in that pitiful manner: and when they had opened it, there they found his garments safe and sound, which be still kept in the same church, for a perpetual memory of that which happened: but his body by no means could they find, as though it had never been buried there: by which we may gather to what torments his soul was condemned, whose body was in that sort turned out of the church. What profit, then, do holy places bring to them that be buried there, when as those, that be wicked and unworthy, be by God’s appointment thrown out from those sacred places?

PETER. What thing is there, then, that can profit and relieve the souls of them that be departed?