Ossuaries

Sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures.  If you don’t have time to build a coffin, don’t own a tomb or gravesite, and can’t afford to bury your dead relative in their Sunday-best then you might just dig a temporary grave and later, after decomposition and entropy have had their hay day, obtain calcified remains, namely bones, stuff what you can in a lunchbox-sized box and set it aside.  If your whole community does this, you might be able to all chip in and have one giant room, or catacomb, or tomb, to put all of these organic remains in…namely, an ossuary.  This would have been the case for many folks in the first and second centuries (and beyond).  If you’re very fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate, depending upon perspective, then you might come into possession of the bones of someone extraordinary, like St. Peter or St. Paul (both of whom would ironically likely disparage the title of ‘saint’ being attached to their name).  Imagine having the bones of someone who was able to raise people from the dead in their lifetime.  Since we all have a superstitious bone in us somewhere (mine is my left ulna) whomever had the curious misfortune of guarding these would likely perceive them as some sort of amulet or source of divine power – speak of idols.  Either way, these little treasure boxes turned iconoclast’s dream was the stuff of international repertoire several years ago.  Jonah’s – yes, the whale one -  bones, who had been preserved and enshrined as previously aforementioned were destroyed by ISIS in Mosul, Iraq.  I must say, there are better forms of iconoclasm than ANFO and grenades. Thankfully, there are no bones left of the Messiah to be destroyed. He currently has them and they are working just fine.