or suffragia and alms, of the living are of benefit to the departed believers, so that the Lord deals more mereifully with them than their sins deserve." His noble mother, Monica, when dying, told him he might bury her body where he pleased, and should give himself no concern for it, only she begged of him that he would remember her soul at the altar of the Lord.^ With this is connected the idea of a repentance and purifi- cation in the intermediate state between death and resurrection, which likewise Augustine derives from Matt. xii. 32, and 1 Cor. iii. 15, yet mainly as a mere opinion.^ From these and ' Ttjs ayias Kol (ppiKwSeaTOLTTji TrpoKeifj-evris dvffias, Catech. xxiii. 8. ' Serm. 172, 2 (0pp. torn. v. 1196): "Orationibus sanctae ecclesiee, et sacrificio salutari, et eleemosynis, quas pro eorum spiritibus erogantur, non est dubitandum mortuos adjuvari, ut cum eis misericordius agatur a Domino." He expressly limits th]3 effect, however, to those who have departed in the faith. ^ Confess. 1. ix. 27 : " Tantum illud vos rogo, ut ad Domini altare memineritis mei, ubi fueritis." Tertullian considers it the duty of a devout widow to pray for the soul of her husband, and to offer a sacrifice on the anniversary of his death ; De monogam. c. 10; comp. De corona, c. 2: "Oblationes pro defunctis pro natalitiis annua die faciraus." * De civit. Dei, xxi. 24, and elsewhere. The passages of Augustine and the other § 97. THE CELEBKATION OF THE EUCHARIST. 511 similar passages, and under the influence of previous Jewish and heathen ideas and customs, arose, after Gregory the Great, the Konian doctrine of the purgatorial fire for imperfect be- lievers who still need to be purified from the dross of their sins before they are fit for heaven, and tlie institution of special 7nasses for the dead, in which the perversion of the thankful remembrance of the one' eternally availing sacrifice of Christ reaches its height, and the idea of the communion utterly disappears.' In general, in the celebration of the Lord's Supper the sacrament continually retired behind the sacrifice. In the Roman churches in all countries one may see and hear splendid masses at the high altar, where the congregation of the faithful, instead of taking part in the communion, are mere spectators of the saci'ificial act of the priest. The communion is frequent- ly despatched at a side altar at an early hour in the morning. § 9Y. The Cdebration of the Eucharist. Oomp. the Liturgical Literature cited in the rfext section, especially the works of Daniel, Neale, and Freeman. The celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice and of the com- munion was the centre and summit of the jDublic worship of the Lord's day, and all other parts of worship served, as j)reparation fathers in favor of the doctrine of purgatory are collected in the much-cited work of Berington and Kirli: The Faith of Cathohcs, etc., vol. iii. pp. 140-207. ' There are