E01156: Augustine of Hippo, in his treatise On the Care of the Dead, mentions the desire of a pious woman to bury her son in the basilica of *Felix (priest and confessor of Nola, S00000) at Nola (southern Italy). Written in Latin in Hippo Regius (North Africa), c. 420/422.

Augustine, On the Care of the Dead 1

Diu sanctitati tuae, coepiscope uenerande Pauline, rescriptorum debitor fui, ex quo mihi scripsisti per homines filiae nostrae religiosissimae Florae, quaerens a me, utrum prosit cuique post mortem, quod corpus eius apud sancti alicuius memoriam sepelitur. Hoc enim abs te uidua memorata petiuerat pro defuncto in eis partibus suo filio et rescripseras consolans eam: id que etiam nuntians de cadauere fidelis iuuenis Cynegii, quod materno et pio affectu desiderauit, esse conpletum, ut scilicet in beatissimi Felicis confessoris basilica poneretur.

'Long time, my venerable fellow bishop Paulinus, have I been your Holiness's debtor for an answer; even since you wrote to me by them of the household of our most religious daughter Flora, asking of me whether it profit any man after death that his body is buried at the memorial shrine (memoria) of some saint. This, namely, had the said widow begged of you for her son deceased in those parts, and you had written her an answer, consoling her, and announcing to her concerning the body of the faithful young man Cynegius, that the thing which she with motherly and pious affection desired was done, to wit, by placing it in the basilica of most blessed Felix the Confessor.'

Text: Zycha 1900. Translation: Browne 1887.