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In this provocative book Éric Rebillard challenges many long-held assumptions about early Christian burial customs. For decades scholars of early Christianity have argued that the Church owned and operated burial grounds for Christians as early as the third century. Through a careful reading of primary sources including legal codes, theological works, epigraphical inscriptions, and sermons, Rebillard shows that there is little evidence to suggest that Christians occupied exclusive or isolated burial grounds in this early period. In fact, as late as the fourth and fifth centuries the Church did not impose on the faithful specific rituals for laying the dead to rest. In the preparation of Christians for burial, it was usually next of kin and not representatives of the Church who were responsible for what form of rite would be celebrated, and evidence from inscriptions and tombstones shows that for the most part Christians didn't separate themselves from non-Christians when burying their dead. According to Rebillard it would not be until the early Middle Ages that the Church gained control over burial practices and that \"Christian cemeteries\" became common. In this translation ofReligion et Sépulture: L'église, les vivants et les morts dans l'Antiquité tardive, Rebillard fundamentally changes our understanding of early Christianity.The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquitywill force scholars of the period to rethink their assumptions about early Christians as separate from their pagan contemporaries in daily life and ritual practice.

  The library habits formed over a lifetime continue today at Tompkins County Public Library and at Olin Library at Cornell University, where the freedom to explore the stacks and to search for books and journals online, and access to a highly trained staff of librarians are essential to my work as a professional translator. Because libraries have meant so much to me, it is my privilege to serve as chairwoman of the Tompkins County Public Library Foundation's 2007 Annual Appeal.

Bodel reviews The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity by Eric Rebillard and translated by Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings and Jeanine Routier-Pucci.