DOMUS AETERNA. - The lack of burial, and the violation or destruction of the tomb were considered by the ancients to be the worst injuries that could befall the deceased. For this reason almost all the living took care to build sepulchres capable of defying time, and they proclaimed this openly, as if to keep adverse events and the offenses of men at a distance. In this sense the formulae frequent in funerary epigraphy are to be understood: d. ae., domus aeternalis, sedes aeterna, tumulus aeternae domus.

The expression d. ae. is not foreign to Christian epigraphy and goes back in concept to two passages of the Old Testament (Eccle., 12, 5: "Ibit homo in domum aeternitatis suae"; Pr. 48, 12: "Sepulchra eorum domus illorum in aeternum"). Greek epigraphy very frequently offers the formula αἰώνιος οἶκος in epitaphs both pagan and Christian. Christian inscriptions of this kind are very numerous in Africa, and St. Augustine disapproves of the formula because of its overly materialistic sense. In the Christian "creed," however, the pagan expression takes on a higher meaning: the tomb is the guardian of the body until the day of resurrection.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: S. Agostino, Enarrationes in pralmos (In ps. XLVIII, PL 36, 554); H. Leclercq, s. v. in DACL, IV, II, coll. 1443-56; E. Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae veteres, I, Berlino 1925, nn. 317-18.

Luigi Maria Catterucca

@incollection{ec4_domus_aeterna, author = {Catteruccia, Luigi Maria}, title = {Domus Aeterna}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {1847--1848}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/domus-aeterna} }

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