Editing Viaticum (section)

==Relation to pre-Christian funerary practice==
{{Expand-section|date=August 2019}} In [[Late Antiquity]] and the [[Early Mediaeval]] period in the West, the [[Sacramental bread|host]] was sometimes placed in the mouth of a person already dead. Some claim this could relate to a traditional practice<ref>Gregory Grabka, “Christian Viaticum,” ''Traditio'' 9 (1953), pp. 38–42; G.J.C. Snoek, ''Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist'' (Leiden 1995), pp. 103, 122–124; Edward T. Cook, ''A Popular Handbook to the Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum'' (London 1903), pp. 370–371.</ref> that scholars have compared to the pre-Christian custom of [[Charon's obol]], a small coin placed in the mouth of the dead for passage to the afterlife and sometimes also called a ''viaticum'' in Latin literary sources.<ref>A. Rush, ''Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity'' (Washington, D.C. 1941), pp. 93–94; Gregory Grabka, “Christian Viaticum: A Study of Its Cultural Background,” ''Traditio'' 9 (1953), 1–43; Frederick S. Paxton, ''Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe'' ([[Cornell University Press]] 1990), pp. 32–33 [https://books.google.com/books?id=zvG9jFdTszMC&dq=Charon+intitle:Christianizing+intitle:Death+inauthor:Paxton&pg=PA33 online]; G.J.C. Snoek, ''Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction'' (Leiden 1995), ''passim'', but especially pp. 102–103 [https://books.google.com/books?id=vXtHb-OODMkC&dq=Charon+intitle:Medieval+intitle:Piety+intitle:from+intitle:Relics+intitle:to+intitle:the+intitle:Eucharist+inauthor:Snoek&pg=PA103 online] and 122–124 [https://books.google.com/books?id=vXtHb-OODMkC&dq=%22obol+as+guarantee%22+inauthor:Snoek&pg=PA122 online]; Paul Binski, ''Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation'' (Cornell University Press 1996), p. 32 [https://books.google.com/books?id=_fV8xR5n4K8C&dq=Charon+intitle:Medieval+intitle:Death+inauthor:Binski&pg=PA32 online]; J. Patout Burns, “Death and Burial in Christian Africa: The Literary Evidence,” paper delivered to the North American Patristics Society, May 1997, [http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~james.p.burns/chroma/burial/Burnsburial.html full text online.]</ref>