in *Antiquity*, a kind of officers in the Eastern Church, whose business it was to inter the dead. Ciaconius relates that Constantine created nine hundred and fifty fossarii, whom he took out of the different colleges or companies of tradesmen; and he adds, that they were exempted from taxes, services, burdensome offices, and the like. Goar, in his notes on the Greek *Euchologion*, insinuates that the fossarii were established in the times of the apostles; and that the young men who carried off the body of Ananias, and those persons full of the fear of God who interred St Stephen, were of the number. St Jerome assures us that the fossarii held the first place amongst the clerks; but he is to be understood of those clerks only who had the direction and superintendence of the interment of the devout.