Note 896 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The neophytes laid aside their white baptismal robes, or albs, on the Sunday after Easter, hence called Dominica in albis. In the following inscription Pascasius, a neophyte of six years, is said to have received baptism on Easter eve, and to have laid aside his albs one week thereafter in the tomb: PERCEPIT XI KAL. MAIAS ET ALBAS SVAS OCTABAS (sic) PASCAE (sic) AD SEPVLCHRVM DEPOSVIT. (A. D. 463.)
Dr. McCaul notes a striking analogy to Christian forms of expression in an epitaph describing pagan initiation: ARCANIS PERFVSIONIBVS IN AETERNVM RENATVS—“Born eternally by secret sprinklings.” The sprinkling was that of the blood of a bull or ram, dripping on the bodies of the recipients of the lustration through perforations in a platform beneath which they stood.—Christian Epitaphs, p. 57.