This theory, like so many others which the Church cherished as peculiarly its own, had really been inherited from the old pagan civilizations.

So strong was it in Egypt that the embalmer was regarded as accursed; traces of it appear in Greco-Roman life, and hence it came into the early Church, where it was greatly strengthened by the addition of perhaps the most noble of mystic ideas--the recognition of the human body as the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Hence Tertullian denounced the anatomist Herophilus as a butcher, and St.Augustine spoke of anatomists generally in similar terms.
But this nobler conception was alloyed with a medieval superstition even more effective, when the formula known as the Apostles' Creed had, in its teachings regarding the resurrection of the body, supplanted the doctrine laid down by St.Paul.Thence came a dread of mutilating the body in such a way that some injury might result to its final resurrection at the Last Day, and additional reasons for hindering dissections in the study of anatomy.
To these arguments against dissection was now added another--one which may well fill us with amazement.

It is the remark of the foremost of recent English philosophical historians, that of all organizations in human history the Church of Rome has caused the greatest spilling of innocent blood.

No one conversant with history, even though he admit all possible extenuating circumstances, and honour the older Church for the great services which can undoubtedly be claimed for her, can deny this statement.