 Pope Gregory I, in his biography of Benedict of Nursia, tells the story of a monk whose body was twice ejected from his tomb; Benedict advised the family to restore the dead man to his resting place with the viaticum placed on his chest.The placement suggests a functional equivalence with the "Goldblattkreuze" and the Orphic gold tablets; its purpose — to assure the deceased’s successful passage to the afterlife — is analogous to that of Charon’s obol and the "Totenpässe" of mystery initiates, and in this case it acts also as a seal to block the dead from returning to the world of the living.Ideally, the journey into death would begin immediately after taking the sacrament.