Brethren, you have heard how Christ, in an address worthy of a king, urges His soldiers to despise death and to have no fear of those who kill the body. Thereupon He bestows the rights of friends on those who, through their pursuit of this triumph and their love of liberty, have shed their blood with joy and intrepidity. His words are: “But I say to you, my friends: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will show you whom you shall be afraid of; be afraid of him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into hell.”
“But I say to you, my friends: Do not be afraid” – because virtue proves liberty, and fear reveals slavery. A free man was born for glory, but the slave for fear. Therefore, the man who for God’s sake intrepidly spurns death and knows no fear is rightly raised to a friendship with God. If imitation of habits makes men friends, and similarity of habits keeps them together, rightly, then, does Christ call those His friends upon whom He gazes and foresees that in imitation of Himself they will tread under foot the javelins of the world and the very fear of death.
“But I say to you” – that is, not all men, but to my friends. “But I say unto you” – those whom that death does not exterminate, but sets free. “I say to you” – those whom the death of the body does not lead to torments, but promotes to something better. “I say to you” – for whom life is not ended by death, but begun. “I say to you” – whose death becomes precious not because of its nature, but for this reason: it is finding additional benefits of life, rather than losing its enjoyment.
But let us hear what it is that He says to His friends. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body.” Let those readers hear this who have conned the old tomes which the ancients wrote about the benefit of death, but could not take any courage from them, or find consolation. There was a reason for this. With all the powers of eloquence those ancients roused souls to the endurance of death; they dried up tears, stopped sighs, put an end to groans, and hemmed in sorrows. But, for their readers they found nothing about well-founded hope, or everlasting life, or true salvation.
Who would say this to a man, especially to a man of sense? To die is a matter of nature; it is necessary to perish. Our ancestors lived for us; we live for future men; no one lives for himself. It is the part of virtue to will what cannot be avoided. Willingly accept that to which you are being pressed with reluctance. Before death arrives it does not exist, but, when it has come, one no longer knows that it has arrived. Therefore, do not grieve about the loss of something about which, once you have lost it, you will have no more grief.
But, when they utter statements like these, all they say is about the philosophical maxims; they do not talk about life. They do not know from what quarter death has come, or when, or how in your own case, or through whom. For us, however, the Author of life has exposed the author of death. For, God made life, but the Devil schemed against it, as the divine revelation makes clear. “For God made not death” (Wis. 1:13). “But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world” (Wis. 2:24).
But you object: “Why did God allow His own work to perish through the activity of the Devil?” O man, if you truly wanted the answers to your questions, you would set yourself at leisure for a while, give them your attention, and open your ears. You yourself, so full of curiosity, would want to act as the judge scrutinizing this matter of chief importance. But you are always busy about other men, and never about yourself. As one idle and sluggish, always busy about others and never about yourself, why do you blame the blind cause of things, all the difficulties of the centuries, the depth of judgments, and some inscrutable mystery?
In order to know the forms of the letters and the rudiments of education, were you not assigned to a master and enrolled in a school? Then, completely ready to endure toil or pain did you not forego visits to your home or your parents? How profitable for you is that for which a teacher is assigned to you, and a school is put at your service. By his work and the punishments he inflicts on you, the teacher begs you to conceive a desire to know those rudiments and to deign to listen to such important matters. The Apostles express their approval of this procedure – especially Paul. He taught by getting whipped, not by whipping, in order to be an outstanding teacher and to receive and bear sufferings as numerous as the customs of men. Then, should we, in a mere moment of time, learn the beginnings of things, and the causes of the world, just because we are ordered to do so? And how are we ordered? Moreover, you do not listen as you ought; that bondage – such a necessity – excuses us. Such complete liberty, such a resolution, accuses you without any doubt. What we say is the part of our duty. That we say but little rises from your being bored.
Do you ask, O man, why God did not soon destroy death along with its author? Why did He not in His providence then carefully prevent that fatal poison from working the ruin of the whole world, especially of His image?
The sky which you behold, O man, made completely of air, carries many waters and is not itself supported by anything else, since a mere command hung it up, and the sole force of a precept supports it. The divine revelation states: “Who stretches out the heaven like a pavilion: who coverest the higher rooms thereof with water” (Ps. 103:2, 3). The great weight and burden of the mountains rests upon the earth which is made solid by its own mass; and that earth floats upon a foundation of liquid, as the Prophet testifies: “Who established the earth above the waters” (Ps. 135:6). Consequently, the fact that it stands arises from a commandment, not from nature. “He spoke, and they were made: He commanded, and they were created” (Ps. 148:5). Therefore, the fact that the world holds together is a matter of divine operation, not of human understanding. The sea rolls along with the high crest of its own waves, and is raised aloft toward the clouds. Yet, light sands hem it in. Hence we see that its great might yields not to the sand, but to a precept. All the beings in the sky and earth and sea move and live after they have been made by one sole command. The Prophet affirms that they will be dissolved again by a mere command, when he says: “In the beginning, O Lord, Thou foundest the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish but Thou remainest; and all of them shall all grow old like a garment. And as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed” (Ps. 101:26-28). How? In such a way that their great age may fail through time, but not that creation will perish before the eyes of its Creator.
But, already you say – whoever you are who does this asking – that we have strayed from our subject. For, you asked why God allowed death to remain and destroy His creature, and we have described at great length how the sky and earth and sea were made from nothing and will again be dissolved – because of nothing (i.e., not any creature will destroy them, but age and God’s mere command). We have only give you more and more matter to ask about.
So you urge: “I asked why man perishes, and you have pressed the declaration that the very elements will perish also. You wanted to give to the wearied minds of mortals not repose of mind through reasoning, but merely some solace through the thought that everything perishes – just as if there were not a cause of sorrow in the fact that the sky perishes, and the earth gets dissolved, and the whole appearance of things is being blotted out because of the law of mortality. I ask (you urge), what is prettier than the sky? What more splendid than the sun? What more pleasing than the moon? What more ornamental than the stars? What more healthful than the earth? What more useful than the sea? Or what failure through age is there in all these? They remain just what there were produced or made. Certainly, their enduring would be something more pleasing than their perishing.”
O man, perhaps it would be more pleasing, but not more useful. For, while they have been enduring, you have let your attention falter. While they gleamed, you were blinded so as not to see. The brilliance of the sky has dulled your senses, and the brightness of the sun has blinded your eyes. Deceived by the beauty of these things, you have denied their Maker. You have acknowledged them as rulers of the world. You have called gods those beings which the true God has made subject to you. That is why they must all be dissolved and renewed, so that at least then you will believe they have been made, when you see that they have been repaired. So, do not think that we strayed from our subject. You see that we ran through all creation in order to bring conviction to your understanding.
O man, you did not see it when your Creator made you from dust. For, if you had seen yourself made, you would never have bewailed thus the fact that you were going to die. You saw yourself as one fully made; you saw yourself living; you saw yourself beautiful; you saw yourself like to your Creator. Since you saw yourself neither being born nor dying, were you unaware of whence you came, and what manner of man you were? That is why you attributed your whole self to nature or to yourself, and nothing to God. Wherefore, by means of nature God reduced you to your pristine state. From nothing [save age and God’s command] He has permitted you to be recalled again to dust. Thus He wants you to see what you once were, and to give thanks because you will rise again – you who once lived in such ingratitude despite the fact that you had been produced and made.
Therefore, brethren, as the Lord said, let us not fear those who kill the body. For, they do not annihilate that life, but merely pull it down while they are changing it from temporary life into something everlasting. Brethren, why should I say more? God, who has power to raise the dead, is the One who then permitted us to die. He who can restore life is the One who permitted men to be killed. To Him is honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
