Writings

O fool, you do not absolutely die; nor, when dead, do you escape the lofty One. Although you should arrange that when dead you perceive nothing, you shall foolishly be overcome. God the Creator of the world lives, whose laws cry out that the dead are in existence. But you, while recklessly you seek to live without God, judgest that in death is extinction, and thinkest that it is absolute. God has not ordered it as you think, that the dead are forgetful of what they have previously done.

Now has the governor made for us receptacles of death, and after our ashes we shall behold them. You are stripped, O foolish one, who thinks that by death you are not, and has made your Ruler and Lord to be able to do nothing. But death is not a mere vacuity, if you reconsider in your heart. You may know that He is to be desired, for late you shall perceive Him. You were the ruler of the flesh; certainly flesh ruled not you. Freed from it, the former is buried; you are here. Rightly is mortal man separated from the flesh.

Therefore mortal eyes will not be able to be equalled (to divine things). Thus our depth keeps us from the secret of God. Give now, while in weakness you are dying, the honour to God, and believe that Christ will bring you back living from the dead. You ought to give praises in the church to the omnipotent One.