Letters

² What shall I do then? Shall I join my tears to yours? The apostle forbids me for he speaks of dead Christians as “them which are asleep.” So too in the gospel the Lord says, “the damsel is not dead but sleeps,” and Lazarus when he is raised from the dead is said to have been asleep. No, I will be glad and rejoice that “speedily he was taken away lest that wickedness should alter his understanding” for “his soul pleased the Lord.” But though I am loth to give way and combat my feelings, tears flow down my cheeks, and in spite of the teachings of virtue and the hope of the resurrection a passion of regret crushes my too yielding mind.

O death that dividest brothers knit together in love, how cruel, how ruthless you are so to sunder them! “The Lord has fetched a burning wind that comes up from the wilderness: which has dried your veins and has made your well spring desolate.” You swallowed up our Jonah, but even in your belly He still lived. You carried Him as one dead, that the world's storm might be stilled and our Nineveh saved by His preaching. He, yes He, conquered you, He slew you, that fugitive prophet who left His home, gave up His inheritance and surrendered his dear life into the hands of those who sought it.

He it was who of old threatened you in Hosea: “O death, I will be your plagues; O grave, I will be your destruction.” By His death you are dead; by His death we live. You have swallowed up and you are swallowed up. Whilst you are smitten with a longing for the body assumed by Him, and while your greedy jaws fancy it a prey, your inward parts are wounded with hooked fangs.