Letters

¹ So overpowered am I by the sad intelligence of the falling asleep of the holy and by me deeply revered Lucinius that I am scarcely able to dictate even a short letter. I do not, it is true, lament his fate, for I know that he has passed to better things: like Moses he can say: “I will now turn aside and see this great sight,” but I am tormented with regret that I was not allowed to look upon the face of one, who was likely, as I believed, in a short time to come hither.

True indeed is the prophetic warning concerning the doom of death that it divides brothers, and with harsh and cruel hand sunders those whose names are linked together in the bonds of love. But we have this consolation that it is slain by the word of the Lord. For it is said: “O death, I will be your plagues; O grave, I will be your destruction,” and in the next verse: “An east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up.” For, as Isaiah says, “there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots”: and He says Himself in the Song of Songs, “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley.” Our rose is the destruction of death, and died that death itself might die in His dying.

But, when it is said that He is to be brought “from the wilderness,” the virgin's womb is indicated, which without sexual intercourse or impregnation has given to us God in the form of an infant able to quench by the glow of the Holy Spirit the fountains of lust and to sing in the words of the psalm: “as in a dry and pathless and waterless land, so have I appeared unto you in the sanctuary.” Thus when we have to face the hard and cruel necessity of death, we are upheld by this consolation, that we shall shortly see again those whose absence we now mourn.

For their end is not called death but a slumber and a falling asleep. Wherefore also the blessed apostle forbids us to sorrow concerning them which are asleep, telling us to believe that those whom we know to sleep now may hereafter be roused from their sleep, and when their slumber is ended may watch once more with the saints and sing with the angels:— “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men of good will.” In heaven where there is no sin, there is glory and perpetual praise and unwearied singing; but on earth where sedition reigns, and war and discord hold sway, peace must be gained by prayer, and it is to be found not among all but only among men of good will, who pay heed to the apostolic salutation: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” For “His abode is in peace and His dwelling place is in Zion,” that is, on a watchtower, on a height of doctrines and of virtues, in the soul of the believer; for the angel of this latter daily beholds the face of God, and contemplates with unveiled face the glory of God.