To Heliodorus
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Small wits cannot grapple large themes but venturing beyond their strength fail in the very attempt; and, the greater a subject is, the more completely is he overwhelmed who cannot find words to unfold its grandeur. Nepotian who was mine and yours and ours — or rather who was Christ’s and because Christ’s all the more ours — has forsaken us his elders so that we are smitten with pangs of regret and overcome with a grief which is past bearing. We supposed him our heir, yet now his corpse is all that is ours. For whom shall my intellect now labour? Whom shall my poor letters desire to please? Where is he, the impeller of my work, whose voice was sweeter than a swan’s last song? My mind is dazed, my hand trembles, a mist covers my eyes, stammering seizes my tongue. Whatever my words, they seem as good as unspoken seeing that he no longer hears them. My very pen seems to feel his loss, my very wax tablet looks dull and sad; the one is covered with rust, the other with mould. As often as I try to express myself in words and to scatter the flowers of this encomium upon his tomb, my eyes fill with tears, my grief returns, and I can think of nothing but his death. It was a custom in former days for children over the dead bodies of their parents publicly to proclaim their praises and (as when pathetic songs are sung) to draw tears from the eyes and sighs from the breasts of those who heard them. But in our case, behold, the order of things is changed: to deal us this blow nature has forfeited her rights. For the respect which the young man should have paid to his elders, we his elders are paying to him.
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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 divides 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.
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To You, O Saviour Christ, do we Your creatures offer thanks that, when You were slain, You slew our mighty adversary. Before Your coming was there any being more miserable than man who cowering at the dread prospect of eternal death did but receive life that he might perish! For death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob be in hell, who can be in the kingdom of heaven? If Your friends — even those who had not sinned themselves — were yet for the sins of another liable to the punishment of offending Adam, what must we think of those who have said in their hearts There is no God; who are corrupt and abominable in their self-will, and of whom it is said they are gone out of the way, they have become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no not one? Even if Lazarus is seen in Abraham’s bosom and in a place of refreshment, still the lower regions cannot be compared with the kingdom of heaven. Before Christ’s coming Abraham is in the lower regions: after Christ’s coming the robber is in paradise. And therefore at His rising again many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and were seen in the heavenly Jerusalem. Then was fulfilled the saying: Awake you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. John the Baptist cries in the desert: repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. The flaming sword that keeps the way of paradise and the cherubim that are stationed at its doors are alike quenched and unloosed by the blood of Christ. It is not surprising that this should be promised us in the resurrection: for as many of us as living in the flesh do not live after the flesh, have our citizenship in heaven, and while we are still here on earth we are told that the kingdom of heaven is within us.
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Moreover before the resurrection of Christ God was known in Judah only and His name was great in Israel alone. And they who knew Him were despite their knowledge dragged down to hell. Where in those days were the inhabitants of the globe from India to Britain, from the frozen zone of the North to the burning heat of the Atlantic ocean? Where were the countless peoples of the world? Where the great multitudes?