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WHEREFORE every one while still existing in this body should already be
aware that he must be committed to that state and office, of which he made
himself a sharer and an adherent while in this life, nor should he doubt
that in that eternal world he will be partner of him, whose servant and
minister he chose to make himself here: according to that saying of our
Lord which says "If any man serve Me, let him follow Me, and where I am,
there shall My servant also be." For as the kingdom of the devil is
gained by consenting to sin, so the kingdom of God is attained by the
practice of virtue in purity of heart and spiritual knowledge. But where
the kingdom of God is, there most certainly eternal life is enjoyed, and
where the kingdom of the devil is, there without doubt is death and the
grave. And the man who is in this condition, cannot praise the Lord,
according to the saying of the prophet which tells us: "The dead cannot
praise Thee, O Lord; neither all they that go down into the grave
(doubtless of sin). But we," says he, "who live(not forsooth to sin nor I
to this world but to God) will bless the Lord, from this time forth for
evermore: for in death no man remembereth God: but in the grave (of sin)
who will confess to the Lord?" i.e., no one will. For no man even though
he were to call himself a Christian a thousand times over, or a monk,
confesses God when he is sinning: no man who allows those things which the
Lord hates, remembereth God, nor calls himself with any truth the servant
of Him, whose commands he scorns with obstinate rashness: in which death
the blessed Apostle declares that the widow is involved, who gives herself
to pleasure, saying "a widow who giveth herself to pleasure is dead while
she liveth." There are then many who while still living in this body
are dead, and lying in the grave cannot praise God; and on the contrary
there are many who though they are dead in the body yet bless God in the
spirit, and praise Him, according to this: "O ye spirits and souls of the
righteous, bless ye the Lord:" and "every spirit shall praise the
Lord." And in the Apocalypse the souls of them that are slain are not
only said to praise God but to address Him also. In the gospel too the
Lord says with still greater clearness to the Sadducees: "Have ye not read
that which was spoken by God, when He said to you: I am the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead
but of the living: for all do live unto Him." Of whom also the Apostle
says: "wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath
prepared for them a city." For that they are not idle after the
separation from this body, and are not incapable of feeling, the parable in
the gospel shows, which tells us of the beggar Lazarus and Dives clothed in
purple, one of whom obtained a position of bliss, i.e., Abraham's bosom,
the other is consumed with the dreadful heat of eternal fire. But if
you care too to understand the words spoken to the thief "To-day thou shalt
be with Me in Paradise," what do they clearly show but that not only
does their former intelligence continue with the souls, but also that in
their changed condition they partake of some state which corresponds to
their actions and deserts? For the Lord would certainly never have promised
him this, if He had known that his soul after being separated from the
flesh would either have been deprived of perception or have been resolved
into nothing. For it was not his flesh but his soul which was to enter
Paradise with Christ. At least we must avoid, and shun with the utmost
horror, that wicked punctuation of the heretics, who, as they do not
believe that Christ could be found in Paradise on the same day on which He
descended into hell, thus punctuate "Verily, I say unto you to-day," and
making a stop apply "thou shall be with. Me in Paradise, in such a way that
they imagine that this promise was not fulfilled at once after he departed
from this life, but that it will be fulfilled after the resurrection, as
they do not understand what before the time of His resurrection He declared
to the Jews, who fancied that He was hampered by human difficulties and
weakness of the flesh as they were: "No man hath ascended into heaven, but
He who came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven:" by
which He clearly shows that the souls of the departed are not only not
deprived of their reason, but that they are not even without such feelings
as hope and sorrow, joy and fear, and that they already are beginning to
taste beforehand something of what is reserved for them at the last
judgment, and that they are not as some unbelievers hold resolved into
nothing after their departure from this life: but that they live a more
real life, and are still more earnest in waiting on the praises of God. And
indeed to put aside for a little Scripture proofs, and to discuss, as far
as our ability permits us, a little about the nature of the soul itself, is
it not beyond the bounds of I will not say the folly, but the madness of
all stupidity, even to have the slightest suspicion that the nobler part of
man, in which as the blessed Apostle shows, the image and likeness of God
consists, will, when the burden of the body with which it is oppressed
in this world is laid aside, become insensible, when, as it contains in
itself all the power of reason, it makes the dumb and senseless material
flesh sensible, by participation with it: especially when it follows, and
the order of reason itself demands that when the mind has put off the
grossness of the flesh with which it is now weighed down, it will restore
its intellectual powers better than ever, and receive them in a purer and
finer condition than it lost them. But so far did the blessed Apostle
recognize that what we say is true, that he actually wished to depart from
this flesh; that by separation from it, he might be able to be joined more
earnestly to the Lord; saying: "I desire to be dissolved and to be with
Christ, which is far better, for while we are in the body we are absent
from the Lord:" and therefore "we are bold and have our desire always to be
absent from the body, and present with the Lord. Wherefore also we strive,
whether absent or present, to be pleasing to Him;" and he declares
indeed that the continuance of the soul which is in the flesh is distance
from the Lord, and absence from Christ, and trusts with entire faith that
its separation and departure from this flesh involves presence with Christ.
And again still more clearly the same Apostle speaks of this state of the
souls as one that is very full of life: "But ye are come to Mount Sion, and
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, and the church of the first born, who are written in
heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect." Of which spirits he
speaks in another passage, "Furthermore we have had instructors of our
flesh, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more be subject to the
Father of spirits and live?"
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