On Death.

-St. Basil the Great.

A wondrous thing, O beloved! How each of us, soon after leaving the maternal womb, is carried forward, bound by the flow of time, ever leaving behind the day just lived, yet utterly powerless, however much he may wish it, to return even to yesterday. And yet we rejoice when we advance farther, and as our age changes we exult as though we were gaining something; we deem a man blessed when he passes from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age. We do not perceive that we lose from life exactly as much as we have lived; we do not feel our life slipping away, though we constantly measure it by time already past and gone. Nor do we consider that uncertainty: how long the One who sent us on this journey has appointed for our course. Neither are we willing to reflect carefully what things are the lighter burdens for such a journey—those we could more easily carry with us—and what are the heavy, earth-bound things that cannot belong to man at all and will not let their possessors pass through those narrow gates.

What we ought to have gathered, we leave behind; what we ought to have despised, that we gather. We pay no heed to what can accompany us and truly adorn both soul and body, but strive to amass what remains ever foreign to us and only displays our shamelessness—always adding vain toil and care, like one who, deceiving himself, would try to fill a broken jar.

Just as those who travel a long road stretch forth the feet alternately (as though opposing one another) toward the distant goal, and by quickly placing one foot after the other, with the first continually becoming the last, easily reach the journey’s end—so too we who have been brought into this life by the Creator quickly enter the divisions of time from the very beginning, ever making the first part the last, and so arrive at life’s end. For this present life, in my judgment, is a ceaseless path, a journey divided into stages as though into inns: the womb is the starting-point for each, the grave the boundary of the course. This path leads all who travel it—some more quickly, others more slowly; some it allows to traverse the whole distance, others it suffers not even to linger at the first inn.

God, who created and gave us life, has appointed to every soul its own measure of sojourn in this life and has set for each man different exits by death: to one to remain longer in the body, to another to be loosed more speedily from the bonds of the flesh—according to the unsearchable judgments of His wisdom and righteousness. Just as among prisoners some are kept longer in tormenting chains while others are sooner released from that misery, so too some souls spend more time in this life, others less, according as the God who made us, in His wisdom, inscrutably and beyond human understanding, foresees what is for the good of each.

As those who sleep aboard ships are borne to harbor by the wind without feeling it, and though they perceive nothing, the ship’s motion nevertheless brings them to their end—so we, in the passage of our life’s time, are drawn by an imperceptible flow, as by some ceaseless movement, each toward his own appointed end.

You are a traveler in this life, O man; you pass through everything, and everything remains behind you. Did you see a plant, a flower, a stream, or anything else worthy of notice on the way? You took a little delight and passed on. Then there met you stones, valleys, precipices, mountains, thorns, wild beasts, serpents, briars, or something else distressing: you suffered brief hurt and soon left it behind. Such is our life: neither its pleasures nor its pains endure long.

Today you till the ground, tomorrow another does so, and after him yet another. Do you see these fields and costly houses? How many times since their beginning have they changed names? First they bore this man’s name, then another’s; they passed into other hands and now are called by yet another’s name. Is not our life, then, a highway where one takes another’s place and all follow in turn?

From other roads that lead from city to city one may turn aside and not travel them if one does not wish. But this road, even if we desire to delay, seizes us by force and drags us who walk upon it toward the end appointed by the Master. Once a man has gone out through the gate that leads into this life and set foot upon this path, it is impossible, O beloved, for him not to reach its end.

Therefore do not prefer the worthless to that which is beyond all price; do not be evil merchants who value corruptible life above the incorruptible and the state of blessedness. For apart from the dishonors of passion to which many lovers of pleasure are subjected, the necessities of this life break the soul’s strength and, as it were, enslave it when they forcibly drag it into the service of the flesh; and where there is slavery, there of necessity is dishonor also. We must therefore flee a life that is joined to dishonor.

“It is no great thing I do,” it is written, “in giving myself to Thee, O Master; for being Thy servant, I offer Thee what is Thine own.” For everything created is in every way subject to its Creator. Therefore a man living in the flesh must be as a sojourner, a passing stranger; and when he departs this life he must rest as in his own true home. That is why Abraham sojourned in this life as a foreigner; though he possessed not so much as the dust beneath his foot, at his burial he purchased land for a price to receive his body. Truly blessed is it not to cling to earthly things as though they were our own, nor to love the things of this world as though it were our natural fatherland, but to dwell here regarding this life as a punishment appointed us, as though for some transgression we had been exiled by judges from our true homeland into banishment.

Do you exalt yourself in riches? Do you boast in the dignity of your ancestors, in your native land, in bodily beauty, in the honor paid you by all? Do you not know that you are mortal, that you are dust and to dust you shall return? Look upon those who before you shone with the same splendor. Where are the city governors beloved of the people? Where the irresistible orators, the generals, the princes, the kings? Are they not all dust? Are they not all a tale? Is not the memory of their life contained in a few meager bones? Look into their tombs: can you tell who was slave and who master, who rich and who poor? If you can, distinguish the king from the captive, the strong from the weak, the beautiful from the deformed. Remember your nature, and you will not be puffed up.

What profit has the rich man when after death he cannot take his wealth with him? From possessing it he gained only this: that in his lifetime his soul was flattered by parasites. In death he will take none of that abundance; only a little cloth to cover his shame—and even that is put on him by the consent of servants. He will be fortunate if he occupies even a small plot of earth, and that only out of the pity of those who bury him, granting it for the sake of common human decency—not as a gift to him, but out of respect for mankind. Thus nothing of the allurements of this life, for whose sake many grow frenzied, is truly ours, nor can it ever belong to us of itself; it is equally foreign to all—to those who seem to enjoy it and to those who have it not.

Gold, though a man gather countless myriads in his lifetime, cannot remain his forever: either, while he still lives, it slips away to the stronger, or at death he leaves it behind; it refuses to accompany its possessor on that long journey. Yet rich men, when dragged toward that inevitable path which violently severs the soul from this wretched flesh, often look back weeping at their wealth and at the labors they endured for it from their youth; the wealth passes into other hands, leaving them only the toil of gathering it and the sin of usury.

Though a man acquire fields without number, vast estates, splendid houses, herds of every kind, though he be clothed with all human power, he cannot enjoy them forever. Called master of them for a brief time, he must yield them again to others, himself hidden in a little plot of earth. Often even before the grave, before his departure hence, perhaps to enemies, he sees his goods pass away. Do we not know how many villages, how many houses, how many peoples and cities, while their former owners still lived, were renamed after other lords? How many who were once slaves have afterward ascended thrones of rule, while those who were once called lords and masters have at last counted it happiness to sit among their subjects and bow to their own former slaves—when their fortune, like a throw of dice, suddenly changed?

When you see grass in the meadow or a flower in bloom, let the thought of human nature come to your mind, recalling this comparison of the wise Isaiah:
“All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the field” (Isa 40:6).

With this most apt simile the prophet has shown the shortness of our life, the swift passing of human joy, and the fleeting delight of worldly prosperity. The man who today is sound in body, fattened by pleasures, who possesses the ripe beauty of youth, who is strong, vigorous, and irresistible in his course; tomorrow, either withered by age or weakened by sickness, he becomes an object of pity.

Another boasts of overflowing wealth, is surrounded by a darkness of flatterers, thronged by crowds of pretended friends who court his favor, and by a multitude of kinsmen who are in truth nothing but sycophants. A whole regiment of servants follows him: some stand ready to prepare his food, others to attend to every other need. He has them with him whenever he leaves his house and whenever he returns, and by this very display he stirs up envy in everyone he meets. Add to wealth civil authority or honors conferred by kings, dominion over the people, command of armies, a herald crying aloud before him, lictors on every side striking terror into subjects now with stripes, now with confiscation of goods, now with exile or imprisonment; from all this the cruel fear felt by those beneath him is doubled.

And then what? A single night, a single fever, a stabbing pain, an inflammation of the lungs snatches this man from the number of the living and destroys him. It tears off his mask in an instant and shows that his glory was nothing but a dream. Therefore the prophet rightly compared the glory of man to a flower that quickly fades.

What plausible excuse for avarice, then, will those offer who cling so greedily to this life and its riches? “I do not wish,” they say, “to sell my estates now and give to the poor for the necessities of life. When I myself have enjoyed my wealth in this life, then I will make the poor heirs of my possessions.”

O mortal man! When you are no longer dwelling among your fellow-men, then you will be philanthropic! When I see you dead, then I will call you a lover of your brethren! Great grace will be granted you for your beneficence because, lying in the grave and turned to earth, you have become generous in giving and magnanimous! Tell me, in what time do you expect the reward? In the time when you were alive, or after death? While you lived you enjoyed the pleasures of this world and would not so much as look upon the poor; but when you are dead, what works can you perform? And what reward is due to works that were never done? Show me the deeds, and then demand the recompense. No one makes purchases after the market is closed; no one is crowned after the contest is over; no one displays valor after the battle has ended. So too, after life is finished, piety is no longer shown.

With ink and letters you promise beneficence. But who will tell you the hour of your departure? Who will guarantee the manner of your death? How many have been snatched away by sudden accidents, unable even to utter a sound because of their illness? Why then do you wait for a time when you may no longer be master of your own mind? The night is deep, the sickness heavy, and there is no one to help. You will look this way and that, see no one beside you, recognize the vanity of your plan, and sigh over your folly for having put off fulfilling the commandment until now—enjoying pleasures while you lived, and performing God’s commands only when you are dead. While you lived you honored yourself above the commandment; after death you prefer the commandment to your enemies. For Christ said, “Let not this man take it, but let that one take it.” What is this—vengeance upon enemies, or love for a true friend?

Therefore we ought not to weep for those who depart this life—still less for righteous men—but rather for birth and entrance into this life. For entrance into this world is accompanied by the shame of defilement and suffering, by that which none of those who have gone before can behold without disgust. Thus coming into the world is by the necessity of nature and the law of fleshly birth; but departure hence is honorable and full of light—yet not for all men, only for those who have lived here piously and righteously. Honorable, therefore, is death; it is not human birth that is honorable. “It is sown,” it is said, “in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption” (1 Cor 15:43, 42).

When men died under the old law, their corpses were unclean; but since the death that is in Christ, the relics of His saints are honorable. Formerly it was said to priest and Nazarite: “Let him not defile himself for any dead person”; and, “Whoever touches a dead body shall be unclean,” and again, “Let him wash his garments.” Now, however, he who touches the bones of martyrs receives a certain share of sanctification from the grace that dwells in the body. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Ps 115).

Compare death, therefore, with birth, and cease to weep for one who is freed from dishonor. For the word of God commands us to rejoice and be glad with the righteous, but to weep and wail with those who shed tears of repentance, or to mourn for those who feel no sorrow at all for their sins because they do not perceive their own destruction. But he who weeps for the dead or joins his cries with those who mourn—can such a one be considered a keeper of the commandment? How can one praise a physician who, instead of helping the sick, becomes sick together with him?

David, mourning the death of his friend Jonathan, wept also for his enemy, saying, “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan,” and, “Weep for Saul, O daughters of Israel.” For Saul, because he died in sin, he laments; for Jonathan, because he was most dearly united to him throughout life.

Death comes to a man when the limits of life appointed to each of us from the beginning by the righteous judgment of God are fulfilled—God who from afar foresees the good of every man. Yet does not the death of a beloved son wound your spirit? Who could be so hard of heart, so far removed from human feeling, as to endure this sorrowful event without pity or feel no great grief in his soul at it?

The heir of a noble house, the stay of his lineage, the hope of his country, the offspring of pious parents, reared amid countless prayers, snatched in the very flower of his age from his parents’ hands—he dies. Is not this enough to break even the hardness of adamant and move one to lamentation? If, then, we choose to lament this sad misfortune and shed tears, the span of this present life will not suffice us for it. Even if all men mourned with us, we could not match our weeping to the calamity; even if we poured forth whole rivers of tears, we would still be unable to weep enough for such a disaster.

Therefore I counsel you, O man, as a zealous contender: stand firm against the greatness of the blow, do not give yourself over to cruel grief, do not let your spirit faint, being assured that although the designs of God’s providence are unknown to us, everything sent upon us by our wise and loving Master must be accepted, however heavy it may be for us. All the more because God knows how to apportion what is profitable to each, and why He does not set the same boundaries to our life. There is surely some reason incomprehensible to human understanding why some are snatched more quickly from this life while others are left longer to suffer here below. Therefore in all things we must bow before God’s love toward us and not be indignant, remembering that righteous and venerable voice uttered by the great contender Job when he saw his ten children crushed together at a single banquet in one instant: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it has come to pass” (Job 1:21). Let us make this wondrous saying our own, that we may show equal reward from the righteous Judge for equal courage.

We have not lost a son; we have returned him to the One who gave him. His life has not been destroyed; it has been changed for a better one. Earth has not covered our beloved; heaven has received him. Let us wait a little, and we shall be with him we long for. Our separation will not be long, for we all in this life are running as on a road toward the same harbor: one has already entered, another has only just arrived, a third is hastening; but the same end will overtake us all. Though one has finished the course sooner, we shall all enter the same port, and we all have one dwelling-place.

Remember your own father—he died. Is it then marvelous that one born of a mortal should be the father of a mortal? That your son died before his time, before he was sated with life, before he reached mature age, before men began to know him, before he left descendants after him—this does not increase sorrow but rather affords some consolation: he left no children orphans, no wife long widowed and sorrowing who must marry again and neglect her first children. That his life was not prolonged in this age—who would be so foolish as to count that anything but the greatest blessing? For longer sojourn in this life only furnishes occasion for greater evils.

Why did you not train yourself earlier to think mortal thoughts about what is mortal, instead of regarding your son’s death as an unexpected accident? When you were first told of his birth, if someone had asked you, “What has been born?” would you not have answered, “A human being”? And if a human being, then mortal. Is it strange that a mortal should die? Do you not see that the sun rises and sets, the moon waxes and wanes, plants bloom and wither? Is it marvelous, then, that we who are part of the world share in the world’s changes?

The loss of a beloved son, a most precious wife, or a most pleasant friend bound by the bond of love will not be grievous or unbearable to the man who foresees it and has sound reason as the guide of his life, following no mere custom. For even brute beasts find it most painful to be parted from what they are used to. I myself once saw an ox weeping at the manger when the other ox that had been reared with him and always yoked together with him had died. So too the other animals cling very strongly to what they are accustomed to.

I did not think it superfluous today to fulfill my duty also toward you, the mother of the departed child, and to direct my words to you as well. I know how tender-hearted mothers are; from this I conclude how great your grief must be in the present sorrow.

You have lost a son whom, while he lived, every mother counted blessed and wished that her own children might be like him; and when he died, all mourned him as though each were burying her own. His death was a wound to his country. With him a great and noble lineage fell prostrate, as though deprived of its support. O assault of the devil! How much evil it was able to inflict! O earth compelled to receive so great a fall! The very sun—if it has any feeling—stood aghast at so mournful a sight. And who can express what an unsupported spirit imagines to itself?

Yet all that happens is not within our power; for we know from the Gospel that not even the smallest bird falls without the will of our Father. Therefore everything that comes to pass is according to the will of Him who made us. And who can resist the counsel of God? Let us therefore accept everything sent down upon us; for by indignation we do not undo what has happened, but destroy ourselves. We must not blame the justice of God. We are utterly unskilled in searching out His unsearchable judgments.

Now the Lord is testing you in your love for Him. Now is the time for you, through patience, to receive the portion of the martyrs. The mother of the Maccabees, beholding the death of her seven sons, did not grieve nor shed womanish tears, but gave thanks to God that she had seen them set free by fire, scourges, and cruel torments from the bonds of the flesh; and for this she was counted well-pleasing before God and ever-memorable among men (2 Macc 7:20).

Great is your sorrow—I know it well—but great also are the rewards prepared by the Lord for those who suffer. When you became a mother and beheld your son, you thanked God and knew without doubt that, being mortal yourself, you had borne a mortal child. Is it then marvelous that a mortal has died? We grieve that it was “before his time.” Yet whether it was truly untimely is unknown to us, for we have not been taught to choose what is profitable for souls or to set the boundaries of human life.

Survey the whole world in which you live and consider that everything visible is mortal and subject to corruption. Look upon the heavens—they too will one day perish; upon the sun—it will not endure forever; upon all the stars, the creatures of earth and sea, the adornments of the earth, and the earth itself—all are subject to corruption; in time all will cease to be. Let meditation upon this be your consolation in grief. Do not measure calamity by the calamity itself, for thus it will seem unbearable; but compare it with all the afflictions of mankind, and you will find comfort in it.

Moreover, I can say with boldness: spare your husband; comfort one another. By being utterly crushed, do not make his misfortune still more unbearable.

I fear that out of your exceeding love for your son you may do yourself harm, receiving a deep wound in your guileless heart. No event ought to be received with bitterness, even though in this present life it touches our weakness. Though the reason for every occurrence sent upon us by the Lord—as One who is good—is unknown to us, we must nevertheless be persuaded that everything that befalls us brings us profit: either rewarding patience in this life, or for the soul that has gone to heaven, so that it might no longer linger in this life and be filled yet more with the evil that increases in the world.

If the hope of Christians were bounded by this life alone, then indeed it would be grievous to be parted from the body before one’s time. But if those who live unto God place the beginning of true life in the loosing of the soul from these bodily bonds, why then do we grieve as those who have no hope?

That the loss of your most precious husband has caused you unbearable calamity—I agree, and no one will doubt that the death of so excellent a husband is a sorrowful and painful event. Indeed, there is no one whose heart is so hardened that, having known that man well and then hearing that he was suddenly snatched away by death, would not count his loss a common bereavement for all mankind. If this event is so heavy and unbearable even for strangers, what must we imagine the grief of your soul to be—a soul so stricken by this misfortune that in separation from her most beloved she feels as though two parts of herself had been severed? Such parting is no less painful than if half our body were cut away. The sorrow is that great—or even greater. What, then, is the consolation in such a calamity?

First, the decree established from of old by our Creator: that having been born, we must at the appointed time depart this life. Since from Adam even until us our affairs have been so ordered, we ought not to be indignant at the common laws of nature, but to accept as a blessing God’s providence toward us.

The reading of Holy Scripture is always profitable, but especially in circumstances such as these. Remember, therefore, the words spoken by the Creator: that we who are born of earth return again to earth (Gen 3:19), and there is none so great as to be exempt from this dissolution. Grant that the wondrous man was pre-eminent, great, possessing a virtue equal to his bodily strength, yielding to no one in this—yet he was a man, and he died like Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, or any other we might name who shared the same nature.

Our Creator made that man for one purpose only: as an exemplar of human nature. Therefore all eyes were turned upon him, every tongue praised his mighty deeds; painters and sculptors could not portray him truly; chroniclers, in describing his valiant exploits in war, verge upon the incredible and fabulous. Wherefore many, when the sorrowful tidings were brought by rumor, could not believe or accept that such a man had died. Yet he fell under the same lot to which heaven, sun, and earth shall one day be subject.

Looking upon this, so moderate your grief that it be neither cast out of your heart nor you swallowed up by it.

Consider that those who are joined in this life and then separated by death are like travelers walking the same road, bound together for a time by a kind of companionship for the sake of continual conversation. When they have traversed the common path and see it cut off, of necessity they part from one another; no longer held by their acquaintance, they abandon their former plans, and each, recalling the original purpose of his journey, hastens toward his own goal.

Thus those who are united by marriage or any other companionship surely had an appointed end of life foreordained, which of necessity has separated those who were joined together. It is therefore a mark of a thankful spirit not to grieve over the parting, and especially to give thanks to the Author of the union for having once granted them companionship.

But you—when your husband was alive and your son well, when all those things over which you now sigh were unharmed—did not send up thanksgiving to the Creator for present blessings, but complained even then about what you lacked. When you lived with one husband, you grieved that you had no children; when you had children, you sorrowed that you did not abound in riches.

We must take care lest by failing to feel special joy while our loved ones live, we make their loss necessary for us, showing greater love for them after death than before. For when we gave no thanks for the good things sent us by God, it becomes needful that we be deprived of them, so that feeling may be awakened in us. Just as the eyes cannot see what is too close and require a proper distance, so ungrateful souls, through loss, feel more keenly the past benefit. When they enjoyed good things they offered no thanksgiving to the Giver; when deprived of them, they count as great what they no longer possess.

But let us drive away sorrow that arises from lack, and from now on learn to give thanks for what we have. In the most painful circumstances let us say to the wise Physician: “In affliction You have chastened us a little” (cf. Isa 26:16). Let us say: “It is good for me that You have humbled me” (Ps 118/119:71). Let us say: “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18). Let us say: “We are chastened far less than our sins deserve” (cf. Job 15:11).

Let us pray to the Lord, saying: “Chasten us, O Lord, but not in judgment nor in wrath” (Jer 10:24); for “when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor 11:32).

And when we enjoy good things in life, let us utter that voice of David: “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?” (Ps 115/116:12)—the prophet rightly at a loss and looking upon his own poverty, for he has nothing worthy to render to Him who, after these great and renowned benefits (which nevertheless lack perfect excellence), promises at last far greater things: “things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2:9).

May we, having cleansed ourselves from the passions of the flesh, attain to these things by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and power, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.