of the faithful. Let the narrative be added A that the emperor, grieving for the calamity and rising from his throne, and the whole city together with the procession of the saint, was passing by; and console one another with these words. Solomon rightly heals sadness. For he bids wine to be given to those affected by sadness, meaning by this us, the laborers of the vineyard. Give, therefore, your wine to those who are saddened, not the one that induces drunkenness, or lays traps for the mind, or corrupts the body, but that which causes the heart to rejoice, which the Prophet pointed out to us, saying: *Wine gladdens the heart of man* (Ps. CIII, 15). With a more potent mixture, and with more abundant chalices of spiritual discourse, welcome them, so that for you the mourning may again be turned into joy and exultation, through the grace of the only-begotten Son of God, through whom glory [is] to God and the Father unto the ages of ages. Amen.
BY THE SAME FUNERAL ORATION ON PULCHERIA
By the same interpreter.
C Equidem, I do not know how I shall direct my speech. For I see a twofold subject, and it is sad and bitter on both sides, so that whichever the discourse takes up, it cannot easily avoid tears. The present turn of time, as it was announced to us yesterday by the shepherd, contains the memory of bitter events that once happened to the neighboring city through an earthquake: who could recount that without tears? But this great and illustrious capital, set before the whole world that is subject to the sun, has sustained another earthquake, and was not a little despoiled of its ornament, being suddenly deprived of the luminary that shone within it for the increase of imperial happiness, and for this reason, it is mourning and condoling together with the grieving emperors. You are not, however, entirely ignorant of what is being said, you who fill this assembly, seeing both this very place in which we are gathered and the sadness therein. I do not know, therefore, to which earthquake I should turn my speech, to that which is happening now, or to the one that happened long ago? D Yet it is well to stand against the excessive suffering, and to mitigate the city’s own pain, by soothing the suffering with certain reasonings, as if [applying a remedy].
For even those physicians are wise who, by their skill, occupy themselves with the excessive pains, while deferring the treatment of those that are less painful. For just as those skilled in these matters say that if two pains should strike the same body at once, only that which exceeds it is felt, as the intensity of the prevailing agony suppresses the lesser pain: so too do I observe in the present case. For our new and immediate grief is sharper and more vehement than those things the memory of which is bitter to us. For how could anyone not be affected by what has occurred? Who is so dispassionate in soul? Who is so iron-hearted in nature, as to receive what has happened without pain? You surely knew this young dove raised in the royal nest, who was just beginning to grow her bright plumage, but in her graces and virtues she surpassed her years, so that, having left the nest, she departed, having flown from our eyes, having been snatched away B suddenly by envy from our hands. Whether one ought to call her a dove, or a freshly budding flower—which had not yet fully shone forth from its calyx, but one part of it already shone, and the other was expected to shine; and yet, in that small and immature state, it shone with excess—how it was suddenly extinguished in the bud, and before it could reach its prime and unfold the whole flower in fragrance, it withered around itself and became dust, and no one plucked it, nor was it wreathed; but in vain did nature labor. Where the good was indeed in hope and anticipation, envy, like a sword striking from the side, interrupted the hope.
That which has happened, brothers, was an earthquake, in very truth an earthquake, and no milder than the most grievous of disasters. For it was not the soulless beauty of buildings that it demolished, nor did it cast down to the ground florid paintings or sights of stones of exquisite beauty; but that very edifice of nature itself, splendid in beauty, excelling in the radiance of its graces, this earthquake abruptly falling upon it, dissolved. C I also saw that sublime sprout, the high-crowned palm (I speak of the imperial power) which, with its imperial virtues as if with branches, rises above the whole inhabited world and embraces all things; I saw him, indeed, surpassing and conquering others, yet yielding to nature and, on account of the loss of the flower, bowing down. I saw also the noble vine which was entwined with the palm, which had brought forth this flower for us—what new pains, as if in labor again, did she endure in soul, not in body, when this growth of hers was torn away? Who passed by this tragedy without tears? Who did not lament this loss of life? Who did not weep with this calamity? Who did not mix his own voice with the common chorus of mourning? I saw a sight of faith, one that would not come to the belief of those who heard of the miracles D
A I saw a sea of people by reason of the density of those standing together, just as if it were water appearing in every direction to the eyes; the temple was full, the court of the temple was full, the adjoining square, the side streets, the intersections, the middle, the crossways, the wide spaces of the buildings. Everything that could be seen was full of people, just as if the whole world had run together to the same place because of that disaster and misfortune. The sight set before all was that holy flower being carried upon a golden litter. How downcast and mournful were the faces of all who looked upon it! How tear-filled were their eyes! Hands clapped together! Groans in addition to these, indicating the sorrow of the heart within! At that time, it did not seem to me (nor perhaps to others who were present then) that the gold shone with its natural beauty; nay, even the flashes of the jewels, the golden cloths, the splendors of the silver, and the light of the fire—which was both great and abundant, cast forward from the wax candles standing on either side—all grew dark in the mourning, and everything partook of the common gloom. Then even the great David accommodated his own hymns and songs of praise B to the lamentations, and instead of a cheerful chorus, having taken up a mournful and sorrowful one, he invited lamentations with his melodies. And since every pleasure had been driven and removed from the souls at that moment in time, only tears were a pleasure to the people.
Since, therefore, reason has been so overcome by perturbation, it would not be inopportune to restore and strengthen the weary mind, as far as it is possible, through the counsel of logical argument. For the danger is not small, lest, if we are not listeners to this word of the Apostle, we be condemned together with those who are without hope. For he says, just as we heard from him who was just now reading, that we ought not to be afflicted with sadness for the sake of those who have fallen asleep. For that perturbation is only for those who do not have hope. Yet someone, I suppose, among the faint-hearted, might say that the divine Apostle commands things that are impossible, and that he transcends nature with his precepts. For how is it possible for one living in nature to overcome the perturbation of the passions, and not be conquered by sorrow at such a spectacle, when death has not befallen at its proper time in old age, but in the first stage of life the season of beauty is extinguished by death, C the beam of the eyes is covered by the eyelids, the flush of the cheeks is changed into pallor, the mouth is held fast by silence, and the flower that was accustomed to appear on the lips turns dark; and this appears bitter not only to the parents but also to whoever happens to look upon the tragedy? What then shall we say against these things? We will not speak our own word, brothers, but we will bring forward the saying from the Gospel that was read to us. For you heard the Lord saying: D "Suffer the little children, and do not forbid them to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Therefore, even if from you also the child has departed,
A she has run back to the Lord; she closed her eyes for you, but opened them to the eternal light; she was removed from your table, but was added to the angelic one; her plant was pulled up from here, but it was set in paradise; she was transferred from kingdom to kingdom; she took off the bloom of purple, but she put on the garment of the kingdom above. Let me tell you the material from which the divine garment is made: it is not linen, nor wool, nor filaments of silk. Hear David, who describes from what source the garments are woven for God: "You have put on confession and magnificence, wrapping yourself in light as with a garment." Do you see what kind of things she exchanged for what others? Does it grieve you and is it burdensome to you that the beauty of her body is no longer visible? You do not see the true beauty of her soul, which now exults and rejoices in the assembly of the B heavenly beings. How beautiful is that eye which sees God! How sweet the mouth adorned with divine hymns! "For out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes," he says, "you have perfected praise." How beautiful are the hands that never performed evil! How comely the feet that did not approach wickedness, nor fix their imprint on the path of sinners! How beautiful is the entire appearance of that soul, not adorned with the gleams of stones, but shining with simplicity, integrity, and innocence! But perhaps it grieves you that she did not reach old age. For tell me, what beauty do you see in old age? Is it beautiful for the eyes to itch and be rubbed, for the cheeks to be wrinkled, for teeth to fall from the mouth, for a stammering C to be produced in the tongue, to tremble in the hand, to bow down to the earth, to limp with the feet, to lean on walking sticks, to be senseless in heart, to be delirious, and to utter words with an absurd and inept voice? Such are the inconveniences that necessarily happen to this age. And are we indignant and sullen on this account, that she did not arrive at the experience of such evils? Yet it is fitting to congratulate those whose lives did not undergo the trial of bitter and sad things, and who, as they sensed no trouble here, will experience no bitterness there. For such a soul, having no guilt in itself for which it might come into judgment, does not fear hell, does not dread judgment; it remains fearless and undismayed, with no evil conscience D bringing upon it the terror of judgment. "But," one says, "it was necessary for her to have come to a proper measure of age, and to have been gladdened in the bridal chamber." But to this the true bridegroom will say to you that the bridal bed in heaven is better, and that chamber is to be preferred where there is no fear of widowhood. Of what good, then, I ask you, is she deprived, now that she has put off this carnal life? Let me tell you the goods of this life: sicknesses of the soul and troubles, pleasures, angers, fears, hopes, desires, and cravings: these and such as these are what we are entangled and connected with in the present life. What evil, then, has befallen her, who has been liberated from so many tyrants? For every passion, when it prevails and dominates, with our reasonings subjugated to it, becomes a tyrant of our soul. Is it evil
in that she was not worn down by the sorrows of bearing, or that she was not worn away by the cares of rearing children, or that she did not endure the like pains which her own progenitors sustained for her sake? A But such things are to be called blessings, not lamentations. For to be in no evil at all is a state better than human nature can grasp. Thus also the wise Solomon in his own writings judges the dead to be more blessed than the living. Likewise the great David declares that the life led in the flesh is worthy of lamentation and groaning. Yet, though both were brilliant and magnificent, being endowed with royal power, and being masters and partakers of all things which are considered sweet and pleasant in life, they were not at all inclined toward the use and enjoyment of present things; but being held by the desire for the secret goods which are set before us in the incorporeal life, they accounted the life spent in the flesh a state of calamity and misfortune. I have heard David in many places of the holy Psalms, when he desired to escape from such a necessity, saying in one place: *My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord*; B and in another: *Bring my soul out of prison*. Similarly, Jeremiah also judges that day to be worthy of malediction and execration which was the beginning for him of such a life. And it is possible to find many such voices of the ancient saints, which are recorded and preserved in divine Scripture, for whom, out of desire for the true life, the life led in the flesh was heavy and burdensome. Thus also the great Abraham once readily offered his beloved son to God through sacrifice, knowing that the departure would come to pass for the child toward something better and more divine. But as many of you as are experienced in this history, you are by no means ignorant of the accounts concerning him. For what does the Scripture say? That when Abraham was indeed a young man, a promise was made to him by God regarding a future son, but when the peak of his integrity and vigor had passed, and by the time [it] had already withered and been exhausted, when nature had ceased to increase and propagate itself—old age no longer obeying the impulses—then, beyond human hopes, the promise is brought to completion and fulfillment; and the boy Isaac is born. And after a period of time had elapsed, when like a certain sprout he had shot up into beauty and stature, he was delightful to the eyes of his parents, shining with the grace of youthful age; then the trial and test of Abraham's soul is brought forward, to see if he truly and accurately discerned in the nature of things what was superior, or if he looked to the present life. And God says to him: C *Offer your son as a sacrifice for a burnt offering*. You know perfectly well, as many of you as are parents and have children, and have been taught by nature the affection toward children, how it is likely Abraham was disposed, if he looked only to the present life, if he were a slave to nature, if he considered the sweetness of life to be in the present. And what shall I say of her, leaving aside his wife, the weaker part of human nature? If she had not been instructed by her husband in the more divine things, if she did not know that the hidden life is better than the visible, she would not have allowed the man to act in such a way against the child. For surely, having been moved by maternal affections, she would have poured herself over the
A son, and embracing him in her arms, would have received the fatal wound in his stead. Would she not have used such words to Abraham? "Spare the boy, my husband; do not become a wicked story for the life of men; do not let us become a fable for the time to come; do not begrudge the son of life; do not deprive him of the sweet ray of the sun. A nuptial chamber, not a grave, is what is customarily prepared and sought by parents for their children; a wedding crown, not a murderous sword; a bridal torch, not a funeral fire. These things thieves and enemies commit, not the hands of fathers against their children. But if this evil must by all means be committed and enacted, let not the eye of Sarah see Isaac being slain; lo, drive the sword through us both, beginning with me, the wretched one; one blow will suffice for both. Let the grave be common to both; let one monument lament the common disaster." B Sarah would surely have said these things and such as these, had she not seen with her eyes what is invisible to us. For she knew that the end of life in the flesh becomes the beginning of a more divine life for those who have departed; she leaves behind shadows and lays hold of the truth; she dismisses deceits and errors and disturbances, and she finds those goods which are above eye and ear and heart. Neither will love for him distress her, nor will sordid desire distort her; neither will pride puff her up, nor will any other passion that grieves the soul trouble her, but God becomes everything to her. For this reason she willingly gives the child to God. C But what of the great Job? When he was suddenly stripped of all his possessions by one assault of adverse fortune, before he had collected his soul from the preceding blows and calamities, the final disaster was announced to him. With what spirit did he receive the fall of his children? He had three daughters and seven sons, a man blessed in his goodly offspring; for although there were so many, they were all as one in their mutual affection; not living separately or dividedly each by himself, but all visiting one another, and through their accustomed friendliness they continued to gladden one another in turn and were gladdened; and so it was then that, according to their custom, there was a feast at the house of the eldest of the brothers; the mixing bowls were full, the table full of food; in their hands were cups; there were spectacles, as is likely, and recitations, and all the joys of a feast; one way of life, friendliness, games, smiles: everything that is likely to be enjoyed in a gathering of young people in their own home. What then? After these things, when in the height of the enjoyment of the pleasantest D things the roof collapsed upon them, the feast becomes the tomb of the ten children. And the mixing bowl is mingled with the blood of the youths, and the food was defiled with the gore from their bodies. When such a disaster was announced to Job (look, I pray you, through the discourse at the athlete, not only so that you may marvel at the victor—for the profit from the marvel is small—but so that you may emulate the man in similar circumstances, and he may become for you a trainer
A of his own soul, anointing it toward patience and courage at the time of the engagement of temptations. What then did the man do? Did he do anything ignoble or small-minded; or did he speak with his speech, or manifest by his demeanor—either by scratching his cheek with his nails, or plucking hairs from his head, or casting dust upon himself, or lashing his breast with his hands, or casting his body upon the ground, or surrounding himself with professional mourners, or calling out the names of those who have departed, and lamenting them in his memory? There is nothing of this. But the messenger of the evil tidings recounted the disaster regarding the children; and he, as soon as he heard, straightway philosophized concerning the nature of things, saying whence things are, and by whom they are brought into being, and who is fitting to preside over the things that are. “The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away.” From God, he says, is the genesis for men, and to Him is the dissolution; whence it was brought forth, to that it also returns. God, therefore, who has the authority to give, the same also has the authority to take away. Being good, He deliberates good things; being wise, He knows what is profitable. As it seemed good to the Lord (and it seemed entirely good), so also He did. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
You see how great is the loftiness of the athlete’s greatness of soul; he transferred the storm of affliction to the study of the contemplation of things. For he knew precisely that B true life is stored and hidden through hope, but the present life is as it were a seed of the one to come. C But things hoped for and expected excel the present things by as much as the ear of corn differs from the grain from which it sprouts. The present life is analogous to the grain; but the life expected is shown and designated by the beauty of the ear. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” Looking to these things, Job congratulates his children for their felicity, as those who were sooner released from the bonds of life. The evidence for which is this: that when God had promised that a double measure of all the things that had been taken away would be restored, with the restitution doubled in all other things, he did not seek the duplication of his children alone; but only ten were given in place of the ten that had been taken away. Since the souls of men abide forever, for this reason he receives a double recompense for the things that were lost. But regarding the children, those born afterwards are reckoned together with those born before, as if all live to God, and temporal death is no hindrance to those who have D departed from being. For death is nothing else among men than a cleansing of vice. Since, indeed, our nature at the beginning was produced as a vessel receptive of good things by the God of all
but because the enemy of our souls poured in evil upon us through deceit, it held no place for the good; for this reason, A so that the vice that has taken root in us might not endure forever, by a better providence the vessel is dissolved for a time by death, so that when the vice has flowed out, the human race may be refashioned and restored, whole and pure from the admixture of vice, to its pristine state of life. For this is resurrection, namely, the restoration of our nature to its original state. If, therefore, it is impossible for nature to be transformed to a better form without resurrection, and if resurrection cannot take place unless death has preceded it, then death must be a good thing, becoming for us the beginning and the path of the transformation unto something better. Let us not, therefore, brethren, cast away grief concerning those who have fallen asleep, which is borne only by those who have no hope. B But our hope is Christ, to whom be glory and power, honor and adoration, unto the ages. Amen.
BY THE SAME FUNERAL ORATION ON EMPRESS PLACILLA
(Interpreted by the same.)
1. The faithful and prudent steward (for I begin from those things which were read from the divine Gospel), whom the Lord has set over this house to give the measured ration of food to those under his care in due season, having well, in the preceding time, condemned speech to C silence—he who, having rightly perceived the magnitude of the calamity, wished to honor the mourning with silence—I do not know how, in the present assembly, he brings the discourse back to the Church, himself rescinding his own judgment against speech. And although I greatly admire the teacher for his prudence in many things, I have admired him above measure in this, that, upon a recent tragedy, he rightly imposed silence upon speech. For silence seems to me a remedy fit and appropriate for those who mourn, as it slowly disperses, through D rest and dejection, the swelling of the soul. For if anyone were still...