Commodian — Instructiones 26 (fool, you will not die away from God)

26. FOOL, YOU WILL NOT DIE AWAY FROM GOD. Fool, you will not die away, nor once dead do you escape your deeds, though you arrange that you feel nothing when dead. You are overcome, senseless one: God the maker of the world lives, whose lawful claims cry out that they hold for the dead. But you, while you rush headlong to live without God, judge the dead extinguished in the fates or credit fate. The eternal God did not arrange it as you think — that the dead are forgetful of what was done before. Now he has made for us unskilled receptacles of death; but after our ashes we shall see those things. Pull yourself out, fool, who think that after funerals you are not. You have made your ruler and lord able to do nothing. But death is not into a void, if you rethink it in the heart. Know what is to be hoped for — for late you will feel him. You were ruler of the flesh; the flesh certainly did not rule you; taken from it, that flesh of yours is stored away. Rightly mortal man is separated from flesh. Therefore mortal eyes will not be able to match it — so our deep has God’s secrets. So give God honor now, fragile one, while you die, and believe that Christ returns you alive from the dead. You ought to render praises to the Almighty in the church. ****** Death is not a blank. God lives; Christ raises; deeds still count.