Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
T H E HOLY
S E P U L C H E R
F ALL THE HOLY AND WONDROUS PLACES, some-
how the holy Sepulchre hold pride of place. I do not know why people feel a greater devotion at the place where he lay while dead than at the places where he did things while alive,1 or are more moved by the remembrance of his death than of his life. I suppose that the one is regarded as more desolate, and the other more pleasant; or that the peace of his repose fascinates human weakness more than does the hard toil of his way of life; the security of his death more than the righteousness of his life.
Christ's life has provided a pattern for living for me, but his death, a release from death. The one prepared life, the other destroyed death.2 His life was arduous but his death was precious; but both are absolutely necessary. What can it be about Christ that is of greater significance: his death to a person living iniquitously or his life to a person dying damnably? Does the death of Christ not deliver from eternal death those who now sin unto death, and did the holiness of his life not deliver the saints who had died before Christ? Is it not written, What man who is alive will never see death, or can pluck his soul from the grip of hell?5
Now then, since both are equally necessary for us— living faithfully4 and dying trustingly—by living he taught us how to live and by dying how to die a trusting death. For he died as one des-
Bar 3:38.
2 Tim 1:10.
Ps 88:49.
Tit 2:2.
In Praise of the New Knighthood tined to be raised up again and to those who suffer death brought the hope of rising again. But he has added a third gift as well, without which the other two would count for naught, and that is the remission of sins. For what-insofar as true and supreme happiness is concerned—would goodness, uprightness, or length of life do for anyone still bound by sin, even if only original sin?
Death indeed is but the consequence of sin,5 and if man had avoided sin he would never, ever have tasted death.6
19. By sinning then humankind lost life and found death, just as God had forewarned; and it was perfectly just that a person die if he sinned. 7 What could be more just than to bear retaliation?8
God is indeed the life of the soul, as the soul is the life of the body. By willfully sinning, [the soul] willingly gave up living, and by not choosing life, it also gives up bestowing life. Freely it rejected life since it did not choose to live; it is no longer able to bestow life where and when it pleases. The soul did not want to be governed by God; it is unable to govern its body. How can it command an inferior if it does not submit to its superior? The Creator has found his creature in rebellion against him; the soul will find its lackey a rebel as well. Humankind has been found guilty of transgressing divine law,9 and he finds another law in his members resisting the rule of his mind and imprisoning him in the law of sin.10
Sin indeed, as it is written, separates us from God;11 and death will separate us from our bodies as well. The soul cannot be separated from God except by sin, nor can the body be separated from the soul except by death. Where is the injustice of its punishment when it is only suffering from its subject the same revolt
Rom 6:23.
Jn 8:51-52.
Gen 2:17.
Ex 21:23; Deut 19:21: Lex talionis, literally, the Law of the Talon.
Jas 2:11.
Rom 7:23.
Is 59:2.