Further still, we are reminded that in such a carnage^[1] as then occurred, the bodies could not even be buried. But godly confidence is not appalled by so ill-omened a circumstance; for the faithful bear in mind that assurance has been given that not a hair of their head shall perish, and that, therefore, though they even be devoured by beasts, their blessed resurrection will not hereby be hindered. The Truth would nowise have said, Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,^[2] if anything whatever that an enemy could do to the body of the slain could be detrimental to the future life. Or will some one perhaps take so absurd a position as to contend that those who kill the body are not to be feared before death, and lest they kill the body, but after death, lest they deprive it of burial? If this be so, then that is false which Christ says, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do;^[3] for it seems they can do great injury to the dead body. Far be it from us to suppose that the Truth can be thus false. They who kill the body are said to do something, because the deathblow is felt, the body still having sensation; but after that, they have no more that they can do, for in the slain body there is no sensation. And so there are indeed many bodies of Christians lying unburied; but no one has separated them from heaven, nor from that earth which is all filled with the presence of him who knows whence he will raise again what he created. It is said, indeed, in the Psalm: The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them. But this was said rather to exhibit the cruelty of those who did these things, than the misery of those who suffered them. To the eyes of men this appears a harsh and doleful lot, yet precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.^[4] Wherefore all these last offices and ceremonies that concern the dead, the careful funeral arrangements, and the equipment of the tomb, and the pomp of obsequies, are rather the solace of the living than the comfort of the dead. If a costly burial does any good to a wicked man, a squalid burial, or none at all, may harm the godly. His crowd of domestics furnished the purple-clad Dives with a funeral gorgeous in the eye of man; but in the sight of God that was a more sumptuous funeral which the ulcerous pauper received at the hands of the angels, who did not carry him out to a marble tomb, but bore him aloft to Abraham’s bosom.

If you shut the heavens, who will open them? And if you let loose your torrents, who will restrain them? It is an easy thing in your eyes to make some people poor and others rich, to make some alive and to kill others, to strike some with illness and to heal others. Whatever you do according to your will is perfect. You are angry, and we have sinned, someone said long ago, in making confession. Now it is time for me to say the opposite, We have sinned, and you are angry; therefore we have become a reproach to our neighbors. You turned your face from us, and we were filled with dishonor. But stay, Lord; cease, Lord; forgive, Lord; deliver us not up forever because of our iniquities, and let not our chastisements be a warning for others, when we might learn wisdom from the trials of others.

Some things mentioned in the Bible are not factual; some factual things are not mentioned; some nonfactual things receive no mention there; some things are both factual and mentioned. Do you ask for my proofs here? I am ready to offer them. In the Bible, God sleeps,^[1] wakes up,^[2] is angered, walks^[3] and has a throne of cherubim.^[4] Yet when has God ever been subject to emotion? When do you ever hear that God is a bodily being? This is a nonfactual, mental picture. We have used names derived from human experience and applied them so far as we could, to aspects of God. His retirement from us, for reason known to himself into an almost unconcerned inactivity, is his sleeping. Human sleeping, after all, has the character of restful inaction. When he alters and suddenly benefits us, that is his waking up. Waking up puts an end to sleep, just as looking at somebody puts an end to turning away from him. We have made his punishing us, his being angered; for with us, punishment is born of anger. His acting in different places, we call walking, for walking is a transition from one place to another. His resting among the heavenly powers, making them almost his haunt, we call his sitting and being enthroned; this too is human language. The divine, in fact, rests nowhere as he rests in the saints. God’s swift motion we call flight;^[5] his watching over us is his face;^[6] his giving and receiving is his hand.^[7] In short every faculty or activity of God has given us a corresponding picture in terms of some thing bodily.

There, at last, gaze on In the beginning was the Word.^[1] The Word was not, you see, made at some time or other; but it just was in the beginning. Not like creation, of which it is said, In the beginning God made heaven and earth.^[2] As for the Word that was in the beginning, there was no time when it was not. So this that was in the beginning, and was the Word with God, and the Word itself was God; and all things were made through him, and without him was nothing made; and in him what was made is life.^[3] This Word came to us. To whom? To us as worthy? Perish the thought! No, but to us as unworthy. After all, Christ died for the ungodly,^[4] and the unworthy, while being worthy himself. We were unworthy, you see, for him to have pity on; but he was worthy to take pity on us, to be told, Because of your pity, Lord, deliver us. Not because of any previous merits of ours, but because of your pity, Lord, deliver us; and be lenient with our sins, because of your name, not because of our merit. Obviously, not because of the merit of our sins, but because of your name. I mean, the merit of our sins, of course, is not reward but revenge. So therefore, because of your name.

As for those who insult over them^[1] in their trials, and when ills befall them say, Where is thy God?^[2] we may ask them where their gods are when they suffer the very calamities for the sake of avoiding which they worship their gods, or maintain they ought to be worshipped; for the family of Christ is furnished with its reply: our God is everywhere present, wholly everywhere; not confined to any place. He can be present unperceived, and be absent without moving; when he exposes us to adversities, it is either to prove our perfections or correct our imperfections; and in return for our patient endurance of the sufferings of time, he reserves for us an everlasting reward. But who are you, that we should deign to speak with you even about your own gods, much less about our God, who is to be feared above all gods? For all the gods of the nations are idols; but the Lord made the heavens.^[3]