Commodian — Instructions 26 (and 27 close)

Instruction 26 — Fool, you do not perish utterly before God. Fool, you will not die through and through, nor as a dead man escape your deeds — even if you arrange to feel nothing once you have died. You are beaten, senseless one: the God who founded the world lives, whose lawful claims cry out that they still hold for the dead. While you rush to live without God, you judge a person extinguished in the fates, or you believe it is fate. The eternal God did not arrange it as you think — that the dead are forgetful of what they did before. He has now made for us the holding-places of death for the unskilled; but after our ashes we will see those things. Tear yourself free, fool, who think that after the funeral you are not. You have made out that your Ruler and Lord can do nothing. But death is not into a void, if you turn it over in the heart. Know what should be hoped for — for late you will feel him.

You were ruler of the flesh; certainly the flesh was not ruling you. Freed from it, that flesh of yours is stored away. Rightly is a mortal human separated from flesh. Therefore mortal eyes will not be able to match this — so deep is our abyss concerning God’s secrets. So now, while you are fragile and dying, give honor to God, and believe that Christ makes you alive again from the dead. You ought to return praises to the Almighty in the church.

Instruction 27 (close): Hand yourself over to Christ already, so that good deeds may follow you.