this experimentally. If any have an excessive desire for riches he will not find anything that can satisfy his greed, though he possess the whole world; as was evident in the case of Alexander. If any burn with desire for honour he will not be able to rest though the whole world adore him.
If any give himself over to pleasure, rivers of delight may bathe all his senses, but he becomes accustomed to them, and his appetite continues to desire one thing after another. If any apply his mind to the study of wisdom he will find no end; for the more a man knows, the more he realises his ignorance. Rightly did Solomon say that the eye could not grow tired of seeing or the ear of hearing.
8. Indeed, the examples of those who die teach us that death does not put the last touch to existence. For those whose life has been righteous rejoice that they are to enter on a better one; while those who are filled with love of the present life, seeing that they must leave it and migrate elsewhere, begin to tremble and to reconcile themselves with God and man, if by any chance this be still possible. And, although the body, broken down by pain, grows faint, the senses become clouded, and life itself slips away, the mind fulfils its functions more vividly than ever, as we see when a man circumspectly summons his family and heirs about his death-bed. So that he who sees a pious and wise man dying sees nothing but the structure of clay falling asunder; he who listens to him hears an angel’s voice and cannot but confess that the dweller is only taking his departure while the house falls to ruin about him. Even the heathen understood this, so that the Romans, according to Festus,14 called death abitio, and with the Greeks, οἴχεσθαι which signifies “to go away,” is frequently used instead of “to die” and “to perish.” This can only be because by “death” nothing is understood but transition to another life.
9. This is all the more evident to us Christians, now that Christ, the Son of the living God, has been sent from
