Chapter LII.—All Kinds of Death a Violence to Nature, Arising from Sin.—Sin an Intrusion Upon Nature as God Created It.

Such, then, is the work of death—the separation of the soul from the body.  Putting out of the question fates and fortuitous circumstances, it has been, according to men’s views, distinguished in a twofold form—the ordinary and the extraordinary. The ordinary they ascribe to nature, exercising its quiet influence in the case of each individual decease; the extraordinary is said to be contrary to nature, happening in every violent death. As for our own views, indeed, we know what was man’s origin, and we boldly assert and persistently maintain that death happens not by way of natural consequence to man, but owing to a fault and defect which is not itself natural; although it is easy enough, no doubt, to apply the term natural to faults and circumstances which seem to have been (though from the emergence of an external cause304    Ex accidentia.) inseparable to us from our very birth.  If man had been directly appointed to die as the condition of his creation,305    In mortem directo institutus est. [See p. 227, supra.] then of course death must be imputed to nature.  Now, that he was not thus appointed to die, is proved by the very law which made his condition depend on a warning, and death result from man’s arbitrary choice. Indeed, if he had not sinned, he certainly would not have died.  That cannot be nature which happens by the exercise of volition after an alternative has been proposed to it, and not by necessity—the result of an inflexible and unalterable condition.  Consequently, although death has various issues, inasmuch as its causes are manifold, we cannot say that the easiest death is so gentle as not to happen by violence (to our nature). The very law which produces death, simple though it be, is yet violence. How can it be otherwise, when so close a companionship of soul and body, so inseparable a growth together from their very conception of two sister substances, is sundered and divided? For although a man may breathe his last for joy, like the Spartan Chilon, while embracing his son who had just conquered in the Olympic games; or for glory, like the Athenian Clidemus, while receiving a crown of gold for the excellence of his historical writings; or in a dream, like Plato; or in a fit of laughter, like Publius Crassus,—yet death is much too violent, coming as it does upon us by strange and alien means, expelling the soul by a method all its own, calling on us to die at a moment when one might live a jocund life in joy and honour, in peace and pleasure. That is still a violence to ships: although far away from the Capharean rocks, assailed by no storms, without a billow to shatter them, with favouring gale, in gliding course, with merry crews, they founder amidst entire security, suddenly, owing to some internal shock.  Not dissimilar are the shipwrecks of life,—the issues of even a tranquil death. It matters not whether the vessel of the human body goes with unbroken timbers or shattered with storms, if the navigation of the soul be overthrown.

CAPUT LII.

Hoc igitur opus mortis, separationem carnis atque animae, seposita quaestione fatorum et fortuitorum, bifariam distinxit humanus adfectus, in ordinariam et extraordinariam formam: ordinariam quidem naturae deputans placidae cujusque mortis; extraordinariam vero praeter naturam judicans violenti cujusque finis. Qui autem primordia hominis novimus, audenter determinamus, mortem non ex natura secutam hominem, sed ex culpa, ne ipsa quidem naturali: facile autem usurpari naturae nomen, in ea quae videntur a nativitate ex accidentia adhaesisse. Nam si homo in mortem directo institutus fuisset, tunc demum mors naturae adscriberetur. Porro, non 0738C in mortem institutum eum, probat ipsa lex, conditionali comminatione suspendens, et arbitrio hominis addicens mortis eventum . Denique, si non 0739A deliquisset, nequaquam obiisset. Ita non erit natura, quod ex oblationis potestate accidit per voluntatem, non ex instituti auctoritate per necessitatem. Proinde, etsi varii exitus mortis, ut est multimoda conditio caussarum, nullum ita dicimus lenem, ut non vi agatur. Ipsa illa ratio operatrix mortis, simplex licet, vis est. Quid enim? Quae tantam animae et carnis societatem, tantam a conceptu concretionem sororum substantiarum divellit ac dirimit. Nam etsi prae gaudio quis spiritum exhalet, ut Chilon spartanus, dum victorem Olympiae filium amplectitur; etsi prae gloria, ut Clidemus atheniensis, dum ab histrionibus ob praestantiam auro coronatur; etsi per somnium, ut Plato; etsi per risum, ut P. Crassus: multo violentior mors, quae per aliena grassatur, 0739B quae animam per commoda expellit, quae tunc mori adfert, cum jucundius vivere est, in exultatione, in honore, in requie, in voluptate. Vis est et illa navigiis, cum longe a Caphareis saxis, nullis depugnata turbinibus, nullis quassata decumanis, adulante flatu, labente cursu, laetante comitatu, intestino repente perculsu, cum tota securitate desidunt. Non secus naufragia sunt vitae, etiam tranquillae mortis eventus. Nihilo refert integram abire corporis navem, an dissipatam, cum animae navigatio evertatur.