the suffering christ 814 O how insatiable is that beast, most gluttonous death! No state or gender seems to be spared. It compels human minds to adore and venerate it like a goddess. From there, the temples erected (in honor) of Libitina originated, and death was honored by the pagan world because it was held in fear. But behold, the heavenly Kracus, behold Daniel, our most holy Christ, our God, about to free us from fear. He casts Himself before this monster, to be eaten up but not to be consumed. “Indeed, no woman in labor” (the golden mouth Bishop says) “suffers as much as death did, when it devoured the body of the Lord; it was burst asunder and torn apart. This is the same thing that happened to the Babylonian dragon, when it burst asunder in the middle, after having eaten the food. For not through the mouth of death did the most illustrious Christ escape again, but from the middle of the stomach of the dragon, He burst forth”74 to render us equally illustrious. Surely, He promised this through the prophet Hosea: “From the hand of death I will free them, I will redeem them fromdeath: I will be your death, O death” (Hos 13:14) [LV]. Wherefore rightly and deservedly, the Church joyfully sings: “O great work of merciful love!” Death has died, when Life died on the tree. For when Jesus “inclined his head” giving the signal of death, He expired and gave back to us the breath of life; when He was dying, He was supporting us; when He conquered death, He prepared for us the joy of the immortal triumph: Behold the triumph! “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (Paul, rejoicing, insults death). “‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:54-57). Jesus, by dying You defeated death: What more remains? That also You teach me to conquer this [death]. May You teach me to conquer, [and] grant me to live together [with You] On the Wood of life, since [it is] there I believe [victory] to be. 74 Ioannes Chrysostomus, Homilia 24, In Epistolam Pauli ad Corinthios Primam, in op. cit., p. 365, B.
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