Calling the World to Account for the Departed
The Wise Man: O World, I know that there have been many others like me, even mightier, but what became of them in the end? What became of those great Persian kings, so praised and so renowned? Where are Cyrus and Croesus? Where are Xerxes and Artaxerxes, who considered themselves gods and thought themselves mightier than all the men of the world — so much so that they tried to master the breadth of the sea and the waves of the storm, ordering their men to beat the sea with rods and bind it in chains, because it had wrecked the bridge they had built across the sea at the strait of the Chersonese; they, who displayed so many other feats of valor? Where is Alexander of Macedon, called the Great not for the greatness of his years, but for his great and marvelous wars and victories over nations? And, not to ask you further about the other ancient and renowned emperors of the Greeks, but of the more recent ones — tell me, where is Constantine the Great, who founded the City? Where is Justinian, who built the wondrous church praised by the whole world, called Hagia Sophia? Where are Diocletian, Maximian, and Julian, those great and powerful tyrants? Where are Theodosius the Younger and Theodosius the Great? Where is Basil the Macedonian, with his son Leo the Wise? And all the other great, powerful, and renowned emperors of the Greeks? Where are the kings of Rome, of that city which conquered the whole world? Where is Romulus, who founded it, and all the others down to Caesar Augustus, before whom every ruler bowed? And what more shall I say — where are our grandfathers and forefathers? Where are our brothers and friends, with whom, until yesterday or the day before, we used to meet and feast together, and who have now vanished from among us, as though they had never existed? Tell me, then, truly and without deceit, about all of them — how, and in what manner, did they meet their end? When death comes, of what use is wealth?
The World: Friend, you have asked me a hard question, but since you are so eager to know, I will tell you sincerely about all those you ask me of. According to a necessity of frail human nature — may you be well — all of them have died. Leaving me behind, they changed their dwelling place, saying they wished to live longer elsewhere, I know not where. Know that they went away wrapped only in a piece of old cloth, as though they had been clothed in a shirt of silk; laid in a coffin, as though they had been dressed in a robe of purple; and thrown into a pit, as though they had been resting in great and splendid palaces and courts. And nothing else did they take to carry with them, neither in their bosom nor on their back.
Cyrus, Croesus, Xerxes, Alexander, Constantine, Justinian — the Wise Man summons them one by one, as witnesses to his own question, and the World has nothing to hide: all of them died, and took nothing with them but the cloth in which they were wrapped. Neither scepter, nor crown, nor the walls of Hagia Sophia accompanied them beyond the grave. This is exactly what righteous Job says, who came naked from his mother’s womb and returns naked to the earth: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return” (Job 1:21).
What the World discloses here, with a candor that is almost startling, is the simplest and most often forgotten mystery of human nature: that death makes no distinction between purple and old cloth, between the emperor’s coffin and the peasant’s grave. Saint John Chrysostom says the same thing when he rebukes those who boast of their riches: the earth receives them all alike, and the worm does not ask the rank of the one it consumes. The whole splendor of an entire life is gathered, in the end, into a single piece of cloth.
Saint Basil the Great, in his Homilies to the Rich, shows the same truth: the one who gathered riches and the one who had nothing arrive at the same measure of dust, because “we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out” (1 Timothy 6:7). This is why the Psalmist says of the rich man who boasts of the abundance of his wealth: “he will not abide forever; he is like the beasts that perish,” and “his glory shall not descend after him” (Psalm 48:17, 20). Glory, wealth, fame — all remain at the door of the tomb, like guests who were never let in.
Here too lies the mystery the Lord reveals in the parable of the rich fool: the one who builds new barns and says to himself, “soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry,” hears, that very night: “Fool, this night your soul is required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” (Luke 12:19-20). Cantemir places in the mouth of the World the same disclosure that Christ places in the mouth of God: wealth does not accompany the soul; it remains behind, like a shadow that unravels from the body in the very moment the body unravels from the soul.
Saint Isaac the Syrian teaches that the remembrance of death is the beginning of spiritual wisdom, for only one who unceasingly remembers his end can rightly weigh what is passing. The Wise Man’s litany — Cyrus, Croesus, Xerxes, Alexander, Constantine — is not an exercise in history but an exercise in watchfulness: each great name, spoken and followed by the silence of the grave, returns us to our own true measure. If so much power, so much splendor, turned to dust, what is left to us but humility and care for the soul — the one thing death cannot seize by force, and only God can receive with good will?
Of what use is wealth, when death comes? The World itself answers: of none — except, perhaps, for the cloth in which we shall be wrapped. But the soul, as we shall see, is another question, one the World can no longer answer so easily.
