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LIFE of
THEOLOGY T H E C O R A M D E O J O U R N A L O F T H E O LO GY
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MEMENTO MORI memento mori: remember that you will die A Life of Theology: The Coram Deo Journal of Theology is a collection of articles, essays, reviews, and reflections on the presence of God in all areas of life. For questions about the Journal or for more information on how to submit an article, email Mr. Jon Jordan: jon.jordan@coramdeoacademy.org Coram Deo Academy educates youth in a historic Christian worldview through a vigorous classical curriculum. The goal of CDA is to train ethical servant leaders and wise thinkers who will shape culture for the glory of God. For more information about Coram Deo Academy, visit: http://coramdeoacademy.org
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FROM THE
EDITOR
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” There are three sheets of paper that I own which weigh far more than their physical makeup would lead you to believe: my marriage license, my daughter’s birth certificate, and my ordination license. When I was given the later of these three documents, a pastor told me that the rest of my life should now be spent preparing everyone I meet for those two services that I was now licensed to perform: weddings and funerals. I have a high view of the call to celibacy within the Christian tradition, so I do not see my task as preparing everyone I meet for their future marriage (though my students will tell you that I do enjoy offering the occasional bit of dating advice). I have felt, however, a lingering desire to study, teach, and model a better understanding and embracing of the role of death in the life of a Christian. What I have found along the way should come as little surprise to those who have studied the history of our faith—or the history of the human race for that matter. We are far less prepared for our own death than those who have come before us. We believe the myth that we are invincible, that death happen to others, and that our own will only come after we accomplish all that we think we must. Most of our Protestant traditions no longer celebrate days or seasons of the year that have historically been used by God to remind us that we will die, that our deeds in this life are not hidden from God, and that the holiness prescribed in our Scriptures is more than a suggestion. Like a young child given the freedom to take dessert at every meal at the expense of their vegetables, we have chosen the happier seasons of Christmas and Easter to the neglect of the anticipation, reflection, and conviction that come with Advent and Lent. There is great victory and joy in our faith: our King faced death and arose victorious, and God has promised one day to do for us the very thing that He has done for Jesus. But this victory cannot be understood apart from the agony and despair that death brings: Why, my God, have you forsaken me? Can’t you allow this cup of suffering pass from me? The great victory of God on behalf of humanity comes through death itself. John Owen captures this reality in the title of his book The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Our hope is that throughout this collection of articles on the importance of remembering our own mortality, the death of Jesus is seen as the reason that we are able to prepare for—instead of fear—our own death. Jon Jordan, Dean of Students Ash Wednesday, 2014 xliii
ARTICLE 1
DEATH & THE FINAL VICTORY "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." I am of the generation in which this prayer was still taught. I said it every night before going to bed and it made me think about death, yet it was a great comfort as well. Joseph Addison is given credit for the earliest written version which appeared on March 8, 1711 in The Spectator.
When I lay me down to Sleep, I recommend my self to his care; when I awake, I give my self up to his Direction. It is said the poem was penned when death was common and quick for children. The purpose of the prayer was to remind us that God was ultimately in control no matter what happened. I grew up in the time of the cold war where I was taught to hide under my desk when a nuclear bomb came. There was a missile base 15 minutes from my home. I knew it was there to protect the people in the metropolis 60 miles away. The goal was to drop the missile over the farm land, where I lived, before it hit the city. My first grade teacher and my elementary principal were both missing arms due to polio. I stood in lines at school for my small pox vaccination and my polio sugar cube. I lived during the Vietnam War. Before they were out of elementary school, both my parents lost a parent to diseases that would have been cured today. I was surrounded by reminders of death every day. Now, the ever-present media coverage would have us be44
lieve that death is around us today as never before. I don't agree, but either way, I know in this earthly life death wins. Death wins convincingly. But ultimately, as believers, the final victory is ours. "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. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." 1 Corinthians 15:55-58. Growing up we knew have a living Savior! We knew we were in His care regardless of the world around us.
Polly Dwyer, Flower Mound Campus Administrator

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ARTICLE 2
DEATH IN ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH Writing in the 4th century, Athanasius of Alexandria makes a startling claim about the truth of the death and resurrection of Christ. He states that “by nature human beings are afraid of death and the dissolution of the body. But this is most amazing, that one who has put on the faith of the cross scorns even things according to nature, and is not afraid of death because of Christ.” Athanasius even argues that this attitude of Christians is a proof of the resurrection itself. He writes that “many who at first disbelieved and mocked, afterward believed, and thus so despised death as even themselves to become martyrs for Christ”. One of those despisers of death was Ignatius, the 2nd century Bishop of Antioch. Ignatius was a disciple of the Apostle John who was arrested and sent to Rome to die in the Coliseum for his faith in Christ. On the way to his eventual martyrdom he wrote a letter to the Christians in Rome asking them not to interfere with his trial or attempt to bribe government officials to procure his release. Indeed he embraced his impending death with the following words: It is better for me to die in Christ Jesus than to be king over the ends of the earth. I seek him who died for our sake. I desire him who rose for us. Birth pangs are upon me. Suffer me, my brethren; hinder me not from living, do not wish me to die. …Suffer me to receive the pure light; when I shall have arrived there, I shall become a human being. Suffer me to follow the example of the Passion of my God. Notice the force of what he says. When he writes, “Do not wish me to die”, he is speaking of those trying to keep him alive in order to escape a cruel death. When he writes, “Do not hinder me from living”, he speaks of not hindering his impending martyrdom. A complete reversal of the natural way of looking at death has occurred. For this Christian facing martyrdom, death has become a path to life, while escaping a martyr’s death is seen as the real death. Finally, only when Ignatius follows Christ and imi46
tates his suffering does he believe that he will have truly become a human being. As we ponder our own mortality and the example of Ignatius, let us remember the great truth of the faith that Christ has indeed trampled down death by death.
Robert Terry, Director of Finance
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ARTICLE 3
REMEMBER YOU WILL DIE Memento Mori in the Works of Leo Tolstoy
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12: 16-21
The Latin phrase memento mori, meaning “Remember that you will die,” is said to have originated in Ancient Rome. When a victorious Roman general paraded in triumph through the streets, standing behind him in his chariot was a slave who whispered to him: “Remember that you are but a man! Remember that you will die!” In Roman culture, this phrase not only warned against excessive pride, but also evoked the familiar phrase carpe diem (seize the day), reminding listeners that life is short—enjoy it while you can. Within the early Christian church, the concept of memento mori developed greater significance. Christian teachings about the brevity of life, judgment, and heaven transformed the understanding of memento mori. For believers, consciousness of death evoked an examination of life. Given the transience of earthly prestige, possessions, and pleasures, what should the good life look like? How should we then live? The early church father Athanasius wrote: “Recall your exodus every hour; Keep death before your eyes on a daily basis. Remember before whom you must appear.” Another patriarch, Basil the Great said, “Make this life a meditation upon death.” During the Middle Ages iconographic symbols of death decorated Christian tombs: Winged hourglasses, skulls, decayed corpses, and the Grim Reaper with his scythe reminded onlookers that they too would die. Believers viewed each night’s sleeping and each morning’s wakening as a rehearsal of dying in Christ and rising to newness of life. Therefore, Christians knelt in prayer before they slept, and a popular children’s prayer from the early 1700’s reads: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee 48
Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord, my soul to take.” In the late 1800’s Russian author Leo Tolstoy incorporated the idea of memento mori into his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich as well as into two fables “What Men Live By” and “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” In two of the three works, facing the reality of death leads to conversion and compassion; in the third work, which closely parallels Luke’s parable of the rich fool, the remembrance of death comes too late to save the greedy man’s soul. In all three works, the main characters are just average folks. “Ivan Ilyich” is the Russian equivalent of “John Smith,” and, according to Tolstoy, his life has been “most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.” Like us, Tolstoy’s characters squabble with their spouses and never have quite enough money. Even when Ivan faces death, he is slow to recognize that he has not lived a good life—after all he did everything “properly” and “decently” as he married, advanced his career, and decorated his home. Ironically, his fatal injury begins with a bruise caused by falling off a ladder while adjusting the living room curtains. Eventually, he recognizes the deception: “And I [was] going downhill so nonchalantly, imagining all the time I was going uphill.” With that realization, “everything that had seemed so pleasant thawed away before his very eyes and turned into nothingness.” Ivan’s life had been selfish and trivial. Twentieth century author Franz Kafka commented, “The conveyor belt of life carries you on, no one knows where. One is more of an object, a thing, than a living creature.” Just before his death, Ivan repents: He looks compassionately at his wife and tries to pronounce the word “Forgive.” Then “he searched for his former habitual fear of death, and did not find it. ‘Where is it? What is death?’ There was no terror because there was no death. Instead of death there was light.” In Tolstoy’s fable, “What Men Live By,” the remembrance of death is also a key part of the conversion of Matryona, a cobbler’s wife who can barely keep her family fed and can’t even afford a new coat to protect herself from the Russian winter. When her husband, Simon, brings home a penniless, naked stranger he has found by the road, she is furious. Simon reminds her, “Don’t be so angry, Matryona. It is sin. Remember, we all must die one day.” Matryona responds with compassion, feeding the stranger the last of their bread. The stranger turns out to be an angel who later says, “When she brought me food and looked at me, I glanced at her and saw that death no longer dwelt in her; she had become alive, and in her too I saw God.” The angel learns that men live not by care of themselves, but by love. In Tolstoy’s stories, one does not love fully unless one is conscious of death. 49
Death also comes to Pakhom, the main character of Tolstoy’s cautionary tale, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” Pakhom is an ordinary farmer with no desire to be rich—he just wants enough so that he doesn’t have to worry. He boasts, “If I had plenty of land, I shouldn’t fear the Devil himself!” Amused, the devil plots Pakhom’s downfall by gradually giving him the opportunity to gain more and more land. With each increase of his wealth, Pakhom exchanges his old cares for new ones. “At first, in the bustle of building and settling down, Pakhom was pleased with it all, but when he got used to it he began to think that even here he had not enough land.” Tolstoy’s fable ends when Pakhom has the opportunity to buy all the land he can walk the boundary of in one day. He sets out a course greater than he can travel—the setting sun finds him frantically racing toward the finish line. He pushes himself beyond his strength: “Pakhom was seized with terror lest he should die of the strain. Though afraid of death, he could not stop. ‘After having run all that way they will call me a fool if I stop now,’ thought he.” Just as the sun sets, he falls forward—dead—hand grasping the cap that marks the end of his course. How much land does a man need? “His servant picked up a spade and dug a grave long enough for Pakhom to lie in, and buried him in it. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.” John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the immensely wealthy founder of the Standard Oil Trust, was once asked how much money it takes to make a man happy. His reply: “Just a little bit more.” The characters in Tolstoy’s works are all everyman figures—no more than averagely inconsiderate or fake, not unusually greedy or selfish; they live simple and ordinary lives. Yet Tolstoy contends they are terrible. How would you live if you knew that tonight you would die? Tolstoy exhorts us: Memento mori—remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly would not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have half a century before you die—what makes this any different from half an hour? Memento mori! In the remembrance of death we find our way to authentic life.
Wendy Powell, Literature and Theology Faculty
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ARTICLE 4
GOD REST YOU MERRY
Melancholy & the Gospel according to Shakespeare In The Anatomy of Melancholy, a 17th-century masterpiece of philosophy, medicine and history, Richard Burton argues that everyone everywhere has some disposition of melancholy: from “sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, passion, or perturbation of the mind,” Burton says, “no man living is free, no Stoick, none so wise, none so happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine, that can vindicate himself...Melancholy in this sense is the character of Mortality.” In the no less philosophic ruminations of R.E.M., “everybody cries and everybody hurts.” If this is true, if humans as mortals are a melancholy race, then what, if anything, is there to do? What assuages our sadness and help our condition? Certain answers, we know, are not lasting: wisdom, better morals, the-life-welllived. Whatever the final answer to our universal sadness may be, it is certainly none of these. Such treatments are all ineffective because they all fail to help the real malady, what Burton identifies as mortality. The wisest is never wise enough on the last day. The most moral person is never really good. And no amount of exercise, travel, opera and healthy living will help when the Fates cut our thread of life. Wisdom, virtue, and experience are all good things, but the real answer has to address the real human condition. Novelist and armchair-philosopher Walker Percy illustrates this very point, contending in “The Message in the Bottle” that the individual soul can only really be saved from its existential woes by some good word that meets its exact predicament. Percy likens each of us to a castaway who sits on the beach, picking up missives floating in from sea. Some of the bottles contain bits of general information: Lead melts at 330 degrees. 2 + 2 = 4. Chicago, a city, is on Lake Michigan. Other bottles contain messages of news: The British are coming. The market for eggs in Bora Bora [a neighboring island] is very good. 51
or There is fresh water in the next cove. Here news is distinguished from information by its relevance to the castaway. Percy notes that information is true for any island, while news, on the other hand, is meaningful to an islander only if the news pertains to his or her island, to his or her unique situation. It follows from this that news alone brings real hope to the castaway because it alone pertains to the castaway’s peculiar predicament. If Percy is right, this means that a soul confronting its own mortality can only be comforted by a piece of news which concerns that soul’s individual plight. Moral advice, like Percy’s “information,” does not solve our problem. Good principles may improve island life, but they do not do anything for our status as castaways. The Christian Gospel is a piece of news. It is the evangelion, the “good news”: the message of Christ’s absolution, eternal life given to sinners free of charge. Thus Christ’s atonement on the cross answers mortal man’s distress, giving reason (real reason) for joy. Mortality brings sadness, but the promise of heaven brings hope. We witness this transformative Gospel logic throughout the Psalter. For example, Psalm 42:5 reads, Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Here sorrow is acknowledged and conquered through the remembrance of God’s salvation. The Psalmist does not dismiss the reality of his pain or seek a Stoic apatheia; rather he re-directs his gaze toward a brighter reality which illuminates his interior darkness. To be sure, that radiance, that reason for “praise,” is nothing less than “salvation,” for anything less leaves sorrow triumphant. Likewise, the gospel does not call the Church to feign superficial happiness, but asks instead the Body to baptize its pain in the blood of Christ. In other words, like every facet of Christianity, orthodox hope is a paradox: it is the melancholy of mortality married to the jubilee of the cross. Sadly, this paradox is now being lost in a culture of indomitable positivity, where no
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one is lost (and therefore no one can be saved). Christianity asks us to face our true state and embrace our true help. As You Like It (Shakespeare’s greatest comedy, arguably) contains the best illustration of this gospel paradox that I can think of. The play centers on a number of political exiles dwelling in the Forest of Arden, a simple yet by no means pastoral environment. In act 2, scene 7, Jaques, the stock melancholic, delivers what is now known as “The Seven Stages of Man Speech,” a brilliant but lugubrious bit of developmental psychology: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 53
Here many readers take Jaques’ sentiments to be the playwright’s: it all ends in “mere oblivion,” Shakespeare seems to be saying—an end without redemption, an end without resurrection, an end “sans everything.” But the juxtaposition between Jaques’ speech and what immediately follows throws Shakespeare’s gospel logic into relief: just as Jaques’ horrifying picture of death-in-life settles upon the audience, Orlando, the romantic hero, enters carrying a tired and half-starved old man (named, interestingly, Adam). This contrasting image of charity undermines the melancholic worldview of Jaques because it calls to attention the latter’s lack of love. It is not that there is anything especially false in Jaques’ account of man (in fact, many have noted its veracity). It is rather that the account is incomplete, that Jaques’ melancholy lens blinds him to hope engendered through love. Rather than owning the moroseness of “The Seven Stages of Man Speech,” then, Shakespeare implicitly delivers an account of the world in which Love bears our Old Adam toward shelter and restoration. In sum, this scene reminds us of the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 46: “even to your old age I am he,” says the Lord, “and to gray hairs I will carry you, / I have made, and I will bear; / I will carry and will save.” This news that the divine “will carry you” is the only answer for humanity’s universal melancholy--no self-help, no Six-Essential-Tips, no information. The message of Christ meets the individual’s predicament of sin and mortality and offers everlasting life, salutary joy. In the final act of As You Like It, Shakespeare introduces a new character, a young rustic named William. This is a conspicuous character, a conspicuous name. No one is certain, but this figure may indeed be Shakespeare’s clever attempt to write himself into the play. And if William is Shakespeare, if William is, in some way, the poetic genius incarnated, the author’s voice speaking not indirectly but directly to his audience and his readership, then how we heed the beauty of his parting words: “God rest you merry, sir.” God rest you merry. How much more the incarnate Lord says it to us. God rest you merry. “I have made, and I will bear.” God rest you merry. This is benediction of Shakespeare, the Psalmist, the whole Christian tradition. It is a message for our melancholy souls; it is the message of the gospel.
Josh Mayo, History and Literature Faculty
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