9. And yet, by reason of that
affection of the human heart, whereby “no man ever hateth his own
flesh,”2731
if men
have reason to know that after their
death their bodies will lack
any thing which in each man’s
nation or
country the wonted order
of sepulture demandeth, it makes them sorrowful as men; and that
which after
death reacheth not unto them, they do before
death fear
for their bodies: so that we find in the Books of Kings,
God by one
prophet threatening another
prophet who had
transgressed His word,
that his
carcase should not be brought into the
sepulchre of his
fathers. Which the Scripture hath on this
wise: “Thus saith the
Lord, Because thou hast been
disobedient to the mouth of the
Lord,
and hast not kept the charge which the
Lord thy
God commanded thee,
and hast returned and eaten
bread and drunk
water in the place in
which He commanded thee not to eat
bread, nor drink
water, thy
carcase shall not be brought into the
sepulchre of thy
fathers.”
2732
Now if in
considering what account is to be made of this
punishment, we go by
the
Gospel, where we have
learned that after the slaying of the
body there is no cause to
fear lest the lifeless members should
suffer any thing, it is not even to be called a
punishment. But if
we consider a man’s human affection towards his own
flesh, it was
possible for him to be frightened or saddened, while living, by
that of which he would have no sense when dead: and this was a
punishment, because the
mind was pained by that thing about to
happen to its body, howsoever when it did happen it would feel no
pain. To this intent, namely, it pleased the
Lord to
punish His
servant, who not of his own contumacy had spurned to
fulfill His
command, but by
deceit of another’s
falsehood thought himself to
be obeying when he obeyed not. For it is not to be thought that he
was
killed by the teeth of the
beast as one whose
soul should be
thence
snatched away to the
torments of
hell: seeing that over his
very body the same
lion which had
killed it did keep watch, while
moreover the
beast on which he rode was left unhurt, and along with
that
fierce beast did with intrepid presence stand there beside his
master’s
corpse. By which marvellous sign it appeareth, that the
man of
God was, say rather, checked temporally even unto
death,
than
punished after
death. Of which matter, the
Apostle when on
account of certain offenses he had mentioned the sicknesses and
deaths of many, says, “For if we would
judge ourselves, we should
not be judged of the
Lord. But when we are judged we are chastened
of the
Lord, that we may not be
condemned with the
world.”
2733
That
Prophet, truly, the very man who had
beguiled him, did with much
respect bury in his own
tomb, and took order for his own burying
beside his
bones: in
hope that thereby his own
bones might be
spared, when, according to the
prophecy of that man of
God,
Josiah king of
Judah did in that
land disinter the
bones of many
dead, and with the same
bones defile the sacrilegious
altars which
had been set up for the
graven images. For he spared that
tomb in
which lay the
prophet who more than three
hundred years before
predicted those things, and for his sake neither was the sepulture
of him who had
seduced him violated. By that affection namely,
which causes that no man ever hateth his own
flesh, this man had
taken forethought for his
carcase, who had slain with a
lie his own
soul. By reason then of this, the
natural love which every man hath
for his own
flesh, it was both to the one a
punishment to
learn
that he should not be in the sepulchre of his fathers, and to the
other a care to take order beforehand that his own bones should be
spared, if he should lie beside him whose sepulchre no man should
violate.
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