Nisibis 73

He bowed his head, his voice resounded. Behold, beneath the earth, my beloved, the corpses and bodies of the buried, and behold, in heaven, the righteous. Behold, both are confused, the two worlds of the sons of man. Earth and heaven groan, if the righteous are compared. A response: Glory to the Son, who at the sound of his call empties graves and raises the dead. And like a sorrowful merchant who on a bond lends money, and through a loan increases his wealth, and if the owner of the bond dies, the wealth lives on after him. How great is the wealth of the offering that Abel brought! Why did he not lend to God, so that his wealth would live after his death, the wealth of his prayers? A bond produces wealth, and earth is a writing and a tablet, and the treasure of God increases our alms and our prayers. One is the path for all men, my brothers, from birth to death, and from death to resurrection, and from there, two paths: one to the fire and one to Eden. Every man prays for his own death, that it may lead him to the path of Eden. To the Hindus and the Assyrians, they cast their corpses in the desert, and they buried bones in a cave. Not by the power of others, my brothers, are they governed by a short cord. It is the will that rules over all, giving life and death and comforting. Good news for the children that Pharaoh strangled the newborn. The salvation of the people is his strangling. Thus death dies in the resurrection that gladdens all, and death ceases from children, as Pharaoh ceased from the newborn, as the oppressor of the newborn.

Like a cup of vinegar, the dead, the wicked, were leaping in the light. And their fathers, when they saw, were weeping and crying out to heaven. Blessed is he who showed them the blood, the seal of their children. One of the watchers was commanded, and he marked the sign of salvation upon the house of the eyes of the righteous. The circumcision was ashamed at his sight, at the hidden seal that shone. Your dead are marked with the cross, that they might conquer death, the deceiver. It was not in evil that the wise craftsman was found wanting. And where would destruction set in, if the mortal covenant, without covenant, did nothing? He refrained, for he said that God rides and dismounts without separation. And if the speaking man is great, silent gold is greater, and he is careful lest it be lost. And the potter who made the image guards it lest it be damaged. How much more, then, does the good one guard the image that he set up for his honor? If the seal were not, life would be given to the righteous; he would pass through it and become a vagabond, fall into his own land and seize his garment. He completed his course and fulfilled his all. He refrained for the sake of the bitter avenger, for he does not wrong his righteous ones.