The Worst Death

Mors peccatorum pessima... Mortem peccatorum illam dicit quae ab homine non potest intueri, quam non solum malam, sed etiam pessimam profitetur esse. Revera pessima, quoniam eam aeterna poena comitatur. Nam si ad istam mortem respicias quae nostris oculis patet, frequenter invenis divitem peccatorem pomposis apparatibus decenter efferri, quem sic familia plangit, ut pium fuisse humanis auribus mentiatur. Amici etiam eum impensis lacryimus prosequuntur; ut revera putes bonorum aliquem ereptum, qui magna cognoscitur lamentatione defletus. Quid de pretiosis referamus odoribus, quibus et port mortem eorum mansua corpora condiuntur, quod tanto studio, tanto apparatu peragitur, ut in funeribus ipsorum superstitum vita recreetur? Ubi est ergo peccatorum mors pessima? Scilicet in inferno, ubi recepti poenas patiuntur aeternas. Quanta enim pompa, ut credimus, purpuratus ille dives ad sepulcra perductus est, qui guttam aquae frigidae ab Lazaro paupere postulavit? Cassiodorus, Expositio In Psalterium, Psalmus XXXIII Source: Migne PL 70.204a-b

The death of sinners is the worst.... 1 That death of sinners of which he speaks cannot be seen by men, which indeed he confesses to be not only bad but the worst. Truly it is the worst because it sends one to eternal punishment. For if you should look to the death which is obvious to our eyes, frequently you shall find that the rich sinner is brought out with honour amid the splendour of pomp, and his family weep over him as if he were a pious man, a lie to human ears. And then his friends follow with freely flowing tears, so that you would truly think that a man of many goods was taken away, this fellow who is acknowledged with such a great flood of lamentation. And what shall we say of those precious unguents which after death are applied to the body which remains, and administered with as much care as his decoration, so that it seems that in such funerals a lingering life is renewed? Where, then, is that death of the sinner which is the worst? Certainly in hell, where being received they suffer eternal punishments. How great was the pomp, let us think, with which that purple robed rich man was taken to the grave, he who after asked the beggar Lazarus for a drop of cold water? 2 Cassiodorus, Commentary On The Psalms, from Psalm 33 1 Ps 33.22 2 Lk 16.24