Why do the faithful have no fear of death?

A true Christian, as a living member united to the Head, Jesus Christ, accepts the marks of the crucified Christ who accepted death by His own will. Thus, he cherishes pain, seeks it, and desires it even unto death, insofar as it is a sign of the communion of genuine love and union between the suffering, crucified Bridegroom and His bride. Thus, for the believer, the cross transforms pain and death from being marks of sin and evidence of deprivation from God who is the source of happiness, into marks of love and communion. The apostle Paul says, “Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:10), and he affirms that this is the suffering of Christ: “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ” (2 Cor. 1:5).

Many pagans were converted to faith in the Lord Christ when they witnessed how Christians faced death with courage and joy. Even in periods of peace, among the things that attracted pagans to the faith were the funeral rites of the Christians, with their sense of peace and hope in eternity.¹¹⁶⁷ According to St. Athanasius the Apostolic :

“Stretching out His Hands upon the Cross, He overthrew the prince of power of the air, that now works in the sons of disobedience, and made the way clear from us into the heavens.”¹¹⁶⁸

“For as he offered it to death on behalf of all, so through it he opened up again the way to heaven … But since the Savior’s raising the body, no longer is death fearsome, but all believers in Christ tread on it as nothing, and would rather choose to die than deny their faith in Christ. For they really know that when they die they are not destroyed, but both live and become incorruptible through the resurrection … And the proof of this is that human beings, before believing in Christ, view death as fearsome and are terrified at it. But when they come

1165 Lebreton: History of the Primitive Church, p. 483.

1166 Tatian, Address to the Greeks 6 (ANF 2:67).

1167 Boniface Ramsey, Beginning to Read the Fathers (Paulist Press, 1985): pp. 216–220.

1168 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, Letters 60.7 (NPNF II/4:577).

to faith in him and to his teaching, they so despise death that they eagerly rush to it and become witnesses to the resurrection over it effected by the Savior.”¹¹⁶⁹