And he said unto them, Be not amazed: you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.
Read Chapter 16
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
He died, but he vanquished death; in himself he put an end to what we feared; he took it upon himself and he vanquished it, as a mighty hunter he captured and slew the lion. Where is death? Seek it in Christ, for it exists no longer; but it did exist and now it is dead. O life, O death of death! Be of good heart; it will die in us, also. What has taken place in our head will take place in his members; death will die in us also. But when? At the end of the world, at the resurrection of the dead in which we believe and concerning which we do not doubt.
Christ descended into hell to liberate its captives. In one instant he destroyed all record of our ancient debt incurred under the law, in order to lead us to heaven where there is no death but only eternal life and righteousness. By the baptism which you, the newly enlightened, have just received, you now share in these blessings. Your initiation into the life of grace is the pledge of your resurrection. Your baptism is the promise of the life of heaven. By your immersion you imitated the burial of the Lord, but when you came out of the water you were conscious only of the reality of the resurrection…. The grace of the Spirit works in a mysterious way in the font, and the outward appearance must not obscure the wonder of it. Although water serves as the instrument, it is grace which gives rebirth. Grace transforms all who are placed in the font as the seed is transformed in the womb. It refashions all who go down into the water as metal is recast in a furnace. It reveals to them the m...
Who was crucified: He is risen; He is not here. "The angel is not ashamed of the cross," says Theophylact, "for in it is the salvation of men." The Interlinear says, "The cross"s bitter root is gone; the flower of life with its fruits, which lay in death, has arisen in glory."
Go, tell His disciples. "The women are bid," says the Interlinear, "to announce it to the apostles, because as by a woman (Eve) death was announced, by a woman it might be told that life had risen again."
And Peter. "That him whom a woman had made deny, a woman might make confess," says Druthmar. The Scholiast in S. Jerome adds that "Peter was named especially because he counted himself unworthy of being a disciple, because he had thrice denied his Master." And S. Gregory (Hom21 , in Evang.) says, "If the angel had not named Peter, he would not have dared to come among the disciples. He is called, therefore, by name, that he might not despair."
When we worship the likeness of the priceless and lifegiving cross, we know that it is made out of a tree. We are not honoring the tree as such (God forbid), but the likeness as a symbol of Christ. For he said to his disciples, admonishing them, “Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven,” meaning the cross. And so also the angel of the resurrection said to the woman, “You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.” And the apostle said, “We preach Christ crucified.” For there are many named Jesus and many who may claim to be the Christ, but we worship the one crucified. He does not say pierced but crucified. It behooves us, then, to worship the sign of Christ. For wherever the sign may be, there also will he be. But it does not behoove us to worship the material of which the image of the cross is composed, even though it is gold or precious stones.
The resurrection in which we believe is that which has already been demonstrated in the resurrection of our Lord. For it is he that raised Lazarus after he had been in the grave four days, and Jairus’ daughter, and the widow’s son. It is he that raised himself by the command of the Father in the space of three days, who is the pledge of our resurrection. For he says: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Now the very One who brought Jonah alive and unhurt out of the belly of the whale in the space of three days, and who brought the three children out of the furnace of Babylon and Daniel out of the mouth of the lions, does not lack power to raise us up also.
