Fear of death and disgust for life, as Blessed Augustine would later say, are the two feelings that almost without exception live by people in the last centuries of the history of the ancient world. This world is already almost paralyzed. At this very time, Jesus begins his preaching. A new era begins. He dies, and we, being present in the person of John the Theologian at His cross and seeing His death, are healed of the fear of death.

Where does this fear come from?

The Greeks were not always afraid of death. Herodotus (5th century BC) in his "History" tells about the Athenian Tellus, whom one of the seven sages called the happiest of all people, because he "lived in the flourishing time of his native city, he had beautiful and noble sons, and he happened to see how all of them also had children and survived. In addition, he was destined for a glorious death. During the war... he put his enemies to flight, and he himself died a valiant death. The Athenians arranged for him to be buried at the expense of the state... by doing so, showing great honor." The Spartan poet Tyrtaeus had exclaimed even earlier:

An enviable fate in the front ranks of the militia, Protecting the Motherland from enemies in battle.

The polis Greek valued his city-state to such an extent that he considered it a living organism, like Nestor in Homer's Iliad, who compares people to leaves on the branches of a mighty oak, some leaves fall, others, on the contrary, appear, and the tree continues to grow and only grows bigger. The personal uniqueness and personality of the polis Greek in general were, as it were, dissolved in the collective, in society, in the mass, which is always quite typical for the archaic world. That is why the red-cheeked Athenian boys cackled over Euripides, as N. Gumilev wrote in one of his poems, and Socrates was forced to drink a cup of hemlock, that both of them were not like the rest of their fellow citizens, stood out from the mass, were not like everyone else.

A.F. Losev was very fond of saying that the ancient Greek did not have his own "I", always emphasizing that in the Greek language there was not even a word for such a concept as personality. And until a person has singled himself out from the mass and has not opposed himself to this mass, he is really not afraid of death, since he simply does not know what it is.

But then comes the fourth century B.C., and the grandchildren, and perhaps the children of those very red-cheeked Athenian boys who cackled over Euripides, suddenly discover that the polis, their city-state, which used to be essentially deified and considered almost a living being, is no more than the territory on which their houses stand and their sheep graze. The polis no longer has its own "I", it turns out that people who live in the same city next to each other are no longer united into one single whole, each simply lives his own life, no longer proud of the fact that he is a citizen of such and such a polis and that his polis is better than all others in Greece. Humanity finds itself in the abyss of individualism, and everyone now feels lost in a vast world where there are no ideals except money. An era of general disappointment begins, a person goes into private life, he no longer lives for the good of his native polis, as Tell of Athens lived, but seeks at least some personal happiness, and then he discovers with horror that death has nothing in common with the change of generations in the ranks of citizens sung in the Iliad, which once made the polis only younger and stronger. It turns out that death is my (!) non-existence. The world around me remains, and I leave, I leave home, family, trees around my house, which I have grown with such love, and this departure, alas, is inevitable and inevitable — this is what it is, death. This is the only event that will inevitably take place in everyone's life. Having made this discovery, Greek and then Roman civilization plunged into that state of hysterical fear which Horace so subtly conveyed in his poetry. The decline of antiquity is approaching, and just at this time Jesus is born in Bethlehem.

Miracles of Thy Holy Martyrs

When one reads the biographies of the martyrs of the second and third centuries A.D., or rather the records of their interrogations and reports of their martyrdom, one is amazed not at the courage with which they go to death (which, if you like, seems natural to us, for this is why the Church venerates the martyrs, because they preferred death with Christ to life without Him), but at the horror that grips the Roman officials who condemned these martyrs to death. when they understand that these defendants are not afraid of death. This is what was most incomprehensible to the Romans – how one could not be afraid of death. Often from such a biography it becomes clear that the official who administers the court is not at all evil, but rather, on the contrary, a conscientious person who does not want to condemn anyone to death at all, he would prefer to record in the protocol that the defendant has renounced his superstition, and let him go on all four sides, but for some reason the future martyr is not afraid of death. Why? The unfortunate judge is unable to understand this, although he has read Horace, Virgil, Seneca, and many other writers and scientists, whence this lack of fear of death is some kind of incomprehensible mystery for him.

We know this mystery – the martyrs believed in Jesus, who did not reveal to them any truth, did not give them the secret of the antidote to death, but revealed Himself to them and gave them Himself. In this sense, Jesus is the antipode of Socrates, who urged his disciples to think less about him and to think more about the truth. Jesus, on the other hand, is telling the disciples not to adopt a particular belief system, but simply to follow Him. Therefore, Christianity is not a doctrine, but our real, living and authentic dialogue with Christ, in Christianity it is not the theory that is valuable, but the experience of Christians.

Death helps to see everything without embellishment and debunks everything that is false or at least partially not genuine. Dying, in the face of death, a person ceases to lie, play a role, and even simply behave as he should or as his position requires, in the presence of death he becomes what he really is. Death is so real that no inauthenticity is possible in its presence. You can play, and often successfully, any role while you are alive, but when you are alone with death, you will certainly become yourself. Therefore, it is impossible to teach any technique that can be used not to be afraid of death. If a Christian is not afraid of death, it is not because this is the principle of Christianity, but simply because Jesus gave us not to fear it.

We are not afraid of death, for we know from experience, or at least we feel, that eternal life awaits us beyond its threshold. This is really true. Moreover, I dare to assert that not only we Christians are not afraid of it, nor are those unbelievers who live in a Christian environment and are, perhaps unconsciously, under the influence of the Gospel. We know what the fear of death is not from experience, but mainly from books, we simply have not experienced it, for the light of Christ, as it is said during the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, really enlightens everyone. Our misfortune, and a very serious one, lies, however, in the fact that, due to our spiritual callousness, we begin to think that Christians, since we are not afraid of death, should not grieve for the departed. In reality, this is not the case. Metus mortis or fear of death is not the pain that any healthy person naturally experiences when separated from loved ones (and this is a horror if for some reason he does not experience it!), metus mortis is the fear that you yourself will not be there in the near future, the horror of the non-existence that awaits you.