Soul and Body II

Truly, it behooves every living man that he himself watch over his soul’s journey, how dreadful it will be when death descends, sundering the kinship of what was once united— body and soul! Long is the time after when the spirit takes from God Himself either torment or glory, as that earth-vessel had earned for it before in the world. The spirit must come, crying in its grief, every seven nights the soul seeks to find the body that it wore for so long, for three hundred winters—unless before that the eternal Lord, Almighty God, works the world’s end. Then it calls, care-wracked, with a cold voice, the spirit speaks grimly to that dust: “Listen, you sluggish thing, you dreary dust! Why did you drag me down, filth of the earth, all withered away, likeness of loam! Little you thought what your soul’s journey would later become, once it was led from the body! Behold, you blame me, accursed one! Listen, you food for worms, little you thought how the Almighty Measurer, from His majesty, sent a soul to you from the heavens above through His own hand, and then redeemed you with His holy blood, yet you bound me with hard hunger and fettered me with the torments of hell!

I dwelled deep within you; I could not escape, enfolded in flesh, and your wicked pleasures pressed down upon me. It often seemed to me it would be thirty thousand winters until your day of death. I awaited our parting in agony. This end is not good! You were proud with your feasting, sated with wine, you swelled with splendor, while I was athirst for God’s body, the spirit’s drink. While I had to dwell in you, here in this life, you cared only that you were stirred by flesh, by wicked pleasures, made strong through me— a spirit sent from God!—and yet you prepared for me the hard necessity of hell’s torments through the lust of your desires. Yet now you shall suffer shame for my disgrace on that great day, when the Only-Begotten gathers all of mankind. You are no dearer now to any living man, no beloved companion, not to mother or father, nor any kin, than the black raven, since I journeyed out from you alone, by the hand of Him who sent me. Your red adornments cannot save you now, not gold, not silver, not one of your goods, but here your bones must abide, bereft, torn from their sinews, and your soul, against my will, must often seek you out, defile you with words, just as you did to me.

You are dumb and deaf; your joys are nothing now. Yet I must seek you by night, driven by need, sorrowed by sin, and turn from you again at cock-crow, when holy men sing songs of praise to the living God, seeking those homes you prescribed for me, that dishonorable dwelling-place, and many mound-worms shall chew you, dark creatures, greedy and gluttonous, shall tear you from your sinews. Your treasures are nothing now, those you showed to men here on earth. Therefore it would have been far better for you than to have all the world’s wealth (unless you had shared it with the Lord Himself), had you been at your first shaping a bird, or a fish in the sea, or a beast of the earth striving for food, a field-roaming creature without reason, even the fiercest of wild beasts in the waste-lands, as God willed it, yes, even if you were the worst of worm-kind, than that you ever became a man on this earth, or ever had to receive baptism. For you must answer for us both on that great day, when the wounds of all men are laid bare, wounds that sinful men wrought long ago in the world. Then the Lord Himself will hear of their deeds, a wounding requital from every man’s mouth. But what will you say to the Lord there on Doomsday? Then there will be no joint so small grown upon a limb, that you will not have to pay the price for each one separately, when the Lord is fierce in judgment. But what shall we two do, when He has joined us again a second time? Then we must together forever endure such miseries as you prescribed for us.”

Thus it reviles that flesh-hoard, then must fare on its way, seeking the grounds of hell, not heaven’s joys, afflicted by its deeds. The dust lies where it was, it can give no answer, nor promise any refuge to the grieving spirit, no help, no comfort. The head is split open, the hands disjointed, jaws gaping, gums torn apart, sinews sucked dry, the neck gnawed through; fierce worms plunder the ribs, thirsty for gore, they drink the corpse in swarms. The tongue is torn in ten directions as solace for the hungry. Therefore it cannot readily exchange words with that accursed spirit. The worm is named Glutton, its jaws are sharper than needles. He is the first of all to venture forth in that earth-grave; he tears the tongue apart, pierces through the teeth, and makes room for others to come to the feast, he eats through the eyes up in the head, a meal for worms, once that wretched body has grown cold, which it long protected with clothing. It becomes a worm’s meal, food in the earth. Let this be a lesson to every man wise in spirit.