As Sunrise Explains the Daylight

Now if death is trampled down by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ, it must be plain, before the court of truth, that it is none other than Christ himself who has displayed trophies and triumphs over death, and made him lose all his strength. And if death was formerly strong, and terrible for that reason, but now, after the Savior’s coming among us and the death and resurrection of his body, is despised, it must be plain that death has been brought to nothing and conquered by the very Christ who went up on the cross. When the sun rises after the night and the whole face of the earth is lit up by him, no one can doubt that it is the sun, who has spread his light everywhere, that has also driven away the dark and given light to all things. So too, now that death has come into contempt and been trodden underfoot ever since the Savior’s saving appearance in the flesh and his death on the cross took place, it must be quite plain that it is the very Savior who appeared in the body who has brought death to nothing, and who displays the signs of victory over him day by day in his own disciples. [a]

For one sees men, weak by nature, leaping forward to death, not fearing its corruption nor frightened of the descent into Hades, but challenging it with an eager soul; not flinching from torture, but on the contrary choosing for Christ’s sake to rush on death rather than life on earth. Or one is an eyewitness of men and women and young children rushing and leaping on death for the sake of the religion of Christ. Who, then, is so foolish, or so unbelieving, or so crippled in his mind, as not to see and conclude that Christ, to whom these people bear witness, himself supplies and gives to each the victory over death, taking all his power from death in each one of those who hold his faith and bear the sign of the cross? For whoever sees the serpent trodden underfoot, especially knowing how fierce it was before, no longer doubts that it is dead and has quite lost its strength, unless he is perverse in mind and does not even have his bodily senses sound. Or who, seeing a lion made sport of by children, fails to see that it is either dead or has lost all its power? Just as, then, it is possible to see the truth of all this with the eyes, so now that death is made sport of and despised by believers in Christ, let no one doubt any longer, and let no one prove unbelieving, that death has been brought to nothing by Christ, and the corruption of death destroyed and stopped.