On Pascha Monday, in the evening after midnight, before fore lying down to sleep I went out into the little garden behind my house. The sky was dark and covered with stars. I seemed to see it for the first time, and a distant psalmody seemed to descend from it. My lips murmured, very softly: "Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship the footstool of His feet." A holy man once told me that during these hours the heavens are opened. The air exhaled a fragrance of the flowers and herbs I had planted. "Heaven and earth are filled with the glory of the Lord."
I could well have
remained there alone until break of day. I was as if without a body and without
any bond to the earth. But fearing that my absence would disturb those with me
in the house, I returned and lay down.
Sleep had not
really taken possession of me; I do not know whether I was awake or asleep,
when suddenly a strange man rose up before me. He was as pale as a dead man.
His eyes were as if open, and he looked at me in terror. His face was like a
mask, like a mummy's. His glistening, dark yellow skin was stretched tight over
his dead man's head with all its cavities. He was as if panting. In one hand he
held some kind of bizarre object which I could not make out; the other hand was
clutching his breast as if he were suffering.
This creature
filled me with terror. I looked at him and he looked at me without speaking, as
if he were waiting for me to recognize him, strange as he was. And a voice said
to me: "It is so-and-so!" And I recognized him immediately. Then he
opened his mouth and sighed. His voice came from far away; it came up as from a
deep well.
"Another
time, and other times too, I told you: 'Dear Photios, save up money, or else
you will die a pauper. Look a my riches, and I want more of them.' You told me
then: 'Have you signed a pact with death, that you can live as many year as you
want and enjoy a happy old age?'
"And I
replied: 'You will see to what an age I will live Now I am 75; 1 will live past
a hundred. My children are free from want. My son earns a lot of money, and I
have married my daughter to a rich Ethiopian. My wife and I have more money
than we need. I am not like you who listen to what the priests say: "A
Christian ending to our life ..." and the rest. What have you to gain from
a Christian ending? Better a full pocket and no worries ... Give alms? Why did
your so merciful God create paupers? Why should I feed them? And they ask you,
in order to go to Paradise, to feed idlers! Do you want to talk about Paradise?
You know that I am the son of a priest and that I know well all these tricks.
That those who have no brains believe them is well enough, but you who have a
mind have gone astray. If you continue to live as you arc doing, you will die
before me, and you will be responsible for those you have led astray. As a
physician I tell you and affirm that I will live a hundred and ten years
...'"
After saying all
this, he turned this way and that as if he were on a grill. I heard his groans:
"Ah! Ouch! Oh! Oh!" He was silent for a moment, and then continued:
"This is what I said, and in a few days I was dead! I was dead, and I lost
the wager! What confusion was mine, what horror! Lost, I descended into the
abyss. What suffering I have had up to now, what agony! Everything you told me
was true. You have won the wager!
"When I was
in the world where you are now, I was an intellectual, I was a physician. I had
learned how to speak and to be listened to, to mock religion, to discuss
whatever falls under the senses. And now I see that everything I called
stories, myths, paper lanterns—is true. The agony which I am experiencing
now—this is what is true, this is the worm that never sleeps, this is the
gnashing of teeth."
"In a short
time the day will break, and those who have sent me will come to seek me!"
"Who are
they?"
He spoke some
confused words which I could not make out. Then he added: "There where I
am, there are also many who mock you and your faith. Now they understand that
their spiritual darts have not gone beyond the cemetery. There are both those
you have done good to, and those who have slandered you. The more you forgive
them, the more they detest you. Man is evil. Instead of rejoicing him, kindness
makes him bitter, because it makes him feel his defeat. The state of these
latter is worse than mine. They cannot leave their dark prison to come and find
you as I have done. They are severely tormented, lashed by the whip of God's
love, as one of the Saints has said [St. Isaac the Syrian]. The world is
something else entirely from what we see! Our intellect shows it to us in
reverse. Now we understand that our intellect was only stupid, our
conversations were spiteful meanness, our joys were lies and illusions.
"You, who
bear God in your hearts, Whose word is Truth, the only Truth—you have won the
great wager between believers and unbelievers. This wager I have lost. I
tremble, I sigh, and I find no rest. In truth, there is no repentance
in hell. Woe to those who walk as I did when I was on earth. Our flesh
was drunk and mocked those who believed in God and eternal life; almost
everyone applauded us. They treated you as mad, as imbeciles. And the more you
accept our mockeries, the more our rage increases.
"Now I see
how much the conduct of evil men grieved you. How could you bear with such
patience the poisoned darts which issued from our lips which treated you as
hypocrites, mockers of God, and deceivers of the people. If these evil men who
are still on earth would see where I am, if only they were in my place, they
would tremble for everything they are doing. I would like to appear to them and
tell them to change their path, but I do not have the permission to do so, just
as the rich man did not have it when he begged Abraham to send Lazarus the
pauper. Lazarus was not sent, so that those who sinned might be worthy of
punishment and those who went on the ways of God might be worthy of salvation.
"He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness yet more; and
he that is filthy, let him he made filthy yet more. And he that is righteous,
let him do righteousness yet more; and he that is holy, let him be made holy
yet more" (Apoc. 22:11).
With these words
he disappeared.
By Photios Kontoglou
Source: http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/death_photios.aspx
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