April: Day 10: Holy Martyr Terence and Those With Him

April: Day 10:
Holy Martyr Terence and Those With Him (Africanus, Maximus, Pompeius, Zenon, Alexander, Theodore, Makarios and Others With Them)
 
(On the Reasons for the Indifference of Christians in Relation to Eternal Life)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. When Fortunatus, governor of the African province, publicly announced the decree of the Roman Emperor Decius, demanding that sacrifices be made to idols, he also set out instruments of execution to intimidate those who would not obey the decree. By this he really did intimidate the weakest of the Christians, but he met unyielding resistance in Terence and his companions, whose memory is celebrated today, who were unafraid of those who could kill the body, but could not kill the soul.

“You all seem to be adults and reasonable people,” the ruler tried to persuade them then, “how can you call a man whom the Jews crucified as a villain both a King and God?”

“If you knew the power of the crucified Christ,” Terence answered him on behalf of all those who were with him, “then you would have renounced your error and would have served Him yourself, because He is the merciful and gracious Son of God. By the good will of God His Father He came down to earth and, uniting His Divinity with humanity, He voluntarily endured death for the sake of our salvation.”

“You’d better bow down to the gods!” insisted the inveterate pagan, “otherwise you will all perish in cruel torment.”

"In vain do you think to frighten us," objected Terence, "we have already told you that we are Christians. It would be madness for us to fear death, through which eternal blessed life is revealed to Christians. We have placed our hope in Christ and are not afraid of torture, because we believe that we will remain victors."

Seeing the firmness of the confessors, Fortunatus subjected them to cruel and varied tortures, but God miraculously supported the martyrs and no suffering could overcome their patience. Finally, sentenced to death, they joyfully accepted execution, glorifying and praising the Lord until the last moment. Their bodies were reverently buried by Christians.

II. Christian brethren! The Holy Martyr Terence and the others who suffered with him were not afraid of torture or death, and joyfully accepted execution, glorifying and praising the Lord until the last moment.

What is the reason for their holy fearlessness and their joy during torments and in the sight of death? Their living and strong faith in the existence of eternal life, a blessing for the righteous and faithful to Christ and tormenting for the wicked and apostates, as they themselves confessed before their sufferings. Unfortunately, modern Christians are far from being able to say that they possess such a living and strong faith in the future life as the first Christians possessed and lived, and especially the holy martyrs.

Why do many Christians have such a fatal indifference to their fate in the future life? Let us answer this very important question.

a) The greatest cause of indifference to their lot in the future life among the majority of people is their lack of faith. They believe in the future life, but they believe so weakly that this very important article of faith hardly touches their hearts, and they hardly ever remember it. They believe that the soul is immortal, they believe that there will be eternal blessedness, there will be eternal torment; they believe that, according to the determination of God's justice, eternal blessedness will be the property of the righteous, and that sinners will suffer in eternal torment. They believe, I say, all this, but “they do not grasp with their hearts all this great and awesome truth,” they do not reflect on the importance of all this, they do not ponder what it means to be in eternal blessedness or in eternal torment, especially what it means to be in eternal torment, which is inexpressibly painful, terrible and not diminished for a moment. This is the main reason for indifference to one’s fate in the future life – a sinful, God-opposing and destructive indifference.

b) The reason for some people's indifference to their lot in the future life is their excessive attachment to the world and its blessings. Many are so attached to the temporal that they can hardly even think about the eternal. Their whole heart, so to speak, is chained to earthly blessings alone. All their mental powers are occupied only with earthly things that bring some low, earthly joy, or temporary contentment and convenience in life, or with finding the means by which they can be provided. Questions like how to conduct everyday affairs? How to speed up everyday work? How to increase everyday benefits? How to put an industry on a better footing? How to improve the economy and make earthly life pleasant and contented? These questions fill their entire heads so tightly that no other thought can get through there. Here is the second reason for indifference to one's fate in eternal life, which is present in many people, not only the poor, but also the well-to-do, the rich, and even the richest, who are little satisfied with their condition.

c) The reason for other people's indifference to eternal life is that they are infected with some sin to which they have long been accustomed, which has become, so to speak, necessary for them, and which they therefore do not want or do not dare to abandon. If these people thought well about eternity: about the future judgment and about whether their eternal lot after death will be blessed or unhappy, then this would worry them and force them to worry about correcting their lives. But concern about correcting their lives would require from them strict observation of their hearts, the eradication of habitual sin. And this sin is so dear or so necessary to them that when the thought of future life appears in them, they immediately try to forget it and eradicate it from their heads. And in order to forget and eradicate this thought from their heads, they constantly seek distraction and indulge in distraction of all kinds. To be at home only with themselves for them is an unbearable boredom and torment.

So these are the reasons why very many people do not think about their fate in the future life; and yet there is no subject about which one should think more.

III. Brothers and sisters! It is very necessary to think more often about eternal life, namely, that besides the present life, which, as everyone knows, will certainly cease, there is another life, which will never cease; that a person from the present life certainly enters into this other, eternal life; that this eternal life will be such as a person lived in this life, that is, extremely blessed, if he lived piously and virtuously, or inexpressibly unhappy, if he lived sinfully and died unrepentantly. 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.