70. So, then, my tears shall cease, for one must
yield to healthful remedies, since there ought to be some difference
between believers and unbelievers. Let them, therefore, weep who
cannot have the hope of the resurrection, of which not the sentence of
God but the strictness of the faith deprives them. Let there be
this difference between the servants of Christ and the worshippers of
idols, that the latter weep for their friends, whom they suppose to
have perished for ever; that they should never cease from tears, and
gain no rest from sorrow, who think that the dead have no rest.
But from us, for whom death is the end not of our nature but of this
life only, since our nature itself is restored to a better state, let
the advent of death wipe away all tears.